Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Game of the Year So Far 2022 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

From Eldin Ring to Kirby to Sifu to WWE 2K22, we go through what we think will be in the Game of the Year conversation at the end of the year. Time Stamps - 00:00:00 - Start 00:05:35 - Housekeeping 00:08:28 - Game of the Year So Far 00:34:27 - Ads 00:36:24 - Back From Ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the kind of funny games cast. Of course, I'm Tim Gettys and I'm joined by the new face of video games blessing at E. E.O.A. Jr. Tim, do you smell that? It's a new season, Tim. Yeah. It's a backlog season. Backlog season, baby.

Oh, yeah. What's you been doing with your backlog, bless? I've been jumping into games I've been wanting to jump into for a while, including a lot of ring fit adventure, which I've been talking about lately. That's one that I've been putting off. I've been wanting to do it because, like, if you remember early pandemic, It was impossible to get. And I was, I was looking for some kind of, like, workout activity to do.

And it was Janick Garcia last week who brought RingFit back up and was talking about how she's been doing it. And she was like, yo, ring fit's been incredible for me. Like, you should try it out. And then Roger hit me up and was like, yo, if you do it, I'll do it. And I was like, all right, cool. Yeah, let's order it. Like, let's get it. We're very available now.

And I've been doing that. No, what cares now? Yeah, no, no, no. We're all done with that first wave pandemic where we all, we're better ourselves with this two weeks off. No, no, no. Yeah, yeah. Paid like 48% above the price. I haven't seen it in about three years.

Yeah, so I've been doing a lot of that. I've been jumping back into some Genshin, playing a little bit of GTA, just hanging out in the backlog a little bit. So that's what my April, I think, is going to look like. There's a lot of backlog hanging out in. Yeah, yeah, what's it smell like? I mean, it's a lot of different sense mixed together. Yeah, what was that, Andy?

Ocean breeze, kind of. Ocean breeze. I thought you said Fibrease, which I spelled a little bit of Fibreze, too. Yeah, backlog would be a bit musk. I think it's still like a comic shop, right? Oh, like a log, like oak. That's what, yeah, there we go. Oh, good wood, good wood.

Manilin in the chat says backlog season smells sweaty. But I feel like that was review season. Yeah, review season was sweaty season. Yeah, yeah. Rounded out the group we have two more beautiful gentlemen. One of them, the nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. Hello, everybody. Bless, you could have borrowed my ring fit if you want.

That's fine. The thing that Roger and me actually agreed on, the thing Roger me actually agreed on is like, we plan to make content with it. And our thing is, it is spolar, the content we'll eventually make right we're like yo let's commit 30 days we're gonna do 30 of this if we make it to the end then we'll just expense it on the company that's how we'll do we didn't tell you that Greg or Tim but like just so you know you might get like a good

are you doing Broll right now because I want I want I want we need the sweaty winded you only oh yeah okay day one I did take a log I did sit down I talked about my experience with day one I plan on a keep doing updates yeah I'm gonna get a stream I'm gonna get a steam deck and play Eldon ring on a flight to Tokyo Greg but it would be for content we're in right you know what you you lost me then you had me oh god this god damn fucking aerial night i'm gonna murder this man one day i'm gonna murder you aerial night one day that voice is one of the coolest in video games gregg miller what's going on gregg uh you know it's backlog season tim as the one the one the only blessing at aoia junior said and so you know we're getting ready here and i i've

been playing lake i've been working on that i've been doing the you know uh of course KFW and WW2K22 working on that. And so I deleted a couple games off my hard drive. And I saw Ariel Knight sitting there. Ariel Knights never yield. And everybody remembers, of course, this game came out. It was a short game. It looked to be an easy platinum.

But Ariel Knight had a bonus level in it that is a mindbender, total mind fuck that you have to beat to do it, which doesn't sound that bad because you can just do it over and over again. But when the game initially came out, Tim, the only way to get to the bonus level was to every time do the level that preceded it. You have to get the little collectible that then do it right after you beat the other level. So it became this adventure that I was like,

you know what? I'm not good enough at Ariel Knights, never yield. I will not do this. I will put this down. Clearly he'll patch this one day. You're yielded. I did. And then why I like, you know, I yield, I tentatively yielded because I knew he would come to his senses. And he came to his senses and he put out, duh update. And this came out a while ago.

It came to Xbox and PC first, if I were correct. And then it was coming to switch and PlayStation later. And so it was one of those that I kind of lost sight of and I wasn't sure if it came out. So right before this, when in there, updated the game, sure enough to update out there. And I am trying to beat this goddamn level, which will then give me the platinum in this video game.

As well, because I think I platinum that video game pretty easily. Like it wasn't that hard. Now, first off, now hold on, full stop. Full stop. Did Blessing Platinum this game before me? Yes. Blessing, don't be a lying little fuck and say it was easy. Because if memory serves, you had the same problem.

So you watched a YouTube video and like made notes on it. it and then you were like all right then you went and did it a bunch like you put in the work as well oh yeah oh yeah but like it wasn't the receipts dude i guess i should realize that greg villar is a fucking like when it comes to trophies he's like he doesn't play around right like you over here looking looking over he'll shoulder staring at i'll tell you what i could tell you jack we and i had like a two hour long podcast once about your you know who we have cool friends blessing adioia junior right i don't remember a goddamn thing about your personal life but i'll tell you right now I know all about your goddamn trophies, Merck City 64.

Show them. Look at this right now. Bears putting up there. What do you have to hide? God damn. Why does this happen? This happens like once a month. Review season's over.

What do you hide? Give it up. Like, I don't want to share my trophies. I really like hiding the fact that he may not have platinum Dary all night, never yield, you know? Yeah. How do we know, right?

Can't prove it. I plan. Yeah, you know, let me turn off my trophies and I'll tell you hi, platinum delin ring. I beat Lady Missasa or whatever. Fuck me was at the end of it. No problem. Oh, my God.

Everyone. This is the Kind of Funny Games cast. We each it every week. We get together to talk about video games and all the things we love about them. You can get it on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games or Rooster Teeth.com. You can also get it as a podcast by searching your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny Gamescast and we'll be right there for you. If you wanted to get the show ad free, if you wanted to watch it live as it's being recorded. And most importantly, if you want to get the exclusive post show where we do a fun game show called Bless Who that is a bunch of different game shows.

in one but we started a new one recently bless do you have a new name for it yet no i think i'm sticking with the o g name which is kind of feudy kind of feudy if you've ever heard of family feud it's better much better so you can check it out if you go to patreon dot com slash kind of funny games to support us there just like our patreon producers fargo brady prankscy tyler ross delaney twining first responder n d julian the gluten-free gamer james hastings casey andrew and anonymous have all done we appreciate you all so very much and so very equally. I want all of you to know. This list of people,

sometimes there's ones. I'm like, I like you more than the other. This list, I love you all. I love you all. Tim, when you said it's better,

much better. You said that exactly the way they say, they say it in the Amanda show, specifically the block blister. Yeah, the block blister bit. Did you do that on purpose? I did.

I did it just for you, bless. I did it just for you. I appreciate it. You did it for yourself. I did it for me. I did it for me, guys.

All right, I got to come clean. If you don't have a buck to toss our way, that's totally cool. You could use the epic creator code. Kind of funny. Anytime you're on the epic store buying, whatever it is, those jiggly bits you get with the Fortnite or Rocket League or any of the other epic game store games. What do you got, Greg?

What? You mad at the jiggly bits? You can watch, you can rewind it at home for you. You see him say jiggly bits. You see me frown at it, and then you see me fuck up Ariel Knight. So that one's on you. I'll take it. I'll take it, everybody.

There's a man's trophy list, not afraid of anything. And I shouldn't even say, man, there's an adult's trophy list, all right? Not some child showing up to the party right now. It's a nice five-star dinner. He shows up with his shorts and his Nickelodeon shirt on. All right. This is what you do when you go to a steak restaurant. Greg, talk to me when you've plied in the aerial.

Ariel nights never years, please. I'm sniffing around it, bless. I'm sniffing around it. There's a great chance I'm going to get it before we really get into the show. If you get a little bit of my trophy. before the end of the show. Well, okay, fine, deal. Wow.

Today we are brought to you by Maple Story and Miundis, but I'll tell you all about that later. It is officially April. We're midway through April, which is crazy to think about, which means we are a quarter through the year, 2022. So, did you do it, Craig?

Did you do it? That was not a half-in-old. This is going to be my final one because I need to be part of the show. I need to be part of the show. I'm going to do this one thing here, all right? We do need you to be a part of the show. We do need you to be a part of the show because today we are talking about the game of the year so far. Every year, we do these check-ins throughout the year before we get to the big one at the end of the year.

Of course, we have all kind of funny, all the gamers out there making their top 10 lists and we do the whole voting system and then we result in our game of the year each year. This is different. This is just us doing a little check-in to see where we're at. And I got to say, so far, 2022, a bunch of bangers, a bunch of games that I feel like we already can kind of have a consent. this agreement that we're going to see nominated for Game of the Year at the end of the year. And I do think it's one of those rare years where because of things like Eldon Ring, we're kind of like starting off with such a strong hitter that we're like, is it going to get taken down? So that's the conversation I want to have with you guys is right now, where are y'all at?

What are your game of the year so far? Then I kind of want to talk about what upcoming games in 2022 do we think our pretty surefire bets are going to make it in that conversation? And then the final thing that I'm really excited about is, are there any surprises that we think might show up this year to slide into that, into that those nominations? Bless, I want to start with you. What do you want me? Just want to start with my, like, game of the year?

Your game of the year. Whatever that means to you right now. So right now I have a frontrunner that, like, is pretty easily my number one. And then I have a few games that follow it. And like those games I can kind of rearrange. But right now my game of the year is all entering. I think it is like, it is the easy pick. It is.

this goes as far as like me and my personal taste. Then also I think conversation in general in terms of like the back and forth you see on Twitter and on in reviews and in the way that people talk about it, it seems like the game that has pushed things forward the most in terms of what action games can be, what RPGs can be, what open world games can be. Eldon Rings seems to push things in a way where I'm looking at future games and I'm like, damn, I want to see more games, try this out, right? Like we talked about even on a different podcast, I think it was me and Greg, we're talking

about how like, you know, I'm looking forward to Breath of the Wild 2, right? Like Breath of the Wild 1, one of my favorite games ever, if not my favorite game ever. Breath of Wild 2, there are things about that game where now I'm thinking about it in the context of Eldon Ring and what Eldon Ring is done where I'm like, man, Eldon Ring had, I guess I don't want to spoil things, but like Eldon Ring takes its open world, right, and like, adds a level of verticality to it that I think is so impressive and so cool. And now I'm like, dude, I'd want to see Breath of Wild 2 do that. And Breath of Law 2, obviously in trailers we see like, you're going to the sky, you're doing all this

different shit, right? But then it's like, dude, the boss fights in Eldon Ring and like how many there are and the quality of them and the quality of the combat and all this stuff, right? Like, I'm looking forward to games that I'm like, this is the peak. This is like the cream of the crop, right? And like, thinking about ways that they can take lessons and take ideas from the Eldon Ring. Like, the Alden Ring for me is that good of a game. And I think like at this point, within the way that we talk about open world games, it is that next big step. You know, when we talk about the GTA fives or the Fallout threes or the Witcher threes, right? Like Eldon Ring for me is what I've wanted for out of an open world game since maybe A Breath of the Wild, right?

And so I think for me, that's first and foremost. I'm sure we'll talk about it more as you go around the table. But after that, for me, Tim, unless you have something to. Yeah, you know, just with, let's stay on the Eldon Ring stuff for now because Andy is Eldon Ring. I assume it is. But is it your game of the year so far. Yeah.

Yeah, it's not even close. Like this is a generational, like, game of the decade, game of the console generation type thing. And any other game that follows that is still fantastic. and would still be in the running for number one or like top three if it were any other year. But yeah, I mean, there's really no more that I can add on to what blessing already mentioned. I think you know what prediction is looking real good right now. Greg mentioning that Eldon Ring might be kind of funny as Game of the Year.

I said it's either going to be game of the year or it'll be a huge disappointment. And it looks looking real good. Looking real good right now. Oh, you out of that others? That's kind of lame. That's kind of shitty. I mean, that was the prediction. I'd add that that was you were on the episode.

The thing you're referencing is what I did. Right. I thought you just said it'll be game of kind of funnish game of the year, but I didn't, I don't know. I forgot you added on that it would be a disappointment as well, like either. No,

what? No, or or not. It wouldn't as well. No, no, no, or.

But like, that sucks. That's kind of shitting. Why's that suck? I mean, it was just saying, I mean, I bet's my confidence level in Eldon Ring at the time.

That it was either going to be in the year or it'll suck or it'll be okay or good or bad. It's just, what, how many, what are, how, it's a good point. That's a good point, Andy. Like, you can't predict everything for it. I thought the whole time it would just, it was gonna be kind of funny's game in the year. I was like, wow, Greg is on it, but clearly you've lost this though. Um, Eric beat Ariel night, hurry up. I did. Um, you did it.

You did it. I didn't and I don't understand why. So that is also why I'm very angry and, uh, I don't know what's going on. Because I beat the level, you would have said something. There's no way you're gonna be it. You can go back, rewind the footage. You'll see me celebrate. And then I get a very puzzled look at my fucking face because I'm like,

where's the goddamn trophy? Is it because I use the new to update level select? What the fuck? Do I have to do it through the thing, Ariel? What the fuck do you want for me? Damn, that's amazing. I want to keep this energy, Greg, I want to go to you. Staying on Eldon Ring.

I know that it's not your cup of tea, but do you think that Eldon Ring from everything you've seen and from how much everyone loves it? Do you think it is going to end up being the game of the year? I mean, yes. I would say like it's so Andy doesn't, you know, come back in the fucking. four more months and act like I said something cool and then take it away. Yes, I think

Eldon Ring will be our game of the year. I do think the toss-up is who we have voting on game of the year. You know what I mean? That's always where we get into it where you know, we've had two years with the cool voting system, right? That led to unexpected results with Ratchet winning last year and before that Final Fantasy 7. And I feel like this year, enough people are going to be all about Eldon Ring and putting it at the number one spot to get those 10 points, that it should be insurmountable. But it gets, because Barrett, I assume, just for chiming in right, we can get your opinion a second, Barrett. But is Elbin ring your game in the year so far?

For a while, I didn't think it was going to be. But yes, it is. And so like, yes. That's three tens right there. And that's where it starts to get like, okay, well, how big are we making it this year for voting? Who all's coming in? Because obviously, I don't think it won't be on my list, probably. You know what I mean? I, I, at some point, do want to give it a college try. go back to it or whatever after being in between reviews and not loving what I played. But knowing what else, I'm sorry, what was that? Backlock season. Yeah, exactly. But like, Tim, I doubt it'll be on your list, right? So then it's like you start getting into like what's going to be up there. And I think behind Eldon Ring, it gets into such a motley

assortment of games that that's where it gets really interesting of. Could any of those games put together the points to get there? And when you get back there, I don't, what do you see that we're all going to be unified on, right? Like, I would assume for not everyone, but a lot. Horizon's going to be on the list. I don't know if it's going to be high on people's list, but it could tabulate some points that way, you know, make a run that way. If Starfield comes through, right, Starfield could be up there for sure. You know, a lot of us love Bethesda games. And I think that, again, it could be one of those games that gets enough points behind it. Yeah, enough people play. Yeah, you get through that though and you get into the

smattering of, you know, what is a Paris going to think? You know, Paris, literally, not the, not the country or the city. What's Paris going to think of a game of the year? Where is he going to shake on things and is he voting and then you know Mike Howard's gonna fucking just do some goddamn snowboarding game you know what I mean like I don't know you don't know you don't know what's gonna see of thieves another shredders like a year in a row yeah I think that's the that's the tough thing right like when we look at ratchet the big reason why ratchet won our game of the year last year was because ratchet was a game that all of us played all of us loved and it ended up on every single one of our lists and I think it was the only game bear correct me from wrong

that it was on every single one of our list and for everybody that was like man this Nobody even voted this number one. It was number one on minor, right? Yeah. There it is. I'm sure Horizon, like right now, and I don't mean to jump the gun, but like, I imagine Horizon right now is Greg's number one. And there's a chance that that might not change by the end of the year.

And if Horizon's that game, right? And if Janet has Horizon, let's say, in the top three of her list, and then if Paris has Horizon is in his list, right? And I'm going to have a Verizon my list probably. And if Andy does too, right? Like, I think there's a chance there, given the audience that we are in the way that we play games where you see enough points get allocated that way, where it slowly usurps Ellen Ring.

I think there's a chance of that. I think when Greg plays cabin bear, where you play a bear that goes through puberty and makes a shop. Do you realize how close you are to the one of the games I am very excited about where you're a bear who runs a bed and breakfast? Oh my God.

I forgot that was a fucking game. I was going to say that like your best friend. Yeah, you have like a, What's up? What's up, bless? Oh, is it called it?

Bear in Breakfast? Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. That's incredible. Yeah. Oh, you're fucking worries when that's game of the year, right? You like,

you make scrambled eggs and it's an illusion to like your, your father passing away or some shit. Like, you're going to cry a lot. God forbid that I want, yeah, storytelling and not just, all right, you're this fucking guy who can't land a lady,

so now go out and kill a bunch of shit. Look at this thing. Look at this. A Spirit Halloween barfed out a bunch of the fucking lanky dudes. That's a really cool. Yeah, there's always something to do in this fucking jaggy-ass world as you look all around. Go fight them. Oh, God.

Greg Miller. Where are you, is Horizon your game of the year so far, or what is your number one so far? You know, Tim, it's an interesting year, as always. You sit here, you look into yourself. You look at the list of games you've played already for these first four months, and you say, what is the best game I've played this year? what is the game that is game of the year for the first four months. And shockingly, ladies and gentlemen, Horizon Forbidden West is not my game of the year so far.

We would be lying to ourselves. I would be lying to myself. Oh, no, this man. If I didn't say, WW2K22 is an insanely good wrestling game. I knew where this is going. I mean, I'm not doing a bit. I'm not doing the Greg Miller Avengers thing where I like Avengers, but it's a shit game. I got to tell you, Greg.

gotta tell you when you were leading to this i was like oh shit he's about to say wdwee and then i had a moment like how is he going to bring adventures into this how is he going to and i'm probably really saying the name you know how i you know how i do what i do you know i'll double down to do a character sometime and i want to hear why blessing so like oh god damn it blah blah but like w wisconsin yeah like i'm i'm for sure had i've had more fun with and like this is obviously so convoluted and difficult, right? Like, we're comparing two different games that are trying to achieve incredibly different things, like, obviously.

And I do not think that when we get to the end of the year and we sit there and we vote for game of the year, I do not expect to vote WW2K22, my game of the year. I'm just talking about these first four months, right? But I can't believe how much I still want to play this game. And again, the same thing we said in the review is the same thing I'm having every day, which is sitting down and turning. it on and going, all right, what do I want to do? It's not that I want to jump in and I'm just doing the career or I'm just doing this or I'm just doing that. It is, to give you an idea

of my continued, not obsession, but like enjoyment of this game, we're sitting there Friday of last week. We are within a couple hours of putting portilla to sleep. And so we're on the bed and we're saying our goodbyes. We're hanging out with them. It's not like this entire whole time. We're like, you know, fucking rocking them back and forth and sobbing or whatever. But we're sitting there and we're talking about him and sharing memories of his life, yada, yada, yada. And Jen is talking to me or whatever. And on my phone, you hear the startup screen of the PlayStation.

And Jen's like, what are you doing right now? Are you playing puzzle quest? And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not playing puzzle quest. WWE just put out some new locker codes for my faction. So I'm catching those in via remote play. And she's like, I respect it. All right, cool. Like, I want to go do that kind of stuff.

I want to get the cards. I want to play in my faction. I want to keep, I haven't even finished race. thing because there's so much to do the showcase mode or whatever and then as they just showed right the kfw stuff we're doing is so much fun it is so much fun to create these characters and put them in and again i'm not creating most of these characters but you know customizing them and use them and have them be our friends and just watch the a i fight and commentate over it but then of course playing the game is still so much fun i don't think i've talked about on games cast since then i think i talked about

on maybe a ps i love you but like you know after gdc my friend sean was in town one of the guys I do play Avengers with. And, you know, he came over and we had a bunch of beers in the backyard. And then we came in and we just played wrestling games. And we did the old school, like thing you would do with your friends of like, all right, cool. Like, you know, we went through our, you know, favorite wrestlers. And it was that thing of like, all right, cool.

Let's do random. Do random three times. And then you get to pick from those wrestlers who you're going to play as in this match or whatever. And we did that. And we ran the different, you know, Helen S. This, that, and the other, you know, online. I've played, obviously, on streams and stuff. I've had a lot of fun with that.

I think it's the system they have on top of it, the reversals, the kickouts, all that. Like, it is such a well-done wrestling game. And again, yes, I'm a wrestling game fan. It's one of the reasons I am who I am and love video games the way I do is because I was, you know, on those games from basically day one. And so to be here in 2022, have that, you know, love of wrestling games reignited by this thing. I can't look past that. Like, we can talk about Horizon if you want, but I want to know a little bit more about WWE where Blessing was like, what the fuck. I love this.

I just wanted to say I love this and I think even the way that our audience is interacting with it, I think shows a lot of care about how we are interacting with the game. And it's also kind of like reignited this passion of mine that I want to do what we're doing for this with like W with NBA 2K. Like I want all of us to be a team, a created team. Hell yeah. With a franchise. Like I want to do that for the NFL.

Like we create our, obviously. see like it's a lot more personal it's a lot funnier whenever you see your character's face on the character but I think it's I don't know I think it just kind of like opened up this whole sort of lane of of entertainment that we can kind of include with the audience I think it's really dope yeah hearing you break it down I think makes it makes sense to me and I think it I think for me it's the thing of it's a testament to how good of a year this is for video games where in my head when I'm thinking of where WW2K lies on my list, right? Like, going through it, I am like, man, I do think that I see this competing with Dyn Light 2, a game that surprised me when I played that, and I

really enjoyed, right? Like, I could see WWE overtaking that. And even if I see it overtaking that, right, because I can see how it works its way up your list, especially in the way that we've experienced it, right? Like, one, this is a comeback for WWE games and it's a good one, but then also, like, hanging out, like watching KFW, playing on my own, playing my factions, going through all that, right? Like, engaging with the systems. It is a really fun game. to play and it's a game that I have not gotten super tired of yet. Like I'll still jump in and like do a couple of faction matches and unlock the card packs and get excited when I get new wrestlers.

And I think that alone is a testament to like how good they are in terms of like the modes. And I'm not even dipped into the My Rise and all that stuff. I think there's that. And I think like even what again, when going back to KFW, watching the streams and watching all the creators and watching like the announcements on Instagram of like Andrew Renee is joined like Janet Garcia is joined Lucy James like all that stuff. One, by itself, right, I think has taken the game and made it kind of bigger than it is in terms of like the way we engage with it. And like that is to the credit of the game, right?

The game gives us those tools to do that. But then it also reminds me of what I've always wanted out of a WWE game, like even playing back in the day, like playing Smackdown just bring it or Smackdown versus Rawl. And like thinking about creating characters that weren't in the game, right? Like what is the formula I can find online to create Jeff Hardy or whoever's not in this version of the game I'm playing? And then like creating my own. like my own leagues and like doing like this role playing thing that in my when I was playing as a kid right was just all in my head and was just me playing the game by myself seeing that taken all the way to the degree of where we're at now and we're in we're in 2020 and we have Twitch and we have an audience we have all these things and like saying you do it for me like is kind of the fulfillment of that original like wish that I had as a kid uh and for me that's that's super cool right like I can totally see like after all that like this game being up there in terms of our game of your discussion. Yeah, and I think that's what you know is so difficult to look past it. In terms of this very preliminary conversation, obviously, I wouldn't go to the mat,

no pun intended, for this versus Eldon Ring or whatever. But like, it is awesome to see the excitement behind this. And real quick, too, I guess, you know, I think sometimes we take for granted that everybody knows everything. KFW is kind of funny wrestling, and it's me and Snowbike Mike on my Twitch days, commentating over a federation we've started that is kind of funny wrestling, that is all of us created in the game. Thanks to, of course, Olive Party and Lider, Ken Leiter. And we just have the AI play the matches.

We have a bunch of different feuds. If you're an audio listener right now, if you wanted to click over to YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, right now you're seeing the KFW ring we've been working on recently. Cacobbyware here, Khalif Adams in the ring getting face off against Metacricket. It's this crazy, stupid thing we're doing. And again, you know, it's something I had had the idea for over my paternity leave. I wanted to come back and do it with FirePro.

But when we were in between those times, I noticed, of course, that Achievement Hunter was doing the exact same thing. And I was talking to Aaron Porter over there. And she was telling me about how they were doing in WW2K19 and all the stuff. And I watched some of what she had been doing already. And I was like, this is so good that I don't want to, I don't even want to do it yet until my head wrapped around it. And so when 2K22 dropped and was excellent, it invigorated that.

And then when Freddie, Olive Party and Ken, Ken Leiter, started making stuff for us. really went to the next year and they've been amazing partners. We are taking care of them. They are making stuff for us. They are, you know, getting face scans from us and doing all sorts of stuff. And, you know, we're doing it now every Monday on Twitch.com.com slash kind of funny games. We're building to our first pay-per-view, April Anarchy. And it's this thing that it's awesome that you guys are excited about it. Because that was my main thing when I started it of like, I knew I'd be all about it, but like, I wasn't even sure if I could get Mike super into it. Or if it would be something he just puts up with for my streaming days. But, you know,

the way Andy's been excited for it. And like the other day, you know, Andy share played into my PlayStation 5 to edit his own character because he wanted to tweak just a little bit. And like, you know, bless the fact that you want to do, you're a move set. Everybody's had input on what they're doing and shit. It's really outrageous. And I'm having so much fun with it. I see us doing it for a long time. Dude, I am blown away about what you guys have done with it.

I am so excited about it. Like, it is one of those things where I'm like, I need to watch it. And if I can't watch live, like, I am going back and watching the VOD. Like, this is the beginning of something that I think is going to be. very special and like it's going to be an important part of kind of funny history and like we keep saying this but like that it's because of the game like I feel like it'd be easy for a lot of people to listen to this and be like okay well you're they're saying this is one of your game of the years because of a community that you have and all this stuff and it's like

well no like part of this game a big part of this game is the customization and is all the different options you can have to kind of gamify it however you want to do that and that's all backed up by a very solid gameplay system in w2k with the wrestling itself. So I'm very, very, very impressed. How difficult is it, if I wanted to go in and like tweak my stuff? Like, do I have to do the role play stuff? Or can I just like download my character, do it on my system and re-upload it? It depends. I think the initial stuff that got uploaded was not re-uploadable. So I think that's how they were setting it up. But I, we can always ask them to change that and they would change it for you. But like another way, like the thing you're always welcome to do is like,

I was talking about a share play off my screen where we party up on the PSN and then you just take control my thing. Because we're using my save. So it's easy to go in there and tweak and do whatever you want to. And yeah, so, you know, Twitch.com slash kind of funny games every Monday. And then starting next week, they're posting on Tuesdays on YouTube. com slash kind of funny games. We're breaking out the actual part that is a show. So it's if you've never watched, it's the normal three-hour stream,

but the first hour is us all fucking around. Then we run an intro for the show, KFW, Midday Mayhem. We do all the commentating. We do it in character. And then we end with an outro. And so that part is going to get uploaded to YouTube. com slash kind of funny games on an episode. function starting next week.

Yeah, I mean, really quick, just to go off that, Andy, is the, what's going to be awesome about this is where there's two episodes done and episode three comes out next Monday to catch up on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games on Sunday. We're uploading episode one, Monday, episode two, and then Tuesday will be episode three. So if you haven't seen anything, it's going to be a perfect time to catch up starting this Sunday. But yeah, Andy, go for it. I just wanted to say, like, I'm really blown away by the level of customization. and I know that this is something the game has had for a long time,

but I think it just kind of shows you, I think it just goes to show how much gaming has lacked with character customization recently, where I am, I'm legitimately just blown away by the amount of things to wear and ways to decorate that thing that you're wearing. At least like color code and all that stuff, like the textures you can put on,

for different outfits, like for each, like, change the material. Yeah. Yeah, like you can change the material and make it pop in a lot of different ways. Cloth, leather, like glitter. Like, there's so many different variations of everything. And I just was able to get a taste of that as I was editing my character. And it was so funny.

I'm like, Greg, why don't I get a fucking T-shirt? How do I, like, and he was like, you're in the jacket section. I was like, oh, I thought I was just like in the tops section. I thought these were all just tops that you could wear. These are only jackets and variations of hoodies and vests and all sorts of things. And when I say variations, there's like 35 or 40 of these things. And then you can go to the shirt section, which is about 35 or 40 different variations of shirts and cutoffs. And these have slashes in the back, like across the cloth.

This is cut off at the waist. There's just so many different variation in there. And I was pretty blown away by my options. And yeah, I don't know. It's definitely surprising that I didn't expect to be as into this until kind of Greg started getting it off the ground. When Greg approached, Greg had already talked to Tim about the whole Fire Pro wrestling thing, and he brought it to me. It was like, would you like to be into this creatively? And I was like, yeah, of course.

Like, I'm always down to clown. But this is just kind of taking it to another level where I've seen the potential. And it's just something you kind of want to be a part of because it is really cool. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun to fuck around it in like a few weeks ago. And I'm in a few weeks ago. When the game first came out, like about a month or so ago, I started doing tabletop role playing, right? Like, not D&D is a game called Blaze in the Dark.

But like for that I wanted to visualize the character and I just went into the WWE character creator for that and like me and my character in there and I was like I was having a good time with it, right? Like I think again, there's such a testament to how well done the tools are in there. And like to Tim's point of us talking about like, yeah, like this game is up there because of our experience and because of the way we interact with it and the community and all that stuff. But like I'll say the same thing for Eldon Ring for me. Like that's the game that I love as much as I love because of the conversations that came out of it and because of like not only just play. playing the game and exploring the world and doing all that stuff, right? But then, like, weeks after the game coming out, going on TikTok and seeing people do, like, their own anime builds where they're playing as like One Punch Man or like the other day,

I saw somebody do a Will Smith build where they like, they customize the character as Will Smith and they invade people's games and slap them and walk away, right? Like those are the things that people are doing at Eldering and like seeing that stuff on YouTube and seeing it on TikTok and all that stuff is part of the experience of me going, man, this game is great. Like the fact that there's this level of customization for people to make Goku or make whoever they want in the game. like find their own ways to express that. For me, it's part of the experience and part of what makes these kinds of games special.

Bless, let me just tell you this. Somebody tagged me in a tweet today of a moment in Eldon Ring. You know, do you remember Latena the Summon? She's like one of the summons you can get. She just shoots arrows. She's an albinarch.

She cannot walk her like her. You find her. She's like a part of a, she's a side quest or whatever. But I was using her for a while. And she's just stationary because these albinarchs were created and they were created where they just kind of break down

quickly and they die at a young age. But she just stays there and she just shoots arrows and I used her for a while because it was cool to like get the bosses to go to her and then I would just hit them, get the agro, she'd shoot at them. And she is the same sort of race in the

Arctic section where you saw people shooting arrows off of wolves like riding wolves on like horseback. So I saw a video today of guy who summoned Latena while he was fighting a wolf and then she climbed on the wolf. No way. And that level of interactivity is like the type of thing that always blows me away with

from software games. And she was, she's able to climb on the big white wolves and ride them as she shoots arrows. And she like, she kind of just uses them as like hers pet in the way. And so those, that wild wolf is now your friend. And it reminds me like that's the best thing about like the, when we're talking about the best of the best open world games. for me that's like always the best thing where like it reminds me of watching the IGN 100 unique things about um milliger solid five like 100 unique things 100 unique details usually

is yeah and they'll show like oh yeah if you keep getting head shots in the daytime like that'll that'll then change the way that the mpcs will react right like that level of like you know let's react to the way the player plays and figure out ways to like you know surprise them in in surprising ways like that stuff always i think it's so cool yeah i just want those was just a little tip bit of elderly around i want to throw in there Tim, what's your game of the year so far? I really want to know. It's an excellent question, bear.

But before we answer it, let me tell you about our sponsors. Shout out to Maple Story for sponsoring this episode. For 17 years of rich MMO gameplay wrapped in a unique 2D side scroller, Maple Story is ready to proudly lean into its cute, pixelated aesthetic. The aggressively cute campaign aims to showcase the unexpected juxtaposition of cuddly, smiley characters with rich multi-layered MMO gameplay. The campaign focuses on telling a story of immense character, customization of vast array of weapons and mounts to choose from a seemingly endless horizon of lands

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two, one. Kirby. Kirby. No, seafood, guys. What the fuck. Oh, no, it is an undeniably seafood. Uh, in this. the same way you guys are talking about Eldon Ring, like being number one and they're being a pretty, pretty big gap, uh, with behind, or in front of number two, I'm the same way where Seafood is my number one, Kirby is my number two. I love Kirby so much, but Seafood to me has that game of the year quality to it, where it is just such a special game, uh, such a unique kind of run of a genre, a unique take on this genre. And it got me into a style of game that I normally am not into. I know we've talked a lot about it this year and I'm sure we're

going to continue to talk a lot about it. But I really do think that it is a truly special experience that I find myself going back to a lot. And I've already platinum it. I already done everything this game has to offer. But it's just fun to play. And I'm always drawn to these kind of like fast-paced gameplay first type things. Like think about me.

I like Sonic. I like Tony Hawk. I like rhythm games. And Cifu has a lot of those elements to it. And I find myself having fun with every single level in the game and just like one, like one day I'll just go in and be like, you know what, I'm just going to go through the museum again. And another day I'll pop in.

I'll be like, I'm going to go to the tower. I'm going to go the whole long way. And it's like just adding dumb fun little kind of gameplay gimmicks to my own experiences, giving me so much fun gameplay out of all of this. Like it's a level of fun in a video game that I haven't really experienced in a while, like not to this level. And I can't wait for DLC.

Like I don't think it's officially been announced yet, but it is such a game. game that would be perfect to just have an extra level, two extra levels, whatever it is. And unlike a lot of other games, we're like, oh, I really love this, but I don't think the DLC can, like, really capture the magic. I almost guarantee that if there's DLC for this game, it's going to be just as good, if not better than any of the levels in this. And it's because they have such a good core down.

And there's, there's so many variations that they can build on. And they don't even really need to add too many extra things. They just need to keep up the creativity that they have, like, you know, talk. the more I think about it and the more I replay it, I'm just so blown away that every level has one layer deeper of aesthetic change up than you expect there to be. And it always wows you. It's never just, oh, here's the tower.

It's, you're in a tower. Now all of a sudden, you're underground. And you would never see like that combination of things happening. The museum is probably the best example of it overall, where every single room is literally a work of art. But I am more impressed with Sioux now in April than I, I was when I first played it a couple months ago. And it just, I just, I can't stop thinking about this video.

So I, if you, I, we should, well, the question I want and we don't have to do it right now, because I know you guys, Andy and blessed have a lot to say about seafood. But I want to know eventually is how close Kirby was or is to it. But I'm sorry, if you want to continue the seafood conversation, I shouldn't do really. Blessing. I can hop in, yeah, because like I'm, I'm so happy to hear that this is your number one, because it is my number two for my game of the year, right? Like, if you told me that in April, Horizon would be my number three after two other games,

I'd be like, there's no way. That's crazy. But like, somehow it's happened, right? With Seafood, like, this is one, this is one that I was so amazed by when I first got my hands on it, because we were playing it during the review period. And it was one of those, it was one of those ones where I was like, all right, like, I know this game is special. But like, I'm going to tell, I'm going to, like, I'm going to, like, yo, y'all, you got to try this game. And it's that thing of, you never know how it's going to hit. Because, like, I've had that before where I played the Forgotten City. And I was like, dude, this game is special. But then, like, not as many other people loved it as much.

Or at least like it wasn't everybody's cup of tea, right? Seifu, as I was playing it, I was like, dude, I think this is a very special game. Man, it's so special he heads out on it, you know what I mean? That's how special this game is. Can't even defend his pick.

Can't even defend his pick. I wanted to mention real quick that like Tim, I am waiting with bated breath for whatever this DLC announcement will be if we ever do get it. Because in the just reading an article from a month ago,

that Sifu sold 1 million copies in a month with the U.S. and China as key markets. And that's- Awesome. That's excluding whatever sort of exclusive money they got from Epic for the deal. So, like, this seems to have been a moneymaker in a pretty decent way. And I would be really shocked if we don't get some sort of follow-up of here. Now you get to play these levels as Yang or whatever. Like, I think all that shit could be really cool. I just hope it's not like-

Please continue. I just hope it's not like extra added players. I don't want like this sort of ghost runner DLC you get of like, but now you get to play as the lady and the other dude. Like I don't I don't really want that. I want like new levels. You know,

I want more substance to it. That's a very, very good point. Oh yeah. Bless you got caught off pretty early there. Oh, dude, that was pretty early. Damn, I was going on for a while. But I was basically saying that like, you know, playing this game to review was such a special time just because like

it was one of those ones where I knew was special, but I was so curious on how I was going to hit with other people. and so seeing Andy and Tim, like, love it as much as I did. I was like, hell, yeah, let's fucking go. But to Tim's point about how, like, each level feels like there are multiple layers to it and how much of a work of art it feels like. Like, for me, the thing that always impress me about Sifu was how designed it felt room to room and how much it felt like they really meticulously thought about the path that the player was going to take and the ways that the player was going to interact with like the enemy placement. Yeah, and like the item placement or weapon placement in each level where you do walk into the club. and you know like there if you play level level enough right like you know there's gonna be

two dudes once you walk in you know this gonna be a baseball bat you know like okay i'm gonna take off the take out the two dudes grab the baseball bat walk in see if i can get the double hit with the baseball bat off the becomes a strategy game yeah it becomes this thing of like all right like you're performing choreography like you know exactly how you're gonna take uh take on every single room you're in and you have a plan of attack and i think that falls in line so well with the the like the premise of the game of it being this thing that you're doing over and over again um And so, yeah, no, I'm like supremely impressed by the game. And yeah, like, it's easily my number two.

And it's going to be, I think it's going to be by the end of the year still somewhere in my top four, I have to imagine. I'll make a prediction. That club section you're talking about right there is, I think, a testament to what I'm saying now, just like in the game even more as time goes on. I remember a time where I was doing that for the literal 27th time in the same day and be like, I hate this. And I'm never going to like this level again.

And I'm at a point now where like the club. might be one of my favorite video game levels of all time. And it is because of the section here where it is just so satisfying. And the better you get, at the further you get in the game, you're just like, I totally got this shit down. And it does become this like highly choreographed dance that you're doing as you're beating the living hell out of everybody. And it feels so damn good.

I love it so much. Andy Cortez, and then I want to get back to Barrett. Yeah, it could just, it could have just been a really good combat game with incredible mechanics and fun button inputs and combos. and cool parries and things like that, but it really is the added level of presentation and design and art that takes it to a whole different level of Game of the Year consideration type thing for me,

where I think this game would have been fun regardless without all of the cool, gorgeous things to look at, but the way that it presents itself, the way that it introduces new sort of, I guess like new concepts visually, like here's what the museum is and here's how all this kind of meshes with the story. I think it's just so impressive. Yeah, the thing I was going to say is similar to Greg's prediction of Alder Ring is going

to be game of the year or it's going to be the worst game of all time because, you know, he can't commit to just like one side. No, no. You're CEO Jr. Why you got to do that? Why you got to do me? I love you, you made a perfect prediction there. I think at the end of the year, the lowest this gets in our top 10 is.

just number three. And that I think that's dependent on if God of War Ragnarok comes out. I don't, if Ragnarok doesn't come out, I think this will most likely be our number two. Just thinking about like, what's going to be on most people's list,

like where those were going to like shake out and stuff like that. The one thing that I'll add because like Bless and Andy, like my game of the year is Eldon Ring. It was Seifu and it wasn't until like I really got into the second half of Eldon Ring. Seifu got bumped down to number two. The one thing I'll still hold Sifu, I think, above Eldon Ring, is learning the game.

Of learning enemy placement, learning bosses and stuff like that. And like, what Andy, you say all the time of like downloading boss fights into your brain and stuff like that. Like I still, I think I had a more fun time doing that in Sifu than I did in Eldon Ring. The thing that Eldon Ring gets me with is just like the exploration of that game. How expansive it is. Yeah, how expansive it is and how much there is to it. I still really enjoyed learning the bosses that I fought and stuff like that. But there's something just so addictive.

And I think just more my pace when it comes to Sifu of the combat and stuff like that, very similar to Tim, of just like that kind of pacing of fighting mechanics and the vibe and stuff like that. Like, Sifu is just goddamn incredible. I had a dream that God of War got delayed. And if that's true, am I a soothsayer? Like, am I a, like, a fortune teller time? I feel like a lot of people have predicted already. That can easily happen.

You know what I mean? Here's my prediction. God of War comes out in 2022 or 22 or 23 or 24. I'm Greg Miller. Here's my prediction, right? And I guess could transition into, like, the game of their contenders that have yet to come out yet. If God of War Racken Rock comes out this year,

I think Goddivore Racken Rock will be our game of the year. I think it'll overtake Eldon Ring because I think more of us will play it and more of us will have it high on our list, right? Like I don't think it'll overtake Ellen Ring for me. We'll see. But like, even if I haven't. But that's where you get into the point thing, right, where if it's number two and it's getting nine points from you, eight points from Andy. If it's my number two, right? If it's Barr's number one or two, right?

And it ends up number one on like Tim Gregg's Janice list. And I think that's how it ends up being Game of the Year. It's universally that type of genre that we're all going to play. and we all feel like it's the Avengers movie that we all have to go see. Like it's appointment viewing, and I don't disagree with that at all blessing. I definitely see it as the Ratchet and clang

from last year, where all of us are just kind of... But it'll be better than the Ratchet inclinxed. We all love 20... For the people listening, who are like, how old are you compare Ratchet to God of War? Not saying it's gonna be...

Oh, no, but you know what I mean? Like, it's the game that the most of us will play. Like, all of us will have it on our list, most likely. So that, that's what I mean. mean by that. Yeah, it'll be the game that all of us play and where Eldon Ring is more of an acquired taste, even though Eldon Ring definitely grew way beyond its sort of reach of fans this year with this entry into the Frumsoff sort of catalog. I do think that, yeah, this will likely be the one that everybody plays and everybody thinks, damn, that's a number two or three of the

year. Yeah. Before we move on to the games that haven't come out yet that we think are going to be on the list. Are there any other games that we want to talk about that we are like, that's definitely not our list and I want to make sure it is known. I mean, we didn't talk about Horizon. You know what I mean? And I think that obviously speaks to where we think of Horizon, not that we don't think it's a great game, not that we didn't have a great time with it and anything like that. Just the fact that it's not a runaway game of the year. It's, you know, hands down, that's the one that's in front or even towards the top of people's list necessarily. I think that's really interesting. And so blessing, why is that for you?

I think it's just because it's been such a strong year so far. You know, like, it's my number three right after Seafood. And, like, Seafood for me is a game that I'm going to remember forever, right? Like, Alder Ring is another game. I'm going to remember forever. And I'll put Horizon West in that category, too. I think the thing that brings it back a little bit is how iterative it is. Like, if this was a brand new entry, I think it would stick out more.

I think it would have blown me away more in terms of, man, we've not seen anything like this before. But it is a lot of what we had from Horizon Zero Dawn. And in my opinion, way more, like, polished, you know, the combat is way more optimized, right? way more options. I think the way the open world is, the way the open world is done is, for me, a step above what Horizon Zero Dawn had. I love the Forbidden West. I love the real world locations they have in the game.

I even love, like, the story. I think the story is a step up as well in the side quest. And like every single thing Horizon Forbidden West, I think needed to do to be a step up from Horizon Zero Dawn. It did. But I think with just how strong of a year it's been, right? Like Eldon Ring and Seafar are just the ones that take away from me. But yeah, I think this is, it's a game.

this game is for sure going to be on the list. And I think, I think as of right now, this game will be top five out of whatever 10 we end up with, probably number, maybe number four, maybe number three depending. For me, it still stands like an incredible game

that like I could see on a, like if it's not number one on our list, I think it will be number one on like some websites list. Like I think it'll be out there. I agree. Yeah, I think it'll definitely be a game of the year on some other lists. I I wonder how much of it goes into the

expectation sort of category for me where I I think because Horizon 1 was so good, I expected this to be as good as it was. And it's a great ass game. And again, I recommend anybody played who has a PS5 that wants a really, really awesome open world video game that will, that's massive. Like this game is huge. And there's so many things to do. And the combat is fun as hell and yeah, they definitely improved on what they needed to improve from part one, but I don't know if they did anything extra. Outside from, for me, the technical aspect is still the most impressive thing for me about this game. The technical aspect of these NPCs are better than a lot of main characters,

you know, facial capture and animation and stuff that you see in most games. Like, the smallest characters you meet have way more attention to detail than so many characters you'll see and talk to in any other video game. And that's just like, that's such a level of love and care that they put into that. And those are the things that kind of make Horizon stand, stand apart from the prior version of it from the, from part one, Forbidden West. But I think, yeah, I think, wait, did I say Forbidden West? Zero Dawn.

Yeah. But I think Forbidden West, I think if maybe Zero Dawn was less good, like if Zero Don comes out and it's like a 7-ish out of 10, I think we think of this game a lot more highly than we would. But I think part one was so good, and part two comes out and is like better, but by no means, like, does it blow me away in anyway? People were comparing it from Assassin's Creed 1 to Assassin's Creed 2

of the set between Zero Dawn Forbidden West, and I just couldn't see that personally, and I know I've got kind of, I'm less enthused about that series than the rest of us are right, but I just I did not see that. That's too much, no. Yeah. It reminds me of an old kind of funny adage, but it was, it was fallout four to an extent.

Remember Tim where you asked me what was my concern for fallout four? I was like, I hope that it's not just a better looking fallout three. And that's really what it was. And so like Horizon, as you said, Zero Dawn, Andy, is a great game. That was an awesome breakout hit for Gorilla that we, you know, pretty much universally enjoyed. And so you get this one. And I remember those first looks at it and being like, man, It looks a lot like Zero Dawn.

I hope they shake that up. They break that up. And I think they did, once you got into the open world, when you really got into the Forbidden West, there were different environments, the way they used cities and the way they use traversing the West. That's all there. And some of the traversal methods and things like that.

But overall, the game does feel like a true sequel to Zero Dawn, which is great and is a really fun game and is awesome. But, yeah, expectations were already set. You expected this game to be a PlayStation 5 version, even though it's not PlayStation 4. a PlayStation 5 version of Zero Dawn. And that again is what I turn my eyes to for Ragnarok, where I get worried too.

Where, you know, God of War, 2018, my favorite game of all time. I think just a complete masterpiece stem to Stern. And so, number one, it's hard to follow up a game that that is that beloved. But how do you follow up a game and not make it feel samey? How do you, like, you know, are the reasons 2018 God of War was so great is that it was such a shakeup. It wasn't the traditional God of War we had seen four times, five or five, six, if you count the PSP games, Andy? I think that I am already going to God of War's sequel, knowing that I love the characters, more than I do, Horizon's characters and sort of the story that they're telling there.

Although I always, I've said a million times, I think the story in Horizon is really cool. I just, you know, for people who kept telling me, like, you just didn't put enough time into it. Like, if I don't like an actor's catalog, I'm not going to like more movies that actor comes out in. I just, I'm not a huge fan of it. And I've just never been a fan of Alo. I've never really been interested in, I've just never been really entertained by whenever she's on screen talking to other characters. I just,

it just doesn't vibe with me. But I love Cratos and I love Atreus and I love the story being told there. And I love the back and forth with Brock and Sindhry and all of those characters. I just vibe with a lot more. And I, honestly, for me, it's like on a different side of it where they could just come out with here's the sequel and it's a lot more of what you expect and it would probably be you know of my game of the year if it weren't for if elden ring hadn't come out this year because I just enjoy that combat a lot more I enjoy the melee combat of god of war more than I enjoyed

the combat and horizon forbidden west I think that I also come back to like what santa is as a studio versus like who gorilla is as a studio where horizon zero don was so dope because it came after, because it was open zone right, but also it came after kill zone, which I think was the big surprise of, oh, oh, snap, like, these guys have this, like, they can do this. And so when you see them follow up with Forbidden West, it is a, oh, yeah, we know, we know they can do this now. Like, you know, and I wouldn't change. There's, like, very few things I would change about Forbidden West as a game. Like, I have my critiques here and there, right? Like, there are story moments that I would tweak. There are, like, there's a few gameplay things that might tweak. But for the most part,

I think Forbidden West is exactly what it needs to be and it's perfect for me. But then, but then, like, you know, a few weeks ago, even a few weeks ago, during our Horizon episode, PS Love You, I think toward the end of the episode, me and Greg and Janet had a conversation about, like,

all right, how do you, is guerrilla games on the level? Like, are they an S-tier PlayStation developer? And during that conversation, I was like, for me,

for me, I put Santa Monica and Nottie log at S-tier, and then at the next tier, I do put guerrilla, insomniac, soccer punch? Yeah, sucker punch.

I put those three, right? And like, insombs, S-rank? Are we about to hash out the same conversation we had on the show that I have we might end up my end of hatching it out but yeah no I put insomniac along that side and I think for me it is because of you know god of war ragner rock like is it or god of war 2018 10 right like naughty dog last was part one and twos right like tens right

uncharted four put put up there as well whereas like insomnia is still like that consistent nine space to me and that's where I put ghost of shiva that's where I put horizon um and I think they've proven Sony sanamaka has proven themselves so much with god of war 2018 and I think when we talk about them following up with God of War Ragnarok. I have some of that same concern in terms of, all right, it's going to be more of what I loved. But I think the thing for God of War Ragnarok is one, like, that thing that we're going to get more of is already 10 out of 10 level. But then also, I think there's more that you can do to set yourself apart with something

like God of war because of story and because of how narrative focused it is compared to Horizon, which is doing the heavy lifting of, of course, like narrative and story, right? But then also like open world mechanics, how the game runs, how the game looks, like the side quests, activities, like there's so much in Horizon that you need to follow up on. And so you don't have, I think, as much space to separate and as much space to do something wild, whereas God of War Racken Rock might kill off Cratos, right? God of War Ragnarok might like do some apesh and stuff that, like, we don't know yet. That could be really cool. Even seeing the trailer and seeing like an older Atreus, for me is like, oh, snap, that's different. Like,

that's already a way that this game is separating itself more than in Horizon, which I was like, cool, like we're going to be, we're going to go to three later. Yeah. Yeah, like it's a few months later. And God of War 2018 is such a, it's like in that weird like it's kind of like it's not really open world but there's a lot to explore right. It's a very curated experience and with the way that they set up

things in that game right, they could have that same very curated kind of open kind of linear experience but in completely different worlds right and that's I think that's another way that things are going to be able to share that we're going to go to new realms in this game and that's going to be that's going to feel different

that's going to feel like really cool. One thing I want bring up because, you know, we all thought this was Tim's game of the year. One game that I was, I've been really impressed about it was Kirby in the Forgotten Land. Something that I would not have predicted being my number three game of the year so far, but it was. And it really, you know, it's kind of paint by the numbers, Nintendo platformer for kids for most of it. But it's just so joyous. The music is great. The worlds are so imaginative. And the last few hours are just some of the most like bat-shed insane, like more so. than I would say Eldon Ring at times of just like, where is this game going?

And in the best ways possible, where I don't know Kirby lore. I don't know what the significance is here other than like, you know, spoilers. You don't know the sacred texts of Kirby? Yeah, exactly. Like there's a king day to day and shit like that. But like, you know, like that's really all I know. So like everything, even knowing the bare minimum that I do, like the way that Kirby was able to deliver and it's like the last like three hours of that game, I was really, really impressed by it.

It's just like so fun to explore and just like have a very linear game that you have reasons to go back and redo levels and like get more waddledies and build up waddlety town. It's just like I think it's one of the most solid new games that Nintendo has developed in the last few years. The music is unbelievably good. Yeah. 10 out of time. Yeah. And the one thing I want to shout out is like something that I'm kind of disappointed by almost like the opposite end of Kirby where it's like the farther I get away from Kirby the more I think about it. The farther away I get from Tunic, the less I'm thinking about it.

It was unfortunate, because that was a very highly anticipated game for me for years. And I did really enjoy it while playing through it and stuff. But ever since rolling credits, I just, I don't think about it. Like, every once in a while, I'm like, oh, yeah, that was a cool way of, like, how they used the, you know, the guidebook to kind of teach you the ways of playing through the game throughout it. But outside of that, it's like. I'll put a poster up outside of your wall just so, like, when you walk by, you're like, oh, Tunick. Oh, yeah, yeah, it'll probably be a really cute. poster, you know.

Sometimes I think about Tokyo Ghostwire, or GhostWire, Tokyo, and how the reviews hit and then no one in the world ever talked about it again. I do want to give a shout to Kirby. And then on a similar note, I do want to give a shout out to Stranger Paradise Final Fantasy Origin, which is not on like my top five might be like toward the like very bottom half of my top 10. We'll see where we end up at the end of the year. Like that is a game that I think for me.

you surprised me so much with how fun the gameplay was and how much that by the very, very, very end of the game, I ended up caring about the character somewhat. That is not something that I would have imagined, but like, it did it, right? And it has an incredible soundtrack. Did you do it plus?

I did it. Did you kill chaos? I killed chaos to him. It was very satisfying. Yeah, dude. When I beat the game, I was like, man, that was fun. That was a fun, solid game that, like, I'm very happy I spent my time with. And I would genuinely recommend to like big Final Fantasy fans. Like, it is, it is good, right? It could be better, I think.

There are, like, story, narrative. That is saying something. It could be better. That is the understatement of the fucking year. There are so many things that could be better about this game, right? Like, story, writing. Like, it's all, it's like all over the place. The visuals dropped to 7.20 at points.

Visuals, I think, are the worst part of the game. The visuals are terrible. But I will say, like, writing-wise, the writing at some points is so bad that I almost love the game for it, right? like I'm going to remember this game as a game where I am like every other sentence that Jack says. I'm like, why the fuck would they write that for him? And like, I don't know if the writing was better. I don't know if I would remember the writing as much if I'm being honest.

Like I think they hit that soft at that good spot. That's all I was buying a couple days ago seeing, I think it was on Andy's TikTok, a video of him just reacting to some of the dialogue. And I swear to God, like one of the characters just like look straight to the camera. It was like it was talking to Andy. And I lost it. It was the funniest thing I've seen. It's so long. This game is absolutely absurd.

And you think that that's it. It just keeps going. And it is every turn you would swear that an AI wrote this dialogue where it doesn't matter what a prior character said. Whatever the next character is going to respond with, like, it doesn't, there's no logic to it. There's no like the amount of cutscenes there are that have no rhyme or reason to belong there. It really just seems like.

what I kept saying, what I keep saying during my play-through, because it's like, this game is incredibly entertaining. I, again, we talked about things that we, can you still find the fun in it, right? Like, when I talk about the venom movies, I can't. I can't find the fun in it. I'm just so mad that it is what it is, you know? But these games, I am laughing at every turn

because of just how funny and how bonkers the dialogue and these scenes are. There's a, there's a moment where you like, all right, let me go into this mission. Boom. Cutscine starts. Cutscine goes. Cutsines end.

And then it's like mission success. And I didn't do anything. I just moved on to the net. Like it really seems like the American, the American people that work on localization were given a game with a bunch of cutscenes and we're like, I guess we have to write a story to whatever these cutscenes are doing. It really just seems like a localized mess.

Like there's like the transatlized mess. Rangers shit have to be so off. It is, it's unbelievable what this game does dialogue-wise. But the game's fun. The game looks like garbage on PC. Like I, I boot it up on my Xbox and I was like, ooh, I should play this on my PC because I know what this game does visually on consoles. And it still looks like shit on my PC.

I'd like, you know, full resolution, full frame rate. It still will suddenly drop. again, this looks like a PS3 game that never came out that got lost and somebody recovered the files. Yeah, they filed it one day. Like, holy shit. It's like, it's really just the engine and the lighting

that they're, that I don't know how this got past anybody's I'm still not convinced I played a PS5 version of the game. Like I kept checking to make sure that the PS5 icon was there. But like every time I would go back to the game, I'm like, there's no way, right? Like this looks ugly. Uh, well,

Discord froze on me, everybody. Give me a second. up some people are is my internet out everybody's slowly leaving everybody's slowly leaving am I still connected to YouTube that's the big question major discord crash thing

oh major discord crash okay all right all right all right I'm still connected to YouTube I wanted to make sure it wasn't on my end but yeah it seemed like all of you guys got kicked out that's so crazy discord has been weird today like what bear when did we it's been weird for like a month I feel

it's been weird for me for like five months at this point. Like, it's just not great quality-wise. I was going to mention, what was Platinum's multiplayer game that just came out? Babylon's Fall. Babylon's Fall. Babylon's Fall feels like what... When people played Babylon's Fall, and I hear Imran talking about it, and it seems like a

game that just kind of came out without really much oversight. Like, there wasn't really anybody check-in for quality on it. And I feel like a lot of that happened here, where it's like, wait, we're using that engine? why? That's from two generations ago. There's no, there's no global illumination. The game looks terrible. The game is using film assets,

or like film quality assets a lot of the times where the models being used are just way too crazy and that's causing a lot of performance issues. Tim, where'd you go? What happened? It's a baffling game. Discord totally just kicked me out and then would not reload. But am I back? Is that we all got got out.

Okay, okay, cool. Sorry. We were going to go with the narrative that, you know, Tim was the only one who got kicked out. I know. I'm fucking drop the ball. I'm going to. Sorry.

Why do I even wear a nitre rifle shirt? You know what I mean? All I do is get shit on doesn't get helped out with a bit at all. My dog died. I'm sad. Andy, be nice to me. I was going to mention before Discord.

We need to like find a name for like the Discord apocalypse happen. I was mentioning that like this game reminds me of, like all the visuals in this game remind me of when Andy would talk about like the door. in Final Fantasy 7 remake or like the like building textures in near automata except it's for everything in this game like everything looks like that and it's like it's crazy that it got all the way to launch and looking like looking like this whereas like Final Fantasy 7 remake came out like what a year two years ago god damn time flies it came out two years ago looking fantastic for the most part except for the doors except for those doors are you in a play stranger in paradise yeah that I'm so I don't think I'm gonna end up beating it but like there's just too much much stuff now that I'm like this just looks entertaining is all hell and this whole backlog season like that seems like the type of game that I need to get into uh now that I'm finally done 100% of Kirby baby let's go it's super entertaining yeah I think you will I think you'll really dig it has anybody mentioned to him that like each level it seems like there's like 15 or so levels

somewhere around that and each level is a reference to a different final fancy game no that's a really yeah no that's the thing that Michael Hyam told me and I was like damn I did not notice that is cool wait sorry there's just a reference in the level or like the level itself is a reference the level itself is like a reference right it is like oh really from another final fantasy game yeah because i know the whole thing is in the world of final fantasy one yes like the entire game yeah so that's that's interesting that it connects that way i mean i'm a youtube that that's that's really cool blessy did you know it's multiplayer i i did i never tried it out but yeah i didn't know that and like the whole time i was like should i call two people in

but i was like i don't know two people who are playing this game um this is a this is a cut scene that I had to cut out because it is how mind-blowing it is. Hey there, Jack. You just got back from the shrine, right? The minister paid your room for the night. So why not get some rest?

Hmm. I was hoping you'd say that. Come on. And it's like, you get to a point you're like, they got to know what they're doing. Like, there's no way they don't know that this is hilarious. Like, and that's a lot of

the vibe of the game. It's just Jack being this character where, and I think in that TikTok you were talking about, Tim, where he's sitting there and the other character's like, you're going to clean that off? Because he's got a little blood in his chin. He's like, nothing little spit can't fix. And he just kind of rub the bloods off his chin and he goes, when are we going to fight chaos? Immediately right into it. It's so funny, man.

It's incredible. It's so good. So on the other end, I don't have too much more to say that. haven't already, but Kirby definitely is my number two right now. And so much of it is, the more you play that game, the more you enjoy it. And now that I know Blessing and Barrett, if both beat it, like, they know what I'm talking about. The last couple hours of this game get so insane. And it's similar to this Stranger Paradise stuff, but it's actually good the whole way through, where it's like, the gameplay is awesome, always is awesome the entire time. But like, towards the end, it gets real platinum

in a way that I never expected a Kirby game to get. And I mean that both in terms of gameplay and in terms of the way you're dodging and the parries and all that stuff, Andy, it's right up your alley. But then also, I've been playing it. It combines with like this ridiculous level of anime bullshit in the best way because it's this pink puff ball that's doing all this over the top stuff towards the end of the game. And it just pays off in such a great way. So you've been playing through, Andy, how far are you? And where are you at?

Like, do you think it'll make your top 10 at the end of the year? Oh, 100%. It'll make my top 10. I think so. I don't know if there will be many. other games that'll go ahead of it. I think it's going to be like, as of right now, maybe number five on my list. I just think it's so clever in its design.

Like all of the everything that you were doing in terms of like the mouth mode type stuff, I think it's all just super smart. And I'm saying it right now, it's better than Super Mario Odyssey. Wow. I think that right now. I don't say things. The best shouldn't say things are like things that are earned. you know and I think the

way the batch and same things in Final Fantasy aren't earned but they like lean into that like just like it's it's just bad for the sake of being bad almost that it's funny almost like the room in a way is Final Fantasy Strangerecter Paradise the room of video games

yeah I think so I think story wise yeah I think people might point to oh gosh what's that other Ball and Wonderland Deadly Premonition Deadly Premonition is one thank you Greg nailed it Man, you're right. You know what, Greg? I've never said anything bad about you and I never have. You're incredible. No, yeah, I think I think just in its design and its visuals and its music,

even just like the aesthetic of any time you go to a new level, you get that really cool little, here's this motion graphic of this whatever this level is and it's gorgeous as hell. And I've actually been having fun leveling up weapons, which is not something that I was necessarily expecting from this game or expecting to care about. And once you kind of like find the weapon that you kind of groove with, it's really cool finding the upgrades for it and feeling yourself getting stronger. And even that first boss fight against a, we'll call him the ape like from Sekido, bless. Yeah, guardian ape. Guardian ape, fun boss fight. And I had a blast with that.

And I haven't fought a second boss yet, I don't think. But I don't know, it just reminds me of like, this is pure Nintendo design. and it's, oh, wow. Well, there we go. That's what Andy had to say about, I forget which game, honestly, I tuned out for a second to everybody. I think he was still talking about Final Fantasy Traitor in Paradise,

leveling up some weapons and stuff like that. Anyways, let's look at a Game Over Gregie's trophy list here, you know. We'll go over here, we'll check this out. Of course, he's got Lake. And look at, oh, man, he's got, there's his platinum right there. Greg's Alden Ring Platinum right there. Hey. Look at that.

Look at that platinum right there. Greg. There it is. There it is. Platinum right there. At least he's got that, you know, and you know, owns up to sharing his trophies publicly.

Blessing. Not a coward. Bless don't ever. I'm not seeing what we're talking about. Did Greg get the Ariel Knight never yield platinum? No, the Eldon Ring platinum. Oh, then who cares? Like, is that the Elder Ring Platinum?

I want to see the Ariel Knights never yield platinum, which seems like it's not having to be. Not happening before the end of this episode? No, it's not for sure. I'm actually, and it's like, because I don't know where to go for that. I have it. I've been, I made a little video. I made the clip of it failing, but for some reason, it's still doing that stupid upload.

Because I hate it with the PlayStation captures, great idea. But the problem is it just immediately starts, you know, uploading whatever you do. So when you change it and like shorten a clip, it still is like a process of the old clip before it gets the new clip, which sucks. Greg, do you think you're, or have you played Kirby? No, I haven't yet. No. Do you think you're going to play by the end of year? I mean, I have to you, right?

As much you guys talk about it. You know how much I'd love to Odyssey. Like, it's just one of those weird ones of like, I just don't care about Kirby, which I know you don't need to care about Kirby. Yeah, I understand. But like, I just don't look at Kirby. You care enough that when I tweeted out vaguely about,

like a certain screenshot that I had from the end game, you were like text me that screenshot and I didn't. I care enough because, yeah, I was like, I don't care about spoilers and I will forget about it, but I want to know what Bear is talking about, you know. I didn't care either, Greg. I don't think you. you already mentioned that you shouldn't have the care to play but like yeah it's oh i mean i i remember

looking at the clip and then asking or the thing and then asking about a follow-up question and i've already deleted the information from my brain i don't know what i looked at i don't remember the question was anyone i mean i played through it multiple times now and i'm not sure what i was looking at but that's the beauty of curvy it's anyway i'm more excited to get back to uh triangle strategy like again i really liked that and then it was that when i was going down to um la for the Bruce Campbell thing. I packed the switch and I was like, here we go,

into Triangle strategy, and that I did exactly what you'd expect me to do, played one of my games of the year, puzzle quest three the entire way and have not. So playing puzzle quest three, that will still be high on my list. Where's like of Star Wars for you all? You know,

I'm working my way through it. Yeah. And I think it's going to be mid on my list. Like, you know what, depending on how many games speak to me throughout the rest of the year, I could see it probably hidden maybe like seven or eight.

Even slipping maybe? I can actually see enough games not really vibing with me and making its way up higher just by default. But yeah, it's pretty pretty good. I have Mario Strikers is coming through. Yeah, I'm, let's see, I think I rolled credits on episode two. Like I started with the original trilogy then went to prequel trilogy. I'm doing like the release order of the movies

and stuff like that for Lego Star Wars. So like I'm about to like wrap up on the prequel trilogy and then eventually get to the sequel trilogy and I'm still like dedicating through it I kind of walked away because I've been rewatching Better Call Saul Andy you know what the struggle is. Final season next week but I think right now

where my vibe is at like Eldon Rings Game of the Year Seafood for me right now number two Kirby number three I think Star Wars is in like that four or five spot going back and forth with musical story it's just like it's fun and it's a lot of what I expect

but it's like it's a good vibe of like what I expect. It's nothing like mind-blowing, but it's a fun Lego game. It's a fun, you know, joking around about the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy and stuff like that. And I love just like being able to fly around the galaxy feels very connected in a way that

I don't think a Star Wars game has really like done super successfully before. But yeah, it's not, it's besides that, it's not really like a holy shit, this is the Lego game to end all Lego games. and this is the Star Wars game to end all Star Wars games, you know? Like, it's really good.

I could see it, like, getting it to the lower end of my list, for sure, if more games come out, that vibe with me. So I was going to say, what would you say are the biggest disappointments from this here? So far?

Dude, yeah. These disappointments? I mean, I know, I just made a joke about it, but I was also Ghost Wire, Tokyo on there. You know, that was one that, you know, a PlayStation 5 exclusive from Bethesda. You're like, okay, cool.

It looked cool. You know, first trailer was dope with all, you know, the Sheibo walking around, uh, Japan. And then as we got closer, it was like, okay, I don't know what this exactly is. And then even when it looked quirky and cool to get it. And I thought it would be, you know, a pretty empty experience. I was like, oh, that sucks. I wanted that to go a different way. Another one I would toss, are you going to talk about a ghostware?

Well, no, I was actually going to talk about a different game. Then just for me and I can pass it off, right? Another one I would toss out. And this isn't the game's fault, but the tech is Moss 2, where I was so excited for I love Moss. I love Moss. You know that, that PlayStation VR game. PlayStation or VR game in general.

The fact that they put out Moss Book 2, yeah, hell yeah, I want to play that. And then the putting on the PlayStation VR headset again in 2022 is just like, you know what? I will wait for PlayStation VR2 and hope this is going to work and be backwards compatible. Or it comes to Quest. We just have a better experience. I'm not having a fun experience playing it on PlayStation VR1. A game that I liked, but I thought I was going to like a lot more is nobody saves the world.

I thought that was a game that we talked about a lot throughout the year, especially it coming from Drinkbox, it being a different genre for them, it being like a top-down, like, action RPG that has a beautiful art style, I think has a lot of great ideas. But I think the overall systems of the way you go about unlocking new forms and, like, the way you go about progression, I think just was doing too much. Like I didn't like the achievement-based thing of, all right, cool, now use this move five times to then, like, check off this amount of XP.

And like, there's, for me, it was too much of that unless so, like, hey, play the way you want to play. Like, I don't think they let you be. as freeze you should be in that type of game. And then also I felt like a lot of the combat for me ended up being a bit more button-mashy than I liked just in terms of like, you know, all these effects and then apply these moves and then go in

and like jump into like a bunch of enemies and like just button-mash away. Like after a certain point, I, that felt like it grew old on me, which sad me a bit because I was really looking forward to it. But like overall, it's still a game that I think is a good game that like I enjoyed my time with but is one that I don't necessarily see myself

going back to finish. and also one that I don't think is going to be in my top 10 by any means. My biggest disappointment this year so far, for me personally, has been Pokemon Archias. And I'm happy that so many people seem to enjoy it as much as they do and find pleasure in the things that I don't about the game. And I think it is especially worrying for me as a Pokemon fan and player that the Gen 9 games are coming out so soon. And it just kind of feels like a lot, a lot. And yes, I'm just bummed out that this wasn't what I was hoping it was going to be for me. but again, I do think that was a very, very subjective thing for what people are looking for from a franchise as storied as Pokemon at this point.

Yeah, it's one of those things. It has a lot of promise, I think, eventually once you get into that, you know, seven, eight hour into the game, it starts to feel a little bit more aimless than I want it to be. I think the concept of, you know, free roaming Pokemon and stuff is great, which is something they really introduce in a Let's Go Pikachu and Evie. and I think the way that they extend it in this one is really, really cool, but then I don't know, it just doesn't feel like the kind of classic structure of Pokemon that I really like. I miss the gym battles in this one, and I miss kind of battles in general. Those are very few and far between, and so without those objectives, the kind of like going out and grinding, you know, catching the same Pokemon's over and over again and stuff like that, it feels like you're grinding with no kind of end goal.

You're just grinding to like check off a bunch of things off of a list. And that just like is kind of unsatisfying after a bit for me personally. So it's like I have hope with Violet and Scarlet. And yeah, walking away from this one, I was like definitely left it kind of like shrugging and kind of be like, yeah, there's great ideas, but I wish to kind of see these. I'll go, I'll go. Do you like how those clouds look? This is like the only thing I like how it looks in the game. Everything else I think looks terrible.

Like, I don't know, man. The shape of the clouds. I'll go against that because I actually enjoy that part of the gameplay. I think that loop was pretty satisfying for me because it gave me a reason to go out and catch Pokemon, which I usually don't ever feel that. And so I liked the idea of catch three with their back turn to you or catch five with whatever sort of variable.

No, and I like those things, but it just never felt like that was building to anything significant other than just doing those to check those off. Like I really liked that idea in like the first like few hours, but then it really started to wear on me a bit where I didn't feel like that was really striving to a goal that like I really connected with. I also like, I know it's weird to talk about story in Pokemon games, but like the whole idea of just like you're a character from like a different universe,

getting transport, like time traveling to this like area. It's like that end of itself was a weird disconnect for me where it's like I didn't even feel like I need, I should be investing in this world because like the my character is trying to You're not going to hang out here forever? Yeah, it was like one of those weird disconnects, or I was like I didn't feel invested in that world that they set up whatsoever. Yeah, I was going to say that next,

that the story definitely a big missed opportunity because in a way that I kind of compare it to what Assassin's Creed does, where it's like I don't give a fuck about the future stuff. Like I would be way more into it if I was just this character living in this time without dealing with the future fucking who gives a shit, I don't care.

And in this game, I felt the same way where it's like I don't give a shit about me traveling from another world from the future. It's so stupid. It doesn't need to be here. Why can't I just be somebody existing in this time? And I'm sure there's story implications that I didn't get too far enough because it just didn't interest me enough.

The anger. The anger in you about this. Great, you don't fucking understand, dude. I'm wearing the shirt, no, I understand. He's wearing the shirt. He's wearing the shirt, Andy. He's wearing the shirt. All right. So to close this out, I do want to have a couple more conversations here. So looking at the rest of the year, what do we think are the slam dunk ones? Obviously, we've talked about Ragnarok already that we imagine that that game, if it comes out this year, we'll be in the game of the year conversation.

We got to imagine that Starfield is, if it comes out this year, probably going to be in that conversation. There is still that risk. Yeah, go for it, Greg. What do you think? I mean, we all want to believe that Starfield will be in that conversation. conversation because of course I think Bethesda has a long lineage of having great open world RPGs Todd Howard being attached to stuff right but I would say since your Skyrim and since your Fallout 3 right those were such highs that Bethesda has struggled to get back to those

and I do think in a lot of ways you know technology and video games and yet yada have passed them by in a way not that I'm saying their games aren't the same thing but I think you know fallout three I remember living at IG and I remember that being a thing I remember that dominating every conversation and every moment in the way that even though New Vegas was great, arguably better for many people, it didn't have the same resonance. You know, Fallout 4 didn't have the same residence. Fall at 76 didn't have the same residence. And so you hope that this is a return to form for them, right?

That this is one that they jump into and guess what? They nail it. It's a world you want to explore. You want to go be apart all the, I hope that's what it is. I hope that's, you know, you get in there. But maybe it isn't. Maybe it is just a prettier fallout four, but in space and stuff like that. And will that actually when people are,

you don't know. And they're doing such an interesting thing right now in the way they market it of talking about it, but not showing a lot of it, right? Doing these dev diaries that are talking about the world, but not showing you the gameplay itself. It's going to be fascinated to see if they're doing it just to build the hype. And then when they do show the game, everybody likes, this looks great and let's go, or they show the game and people go, oh, this doesn't look like a, I was going to say PlayStation 5. This doesn't look like an Xbox series X game. I could see this game getting pushed. For sure. I think this is this game, falls along those lines of Phil Spencer not wanting to have a big miss.

And I think Xbox wanting there to be a gigantic success here and take all the time you knee with the Bethesda, don't mess this one up. But I've been looking forward to this and for quite a while because I do think they needed a game like Fallout 76 to, even though they weren't the primary developers on it, they don't need that sort of, they needed a game with sort of humble them and bring them back and kind of realize like we need to go back to who we are and what made us successful. And I think this will become a return to form. I just hope it's not super restrictive.

That's always been my issue with this. Like you can, I've talked about on Games Daily with Blessing, but you can make a medieval game and you can just kind of, like you are limited by your technology in medieval games in sort of fantasy style games where you obviously are not in a current time. But in futuristic games, you are, whatever your limits are, it's kind of whatever the game is preventing you from seeing because you have the tech to get to that one building. But that building isn't accessible because it's just street dressing. It's just, you know, set dressing because you can't walk into a gigantic building because there are budgets and we can't build out something like that. So that's the main thing that I am kind of worried about.

Sort of how do the walls break down for me? And I go, damn, why can't I drive that car? I can, like, ride any fucking horse in this fantasy game. Why can't I just drive that car? And it's because there's budgetary restraints and things like that. So I really do hope that it is sort of their return to form. And I think I'm mostly looking forward to it because of how much they are sort of hyping up their visual quality. Because I've just never liked the engines that they've used.

I've never liked the lighting that they've had. The models I've never been a big fan of. But in this one, it seems like they are aware of what those past concerns are. and this seems to be a gigantic, a gigantic boost up from the past versions of their games. I think it's got to be a return to form. Like, if it isn't, I think that's going to be kind of dire because, like, and dire might be over the top, but I think that is going to remove a lot of the, man, there's, like, but does that mean something in terms of what their, what their games are

because it's been, I think there's been a lot of lessons learned over the last decade. I know for me, Starfield is a game that at the top of the year, I made a most anticipated list for, like, myself, of games that I'm looking for, to you and Starfield was my number one. And I think that's both on the end of I'm I love Bethes and I love Bethlehem's and I'm excited for what they have to do what they're doing next because it is something new. It is a new IP. But then on the other hand, like I feel like they have a lot to prove. Like you mentioned Fallout 76 being a bump in the road. I also think that with Fallout 4 coming out the same year as Witcher 3, I think that took that took a lot of wind out of their sales in terms of them being the

big guy on campus and seeing Witcher 3 tackle side quests. way, see them tackle story, see them tackle how the world looks, the lighting. Like everything Witcher 3 did, I feel like took Shine away from Fallout 4 in a way that they might not have expected. And so I think coming off of both those things and coming off of like even looking across the pond and seeing CD Project Red fuck up cyberpunk and seeing Biware, fuck up Mass Spectendromeda. Like there are so many different lessons to take away from the last decade of big RPGs

coming out that like, I think for them, they have to look at that and go. all right, we got to come correct with this next one. Like we got to make sure that that this is something special and that this is something that doesn't suffer from the same, but that's the bugs. Or doesn't suffer from like the big RPG bugs in general because that is the thing that has been tolerated, I think even less as technology has gotten better.

And so with that and also this being a brand new IP, right? Like, I think that is a great opportunity to make something from the ground up that can live for a long time in the way that Fallout 3, reignotted Fallout, right? And that lives for a while. and like elder scrolls where I was able to establish and then you got multiple other scrolls games out of that. Like Starfield is going to be something

that they want to become a franchise. And if they don't start off on a grateful with it, then that could maybe tank that idea. So there's a lot going into it that I think they got to live up to. And I'm one excited to see, but then also like I think it's a thing that they're aware of that and that alone gives me hope for it. It's a thing they're aware of and it's also a thing obviously Xbox is aware of, right?

And they don't want this to be something they put that much money into that then comes out Anne is met with the shrug or met with a typical Bethesda game typical Bethesda bugs like they don't want that yeah do you think there are any other slam dunk going to be on the list games

I think one that's going to be on my list and maybe Greg's list is the quarry like and maybe I don't know the list I think it has the juice to be there will make it we'll see I just want to see Brenda song that we're very excited about well is that Andy I just want to see Brenda song

same that's where I'm at Wendy Woo homecoming Warrior that's not the rest of reference you all expect me to make. I appreciate it, though. I really did. I was like, what is the deepest cut I can make with Brenda's song? But yeah, like with it being supermassive, I'm totally sold on supermassive now.

I think Greg is probably there too from their last couple of games. This being something that exists outside the Dark Pictures anthology, I think that makes it, makes it exciting. It seems like they're taking a lot of cues of what worked for until dawn. And that's all, that's everything I want to hear, right? Seeing the star-studded cast, seeing it be being published by different publishers, seeing it be this like set up of the greatest game type thing where it is somebody somebody hunting down this group of I forget how old they are young adults maybe older teenagers I don't know

but like seeing them being hunted down by another person for me that's like one of my favorite types of horror tropes that I'm totally down down for I can't wait for this thing so now in line with this of the personalist personalist I guarantee ghostbuster spirit and some leashed ends up on there for me of course I'm in the game is that 20 20 yeah yeah Is that just where it's added up just 22 or? I believe so. Maybe they said end of the year, but I don't remember. Cool. This question is for Barrett.

Predictions on Gotham Nights. I really don't know at this point. You know, they had like that random Monday morning where they're like, hey, it's coming in October and, you know, we haven't heard much of it. Like, we didn't even get a trailer with that release date, right? So it's still like a weird one where it's like, I don't know if I'm fully convinced that that's.

I think it's going to be fun, but I don't think it's going to be. Arkham. Like, I'm not fully convinced that that game's coming out this year yet. You mean in the way, Greg, that playing games with friends and multiplayer type stuff kind of lessens the narrative experience? Not even that. I just think, you know, the game in general.

I think it'll be fun, but I don't think it'll be Arkham. I think, you know, again, you're talking about something, the bar being set so high. Yeah, and I'm personally, like, I'm not expecting Arkham. You know, this is WV Montreal. They made Arkham Origins, which, you know, everybody compared to the Rock City games fairly enough. And, you know, it wasn't up to the same level of quality of the Rock City games. But I do still think it was a great game. I do think that they have the chains kind of taken off of them this time around now that they're not beholden to a world and story that a different developer and, you know, story minds created.

Right. this is them being able to do something else and something different. I think it's yet to be determined if multiplayer stuff is going to really, like, affect what the game and story is. Really, I'm just looking for fun act, a fun adaptation of the court of owls in a gameplay sense. That's something I've been waiting for for 10 years, more than 10 years, I think, at this point. And so as long as they, like, kind of hit that and, you know, show off the bat family in a really fun way,

like this will for sure be on my my top 10 for the year whether it's you know in the middle uh lower on the list or maybe even high on the list i think is still yet to be determined because of how little we've actually seen of it uh especially with it coming out in at this point six months um which is why i'm still not convinced that we'll actually get it in october but we'll see we'll see one that uh go for it plus i'll say one that i want to throw out there uh it's on the blessing super fun game release calendar, but I'm curious on if you guys think it's going to come out this year is the Colistal Protocol. Oh my God, I hope so. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I want it, I don't know if I believe it. I know, but like Glenn just put up a thing, um, on Twitter. Hold on

I can pull it up for you. Going through a divorce. I'm like just something. He says a real rough timer of that it's not correct. I'm sending it to you. So then it assumes I took a drink of water. Let's go field over there from striking distance put up a tweet. Yeah, on April 11th. Yeah, this is my favorite time when making a game. The design starts coming together. Love seeing all the hard work the team is doing in the mocap studio to bring our characters to life. There's fucking no chance.

Thanks to everyone waiting as we finish and polish the game. We'll have more to share soon. Like, on top of that, Keely was just up there. He had done a tweet that was vague. I really had a great conversation about Clista Protocol or whatever, and I did the eyes to him about it. Like, we're going to get more information on that, and I hope it comes out this year, but I doubt it. a couple things from me one that i'm extremely hopeful for it that i'm expecting to be very high on my list and if it's not it's going to be a real big bummer is trek to yomi everything i've seen

that game looks utterly fantastic and looks like it speaks to me very loudly so i'm hoping that that ends up being in that seafood conversation for me of like damn i really just love it that much like i'm i'm hoping that i play it and it is above kirby for me um one that like i don't really think it's going to be game of the year conversation, but I hope that it is. And for some reason, my gut tells me he's going to be good is forespoken. And we'll see. I know a lot of people are kind of down on it. But like, there's something in my gut that tells me is going to be way better than

people expect it. That I agree with you. I think that that is going to come in and over, I think right now, hype is so low. You look at like, it's going to be seven or whatever. I think that's a game that could come in and be an eight. Okay, okay. Yeah. I'm hoping for a nine.

I'm hoping for it, which I know what's crazy. I know, I know. Gary would have touched in this game. Do you understand? There's no way that man can make a nine if it's not a rogue one. Though what? Well, that's a great transition because the one game that it's difficult to talk about because it's not even announced, but I do think Jedi Fallen Order 2 is going to come out this year.

And I think it's going to be in the conversation. Oh, my God. Tim, don't get my hopes up. When do we got to go back to Disney and get Cal's lightsaber? We got to go get Cal's Lightaber. Tim, you and me. Greg, did you know that there's a superior soulslike out there called Elden Ring? It's not, again, like I already talked about, guess what?

You got this guy over there looks like a nightmare before Christmas man. Go fight 30 of him, that's fun. We showed it. He got the platinum, so he knows about it, you know? Exactly. Chat was also shouting out Mario Plus Rabbit Sparks of Hope. That's one like, I don't think for us as a whole as a company. Like, I don't think we'll be like a high game of the year contender, but I can see it

making the list the first one. It's really, really fun. And, you know, if that's a follow-up to that and adding some new elements, I remember really liking the Donkey Kong DLC that they had for that first one. Like, yeah, I'm fully expecting that to be a great time. I'm going to say two words. I know I'm going to regret. Do it.

Sonic Frontiers. I love you so much, bless. I go through this every single time. Every single time I go through this, where I'm like, man, this new Sonic game looks like it can be the one. This looks like it could be good. And then it comes out, and I'm like, oh, this is one. of the worst games I played this year.

And so like, here's my thing, right? This trailer, I don't know, man. It looks pretty good. Wes, I'm with you, man. I'm so with you right now because I just played Kirby and Forgotten Land and it's my number two game of the year right now. And I don't think it's going to drop that much. Like I am utterly shocked by that.

And with what this trailer is showing us, we can read between the lines of what we know about Sonic and what this might deliver. And I'm kind of excited for that. I think that it has a chance at doing 3D Sonic right for the first time. I look at this trailer and like as we're seeing it, right, like it is Sonic standing in like open environments. They're showing all these different shots of these different structures. All of it looks beautiful. All of it looks inspired by like a Breathful of the Wild or a shadow colossus.

It seems like it's going to be that type of game. I look at this and I ask the question, how can this be bad? Like how do you put out a bad version? Who asked that question so many times about games that end up being fucking bad, boy? Okay, first of all, I don't. First of all, I don't. Names some names, but second of all, I also did ask that same question when the Sonogos trailer came out. So I definitely understand like how.

I definitely understand how. But I'm like, man, the vision is there. I think they just need the platform. By the platform, I need, I mean, just like a good amount of budget from second. And Tim, like Nintendo and Hal were behind Kirby. Like, yeah. How, Sonic team, if I'm being completely real, I don't think that they're that far off from each other.

Like, I do think that there are more stinkers from Sonic team than there are stinkers from Howl. That is true. That is fair. I think it's a director to have a lot of faith in underneath Kevin Feigey versus a director you don't have a lot of faith in underneath whoever the fuck's doing D.C. stuff. Like, that's the way I'm looking at it. And it's like, we've got to be honest with ourselves, guys.

We've got to be honest with ourselves. I'm stuck to watch the Sonic movie too. Okay. I can't watch that. for the second time last night. Wow. It was even better blessing. It was even better.

I got to watch it again. Again, I'm the biggest Sonic fan who doesn't like the game. Like, I love, I love the lore. I love the characters. I just, who, Tim, I got a question for you because I'm going back and forth with the chat on this one. Where do we stand on Cuphead, the delicious last course? Because to me, that's, I feel like that's yet to be determined because we don't know how

significant that DLC is, right? Whereas, like, Persona 5 Royal was, like, a lot of, like, you know, it's mainly the same game, but adds like a significant stuff at the end of that game where it was significant enough that that counted as a game of the year contender for me back in, what was that, 2020, where it's like I still feel like it's yet to be determined on Cuphead of like,

I think it's got to be a certain amount of new content to really even be considered like a game of the year thing. If it's like three boss, three or four bosses and like a new run and gun level, like I don't know if that's enough to really like be a game of the year, top 10 list kind of thing for me. Yeah, I'm, I'm right there. you i think that we're gonna get one island that's kind of what they're talking about so i do think

that'll be three to four boss fights and then one run and gun level and that's probably it but i think that even with that like i think there could be enough content that it will probably make my list but i agree with you it's a little bit weird and like i don't know it depends on how they present it um but since it's been worked on for so long like i would be shocked i mean i know it's literally in the name but that's just kind of a joke. I would be shocked if they treated this and promoted this like DLC. I think they're going to promote it as if it's just a small game.

Yeah. And I think that that makes it a little bit more likely to be more substantial than just what we exactly expect. I think especially with how long the weight has been, I think it can definitely be considered a small short game. Because if it takes two hours long to beat, then I mean, shit, there's other games that have come out that are a couple hours long.

that are still their own standalone games. I think if this would have come out the same year or maybe six months later or something like that, then maybe you would just look at it as kind of a little add-on. But I think since the wait has been so long, the anticipation has been there, I would say, yeah, consider it as its own standalone thing. But is it something, this will be an interesting thing of,

like, is it something that you can play without buying Cuphead, or is it something that you have to have Cuphead for to be able to play at this DLC? Because I feel like there's a kind of, it's a weird kind of like splitting hairs thing for me, where it's like originally uncharted for DLC was going to be DLC, but then it turned into a lost legacy,

which was its own standalone thing, which I would consider its own standalone game, not DLC and stuff like that. So it's like a weird conversation to have. One that I'm excited to have when it comes out in June, Tim, and when we have either the year of conversations later this year. Oh, yeah. I think that there is a like less than 10% chance

that it requires Cuphead to be played. And if it does, I think that they're going to make Cuphead like free. And I just make you pay for the new shit and you just get it and it just works that way. But let us know in the comments below what you think about that, what your game of the year is so far. And if you think there's going to be any fun surprises that come at the end of the year. As always, I've been Tim Geddes. We're about to do something I love to call Kind of Feudy. And I'm very excited for that for all at patreon.com slash kind of funny games, listeners, and viewers.

But for everyone else, get fucked. Whoa. Yeah, it just felt right. It just felt right. I don't know. I don't know, guys.