GWJ Conference Call Episode 686

Escape From Tarkov, Noita, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, What Makes a Great Video Game Character & Some of Our Favorites, Your Emails, and More!

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Sean, Cory, and Julian discuss What Makes a Great Video Game Character & Some of Their Favorites.

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Comments

00:01:30 Escape From Tarkov
00:20:32 Noita
00:26:30 Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
00:33:24 Great Video Game Characters
00:56:07 Your Emails

BT-109

You're right: it would be cool if JFK's boat had an AI core that allowed it to operate independently when he and his crew went ashore.

PT-109

I thought maybe we were going to talk about ED-209, but we didn't quite get there.

Agathos wrote:
BT-109

You're right: it would be cool if JFK's boat had an AI core that allowed it to operate independently when he and his crew went ashore.

PT-109

I thought they were talking about this.
IMAGE(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/02/PT-109_%28video_game%29.jpg)

I was very happy to hear you mention Parvati, who I feel is one of the best characters in quite a while!

If you want a real tear jerker moment with her, after you finish her companion quests, go to the Groundbreaker with her in your party and kill the person you helped her date. Late in the game, I got bored of being the nice guy and wanted to see what would happen. I was pleasantly surprised with the performance from Parvati after killing that NPC.

Then I loaded my save so everyone was still alive.

Listening to you guys discussing Mass Effect and butchering Mordin’s name physically hurt me.
It’s okay though, I still love you all.

Speaking of great vilains, I wanted to mention Irenicus in Baldur’s Gate 2. Wow, he was a great character. And David Warner was amazing.

+1 for Aloy. She is just so measured and thoughtful and, clearly, deeply cares about the people she is trying to help (I adore Bayek for the same reasons.)

I'm really attached to John Marston. It's odd because, thinking about him, he's a dishevelled guy with long, lank hair and shirts that look as if they could have done with a wash several weeks ago. He isn't particularly witty or smart but he is doing his damnedest to leave behind the adrenaline fuelled life that he was embroiled in in order to have a future with his wife and child (I also came to care for Arthur Morgan who isn't the same at the end of Red Dead Redemption 2 as he was at the beginning.)

I have a soft spot in my heart for Sam Fisher, mainly because of Micheal Ironside's life worn voice and the fact that we've been through so much together.

Ellie from The Last of Us is the most unique, human and down right real character in video games for me thanks to Neil Druckmann's writing and Ashley Johnson's stellar performance. Can't wait to continue her undoubtedly harrowing journey in Part 2.

Nathan Drake is a fallible, witty, irrepressible character who’s escapades (Indiana Jones style adventures done right) I enjoyed following but, for some reason, I became much more attached to Nadine from Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy. She demonstrates a grounded pragmatism in all her actions that feels refreshing. She isn't a villain for villainy's sake nor suddenly a 'hero' because she's one of the stars of the game; she has her own agenda and acts accordingly (even better she's a character in Multiplayer so I can continue to enjoy her no nonsense style outside of the stories. I am fairly sure I play better when I'm playing as her but the match stats might not bare that out.)

Great show, great crew. Although Julian's "rounding out the white dude trio" sounded almost apologetic for the lack of diversity for this week's episode

Thanks for being a great show again!

Tripmo wrote:

Great show, great crew. Although Julian's "rounding out the white dude trio" sounded almost apologetic for the lack of diversity for this week's episode :-D

Which turned out to be a serious warning that they were about to spend 20 minutes on a hard core gun-collecting sim

Cory asked whether Fighting Fantasy came from Steve Jackson or Games Workshop. Fun fact: sort of both.

As it turns out, Steve Jackson is not the same as Steve Jackson. The former is one of the founders of Games Workshop, and also one of the main authors of the Fighting Fantasy series (as well as the Sorcery! series). The latter is not. Although, just to complicate matters, the latter wrote some of the FF books, and was just credited as Steve Jackson, with no differentiation from the former.

This is, like, the one piece of game designer trivia I know. I'm SO HAPPY I got to share it here.

One thing that I was left wondering after the Escape for Tarkov chat was what the incentive is for playing the 'core mode' and not just sticking with the Scav mode?

I'm assuming it's experience earning, RPG elements of your core character?

As someone who would hate to lose things I feel I've earned (and doesn't have a ton of time) could I be happy just playing Scav mode?

probably no coincidence that two of the characters mentioned are played by Ashley Birch (Parvati and Aloy). Really one of the best voice actors in the business at the moment.

Ryan.pinnguaq wrote:

One thing that I was left wondering after the Escape for Tarkov chat was what the incentive is for playing the 'core mode' and not just sticking with the Scav mode?

I'm assuming it's experience earning, RPG elements of your core character?

As someone who would hate to lose things I feel I've earned (and doesn't have a ton of time) could I be happy just playing Scav mode?

There's an enforced time period between each Scav run.

I'll be honest i'm super surprised anyone from the CC jumped into EfT and didn't run away screaming.

'Water balloons of innocence' was the name of my band in college.

On the topic of favorite decades, there's a great YouTube video showing clips of all the MechWarrior games over the franchise's now 30 year history. I personally thing the jump from MechWarrior (1989) to MechWarrior 2 (1995) was the biggest technological leap in terms of visual and audio fidelity and performance, which is part of why the 90s has my vote.