Press Pause Video-Episode 01: Metroidvania

he guys have gone Video! Every other week, we plan on sitting down and essentially recording mini-podcasts in the vein of Press Pause Radio, only with visual aids and other horseshit of the like. The inaugural topic of discussion has us breaking down the meaning and association of one of George’s favorite distinctions that he loves to romanticize—Metroidvania.

What is it exactly, and why do we love it so much, and why does the label seem so arbitrary in the grand scheme of things in today’s gaming landscape; Andrew, Ser, and George sit down to chew that fat.

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!

QCF: The Witch and the Hundred Knight

s much as I've wanted to love NIS America in the past, oh, decade or so, I've found it extremely hard to do so. While Nippon Ichi developed Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, it was actually published by Atlus, so it's no wonder that its localization was top-notch. But it has seemed, time and time again, that every Nippon Ichi game that has seen release since has been nothing more than mediocre tripe at their best... and utterly abysmal at their worst.

The Witch and the Hundred Knight is NIS America's very latest PlayStation 3 outing and their first fully-3D game engine ever produced. Despite having a host of in-depth strategic elements, it's still a pretty straight forward action RPG, so it breaks the typical Nippon Ichi SRPG mould. The real question here is, is The Witch and the Hundred Knight any good? Read on.

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QCF: The Wolf Among Us-Episode 3

e have arrived at the half way mark on this twisted fairytale from the Fables universe, and we begin this episode immediately following a startling discovery. Bigby’s reaction was difficult to choose, so much so that I restarted the episode a few times. My play through of The Wolf Among Us has been so far a story of redemption, the big bad wolf attempting to show humanity in a town almost completely void of it. Several attempts have been made to bring out the beast that dwells within, however the sheriff still tries his best to help the residents of the Woodlands and its rejects. But how much can someone take? What will someone be capable of doing when someone they care about it put in harm’s way? This recent discovery may be the one thing to send Bigby down that dark and violent path, and I’m sure it will not end well.   

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QCF: Earth Defense Force 2025

andlot and D3 Publisher are back with Earth Defense Force 2025, the latest installment of the ever-popular, cult-classic series and direct sequel to 2007's Earth Defense Force 2017. Like its predecessor and its in-betweener installment Insect Armageddon (by Vicious Cycle in 2011), EDF 2025 features everything you want out of an EDF title—hordes of giant ants. Skyscraper-sized spiders that can make a grown man weep, or how about gargantuan Ravager robots that can lay waste to entire cities just by walking; the only thing that can keep these monstrosities from annihilating mankind? The Earth Defense Force, that’s who!

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PPR Presents Play Play: Odin Sphere

he PS2 may have seemed like eons ago to some, but one the most iconic systems in history certainly didn’t get there without pulling off some stunning feats in its day; Vanilaware’s Odin Sphere is definitely one of those feats. The guys get together to discuss what the game meant exactly to art design and the possible direction you can go with it, and well, George and Ser argue over just how well this little gem actually aged, while poor Toast scratches his head about the whole thing as he stays in the middle of it.

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!

PAX East 2014: Entering the world of Child of Light

t’s strange that in that the last two decades where technology has considerably increased a number of new, more advanced avenues that can provision incredible feats of art design and animation, that we haven’t seen a Final Fantasy game actually rendered in the style of Yoshitaka Amano’s art beyond mere promotion.

It wasn’t until arriving at the Ubisoft booth at PAX East that I was relieved about such a thing too, it may have prevented such inspiration for one of the most beautiful games I’ve witnessed in some time; Ubisoft Montreal’s Child of Light. The eye candy is definitely a sight to behold, but behind all of that visual sweetness, is an RPG filled out from top to bottom with ingenuity and charisma that’ll be sure to incite a new trend for western RPGs to follow.

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PAX East 2014: Getting trigger-happy with Wolfenstein: The New Order

he First-person shooting trend is only getting bigger; it’s funny to think just how much more advanced the design has gotten over the years too. I mean, with games like ARMA, and Battlefield, the humble days of strafe ‘n shoot is far long into yesterday that it can almost be sub-categorized into being a completely different type of game.

I only mention this because as soon as I started to play the newest entry to one of the most iconic series of the genre, Wolfenstein: The New Order, that I reveled at the decision Machine Games made, to return the game back to the simplistically dumb action roots of the original—the results are surprisingly refreshing.

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PAX East 2014: Feeling young again with Shovel Knight

ore often than not, we see independent developers task themselves towards producing games that do nothing more than romanticize games of the past; only a handful of them introduce ideas that stand them tall above the rose-tinted masses one-dimensional nostalgia.

Therefore, it's quite a feat when you see something like Yacht Club Game's Shovel Knight excel by doing the exact opposite. The Blue Digger’s adventure passionately celebrates the giant melting pot of NES tributes that it is and manages to conjure the perfect storm of design that's fun for veterans and new comers alike in the process.

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