How's it hagging? Internet? Welcome back to Desks and Dork's your favorite game
designing creation podcast. As always, it's shaped molded carefully, bit by bit
by you who we love. We bring you the best in indie tabletop gaming.
I am the best. DM Graham gains to Kyle's Dork. He's a
dark Hi, Kyle, It's it's going great. If I sound froggy in
the throat, it's because I have just gotten back from Origins. Um.
Yes, Origins game favorite, which I love. It's actually we you and
I didn't talk about this before the show. It's my favorite con Um.
I love Origins like ever ever, like big and small and everything in between.
UM. The only other con there are two cons I think that rival
it for me. UM, and that is unpubbed in Hunts of Maryland.
Because I am a sucker for raw creativity. I'm absolutely love the fact there's
like two thousand people throughout a whole weekend now, all at once that that
meet up and just test un published board games. I think is great.
So it's just cool to see a bunch of designers there and firing on all
cylinders and trying new stuff and then safe or saving Against Fear, which holds
a special place in my heart because I know the director. I know Jack
Berry can Stock is a good guy. It's where you and I got to
spend a lot of time together for the first time after our panel. It's
where it was Desks and Dork's first ever con. It was great. I
got to hang out. Jeremy and Isaac, good friends of mine who was
there for it, was there both of their first gaming conventions, and I
got to be there with them for it with my company. It was cool.
It was just cool. So Saving Against Fear holds a special place in
my heart as well. So, yeah, Jack's Jack's a good guy.
He's he's doing good things. Whanna shout out to Bahana group. Yeah,
they're bringing people who care about the similar things that we do, which is
intentionality in games, caring about the people, the health of the room that
you're in at being there. And so all of a sudden you have this
intersection of therapists using games already using the same kind of philosophy that I want
to bring to all my games anyways. So yeah, and it really is
like it It was just incredible show. But if I sound a little froggy,
in the throat. Um, I'm running on like maybe like fourteen twelve
hours of sleep between all four days origins of the Great Time. It's a
really relaxed show. But I always you sound super relaxed. Yeah, I
mean I sound well because we'd karaoke the last night, which was absolutely amazing.
U. So yeah, I was just saying, Okay, I was
gonna ask you about origins, but instead I'm just gonna be asking you.
What did you sing at Carrio? I did a duet to the other Side
from Greatest Showman, which I almost accorded and sent to you. Actually,
uh, with my good friend Matt from at Restoration Games. Shout out to
Matt Teitelbaum, awesome guy who works for Restoration Games. He's also he was
one of the designers on Shadow of War, the mortar game that came out
Forever Ago, which has the Nemesis system, which I love. So shout
out to Matt. I did that duet with him, and then I went
on a side quest and some very inebriated woman came up to me in the
middle of the carriage. He said, hey, you say really pretty,
Um, some dude is singing my husband's favorite song. Will you go up
and sing it with him? Because it's my husband's birthday and if this dude
butchers this song, it will make my husband sad. And so I sang
Creedi high stakes, Yeah, high stakes. I sang with arms wide open
by Creed with some metal head dude that I'd never met before. What you
sang? You sang Creed and a song from the Greatest Showman. Yes,
yeah, it was a weird night. You're right, Origins Origins popping off
party. I could not have imagined. It was definitely not what I imagined
either, But but yeah, no, I am doing excellent. It's good
to be home, going to be back. Also, shout out to the
Pride Gamers Group of Columbus. We did an event for them. We did
desks and doorg. We ran two back to back fully booked events of Becoming
Banana Bread and sold out of all of our copies of Becoming Banana Bread while
we were there. So that's awesome. Shout out to Andrew Heiner, or
shout out to all the members of the of the pride Gamers Group. You
guys are awesome. Thank you for putting on a great show and for doing
great work. So cause I love and a cause I believe in like all
my favorite people basically like run that group. So it's awesome. But any
case, Graham, tell the good people at home what our plan is today,
because we're gonna keep the episode light because to someone who is dying slowly,
Yeah, Kyle, you like to give it. You're all making sure
that the Creed karaoke gives the high quality that it deserves. And so as
we are sliding into home, I want to make sure that you know,
we just have like a fun one for you, for me, for everybody
else. And so this is something that I did in my spare time not
too long ago. Probably my favorite console is the PS two, but I
have many fond memories of kind of the PS three C for three sixty era,
because that's when everyone I knew owned them. People were at a certain
age in which they had disposable income. So I've played a lot of games
for that generation. I am what you might call a compulsive curator, and
I see your lovely board games behind you, and and so in my spare
time, what I did is I took one hundred, one hundred and twenty
seven games from the PS three three sixty era, and I ranked them sequentially
based on how good I thought they were. Um. On the internet,
it's not unpopular to do top one hundred board game lists. UM. And
so having one hundred and twenty seven video games from this era just it kind
makes me laugh. So what's going to happen here? I have it in
front of me. I had a pretty simple system of I start with two
at a side, which one I like better? Then I place them there,
and then one slides in? Do I like one better or the other?
Yes? No, it slides down to up, over and over and
over again, until I had one hundred and twenty seven different games that I
had played. So they are completely ranked in order. Okay, we're gonna
do. Uh. You can call out numbers, you can ask me about
specific games. UM, it's kind of like a deconstructed tier list. Let's
see one hundred twenty seven games. So s abcd F that's six. So
okay, easy math, you love doing math. One hundred and twenty six
divided by seven divided by six. That is a number. Yeah, more
than four? Money one and change. Okay, So I was right,
it was more than four. You're right. I knew you had that in
you so about every twenty one or so, I guess because that's how TI
relates. Always, it's always completely even. I mean technically speaking, right,
there was more than one hundred and twenty seven games that came out for
PS three, Right, these are the ones that I remember enough to feel
like I could rank them. Right, so I played them enough. By
being on your list, they're probably better than not. Maybe maybe they're not
all s, but they're probably pretty good, I would imagine. No,
I don't know. I mean, okay, maybe more. I may be
more cynical than you. Okay, off the top of my head, I
know what number one and I know what one twenty seven is. Um.
I would also like to point out, Graham, if you're done letting us
know the methodology of this episode. I want to make sure that you're done
with that first before I say this. Yeah, you and I I think
get along because we're constant curators. Like, everything on this shelf is stuff
that I know that my board game group will play if they look. If
you look behind me, that's what it is, um. And like stuff
is usually ranked, So stuff on the top is stuff that our group likes
better. And then as you move down it gets not worse, but just
stuff that our group likes. Last. Um, so you and I obviously
have very strong opinions about pretty much everything game related. We have the same
favorite console. It is PS two. Yeah, I didn't know that about
you. I did not know of you were PS. But I'm like,
if someone's like, what is the greatest game console of all time other than
PC, because that's its own entity, I feel like, right, um,
it's it's PS two, hands down. I think it's I think it
very, very easily. An argument can be made for the Supernintendo U.
There are enough games there that are stone cold ten out of tens. Yeah,
even the most cynical person would call them ten out of tens. So,
um, I it might come down to age. Um, I'm a
little older than you. Somebody a little older than me, like say my
brother's age, might be like, you're crazy. Um. There's, for
for example, the Final Fantasy six seven Divide. I feel like one who's
roughly late eighties early nineties will love seven, and then anybody who was born
a little earlier than me is like, no, you're crazy F six.
But I've played a F six many times and it never scratched the itch because
there's just too many characters. There's sixteen characters, and none of them really
have personalities. Two or three have personalities. And if you're cast of sixteen
characters, that's for me, that's not good enough. So yeah, I
agree. But so here's my methodology. I have a random number generator from
one to one twenty seven, and I'm gonna hit it a couple of times
and I'm gonna hear. So we're gonna start off hot with number one seventeen,
one seventeen. My one hundred seventeenth best game video game of the PS
three three sixty era is Resident Evil six. Oh perhaps you remember four because
four everyone loves because it was incredible. Then it is incredible. Now,
like the first half is what about Oh yeah, well do you remember how
well? Do you remember? For pretty well? I played it as a
senior in college. Actually that was my first time playing it. So so
the opening is great, obviously, the building wonderful. You you transfer into
that like tight, uh defend the house, uh kind of to end the
first chapter, and then you get off into the castle and then you fight
a a Italian little person and then all of a sudden, uh, you're
like you, there's a giant robot one that chases you, and then you
lose the thread completely and you go to a World War two island, uh,
and you have a really disappointing boss fight against somebody who punches you.
I like that one. I I think that about halfway to the castle it
starts to get really muddy. And perhaps that's what Resident Evil is is that
it's campy and stupid and really effective, you know, and that's why people
like it. Um. For me, a defining feature of a game that
I love is unified tone from beginning to end. So so I define a
lot of things in that way. If it's campy, it's camras from beginning
to end. If it's you know, if it sticks the landing, I
do get kind of stiff on on on a bad ending or a or an
awkward ending, but that but I'm not even talking about far right now.
Then you had five, which was significantly not as good, but it had
co op, so you have I have fond memories of playing five with a
friend and being like, Golly, Africa, that's a that's a probably not
a great setting and it wasn't. No, and lower than that is six
and six was like the full evolution of its action bits and it became fully
stupid and there were like different mini campaigns. Did you ever play? I
don't see. So five was the one who took plays in Africa and I
wrecked you when you said, co Op. That's the memory that I have
of five is playing that with a friend, my friend Adam down in Maryland,
and like going to his house and playing that there. I have no
memories of Resident Evil six none, because it's very bad. Yeah. I
looked at the camp nonsense and I was like this and it's and it's not
even like here's my thing. I don't necessarily need to think. I need
like consistency in tone. I love when something is earnest about what it likes,
right, And it didn't even feel like it was earnest camp nonsense,
Like it just felt like a like let's cash in on like what is popular.
Um well, it was in four they kind of realized that they need
they were this. It was this this middle ground between action and horror,
and now they've kind of tried to reclaim that with village and other things like
in the modern sense. And six was very bad and a very bad action
game. Yeah, and you fought zombies and there were multiple campaigns. Um,
there's very little, uh that is good about it. And uh since
in the in the recent years, I've seen on YouTube some uh some breakdown
videos being like, oh there's a there's a resurgence of Resideval six being seen
as a as a misunderstood classic and going back in and oh no, actually
it is still pretty bad. So yeah, there's there's there's not much to
mind there. It looked awful, genuinely, like like terrible in terms of
us and are thinking about designers. I think the Resideval series is a really
good, uh thought experiment into thinking about how things change and how things adapt
and kind of circling back on itself and trying to reinvent and then realizing you
can't do it, so that in of itself, I think it's a it's
a worthy discussion to have. I know this is warrants an episode all of
its own, truthfully, but I think one of the things that made Resident
Evil four as successful as it was was it was them trying to push the
envelope of what it was possible to achieve at the time, UM and coming
up with a classic in the in the Yeah, did you play the earlier
Resident Evils. I played Resident Evil two MS on my friend's console, and
I remember liking it. I am not a big horror game guy, and
I don't know if it's I don't think it's the scary part um that that
loses me. I think it's the a lot of games tend to like horror
games tend to get their horror out of like you have a scarcity of items,
um and which I actually like that part of the system. But at
the time when I played resid Eval too, the controls were the scariest part.
And I don't mean controlling the character in this scary place was scary.
I mean it was so janky. I felt like I wanted to vomit at
the time. Um yeah, yeah. So here's the thing. I'm glad
that you brought that up, because four is deceptively exactly the same in terms
of controls. It has tank controls, it's identical to two. And it
was in that fixed camera if you imagine four and then a lot of survival
Horrors of its era, who would walk from room to room, and it
was these fixed camera angles in like the top corner, like a like a
security camera and that at some point in the middle of production they switched it
to that over the shoulder thing, but the control stayed exactly the same,
so that no, no, no, you're making a face. I think
it's just fascinating because people love the controls of four because it's slow and weird
and you're going for these headshots. But it was the camera the point of
view that changed. So the game itself as it existed didn't change at all,
which is crazy. And that remixing of where the camera was was everything.
That's that's that's your design anecdote to take from. It's such a one
little piece, moving it up and down to completely revolutionize whatever you're looking at.
And it was the smallest change. And see I love that because like
necessity is the mother of invention every time, and like the more things change,
the more than stay the same. I just think about it like,
yeah, let's just change it and winds up inadvertently making class. All right.
I want to hear more rankings, though, till le tier for number
twenty, very far off your list, Number twenty on the list, Thanks
Google, by the way, I love you, all right. So this
includes the kind of the version name mainstream indie scene. There was a lot
of games that showed up on Xbox Live and PlayStation Store that all of a
sudden, these tiny um companies that were more mostly online or on Steam or
whatever, all of a sudden, these counts console only gamers were getting it.
So my number twenty is hell Divers. Have you ever played hell Divers?
The name is really familiar. Let me google it because I feel like
I have. I want to make sure that it's the it's the one that
I know it is. So it is multiplayer co op top down stick shooter,
and it's straight up Starship Troopers. I played Hell Divers this year for
the first time ever. I played Hell Divers two, right, because that's
the one for the most recent console. Am I correct? Is there is
it out? I don't think it's out Hell Divers two twenty twenty three.
Am I wrong? I know it was the last one, So the no
I have put Hell Divers it wasn't the second one because I was like,
I feel like, I don't think it's I don't think it's out yet because
I adore Hell Divers. Okay, Hell Divers is wonderful and it's funny and
weird and difficult and slapstick and just the full level of cheese taking in the
Starship Trooper things. I love the movie Starship Troopers. Yeah, there's a
lot of weird discussion about how nobody understood it was that tire, which is
bizarre to me because it's it could not be more obvious than it is.
Um there's like fake commercials in the middle of it, which is like propaganda,
and so Hell Divers takes that point of view that like we're defending Super
Earth, except all you're doing is going to like different factions and wiping them
out. And it is just full of fascinating, beautiful design decisions. You
call in your weapons or your items, but in order to do it,
you have these very complicated sequence of numbers do you have to input, so
you have to look away from the screen and focus on it, and then
ultimately you're you'll die. It's intentionally difficult and fiddly in such a great way.
I think about board games that I love that like you're struggling with like
a dexterity part of it, and when that's intentional, like I'm I'm over
the Moon. I've talked about Galaxy Truckers being one of my favorite games because
of the number of limitations it puts on you. If you use one hand
and it's it's uh in real time. You pick up the pieces, you
flip them over when you're on your board, and you look at them,
and only then do you get to add them or put them down. Hell
Divers is a similar thing, and it's coop and it's hilarious and it's wonderful.
And Hell Divers I see. And I didn't know you love Starship Troopers
because I I there's a lot of like old sci fi stuff or like like
like Marquis sci fi stuff that I came too much later, Um, I
think to the party than a lot of people do. Like I didn't watch
Starship Troopers till I was like in grad school, so I was in my
twenties when I watched our Ship Shopers and probably a good time to watch a
thing because it was because I was like, oh my god, this is
so tongue in cheek. By the way I checked, it was not Hell
Divers. I played it with Isaac. It was a bad parody, but
not in a bad parody Hell the It was a bad version like as Hell
divers asked what it was not, because I'm like, there was no propaganda
of fake or otherwise in the one that we played, which was making me
sad, like death spank or something. I don't know. It was not
like it was very good. To be honest, it was a good I
mean, I like a good twin stick shooter. But but the thing to
make note, I just think anything Starship Troopers related is pretty cool because I
love a takedown of fascism. It's funny, it's clear, it's interesting,
you have just enough little RPG numbers to scratch your brain. It's arcadey uh,
it's it's an easy twenty this era, and it's on PC, which
means we can play it together right now. Might have to do that.
The only PC game to have that's similar to that is Gauntlet. Um,
because I love Gauntlet. I've I've always loved Gauntlet, the PS two Gauntlet
I played for hundreds and hundreds of hours The Dark Legacy. Did you ever
played Dark Legacy? I have played Graham, I have played every Gauntlet that
exists. I have like a Gauntlet Legacy I have played. I put the
arcade of Gauntlet Legacy. I put the arcade of Gauntlet one, the original
Gaunlet, which obviously is an arcade game, the remaster on PC, and
my favorite, which is Gauntlet one on PlayStation one, which I got to
max level in um as Warrior, and I got the nine nine nine plus
charged underhammer that you get at the end um for getting to that level.
So I love Gauntlet. Um Gauntlet is very meditative. Hell Divers is not.
Hell Divers is hilarious because it's full on player versus player, like a
friendly fire, and when you when you call in weapons, they come in
these giant capsules. It's very easy to accidentally kill your friends. Um uh.
It's wonderful and stressful in the best way. And it has an arc
At the end of every level. You have to run to the area where
you call in your evac and then everybody gets swarmed and you have to do
like a seven Samurai final countdown. It's wonderful. Every time Hell Divers totally
rocks. All right, good, I well, then I need to play
it. You had me at Fake Propaganda. Oh my god. Yeah.
I love a game that leans into the lore of the world. Um So
it's one of the reasons I love BioShock Infinite so much was like some of
the like not propaganda, but like the like the cultural piece, like the
posters that then it was propaganda, right, like they did propaganda for for
that government. Yeah, it was very broadside of the barn. Racism is
bad. Yeah. I remember the opening where there's like the person being tortured
and then you like destroy a CoP's face. Uh so subtle Yeah, you
know, listen, I love subtlety. Maybe not strong suit, but I
did love I did. I did love that BioShock. That all right?
Is it is possible the first BioShock is up much much, much higher on
this list than Bioshockit. Yeah, I mean that's fair. I think I
think I am in the minority by saying that I loved BioShock in Infinite more
than Bioshockolman, So wow, I thought you were gonna say that you were
the martyred by liking BioShock and fit it, and I would have agreed with
that. I mean, that's probably true. I don't know. There were
a lot of people that loved BioShock, and when it came out, I
think it has since had less of a reputation. It's razzle dazzle. I
think I think. I mean this is applicable to board games. The game
comes out, it becomes the new hotness. Everybody is shaken up, and
then it's like it's like the Scythe thing. Everyone loved Sythe that came out,
and then they played it too much and they realized, oh, it's
it's okay. I so so not to dev it because I have I have
your next No, there's no no deviation, is what is the game?
Because I like I like the huge thing. We haven't talked about video games
on this podcast ever. Right, this is the first time we're doing video
games top five. We'll do a top five video games of all time.
I'm ready. I got my half, my three, Um, I got
two, I have one two more and it's gonna be hard. Um,
but what was I gonna say? I came again Scythe much like Starship Troopers.
I came late to the party, and I still own a copy of
Scythe. I still enjoy it. I still it's not the best game that
I've ever played, but it really does scratch to get an interesting itch that
I didn't think I needed. So I don't know. UM, as long
as you're not rusty it because rusty, it's dumb, my a listery and
hot take about psythe is just that the best thing about it is the art
it is, I don't and everything else is not nearly as good or is
arresting or is interesting. I don't even think that's a hot take. I
think I'm being facetious. Yea, that's because the art's really good. But
it also speaks to why it captured the attention of the internet. They posted
that first picture, the internet exploded, everyone bought it, they played the
heck out of it, and then you know, it's star has faded a
little bit. Yeah. Well, I think that's partially true of a lot
of things that people like. I think we I don't know. Maybe it's
the after being the board industry for a while, It's like people want things
to fail. Like I was shocked at the number of people that they're like,
let's go gloom Haven's not number one, And I was like, you
were some of the like something like you were the same ones that loved it
like two years ago, three years ago. Um, I don't know how
your feelings on gloom Haven. I think I think bloom Haven is is very
good, but I don't love it and Idor is one of my favorite games
of all the time. But yeah, I give I give it like a
like an eight out of ten, Um, sir, I think that's fair.
I think it's very good. Um. But there's so much about it
that I find obnoxious. But the car of itself is great, you know.
I just don't think it has to come in a box, uh the
size of a case and a half of beer. Um. I think what
is it? Lions Main? What's the uh the other campaign play game of
um? Oh, Jaws the Line. I think Jaws of the Line is
the best form of gloom Haven interesting. And I have not played Jaws Line.
Speaking of the games that I may or may not have played, Number
fifty seven, All right, number fifty seven, we're right here in the
middle. Number of fifty seven is far cry too. Oh nice. Farcry
is in the Interesting series because the first game nobody remembers playing, and then
two really changed things up in a weird way, and it has it has
a cult following. Ye, so a lot of um your kind of initial
uh nuzzlock run people kind of latched on too far Cry too because like like
Residival five, it's set in Africa, but it's not cartoony like in the
opening act you get malaria. UM. It's really really really gritty. UM.
It had the first like wild fire mechanics I ever remember seeing. UM.
And it's also this kind of like the Beatles Revolver album feeling, because
it's right before everything kind of exploded, right in this metaphor, Uh,
Farcry three is Sergeant Peppers, where all of a sudden everyone was on the
map, and now every single Farcry game is identical to or three. So
fark right two is really fascinating. I am not one of the people who
loves it. I've since gone back. I've modded the heck out of it.
I've done some of that like weird Nuzzlock run stuff where basically it's it's
perma death. You have a self inflicted perma death. And I think that's
interesting in kind of a conceptual sense, that there's all these games that have
really captured the imagination of subcultures because of how people play with it. And
I think that's a really fascinating lesson to take home as designers and also as
like fans and players of things. When a game becomes beyond the scope of
what the original intent was, how a game can be molded in any possible
way. Fark Right two is a bizarre and fascinating game, and it's right
there on the cost between nobody cares and perhaps we've gone too far. Yeah,
yeah, maybe so I have not played Farcry too. My experience of
the far Car franchise. The metaphor you made about Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
is very apt, I think, because I started in far Cry three and
I played Farkry three to absolute death. Me too. I love it.
It's one of my again makes my at least my top twenty games of all
time. I love Farkry three. I sunk way too much time. I
got all the achievements, and at some point I literally just did a web
series my friends in college called The Adventures of far Cry Man, which because
we were just so enamored with it, and it was just us with wingsuits
just to ambush the random pirate bases. So so you recorded this, we'll
put this in the show notes below. Right, I wish I don't know
what any of the man the adventures are far Crime Man and the role the
rule was if you were playing farcry Man. You had the wingsuit and the
Magnum revolver and nothing, which was great. But I think one of the
things I love about game is like Far Cry Too, because Far Cry Too
popped up on my radar a while ago. Is it goes back to what
you're saying about unity in tone. Right in the first thirteen seconds of this
game, you get malaria, you know the like. And I've watched full
playthroughs of this game, by the way, because it fascinates me so much.
So never i've never played it, I still have a lot of familiarity
with this subject. So spoilers for Far Cry Too, I guess if anyone
wants those. But like the quote unquote good ending, is you basically offing
yourself by blowing up like a bridge or like a convoy line to stop these
people from doing bad stuff? Am I am I wrong? Yeah, it's
gritty, it's dark. Yeah, it's grounded in a way that video games
of this era were not aren't really, no, because there were two kinds
of games. There were your kind of Far Cry three spitops the line which
was we're going to be a commentary on the gray brown, Gray Brown,
and then there was just normal gray brown, gray brown, and so it
was like over the top and big and gears of war and whatever, and
Far Cry two was early enough in the cycle that it was just straight gritty.
Yeah, there was. It was, And it's a it's a commentary
upon itself because of the decisions that were made, like it's kind of an
oddity. And what's interesting is and again, I think this goes back to
earnestness. I think people just have to own it, like it's gritty without
being like eye rolling lee gritty, at least when I have watched it and
enjoyed it, like it felt like it inhabited that without being too much.
If that makes sense, I agree. I I have a pretty low tolerance
for Grim Dark because it feels very much like a little kid waving their arms
and jumping up and down. If if it reminds me of forty K you've
already lost. But farkright too, feels like it was just like trying to
tell the story, you know, and that it didn't go over the edge.
Is it fun to play? I don't know. It's kind of a
pan the ass, But then that's interesting again, it's just like pre h
follow the marker on your map stuff. You know, it didn't spoonfeed it
to you. You had to navigate through the jungle. It was really it
was really hard. So making it really, really really hard when people are
like, nope, perma death, self inflicted perma death is fascinating, you
know, Like there's tons of these people who've who've said it's their favorite game
of all time, like yeah, popping. Because of these experiences in the
subculture, it's a game that continues to be something interesting to look back on,
at least for me and to watch, which is why I've watched so
many playthroughs of it, because I'm like, what a weird experiment they have
done. It's cool, all right, your next one game number eighty five,
all right, so something that's gonna be worse than that. Yes,
fascinating. Okay, my number eighty five is speaking of co op multiplayer beat
him up. It's Castle Crashers. Castle Crashers exploded when it came out,
and the fact that you've not reacted at all makes me you haven't played it.
I have. Actually I own a copy of Castle Crushers. Um.
I am a member. Every con I went to, people are dressed to
members the nights. Um. Every time I went to buddy's houses, they
were all playing it. Uh. This was an era um, and it's
one that I didn't really love. Um. It has weird bathroom humor in
it that I don't really drive with. Yeah, I love side scrolling beat
him up, but it also like wasn't quite enough there. Um. I'm
looking at this list here, and I'm looking at the like the seventy five
to eighty five range that I have in front of me, And these are
games that I had a good enough time with and I will never play again.
And that's why I didn't react, Because I have played Castle Crashes.
I think I like three hours on it on Steam something like that. Woh
okay, well, yes you can't play it on Steam. It's like at
your buddy's house and Doritos. Everyone's there. You're playing until way too late
because you don't care about the first class you have in the morning. It's
it's a It's a quintessential college game with like ear buddies. Yeah, I
just I liked it. It was fine, and I played a couple of
times as a friends online. I think it would have had a better experience
if I had done what you were describing truthfully, but it was fine.
I remember being like, this is a confident beat him up with new Grounds
level humor, like early new Grounds level humor. A lot of this stuff
is it's a time and place, and I think a lot of it you
it gets missed, you know, And this was a game that like really
hit the zye Geis when it came out, it was massively popular, and
personally, I find myself outside a lot of these events, a lot of
these zye geis oftentimes by choice. When things kind of explode into pop culture,
I immediately become very suspicious of it. I never watched Lost because it
was like a fanatical thing and people lose in their minds, and I was
just immediately suspicious. People were like, no, no, no, no,
it's the best thing in the world, and I'm like, let's let's
let's cool our jets, right, And then I don't know, and then
people turned on it the same thing with like a Game of Thrones, like
everyone it was. It was destination television, and then the last couple of
seasons where they weren't the books anymore, and then subculture revolted. You know,
people, people are so dickle especially when they feel like they've been lied
to by the thing that they've poured their heart and sold as a lifelong Game
of Thrones fan. I will say it is the lack of fickleness there.
It is that that season eight was every principle of good writing that you have
ever espoused, Graham. They betrayed all of it all at once. Seven
wasn't very good, and I liked it very good. I Seven felt like
set up. I think people didn't like seven because it felt like set up.
I think that was the wind up and we were like, oh man,
it's gonna be great, and then um, we'll see see that.
That wind up immediately makes me suspicious because I've seen jj Abrahms really give talks
about his mystery box, where he he carries a freaking box on stage with
a question mark on it, and he's like, this is how I write
mysteries, like it's the coolest thing in the world. And instead I'm screaming
at him, right, like, that's not how you write a mystery.
That's how you disappoint, right, That's how you write people's hearts. Right.
It is the most casey at the bat experience. But the problem is
I love. But that is an intentional like anti climax. But all these
are unintentional anti climaxes. Oh yeah, but but but I think how how
the fans of the Mudville nine felt is how I felt watching Game of Thrown
season eight. Um, we're gonna bounce really hard though into this next part
of the list. Okay, eighteen eighteen eighty five to eighteen. That's a
huge jump. So we're gonna talk about something that is slightly better than Hill
divers O. This is the best game of its kind. It started revolution
all of a sudden, people of different inclinations were suddenly playing a different type
of video game because it hit the mainstream. But it was designed like something
was indie again, coming from something that was wildly popular, a television property
that came down into a quiet, individual kind of design that was deeply narrative,
also kind of lied to you about what it was about. That is
the Walking Dead, the Walking the Telltale one. Yeah, eighteen, number
eighteen, incredible game, and every other Tolltale game that came after was a
pale, a pale, pale shadow of it. And this one was great.
Despite the fact that again, these tropes that became more and more transparency
that went on. This person will remember that, No they won't. That's
a lie. The game's literally lying to you. This is a great tie
in with jj abrams where they're promising things that don't pay off. Boom.
That's the Walking Dead tall Tale game. But the game is incredible. It's
perfectly paced, It's got an incredible ending. I give a lot of props
to great openings and great endings and pacing. Yeah, I can. I
can forgive a lot of stuff if all of those things are are in place.
And the Walking Dead tall Tale game was incredible. Um, it came
at a time in which people have gotten tired of like quick time events.
They were like, this is this is uh, this is a grift.
Um. But also it was on consoles, so people were playing narrative games,
and so all of a sudden, people who love point click games were
there. But then people are like, oh wait, this is slow pace
and all I do is walk around. But it gripped to people in such
a way and and and spurred on a whole line of deeply mediocre fash Yeah.
But I think everything you've said about it is is true. I think
it is perfectly paced at the ending slaps. I think the beginning slaps at
the pace. I think the pace is its strongest weapon. I feel like
just goes goes, goes, goes goes. Yeah, this like five chapter
thing which kind of became popular again also in the indie sphere where you maybe
you don't have the money to make make a full game. Um, I
for dang, I'm blanking on the name. Did you play the narrative game
where where you're a teenage girl who can go back in time? Uh,
life is strange? No, no, And I did not that it was
okay. It looked that looked okay. I wanted I wanted to like it,
and it uh didn't stick to landing, but it was, but it
came from a similar kind of uh indie world. The five chapters deeply narrative.
You're a person walking around this kind of like new generation of point and
click. I love point and click games. I always have. There were
some of the first games that I played when I was way too little and
didn't understand them. I have deep memories of being traumatized by playing King's Quest
different kings Quest games at an early age, and being horribly murdered by something
and then like screaming because I was five years old. Yeah, so I
have a soft spot in this, and I think The Walking Dead. I
read the comic and didn't love it, and then the TV show came out
and everyone loved it, and then I honestly think this form is probably the
best thing to come out of the whole franchise, because now we're like three
spinoffs deep or whatever, and honestly, I don't know anybody that watches them
anymore. Like, yeah, and a partridge in the peatree three spinoffs and
I liked the first season. I think of The Walking Dead and then completely
gave up on it. But I love the game. The game is great.
The game is. The game is sick, all right, So grip,
I have one more random one. And then I want to hear,
well, I'll tell you what we can do this everyone, there are no
I know, I know. I'm just letting you know that I have one
more random one. So we're going to continue. Move up your list.
It is number fourteen. Awesome, Okay. I'm excited to talk about fourteen
because it ties into basically a series that has spread pretty evenly across this whole
thing and into the present day. A mainstream series that I'm a slight apologist
for and a thing that it's very easy for me to find people who've played
this series and you can talk about it, and I'm always a little embarrassed
by how much I like it. But number fourteen is Assassin's Creed two.
Assassin's Creed two is so good. Assassin's Creed two is an apology for everything
that people didn't like about Assassin's Creed one, and let's talk about it,
because I like Assassin's Creed is not good about it talking about terrible past and
talk about jank mechanics, um, but being like a Muslim assassin in the
Crusades and the freedom it felt so next Gene when it came truly I and
I am a lover of the Prince of Persia games, which is a direct
design uh jump from that, as well as a Thief one and two um
on the PC. So my all time favorite games and Prince of Persia led
directly into what has become basically all of Assassin's Creed. And I liked Assassin's
Creed one, but they're like, wasn't much diversity and your character is kind
of boring and you had an American accent for some reason, and the story
was kind of bad um and every time you were in the modern day it
was awful and it took you forever to it going. And then whoever was
in charge sat down in a table and we're like, okay, we've we
have this golden goose. How do we apologize to every single person on the
planet Earth who've played this game? And they made Assassin's Creed too, which
beginning to end is incredible. Every every place you go is amazing. The
quality of light and venice, the fact that the boss fight is spoilers.
You punched the both in the face competedly. Yeah, and then and then
the framing device actually worked. Yeah, most of it doesn't, and many
games down the line in the series are all kind of stupid and nobody really
cares about a modern day and then be the ultimate framing device of like gods
and interdimensional stuff. But Assassins Creed two did it exceptionally well, and it
was a long time before I felt like a game was ever as good at
it again. Also the best protagonist out of the Assassins Creed series. I'm
gonna I will I'll say I like Assassin's creed honesty a lot okay, good,
A lot of people do because it's kind of a build your own but
because they like obviously they have a voice in a part of that story.
But very it's by very BioWare at this point, they've become they've gone full
on BioWare. But um so god, I respect the heck out of whoever
was like, we're gonna make this character, and it's gonna be this character
and you're gonna play as him. There I hesitate. I don't know if
there is a cooler video game character than I love et Ceo. Ceo is
the man. Oh my god, that whole game was so good, dude,
I I again again. The Pacers, So I talked about the final
boss fight where you bunch Rodrigo Borgia like repeated any of the face yes,
but um you you don't even like talk about the fact that you're an assassin.
Like many other games like Black Flag with people love right, they're like
you get to pirate, like okay, whatever, like it's lost its way
or it's something different. Who cares try to embrace it. They're desperately just
trying to make money, so whatever, and people had fun being pirates,
but the idea that you were a person and that you completely embodied them and
then went through an emotional journey with him, right and at the end you
were like, you felt like you had become this assassin. They really did
deliver on their own lore, which and most all video games of a triple
A nature are really have a trouble with delivering lore in a way that like
they're it's self important, and Assassin's Creed is not immune to that. But
the emotional journey of Assassin's Creed too broadly, out out out classed the kind
of game that it was. But that's why that's why I think SEO is
my favorite, because it felt like it was the one that they owned the
most. They were like, this is it. They knew exactly what kind
of story they were trying to tell it at CEO, even down to Assassin's
Creed Brotherhood, which I actually really enjoyed, Bro, there's fabulous. Yeah,
I just don't like it as much because again, the emotional arc.
Maybe mechanically it might be better, but I just love You're a kid jumping
out of windows, to punching the Pope, to all the assassins coming through
and being like here we are. But it was to watch him be like
become go from the swaggering devil, make care, I have no responsibilities,
young men, badass assassin that he was, which is again the great as
such a great power fantasy to him being this kind of like, oh,
I have to be a father figure now to this group of assassins. And
that was a cool arc too, So you know, tell me a fellow
apologist, it's what I'm saying. I think. I think Assassin's Creek two
is dope. I think that the overwhelming majority of the games are either bad
or fine. Yeah, and I um, I was out for a while.
Um. And the problem is that every once in a while, when
I think they've brought me back in, I'll then play a game and they
pulled me right back out. So stuff. The recent ones have not been
Oh god, I despised. I despised. What is it? Ragnarot?
No, Bahalla bhalla. I just blushed, filalla. It's so hard.
Yeah, it's not. It's not great. Did not look particularly enjoyable,
which if I didn't play it, I was like, you know what,
I'm good. I think I've I've had my moment with Assassin's Creed. The
problem is that they brought me in so hard of Odyssey. I was like,
okay, you've brought me back in. Okay, I'll play it,
And then it brought me back out again. Odyssey is incredible. Yeah.
I haven't played Odyssey either. I'm not a I don't know. Maybe maybe
I missed the open world enjoyment of Assassin's Creed. Maybe I'll come back to
it at some point. But speaking of come back to it, we have
two left. What is number one twenty seven on your list? It's another
Assassin's Creed game. Can you guess which one the three? Yep? Yeah
said three? Yeah, um yeah. I'll try and wrap this up fast
because it's so funny that you jumped right to the end there. Um,
like two is fabulous. I love Brotherhood. It wasn't as emotional, but
mechanically maybe more contained because you only are in one city or just in Rome.
Um. And then uh was what was the last one of the trilogy?
It was fine? So one one one I thought was actually good if
flawed. I thought, well, actually I think one is great if flawed.
Um, and two is perfect. And then that was the last one
of the trilogy, original trilogy that I thought, no, no, no,
no, So there's there's an Eteo trilogy. Oh it's you and then
Brotherhood and then We'll be Gone or whatever. That one it was, it
was it was fine, Uh, it was it was we need to end
his story and it felt like they kind of just sneezed it out or whatever.
Yeah, and then three it is this like big big Swanson, You
like, oh, we're gonna change, We're gonna go radically in the future,
We're gonna have a new continent. Were gonna do all these things.
Um and uh. I hated basically every single aspect. Yeah, and they
decided the ships were good. They ripped, ripped that part portion out,
moved aside and said we're just gonna do straight up pirates. But like every
aspect of three made me so Yeah, it's bad to the point where like
playing Black Flag, which is great, if you would go to a city
that reminded me a little bit of Boston or Philadelphia, like I would get
weird flashbacks and be like, no, this is this is awful. Yeah,
yeah, I'm with you. Pacing was wonky, the controls felt bad,
you were awful. Um, I was super excited to have a native
American protagonist. And the way that they wrote Connor was and he was awful,
unbelievably boring. Yeah, yeah, obnoxious truthfully, Like I remember being
like, this guy's insufferable to be around, Like ALTI Erin got away with
some of the stuff that he did because he there was so which mystery to
him. I thought, right, he was aloof, yes, aloof in
a really obnoxious way, like he was Eric warnings to quote to quote a
great phrase that I learned from a good friend. Um. But he got
away with it because no one had ever swan dived into a cathedral full of
heavily armed templars, killed them all and then left right like and Connor was
like, I get killed by a tree branch. I'm like, God,
come on, man, that the number of times you would jump off the
thing, how bad it was. And it was like the worst sins of
the series that that came out to roost immediately. It was the like Cam
and two. You were like, okay, Leonard da Vinci, all right,
I guess I buy it, And they didn't really overdo it. But
then running around with the Patriots and like slowly pannied past Ben Franklin while Connor's
like mumbling. And then I get in a really boring action scene and I
jump off the wrong roof and I keep killing myself like I was miserable.
I was miserable beginning to end. And I said, no, I didn't
play an Assassin's Creed until Origins. Basically, I'm sorry as well. No,
Origins is great? Are you kidding me? Was it the French Revolution
one that's Unity? I have not played Unity. Which one was awarded for
Origins is the Egypt one, which they completely reworked it. They took maybe
two years off. It's an ancient Egypt, and it feels like a totally
new game. It was the first one to introduce RPG mechanics. Okay,
okay, it's It's just it's really good because it doesn't feel like an Assassin's
Screed game. And that didn't bother me. It feels like a fabulous action
game in a great setting in in ancient Egypt. Like again, it capture
that magic of you've been transported into a place you can never possibly see.
I love ancient Egypt, so I mean you gotta play Origins. I gotta
play, all right? Um? And then our last one for today.
Number two on your list, you curved me and number two on your list
because I want, I want to do a second part of this. I
think this was super fun, cool, so and I want I want people
to come back for part two. And so we're gonna save it number one
for part two. Yeah, I'm gonna clickbat them. I don't care a
click batim. We got them all right, Number two, Number two is
a game that essentially is a spiritual successor or remake of what many people consider
to be the best video game ever made. And it builted up from the
ground up. It took an entire section of kind of mainstream gamers and then
the strategy gamers who kind of hit in their corner and played things, and
it added a completely several layers of strategy which you're still being inerted on and
changed and changed. It's very Cyclopean in nature what this game specifically did.
And it is a game that is dry but feels so engaging that I feel
like the story is very player driven. The idea that you can get attached
to these boring little people because you get to name them and change their hair
colors and get on and when they die, because permath was a big deal.
You get so sad a game that did not hesitate to be way too
hard to beat had you just said to start over in the mainstream. That's
x COM Enemy Unknown my number two of this era. Incredible game, Incredible
game. And then after a while there were games that always had that could.
It continued to populate the design scape in a very very very positive way
because all these people played x Com and Xcom is fascinating because it's so much
like a board game, because they tried to make it like a board game.
It came out at the same time in which the board revolution was taken
off, and all of a sudden, these designer games were everywhere, and
Enemy Unknown is weirdly dry and specific. You know, in a game in
an era where you have these bombastic things, things like like Uncharted and Gears
of War and you know, Grant Theft out of four where things are getting
bigger and bigger, all of a sudden you had this like gritty little throwback
game where you move people across and you try and make perfect shots, and
like nobody has any personalities, but you cry when your little soldiers die.
Yeah, it's so good good. Really it's really freaky good. Like I'm
sitting in silence because I loved xcom. God, it's so good and like
we all got attached. In college, a friend of ours did a playthrough
of x com um and called his team Wolf Squad and named every member on
the team after us. That's mistake, and like, I was like the
leader I was, I was, I was appointed squad leader. Say I
was a squad leader of our group. Like I was the leader of our
group. I was one of rand activities and organized stuff. And so he
was like, oh, yeah, I made your squad leader. And he's
like, yeah, we're Wolf Squad. We got cool stuff. And then
we all died horribly and then he deleted the same He's like I couldn't keep
doing It was like that memory of like him coming like into the dining hall
heartbroken and being like, do what's wrong? We thought of it was like
really really really wrong. He goes Wolf Squad, died all the Wolf Squad
just in a single mission. Ah. Yeah, No, I I was
not saying anything for that because I think everything you have said is dead on
the money. I think x COM's incredible and it's incredible it's so good.
It defined this generation. It brought things together, these disparate pieces, and
it continued to change the way design was done to this day. You know,
anytime a game comes out and the headline is x Com Light, people
come running and and it's also a way to get people's attention because people loved
it, so so many games have come out with similar ideas. So the
whole kind of rain of the shadow run returns games, so much of that
is pulled straight out of a comm Dead West is that what it's called.
Weird West. Weird West. Weird West was more recent Play West. I
liked Weird West a lot. Weird West is an immersive SAM. Immersive sims
are amongst my favorite kinds of games. But the the cover full cover,
half cover squad movement thing, like it's so nineties and it worked, and
it worked better than it had any right to be. Recently, the head
designer made that Marvel game, which was fine, and then he left.
I played it when he was free to play for the first three or four
hours, and it was kind of a mess. But I like the combat
because it felt like a fresh take on on Xcom. But anything that continues
to kind of try to redo this thing. I mean, x CON changed
game design and the industry for the better, and we're still reaping the rewards.
And shout out to the fire Access for putting out that, because I
don't think anyone was willing to try that risk at that time other than those
guys. Yeah, yeah, awesome. Well, if you are all interested,
those of you who are listening to a part two of this episode,
it will be coming hopefully soon. Actually, maybe we'll do this next week,
Graham, we'll finish this, we'll cap this thing off, because I
have enjoyed a lot of This has been really fun for me to revisit games
that I had forgotten, that I enjoyed in series that I forgot that I
had played and played religiously for like a very long time. Look, I
have probably one hundred and forty hours long into Farcry three something like that,
and I had forgotten about Farkry three. This is what happens when you grow
up and you get boring and start doing taxes. You've been warned, children,
But I guess if you're still listening, tune in hopefully soon for our
next episode. But don't leave yet, because I have a weird question.
Grant weird question. Before you ask your question, remember you can get After
the Rain at desks and dorics dot com. Please buy it for you,
your family, your friends, and all the people I have here. I
think it's a quote from the New York Times that said it's the single greatest
thing any human has ever made, and it makes the sixteen Chapel look like
garbage rotting in the sun. It does. You should be very proud.
That's why we didn't do expansions for it. Pope asked me too personally,
so he's going to sunch that old guy in the Faith, Rodrigo Borgia.
Oh my gosh, yes, thank you Graham for that. Yes absolutely,
please, you know, please buy a copy After the Rain. Um Becoming
banana Bread is gonna be available on destin doorks dot org very soon. A
fear of Thing's gonna be available on deskin doorks that org very soon. UM
go follow Graham gants on all the socials as he could. Dude, should
do that. Um And hopefully when Under the Autumn strangely comes out, I
get my Copiason it's coming in spooky season October. You will all be able
to get some copies as well, because it'll be worth playing. Having having
not only bought it but tested it as well, I enjoyed the enjoyed the
actual crap out of that. So, Um, Graham, you're right for
your weird question always, what is the best part of the McDonald's playplace?
I mean what every I was gonna say the sliding puzzle, but yours was
way more profound. Um, the memory, the memory of it. I
don't know if that's it, that's the answer, it's it's it's the you
can't ever return home again thing, like when you are too young and like
lacking in the critical thought, and it's this wonderful thing in place like you
go to McDonald's. I didn't eat a live fast food growing up. It's
very very rare we got to do such a thing. And if you went
to McDonald's and there was a play place, oh, it was an event.
All of TV land was true. It was an event. You had
not been lied to. This. This is before the time in which like
I in childcare and I took kids to places like this and from the top
row I would see little's start to pee and then the whole thing like leaking
down right, These four things that have yet to breach my mind, and
the countless then conversations that I have with people sitting around in cafes or bars
and were like a better play places and somebody being like they were so disgusting.
Imagine going around with that thing, and then you have it to consider
as an adult, You're like, you're probably right. Yeah at the time.
Oh, gas, memory, absolute gas, the memory. That's the
best names. I chose the sliding puzzle because I liked and I think on
that point, I think that's a great place for us to end the episode.
You can joined us next week to figure out maybe what is Graham's number
one game, which would be very excited. It's the whole raison. I
bought a PS three. I'll leave you with that. I bought a PS
three to play this game and it is still my number one game of this
iteration. Oh I love that hint. But until next time, I am
Kyle out for desks and dorks. I've been Graham Ganz, You've been awesome.
Zippity zap zao, stay bogging, my friends. Goodbye, everybody,