QCF: Air Twister

magine if Space Harrier was revamped into an absurdly stylized Rock Opera that cranked the dial on the Surrealistic fantasy themes to psychedelic levels of absurdity over its Sci-Fi roots for current gaming platforms. Well, don't strain yourself too hard because YS Net, the studio started by legendary developer Yu Suzuki, has taken all the guesswork out of the matter with their latest release, Air Twister. Where Team Reptile's Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was a modernized Love Letter to an iconic SEGA property, Air Twister is being presented as the quintessential sequel to the Arcade Classic in nearly everything but name, and the next big release from Yu Suzuki following the studio's crowdfunded debut with Shenmue III. Originally released as an Apple Arcade exclusive in the summer of 2022, the mobile exclusive has now been greenlit as a multiplatform release for digital storefronts on both Console and PC.

The twists (shitty pun intended) don't stop there, as Air Twister offers various flourishes on the shooter's foundation that set it apart from its source material—honestly, to a degree where it more often resembles a Hidden Caravan Level Mode from Panzer Dragoon than anything related to Space Harrier. Despite the inconsistent traces of Harrier DNA though, Air Twister still manages to deliver that trademark Popcorn Shooting frenzy that Suzuki had earned his pedigree on, albeit in a somewhat stunted execution that just manages to breathe a scant new gasp of life into the Arcade classic.

Air Twister is…well, intriguing, to say the very least.

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PPR Presents Limelight: Har-Fest 2023

ey all, with the incoming flood of “October 31^st Vs November 1^st” memes hitting the timeline, we are vastly approaching the Holidays, and with that, I think it’s time we usher in the first Limelight block in years—aptly titled, Har-Fest Month!

During this month, George will be streaming 6 games to ring in the change of seasons, and will be doing so on the following schedule!

Super Mario Bros. Wonder/Sonic Superstars                                   Friday, November 10^th 9:00 PM PST

Umihara Kuwase/Astal                                                                    Saturday, November 18^th  6:00 PM PST

Super Magnetic Neo/Castlevania: Rondo of Blood                          Friday, November 24^th 9:00 PM PST

You can check out the streams here or directly on our Twitch Channel, and vibe along with us as we work towards ushering in a new age of Limelight for y'all!

QCF: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

 find it pretty funny that I’m writing this review mere weeks after the Dreamcast’s 24th Anniversary; I mean, not just that in that granular humor from a well-timed coincidence sort of way, but in that I’m still seeing one of my favorite consoles live on through a legacy that dwarfs its flash-in-the-pan lifespan. Even though it was released two years into the 128-Bit Machine’s reign, Jet Grind Radio left quite the impact in 2000, as it quickly became a must-have exclusive for the platform and yet another reason to attract anyone over to SEGA hardware instead of Nintendo’s or Sony’s offering.

After an underwhelming sequel and years of Fan-service cameos, SEGA’s frenetic Graffiti-racer has mostly lived on as a garnish for the repeated servings of nostalgia surrounding the Japanese brands’ peak years. Given that the property has undoubtedly had more of an impact than SEGA had accounted for, it was only inevitable that one studio would set out to tag the spot Jet Grind Radio had left untouched for twenty years.

Netherlands studio, Team Reptile, answered the call, & endeavored to produce a spiritual successor to the Dreamcast Cult favorite with Bomb Rush Cyber Funk, an improved open-world take over the middling attempt we saw out of Jet Set Radio Future, with a freestyle approach to progression. The end result isn’t just a fresh approach to a familiar classic but a practical reinvention that improves upon its source material in nearly every single way.

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PPR 148

 tale as old as time, with a verse that has no clever rhyme—George really hates everything about flying.

Miserable flights aside though, PPR’s Bearded Beast is back from the Nihon, and regales us with stories of his travels, the sights who he took in, and the retro games he stumbled upon in his 10 day trip in Tokyo. Adding on to the conversation, this week’s cast of George, Andrew, and Sean get together to share their thoughts on the latest news, and games that have been inhabiting their consoles.

Sit back as we gab about the Atari 2600+, Nintendo Live, the SG-1000, Starfield, Atari’s purchase of AtariAge, Sony’s price hike on PS+ Plans, Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy XIV, Action 52, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, PSVR2, WrestleQuest, and a whole lot more.

We have a bunch of reviews coming down the pipeline for Press Pause Radio, and hopefully the final bend for the final steps for the new studio George has been working on the last couple of years. We’re almost there y’all—GET HYPE

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

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QCF: WrestleQuest

sn't it weird how, like Video Games, Pro-Wrestling has had its ups and downs within the Pop Culture Zeitgeist? It's just one of those deals where varying degrees of social stigmas through different generations had just held it back from reaching actual relevance within the mainstream consciousness like it's arguably achieved in today's entertainment climate, and that's because it's so much more than just a "sport" to enjoy. Imagine, for example, a Quarterback running a standard play in a Football game, and the moment they shouted "Hike," they suddenly ran backward toward their own endzone, spiked the ball down to the turf, and then viciously ripped their jersey off only to reveal the other team's jersey underneath it—this is the kind of energy you can expect out of Professional Wrestling. There's no other athletic competition out there like it.

It's a spectacle that's translated very well into the Video Game format, so much so that Wrestling Games are their own little subgenre to play from. Still, it's nearly always a case where developers adapt the rules and conventions of Pro Wrestling into a video game instead of it being the other way around.

Developer Mega Cat Studios pondered that challenge with a JRPG-inspired Turn-based Adventure named WrestleQuest, a colorful fantasy take on the world of Toys and their dreams to make it big in the squared circle. At the core of the concept, any premise can be made into a 16 Bit styled RPG if you have the right systems in place, but WrestleQuest doesn't settle for that and instead delivers one of the finest examples of Ludonarrative Consistency that I have ever experienced. I'm not kidding when I say it's easily one of the best Pro Wrestling games ever released in generations. 

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PPR 147

t sure has been a while now hasn’t it? Well, we made sure to make it count with this new episode as we brought along John Unterseher from Super RPG Friends to round out this week’s table of chuckleheads!

In an effort to talk shop on all of the recent announcements that took place while also trying to keep things Water Cooler with what we’ve been  playing, we mixed it up a bit for this episode. John joins Andrew and George as they discuss which announcements made the most notable impression on us from Summer Gamefest block of announcements they’ve affectionately dubbed to be “Not E3” and then decide to steamroll right into what’s been in their consoles with 2023’s packed release schedule. Announcements of games to come along with games here and now ranging in Super Mario RPG, XDefiant, Project Octopath Traveler 2 , Persona 3 Reload, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, Pikmin 4, Super Mario Wonder, Sonic Superstars, Sand Land, Nicholas Cage, Mortal Kombat 1, AEW Fight Forever, and so much more.

So sit down and clean that off-lavender shake off your lip as we bring you Press Pause Radio Episode 147, also—you don’t look so hot, just how much of that shake did you wolf down?

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

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PPR 146

here are some events that we’ve come expect with the certainty of a season change. Whether it’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, The Super Bowl, or The Oscars—these annual institutions have operated for most of our natural-born lives, and won’t go anywhere anytime soon. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 for short, used to be one of those long-standing institutions, but has recently seen come rough days the couple of years, and has decidedly skipped out on 2023 altogether.

While writing has been on the wall, the language that E3’s parent company, ESA, has used over the future of the showcase is a little too ambiguous for comfort, and it’s likely that we may not see the event come back in the near future, or ever. Despite it going out with more of a whimper than a bang, there have been a ton of memorable years in Video Gaming where the event hosted some truly historical announcements, cementing moments that still occupy our headspaces to this very day, and we’re going to spend this episode talking about that, and so much more.

Join Andrew and George as they take you on a Post-Mortem of what George called the “Met Gala” of the Video Games Industry as they discuss the up’s and down’s of the yearly trade-show, and all of the notable footnotes it’s had in its run, bizarre pageantry and all.

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

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PPR 145

ANADA INVENTED FOOTBALL! That’s just one of the many things you’ll learn in this new episode of Press Pause Radio—aside from the fact that George also got a Vasectomy, that’s a thing too we guess.

We keep it pretty casual off the heels of the Golden Zonkies and just talk about the latest stuff we’ve all been playing. On tap for this session is Ed, Andrew, and George as they gab on about games like Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, Tetris Effect, Moss, Baby Pac-Man, Wanted: Dead, Horizon Dawn: Forbidden West, Forespoken, Atari 50, Ninja Golf, Blood & Truth, Yggdra Union, and so much more.

So kick up a chair, grab some pretzels, and decompress from a long afternoon of socializing over Sports Ball as we share some thoughts and words over fast-paced start to our 2023 here at Press Pause Radio!

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

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