The Ultimate Game Dads Retrospective: 11 Years of Gaming Excellence

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Recording three two one welcome to the game dad's podcast where we are dads and we play games,
whoa i was not expecting the singing stuff i i just but i love it i got i i
got energy today man today i have just been i've been charged up it's been a

(00:23):
crazy week all kinds of crazy
stuff happened this week and i'm just i'm fired up yeah me
too dude fired up all right i
am one of your hosts aaron you might know me as aero if you are in a small niche
group of people who followed my youtube channel for the ups and downs of that

(00:47):
for like the four years that i did it but but Aaron otherwise.
And I'm Brett. You might know me as Billy. If you had attended any backyard
wrestling events in the early two thousands where I was the world champion of
somebody else's backyard.

(01:08):
That's such a sweet title. It's the world champion of someone else's backyard.
Put that on a business card. My guy, like that's awesome.
I really got hired at the new job dude well i mean like oh yeah you know banking
right yeah that's great but how many times were you world champion of somebody

(01:30):
else's backyard oh seven,
oh and your name was billy seven yeah absolutely yeah we were like new yes 100
please you need to be you need to be handing out loans for us right now like
i don't know totally oh man you know how
i got the name billy my guess would
would have been adam sandler but now i don't know

(01:52):
whoa dude really okay yeah
that's actually true uh my buddy
actually came up with it my buddy chris he went
by he he went by
the wrestling name comatose and then when he
had his special kickbacks he would come out
of his comatose and become a character that

(02:14):
pipped flowers and all that stuff in the middle of a
match named spun but we would watch
billy madison every day after school and i
do mean every day after school we would call each other and we
would talk about things and stuff or whatever i
guess on the days that we didn't do wrestling or whatever but but yeah that's
how i got the name billy was and dude my friends in that group still call me

(02:38):
billy to that to this day so you can't get it can't get away from it i would
like I was kind of on the long shot, but I was also like.
Adam sandler i bet it i bet it's adam sandler the only time it's ever created an awkward situation,
my mom's name is billy it's billy with an
ie at the end not a very common name but but that's

(03:00):
her name and again my friend know me as billy
so they actually called a house once it
was a day that we were supposed to do wrestling or whatever and i forget
who was driving somebody had a car at that point and my
friend nathan who has a very deep
and menacing voice he's a he's a
big hairy teddy bear but he calls

(03:22):
the house he goes billy are we wrestling billy are we doing the thing today
billy i know where you live billy i'm coming to get you billy and my mom got
to the message machine voicemail for the newer kid but we actually had a machine
that had you know it It was an answering machine.
She got through before I could. And she goes, what the hell is this?

(03:50):
Yeah, I could see that. So why was this so threatening? I can't explain it.
That would be pretty wild. That's like the most unlikely scenario of things
to line up at the same time.
Yes. back when threatening messages on answering machines were a thing yeah.

(04:17):
Oh man dude i'm excited to get in today's podcast yeah
me too me too i know we've had a lot of
we have a lot of topics we want to discuss but like
i thought a a retrospective look
back at and i i went
back and did the math and i effed up you know look
back at the last 10 years of our personal game of the years and

(04:38):
i went back to 2013 that's not 10 years but 2013
was fun so we're including it anyways but we're doing a
our our last 11 years
of game of the years today we've got
a pretty comprehensive list a very definitive list and i'm
ready to sit down and discuss it with you my friend i i'm

(04:59):
totally down because like i said when we
were talking about it beforehand i i did i did my
homework i literally sat down i think for every
year i went through at least 300 games that was released that year and each
of my years has a list of between 7 and 15 games and then i decided at number
one for those games for every year so like i'm excited to talk about all the

(05:24):
little games that almost made it and everything i'm ready.
Yeah, it's definitely pretty cool, man. I like looking back on stuff and the
way that we have this podcast, it's I like to keep it evergreen.
You know, sometimes we talk about things that are happening,
you know, in the world of video games, you know, things that are happening right now.
But, you know, I like to I like to make this a an evergreen show.

(05:47):
Yeah. So you can listen to this at any time and be entertained.
Yeah. yeah i love the i love the idea of just
like most of our episodes are just kind
of like you know will always be relevant and there's
so many shows that like talk about
what's happening in that moment in video games oh
yeah and then you're talking about something in the moment in video games from

(06:09):
an outside perspective whatever you're talking about could turn out to be completely
wrong with the next like press release like oh nope that's not actually happening
anymore so yeah This entire episode that you spend an hour talking about this
thing that you thought was going to happen isn't happening.
So I like our episodes that are kind of just like, if you go back,
this list is always going to be my list for the years that it's listed for.

(06:32):
So I love that. Yeah, definitely.
One thing I will talk about that is kind of relevant now, I went to the movies
the last couple weekends. weekends so i've i've seen a couple new movies watched
uh alien romulus which was fantastic.
Dude it's it's so good drake and i went and it was kind of a as a reward for

(06:58):
you know starting school and you know killing it right now he's doing really
great and stuff so we had a we had I had a good day doing that.
So best movie I've seen all year. It was fantastic.
Practical effects for the Alvarez is the guy that remade the.
Evil Dead back in 2013, that really just gory, aggressive movie.

(07:20):
Dude, that game. That movie is so oppressive.
Just with the onslaught of just gore and nasty stuff.
But he took that, toned it down a little bit, and applied it to Alien,
and it was just fantastic.
10 out of 10 movie. Just loved it. I really wanted to go see it,

(07:41):
but Andrea is not interested.
Interested she's like it looks gross and i'm like it's alien
that's the point yeah yeah not it
and i'm like all right they're yeah they're
they're parts of it that are pretty gross definitely and i think i
mean i can probably get drake to see the second time if you
ever want to go watch it it's that it definitely it needs to be seen on a big

(08:03):
screen it's it's that good of a movie in my opinion so and then you know later
that day actually we went and
had torches again so i I took Drake to Torchy's and we had tacos again.
So it's in my, that is now in my restaurant repertoire.
Heck yeah. Wow. So we saw, we saw Beetlejuice too yesterday.

(08:26):
How was Beetlejuice? Very good.
Definitely did not need to happen in the, in the recent Pantheon of like old
actors coming back and doing franchises that they did in the eighties, like Ghostbusters and.
I wouldn't even factor The Flash into that because Michael Keaton came back in that.

(08:50):
I think Michael Keaton is probably the king of coming back now.
He was great as Batman in The Flash. In fact, it was the best part about that movie.
I don't care for The Flash but man, put Michael Keaton Batman in anything, I'm there for it.
Keaton, just with the way that,

(09:10):
beetlejuice is like he's not a very he's not a physical character he's not even
in the movie very much i mean in the first movie he was in it for like like
15 minutes maybe total screen time.
He's perfect so the rest of the movie is okay
i think it could have been it's one of those like this could have
been an email type movies it didn't

(09:32):
need to happen like we didn't need beetlejuice too yeah like
i'm finding this like i'm not
saying this as like as like an
insult because i honestly think that for for
the vibe and for like the the
era she's just like she's like a perfect sandman

(09:53):
but it's just because jenna ortega is like the
like dark 80s like
she's like the dark 80s character and like she just fits perfectly in all of
those roles like they're like I just heard about like they're like oh she was
like I would totally do a female Edward Scissorhands and it's like she would
be perfect in that even though we don't need another Edward Scissorhands but

(10:16):
she would be perfect like yeah she,
really fits that Tim Burton mold yes there it is that's what it is.
I really like Jenna Ortega. You know, she's got that, kind of like how Winona Ryder was exactly that.
You know, she was the Ted Byrne girl, kind of, you know, with Edward Scissorhands

(10:37):
and Beetlejuice, you know, and even kind of getting into, like, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
She was okay in that one, too. That movie's really funny.
It's not supposed to be funny, but it is funny. Especially, like,
Keanu Reeves and his fake English accent. Yeah. It's so good.
But yeah i like jenna otega quite a bit

(10:58):
you know she was good in scream you know but she she
really fits in the world of beetlejuice and she's not
the she's not the main focus of it and
you know beetlejuice isn't even the main focus of the movie but it serves its
purpose it's a really good trip down nostalgia lane it's pretty good in fact
like all like this is this has been the year of brett movies with you know ghostbusters

(11:22):
and beetlejuice and alien and stuff you know a lot of my top,
movies or franchises whatever you want to call them got sequels this year and surprisingly,
ghostbusters isn't like the way bottom of the list so yeah it's been a good
year for for brett movies yeah and you know something that i realized from the

(11:43):
last podcast what that i said that i was
talked about my uh my thoughts on the borderlands movie
and i never did because of reasons so i
can like follow up with that right here if you're
if you're finished yeah that's a good segue dude okay
so let me talk about as bretter's talking about good movies that were good i

(12:04):
might talk about a bad movie and it's the borderlands movie and i in no way
when i saw the casting for that movie that I think it was going to be good.
I did. I was not, I did not go to that movie because I was like,
maybe there's a chance this is going to be good. I knew it was going to be bad.

(12:25):
I am, like, a hardcore Borderlands fan. I have played through Borderlands 2
more times than I can count.
I've owned it for, like, every system that you can possibly buy it for,
except for, like, Switch at this point.
And I'm going to tell you what I think happened with the Borderlands movie.
Because the casting turned out to not be the problem.

(12:49):
So, my first complaint, right off the cuff, was Kevin Hart playing Roland.
Roland is this very straight-laced character, and then they pick arguably the
world's top comedian actor right now to play him. Why?
And, I mean, physically, Kevin Hart also does not match Roland.

(13:09):
I mean, Kevin Hart's pretty buff, but Roland's like this big,
tall dude. He's intimidating.
He has an intimidating presence. He's cold. He's quiet. That's the whole thing,
but Kevin Hart is not that.
But kevin hart does a pretty good job
playing him honestly kevin hart he's not
the character who's just constantly like flipping

(13:31):
out jokes like you would expect a kevin hart character to be he's just
like he's the straight man among all the other characters
yeah and like he's the
straight man but he's kevin hart so all of his line deliveries are
funny so when he starts talking in reaction to
everyone else whatever he says is funny so like it works
but that is pretty

(13:51):
much where everything breaks down tiny tina's
not funny she doesn't talk like tiny
tina she talks like if tiny tina was
born was a teenager in 2024 not a
teenager in 2016 so she
doesn't sound like her she just sounds like like like
a tiktok person like she just she talks like a kid on

(14:14):
tiktok so she's she's not funny
like the problem the problem is
her little like her like ghetto accent that she uses makes her saying things
like badonkadonk funny but when you change her accent to the valley girl accent
that she has in the movie it just sounds weird it's like like it's It's bad. Titan team is bad.

(14:40):
Krieg is good because he's just a psycho. He just says psycho stuff.
Yeah. I think Krieg's probably my favorite character from Borderlands.
Yeah. He's just a psycho. He says psycho stuff like he, he does what he's supposed to do.
But then the issue is first off, the Lilith character is terrible.

(15:01):
They don't, she doesn't, she's not Lilith at all.
Like she's like Lilith. fifth, like Lilith of like, I don't know,
had a hard career of drugs before she got to borderlands, like she just like,
she's not, she's not like.
Sarcastic and like like surprised and

(15:22):
shocked and like you know like in this world and everything's crazy she's the
opposite she's like i've seen everything i've done everything you know all i
want to do is sit around and drink like it's weird it's like who how did you
watch how did you play borderlands see lila's character and then turn her into
an alcoholic it's weird that,
that is weird and then look it's a matter of just

(15:44):
like the like the executive didn't understand it
the entirety of the Borderlands movie the
whole problem with it is the writer and the
director never played Borderlands don't know anything about it you can tell
by every moment of that show of that movie that the people who wrote the story
know nothing about Borderlands you have three characters in the story who have super moves.

(16:12):
Lilith's the only one who does it in the entire thing like Not once does,
like, Kevin Hart set down a drone or anything. Not once.
All he does is just, like, shoot guns. And, like, not even in a fun way.
Like, you know how Borderlands has all of these weird, like,
everything about the guns is, like, kind of the point.

(16:33):
Like, the guns are crazy looking. They all, you know, do weird stuff.
You know, the reload animations are, you know, kooky and crazy.
Nothing. It's just a bunch of people running around with guns.
Yeah. and like the the
most the biggest crime they did in this entire
thing is actually claptrap and it's crazy
it doesn't make sense how bad they

(16:55):
got claptrap like besides and
that's kind of i mean that's sad you
can consider that you know how good jack black is with everything
that he does yeah like it's not jack black at
all all jack black's livery is is funny but
like claptrap is they just they did the same thing that they did with lilith

(17:15):
like they took the actual character of claptrap and then went like what's the
exact opposite of this character we're gonna make him that instead so like they
were just trying to subvert like expectations or it it felt more like.
This is the kind of comedy that i'm comfortable
writing so i'm just gonna write him like this class

(17:37):
like so like claptrap's the big thing is
he really wants friends it's his entire
story like every time you run into claptrap he immediately he calls you friend
he like wants to hang out with you he follows you around because he doesn't
want to be lonely anymore he wants people around it's the whole thing it's his
whole story in the movie claptrap hates everyone and his entire goal

(18:02):
is to get away from from Lilith is the entire his entire goal is to get away from her.
There is like code in his DNA that like Willis mom put in there,
but this is, I'm getting into spoiler territory, but like there's code in his
DNA that like locks him to her.
And the only thing he wants in the whole story is for her to die so he can get away from her.

(18:27):
Interesting. And it's like, this is so far of being the literal opposite of what claptrap is.
Like, how did you mess this up this bad?
Like it's, and i'm like like i really wanted to like this movie i really wanted
to you know give it a chance i knew that it was going to be bad from the jump but i was willing to like,

(18:50):
really lean in and let the good but
bad come through but it was just bad but
the only thing i can say about it is and
then this kind of makes me sad is they capture
the world of borderlands perfectly like
the monsters look look awesome the

(19:11):
bandits look awesome the psychos look awesome the
cities look awesome like everything except for
when the actual characters show up looks perfect
and that's what really makes it sad because like you'll
like there's like a scene where like they you
know they're getting chased by psychos and they're literally in like the the

(19:33):
like vehicles that look almost exactly how they do in the show and people are
like jumping over pits and there are big giant sandworms and like explosions
and machine guns and everything and I'm like this looks perfect until people start talking.
It's like I would love to see them like like oh scratch that we just that was

(19:58):
that was a test run we're gonna make another one and just have the writers from
the games write the movie right well I think to,
looking at like how long that movie was in production you
know it's been in some form of production for
like the last 10 years or something like that you know kind

(20:18):
of like the the halo movie was you know
rumored forever and it probably just a product
of a different time you know it you know
look at you know stuff like the last of us that have come out and been great
you know hbo prestige television or the side of the hedgehog movies that completely

(20:39):
blew away everybody's expectations but we're on this really upward trend of, or even Twisted Metal,
which isn't really the best of the bunch, but it's still a really fun show.
These shows that are taking those expectations of all video game movies are

(20:59):
bad, or anytime video games translate into another medium, it's bad.
I think Borderlands is probably just a product of a different time,
and maybe they had invested so much money into it that they just had to get it out, but.
It's just a shame because Borderlands fans are very real and passionate and
deserve better, definitely.

(21:21):
But kind of like how I was talking about how Beetlejuice didn't really need
to happen, but I'm glad that it did.
I kind of wish that they would have just failed Borderlands or at least reworked
it, kind of like what Paramount did with Halo.
But I know Halo fans don't like that show. i

(21:41):
haven't seen it yet but you know they reworked that
from a future like movie into a maybe a
a television show fallout did
pretty well maybe just needs either
needed shelved or reworked into something that wasn't
what it was but yeah i mean
yeah i completely like you know i

(22:03):
i'm down with all of these you know like tv
shows and stuff that are coming from video game properties because
like even like look i don't even
like fallout that much but the
fallout show was great and i think one
of the key factors that just i'm gonna say for this movie because i'm sure there

(22:25):
are examples where they have done this and it's been bad because there have
been tons of bad video game adaptations but like the thing that they did was
like why take these characters who
have so much established story and then just like rewrite their stories from scratch.
Like it just, it seems like anytime that they, they're like,

(22:47):
they take the characters out of their original lore and create new lore for them.
Like, that's like, you're going into like the barrel of the gun.
You're either going to nail it or you're going to fail hard.
Know i don't know i i hopefully hopefully they're
able to get another crack at it i guess but like i

(23:07):
don't personally i don't care i i
know you do though that makes me that makes
me sad you know i just hopefully hopefully
they're able to get another crack at it because i think borderlands does deserve
better and you can definitely tell that that that somebody there thought that
movie was great because how they winded up with the borderlands 4 announcement

(23:32):
and all that good stuff they were clearly ready to ride a hype train and like
completely like the finger completely,
off the pulse yeah i i'm just like in that situation like if they were if like
i love borderlands so much that if they were like oh man we're making a borderlands

(23:54):
movie too i would still they'll be like, all right, me and Andrew are going
to go see it no matter what.
But like, I feel like in these, like there are some, like, I feel like in this
situation specifically, like you said, they, they had been talking about this movie for so long.
I feel like they had gotten to the point where they were like.
I mean, directors kept changing and everything kept changing.
And it's like, they got to the point where they were like, we gotta,

(24:17):
we gotta have someone write this thing and make it. So like they just did.
And like, they went for kind of, they, I feel like the person who wrote this
looked at the setting and then was like,
I'm just going to write the story, write the characters based off of the setting.
And it's like, the problem with Borderlands is it's setting completely 100%

(24:40):
contrast with how its characters emote and feel.
So if you're writing just based off of the setting, what they were going for was correct.
Like this moody gunslinger oh
yeah i gotta stand with both of my pistols pointing in
different directions shoot different guys at the same time but it's like but
if you actually played borderlands like one gun would be spewing out lava and

(25:06):
the other gun would be like clown heads flying off into space like it like yeah
you thought you had the right idea but you have to play the games to
get borderlands right all right i don't want to talk about this too much because
we got already got some got a long one ahead of us i don't want to get too wrapped
up in this we do we do so the,

(25:29):
this show is going to be broken up into we're going to go round route in style.
It's going to be our game of the years from 2013 onward and then we'll share our our a,
our pick so far of game of the year for 2024 which I think mine may have just
had the rug swept out from underneath it so please be excited alright so who wants to go first.

(25:54):
I am more than happy because I think I have like a like a pretty strong feeling
that both of us are going to have the same answer for 2013.
But I never know with you. So I can go first and then we can see if we both have the same answer.
Go for it. Okay. So tons of games that I love came out during this time period.

(26:14):
But like, I feel like there's one game that shines above all of those just in
its, you know, timelessness and its replayability.
And it's important in importantness to video
games so my my honorable mentions
are tiny brains i
don't know if you ever played tiny brains no but it's

(26:36):
just like it's like a four-player co-op puzzle game but
it just it hit me the right spot i played it
a bunch of times with a bunch of people over at the house like it's one of
those few like playstation games where you can play four
players and like i just like got into
it i love disgaea so i
gotta count disgaea 2 brighter darkness it's a

(26:58):
disgaea 2 with is the disgaea d2 is
the one with that's actually a continuation of the original disgaea with like
laharl and flan and etna so like the original characters actually got a sequel
and i love all the original characters of disgaea and like the weirdly complicated
characters that they end up being while on the outside being completely...

(27:23):
Goofy and stupid papers please there's another
one of those like games that like had a
lot of that has a lot of like like staying
power it has a lot of it had a lot of influence on a
lot of other games the stanley parable which is
an insanely good game like you can
get that thing for like two dollars now if you have not played

(27:44):
the stanley parable like go get the stanley parable and play that it's like
there are so many games that i would say are influenced by the stanley parable
at this point like not even funny the walking dead season two i love the walking
dead i'm always any of the walking deads that came out during this period are probably on this list,
and then my number one game is the last

(28:06):
of us i can't not put
that game at number one like oh wow all it
is like timeless it's
like one of the best emotional stories
told in a video game ever i mean the show
is remarkable like they managed to
make a show about a video game and it is in in my top five of best tv shows

(28:32):
of all time like you get a number one from video games and that same story gets
a number one in tv shows like it could not be the number one for this list for
this year for me. So my number one is Last of Us.
I had a really hard time with 2013. 2013 was a really big year for me.
I loved so many games that had come out.

(28:54):
I did not pick The Last of Us, though. Oh, okay.
Although The Last of Us is one of my all-time favorites. And you're going to
see that coming up, too, where I really struggle with it.
I actually picked Bioshock Infinite. Okay, yeah.
Yeah, I can see that for you. I died.
I had a hard time with The Last of Us when it came out. I was,

(29:17):
Drake was very small, about a year old, a little over.
And I had, my only time for video games was at night. So I was playing,
I didn't have headphones or anything like that, so I was playing with it really quiet.
I did not vibe with The Last of Us at first.
It really wasn't until it hit PlayStation 4 that I really, truly vibed with

(29:40):
it. But Bioshock, the reason why I picked it was several fold.
The gameplay, I think, is great. Those games are, I think they call those immersive sims now.
But, I mean, it's a story-based action game to really boil it down.

(30:00):
But the story was fantastic. It really played with a lot of my expectations of multiverse.
And you know at a time where multiverse really
wasn't like in your consciousness at the time right you know the way that it
folded original bioshock into it all the stuff with comstock the the themes

(30:21):
that it was dealing with from violence to oppression to racism classism.
I still play it to this day and I'm still in wonder of it.
My pick for 2013 is Bioshock Infinite.
I mean, just like I played Bioshock Infinite, but I didn't connect with it like

(30:45):
you said, like you were just talking about.
But like now that I'm thinking about Bioshock Infinite being in this year,
I was like, OK, yeah, that's that's totally reasonable that you would pick Bioshock.
One of the reasons why I wanted to go back to 2013 was so I could talk about Bioshock.
That's fine. That's fine. I expect.
I was like, I expect that thing less. There was an action recently at work. Oh, I'm sorry, dude.

(31:06):
No, go ahead. oh i was gonna say like i i think one of our episodes last year
was me waxing poetic about bioshock infinite so i don't really have much more
to say on it but that i i think that game's perfect,
all right well i will do my 2014 this one was a little this one was a little harder for me.

(31:31):
Because i while i there are a bunch of games in this year that i think are great like none of them
like pop out like like last of us does for 2013 so this one is a little this
one's a little weird but like my honest the game that i think i spent the most
time with that came from 2014,
is bayonetta 2 honorable mention

(31:55):
yeah honorable mention to transistor gotta mention pt came out this year then
i would also say while i played a lot of the borderlands the pre-sequel it's
my least favorite of all the borderlands games and that includes borderlands 3 so that says something,
the evil within i played a lot of the evil within so that's on my list five

(32:20):
nights at freddy's it came out this year so yeah i gotta say something about
that and then i'm always going to be a fighting games fan.
So Smash for the Wii U came out this year, but it's... Smash for the Wii U is
kind of my least favorite Smash game, so...
I was like, it just, there were tons of stuff that I had played in this year,
but like none of it was like, I think all of these games, this game is excellent.

(32:44):
I just like, there's some stuff I played this year. So then Bayonetta 2 was
one of those games where like when it came out, I bought it on release and I
played it and I played it until I beat it. I beat it and then I played it again.
So like for me, it's Bayonetta 2.
I just, I always love, I've always loved the Bayonetta series.
Series i think it's this weird mix of

(33:05):
like i mean it's not even a mix i
would just say like it's like cut from the same cloth
of devil may cry but devil may
cry yeah devil may cry goes off
in this like hyper like i
wouldn't say hyper masculine because like people like immediately hear
that hyper masculine they're like oh you mean that means you think it's

(33:28):
bad it's like no it does that doesn't mean i think it's bad
but like like dante is like the man's
man of like a japanese game he's just doing
his own thing having his own you know like having his doing things his way kicking
ass taking names eating pizza like he's just like i don't i like like like i

(33:50):
like i said like that hype me saying hyper masculine was gonna immediately make
people be like oh you did that
mean you hate it? Cause no, no, I think it's awesome.
I think Dante is an awesome character. It like watching him on screen is one
of my favorite things ever, but like, yeah, he, he's surprisingly well-written too.
Yeah. Yeah. Like if you actually pay attention to his story,
if you can get past all the pizza and like weird gun jokes,

(34:15):
like he, he's a well-written character and there's tons of depth to a story
and all of his quote unquote silliness is, uh.
Partially because he's, like, very damaged and then partially because he needs
to keep people who aren't strong
enough to hang with him away from him because his life is dangerous.
Anyways, but, like, Bayonetta is, like, the hyper feminine version of that.

(34:38):
Like, she's this, like, super sexy character but, like, super sexy for her and,
like, not for everybody else. She doesn't give a crap what anyone else thinks.
And, like, the only dude who ever shows up in the story is, like,
this guy that she basically hates and tortures.
So like like the davido guy yeah like
i like i love her character

(34:59):
and then to put her in a put a character like
that in a badass action game is just
like i could watch this i could play this all day i could play i could go back
and play bayonetta one and two all day every day for the next year and i would
be totally happy it's the action is great everything feels good the you know
like the witch time and everything like you've it's one of those games where you definitely

(35:22):
feel like you are in control mistakes that
are made are your mistakes you you
know like you never feel like the game's being unfair to you you
never feel like the bosses are unfair you never feel like anything's unfair
it just feels like once you master it you just feel like you're just this like
untouchable god floating around the game but like because you have hit that

(35:44):
level of skill not because like the game makes it so easy like yeah bayonetta awesome i I love it.
There's try and keep this in some type of like timeframe. Bayonetta.
Awesome. Love it. Yeah.
I love Bayonetta. It's so good. I actually, I struggled with 2014.
There was a couple of years that I really struggled with.
My 2014 is shovel night. Yeah. Yep.

(36:07):
Which dude, I know Aaron, Aaron knows I, I, I, I struggle with 2014.
Like, you know, Mario cart eight come out and came out in 2014,
14, the Duncan country tropical freeze was there to transistor,
just like Aaron said, I really struggled with whether or not I wanted to put PT on there.
Because I think that TT as a game.

(36:33):
Influenced so much going forward it
changed resident evil forever it changed
horror games it changed the way that we looked at you
know kojima it can change the way that we looked at kanami silent hill everything
but yeah i i picked i picked shovel knight though shovel night was an amalgamation

(36:54):
of everything that i love about classic epic video video games you know it's
It's Mega Man in the best ways. It's DuckTales in the best ways.
It's got little bits of Super Mario Brothers in it.
It's challenging, but really, I think people overblow the challenge to it.
Because it's really not that bad, just learning boss patterns and all that.

(37:16):
But it really brought me back to a time where I was much smaller and worse at video games.
I've I've I feel as
I've gotten older I've gotten better at video games I love playing
hard stuff I love playing things that challenge me or you'll
make me think about things in a different way and shovel light was

(37:38):
a celebration of a lot of things that I love and put it all into this night
nice neat package my one complaint about that game is I really wish Yacht Club
would move on and I love I love Shovel Knight and everything that they did with it,
from the free DLC to the different modes and all that good stuff.

(37:59):
But man, where's Shovel Knight 2?
Really? Yeah, I'm with you.
Shovel Knight was on my list, but it was one of those games that I know from...
Just like reviews you talking about it other people who i respect in like their
gaming space talking about it i know that shovel knight is like a really really

(38:23):
good game i just i have never i have never been in a position where like i own
shovel knight i have it on my ds i've never been,
in the position where i'm like i'm finally gonna sit
down and play shovel knight i know that i will love it
as soon as i do i've just never gotten there there's never
been a better time to get into shovel night 2 just with

(38:46):
how much they've added to it and improved it
and it's just it's such
a good game so all right now i'm
gonna hit you with one of my weird ones now we've moved into 2015 so 2015 has
a crap ton of games in here that i played the crap out of 2015 was one of the

(39:12):
hardest decisions that I had to make on this list.
Because you guys know I'm a huge Dragon Ball Z fan. Dragon Ball Z Xenoverse is in 2015.
I'm a big giant Tales of, Tales of, I guess is what you would call the series,
but like Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Zanestra is in here.
I love Splatoon. Splatoon is in here. Life is Strange is in here.

(39:34):
Undertale is in here. Rocket League is in here. but the winner of this one was
city skies lot skitty cities skylines for me oh wow yes.
I have always been since the original sim city a giant sim city fan i don't
know what in my brain allows me to be the biggest fan of.

(40:00):
Lengthy structured jrpgs and
city simulator games
but like somehow i'm the giant a giant fan of these two wildly different genres
of games and like when the mood hits me and i want to sit down and build a city

(40:20):
i the addiction is like no other like i when i'm playing a city simulator game
i can like i can lose days to
it weeks months to it like when i
first started playing city skylines and then
i started seeing like youtube
tutorials i'm like oh man are

(40:43):
you having this problem with your city well if you build more railroads
and less and less streets you can
get rid of your traffic problems by going
in and you know setting up all of these train stations
all around your city and then it allows more people to move on
trains and then less on roads and like once once
you take all of that city building and then

(41:05):
provide tutorials on how you can make your city more efficient it's like that's
like my kryptonite i i spend so much time I'm looking up tutorials on how to
make my cities better. It's crazy.
So, Cities Skylines is mine for 2015. Hi, Dom.

(41:33):
How's it going? I'm doing great. Okay. All right. Daddy's recording, so go and play.
All right, guys. My 2015. Like I said, there was a lot of really good games that came out that year.
Metal Gear Solid V. Mad Max is another really good one.
Mine's Batman Arkham Knight. And I know a lot of people were really bummed about

(41:57):
the Batmobile, but they can...
No. You can get out of here.
Looking at my PlayStation, it tells you the hours played on it.
I have 202 hours in Batman Arkham Knight.
How? I have no clue. but Arkham Knight
the Arkham series just in general is a fantastic video

(42:18):
game it's especially like Arkham Asylum really took like the 3D brawler you
know adventure style game Metroid whatever you want to call it and brought it
into you know the modern the modern era Arkham Knight took that story of,
where Batman and the Joker were especially

(42:40):
following city added in a new
slash you know not so new character of the
arkham knight i mean i won't i won't spoil that
one but adding in
this you know the scarecrow he you know him coming back from from
asylum and to and do just this massively beautiful
and amazing amazing product

(43:02):
you know it's a great brawler it's a great puzzle game that was
a crazy platinum trophy for me it was like i think that game i'm looking at
my playstation trophies right now it's that 0.7 percent of people that played
it got the platinum in it not a not an easy one by any means but it was definitely
very fulfilling i put the majority of my i bought my ps4 for that game.

(43:28):
The arkham knight had it was supposed to come out you know years before that
but but that's that's the main reason why i bought my ps4 was to have arkham
knight and it didn't disappoint loved it.
All right i my thought was thought you
were going to be was thought it was going to be the witcher 3 i left

(43:49):
up there too yeah i thought that was what i thought your your 2015 was going
to be i spent a lot of time with witcher 3 but yeah i arkham's got to take it
dude wb like their publishing label had a crazy 2015 because they published
the witcher 3 they had the arkham they
had mad max which dude mad max was a very close

(44:11):
second for me i adore mad max
so and that's another one i've got a lot of time in i
never beat it but that game is phenomenal
it's on the arkham engine so it's like
a open world car combat type stuff
and then assassin's creed style base stuff oh
it's fantastic and just because i

(44:32):
i tried to like make sure that i
threw something thing that was indie on
every one of my lists of games that i listed and i
wanted to make sure i talked about all the indie games on my when we talked
about them axiom verge came out in 2015 and
that game's excellent yeah it is that is the best 2d metroid game fight me i

(44:55):
absolutely love that game and i remember playing the crap out of it so i wanted
to make sure that i mentioned it So I don't know if this podcast is ever important anywhere.
I want to make sure that Axiom Verge gets its flowers. So I don't hear anybody
talk about it and I want to talk about it. Yeah.
It's criminal how that's a one person video game. Yes.

(45:16):
One guy made Axiom Verge. One dude. So like. Yeah.
Want to make sure that game gets its flowers and not just like
he didn't i don't think he sort a lot of stuff out he did
the music he yeah like just like
pick up axiom verge for like five seconds
and just look at how gorgeous all the pixel

(45:37):
art in that game is and one guy made that
like yeah okay 2016 this
was by far my hardest year
to do because the
original persona 5 came out in 2016 tales

(45:57):
of berserker which is my favorite tales
game pokemon go came out
in 2016 yeah jackbox party
3 came out in 2016 which is my favorite jack jackbox party
i used to play the crap out of that dead by
daylight came out in 2016 final fantasy
15 came out 2016 the walking

(46:19):
dead a new frontier came out in 2016 all
of those games like outside of
the walking dead just because i think the
first walking dead is the best walking dead game all of
those games in a a year by themselves would
probably come up as my in my number one or number two but
my number one which i could not deny was overwatch overwatch the like the original

(46:47):
overwatch before all of the drama happened before all that stuff came out about.
The studio i played so much of overwatch.
Like an insane i'm not even gonna talk about it because i've already talked
about it on this podcast before, but there was no way I couldn't put Overwatch as number one for 2016.
It wouldn't have been right. I would have been lying if I didn't put Overwatch as number one.

(47:11):
So, I have not even touched Overwatch 2. I don't plan to.
But, Overwatch 1...
Was being like there there
are hero shooters that exist and they have been before
overwatch but overwatch took the hero shooter genre and a made it into like

(47:34):
took the like tried to make it like a hero shooter with a story that was controlled
by the the developers and it evolved over time
and like you know introducing more
characters all over the place and the characters designs
the characters play styles were some of the craziest play styles that you could

(47:57):
play at the time when when overwatch came out like like freaking wrecking ball
is like the craziest fighting character style i think i've ever seen and somehow
they managed to balance him amongst all of these
other characters like diva has a freaking mech that you can just jump out of
and blow up and then just run around as a person with a gun and shoots like

(48:19):
in like a competitive hero shooter it was just like that game had my attention
and would not let it go for i would say two years.
And because of that alone i could not make it number one on this list that's
awesome i actually I kind of, that's the one game on this whole thing that I

(48:41):
think I probably could have called a mile away.
Yeah. I had a feeling that's what your 2016 would be.
Mine was tough, not from a game perspective, but 2016 was probably the toughest
year of my whole life. It's the year I got divorced.
Went from being full-time dad to part-time dad, and it sucked.

(49:01):
So gaming kind of took a backseat for me, even though I was playing a ton of stuff.
Ratchet and Clank, the remake for that one, came out in 2016.
Titanfall was great, but my pick for 2016 is Uncharted 4, A Thief's End. That was...
Was that was one that really got me through everything and

(49:24):
drake's a familiar character drake's the
name of my son too not not related but
you know drake's a he's a familiar character he's he's human which i love about
about his character he's got human human problems going on on top of being a
badass adventurer explorer and he's got the indiana joan vibe going with

(49:47):
a little bit of Chandler Bing from Friends.
He's just kind of a goofball, but he's a badass when he needs to be.
Uncharted 4 was a really good wait, quote-unquote, in the series,
which, I mean, it's obviously going to continue.
The Lost Legacy had come out the next year after that, but for me,

(50:11):
Uncharted is PlayStation, playstation up there
with you know kratos and god of war and ratchet
and clank i'm a playstation fan through and through always have been always
will be uncharted it was a really fun pivot from the grimdark stuff with and

(50:31):
i mean that in the most loving way from the last of us to going back to,
uncharted using the things that they learned from from the last of us and applying
them to uncharted and you know the the more grounded story there's not is there's
not any supernatural elements to it um like there were with the the yeti stuff
from uncharted 2 which fantastic game i love that one.

(50:55):
But yeah that's that's my pick is uncharted 4 thief's end and i another one
of those things were like yep i could totally see that being brett's pick i
got a question for you though,
yeah just as well or do you
did you like write down a list like do you have like
a physical list well you should send it send it to me when you're done because

(51:18):
like i will i like i like looking over what games that you were like i think
this game is awesome let's see if i played it because i have uncharted 4 and
i haven't i have not played it yet the only thing that i didn't do that you're
doing is I did not put any honorable mentions in there strictly because I wanted

(51:39):
it. I wanted mine to be very definitive.
I had like, I, I, I have this really weird.
It's my adhd i don't know but dude i remember everything
from those years and i can i can
tell you like certain certain games
that came out in certain years and what i was what i was feeling at

(51:59):
that in the exact point in time and the other things i was playing around it
and stuff so i'm pulling some of those from my brain just things that made or
games that made me feel in that year but yeah that's the only thing i didn't
do was honorable mentions although there There are a couple years where I've
got a little slash in there,
and I'm having a really hard time picking, but I've got it.

(52:23):
I am terrible with years. I don't remember when anything came out.
Like I've already said, I had to go through and just look at the games that came out in that year.
I literally said 300 games and then write down what I thought,
you know the games that like jumped out at me of what like stuff i played and

(52:44):
stuff i liked and then like decide from there i i don't remember years at all
like done yeah okay i will say too this is the last thing about 2016.
You mentioned final fantasy 15 and that game is phenomenal and that actually
that was another one that really helped me through depression and all all kinds of other stuff.

(53:05):
So I love, love, love five, 50, 15.
Awesome game. All right. So 2017, 2017 has some great games in it,
but like, like I tried to base mine.
I tried to be as, as emotional and as nostalgic as I possibly could be because

(53:27):
like there are better games in 2017 on a technical standpoint,
but like emotionally, Unfortunately, this game had to win.
Like, of all the games that are in this list, besides Cuphead,
this is the only one that I play right now.
So, my winner for 2017 was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

(53:48):
A great one and i honestly like i know we said no
remasters and all that i don't that's a
whole new game yeah in my opinion yeah i
i think that game totally cracks so go
for it yeah mario kart 8 deluxe like me and andrea like we booted this thing
up like two weeks ago when we're playing it like i it could i could not put

(54:11):
it on the list like it's i mean there's a reason that there There hasn't been a Mario Kart 9 yet.
And it's because Mario Kart Deluxe is just sitting there taking up all the space.
Perfect. Yeah. Everything about it is awesome. It's a perfect video.
Everything about it is awesome.
Like, down to, like, the music is awesome.

(54:31):
You can't, like, maybe it could just be that, like, we've been in this Mario Kart for so long.
But, like, the controls in Mario Kart 8 just feel perfect.
Like, I don't ever remember being like, why did that happen?
And like oh man i turned that corner no it's everything
in mario kart everything mario kart 8 deluxe is perfect the game is perfect

(54:53):
all of the levels are everything you want it to be and because it's mario kart
8 deluxe you get all of these like nostalgia levels and then they added new
levels to give you more nostalgia and it's like mario kart 8 is so good that like it makes.
Not like worse per se but it
like takes away some of the value of the other

(55:14):
mario kart games because there's almost no reason to go back to
any of them there's like unless you have like a
very very specific level that you
really love in a previous mario kart game that just doesn't
exist in mario kart 8 like that's the only reason i
could ever think to play besides double dash besides double dash
it's the only reason i could think you could possibly

(55:35):
like i'm not like the the super fan of
double dash but like it has a unique mechanic
that no other mario kart games has so i could see
like yeah if you love that you then you could
go back and play double dash but like other than that just
play mario kart 8 deluxe like why not and then
yeah all the music is awesome visuals are

(55:56):
awesome you got every freaking character you could possibly imagine like
freaking links in there just mario kart 8 deluxe is awesome i don't understand
I don't know what they're gonna do like are they they're gonna get to like they
might have to get to like a Smash Brothers level where they just start throwing
in random characters from all these other like.

(56:17):
All these other franchises to like make a game
that is worth buying instead of
just playing Mario Kart 8 some more like I genuinely don't
know what they're gonna do to try and make Mario Kart Mario Kart 9 I don't know
what they'll have to do to make that game worth buying yeah and i'm gonna get
into it with my pick too but i almost think that nintendo has to kind of go

(56:41):
back to basics with with their next games smash brothers mario kart.
You almost it's the ultimate
and the deluxe and all that good stuff like you
just you can't go any farther with it the only thing you can do for going forward
is either just port it or you know port it and maintain or just completely go

(57:03):
back to basics and i yeah like i don't know what like like you're saying i don't
know what they're gonna do if they ever i mean they kind
of like smashes over but like if they ever try and make another smash like i
don't know like you just have they'll just have to make like like i don't know
it'll have to be either so far in the future when they finally do it that like

(57:27):
there's a whole new set of characters for them to pull from.
Or like like you said they'll just have to like it's mario luigi and peach you're
just gonna have to deal with this because we can't yeah there's nothing we could
do that would make it as good as.
Ultimate so like whatever right
all right so kind of maintaining or

(57:47):
moving on from what he's saying mine is
and i struggled i guess but it's
gotta be it's gotta be legend of zelda breath of
wild as much as i've
kind of turned on it and i have i i
don't think that there's a better game that year honestly i

(58:08):
mean you could argue for super mario odyssey which i
think is probably the best 3d mario game it's probably
the best mario game just in general near automata came
out that year and nears near is great as well
i love near horizon zero dawn
which is one of the prettiest games i've ever seen in
my life yeah breath of wild ruined everything going forward

(58:29):
i could not play horizon for months after that because i
wanted to climb everything thing zelda is one
of the is one of the main reasons why i got into gaming it was
zelda it was mega man it was castlevania breath of
the wild took what the original legend of
zelda was where they just dump you in a world and say go it was the perfect

(58:51):
version of that somehow they went from skyward sword which is one of the most
hand-holdy zelda experiences of it wasn't one of It was the most hand-holdy Zelda experience.
The least hand-holdy. And it's completely changed the perception of Nintendo.

(59:12):
It made the Switch as successful as it is, or at least it helped it out of the gate.
It was the best-selling Zelda game of all time. Still is, as far as I know.
It completely turned Nintendo around, especially coming off of the Wii U, where Wii U was very...

(59:33):
The vision was there i think you know especially going
into the switch but it was
the execution of things but breath of the wild and the switch completely just
changed everything around so i mean i in my opinion like it's and it's still
being it's still being talked about to this day you know like it was so successful

(59:54):
successful that the next zelda game was literally just.
You know more breath of the wild you know
yeah it's perfect and and and the
thing that i will say is for i mean audience i have never played breath of the
wild not because i have anything against it i just it's not super high on my

(01:00:15):
list because i have so many other things that i want to play and i've never
let breath of the wild reach the top of the list without pummeling
it down by other games but my my
wife is like the biggest zelda fan she loves
her some zelda like my wife
is one of those people who like when she's feeling down
she'll boot up a link to the past and just sit and play

(01:00:36):
it until she beats it so that's the other side
of it too breath of the wild was
my passing of the torch moment to my
son you know i i played it
ali and i were we're just starting dating i
think we were three or four months in when breath of
wild came out so she and i played it together it got her into video games my

(01:00:58):
son was five when the switch came out he got the switch in breath of the wild
for his birthday that year that's the game that grew with him and like now he's
you know he's a huge zelda fan just it was a big it was a big game for the
alt millers and it's a big game for a lot of people and like it's one of the.

(01:01:20):
One of those like massive turning points I think in the video game industry
just where everybody looks at it and
says that game kind of like what Skyrim was you
know or you know Ocarina of
Time or Mario 64 just like that linchpin of
just like hey this is this is what this is
what this is all about so yeah yeah

(01:01:42):
and my wife is one of those like I
said she's one of those people who loves and then like i i
had been i had spent the entirety of
our relationship trying to get her to play a 3d zelda game she refused she refused
she wouldn't play you know ocarina of time matura's mask freak twilight princess

(01:02:05):
nothing she just refused would not do it and then one day i was like i'm I'm doing it.
I'm buying breath of the wild and I'm going to sit you on the switch and I'm
going to sit you in front of it.
You're going to play it for 30 minutes and if you don't like it, we'll, we'll return it.
And like she started playing it and literally like played through the entire

(01:02:27):
game and like the following like five weeks or something and like was.
Literally like foaming at the mouth salivating when the sequel came out.
Like she, like, it got
her to play 3d zelda just because it was that
good and i was like i was like so i

(01:02:48):
have i have no argument about breath the
wild being considered the best game that came out in 2017 that
that is that is it is an equally amazing
choice you'll see on the flip side of that
too like that was my that was my retirement from
zelda that was like you know what it's never ever gonna
get better than this and i have i

(01:03:09):
i did play a little bit of tears of the kingdom just to kind
of see what it was and all i hate it i can't do it you know
i'm not gonna say i hate it i don't hate it
it's just not it's not it's not for me anymore so
anyway i'm cool i'm cool with moving on from there
if you are it's totally acceptable it can some games
can just not be for you and if they're good okay 2018 this

(01:03:32):
one was another very challenging year for me to decide here are a bunch of good
games that came out in 2018 and i i forgot to say my indie game for 2017 and
my indie game for 2017 is cuphead with no question cuphead's awesome 100 yeah 2018.

(01:03:54):
Okay i have not i don't think i've successfully
guessed what yours is gonna be yet but i
think i've got what yours is gonna
be so i'm just gonna skip over that
one because i know you're gonna want to talk about it and we don't need to go on
it twice okay so spider-man came
out the ps4 spider-man and

(01:04:14):
that game's excellent 10 out
of 10 game like they captured spider-man's
essence perfectly in that game love it smash brothers ultimate also love it
i'm not gonna forget my indie choices because i've got three of them for 2018
hades hades is awesome if you haven't played hades just like put down this podcast

(01:04:36):
go play hades come back because hades is awesome.
My guy just in general just never met him yeah that was oh god he's so freaking good,
my other two indies are monster prom because monster prom is awesome and uh
balloons tower defense six i know that sounds insane if you know the balloons tower defense series.

(01:05:01):
It's basically just a flash game that
has continued to evolve since we were in for it wasn't
i was in middle school but i
play so much of that game when it randomly hits me
and decides i want to that doesn't want to make me play it and they've done
so much with it like the game like
talking about one developer games like that game

(01:05:23):
was created by one guy in flash
on new grounds and now
it is a game with like eight sequels and
like the balloons tower defense six is like
so popular that it's on the netflix
game library as like to
come from someone on new grounds to that i can't

(01:05:46):
not mention you that's crazy but two
games came up as my number one and i made the decision
this is you know clear in stone i'm not being a waffler here
the two games were monster hunter world
which i love i love monster
hunter it's awesome it's so fun to play i mean and just the idea that they were

(01:06:07):
like man what could we do to to really amp this game up a little bit just give
you a little what if you could jump on top of the monster and ride on its back
and stab it in the back while you're riding on it and i was like i am sold.
Yeah but the winner of this is very obviously dragon ball fighters because i

(01:06:27):
i couldn't not it's the best dragon ball game that's ever been released and
it's one of the best fighting games I feel like has ever come out and to have a licensed game,
Licensed anime game. I'm even going to go that far.
Because there have been some licensed games that come out. But normally licensed

(01:06:48):
anime games roll in at about 6 level.
Dragon Ball FighterZ is a 10. It is one of the best games that I've ever played.
It is up until it stopped being in tournaments. And then they got a little crazy
with the most recent updates.
But it was one of the most balanced fighters that I've ever played in my life.

(01:07:12):
If you have got the time and the skill, any character in Dragon Ball FighterZ is viable, all of them.
Like, if you do a tier list of all the Dragon Ball FighterZ characters up into
the last two updates, I'm going to be very clear about that.
If you do a tier list of all the Dragon Ball FighterZ characters.
I think the lowest person is probably Roshi, and Roshi comes at probably like a C.

(01:07:38):
There is no D characters in the game, and there are no F characters in the game.
I i think it's i think
dragon ball fighters is awesome and watching like
people who really play know the
game and like i think some of
like the high like the the highest tournament

(01:07:58):
fights and fighters i think some of them are some of
those fights are literally beautiful yeah i
agree that's the the guilty
gear people right yes yes and they
did an amazing job well those were
always like low-key some of the best fighting games ever
the guilty gear series is awesome and the fact that

(01:08:19):
they got the dragon ball license like just makes it
better arcs is just they just they put
their whole foot in that game and like i
remember when people saw how good it
was anime fans were were complaining because they
were like where's the Naruto fighters where's the
where's the one piece fighters where's the bleach fight like they

(01:08:42):
wanted their game to get the same treatment as Arcus did Dragon Ball Z that's
how good it was yeah yeah I it's one I wish I was good at and I just yeah I
it's a great game and all that I just I'm not good at that game I'm terrible at fighters and.

(01:09:03):
I have my games, you know, I can still do street fighter and all that stuff.
I'm actually playing darks, our stalkers right now, like as we're podcasting,
I've been playing dark stalkers this whole time.
So I'm not good at it, but I, I love watching people that are really good at
those games and like tournaments and all that good stuff.

(01:09:24):
Evo is really fun to watch. And Dragon Ball fighters is one of the, just the best games.
If you, you if you closed your eyes or i
guess close your eyes would defeat the purpose but you know if you didn't see
that there were like health bars above it and stuff you would think you're watching
the tv show yeah and that's probably the best thing you can say about yeah 100

(01:09:46):
it's just i think like you said i like you were saying i think that they were
able to and like i feel like some other
animes could get into this realm but like
i feel like dragon ball z is just
one of those shows that like it fits
the style that they decided to make the the fights like

(01:10:07):
look so well that like like you said like if you're if you're not looking at
the health bars and you're just kind of watching it kind of just looks like
you're playing one of the characters and they're just you're watching the show
but you're controlling the person on the on the screen like It's perfect. I love it. 10 out of 10.
2018 was very hard for me. And I know Aaron knows why.

(01:10:33):
Two games in my opinion that said above the rest i'm
gonna i have to pick one of them i do and it's
really it's really hard but it's my favorite
game of all time it's god of war yes i told i was like i was like that's what
he's gonna pick so i'm not even gonna talk about it because i know that he's
gonna pick god of war i didn't know it was gonna be close i figured god of war

(01:10:54):
was gonna be the standout so it is close because the other game is red dead redemption 2,
and my gosh dude I still think about Red Dog a different too quite a bit,
and I'll go into that on a different show because this show ain't about that
it's about the game of the year that year and it was far and away God of War

(01:11:17):
2 or God of War 2 Jesus Christ God of War,
they took a character that I loved and.
Completely reinvented him he
wasn't I always, I will maintain Kratos has always been a great character.
Multi-layered, all that good stuff.
But they took a combo-based RPG Jesus Christ, I can't even talk today.

(01:11:44):
That's how good God of War is, guys.
But they took a combo-based action video game and turned it into a sprawling role-playing game.
Flawlessly. Obviously, Sony Santa Monica took Kratos, which a lot of people
consider him as a one-dimensional angry character, and turned him into a quiet, reserved,

(01:12:10):
still angry, but deep character that cared for his son, but didn't know how to tell him how to.
This rage inside of him but didn't know what to do
with it wanted to keep all that you know hidden away and you know just live

(01:12:30):
his life and then all this other stuff happens with his you know his wife passes
away and you know he's got to learn how to be a dad you know that is the heart of.
Game dads in my opinion um you know
just dad stories will always get me and i know that
people are calling that game like sad dad simulator now and

(01:12:53):
that's what sony is blah blah blah but you know what like show
me any other developer console maker
publisher what have you that is
doing anything of what sony santa monica is doing and i
will i will i will tell you that you're wrong yeah and
like the thing that like people like

(01:13:13):
don't like like the thing that i feel like
is one of those things that like people don't understand about the character
about like the character even when they're playing the game
if you're not if you're not like mentally and
emotionally ready for it it's like he is
he's the god of war and he spent his entire life fighting
so like him passing down that

(01:13:35):
information that he's gained over the
time that he's been the god out of war is him being a dad that's him being a
dad he's passing his knowledge to him even if it's you know in combat even if
it's like people like you just don't get how deep it is yeah it's in my opinion
it's it's one of the it's one of the few video games that are.

(01:13:59):
Perfect it doesn't lean on nostalgia dude it could and and sometimes it should but it doesn't
it doesn't sit here and and beat you over the head with like oh you remember
this oh you remember that no it builds it builds and it builds and it builds and it.

(01:14:24):
There's a couple nostalgic moments and then we get to that part where he goes
and gets the things and then it's like oh yeah yeah and that's and it's a big
moment in the story he doesn't he He doesn't want to do it, but he has to do it.
They reference Athena and Zeus in passing, which is pretty amazing.

(01:14:45):
It's a reboot for all intents and purposes, but it's also a continuation if you decide.
If you're coming from the old games and all that.
Yeah, I could sit here and talk about Red Dead Redemption 2,
and I think that that game is also perfect, but god of war just for what it

(01:15:06):
is and for what it means to me that's that's my 2018,
I was like, I was looking at my list and it's the first thing on my list.
And I was just like, I'm just going to skip over that. And we're just going
to keep going down. So I know Brett wants to talk about it.
There's one other year coming up that I actually have. It's not as much of a,
of a, of a contest, but I have another year coming up. That's, that's hard as well.

(01:15:31):
And yeah, we'll, we'll get to that.
All right. so for 2019 this
was this would have been difficult for
me but it's it's it's persona 5 royal i can't even pretend that this is not
like i didn't play persona 5 royal in 20 2019 but like when i got basically

(01:15:57):
i was waiting for it to come out on switch because like Like I had been wanting to play it,
but I knew that at the time me and Andrea were,
you know, we were, Andrew was pregnant at the time I was working in,
I was working like an hour away from home.
So like I'm commuting an hour and I'm commuting an hour back.

(01:16:20):
I didn't have a lot of time to just sit down and play video games because like,
that's like every day it's like fricking 10, 12 hours of work.
Coming home like i needed to spend time with my wife and
she was pregnant at the time so it was like i definitely can't
be you know i didn't have a lot of time to game so i was waiting for this to come
out on switch so i would have some time you know i could take whenever i

(01:16:41):
wanted just little pieces of time to play it and then when i played persona
5 i got so addicted to that game i was like persona 5 sucked my whole brain
out and i just like i played the crap out of it i love I love that game so much.
I love all the characters, even the ones who are bad.

(01:17:04):
I love all of the dynamics. I love like the gameplay loop. I, you know.
Five has some of the only music
that i have ever heard in a game that rivals my
love for chrono trigger and secret of mana music like yeah
like think about how old those games are

(01:17:26):
persona five is the first game that has come out where
it has music in it that is in the
same category for me as secret of mana and
chrono trigger music like like for
context like i i was taking persona five
music and when the when the
radio went down at my last job i work i work at a bank i

(01:17:48):
was playing persona 5 music there and it fits and people
were like bopping to it like in the lobby it
was pretty great god everybody loves that freaking rivers
in the desert like it is
i would say of all video game songs
it's like top three oh yeah like

(01:18:08):
I can't like for it
just it's hard to even imagine because I play RPGs
and JRPGs in my opinion have literally the best music in video games and like
for one game to break 10 Final Fantasies to like jump 10 Final Fantasies and

(01:18:29):
like every other RPG that's come out between like.
1993 and 2000 and 2019 to like jump past all of the other music like persona 5 is awesome.
If i'm not gonna say because there are tons of games where i will just say play
it like hades i will tell you just play that persona 5 is not one of those games

(01:18:54):
persona 5 you have to be you have to enjoy a very specific type of game to like
persona 5 but if you like jrpgs and you have
not played persona 5 you are literally robbing yourself
it's a it's i was a persona 4 guy i still in some cases i still am i think persona

(01:19:15):
5 royal royal specifically is the best persona game trumps every persona that
came before it and is a top five if not top three jrpg or Or,
you know, really any RPG,
if you want to get kind of, you know, fun about it.
I don't like the term JRPG, but we've talked about that before.

(01:19:38):
Yeah. So, I mean, to give you one example, 2019 freaking Kingdom Hearts 3 came out in 2019.
I don't think Kingdom Hearts 3 is like the best Kingdom Hearts game, but like.
No. Part of the wind. it didn't even like when
i was making this list and i saw kingdom hearts 3 was on here i was just like

(01:20:00):
that's not even a that's not even a thing i'm gonna acknowledge like you know
what it would have made it better what squall from five for front of se8 okay
you mean leon or whatever leon.
My i only have one honorable mention on this list and it there it's two indie games Thank you.

(01:20:25):
Invincible is a great indie game it's great it's one of the weirdest rpg stories
i've ever seen but it's weird in a beautiful way like like the main character basically,
is traveling unknowingly traveling to
her own death but it comes

(01:20:48):
like the story like what you you get there it's like yeah
we got to do this like it's kind of beautiful but and
uh river city girls i just i can't not mention it
like it just it's right in like the sweet spot of air and stuff it's got like
you can you play multiplayer you you know it's a beat them up i love beat them

(01:21:08):
ups it's got just enough of like rpg vibes for me like it just hits me right
in that same spot where like Like Scott Pilgrim did.
And like Scott Pilgrim had been gone for so long. At the time when River City
Girls came out. That it's just like yes give me this. Yep.
So yeah. Persona 5 Royal. But I just want to mention those.

(01:21:28):
So my 2019 is probably going to be super obvious. Probably about as obvious to Aaron.
As God of War was. It's Resident Evil 2. Yep.
I will never forget that reveal.
We do it. it gosh dude like from from the time that the original resident evil

(01:21:50):
remake had come out in 2002 like i had been waiting salivating for resident evil 2.
So one of my favorite games of all time that original one and one of the reasons
why i wanted to do this was sort of to bring a bring forward the topic of like
when was the last time you added anything contemporary to your top 10 list of all time.

(01:22:12):
And that's probably a topic for another day. That's just more to get us talking,
but things like God of War,
Red Dead Redemption 2, Resident Evil 2, they have all just completely kicked
in the door for my all-time games list.
I'm 39 years old for just proof

(01:22:33):
of that that I think that even an old dog can
learn new tricks with stuff resident evil 2 the remake took
a already perfect video game and took
the spirit of what what that game was and modernized
it they took the the best parts of resident evil 4 for the gamecube and playstation
2 and brought in that classic resident evil format where you're solving puzzles

(01:22:58):
you're collecting keys you're opening doors you're finding bosses the stalker
enemy was fantastic in that game.
Everybody knows the memes that Mr. X don't give it to you. He was great in that.
The only thing holding that game back was a proper A and B scenario.

(01:23:20):
But Resident Evil 2 was always two sides of the same coin with Leon and Claire.
The boss fights were fantastic. The weapons were great. The game was crunchy.
It felt good to play that game. It felt even better just to go back through
it again immediately afterwards.
Capcom games are inherently just super replayable right off the bat.

(01:23:43):
And it just it modernized the classic and
so that's why resident evil 2 is my 2019 game
of the year yeah i i'm always
going back and referencing things that like like andrea does because like me
and andrea have like our tastes line up in some places but i feel like our game

(01:24:05):
tastes are some like so like wildly opposite of each other that like sometimes
we run into this thing where like
a game that like not super
into but i think is interesting she'll
be super into and then she'll want to play so like
she is has been on like a resident

(01:24:26):
evil kick and like i am like one of my favorite things to do is like i'll like
i measure her and like look at like i'll find some game and i'll be like hmm
do i think that andrea will like this and like if i find a good one i'm I'm like, okay,
I'm willing to put some money down. I bet that she'll love this.

(01:24:46):
And when I find one where I hit, I'm like, it's one of those great feelings
that you get. You're like, yes!
And it was Resident Evil 7 that I was like.
Think that this will work because like andrea
has like a history in like weirdly which
is something that i think is really weird that like faded us

(01:25:08):
together she has a history in maniac mansion like she used to like have like
all the maniac mansion games on her computer when she was like a kid and i'm
like i also love maniac mansion but like so like that translates to me and her
love of horror and everything horror.
I was like, what if I get her Resident Evil seven and just see how she feels

(01:25:31):
about it. And she loved it.
So then we got on this like Resident Evil kick where she was getting all the
Resident Evil games and playing them and like Resident Evil two.
I still think, I still think Resident Evil seven is her favorite.
Cause it was literally her first Resident Evil game.
But like Resident Evil two is just, the remake is just so.
It's so like everything you want to remake to be like,

(01:25:54):
it's very it's very true to the
original but it's like but we've got
all this new technology and let's just let's just
pimp this thing out and then we know
you'll give you everything that you want but
we're going to keep the spirit of the original and it's it's just
perfect so i agree with you that's a excellent choice yeah a

(01:26:16):
little bit of a tangent about resident evil 7 i know
we didn't really do a games or play in this this time
but i actually just platinum that game for the
second time i did it the hard way i didn't like save my or bring my save over
but yeah and that was another hard one about not from 2017 like if breath of

(01:26:36):
wild hadn't been as good as it was i think that resident evil 7 would have been
it for me gosh that's such a good game.
Good yeah my 2020 was
pretty easy like like there's there's pretty
much i think we both three games on this list
that were you know like could

(01:26:57):
have even been in the running and of those three this
is my favorite and what i would say is the best
by far and my favorite and best by far
is final fantasy 7 remake obviously that's i
think i think you and i are both gonna agree on that
one that's because i that's what i had down for mine too it
was a little bit harder i think that was that was the other because i do 2020

(01:27:20):
for as crap of a year as it was like for just you know pandemic and all that
the world the world dude video games video games were on fire my the only games
that came up that i was like Like,
maybe it was Spider-Man Miles Morales and Dragon Ball Kakarot.
But there's a Dragon Ball Z game in this list that I think is – that's in this

(01:27:45):
year that I think is good.
But, like, there was no way I was not going to give this to Final Fantasy VII Remake.
It was – you know, we had been waiting on this game.
Final Fantasy fans have been waiting on this game for years.
They've been teasing us with tech demos.
And you know people have been talking about
it and it gotten into you know like half like three
category where they were like this never coming out like

(01:28:08):
they were they've just they're just saying that to get our hopes up
this is never happening and then like oh dude yeah
the episodic and from the the news about it being
episodic we were like what and they're like like we were
we thought about telltale and like no we
just can't possibly everything and then
they drop this thing and it's just like like this is what we've been working

(01:28:31):
on shut up and like we're all like yes square son i will never speak again like
it was it was perfect it's exactly what you wanted to be i mean there are people
who i'm sure are like what's going on behind me.
Okay there are
people who i'm sure wanted like a one-for-one like

(01:28:53):
completely like remade version of
final fantasy 7 and that this is not
me arguing with them or saying like oh you why would
you want that because like heck yeah but like they made
something that is challenging in
all the ways that final fantasy 7 was originally challenging all
of the you know moral obligations and

(01:29:14):
the you know environmental factor and the you
know corporate businesses taking over
and destroying small town all of that stuff and then
they were like but what if we also put a story in
here that's about stories and how they're
retold just because we feel like it and then that story
rocks too and it's like thank you perfect you you

(01:29:36):
guys did a bit more than
i was expecting it is rare where something has been around this long the rumor
of it has been around this long and not only does it hit exactly what i want
to it's better than i wanted it to be yep i wholeheartedly agree i i platinum
that one but that one you have to actually go through it twice,

(01:29:57):
you know once on regular once on hard it's it's great i don't i i don't know
if it's perfect or anything like that but and i think that kind of remains to
be seen especially just because because we're still waiting on Part 3.
But I think how they've handled Final Fantasy VII Remake and now Rebirth.

(01:30:19):
Square understands what they have, and that's very obvious.
I think that Remake respects the roots of Final Fantasy VII,
being as the important game that it is to the history of video games,
to the history of PlayStation, to the history of Square, to the history of Final
Fantasy, all that good stuff.

(01:30:40):
They understand what it means,
Remake shows that. I think it's the best parts of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts.
That is a Nomura-esque game. I mean that as respectfully as possible.
He can go off the rails, dude.

(01:31:02):
Look at Final Fantasy XIII, look at Kingdom Hearts, and all that.
I say that respectfully as a fan of Nomura.
It takes the best parts. It subverts your expectations.
It plays with nostalgia in a fun way, where God of War was refrained from being too nostalgic.

(01:31:27):
I think that remake excels in the nostalgia category there.
Music, we were talking about Persona 5 Royal and its music.
I think music is super important to Final Fantasy.
How they played with some of the classic songs.

(01:31:51):
That's one of the soundtracks I listen to almost weekly when I'm working. Yeah, it's great.
I feel like they – I feel like you were saying they had all of the opportunity
in the world to like just do the Marvel,
which I don't want to like diss, but like do the Marvel like hint,

(01:32:16):
hint, nudge, nudge. Hey, do you remember this?
But instead like in those opportunities, they were like, no,
we're just going to blow this whole thing up.
No, it's not just going to be – he's going to show up in the room in the dress.
We're gonna have a giant dance number and
everyone you're gonna have to do play it and everyone's gonna
watch and there's gonna be a friggin fmb

(01:32:36):
video of the whole thing like like they instead of like hey do you remember
this they were like no here it is watch it being being grossed like i i love
that they just every opportunity they got to go like absolutely ham with something they They went nuts.
Like the little like thing where you're up on – is that – no,

(01:33:02):
I think that's – that might be rebirth that I'm thinking about.
Yeah, that's rebirth. So I'll save that for later.
But like just so many times where like the dolphin thing, like so many times
that they went – they could have went absolutely buck wild like crazy.
They just took them instead of like doing a little

(01:33:24):
like hit hit nudge nudge they were like no no it's gonna
this is gonna be a scene you're gonna have to watch it like yeah
i love i love that i love that like they they just went for it in every instance
and somehow every single one of them hits yeah yep i wholeheartedly agree my
my indie pick is friday night funkin friday night

(01:33:47):
funkin is it is it's the other game that like made its music made it into my
top like 10 of musics recently every song in friday night funkin.
That dude deserves a Grammy like all of the music in Friday Night Funkin is

(01:34:08):
amazing I don't care if you like the gameplay of Friday Night Funkin I used
to play DVR back in the day I love the gameplay of Friday Night Funkin but if
you don't just like listen to the soundtrack of Friday Night Funkin it's,
every single song in Friday Night Funkin is great oh god now I need to go listen
to some Friday Night Funkin like it's so good.

(01:34:31):
Alright what you got for 2021 dude 2021 this was a very simple choice for me
it was between two games and i have to give it to,
one over the other just because i played it more my number
one for 2021 is tales of a
rise okay tales of a rise is
it's them continuing the tale

(01:34:54):
saga all the tales games play in a similar fashion but
i feel like tales of a rise has a very fluid game
mechanic once you understand how it works and like play
with it a little bit it also has the themes
in and tales of arise are very like i feel like jrpgs have this habit of kind

(01:35:14):
of like especially recently is they kind of like they lean on what i would say
they lean on structure more than they do on themes,
They lean on their gameplay loop.
They lean on like, well, we're going to go to a place and then we're going to go fight a boss.

(01:35:34):
And then, but tales of arise has this, like the themes of tales of arise are
very, like the whole game is just pouring with them all the time.
The main themes of tales of arise is just like how authority
can like authorities can
corrupt and how you can be a slave

(01:35:57):
even if you're free and like so like i'm just gonna go into spoiler town because
i want to talk about how well it's presented so like the first time that you're
in the people are literally slaves like they have you know like shackles around
their ankles and And they're working in the mines like they're slaves.
Then you like free them and then you go to the next town.

(01:36:19):
And the next town, the people who run that town are like these super strict
and they like give like reward money for people who turn in their fellow citizens.
So then all of those people are also slaves, but like they don't have shackles.
Then like you go to the next town and the
next town is full of people who are like like

(01:36:43):
in like a religious cult that like sacrifices
them for power and then those people are
also slaves but they are not in shackles like the entire point
of the story is you can be a slave and
not be in shackles and like the idea
that they execute it so well so many
times over the entire story of the game i'm like this thing

(01:37:04):
like this story whoever thought this up was really
cooking like yeah so tales of
arise the other one was monster hunter arise yeah i
i didn't i i still need
to finish tale of arise monster hunter rise is another one i need to go back
to but with the monster hunter coming up i think i'm just gonna same gonna go

(01:37:26):
into that one i i got pretty i got pretty far into monster hunter monster hunter
rise i don't think i ever actually finished it but like i'm i'm already salivating
for the new monster hunter that's coming out so,
yeah uh my 2021 i don't it's it's resident evil village.
Go figure. It's quite like Resident Evil. Yeah. But it was like they took Ethan

(01:37:52):
from Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy.
There's too many numbers. But they took Ethan from Resident Evil 7 and basically
just blew the whole thing up.
And bigger scale, you're in a bigger area. It's werewolves. It's vampires.

(01:38:15):
It's monsters and myths and it's really cool, dude.
Like it, it, it's different where I, I love resident evil for it's,
you know, corporate conspiracies and you know, the betrayals and you know,
the characters and all that stuff.
Like resident evil village is just, it's just neat.

(01:38:36):
Like I love the, I love the it's, you know, it shows the, you know,
the start of umbrella or like, you know, just a little bit of a conspiracy with
it, but the, the weapons were really cool.
It was, it was resident of foreign first person. Basically. I love the Likens.

(01:38:56):
Mother Miranda is a great villain. I got to talk about lady,
lady Dimitrescu, I guess, but you know, everybody loves her.
You know, the memes are pretty well, they love the memes are pretty well documented.
They love something specific about her.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a couple a couple really big reasons.
I like her You know long really big hands Yeah, she has really big hands those big hands,

(01:39:22):
They turn into really big swords too basically like uh claws Well,
that game's just fun, dude And
sometimes games don't need to be like super deep or anything like that.
Sometimes they're just fun and I know some people have problems with village, but man.
I feel like i feel like there's a a big

(01:39:44):
crap i'm like i'm saying this in a way where
it sounds like i'm like oh yeah but you didn't but i mean you play a game however
you want i feel like there's a big big portion of people who don't like resident
evil 8 who never played the dlc for resident evil 7 to kind of feel like like
resident evil 7 has this like very like like it goes really

(01:40:06):
hard back to like the horror roots of resident evil
stories like resident evil kind of has
this tendency of like moving in and out
of like the horror and kind of moving into
the action horror and then like resident evil
7 is like this like they're at we're at the
top of the action horror with resident evil 6 and then
resident evil 7 drops right back into like the horror aspect and then resident

(01:40:31):
evil 7 resident evil 8 kind of moves back but like if you play the dlc especially
the one with the i can't forget the guy's name but the dude with the who's like
entire thing is just punching everybody oh joe yeah and like you can kind of see like.
They were loosening up with that like super deep horror aspect
before resident evil k8 came out well it's

(01:40:52):
there there's a big resident evil's
got a sense of humor oh yeah it always has you
know it leans into campy and stuff but i think to the people that that
talk about the horror aspect of the lack thereof like dude
resident evil 8 is pretty freaking scary in some
cases like i think we're all just a little bit desensitized to a lot of these

(01:41:14):
things we just we just know i mean it's the eighth core game in the franchise
you know not the eighth game overall i mean there's dozens of these games but
like you know we all pretty know we know we know what's happening yeah yeah Yeah,
I feel like at this, like, stage of, even just,

(01:41:34):
like, at this stage of gaming in general,
we have seen some pretty high highs of horror stuff.
And, like, so, like, we're all kind of, if you're a gamer for,
like, if you really play games a lot, you're probably decentralized to a lot
of the stuff that, like, if this had dropped in, like,
in, like, 20, in, like, 20, in, like, 2001, you would have been like, oh, my God.

(01:41:55):
But, like, now it's like, yeah, giant monsters.
I think the last thing that really shocked me in video games was Modern Warfare 2's No Russian.
And I don't know if you know what that is, but...
Do you know what that is? Yeah, that's the... Is that the airport thing?

(01:42:17):
That's the airport thing. Yeah. That's the last thing in video games that genuinely shocked me.
I don't have to write a blog post about it or anything like that,
but it's like, wow, they went there.
But with Resident Evil, dude, it's been serious. It's been silly.
There's parts in Resident Evil 2 where you play as a piece of tofu.

(01:42:41):
It just is what it is. Yeah.
Anyway, man, 22, 2022, 2022 was,
that's another one of these, one of these years where I can say like the game
that I, that like I played the most and was the most impressed by the most,
just like absolutely blown away by that came out this year is just one.

(01:43:03):
There's one game at the top of the list. Isn't the rest of the stuff that I
played is not even close and it's horizon forbidden West. Oh yeah.
Just like that game is, is gorgeous and they took the thing they took the thing
that that horizon zero dawn was and they just like horizon zero dawn is like

(01:43:24):
a beautifully expansive game but like somehow forbidden west,
takes that same thing and just like blew it up in a way that i just i didn't
think they were capable of doing until i saw until they did it until i played
forbidden west and i was like how How is this bigger and more beautiful than
Horizon Zero Dawn is? Like, how?

(01:43:46):
Like, I didn't know that. I didn't think this was possible.
Yeah, it's so my mind is also Horizon Forbidden West, especially and that's
created in a year that also has God of War Ragnarok, which I also love.
But yeah, dude, it's it's the prettiest game I've ever seen in my life.
We've been doing this for a really long time. and the

(01:44:08):
fact that they're able to get that game running not just
running but running at a smooth 60 frames a second
where like you know right now
they're having a hard time getting things running on the xbox series x
like from a first party at 30 frames a second like i just it blows my freaking
mind the the people over at gorilla are wizards yeah i think but like where

(01:44:33):
i think we We talked earlier about Breath of the Wild and Horizon had kind of
come out and Breath of the Wild just completely ate its lunch.
With this one, it launched really close to Elden Ring.
But I think with what made Horizon stand out was things like the climbing was
better, the glider, being able to fly was pretty fantastic.

(01:44:56):
Setting overall the combat was great yeah dude like we are in complete agreeance
on that yeah like like like horizon zero dawn like when like and at first when
it first came out like i just.
Like i said when we were talking about it like i gave it to mario kart deluxe
just because like that game i play that game now like i mean i've played that

(01:45:21):
game non-stop since it released like I have played Mario Kart 8 at least,
I would say, once a month since it dropped.
I always play that. I always do. But Horizon Zero Dawn was crazy.
It was so technically crazy. I was like, how are they going to do this?

(01:45:41):
How are they going to make the sequel and make it bigger and better?
Because everything's supposed to go bigger and better. But then Forbidden West
drops and it's bigger and better. I'm like, how? How did you do this?
And, like, the story, it's one of those stories that, like, you know,
Horizon Zero Dawn ends in a way that, like, it doesn't, it gives you a little

(01:46:04):
bit of, like, hey, there's more here. We could go a little further.
But, like, once you start playing Forbidden West and you're,
like, this is where they're going, okay, let's go.
Like, I love Forbidden West. Like, it's a beautiful, gorgeous game.
And, like, I keep saying in some of these instances, if you have not,

(01:46:28):
I mean, I guess, technically, you have to buy a PlayStation to do this.
So, like, it's a little harder than...
This but like if you have not oh yeah it
is never mind if you have not played horizon zero dawn
and forbidden west like i can't say stop playing
this stop watching this because they're not games that you
can finish quickly but like go get those games and.

(01:46:49):
Play them like i don't care if you have some like playstation xbox
rivalry or something or your team xbox or.
Whatever like play those games they're gorgeous.
And like the amount they were able to do with them is.
Nuts like like put your east coast
west coast blue and green beef aside
aside and go play for horizon zero dawn and forbidden west

(01:47:10):
for real okay i think
we're 2023 is probably yeah yeah
i i bet we probably
are in agreement with this one at least that was our
game dad pick of the year last year too yes yes it was that's
that's the problem once we get past the

(01:47:30):
stuff where we already have like game dads episodes about spread
that kind of redundant but yeah we haven't done our one
for 2024 yet so there's possibilities of you
know some but yeah 2023 it's final
fantasy 16 it that game yeah amazing it's
gorgeous the story is great the characters are great i like
i i'm perfectly like in my

(01:47:52):
heart of hearts i am very content with how final fantasy
16 ends i don't want yeah me
too i don't want them to do anything to it but i got
so much like emotion and feeling out of the
character of clive like i want more of him but like
i don't want his story to be ruined by continuing it
but there that's the best way i can explain it like i wish i don't even know

(01:48:17):
how to word this because i can't even say i wish final fantasy 16 was longer
because i don't because i it's so like i feel like it was so like perfectly
wrapped like i don't want there to be more but i just i want to like.
Experience more of that character in some way that doesn't inter
interfere with his story i don't know how that's possible but i
want it i i agree dude i think i think especially with the way that you know

(01:48:43):
everything has to have a sequel these days you know putting that game out and
i know they've got dlc for it that kind of it's intertwined into the actual main game.
As it is. There are some technical things to it, and I think that's where the
argument for PS5 Pro comes into play,

(01:49:03):
because it didn't run super great on performance mode when it launched.
I think it's probably better now, but I think that game is great, dude.
It's top two Final Fantasy. Like what we said, I encourage people to go back and listen to our,
spoiler cast for Final Fantasy 16, and then our Game of the Year,
our brentley award show as well because we really

(01:49:25):
get into it there too but final fantasy 16 is
a very special game that's getting ready to
come out on pc i believe so the exclusivity window is kind of gone on ps5 but
you know it's a great reason to own a playstation the people that complain about
you know the lack of games on playstation i don't understand that especially

(01:49:46):
especially during games like for Ben West and 16, you know, they exist,
but yeah, it's a pretty great game, dude.
The only other game that came close that year for me was Alan way too.
I think that game is fan freaking tastic, but 16 just, it takes the cake for me. Yeah.
And the only things that I wanted to mention were if you've paid any attention

(01:50:09):
to my game history, see if stars is, I think it's an amazing game and definitely
worth checking out, especially for the price tag.
Yeah and the only other thing that i want to mention here and
this is a weird mention for anyone who
for someone my age specifically but horizon
call the mountain is insane for

(01:50:31):
for a 3d game for a vr game that it's one of the first vr games that i played
that feels like a game not a tech demo it feels like it's actually trying to
get you to like play it and not just.
Experience it like i enjoy all of the the movement and the climbing and the

(01:50:56):
combat and like it just it feels really good for a vr game like that's i don't
know how else to put it like Like, I'm not,
I haven't really gotten my feet,
like, fully into the VR space.
So, I mean, there are probably some VR games that I just don't know about that give off this vibe.
But, like, I own PSVR. I've played PSVR games, well, PSVR 2.

(01:51:21):
I own a PSVR V2. I've played PSVR 2 games.
And, like, even of the games that I've played since, Horizon Call of the Mountains is the best by far.
Yeah. So I would I'm still not at a point where I would say,
like, get yourself a PSVR, too, because I don't think they're making games for it anymore.

(01:51:42):
But what I would say what I would say is Horizon Call of the Mountain is a good
sign for the future of VR games.
What I would say. And Street Fighter 6 is awesome.
That was a 2023 game? Yes.

(01:52:03):
That's on my list. I'm waiting for it to go down and price a little bit more
before I pick it up, but yeah, that's definitely on my list.
2024, dude, you're not over yet.
I think we're both probably in a grilient Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Hell yeah.
Okay. i i've played a lot of

(01:52:25):
games this year and nothing has really stuck with me like
rebirth have and i even like i i
was telling aaron just one of the
times we were hanging out and i do think
that my issues with rebirth come
from probably 16 and the
fact that i played 16 first but i i

(01:52:47):
think 16 seems a better game in my opinion i think rebirth is
a little bit too bloated but when
you look at it in the grand scheme of final fantasy 7 like
it needs to be that the side stuff all
that good stuff but i said at the top of the show or maybe it was right before
we went live but i think that the i think the rug might be swept out from underneath

(01:53:11):
it for if at least for me anyway way astrobot rescue or it's not rescue mission
it's just astrobot astrobot came out yesterday.
And my son is a lot further with it right now i've only played it for maybe an hour but oh my gosh,
that's what i've been hearing that's that's all

(01:53:32):
i've been hearing about the about astrobot is just that people
are like why is this so good well if
people played the pack-in for
the playstation five just that the astrobot what's
that one called it was in this astro astro's playroom yeah yeah
that's one of the best packing games like of

(01:53:53):
all time it's a very quick game four or five hours very easy platinum but it's
packed full of playstation references and but not in a way of like you know
member berries kind of what we were talking about earlier but astrobot it's still too
new to... I don't want to spoil anything.

(01:54:14):
Drake's told me a couple things that he's seen, but it's a celebration of PlayStation's history and past,
while also pushing the genre of 3D platformers forward in a way that nobody
else has since probably Mario 64.
Those are my high-level thoughts. Alright.

(01:54:39):
Surprisingly there were a couple of things that came out this year that i played that definitely,
i like i didn't think that they would get as high
as they did on my list but like final fantasy 7 rebirth is just like i'm i'm
personally like i'm playing through visions of mana right now and it is like

(01:55:00):
i understand from some angles why people were like i'm a little disappointed but But, like,
for me, it's like, no, this is exactly what I wanted.
Like, this is exactly what I thought it was going to be. It's exactly what I wanted.
But, like, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is just, like, what I feel like happened
was Final Fantasy VII as a game has this, like, it's, like, very whole.

(01:55:25):
It's, like, there's, like, the cool action-y bits.
There's the deep story. And then there's like the crazy,
silly stuff in between that like personally bonds you to all the characters
so that when you get to that stuff at the end, you feel the emotions they want
you to feel because you're connected to them because of all of the crazy minigames
and everything in between.

(01:55:46):
So i feel like when they came out with when i come out with this remix trilogy
which i think is officially a trilogy the first game is like action lasers drama buildings exploding.
And then the last game is going to be wrapping up all of
these crazy storylines that they've built over the course of the game but

(01:56:08):
rebirth is like everything in between and i'm
a sucker for all that stuff i'm a sucker for all those
mini games and all of that you know character bonding
stuff i'm a sucker for all of that so like five minutes after rebirth just like
it has been a really long time since this has happened to me but rebirth literally

(01:56:29):
felt like a hand reached out of the reach out of my console grabbed me by my
collar and just like sat me in my chair and was
like play this game and that's
i literally i went
through every little tiny bit of story and
information that i could possibly get my hands on filled out every other all

(01:56:53):
the little missions got every single thing that i possibly could on that run
and like immediately put the game down and i was like okay i'm about to start
this over like i how fancy seven rebirth is.
I don't know if I want to say it this way because I loved Remake.
And we haven't gotten the third one yet, so the third one could be even better somehow.

(01:57:18):
But I feel like Rebirth took everything that happened, everything that Final
Fantasy 7 Remake gave us and made us feel.
And then took all of that, managed to keep all of that energy,
and then add all of this character growth energy into it.

(01:57:38):
And then the ending is like, I can't, like, I don't want to say anything because
I want whoever plays, whoever hears this and then decides to play because they
heard me talking about it.
I want them to get the experience that I got.
So I'm just, I'm going to keep my mouth shut. But like, goddamn,
they did a fantastic job.

(01:58:00):
I hear you when you say that it's a little too bloated.
Like in in retrospect now that out of it now that i've been out of it for a
little while i i can i can agree with that it's so they also said that's a me
thing that's a me problem.
Definitely like i feel like good i say i feel like they did i feel like they

(01:58:21):
did put a little bit especially with a third game coming out i feel like they
did put a little bit too much in there but like it,
feels like they were like when the third game comes out the
way that it's structured we ain't gonna have time for this so we
gotta get it all in here because when the third
game comes out and the way that that game structure there ain't
gonna be time for chocobo rides and hanging out

(01:58:44):
with johnny none of that they're gonna have time for that when we get to game three so
like yeah that's what it feels like to
me extrapolating some person in japan's thought
process but like that's what it feels like well you
and i are are pretty good i i'd say
we're experts on final fantasy 7 just as a as
a game we've and when i when i say experts i
mean like we played it extensively we've both 100 in it and i i mean the original

(01:59:09):
game proper yeah you know it's it starts off as a completely different game
in the middle it's it's different as well and then it ends differently like
it's The beginning parts of that game are very, very serious.
The eco-terror stuff, the bombing missions.
The middle of that game is very lighthearted compared to the rest of it.

(01:59:31):
And then it ends on the death of Aerith and all that good stuff. I see you back there.
I see Drake sneaking up on me.
But it ends with the death of Aerith. It gets very serious again.
So, and I think that's a part of the problem with, with rebirth or what I mean,
like what people's problem with it is, is it's not overly serious the entire, the entire way through.

(01:59:58):
And it's not meant to be, you know, it's meant to, it's one part of a greater
whole and we're playing the middle part, you know, even though it's a brand
new game and all that good stuff, it's still the middle part of a, of a three part story.
And we are experiencing the middle part.
It as a whole game does that make sense

(02:00:20):
yeah i get what you're saying it's like like when we
the difference is when we got the original
final fantasy 7 it was one continuous
game so like the middle part of final fantasy
7 is different than the beginning i mean literally
the beginning of the game you are in midgar the entire game the beginning of

(02:00:41):
the part beginning part of the game Like it's the entire game is in the most
serious town with bad guys who are surrounding you at every corner and like
you're an eco-terrorist. You're a wanted person.
Like the entire middle beginning of the game is this very serious like I would
call it like an escape because they're not trying to escape until the end.

(02:01:01):
But like it's a very serious like and then you get into the rest of the world
and it's like now you're just kind of a guy.
Like yeah you just kind of exist in this world and then like it gets serious
again once you know the ending starts happening and sephiroth and meteors and
all that but like the middle of the game is very like i don't know fun fantasy

(02:01:23):
yep and then like the end gets very serious again so like.
If you're and like i also feel like i also feel like that structure of the type
of the type of game kind of isn't the way that newer games do it so like the
newer gamers who like are,
looking at final fantasy as looking at final fantasy rebirth as like this is

(02:01:48):
just part of another you know part of the game series here looking at it and
they're like well the last game was real serious what happened i was like but
like all y'all all y'all are.
Don't say this often but all y'all are wrong and uh sorry like final fantasy rebirth is a blessing,
all of the the silliness and craziness in that

(02:02:11):
game is amazing and i love it
and i i we
talked about this before but like i know for
a fact that this will be that this series unless the
last one somehow magically drops the
ball which i can't see that happening because you got
the blueprint right there and then you've got the secondary blueprints

(02:02:34):
of the two games you just made but like i know for a fact that this series will
be one that like i will go back to and it's crazy to think about because it's
not just like i'm about to drop me some 40 hours and beat final fantasy 7 and
go about my way it's going to be like i'm about to drop 120 hours playing through
three of these games to get through like it's gonna be crazy but it's gonna

(02:02:56):
be one of those games that i go back and play all the time it's a mass effect
situation you know like once it's all out you know we're all gonna play through
the through all three of them together you know.
Yeah i i agree with you dude it's it's a great game the problems i have with it are me problems,
you know i don't i don't i well i would say i i don't have the time to play

(02:03:19):
it and i absolutely do, but a lot of those things just, they felt a little long
in the tooth, and again, that's a me problem,
but on the whole, dude, it is a 10 out of 10 video game.
And I can't wait for the third part of it.
Gonna be so awesome okay that is that is
this is probably one of our longest episodes isn't it i would

(02:03:39):
say this is probably the longest one oh no
i mean yeah yeah yeah yeah okay looking at the numbers yeah it's probably this
is the longest one but yeah we got through a lot of stuff here we did yeah i
mean that was 11 years of of our favorite video games and you know 2024 is not done yet.

(02:04:00):
So, I mean, definitely look forward to the Brett Lee's this year.
What was last year? The 63rd annual, I think, I think we're up to 76 now. Maybe, I don't know.
Numbers are weird. And yeah. And you know, who wants to keep track of all those? So many of them.
It's impossible to do. You know, you can't, I mean, it's been so long,

(02:04:25):
so it's hard to keep track of that stuff, but all right.
Yep. I think it's time to get out of here. What do you think,
dude? Do you want to do positives?
Yes.
You don't have one, do you? Well, please be excited for my positives.

(02:04:46):
I just, you know what?
Fucking life is good. Yeah. That's my positive. Are you still back behind the couch? No, he's not.
Drink somehow like solid snaked his way from his bedroom which from where i'm sitting is like,
i i don't i can't judge distances it's like it's like 3 000 feet away but he

(02:05:10):
somehow walked from his bedroom in my line of sight because our den area you
have like i can see him i should be able to see him but i'm so entranced by
beating the crap out of this pyron guy with morgan.
Didn't see him but no but my positive is life
is good dude sounds good my positive

(02:05:33):
is i i did a
thing that i've been starting to do recently that's
been like super helpful for me is do a
little self-check-in every once in a while sometimes you're you're
out of your you're like burnt out or you're just you know you're doing something
out of step and you're you know And life will just keep rolling past you and

(02:05:56):
you just keep doing the thing or experiencing the thing over and over again
and you don't realize it until you sit down and check in and be like, am I okay?
Do I need to change some of my behaviors or do I need to work on changing some
of these habits that I'm doing?
Is what i'm doing the best you know
what's best for me and what's best for you know
where i want to be and then if you

(02:06:18):
find something that's soft then adjust it but if you don't ever take time to
self-reflect you will you know do a bad habit until it kills you you know self-check-ins
do them they're good that's mine i really this one's super long so i'm ready to to peace out,
yeah we're both about the we're going to open that portal and do the,

(02:06:43):
Star Lord boom and throw up the middle finger and jump into that portal yes
yep so good episode dude yeah love ya,
love everybody out there yes.
Tell Drake I said hi and we can't wait to get him on the show for that Dragon
Ball Z episode oh yeah dude yeah I haven't told him about it yet so So,

(02:07:06):
but I'm sure he's going to be really excited to do it.
So he's, he's getting older.
So his voice has changed a little bit since the last time you talked to him.
So it'll be a fun one guys.
All right. Wimity, wham, wham, wazzle. I'll catch y'all later.
Tell him large March sent you. Peace. Bye.

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