Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Game of the Year 2024 (So Far) - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

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What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Gamescast live for Wednesday, October 9th, 20. That's the shot. I was looking down. I just saw it, stop moving. I thought someone was behind us. I was going on. I was like, what's about that? Well, everybody, this is the kind of funny games cast each and every weekday we get together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them.

Of course, I am your host, Tim Gettys, and I am joined today by. an amazing desk full of amazing gentlemen, starting with Blessing Adioia Jr. Good day, Tim. Following him is Roger Percorney. It's Jif, not GIF. We got the master hype, Snowbike, Mike. What up, Tim, drinking a new water. It's from Hawaii.

The nitral rifle, Andy Cortez. I mean, what happened to refilling the... Yeah, what had you? Your Colorado Buffalo. You know, I'm putting it in the car, then it's in the car now. It's lost somewhere. It's a whole thing, you know what I mean? It's got to stay glued to his table.

Well, it could be at soccer, could be on a field, could be at home. I don't know. So you lost it at soccer is what you're saying. This is the new water that the corner store guy is now begging him to buy because it's cheaper. The guy is looking at him and said, please, Mike, please buy this one. It is $2.50, not $5, like the smart water that you keep on buying. And I had to really think about it. It's not smart water.

Are you getting the nickel? The zinc? That's true. That's true. I mean, it's from Hawaii. What is that? magnesium. Don't worry about it.

You know how at the airport they sell seize candy? And it's usually for, you know, people like, oh, here's a piece of San Francisco I can take back with me, right? Well, I was going to San Marcos for a wedding, Austin, flying to Austin, though. And I was like, man, I haven't really eaten today. So I bought a big old thing of chocolate pecan candies. My man. The large-ass tray. Oh, yeah.

Good for you. Housed half of that box. It was like a real, like, I didn't feel proud of what I was doing. and those two ladies like kind of like I was bookended by two ladies on like Zoom calls one of them was like listen to do like an AI book you know call and they're like yeah

generative AI Gen AIA I was like oh god what's she doing I'm just eating my candies but I felt like I was being judged by them and I texted Mike and I was like I just ate about 10 pieces of chocolate an almond candy about to crush his flight and he said get an overpriced water too just looking out for his boys

that's what you gotta say hi-hikated you do you should make fun of him as much as much as we want but Mike's like the happiest guy Like on the surface, he's horribly depressed. Oh, yeah. I mean like a jing. I don't know what's going on. Yeah.

Outside. There's a darkness, yeah. Round and out the group today. We have Greg Beller. Hi, Tim. How are you? Hello, I'm good. Hi, five.

You see you. Far away. So good. It's going to be a fun one. A little check-in. Game of the year is what we like to call the Tots, Tuts, Tuts. Whoa. Whoa.

I want to see. I want to see. I want to see if you have a lot. No, Rick. I was a bit of fixing the gym, Tim. My bad. My bad. My bad.

World of Termin is rolling over at their grave. They paid for a shoutout. I know, I know. I just wanted to keep everyone on their toes. He's trying to fix the gib. If you love what? Got you, Roger. Is it pecan or pecan? That's... Depends on the part of country you're from.

Think about that. Think about that? Mereo or Mario. You're racist towards New Yorkers. That's what we say in New York. If? Or is it Amind or Almond? No, we say, there you go. Gotcha ass. If you love what we do, please support us with the kind of funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad-free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show.

For a chance to be part of this show, please submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. I'll let you all know I have something on the mind. All right. Madeline Stanley is here for Up and Comeer Week. We have a kind of funny podcast later today that if you're a kind of funny member, you'll be able to watch live. But before we do that, we're going to do a big team lunch when we're going to go somewhere. And that's what I have on my mind. Wherever it's going to be, it's going to be a good time.

We're going to get the worst service of all time. B-dubs, man. Well, that's the- That'll turn into a four-hour lunch. Exactly. First off, no matter what we do, it's a four-hour lunch, period. We've already booked out the afternoon up until the podcast. Actually, my dentist is coming to visit the studio.

Up until then, it's booked out, all right? That's going to be dope. So it's like, I don't like this B-dubs. Slander. Erasure from the even the possibility. Oh, good. Here's the thing. Buffalo Wild Wings, usually garbage service.

Tim and I got a hookup, though. The bartender is our bro. He comes and talks to us. He remembers what beers we like. He's dope. Yeah, we drink beers in the middle of the day. What about it, Raj? That's pretty cool.

So we can go there and we can put a bunch of bar tables together. If it's just the service aspect, I guarantee the service is going to be better at Wildlings than the Outback. I don't know about that. I agree with you because our homie. But the problem there is the bar so loud. And there's all the sports happening. Way too many sports all at once.

I hear you on that. Playoff baseball. I hear you. gonna be very large. And that's fine. That's a good qualification for it. But if it's the service issue, I want that stricken from the record.

We've solved that. So that's where my head's at. We can also all sit at the bars, take over the bar. Stay tuned for the KF podcast that I'm sure is going to be shenanigan filled. A little housekeep before. You already got the Nintendo alarm clock conversation.

Going for a record low view on that one. How many's your pre-order? You're weirdos? No, I'm not getting this thing. That's one that you want to bring a date home to, you know. Yeah. Oh, yeah. wake up to the set.

All the time you want to get up. There's no stream today because we are going to go do this, this lunch that I'm sure we'll go down in an infamy. And if you're a kind of funny member, you can get today's Greg Way that's all about if we're doing a book club for Jason Shire's new book or not. Oh. Play nice.

The Rise, Fall and Future of Blizzard Entertainment. I already started reading it. Did you? On Spotify. Nice job. He's in next week. So everybody that's required to read and get it done before you gets here on Tuesday? Get it done.

And then like I was saying, you get the kind of funny podcast this afternoon and tomorrow on YouTube and podcast services. Remember, super chat in. If you have any game of the year conversations you want to have, games that are your game of the year so far. And if there's anything coming up later that you think might dethrone your number one pick so far. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs and Delaney Twining. Today we're brought to you by Shady Ray's and New World Eternal. But we'll tell you about that later. We've got to begin with them.

Doing it again. Topic of the show. Dot, Stats, Tats, Tats. Thank you very much. Roger Percorny. Whoa. I want to start with you. Oh, why?

Because your name is on the dock. Oh, thank you. At the top of the dock. I got in early. You got in there. You put a lot of things here. I put a lot of games. You put so many different games here.

Too many games. What is your current game of the year? Actually, before you even answer that. A good game of the game. Blessing, do you know what Rogers' game of the years? His current game of the year? Does it rhyme with Mintonet

Belf? I got nothing. The Yakuza? Is it a Yakuza? No. Was it at any point? It was when it came out in January. Yeah.

Like that was the only one. No, it's Animal Well. Animal Well is still my game of the year. I mean, I gave that a 10-10 masterpiece and I stand by it. That game, I am not a Metroidvania person, but I mean, maybe this is the year. You know what I mean? I'm playing a lot of other Metroidvania games, one that we'll talk about a little later as well. But, no, Animal Well is so uniquely special.

I like to watch Roger when I listened to Yeah, it's so uniquely special And it's a game that I will always remember the first time I played this game Like I know that it's going to be ingrained into my my gamer brain Just because finding all of the The hidden secrets playing this game with no guide and finding out what the true like Meaning behind this game is and realizing there is no combat it is just puzzles You do feel like you are a prey in this animal kingdom

it's a special video game that I hope I don't know how many people here have played I know Andy's played it Tim have you played it at all? Yeah just a couple hours It just doesn't It's not clicking for me Which doesn't make sense

Because everything about it should Yeah I want to give it another shot Easy contender No yeah this is my number one But I have a lot of other games A lot of other games that Rise in the ranks

I don't know I mean it's a 10 out 10 I stand by it but I'll say Tim if you'd like this game I played in the game I got obsessed with it Yeah so Yeah I'm surprised Tim isn't upset

Yeah I mean too I don't know why I think you just need to put more time into it. How many, like two hours, three hours? I'd say three. Okay, okay. All right, that's about eight hours, nine hours. I can get there.

You can get there. But no, this is an incredible video game that I would be very surprised if it isn't my number one by the end of the year, but again, there are a lot of games out there. There are. There are. They are rising that.

We'll come back to those, Roger. Andy, I want to go to you next. Do you have a locked-in so far, game of the year for yourself? God, this year is going to be a weird one, man. It's going to be all over the place. it's hard for me to not think about my time with Shadow of the Earth Tree just what a what a complete experience that was

great boss fights amazing sort of lore implications and just tons of more discovery like I just had so much fun running around this extra world that would be a game in a lot of would be a full complete game for a lot of other developers and I think from software just went above and beyond. And it's it's easy for me to look back and find where, you know, the shortcomings were. Where are they? Um, I think that there are certainly some areas that felt emptier than I expected, uh, exploration-wise. And then I also kind of

had to be more of a realist when it comes to, man, this is still a DLC. You know, you still have to understand that you're not getting another 100-hour adventure. It's more like a 30-40-40-hour adventure, 30-to-40-hour adventure. But still some of the most amazing boss-fights scale and just these grandiose sort of entrances and cutscenes. I had a great freaking time. I had a great time playing through it almost three times.

I played through it during the review period. I played through it with Mike. I appreciate you sharing that experience. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. That was a great time. I mean, face two balls. Face two boys. Okay, all right.

Face two boys. You know, the amount of, it was the night before Tim's wedding. Oh, yeah. It was a night before Tim's wedding when we said, we're not going to Tim's wedding unless we beat this boss tonight.

That wasn't real. Sorry, dude. You knew you couldn't look 100 pence in the eyes. And the amount of YouTube comments that I would see in the Vod's of like, they just said, okay, last try, this is it. And then I checked the Vod

and there's two and a half hours left. the video. Yeah. Because me and Mike just kept on bashing her head against the wall. And then the homie

Mike Manati came to help out as well and had this crazy build that was like super tanky and he was gathering all this agro. Playing co-op

is still such an awesome fun experience. Having the moments where the final boss is chasing after Mike and I'm trying to chase them to get a hit in to take the agro

and Mike's running away. I'm like Mike, quit fucking running away. I can't catch up to you. wall. I'm trying to get a hit in, but it's just such a great time. I would put Shadow of the Earth Tree very, very high. And I expect that by

the end of the year, if I had to look at my top three, it's hard for me to not think about Final Fantasy 7 rebirth. Prince of Persia Lost Crown. Two games I saw him finish. Two games I absolutely will finish because I know how good they are.

Tim, you mentioning that Lost Crown is going to be way up there for you. I really do think that that game, I know the story and the characters aren't going to be everybody's jam. They're not even necessarily my jam. But I think it's, I think you could teach students in game design class of like, this is how you make a Metroidvania. The abilities, traversal and combat leading into each other, being useful on both fronts,

unlocking different spots with this new move that you kind of just assumed was a melee move, but now it is used to unlock all these other areas. Like, I think it's like game design perfection in my mind. Amen. Greg Miller. Hi, how are you? What's your game of the year? So far.

It's almost unheard of to see one game be game of the year, two years in a row. But when you talk about Starfield, no, I'm kidding. Just wanted to get you there. Right now it's still Astrobat with a little. bullet you know what I mean I think of the most complete game I've played this year you know a game that is just fun at every turn you know handcrafted you feel the love in everything you do in that game I can get even me to go be somebody who wants to be the oh I got to do this I got to finish like that you know I'm not the the souls

guy I don't like having to learn the pattern of the boss and I'm getting my head kicked in over and over and over again but you know that last level in Astroba was that version of it for me where I was like fuck Hey, but all right, one more time, one more time, one more time, one more time, to the point that I'm too tired. I'll do it tomorrow, I'm not tired. Like, Astrobots just a joy to play. And I think it is just one of those, for me, in arguable masterpieces, that thing you look at and you play and you go, man, like, maybe on a given day, I'd rather go play game X or go do this. I'm not always going to be in the mood of whatever, but it's like, I don't even know if that's true.

I feel like anytime they would drop something new, I'd be doing this. If we were like, we're streaming and doing a race in this, I'd be excited to do it. If they were to clear my memory and let me play it again, I would love it just as much. much. Astrobat was something truly special this year. And I think, you know,

especially for me, someone who is the, oh, I want the narrative. Oh, I want to cry. Ooh, I want to do this. Like, for it to be something

that is so gameplay focused and just so good, so pure, so enjoyable. Like, Astrobot is still on top of my list right now. But I do have glaring omissions still where I need to actually

put more time into prints. I need to get to Final Fantasy, at least to really get in there. I've only scratched the service. You know what I mean? I've like put one pinky tone in the water of metaphor, right? Like I want to get more.

right of that. Bless. Yeah, this is a tough one because I jotted down a bunch of games and if I'm going to choose one is my number one currently. This is in flux. It could change. I don't know, but like, I think right now I'm leaning towards

Final Fantasy 7 rebirth. Right? Like, this is the year of the GRP for me, where I put in, if I'm looking at like single individual games, I put a lot of time into like this is the year where I played the least amount of games, but probably played the most hours of games. I put in like, what, 80 hours into rebirth? I put in so many hours

already into metaphority Fantagio, same with Tekken, same with Persona 3 reload, where I'm 60 hours in. And when I'm thinking hour for hour, the game that is making me connect with his characters, the game that is making me, you know, fall in love with the world and what's going on and the music and the production, right? Like, Final Faces is 7 Rebirth, I think, for me is what, what, in previous years where there's like an obvious answer, you don't want to go with the obvious answer. You know, it's like, last year it was what, Tears of the Kingdom and Greg's like, ah, maybe Starfield. You know, maybe Starfield was like, you know, stop kidding yourself. years prior, it's like, oh man, it's

Eldon Ring or God of War. The issue for me, as much as I would like to push for other games that I know I love, I know how much I enjoy, thank goodness you're here and other things. Final Fane's 7 Rebirth did something so special. And yeah, like, it is a flawed game, and I think in many instances there are flawed games that

like, I think because I because of how much I know these things might be holding it back, it also makes more impressive the things that it's doing so well that makes me go, yeah, but it's undeniable how good this thing is. And so, yeah, for me, Final Faces and 7 rebirth, I think is still my front runner. Did you,

you ended up playing, thank goodness you're here? Yeah. Oh, and I love the game. Yeah, yeah. Awesome.

I wasn't sure, because I remember Roger's sort of pitching it to bless and saying, it wasn't for me, but it might vibe with you. And I don't, I think it was like me,

Lucy and, and Greg on the review, but I don't remember. I think I've been out of town a lot, so I've missed a lot of reviews for games that I played. But yeah, like thank goodness your hair

and also, yeah, we didn't play it during a review period. I'm pretty sure bless. I think I did. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, thanks get, it's on my short list of, for thank goodness where you're here.

I think, you know, I know this is something the boss baby, CEO, Jr. Barry Courtney brings up all the time and I appreciate where he thinks how varied our top tens are going to be, or how varied all our number ones are going to be when we get there. I'm really interested to see this year, even for myself personally, at the end of it all, where do these games that I love and played and had a great experience with or invested a ton of hours? And how do they actually rank out and stack up with each other? Totally. I mean, for your own list and for our list, I think, like, this is great.

I only really care about myself. Yeah? No, I'm kidding. I mean, I mean, I see. I see everybody's talking about it's. I do think it's going to be the most interesting list we've had thus far with all this, just because of how I feel like internally each one of us has the most turmoil of like figuring out what the order of the list is.

I mean, I know that for sure for me. Plus, I have a question for you. I'm a little surprised, Rebirth is your answer right now. I love it, obviously. But talk about Astrobat a little bit. Like, is that even in the conversation in your mind? This thing is honestly, there's like seven games that are in the conversation, right? For number one.

Yeah, I mean, for my number, probably like five, probably like five or six games in the conversation for my number one, right? Like, Astrobot is one of them. Shadow of the Eratree is one of them, right? Metaphor is one of them. Tekkenate is also one of them. Yeah, there's even Dragon Ball, honestly, the more I play this game, the more it might be in that conversation as well, right?

Like, this is like a me year in video games, and like that's, we've not even gotten to life as strange yet. I don't know if I'm going to be there, but like. You got to play Yakuza as well, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Year of JAPR G, you said it. But that's the thing for you. me is I think when I weigh it, right? Like Astrobot, I think is probably the best game I've played on a polish and on a, oh, this game is flawless level. But for me, there's also just the aspect of how much Final Fantasy 7 rebirth resonated with me emotionally and how much like, you know, how much that game moved me, how much I love these characters, how much I'm invested in that world. Astrobot for me is a flawless platformer. But it's just a tough thing to weigh when I talk about, like, if I could erase a game, if I had to erase one game for my memory, it might be Astrobot. If I had to put the two,

against each other. Yeah. Mike, I'm going to go next. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, we'll save my bit for later. later on.

I have a conversation. Yeah, let's go for it. Tell me about you. I have a conversation. Everybody's scrapped in. Mike has a conversation. I've been saying this and I feel like I'm still in the same place I was a couple

weeks ago where between Prince of Persia lost crown, Bomb Fantasy 7 rebirth and Astrobot, I'm having a real tough time to decide what my number one is. I think that. I think that still at this moment, it is Prince of Persia, and that's hot off of the Mask of Darkness D.L.C. Having new things to go back and do in the game just reminded me how mechanically tight this thing is, how fun the combat and just momentum of traversal is. This is a dream game for me in so many ways.

I guess all three of those are dream games for Tim Getty's in so many ways. But this, to me, really just speaks to what I love the most about gameplay. And I love Prince of Persia. always have for the franchise to reinvent itself so many times and in almost every iteration speak to me, I think is really special. But this, I do think, is my favorite Prince of Persia game now, which I never thought sense of time would be dethroned. To your point, Andy, about the characters and story, not necessarily hitting. I don't really remember much of it, like the details of how it all happened. But when I was playing the Mask of Darkness, things were happening

that reflected the core game. And I was like, oh, yeah, that was cool as hell. Like, I might not remember the actual story beats, but I remember when they happened, they resonated with me and they're like, oh, this is awesome. Even just some of the stuff we're seeing here. It's like, oh yeah, that was really, really cool and a clever way to play with the lineage of the franchise and characters, but also

just like what's happening on screen. And the way that Ubisoft has made it feel like you're playing in anime, like playing through Dragon Ball recently and how hype as hell these fights are when I have no context for who these characters are or whatever, but it's still hitting for me. Prince of Persia Lost Crown gives me

that as well. Like the boss fights have that spectacle and like the way that the special moves look. It's like the people that made the game loved it and had such a great vision and I think that they pulled off something incredibly special. But it is, it's weird for me because does it have that game

of the year quality? And I'm not sure that it does. And that's difficult. What does that mean? I think that's okay because it, look, I think back to 2021 where Ratch and like Griff the part was my goatee.

It didn't really hit a whole lot storywise. It was some good goose bumpy moments near the end or whatever, but it was just pure fun gameplay. And sometimes that's all it needs to be, you know? And I think that's totally valid if Prince of Persia is like resonating with you on that level. Totally, me too. It's just like, what does it mean, Roger? I don't know.

But there's something in me that like, game of the year means something different to everybody, right? And like, is it the best game ever? I don't think it is because otherwise it would be a. Astrobot to me is the best game this year. It is a 10, I think it is perfect, as close to perfect as possible, at the very least for a video game for what it was trying to do.

But yeah, it is weird where I can argue myself into all three of them being my number one, but like I was saying, I do think Prince is it currently, but I think that is because I just played the DLC, and I was reminded of how much I love it. And with the PS5 Pro coming out

next month, I have I've eyed a couple chapters in Final v, 67, Rebirth, I'm excited to go back to. And I'm not going to play until the pros there. And that might change some things for me, you know? But then we have the Astrobat DLC coming. What's that going to look like? And so I'm excited that my top three at the very least are still going to be giving me some new experiences I'm looking forward to.

So things can change, but Prince is currently my number one. Wow. All different. All different. That's incredible. Called it. Now, before we get to you, Mike, Barrett. Oh, we, hold up, hold up, just to start.

Right? Because I, you ask a great question. Oh, we're going to ban. Okay. I was like, I don't want him to play the bit. Sorry, don't play the bit. I distract me. That's on me, homie.

It's like he's at a congressional hearing and he's like talking to his lawyer. He can't interject him. Yeah, like I said earlier this week for the metaphor review, it is metaphor refentasio. And, you know, go to that review. I don't want to like kind of. Belabor the point. Yeah, belabor the point. I just kind of keep on playing it, man.

I am so happy. Like I'm hearing you say that. Like I'm really impressed. And I think like that in and of itself, the way that it can capture someone like Andy, the way it can capture blessing myself who are not high fantasy people, I think Atlas really made something special and really up their game. We're talking about it I know on Friday or whatever, but it is that thing where I played a bunch at my desk and I've been playing things

for redacted reviews at home or whatever. And there is that thing where I'm like, could go for getting back into metaphor. But I'm doing that I'm like talking shit about the games I'm playing. I was last night I was making the little review graphics that we've been tweeting out with a little like port character portraits of us. You do great work. That show the score to kind of like recap and at the end of the week say, hey, remember this review we did. Go watch it again, you know, or whatever. Or if you haven't, reminder.

And as I was capturing footage, I just kind of kept on playing. Hell yeah, I'm a friday. Freak video game. One that I want to shout out just of things that I'm thinking about in terms of game of the year because I think my list is going to be a weirder one this year. just a lot of indies. I'm feeling of just the things that I love this year. I want to shout out a thousand X resist, which came out earlier in the year that I want to remind people about

just to give it some love just because I think that is such a special indie game that has really kind of, I think personally up the game in how you can tell stories in a video game. So I really just want to shout that one out as like, hey, if you have not played this game yet, absolutely play it, especially if you love like really creative storytelling in video games and then Nine Souls

shout out to Nine Souls essentially just Tao Punk 2D Securo is the game that got me to actually try Sekiro as well and beat it. That is such a special game and I love that one as well so I wanted to shout out those games as well. A Thousand X resist is one that I

by the end of the year I need to go back to it and it's usually not my jam but every time we do a game of the year segment there's always a game that usually isn't my jam. And last year, maybe two years ago, it was Citizen Sleeper, which was a phenomenal sort of visual storytelling game with a lot of like just really intriguing characters and a lot of reading and dice rolling and stuff like that.

Not usually typically my jam, but really like kind of profoundly made me think differently about what I love about video games. And this seems like it is totally that. It's not a game that I should have started at 1130 at night and played 30 minutes. This is some heavy shit. Let me like give this a real college try some other day. Yeah. A thousand X or this is one that's on my short list as well.

And like to bear its point of how it approaches narrative and how it tells stories. I think it's that. And plus the story it tells is so powerful. And it's one of those ones where like halfway through this game, 75% of the way through this game maybe even like there are moments where I'm just like angry at the world. just because I'm playing this game I'm like oh man I might have to revolutionize I might have to like do some shit

I would recommend if you're gonna play it on Steam maybe not Steam deck there are definitely some cutscenes that definitely crashed my Steam deck so yeah I was playing a lot at my desk and I'm just like sitting at my desk like crying and mad and just like thinking about you know like systemic issues in the world

it's like fuck it's so good it's so goddamn powerful it's also really smart yes it is very like well written and like that game is it's like this developer first game and it's all like people who've never made a game before is like these uh uh canadian artists who because of the pandemic couldn't do like their specific uh kind of trade in the art world so they're like oh shit well do we want to like come together and try to do something that we can do from home and that was to make a game and i think that like really shines through as well and makes it

something really unique yeah well i just i just bought the game so i'm very excited i'm very excited i I think it's another one for me too where it's on the gameplay side there are definitely like things I have or critiques I have where I'm like okay there are certain things that hold it back but it goes back to a conversation about FF7 Rebirth where the things about

that game will hold it back for me too but the things that it does well are so special that I think it is worth checking out and worth seeing it through and is one that like you'll still fall in love with through certain elements of it and then also talking about Indies shout to Bellatra Blotra is also on the short list. Fantastic yeah Tim

that's what I would like to pick up. Well, before you do that, Mike, let's take a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by New World Eternum. New World Eternum is a thrilling action-r-r-G experience for console and PC players with a vibrant world, vast and beautiful setting, dynamic real-time action combat, and the freedom for players to choose how to forge their destiny. Combat is skill-based and dynamic, incorporating swords, guns, and sorcery so that you can build one character to rule them all as you explore Eternum.

and unravel the mysteries of the supernatural island that you can't leave. You love playing RPGs alone? You can in New World Eternom or play cooperatively with your friends as you complete quests, get better gear, and level up. Greg played this at Summer Game Fest on PlayStation 5 and was caught off guard by how much he enjoyed it and how many hours he said he could see himself sinking into the final product. There's boss fights, cool enemies, crossplay, resource gathering, and crafting. So yeah, this sounds like a Greg game.

Pre-order New World Eternum now on PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X or S to get the Azoth stalker Wolfmount and prepare for launch on October 15. All right, Mike, it's your turn. What's your game of the year so far? Yeah, it's been a fun conversation with all of you and it's so interesting to see everybody jumping back and forth. I've had a strong triple threat going on in the middle of the ring for my top three. And to be the top spot, which is Final Fantasy 7 rebirth, Eldon Ring Shadow of the Earth tree. Balatro, which I have fallen in love with stepping up to the table and playing some poker. There is a fourth.

You play it on your phone? No, not yet. Okay. Just, you know, I don't think it's taken over my life quite like that. I think I had a good run with it and now I'm done. You know what I mean? But once you get that it, maybe I'll go back and jump back into it. Yeah, once you download it back onto your phone, Mike, oh.

I'm not a big phone job. We've talked about that, me and Greg, you on a couple of games daily. Sound society. Man, I'll tell you what, dude, ain't nothing better than pulling up at the in-and-out drive-thru. Ordering a double-double with fries, get the milkshake, and turn it on some anime with your homies. You know what I mean? Like, you put that thing on the center dash and you just enjoy your night. What you say with your homies, like, there's someone else in the car with you?

Yeah, yeah, me, Kevin A. Sacks watching some Dragon Ball. You're watching on a shared iPhone. Hell yeah. It's immersion. This is it. Like, this is, if this is not a nice Tuesday night to you, I don't know what is. You know what I mean? Go out, get a date, pull up, watch some Dragon Ball.

You guys are going to have the best time. Is the audio coming from your phone or from your car speakers? From the car speakers. Okay, okay. Okay. That's pretty sick. And of course, is it really late at all? No, no.

You should open up the doors and kind of like sit on the trunk or something. Tailgate for it. Yeah. That's crazy. And you know, like Dragon Ball, sparking zero currently taking over my life. We'll talk about that in just a little bit. Could that be a top 10 contender? We'll see.

But, you know, Tim, I also have a fourth that is entering the ring to make it a fatal four way for my top spot. And that's deadlock. him. Oh, baby. This is a game that has taken over my life. 75 hours in already, and I don't think we've been in it that long, Andy. Maybe a month, two months maximum? No way, do it.

It's been like three weeks maybe. Yeah, it's crazy how much this is taken over my life. This game has it all. It has the competitive spirit that I'm always looking for. It has some great characters that have unique abilities. And, yeah, there's some balancing issues, but that's any competitive game. There's going to be balancing. but it's fun to see what character you gravitate towards what character owns the battlefield.

I love what we've created with this MoBA mentality that's now a third-person shooter and to be able to share it with your friends and be super competitive. I love this game. I cannot get enough of this game. This game has taken over my life this end of the summer into fall season right now. It's one of those games, Mike, that this is one that you and I will stream in night with the homies and Chris Anka's there and Washy and JD and Maddock and everybody's showing up. But it's one of those where if I could just know life this and main it for the rest of the year, I would because that's how much fun I'm having with it.

That's how much fun to, I think the variety in it is like, it, any, no match feels the same. Like every match can turn in a heartbeat. You could be getting your ass whooped. There have been matches where it's like, holy shit, we are down. You look at how much, how rich the other squad is because they have all these, like, you see the gold amount, those souls or whatever. We're getting our ass whoop. There's no way.

And then Mike is like, we can do this. We win a couple of team fights. It takes longer for them to res. We can go kind of like make a statement right here. We win a team fight. All right, cool, nice. Everybody level up, go back. And it's just, it's got such a great progression to it.

And for it to be that early, Mike, like it is, this game is still maybe a year away from fully releasing it feels like, but it still feels like such a complete product. Getting new heroes added is always fun to add to the meta, to have the mix. And yeah, every single game is different. I love that about that.

I think, you know, when you know me, you know I love these competitive, first person shooter games from Halo to Call of Duty. And I love what we're doing with this, where every match we try something different, right?

We innovate on what is our tactics, how can we help each other? And it is absolutely gone above and beyond what I could have expected from a, third-person shooter Moba. You know, I think of smite that's tried to do it before and has really succeeded. But now when it's really, oh, we're just shooting guns all the time, how does that really fair?

It does a great job, especially when we thought, when we looked at like games like Concord and X-defined that have come and gone in this space. This game's making a name for itself. And I'm really excited to see the future of this one. So I just want to kind of quickly read because it's every time we talk about deadlock, there's always a, when did this come out? Is it even fully all that stuff? Just read a quick little Wikipedia synopsis.

In October 2022, Valve filed a trademark for the name Neon Prime. Neon Prime was reportedly helmed by Ice Frog, and that dude is the lead and designer of Dota. He's kind of like the lead dude on it. It was supposed to be a sci-fi sort of looking game, and they've sort of changed it to be this kind of... Steen punky. Like, yeah, kind of noir. It feels like it takes place in the 50s of New York. It's actually like in New York.

So Roger, play some more deadlock. Further details were reported in 2023, indicating that it could have been a team-based, third-person mobile light, in which players would defeat a boss enemy at the opposing team's base. A private playtest for Neon Prime reportedly started in 2023.

And the thing I like the most about it is, it's, you know, when we were talking about it on a Games Daily, or maybe it was a Games cast recently, where it feels like for Valve to be this gigantic billion-dollar company, right? like they are just kind of owning the PC side of gaming. To have this team making a MOBA that it feels so anti-corporate in the way that it's being made,

there's no PR blasts that say, hey, new character, go check out. It's just you'll see that. There's an update and that's it. And, you know, they might change some things here and there, but there's, it just feels like there's a, I don't know, I don't know how large a team is. It feels like it's less than 50 though. Like, hey, we're, Here's this new thing.

We changed this. We put this new ability here. We nerf this character. Thanks for all the feedback. I just love the way it's being developed. And again, I hate saying it's anti-corporic because it's made by Valve still.

It's made by correlation. Yeah, but I just, I love the way in which they're doing stuff, which feels very unofficial and just kind of very, like, punk rock in a way. I really,

really love the way it's being developed, and it's just such a freaking fun game. And I look at, I think about the way that we vote for these things, Mike, it's like, ah, It's, this isn't even early access.

It's not even considered officially out or whatever. Would I put this in my top 10? But I feel like it's the most fun I've had in a multiplayer game this year. And it's going to be really hard to keep it off my top 10. Yeah. This game has come in like the final boss, like the Rock, and has made a statement. And when I play it, all I want to do is play this game.

Every single day, I want to talk about it. I want to strategize about it. I want to share moments with my friends. And that's a problem because now my top 10 is looking kind of different. So I will say, I had the big three, Balatro, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Eldon Ring, I really love those games.

Now we got a fourth in the mix, and it's taken up a lot of space and a lot of time in my life. I just want to say, like, we could have made this really high up on the kind of funny game of the year discussion. I feel like we could get this up to number three, number two, even, if Mike didn't fuck me that one time, where I played and it was like the second time I played, and I was having the best time my life the first time.

I was like, man, I think I can get into this game. and then after a match that we just got completely stomped out, the entire enemy team went on one lane, and they just destroyed us. It was a tactic we'd never seen before. And Mike, in its infinite wisdom, looked at me and said, hey, Roger, this is our new strategy.

We're just going to go down one lane, and we're going to try to break this game, and we kept on losing, and he kept on going down this round. These games are 40 minutes long, so I'm having the worst time of my life, and I'm like, I'm never playing this game again. He said we innovated.

We innovated, but it was just copying a strategy that. The other team was just way good. But remember Roger the first night. It was great. I'm talking about. Remember the first night. It was a great time. He was the Goku to your Gohan.

The spirit above your shoulder. He was guiding you through this experience. We had such a great time. And I had my mic wasn't working. I'm talking about the night that you were all were here. And then I heard Mike snoring over the Discord mic. It was a great night, man. That's what you know I'm locked into.

Oh, yeah. If I'm heavy breathing, you know. I'm down to go back. I mean, this game, I had a great time, and that was the first time of MOBA in any capacity clicked for me. So, yeah, I mean, it's a very approachable thing, especially when you have a coach like Snowback. Yeah, I mean, Mike is just teed. When we're getting our asses whoop, though, and all of us, Moba rookies, I like, Mike, what should you do now?

Get to the, get to the orange late. Like, you started to hear the frustration of Mike's voice. Fucking figure it out. Yeah, you're not supposed to play Mobos with your friends. And that goes to a big proving of, like, you're not supposed to play mobets with your friends, but we're doing it. Mm-hmm. Beautiful. We got a whole bunch of super chats, I want to get to here.

Chocolate Fox 9 says my expected personal top 5, Vailguard number 1, like a dragon infinite wealth number 2, metaphor 3 Kinnigami number 4, and Mario Party Jamboree at number 5. A lot of varied games there. Some aren't even out yet. I was going to say if you played

Dragons Doggling with 2, put in your top 10, you have three dragon games in your top 10. Wow. We got Volk Dasher, say my list so far is Final Fantasy 7, Rebirth, like a dragon. I. H? What's I.H? infinite health.

Yeah, Stellar Blade, Astrobot, Silent Hill, Hell Divers. Metaphor will probably join based on the demo. You thought this was a bad year for PS5? LOL. The community gets it. The community's into Yakuza. They're into the Like a Dragon franchise.

Wonder that nobody at this table can actually play these games. You know what I mean? Greg used to review them. Greg used to review them. So I don't know when this community going to wake up is the same fucking game every time. They go to Hawaii and they made it turn-based.

I'm just, I mean, out here. I mean, I put it in my personal top 10 the WWE 2K game every year, but I'm not like, yo guys. This is the one. They're in Hawaii. How many hours? Do I need to play this game?

This is the one. And not be in love with it for you to understand. How many did you play? Like 12 hours. That's not enough. That's not enough. I played 12 hours of metaphor. Barrett would spit in my face.

That's not. I played like five different of these games for 12 hours. I played like 50 hours of the yuccas overall. I was happy that Andy just put five hours into metaphor. And I think that's a good enough barometer of if you're going to, to put 75. 75. No,

you're making a bad argument. You legally have to put 75. Roger's a kid who has peanut butter and jelly for the first time. I was like, yo, everybody, did you know this is good? Yeah, we fucking know. It's good.

Pizza's great. Yeah. It was turn-based before, you know. Hawaii, I think it's been done better, you know, in games like thug, you know? Hell yeah.

Here's the thing. If we could get a, Mike, if we can get a hyperbolic time chamber, you know what that is now because Dragon Ball's the hyperbolic time chamber makes everything heavy. you're in there so that you could work out even harder.

And like it, there's like really, really, really bad gravity or low. High gravity, is it a higher low? Either way. You want, you know, it's like when you put on ankle weights. So then you jump higher after you take them up. I would love to be trapped in there to play infinite wealth. Yeah. And I'm trying for Roger.

He's trying. I bought it again on PC just to play it for Roger because he's all up on my ass. You know what I mean? That's good for a steam deck. I'm not all in its ass. I'm not I'm not a making a bit

but I looked at them and I said you make sure try it fucking Roger I have to be sure I buy this game I'm like every single day I'm just

75 hours into deadlock Roger I don't have enough time in my life right now gotta play TCG how does it play on Steam deck huh how does it play on Steam deck

I didn't play on Steam deck anybody know anybody know I feel like Jeff Grub might have played it on Steam deck and was like fine with it but I remember

you were kind of met on like metaphor performance on Steam Deck, so I don't know if you have like a higher expectation. Oh, it just kind of looked like Duky on Steam Deck. I guess, I don't know. I mean, yeah. I saw it a good time with Metaphor on Steam Deck, though. I just feel like it could have looked better with how that game isn't trying to push

the latest graphics, you know? Claude and Dust says my personal game of the year is the finals. Ooh. Where's the finals in y'all's mind? That did not come out this year. That did not come out this year is why. Ah, yeah, okay. But I think it's one of those that,

came out so late last year like I think it came out December 7th yeah December 7th yeah so like maybe it's one of those that just hit a little too late calendar year type shit fiscal year

uh... D-6 says so far my three is Astrobot two is tech and eight and one is Final Fantasy 7 rebirth I need to play more persona 3 reload though Just like me for real

yep And then Maddie I can wrote that in Maddie Gaffney says Palm Fantasy 7 rebirth for me and then Co-op 64 says When's Greg gonna play game of the year? Fomp

S.E-7, rebirth. Shout out, homies. I put it off this long, not being in the mood, and obviously we're still in the heart of review season. At this point, legitimately, I figure when the PlayStation 5 Pro arrives, right, that can be a December thing, take it home. Oh, that'd be awesome.

It's also a real long game. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that you're going to get to. I know, yeah, it's fine. I don't know where we're, I'm not going to spoil anything, obviously, but I've been told by, you know people in our chat rooms that oh andy you and mike are i think it was actually nick from

co-op 64 was like you guys are probably three streams away from it from beating it but then i've also had other people say oh you guys are maybe 60% of the way through you have like 30 hours to go last you told me where you were i feel like you're like 60% through what chapter you yeah do you yeah i don't i don't remember uh i mean we we just got done with the panther man yeah that's i The Panther man, who's a Panther boy. Oh, there's no way. I know what he's a guy. Yeah, he's a boy.

Yeah, he's a boy. He's a boy. Oh, yeah, you're like, you're 60. You're 60. Yeah, you're about 60%. You got a lot left. Yeah, you got, you got a...

Way more than three streams. Yeah, way more than three streams. I have something to bring up that I think it's just so fascinating right now. Back to the fucking you call. No, no, no. In the beginning... What else you had to say about Infinite Wolf? If you told me in the beginning of this year that a Zelda game would come out and none of us

would have mentioned this? Like, nobody in the chance. None of us mentioned it here. Like that's kind of wild. Well, I think it's really, really good, but I wouldn't. It's not like a top three, top five good. That's just, I don't believe in the Zelda effect. Because, yeah, like, that's one that I picked up and it was like, yeah, no, like, top-down Zelda just not work.

It doesn't work for me in my brain for some reason. Yeah. I love Zelda and I gave it at 8-5, but I think me giving it an 8-5 and not a 9 or a 10 says a lot, right? And I think going into it even, like, I didn't have expectations of it being game of the year quality. It's not a breath of the wild tears of the kingdom type experience. Like from the jump, even looks. looking at it, I was like, I can't believe they're doing this. This is incredibly exciting because I love top-down Zelda games and like playing as Zelda, this art style. All of that's great, but

and the game is great. I just, I don't think it's, I wouldn't, I think it's going to make my top 10, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. I, I, what I, I think I'm way more impressed by it because of how disappointing a lot of people felt by, and even Tim felt by Princess Pete Showtime, where that game seems like it was, going to do something different and may surprise a lot of people. And that came out and was quality level around like all the Nintendo sports games that have really, really disappointed us in the past. So as much as I love the look of this, I was still a little hesitant to that.

Will they pull this off and will it even be a decent game or will it just be like trash, right? And it came out and I'm really, really enjoying it so far. Yeah, this definitively is not in that. No, for sure. the Super Prince's Beach. Barrett. Yeah, this might be the first time of Zelda is not even on my top 10.

I was telling you yesterday, Tim, I don't know if I'm going to finish this game. Like, the more I try to go back to it, the less I want to continue it. And I don't think that's really like, I don't think it's bad. It's just really not clicking with me. I think the creativity of Breath of Wild Tears

of the Kingdom mixed with the 2D Zelda's design is like such a purpose. promising idea and it's just not coming together for me in this game. I'm very surprised by that. Like I legitimately, like, it's one of the bigger shocks that Barrett is, it's not clinging with you that much because like,

I was telling you, like I don't think the game gets better. I think it's consistent the entire time. So it's not like, oh, get four hours in and then it gets good. It's like the game is what it is. Um,

but I think the game's great. It's just not the most special. It's definitely not a game of the year type, uh, contender, especially on the Nintendo side of things. Well, that's all Costco got a deal.

it someone pick it up. I mean, $53. Big deal. They put it on sale? I mean, I think it's just Costco. They get Nintendo's wishes. Yeah. It's crazy. Roger. Hi. You really want to talk about another game, though. Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of games here, but I mean, I have Silent Hill 2. I have Yakuza of course. I'm your beast. I just S-ranked to all of the story missions.

Holy shit. What a game. What a game. What a game. Oh, my God. Oliver Nelson, just cooking. Unbelievable stuff. Yeah, I can't believe how well, how good that game feels. Fields of mystria, but the one that I want to talk about that I've not been able to talk about on content is UFO 50, which, if you don't know, is a collection of 50 NES-inspired games that is published by Mossmouth, the creators of Splunky. And these are 50 full video games. You've probably heard us talking about it when it was announced, and throughout the many years of, I think,

had a Kickstarter, and it's been in gestation for a while, but it's out and it's playable, and it's on Steam. And I've fallen in love with this game. I did not. grow up with NES. The NES era is not something that I'm fairly fond of, but I booted this game up on a whim and I played it chronologically because the game has a really cool feature

where you, all of the in-universe games have a year attached to it, right? So by the end of the chronologic feature, the chronologic side of the game, the games are really advanced and using a lot of techniques that later NES games end up using.

And the concept of the, these are all, this is from a developer that existed back in the day that these games never got a release. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's like a competitor to Nintendo. This UFO soft is what they call it in universe. And there's a lot of cool stuff with that where like later on in the games like about halfway

through the collection, there's an, there's like an actual logo for UFO soft that incorporates Campanella, which is like this little UFO. And there's like three Campanella games inside of this UFO 50. so there's sequels, there are spin-offs of certain games, which is really neat, but I keep on finding games that are just intriguing to me, and it feels like I'm opening up a treat every single night, right? Like, I'm going through and I'm like, okay, this is not for me, move on to the next one. Oh, shit, this one's very for me.

And sure, they range from one game here, Kick Club, which is a very simple one-screen arcade game, where you have a soccer ball and you kick it, and you're just fighting these monsters trying to clear them out. The fun thing about that is the soccer ball has some really good physics with it, so you're bouncing it off the walls and it has a nice little art style. I have links in this in the Gamescast, Doc, if you want to pull any of these up, bear it.

And then I've been playing this game, Party House, which has really taken over a lot of the UFO 50 community. It's a deck building game, but with these little characters that essentially the thing is that you have these characters and you are trying to fill up a house party, right? So you start off with a certain amount of spaces, right? And every character has a certain amount of popularity or cash, right? So if you have five characters and each of them have one popularity and one cash, you get five cash and five popularity. Right. The cool part about it is that you have a strike system, right?

So if you get three strikes, you're out. And you're trying to fill up this house party without getting three strikes. And the cool part about it is that the strike, So people with the exes have more popularity and more cash. So it's like kind of this balancing system. And then you can pick up like over here, you have the hippie guy that basically negates one of the exes. You have somebody where you can replace people in it.

And it just becomes this like fun, frantic game of trying to fill up this house. And the way that you win it is you have to get four aliens in there. It's a very bizarre game. But when you actually get into it and you get your hands on the sticks, it makes a lot of sense. and it's, I could see this game being a really awesome mobile port even, but in it, it's a very valuable part of it. But this game that I've been playing is, uh, that is at the end of the collection is Lords of Desconia, which is a, on the offset, you look at it, it's like, oh, it's a pretty simple strategy game, right? You have, you're the blue, you're the red team and then there's a,

there's blue knights or whatever, and you kind of are moving around your pieces and you're trying to, you know, get gold and then buy more troops. But then when you actually meet and you fight each other, it's like pool, right? Where you have these, you have these. little discs and you're like flinging them across this battlefield and you're trying to knock them off and the coolest part of it is that when it's your turn you don't have any

you don't take any damage so you're really flinging these people trying to get extra damage knock them into other of your troopers so you can get double damage kind of ricochet them and the awesome the even super cool part of that is that by the end of the game it has the Fortnite fog

so it starts like coming in and then there's water so if you knock somebody into water they ought to automatically dying. You can automatically die. They're sand that stops you. And then you can get, they have like course like goblins or whatever, but they have like archers where you can knock somebody in. You get like one hit points. And then they also shoot off their own little mini arrow disc that also in order to use that arrow, you have to pick up crystals on the battlefield. So it's like this.

You're finding the resources and you're trying to make sure that when you die, because if you lose this battle, you don't lose the interaction, the scenario, you also want to pick up gold. So then you have another chance to pick up some more players for your next scenario. So it's like a bunch of smaller games that have really spoken to me. And this is only three. Like I have, by the end of it, I went through every single game chronologically. Of course, I played some of them for like five minutes, right? But by the end of it, I had 20 games that I'd favorited that I go back to regularly

every single night. It's becoming a problem where I have a lot of redacted games that I'm trying to play. And last night, I was like, man, I'm going to play field of mystery. I haven't played that in a month even. Like, I really want to go back to it. I finally got some chickens and some baby cows.

That's exciting. That's exciting. I'm right there too. I'm right there too. But, like, I was like, I really want to play this. And then I just boot up UFO 50 and that's all I'm playing. I'm just going through and I'm finding all these interesting games.

So yeah, I can go on a whole dissertation about this. I can tell you everything about it. One of the things you said there that I found interesting was you said the UFO 50 community. Yeah. What does that mean? It's a very small group of people that have, not too small. I mean,

there's a group people that enjoy this game. Googling of like, hey, what are people's tier list, right? Because 50 games, people are doing the, hey, here's, this is the game that you got to play. These are the games you shouldn't play. The UFO 50 game in the year. And party house is like, is like the weird one where like I expected this is just a Roger thing. And it's like, no, everyone's fucking obsessed with party house.

Super sick. UFO 50, I bought it like a week ago. I was like, I'm going to boot this up for sure. Because I heard the best he's talking about it. It seems like a really, really novel concept. And I just love the idea that I love kind of shit like that where this is a, these are all lost games from a lost console

that never came out. I think that's really, really cool and neat and that's such a creative concept. But yesterday, you and Tim, I overheard you all having a conversation about your future at the company. No, you're having a conversation about

how Tim was saying, man, I just can't get into it, and it's kind of weird, and there's a lot of games that I'm out digging, and Roger, you told him, I have a list of 10 games that I can give you. that I kind of keep going back to.

Can you list those out for the chat as well? Yeah, I mean, a lot of those, I think I ended up... And for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I ended up toiling it down to... Three of them, right? Three, yeah, I think it was... Yeah, so it's Mortal, which is also a really cool one, where it's a puzzle platformer, where the twist is,

you have to use your lives and your body to become the platforms. So you have, like, 20 lives, and you have to shoot your body as a dart to then use it as a platform or make it a rock to open up somewhere. That's dope. There's also a morgue. in the collection, which is wild. It's not as good, actually, which is very funny that I'm doing that thing. I love that.

Yeah. I, of course, it's a party house, Lord's a Desconia. Railheist is also a good one. This is essentially like emergent gameplay, the video game, like, where you are able to, you're trying to, it's a turn-based thing where you were stealing, you were doing a train heist, right? What was it called again? Rail heist.

Rail heist. Real heist. Where you are trying to, you know, pick up some money boxes, right? But the cool thing is about it is that all of these, uh, enemies, they interact with each other, right? So if you can trick them to shooting their own enemy, right? Or you can throw a box of them in midair and then it does something weird. Like, there's some really creative ways to play this game that I've seen speed runs of this.

I'm like, holy shit. Like people are thinking about this in such a different way. A chameleon, someone put in chat, which is great, which is a stealth puzzle game where you play as a chameleon. Oh, sorry, it's camouflage. It's camouflage. And then you play as a chameleon. Yeah, man, I can keep on going. There's like, there's 15 games that I have that I, I, I really dig.

Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely going to give the three that you set a shot because I played this for quite a while. Because the idea, it's, I'm obsessed with it. Like, it's so cool. I love the NES era. So it's like this is very, oh, Tim, you're going to love this. It just isn't clicking for me. Like going through, I played probably like 20 of the games in chronological order.

None of them were hitting for me. Like every single one, it reminded me of allegedly back in the day, you would just get a whole bunch of of NES. Oh, that's what I love. Just like, grow them on, play a little for like two minutes, play this one for five minutes and just like, and then you find the one that you like. I just didn't get to that part yet.

So I'm happy that you sent me these over because like, everyone's glowing about this game. But then I was looking at it. Not everyone is. There's a lot of people that are a little aligned with me of just like, this is a cooler idea than it is actually an execution. But I do feel like there's with 50 games. That's just so much.

And specifically starting chronologically, which I insist on doing. Because that is such a cool idea to me. like, yeah, you're starting with the oldest stuff that, like... That was the tough thing for me is finding games within it that I actually fall in love with. And what I ended up doing, when I first got the game, I started, I clicked the first game chronologically, looked at it and was like, all right, cool. The cool part about that, that first game, I wrote it off completely.

And then I saw people were like, this game's fucking insane. Like, this game is like, they're comparing it to like animal well. It's like an animal well, which is wild. Sorry, yeah, there's depth to everything. I clicked into the first one. And then out of curiosity, I was like, let me skip to the last game and see how much they improve or the chronological time to see if they did the thing. Went to the last one and it looks like a game at the end of the NES era.

And I was like, all right, that's fucking cool. But after that, it was very much picking and choosing. There was a GRP, like I found a fantasy type game where I was like, let me jump into this to see like how vast it is. And I started playing it and it kept going and going. And I was like, all right, I'm done here. I don't need to keep going, but this is really cool that they're able to execute this idea. And I'm very in love with the concept.

But the curation part of it is the part that I struggle with, which is, all right, how do I find the games that I know I'm going to fuck with without having to like play. Yeah, go through all of them and play hours of each of these games. Like, I don't have that kind of time. And so what I ended up doing to find some of the games that I like is going on the scene page because they name a few games.

I forget what it's called. But the one where your car drifting on a road and it's also a schmup where you're shooting at things in the sky. That one I fuck with. Yeah. Like that game's awesome. And there's also like a strategy like, like, like, ants game.

Yes. Where you have like, you know, eggs that you bring back to the queen aunt to create more troops and shit. I love it Yeah And so like I think you know Hearing Roger talk about some of these games

I was like oh snap I didn't know about the train one The train one sounds fucking awesome And so I want to go back and check out Like the handful of ones that I think you are gonna uphold the most Real quick I haven't had the opportunity to tell anybody this But I feel like you're saying ants We're finally gonna find out what happened in Mexico Oh shit

Not quite Mexico but I did learn in Mexico South America They're one of my friends that I've known for a long time Is obsessed with ants and has a whole ant farm in his room. What? And like, there's like a whole,

you know, like the hamster wheels and like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like, yes, this whole ant colony that's not just in one little tank. It's like a whole thing.

Does he have the ant farm, a cell phone case? No. Wait, what? No. Oh, yeah, yeah,

there's like an ant phone, or an ant farm phone case, like an iPhone case. It is real ants? Yeah. Oh, yeah, real ants.

Do you have photos of the ant farm? I don't. I'll try to get them next time. I go to his house. But I've just never seen this. And he was like, oh, yeah, no, it's in my bedroom. And I look, and it was the most insane thing I've ever seen. And, like, I was joking.

I was like, do you name the ants? He's like, I named some of them. I love that. And I'm like, this is crazy. Will you tell us who, on air, who it is? Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was footage later. Oh, yeah, footage of my, his wife. Oh, my God, I need to get him this.

That's awesome. His wife made an Instagram story of him. He found a queen aunt on the sidewalk. Did he flip out? And, like, he was freaking out. And, like, got it got to go to a place got a straw to get the ant to bring it home. I love that.

I love that. This is crazy. Preservation. Can you imagine having a passion that the entire fucking world didn't know about? Our lives are just so like, I did this last night, so now it's content. Your friend, your lifelong friend is a super into ass. Six foot by six foot ant hill in his room. You've never heard about it.

So think about it. It'd be like, poe me like, oh, yeah, I'm an Olympic finger skater. I really think it's a curling. You can bring home a girl and then they see your sonic stuff Or Alarmo Why don't want me to have sonic stuff so bad? I mean, which is worse?

The Ants cat. Oh man, I love it so much. I'm sure we can keep talking about a million different games Even different games within one game with UFO 50. But we'll have more game of the year conversations throughout the year. I want to close this episode with something that Snowbike Mike has prepped. Got glasses and hit the beat.

This just in, ladies and gentlemen. Gentlemen, welcome to the kind of funny money network. If you got money, it's time to put it down on these top 10 contenders. That's right. Let's hit the polls because I got what's hot right now and trending. Andy Cortez, it's been a spicy Q3 of 2024, and there's been a lot of games coming our way. Let's talk about what could be hot or not.

trending downward currently in your top 10 lists. Bring up the graphic. Concord. Concord, you were hot until you turned it off. You're down. Damn. Stormgate. Thought you could have been the next Blizzard.

What's Stormgate? Unfortunately, you didn't have the juice. I'm not heard of this video. Oh, is that don't seem to you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Even all the celebrity power couldn't push you. Chain together. You're currently trending.

down because I can't get Andy and Nick to play the game with me anymore. But this could turn around. If Andy and Nick play this game, could become a top ten contender. Wow. Finally, Space Marine 2. Will this make a top 10? I don't know. Blessing

and Roger won't play with me anymore. We're going to do it, right? What the fuck do you mean? We won't play with you anymore. Currently trending downward. I was out of town. I was out of town. I don't know. Let's talk about what's making. Well, let's talk about the good.

I understand why the, the, this stock like image is like so low quality. What did you do to the text? Make it look like dog shit. We taught him how to do it. The stroke is it on the top 10, but then even then it's all crunch. I always tell him you need it. You can't put a stroke around the letters that is inside of the letter.

Yeah, he's doing the inside. It's always saying. I click the stroke button. It just gives you what it gives me. No, but there's a further menu. Back to the song. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

You're giving a stroke, but that's just the top. Trending, you don't get a shoe. Let's go to what's trending up for us. Trending Upward. There's only four options on his top ten. What's trending upward right now? This is what's hot that you need to know about.

Deadlock currently has taken over my life. 75 hours in, I'll probably put in another 75 before the year's over. Final Fantasy, Balatro, Eldon Ring, forgot about you. Watch out for Deadlock. Up next, TCG, card simulator. Have you ever thought about owning your own card shop? This is the game for you. Stinky customers looking for singles, looking for packs.

You can sell it to them, Tim. This is a great video game. It also has a Pokemon mod. So if you like Pokemon cards, you can mod it to have Pokemon cards. Don't tell Nintendo. This game, this game right now is red fucking hot. You should be playing it. Up next, Frost Punk 2.

Why do I like this game? I'm really enjoying it. They're making me make tough decisions, like giving universal health care or no health care to the people. If people have been vaccinated or not. Very interesting questions that I'm answering. No, we don't need my answer. We don't know the answers.

Well, I'd rather not know. Up next. With how favorably you look at the Shinra Corporation, I don't want to know. Mike is the businesses or people.

Oh, no. Up next. Tiny Glade. Tiny Glade is a fantastic diorama simulator where you get to build your own cute little towns. It's a lot of fun. You should give it a try. Very, very cute stuff over there.

Up next, Zucosis. Hey, it's October. Hey! Have you thought about playing a scary game mixed with a job simulator? Zucosis is the game for you. It's got mixed reviews. But Snowmike Mike will tell you,

I really like it. Nick hated it, right? Nick hated it. So top-down trending. It's going up. It's going up. He looked at us during the Untoldazza and said, I really missed with that one.

And this was before he ordered the pizza without pepperoni. Up next, Pico Park 2. If I can get the crew to play more Pico Park, you better get ready. This could make your top 10 list of just fun, good games. And finally, Gordlets. If you haven't been jumping on Gordlets, an awesome city simulator with no rules,

no objectives, just fun creation. this is a game for you. Those are your top tens trending up and down, but there's still future months coming our way. Let's go to a segment that I call, put your money on it. Get your money out. These are the games

that you need to bet on. Okay, because these games will and could make your top 10. Upcoming, backyard baseball 97. Yeah, I know it already released, but guess what? Pablo Sanchez is back. Put your money on it.

That's the kids. will want to play backyard baseball, and they will be talking about it. Vinnie the Gooch has returned. The only commentator in backyard sports history to be fired has returned for backyard baseball. We can't be calling a guy Vinny the Gooch anymore. A child. Beanie the Gooch, that's his name. That's unfortunate.

Up next, keep it going. He's just reporting the facts here. He can't be late for reporting the facts. Put your money on it. Mario Party. Soon enough, we'll be playing Mario Party. someone at this desk will hate their life every time we play it. Joe?

Put your money on it. That will be in the top 10. Up next. Undisputed boxing. Have you missed out on Fight Night Round 3 and all the fun? Undisputed drop today. You should be playing it, okay? Stop being a baby, Roger, and play a boxing game.

You're going to love it. Have you played it? I played it last night. Oh. How is it? I thought I heard people saying it wasn't great. Finally. Finally.

That's the end of Snowbike Mike's kind of fun. I thought there was one more thing to mention. That's not how you... Money Network. Don't do your top 10 trending. Yeah. Trending. IGVE gave...

I just stood it as six. You know what? I am the arbiter of if it's good or not. I'll tell you later on at the end of the year. Okay, that's the end of the year. We're going to need to wait for our final game of the year. That's a put your money on it segment right there. Put your money on it.

Something I'll put my money on. These seven games will be on Mike's final time. Put your money on it. And none of it. of them will be on our final top 10 list. Oh man. Deadlockwell. Well, everybody.

This has been an amazing episode of the Kind of Funny Games cast. Like I was saying, Kind of Funny members will be able to watch what is sure to be an Alzheimer kind of funny podcast later this afternoon. Let us know in the comments below what your current game of the year is. And if you think there's anything coming out later, that might end up taking its spots. Come on, Dragon Age. Until next time. I love you all.

Goodbye.