Pointless Side Cast Episode 8: Crimes Against My Mouth

It's time for episode 8 of Pointless Side Cast! Join John Markley, Corey Atwood, Logan Kraus, Nick Nguyen, and Jade Kimmel as their discussion of their experiences with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is catastrophically derailed before it even leaves the station by an ill-advised dare from Corey involving the words “if you drank the entire thing.”

Don't miss out on an episode filled with:

Pure evil in concentrated liquid form!

Battlefield 4!

The Nature Boy Ric Flair!

The awesomeness that is Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death!

Interstellar genocide!

Blacklight: Retribution!

John coughing out an entire lung live on the air!

Crusader Kings II!

The latest sanity-shattering horror Nick has unleashed upon the world!

PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which we actually do get to eventually!

Lines between man and machine that never should have been crossed!

Batman: Arkham Origins!

New definitions of pain and suffering!

Logan reporting on the new Kinect!

Birdemic-based relationship abuse!

Knack!

Fine liquor sellers of Chicagoland!

Persona!

Thirst for the blood of children!

Solar 2!

Ass droids!

Ryse: Son of Rome!

Jade's mysterious secret! 

World of Warcraft!

Crippling addictive behavior!

Dead or Alive Ultimate!

And, of course, much more.

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Persona 5 announced: I am far too masculine and dignified to make “squee” noises, but if that were not the case I would do so here

Katsura Hashino of Atlus, director of Persona 3 and producer of Persona 4, has announced that work is now under way on the fifth game in the popular RPG series. Virtually nothing else is known at this point; even the system it's being made for is still a mystery. Atlus USA has been doing a nice job making the various Shin Megami Tensei-related games available in America, and Persona 3 and 4 were two of my favorite games on the PS2, so confirmation that there will be a Persona 5 is great news for me.

I'm curious to see where they take it. One of the interesting things about parts 3 and 4 was that, despite sharing a setting and having the same basic mechanics, the tone of the games was strikingly different. This extended from the plot and characters into subtle things like the color of the in-game menus (dark and somber-looking in 3, lots of cheery yellow and orange for 4) and whether the majority of the game's important events too place at night (Persona 3) or during the day (Persona 4). It was quite a shift.

Which made sense, given that the dominant theme of Persona 4 was the pursuit of truth, self-understanding and acceptance, and the overcoming of illusions and ignorance, whereas the theme of Persona 3 was DEATH IS INEVITABLE AND INESCAPABLE, ESPECIALLY FOR YOU. (I hasten to add that the game is much more fun than that probably makes it sound.) I thought that they did both styles extremely well, so I look forward to seeing what's next.