Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Blessing, Andy, & Barrett's Top 10s 2024 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

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Yo, what's up? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games cast for Thursday, January 9th, 2025. That's a lie. Thursday, January 16th, 2025. One of your host, Blessing, Eddie O'E.Jr Jr., joining me is CEO Jr. Barrett, Courtney. What a bless. And we got the Nitre Rifle, Andy Cortez. Hello, bless. Hello, Brad. Hello, hello gamers. And a lot of people would say that this is the gamer panel right here. People actually play games, yeah. People that actually boot up their fucking consoles and disease. Who actually know how to Perry. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. No, not have to Perry. Pappy is right. I don't even talk to you about the lack of pairing. Don't we be hanging? Let me be a puzzle to solve also. Oh God, Mike just walking for some reason.

For some reason. We're talking about the gamers. Mike just want to walk with his laptop. Mike, what's you doing back there? He's watching you. He's watching us. What a good guy. I remember this.

Gonna get horizontal. Horizontal. Go to lay down on the couch back there. In 15 minutes we're going to hear, he's a goat, man. All over here trying to talk about Indiana Jones. J.K., that's not on my table. top 10 list because that's right we're talking about top 10 list today because remember this

is kind of funny games cast each and every weekday we get together and talk about the biggest reviews previews and topics in video games live on youtube twitch and on podcast services around the globe Jesus Christ that was an energy do support us with the kind of funny membership sometimes you got to keep you on their toes on patreon youtube Spotify or apple podcast get all of our shows ad free watches record them live and get a daily exclusive show my my goal today is just a surprise barrier because I've done it twice in the last five minutes. What else? Oh yeah, you're talking about videos that you used to watch back in the day. Yeah, what I said.

I said, you know, sometimes you just sometimes you just let the internet take you. Yeah. And you just go down the private hole and it changes. Jesus Christ. For it changed me a part of the show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube Super chats as we go. Housekeeping for you. A lot of y'all made comments about loving the anniversary logo and the water bottle slash notebook we got for the team. So the new anniversary merch collection is now up on kind of

funny.com slash store. And remember, we're no up in person business all about live talk shows. KFGD before this was us reacting to the Switch 2 reveal with a full panel. It is me. It is Greg. It is Tim. It is Andy. It is Barrett on the ones and two is talking about the Switch 2 for

over an hour. So you're going to want to check that out. Not really. Kevin in the bag asked, are we excited for it? You know? I'm going to tell. This wasn't the day of excitement, I feel like. This was just the day of like, hey, here's the shit that It's been leaking for the last month.

April will be you when we get three weeks. Because April is when they're going to announce a Barrett. It's coming to the Switch 2. That's right. Intend dogs. It's back. Yeah. You're going to take care of them dogs.

I can't believe I'm going to be able to play as Mike Minotty and Jeff Grubb. Exactly. I got the Nintendo dog in me, you know? And then after Gamescast is the stream. It is some games with Mike and Nick. I have it written down as Donkey Kong Country Returns. Mike, are we still playing Donkey Kong today? He said woo.

He said Wu. He didn't give us the yes or no. He just said, he just said woo. We're supposed to play it eventually. Mike's going to start with some game for hopefully 10 minutes, and then we're going to move on to it. Maybe we're going to play for an hour. Maybe he's, he's, it's going to end up being Cinnat to Nurtle or whatever, probably. It's a lot of fun. It has been a lot of fun. Yeah. If you're a kind of funny member, you can get today's Gregway, and you can get screencast later, which is going to be Creature Commandos. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Delaney Twining, and Carl Jacobs. Today I brought to you by BetterHelp ExpressVPN and Meet Undies,

but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be. Topic of the show. Tots, tots, dots, dots, dot, dot. Our game of the year, top tens for 2024. Of course, if you missed it, on Monday, we revealed Kind of Funnies game of the year and Kind of Funny's top 10 games of the year

using our lists combined. The games hosts here, Kind of Funny. Of course, submitted our lists to Barrett. we then revealed from 10 to 1. If you missed it, go check it out. Spoilers. Hold Avers 2 is our game of the year. Congratulations.

Congratulations, held average 2. That's a lie. But that was all of our combined lists. Throughout this week, we've wanted to go through an individually reveal our own lists to talk about our own top 10. Yes. Because last year for Game of the Year, we did it all in one chunk. And that was a four-hour podcast at the end of the day.

We all looked at each other and said, why did we do that? That was so long. that took so much out of us. And so for a game of the year, this year, we liked being able to share our personal top 10. So we decided to, now that we do gamescast every day, that is a big factor for last year as well. We used to not do that, bless.

We used to not do that. I used to do games casts. Yeah, exactly. So now that we have games cast every day, we thought it would be fun to make it a whole game of the year week. Of course, you know, Shuhayushita coming in, trying to ruin those plans, Nintendo coming in and trying to ruin those plans.

But we're still getting it done. And we're still having a fun time. So, yeah. I love seeing Andy add his links. And the links aren't even links. There's the titles of the games. Wait, you can click on that? Oh, you can click on it.

Oh, no, you can click on it. It's just more so I'm like, your top tens being spoiled for me. Because I was excited. Yeah, we're like, revealing it to each other. It's for Kevin. Oh, okay. I didn't even know that there was a run of show. Oh, yeah.

The links and stuff. So how are we doing this? Of course, we're going to start off. We're going to talk about each of our tens, each of our nines, each of our eights. when we're going to go like that. We're going to go in a circle. But Barrett came to me yesterday and gave me the excellent idea of

if I see a game that's my number 10 and somebody has it higher, we then wait to talk about it then. Yeah, so as an example, let's say your number 10 is Asherbot and Andy and I both have it on our top 10s higher. We won't say where Asherbot is on our list. We'll just say, that's awesome blessing.

Let's wait to talk about it because we have it higher on our list. And then whoever has Asherbot the highest, that's when we'll actually be like, okay, let's talk about Atrobat. I really like this format. I believe from Remap Radio, this is how they do talk about and share their personal game of the year list. And I think it's a fun format. So shout out to that crew over there.

I'm sorry for stealing this formula, but I think it's fun. Don't look at the running show, bust. I don't want you to look at my stuff. I'm not. So you caught that. It's for Kevin's eyes only. You caught that. So if I say a game that's my number 10,

either you guys have it higher, you step in. We didn't a good code word. What's a code word that we can say? I think we could just say what I have a higher Mark Echo's getting up Mark Echo's getting up okay I think it's just That's cool I have it high Like just like I don't know why do we need a code

No man I like Mark Ecos getting Same banana, say banana I like Mark Ecos getting up All right Do we don't want to do a straw pole Do you do we want to pull a straw It's just still one of the best Things to discover

in 2024. Straw pool? Isn't that when we pull straw? I'm like, no, bless it's straw pole. P-O-L-L-L. Kevin, think of a number between one and ten. Seven.

God damn it. You said, think, not to say. Mike, think of a number between one and ten. Four. All right, I'm going to say, God damn it. I'm going to say four. Bear, where do you got?

Three. Nine. What's the number? Who's closest? You. Oh, okay, I'm close. So I'll go first and we'll just go down the line then. Okay.

Oh, he said five. Mike said five for the people listening and watching. Yeah, that's what I was thinking, Mike. All right. My number 10 for my game of the year, top 10, is 1,000 times resist. Mark Echo's getting up. That's lovely bless. I love that, but I have an eye on my list.

All right. Barrett. I pass it on to you. What is your number 10 game? My number 10 game is Astrobot. Mark Echo's getting up. I like this. It's a good save word.

Good save word. We're going up. We're getting up, is what I meant. Mark, Echo's getting up. Andy, what's your number 10? My number 10 is one of two DLCs, Destiny 2, the Final Shape. Wow. Special experience for me.

Talk about it. Mark Echle's going down. Going down. Kevin's sneeze was outrageous over there. I have a trailer in the dock for you, Kevin, if you'd like to look at the trailer for Destiny 2, the Final Shape. Destiny 2, The Final Shape Fun-ass video game

I wish more people in the office wanted to share this experience with me, play with Snowbike Mike, and it's such a short experience that I would still run through it again because it's so much, it's just so much multiplayer fun and the narrative felt

direct and focused even though I was still confused because I hadn't been keeping up that much of Destiny 2 at all, right? But the whole final moments and kind of having this large culmination of all of these years, kind of feeling like this is where it's all about to go down. I just had a great time with it. Spoilers, K'd 6 is back. Oh shit. Damn, I was at

IGN when they killed him. That's crazy. It's awesome having Nathan Philean back in the back in the roster. Does he come back in like a satisfying way or is it one of those ones where it's like, it's a different KD6 from a different universe? Yeah, it's like, oh, y'all distract him back in the story. You, you kind of, I think you get like, sent to like the memories or like a purgatory heaven like here's how here's what i mean let me just obviously you can already tell i barely understand a whole lot of what's happening anyway but you're just click it doesn't matter because what's the final shape the gameplay no it's a dodecahedron oh so the gameplay is just so incredibly fun the it's my favorite type of like raid mechanic

stuff where i mean not that we did the raid but shoot that thing to lower it and then make you i need you to beyond the level of coordination was still very much there and it got intense if you wanted to play on the harder difficulty so that you could get the better loot. I just had a freaking blast with this experience and then the final moment to then, hey, you're not, you're no longer in a three player lobby anymore. You and not, you and 11 other players or your trio and four other trios are now all on the screen right now taking. So it was me, Mike. I think, think maybe Chris Anka was there and a bunch of just kind of funny best friends from the chat joining us on this final mission as we take down the witness. The mission preceding that was a

shitload of fun as well. But then that final moment was just awesome because this son of a bitch would grow gigantic and have like certain attacks that you all had to watch out for. It was a fucking blast. Dude, this was like some of the most fun I've had in first person mission shooting. I had a freaking blast with it. Everybody check out the final shape. unless they put out a DLC later on that makes it unplayable because who knows how Bungy operates sometimes. I'm so happy for you and all the Destiny freaks out there. Like I got the, you know, the taste for it with the Destiny 2 when it first launched and like got to do that very first raid and that was fun. And then I kind of just saw I was like, all right?

Same. Yeah. And like, I'm going to walk away. And you came back to it last year majorly, right? Yeah. I hopped in with the, the one, the DLC preceding the final shape, which was the one in. in that big sort of cyberpline. It was light fall.

Lightfall. Was it light fall? I believe it was like, because it looked like light year. Oh yeah, yeah. It was like a cool looking one that like it took place in the future. And the thing is, you know,

that was still largely disappointing for a lot of fans because of just the mission structure and maybe the sure the world may have looked cool, but it wasn't super satisfying to kind of get around that zone. But for me, who hadn't played Destiny in years, I had a lot of fun with it anyway. And then that kind of led me into being prepared for the final shape

and just having a blast with it. By the end of it, I ended up finding I ended up having a gun that I had never experienced in Destiny and that's not to say much because I have way less hours than anybody who cares about Destiny 2 in a major way. But I had a gun that healed my teammates

when I would shoot them. So it, dude, it felt so much fun and I wanted, it made me feel like, oh man, I wish you had this from the start. I wish you had more things like this where I'm shooting the enemy, and then I see Mike's health bar going down and I start shooting him and his health bar,

dude, it was just so active and fun. It's exactly kind of what I was hoping for in a shooter experience. But told in such a really cool way, and again, the art direction just out of this world, any new area you'd walk into, some of the most stunning shit you'd ever seen on a really old engine that kind of got, you know,

beefed up maybe three or four years ago, but it's still by no means the latest tech ever, right? but it still looked absolutely unbelievable. It reminds you a lot of why we love from software where they're not ever going to be the bleeding edge of tech, but their art direction carries so much. Bungie's art direction is just fucking phenomenal. I had a great time with it.

And yeah, if anybody loves first-person shooters, I think who gives a shit if you don't know anything about Destiny? Just hop in for that co-op experience because it is so much fun. I love that. Before we get to number nine, I want to bring in some super chat. That's John Van Pelt writes in and says, My basketball and anniversary shirts are on the way.

Very exciting. Zachson Galaxian writes in and says, unrelated, but shout out to Kevin Ace, who I randomly teamed up with in rivals last night. I blame the loss on Mike. Hashtag Mike sucks. Nice. I saw Kevin get on.

I think Kevin was playing with Chris Enka last night. Nice. I was playing that hyperlight breaker. And then Cody Bishop writes in and it says, RIP, David Lynch. Fuck, man. was so sad to see in the chat. It was during the Nintendo Switch reveal.

Yeah, he passed it 79 years old or whatever. Fucking legend. Yeah. Great head of hair. Great. Like, that is, you're going to have his head of air when we're 70 years old. I mean, if the finaster ride keeps on working. If not, hair plugs, I'm going to Turkey.

Yeah, let's do it. If you guys want to super chat in, right, I highly encourage super chatting in about the games we talk about if you have a piece that you want to say as well as we go. Number nine. My number nine. game is Pokemon TCG Pocket Nobody's getting up

With Markupo All right, let's hear about it Pokemon TCG Pocket is a game that I think As a card game As a competitive game Definitely has his flaws But like those flaws didn't stop it

From getting its hooks into me To the point where Like in a year where there are plenty of games That I put in hundreds of hours into Like Pokemon TSCPocket Possibly I'm not checked I don't even know how to check Possibly has my highest playtime

I think same, yeah. Yeah, like, I am logging into this game every day. I'm somebody that when it comes to games having dailies or weeklies or anything, like usually that's a surefire way to make me check out. But I am needing to open these packs. I am getting excited when I get a full art card. I think this was actually probably the gateway for me into getting into magic because understanding like what a full art card is and like the types of rarities and even like

just getting into the battle system and like deck building, right? Knowing the language, yeah. Knowing the language, like the way that has ushered me in. into Magic the Gathering obsession. I can't put it lightly, like, how much magic has a hold on me now. And I think a lot of that starts off with Pokemon TCG Pocket.

As a basic card game, I think it does get the job done, right? I know I mentioned that it has his flaws, right? But, like, I think for a game that is focused on, let's be an easy version of the Pokemon trading card game. Let's be a version that you can make a deck in honestly seconds. You can auto build and then look at whatever 10 items slash trainer slash support cards you want, and then 10 actual Pokemon cards that you want in your deck.

It is so concise. It is so small. But I think that works so well to its benefit. A lot of it is based on luck. But I think I like that for this game, right? It is something that is a, all right, let me just, let me. The battle system for me is an additional way to show off the cards that I've collected. Right.

And like leaning into, oh, man, I can make my Salaby card play well with this other card to like, you know, build up. Just seeing the fun, like simple matchups, right? Like, yes, like the cards and the power. that they have in this game are not nearly as complicated as the actual like Pokemon card game can be but there's still a lot of like fun interesting things and you know seeing other players

build decks that aren't from like the pre-made ones and seeing like what everybody else can come up with is really fun this was one that I I did think about for a little bit and it's definitely but it for me it turned into like this is my mindless fucking put it on uh turn it on

at the end of the day for like 10 minutes and not really think about it too much. am sad that it didn't make the top 10 only because you know because it's like a phone screen I had to get really creative with how to put it up on the back wall and I was very proud with what I ended up doing for that but uh alas yeah and this is also one of the rare mobile games I'll make it onto my top 10 right like I'm somebody who when it comes to mobile gaming oftentimes I just don't like having games my phone I don't like using my phones to play game like play games I want that to be separate I don't know like I've just never been that person but this is the one that is really

bucked the trend for me I am just playing this thing nonstop all the time. So shout out, Pokemon. PCG Pocket. That is my number nine game. I finally canceled my subscription for that card pass thing. I finally didn't. Yeah, I did it after the first month was up or whatever. I was like, I got to do this now or I'm never going to. Barrett, what is your number nine? My number nine is, let me triple check here.

Thank goodness you're here. Oh, love that. Yeah, thank goodness you're here. We've talked about it a lot. I know Greg and Lucy James, you know, shared so much love for this when they originally reviewed it. Yeah, it's, you know, that cartoony looking British game, where it's

kind of called a self-titled as a slap former, right? You're going around this little town as this guy who's helping out this town in some way, shape, or form. You're supposed to talk with the mayor, and then you instead go out and cause havoc throughout the town and help people

out in whatever way you can, but the only mechanic you really have is slapping things. And honestly, people have been talking about this game a lot, especially with a game of the year conversation. It's just something I can't understate how well it does humor. I think it's like one of the most consistently funny games.

There's not a joke where I'm like, oh, that didn't land. Like every joke almost at least got like a good chuckle out of me, right? All of the bits that kind of like always wrap around in fun ways. My favorite bit is just going down the chimney of that one day. dude, because a lot of the times, the way you're going through the town, you always have to go in a certain direction. So you're going down this guy's chimney, like five times throughout the game to get to the next story be. And you just mess up his living room every single time. It's like, oh, goddamn, that's, uh, that's sad.

And then there's just so many good bits, like the guy with the really big head and like, you're going through the trauma of like his life trauma of like what that has done to him throughout his life, uh, you know. But also like the fun, like small town relationships. stuff of like the team with like the, uh, braces and like her having a crush on like a, I think like a dude who works at like a different like competing store or whatever. And it's all just like fun little like it felt like comfort a little bit. It has that like kind of classic, uh, maybe not to the same degree, but like, um, Monty Python flying circus type of like style and, uh, vibe to it. And but also just kind of being wholesome. And even though I'm not from,

you know, this, like a small town in the UK. Like, I, I do know, like, what it's like to be a part of, like, a very small, uh, tight community. And so just, like, playing through that and just learning about all, like, the little, uh, relationships and funny bits. It's just like, I love it. It's so goddamn much. It's, uh, and there's just something about, like, it also, even though it's a slap

former, it also kind of feeling like a point and click adventure almost from, like, the 90s. I'm like, yeah, this is all I need. This is one that I very badly try. to fit in my top 10 and like at the end of the day right like this was this is an honorable mention for me like I think this is probably my 11 12 13 spot somewhere in there um yeah my bottom three all shifted around like there was one list where this wasn't on here but then there were like two other lists where this was and I like the more I thought about I was like this can't not be on my list god the flower bit where you cut the flowers at the beginning I think both me and you had this as

our player's choice for the smileys as well and like I think for me this game is one that reminds me of in a really good way, even though it's going to sound maybe bad, but like it reminds me of playing flash games growing up, like games on new grounds where it is like, oh man, somebody has a very specific sense of humor and like a very specific thing they want to do. And they turned it into like this small, very charming thing. And this took me back to that. It takes me back to like early adult swim. It takes me back to like, I don't know.

Like there's a level of charm that it has that like I want to see every year when it comes into games, right? Like, I love how funny it is. It reminds me of, like, playing jazz punk in, like, 2015. Yeah. So when it came out, right? Like, I love games that are so willing to try and be funny. Something like Undertale as well.

And it doesn't try to overcomplicate itself. It doesn't try to be anything other than just you're walking around slapping shit, you know? I feel like any other, a lot of other indie devs could maybe get into their own head of, like, oh, is this enough? Like, are people, like, they just, they found, like, hey, here is the delivery method of giving you. all of these jokes that we want to tell.

And I think because of how simple it is, it works so well. Blown away about the visual quality all across the board. It always looked like such a high production 2D animation. Every sort of screenshot, any time that your little dude was just, you know, changing his size for no real reason, loved all of that when suddenly the scale is crazy and he's like as small as a mouse or, you know, as large as just a normal human. I really, really enjoyed all of that. I think for me the game peaked with peens, though.

Peens is really good. Peens is really good. The first thing, the game opens up, it's like, it's peas and beans. Peens. It was that where, like, maybe not that it peaked there, but it set the expectation so high for the rest of it, which is why, like, oh, man, that joke was really, really good, though. And everything else was, like, almost close for me. What was the one?

What was the joke? It was, like, early on where I believe, like, you're mowing the lawn or something for somebody. And it was, like, a flower. Yeah, they're just like, it's like a, just like, it's like a, just, like a lovely day or whatever and then you're just like slowly coming in from like way far in the background mowing the uh mowing this like but isn't it like two flowers that like are trying to are they starting a family it's like a very like real thing is happening like some emotional beat is happening with like these flowers are you about to cut down and just you slowly in the

background just mowing the lawn as like their narrative is like getting more and more like serious and passionate the flowers are declaring i love you yeah you're declaring their love for each other You stopping the burglar, the town burglar. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. A thread that kind of kept on developing. God.

If you haven't played, thank goodness you're here. Highly recommend it. It's like two to three hours. Yeah. It's like a sitting maybe two and it like plays great on Steam deck. That was the first game I actually like hooked up my Steam deck to the TV. Oh, nice. Played it like using like a dual sense or whatever.

I was like, this is a fun time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Andy. What's your number nine? Number nine for me is. Prince of Persia lost crown. Ooh.

Super impressive. My Metroidvania talked at length about it all year really, and it's the game that I always kind of broke my heart that it took so long to get to steam because I feel like it would have been a lot more

and I know the argument on the other side is just because you put it on scene doesn't mean it's going to be successful, but if you leave something on there long enough to allow people a chance to get more and more hyped about it, because on its, I think on its surface,

it can just look like a normal Metroidvania that maybe doesn't do anything remarkable, but I think that the game design behind all of the abilities you're getting, everything is just so smartly made in this game. And there are so many things you continue to unlock throughout the rest of the journey that can be used in your kit, or you could just kind of span the same buttons. But at one point, having an ability that you sort of swipe

and you create a black hole that either, you know, absorbs an explosive object that you can use to explode walls, or you can also swipe that black hole to absorb an enemy, that you can then swipe again, that becomes your kind of fighter for you for a little bit. Or there was a random boss fight that where a boss fight, you know, does all this cool shit and you're having to kind of predict the moves, but then it rains down all these gigantic projectiles,

And it was that boss fight that I was like, how do I avoid? Oh my God, I can swipe to suck out that projectile from the air and then re-throw it at the enemy. It's just so damn smart in its design. I think that this is the one that I, I've said this many times, but this is the one that you show game, you know, up-and-coming game designers. Here is something to kind of be influenced by. This is like as, this is as high level as it gets for action combat Metroidvania. again the combat in this game is just so unbelievably fun and deep and there are a lot of crazy

gameplay videos out there of people just doing the most insane combat stuff in this video game because of how deep the combat can go just had a freaking blast with it I'm so glad I ended up finishing it because a lot of those... It just finished over the break right? Yeah, over the Christmas break a lot of those challenge levels that remind me of

Hollow Night, the Path of Pain where you're going through a lot of really tough sort of platforming stuff. You're having a dash super accurately. You're having to double jump and then use all of your abilities to get through these gauntlets of just spinning spikes and things like that.

It gets so unbelievably cool and challenging. And a game that I can easily recommend to anybody to shame what happened to the developer. This is my biggest regret of 2024. I forget, was this in February? Yes. Around that year. I think January, actually.

January. So it was probably in the, whoa, we already have a Goody contender. We have a contender. Contender. Contender. I think this came out probably while I was reviewing Persona 3, and so I just didn't have the time for it. And then by the time

I did get to Prince of Persia, I was just like, I was kind of burnt out on playing video games, and I remember playing the first 30 minutes. I was like, this is not speaking to me, because it is very story-heavy in the first 30 minutes. I was like, it's not firing off the things I want in my brain right now. And it's not been particularly

great either. Yeah. I don't disagree with anybody being kind of feeling like this is just a normal ass video game that can easily be overlooked. I think that that is a very common thing to feel in that sort of opening moment. But everybody talking about it

for game of the year in conversations on podcasts lately. I'm like, fuck, I really want to play this game now. But let me tell you, I'm in the middle of the uncharted trilogy, so. Yeah. That's my thing is I'm in the same boat as you where... I sent through another video, by the way, Kevin Dianzance. Not that like it's in my biggest regrets, but definitely

in like the biggest like oh man if I could if I could create more bandwidth for myself last year to play to like play a few extra games this would have for sure probably been number one. This is just one of those sort of gameplay clips to show how deep the combat can go. No yeah I keep playing it from there. So freaking impressive

the level of I guess of depth that you can have with all the abilities shooting your arrows directionally hitting enemies rewinding back to the clone you put in midair, knocking dudes up into the sky, creating another clone, going back up to then kind of continue a combo. It's unbelievably cool, man. For audio listeners, it's almost like a combination of Devil May Cry and Guacam Melee, and that just blew my mind. Yeah. That was fucking

rad. Yeah, and I'm, again, to be in the same boat as bear, right? Like, this came out in that, in the time period where I think I'd started, again, I would make, maybe I can make different choices last year, because I started playing like a dragon, Infinite Wealth, being like, oh man, for the eighth time, this is going to be the one for me. And I played like 11 hours of it, and the persona three came out. And so I switched playing persona three,

but then Tekken 8 came out, so I switched playing Tekken 8. And then by the time I finished all that, I came out in March, and it was like, all right, like, I guess I'm gonna, and then the next game was, um,

Tails Can Zara Zao. And because that was new, uh, I was like, okay, well, I'll play this for review or whatever, right?

And like, I'm glad I played it because that game was speaking to me and, uh, as far as the kind of game was, the culture, like, I kind of wish that this, that maybe I spent the time playing this,

actually playing Prince Persia. Because, yeah, Prince Persia, everything I've heard about it, everything I've seen about it, even seeing this clip, I'm like, God damn, that seems like it would be my shit if I ever got around to it.

We should go back and just kind of look at past years where our gaming, like, regrets in terms of time. Because I just always think about because of release windows and because of what you're playing in certain time periods, I always think about putting about 25 to 30 hours into Scarlet Nexus, and I really wish that that game and Tales of Arise

had swapped spots that year. Because I feel like I really would have vied with Tales of Arise, but something else kind of came out when that game came out. It's like, oh, I had so much time in that period, and I put it all to Scarlet Nexus, and it wasn't a bad game, but I wish I could redistribute that. A backlog, what if? Yeah.

What if? Jumping back into Super Chats real quick. CJ Super Chats in and says, Winter Wonderlands Between Sweater arrived. Thank you, Andy. Hell yeah, dog. Wear that and be just, you know, different season. And then Jenny, aka Send Nuggies, wrote in and says,

Watch the Homie, Vermudex get the achievement for actually meeting with the mayor without getting in any trouble. L.O.L. So good. I believe talking about, thank goodness you're here. Oh, that's awesome. It's a very, was it, Far Cry like thing, where if you just, you're just a good boy and wait. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. I don't think I realize that. That's cool. Number eight. My number eight.

is persona 3 reload Mark Echoes getting getting up there's the second where I was like fuck what was the game again Mark echoes get down Never forget it

My number eight And a lot of people are going to finally be vindicated here second time for this week Indiana Jones In the Great Circle Wow

That's the switch Yeah This was Honestly another big surprise for me for 2024 you know, I think we did not know what the vibe of this game was going to be really going into it, you know, for the longest time Uncharted being kind of upheld as the Indiana Jones of video games. We're a lot of us, I think, assuming that this would be on the same level or same vibe as Uncharted. And then seeing Indiana Jones kind of being adapted into a video game and actually fit what Indiana Jones is, I really adored it.

And I think the studio really did something special here. I've been equating it for the last couple of weeks to Star Wars Jedi, where I think they smartly looked at certain video game genres and picked out which ones felt the most genuine to what Indiana Jones is. And being kind of a very simplistic, uh, uh, sim,

immersive sim, immersive sim, um, a very basic puzzle solver, a very basic like, uh, kind of brawler and mixing and melding those. I think it makes it genuinely Indiana Jones

throughout the adventure. Granted, I know, like, my biggest thing about it is, like, kind of the first opening area. I think the pacing of the game and kind of the, what you're doing those first five hours, is like a weird choice,

but once you get past that, like, hump of the Vatican, this game, really, to me, starts to sing, and you get a bit more of going back and forth between more of, like, a smaller story section area and then getting to explore Egypt, right? Or, you know, going up into the snowy mountains and stuff like that. And, yeah, once you get to that, like, the end of the snowy mountain section,

that game goes on a wild trip. From that point on, I was like, fuck. Yeah. It reminded me how much I love, actually, like, love the Indiana Jones movies. And so many moments reminded me of watching Last Crusade for the very first time. like the what the great circle is all about like story wise and all that stuff it was like damn I see the vision and this honestly feels more like a complete like a granted temple of doom I from what I remember was like a prequel it wasn't in between like the first and third movie this

feels like the true like this is the the story that's told in between uh the first and third uh stories here and it fits so perfectly well uh combining you know indies nerdy archaeology history but also his understanding of different religions and all this stuff and combining all those things. And you can't help but feel the excitement when he feels excited, discovering stuff when his crew helps him out. And then, yeah, the gameplay, I would say is very basic. It is very much like person's very first immersive sim. But I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. Yes, AI is a little bit dumb.

But I think for people, for general audiences who want to do. just like play in Indiana Jones game. I think this is a cool opportunity to give them this game and be like, oh, you've never tried this type of game before. You never tried to be more stealthy and focus on that because if you go loud and all that stuff, it's going to be a rough time. Yeah, let's put it in this wrapper of... Yes.

And that's what... And that's why I equated to the Star Wars Jedi game. So that's like that is very much someone's first soul's game of like if you never played this type of game before, but you just like IP, this is something cool and neat to introduce you to a different type of genre. Troy Baker kills it as indie and yeah the last like 30 minutes I

fucking adore and it reminds me of just like some of the most exciting moments that you'd see at the end of an Indiana Jones story which is like really what brought it up to my top 10 for me but shout out to that final boss fight I would say in contention with the uncharted forward final boss fight as this is the most awkward final boss fight I've ever

yeah like why are we doing this? I thought that way about quite a few the pretty much any boss fight in this game i'm like yeah i don't there was one there was one where it's all about like being in the dark and shit oh even that one i wasn't oh i was i was into it just more from like the puzzle scenario and this it felt genuinely like a indiana jones moment of like all right how the fuck does he have to figure out like what does he have to do to get through the the scenario yeah and just

honestly just finding any sort of weapon to beat up nazis with fuck yeah i'm into it i need uh i i need one of them 5090s whenever they come out because You know, my 4090 would kind of maxed out, get me a little bit above 60 frames per second. But this game was awarded Digital Foundry's, I think, best-looking game of 2024. So I really kind of, I want to experience this game, especially knowing that it is not a 30-hour experience, knowing that it is a bit on the shorter side. Yeah. And I just, you know, I love kind of just seeing how tech can really kind of push a game and keep me interested.

I just love visuals. Even on the series S, which is just the only Xbox console I have at home, it was like, damn, this is looking good. Not as good as I know it can look, but even on an S,

I was like, damn. For me, it's one of those ones where it's like, this is the equivalent of being in an Indiana Jones theme park of like how the levels are set up where you were just walking around the Vatican, you were just doing side quests,

you were sneaking around and you're just doing things. And it's so, this comes back to the immersive system element of it, but I think even more so just the, how deliberate the design is and how thoughtful it is as a, all right,

what does Indiana Jones do? he's not he's not Nathan Drake like he's not out here shooting 300 people he's not a call of duty character like we know this is machine games he's just a guy he's just a dude that does shit and like in this game you're just a dude you're just a dude that does shit right like you like flying puzzles you solve them you get the relic you do the thing right and like you get points for it for like the like more knowledge based activity and all the side stuff is so fascinating like there's a there's a point later on in the game uh with the the boat area where you're kind of like boating from place to place there's a side quest that deals with like

a former student of Indiana just everything that they could do to like kind of fill out this world and have fun with it and have it loop back to the themes of the main game. It was like fuck yeah, this is red as hell. It missed out on my top 10, mainly for like, I think it's a great Indiana Jones game and I think it's a great video game. I don't see

it is like a top 10 for me, but I like it's one of those things where I do appreciate the people that hold it up there, right? Because I do think that it is maybe one of the most bold games I've played of 2024 and like so bold that I came out of my preview last year, what, November maybe October-ish, came out on

preview and I was like, uh-uh. Like this thing is not working. I'm not feeling it. Like, had so many complaints. And then I'm playing the actual game and spending hours and hours into it, right? Like, once you get it and once it clicks, it does click. And you are like, oh, shit, I see what you're doing here, right? And so, uh, shout

up to Indiana Jones. Andy, what is your number eight? My number eight. A little game called Astrobot. Mark Echoes getting up. we're going to talk about our number sevens. But before we do, I want to talk to you about patreon.com slash kind of funny, YouTube.com

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Betterhelp.com slash kind of funny. And we're back with number seven. My number seven, Animal Well. You gotta bring up your list just to see.

One sec, one sec, one sec, it's mine too. My number seven. Oh, yeah, let's talk about it together.

Yeah. Yo, Animal Wall flux. Cool video game. They're a cool video game. Yeah, like, that's one that I remember during like preview events,

like summer game fest and like day of the devs and stuff, right? Like hearing everybody else talk about. I never got to do the hands on at any of those preview events, but I would always hear other people be like, yo, like Animal Well, this shit is like fucking raw. And I'm like, is it like, okay, cool. Like I'll believe you, whatever.

But for some reason, I just never got on that train. Like I was never like a lot in like, I guess enlightened by Animal Well until we got to release. And I heard Roger talk about it and I heard other people talk about. I think I heard Andy as well talk about it. And the words that y'all used to describe it, even though I am, Metroidvania is never like the strongest selling point for me,

but like hearing you guys talk about the secrets and how cool it is and all this shit, the vibe. I'm like, you know what, man? Let's do this. Let's hop into it and damn did this game deliver. I love exploring this world. I love the process of like uncovering secrets and how I love the items you get that work as essentially abilities,

like your Metroidvania abilities that unlock more of the map or more of the stuff you can do, right? And like the creativity that is in those items, right, the ways in which you can use them, so fucking good. I guess in a lot of these preview events, I had only ever seen Animal Well being played by people, and it always looked cool visually. But until I started playing it,

I could not help but think, man, this game must have previewed like shit. Like, if I don't know how I could have sat down in that limited amount of time and gotten it and really seen the scope and seen the vision of what Billy Bassel was trying to do. but because every time I would see a demo it was somebody running from that floating ghost cat dog or whatever and running away from it

and they would die and they would do it again and they would die and until you kind of understand what the game is doing unless you're kind of sitting alone with this thing with your steam deck on and you're kind of just like no other distractions it seemed like

a game that would probably preview not great or at least I probably wouldn't take much away from if I were previewing it. But once I finally kind of dove into it and started understanding what the game was asking of me and started understanding the speak in its language,

man, it's really a mesmerizing experience. It kind of just took over and it's all I could think about and I kept thinking about all of those little things in the world that once I figured out, holy shit, those things are interactive, what the hell else am I missing in this world? And it really just kind of opens your eyes

this game is a it's really really miraculous that it exists and it exists in the state that it does where roger's talking to it's like 39 megabytes or something ridiculous like that yeah because they made it in their like own engine and all that yeah um the sound design the visual quality of it all i i really really enjoy this experience and i didn't have it as high as roger because i know that one of the moments that roger experienced he really really loved and And I loved it as well, and I felt like the other three major experiences didn't quite live up to that level. Right. So because I experienced that thing first, the rest of it was like, oh, it's done.

Oh, dang. Yeah. I was kind of hoping that there was more kind of excitement behind that, but I was still blown away by this concept. A little bit of like the freedom can fire back a little bit in terms of like how you want people to like ramp up maybe to like the bigger thing, which is, yeah, always interesting. Yeah, this was originally my number 10. and then we talked about it on a game of the year, but that Astrobot Christmas level kind of reminded me of like, oh, fuck, I really love Asherbot.

So it kicked this game off of my number 10 spot. I didn't fall in love with it as much as everybody else, but I do really enjoy it for like the vibes of just how cozy, but also unsettling it is. As in terms of like a Metroidvania without combat, I thought it was solid. I think the abilities are like the most fun things in terms of what you can do with the items that you find.

but besides that like I wasn't blown away but I also like wasn't upset like it was originally part of my top 10 because it is still a very like fun time to go through and discover everything and run away from a creepy ghost dog and like the way that all loops back like there is like smart shit where I'm like goddamn

yeah great game yeah influence in the YouTube chat it's got some of the best light bulb moments I've experienced in gaming 100% that reminds me of you know experiencing that with cocoon and just going oh my god dang that is some smart shit and mainly just feeling envious. I don't I don't even know how you begin to think of how to make a puzzle like that.

You know, it's just so mesmerizing. How do you workshop? Yeah, where you play a game and you're like, fuck, I'm so stupid. Like, I would never be able to make this. Yeah. Barrett, what is your number seven? My number seven is the rise of the Golden Idol. Oh.

Yeah, this was, this. No, it's so. And so, yeah, if you don't know the golden idol, Idol games the first game called the Case of the Golden Idol, which came out two years ago, I believe. The best way to, I don't know how to explain these games. It's like, point and click like puzzle. Puzzle game where you're kind of put into a moment in time.

It's literally just a moment happening. And you essentially have what is like a, you know, like a crime scene. Like a crime scene. Someone most likely has just died. And you're trying to figure out what just happened in this moment. And so you're clicking on items, you're clicking on, like, newspapers with words to collect words and names and all of this stuff. And you essentially have, like, what is the, like, little book where you fill out, like,

like, words and shit, like a journal or? No, no, no, no, like. Adlips. It's like adlips. Yeah, Madlips. It's like madlips, but there is, like, a very specific, like, you're not just putting in random words. You have to figure out who this person's name is.

Why are they watching this man dance right now? what is the kind of thing that they're taking away from all this stuff. And it all, the story circles around from both games, this golden idol and all the people who are surrounding it know what the golden idol does and how it's affecting all of these people on a personal level, what it's doing to the outside world. If this was the first game that came out this year, I think the first game would be higher for me personally. A case of the golden idol?

A case of the golden idol. Oh, yeah, I agree with that. I loved Case of the Golden Idol. we played both games in a weekend. Alyssa and I, like, sat down, and she got really hooked into this game as well. It's so fun to, like, kind of have, like, your different, like, oh, go, click over here

and maybe try to find, like, a word over here that we think is going to loop back to this character who might have killed this other dude. I think the writing in, or, like, the storytelling in the first game is a bit cleaner. And I think the guessing game of the kind of bigger conspiracy that you're putting together, over the course of the game, I think is more fun in the first game.

This one, it felt a bit, all right, we're going to kind of tell this story out of order. And so it's hard for you to get a grasp on, like, who the characters you should be getting connected to and all this stuff that I wasn't as much of a fan of. Yeah, it's like a weird, again, it's like Madlibs, but kind of Carmen San Diego, kind of, yeah, point in like a 90s adventure. I really like this one. Like, I played through Case, and then I started playing through Rise, and I beat Case and was upset. obsessed with Case as I played through it. And then honestly, like, I didn't get to finish Rise. I might still go back to it, but I think by the time I got about halfway through Rise,

got a little bit burnt out because I enjoyed Case better for like the story of Case and like the style and what it was doing. And then also the art style of rise didn't hit for me as much as the art. It's a little gross. It reminds you of like, because like everything's kind of more animated. It reminds you of AI art in a weird way. The way things move. The way things move.

I'm like, is this AI? Like I can't tell. I think it's like because the, just puppet tool stuff. Yeah. case of the golden idol is supposed to reflect more of like the early PC point and click thing. Yeah, like more pissilar. Now we're getting to like late 90s almost like PC point and click stuff, which I vibes with. It's definitely like gross and weird looking, but I was into it.

Yeah, and just like the story and like the meat and the sauce that they have and just like the drama around like all of these people fucking each other over for this golden idol and what the lengths that they're willing to go to to get the job done. and like the twist and turns, again, how the story is told in the second game, I wasn't as big of a fan of, but it all does come together at the end, bless. So I would encourage you to go back to it

because I think it's a fun time. One day I think I will, but yeah, and that's the thing is I love the puzzles so much in this game, right? Like, you are playing the role of a detective, essentially. You are looking at a scene and you are putting together, like, every single detail matters. And that's the thing that I can say about, like how they approach the puzzle design is you are looking at,

like what's in the drawers you can look at what's in everybody's pockets yeah and like everything tells the story of what just happened and putting it together as such a satisfying experience every scene you have to like

find the names of the people that you saw from previous scenes just so you can like have that reminder of like okay this is the person from like two scenes ago and like all this stuff and the way they tell stories through the puzzles I think is really really smart

so we're up to number six my number six Bellatro Mark Echo's getting up Barrett what's yours mine is Batman Arkham Shadow Oh my biggest Still my biggest surprise of the year

You know There's that big reaction trailer for me Reacting to the first Batman Arkham game in a very long time And it being a VR game But again that was more of my frustration With WB handling this franchise and universe But camouflage really

Fucking proved me wrong On this one And they really proved the stuff And they really proved that they understand The Arkhamverse In terms of not just gameplay mechanics and how to translate that to VR, but just the Arkham universe in storytelling and those characters.

And I think the story of Batman Arkham Shadow goes in directions that I do think get a little predictable once you get in like the first couple of hours of like, okay, I think this is the story that we're telling. But the way they write it, the emotional kind of script writing that they have throughout this game, it fucking hits. And bringing back Roger Craig Smith, bringing back Troy Baker,

I think they kept the, tradition of having a different voice actor for Gordon because every Arkham game has a different voice actor for Gordon, which I find hilarious. And yeah, it all just works. And then, yeah, translating Detective Vision, translating the really fun combat that we know how good it feels on controller and translating that to actually using your arms and fists is really cool and fun. And having this be a sequel to Arkham Origins, I thought it was really smart what they were

able to play with in terms of characters where some of these villains are at, earlier on in their journey and your relationship to how some of those villains come to fruition and being who we know them as, right? I thought it was really well done. And I, it just, it reminded me like, oh, goddamn, I want more out of this era of the Arkhamverse, the young Batman, the younger Bruce who's still learning, who still doesn't know, you know, his, his biggest enemies out there quite yet. And yeah, they got me with this one. And, There's a sequence in this that's like, they got to do it. It's VR.

They got to do this type of Batman Arkham sequence in here. And they did and they pulled it off. The last thing I'll say is if WB is smart and makes another Batman Arkham flat screen game, as the VR players call it, I think they could look at this game in terms of storytelling structure and gameplay structure to maybe break out of the Arkham mold that we have seen in four mainline games. right. I heard they call all of us flaties. Yeah, they call us flaties. They call us flat screeners. But yeah, I can't say enough nice things about it.

Like I said on the review, I compared it to a calzone. It is the, you know, it's pizza. And if you like pizza, it's just pizza in a different form. Oh, what if I get a calzone for lunch? Cyborg TV says if WB is smart and says, let me stop you right there, big man. I know, they're fucking idiots, but, you know, it's let me dream a little bit. So, yeah. that's my number six. Do we think that we'll see this ever get adapted to,

I mean, I know it's like kind of meta. Yeah, they're a meta studio. I don't think though. I think this will always be a meta exclusive. Damn. That's a, yeah, the camouflage is a studio owned by meta, unfortunately. I just think about the amount of VR games that will kind of somewhat get adapted to flat screen world, you know.

Oh, like adapted for controllers. Yeah, no, no shot. I thought you were asking if, like, this will ever come to PSVR 2 or something. Watching just the gameplay of Batman, freaking, like, zip lining to ourselves. I was like, oh, man, I feel the motion sickness and I'm not even playing. Honestly, like, I get really motion sick in, that's another thing I want to shout out is the accessibility for the VR options as well. Of, like, the way you can bring in, like, the motion where it's like, it brings it where it kind of like, it's like a black, or it's like a circle where you can see where you're going, but everything else is black. when you're running around.

And that helps me a lot actually like moving around or actually just sitting in this chair and not getting motion sick. And like, yeah, zip lining was a thing that I thought immediately like or gliding. I was like, oh, you're going to fucking throw up. But they do introduce enough here for people who don't have their sea legs in VR that I think it works very well with. And yeah, the last thing I'll say is they looked a lot at Arkham Asylum, I feel like in terms of structure and played around with that structure a lot that it just is just like, God damn.

Yeah, the Arkham series. Let me tell you about a rip-off, all right. I'm on DoorDash, and I'm on Thursday Calzone is where I'm ordering from. Thursday Calzone. And they have deals and benefits, right? Oh, bless, let's get ribs. You can get 15. I'm not getting ribs for lunch.

Is that a weird thing? Yes. Ribs for lunch is weird. Yeah, ribs are weird for lunch. He sounds disgusted to eat right now. Like, how am I supposed to get any work done after I just ate ribs? Yeah, that's crazy. You're not a child.

I'm not going to eat a rib and then be like, I fell asleep. I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to fall asleep after eating ribs. You're going to fall asleep after eating calzone, I guarantee you. 15% off up to $2? What the fuck are we talking about? First of all, the second of all, like... 30 cents off. I'm going to take a guess at Thursday Calzone Ghost Kitchen.

And then... You'll call your place Thursday Calzone on Thursday. Tomorrow, if he looks at it up tomorrow, it'll be Friday Calzone. 15% off under $30 is what it's saying, right? No, it says add $10 to apply. So if you spend more than $20, the discount stops working, right? So it'll just be you get $2. off. Yeah, but that's the, that's bullshit, though.

Because, like, the cheapest Calzone here is 30 bucks. On Monday, that's insane. On Monday, that's insane. That's insane. It's Thursday, isn't it? So I wonder if they're only open on Thursdays. But also, tomorrow, it'll be just called Friday Celsso. It is a virtual brand.

Yeah, you're right. Let's get ribs blast. You and me. I'm not going to eat ribs. $30 for Calzone? Yeah, $30 for Calzone is fucking insane. It's a 12-inch, all-meat cowsone. That's crazy.

I guarantee you it's not worth it. I can never look at you the same again if you order a 30-dollar killer. Just slur the meat through that bread. Andy, what is your number six? Number six is Dragon Age Vail Guard. So much fun. Such great combat. Really, really enjoy the combat system.

And it reminded me a lot of how much I love the Gosesusha-Sushima combat system where some people found it. It's one of those different shows for different folks things where if some people say it gets repetitive, but I'm like, I'm enjoying this so much that I'm just going to take on any combat encounter that I could find because I'm having a lot of fun with it. And partnering up with certain characters that have certain abilities because certain enemies are weak to certain elements. And maybe I know coming up, we're going to be fighting a lot of certain enemies that are weak to fire. So maybe I should bring some fire squad mates with me or always having a squad made on my side, the homie Belar. I love her so much. She had her having an ability that

sucks a bunch of enemies towards a vortex and then just going ham on all these enemies. It's just so destructive and fun, kicking dudes off the ledges. I'll never forget showing Greg the warrior class because he picked Rogue much like I was going to pick Rogue, but I enjoyed Warrior so much during the preview that I ended up going Warrior for my full play through and freaking love the Shield gameplay of it and showing Greg how the Shield top. worked and how you upgrade that. He was like, oh, this is, this feels real good. I was like, yeah, dog, I'm telling you, Warrior was just a freaking blast to play. But having a great cast of characters that I really grew to love. And I wish that I was, I wish I had my mic

recording for a lot of these gameplay moments that I was experiencing, because I was recording gameplay, but I didn't have my mic on. And there was just a whole lot of like, holy shit moments where I'm audibly yelling and shocked at what some of the story developments that were happening when it comes to either NPC deaths or just wild twist and turns. I really enjoyed the experience and I think it would have it would have probably been like 10 or 9 on my list had the ending not been so goaded. Like the final hour to maybe final hour and a half or two hours really kind of elevated and escalated the stakes and just did a lot of awesome cinematic stuff that felt, I don't know, just really well realized. I was blown away by a lot of what was happening

near the final moments. Awesome cutscenes. Just big sort of like, if I were, if I were watching this movie in the theater being like, oh my God, no way, that dude is, I loved it, had a great time with it. I could not recommend it more if you're into any sort of like fantasy RPG. amazing character creator, loved it. Nice. I really loved that character creator, and that was the furthest of it. I got into that game. Fair.

I did play the first cutscene. I was like, this looks like an E3 demo. Like, as I was, or the first sequence. Like, as I'm playing, I was like, this looks so fucking good. Yeah. My number five. Dragon Ball Sparking Zero. Ooh.

A game that is like, that's definitely like a personal pick. It's one that like, I stand by as far as the quality of it, but I think even more so hits so strongly for me because it is a dream video game. this video game should not exist. Like in no world should Dragon Ball sparking zero be the type of game that it is and also be the level of quality that it is for being a 3D arena anime fighter that is harkering back to games that came out in the mid-2000s, right? Like I forget when Teng Kaiichi 3 came out must have been like 07.

Yeah. For Wii or something, right? For PS2 where I played it. But this is one that like, again, for if I'm to take myself back to when I was playing this as a kid. I was obsessed with Tengai-I-E-G-E-G-E-G-R-I-G-E-G-R-I-E-G-T-S. It started off of Budakai, played all the Budakai games, played the Ten-Kai-E-Gi games,

and the thing that I love about those games the most is how much I felt like I am a character in the anime. I'm flying around the Cell Games arena. I am Goku, and I'm transforming into SuperSyand-2, and I'm fucking punching Freeza in the face, right? Like, I am living out these dreams of being these characters that I watched on screen, and Dragon Ball Sparking Zero takes all of the things

that made that game fun, which is essentially making two action figures beat each other up. They took that. They applied such a ridiculous amount of style to it. This game is amazing to look at. It is one of the best looking games that I've seen as far as presentation and art style. It looks fantastic. It plays so fluid. It plays incredibly, right?

Like they kept a lot of the same types of moves, special moves, abilities, all that stuff. And a lot of it still clicks and works in 2024, which is. amazing, right? They saw all the things that people loved about these games back in the day, retained all of it, and uplifted it. Love the story mode, love the what-of scenarios, and I loved how they packed it all. The one thing,

like, there was a time, like, in the midst of this game coming out and me putting in tens of hours into it, I think there was one panel where as I was talking about it, there was a moment where I was like, oh shit, this might be my game of the year, dude. Yeah? This might be the game of the year. Yeah, and like, at the end of the day, it lands at number five because the online is shit.

like there was a there was a early bug that I'm has to patch it out by now I imagine where every match I would hop into

or not every like a 50% chance of the matches I hop into my control scheme would be fucked up because I played on like the classic controls and that was a bug that I kept getting and like online that ruined the experience quite a bit but even more so than that

the game is just not balanced in the year in the years that I've been playing peccanate and street fighter and other fighting games right like there's a level of expectation that I've come to have for online experience and balancing and the balancing and like just the online experience is just so trash

to the point where it's like I can't I can't even give a bail right it's one thing for yesterday on KFCD me Tim and Barrett were talking about Marvel rivals and how like they're adding in all these characters and like the conversation of balance came up and Barrett and fuck Balancing just have fun Berid and Tim were out of the mind of like fuck balance and to some extent like I understand that I'm kind of with you guys for this game it is so badly balance where it's like don't have online.

Like don't have, don't let me match with random people online if this is the level of like unbalanced it is because I think like when I'm just playing against bots, if I'm just playing with my homie like, you know, doing whatever right? Like the game shines. The game is fun, right? But you

have that online mode and so there's a level of competency you gotta have that you're gonna have that and it's just really bad. But aside from that, right? Outside of that, game's fucking fun. Like way more fun than it should be. It's gorgeous. I wish I was more into the combat. I can't wrap my brain around the combat. Yeah, it's more so like, what was it?

Dragon Ball Z. What was the 2D fighter? Spider-Z? Oh, Spider-Fiders. Yeah, the game kicked ass. And if, like, if there was a bit more, like, I know that fighting game also had a bit more of a complex, like kind of traditional fighting game,

2D type of thing. But, like, if there was that level input for this 3D, like, oh, man, I would have been all over it. I'm hoping that there's maybe even mods out there that could make, you know, similar to when an older game comes out and they say, hey, here's a modern control screen that you can download for this mod or whatever, or something big, because I struggled with that as well, like the, just flying around and getting around, even though when I rented these games as a kid,

that's how I played it, but it just couldn't, it's like when you, where some people stop gaming once they introduce the right stick, because your brain, some people's brains just could not handle. I have to control where I look as well. I can't do that. Never mind, I'm good with video games. I feel like my brain can't do that with the older control schemes that they offered. And I was pitched on it as like, oh, please, like armor.

You'd pitch it on it like Armour Corps 6. I was like, fuck yeah, let's go. I was like, there's still a bunch of like fucking like, what is it, combos that I need to know like off the top of my head. I was like, oh, man. If I were to, look, I know every developer puts, all their love and heart and soul into these video games. But if I were to have an award for like the most love put into a video game,

it would be this tied with Astrobot in Astrobot in terms of like all the tiny details in Astrobot and all the tiny details put into this with all of this gigantic roster. And sure, some of them may just be color swaps and clones or whatever. But it's still wow that even that effort was put into the first place. Where if you show me this roster, I'd say, oh, that's the roster after two and a half or three years of development where you're constantly getting drops in DLC. Like, no, that's, that's launched. Like, to be clear, right? Like, I forget the number. It's probably like 180 or something around somewhere like that. And like, most of them aren't color swaps. Like, even the go, the, I mean,

there's a billion goos, but they all have their individual movesets. Like, they all have unique animations for their special moves, right? Like, there is a crazy amount of love put into it. And for people, like, people in chat coming at me for like the balancing thing of what do you expect. Like, obviously, like, I didn't come into this game expecting tech and eight level of balance. Don't get me wrong. Like this is what I expected. It's still a flaw. Like it's still a thing that's there and like that's still a thing that brings it down even if it's a If I expect a game to be bad and it's bad, guess what? It's bad, right? If you happen to a feature of the game that is less than favorable and Yeah, ruins the experience a little bit. You're like, ah, that stinks. And to be clear, I think there is a level of unbalanced that I think this game could still work online My problem is that it's so bad that I don't find the online fun and that is where the problem

problem lies here. It's not that it's not like a perfectly balanced. You've been heard. You've been heard. Thank you, Barry. Thank you, Barry. And we appreciate your opinion. We're listening. We're listening to you. Barry, what is your number five? My number five is Balatro. Mark Echo? Is Mark Echo? I think you had it lower, right? I had a lower. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know what else is there to say about Bellotro. Belotro is just, it became that comfort. I don't want to play a big story game on my TV. Let me now pull up my fucking phone and just have fun going through and trying all the different decks in this rogue like card game, where you're kind of learning what actual like poker hands are and all this stuff.

And just having fun with breaking the game. That's my, that's my favorite thing. It's like, all right, here's these set rules. Now, here are all these jokers that you can collect and try to figure out fun combinations with all of these jokers that will help you get the most insane scores. I've never gotten like the 1.10 E. kind of shit where I'm completely breaking it because I'm stupid, but

still, like, being able to master some of these decks and have a lot of fun of combining suits or prioritizing certain types of cards, whether it's like sevens or tens and just having fun with it, like it was easily, I think,

probably, probably over Pokemon TCG Pocket, my most played game this year, because I own it on like three different things. And, you know, it can't be understated that Alyssa does not play games, except for one game a year she'll always find, and this was her game. She saw me playing Bellatro

on my phone, she was like, hey, how can I play that? And I was like, well, you'd have to spend 10 bucks to play it on your phone. She's like, I don't want to do that. And I was like, well, they conveniently had sent us the physical copy on Switch. And I was like, all right, I'm going to bring this home so you can play it on your Switch. And yeah, had a lovely time. There's so much you could say about it.

That's my thing. It's like I mentioned, it was my number six, and I don't need a wax poetic on it, right? We talked about it during Game of the Year, but it's the fact that the game is nearly like a perfect game, if not a perfect game, right? Like, it's hard for me to find a flaw within Balacho. It's addicting, it's fun. I hope they make more, like,

I hope they release more Jokers. I need to go back to it to see if there's any, like, fun updates or anything. Yeah, I think my only criticism of it is that I wish the themed decks of like the collaborations that they're doing with like cyberpunk. I wish those weren't just cosmetic. I wish they added in different things for those decks, but I know there's already so much going on in the back. end of how to make all of these cards work together

that I get it but when I was like oh let me like put replace this with cyberpunk and whatever and didn't really change anything I was like ah man I was hoping for more Andy what is your number five Never Oh

Never never Tim really fuck me on this Never freeze that's crazy that he forgot about this game Really fuck me on it I got tech into number 10 so I'm happy Yeah it's unbelievable Neva is a a very small game by Nomada Studio,

and they made Gris, and Nevo is their follow-up. Incredible art style. Beautiful story. And it's a game that just super respects your time. It's a game that isn't going to, it isn't going to try to outdo itself in a whole lot of moments when it comes to what the game mechanics are.

It's all pretty simple, and you will occasionally get a new ability that might help for a future boss or whatever. But this is less of a game that you're hopping into to experience an incredible Metroidvania or to experience just side-scrolling, precision jumping with incredible combat. It is way more of an experiential.

All of that stuff is there as well. And it's very competent and it's good. I wouldn't say it's amazing, but the package that it's in telling you this story about just like persistence and loss. And it's so gorgeous and beautiful and it made me tear up multiple times. Soundtrack is absolutely incredible whenever these big moments crescendo and every feeling in your body is just like going haywire. it's like holy shit my my synapses are just firing nonstop it's so gorgeous um and it's maybe four hours long yeah could not recommend it more please play neva so studio no mada can keep on making experiences like this it's lovely it's gorgeous and more importantly i think it um

it's just one of those small concise experiences that is not going to drag out the what it isn't going to just like make you level up and do all this gamified stuff i i just love how simple it is in bare bones but it's incredible and tim really fuck me on that uh if this came out in 2019 before i got lulu i would easily play this but show me a dog or like a wolf in a trailer and it's a companion i know where that shit's going it's just so i'm not emotionally i'm not emotionally ready to do that no i'll never play it fuck dude i did boot up i played a little bit it i like it it's cool Uh, number four. My number four is Astrobot.

Any marks? Any Mark echoes? No. Okay. Let's talk about Astrobot being my number four. It was number eight on mine. It was number eight and then Bear, what was it for you? Ten. What a good game. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. If you listen to the game of the year episode, we talk about it a lot there. So I think you can... Yeah, it was a kind of funny goateety. Kind of funny goateety. It's a charming experience. Exactly my type of platformer aside from like, I like him a little bit like... Or open, but like,

yeah. Yeah. The zipper is great. Yeah. Good zipper. It's a nice reminder of like, hey, a studio outside of Nintendo's core team can make a fucking fantastic 3D platformer.

And this genre of game shouldn't just be left to Nintendo. Like other people can do this. Because we're in such an age where not a lot of studios try to do the 3D platformer in a big way. Yeah. And I hope it brings in a renaissance,

obviously from the Atrobat team, but hopefully from some other studios to be reminded of where we came from. I also just don't... I don't love that everything is a bot. I'm with you. I don't love that everything has a faceplate with blue eyes. Like, I just don't like it.

This is the games cast I want to do with you. Please. And maybe Tim too, actually, because Tim is team doesn't love the Astrobot design. I want to pitch Astrobat too and talk about, like, the story and how do you approach the villain? I want to see him in feudal Japan.

I want to paint the world of Astrobat 2, right? And like pitch it. Because like give me, what's the enemy of a robot? Like a virus. I had a, I'll tell you what. I like that. Look, virus man. At one point, Andy Cortez watched the movie Conair when he was like 10.

And he had a character that he drew and created for a video game that he wanted to make when he was about 10 years old. I saw out drawings of it. The character's name was Bleepo. Stupid little robot guy. It was just a Mega Man rip off. But who was the enemy? Cyrus the virus.

That was the boss. And he had all of his virus underlings or whatever. But Cyrus the virus was one of the characters in Conner, the movie. So I just stole that name. But I just love the idea that, like, he's a digitized dude that is, like, coming to take you out. It's just like, when I look at this game, it is so perfect in every way.

And I just cannot stand these enemies. die with a mustache, all right? I'm gonna be the one to say. You don't. You need a guy with a mustache to be the villain. We need a humanoid. To be the villain. Yeah. He's gotta have like green. It's fighting words. We need Dr. Wiley. We need a robotnik. You need like somebody when I ask

Virus X. When I asked for like the enemy of robots, a couple people in chat said Elon Musk. And I'm not saying because fuck Elon Musk. We don't need a verbatim Elon Musk, right? But like, I could see like an inspired, just a sorry ass man with money who's like in the tech world. Super divorced. Super divorced. As a villain of Astrobot. We need a... 13 kids. We need a dude. We need a dude with a mustache.

Yeah, but yeah, the game's really good. Really good game. Very good game. Very good video game. But I just don't like everything's got the Wally eyes. Wow. It's cute. What was the robot? It was like the main boss? The main guy? Green. I can see him. The alien did? Oh, alien. Yeah, he's the fucking... This just sucks. Oh, what do they say? His name was like, Bermatax? Uber. Oh, that was something stupid.

It was like, it was. glib glib. Nebula. Nebula. There's no way. They just stole that from Ratchet, I'm pretty sure. All right. Barrett. What's your number four? Uh, my number four. Nine souls. Me too. Yeah. That's how we got it on that fucking list. Let's go. That was my biggest surprise of like, I can, I did not fathom that making the top ten for kind of funny. Dog, so happy. One of the final, one of the, one of the last two bosses, you talked about how your final, the final, the final boss. was like the most satisfied you had. That music and the amount of parrying that you have to do and like the move sets

in that, so satisfied. It was amazing. It was incredible. But the fight before that has you again, because the sound effect and the satisfaction you get from from nailing a parry. It's just like a like a little sound effect. And there's an enemy

that teleports on both sides of you blessing and shoots projectiles at you and shoots them from both sides and keeps teleporting back and forth and you have to go thing, ding, ding, thing, thing. But it's also raising you up. Like, it's using, you're using that for traversal as well, so like when they're up

in the air, you can strike them. Nine Souls is, it keeps so much ass. It's Shuehiyushita's game of the year. Going to the one zone and like, you know, these little, you know, the dudes of the big hammers, you know, start and you're like, oh, I have my charge parries. Yeah, like

now I can parry shit. Yeah. The Metroidvania design, I think, is really incredible in terms of of mechanics that you're unlocking through it. Like I said on Game of the Year, the combat is just 2D Sekiro. It's the game that got me to play Sekiro. It's very, very satisfying

and how you're able to integrate defense with offense. It's fucking awesome. And a really incredible story, which I was not expecting. Yeah, you have to read a lot. But once you give your, like let yourself kind of give into what the story is about,

like I said on Game of the Year. It is about leadership and them coming to terms with their responsibility of the people that they lead in terms of crisis. And this very much was one of two games that felt like a reaction to the pandemic. Dude, but I mean, just any time

you are dealing with these characters and their backstories and seeing a glimpse of as to what you went through because if you're not reading all of the lore throughout the game, these may just seem like random-ass bosses. And of course, they'll talk to you every once in a while and you go, oh, okay, you're bad because of X, Y, and Z.

But then after beating them, seeing their back soaring, go, man, that is just the most perfect Dark Souls tragic tragedy that you could experience. I love it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. This game rocks so much. Yeah, this isn't the Prince of Persia camp for me where it's like, man, if I can go back and delete a game and then play a different game, like, I don't know what game I'll delete to play nine souls, but I'd find it.

Compared to last year where, you know, one of the videos I put. out. One of the Vod titles I put was I think it was like don't why play Silk Song we have blasphemas or why wait for Silk Song you have blasphemous too. This is the Metroidvania this year

like this is the one that is going to really really stun you if you care about story and awesome NPCs with great character development and just kick ass combat. Yeah. Can't grind though. Can't grind though.

Can't grind. grind for money but that's pretty much it Yeah you're not really ever Going out, killing a bunch of dudes Sitting back down and suddenly you have more souls That you could level up with The leveling up system was a little slower and tougher

But yeah Still damn good I think that's a very criticism Yeah We're down to our top three My number three Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Mark Echo's getting up

Whoa Bear what's your number three? My number three is Persona 3 reload Yeah, it's a weird contradictory thing, right? With this being my third favorite game of the year, but it is reload as a remake that is solidified. Persona 3 is an entity as my second favorite game of all time.

It's contradictory, I know, but like looking at my... Say that one more time. So like Persona 3 Reload is my third favorite game from 2024, but what Reload does as a remake has solidified persona 3 just as an entity without the remake, without like, just as a whole as my second favorite video game of all time. Like, I was already in love with the original Persona 3

or Fez, what have you, and I kind of looked at reload for my top 10 this year as what it does as a remake, and I think it's an amazing remake. I think what they were able to do with, like, the voice cast, like who they castes these characters after so long, after being so beloved by this fandom, I think, was very,

impressive and kind of just seeing it get a just the touch up it needed to be able to live longer in terms of conserving video games I think was really important and just adding little bits to combat that doesn't feel too easy like a persona five royal but adding those modern day elements that persona five really introduced to make the flow of combat feel a bit smoother to make the grind of playing throughout the entire game going throughout 250 levels of Tardis feel way quicker. I would still say like the biggest thing against it is the structure of Tartarus, how many levels are going up and all that stuff.

But it's hard to reimagine that without completely taking it away because that is such a core of what the game is. And yeah, like replaying this when we did just also just kind of broke me in a way. We talked about it a little bit on the review and like I don't think we did a spoiler cast. but a lot of this game is about death, and, like, I had played it before, so I knew a lot of the stories that we were going to get in terms of confidence,

in terms of, like, the main theme of the game. And we were reviewing this in a time where a close friend of ours, or, like, a friend of ours from the kind of funny best friend community, we knew was about to pass soon, Nabashin, who we've known for a very long time, and it was hard to play through this game.

knowing what Nabashin was going through. There's a character in this game who's a confidant or whatever you call them in Persona 3 that is terminally ill and they do know they are going to pass soon and it just... It was tough to get through this game again but I think it came out for me

when I needed it most and yeah, a lot of this game is replaying it even though as a remake, I think it's like a 9 out of 10 amazing. I think just seeing this story all come together again, especially when I replayed it, it is like really solidified. It's like one of my favorite

and most important games for me. One of those games that I, you know, I put on my hating ass hater cap after that lovely, those lovely words from Barrett about our good friend, Brian, Nabish and the homie. I look at that game and I go, Man, visually that looks so much better than metaphor. Yeah.

You know, like I, and I think it's an acquired taste. I think like when metaphor gets nominated for best art direction, I'm like, house way. Like, you know, like I think this looks so much cooler and more appealing. And I think it's not only just the, maybe it's just the setting. Was metaphor in Unreal? I forget. I know reload was.

I forget if metaphor actually made the jump to. It just looks awesome. we saw there. It looks very clean. It looks very like, it's slick. Yeah, it's very slick. Yeah. And that's like the style, like persona three established the style of persona and like the way that they were able to kind of adapt that to modern day. It was very impressive. Yeah, this was my number eight. And this was a game that like kind of helped define my 20, 24 as far as video games where it came out in February. And I started playing it then. I probably played maybe 20, 30 hours before. like I switched. I was tech in this were like my back and forth for like a good month or so and then put it down and a few months later, picked it up and then put it down in a few months later. Like I was playing about 10 to 20 hours at a time of this game

throughout the year. This was the game that made you say no more 80 hour RPGs. Yes. While we're there, right? A new declaration for the new year, 2025. Can we give us one? Chat. Don't ask me for shit. All right? Stop texting me or stop, do you guys know my number. Stop DMing me. Stop being in my replies talking about, bless, when are you going to beat this?

RPG, when are you going to beat that RPG? Bro, just say it to me. I don't have it. You too, Barrett. I don't have the time. All right? You think it's easy to find 80 hours? I don't have 80 hours laying around.

And so like between persona, between metaphor, between these long ass RPGs, God damn, stop asking me for shit. All that said, wow. What a game. It's a beautiful game. What an ending.

When I tell you the ending, put this thing on my top 10 so hard. Like that game knows how to wrap up. That's why I was trying to push you for that ending because I knew that ending was gonna like, it was gonna hit you, I think in a lot of ways that it hits a lot of people. Like I said in my persona video essay,

like that game is so much about the fear of death and being able to let go of the fear of death is choosing how you want to live with no, uh, and choosing to live with no regrets at the end of your life. It's why I have this persona three tattoo. That means a lot to me like burn my dread as a theme. Yeah.

For the entire game. is just it fucking hits in so many ways. Probably one of my, probably my favorite song in a video game this year with Color Your Night. Oh, Color Your Night. That's a fucking Bob of 2024.

And yeah, like, again, talking about, like, playing it throughout the year. Whenever I would pick this game back up, it would always just be the happenstance of it is the exact season that I'm in, right? Like, I, when I'm playing this game in, like, March or April, it is March or April in the game.

When I pick it up in the summer, guess what? I am playing through the summer sequence. It was crazy, like, playing this on getting to Christmas on Christmas Day as I'm playing this video game. And, like, it pretty much, yeah, being the game that always persisted throughout the year, it was this in Tekken. And, like, you know, you talk about the relationships you making this game. I think there is, like, a large middle portion of this game that gets kind of slow and a little bit dry. Yeah, you definitely feel the age a little bit.

Felt it definitely. But, like, you definitely still, they'll have those moments where it's like, damn. And, like, this was one where I feel like whenever I play a persona game, there's always something that's like a, damn, that hit me, right? And like, for me, it's the same character that you're talking about as far as, like, there's a character who knows that they're dying. And I found that character very late. And I had, like, the moment of the, I can, you can only hang out with that character on one day out of the week. Yes. And I did the math as I was, like, zeroing in, I'll finish in the game.

And the last week I could hang out with that character was, like, one week too short for me to actually finish that social link. So I, like, did the ninth one. and then knowing like, oh, this is my last time I'm gonna see this guy. I'm not gonna get to like, did you ever like look up on YouTube like how that ends? No.

Oh my God. But it was like such a heartbreaker of like, what you're able to like leave behind even like the, the story he has of the highs, the ups and downs of knowing that you're going to die soon and what you're able to end grappling with what you leave behind after you die. But like for me, I think that's the magic video games is that I got to the ninth one

and like the heartbreaker was that I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to get to finish with this guy. right like i'm not going to get to finish the story and i know like a lot of stories he's not going to get a lot of people like have problem with the calendar system i i like it for that i like that it's like you know you're just naturally playing you're naturally hanging out with things and you have moments like that that might still hit for you even though it's a mechanic that's preventing you from doing something um Andy what's your

number three three question mark three is 80s two early access wow I feel like we should make a rule like I think we need to make a rule of DLC and early access. Because like, I'm of the mind with the same way that we, you know, when old Jeff Keely, you know, hits us up and it's like, time for voting. Like, I'm of the mind that if you tell me I can't do it, totally fine. But if I can, I'm not going to not shout out some of my favorite gaming experiences. I mean, we did have a conversation as a voting group of what we were.

would allow. I personally am against early access, but I kind of had to take that loss there a little bit because I think more people were okay with early access, it being new content throughout the year. But yeah, hey, if it was one of your favorite experiences of this year. I mean, it was, but, you know, will I put it on next year's list as well to put it in? I'm not going to not give it points and give it its shine. Do I want this game to climb up as high as possible on our list. It's the weird thing where I didn't, I didn't include it because it's early access. Same. Right? Because like for me, if I'm talking about the best games of the, again, this is all personal, so it really doesn't matter. But like, when I'm thinking of like the best

games of the year, I'm not going to put a game that like didn't, doesn't have like a finished ending above an Astrobot or like a game that I feel like is, oh, this is like a complete thing because I don't know, if it was a 1.0, then I wouldn't do that. Right. Like if a game came out in that state in 1.0, I'm not going to be like, oh, and that's better than X, XYZ thing. But I digress. I think for a personal list, yeah, like fucking Hades 2 is fucking awesome.

Oh, yeah, I mean, it's number three on mine. I freaking love this video game and I will continue to love it and I just cannot stop playing it. I'm about 67 hours now in this video game.

I can't stop playing it. And there are so many early access games that I always promise I'll eventually get back to when that new 1.0 or whenever that new gigantic content drop happens. And it's so rare for me actually do that but because this game is so easy to consume and doesn't require a whole lot of like if I want to play this game I kind of have to be in the right mental state it doesn't really

require that it is as fun as any sort of arcade game could possibly be and a game that requires such a little of your mental state and such a little amount of like your mood depends on whether you can enjoy Hades. A lot of games fall into those little niches for me. Hades too does not. I can enjoy it and experience it whenever and however I'm feeling whatever console whether I'm on my PC or my Steam deck. It's lovely and I will continue to sing its praise as much like everybody has

because the game just kicks ass and Super Giant destroyed it again. And yeah, this is going to be an all-timer. But if all of us came together and said no more early access, I'd be like totally fine. I won't put on my list. All right. My number two. Metaphor Re Fantasia.

Mark Echo's getting up. Fair, what's your number two? My number two is a thousand times resist. Yeah, this was an indie game that I did not really know about until reviews came out. Shout out to a friend of the show Natalie who reviewed this and like sung this game's praises. I think to a level that a lot of us in the kind of like podcast. video game podcast circles. We're like, oh shit, we got to pay attention to this game.

But yeah, fucking really cool at the start, sci-fi visual novel, quote-unquote, where you live in a society of clones, and you're all cloned after this one girl who is seemingly the only survivor of a world-ending event. And you start off the game, killing the girl that you're all cloned after.

and from there you kind of go back in time to see what is the context of all of this. And where the story goes, I don't think you could ever, like starting it up, ever really imagine what's going on here. But the themes and the story go in so many different directions that I think is very impressive. I think the main one is how the game uses like kind of systems of power and people who, are wanting to gain power through big traumatic

societal like ending quote unquote events to gain power and using that almost as a interesting foil and mirror

to generational trauma and what it's like to be a mother and what it's like to oppose something that has come before you and yeah, I think it's a fantastic game.

I think it is a must play. I think it's the story I think it's going to be looked back at as like, kind of like one of the more important stories in the 2020s told. This is the other game that I think is very much kind of an analysis, at least my personal top 10 of the pandemic and what kind of people empower, like used to kind of gain from that. There's also a commentary about the Hong Kong, protests that's used to just talk about

familial strife, man. Familiar strife, but also just power dynamics, macro and micro that I think is all told very well. And all of these different threads are told in such impressive ways that they can unravel all at the same time. And they all hit on like the same emotional level that it doesn't feel jarring. Like not just the story of the game, but how it's told, I think is like one of the most impressive things to come out of 2024.

This game without any of its analysis, themes would be just one of the coolest sci-fi stories anyway. But because of all the stuff that you can like thematically relate to, I think is so awesome. And this, this was really close to making my top 10. Fucked us. It, uh,

it hit a, uh, near the end, I felt like I was playing about seven different epilogs. Yeah. Um, but as I'm playing those, these,

you know, they're not even epilogs. They're just part of the game. but I always felt like the game was about to end. And then a new thing was I'd be like, oh man, this game's still going. And then I'd be like, never mind, I don't care because it's really good.

And what they're still telling, the story that they're still telling is still incredible. And this new sort of thing that's been unwoven here, what is happening here now? Because I'm so interested in how they're telling it. If I was a billionaire, I'd give this developer more money to just make the game better looking,

and just kind of, but like, that's just all personal preference because I think it's still so, it's obviously a very small team who worked on this. And a team made up of people who have never made a game before. Yeah, it's not the most polished looking thing by any means. But one thing I wish they would have done a bit more with is because gameplay-wise, there's not a whole lot there, right? Yeah, it's like, it's most, for the most part of walking sim,

and you're kind of exploring, putting clues together and solving very, very, like, story. puzzle. And because of the character you're playing, you have this technology that allows you to, boom, you use your left hand to hit a thing and you go back in time or at a different place or you go... You're in the same like

area, but you go into like a different point in time in that same area. And I wish that they use that a couple more times in the game, similar to like the Titan Fall 2 level whatever it's got. Like you have that moment near the beginning of the game where you see a door kind of blocked off. You're like, how do

I get in there? Doing change the time. Oh, it's open now. Oh, cool, that's opening up here. And I thought there was going to be more, I thought there were going to be more elements like that. And that was, I think, like, maybe the only moment that that mechanic exists. You're still constantly going forward back in time,

but you're not really ever playing with the environment around you. So I kind of wish there was a bit more there. But it's still just like, I would love to see this get adapted into like something. It's just such a, it's such a creative story. I have it as, it's my narrative of the year, Right? Like my score of the air. Like that's what I had. That's why it's my number two. And like I have it at my number 10 because the gameplay stuff for me doesn't hold up in it. Right. Like it's one of those things where it was a struggle. Like I had to push myself through this game. Like there are parts where you had to find things in like the hub area. But the hub area is very big and interconnected in really weird ways. And like there's not a strong enough map to like. Apparently a map was updated into the game. And I even still I think I even after the map was updated, I think I still had more to play. And so like, but like even still, right? Like I do think that there's.

so many gameplay things. I'm with Andy as far as the places that you can take it. But regardless, I think the story stuff is so strong and so interesting and so very well told that it uplifts it so much. And I hope other devs look at the studio and are inspired of what they can do to the storytelling

in the video game medium and how it feels so much like we're still scratching the surface in that respect. Yeah, really rocked out. It was I think it was like 12 or 13. God, so close. Andy, what's your number two? Final Fantasy 7 rebirth.

Let's talk about it. That was my number three. I don't think it was on Barrett's list. I thought about it for a while. I just think it's my favorite combat system in a very long time. I love the strategy that goes along with it to kind of interweave, you know, fast Twitch pairing if you want to play that way.

I just love the strategy that goes behind it. But I was just blown a, way by the level of quality across a lot of different aspects, whether it's storytelling or the amount of love put into, even though I didn't vibe with a lot of the side activities, there's still just so much love poured into every kind of corner of this world. And I think by far this one felt like there was a much larger leap in character performance and character development and maybe that's just you know maybe just

whatever they're telling you part one there wasn't a whole lot of space for things to develop but I was just a lot more impressed by the performances that we got here and I just I don't know I just really enjoyed the experience it was just a lot of fun had some really wild surprises

and yeah I just don't rig I don't even the Kate Sith level that nobody liked I didn't I never hated it you know I hate it I hate it I hate that. I think I, once I realize like, all right, enough of these like segways or whatever. And back when I was a stupid idiot fucking dude and was like, I've been ignoring Queensblood this whole time.

And now you're going to make me play on this boat. This is stupid as hell. Huh? You could skip it, I think. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I was just like, all right, I'm going to have to learn this thing. Everybody loves it.

And obviously you fall in love with Queensblood. I think the story just goes in a lot of different wild places that, can be super confusing. And yes, I watched the Maximilian dude video. And it certainly helped out my experience a lot more. But was still shocked with how much I was gleaning from the story as I was going along as somebody who never experienced seven to begin with. Like, who's only ever seen memes and has only ever, who's only ever sort of been aware of Final Fantasy 7 as a pop culture icon without ever knowing what the full story. story is. I was still kind of surprised

that by the end of it, me and Mike are like, oh, okay, so is it, so that, is that, what's really, all of that stuff I really enjoy. I know it can get obtuse and kind of frustrating for people who want, I know Barrett didn't love the ending. For me, it's still like kind of landed for me quite a bit because I... It's not even that it's

obtuse, it's just from like a storytelling, like emotional and plot standpoint, it feels like a coward's way out of how they decided to end that game. And that's all I'll say, because I don't want to like spoil shit, but it felt like a, I can't choose between one or the other, so let's choose neither. And it's like, what the fuck are we doing here?

Oh, no, I really, I really loved it. And yeah, I just, it was just one of those sort of, what an achievement, what an accomplishment to have this big of a game be turned around that quickly and still have such emotional resonance. Yeah, that's the crazy thing for me is that, like, this game, it's almost the opposite of a thousand times resist, where, like, thousand times resisted is a team that made a game and they had the resources that they had and, like, told a story that was a banger.

Whereas this game feels like it has like the most budget in AAA AAA, triple Aness, AAA is just thrown at it, right? Of like, damn, these characters look amazing. Damn, these environments are big and beautiful. Damn, like, there's so much voice acting, so much, like, so many set pieces. So much everything. So much everything. And I think to have, like, that level of AAA, but also still retain a level of, like,

magic and charm and character stuff that, like, really hits. It's, again, this game felt like being in a theme park. This game felt like, you know, playing something that like Disney made. It felt bigger than life in so many of its moments. And like, yeah, like for a game to like have that level of prestige and that level of money around it, but still like be able to hit me and like, you know, have me feeling like, I don't know, the first time I felt watching, I don't know, it's a good Disney movie.

Aladdin. The first time I felt watching Aladdin. Hercules. I don't watch Hercules. Atlanta is better. Lion King. real for this story. Lion King, yeah. Just like getting immersed in a world and story.

Like, what's one of those ones? I can show you the world. Yeah, I think Aladdin's probably the good one. Yeah. I love Aladdin. You're thinking Hercules. Brink. Number one. Brink is a good one. Emperor is. Sorry, really quick, just because people get upset whenever I talk about the ending of the game. I think

yes, a thing can be a part of a trilogy and be building up, but it can still be bad within the context of just itself. And that's just my personal take. We don't have to agree. We don't have to agree. And it's fine. cannot like the ending and you can really love the ending you can't let the jacket you can't you can't it fucking annoys me every time i feel you i feel you listen somebody earlier said i'm a bad gamer and i want fucking c j splittson i hope you never come back

fuck you cj splitson we love we love you cd and also i can love rebirth and hate it at the same time i had a lot of fun with that game but still have a lot of complaints about watching you cj uh our number ones tecinate is my number one um again i'm not gonna wax proetic because I already have it got it got into our top 10 god bless let's fucking fucking crazy another game that defines my 2024 played it all throughout the year went to evo made friends because of it right got real good at it too like come fight me in tech and take and a you know play it against Xavier woods and cofi king i hear from chat though that you're not a real fuck cj splits in all right come fight me in tec and eight fucking coward um love you see j

love you see actually no and he loves it um wait a game that also just has so much good production to it right looks incredible story's great, plays incredible, right? I feel like checks every box of what makes a good game, a good game, a good game, a good fighting game in terms of like amount of content that's in and how they uplift that content. What makes a good action name, a good action game, right? Like, mechanically, it's so sound.

Yeah, shout out of Tekkenate. That's my game of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Barrett Corny, what about you? My game of the year is metaphor refantasio. We talked about it already for kind of funniest game of the year. I'm happy that it made the list. And yeah, there's not really much else to say.

We talked about it so much. I just missed my boy, Basilio. So that's really all I want to say. And I also want to, you know, it's proof. Because there's a small group of people who are like, ah, it's not fair that Bear gets to vote and he counts the vote. What if he cheeses the vote? The fact that Final Fantasy 7 rebirth was higher than metaphor on our top 10 should be proof enough

that I don't fuck with the vote. So anyways, metaphor is a fantastic game. It truly feels like a grand adventure. It truly feels like this generation's Final Fantasy 7. in terms of just exploring an entire world and getting lost in it and falling in love with every corner of it. The dungeon crawling is really fun and satisfying the gameplay is on a level

that I couldn't have imagined for a kind of persona and like the level of depth to tactics and all that stuff. The characters story, all that, truly wonderful. The art direction, truly fantastic. I understand that persona 3 reload looks cleaner, but I think three reload I feel like is a little bit uninspired in terms of art direction compared to metaphor

and track of the year I'll say it that battle theme It's one of those games that I If all of the world came together and was like This is the game of the year I'd be like yeah Makes sense yeah I could I could tell from what I played Both IGN and GameSpot individually giving it their games of the year It was like fucking crazy

Could just tell that the level of quality was out of this way And like that's the thing is I love that 2024, when we're talking about the two sides of the game of the year, it is metaphor of the fantasyo and Astrobat. We got it right in 2024, guys. We got it right. Pack it up. All right. Good year. And also, my number two. Love it for all the reasons, Barrett said. Andy, what's your number one?

Elder Ring, Shadow of the Earth Tree. Another rule broken. Another DLC. My second DLC on my list. I think DLC is fine. Second DLC and three if you count the early access. It's a 50-hour DLC. It's fucking fine. Maybe it's anything on his list. Where's deadlock on there? A game that doesn't exist yet.

I mean, I have my O-L-I's. You want my OLLIs, my outside looking in. Beep. Oh, instead of honorable mentions, you're outside looking ins. I like that. Yeah, it's a levitart thing. Your Ollie's. Yeah, Eldon Ring, I mean, I don't know, just, it hit,

surpass every sort of expectation I could have had for it. I still think the, I still think that initial gameplay trailer is one of the most hype things ever. Seeing all the new different combat types and shit. and it really is not just like the not just the locations of the combat but it's like those those first

lines read by Ansbach and him saying like mickle of the kind blah blah blah it's truly terrifying I forget the exact words but it's just like one of the coolest line deliveries you've ever heard in your life

and set the stage for a really wild adventure that I would have never expected because so much of from software, video games are happening not or they're happening around you and this one really felt like it was happening with you yes you've experienced so many from software games where you are uncovering history and uncovering these ruins of a past and an enemy you the boss you fight has been

sitting there for billions a year they've already gone through their character arc yeah they were great once and now they are broken or they were evil once and now they're trying to become worse or whatever the hell the case may be. But the idea that this game felt so kind of happening in real time with you, with these side characters and having those side characters ultimately, once that curse is broken from Mickelah, where everybody's like just in love and being chill, and that curse is broken and suddenly all of these side characters are like,

hey, I think they're trying to fuck me over. And having that all sort of, having that all sort of come to a head. in that one moment where... And sometimes play out differently depending on what you do. Dude, it's just so cool, man. It is.

It was just awesome kind of feeling like you were having this investigative moment in real time, which just never happens in these games. And you'd come across these NPCs and be like, oh, dude, have you seen where so-and-so is at? We're hot on the heels of Mickelah. And finding out what the story was, you know,

in terms of, what are they doing? with Redan's body. I mean, I used to work for him, and I'm not really fucking with them anymore, but like, they're doing some fucked up stuff to his dead body, and I want to,

I need to find out what's going on. Just awesome characters, cool story that's happening, and again, great combat, adding all sorts of new weapons with new spells and jaw-dropping locations

that you could only get to in the most unspeakable ways. Crazy ways, yeah. Dude, like, you know. The swamp. Dude, getting to like the Cerulian Coast, and just be like, whoa, where the fuck did this come from? I don't know, it's just, it's why I play video games.

It is the, the feeling of wonder and discovery and having this new adventure at every turn. I love this video game and this developer so much. This is probably my like 12 or 13. I want to thank it for getting me back into Eldon Ring as a whole to prepare for the DLC and getting so catching the Eldon Ring bug that I platinumed it. Holy shit.

That's crazy. It was crazy playing through this DLC and like knowing what the story of Eldon Ring was because I finally watched the Vati video videos and being like, damn, that's crazy. Getting to the final boss and be like, oh, damn, that's wild. I wouldn't have expected that. That's really wild. Yeah, the way they tell stories specifically in the DLC, I think, is really fun. And I think really like...

It's so different. It's so different. It steps up. I think what Eldon Ring was, I think, also level design. I feel like they kind of looked back at more of the Souls level design. And we're like, how do we implement that on an open world scale and made the shadow of the earth tree area so much more interesting to explore, so much different around every single corner when people kind of question of like, should this be considered? Like, I think it's different enough from Eldon Ring that it should be considered for what it does. Incredible experience.

And there you have it. Those are game of the year top tens individually. I know we're going along. Do we want to just quickly read off our personal top tens? Read them off because I really got to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My number 10 was Astrobot number 9. Thank you, and this year here, number 8, Indiana Jones.

Number 7, Rise of the Golden Idol, 6, Batman Arkham Shadow, 5, Bellatro, 4, 9 Soles, 3 persona 3-3 reload, 2, 1,000 times, metaphor. Number 10 was, you know what, I'm going to go, deadlock, Marvel rivals, 1,000 times resist, giant Zogma 2, witch fire. Those are my OLLIs, and then my top 10 was Shadow of the Earth Tree, or, sorry, number 10, the final shape. Number nine, Prince of Persia lost crown. Number eight, Astrobot, number seven, Animal Well, number six, Dragon Age Veil Guard, number five, never. Number four, nine souls. Number three, Hades, two, number two, Final Final Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth, and number one, Elder Ring, Shadow of the Earth Tree. My Honor. My Honorermentions are Ellen Ring Shadow of the Earth Tree. Thank goodness you're here, and I Am Your Beast. And then my top 10, starting at 10 is a thousand times resist.

Pokemon, TCD Pocket, Persona 3 reload, Animal Well, Bellatro, BVZ, Sparking Zero, Astrobot, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Metaphor Re Fantasio, and my number one is Tekken 8. Woo! Where do you got to go, bus? I got to go to the dentist, but then also I got to do a meeting with Barrett and Robert. If you want to leave, I can just read some Super Chat. Oh, go for it. Well, I guess I got to beat with Barry.

Yeah, we have a meeting that we have to do before he leaves, so that's why we're trying to both get out of here. Okay, I mean, I could just read the Super Chats if you want. We got Super Chats. I saw somebody say like, oh man, no Super Chat. We don't have no Super Chats. Let's leave Andy alone. No super chat. You get to end the show on your own?

Yeah, absolutely. Great show, Barrett, great show blessing. Everybody give them a round of applause. And I'm going to read your super chats right now. As I go to my supers, here we go. Thank you everybody for supporting us here. And remember, don't forget that if you have Amazon Prime, you have to which Prime.

$20 super chat from Trevor says, I tried persona 5 Royal when he got added to GamePass and just couldn't do it and was never able to get into turn-based combat previously until metaphor. Play the demo and got it for Christmas. I'm absolutely loving it. Trevor, I feel like if I was cloned,

I would have that clone play metaphor and then I would connect our brains together so I could experience all of that because I could tell how truly goaded that game is. Would you feel bad that the clones' life ends to go back into yours? Well, no, I think we would just be sharing a consciousness. I don't think I would be killing it.

I think you would. Unless, yeah, maybe. S. Bubby Jubby. $5 super chat. Says, Tekken 8 is my goate. Finally, a Tekken made for arcade first and looks great. The modes available that help you be a better player. It's pure magic.

Thank you, S. Bubby. $5 super chat from you. We have $8 from Codfish, who says, more like Barrett Cuteny. Can you get that one, Kevin? I'm cute. Oh, Barrett came here and it talked to me. So I couldn't hear him. I'm sorry.

Mr. Hawks. with a $5 superchat says, I interviewed Remy Sue from Sunset Visitor about 1,000 times just on my podcast today. Nice, Story Motors podcast. And he thanked Barrett for hyping up the game, GGs, that rocks. Thank you, Mr. Hawks for that.

Another super chat from S. Bubby says, am I reading that right? Yeah, I just wanted to verify I was reading it right. Persona 3 reload is number two on my 2024 list. Persona 3 has always been my favorite persona game. Reload made it, made me love it more, and had me put in my top 10 of all. time. The game sounds pretty

good. We also have a, we already read Jenny Send Nugge's Super Chat. And it looks like we're all caught up right there. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the games cast. We'll be back

tomorrow with a full slate of content. We have a stream coming up next. Probably not anymore, Mike, maybe. No, we still do, I think. We have a stream coming up next with Mike and Nick. They're doing something. He's seeing me. He hears me. He's just not responding. And then later on we'll have the screencast talking about

creature commandos. We'll be back tomorrow with more games daily, more games cast, more just all sorts of fun happening. Keep it locked here. Kind of funny games here on YouTube and Twitch. We'll see you later, gamers. Have a great rest of your day.