Get Played - Our Favorite Games: Revisited

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Heather, Nick and Matt take a look at their personal top 10 favorite games of all time and make some updates to their lists! Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpod Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For our exclusive show Get Played DLC, ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? episodes go to patreon.com/getplayed Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fm All of our links can be found at linktree.com/getplayedpodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum podcast. Hey Matt, before we get started on this best of all time episode. Yeah. Can I run my personal top 10 by you? Yeah, of course, buddy. Of course. Whatever you got? Okay, cool.

Yeah, I just want to get another set of eyes on this. Number one, leisure suit Larry in the land of the lounge lizards. Okay. Obvious choice. Number two, leisure suit Larry, love for sale. They really just, like, dial it in with this one. Number three, my number three game of all time, Leisure Suit Larry goes looking for love in several wrong places.

You know, I just kind of feel like a sequel that doesn't quite live up to the original, but still stands on its own. Number four, Leaser Suit Larry 5, passionate Patty does a little undercover work. Yeah, what's up? Is the whole list just Leisure Suit Larry games? Let me scroll through real quick. Yeah, it's 10 Leaser Suit Larry games. It's 10? Okay, that's tough because, I mean, obviously it's fine if there's like, oh.

overlap, but I'm just sort of thinking about my list, and I think it's just a little bit more interesting for the show if they're a little bit different. Like, just for example, my number one of all time is leisure suit, Larry, magna cum laude, mostly because of the pun, but also because of the era, you know, it was like a PlayStation 2 kid, so that was the one that was for the PlayStation 2. Yeah. And then I went back and I did my research. And yeah, of course, Leisure Suit Larry, three passionate Patty in pursuit of the pulsating pectorals. That's like, that's going to, That's on all of our lists, I'm assuming. Yeah, I get a number six right now, so.

Okay, number six. Wonder where Heather has it. Yeah, it's hard to know where to put wet dreams don't dry, and wet dreams don't dry twice, because I think of them as kind of a piece with each other, if I don't know if it counts as one entry or if it's two. I have them back to back, but I won't say what, you know, I don't know, but this is supposed to be our top ten games of all time.

Like, can I just be honest here? Yeah. Do I have to try to placate an audience? So I have to try to pander. Yeah. Like these are the 10 best video games ever made, 10 different entries in the Leisure Suit Larry franchise. Yeah, and sorry, if you haven't played them or if you're not, you know, a fucking purve or something, okay? These games are for everybody and they're actually just, they're actually just good.

They're not gross or anything like that. Yeah. Hey, hey, guys, sorry, I'm late. I'm so sorry. I got caught up in traffic. What were you talking about? No, nothing. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. You weren't talking about anything? No. No. A hoops. I was, yeah, I was talking about hoops.

Hula. Matt, Matt said he dunked a basketball through a hula hoop. Yeah. Is that your list? Can I see it? No. Well, I guess you're just kind of taking my iPad here.

Nick, eat it. What the fuck is this? What the fuck is this? Nick, I told you to eat it. Why didn't you eat it? Sorry. We have our taste made and agonize over tough as we talk through our personal top 10 games of all time this week on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Tiger Weiger. That's me, Tiger Weiger, and our third host is here. Or should I say, live from New York, it's Mr. Games. Metapodaka. Madapodaka. The way I was planning a similar thing.

Yeah, hello, everyone. I'm walking here. Very good. We could have done both. They're not the same thing. They don't step on each other's toes. I've been up since, well, you guys, you guys get up early, so this is going to sound like a baby complaint.

I've been up since like five, and I didn't sleep that good because I was anxious about flying. And so here I am. You flew out this morning for work and you are out there and you are a very gamely have made appropriate for Mr. Games. That's right. Have made space to record from your hotel room. That's right. That's right.

Because you know what? I don't want to do anything here anyway. All the shit here fucking sucks. Now, Matt has like a small window into what it was like when I was in Holland and recording every fucking few days. And I was like, what am I doing? My trip was actually going to be a day. I had to extend a day on the beginning of the trip. Does that make sense?

It was supposed to be Tuesday, Thursday. Now I'm Monday, Thursday. So I'll have a couple nights to go see stuff. I have not made any plans. That's great. I was just kind of here. Went immediately to a restaurant. I've been to at home.

And had a lovely night. It had great night so far. Matt, can you tell us? So we can see, Matt. on the sort of Zoom interface or whatever this podcasting screen is. It looks like your hotel has drawn pubic hair on the walls behind you. Yeah, those blue cubes. There's a huge, it's off to the other side.

It's just like, it's just a huge bush of pubs. You see all of it and all of it. It's crazy. Fittingly for, you know, pop culture, they seem to be blue navvy pubs. Am I wrong about that? they are blue navi pubs but they're also they're extending from the bush because they're the little tendrils that connect with you as well

so all of it is pubes and they don't actually say that in the movie but that stuff's pubs that's my head canon anyway the kudu that's right that's what it's a kudu we're gonna get into this later at some point but here's the thing as somebody who is I would say at this point in my life evangelical about these movies I couldn't tell you a single name of anything or anyone. But I've had a lot of, really, you like those conversations recently, speaking with wrong people. Yeah, sure. But I'm in New York City. I don't know what I'm going to do. I might pop over to, I'm here for work. So I have to do work stuff. But if there's any

sort of like video game things I end up doing, I'll let you guys know when I'm back. I don't I want to, we shouldn't bury the lead because you said restaurant. You went to a hillstone. Yeah, there was a hillstone walking distance from my hotel. I'm walking here, as you know. Is it, and is it a, is it specifically a hillstone? Is it a Houston's? It was a, it was a hillstone proper. Okay. Um, but, you know, they have a lot of the same stuff. Yeah. My eyes went straight to my favorite steak, the Hawaiian. And I was just like, I can't do, I can't, I just got here. I can't do this. Get off a plane. Get off a plane. Get a 20 ounce rib eye.

Yeah, I can a huge rib eye die tonight. Don't get to do any of the things that came here to do for work. But also I split that steak with my wife. That's a fucking honker. That thing's huge. I had a similar thing. I went to get a breakfast burrito from Kofax. Yeah.

And I ordered one for myself. And then the couple behind me ordered one to share. I was like, well, fuck. Big fat ass in there. Those burritos are mad Well, this is something I feel like this is a conversation for your other show But like

Other show Yeah The show where you get together With all the other wanted criminals in your area No, but like Breakfast Burritos being too big We gotta stop We have to go back

They can't be too big But when People get the appropriate sized breakfast burrito they complain about the size. Yes. No, very few people complain, oh, my burrito was too big. But when you get one that is appropriate,

people are like, this is so small. Like, this was a big problem with Wake and Late. Wake and Late is a Los Angeles breakfast burrito place, right? And their breakfast burritos are appropriate. And people on all of the fucking DoorDash comments or whatever, it's always the burritos are too small. I just don't need to be eating something the size of my arm. No, typically.

First thing in the morning, certainly not. Yeah. He's shitting all day. I will say, I had it for lunch, to be fair. But I will say that the... They just got a regular burrito. What the hell of the matter with you? You can't have a breakfast burrito for lunch.

No, you can't. He did not get a breakfast burrito. He got a tortilla filled with straight egg. Tripoli sized. A bunch of not even cut up, just like hardboil. It could be pure yolks. So this is a thing in food service. And the restaurant industry is it doesn't cost that much to make something on their side.

I mean, this was before, obviously, you know, food prices have skyrocketed. But historically, it does not cost that much to increase portion size. But if you, like, increase portion size, like 20%, you can mark that up to like, like, by like 50 and the customer thinks they're getting more value for it because it's bigger. I mean, that's the whole genius of the cheesecake factory strategy. More is more. But I'm sorry, Matt, I interjected about my breakfast burrito. You didn't finish up your Hillstone anecdote.

Straight egg. Okay. Here's what's going on. I'm not a big solo diner. I don't usually do it. I walk up. Gloves in my hand. Cheapish expression.

You know, just like, you think there's any way? It could just one guy at the bar. I'm humiliated, of course. They seat me immediately. I order. I did order. ordered a Pilsner and a cheeseburger. Hell yeah. The lady sitting next

to me was like, you didn't even have to wait that long. And I answered her in a way that was like, I'm not trying to have a conversation. I'm not trying to talk. I've been on a fucking airplane all day. And also, I got to say, look, I've been to New York a few times in my life, mostly for you know, embarrassing improv festivals

and the like. But I'm always like, gosh, this is going to be such a pain in the ass. Is the subway even going to... Am I even going to like the subway? I just, like, got on it and just, like, sort of, like, lizard-brained was just like... It was, like, the easiest thing I did all day. It was the best.

I loved being on the subway. Yeah, I loved it. Subway's heaven. Yeah. But, yeah, Hillstone was great. I think I was in and out of there, like, maybe under 30 minutes. Just, like, snarfed a huge burger, and then walked back to my hotel. and will I eat there every single night while I'm here?

Maybe it was really good. Did you get that bad boy all a cart? It came with little, it came with shoestring fries. Okay, sure. They were good. You kind of feel like you're not eating anything when you're hitting them though. They're kind of just dry.

They're almost like really thin chips almost, right? You kind of want a little more of a potato texture when you're getting a French fry, I think. Were you dipping? You get like a garlic aoli, you got a ketchup or you're dipping them in. They gave me, I'm glad you asked. Yeah.

They gave me two hockey puck sized ramekins. One filled with ketchup. One filled with like an aoli of some sort. But like the shoestring fries, French fries usually, you grab one, you grab two. You got a good handle on that. These little shoe strings, I'm grabbing a little handful, like little fry pubs. And I'm trying to like dip them into the fucking thing. I'm getting sauce all over my fucking hands.

It's a disaster. But it's not going to. their fault. Hillstone is an incredible restaurant. Can I, can I, uh, posit a, uh, low ranked dipping sauce for French fries that I think should be higher ranked? Yellow mustard. All right. So, yellow mustard. Very interesting. Interesting take. That wasn't what I was going to say, but I'll, I'll, I'll say yes to your mustard. Um, when you get steak a pov and you have the sauce, very bien, one of the best French fried dipping sauce. This is like a peppercorn sauce. Yeah, Pepper corn sauce for a French fry.

That's excellent, excellent sauce. I can, I can rock with that. Interesting. I don't know if I've ever gotten like a steak fritz that was like a au plave. I feel like I like those I think of in separate categories, but I'll give that a show. You should give it a shot. Dunk those motherfuckers in a in an op-wav. In a peppercorn sauce.

I went sometimes, I've been to this is a place. I'm sure Heather you've been there as well too, but I know Nick's been there. Rick's in and out. Oh, yes. I have not. You haven't been to Ricks? I have not been to Ricks, aka congratulations, Matt. That's right.

Diner in Los Angeles. A.k.a. spaghetti is back, which is another thing they put on the marquee. AKA spaghetti is immortal. Yeah. Do you call a couple times? They'll put whatever you want on there. But it's a good place to post up at the counter with a bunch of old guys. There's a bunch of old guys sitting at the counter.

Yeah. You get a burger there. you get their house thousand and you're different fries just in that baby that's good stuff that's we love sauce here in the show we love sauce sauce in many ways is like soup in many ways it's like soup but in other important ways it's very different it's in the most important way it's different yeah right the most crucial thing about the two things is that they are different that is true but they are kind of similar sauce you cannot pour through a suck soup you can pour through a suck

dinner time at the Campbell's is pretty interesting we should mention that we are a video game podcast that's right and our new Patreon a more video game focused Patreon than our old concept get animated is now live get played DLC shout out to Duck Brigade Design for our very cool

new Patreon art and we've got some content on the Patreon already out is how did this get played bubsy collection. That's right. The old how does get played format where we subject ourselves to the worst and weirdest games is on there and we talked bubsy for over an hour. And it is just, fuck,

it sucks to do it, but we're happy to bring it back. It's reminding us why we changed formats in the first place. But that is there behind the paywall. We've got some other things coming up. Hey, the aforementioned Avatar Fire and Ash, who got an upcoming episode on that.

So look for that over at patreon.com. get played. Over the, over the holiday break, we re-released a couple of old episodes. Like, um, we released a Bible Adventures episode with Paul Tompkins. Oh yeah. And we, we re-released, um, hardcore with Colton Dunn. Oh, yeah, Contra Rogue Corps, right? Yeah, with Colton Dunn. And that, that was really fun. Not the George C. Scott hardcore video game. No. That adaptation of Paul Schrader movie. Turn it off. Watching his daughter get railed in the theater. Jesus Christ. I got to. watch this thing. It sounds good. Maybe I'll pop it on after this. But it was interesting to

re-release those because they were from, they were both from the old format. They predated me being you know, part of the show as a host. Always part of the show from the beginning. But yes. Always part of the show from the beginning, but yes. So I talked less, basically. And the thing about the Colton one that was interesting, I guess part of the conversation, I didn't re-listen to. I should have probably, but people were like, this is the exact moment they decided that they weren't going to do this anymore. Because we like felt bad that we made Colton a dad, a dad during the pandemic. Yes.

To play a bad video game. And he basically told us that of like, I have such limited time to do anything. And I'd play contra rogue core. And like from what it sounded like, too, he played more of it than we did. Yes, yeah. Well, I tapped out as soon as the gentleman made his appearance. Yeah, it was one of the playable characters. The gentleman is, in many ways, never far from my thought. So I'm always thinking about the gentleman. He's just over there.

Really obnoxious droid. Rough stuff. He was a bug. He was a bug? He was a bug. The gentleman was a bug. Oh, I thought, oh, so he was, like, had like a, he was like a fancy bug. Yeah, he was fancy. In my head, I'd like turned, I'd conflated him into, like, turned it into, like a clap trap trap slash C3PO hybrid, but he was a bug. In the same way that soup is like sauce, fancy bug is basically a droid.

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But here, in her stead, the very able guest engineer Sam Rogic. Hi, Sam. Hi, Sam. Happy New Year, everybody. Happy New Year. Thanks for having me. Oh, my God. Always great to have you.

It's great to have you. Have you seen Avatar Fire and Ash? No, I haven't yet. Okay. You can spoil anything. No, no, no. You may get spoiled. You may get spoilers.

That's right. But you should see it. You'll probably fall in love with Varang, we all have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we've all been Varong-pilled big time. Huge. All right, let's talk about some video games. The question for the room is, what are you playing?

What are you playing? What are you playing? What? That just blew out my headphones. That is possibly the loudest thing I've ever heard. I don't know what's happening. What? What you're loving so much?

Sorry, you just really, it really tickled me with that, the ravato of that entrance. Right. Where's 2026? And I'm re-dedicating myself to my favorite job. Asking my friend with her player. Wait, your favorite job?

Do you have another job that you like was? I got three jobs. Oh, well? Wow. Being the merchant, obviously. I got it merchant. I'm a merchant. I'm a merchant.

I sell shit out of my jacket. Of course. I'm a guest host on Gart Bride. Yeah. And my third job is I collect the liquids and deliver them to the dispensary. The liquids to the dispensary. I'm trying to think of what that could mean. What kind of liquids?

Yeah, what do you mean? You name it. You got it. Okay. So just any. You name it. got it. So this sounds like maybe a hazardous waste pickup sort of thing.

Sure. Yeah, yeah. You need a hazardous waste. I got your back. You need a, like a gas station full of mayonnaise. I got that for you. Whatever it is. You got that hot liquid.

I got it. Cold liquid. You're ready to go. I mean, I hope you have some sort of transportation mechanism other than your famous. trench coat. You name the transportation style and I'll provide. Wow. Real quick. What? I know we'd probably know I'm time for this, but what's everybody's preference? Cold liquid or hot liquid? Matt, this is a great question. I guess the way, the way to think about it is like you'll only

have one and I think I'd probably have to go with cold liquid just because as much as I love like a hot coffee or it's a cold day and I want some sort of hot beverage to warm myself up, I just like, I'm a warm weather dude I'm a lifelong SoCal Surfer bro and I just need some sort of like cool libation on a hot day God I am gonna have an answer that is gonna

fucking piss off the discord and I am not looking forward to it but it is my honest truth room temperature liquid I love it I'm getting on the first flight back I do not want like if it's too hot I don't like it

I don't like cold liquid I don't like ice. If everything was like back when I was drinking, I wanted my whiskey at room temperature. Sure. I don't, you know, like I want a red wine at room temperature. I want to water at room temperature. I guess in my thinking I'm kind of like cold includes

or cool includes like tepid includes room temp. But it could be wrong. Maybe there's a separate category. You know, I'll have to do. some thinking about that. And I'll let you guys. I haven't made a decision. I feel like I can't really speak on it without proper thought.

But here's my case for it. You would, like, if you had tepid water, you would say, this is definitely not hot. Like that's like, like, you can say with certainty it's not going to fit into the hot category. So if we have a hot, cold binary, then I think it qualifies as cold or cool. That was enough to bring me over to Nick's side of the argument. And I do, now I have enough information. I do agree with Nick. Okay.

Okay. Well, then maybe it won't be a take that pisses people off. Matt, what was your answer? I think it's cold as well. I think we're actually three cold Bev friends. Not me. Hot! I love you hot.

I don't want anything cold. Wow. Hot chocolate. Hot coffee. Hot milk. Hot milk. Hot milk. Oh, you guys ever had a hot milk shake?

I have not. I honestly did not know that was maintaining structural integrity. Put that in the microwave. Crank it to four. Turn it on. Get that shit out when it's bubbling. I feel like it would just liquefy. Yeah, no. Wait, you don't. Milkshake is a liquid. Well, I know, but I think it has a thicker consistency because it's partially frozen. It's true. You do have me there. I admit to feed, good sir.

But, tusha. Just don't microwave it in the cyrofoam. It's bad for you. Right, right. I just, I feel like it's like, you know, the partially frozen character of it's like a frozen, it's like a slushy or a smoothie, you know, once you heat it up, it starts to just be like a juice. Well, no, it stays pretty thick. Okay. I've never heated it up enough to it became juice.

Wow, okay. Think about a shake from like in and out. That melts. It kind of stays thick. Yeah, that's it sick. I guess so. I guess it's pretty viscous still. Yeah.

Visciscus is the word I was. No, I did it hot. Imagine a king, you got a hot chocolate. Yeah. Imagine a hot vanilla. You don't know, I'm kind of on board, honestly. Yeah, it sounds good. Yeah, it sounds good.

So delicious. All right, you won me over. You appealed right to the Vanilla King over here. Hot strawberry, hot caramel cream, hot drinks 24-7. Wow. In the sun. Yeah. I'm glad I asked.

Mad Upaducka. What are you playing? All right. It's been a busy. It was a busy holiday break. We had a little bit of a break. I rolled credits on Ghost of Yote. Wow.

And I absolutely loved it. I think I like it better than Ghost of Tsushima. I really loved Atsu as a character. I think Eric's performance is so, so great. And I just really, I spent a lot of time with Atsu. So I just, you know, maybe it's recency bias, but I thought the gameplay was really good. I thought once you start unlocking like guns and stuff.

So this kind of, this fucking rips, actually. This is so sick. I finished that and then I went straight into dispatch, which then I also finished. Hell yeah. Wow.

Yeah. I kind of was like Atsu in this way where I had some games on like a cloth written down and I would swipe my sword against the name in its blood once I finished it. I like this. I, so I finish. I love that. That's kind of what I was doing.

Well, you are the finisher, so I'm the finisher. That feels like a fitting signature. Wait, what did you think of dispatch? I was devastated that, well, first of all, let's just say first. I loved it. I loved the design of it. I miss games like that. I loved, I loved a lot of the

telltale games. And this is obviously people from that studio continuing on to make a new game here. And I loved the story. The performances in this game are so, so great. And I just loved how different, all the choices that you can make work. Because some of them were kind of like, okay, you do this or you do that or whatever. But like, they kind of, every choice felt consequential for me.

And so it's making me want to go through and play it again because, you know, this is the thing, too. Maybe this is how I play these games. And I feel like when there's like romance, I like am too wishy-washy in the games. And then nobody ever wants to romance me back into games. And then I'm like, this game fucking sucks. I fucking hate this. But I was, of course, going after Invisigal. And it was, I don't want to spoil my ending, but it was, you know, it was not received.

But it was, I love. I loved the game. I recommended it to my brother because he likes, like, superhero-y type stuff. I don't know if he, like, would necessarily jive with the gameplay, but I just like, give it a chance. It's a good studio, a good game, and I really, really loved that. And then I got more into, I was just on a plane for five hours, right?

Watch two movies. Don't have to talk about those. We watched The Naked Gun, Laugh My Ass Off on the plane. and then I watched materialists, which I liked. But then I was also, I was playing Hades 2 for a good chunk of the flight. Wow. Like, was just really getting in there on my switch 2. And let me just tell you something about the battery of the switch 2 real quick.

Yeah? It will not, it will not hold up for a five-hour flight. Oh, man. What a bummer. You cannot do it. It cannot do it. I got, I mean, I was taking little breaks, and I then had to, like, I got to about 20% and was just like, well, this is a little too close for comfort, and then I had to, you know,

plug it into a portable charger that I had with me. But it was, you know, I don't think Hades 2 is like, you know, that much of a beast to run, right? So, like, it was the fact that that was draining the switch two battery so significantly. I was a little disappointed But I was getting further Than I had previously But then you know of course Something comes along to humble you and send you all the way back

But Hades 2 is really fucking good I gotta get more into it It was a lot of fun That's what that's what I've been playing I love it The developer of dispatch ad hoc Yes And I believe I'm sure they have more games

Perhaps a dispatch follow up in the works Because this has been a real success and deserve a self for them. I think they're doing Wolf Among Us too. Did I see that? That one's in development, but I thought that was from a different studio. I could be wrong.

Yeah, but anyway, they're great. And yeah, I would love a dispatch too as soon as possible. Yeah. Let us romance from a level of love. Please. Please. Please.

Also, Ranch wants a romance sonar. So, let's make that option too. More than two options would be good. I know that it's probably insanely hard to program so many variables, but just fucking do it. We're horny. Yeah. Crying. Heather, what are you playing?

I've put down Final Fantasy 7 rebirth to take a brief hiatus and return to the twisted crags and floating mountains. of Pandora. Wow. I've been playing Avatar Frontiers of Pandora from the Ashes, the brand new expanded campaign

based on the new movie which was released. The new game was released on December 19th, 2025 in conjunction with the release of the film and follows the Warrior Sulek

who is investigating the incursion of the the Mangwan clan. Wow. And let me tell you. Nothing makes a game feel more like you're playing an NES version of something

and have like, you know how like there used to be like a Star Wars? And then you play Super Nintendo or a Genesis version of Jurassic Park. And it would be like crummy fucking graphics. And you were asking your brain to fill in all of the imagination so that you could be in Jurassic Park or be in Star Wars. Avatar is so high fidelity as a franchise and an IP that playing a AAA Ubisoft game that has been supported for years that has just added a third person mode that is an entirely expanded campaign that lets you get on one of the fucking, what are they in, in twack? Ikron. There you go.

The Ikron dragon guys and fly around anywhere on the map. And the whole time you're like, I know this looks like an. incredible game. It looks gorgeous, but it looks like shit. Because all your brain is doing is being like, these trees aren't moving very well. This brain, like, because when you're watching Avatar the movie, you're like effectively watching the most expensive CG on planet Earth. Right. With all of the like hyper realistic sub-surface scattering, like all of the skin, the veins, the muscles. So, when you see a high end, like, boosted for the PlayStation 5 professional edition and those,

the skin isn't moving and everybody's face is rigid when they're talking, you feel like you're playing a PS2 game. Wow. Yeah. Because all you can remember is how gorgeous the actual film is. Let me tell you some things I like about it so far. I think I dropped Frontiers of Pandora to begin with because it was first person. So I am extremely grateful that there is a third person.

mode. However, it is not third person in the way that like the Assassin's Creed franchise was because it is so clearly added onto it that the Navi you're playing as is kind of stiff. The collision is a little weird and he doesn't have like the sort of momentum switching because he's just placed into a first person environment. You can't have him like you can't have that sort of yeah, the Assassin's Creed movement, the Fortnite movement where there's a little bit of skid on your turns or whatever. So that feels a little weird.

But why I do like the third person mode is there is because now all the environments feel the way they should, which is that when you're in first person mode, you don't realize that your head is almost like touching the ceiling in the human environments. Right. You lose a sense.

of scale a little bit. Yeah, you lose all the sense of scale. But when you're in third person mode, suddenly your Navi is towering over a human chair and it's funny looking and also correct. Yes. And that's really satisfying. What I really like about the from the Ashes DLC is it starts with telling you the entire story of the base game. It's like, do you want to recap? And I'm like, yes. and it tells you all of the turns, all of the big plot machinations, all of the big reveals, the betrayals. And you're like,

oh, I see how this could have been a pretty good avatar story. And then you start from the ashes. You've got your dragon already. You've got like a full wheel of weapons. They don't walk you through anything. They just assume you're going to be like, ah, this is basically the same controls as everything now.

So I know my triggers are going to. be gone like one is going to aim and one's going to fire i have to figure figure out which one is crouch like is it going to be push in r3 or is it going to be something else but there's no like in-depth tutorial they put you on the dragon and it's like there's an icon in the corner that says press up to reveal dragon controls but otherwise they're just like good luck and that is so great for when you just want like it's the way games should be should start is they just drop you in and let you play instead of like slowly walking you through somebody saying to you, wow, you really bumped your head back there. Why don't you try

jumping? See how that works for you. Why don't you look around? Like all that shit's stripped out of it and you can just immediately get into combat, immediately get into exploration. Like, it's, it's the way that I wish the base game had been. So I'm enjoying that. I have yet to actually The encounter, I've only played a few hours. I have yet to encounter the Ash tribe, but I am investigating their wreckage. They're nasty. Yeah, my question was going to be, have you encountered the Monkong yet, the Ash people? And more importantly, have you encountered Varong?

But it sounds like not yet. Not yet. I'm on the trail. Okay. They're like crucifying animals. Oh my God. They're like, they're. It's neat.

Because we know that they're like bad Navi because we've seen the movie. Yeah. But the main Navi protagonist of this game is like, something is wrong. And you're walking through these environments where they've like tied up and like blood-grained like beautiful Navi or beautiful Pandorian creatures. And they all have their names. It's like, oh no, that Loak is. Well, Loak's one of the guys. Yeah.

Well, whatever. Maybe there's a good. Maybe he's named. You know what? Maybe his namesake is some sort of Pandora bird. A fucking hammer horse. I don't know what the fuck they're called. Yeah.

But they've like. The Pandoran Bull. All of the Pandora Wiki, we'll find out. But they've stretched out this thing in like a spider web of knots and set it on fire. And the main, your main Navi protagonist is like, this does not like, at first you're like, you go into the environments and the guy's like, I hate humans. I can't believe they do this to our animals. And then as he's investigating, he's like, wait a minute, this is a, this is too fucked up for the people to do it. I did.

What is happening here? And it goes to the, oh, go ahead. I booted up the main campaign, actually. I've been, I played a couple hours of that. I was like, I kind of wanted, I knew that it would spoil the base campaign, but I want to get to the ash stuff. But the ash stuff also, you sort of sold me on this because I played it enough of the thing to know how to play. Yeah. Right.

because I heard that the DLC is 20 hours like it's like a school game Well yeah I mean so far I'm having a good time I sure do love riding around a dragon And Pandora it's pretty good That's what I've been playing

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My head is buried in this list of Pandora animals. Viper Wolf. Oh, yes. Sanador. Wood Sprite. We know the wood sprites. Stingbat.

One of the pieces of lore in the game is that the RDA has been severing the kudu of animals to make them insane. And like, so it justifies why you're being attacked by animals on Pandora. Yes. And the Navi aren't just like, we can't harm these guys. It's because the RDA has been kidnapping dire wolves or whatever, cutting off their connection to AWA. their hair penis. Wow. And then re-releasing them into the wild.

And you get like a score, not like a score, but like when you kill an animal that's native to Pandora, there's like two qualifiers. It was like, I can't remember what the first one is, but the other one is like mercy, like merciful or something. Do you get like a yes or no if the kill of the animal was merciful? If it's ended their suffering. Yeah. There's a skim wing, which they ride on top of the surface of the water. And of course, how could we, we mentioned the Mighty Akron. How could we forget the Mighty Tolkien?

Well, I kind of feel like it goes without saying. We're talking about Avatar. We're talking about the Tolkien, of course. Shut up, Paiacan. Heather, I'm playing. I'm playing, and shout out Jason Schreier, who got me playing avowed for the first time. This was the 2025 game from Obsidian along with the Outer Worlds, too. Like Steven Soderberg, releasing two feature films last year with presents and black bag,

Obsidian releases two big, beefy game. and Avowed, released earlier in the year, I feel like got some semi-heralded, but then as time passed, I think, kind of, you know, recency bias set in. People really respond to Outer Worlds 2, which felt more like a AAA game. People were calling even Avowed, like kind of a B game. But Schreier put it on his best of 2025 list, and that was enough to be like, you know what? This is a guy who's taste, I like mine often times line up with. Let me give this game a go. it is on Game Pass. I am playing it on PC, and I'm having a real hoot and a hoot and a hoot in a hoot with this bad boy.

This game is, this game is really fun. Also, shout out. Jason was in L.A. for the Game Awards, and we got ramen together. It was lovely to meet him in person. Nice. And we had an insane server, which he, which is a story he tells on Triple Click. People want to check that out. But I'm having so much fun with a Voud. It is a first person action RPG, like a modern, more streamlined and, you know, some more linear Skyrim. So your character is a godlike. And Matt, you played some of out earlier in the year. Yeah, and you're, you playing, it got me wanting to get back into it. Because it's, yeah, I missed all the freaky stuff in it. There's like some fun, freaky stuff. It's one of those things where it's just got such ornate fantasy world building that is also like, oh, a lot of these are ideas that I haven't seen.

Like, they're not just like recycled like Tolkien ideas. Like these are, you know, this feels like kind of new stuff. One of the things is that your character has, is a godlike. And as such, is kind of like bizarre or even hideous looking. And a lot of characters who you encounter, a lot of NBC is like, what the fuck is wrong with your face? Which is a really funny kind of way to play your character. I actually, because I was going to respect my character and I was going to restart anyway, as I often do with RPGs. And when I did that, I realized the first, like, go I made of my character, I made them a little too visually appealing to roleplay this way.

I just, I naturally made like kind of like a more attractive character. The reason I restarted was because I was playing a ranged wizard build because I wanted intellect for dialogue. But I just like, I didn't really like the way the gameplay as much of the combat. So I started a melee build and switched from using mouse and keyboard to controller and having a lot more fun with the combat. But as such, I changed my character's model so that they like have a lot like more of these weird like fungal like plant growths on their face and and just like look a little bit more, you know, I guess like a clicker from The Last of Us. It's great though. And the art direction is really good. It's not necessarily the most mind blowing looking game technically. But it is like it is just like this really vibrant, you know, vivid world. the writing of world building are top-notches. It tends to be an obsidian games.

I'm going to keep playing it. It is very much up my alley. I'll also give a quick Belacher update, which is the game that I'm continuing to fill my, you know, like little pocket of time with. I'm trying to get gold stakes with each deck, which is, once you get to purple stakes, which is like two notches below, the game becomes like pretty unfair, pretty balanced against you, a little too R&G dependent. There's sometimes runs.

It feels like I'm playing this, I think, maybe not always. I'm sure the elite players can finish a gold stakes run every single time. But I feel like I'm mostly making the correct decisions. And just sometimes I'm just like, well, I just couldn't quite knock this one out. But that's fine. That's late game content. The challenge runs, which I now have 17 of the 20 done, which are ones where you have a very specialized deck and specialized rule set. I'm on Challenge 18 where there is a notorious difficulty spike.

And the challenge is called Golden Needle and I have hit a wall. I have failed this one like a dozen times. It is really, really frustrating. You get one hand per round, six discards per round, but discards each cost $1. So each time you're fishing for a new hand, it like deducts $1 from your pool of a available cash, which makes it really, really hard to get your economy going because so much of the gameplay is between hands is going to shops, accumulating interest from having a cash reserves. And if you're just like, that's being depleted every single hand you play, oftentimes by,

you know, five or six dollars, it gets, it's just like becomes a huge drain on your resources by design. But the main thing is that you only get one hand per round. And so there are certain bosses that are just like, oh, well, this is just a fail condition. I'm just like, because, you know, whatever, I'm playing this particular hand type and this boss just basically completely nerfs this hand type, there's no way for me to win. So it's just, it's a, that's a little bit of a frustration. But then also it's just like, I don't know, having to get in one every time. As you start getting like, I got all the way to like rank seven, I think is the highest I got

of eight and or anti seven of eight and it's just like man this is this this motherfucker is is brutal so I'm gonna get through it I'm gonna get over the hump but it's one where I'm I'm feeling pretty frustrated and the only reason I'm going to finish it is because I am stubborn enough to finish it hell yeah I think you can do it I it's like uh um you've got because you've done you've gotten to this point yeah what I mean like in like the like That's, I haven't gotten anywhere close to purple stakes. I don't think I've even gotten, I don't think I've even beaten every single deck yet.

It's like a, it's a game that's kind of like picked up and put down. But by the end of this week, just kidding, no, by the end of this, probably like at some time this year, you're going to be like, I did it. I did all the gold stakes. I believe in you.

Believe in me that believes in you. And they'll be like, what have I done with my life? This is the man who beat Sekiro. I did beat Sekiro. Thank you, Heather. He beat Sekiro. So he can do anything.

That's right. If I can beat it, you can beat it. I had a try. But I've maybe talked about in the podcast before. I have this recurring dream where I meet a celebrity. And I shake their hand and I told them I'm proud of them. And it's like happened with like Jalen Brown of the Boston Celtics. It's weirdly happened with Trump more than once.

But I had. a dream that I met Pankle, who I don't even know what they look like, the developer behind the solo deb behind Bellatro, the genius who crafted this incredible design and shook their hand and said, I'm proud of you. Wait a minute. Hey, that's all fine and warm and nice. But I think you just confess that you've had multiple dreams where you've shaken Trump's hand and said, I'm proud of you.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm like starstruck in his presence. That's the feeling every time. It's like, it's like some celebrity. It's like when in the James Gandalfini and the Sopranos has the dream where Annette Benning is, and he's just like, you're Annette Benning. And he just is like smiling. It's the same sort of thing of just like the gravity of any sort of famous person is there. So it's like Tom Hanks. Yeah.

It's like Mr. Hanks. It's an honor. I'm proud of you. But I have the same like naturally I just do the same thing with Trump. And they wake up was like, what does that mean? It's like my friend who said she had a sex dream with Mike Pence. I'm like, oh, man. My friend.

I do want to, not to, before anybody jumps down your throat, Nick. Ponkel did vampire survivors. Local thunk did Bellatro. It was local thunk. Thank you for the correction there, Matt. Of course. I hate to do that. No, you're right.

I just got the wrong handle there. Local thunk. I met local thunk. Local thunk. Because I didn't, maybe even I called them Ponckel. in the dream, but they were the person who made Bellatro. So I may have had that wrong in my own brain. Well, it's really convenient because you don't know what either of them look like.

It could just be anybody. But what if you don't know what they look like and you did guess them right? Wow. Can you imagine? I would hope that if that happened, if you saw a photo of this person, you'd piss your pants no matter where your location was. Yeah. Just like, this is what I would do. Yeah.

I'd have a heart attack or piss my pants. Yeah, same thing happens when you inevitably end up shaking Trump's hand. It's like my dream. All right. It is the first record of 2026. And we thought we returned to an exercise we did back in 2024. Our all-time top 10 list. Our top tens that each of us have crafted.

representing our tastes in gaming. And how does everyone, we'll start there, we'll start here. It's been a couple years since we've done this. How does everyone feel about their previous lists? You know, I was, I listened back a little bit and I, um, just took stock of, uh, what was there. And the list, the list then was the list, I think, for a long time. Like, if you had asked me at any point before that,

I would have given you a pretty similar version of the list that I gave. I will say there were some tough cuts this year with this revision. And I'm excited to, you know, reveal the new ones that have made the list. I was shocked to look at my old list because of how severely a couple games have fallen off of it for me. Wow. And they were not young games at the time. So I had given them a little thought

by the time we did the list. But now I'm like, no. No, it does not. That was my experience. I will say, I overthought my list when I crafted it for the first time we did this.

And I was like, it was one of those things where sometimes like it didn't feel good coming out of my hand. You know what I mean? And like, to borrow, to borrow like a baseball phrase. And yeah, or I guess sports in general, like anything you're playing with the ball. It's just like, it's just like, I kind of knew that one wasn't, wasn't what I intended. And I knew that, kind of knew that was a miss. So, but I still, I felt pretty good about it, but I just was, I was, I was, I feel like at times, with some of the entries, I was being a little too cute, or I was trying to like

check a box more so than reflect my actual tastes in gaming. So I consider this both an update because there's a, there's a, there's some new stuff in here, but also like a little bit of a fix to what was maybe, you know, initially a pretty good list. And a lot of, there's most of the games on that list are still on this list. But this one is maybe a little bit more like I feel like an actual reflection of my favorite. I love this. Shall we get into it? I mean, what's the way to do this?

Do we just, do we go? I feel like I guess we just each go one at a time. Maybe we should revisit our previous lists first. Does everyone have their old list in front of them? I do, but so many of the things that, though I've dropped a few off. Yeah. I'm afraid if I read my old list that it's going to just compromise any surprises or buildup for somebody who might be listening to this for the first time. Got it.

I say we read our old list at the end. Got it. I, okay, and maybe another way to do it is we can say as we go if it's a new entry, if it's a returning entry. Okay. And then maybe at the end we can say, what was cut? That sounds good to me. Matt, shall you start?

Do you want to start? Yeah, I'll start. Because, you know, mine has, I'll say there are, I think, five new additions. Wow. Wow. So half the list is gone. Wow. In that case, I'll start because I have three new additions.

Okay. But a lot of my list is similar. So maybe as someone with the more consistency, I can lead things off here. Sure. Number 10 on my list of my favorite games of all time. Returning from the previous list in the same slot, The Secret of Monkey Island, 1990, LucasArts Adventure. I guess originally at the time developed and published by Lucasfilm games.

as they were then known and directed by Ron Gilbert. Just a game that is, was such an eye-opener for me as a kid. This is a game that my, my grandpa, RIP, got me as a gift. Kind of like, hey, check, like, check this thing out. And it really appealed to my taste as someone who liked comedy, someone who liked absurdism. But also, it's just like a, it's got incredible art direction. It's got a fantastic score.

you know, a really high quality of writing. And then it just got me into kind of like the experimentation, puzzle solving, dialogue trees that are so inherent to graphic adventure games and retained in, you know, contemporary games like Dispatch. So Secret of Monkey Island was such a formative game for me and it remains number 10 on my list. Wow. Number nine, a game that I should have included last time. And it was a late cut and I substituted something else for it. But this is a game I love. This is a precision platformer with a fantastic story and an incredible score. And this is a game that I revere so much that I have a poster for it in my office at home. The game is Celeste. The 2018 game developed by Maddie Makes Games, directed by Maddie Thorson. And just a wonderful, wonderful experience that Matt, you recently had for the first time playing

through Celeste. Yeah, I played through Celeste last year and was just, yeah, just knocked me on my ass. It's so good. I really loved it. I just kind of like, I didn't include it last time. And again, I'm repeating myself, but it was one of those things I was kicking myself for is like, why didn't you put that on there? You know it's one of your favorite games.

And you just thought like, oh, I'll, you know, I'll put, but I'll substitute something else on there to, you know, kind of like, again, serve this purpose of, of having a list that's kind of like a little bit broader as opposed to something that accurately says what I'm passionate about. But I love Celeste. I think it's a masterpiece and, you know, that that soundtrack remains in very, very heavy rotation. Number eight, returning to the list, but bumped down a couple notches. Plainscape Torment, 1999, developed by Black Isle Studios, published by Interplay Entertainment, and designed it written by Chris Avalon. An incredible game that other games on my list owe their existence in Part 2, a little bit of a, of a, you know, foreshadowing there. the level of writing again is so high here.

This was a game that really surprised me, came out of nowhere. I think famously kind of bombed at the time, though, you know, was a critical hit and grew in esteem and in sales over the years. But back then, I was one of like the 70,000 people or whatever that bought Plainscape Torment to retail on CD-ROM. So amazing. I know. And, and, but it just like completely connected with me. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's. such an awesome game. It's such an, you know, like an incredible world building, which is a thing

I mentioned about about earlier. I know the term world building is overused, but it's just like, it's very much the case here. There's so much lore, there's so much depth, all the various factions, all the NPCs who are, who have such richly detailed backstories. And as far as like the, the, you know, well-worn premise in fiction and in particular in these types of video games of a protagonist who has lost their memory, I think it is like one of the very best executions of it. Also just an incredible end game. Like just a fucking like, oh man, they absolutely nailed the landing here, which you can't always say even for great video games.

Number seven, this was a game that I should have included on my list last time. It's new to the list this time. It is one of my favorite games of all time. And it is perhaps my most played game of all. time in terms of total hours. Diablo 2, released in 2000, developed by Blizzard North, directed by David Breivik, Eric Schaefer, and Max Schaefer.

Yeah, what a fucking video game. I mean, like, I just like, it has such an incredible gameplay loop of, you know, killing mobs, collecting loot, improving your character, and as good as I, as much as I enjoy Diablo 3 and Diablo 4 and other games that are

kind of in the same sort of action RPG genre and certainly modern games like vampire survivors or Deep Rock Galactic Survivor that have an auto shooter component to it but are essentially the same sort of cycle you're playing through in a rogue-like fashion. It is just endlessly replayable and it's just constant rewards. Just every second you're playing this game, it feels like you're getting something. Yeah, in some sense, it's kind of like that same sort of feeling that you get from playing a really satisfying clicker where there's some number go up aspect to it. But I think the, you know, the world is awesome. The art direction is incredible and a phenomenal score.

One of my favorite scores in video games. And I just feel like the gameplay, all the different classes in particular, the content that they added with the DLC, I didn't call it DLC back then because you'd buy a physical retail copy of it. Right. So the expansion, it just added so much to this game. And I just, I love it so much. And I again, excluded it last time, overthought it's out of existence. But it absolutely belongs to my all-time top 10 list.

And there it is at number seven. And at number six, a new entry and a game that had not yet got. gotten its hooks in me the last time we did this list, even though it predates through that list itself. 2022's Eldon Ring, developed by From Software, directed by Hidotaka Miyazaki and Yui Tanimura. God, I love Eldon Ring so much. And playing through it a couple of times since we lasted this list and also finished Sackero.

I just like, I really, the From Soft format, which I've always appreciated, but it was like, maybe this isn't for me, but now playing through Eldon Ring in particular, but also Sekiro, which I finished, it's like, like I get it now. It just kind of clicked with me.

And Eldon Ring is so rich. And the, you know, like the story lore is like, like, it's obviously there. There's, there's so much to explore.

But I just kind of like, like love just running around and killing things. It's like, the combat engine is, is incredible, the different builds you can have are so satisfying. I just like it. I think it's like the best one of these kind of games. And I'm including the, you know, the Breath of the Wilds of the world in this discussion. But in terms of like this sort of open world, like RPG, you know, a character action game, I just like, it's like number one. And the FromSoft formula I think is just

absolutely genius and this is such a a like to me the apex of execution of it. And then my top five remains pretty similar with one alteration, which is pretty minor, but I'll speed through them. Number five, Super Mario World, developed by Nintendo EAD, published by Nintendo, directed by Takashi, Tezuka, great game. I don't think you need to speed through these. There are people who haven't heard this. Still, so my favorite Mario, I'll speed through them a little bit because I'm belovating. Super Mario World though, it's like, I love platform. so much that I also have another one

on this list in Celeste, but I like, to me, this is like the best Mario. It remains. People, you make a case or whatever. I don't know. You want to say 3D world's your favorite. You want to say Odyssey's your favorite. You want to say 64's your favorite. Galaxy is your favorite. Super Mario 3. There are so many candidates. My particular choice

for my list is Super Mario World. I do believe that that was the first time I've ever encouraged you to talk more on the show. Number four, a game that I expect to recur on others lists. Disco Elysium, 2019, developed and published by Zom, and designed to written by Robert Kervitz. I mean, I don't know. What else is there about disco Elysium? We did a whole episode about Disco Elysium.

We've talked about it at length. It's just, it's, you know what, a Plainscape Torment leads to Disco Elysium. They're both these isometric games about some, a character that has forgotten their identity with very heavy. role-playing elements with with grimly, darkly funny dialogue and with just a world that is so bespoke and unique, though in Disco Elysium's case, it is incredibly richly realized. And the role-playing is so extensive. Playing through this game multiple times, it like feels like a new experience. And, you know, the thing I will say is like all the different things you can focus

on all the different attributes in terms of like, you know, which voices basically you want to have talk to you, shivers, if you will, which adds more color to the world, which gives more of an expansive explanation description of, you know, the geography, the landscape, the architecture. It's just like you're just collecting so much information in different ways through different play-throughs, but even if you just play it through it once, the main story is so great. And Kim Kitsuragi, one of the best NPCs of all time.

Number three, Portal, developed by Valve, designed by Kim Swift, directed by Kim Swift. I mean, like, I just think Portal is one of the best stories in games. I think it's a fantastic, compact experience, four to five hours for your

first playthrough. And, I don't know, what a genius central mechanic that is fully explored. I love Portal 2 as well. And I was late to the party with Portal 2. But I just feel like Portal is so contained and just like there's nothing that isn't accomplished over the course of Portal. I just think it's just like a perfect experience. I think it along with Tetris like kind of represent like the platonic ideal of what a video game is.

And Portal by virtue of having a narrative more of a single player campaign just appeals to me in particular a little bit more. But that's number three. when it was previously number two because two and three have swapped because since we did this list, we did an episode on a game that I love that is number two that's climbed up a slot in our revisit.

Chrono Trigger, 1995, developed and published by Square, directed by Takashi Dukita, Yoshinori Kitasi, and Aaki Hiko, Matsui. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. What do you say about some of these games?

Like, Crown Trigger's good. It's a good game. It's really fun. It's great. Revisiting it, I was like, man, this is so, fucking good. This absolutely holds up. I don't know how I feel about there not being some sort of HD 2D remaster. I'm sure it'll come down

at the pike at some point, right? Yeah, maybe this year for the 31st anniversary. But also, like, I don't know. It works as is, and it's still like an incredibly playable game. And the experience of playing

Mother 3, which is another thing that we've happened since the last time we did this list, gave me some new appreciation for our chrono sugar as well. Number one, same spot. My favorite game all time. Recency bias a hoi, but I love this fucking thing. 2023's Baldersgate 3 developed by Larian Studios and directed by Sven Vinky. I mean, I love Baldur's Gate 3. It's a really good game. It's really fun to play. I like it. It's got a good story. It's fun. The combat's fun. I like the combat. I like how much you like the game. It makes me feel good.

Like when I see Baldur's Gate in the wild, I just go, ha, Nick. I just point to it. I like it probably as much as you, maybe less, not as much as you. You like it a lot more than me, and I love it. So it's nice that you feel so positively about something that I feel about as much as I can for it. That's huge. One of my favorite things about this format and this podcast and doing the show with you guys is that I feel like, these lists would be a place for argument in in some other game media.

It would be a lot of like, well, what do you, what do you? How can you not have Aquino of time? Like all that like that that vitriol and anger. And instead when I hear you list, I'm just like, oh man, those are good games and I'm happy like them. I think we all understand here. And I think our audience largely does too is like this is we're talking about her own personal taste.

We're talking we're not trying to make a, be dogmatic about like these are the best games of all time just saying like oh i don't know these are my favorites is what i love so yeah if if you if you know so just save your comments no matter how wrong you think nick's list is just don't even try to write a don't even write a comment don't even do it all right i've been talking enough um someone else go heather how many how many alts how many changes have you made to your list do you think uh let's see one two i'm happy to go two i don't i don't i don't you I changed two things. I shuffled around a lot of it.

What do you think is more dramatic? Two or five? I think five. Yeah, I think we finish with five. Okay, okay. All right. So am I allowed to give a short list for things that didn't make the list? Yeah, of course.

All right, I want to start with that. Things not on my list. Mother three and Catamari Damacy. Great game. Oh, wow. Two excellent games that I just couldn't figure out a way to shift on to my top ten. Catamari Damocet has been my ringtone since the game came out

20 fucking years ago or whatever but it doesn't make the list Is the ringtone Duh do da da da da da da da da da da No it's lonely Rolling Star Oh nice Yeah Also we should I just wanted to

mention Mother 3 again because this was a game that you got both Matt and I to play through for the first time Yes And it's an incredible experience Yeah it only took you six years But we did do it

But we did do it But My list is shifted around a bunch. And there are two new entries and they are at the, or three new entries, actually. And they start at the bottom of the list. Wow. Number 10, not the remake, but the original PS3 game, Demon Souls. Wow.

I have dropped Eldon Ring off my top 10. Because when I think to my From Soft experience and when I think to sort of like, I from soft experience of my life, it isn't Eldon Ring, which I loved so much that it was used to be on my list. But as time is worn on so that the world might be mended, it has faded into the shadows and risen from that darkness is again my singular experience with demon souls has reclaimed its spot in my top 10. Wow. They are not dissimilar games. But I really like the hubworld tightness of demon souls over the open world exploration of Eldon Ring. I like feeling like I am in hell and I have to go in a door and do a thing for reasons I will never understand.

And I liked the, I liked the clunky frame rate. It made it feel spooky. Like there are areas in the PS3 version of this game that are that, that stutter, that chug. And that to me was part of this like strange, difficult new experience I had. And a lot of the games on this list are about the experience I had with the game rather than their quality. So at number 10, Demon Souls. I just want to, I will just mention it real quick. I did also play Demon Souls on PS3 back in the day.

You may have gotten me playing Demon Souls back of the day and it did not get its hooks in me. It took, you know, whatever, a decade plus for me to finally connect with the FromSoft formula. But I think that's a, that's a great entry. I mean, like, where's Star Wars without the movie Star Wars? Yeah. Yeah. I've been wanting to, I have the remake, you know, the PS5 remake and I've started it a bunch of times.

and I liked it, but it's a game that it has been calling to me recently that I've been sort of on my John Wick shit and yeah, I'm thinking I'm back. Let's go. Or maybe I'm Jack from Lost.

We have to go back. Either way, back is involved, and I'm part of it. Baby got back. My neck by back. I'm like a crazy character, a real cheeked up character. Number nine on my list is a new entry.

but an old game. Shadow of the Colossus. Wow. For the PlayStation 2. Oh, yeah. It was not on my short list last time. But again, if I'm taking the aerial view of my life as a gamer, Shadow of the Colossus was one of the most intense,

incredible, perfect experiences I've had as a gamer, one that I think about more often than Eldon Ring or a different game that has since dropped off the list. And that's why it is now joining my top 10 of all time, a Shadow of the Colossus, the original PlayStation 2, not the remake. Again, for similar reasons. Like, I think the aesthetic of the game is serviced by the machine that it was created for. I don't need it to be in a higher frame rate or a fancier resolution, any of that shit.

I just like the original game, the original controller, and the original hum of the PlayStation 2 fan. Falling several slots on my list from number four all the way down to number seven is Final Fantasy 15. My boys in their camping adventure. Wow. Look, have I gone back and played this game since the game came out? Yes. Every time I play it, am I a little bit like, huh?

Because it's like a half-broken game. It was so clearly going to be something else and was rushed and put out in the final stages that what you're playing is like a demo reel for a game you can never play. With the most bespoke animation, like the animation in Final Fantasy 15 on the character interactions is better than seven rebirth. earth. Like it is so fancy. They are constantly like helping each other up, patting each other on the back, giving each other high fives during combat. And that is, it, it gives the game a life that even the fanciest newfangled remakes of Final Fantasy 7 can't sort of baptize. It's great. It's fucking great. It's kind of bad. But it's also really great. And I love it.

And no video game has ever dared to posit that dudes rock. They really rock. It's also the only Final Fantasy game that's made me cry. At number, wait, was that seven, 10, nine, eight. Matt, your mind is blown. What? Number seven. From my previous list, pushed up from the 10th slot is out of this world.

aka another world for the Super Nintendo. Okay, yeah. I just want to say that so far on my list, each game has been from a different system, which was surprising to me when I was building the list. Another World slash out of this world we've played for the podcast. It is a work of art that happens to be a video game. It's also an independent game that happened to be on the Super Nintendo.

Like how many of those are there? It fucking rules. It's atmospheric. It's punishing. It tells a story without any dialogue or text bubbles. It's staggering. For our listeners who maybe were too young for this game or just not aware of it, I compare it to like a distant ancestor of inside.

It's very similar in terms of like a lot of visual storytelling, a lot that's unspoken, a lot you're filling in the blanks yourself, but also a game with some spectacular animation and just a, I don't know, a great sense of mystery behind it. I, one of my favorite things, first off, seeing cut scenes on the Super Nintendo was crazy. And there was a fully like cinematic opening to out of this world,

which when you saw it on a CRT in the 90s was incomprehensible to you. Were you playing on Genesis or Super Nintendo? I was playing on Super Nintendo. Okay. Because I did have a Super Nintendo after I had the Genesis in the Sega CD. But one of my favorite things about this game is that if you don't do anything on the first screen, like if you don't do anything on so many, like if you don't do anything on Donkey Kong country's first screen, nothing bad happens to you.

If you don't do anything on the first screen of out of this world, you are dragged to your death. immediately. Like, it is so, like, that tells a story also immediately about how terrifying the world you're in is that if you arrive in this location and you don't take action, it kills you. The equivalent of sonic tapping his feet impatiently or Mario falling asleep and gently taking a nap and, you know, dreaming about lasagna or whatever the fuck is you just being killed by some sort of alien creature. Yeah, it's tentacles from, from you.

You're born in water in the game. And if you don't swim upwards, you were immediately dragged to your death. Wow. Somehow this game wasn't on my list last time. 10, 9, 8, 7. At number six, death stranding. Wow. Stranding 2 cemented for me how much I like Stranding 1.

I really, really, really, really like stranding 1. I really, really, really like it more than death stranding 2. I really, really, really think about it all the time. I think it was an entirely new playing experience. And yeah, there's not much we haven't said about stranding. A remarkable game that we have dedicated multiple episodes to. I have a question. Sam.

Have you played Destranging? No, I haven't. The main character's name is Sam. And they say Sam a lot. Yeah, you can make him say, I'm Sam. I'm Sam Stranding has knocked something off of my list

and what it knocked off was the last of us part one. Wow. Which is no longer in my top 10. Part of the reason it is no longer in my top 10 is because of the HBO show. The HBO show taught me

that it almost isn't a game. It's almost just a movie that happens to have game sequences in between the movie that you're watching. And I like it less in retrospect. A game that I don't like less is The Last of Us Part 2, which is next on my list. The Last of Us Part 2 accomplishes something that the show never will be able to do and that games have a unique power to do, which is that it forces you to take actions as the antagonist and make you feel things you couldn't feel unless you were reading a book. And that being a tangible interactive play experience

meant that it was something very unique in video games that I had never felt before and certainly never felt in a movie. And so that's why the last of us part two stays on my list. You're speaking of the perspective shift where midway through you take control of the antagonist and you get to see their perspective on the same events you play through. Yeah, you're right. That is something that an interactive medium is uniquely equipped. to have you feel. And like the, I love the Last of Us part one.

I like one more than two, which I think is an incredibly ambitious and, and very cool, but, but, you know, flawed games and just talking about myself, not,

not disparaging your list. But, but yes, you can absolutely, like, fairly criticize. I think that's a good way to characterize it with part one is, is it is that old school model of

you're playing through a level to earn a cut scene. Yeah. You are, you are going through this, this really well-realized cover shooter gameplay. Yeah. And, you know, and some light, you know, I guess platforming and puzzle solving. And getting a lot of flavor dialogue in the midst of doing this.

But ultimately, you're just like progressing through this linear series of playspaces to advance the story. Right. And I get what you're saying about like the TV series just basically mirrors that. Yeah. It accomplish the same thing. Yeah. The TV series will never be able to accomplish what. Part 2 accomplished.

And that's why it makes for a better video game. And that's why it stays on the list. I love that argument. At number four, Sonic 2 for the Genesis, best Sonic ever. Wow. Fucking great game. Let's fucking go Sonic 2. Sonic 2 fucking rules.

I own no game as many, as much as I own Sonic 2. I own it on Apple TV. Wow. I own it on everything. I fucking love that game. at number three, Street Fighter 3, Third Strike. Wow. My favorite fighting game of all time, fundamental part of myself as a human being is the experience of playing that game in arcades against other real human opponents.

I loved it. Even though I technically played Street Fighter 4 more because it was available in my house. Like, I will still play Street Fighter 3. know that I would ever pick up four again. Three is a masterpiece. Also, like, an incredible game in terms of, you know, competitive play. Yeah. You have so many great Evo clips, classic clips are of Street Fighter 3, Third Strike. Yeah. I mean, like, like, even the most recent Evo, it's like the, there was a, the, there was a, a participant who had a very deep run with a low tier character that was just like an incredible to watch.

I love it. Yeah. Street Fighter 3 is a masterpiece. And number two, my former number one, Disco Elysium. Wow. Wow. Everything that Nick said about Disco Elysium is correct. I can't believe the game exists.

I can't believe it destroyed the studio that made it. I hope it's never remade. I don't think it will be because the rights and the writers. everything about it is like a a scrambling catastrophe. Like how incredible to make something so staggering and then as a group of people effectively die. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, there was a, you know, I sell it installed in Steam and there's Zahom, zombie Zohm, the current administration there, pushed an update onto it. And I was like, oh, wow, there's there's something new on Disco Elysium. when we boot it up. And what it was was that on the home screen for the game, there's now like an ad pushing you towards their other game. And it's like, that's kind of a bummer.

And I guess that's kind of a microcosm of what's happened with this whole experience. Yeah. Finally at number. But an incredible fucking game. Incredible game. You can be a fascist or a communist. Take your pig. You can be a centrist.

God, that was the most disturbing playthrough was when I was an ultra liberal. These people are sick. At number one, a game that was on my list before but had not yet reached top tier, first place status. Can you believe it? My favorite game of all time is Fortnite. Wow. Heather, I love this. I love this pick.

I love that. I am humiliated. No, this is great. This is so honest. This is wonderful. And there's also something to it because. You hadn't really played it before we made you play it for the show. So in many ways, we've made you this sick.

Yeah, yeah. To be clear, you, the two of you made me play it for the show. Oh, yeah, that's right. I guess it. I did so say it backfired, but not really because you love it. Well, yeah, it was number three on my original list. Yes. It's now number one.

And that's because I had six jobs last year, right? Six jobs. I'm a little bit. I worked, well, two of them are this. Yeah. This counts as two jobs? Yeah, the two podcasts. Oh, wow.

I think it was one. I guess it's two jobs, dude. Look it, I have four jobs. Two jobs. I guess I have three. I mean, if it wasn't two jobs, you would only prepare once. Good argument. So anyway.

I guess it's two podcasts. I think it was one show. Look, we're only getting paid one time. So despite like an enormous number of projects last year that I have immense gratitude for and I'm not complaining about my jobs. But I am setting it up as the sort of contrast to the fact that somehow I played 1,200 hours of Fortnite last year. Wow. Jesus Christ. And I don't even understand how that's possible.

Like literally, I looked at the number and I was like, but that doesn't make any sense physically. Like, physically, how is that possible? That's averaging about three hours a day, right? That's impossible. Yeah. That's physically fucking impossible. I don't know how it happened. And maybe there were Saturdays where I would wake up at 9 a.m.

and not stop playing until 9 p.m. And you would like offset your average that way. But I played so much Fortnite last year. And I had so much fun. And I laughed harder than I've ever laughed at any fucking like intentional piece of comedy. Outside of things that Matt and I have said in the podcast. Yeah, definitely. There is nothing funnier than being scratch.

from the Simpsons, driving a licensed Porsche through Kim Kardashian into a gas pump at a gas station and killing both you and Kim Kardashian. There's nothing funnier. It's just, it's, it's, and I just mean Fortnite Zero build. I don't mean any of the other modes. don't play creative. The only other mode I played last year was the K-pop Demon Hunters mode. It is a perfect post-modern piece of entertainment that is absorbing all culture into itself, like a black hole. And it is so, so funny. I mean, you can be Jared Lido from Tron Aries.

And SpongeBob can be your sidekick. It's great. If you hadn't been canceled, you probably could also be Jared from Subway. I mean, there's nothing stopping them in the future when they've finally absorbed everything of releasing like a canceled package. Yeah, it's Jerry. So you and your squad can be Kevin Spacey. Yeah, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby. I'm fucking Jared from Subway.

Woody Allen. That's my top time. They're just going to do a Woody Allen pack. They're not going to put him in the canceled one. He gets his own pack. Yeah. I, uh, I, I, I am embarrassed that that's my favorite game of all time, but the numbers don't lie.

It is. I play it more than anything. It has to be my favorite game. Otherwise, why wouldn't I play something else for 1,200 hours last year? That's awesome. All right, Matt, you're up. All right. So my list did undergo, you know, quite a bit of change.

I'll say. But why don't we just start, we're just going to start the bottom work away to the top. Just have, as we've been doing, thus far. I've been up for a really long time.

Okay, so here we go. Number 10. Mother 3. Wow. Wow. The new, like maybe the most, is it the most recent edition of games I've played?

I think so, maybe. But I think a really impactful game. And did we do we play that in 2025? Yeah, we played that this year. We played that this year. Past year. Guys, can I interrupt?

I'm so sorry. I made a mistake of my numbers. Yeah. I've played 1,200 hours overall. I've played 298 this year. Okay. Okay. That's still a lot of hours.

But you know what? I do feel a lot better for you. Okay, great. In fact, I think you should take out the correction. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. Uh, so yeah, Mother 3, obviously we played it in on the show this last year.

Heather, uh, a game you were begging us to play. Yep. Uh, for many years. And we finally did get to it. I rolled credits on an airplane and started to cry. It is a great, beautiful game. Uh, just really, I don't know, feel like an important story. And it's a, it's a downright shame that, uh,

Well, maybe it's not a downright shame because it is, I think, very available for those that people, for people that aren't interested in it, but just not officially. And if there was an official release at this point, you know, it might not be the version that we played. It might not be, you know, the exact translation. Things might change if Nintendo were to make their own version of it or release their version of it. So I'm very happy that I played the version of it that we did. And the version that we played was the one that's available to us. The lovingly curated Labor of Love fan translation from someone who professionally localizes anime and video games. It's just such an act of heroism.

Yeah. And yes, you're right. Nintendo might use their own localization, which might damper some of the magic. Yes. but yeah just to I thought as soon as I finished playing and I was like well this is

my life is different like it just it was it was different once you got to the monkey yeah well then I got to salsa the monkey I was sort of like this is it for me I'm freaking

as the kids say chopped I'm unk now because I got to salsa the monkey and when he does his little dance you forget that he dances he dances a lot actually

he does he does he dances I didn't forget that the save frogs of course anyway all of it the tall guy save frogs one of our top frogs

well just wait a second okay um I don't have to ease off we'll get to it but to

reach through my computer screen and you like a little bug. I said one of. I swore to call it. Number nine. We talked about this already. It wasn't on my list last time for some reason.

And I don't have a good reason as to why, but it deserved to be on the list. Eldon Ring. We've talked about it already today. I beat it twice, beat the DLC, bought Night Rain, was kind of into Night Rain for a second. I have these three. massive um like tomes of uh like some of it is lore some of it is just like item descriptions

and like maps and stuff about bosses and stuff it's like there's these really nice uh big books that i have that um are uh their their spines are perfect because i've never cracked them open but but they're very nice and i've rifled through them and they're they're just really gorgeous to look at. But yeah, Eldon Ring. Matt, you mentioned the DLC, which I should have mentioned in my own assessment, which is a big part of why this game connected with me. That was my justification for returning for this, was Shadow of the Urd Tree.

I love Shadow of the Urd Tree so much. But it wasn't just that. It just made me appreciate the base content of the game and it gave me a reason to play through the campaign in full. and yeah, that that I think is such a well-realized expansion of the game except for the final boss, which I don't really care for. But I made shadow of the year tree by, that was my favorite game of 2024 when it released. It just, it's absolutely elevated that game in my estimation all the way up onto my top 10 list.

Just really great stuff overall. Really loved it. We'd like to get back to it someday. I would like to get back into night rain, honestly. Pretty fun, pretty fun stuff. Next one. Number eight, stayed in the same spot on my list, but I made an addendum. And you'll see what it is as soon as I say it.

Number eight, Super Mario 3D World and Bowser's Fury. Wow. So this is obviously, I don't think I had, maybe I had played Bowser's Fury. I can't remember if I had played it by then when we did the list, but I played through it. and I think I love Super Mario 3D world I think Bowser's Fury is like maybe the best Mario game

it is such a good little package and it's like I wish there was more of it I wish there was like I wish it was twice as long I wish it was there was just more levels and stuff because I think it's like such a fully realized it's like what you guys liked about Sonic Frontiers

big game but imagine if it was actually really good and it was Mario. All right. Back off. Hey. But could you imagine it though? Just like imagine it for a second. So Mario goes like real fast?

Well he kind of goes. Mario's pretty fast. Like does he go so fast that you've got like like you have to like constantly fight with the camera to know where he is? No. But you can become like kaiju sized and then like like, fight, you know, kaiju-sized Bowser. That's pretty cool.

We're having fun, but from my standpoint, it's an arguable Super Mario 3D world, a game I love, a better and certainly more polished game than Sonic Frontiers. Yes, of course. But slower. Another great game. Maybe a little bit slower, but I think

your enjoyment of not knowing where Sonic is is actually, for me, of major hindrance. I like for me personally I like to see where the the characters are if I could have it that way all the time I'd love that but yeah Bowser's Fury is great 3D world really really good you know it's not this but it's you know I did start I was playing 3D land earlier this year and like kind of took down half of it in like a single sitting was just like couldn't stop playing it and I think I just it's it just it just it's just it's just it's just it's just it's just it's just it's just it's just it's just it's just it just just a good, just a good format. I would take Super Mario 3D World 2 any day. I think more than Odyssey 2. Honestly, I love

3D World. Number 7. God of War, 2018. Just a banger. Fuck, yeah, it's a good game. I considered it, man. Just one of my, just one of my bangers. Great game. Just a classic good one.

It was on the list before. It moved down a spot from 6. and then now we're in sort of the what I'm calling the new zone oh the new zone wow the new zone is up top yeah uh well mother three was also part of the new zone but you're saying this is a whole region mother three elden ring part of the new zone right but we're not three in a row here coming up these are all the new zone it's the new zone we're kind of looking at a map of Hawaii. It's like the islands are getting a little bit, you know, more closely clustered and bigger as we get. Yeah. This part of it is the big island. Yeah. It is. Right. Makes sense. Yeah. Mother

Green Eldon Ring were Kauai. Super Martyr 3D World is its own thing, right? Because it was there before. So maybe that one is maybe that one's Maui. And now right here, this next three comprise the big island. Got it. Okay. And then the rest is the rest. Oahu, maybe? Oahu's there.

Yeah, yeah, that's part of that. Okay. Number six is Chrono Trigger, baby. Let's go. Another one that we played last year. Was it last year? I guess it was, right? I thought it was the previous year.

I could be wrong. I don't know. year. If only I had a comprehensive list in front of me of what games I played last year. It doesn't, look, that last year was both a blink of an eye in 10 years long, but like it could very well both happen to the same year, but I don't feel like we would have tackled both Chrono Trigger and Mother 3 in the same calendar. No, we didn't. It was in 2024, actually. But we did, we did our original list in January of 2024, which is why 2024, which is why 2024 releases have altered

and playthroughs have altered our calculus. And now that I'm looking at the games I completed in 2024, it's just, the rest of my list is very interesting. Games I played two years ago were really good, huh? Okay. Yeah, what's there to say? I mean, Corona Triggered.

You know, obviously, we mentioned Save Frogs earlier, but Frog himself, I think one of the great frogs. Save frog, I say. I say save frog. Frog is good. You say save frog. I say save frog. I say save frog.

Sure, man. You say that. When frog, when frog, like, it's like the feeling of frog becoming Glenn. It's similar to the feeling of the beast becoming a guy in Beauty and the Beast. You're kind of like, I don't know, man. I kind of like you the other way. Yeah.

For sure. Yeah. When he becomes human, beast, yeah. I think he looks a little bit nasty. Yeah, he's not as attractive as beast. It's like human Shrek. It's like human Shrek, but also like, there's something about, I don't want to get too deep into this.

They fucked already. And then he turns back. This is a different guy. I don't like you. I already fucked you. I already fucked the beast. I don't know that that's canonical, Matt. I think maybe you were fucked already.

It says in the stage direction of the screenplay. They fuck off camera. I feel like, you know, at one point you see Lumiere, Cogsworth. They start to blush because they're just inanimate even objects, but they can't go nowhere else. Interior Castle day, post-fuck. Yeah. Cogsworth's little glass face is all fogged up because he's embarrassed. You got a little horny.

I feel like from Bell's position, though, that's kind of like, hey, it's the same guy. I'm not cheating. It's the same guy, you know? Yeah, because that's, and that's a fun person to be. Yeah. Hey, I'm not cheating. This area is a sketch that I submitted to you, Nick, when you were my showrunner, which was for a party over here.

That got me, I did first off, I was not the showrunner. I did not have that kind of power. But it was one of the many. difficulties with that job. Anyway, but that sketch, which was a beauty in the beast sketch with Jess McKenna,

the great Jess McKenna playing Bell was, it was one of my favorites. That was one of the things that was made for the show that I thought that really worked. Yeah, it's just, it's just, she comes back and she's just, she's just had sex with the Beast

and she's so happy. And she tells her dad. And her dad says, Bell, that's the barn. The beast's castle is up up on the hill. That's the whole sketch.

That's incredible. That's so good. From the mind of Heather Ann Campbell. Let me out. Let me out. Chrono Trigger number six, number five. I have to pull up a quote real quick.

Excuse me. Oh, a quote. Okay. In my number five slot, show me the champion of light. I'll show you the Herald of Darkness, lost in a never-ending night, diving deep into the surface.

Oh, Alan Wake 2. Wow. There's lyrics from the song, Herald of Darkness, from the musical sequence that takes place in that game. Wow. is mostly live action. Allen League 2 is an astounding work of art.

It is a masterpiece. Wow. I gotta play this game. You'd love it. It is, you would, you would love it. It's so good. The gameplay is,

the gameplay being good is an absolute bonus. Like the, like, the things that make the game great are so good that the gameplay could just be kind of whatever. Wow. But the gameplay is actually really good. and the story is great

and the world that you know Sam Lake and Remedy have created with the Allen Lake games and now the control games and quantum break which I haven't played yet are just super unique and super interesting and I just I love what they're doing over there

that's number five Allen Wake 2 partly because of your advocacy Matt was one of the first games I think it made the first new game because I finished metaphor refantasia, which I'd been playing at the end of 2024. And then I think the first proper game I played through in 2025 was Alan Wake 2 late to the party on that one. And it is awesome. It is, it is a triumph. It is so good. I loved it. It made me, it made me laugh. It's got its hooks into me narratively. I love the art direction. I love

the aesthetic. But that particular level you referenced, which is a playable like rock, opera is one of my most memorable gaming experiences of last year. I was just like, I can't fucking believe this exists. So at some level, like, how dare you do this? But like, the balls to do this. I love it. It's so good. There's a similar moment in control that is also really good.

But this is like the fully realized, like, version of that. And it's better. It's like a better moment. And it is just like, yeah, how dare you? but like you're playing as Allen during this part of the game and he's just like what the fuck this is amidst like kind of fourth wall breaking like talk show segments that are a recurring thing in the game it's it's so unique it's really really great I love it I love it on your list I love I think about the game a lot honestly like I would like to play it again

before control two comes out I like to play control again yeah I'd love to do all of this. You've become our, you've become a remedy correspondent. I'm the remedy correspondent. And by the way, I just switched to a tab here on my computer screen that I forgot to say this when Heather was talking about it earlier, but I purchased another world as you were talking about it. Nice. Wow. I would like to play it. We didn't play for the show? I don't think we did. I feel insane. I can't remember. I feel like, I felt like we played it for the show and maybe I bought it another time. Maybe you said it. You said it and I was like, I guess we did.

And now I'm like, maybe we didn't. I have no fucking idea. I don't know. Maybe we talked about doing it anyway. Sounds like, I was here. I recorded that episode. I was like, okay. That was earlier today.

Number four on my list, a game that I finished for the first time last year. Oh, no. First time in 2024, actually. And then played through the remakes that very same year. Final Fantasy 7. Wow. Final Fantasy 7 to me. Wow.

Obviously, it's not a unique take. It's not a unique pick to be on somebody's top 10 of all time, I think. But I got to it late in life and I kind of feel like at some point, in some way I'm upset that I played it so late in my life. Because I really think that it would have made my life a lot better had I played it sooner. It's so good. It's just like a perfect. perfect final fantasy game it's like a it plays well today i think too even though it's like all polygonal and uh you know kind of looks it looks bad now but like it's like it's such a great

story the characters are so incredible and i just i just really really loved it and i loved remake and rebirth so much but you don't have those without uh the original seven for for sure and and it's like heather's demon soul's argument i i i think that the, just, just to say like they, from a standpoint of it, it looks bad. I get what you're saying. It definitely looks of its era. It's got that weird thing where sometimes the characters are cheeby, sometimes they're like, you know, they're real proportions.

Yes, the, the certainly largely textureless, low-poly character models that move around. But there's such incredible character designs. They're so, you know, like along with, we said this in the bottom. podcast before, but along with Street Fighter 2, it's like a roster top to bottom. And you're like, oh, yeah, every single one of these characters is memorable and iconic. I know who these characters are. They pass the silhouette test. But on top of that, you have these beautifully rendered, like pre-rendered environments, which are, which you're moving through, you know, if you're in the first act in Midgar or throughout the game as you progress beyond the world map.

So, I mean, that's a big part of like, it's such a, it was such an phenomenal looking. game in its day. As someone who played it when it the year it released, but it's, I think it still holds up visually today and you're absolutely right that the rebirth and, you know, the remaster

and rebirth obviously come from this, but like the art direction in those games is fucking staggering. Yes, it's really nuts. I just, yeah, and I love, you know, even the music is so good and. No, Boiomatsu score, one of the best scores of all times.

Yeah. You could say it's number one. Yeah. It is like, yeah, it is, I've listened to it just for fun. It's just good, incredible music. Final Fantasy 7 is the only raw MIDI file I have that I listen to regularly when I'm working out. Wow. Like I'll, I have the battle theme from the original PlayStation score mixed into my workout mix.

And every time it comes on, I'm like, let's fucking go. You got to go faster. Yeah, it's just an absolute all-time video game. I love it so much. And now number three, we're sort of back in the normal zone, we'll call it. Because these three have been the top three and have not changed in years. And I think they'll forever be the top three for me. Number three, Metal Gear Solid Three Snake Eater.

Wow. Just that's just how this where it is. Any three of these could be number one, I think, is the actual thing. But these are the three. Number three, snake eater. Number two, Pokemon Gold. Just, yeah, that's like, I just loved it. I loved, I played the first, you know, red and blue and yellow when they were new.

And then gold comes out. I was like, oh, this is, like, this is the same and different and more. and better and I just I loved it. That's like it's just fantastic. Part part of this this podcast is that we are we will share our tastes with our fellow hosts and we will do episodes where one of us is kind of leading the charge for the others to play a game. And in my case with Pokemon Gold, Silver experience it in full for the first time. And it, I mean, like it's of its era. It feels like a Game Boy game from the 90s, but it is a really, incredible RPG. Really, really great. And I'm so grateful that you made us play it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really, well, Pocomay was for all of us. It was like a... Podicast them all. Yeah, exactly. And nobody was upset. No, it was not a single listener was upset.

We did this. But it is just like a... Yeah, seeing it is just a good RPG. It really just is because, like, I didn't have the language for that when I was playing it. I didn't know that that's like what the type of game that it was. It was a Pokemon game to me first, right? But like it really, I like, you know, I added two

other RPGs to this list for this exercise. I'm starting to think that like they just might be one of my favorite genres and also a genre that I'd like to dip into more this year. Like I I, you know, I have the Sweet Koden remake. I have Octopath Traveler. I have all these ones that I haven't really started yet. But I think this year it's going to be an RPG year for me if I'm making a prediction. Wow. Wow.

For my, for my 2026. And I'm excited about that. Matt, have you ever played the world ends with you for the DS? I don't think that I have. Because that's an RPG that's unlike any RPG. but it's also by your favorite boy. Yeah, I recognize these guys from the 3DS Kingdom Hearts game. So if it's going to be a year of RPGs, you might want to give a look at the world ends with you.

Okay, I'll check this out. Yeah, I might have it loaded on one of my DSs. Great. So I should toss that in a bag and get that going, start playing that. And finally, number one, you already know what it is. I don't even have to say it. It's Kingdom Hearts 2, baby. Let's go!

I love it. It's the best game of all time. Period. Not subjectively. Objectively. It's the best video game ever made. It's so good. I've been thinking about that one a lot recently because I still have not finished

King of Hearts 3. Yeah. No, I haven't finished Kingdom Hearts 2. I really loved Kingdom Hearts 2. Right now, Nick had to exit the room. Okay. Because we ordered cheeseburgers. Yeah.

But unlike a normal delivery where they might leave it on the doorstep, today's cheeseburgers were delivered by a robot. So Nick has to go out to get the robot's cheeseburgers. Or the robot drive away. Yeah, the robot will drive away because it is, it's confused about why it hasn't been opened. You didn't have the benefit of this angle, but when we were having our year-end dinner a couple weeks back,

you're sitting on the sidewalk and one of those robots came barreling down the street sort of like toward Nick what seemed like 30 miles an hour it was so fast ranch and I were like so scared looking at how fast it was going I I just went to Chicago I don't know if any of this will be on the actual record but I'll keep talking as if it might be I went to Chicago for the holidays. And I was shocked that there are no Waymo's there. Because here in Los Angeles, you will often be at a stoplight and there will be three to four Waymos at the stoplight. These are driverless cars, driverless taxis. None in Chicago. Maybe it's not legal in Illinois yet. But I was surprised. Also, I didn't see a single delivery robot while I was there. And it made me feel like, boy, L.A.

really is becoming sort of a cyberpunk dystopia in a way that Chicago still retains a city-like identity. Well, Chicago and Philadelphia will be the first citizens to beat one of those robots with a sock filled with batteries.

Probably. Probably. I hadn't realized you hadn't been back in so long. Yeah. No, I hadn't been back in 20 years. Wild. And it was neat to be home. And it was very, very upsetting to see how much of the city had changed because it made me feel like I was a thousand years old and I was a vampire and I was dying. Like how could so much change so fast?

20 years is not that long. But my dad was like, it's almost a quarter century. Like you've been out of the city for a long time. Oh, yeah. Okay. Fair point. Yeah. So I, you know, I've been thinking a lot about Kingdom Hearts.

two kind of recently because there's been a lot of talk. Well, some talk and then no talk of Kingdom Hearts 4. And I don't know what's going to light a fire under me to finish Kingdom Hearts 3. But it would be probably a release date for Kingdom Hearts 4. And so I need to, I need both of those things to happen. I need that date immediately. And I need to get back into Kingdom Hearts 3 because it's not like, I don't think Kingdom Hearts 3 is just, is.

I don't think it's bad. I just know it's just not Kingdom Hearts 2. Right. I think Kingdom Hearts 2 is just like my favorite game. Kingdom Hearts 2 flows if that makes sense. Kingdom Hearts 3 does not flow. No. Like you don't feel like you're sort of on this ride that has momentum.

Kingdom Hearts 2 is the sonic of the Kingdom Hearts games. Yeah. Like you feel this movement that's really great. And the story's, you know, fucking bonkers. Whereas Kingdom Hearts three, I felt a little like, it was stiff. It's a little stiff, but also, like, makes me, it feels like, there's so much going on on screen sometimes where, like, you can do these things where you can summon, like, a theme

park ride as an attack. Yeah. And it makes me sick. Like, it's just, like, there's just two, it's just, I don't need to do all that. Just let me summon the genie or Chicken Little or some shit. I would like if Kingdom Hearts four. made the choice to see if

Grand Theft Auto 6 is really coming out this year and set their release date for the same day. Yeah. So that when Six gets delayed one more time, that people will be like, well, at least I can go buy Kingdom Hearts today. Yeah.

And then either way, let's say they do keep their release date. I do think that the game gamers, they're going to get both. The people that want both are going to get both. I'm going to get both. Right. But I do think that the kingdom hearts enthusiasts are not necessarily

Grand Theft Auto enthusiast either. You know what I mean? It's like I think they do serve two different pockets of the market. And I think they both be just fine. But people will get both. I'll get both. Yeah, people forget that there's, you know, counter programming is a thing. It's like the, yeah, with Star Wars episodes,

one, the Phantom Menace was in theaters. Everyone, like all the, everyone was like, oh, we got to stay away from that. That's going to eat up all the box office. But then, you know, they threw a little Richard Curtis Romcom nodding Hill the same weekend. And it did quite well because the audience that wasn't there for Star Wars was excited to have something that appealed to them. I don't have to do that this year with freaking doomsday and Dune 3. Are those coming out the same day?

They're coming out the same day. That's wild. It's going to be freaking, you know, they're going to, you know, how they try to Barbenheimer or everything. It's going to be Doones Day. It's going to be Doones Day. It's going to be Dunes Day. It's going to be Dooms Day? I think, just to say another thing about Grant Theft Auto 6, I think Fortnite is banking on them not coming out on time.

Because Fortnite Chapter 8 releases one week later. and that seems like they're hedging their bets in two ways. One is, of course, we're not going to release Chapter 8 the same day. But the chances of that operating window being empty are pretty high. Yeah. So what if we release Chapter 8 the next week? So the people have gotten bored of Grand Theft Auto or have been like, oh, this isn't for me.

They can come back to Fortnite the next week because it'll be exciting. But also, what if it doesn't release and people are looking for something to do, then 4-9 chapter 8 starts. I think GTA 6 is not going to get delayed again. I think we're going to actually see it this year. But I could be wrong. I've been made a liar before. Can I make you a liar?

And I know, I might be completely full of shit. I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Be a fucking moron. You might have to get spanked. I might have get spanked real hard. Oh, no. I was like, Doom 3. Have either of you read Dune Mazziah?

I read it for the first time a couple years ago. No, I have not. It's fucking insane. sane. And I'm just, I'm like, if they actually just adapt this book, I could see the audience that was there for Dune 1 and Dune 2 coming out to see Dune 3 and being like, what the fuck is this? So I'm kind of excited to see what happens. I know the, I know the plot of Dune 3, even though I haven't read it. And I am also excited to see if they just go for it. I mean, they might. We'll have to see. I have faith in Timothy. And D.V., of course.

I need a little new Should I read it before seeing the movie Or should I go in blind Go in blind Wink So Nick wants me to read the book No that no that the wink That's for people who've read the book

Will understand what I mean by that wink And so Thus Revealing the prestige I have not read the book Shall we do Shall we recap By the way

Before we started Heather was like We could let's keep things moving. We're going to hit two hours in this fucking episode. I don't know how it always fucking happens. How does this show always drag on so long? How have we, our episode's got to be interminable. I don't know. I don't think they drag on. I think the people do like it, but we have a lot of things to say. And I think I also, you know, I feel like I'm talking a little bit slower because I'm trying to be a little quieter because I'm in a hotel room.

I don't know how soundproof these walls are. I might hear, who knows? I have my AirPods on that are noise can't. Somebody could be getting railed next door and I can't even hear the Oh, I thought that was you. Because I heard somebody getting railed. I was getting railed. It was me. Should we, real quick, like, I think we should do a recap, but should we, real quick, say what games were on the list last time that are no longer on the list?

Because, Matt, you had five that are, that are swapped out. Yeah. What were your five? We'll go in reverse order, and then we'll boomerang back around with recapping our list. Should I, am I just giving you the five that? Yeah, give us the ones that were, that you are no longer on your list. No longer on the list, but still near and dear to my heart. Resident Evil 4, of course.

Red Dead Redemption 2. The Last of Us, Part 1. The Prince of Persia and the Sands of Time. And Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Kind of amazed those last two were cut. But, I mean, that's the whole thing. Like, we're going through these lists. And it's like, it's tough to create.

room for everything when you've only got 10 slots. Heather, what we're what we're excited from your list? Which fell off my list was the last of us part one, Final Fantasy 12, an Eldon ring. I got to find it as a 12 great fucking final fantasy. Fucking great game. Yeah. Off of my list from last time, Hades, great game. Great. Cuphead. Great fucking game. And the legend of Zelda, which each kind of has a slot that's been occupied by an equivalent game. Hades, you I put Diablo 2 in there. Cuphead Celeste, which Celeste was in there. Then I swapped in Cuphead to the last minute.

I think as much as I love Cuphead, Cuphead Celeste deserves this place in the list. And The Legend of Zelda, ultimately, over time, is what leads to Eldon Ring. But if I'm being honest with myself, this game that came out in 2022 is a lot more playable than this game that came out in 1986, even though Shigeru Miyamoto's The Legend of Zelda remains a masterpiece. There's no Zelda games, no Metroid games, no Final Fantasy games, no Kojima games. If a man can be a genre on my list, yet all of these are like huge for me. Yeah. And again, we got a future DLC episode.

No civilization games, you know, but it's just, it's just tough to have absolutely everything represented. Yeah, it's impossible. Let's each recap our new list of best games of all time for 2026. I'll start. Number 10, Secret of Monkey Island. Number nine, Celeste. Eight, Plainscape Torment. Seven, Diablo 2.

Six, Eldon Ring. Five, Super Mario World. Four, Disco Elysium. Three, portal. Two, chrono trigger. One, Balders Gate, three. Mine in reverse order are number 10, Demon Souls, then. Shadow of the Colossus, Final Fantasy 15, out of this world, death stranding.

The Last of Us Part 2, Sonic 2, Street Fighter 3, Disco Elysium, and Fortnite Zero build, Battle Royale. Wow. And mine in a reverse order starting at number 10. Mother 3. Eldon Ring. Super Mario 3D World and Bowser's Fury. God of War 2018. Chrono Trigger.

Alan Wake 2. Final Fantasy 7. Metal Gear Solid 3, Pokemon Gold, and Kingdom Hearts 2. Wow. Do we not have one game that's on all three of our lists? Hmm. Almost Eldon Ring, but didn't make it there. Not Disco Elysium.

Yeah, I think so. Not more than three. No. You know what's well represented on all our lists, though? The number three. Bouldersgate 3, Mother 3, Street Fighter 3, 3. Third Strikes in there twice. I think what makes that what these lists and the overlap

reveal is that it's part of why the podcast works. Because we have two overlaps. You know, we have overlaps in multiple areas. But it's not a full overlap because then there wouldn't be any conversation. No, it's true. I mean, like, you know, both of our lists share disco elisium. Both of me and Matt's list share Chrono Trigger. And, yeah, I mean, and also a lot of the games that each of you mentioned are games that I love, but just did not find their way home on my final list.

Yeah. Shall we do a segment? Segment. It's time for the question block. All right, here we go. These are, of course, from our Discord. Discord.org.g. slash get played.

And I would just read this one right here. This one's from Mr. Dumb shit. Hi, Mr. Dumb shit. I'm Mr. Dumb shit. And before anybody says, I didn't write in my own question, okay? What's your favorite video game currency? Rings, rupees, credits.

etc. Gil, easy answer. Gil. Oh, Gil is good. Gil is good. I like money, M-U-N-N-N-Y from Kingdom Hearts. That's pretty good.

Almost did, but it's just kind of a cute version. You know, it's a good one. Disco Elysium, we both mentioned, Rayall is the currency. Yeah, Rayall is pretty good. Bells? Oh, bells are fucking good.

Matt. Great call. Bells is good. Tom Nook on my ass because I'm deep in debt and got to get work my ass. I have to get on a bunch of bells. Really?

Rings is good, but is it a currency? I think rings counts. I think rings absolutely is a currency. What is it, though? Rings are your life. Yeah, they're your life. Yeah, but coins are clearly currency because Mario's collecting coins and Wario wants the coins.

But rings are like ephemeral. It's a metaphor for the precarious nature of late capitalism, where Sonic collects rings, he hoards as many as he can, but we're all one accident away from financial disaster. All of his rings scatter, and now he's just got to grapple for anything that he has. And you know what? If you're out of money and you get wounded, you get injured, you get sick, you're dead.

That's it. There's no social safety net for you. So you better make sure to hoard all the rings you can for the sake of yourself and your family. What a nightmare. Yeah. I think it counts as a currency. Does Dr. Robotnik want rings? No.

He wants Sonic. He wants to murder Sonic. And he wants to turn animals into robots. It's not a horrible platform. It's... We should just hear them out. We turn animals into robots. Oh, fuck.

This? We got a robot. I'm proud of you. Um... Um... Here we go. This next one is from Corey. Hi, Corey.

And Corey writes. What's a recent game from your past that you played that your positive no one else has played in the past year? Mine is NBA Street, Volume 2. Well, my easy answer, of course, is the Emperor's New Groove video game for the PlayStation 1. That nobody has played in the past year? Yeah. This is a tough question. I think it's like most obscure game.

I think we can bring up my Steam library here. I wonder how many people played Wario Land for the virtual game. boy this year and beat it. Yeah. And it's interesting. And beat it probably very few. Yeah. So that would be my answer.

You know what I will say? Because I was talking with my brother about this, my alpha brother Nate, who, you know, we have similar taste in video games. But we were talking about a 4X space game that we played back in the day as kids, Master of Orion. And there was a remaster of Master of Orion, which I'm not going to say that. like I'm the only person who played it this year. But I do think that's a fairly, I don't want to say,

I think 4X's neat, 4X space games are niche in and of themselves, like these strategy games that take place in some sort of sci-fi setting, that to have a game that was from maybe the late 80s, early 90s, and, you know, spend some time with that this past year. That's maybe my answer. But Nate got me playing it. Wow.

There's also like a, you know, one really cool thing about this is that the new, the master of Ryan is that there is a, there is a mod, there is a fan patch because the game is cool, but it's very unbalance. There's one of the alien races that you can play in particular, one of the, these civilizations is the sylons and they have a bonus to research that makes it, there's just so O.P. They're just like incredibly powerful. And some of the other mechanics like, you know, the Borethi have an advantage in ground, combat, but there's not much of a reason to, you know, invade planets and have these sort of,

in that traditional sort of sense to go in and get involved in land wars. But the game, the fan patch kind of rebalances everything where all of these strategies are viable. And it's really cool that it exists. This next one is from W. Klein 88. So, W. Klein. W. Klein. How would you describe your perfect?

Sunday. I'll give you an answer. Chocolate fudge and peanuts. Son of a bitch. Gonna see caramel and whipped cream with a maraschino cherries. Fucking. Probably plain vanilla ice cream, plain chocolate syrup,

Oreo crumbles and a cherry off. Orio crumbles are huge. Fuck. Really good. The question actually, you know, I had the benefit of reading it. They were talking about the day. The day of the week. I would say on a Sunday,

one of my favorite things to do is to get some ice cream and then put some toppings on it. Maybe like some, you know, something a little gooey, something that adds a little bit of texture, maybe something that adds a little bit of fluff to it. Yeah, yeah. That's definitely good.

So maybe like some vanilla ice cream, but it's flavor and like some chocolate chips to kind of throw those on top or some M&Ms you can do that. I find chocolate chips get too hard when they get cold. You know what? That is a fair point. And they work better as a mix in.

And I will say this, if you get a good chaco chip ice cream or a mint chaco chip ice cream, you want them chips to be ground up a pretty tight. Pretty pretty fine. Like coffee grounds. Sunday in our house is usually like my wife likes to say, I don't want to move the car today. Oh, fuck. That's great. That's good. So, like, if we're going to go, if we're going anywhere, somewhere we could walk, and it won't be that far away.

And it was kind of like stay close to the house and relax before we have to, before she has to go back to working at a hospital. And I have to go back to working from home about podcasts. Mine is make coffee and a slightly special breakfast. It doesn't have to be like full pancakes, but something slightly special. read the news, journal. Sunday is a big journaling day in our house. And then early afternoon, a documentary or a classic movie on Sunday. And then Sunday night, regular television or regular movie. But to have that, like, I like the classic, the classic or documentary window that often naturally occurs on a Sunday. Yeah. I had a kind of like my most recent Sunday was actually

kind of like an idyllic like a, you know, platonic ideal of a wiger Sunday. And so I'd vanilla ice cream. You, sir of it. No, no, no. I like, we, I like to get up at the normal time. I get myself a hot cup of coffee. I go on a walk in the neighborhood. I start every day with a walk.

And the thing I do that's distinct on Sundays is I don't use my phone. It's a phone free day. It's a digital Sabbath that I started at the pandemic and I maintain now like five. years later and it's consistently consistently often the best day of the week for me it always feels like the day of the week with the most time because they're not just distracted by constant pickups and notifications i go get myself a bagel from a local bagel shop um and then you know uh the the wife and i go out and maybe what we did this past sunday is we saw two movies in a row saw bradley cooper's this thing on and then just rolled right into uh park chan wook's uh no other choice which is a

fucking masterpiece. I love it so much. It's so fucking good. And then, you know, we got ourselves a nice dinner. And then I went home and watched some basketball. I was like, I don't know,

that's basically everything I eat. Hey, at a good time as it can get. Yeah. Speaking of classics, my wife and I yesterday watched misery. She never seen it before. And it fucking rips.

It's so fucking good. I was happy to show it to her. But that was, what nice Sundays we have? had. What is she thinking of misery? She thought it was really, really good. Yeah. But she kept saying, God, she's so weird.

Like, she's just like, get over it. He writes books. Oh, my wife, it's really funny. This next one is from, from Ghost Pumpkin, and Ghost Pumpkin writes, I ghost. I'll be in the hospital for a couple weeks. Oh, no. What is the best gaming setup within the hospital?

Well, Ghost Pumpkin, I hope whatever's ailing you, you know, goes well and you're on your way to a speedy recovery. It's gaming set up in a hospital by presumably being down. So probably something handheld would probably be the best. I don't know how good the Wi-Fi is. I can't necessarily in good cautious recommend a PlayStation portal because I don't know what the restrictions are in a hospital Wi-Fi. if it's going to, you know, not work or whatever. But something that maybe does need the internet, like, you know, an old Game Boy, an old, a modded DS or something like that.

And like that can really, you know, melt away the hours, I think. I think it's Switch 2 with the Switch 1 library accessible to it. Yeah. It's a really compelling case for a huge library. Yeah. If you don't have a Steam deck, which is another good option, get well soon, Ghost Pumpkin. I hope everything it goes well for you.

I have not had, I've been very fortunate to not have had a lengthy hospital stay myself. So I can't really speak to that from personal experience, but just speculating when I've had times when I may be a little bit more inert and, you know, had had less mobility. I think if you can handle games that are like, some people don't like turn-based games, but this might be the time. where you dig into like a turn-based game or a game with a lot of text or a game with a lot of story content that has a little bit more of a leisurely pace to it. Because I mean, like you might have a lot of time, first of all. So like if this is like, hey, I've always wanted to play Divinity Original Sin 2 and I can load it up on my Steam deck, maybe now's the time to dig in on it.

But also like I would not be averse to a game like a vampire story. survivors, which you can play, you know, with one hand. You don't need a lot to, like, you can just sort of like, you don't need a ton of focus for something like that. And that could be good for just like melting some hours. Yeah, those are, those are great suggestions? And Nick knows anything. It's a gaming with one hand. Okay. And that's it for the question block, you guys. I was just about to see. Are we about down here? Yeah, we're done. We're done. That's this week get played. Our producers, Rochelle Chen Ranch Yard underscore underscore Sard. And thanks to our guest engineer, Sam Rogich.

Sam, you get anything you like to plug? Nothing right now. Guck's working on a new record, so just hang tight for that. Where can people check out Guck? Guck Band on Instagram and Guck at Bancamp.com, I believe. Awesome. Check out Guck. And our music is by Ben Prenti.

Ben Prenty, Mee Music.com. Our artist by Duck Brigade Design, Duck Brigade.com. We got merch at kinshipgoods.com. And our new Patreon, get played, DLC. Patreon.com. slash Get Played. Check out Get Played DLC. And thanks to everyone who has supported the show during Get Animated and continues to support the show or new subscribers who are now supporting the show over at Get Played DLC. And you know what? This week, some of our favorite games of all time got played. Isn't that nice? It's really nice. That is nice. I'm proud of us. Me too. Trump's coming to shake our hands.

That was a hate gum podcast.