The NPCs - Video Game Commentary, Video Game News, And More!

#PlayStationPlus #HaloInfinite #BreathOfTheWild2 In this week's news roundup: Sony finally announces their answer to Xbox Game Pass... kinda. Also, the Halo devs know that the fans are upset but are the fans really understanding why they're upset? And, Breath of the Wild 2 has been delayed to next year, Minecraft gets (and immediately loses) ray-tracing support on Xbox Series X, and E3 2022 is ful...

On today's episode: We last spoke about NFTs in January and Online Only games in July, but there’s been enough that’s changed in the last half a year that has us talking. From big names in the gaming sphere embracing NFTs, and outages on popular titles causing frustrations and game rankings to drop, we felt it necessary to come back around and discuss what these new developments show for the prese...

#GranTurismo7 #DrDisrespect #HogwartsLegacy In this week's news roundup: Gran Turismo 7 is down for over 30 hours due to a bugged patch limiting even "offline" play to... well, nothing. Also, Dr. Disrespect takes his newly created game dev company and starts... selling NFTs? We also talk about the Hogwarts Legacy State of Play, and the first major reviews for the Halo TV Series are out! Full VOD o...

#DrDisrespect #Overwatch2 #SteamDeck (Note: Kyle's audio for some reason wasn't working at the start of the livestream, so his audio appears around the 4 minute mark or so. Sorry about that...) In this week's news roundup: Dr. Disrespect & Twitch appear to come to some type of resolution regarding his ban back in 2020, however The Doc will not be returning to Twitch. Also, the remake of Dead S...

On today's episode: The video game industry hasn't been shy to embracing controversy in their video games. In 1976, developer Exidy stoked fears from the media with their arcade game, Death Race, and its portrayal of violence against enemies in it's virtual world. Midway Games took it to another level with it's fatalities in Mortal Kombat in 1993 - so much so, that it spawned the ESRB. As graphica...

#SteamDeck #Tesla #PlayStationVR2 In this week's news roundup: Valve has indicated that they won't be offering a subscription service like GamePass but wouldn't shy away from helping Microsoft bring it to the Steam Deck, Tesla wants to stir up more chaos by adding Steam to their cars, we get the first official look at the PlayStation VR2, Street Fighter 6 has been announced and quickly torn apart...

#Nintendo #3DS #WiiU #eShop On today's episode: Nintendo has recently announced that they will be shutting down the 3DS and Wii U digital storefronts in March of 2023. For those who continue to play games on both of these consoles, it means access to digital downloads will slowly dwindle away until that time. While we have grown acustom to store shutdowns and inability to access games, there's som...

#Cyberpunk2077 #HaloInfinite #SteamDeck In this week's news roundup: A former Nintendo of America employee shares the details with Nintendo Life about the Wii U eShop shutdown, iFixit and Valve enter a partnership for iFixit to sell replacement parts for the Steam Deck, Cyberpunk 2077 gets it's 1.5 patch but immediately causes problems for Playstation 4 and PC players, and more! Full VOD of the ne...

On today's episode: Handheld gaming was originally dominated by a select few. The likes of Nintendo's Game Boy and it's offspring, the Nintendo DS, were the rulers of the gaming-on-the-go scene. Competition from Sony with it's PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita, Sega with the Game Gear, and many others could not keep pace with the house of Mario. However, Nintendo's attempt to bridge the ga...

On today's episode: Microsoft's announcement to acquire Activision-Blizzard for $69 Billion sent shockwaves through the gaming industry. The powerhouse behind Windows, the Xbox, and Clippy wants to bring in the likes of Arthas, Kerrigan, and Tracer to their broader Xbox Games Studios family. And just the week prior, TakeTwo announced their intent to acquire mobile and web-game studio Zynga for $12...

On today's episode: COVID-19 and it's variants continue to cause delays to in-person gatherings, and for us in the gaming sphere many a conference and event have moved online. The likes of E3, GDC, PAX, and many others have had to rethink their approach to an event without risking the health and safety of thousands of people. The efforts to move events online was swift, and was not without some co...

On today's episode: NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, has been the latest buzzword and craze across the internet for months. While it seems NFTs have been focused on digital art, it hasn’t stopped others from thinking about what is next in the space of blockchain-backed assets. Konami, Ubisoft, and even GameStop have all announced efforts to join in the NFT space, with Ubisoft suffering some backlash...

Access to classic video game consoles isn't necessarily hard, but the upkeep of so many different consoles as well as the cost of those consoles and games can be taxing. To solve this, many gamers have turned to emulating those consoles and downloading ROM files of the games they so dearly want to play. However, while the possibility of having every single classic console from the Atari 2600 throu...

With so much news we've been covering, have we actually been playing any video games at all? You better f***ing believe it!  In a long awaited Whadaya' Playin', Kyle & Travis bring the world up to speed on the games they've been playing. Kyle talks about Metroid Dread, Mass Effect, and plenty of others while Travis focuses on FPS games such as PUBG and Splitgate. The NPCs have been playin...

On today's episode:  Electronic waste has become one of the most problematic forms of pollution in the world, with the Americas accounting for 13.1 metric tonnes of e-waste in 2019. The main driver for e-waste generation is the speed at which devices become obsolete, or which a new device surpasses it's predecessor and drives home new value that the previous model didn't. In the world of vide...

On today's episode: Freemium games, or games that are free but offer pay-to-win options, are all too common in the gaming world. While they originally found more of their home on mobile devices, the idea of the pay-to-win in PC and console video games is expanding and is increasingly becoming the norm. Unlockable skins, guns, characters, you name it... all in the name of either looking better than...

On today's episode: What do the Xbox Series consoles, the PS5, and the last generations of consoles all have in common? It's not cross play, and it sure isn't the exclusive count - but the chips and silicon inside the consoles themselves. These chipsets are derived from those being sold for the PC market, with AMD working in tandem with Sony and Microsoft to deliver on their hardware. With the Xbo...

This week: Kyle goes all John Wick-meets-Tron-meets-SuperHot in "Severed Steel" on PC. Meanwhile, Travis plays Civilization-like "Humankind" and has some thoughts about it's progression system, and the two NPCs talk about their rather interesting victory in "Apex Legends" that no one would have ever predicted. Check us out on Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/TheNPCsPodcast Twitt...

On today's episode:  One of the key selling points for the Xbox Series consoles and the PlayStation 5 was the ability to purchase a game once and play that title on both the new console and it's last generation counterpart. With limited console supply, this allowed gamers to purchase a title and potentially allow for them to play it in it's next gen format without paying for another of the sa...

This week: Travis has a rail-shooter experience in "Genshin Impact" and revisits Miramar in "PUBG Battlegrounds" (It's like saying ATM Machine...). Kyle, on the other hand, finishes his "Mass Effect 2" run in "Mass Effect Legendary Edition" and starts "Mass Effect 3" all while trying to maintain his composure with that opening scene. Kyle also relaxes to some "Super Mario Bros" and "Mario & Ra...

In this week's tomfoolery: Kyle doesn't spend money on Devolver Digital games, but he sure as heck decided to play some "Enter the Gungeon" again! On top of that, he's back at it with "Mass Effect 2" and is nearing the end of the road! In tandem news, both Kyle and Travis talk about their experience on the dedicated NPCs "Minecraft" server and their development plans in the world. Finally, Travis...

On today's episode:  While PC gaming is not new, its popularity has increased greatly in the last two decades. The barriers for those wanting to purchase or even build their own gaming PC have been torn down, and outside of current component prices, is a much simpler task to accomplish nowadays. For those who prefer to play PC games comes the hope to take those games on the go without having...

This week: Kyle has a "Minecraft" problem on the NPC's Server and is building an underground pyramid that leads to a massive, gaping crevice. Lots of danger awaits within, while Travis scours for diamonds and the like. Meanwhile, Travis is under the control of the King of All Cosmos in "Katamari Damacy REROLL" on Xbox, and Kyle's dive into one of the more interesting titles on GamePass, "Proteus,"...

This week: Kyle & Travis are busy adults and reflect on such, as they played some "Battlefront 2" and "Battlefield 4", talk about their "Minecraft" woes, Travis won his first game of "Apex Legends" in forever, Kyle dives into the indie with "Superliminal" and "Skyhill", but the emphasis on the Flesh Kraken in "Death Trash" has Travis confused about the dev's ideas on companions... Check us out...

On today's episode: Cheating has been a part of gaming history for a long time. From the days of yore with GameShark attachments for the PS1, Cheat Code Central providing you the button presses to unlock all weapons, and the infamous rosebud cheat in the Sims to add money to your account, it's a part of normal business. But what about the darker side of cheating, not to mention hacking? Aim bots,...