PixlBit

Lol I loved that first Bioshock 2 playthrough as well, I'm not alone then. *internet hug* I'm glad I'm not the only person who didn't hate that game. I thought it was the best sequel set in Rapture I could've ever asked for. Bioshock 2 didn't need to exist, but all-things-considered it turned out amazing. Just like how Portal 2 technically didn't need to exist, but that ended up being the best sequel I could ever imagine. I really enjoyed the faster combat and duel wielding in Bioshock 2. I loved the story. That game had a much better ending than Bioshock 1, and the stand-alone story DLC Minerva's Den is the best piece of DLC I've played for any game ever.

Anyways, I love Bioshock 2, don't get me started I could go on and on about that thing.

Thanks DJ! If you end up playing New Vegas again I'd love to see your blogs on how it goes. The more Fallout-talk the better lol.

In this playthrough so far I've killed Mr. House, but I haven't really made clear enemies out of NCR or Legion. I've installed Yes Man into where Mr. House used to be, and I've activated the underground robot army to fight for me later. I got the tribes on the Strip to like me and support me, and I'm trying to get the Boomers to support me and fight for me. I'm hoping that I can muster up all the firepower I need to fight both the Legion and NCR and create an independent New Vegas. I'm not sure what to do about Brotherhood of Steel. I don't think they support you if you go the independent route do they? I may have to kill all the Brotherhood of Steel people too lol.

I agree with a lot of that, Blake. I wrote a pretty glowing review of the gameplay and level design of Infinite back when it came out. I didn't really touch on the story when I blogged about it, but I enjoyed it a lot. After a few months had gone by I went back to replay it for a few hours and I got pretty bored as well. Once you know everything it doesn't work again.

The thing is, I'll never forget how magical that game was the first time around. The game felt great, made me think, and I even shed a tear when I found out how Elizabeth lost her pinky finger. Right in that moment everything felt amazing and Infinite moved me like art should. I haven't had a video game make me feel "in the moment" ever since. In that moment it wasn't a product, or a checklist of features, and replayability didn't matter. One thing I'd say to Ben is, just because it doesn't have any replay value doesn't mean it doesn't have tremendous value. The game's quite an amazing piece of work and I don't want to rewrite history and erase the fact that I had such a fantastic time with it, and the fact that it's a great game.

To Ben, playing Bioshock Infinite is a must if you like FPSs to any degree, and if you like good stories, but playing it once is all you'll ever need. You should be able to find it cheap anymore, it's more than worth whatever it's priced at now. Give it a shot sometime if you feel that allure

I'm a few hours into The Witcher 2 but it's really obtuse. The combat isn't very good or intuitive, you have to scratch your head simply trying to get blocks and parrys to work. I really love the story so far though and Triss is pretty great, so I'm going to hop back in sometime and try to suffer through all the gameplay to see the rest of the story.

The good news is that tons of people have had the same gripes as me about the design of the gameplay in 2 and CDProjeckt Red said that they're taking that into account for Witcher 3. From what I've seen, Witcher 3 looks to be on the right track and the combat seems like they're making good improvements. Their griffon hunt they showed at E3 looked pretty neat.

Thanks Ben

I didn't see that till now but you're right, pup looks a little like Rush!

Thanks, Travis! Mastodon rules

That's awesome, Matt! I started a second Mass Effect playthrough a couple years back and still need to see it through to completion. I really like the loyalty missions in that game for each squadmate. Those missions tend to be pretty good.

Arkham Asylum

I literally couldn't be more excited for production improvements and the future of the show. It's great to see you guys still passionate about this thing and looking forward to making it even better. When you guys are excited about it and happy to be putting on the show, it's fun to listen to.

This had all the goods.

*michael rubs his belly and savors the yummy episode 50 in his tummy*

I know Julian, Angelo, and Patrick will see the comments but I doubt John and Erika will, so I went and left them thank you's on twitter. On a side note, I just was on Erika's twitter and it says she's followed by Harvey Smith. I don't mean to get all dancing queen here, making a big deal out of twitter follows, but Harvey f-ing Smith follows Erika. I've never been more proud of Erika, and jealous. Harvey of Deus Ex and Dishonored fame, he's one of the designers whom I stalk ...read from the most.

I'd get NWP/Pixlbit merch if I could. I've always been excited to see how the site and podcast could branch out and get more eyes/earholes on it. I'm the undisputed welterweight superfan, but there's room for way more fans and the podcast deserves more. When 1UP shut down and we managed to get a number of the users to migrate over here that was a really awesome milestone, and now I'm wondering how and when the next cool milestone will come surprise us. From what he says on twitter every now and then it seems like Nick is redesigning the site, that sounds like it could be really neat. You guys are doing a reboot of your own again on the podcast. This kind of stuff is pretty exciting.

I remember when all of this was organized into two crews and Patrick was the new guy that I was hearing him for the first time. Then it split into NWP with the triforce crew and all the shenanigans really began. It's been a long time since I've heard somebody make unwanted sexual advances on Patrick like Rob always did, that was always a crowd pleaser.

I followed Julian here back in 2011 when he started writing for the site, and started listening to podcasts when he became a recurring guest on Pixltalk, and I'm glad I followed the whole journey from then till now because I've been able to listen to Patrick, Rob, Angelo and then all the guests by extension. Everyone has been fantastic. The production and flow have improved a lot over time and it seems like you guys are more comfortable now than ever. I never get tired of hearing about Gamefellas, or about Patrick's poetry, or Angelo's pinball obsessions. Since there's been 50 episodes with most being at least 1 hour, the lowest being around 45 minutes, and the longest being around 3 hours, I've probably heard a hundred hours of NWP.

It hasn't been a long time in raw hours, but in years it's been a long time filled with lots of good content, funny outtakes, and cool stories. There's many old episodes I'm nostalgic for that I haven't listened to since they aired. I really liked that one time Patrick went on vacation in either 2012 or 2013 (he went somewhere in Europe right? Paris?) and came back with a story of how beautiful the buildings were and how he had to hike a long ways back to a hotel. I wish I knew which episode that was because I want to hear it again. Another favorite of mine was the valentines episode 2013 where there was a blizzard and Rob couldn't make it, and Patrick talked about the Romantic movement in literature and game design in other countries. Patrick unleashed is the best kind of Patrick.

As a little bit of praise to Julian's hosting, nowadays I can hear a bit of my favorite Giant Bomb people in him when he does this show. Jule's persona has a little dash of Ryan Davis and some Jeff Gerstmann, both which do/did great jobs running a show and being entertaining to listen to.

The format of the show is still pretty good. I like hearing consumption junction first and seeing what everyone has been playing, reading, and watching. Then the middle/end of the show being either a main topic or a free form roller coaster, I've seen episodes that have it either way and end up great. As far as the format goes I'm not sure there's anything I'd personally want cut out or added. Sometimes you guys talk about news at the very end like they do on the Bombcast and I like that because it's nice seeing different perspectives, but keeping up with every piece of hard news doesn't have to be a permanent segment, just whenever you find things in the news that are interesting to you guys.

I don't comment as aggressively as I use to, but that doesn't indicate a loss of enjoyment of the show, just personal changes. About 99% of all the things I can remember saying in my walls of text to you guys are poorly written, unfocused, and either overly sensational or uninformed in ways that I can sharpen up now or cut. I'm as idealistic and excited about game design as I ever was, and I'm also closer than ever to making games, but I've mellowed a bit over the years as this whole thing has become more tangible and less the pipe dream I thought it was when I started blogging here. I'm doing a run of math, C programming, and science electives at our community college right now for summer, fall, and spring, and when I'm ready I'm hoping Digipen in Seattle will accept me for 2015 or perhaps 2016 at the latest and I can transfer there. It's early but it's going really well so far and everything is on the right track finally, and I'm out of that rut. Dat rut tho.

Even through the changes I'm still listening to the show though, still the welterweight superfan champ, and still carrying the podcast with me wherever I go in life. I don't know what the NWP reboot will bring but I'm sure it'll be fun. I'm sure I'll look back on this episode a year from now, see this comment I left, and think everything I wrote is garbage. Could've been shorter, could've been better written, could've been less awful and more funny.

Haven't missed an episode yet. After all this time I'm still actually caught up, on all of the things. Even episode 48.

...even episode 48 *shivers*