Stay ConnectedWhat’s good, Internet? Join Waypoint’s Rob Zacny, Patrick Klepek, Renata Price, Natalie Watson, and Ricardo Contreras two times a week, as they break down the biggest stories in video games, talk about their favorite media, and unfairly compare everything to Dark Souls.
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Join Austin, Natalie, Patrick, Rob, Cado, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and one of several time traveling incarnations of some guy named Xehanort for an in-person edition of Waypoint Radio! In addition to talking about the games they played at PAX East, everyone who participated in our Kingdom Hearts season of Lore Reasons will be subjected to a live Mark of Mastery exam, forced to reckon with the way-too-many hours they’ve spent trying to understand the mythology driving Square Enix’s mashup series. There is absolutely no way this can go wrong.
Discussed: Struggling, Falcon Age, Night Shift, Warsaw, Divinity: Fallen Heroes, Phantom Brigade
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It’s a disjointed week at Waypoint, with most of the crew headed to Boston for PAX East, but Austin, Natalie, Patrick, Rob, and Cado still found time to sit around some microphones and yap about the games we’ve been playing. Mostly, we’re still slowly but surely stabbing and shinobi’ing our way through Sekiro, but Rob checked in with Battlefield’s take on battle royale, and several of us have been exploring the post-apocalypse of Generation Zero. We also toss some serious skepticism at Google's ambitious streaming project, Stadia.
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You’ve been patient, and it’s finally here. A little over two months since the conclusion of Tetsuya Nomura’s Dark Seeker trilogy, Lore Reasons tackles Kingdom Hearts III. (Naturally, it took us nearly three hours.) Austin, Patrick, and Cado join our resident loremaster, Natalie, as we pilot our Gummi Ship through a bunch of narratively useless Disney worlds en route to one hell of an ending. And that secret movie? THE SECRET MOVIE? It’s all here. Let’s ride.
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It's time for Austin, Natalie, Patrick, and Rob to return to the secret origins of Waypoints: a chance to talk about animated TV shows. This week finds the gang catching up on The Dragon Prince at great length, and wrestling with some of their misgiving's about the morality the show is beginning to articulate, and the plot arcs that are unfolding at a breakneck pace. But first, they return to Rooster Teeth's GenLOCK, to discuss the end of its first season, and what the show has revealed itself to be about. Are they just cool robots, or something more?
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It’s Monday and we have so very many games to talk about. After a brief recap of our weekends, which included hours of unboxing videos, racing wheel setups, F1, grappling, and EMT service, we get into it. We’re playing the definitely-political Division 2, the charming but maybe-politically-confused The Occupation, the wildly creative Hynospace Outlaw, and the brilliant puzzler Baba is You. Strap in for a long one today!
Discussed: The Division 2, The Occupation, Hypnospace Outlaw, Baba is You
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Seven weeks ago, we at Waypoint set out on a journey to untangle the lore of Kingdom Hearts. Partially, this was for our listeners who trust our expertise in all matters of the heart, but in honesty, it was mostly for ourselves. We, perhaps like you, had been plagued by questions about the Disney-Square collaboration. These were not novel questions, we know, and to series diehards they were simple: Why do so many people have the letter X in their names. Who was Xehanort, and what did it men to be norted? What's up with Mickey Mouse's shirt situation? How many different ways can you write out the sound "key"? What's more powerful, friendship or darkness? We learned, of course, that many of these questions were deeply connected. Especially the one about Mickey's naked chest.
What we didn't anticipate, though, were all of the complex questions that went beyond lore and into the realm of philosophical inquiry: If there are bodies, souls, and hearts, where does the person reside? If some people are drawn inexplicably to the darkness, does that relate some terrible truth about their eternal character? Should we think of the unfractured world (before the First Keyblade War) as an uncorrupted, Rousseauian state of nature or as a violent, Hobbesian land of unrepressed violence? And speaking of repression, what the hell is up with memories?
These are big questions, and we could not answer them alone. That is why Waypoint's intrepid lore master, Natalie Watson, and I followed the example of Sora and sought allies for this difficult journey. Which is why, joining us today are Waypoint columnist Cameron Kunzelman and games academic Michael Lutz, the co-hosts of Game Studies Study Buddies over on the Ranged Touch. Together, we dive into all of these questions and more. Though we left with even more questions to answer, the experience brought us clarity and provoked entirely new modes of understanding. We hope it does the same for you, and if you'd like to dig deeper on any of these topics, a good starting place is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Discussed: The Aura (Benjamin), Neoplatonism, Forms (Platonic and Aristotelian), Existentialism, Identity (Code Switching, Gender Theory, Queer Studies), Dialectics, Ontological Pluralism, Panpsychism, Kingdom Hearts
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Wait, what is FORMULA 1 RACING doing on a Waypoint podcast? Well thanks to a slow night for Danielle's EMS work, she fell head-over-heels in love with Netflix's new Drive to Survive series. Listen to Danielle and Natalie get caught up in the drama of tire changes and team budgets in the most lavish motorsport in the world, while Rob tries not to hog the microphone or get everyone to sign up for F1 TV. Meanwhile, the gang has been trying to figure out their exact level of dread for a Biden presidential campaign, with help from Jamelle Bouie's column on "The Trouble with Biden". And oh, there is trouble.
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Join Austin, Natalie, Patrick and Danielle for a whirlwind tour of the games we’re playing, in mechs (Left Alive, Titanfall 2), in space (Objects in Space), and in… demon funtimes (Devil May Cry 5). We’re all anxiously awaiting Sekiro in different ways, really.
Discussed: Left Alive, Devil May Cry 5, Objects in Space, Titanfall 2
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Last week we were reminded of Troop-Cop, who was so troubled by protestors calling police fascists that he had no choice but to club the shit out of them, all in the service of a tacky clothing brand. It dovetailed well with an interesting graphic essay from Nate Powell on paramilitary aesthetics and their increasing popularity among reactionaries in the United States. Then, Danielle's been digging into the latest issue of Heterotopias, where she encountered an essay from María Bonete Escoto on the "slow violence" of environmental destruction portrayed in the Dishonored series. Patrick was delighted by the second episode of Netfllix's Losers series, while Austin has an inside line on some illicit Gundam action.
Discussed: About Face by Nate Powell, Losers, Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team
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