PixlBit

STAGE SELECT: Honestly, Kazuma Kiryu. I often feel older than I really am, which seems to be a theme with that character.  I'm also pretty driven by deeply-coded morals despite not always hanging around people who share my ideals. Most importantly, I can be really goddamn dramatic about picking up a phone. 

I'm probably more of a jokester than Kiryu, but I'm definitely not Majima crazy/can be pretty one-note on some days, so I'm still going Kiryu.

PAK WATCH: Once again, I have nothing. If I end up getting it, the 2018 God of War will be my first experience with the series ... and I care a LOT more about this year's Spider-Man game, so who knows. 

I wish you guys had played Ghost Trick. It's such a great game. Angelo is on the right track with the Rube Goldberg posession thing. Also worth pointing out it's the same people behind the Ace Attorney series. 

I still need to play my Steam copy of Beyond Good & Evil, but I hated the trailer for 2. So many unnecessary f-bombs. Graphics were really impressive though. 

I don't see the Digital Foundry link. 

Whoops! Fixed.

Stage Select:

I'm sorry to pick such an obscure character here, but I've thought long and hard about this and I have to pick Jill from VA-11 Hall-A (Valhalla): Cyberpunk Bartender Action. I don't think I've ever related to a character as much as this one. She speaks sarcasm, buys things to keep herself happy, has a random interest in Japanese pro wrestling, and just has a very go with the flow attitude. I continuously found myself saying "Yep, that's exactly what I would have said there" while I was playing this game. Hell, she even has a smoking habit she's not proud of. The author of this game needs to get out of my head. I can think of no better video game spirit animal than her.

Pak Watch:

Oh man. I have some things to say about God of War. I'm going to start by saying, Kratos is one of my least favorite video game characters of all time. I believe I once said he is the Roman Reigns of video games, and I completely stand by this. I do not get what people like about him at all. Is it because he's grey? Is it because when he has sex, he gains experience orbs? I do not know. All I know, is I'm supposed to root for a guy who killed his wife and child because he was mind freaked by Aries while he was killing other people's wives and children. What a great guy! I don't understand what Athena (Who I'm now convinced is the Vince McMahon of video games) sees in this asshole. I would be fine with all this if he was the bad guy in the next game, but nope. We must push Kratos! Kratos is money! All that aside, the gameplay in this game is fine. It did some really innovative things with quick time events. I personally think I could stomach the game more if it were just a few hours shorter, as the combat becomes very repetitive after a while. I gave up on GoW shortly after the puzzle where you have to push some soldier in a cage into some fire or something, I don't remember, I had kind of checked out at that point. Overall, it's an okay game, I appreciate what it's doing. I appreciate what it contributed to games at the time, but fuck Kratos... Seriously, fuck that guy.

Episode Comment:

I apologize up front for my negativity towards GoW. I really gave that game a solid shot, but I cannot get into that franchise. I even tried the second game to see if it would change my mind and it made it even worse. I'm half interested in the new one coming out, because it looks super pretty, but I do not know how they can change my mind on that character. He is the worst. Anyways, when Angelo was describing Mario, I was actually thinking the phrase "I'm not about that life." It made me laugh when he basically said it. I'm amazed he got that far into it. I loved Mario, but I played until I seen credits and that was good enough for me. (I had a lot of the same issues with the camera) Also I'm happy somebody else played Psi-Ops. Your description of it was perfect. I have played the Force Unleashed games but hey didn't quite scratch the same itch. I really thought they would too, but they just weren't as quirky as Psi-Ops was. (You mentioned that boss fight and the memories came rolling back. It was great.) MGS2 talk was super fun too. I love that game. Overall super good episode, I look forward to the next. Keep up the goodest of works!

Stage Select:

I guess the closest thing I ever had to a gaming spirit animal was Squall from FF8. I was a lot like him when I was a teenager, though the game came out when I was 21. I was a lone wolf who didn't really want to be a lone wolf, like Squall, I had extremely poor social skills like Squall, and I was sometimes a belligerent jerk like Squall. Squall even looked a bit like me. Well, I didn't have the face scar and I didn't wear a leather jacket with a fur collar, but you get the idea.

Pak Watch:

I'm actually going to second Tyrone's opinion on GoW. The gameplay was okay, but Kratos was thoroughly unlikeable as a character. I know he's an antihero of sorts, but I disliked his design and characterization, which came off to me as Extreme Angry Dudebro Asshole, very strongly to where it's kind of off-putting to the series as a whole. For that kind of game I much prefer the Bayonetta series.  Shame, too, I was into Greek mythology when I was an adolescent and still have a fondness for Greek mythology, and I thought it was cool that they got Kevin Sorbo (TV Hercules) to do Hercules in GoW III. The game is high-quality, I just didn't enjoy it.

Oh, and I really liked the Project A-Ko soundtrack in the podcast. Project A-Ko was one of my first anime movies (along with Akira and Ninja Scroll), and as such, I still have a fondness for it and will watch it once in awhile. I used to have a DVD collection of all four of the Project A-Ko movies.

One of the songs came up on shuffle one day and I was like “all A-Ko music next episode!”

I'm am very happy I'm not alone.

I'm sad that the listener comments were almost completely negative on one of my favorite action games of the 6th generation. ;-;

First off I want to thank you guys for the promptly posted episode. I was having a horrible day at work and was counting on NWP to help. I have a dozen+ podcasts but there's only 3 that can help turn around a bad day (Note: not even Giantbomb fills that quota). So seeing an early post of NWP helped out tremendously. 

I've played Sea of Thieves and it's so so. I definitely can't recommend it for $60. Pay $10 for a month of Game Pass and see if it's for you. Even if it is I can't imagine many people playing more than a month. It gets tedious pretty quickly and a group of friends is practically a must. 

I'm also impatiently waiting for Bloodstained. I'm glad to hear you have liked what you played. I haven't read much about it and don't even open up my Kickstarter emails anymore. Hopefully E3 brings a solid date. 

Stage Select: Rost (Horizon: Zero Dawn)

Without going too deep into my search I think Rost is my spirit animal. He was honorable and faithful to his family. He doesn't mind being a loner and will take on a burden for the sake of others. When pushed he wasn't afraid to do what was needed to achieve justice for those who lost their loved ones. I really liked his character in Horizon.

Pak-Watch: God of War
God of War was great but I didn't care much for Kratos. Devil May Crys Dante was better. The QTEs were really cool (even though Resident Evil 4 did them first) and the over the top violence was just what I wanted as a teen. Looking back I don't think his character would hold up at all today.