Waypoint Radio

There are so many games we've yet to finish from 2017, but in a few days, 2018 will be here. Though we've spent much of this week taking stock of the year that was, now's a chance to think about what we'll be playing and talking about in the months ahead. Austin, Danielle, Rob, and Patrick looked through the calendar and came up with four games we'll be hot taking in 2018. (Yes, we're aware one of the games we discussed, Psychonauts 2, has already been delayed out of 2018. Oops.)

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Everyone knows video games have to make money somehow, but the question over how games make money became one of the central arguments in 2017, as various big name publishers brought one of the most popular ways to monetize mobile and free-to-play games—loot boxes—into the mainstream. Now, governments around the world are looking into whether loot boxes should stick around. Austin, Rob, and Patrick got together to break down the past, present, and future of loot boxes.

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Because there were so many games to love in 2017, there was a pretty good chance our individual top 10 lists were going to include games no one else featured. In an effort to give every possible game its due, Austin, Danielle, Rob, and Patrick decided to huddle around some microphones and propose and champion a game that came exclusively from one of our own lists.

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One of the big reasons Waypoint exists was to create a space where it was not only accepted to talk about games and politics, but encouraged. That we stumbled into a year where politics dominated every conversation, sometimes to the point of exhaustion, only underscored our point. To take a closer look at the intersection of gaming and politics in 2017, Austin, Rob, Danielle, and Patrick gathered around their microphones.

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There's no reason a game of the year list can't be filled with 15 or 20 games, but by constraining the list to only 10 games, you're forced into making interesting decisions about what you truly valued in the past year. Of course, that means leaving some games behind, especially in 2017! For today's podcast, Austin, Danielle, Rob, and myself picked one game that didn't make the list, and made the case for why it's great.

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In-between preparing for next week's holiday break and organizing our game of the year lists, the Waypoint staff has been unable to shake this weird story from The New York Times that, seriously and soberly, suggests aliens are, uh, real?? With the rest of the Fake News mainstream media ignoring this extremely important story, it was time for Austin, Danielle, Rob, and Patrick to weigh in. Also, machine elves. MACHINE ELVES.

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There are only a few more days before the Waypoint staff has to finalize their game of the year lists, which means everyone is hurrying through various games, trying to figure out if there's a game they missed (or forgot about). This prompts myself, Austin, Rob, and Danielle to talk about everything from the subtle genius of Resident Evil 7, characters being jerks in Night in the Woods, the bad opening hours of Gravity Rush 2, and more.

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Few movie franchises inspire as many hot takes as Star Wars, and with the latest film dropping, you can already feel the Internet shaking. There are zero The Last Jedi spoilers in this podcast, but the movie's release prompted Patrick, Danielle, and Austin to consider why people so compelled to deliver their opinions ASAP, how hot takes relate to spoiler culture, and more.

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A new trailer for Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Ready Player One dropped this weekend, which prompts Austin, myself, and Rob into a longer discussion about Ready Player One as a work, the kinds of films Spielberg is making these days, and more. We also dig into the new desert map in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and why Rob is playing so much Dead Rising 3.

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Earlier this week, the popular crowdfunding service Patreon announced some controversial changes to the way it handles processing payments, and basically nobody's happy about it? To wrap our heads around the rocky future of media and react to 2017's Keighleys, CNET editor editor at large (and frequent guest of Giant Bomb's Beastcast podcast) Jeff Bakalar joined Patrick, Rob, and Austin. We also spend way too much time speculating about a 30 second teaser for FromSoftware's new game.

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