Waypoint Radio

You're going to be shocked that Austin and Patrick found a way to talk about Spelunky again, but it's for a good cause: we're in love with the Castlevania-inspired roguelike Dead Cells. Elsewhere, Danielle explains how she spent 48 hours finishing Prey, and Rob introduces us to the complicated galactic politics of Endless Space 2. Our brief dip into The Question Bucket has us musing about how playing games in a similar genre can help us understand what makes them tick.

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Austin hasn't been in the office all week because, well, E3 is almost here. While spending a week in LA checking out various games, he hooked up with Rob to attend the big Destiny 2 event. After playing the game, the two of them huddled around some microphones, talked about their impressions, and answered reader questions about the game. The full crew will be back in rotation next week.

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With Austin in Los Angeles for some pre-E3 events and Rob on vacation, we went looking for a familiar face to join us on the podcast today. Fortunately, we found friend of the pod Pat Baer, a New York-based comedian, wrestling aficionado, watcher of anime, and player of video games. (He's finished Person 4 five times. Five times!) Besides talking about anime for a surprising length of time, we checked in on Prey and Flinthook. In The Question Bucket, we're asked about how game publishers handle when (and if) to make new franchises, instead of sequels.

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The game that everyone is playing is now the game that Waypoint is playing, as Patrick and Austin have decided to figure out what the heck is up with the shooting game with the super weird name, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. As it turns out, it's really damn good. Elsewhere, Danielle updates us her adventures in lesbian space, aka she's still super into Prey. Oh, and Patrick spent a few hours with the new Souls-like The Surge, which drags the genre into sci-fi. It's hard.

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It's not very often that everyone at Waypoint is playing the same game simultaneously, but Prey has been scratching a lot of different itches for Austin, Danielle, Rob, and Patrick. Besides an update on our adventures in space horror, Rob provides an update on his raiding in Expeditions: Vikings, including whether or not it's a good fit for casual strategy fans. Over in The Question Bucket, we're asked whether we've ever accepted a job knowing we weren't fully prepared for it.

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It’s a good time to be a fan of games like Deus Ex. Between Mankind Divided, Dishonored 2, and this week’s Prey, we’re awash in immersive sims. Danielle, Austin, and Patrick have all put a few hours into the latest from Arkane Studios, while Rob probes us about the experience. Though most of our time was taken up by Prey, we still dip into The Question Bucket.

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Though this latest episode of Waypoint Radio features a surprisingly long tangent about golf courses, we promise you that Austin, Rob, Danielle, and Patrick eventually get to video games. With Nintendo giving everyone a new reason to play their Switch—provided you, unlike Danielle, have already finished Breath of the Wild—we sent Austin to the local “cafe” (aka Dunkin’ Donuts) to research Mario Kart players in the wild. We also answer your questions, though not as many as we wanted to…because we talked about golf courses for a while?

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In the sea of excellent video games that 2017 has brought us, Nier: Automata still managed to stand out. Designer Yoko Taro’s latest slice of emotional weirdness struck several us at Waypoint, and by the time the credits were rolling for the fifth time, the only thing on our mind was finding a place to spoil the shit out of the game. Thankfully, our former colleague at Giant Bomb, Alex Navarro, was also looking for a place to spoil the shit out of Nier: Automata. It should go without saying that if you haven’t played the game yet, don’t listen to this podcast.

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It's a packed episode of Waypoint Radio this week, as Austin, Patrick, Rob, and Danielle embrace the warming weather to spend the hour talking about storytelling in games. Both Austin and Patrick wrote stories this week in response to an essay by academic Ian Bogost in The Atlantic titled "Video Games Are Better Without Stories," and used our time with the latest walking simulator, What Remains of Edith Finch, to speak more broadly.

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Since the world of video games is (finally!) slowing down a little, Austin, Danika, and Rob talk about what they've been playing with their newly discovered free time... and, of course, they dip into the question bucket for a couple of doozies. There is Minecraft talk (including inspirational Minecraft rap), a discussion of Unexplored, and a look at various Waypointers' life paths, with a side helping of life advice. Remember, you too can submit questions to the crew by sending an email with the subject QUESTION to [email protected]!

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