Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the twenty twenty four side Quest
Game of the Year episode. I'm your host Dolmason with
me the holiday man, Kirklan Patzer for the first time
fully joining me on a Game of Year episode, which
is very exciting. How are you doing today, my friend.
Speaker 2: I'm doing very good. I didn't realize it was such
a special occasion, you know, like because I feel like
I've recorded things for the end of the year, so
it makes me think that I have done an episode before,
but no, this is this is history and the making here.
I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's shifted over the years because for a while
there I was doing it with Dante, and you know,
he hasn't been to join me this year. Last year.
Last year I just did on my own a little
little solo Game of the Year thing. But this year
you kind of had some good some good Jews to
talk about it, and I mean, you're kind of the
main side Quest co host at this point, I feel like,
so it's it's kind of it's kind of perfect. So
I'm glad that you've kind of promoted to these the
Game of the Year chair at this point because this
is always a very fun episode. Yeah, So that's what
this episode's gonna be all about. No game's been playing anything,
just all about the Game of the Year. We're gonna
do our top lists. We're also at some point, Taylor
he recorded his Game of the Year thing that's gonna
get edited into the episode somewhere at some point. And
then if you want to go back Travis we I
talked about this with Travis on his last side Quest
episode before he went on his little pat Leaf hiatus here,
so you can go back and check that out. I
think I timestamped in whatever that last episode he was in,
so if you want to hear Travis as you can
go back and do that. So that's what that's what
this episode is all about. Just a couple of quick
shoutouts here. I released a new YouTube video which might
be of interest to the side Quest listener. Is a
weird hybrid of Hitman and Chess. I'll just put it
that way. I'll put in the description. You go check
it out if you want. In terms of other things
to check out, there are you know, just a million
TV shows going on right now. Dexter Star Wars, What
If review is gonna come out this week Creature Commandos.
You guys are crushing that. I've been sitting back. I've
been relaxing hard. But Taylor and kirkl have been going crazy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's for auto review. You guys just recorded. Uh so
that's out on the feeds now. So yeah, and then
really this this week. In the next week kind of
just getting back into the regular swing of things. We'll
probably a newscast next week, I imagine. So yeah, lots
to check out. Any any shout outs on your end
neck of the woods there, Kirklam.
Speaker 2: Uh no, I think you. I think you hit them
all a lot of reviews. Crazy are coming to the end
of December. It's been it's been a jam packed, yes,
but we're almost at the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. Uh yeah. So other than that, you know,
hit up patroon to get episodes early and ad free.
Last week's episode, for example, was up a few days early.
Uh And then yeah, who wants to listen to ads?
No one, So go check out the patron to get
the best version of the episodes. And then I just
wanted to, you know, also throw a big thank you
out to everyone for listening to side Quest this year.
I feel like this year maybe had a little less
of like an overall identity. I feel like last year
was really like the Arcane retro is big deal for me,
and then the year before that, I think was like
the first Side Quest year, maybe the second one. But
I feel like this was just kind of business as you'll,
just kind of same old stuff and maybe target it
more to like the games we've been playing, less talking
about just like news things, So maybe that's of anything
like that's kind of behind the scenes that has been
more my focus. So hopefully that's resulted in a good
listening experience for everyone. But yeah, thank you to everyone
for listening throughout the year. It's been another fun one
and yeah, can't wait. January always kicks it off big
with like previews and making the draft and stuff like that.
I should have had the draft numbers ready to go
for today, but I don't, So we'll cover that on
next week's episode. Something like that on Side Quest here.
But yeah, let's get into this a little bit. So
game the year twenty twenty four. The year is officially up. Kirkling,
how did you think about this year overall? Was it
was a great year, midyear and okay year, bad year.
For games you, how do you look back on it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's funny. I feel like it's not until a
moment like this is happening where I'm like not forced to,
but I'm direct to look back on the year and
like like yeah, and like I feel like maybe I'm
just getting older now. I tend to like splice like
the last two years of game releases together. Like there's
so many games that when I was making this list,
I'm like, oh, yeah, I add that one on there,
and I'm like, oh wait, twenty twenty three and I'm like,
what the hell? Thinking back, and I'm like, oh wait,
it's like March of twenty twenty. Like it's not even
like it was like the tail end of twenty twenty three.
Maybe it's just what was the early.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty three one?
Speaker 2: I think that one was No Mortal Kombat, was the
Fall one? I can't Oh, I can't remember what one
it was?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: It was was Balder's Gate one of those for you
as well, We're like, yeah, definitely Balderskate because I just
didn't jump into it super until way later, right, And
I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just feel like games that are talked about really
highly like they have the longevityes and then in my
mind it just makes because people have been talking about
it for so long, makes me think like it came
out and I feel like recently that.
Speaker 1: Happens offered for us too, where like I feel like
our when we have our winter break little time off
from work, we like binge play bunch of different games.
We might play like something from the previous year. It's
like I wasn't on my Game of the Year list,
but like it should be now. So I think that
that happens sometimes too.
Speaker 2: It was Tara Nille that was the game, uh that
I thought came out this year, just because I don't know,
did you play it last year like you told me
about it.
Speaker 1: I don't think I played it. Yeah when it came out.
I played it in this summer, but yeah, yeah, there
you go.
Speaker 2: Anyways, Yeah, no, just looking back on it, I feel
like I feel like it was kind of mid I
don't know for me specifically. There was some big titles
that came out, but when I think of like a
great video game release year, I feel like it's like
multiple like heavy hitters that could really be up for
the Game of the Year, Like I know, we had
some good releases this year, of course, you know games
that I've played, maybe I'm focusing a little bit more on,
but yeah, it just it just seemed like like there's
like Astrobot final fantasies I'm never really on, so like
those are kind of just in like a great area
in my mind. But yeah, no, I just didn't really,
I guess, get my hands on those big, juicy titles
that would make me think that it's like a much
better year than it is. But I'm sure this is
gonna happen where next year I like finally jump onto
like Astrobot and these twenty four games, and then I'm like, man,
twenty twenty five is the best year of games. Yeah,
but yeah, overall pretty pretty mid And I don't want
to say that how it's like super negative, like like
there was still some really good games, but if I'm
just looking at it, like on the the ocean of
video game releases, for me specifically, it's yeah, a little
bit lesser.
Speaker 1: I do feel like we are cued up for just
a absolutely brutal in a good way twenty two five
with with you know, Next Gta, Ghost of Yo, Taie,
Death Stranding, two. The New Switch is coming out, so
I'm sure that's gonna have some big banger games with
it avowed for me personally, Civilization seven, Outer World's two
is coming out. I'm sure like some indie games like
maybe Hollow Night, Silk Song will finally come out. Maybe
the Celeste developer, what's their next game called, like earth Blade,
I think like that's probably coming out next year. The
next game from the shovel Light team thing's coming out
next year. So there's there's a lot of things that
will potentially be coming out, and it's gonna be a
heavy year. So I think that's kind of just the
way the cycles go. And I think, you know, a
couple things did seem to get maybe delayed out of
this year, so naturally that just kind of fills up
next year's calendar. We'll see what happens there, but obviously
we'll cover all that in the preview. Should be should
be very exciting. As for myself, I think I'm in
a similar boas you. I think overall was a fairly
mid quality year, and that means that there was still
a ton of great games. It's just how many games
come out on a yearly basis. But when I look
at my list, I was like, Okay, I always kind
of break my top ten down into like the tiers
of it, and like, I have a top three and
that tier is like insane. Those are amazing some of
my all time favorites. But then like I kind of
struggled with, like what do I put four through tenh Like,
I'm not like I'm passionate about of these games. I
love a lot of them, but I do feel like,
compared to some other years, it was like I was
kind of just having to sneak things into different slots.
So overall, I think it was kind of mid and
I think part of that for me is like maybe
early on the year I didn't play a whole lot
of things, and a big part of that was because
I released Potion Problem. This year, I finally kind of
got on the other side of things and released a game,
and so that was a big part of the gaming
year for me. It was releasing that, did a couple
of game jams, released a couple other smaller things as well,
and so yeah, it was it was cool to finally
get Potion Problem out in the wild here people play
that and see how that goes, and so yeah, that
was definitely the first few months of the year. I
was just maybe I was doing so much development that
I wasn't like playing as much, just like, you know,
playing the odd thing to have something to talk about
on side quests. So yeah, it was. It was an
interesting year. It was overall a decent good year, but yeah,
not like an all timer necessarily for me. But yeah,
my top three is a pretty pretty strong top three,
I'll put it that way. In terms of I always
like to break it down my stats a little bit here.
According to my list, I've played forty nine games this year,
six DLCs on top of that, and then I since
I did a couple game jams this year, I played
a bunch of other people's game jam games from that,
so I had a total like fifty four games I
counted that I've played from those jams, and so you know,
a lot of those are like maybe three minutes long
or something like that, but some of them are bigger
of that I've considered complete or like rolled credits on
twenty four games overall, so pretty pretty solid, but you know,
definitely like less than fifty percent of like the actual
overall games I played, And I always like to look
back at, like, hey, is there anything that came out
this year that I didn't get around too or really
wanted to. I just didn't have time for that kind
of thing that I feel like would have been the
top bid in, like a Top ten contender. I actually
didn't have many of those. I feel like I did
get around of the games that I wanted to play,
and of course I did miss like Final Fantasy, as
you mentioned, Infinite Drag or Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth
looks really cool, but like you know, I've never played
any of those games before. Who knows if it would
have been Top ten contender. Really. The one I had
that I wanted to shout out was Fallout London, which
was like that mod for Fallout four, which seemed huge,
like it was a whole new city, ton of quest,
tons of voice acting, whole bunch of new stuff. I
downloaded and tried to get that thing a run for
like multiple hours, and I could not do it. There
was so many hoops he had to jump through to
get it to work. And I think think a big
part of that is that it came out like right
when they did like the next gym Pad for Fallo four,
so it really screwed that mod over because all this
work that done, it was now like kind of janky
and kind of food bard. So that is like the
big one that I really want to play someday and
I just love but that's the thing so much and
that sounded so good. So that's really the big omission
for me. But other than that, I'm I'm pretty happy.
Is there any other big ones that you miss that
you feel like, I really wish I got around to that.
It probably would have been like a top top five,
top ten contender for you.
Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely. I feel like the biggest one is probably Blatro. Honestly,
I feel like that that one. I kind of regret
not getting my hands on to at least talk about
it for this episode, just because like obviously you were
ranting raven about it, and I've seen like all the
praise it was getting the Video Game Awards. But just
like other friends that like, I know, they play games,
but they're not like hardcore gamers. They're just like, man,
you have to try Balatro. It is it is the
game of the year, and they're just like, yeah, they're
going off about it. I'm like, man, like I gotta
get my my grimmy little myths on that one. So
Blatro for sure, Astrobot would be the other one. Probably
UFO fifty as well would be like my third if
I had to choose. Metaphor was on my radar again.
Speaker 1: Just because I heard from I would love to hear
you talk about that, Okay, maybe like deep sale, you'll
pick it up and talk about it exactly.
Speaker 2: It was one of those situations where like I was
looking at that and like Stellar Blade and then I'm like, okay,
well I'm gonna I'm gonna choo Stellar Blades. So that's
that'll be my my big video game purchase, and don't
regret it because that was a fantastic game. But definitely
it seems like it hits a lot of categories of
my little check boxes that I like in games and
just looks really unique and wild and very anime, which
is usually on my own.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very nice. Yeah, those are those are good. I
funny talking about Blotro. I got that for my dad
for Christmas to play on his iPad, which because he's
always playing like little poker games like just janky little
free to play things on his iPad riddled with ads.
I'm like, you need to play an actual D game,
and if you are, like, Blotro is one that you
could at least like there's a lot of layers to
it beyond poker, but at least he knows poker well
enough that Yeah, I think you all understand. So I
had a couple sessions playing with him over the holidays,
which was which was cool. I feel like the text
is very small. I feel like he was struggling to
read some of the stuff in there, But that was
cool to kind of have a because I haven't played
Blotrone in a few months, so it's funny kind of
see that again through his eyes.
Speaker 2: It's funny. You just reminded me of a very quick
little Christmas story my my buddy in his family. He's
doing secret saying it and for his brother. His brother
really wanted Skyrim, which is a random, random ask and
I feel like I feel like it's a very like
accessible game to get. It's just it's available on everything.
You know, the old meme goes you can get it
on your fridge now, like it's just you can get
any most accessible games of all. But he very specifically
wanted a physical copy and he wanted it on the
switch which is just two wild things that I've heard.
Apparently it's extremely hard to find. My buddy had to
purchase it. He had to purchase it on eBay wow,
and like super long delivery time. It ended up arriving
like literally like I don't know if it was Christmas
Day or like Christmas Eve, but like like right when
they're about to open gifts, like it just showed up.
So it's a little Christmas miracle there that is revolving
around Bethesden's.
Speaker 1: That's interesting.
Speaker 2: It just felt so random, like very specifically. I wanted
to play Skyrim in the year twenty twenty four almost
twenty twenty five, twenty eleven game, but yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 1: It's funny. That's one that has yeah been on my
Switch wish list since it got out of the Switch,
and I've just never made the purchase because I'm like, God,
do I really do I would I actually play this
or do I just want the novelty of like Skyrim
on the go? So I've never actually bite bit the bullet.
And it's funny too. I go to so many used
game stores and always look at stuff, but I don't
really look at the switch section. So I don't really
have a perception of how rare Skyrim is. You would
assume it's kind of everywhere. But maybe it's just one
of those things people don't sell. I guess, like if
they buy it, they just kind of want it forever.
So maybe that's why it doesn't end up back of
the stores. And maybe they didn't print a whole lot
of them. They're so yeah, people will get a digitally
who cares. Yeah, But that's that's a funny, funny situation. Okay.
I have four honorable mentions here before we get into
the top ten. Two that I kind of have like
a little award category for them is like, these are
definitely top ten if they weren't so damn buggy. And
those are games I talked about recently, Stalker two and
Metal Slug Tactics. I really enjoyed both of what those
games are doing. Metal Slug Tactics I raved about on
side Quest for like almost an hour. I really love
a lot of what that game that game is doing,
but it was just too buggy. I was losing progress
at the end of like hours long runs. I'm like, caw,
I'm gonna put this down come back to it later.
But I legitimately still considered it putting in my top
ten just because of how much I enjoyed what I
did play. And then Stalker two is like, Okay, this
is kind of like a Pothesta game, but with more
survival mechanics a little bit different setting, so it's right
up my alley and I really enjoyed it, but also
like that game is just super duper buggy. So two
games that I feel like quality wise and interest wise
would be top tens for me, but just I'm gonna
come back to them later, so maybe I'll maybe I'll
regret that in the future, but I feel like they
pretty much released it early access this year is on
how I feel about these games, so shout out to those.
Another one is Siege Breaker, that tower defense game that
I talked about a few months ago. I didn't this one.
It probably is once again top ten terms of quality.
The reason I didn't put it in there is I
just feel like there's too much bias. Like my friend
made it, I did play testing for it. My name
appears in the credits. Technically the music is from Amanda,
who does the music for my game and the side
quest theme. Like, there's just too much bias. I feel like,
you know what, even though I love this game a lot,
and I you know, played through the whole thing took
me twenty twenty five hours plus like all the play
tests I've done over the years, I really love the game.
I think it's a really great, interesting tower defense game,
but just for bias reasons, decide to keep it off
the list. And the last one, I don't even know
what to say about this, but it's Harold hallib It.
It's a game that came out a few months ago.
If you forget this one, kirkl and definitely give it
a quick google. It has a really weird, unique art style.
It's kind of made with like clay mation and like
stop motion, but it looks like a regular game. Like
it's really interesting, but like really visually really weird and cool.
I like the story. I like the voice act. The
characters are all really funny. It's just a it's a
very long game, or at least long for what this
genre feels like. It's a very slow paced game, and
I just I just couldn't stick with it. I tried
to come back to it a couple times, but it's
just a little too sluggish, a little too long. It
has more of like a TV show vibe to it
more than a game, Like it is walking sim ish,
like there's not a lot, it's mostly just walk around
talking to people, but it's it's a really interesting game,
and it's one that I wish I could have put
in the top ten, but I just feel like I
hadn't played quite enough of it. But yeah, I think
I might like watch a play through the second half
because I kind of want to see what happens in
the story. I'm really curious, but I don't really want
to like walk around this station for another like seven
or eight hours or whatever it's going to take me
to get there. So shout out to Harald Hall. But
it was it was close on my list. Those are
my honorable mentions. I guess do you want to, yeah,
throw your honorable mentions now we talk about we kind
of have like different lists going on, but yeah, go
for it.
Speaker 2: My total collective list is about eleven games, so okay,
I'll sprinkle some in here. Starting to right at the Ball.
Big honorable mention for WW two K twenty four and pick.
Shouts out to Travis for basically just putting I don't
know some focal attention on this game, and this is
what the genre is. I I love sports games, like
throughout my whole life. I always loved sports games, but
like specifically like management type mode games. I was going
really hard on F one Manager last year, going like
you know, college football, GMO, like like all of those
types of managing just game modes in these sports games.
I'm just such a sucker for And I had no
idea what you could really do in this GM mode
and WW two K twenty four didn't play like a
whole lot of it. I was mostly just like feasting
off of Travis and then like after the stream, I
was doing a run and ended up not going well
about halfway through my season. So I he makes it
look easy, but I need some pointers huch knowledge, Yeah,
because I'm like, I'm like remembering what he was telling
me and then again into situations that isn't what he covered,
and I'm like, I don't know what to do, Like
this wasn't covered in the tutorial, but no, I wanted
to shout that one out just because it's never a game.
I never it's never a game. I thought I'd really
be trying out or have anything in there to pull
me in, but yeah, great GM mode and wild online
rosters of like custom characters and stuff you can recruit,
so shouts out to ww.
Speaker 1: Yeah they do. So there's been like multiple deep sales
of that game since the stream, and I've wish listened
it since then. I keeps worth twenty six dollars. I'm like,
I don't know if I don't know I want to
buy the Bullet yet, but someday I will pick that up,
and I'm excited to get the GM mode more.
Speaker 2: It was a PlayStation monthly game like literally that month
of the stream, so it perfect timing. But yeah, that
is a perfect time. It's just WWD. And then another
one I wanted to shout out for twenty twenty four
release game that I had a lot of fun with,
but I just didn't get enough time in it for
me to like really throw it on my top five.
But I think it had potential just because the fun
that we had together with it. LS Trials really really
just fantastic addition to that genre and series and not
something I thought you could really do, Like I didn't
think you could do a cooperative game mode in an
Outlast game and still make it scary. Obviously it's it's
pretty goofy, but like still it hits on the scary
elements and just playing around with the stealth and the
lighting and everything. Really really great systems, and I feel
like they the feel of the Outlast games. They were
able to capture it and like transfer it over to
the multiplayer setting. So yeah, I had a lot of
fun with that and just wish I jumped into it more.
I know you guys were having some set.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've had a couple updates since I last played,
with some new levels and new villains and stuff like that.
A couple of people know new perks and equipment and
those kind of things too, So yeah, we should definitely
jump back in at some point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So yeah, those are my twenty twenty four
shout outs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the way we're gonna do this is Kirkland
has a top five and then you also have I
guess four non twenty twenty four games that you want
to shout out, and I have a top ten. So
we're gonna kind of go back and forth that way.
It'll a little weird, and then we'll get into the
and then we'll get into the top five where we're
kind of matched up there. But how will we take
our first break of the show. We'll be right back
and then we'll get into the top ten and top
five ish lists. Okay, we are back. I'm gonna kick
it off. I'm gonna go through my number ten and
nine here, and I always like, as I mentioned, I
like to break my top ten down into kind of
like tiers just to give a good idea of it.
And I actually my nine and ten are kind of
in the same tiers, so they're kind of interchangeable, but
I'll stand with the rank and I'm giving them here today.
Number ten is where I'm gonna put and oh actually, okay,
a little little backstory to roll overall back here. I
kind of have like multiple places I'm keeping track of things, right,
Like I use backlog dot Com. That's great, I can
keep track of things very visual, but I also have
like an Excel sheet where I just have tons of
random info all the games I'm playing, because you know,
there's a lot of things the game jam games I'm
playing or other things that don't aren't really on backlog,
so I kind of keep a list outside of that too,
And I every once in a while. I do like
throughout the year, Like I think as soon as like
July this year, I was like, I'm gonna make a
top ten. See what my top ten list looks like currently,
And it's fun to I kind of look back because
I keep track of this. I can look back at
the archive and say, well, what was my top ten
a few months ago? And at some point I totally
messed up how my Excel sheet was formatted, and I've
just been for the last few months making like a
top nine list of the year. And so it was
kind of like in the last couple of weeks when
I was really getting, you know, coming down to the
brass tacks. You're like, let me make this top ten
that I'm gonna etch into the podcast here in a
couple of weeks, and I was like, oh, I kind
of have like an extra slot because I've been making
a top nine forever and so now I have this
tenth bonus slot. What am I gonna give it to?
And so that's where Indiana Jones kind of sneaks in
here at the tail end. So I want to talk
about this too much just because me and Taylor did
the review a couple of weeks ago, it's still pretty fresh.
This is a game that at moments is outstanding. It's great,
and then Moments was really drags and I really kind
of hated it. And then it kind of runs the
gamut of everything in between there, and that's where I'm
kind of it kind of ends up falling towards the
bottom of the list, but still sneaks in there at
the end. Really the highlights great story, the acting and
the characters, the cinematography of it, like all that, like
as an Indiana Jones movie, just super duper good. And
then in terms of like the gameplay really varies, like
the things, a lot of things like still that Moments
is really great, but other times it doesn't really make sense.
Combat is like really funny and slapstick, but it also
gets like too confusing and weird and like unruly to
actually really engage with. And then you know, just the
different areas that you're going to really varies in terms
of quality. Some areas really sucks, some of them were fantastic.
And I forget if I messages you to Kirkland or
if I just was talking to before a podcast or something,
but I mentioned you, like this game has given me
dishonored vibes, and I think, you know, I can I
can say now at the end of the experience, like,
ah okay, that kind of wasn't the case. By the
end of it, I think it was just like the
first first main area, you get to, the first open
worldly sort of zone, it's like very reminiscent of the
Dust District from Dishonored to in terms of the vitality,
in terms of how expansive it is, in terms of
the visual style and so, and in terms of the
freedom like those immersive sim elements of the game, and
so it's really giving me dishonored vibes early on. That
kind of faded as I as I went along, but
still like if you're even giving me dishondered energy, then
like you know, you're already doing a great job as
a game. Visuals and music are fantastic. So overall, had
a really good time with this game. It just had
some moments where it really dragged, but yeah, still happily
putting it in the top ten there. And then number
nine for me is Gonna be Animal Well, which is
a game that was really high on my list for
most of the year, and then just kind of has
steadily dropped, and I think that's just because as it's
almost like anti recency bias, whereas it's gone along, I'm
kind of forgetting. What were the moments I love the
most in this game? And I can I can think
of distinct like the mysterious vibes, the art styles fantastic,
the sound effects, like it's just such a weird, interesting world,
and I really love that part of it. And as
far as Metroidvanias go, I like that this is this
isn't Metroveina, but like the items, you can get them
in different orders and they all kind of have multiple uses,
but none of that's really trautorialize. You're kind of just
figuring these things that you go along, and so it
just feels like like a much It finally feels like
what I like. Metro Advenia has old been a tricky
genre for me to really get into, but this is
like the perfect one where it's less like okay, you
have to go here to get double jump and then
go back here and jump up here to get the missiles.
Then you know, it's less like specific orders and more
just free form, and I really like that part of it.
Uh And yeah, I think it really, it really stood
strong with me. The parts where it maybe drops a
bit is that some of the bigger mysteries or bigger
challenges and puzzles are things that like not one person
is supposed to solve. The most supposed to be like
community things where you're kind of compiling and full looking
for things together. Some games that works for me, like
Death Loop, I remember doing a lot of that, like
talking to community members and discord servers and trying to
figure things out. But for that this game it didn't
really have that for me. So I think there's some
crazy things I heard this game does that I just
never really experienced, and some of it like only happens
on PC as well, whereas I was playing on Switch.
Like one weird thing that I've heard is like if
you get to a certain ending or moment, and if
you like are playing on PC and you have a
printer plugged in, it'll like print out a sheet of paper,
just like with asking, and like that's cool and interesting,
but like, yeah, I played on Switch, so I guessed
some mothers inc. But it's like I don't know, I
just played on Switch. Like there are certain things that
just I just couldn't really experience with it. I suppose.
I don't know if there is some weird switch thing
that they did, but I did not encounter it. So anyway,
really cool, interesting game. I'm really excited to see that
developer does next. It's definitely one of those ones. Or yeah,
whatever he makes next, I'm gonna I'm gonna pick up
and play. But yeah, there you go. There's my number nine.
So Kirkle, do you want to start with your I
guess one of your non twenty twenty four games Game
of the other year.
Speaker 2: As absolutely game of the other year. I guess yeah.
I'll just talk about these two together because I kind
of forgot that Steam does Steam raps. You know, we
have the Spotify raps every year. You and I like
talked about them on like a Game of the Year
in the past or something like that, and then I
can't remember how many years ago that was. But I
was very shocked by my by my results this year,
and mostly about the share, like the spread of the
amount of games or lack thereof that was really preoccupying
my Steam time. Apparently sixty eight percent of my games
played on Steam this year was literally just total war
Warhammer too, like like I thought.
Speaker 1: You were gonna not say Total war and that was
then no, I'm like, oh, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: I just feel like I haven't played that game, and
like a couple months now, I you know, watch Nosferatu,
go check out that review. But like a lot of
like Warhammer elements are in that movie and in a
weird aspect, so it got me wanting to jump back
in there and play one of two different campaigns. But
and of course it like shows you like the months
that you're really popping off on. And it's like right
before summer was like that was the only thing I
was doing, like June, June, July era maybe, and then
for the summer like I was doing munch a Home Rehno,
So I like wasn't really playing much. And then like
September it just spiked again because it's like as soon
as my rehnods were over, I was just ready to
go back in Total Warhammer. And then basically since September
till now, the rest of the time has just been
Project Zomboid. Like I have just been going on a
tear on that game. I know you and I haven't
jumped into it together.
Speaker 1: We really struggled. I could play tonight if you're around tonight, but.
Speaker 2: I might be I might be available tonight.
Speaker 1: Maybe tonight happen.
Speaker 2: Let's link together. But no, I was going super super
hard on that game, and those were kind of like
my two games on Steam, like of course there was
like a couple other ones that just bounced in here
and there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, tell you how many hours you had in
Total War just this year or does it only show
you playtime?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe i'll maybe I can pull it up.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing you put in at least another hundred or
two hundred hours this year on that game.
Speaker 2: But maybe, yeah, let's I would say a couple couple hundred.
If it's sixty eight percent of like my total time played,
I feel like that's a good because even Project Zomboid,
I feel like I put in like, yeah, true, over
forty five hours on that game Alan, which is double
what I had like before then, so gotcha. Yeah, I've
been going hard on it. And uh, there's been a
long anticipated big update on that game is called Bill
forty two, which is like you know, air quotes, It's
gonna be changing the whole game, Like there's just adding
like so many different elements, refining the whole crafting system.
And it's in what's it called unsteady mode or some
unstable mode. That's what it is right now, so like
you can play it, but you just might get a
lot of bugs. But we're getting close to the actual release,
so a lot of people are frothing at the mouth
for that one and a little word because I feel
like I've learned the game a certain way, but now
they're like changing a lot of different elements, so it'll
have to be always sketchy. But that game is just
so fantastic. I can't wait to jump in there with you.
But yeah, I think I'll throw those as my non
twenty twenty four games of the years. Total War will
probably be in there as long as I live until
they do Total War Warhammer four, if they ever do that,
or there's rumors around like what next IP Creative Assembly
is going to get to do their next Total War game,
because of course Warhammer is like a separate entity. A
lot of people have like just been hinty at Lord
of the Rings a lot of the years, which of
course would get my money, but like I also feel
like Warhammer Fantasy is pretty close to that already. I
was on the subred at somebody was talking about like
a Star Wars ip I don't think that.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess they're back on Alien now because they're
making Isolation.
Speaker 2: Too, right, Actually, wow, I totally forgot about that. Yeah,
that's that's a good point. I always forget that Creative
Assembly did that, and it's.
Speaker 1: Such a weird zar. Yeah, we'll just think one FPS
horror game in our career and it's just one of
the people's favorites of all the time.
Speaker 2: And then we'll just go back to playing like Total
War only games, which kind of was the same and yeah,
same anyways, Yeah, I'll mention those two games as my
four ones.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, moving on then next up, we're jumping up.
I'm just calling this the solid tier, which may be
a generic title for it, but this is definitely a
tier up from the last two games we talked about.
Number eight for me is going to be Pacific Drive.
So I talked about this recently. I have a lot
of recent games on my list. Just as a little
little spoiler there, but yeah, I finally beat this game.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: It took like over twenty hours to beat, like one
run of it, which is not what I expected because
it is kind of a roguelikey game. I kind of
thought it would be shorter runs then, like there's so
there's like eight different difficulty tiers in the game, so
I thought the idea would be, like, do a shorter
run then kind of keep bumping up that difficulty. Not
quite the case, so a little bit different. I think
at some point in my life I'll definitely go back
and play a higher difficulty level. This is a weird
game where it doesn't have any super high highs, but
it doesn't have any low lows either. It's just a
consistently good time through that twenty hours. I think by
the end, I was really trying to just get to
see the end of it. But I think that's part
of it is just because of the difficulty I was
on too, Like I wasn't being challenged as much anymore,
so there wasn't really anything stopping me. I didn't need
to keep upgrading and grinding for hours to just get
to the endgame content. There are some really cool moments
at the end of that game, Like there's some certain
missions you have to do. We have to like race
through these pylons and you're like on a timer, but
then there's so many things attacking you and striking you
as you do it, that are trying to stop you.
And if you're like, you know, if you bump into something,
that might mess up your time and you got to
restart the thing now. But then like the level's collapsing
in on you, Like it just gets totally chaotic. So
that was really cool. Some of the later areas get
really out weird and mysterious. I really I love the
just gameplay loop of it. Go out on these levels,
hunting around, searching for things, and then always that intense
escape from the mission was always good every single time
I did it, and then getting back to my shop
and just like upgrading, putting decorations up in my shop,
upgrading the car, switching out my parts, turning the radio on,
just putting fueling up the car, sitting back, relaxing, like
I just had so much fun with it. The customization
of your car is really really great and in depth,
and there's so much stuff on the quote unquote skill
tree that I didn't even get to by the time
I was beating the game. There's just so much in
there that you could keep going and doing. And I
think something that really surprises me too is like I
really enjoyed the story, the voice acting. You never like
see another human, but there's voice acting in there, people
talking on the radio, firewatch style, and like all the
performances are really good. It's it's got me excited. Like
they just announced it they're making a TV show for
Pacific Driver, which is a really random ip to get
a TV show, but like, based off the level of
performances and the kind of weird, mysterious story, it feels
a little Alan Waki like, I feel like that will
be a good fit for this potentially, So I'm looking
forward to see how that how that show comes along.
But yeah, I just had a great time with Pacific Drive.
I really really solid time. I definitely want to want
to revisit at in the in the future as well.
There's there's a lot to it. So show us to
Pacific Drive. Sorry, did you have other games? Show out?
So we go back and forth or should I just okay, cool?
Speaker 2: I think we would sprinkle them in.
Speaker 1: Yes matter.
Speaker 2: Next one, I'm gonna shout out, uh, you know, big
credit to you hit Man. Here finally got my grimmy
little mits on it, and man, what a time it's been. Yeah, no,
it's been long waited. I played a little bit of
like the first iteration of that game, but now having
like the total collection, uh that of course, I haven't
you know, fully gone through yet, but I'm glad I
got it and on the PlayStation and just what uh,
I mean, we've talked about it so many times. I
don't want to just repeat that what I've said in
the past, but yeah, what a time it's been. And
you know, if you're like me and you think it's uh,
you kind of missed the boat. You never missed the boat.
The servers are still alive on hit Man, so get
on there, and yeah, just perfect those kills.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been playing that like fiendishly for the last
few weeks here and just like totally back into it,
doing all these things I've never seen before, going back
into freelancer mode, which is infinitely playable. Yeah, it's just
so freaking good. I can't get enough of that game.
And so I made a YouTube video on it. A
very random topic, but I just so passionate about it
right now. Show it's a hit Man. My number seven
is going to be one that you had an honor
lntion for and that's our last trials. For me, this
ended up making it into the top ten, and I
think big part of that was like revisiting it recently
and still really enjoying it checking out some of the
new content for it. I think it's always tricky to
rank a game like this, which is like if me, you, Travis,
and Taylor played any four player co op game, I'm
sure we would have had like just as much fun
as we did play it out Last. If you play
a game with your friends, who would have thought you
would have a good time. But I do think out
Last trous is a really well designed game, and especially
after going back and playing out Last one and two
this year as well, just seeing like the differences and
the evolution of some of the mechanics that it does
there too. I love the like saw like setting of this.
I think it's really well designed. Yeah, really scary game,
like the enemy enemy design and like how smart the
enemies can be at certain times and like how they
just feel like true adversaries. Is really good. Just so
many different types of puzzles and like level locations that
you're seeing, Like pretty good RPG mechanics always feel like
you're unlocking some cool new stuff in a way that
doesn't make it too easy, because then you can just
ratchet up the difficulty even more. It's it's, yeah, like
there's so much here, and it's a game that I
just want to keep playing for the next few years,
Like just every once in a while jump in and
check out a few of the new levels over the
old ones and try them at higher difficulty levels. I
just had a really great time with this, and obviously
it got me so invested in this series that I
went back and played those first two games this year
as well. So yeah, shouted us out. Last Trials is
really just a really solid good time the whole way through.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yep, hell yeah, I'll show another one here.
Feeling one game has taken up pretty much ninety percent
of my holiday time. This is a big game, one
that I've kind of been putting off for a long
time for no specific reason. We're getting a sequel next year.
I've been getting fully entrenched in desth Stranding this holiday break,
and I must say it is like a perfect holiday game.
Speaker 3: They have.
Speaker 2: I don't know if this has always been a thing,
but like around Christmas time, all the characters are like
wearing Christmas hats too, so it just it just feels
a lot more festive when I'm you know, delivering packages.
It feels like I'm just Santa Claust making people's day.
And I yeah, I like, I was up till like
probably closer to four in the morning last night because
I was just like, yeah, I'll finish this run and
then I'll do this, and then I get another order.
I'm like, okay, well I kind of want to do
this now, not.
Speaker 1: Too far away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I'm like ninety percent done what I
was building over here so I could do one more run,
and like it just it literally just snowballed like that.
And that's been kind of my gaming for the holiday
break and just such an amazing game. Like I'm just
especially I'm still in that early port. Well, I feel
like i'm early portion. And I was talking to Hidalgo
about it. He says, I'm about halfway through the game.
Based on like story purposes.
Speaker 1: That's not nothing, man. That game is long. So if
you're halfway through, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2: And I like, I feel like I was on one
specific chapter for a very long time but I kind
of do missions and then I like, I don't know,
I just want to build up my connection level, like
I've been just like five starring a lot of these
places I'm coming through and then just like building up
kind of the roads as I go along too. So
I'm like, I think I'm like right at the end
of the Fragile chapter, which I think is.
Speaker 1: Just yeah three or I can't remember like the name.
I do remember though, that like the early chapters are
pretty lengthy, and then I feel like it starts to book.
It Like there's the later chapters you like crush them
a lot quicker. Yeah, even if you're not like Mainland,
there's just like a less quest than them overall, so
you'll start to Yeah, I think really pick up nice
yeah in that dack half.
Speaker 2: Because I'm because i feel like I'm still early in
the game, Like I'm still getting like new mechanics and
new like equipment and stuff, and it's just I'm just
like a kid in the candy store. I get like
something new, I'm like, oh my god, this just changes
my whole transportation like setup or how I can handle
different just roots and whatnot. So it's just I'm just
loving it. I'm in my golden era of enjoying this game,
and I've like I still don't really know any spoilers
for the story, so like I'm just I'm feasting for
this game and knowing that this Training two was out
next year, I was late to the game this time around.
I don't want to be late to the game for
next thame too, so I want to be fully caught
up and ready to go. Imagine that's like Fall next year.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I guess I was assumed get
a game awards like trailer and announce date for that,
but we didn't, so I'm not sure when it could be.
But yeah, hopefully the sooner the better. I want to
because it's a long one. I want to have Times
one did come out in November, I think, so if
they go for that again, then I guess.
Speaker 2: We're like a Fall game, just with the weather and
stuff that you're coming through. You know, the have you
been to like snowy sections yet I'm like at the
base of a snowy area, I haven't gotten like, I
don't know specific like heating gear that I know that
you get. Okay, maybe I'll say that much, but no,
it's it's just it's just so fantastic. I love it.
I love Norman Renas as the player, I love the music,
and I love everything about this game. And I just
it's a travesty. It took me this long to really
enjoy it. The last character I was interacting with, I'm like, man,
this guy looks familiar. It was Conan O'Brien, and it
just totally forgot there's like celebrities in this game. I
haven't seen him yet. I don't think unless he's an
earlier I.
Speaker 1: Think he's a pretty minor, like minor character they.
Speaker 2: Usually are, you know, Conan O'Brien. He's wearing like a
Walrs hat or something. But no, it's it's fucking amazing.
And also, did you ever play the director's addition where
they like added some things.
Speaker 1: No, I there's a lot of stuff like beyond the
Santa hats that you're talking about, Like, there's definitely a
lot of things that I remember seeing, like I've just
never even experience, Like they added like races and like
other I was just gonna things that I haven't seen.
Speaker 2: So I just finished, like a racetrack that you build
and I never saw in an area, and I was
like doing time trials and like, what game am I
even playing right now? This is so wild and like
I think it's a new addition. You can make like
giant bike jumps and you can do like tricks and
stuff off them.
Speaker 1: Like it's just definitely I don't remember that so because
this is all fresh to me.
Speaker 2: But and I'm playing the director's cut, like I don't
know what was at or whatnot, but it's it's all great,
It's all fantastic, and uh yeah no, I'm I'm loving it.
I'm loving it so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. I love that. The vehicles, I mean,
whenever you get a new type of vehicle, it feels
like such a big monumental moment. But they also are
all so limited in certain ways, so it doesn't just
feel like the game becomes a steamroll. Like the bikes
like always running out of juice. Remember, we get in
like a truck or something later and it's like it
can carry a lot of stuff, but this thing sucks
like going anywhere, so you got to like if you're
not on the road, this thing is pretty much useless,
and so it just turns into like chaotic moments where
you're like brought way too much and you can carry
and then you have to ditch your vehicle. Then you
gotta like plan this out. So yeah, they that game
just sprinkles in the new mechanics, so well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you don't get overwhelmed, right, Like it's not
too much at once. And yeah, I know, I recently
got the truck and it just changed the whole like
crafting of the roads, Cause like early on I was
just like like I didn't even have the little traveler
carts with you. So I'm just like building these roads
by going back and forth with like what I can
carry on my back. And now it's just I just
pile up my truck with what I can carry. And
then if I get into a situation like you said,
like it's rocky and I can't really get my truck there,
I pull out my little my traveler carts, I load
up on my ear there, and I like I just
have such like a perfect system now where I do
like a pre trip checklist of like hey, I got
my container repair spray, I got my extra carts if
I need, like I just I don't know, especially like
when you just do so many of them, you realize
what you kind of need usually is always need like
two ladders on me, because you never know sometimes you
need you need more than just one. Right, So just
aspects like that, I feel like makes the game just
just like the gameplay loop, just so fun of just
thinking about playing these routes and yeah, I just I
love it. I go on and on. Obviously, I'm like
in the midst of it right now. I was playing
right before this cast, like I was just I just
want to get back in there.
Speaker 1: Very nice, very nice. Okay, let's move along, and that
way we can get you to back to death Stranding sooner.
Number six for me is a game that I played
just a few days ago. Kirkland, I don't think you've
heard of this one. It's called Mouthwashing.
Speaker 2: You saw it on your backlogged. I'm not often on backlogged.
I usually going there when we're compiling lists like this
because it's a great resource for that. But then I
saw it. I'm like, what the fuck is this? Dylan, Yeah, what.
Speaker 1: Is his Mouthwashing game? I know, silly name. So this
game came out I think in like September or something.
I remember hearing like on the podcast I listened to
people praising it then and it was really good, and
then just I think it kind of reminded when I
was listening to some of the Game of the Year
episodes from other podcasts recently and like, oh yeah, Mouthwashing
is just like high on all of their lists. So
it wasn't just like a little flash in the pan.
Oh this is kind of cool. This is like a
game that is is is a great game, and so
it's up in my alley, so I was like, okay,
let me let me pick this up. It's like fifteen
bucks or something on Steam, pretty cheap. So I picked
it up last week and played through it. Because it's
pretty short, it's like two hours long, and it's like
all narrative and story. So it's hard for me to
talk about too much about spoiling, so I'll try and
do my best here. But yeah, it does have a
silly name. That name does mean something, but I don't
want to I don't want to spoil what the name
even means there. But yeah, for anyone who doesn't know
about this one, this is a first person kind of
PS two style narrative horror game, I guess would be
the best way to describe it, and the setting is
that you and this crew are on this space cargo
ship traveling, you know, delivering something, and then you know,
something goes wrong. You hit like a metea or something
like that, which throws the ship into disarray, and then
it's kind of just about like what these people did
you know in the in the months, whatever weeks, whatever days,
whatever the timeline is. After that. I think one thing
that I loved about this game that games do not
frequently do, but it's very common in movies is like
so many movies. Think about how many movies are improved
by having like non linear storytelling, right, Like the story
is pretty basic, but because you chop it up and
tell it in weird ways, like that's why the story
becomes so good. Like no one's doing that all the time.
Tarantino's doing it all the time. You know. It's it's
a very common thing. But like games like almost never
do that, right because if you have a longer game
and you have like progress and you're getting items, it's
like kind of weird to like go out of order,
not I don't have all this stuff. You know, It's
it's I understand why games don't do it, but because
you have like a shorter game, like there's only two
hours long. It like uses that element of it, the
nonlinear part, super duper well in a way that I
want to see other games try. I realize, as I've
just mentioned, like it is hard to do. It's a
big design problem for games. But I think this game
is like it is very unique because of that. Yeah,
as mentioned the very story heavy game, very intense. You
know a lot of topics in here, like like sexual assault, addiction,
and I feel like one games don't really tackle those
things very often, or if they do, maybe they take
in like a much more straightforward way. This feels like
has some really nuanced takes or perspective on those kinds
of things that I thought was really interesting. I love
the art. You know, this is very similar to the
tartaris key that was like that horror game, horror Puszy game.
I talked to you a couple of years ago, Kirklinn.
So this looks very much like that. The music is outstanding,
super duper good. It's just a game that really made
me think about a lot of things in my life
and myself and like things I want to better about myself.
Like it was a very introspective experience, even if it's
like a very over the top and like crazy thing
that I can't really relate to being on a space
freighter and crashing into a meteor, but like it still
made me think about a lot of things, and like
the final moments come together when it drops into credits,
it just has like this amazing song as the credits
going by, and I just like had my head in
my hands and I was just like vibing in the
music and just like thinking about things, Like it's a
crazy game that takes you all sorts of different places
because of all this stuff I'm just talking about here, Like,
it was a really hard game for me to rank
one the recency you know, I don't want to give
it too much recency buys because I literally played it
like five days ago. But also it's like, how do
you compare this to like a forty hour long like
Open World RPG. How do you compare to this to
like Last Trials. It's very hard. So I'm happy with
here being at sixth, But honestly, it could have jumped
up because this as of six, four or five and
six are kind of in their own little tier, So
it could have could have shifted even higher, but I
felt like I should be careful of some recency bias here.
But super duper great game. Highly recommended. If what I've
described sounds interesting, it's also really funny and it's weird. Uh,
It's just a really really great, interesting, weird game. So
big recommended recommendation for me on on mouth Washing. Don't
let the weird name. I mean, the weird name should
draw you in, it shouldn't scare you off. But if
you just look at a couple of screenshots you'll you'll
see the vibe of this game. But yeah, it's super
duper good.
Speaker 2: The cover I just made me think it was a
gross game because it's like an eyeball or something, think
of like carrying or something like what is this mouth washing?
Speaker 1: Also is the title all the yeah weird body horror stuff,
so if you're underto that, maybe maybe be warned. I
didn't find it too scary for the most part. There
is a couple like jump scary type things, but yeah,
I'd say it's more more of the vibes, more like
thriller vibes than like in terms of deep horror, I
guess would be the comparison in terms of gameplay, like,
it's pretty basic. You're mostly just walking around talking to people,
and there's a couple light puzzles things like that. Nothing
too crazy, it was it was fine keeps you just
kind of breaks up the story beats. But yeah, super
duper recommend mouth Washing. Really great game.
Speaker 2: Yeah cool. I'll give my final non twenty four title here,
kind of enter in my top five for the year.
Last one. Spoke to you about it many many times,
but it would have to be none other than Cultural Land.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Kind of rediscovered this one and honestly just had so
much more fun on a second time ago. And really
it was because Shane and I played together on the
couch co op and it's just a perfect game mode
to pair with that game. And I highly recommend that
game pretty much anyone, but especially if you are in
a situation you can play couch go op with someone.
It's it just makes it that much better. And really
liked all the systems that they added. I wish it
was a little bit less buggy, but clearly it was
that good of a game that I just kept going
back even if I had like crashes and whatnot, like
it just I love the music in it. I love
the gameplay loop and yeah, no, it's it's fantastic. I
don't know if we're really gonna be jumping back into
it because we kind of did everything we can other
than like going for the Platinum, which is just finishing
off a couple of collectibles, which kind of is a
little bit grindy, and I feel like we're just kind
of past that point of enjoying the magical aspect of
just like looping through because we've just done it so
many times. But yeah, like I probably like around eighty
hours we got out of that, which is pretty crazy
for a game that I've already like played in the past,
and uh yeah, it felt very fresh and new. So
that would definitely be my non twenty twenty four twenty
four game of the Year if I had to give
a ranking.
Speaker 1: Very very good right on. Okay, so after this, we're
gonna both get into our top fives of the year.
But let's take a quick break first. We will actually
throw to mister Taylor Field. You will all hear him
and his Game of the Year, and I haven't listened
to this yet, so I don't even know what he's
gonna pick, but you will hear from him, you'll get
a little ad break and then we'll come back for
the top five. Will be right back. Hello, Hello, thank
you for having me. Dylan.
Speaker 3: Happy to be here dropping my game of the Year pick.
And of course I've not played a large catalog of
video games this year, but I do have three that
have made my top three list year, with one in
particular that.
Speaker 1: Has taken it for the year.
Speaker 3: And I have three hounorable mentions that I wanted to
shout it as well that I didn't feel like we're
They weren't necessarily there for me, but they were. They're
worth mentioning because they're still they were a lot of fun,
but they just I didn't want to put them on
my top three ranked list because those three are, like
I'm just They're fantastic and I'm having a good time
with them. So let's get into this. I'm gonna start
with the audible mentions and I'm gonna roll down from
least to first of my my ranking. So I have
autoble mention number one, Skull and Bones. I've gone back
and played this a few more times and again the
release date. I had to double check because the release
date for this has been all over the math with
delays and whatnot, but it is February twenty twenty four,
that's its release, Yere, and I just I thought it's
a lot of fun. I like going back to it.
I'm glad that it kept my progress from the beta,
and I've gone back a few more times and just
had a lot of fun with it. It's been cool
to build up my own ship and a little fleet
of ships in my character and just kind of go
explore the high seas as a pirate. It's not a
game that I feel like it's I'm not dropping seventy bucks.
I'm not paying full price for this game. But the
fact that it was available on games Pass through Ubisoft's
online platform Ubplus or whatever it is, it makes it
a lot more convenient to actually try it and through
that subscription as well. Star Wars Outlaws that's my other
audible mention. Really really liked the game a lot, but
there's just certain things that just was a little too
repetitive for me on the frontier of Star Wars games.
I was hoping for something a little bit more.
Speaker 1: It's cool that you have the.
Speaker 3: Different cartels that you can kind of sign on with
and build the relationships and whatnot with but I was
just hoping for something maybe a little bit more open world,
which is ironic because I know something like that would
take a little bit more time, and time is something
I don't necessarily have a lot of to indulge in
video games these days. But I digress. It's a great game,
and it does a lot of things right for the
Star Wars universe and for the video game Star Wars franchise.
My last honorable mention is Call of Duty Black Ops six.
Holy smokes. Now, I loved Modern Warfare mon Afar two.
Speaker 1: The re releases as well.
Speaker 3: Those are some peak games and those earlier Call of
Duty Black Ops titles and World of War especially great,
great great. I can appreciate how they tackle the zombies here,
and they've like the previous Black Ops titles, they created
a esthetic and characters and whatnot with the zombies universe,
and those were imported over into Modern Warfare three's open
world zombie mode. That mode is just, in my opinion,
unchallenged compared to this, like this zombies mode and Black
Ops six. It's fun to go back to round based zombies,
but to me, it does not compete I'm going back
to monrow for three Zombies still because it's just an
absolute hecking good time to play with friends. It's so
much fun, way more fun than the round based and
I think there is a place for round based zombies,
but I don't think it's what black Ops was doing
here with the six iteration. I think round based Zombies
needs to go back to its humble beginnings world at War,
you know, black Ops won that sort of stuff. I
think that's where it definitely peaked, and it peaked again
with the open world in one four three, but this
just kind of feels like a backstep. But that being said,
the multiplayer is fun except for omni movement. God damn
that sucks. Campaign play a little of that it's enjoyable
as well. But yeah, so those are my honorable mentions.
Now my third of the rank list here. I know
it's a mobile game Pokemon trading card game Pocket Hot
to Molly. I lately have been just going super crazy
in to Bookemon trading cards this year. It's been a
great time, just trying to just collect certain cards that
I like. I'm not necessarily building like a master set
or trying to collect anything for a full a full collection,
but just going after certain cards I like and Pokemon
trading card game Pocket is so nice because you can
get your free packs. I'm not spending money in there
because it's digital packs, digital cards. You don't need to
spend real money on that. Just do your daily tasks,
get the free in game currency, and just buy more packs.
That way, it's a lot of fun to be ribbon
packs and building the collection. The battling, too, is great.
I never knew how to play Pokemon before, but now
that this app is here, I actually understand the mechanics
and I'm engaging and building my own Pokemon decks and battling.
So it's so much fun. I'm having a great time
with it. It's really addicting. It's awesome. It's awesome. Number
two Super Mario Party Jeenboree. I freaking love this.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: I'm a big advocate for the last one that we
got Superstars. That was so much fun, but it needed
a little bit more and so with this, While I
would have preferred the other one to get more DLC,
this one just it's great that it fits itself as
standing on its own two feet, is its own game
where you're implementing strategy this time. It doesn't feel like
it's entirely luck based. You can form plans. You could
really kind of map your way forward throughout this and
really screw over your competitors. It's a great time and
I love playing this with my friends. It's such a
fun freaking game. The online is great too, So hopefully
we get a little bit more content and DLC for it,
and then my number one is no surprise, Indiana Jones.
This game completely caught me off guard. I really wasn't
expecting it to be my number one, but after playing
it and getting to experience this world as Indie, I
am just flabbergasted at how well they captured Indiana Jones
and created this universe.
Speaker 1: It really really caught me off guard.
Speaker 3: And the story is so addicting. I wish that this
was like we got a movie like this. But I
mean that being said, I'm happy with the game. It's
a fantastic game. Really like it now.
Speaker 1: It's not perfectly.
Speaker 3: We're find there are some issues with the i'd say
with like movements, and with some gameplay mechanics as well.
I've had my problems with some bugs and what not to,
but I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: It's great.
Speaker 3: It's on Game's Pass.
Speaker 1: So easy to access there. It's it's so.
Speaker 3: Much fun, really really like it. And if you want
more information you can go check out me and Dylan
did a review for Indiana Jones Great Circle, so go
check that out on the feeds.
Speaker 2: But there you have it.
Speaker 3: That is my twenty twenty four wrap up list Game
of the Year top three do well mention. So thank
you Dylan and we'll see you next year.
Speaker 1: Okay, we are back. What did you think of Taylor's
Game of the Year good list?
Speaker 2: Taylor good list. A couple of picks there surprised me.
A couple of picks didn't surprise me, So I'll leave
it at that.
Speaker 1: All right, Right on, let's get into our top five
top five for the year. Number five for me is
going to be the legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom.
This is this is a I feel like I have
a different take on this from some people in that
for everyone who played Tiers of Kingdom last year, they
loved it and that was like their game of the
year or like easily in their top three. But I
really bounced off of that game. It did not do
it for me, and this was almost like, weirdly a
return to form. This is kind of like what I
want from Zelda. It felt very fresh, even if it
is kind of inspired by Breath the Wild and Tiers
of the Kingdom in a few ways. But I really
enjoyed going back to top down Zelda here, having something
a little bit more confined.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Maybe it took me twenty twenty hours, maybe twenty five
once I got all the collectibles, which I went back
and did. I really just love the fun, like the
core mechanic here of grabbing echoes and spawning absolutely whatever.
It leads to just total jank. It leads to like
every single puzzle or action beat or any single thing
in the game is going to be dis solved individually
by someone like differently, and everyone's gonna have their favorites.
And it's funny listening to some podcasts and hearing people like, oh,
this is my favorite enemy type to you is, and
like I had very different ones from them, And there's
so many weird, creative, interesting things you can do. It's
just such a it's just a fun, cool game. I
think it has you know, this is geek for side quest.
This game has amazing side quest design. Almost every single
side quest was like interesting or cool and not just
like some boring fetch quest, and there was like quite
a few of them, and I thought that was like
a really really great part of it. It made it
really easy to want to go back and do every
single thing because like every side quest was like giving
me like, oh, this is now one of my favorite
quests in the game. Like it just consistently did that.
I think the puzzles and stuff and all that really
really well designed. And it also like did kick back
at me sometimes, like it had some challenging fights, some
really challenging moments that took me multiple tries to get through,
and so I'm appreciative of that. I think for the
most part, it does kind of get somewhat easy by
the end of it, just because you have so many
things at your disposal that you can do. And that's
maybe one nitpick is like navigating through all the items
can be a bit much. When you have like all
one hundred and forty whatever items there is, it's like
a lot to like scroll through and there's no organization really,
But man, I just had this was just a fun
game from start to finish. With really low no low
moments whatsoever. So yeah, I just had had a great
time with Zelda. And it's been a while since I've
fallen in love with the Zelda game, so I was
really really happy to have this one here. And hey,
it's cool to play Zelda and dress up in funny
costumes that she gets and do some silly stuff in
the world, you know, spawn a horse or spawn a
horse by like you get a horse by like just
spawning a carrot. The carrot, the horse will come, eat
the carr. You can ride the horse, fly on all.
This just such a fun, weird, interesting game. So yeah,
my number five of the year.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Uh yeah, that one, That one was on
Shane I's radar just for like the cute aesthetic of
the art style.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got that links Awakening aesthetic. And I really
like links Awakening too, So it felt that that team,
whatever team is making those two, those two games, I
really like their little pocket of Zelda games. I hope
they keep making them.
Speaker 2: I like Ozelda also just has like it's it's almost
like on Multiverse, but it's like based on like different
art styles, right, Like you have like the tune link
you have, like the more realistic link I guess from
some titles like Twilight.
Speaker 1: The Ghibili link with the ghilbliwink. Yeah, so it's alert.
Speaker 2: I like what they have. Okay, So my top five
game of the year one that uh didn't hit the
best for like what my expectation was going to be
for it, But it was still a really cute game
that was really unique. I got the Plucky Squire here
number five. I ended up early credits on it. I
went through and did finish the game. I like the
like the ending, like the battle with the Last Boss.
But like we kind of already talked about on the review,
and you were making a point of emphasis on just
a little bit lackluster on like the real world, like
when you get out of like the book, I wish
there was a little bit more mechanics that you had there.
It just seemed like most of the time it was
like a bridge to get back into the storybook, where
like the more interesting mechanics were for me at least
that was my I don't know experience for it. But
really like the music, I really like the characters, and yeah,
it was still just like a really cute, unique story
that well story pun not intended because it's a storybook,
but just just the adventure I think of these characters,
and then I thought was really fun but didn't quite
hit to the the peak like maybe I thought it
was gonna be where it's like a Game of the
Year type contender, because like I really feel like that's
what I got from like the first trailers, because it
was just so unique and a real original type of
way to do a game. Sure there's other games that
have done something similar.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, what did you think? Breaking up some
a little bit of spoilers here for this, like because
to me, like once the once, it's like the dark world,
like when the guy the villain takes over the book
and it changes the book, like that three D segment
of like his climbing through his castle, Like I thought
that part was that was kind of the peak of
the maybe one of the peaks of the game for me.
Did you Did you enjoy that whole sequence?
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, I feel like because it was we were
going in areas that I wasn't expecting. It's almost like
a resident Evil eight going into the castle all of
a sudden, a very different style. But the game was
but Uh, yeah, I would say yes, because it feels
maybe like the most mature like the game overall, it's
pretty simple mechanics, you know, like like I feel like
it is a game that's pretty accessible to everyone, but
when you can have moments that kind of shift the
overall tone. So yeah, I would agree that was probably
my peak of the adventure, especially because I don't know,
I feel like it peaked early on, and then when
you're just like replaying some of the not necessarily replaying things,
but just going through like the same situation of handling
similar mechanics, it kind of plateaued a little bit, and
then of course with the castle stuff made more intriguing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw that they added recently they added I
just found an article here the Pluge where I added
a streamlined mode offering quicker dialogue and less hand holding
for kind of just move through it quicker. And to me,
those are like some of my main complaints with it
is like just a little sluggishness at times, So it's
too bad. That's like it's kind of like how CEAFU
added like the easy mode like months later after I
was kind of already done with the game. Yeah, that
sounds like that would just greatly improve the experience, just
having a couple of those little tweaks there. I mean,
that's kind of like, hey, they heard feedback is what
people didn't like about the game. We'll just add a
mode that like removes the thing people don't like. So
that's that's pretty cool that they added them there. Hopefully
people going forward we'll have just an even better experience
with that game than we did.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Agree, cool? Okay? Number four for me, this is a
I was very surprised before this game came out. I
did not expect it to even be like a top
ten contender. Even early hours, I didn't really think it
would be, you know, that high for me. But by
the end of it, I know, And it's almost like
a boring, unoriginal pick, and not many people have this,
but I gotta be true to myself, and this is
my number four, and that is Star Wars Outlaws. Can
you believe that Kirkland is That isn't that crazy?
Speaker 2: Me? The Star Wars big a fan of it.
Speaker 1: I just did another one that I just I think
I put like maybe thirty hours into it. I didn't
do every single side quest, but I did quite a
few of the major side quests, did all the main
quest stuff, obviously, rolled credits on the game, and yeah,
I just had a ton of fun with this game
across the board. I think it does a lot of
things really really well. And this is coming from someone
who's yeah, not really a Star Wars fan right now,
not really generally a fan of like the Ubisoft formula stuff.
I think they had to go a bit of a
different direction since they wanted multiple planets. Rather than it
being one huge open world with things everywhere. It's kind
of like these more smaller distinct areas that are still
like fairly expansive, and I think those vary in quality
and you get some interesting ones where like the first
main planet and it's called Toshara Tshata something like that.
That's kind of like the peak of the game for me.
But because of the way the game is struck or it's
not like you're going from one open world, Okay, now
I'm on the second one, now I'm on the thrill,
You're constantly kind of going back and forth between these areas,
and so it was kind of always wanted us happy
to revisit. Of course, you have the uh, what's the
Sandy planet? Called again tatoen, Yeah, tattooing. That's you know,
that's kind of the one more legacy like Star Wars
location that everyone knows in love and that that's great location.
One of them is like a smaller snowy area, and
that one you don't even really use your bike. You
don't even go around. It's just like a really dense city.
And I really like that, just as like Variety's sake
right in the fact that you're jumping around between them,
so kind of had like a little bit of peaks
and valleys, but for the most part, is like really
solid experience. I really enjoyed the combat, and I really
love the stealth in this game. A lot of I
feel like every reviewer, every podcast I heard, everyone's like,
the stell sucks, stealth is not fun, stale is too hard,
all this stuff. But I loved it. I feel like
I play a lot of health games, so I don't know,
I can't really understand a lot of these criticisms that
people have, but I thought it worked really really well.
There were a couple of missions that I like, you
auto fail if you lose this depth, but I only
had to redo those like maybe two or three times,
and you get like a lot of checkpointing. So I
really like that Nix, who's like your little companion buddy,
is like a great multi tool where he can like
distract people or knock people out, or go mess with
the wiring on the wall, or mess with or distract
this camera so you can sneak by, can go fetch
collectibles for you so you don't have to go do
all this annoying platform, and you get to stuff, can
open like levers to get you through like levels in
the like. It's just such a great multi toool. It
does so much. And he's a cute little guy too,
so I think he was a great addition to the game.
I like the hacking and lock picking minigames, and this
especially the lock picking one, I think is really fun.
The faction system is really cool, where there are you know,
three or four of these these outlall like underworld factions,
and each question you're doing you kind of have to
balance like, ah, if I do this, I'm gonna you know,
earned some favorsome rep in this one, but I'm gonna
like just dunk my favor with the with the huts
or something like that. And this kind of constant balance
that I eve knew and worked really well for me.
And when you're in good standing you can like use
their shops go through the locations without having to do
stell sequences. And I for me, it was like a
perfect balance of constantly these dials going up and down.
It made it really fun and engaging. I think the
RBG mechanics are really good. Upgrade in your gear, your character,
your ship, and all that stuff. I didn't really like
the ship stuff like that, any of the space combat.
I pretty much didn't engage with that stuff at all,
just like whatever the main quest had me do and
then I left, and those fine because I didn't really
have to spend many hours on that stuff. But yeah,
I just had a great time going around this world
collecting things to get cool upgrades or accomplished in side quest,
going around maybe playing I forget the name of the game.
There's like a poker card game that you can play.
Had a good time messing around with that. So yeah,
just have a really great time with this game the
whole way through. And yeah, I think there's even DLC
coming out. I would want to go back and check
that out. I played it through. You'bi self play or
plus that I'm not constantly subscribe to you, so I
don't know when i'll get to it. But yeah, I'm
really surprised that this is all my list and as
hig as it was, but I just I can't lie.
I just had a great time with Star Wars Outlaws.
So there you go. There's my normy pick for the list.
Speaker 2: Only we can get a movie that was that good,
and you know, just Star Wars movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm bummed that this game just bombed, like it
didn't do very well, and so it's just not gonna
get a sequel. And I think it's too bad because
I think there's a lot of cool mechanics here that
could have even been better, and like that rep reputation
system I think could have even been better with the
sequel with some iteration, and I doubt we're gonna get that.
So I'm kind of bummed about that, but that's just
the way it goes.
Speaker 2: Didn't hit as hard as uh was it Jedi Survivor?
Speaker 1: I guess so, And I kind of even feel like
the sequel for that one didn't really move the needle
a whole lot. It's funny I always forget like the
title of those games. But I played the first Jedi game,
really enjoyed it and fall in Order, and then I
borrowed Survivor from Taylor and it was actually over this
winter break. I was like, oh, I'm finally gonna play that,
Like I borrowed it from like a year ago, just
having got around it, but I'm still I was like,
what do I want to play? I have this, went
to plug it in, realized that he gave me fall
in Order, and because of how generic the names are,
I didn't even realize, like I've just had Fallen Order
to sit on the shelf waiting to go, and I'm like, oh,
I even downloaded it and everything, and it wasn't ntil.
I booted up the game and I was like, this
is the game that I wanted to play. So I'm
gonna have to wait a bit longer before I get
to that, but I'm obviously in no rush to get
to it, but yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 2: My number four on my list, I have Princess Peach Showtime.
I really really enjoyed this game. I think there was
certain you know, if you're not aware, there's different costumes
in different worlds that you that you participate in as
Princess Peach, and it just kind of sets up your
mechanics for what that world is. And there's some that
I just didn't love as much as others, but luckily
there's there's not too much. Like it's it is a
very family oriented game, like it does, and like the
mechanics aren't that challenging. But I just had such a
good time like going through it. I really like the
music in it, and I just love the different aesthetics
that they give Peach with their different outfits, and I
just I'm feasting for Peach games, Like Peach is like
my favorite Mario character by far, And like Shane and
I were talking about this because she had she had
a Princess Peach game on the DS. Yeah, I'm pretty
sure it's the same one that I played like back
in the day, and really not many other Peach titles
like like like beyond that. So this is one that
I was just really hyped for when it was announced.
Got it. I just had a really great time with it.
Like it's it's not a perfect game by any means,
but I really like the story, I like the ending.
I thought it was a nice cinematic type battle you
kind of go super Saiyan mode as Peach, which is
always always awesome. So yeah, no, I thought it was
really fantastic, but it didn't really have enough pizzazz to
make me want to like go back and replay, Like
it's kind of just a one, one and done type
of game, which I mean, it's unfortunate when it's that fun,
like you just want to have more more time with
it to sink in. But yeah, no, it's really really
great and highly recommend it to people. It's it's tough
at like an eighty dollars mark, I feel like it's sure, yeah,
maybe not the most value for your buck if you're
I don't know, like it's it's an expensive game and
intended never does sales, but I don't know, in the
future if you see how to use game store, definitely,
like I mean picking it up.
Speaker 1: I like that I have the Yeah Zelda game where
you finally play Zelda and you have the yes is
a Peach game, but like yeah, the Mario game where
you finally play as Peach as the main character.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and last thing I'll say too, they're like
there's some really awesome like mechanics that you get with
the different OLP. Like there's like a martial arts one,
there's one where you're like a fencer, And I'm like,
just get this into Smash like like in some way,
shape or form, whether it's like a different outfit. I
love Peach, but I never play her in Smash because
I don't I don't love how buoyant she is, Like
it fits the character. She's very floaty, but I want
like a chic type, you know, like like like mechanics
on that character. So yeah, that's mine.
Speaker 1: I'd be down. I'd be down if they revamped her,
Like I think you know, they have Daisy in the
game now, who has the same move set, So like,
let Daisy have the legacy Peach move set and give
Peach like this new crazy move set with all this
all this new potential that she got from this game.
That'd be super cool. And then a at the very least,
all those costumes rather than just having different palette swaps,
Like give us those different costumes. That would be so.
Speaker 2: Cool because even even in the Mario movie, right like
she's she's in a more in your face, kicking ass
type of way as opposed like a damsel under stress,
like she's she's using the fire power, like she's just
popping off in these other media's for the character. So
it's it's time to evolve the character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ditch the dress, like let's just not in the
nude way, but just like hit her up with like
get her the striker's outfit, get her the detective outfit,
super saiyme, like, give her all these cool outfits. Yeah,
because she she deserves it for sure.
Speaker 2: Absolutely cool.
Speaker 1: All right, we are into the top top three, which,
as I mentioned, for me, this is the top tier.
These are the huge, like all timer kind of level games.
Number three for me is Astro Bought. Yeah, I've mentioned
this for a couple of the games were kind of
low surprising, you know it's low. I will say top three,
I don't know, it's it's the game of the year, right.
Also best Narrative was the narrative, Best game direction, can't
remember best game direction, and then best Family Game. Yeah
one a few different categories there. Yeah for me, this
is this is that number three here? Uh and yeah
this is another one that's like, man, the whole way through,
I just had a great time. There was not a
dull moment in here, it's just constantly giving you new
crazy upgrades to use and crazy level designs. I loved
all the kind of PlayStation levels, and I liked all
the kind of PlayStation shoutouts in there. Of course a
lot of them went right over my head. But when
I saw Sam porter Bridges in there, I was like, Oh,
this is the cutest thing ever. I just watch him
do his goofy little animation at the home base and
all this fun stuff. And they even added recently with
the Winter update, they added like a gin outfit like
from Ghost of Tushima, and so I rocked that. To
play the bonus level is just the coolest thing. So
I think the main thing here is that this game.
I talked about how when I first got and Attendo
Wii as like, you know whatever, twelve twelve year old whatever,
howe rolled I was, that was just the coolest thing.
I just felt like I was engaging with a game
in like a whole new way. The motion controls all
that kind of thing, and like all the games are
built around that, And that's kind of what Astrobot feels
like for me, Like I feel like I'm like a
kid again. The way it uses the controller in just
like a very fun and creative way. Obviously the like
PlayStation five and all the things that's capable of, but
then also just like the things in game when you're
like building, like every time you're going through main level,
you get like a part that you can use to
fix the PS five like mothership, and you just like
do these really fun little tactile robot our movements to
like pull off the grime, fix it up, dust it off,
put it in, hammer in the in the nails, screw
in the screws, and like it's just such a fun
tactile experience. Anytime you get a bot, like your controller
pops up on screen. Your controller is also like your
little spaceship, and like where the touch pad is, it's
like almost like a little hot tub. Like they're all
just sitting in this little in this little thing, and
you can just like fling your controller and they'll just
fly out like a trampoline and fall back in. And
I just every time I got a new bought, I
would just like chuck them around a little bit because
it was just so cute and fun, and it's it's
just fun to feel like a kid again playing a
game because it just doesn't. I'm just I'm an old
I'm an old guy. Now I'm almost thirty years old,
you know, I'm old and jaded, and I don't have
these kind of experiences anymore. But like from just the
playful notness of it, but then also it just being
a three D platformer collectic on kind of thing, right,
it feels very like playing Mario sixty four again in
a new innovative way, but a game that just looks
insanely good, has really good sound effects, it's really well polished,
the amount of things on screen, but the game like
never dropped a single frame, just such an impressive game.
It's just so fun and bright and cheery and playful,
and it's just it's just joy for twenty hours straight.
And then yeah, they added like a new level recently
went back and played that has a good time. And
then on top of all that, like they have a
few really challenging platforming levels in there. I almost wanted
a few more, but I think it's mostly just because
I just didn't want to stop playing this game. I
just wanted there to be more. It's one that I
went back to, you know, got the Platinum, did everything
you can and I still just wanted to go back
and play it some more.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just like every level, you know, as I mentioned,
kind of in having new bought modes that you're getting
and that's always super fun, especially some of the ones
like there's you know, God of War level where you
have Krados's acts and you're using that for a bunch
of puzzles, and that's just that's great. It's so much fun.
So I yeah, I cannot say enough good things about Astrobod.
It deserves all the accolades that it's getting. It is
just the most fun game of the year. I'll put
it that way. For whatever that means. It's just super
duper fun and playful and no friction, just great time
the whole way through.
Speaker 2: Nice, awesome, It's funny. I feel like I'm pretty similar
to you in the sense of my top three just
kind of being in a realm of their own. Yeah, yeah,
it's very much. I was just looking at him, like, man,
this is just so much higher than the last two
that I mentioned.
Speaker 1: Number three.
Speaker 2: It was kind of splitting hairs of my number two
and number three. I think I am gonna put Hell
Divers two though in my top three slot purely for
the fact that I, I mean, I was busy this
summer home runers and stuff. But I feel like I
played the game a lot at the end of the
year and then just not at all. And then after
kind of getting close to the Game Awards, that was
when I was pop on my radar again. And then
they had the I don't even think it's a DLC.
They just had new content that came out with.
Speaker 1: They didn't have like a kill zone at a kill
zone add on or something like that. I don't even
know that's not out yet they announced it because the new.
Speaker 2: One was with the oh my gosh, I can't remember
what their name are, but the new species of Threat
essentially in the galaxy. That's what's out now. They illuminate,
that's what they are. And uh yeah, I just been
jumping back in the game again and just it is
just such a fucking well made game, Like it is
just so fun to play. I think it's like a
perfect shooter for like where I am in my life
of like not necessarily a grindy type thing like Destiny,
Like I think it has that like it rewards you
if you really put in time, like you just get
a lot of unlocks, but it's not like you have
to get that just to participate in the game. I
was kind of overwhelmed when I came back to it,
just because I hadn't played a long time. And there's
it is fucking chaotic when you're in some of these
these matches and you're on like a higher difficulty, which
means there's like harder enemies, and there's just so much
going on. And I'm not sure if you remember the
game well you even played it, but you might have
seen the game mechanics where like when you call in stuff,
it's kind of like a like a number, like a
sequencing thing like g cheet code essentially, and you have
to like do them on the fly, and of course,
but like I just memorize them for like what my
I did not do that. So like my first game,
I did on like the challenging difficulty because you get
more rewards and whatnot. And I was getting bopped, like
you get paired out like you just quick play, so
you just get paired up with whoever. And I was
with people that are like level one hundred and just
they were carrying me so hard, and I was just like, man,
this is kind of unfold because, like, I don't know,
it's fun to have it a harder difficulty because you
really have to use every thing in your arsenal to survive,
and that's what makes it so such a cinematic game,
Like when you barely make it out and you're covered
in bug guts and you have no Ammo left and
like just Jimmy went flying and you're not gonna recover him,
like he's just left there, but you have to leave.
Like those are the moments that just that's like the
peak of my hell divers experience. Nice, and I feel
like I kind of want to just like put it
on like a lower difficulty to go in, maybe even
just do like a solo run just to like refamiliar
refamiliarize myself with the mechanics and the like the load
outs and stuff that I'm using, because you have different
guns played very differently, different load out uh sorry, different
like kill streaks, air strikes and stuff. They play very differently.
So I kind of just toned it down the difficulty
just to you know, kick off the dust in a
matter of speaking. But uh no, I was talking to
good ol' holdalgo and he's back on there, so we're
gonna be jumping in there, and uh, definitely. I don't
think it's a game pass game, but if ever does,
we gotta we gotta jump in there and get the
whole lads together, because it is. It is literally like
a like an action movie when you when you're in there,
when you're in there, and yeah, it's hard to like
recreate some of the moments, Like I just feel like
some things that happened in it, it's just hard to
explain because they're just so chaotic and there's so many
moving pieces with so many things on screen, and I
never get frame drops or anything, which is just so
nice to have in a game that looks and feels
that good. When it's action packed, you don't want to
be dropping frames and it never is and could be higher,
but just my lack of playtime throughout the whole year,
I think I had to put it in the number
three slots, but highly highly recommend that game, and yeah, no,
it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: That's a good shout out for me, as like one
that I probably would have loved if I got around
to it. I forgot to mention that earlier, just because
you know, when it came out, I didn't have a
PS five or a pcyet strong enough for it, and
I do now. Then it's like, yeah, I was playing
a lot of things in the last few weeks and
I just didn't didn't feel like picking that up and
trying to make time for it because I just feel
like that's not a game I just want to rush
through and play like a bunch in like two weeks
to try and fit it into a top ten. It
just feels like, well, I should spend more time with overtime.
So yeah, that's definitely good shout out there, And it's
funny with my number three. Like in astrobout there's a
mission where you're saving a bunch of the hell Diver
boss and then like they have their funny little formation
back at the base and get different little items for them.
So yeah, good times little PlayStation number three there for
for both of us. Cool. Moving on. Number two for
me is going to be Blotro. I wish I could
have the music just come in right here, just like
ant that up because the music is so good. Yeah,
this is this is a funny one where I just
kind of like accidentally put like eighty hours into it.
It's that's the kind of game it is. Where I
was playing it endlessly, could not put it down, just
constantly doing runs, want to sneak a run and do
while I'm watching TV. Just I just couldn't put it down.
And then I got to port. It was getting like
I guess I was getting high enough in the tiers
that it was getting really hard and almost grinded, like
I just had to keep restarting and hope I was
getting a good spawn at the beginning, and I was
kind of like, hey, I should just stop playing this game.
I need to like mindfully tell myself to stop playing it.
You know, you could never like you done with this game,
because it's an endless roguelike type thing, right, but just
for the sake of like having a life outside of Balantro,
like in that Gambler addiction way, I had to be like,
I have to stopped playing Blotch righty to put this
game down. I've put eighty hours into it. That is enough.
And you know, in the last couple of weeks, I've
been trying to play a little bit more just to
kind of I always like to revisit a lot of
my Game of the Year stuff, just to see how
I feel about it, especially back in December. And yeah,
it's like the game feel is so good. The sound
effects are Godlike. It's funny too when I mentioned how
I got my dad to play on his iPad and
like the game moves so slow because you can like
turn up like the game speed and I've done that
over the course of the month. So okay, I'm moving
along quickly enough. Let me bump this up, bumping up again,
and so now my game like moves super duper fast,
but my dad's is like five points, five points, five
points fifteen, Like it's a very slow roll out now.
But I'm just like in hyper mode, like I'm just.
Speaker 2: Like coming back.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's scratch of that same Uno rush itch
to me. But yeah it's I mean, as far as
Rogue Legs go, it has so much variety in terms
of the builds and the crazy things you can find.
I love the vibe. This game is like weird and
kind of obscure and silly at times too, but like
it also is never like two over the top silly.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: There isn't like characters speaking or whatever, but just like
the design on the different cards and some of the
weird things that you're finding, you know, challenges in there
to give you specific runs like tearing up all the
different card all the different decks, which add a ton
of different variety and ways you gotta play. Just in
terms of roguel like, it just totally nails it. And yeah,
it's really just the vibes. Like this game only has
one song, but the song is so freaking good that
you never get tired of it and just puts you
in that gambler's mood in the same way that like
casinos have like specific music designed to make it so
you never want to leave. You know, it's like the
same thing here. We're just constantly in the in the
mood of it. But yeah, it's just like a triumph
in like game feel like it's just such a juicy,
good feeling game, really well designed, super duper fun. And yeah,
I in this last couple of weeks, so like after
doing one or two runs, I'm like I could easily
get back into this addiction. Is I constantly play it again,
trying to trying to stop, trying to hold back because
eighty hours is enough. But yeah, I just Blotro is
super duper good and was so impressive. One one developer
plus one composer. It's crazy that, you know, such small
scale of a team made like such a huge game
for the industry. I yeah, I can't say enough good
things about Blottro. It's just super duper fun and uh yeah,
number two of the of the year for me.
Speaker 2: Nice hell yeah, Okay, uh top two. This is the
tricky one for me. I think I'm gonna have to
put this almost hurts. I'm gonna have to put Stellar
Blade here. That's my number two, now my number one.
The reason being is because I feel like I kind
of did this to myself. I was enjoying the game
so much in the early portions that I just kind
of committed. I'm like, I'm gonna platinum this game. I'm
gonna do it. I don't care you go online to like,
you know, like the trophy walk through whatever it's. Whoever
makes those also shuts it to these people, because like
there's just so much in here that I'm like, I
never would have gotten this platinum ever on my own,
because this game requires multiple like completions to get the trophy.
And then in this guy, they like break down the
mid Maax way to do it so you don't have
to play the game four different times. It's like you
do you basically collect everything you can in the first
play through, and then you make a save and then
you like you're able to like kind of redo the
ending without having to play through the whole game ultile times,
which is just like it's it is a lengthy game.
And also when you're have toing to collect everything, like
I kind of committed myself to it, it's a slog
at times and again like it's something I didn't have
to do, but I'm just like I'm gonna do it,
and I'm at the point of no return where I
I don't want to just progress further on without collecting
everything because I've just made it this far. So that
kind of like bummed me out a little bit on
some of the enjoyment I have of the game, and
it's it's completely self induced. Like the game on its
own is phenomenal. I love the combat of it, I
love the music, I love the world design, just the
creatures and everything about it. Like they just did such
a great job with this game. The scale of everything
just feels so massive in a similar way to how
Near Automeda does which is some of the battles, it's
just like you're fighting Goliath and you're David, and it's
just like it just feels like I'm on the same
power level in a certain way. So yeah, I really
love this game. It's just so like well just well made, honestly,
Like like I don't ever get frame drops and it
looks like it's everything's at four K like all times,
Like it just looks so beautiful. And that's not just
because the main character, you know, like the world around
it just looks beautiful, even though it's very post apocalyptic
again in a similar way to Near Automata is like
they're like everything's like dead in a desert, but there's
still just really there's a lot of beauty in it.
And yeah, this game is able to capture a lot
of that same energy and vibe into it. And yeah,
I'm really really loving I haven't rolled credits because I'm
just on my collectith on trying to get all my
cans and whatnot, but it's gonna be one that when
I do get the platinum, I'm just gonna feel like
Frodo tossed on the ring into the Mount Doom and
just feel so happy with it because it's a lot
harder I think of a Platinum that I was expecting,
not in the sense of like I have to beat
a thousand different enemies without dying, but it's just like
doing everything in an order and like the stick touitiveness
that you need to in order to compete. Come, yeah,
just get over just get over all the collecting. It's
a little bit challenging. But what a phenomenal game. And
I'm really glad I picked this one up.
Speaker 1: Very nice. Yeah that's great. Number two, Yeah, great number
two for the year. I'm curious what your number one is.
I have an idea, but I don't know if there's
a curveball that I'm forgetting about it. But I think
I think I knowed is. We'll see my number one
for the year. I'll apologize in this events. This will
probab to be a lengthy see what's talking about this one?
But that's because it's fifty games and one I'm gonna
be talking about you, oh fifty. You know. It's funny,
as I've been playing this game and I've been thinking
about my top ten in the last few months of
the year, it's like, I don't know when exactly the
point was when this became number one, But obviously, like
it's just such a big undertaking fifty games and one,
you kind of play them whatever order you want, right,
So it's like, I don't know at what point it
became my number one, but at some point it's like, oh, yeah,
this is this is definitely my game of the year.
At this point, I can't put this game down. It
is so good. There's obviously so much to it. I'll
give you my my stats here for UFO fifty, So
I'm at eighty six hours now, and that does not
include some co op I've done, like on other friends
saves and stuff like that, so probably closer to ninety
hours as a general thing there. And then the way
the game breaks it down is like, so when you
boot up the game for the first time, all fifty
games are right there in front of you. Don't have
to unlock any of them. They're all just right there,
and they're all dusty and covered in cobwebs. And then
when you pick a game you like, dust it off
and then you start playing it, and then it becomes
like a blue cartridge that means you've played it. And
then when you've beat a game, you get a gold
cartridge for it, and then there's like a cherry cartridge,
And so cherry cartridge is ones you've either beaten the
game in a harder way. I mean, it has an
alternative ending. Maybe you beat the game with a certain
high score. Maybe it's getting all the collectibles. It's kind
of different for every game, depending on what kind of
game it is, right, but a cherry is kind of
like that's the platinum trophy for every individual game. I
guess you could say. So right now I have eight cherries,
nineteen gold cartridges, nineteen blue and I think this is
why I am so confident in this being my game
the year is I still four games I haven't even
touched in this collection of eighty six hours. There are
still four games I have not even booted up. They
still have collwebs on them on my screen there. I
haven't even booted them up just to get the call
webs off. I'm kind of like having something still reserved.
And that's been that way for like probably forty hours.
Like I probably have had just those four games left.
I think that's such a fun part about u FO
fifty is like how you choose to go through the collection.
You know, a lot of people they're like, oh, I'm
gonna start from the first game and go chronology through
them all. I've been listening to a podcast where they
literally are dedicating a year to UF fifty and every
episode every week they're doing one one game the next
one in the tier. You know, some people will jump around,
maybe some people will go through like certain genres first,
that kind of thing. For me, I'm really it's just
going off like pure feel like when I first booted
it up, I just saw a Pilot quest and Pilot's
character from Splunky, so I'm like, I'm gonna play that
one first, and then it's really just been jumping around
and everyone saw. I'm like, okay, I need a new
game to play to add in my rotation. Because every
time you boot up You fifty, it's like going down
to have a meal. And I always like to have
like a little appetizer game, so I play something really
quick that I don't really think about, and then go
maybe go to a deeper, longer game than maybe like
something to close out a little dessert at the end.
And so I feel like every time I boot up
You for fifty and like Hey, may do I want
like a new game to add in my collection? Do
I want to just like go back to something I've
played before, or I want to play more of that?
Do I want to try and get the cherry on
this one game? And so I feel like, yeah, there's
still four games that I haven't even haven't even touched
in here. And that's a very exciting thing to quickly
speak about the package as a whole, Like I I
love the framing of everything, that everything's given a year
that it came out in this fictional consoles lifespan as
you can, like the first games don't have like a
UFO saff like a developer intro, and then eventually they
created the developer name, and then that has the intro
for all the games. They eventually start to get like credits,
and they're like a little tidbits you learn about each game.
And then like in the credits, there's like fictional developers
that made each of one of these games. You can
track like, oh, this guy directed this game, did the
art for that one, did the composing for this one.
It kind of shifts around, and I really love the
framing of all of it. I think that's such a
fun part about the collection, and then just like the
things that bring them together, Like they all share the
same color palette, they all have the same resolution. So
even though they're all very distinct different games and they
look and sound and feel very different, they're all there
is ways that they're kind of tied together. And some
of them are sequels or have certain characters from different
games in there. So there's a lot of like fun
ways you can kind of put up your really complicated
map of like yeah, getting out the thread and the
pins and just like how do all these things connect?
What is the story of all this stuff? Is really fun,
and there's a lot of secrets even deeper beyond just
the collection itself that I have barely even discratched the
surface stuff. It's like pretty obscure to get to some
of that stuff. And I've like barely, yeah, barely touched
some of it. So there's a lot of it there. Kirkland,
I'm gonna talk about every game a little bit, so,
like I said, that's my take, a little bit yere,
but I feel like, you know, it's my game of
the year. I don't want to praise it, and I
was doing my kind of UFO fifty Game of the
Week thing for a bit there, and I could keep
doing that. I probably will continue to shadowt games even
in the new year, but I want to do that here.
So I've kind of rather than giving like a ranking
of my fiftieth favorite game to my first, because I
haven't even played all of them me right, I haven't.
I can't really do that. I'm gonna break it down
in the same I'm just gonna have a little tier
list the same way that the game does. So there's
the Dusty tier, the four games I haven't played. Those
are Combatants, Quibble Race, val Bras, and Grimstone. And then
there's the Blue tier. These are games that, like, the
crazy thing about this game is there'sn't a game I
dislike some of them. I'm like, e, I don't care
much for it, but like they're none They are like
a story of dislike or or dislike playing just in
a general sense. And then those they'll be So there's
a kind of the blue tiers kind of just the
games that I like. Maybe I'm kind of mid on them.
I feel like any more time in them, that kind
of thing. Gold tier, those are the games that I
really really love something special I love about them. And
then the Cherry Tiers like those are like the top tier,
like the best of the best, the cream of the crop.
So for the Blue Tier, a couple of games that
I feel like I got any more time with Vanger
Rock on Island. I just feel like I've barely spent
time in them. Rock on Islands like a tower defense game,
I honest is kind of like a SIEV like game.
So obviously there's potential there for me to really enjoy those.
I just need more time with them. Porgy and Divers
those are two kind of like water, like your water
exploration games, and they're just a little sluggish, so maybe
I just need more time in them to get the
vibe of them, but haven't loved them so far. The
Great Bell Race, or maybe it's Big Bell Race, so
I just forget what it's actually called. I kind of
love this one contextually. There's other games in the collection,
the Campanella trilogy, and it has this has the same
controls like your little UFO flying around, kind of like
jetpack controls, but this is kind of like a Mario
Karti type thing. It's kind of like a little a
little racing thing. And I kind of love it contextually
because in the in the setup of the collection, it's
supposed to be like one of the multiplayer games. It's
like a launch title with the console that they release
in there, and I almost kind of use it as
like a training to get better at like Campanella one too,
to like really master those controls. So I love it contextually,
but like as a game individually, it's just okay. Campanella
three I haven't fallen in love with yet. Block Kuala
is kind of like a of course, one of the
fifty games had to be like a block pushing puzzle game,
and that's what Blockquala is. I haven't found like the
secret sauce to it yet. I've played, you know, eight
or nine of the levels in there, but you need
to play more. Planet Zoldath really interesting take on like
a randomization of like a Zelda type of format. So
it's it's cool, it's interesting, but I gotta maybe dive
deeper in Barbuda is the first game in the collection.
I love it for that because it's such a weird, obscure,
difficult hard game. It's just a little sluggish to play,
but I have had a lot of fun like creating.
It's kind of like a metro advein and I kind
of had to like do a paper map to help
figure out everything, so that one's really cool. Paint Chase
really great core mechanic. I think it's just a little
repetitive doing the early levels over and over again. If
you lose a run, you gotta start from scratch, and
it can take It's a pretty slow paced game, so
that can take a while. Devolition is a cool like
chain reaction, like you're almost making like little Rube Goldberg
machines on this map with like enemies and creating Yeah,
weird little chain reactions. It's cool. It's just it's a
game that I like accidentally cherried, Like I accidentally got
like the bonus objective and I was like, oh it
was I don't want. Took like half an hour forty
minutes to do that, and I was like, okay, is
there like more here?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like I've done everything now, so
it just felt like maybe it was lacking some depth.
And then here like some that I just feel like
I'm bad at but are really cool. But it's really
just the fact that I'm not good at them is
holding me back from like and the more those would
be fist hel Rakshasa Gulfaria, Kira Mal Caramel, and Starper
all games that I think I have something really interesting
beyond the surface, but I'm just so bad at them
that like, I just can't. I haven't got deep enough
to like fall in love with them yet. So those
are the blue tier games. Jumping up to the gold
tier games. First up, I have Hyper Contender. This is
the kind of the fighting game of the collection, and
it's like a Smash Bros. Type it. It's a platform
fighter type thing, but like in a more confined arena,
or rather than knocking people off the map, you're like
trying to knock rings out of them and collect the rings.
Super creative move sets. I really want to play this
one with you and like the other other boys on
the twenty four hour stream when this game comes to
switch inevitably, because it's gonna be really fun to mess
around with this game. It's really cool. Hot Foot is
like a dodgeball light game, So like what else you
gotta say, just like cool, It's like Dodgeball with Hackey sacks.
So it's just great, super fun. Pin golf is like
a two D two D golf game. The main mechanical
that like sets it apart from others, because there's a
lot of golf games like that, is that midway through
any strike, you can just like hit a button and
like we'll dunk the ball like downwards. And so you
can like use like bank it, like bounce it off things,
or just like get it to like a precise spot,
or you can like across the map snipe the ball
and then like try and dunk it into the hole.
And even if it bounces out of the hole, as
long as it like has touched the hole, then you
get get like it you get that stroke. I guess
you get the win. And so that's just really fun,
really satisfying physics on that one. Pilot Quest that was
I'm always gonna be like a bit nostalgic for this one,
even those games like not that old, I'm already kind
of nostalgic for some of the earlier games I played
in the collection. As I mentioned, pilot Quest is the
very first one I boot it up, so it has
my boy Pilot in there from Splunky, and I like
this one is like the meta mechanic. This one has
like the you're earning resources like while you're playing other games,
so it's kind of like an interesting meta mechanic to it,
which I really enjoy. Magic Garden just a really good
kind of arcade style score chaser, kind of like Snake
or something, but with a little some fresh new mechanics.
Cyber Owls another another gold Cart here. Cyber Owls is
a crazy game. This is the last one in the collection,
and I feel like it's almost trying to be what
UFO fifty is as a whole, but like down in
one game, it kind of has like it's it's like
anthropomorphic animals, but it feels like metal gear solid and
like a lot of the vibes of it. And it's
like five games in one because you have four different
characters and they all go on like their different mission
around the around the world. You can play them in
any order, and all four of those games are like
a totally different genre. And then like if someone gets
if you lose a mission, they like get imprisoned. And
then there's like this other game that happens when you
can like send someone to go save them, and it's
like a tactics thing. Uh So it feels like the
concept of view for fifty boiled down to one where
it's like five genres in one uh, and it's like
the most expansive in terms of like it being the
last game in the collection, like has the most story,
has the most like cinematic camera stuff going on. The
graphics feel really evolved, like tons of like music feels
like an evolution. So I really like it as like
the final game in the collection. I feel like it's
a really well placed there, and it's it's hard, it's
but it's it's really really fun and it definitely has
like the stealth action element to it, you know in
the Metal Gear Metal Gear type of way. Shouts to
that one. We got a lot more here. Kirklum buckalout
Waldorf's Journey. This is a very silly game. It's kind
of one of those games it has like just really weird,
like intentionally bad controls, and part of the fun of
it is like getting your positioning just right and getting
your your trajectories and all that. So it was fun
to get like the goal on it and finally beat
this game. But then it also has like a co
op mode that is like just a really fun like
balloon fight esque like competitive thing that you're doing against friends,
which is really fun to do. Moon Cat is a
really interesting game. It's a two D platformer that the
controls are just so weird. It's kind of similar to
Waldorf's Journey in this way that it's like this game
makes you feel like you're playing a video game for
the first time, and that you like have to figure
out how everything works, how like every button, what it does,
how to just move your character properly along the screen.
I think in terms of like it's really successful at
being that, at being like, here's what playing a video
game feels like for the first time. You know, I'm
someone whos played like n of games, but I truly
feel like anyone else playing their first video game here.
So that's really cool. Mini and Max, this one, I
feel like, is gonna jump up to Cherry the Cherry
tier for me when I play more of it. But
it is just a huge game. It has that theming
I love Kirkling of, like shrinking down to be like
a mini character in a world. But it's what's crazy
about this is you start out your kid in your bedroom.
You can walk around. It's like only like five or
six tiles wide, like a pretty small bedroom, and then
you shrink down to like mini size, and now the
map is like I don't know, probably like thirty screens wide,
like it becomes a huge map. But then where it
gets like even more insane is that you can shrink
down again to be like microscopic, and so I don't
even know how many screens it would be. It must
be like a thousand or like hundreds at least, Like
it is a huge scale, and a lot of the
stuff you gotta do is like down in that many
tiny realm, so really really crazy, just the scale of it,
and that's where it just feels like this is probably
one of, if not the most expansive game in the
whole collection. But on top of that, there's like tons
of upgrades you're getting for your character, there's tons of
quests and side quests you're doing around this world, and
obviously because you can kind of go anywhere and shrink
down in any particular pixel, like you, it's completely nonlinear too.
So just a wild game like like this on its
own could have been sold as like a fifteen dollars
game probably on Steam, and it would be hugely successful
just because of how crazy the scale is of it.
Next up, Onion Delivery is a game that, man, this
took me so many plays to just like figure out
how to play it. Like you're driving a car around
the world, but controls are so tight and so difficult
to get a hold of. But it was so fun
just getting better at it. It feels like a Simpsons
hit and run or like a Simpsons road rage, Like
it is kind of like crazy taxi or making deliveries
around this town. And as you go through the different days,
like you know, fire hydrants are popping like sludge out
of the sewers, and there's zombies chasing you, and it's raining,
so there's puddles everywhere. It just gets totally chaotic. But man,
it was really really fun getting better at this game.
Chameleon is a cool like it's like a stealth game
but like boiled down to a puzzle game, which I
feel like a lot of stealth games if you really
think about a Kirkleing, like a lot of Silicons artists
like puzzle games, but in just like a different way, right,
like trying to figure out how do I get through
this particular room, what's like the specific movements or like
throwing a vase at a wall to distracted guard so
I can sneak behind them, that kind of thing, and
so I be a chameleon. Is really just boiling that
idea down into like a tight way, and I think
it's a really successful way of doing that. Really fun.
Got the cherry on that one. Elfhazar's Hat is a
really weird, like top down Zelda like kind of thing.
I love the theming of it. It's like very magic
like magician themed. It's very silly, but it has like
a really cool upgrade system where when you're taking out
enemies or de throwing boxes, it'll drop little cards down
and depend on like the combination of cards you get,
you'll get like different upgrades. And so it's really fun
to like figure out what all these different things are.
And it's like how do I heal? You gotta like
figure out what combo of cards you got to pick
up in order to heal or like which ones you
get to like get better upgrades for your character. A
really really fun game. Really enjoyed that one. And then
Ninpeck is my last gold cart one here and this
one is like my go to app TiSER game and
using that food analogy I said earlier, like every like
for the first like month or two booting up UFO fifty,
I'd pretty much always boot up like Ninpeck or Velgress,
which is like a similar thing, and I would just
boot that up. Just have like a fun two D platformer,
and that would be my appetizer game. I do a
run or two just to get me like warmed up,
and then I jump into like a bigger experience, but
super fun game, really tight controls, just super duper fun
whole way through. Okay, either here and then we'll jump
into the cherry, the cherry tier games, So these are
the top tier games. First up, Night Manner. This is
like a point and click adventure horror game. Just love it.
Amazing art, amazing vibes, really great puzzles. I played this
one like a round Halloween and it was like one
of my favorite horror games of the year. Just really
enjoyed it. Lords of Dysconia is like a really cool
RPG strategy game where there's like an overrolled map and
you're trying to plot your root of how you're gonna
out out fox your enemy. Maybe I'm gonna go grab
this mine so I can make money. I'm gonna go
to the tavern to buy more adventurers, go to over
here to grab this upgrade, and like trying to sneak
around your opponent. But then when you actually encounter them,
you go into like almost like a shuffle board or
like a pool like tactics game where all your units
are represented as like these little circular pegs and you're
kind of shooting them across the board and like bouncing
them off in like a pool way, but there's so many,
Like you know, all your units are like knights and
dragons and spiders and vampires and all this stuff, and
all of them interact and interesting cool ways. It's crazy
and like the the npcson this, like the computer players
can do like the craziest angles, like they feel like
they're hacking the game, and like somehow you can still
just barely beat them and using like cleverly creative things.
Super duper cool game. I absolutely love it. Somear that
Attactics is like the it's almost like the top down
Tactics like fire embloomy game of the collection. But it's like,
how can we make a tactics game like the fastest
game you've ever played, and so it's like every few seconds,
all the units will shift up on the board towards
each other in the middle, and so you're just kind
of like quickly replace them, move them, shift the units
in the right way. And it's very rock paper scissors
in that fire bloom way where it's like, Okay, I
got to make sure, like my spear guy is gonna
take out the horse, gotta put my archer here to
take out this night, and it's like all that is
frantically happening. You can't pause, so it's just constant. But
I had so much fun, like mastering tactics. Super great
game bug Hunter, which I talked to you in depth
on side quest about. That's kind of like what if
into the Breach was kind of boiled down to its
core essence. So I love bug Hunter. That's a great game.
Party house. This is like the roguelike deck Builder of
the collection. Somehow. This is another game that is I
feel like could have been sold for like ten bucks
on its own on Steam and would be one of
the biggest games of the year. It is so good.
It's the goofiest theming of like the goal of the
game is just to throw the perfect party, and so
you're increasing your rolodex of friends and people that you're
inviting your party, whether that is yeah, like friends and
then like you know, hiring a bartender or hiring a
comedian to make your party even better. And it's just
just a great game. And you know what, on top
of that, it has like a really fun, like competitive
co op mode you can do against your friends, which
is like just crazy. I guess that's the thing I've
mentioned in Passing, like a lot of these games just
have co op too, which is crazy for how ambitious
this game already was a warp tank really great, like
kind of two D. I don't even know. I guess
puzzle platform is how you would define it. But it's
just a really weird game, really great. Every level is
interesting in some way, and the overworld is kind of nonlinear,
so you can do things however you want. Seaside Drive.
There's a few bullet hell games in the collection. I've
mentioned a couple that were kind of in my blue tier,
like I just I'm too bad at them, But Seaside
Drive is the one that I was able to get
pretty good at, and it's kind of themed as like
you're driving this car on this like cool like beautiful
sunset in the background and shooting and like it kind
of depends on where you're moving around the map. Really
really cool. I really enjoy that one. Bashido Ball is
probably my favorite co op game in the collection. It's
like it's like a fighting game, but it's like a
fighting game tennis game at the same time. Like you're
just hitting this ball back and forth, but you're playing
as like Samurais and stuff, and so you're hitting the
ball in all sorts of weird ways. You figure out
so many weird mechanics, like if you roll and then
hit the ball, that'll like do a crazy curve shot.
You're building up special meter in like a fighting game. Way.
On top of that, it has co op that you
can do, like you can play with your friend in
a two on two, or you can play against your
friend and a one on one, which is super fun
and yeah, I just so much fun to play with
a friend. I love this game. And on top of
it has like a weird rules system where there's like
technically you can like hit your opponent with it with
a stick at any point, but like that's against the rules,
like it's cheating and like sometimes you'll get called out
by the referee on things and sometimes you won't, and
so like, I don't know, it makes for those really
weird system You can also like customize that in the
settings too, So that's great. Kick Club. I don't even
know what to say about this one. Just a fun
puzzle platform. You're kicking this ball around. It just has
a great game feel. Silly enemy designs, like little tennis
balls that look like Mike Wazowski that are like hitting
other tennis balls at you, or like basketballs, and like
ice skates and stupid stuff like that super fun game.
More Tall one and two a really cool mechanic. I
talked about that one in depth on Sideway too, where
More tolls like kind of that seafood thing where're going
through these levels you're trying to preserve lives to get
further in just insanely well designed. A great core concept
that is, and as as I said, there's More Tall
one and two so that that core concept is explored
in two different ways, where one is like a level
based thing and then one's more like an open world
setting with like characters that have more in depth move
sets just insanely cool games ones. I'd love to see
that like other developers get inspired by more tal and
just make games like that. Campanella one and two. Campanila
one is kind of like the Arcady going through with
these fun jetpack mechanics, and then Split, and then Campanella two.
It's pretty much like Spelunky. It's like the Splunky game
of the collection. So of course I'm gonna love that
one a whole lot. I finally beat it, finally got
a gold cart. Took me like probably five hours of
runs just to finally beat the game once. And then
of course I still think of the cherry. There's still
tons of secrets to find in it. So love the
both Campanella games similar to that Velgress and Overbold are
the two games that feature Alpha as the main Charactergress
is like a really fun, juicy reaction platformer, and then
over Bold is like the risk reward like Battle Arena one.
Love both those games, just such unreal games. And then lastly,
kirkland One more game is rail Heist, which I haven't
talked to you one about this game at all, and
I think this is by far my favorite game in
the collection, just as a whole like this is not
a rankless as I mentioned, but like Rail Heist is
my number one game, and like, first of all, I
finally beat this game over the last week here and
it was like nine hours long to like beat the game.
Like that's just one game the collection nine hours long.
I freaking love Rail Heist so much. The theming of
this one is Cowboys setting. You're playing as the Outlaws
and you're on this train, on this rail heist, of course,
and you're just trying to steal the money from the
from the guards, like the police that are guarding them,
and then get out. You got to exfol trade at
the end. But it's like it's kind of like an
immersive sim in some ways, Like it's a boiled down
version of an immersive sim where everything in the game
is like inner actable in like so many different ways,
where like even the walls you can like bust through
certain walls with your fists, other ones you have to
like shoot through, other ones you can like blow up,
and so like. Even though the levels are designed in
the way they are, it feels like you can go
any which way you want if you're creative enough and
think about them and out of box ways. Something as
simple as like a box is like, okay, a box
can be used as like platforms. You can make like
a staircases. You can make walls with them to block
off enemies. You can use them as like a weapon,
Chuck a box at an enemy. Sometimes there's hidden things
inside boxes. You can use it as like a distraction,
throw a box into the wall to get an outlaw
to go, or get a guard to go check it
out and sneak by that kind of stuff. I love
this for like levers too, Like any you know, levers
are a very generic video game thing. You hit the lever,
it opens a thing. But in this like levers are
things you can just like pick up and throw around
as well, so they also become like a weapon. But
then because that you can also use them as like
a staircase. You can shoot them from a distance. You
can like load up your gun and like shoot a
lever from across the map to like activate a thing.
So really cool, And that's kind of just the case
for every object in the game. Is like there's like
chicken and dynamite and cows and all these things can
be just like interacted with in so many different ways,
and each level, you know, kind of testing you different ways.
That's introducing new mechanics, And I think what kind of
puts it over the edge for me is that each
level has kind of like a dishonored like goal to it,
where like every level can be beaten non lethally or
full lethally killing every single enemy, or there's like also
a speed run objective for every level, and I've now
got the cherry for it, so I've got all these
metals on every level, and man, that just made the
game like every level is well designed. You just got
to get the gold to get out, sure, but then
like trying to get those objective on every level just
made me fall in love with it so much more.
Of like usually the non lethal was the hardest thing
to do because the game is so zany and you
just random shots are going off and so easy to
accidentally kill an enemy on top of trying to do
it without even interacting with them. So like interacting with
every level and figuring out how do I do this,
like every level became just a puzzle multiple ways. The
speed run objective was always difficult, Like it always came
down to like I had one or two seconds when
I finally got the perfect series of things of like
pining it all out and then executing perfectly and then
full lethal. That's kind of like the easiest one, but
it still is pretty hard on some levels, just because
you are a one shot kill for enemies too. So yeah,
just that was what put the game over the top
for me. I love rail Heist. I was thinking about
this a lot, and like you a full fifty as
a collection, obviously it's my game of the year, but
like individual games, I don't know how many of them
would have been like quality enough on their own to
be like in the top ten. You wouldn't expect them
to write it's a collection of fifty games. I think
if you bundled certain things, like maybe the Campanella trilogy,
maybe that would have been in my top ten. But
like Railheist is the one so far, we're like this
game on its own, I think it would have been
top five on my list over up with a year,
and it's just one game out of fifty. So I
absolutely love reil Heist. Can't praise that game enough. And yeah,
like I said, I love so many of the games
in here, so there you go. I knew I was
gonna talk about you a full fifty four all. I
want to give it its its flowers. I love this game,
and I still have so much to do. As I
mentioned that I all want to get goals on every game.
I don't think I necessarily want to get the cherry
objective on every single game, but I want to get
gold on every single one of them. So that's even
take me like two hundred hours. I don't know, it's
gonna take a long time. And as I mentioned, there's
other games I haven't even played yet. Oh and on
top of that, one of the games I haven't played Grimstone.
I think it's called is like set in the same
world as rail Heists, so I have even more like
finding that world, which is really cool. Even if it's
not like a direct sequel, it's kind of like more
of an RPG. But I think that's enough for you fifty.
I love this game. It's so good, and I love Kirklyn.
When you were talking about like games you want to
play it, you didn't get to You just showed it
out my top three astroift. So clearly on the podcast
I've I've talked about this thing is pascially enough for
you to see the joy that I found in them.
So there you go. There's my number one and there's
my top ten overall. I gotta take a sip of
water here to take it away.
Speaker 2: I was trying to as you're going along, because like
some of these titles you you've just talked about in
previous side, I was just like searching up like images
and I just I fell. I fell behind hardcore early on,
but no rail heightst this. I just love the aesthetic.
It reminds me of like something I played on, like
mini Clip or something back.
Speaker 1: It's so silly. It's such a slapstick, silly game where
you have crazy chain reactions of things occurring. It's yeah,
just amazing, awesome.
Speaker 2: Okay, well that was a fantastic number one. I feel
like I've been extremely boring for many different rays, many
different ways.
Speaker 1: It's always a.
Speaker 2: Weird thing having an EA game on your number one
for the year, especially if it's a sports title. But like, honestly,
entering today, I think I had this game as like
my number three, but I would have just been lying
to myself. I have over two hundred hours played on
College football twenty five, which is just so random because
it's just a football game, like you know, it doesn't
even have like the craziest in depth like Arcadie game
modes or anything like that. But this year has been
an interesting year for me where this is my first
year I've actually like followed football. It's been really fun
following it. We have a you know, chat on our
GV discord, so that's been like popping off every weekend
leading up to the games. And then because I've just
been in that football mindset, I've just been playing this
game clearly a lot. Over two hundred hours honestly, probably
over one hundred of those hours are like just purely
in like the it's not even called GMO. I think
it's called Dynasty mode, where you just you're the head
of a school and you're just recruiting people and you're
just trying to make the best recruitments that you can
to make just the best team that you have. And
I don't even play the games at all. It's just
purely like the strategizing of it and just building up
and like finding where I'm weak in certain areas. It's
been such a great resource to pair with this being
like the first year I've actually follow football because I've
just learned so much about different Like I know like
all the positions now because I'm like I'm recruiting individual
players for like who is gonna be where and what
kind of stats I want them to have that fits
the best for my specific skit setup or scheme or
whatever plays that we're doing. So it's just been such
a fantastic pairing and it kind of surprised me, like
how much of actually played this game, because I feel
like I'm just like every week, I'm just booting it
up and just doing a little bit at a time,
and then of course when you do that every week
to now it the hours clearly line up. But no,
this has got to be my game of the year.
It's just the best football game ever made, mechanics wise,
cinematics wise, Like they just did such a great job
at capturing the elements of like a big stadium field.
The audio feels so good and yeay, especially for like Madden,
I feel like it's just had a bad rep because
it's just like they just recycle the exact same assets
and this one is actually something new, Like it really
feels different than previous Madden games that I've played. I
even't played all of them, but I don't know. I
played like two thousand and eight and then like twenty eighteen,
and it feels like the exact same game. So that's
never a good sign. But this really feels different. It
feels faster paced and more arcadie than a Madden game,
which I think adds to just the overall enjoyment of
the feel of everything. And yeah, the game modes are fantastic.
It's funny too, because like I don't even watch college
football at all, Like I don't follow it, but I
know like all about it now because of this game.
I know, I know like all the school there's like
over one hundred plus schools in this game, Like it's
just the roster is insane, and yeah, no, it's it's
it's just fantastic. I recommend it to a football fan
out there. Definitely get this over Madden. It's because it's
made by the same people like EA Sports, but like
this one really highly rated, and then like the newest
Madden is just like awful. Everybody says, don't get it,
like it's just the exact same thing as.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, maybe they didn't have like a time constraint
on college football they're like, yeah, really, whenever you're ready,
and so they like took more time and more love
and caring to it, or is Madden's like you gotta
hit that deadline maybe, like you know, want to missing line.
Speaker 2: That's probably that's honestly, probably a good point because I
think the last college game it was like twenty thirteen
or something, so's it was a long time between that
one and now, and uh, yeah, it's it's just fantastic.
It's wild that a football game is my number one. Yeah,
and like it's just straight up sports, same game, Like
it's not like it's an arcady, you know, like Madden
Street or something like that. So yeah, it's it's it's amazing,
kind of surprising. Even coming into today, I'm like, nah,
it's not gonna be my top one, but it's kind
of just would have been lying to myself just based
on like hours alone, Like yeah, I think, hell, two.
Speaker 1: Hundred hours, Like that's that's impressive. That means that you
were just couldn't put it down. And I can confirm
now that I'm on PlayStation and I whenever I see
you online, it's like, yeah, he's probably playing college.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, one hundred percent it's a good like laid
back game too. Especially I'm not playing the games like
I just have it open, you know, a couple of
decisions here and there, go make dinner, come back, make
up more decisions sim some weeks. Yeah, but yeah, I
think I'm on, Like I think I'm on like year
eight or something of my school. And I started as
like a one and a half star, I'm like a four.
I peaked at four and a half. A couple of
my seniors graduated, which is never great, but uh, it's
just it's just so fun and then yeah, it's it's
good stuff.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm I'm so happy you want to
have it on your list and having it I like
at number one because I in listening to some other
Game of the Year podcast I feel like a lot
of them have been like, yeah, I heard that college
football is like actually good, but yeah, I didn't play it,
and I've heard that so much, and so I'm so
glad that you actually did play and played a lot
of it and can confirm that, like, oh yeah, this
actually they didn't phone it in. Like it's so easy
to say that for EA because they often do, but yeah,
in this case, they put their heart and soul into it.
It seems like so, and it's I love that that's
not even like the football that you're watching the league
and stuff, but you're still just that into it because
of how good the mechanics are. That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I feel like with myself too, because I've
just I've always played these sports games, Like every year
I've put like on a game's Game of the Year list,
Like I probably could have mentioned something whether I was
playing like NBA two K or NHL like all these
sports games, but they're never like actually good enough for
me to be like, yeah, right, game of the year,
even though I might have put in a lot of
hours just for playing with friends or whatnot. Back in
the day I was a big FIFA player, But like, yeah, no,
this is honestly the best game I think I've played
this year, well for myself at least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I sympathize with that, where yeah, that's
like similar to Star Wars outlallsher. I'm like, I would
be a cooler person if I put mouth Washing out four.
But you know what, I gotta be true to myself.
So I'm glad that you were true to yourself because
that is definitely your Game of the Year. So yeah,
right on, yeah, quick quick recap. So my list number ten,
Indiana Jones' Great Circle, number nine, Animal Well number eight,
Pacific Drive number seven, out Last Trials six, Mouth Washing,
five Zelda, Echoes of Wisdom, four, Star Wars, Outlaws, three, Astrobot,
two blotro and one Ui Fux fifty. What was your
top five? One more time there?
Speaker 2: Top five, I got Plucky Squire, number five, number four,
Princess Peach, and then I have Hell Divers two, followed
by Stellar Blade and College Football twenty five.
Speaker 1: We have nothing in common. Finally, it's funny how that happened.
I guess. Yeah, Plucky Squire was not yeah, not quite
a top ten or for me, maybe in my top twenty,
but yeah, it would have been the closest one I think.
But yeah, really really fun. Kirklean, thank you so much
for joining me. Is so much fun. I always loved
the Game of the Year episode. And yeah, we'll be
back next week as we always are with more side quest.
Thank you everyone for listening. Please let us know your
game there. I want to hear what other people had
for their favorites out there. Let us know and YouTube comments,
Join the discord and tell us there, or you know,
leave it in a review on a nice five star
review of Apple or Spotify or something like that. That
would mean the world to us too. So thank you
everyone for listening to this episode and the whole year
of side Quest, and we will see you again next time.
Bye bye,