Final Showdown and Determining the Winner

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I'm your host Maxcoville and I'm joined once again by my good pals, Jada Griff in, and Brian Altano, giving up . What's up I Jan Live, beyond . Now , two years ago on this very stage we held a knock ded downra,g out debate, to determine which first party PlayStation character was the best. And we kind of did it by schoolyard rules, like who would win in a fight and unsurprisingly, Kratos came out on top by killing everyone else. This year, we're doing something a little bit different. I have put together a bracket featuring sixteen characters from game franchises we have long associated with PlayStation , but which aren't officially owned by Sony. And with your help, we're going to decide one winner who should be named an honorary PlayStation mascot . However , the awkward thing is that quite a few iconic video game characters, some of whom were literal PlayStation mascots are now technically property of Xbox. So that means no crash band to Spire the Dragon, no minecraft, Steve, no doom guy, Ball Boy, Dove Kin or any of the Call of Duty dudes because they're all technically Xbox mascots. I don't make the rules I just invented the game we're playing and decided what was allowed or not allowed. Okay, so we are deciding a new unofficial mascot for PlayStation. Yeah, yeah, you know, like a character you're like, oh that's a character immediately associated with PlayStation. Got it. But who's owned by somebody else? Who doesn't officially live in PlayStation's house? You think you guys can help us out with that? Yeah . So originally we had way more of these. We're going to draw names out of a hat. We're going to try to make it really fair so people don't get mad at us for leaving a character out. We're going to have argued which football was better than the FIFA one or the Madden one . But that got scrapped. So apologies we don't get to argue about the footballs . But we're going to need your help. How it's going to work is I'm going to pull these characters down . Jada will get assigned one, Brian will get assigned one, and regardless of their level of expertise or enjoyment of this franchise and its characters, they will have to defend these characters on their behalf, make the best argument they can. And then it's up to you guys to vote on who had, who made the best case and we're going to do it with a show of thumbs. So you might give us a character we don't like and we have to tell you why it's actually a good mascot. I might have even picked out some ahead of time that I don't think you like very much. Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. So yeah, we're gonna hear their arguments real quick. And then you guys are going to do the Gladiator Show Thumbs Stink. So thumbs up for good, thumbs down for bad and just wave your arms around if you're just feeling kind of silly. So here's the first bracket. Let's get up here. This is a couple . All right . Lara croft, that's a great one. Deadline. Lyra crack.. Oh, come on My favorite. So here are two characters from beloved franchises that both got their start on PlayStation hardware way back in the day . They've long since been associated with. They're both celebrating thirtieth anniversaries this year , Jada, what is the case for Laura Croft to be a PlayStation mascot? Laura Croft is the original PlayStation mascot, right? Jumping, tumbling through traps, swimming underwater, probably making it the first time, right? With those tank controls? But it doesn't matter because you always persevered and you got to shoot some dinosaurs. Leon hasn't shot any dinosaurs. Not yet. Okay, Brian, you like Leon. What's so great about Leon? Okay, so Leon Sennedy started to get started on the gamecube, obviously. So he's a Nintendo guy first, but he was part of the Capcom five. And Shinji McCami said that Resigne W four ever came to another system, he would cut off his own head. And then Res ney before came to every single system ever made in history. So I don't necessarily think he's a good mascot for PlayStation because I want the world to enjoy him, but he's one of the best video game characters of all time. So I wouldn't be mad at it. So what you're saying debuted in RE two, which was on PS one, but you still make a fair case because everyone loves him for his stuff in four, you know? So what you're saying, Brian is you don't think Leon is a good PlayStation mascot. You made my case for me. Oh, fine. Fine. I agree with you. Let's give it to the jury. All right, so show of thumbs, who thinks Lauren Croft is the PlayStation master ? We're seeing a lot of thumbs and Hali. cup How are you? You boo Leon Kennedy in this house. Okay, well that is Nighty Night, Leon Night . All right, that brings us to our next bracket. This is gonna be Leon, Leon . Oh revoir, this is gonna be a tricky one. Okay, so another character we're seeing a lot of cloud stripe, FF seven. Let's finally get to the other end of his remake and Sora . Ooh , so you love Final Fantasy VIII? I do. What's so great about Cloud? Why should Cloud beat I don't even know if I need to make an argument because I know Brian does not like Sora as a king ofd heomarts character. So this is going to be easy. Cloud. He is the de facto final fantasy protagonist, am I right? Outside of Sephorov, he's got the best hair. He's got the biggest sword again outside S ofephiroth. He is just an all around kick butt protagonist. Everybody wants to be with cloud. Everybody wants to be Cloud. Okay. Every Final Fantasy game has tried to imitate Final Fantasy seven and they just haven't gotten there yet. Okay , now listen , where is this going? We do IGN Live so people can cheer for us and clap. Today, I think something is going to happen a little bit different. I'm going to talk my ish. I don't like kingdom hearts Do you not hold this against the Beyond podcast? I love Kingdom Hearts. I love Kingdom Hearts. I think it's bad. I think Sora Oh no. Terrible character. I'm so glad you can't see his shoes in that picture because he's the worst shoes in gaming . So I want him to become a PlayStation mascot so that Sony can turn him into a cancelled live service gap. All right, so we got some complicated arguments here, all right. Do the thumb thing. Who thinks that Jada made the best case for cloud? Or who wants to vote for Cloud, I guess? A lot of thumbs there, all right, and Sora . I think Cloud just how dare you? I think Cloud just barely edges it out . Wow . That was Sora . Max with the wild card . Listen, I am ambivalent about Kingdom Hearts. I don't have any strong feelings in that correction, but I do like watching Brian. Bryant has to defend him for like two more rounds of all right. On to the next one, this one we're gonna be a little bit sneaky. We got to be sh iet because oh Asian forty seven and solid snake. Why don't you give me the bald guy ? I give you the bald guy because you're the bald. I like that we have like I have that haircut, you have that haircut. We should dress up. That'd be fun. All right, Jad a, what's the big deal about Agent forty seven? He is the deadliest man alive. Am I right? Agent forty seven. He can be a man of anybody, anybody he wants to be. He goes where he wants when he pleases, whether he's t out hisak tenargets by crushing them, throwing off buildings, headshots , poison banana. Banana. Banana pills. Yeah, like is it original Mario Kart, right? Okay , pretty much. Bride. This is also tricky because there's like all these different snakes Let's just say people associate metal gear with PlayStation. You just do. It went on to go third party, went on to go on a bunch of different platforms and stuff like that. But PlayStation and Metal Gear go together hand in hand. You think about the noises in that game, you think about the art in that game. You see a cardboard box and you think PlayStation. Yeah, that's fair. Snake is the unofficial PlayStation mascot. We don't even need to do the rest of this. Okay, all right. All right , right ? Wow . Finally, a good artist Let me suppose show of thumbs feels weird. I don't like say let me see just have him yelling. Do the thing agent forty seven, yay or nay . Wow . And solid snake or snake or solidist or big boss or venom . All right. To say an agent forty seven would check the cardboard box . Now here's this is gonna be this is a tricky one 'cause these are these are two franchises that were PlayStation exclusive for a cool minute and now they're not. We got Joker from Resona five and Kazimo Kiryu, the dragon of Dojima . Joker? You got Joker, you're up. Joker, baby. Where are my persona fans in the house? I get it. I get it not missing any of oural Fin fnant Fasy fans. It's okay. Joker is one of the most iconic persona characters that we've ever gotten. The detail on his character, his drip on his fit, the color scheme with the black and the red, it doesn't get much better than that . And look, we all know Persona five was exclusive to PlayStation for the longest, and we'd also had exclusivity rights on the earlier personas. So it's pretty much as synonymous as metal gears ever been. Well said. I agree. I also think that Yakuza got its start on PlayStation. Once again, it went everywhere. We got a' mveillion of those games , slightly iterative. They all get a little bit better, a little bit flashier each time. So do PlayStations. And that's why Yakuza should be a PlayStation mascot. He goes PlayStation. All right, all right, let',s Lucy hear it for Persona . All right, and let's hear for a Yakuza or do the thumb thing, whichever. Wow. All right, I'm shocked. I want to point out that Jada is putting down way better arguments than I suppose the court of public opinion. It doesn't matter how good the arguments are true. It's true. I am so glad I don't have to I don't have to make these decisions. Okay, next up, we got a tricky one. We got Trevor Phillips Granton Auto five representing the entire GTA franchise . And then there's the other open world game where you do stuff. And there's Etsyo from Assassin's Creed. He's Italian, I believe. Yeah . Tayda, Trevor Phillips, let me hear it. Look, Trevor is chaos incarnate. If you have listened to Beyond or NBC , you know I am also chaos incarnate. Trevor is my guy. There's nothing like waking up as him in the game, just laying in your underwear in the middle of the street with everything aflame. That is Trevor . Our playstations also get really hot sometimes, so I think that kind of goes hand in hand. I don't know if that if that actually works . But you know, he's also GTA, like who doesn't want GTA to be like an official mascot kind of thing , right? We're there. GTA on PlayStation, anybody? Yeah . All right. Wait, does that mean that GTA is exclusive to play or just Trevor's exclusive to play? Trevor is representing all the GTA's and GTA three reinvented the open world game or invented it or whatever and that came to PlayStation two first and foremost. So it's always been there. So what Playation'Sst gonna make a sad dad game about Trevor and he has to go pay child support. He's not paying that child support and you know it. Okay, let's be let's be honest, nobody associates either of these franchises with PlayStation, exclusively. All right, well at all Let's let the audience decide. All right, who do you think is more associated with with PlayStation? Do you think Trevor and the rest of the GTA crew ? Yay, nay and then assassin's creed . All right, fair enough . All right. So that's that's a surprise. I think people just yeah. They put he put them out for different playstations. Okay, next up, we have Oh , Hey Hachi from Tekken and Tony Hawk Prosk, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on hold on. Hold on. I just realized Tony Hawk Proskater, that's activity. That is activation. You can't do Tony Hawk Proskater, but I found out that he is an amateur violinist, so we can do Tony Hawk amateur violinist . That's not Photoshop, by the way. He's actually an amateur violin . All right, Suketa, make your case for Hayachi. I'm so glad you didn't defend Tony Hawk, the violinist . Heyachi, man, that's Tekken. That's Tekken from the PS one. We this man, this father, if we can call him that, has been throwing kids into volcanoes since the early nineties. What is not more PlayStation than that if it's going with that argum ent. But you know what? Heyachi, great fighting character. He's also a guest character in Soul Caliber. He's been a guest character in numerous other fighting games. Why not make him the one of the official PlayStation mascots at this point, right? Sure. All right, Brian. Okay, so Tony Hawk, the skater , does three hundred and sixty's, which is an Xbox console . But Tony Hawk, the violinist does not do three hundred and sixty's because you can't do a three hundred and sixty with a violin. All right, let me agree. Show him . What do you think about Heihachi as a PlayStation mascot? And what do we think about Tony Hawke playing the world's most normal sized violin? Just for you . I'm crazy. I'm telling you, I love this audience. You guys are crazy. I'm telling you put some wheels on that violin. Tony Hock will do three . Okay, we got to get through the super fast so you each get one sentence to it. All right. All right, we're going for the indie crowd here. We got Scarf from Journey and Jacket from Hotline Miami. It's a battle of W ord. Jacket, I like it. There we go. Yes. Journey. Fantastic traveler, desert, we hate desert levels, but he makes it fun. Not a sentence, but I'll allow it. Counterpoint. All right . Let's hear for journey. Wonderful PlayStation three exclusive. Anybody journey makes you know ? It's gotta be journey . Hotline Miami has got chickens. What is happening with this audience? You guys are crazy. They just like you better than me, Brian, and that's all it is. All right, next up, we've got an odd one. We've got Pyramid Head and the Prince of the Cosmos from Catamari It's actually not Pyramid because I cropped it off in somewhere like that. Pyramid head max. Cut off. It's okay. Pyramid head s like a traffic cone. Traffic cone . Pyramid head. Very scary Horror icon. We all know it. We all run from it in silent hill. Why not? Let's make it to snake pray station creepy. Okay . All right . In Catamari, you push a huge ball around and the circle is the best Plation button. All right. All right, all right, hold on , hold on . Let's take this, let's take this to the PlayStation button, then. Who thinks the triangle button is the best button? That's actually Roosevelt's good eyes. Okay, let's hear it for triangles . And let's hear it for circles, I guess. I think people like circles more than triangles. That's weird, but okay . All right, well , we need to take a quick break but stick around to find out who will reign Victorious in our completely arbitrary mascot showdown. We'll be right back. Study . Come together on a Windows eleven PC. And for a limited time, college students get of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows eleven PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft three hundred and sixty five premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows. com slash student offer. Law supplies last ends june thirtieth, terms at aka dot ms slash college pc. How many discounts does USA Auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi vehicle discount, safe, driver discount, new vehicle discount. Storage discount, legacy. 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Learn more at Americanexpress dot com slash business dash platinum. And we're back. This is a very special IG and Live Edition of Beyond and we're here to determine which third party video game characters should be made in an honorary PlayStation mascot and up next we have our first bracket here. We've got the big showdown between Lara Croft and Sora from Kingdom Hearts. Brian, I know Sora's kind of a sorrow subject, but could you make a case for why Sora is better than Lara Croft? I don't want to talk about this man anymore . Stop making me talk about Kingdom of Hearts . I don't like his weapon. I think it's dumb to hit people with a kid. It's a key. It's cool . A key. Blades are cool, man. He looks like one of those like if you had like one of those wacky inflatable guys above a locksmith . Like you know, it was originally a chainsaw, but Disney didn't think that was a good idea. Weird. Jada, Laura Croft argument? I mean, Laura Croft gets the locker butler in the freezer. That's kind of a cool thing that is, right? Old school fans, you guys remember that ? You know , Laura is not only an ace with the dual pistols, but she's also just really amazing with the bow and arrow. We saw that with the recent reboots. We got another reboot coming like Laura Croft is just generational like peak for PlayStation, right? I think so . Okay . Also, all right. Also, I want to remind everybody Laura Croft the last woman. So let me hear from the women in the crowd. She's the last woman on here. Let's make it happen . All right, let's who thinks it's Ghost of Sora . That's for what it's for Sora, what about Laura? Thank you . Thank you. Can I have that? Sure. Oh no, no, it's mine. Fine. All right, next up we have this I don't want to I couldn't pick one. They're both too dreamy. We got Solid Snake and we got Cosmo Care you Brian, let me hear from you. Hold on real quick. Can we get a look at this? Please don't do that . People are gonna be mad at you. Please stop . I don't know if they're cheering or just yelling in coherent deal with nobody. Y'all get that reference, right? You got to deal with nobody? Somebody once said to me that Kingdom Hearts is Metal Gear Solid for Disney Adults. Okay ? They're not selling me on it. Yeah, anyway, let me hear what's the case for Yakuza? For who? Yaku. Steven Yakuza's over here. I think that Steven Yakuza I think Steven Yakuza is one of the best video game characters . All right , that's that was barely an argument, but okay, it wasn't an argument, but no, I can't, I can't compete against Snake in this round. I'm going to be honest with you. Snake is quintessentially a place after me. What do you all think? Do you think either Yakuza or let's hear for Yakuza? Snake . All right, not even not even a conversation. Okay, now it's this also a great animal, you know? It is a good animal. Yeah. Can we get a quick cheer for the Snake the animal? Let me hear a snake . Hell yeah. Okay , now we got Etsyo and Tony Hawk with his violin . Wow . Sharing for Tony. Okay . I don't even get to make an argument there . That's I that sounded like every Italian wedding I've ever been to. I love it. If this is the winner, it's gonna be great because legally I 'll need to meet . All right, hotline, Miami, Catamari Damasi, the bunch, they both weird. They both' arere pretty wacky . Yeah. What do you think about it? What do you think about it? You know what? I also do not really care for Outline Miami. Like, it's a great game, but I'm like, I'm a Principal Cosmos fan. Like I want to roll it up. Okay, okay, Brian . What I can roll up that Hotline Miami is awesome. It is violent, it is crazy. And I think a third person over the shoulder sad dad hotline Miami game made by PlayStation would be awesome. Hotline Miami where you go really slow. Yeah, walk really slow . Sounds great. All right, let's hear for Hotline Miami . Okay , and then Catamire de Masi All right, we're getting down to the wire. This is gonna be ooh, this is getting tricky. This is also really just the stupidest outcome we could have gotten. It's like one of these things is not like the other . All right , okay, so talk about Snake and Laric Roft. This is not a bad final four. Yeah , this is aside from the fact that there's a human man holding a violin . Not a bad final fourth. Put some wheels on that thing. That's like three hundred and sixty eight. This looks like a capture where it's like proof you're human, which of these is not a real photo apparent . Okay, so let's just let's just drop the jury thing. Who do you think all of us? We can just take our own side . Yeah. Who's a better Playstation mascot? Is it is Lara Croft or is it snake? Oh, that's close. That's tough. It's really fast. That's like they're both they were both PS games. They were hugely iconic. They both kind of undergone various transformations . I mean, Larry Kroft is like , they're still making those games. . Big new remakes recently, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Legacy of Atlantis on the way. I don't know, should we ask them? What do you all think? What do you guys think? Do you think Laura Ooh All right, okay. Okay, that's a lot of hired, all right, all right . All right, all right. Man, this might have to be this is gonna be really close . I like the one extra snake at the end there. Snake. Snake. zero in on which snake it is. So this is Solid Snake from Middle Gear Solid two sons of Liberty. Who's also the same one for the first one, but in that one he has a mullet , which is cool. And then there's also like his clone, which is big boss. It was in Gallery and Peace Walker, but then there's also like Venom punished snake, who's the key for Sutherland one, which is a whole other can of worms. But then there's also Solidus, who's the president, but he has robot tentacles and kind of I'm trying to fast forward you right now. that's my issue with snake being the mascot is because it's so confusing for a mass appeal. Yeah , right. A little tough. Laura Croft is Laura Croft. Yeah. You know, when you hear Laura Croft, you know it's Laura Croft. Okay. Laura Croft Rock craft . So it turned. It turned around. You're hearing solid steak, all right. Well, sorry, Laura, we got to go on Wow , man . Sorry. I don't I don't make the rules. I don't , you know, sometimes. All right, this is again, this I don't even I guess, you know, the PlayStation sad dad thing would continue with Tony Hawk. He's not really a sad dad. He seems to be like a dad. He's very happy. Yeah. I interviewed him once a million years ago and I was like, What are you playing your kids playing games lately? He's like, Yeah, Sky Room and I'm like, How are they? They're like six and I'm like, isn't that rated? He's like, Dude, I'm a professional skoard. I don't know, man. Cool. Yeah, I don't know. All right, I think we can we can get the Katamari guy out of here. Why? Because he 's why, that's why . Can you imagine what the legal system would be like if the jury had to chant like guilty or not guilty guilty guilty ? I just had a case. We push Tony Hawk, I am really afraid that he beats Snake and then our official PlayStation or PlayStation unofficial. Would be Tony Hawk? Unofficial. Unofficial. All right. I think it's Tony. Oh my goodness . Okay , I don't want to hear it when all you get for the next five years are rhythm games with Tony Ok playing the violin . They want that . See, there we go. There we go, I turned it. Okay I turned it around . All right, set it , set tle. All right. All right. Hold on. This looks like one of those walls they have at police stations we're trying to find the guy who did this. You got two suspects right now . He's not even happy to be holding the violin . Look at that. Like he's like, oh , I got a violin . Apparently he's also he's also into various other action sports besides skateboarding. Okay. And I think whisky collecting . Yeah, I frankly I was actually backstage originally had the Tony Hawk Pro skater graphic and skateboarding. And then Cidy Goodman was like, That's activision though. I was like, Oh no, and I scrambled to be like Tony Hawk, what is hobbies? Okay, so it's down to these two. Yeah, yeah. And it's it up to us or is it up to them? Okay, let's make this interesting. Solid snake in his spare time, he does dog sled racing because he lives in Alaska. Which would you rather play as a video game? It's a PlayStation , a PlayStation six' lasunthch title. You have your choice of Metal Gear Solid Solid Snakes, I did a rod action . I did a rod action. Or Tony Hawk, amateur violinist . My essay is All right, the yelling , you're just making up a weird word it doesn't. All right. Let's do the thumbs. I like the thumbs. If you get if it's snake or getting I did a rod action you said. It'd be a dog slit it like'd be a Gary Paulson book come to life. Okay . Yeah, give it up for Gary Paulson