Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Greg and Mike's Top 10 Games of 2025 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

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What's up, everybody? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games Cast for Wednesday, January 14th, 2026. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside Master of Hype. And more importantly, the kind of funny fantasy critic 2025 champion snowbike Mike. I'm sorry, this is the one-on-one podcast, Barry. Thank you, Greg. you know, made big money moves. Big money moves week one.

Kind of funny.com slash league. Throw it up. Barrett. You want to be part of this podcast so bad? Barrett, throw it up because when the champ is feeling good, the champ is feeling good. Was the champ feeling good or crazy? Just like Babe Ruth.

Champ's feeling stupid. And I pointed out and I called my shots. You didn't call one shot. You called five additional shots. We drafted our five games. Yeah. Other people came in, picked maybe one, maybe two games. You filled your entire.

team and left your bank with $1. I've been dying to talk about this, and I love talking about it with you, Greg. Of course, Evil Barrett. He's in the background. Two champs to champs, okay? Now, here's the deal, Greg. Yeah. When you know you got it, you got it. And you just got to believe in yourself and you got to go do it. And so there

I was all week. So excited. We finished the draft and I'm thinking, oh, I left a couple on the table. Yeah. I got to get after some of these games. And so I went back and forth and there I was going, what's best for the content? And Roger looked at me, he goes, Mike, don't you dare select

five, it'll be very bad for the content. I said, Roger, don't worry about it. Don't worry about me, right? I have an idea. That's Roger's biggest problem. Keep his fucking nose in his own business. How about that? Back up, Roger, I got a plan here. Yeah. And as I started going down the list, I started to get more and more excited. It started with Ghosts

of Yote Legends. Yep. Right there. I'm getting that at a steal. I'm like, oh man, we didn't pick that on the initial draft. I think I should jump at this, right? Blessing brought it up earlier in the week and I was like, is he thinking about it? Is he putting the thought in my head to put the thought in my head to put it in his head to put it in your head? And then I start thinking to myself, I'm like, all right, well, like, what else do I want?

And I dance over with Ark Knights and Field. I think maybe I want Arknights Enfield. Maybe I want Warhammer. I'm dancing with these games. What about an unannounced God of War game? I'm dancing with these things. I said, no, Mike, stick to what you know. And I go, guess what?

Diablo 4 is about to have another expansion. last year's got 83. This year's going to be better than last year. I'm getting 85 plus on this. 85 plus. 85 plus on the Diablo 4 expansion. Two new character classes, we of course know coming in. This is it.

Okay, get ready. Then I go to myself, I say, you know what, Mike? World of Warcraft Midnight's coming out. What happened last year? 83. I said, I know World of Warcraft Midnight's delivering 85. That's another easy one on the board, right? So now I'm collecting.

If I didn't know you better, I'm like, have you been to Blizzard? Over break, did you go to Blizzard? This man is collecting infinity stones in the gauntlet. Like I'm goddamn Thanos. Ghost of Yote Legends. A lot of people said, Mike, that's not even going to get reviewed. Ghost of Shishima Legends was so big that this will get reviewed. People are excited for this.

There's a conversation about this. This is now in the conversation. This is now in the Zika. If Ghost of Shishima Legends was so big, you think you'd have more reviews. And so then I collect the stones. I got three now. And I say to myself, man, what if I steal an Andy pick? What if I do something Andy would do?

That's good for content. The people that made Spirit Fairer are coming out with a game called At Fate's End. I'll steal that from Andy. Because he picked it last year. Stole that. Then I said, man, I really messed up not choosing Fable. And then two days later, Xbox goes, oh, snap, we forgot to announce Fables in the Xbox Direct. Barrett.

While you're here, can you get, because I know I bid on Fable, Did anyone else bid on Fable? Oh yeah, four of you did. Okay, okay, okay. Once it was confirmed that they were like that bullish that it's part of this. Oh, yeah. What, yeah, to Paris started to go for 50. Blessing went with three.

Yeah, I went five or 15. I think I went 15, 15, yeah, 15. And so they announced Fable and I start itching. I go, God, man, now I need it. And so I played the dance the whole time, Greg. And we'll bring up the dollar to finish this, right? Because there I was adding up what I got. 40, 30, okay, I'm at 70 with the other ones.

I'm at like 75. I said, well, Greg's going to think about Diablo. He loves Yablo. I got to go a little bit higher. 83 didn't do enough for me. I was ready. You're born. Got me 83.

That's not enough. I was ready for you to go in there. So I had to up my Diablo, right? I'm worried that Andy might think about. I don't know if you know I lost last year. So I was like I probably shouldn't pick the same kind of things. I'm thinking I'm like, man, Andy might pick at Fates End. I got to up my fate's end.

Nobody thinks about World of Warcraft, but me here. I got that, right? That's true. So now I'm starting to do the dance. Well, Blessing might go for Ghost of Yote. let's put 30 on it. Nobody will do that, right? Now I'm messing with the pick order

because I'm worried about getting my picks. Then I get the fable. Start off at 20. I go, that's not enough. Start off at 30. I go, I don't know. Get the 40. Now I'm doing the mental math.

I'm like, well, you're at 80 at this point, Mike. You might as well go to 90. Like, you'll save $10. And if you go crazy, then you'll just, you'll pick whatever with the dollar, right? And so then I get to it. I put 60 down. I start doing some mental math.

I'm like, you're at 97. Good job, Mike. Then the pigs come through. It's like, you're at 99. I messed it up. But it's even better because I'm calling my shot so confidently that I have a dollar left. Keep it a buck. But what happens when two of these games don't come out?

You drop one. You get another game for a dollar. And then you, what, you're stuck. I'm happy to report that I'm famously known for winning this league with two giant zeros on the board. So anything is possible here. The track record shows that you can have. have two zeros and still win. Yeah.

And like, Jack Rick does show that. That is. I'm good. You can spin this narrative, Mike, but we all know that you wanted to set and forget this entire year so that you wouldn't have to be reminded over and over again that Roger and his team name,

Barrett is my best friend. My best friend. Yeah. And we still have trades. And I can work a good trade. Meaning that. You know what I mean? Like,

We're going to watch that Xbox direct, all right? And we should have a conversation live because if maybe I'll, I can give you some money for Fable. I can get you back on the board. If you don't like what you see out of Fable. I'm letting you know at any point I could work a trade with somebody. I can throw it live on air right now. We should have a trade deadline for the year. We'll and deal with my friends.

What next Tuesday or Wednesday? No, I'm just saying for because I just feel the fuckery already in November. In November, Roger and Mike going back and forth of like what can we trade each other to guarantee one of us wins. We'll find out. But yeah, I've been dying to talk about fantasy critic. Thank you so much, Greg. It's so much fun.

And this is a good kickstart to the year. Of course. Mike fills up his team. We got jokes. We got some fun. And then we'll see Xbox Dev direct, maybe some spring showcases into summer. We got some good fantasy critic content coming our way.

We sure do. But before we look fully ahead to this year, not next year, this year. We need to look back at 2025. So welcome to the games cast, course, topics and video games, Twitch.tv.tv.com slash kind of funny games, YouTube.com slash kind of funny games,

Apple, Spotify to get the membership alongside patreon.com slash kind of funny. And of course, YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. If you're watching live, you need to be part of the show with your top 10 games from 2025 or your criticism of Mike and Greg's top 10. I can't imagine anybody would have anything to say about ours because it's a perfect list for both of us. Remember, of course, we couldn't do this without our Patreon producers on patreon. on patreon.com slash Kind of Funny.

So thank you, Delaney the Somme twining, Carl Jacobs, and Omega Buster. For now, let's begin with topic of the show. Tots, tats, tats, tats, tats, of course, earlier this week on Monday, we crowned Kind of Fonies Top 10 games of the year,

but more importantly, game of the year. Round of applause to the one of the only, Claire Obscure Expedition 33. The way we do that, of course, is we should rank personal top 10s submit them blindly to Barrett. Barrett orders them and then as you know on Monday they were all revealed to us one by one

the point totals. Then after that in the wake of it we like to go through and do these games cast with smaller crews to talk about our games one game at a time starting at 10 going to our number one. Sadly Tim Getty's child hasn't arrived yet. So Tim

still is in the office and yesterday on the games cast Tim just laid out this decree that now I got to follow that when we go through we say all right number 10 I had game blank. You say, and I go, did you have that higher? And if it's higher, we wait and we talk at the same time when it pops up on your house. Oh, hey. I brought that, uh, rule last year. I hate Tim. And shout out to remap radio because that's how they do their game in the year. And I thought that was a fun idea. He says the baby might be a little bit late too. Watch out for that baby. Tick, tick, tick. February and third, I might get that, uh, we'll see. The baby pool is upcoming quickly. Says that baby might be late. So then Michael, I want you to kick me off with your number 10. What would is your 10th pick and why to get there. Greg, just to kick us off, I'm so excited to sit on this podcast with you

and talk about our top tens. Me too. Because, of course, as you know, I get really excited when we host the big production bear goes all out for the kind of funny top tens. But I always smile and giggle, and it's known here that like not many of my games

ever make it. And I sat with six out of 10, not making the board. Oh, so only four out of 10. Only four made. I mean, for me it was five out of 10, too, that made the list. So you and I'm not,

we can a lot of things to talk about. And not a big, I forgot to talk about this four game in the year. Not a big differentiator between all of us. I think most of us had six and then Bless had seven. And then, yeah, you two are the lowest with five and four. And so it wasn't like a huge difference. But, uh,

so let's turn the narrative around then. And you know, man, bless what a mainstream gamer. Mainstream. Oh, it's popular. I like it.

I'm going to the gym today for he waits. Like so good. He's so good. Better and better every day. It's killing me. It's right. Now his haircut looks on point. He's killing me.

It's right. Honestly, not your lowest year, though, Mike. Your lowest year was only two games. And so I'm happy to report that, like,

this year 2025 for me, and I think a lot of people out there was a great year of gaming. So many good titles. So many titles. So many different genres that have been touched and so much fun to get into.

So talk to me about this before we even weighed in. Yeah. Not your lowest year. You've had two before. You had four before. Does that ever get in your head? Does that play tricks on you

of saying, man, am I not in line with kind of funny or just gaming in general or do you take it as a badge of pride that you're playing things that others aren't connecting with them in a different way? The first year it hurt me.

Yeah. Because of course it just got brought on the team. You know, you kind of, you're so, you're the odd duck out and you don't get to talk much during the podcast. Everybody's in chat, just going, what's up with Mike? What's up with Mike?

And it's one of those of like, at first I was a little hurt like, oh, did I do something wrong? But actually, you know, Greg Mill, I don't know if you remember, but you pulled me aside. He said, no, Mike, I've asked you for your top 10. I want to know what you. enjoyed the most. And that's one that sat with me, right, of like,

when I think of Snowbike Mike's top 10 that I'm bringing to Baird, it is the games that I enjoyed throughout the year, right? They don't have to mix and match with anyone else. I want it to be my games that I enjoy. Don't bring it to the table. Maybe we can find some common ground. Maybe we can, you can put me onto a game I've never heard of.

Maybe I can put you onto a game you never heard. And that's again, what I kicked off game that you're talking about, right? Where Blessing caught me off guard in the week prior asking me about it, and I was having a conversation. What I like about it is that, like, the way kind of funny does it isn't us trying to walk in and say, kind of funny as an entity has picked this is the game.

No, we all walk in with our individual top 10 and our own reasoning for why they're on there. And I think even when I have an oddball choice on there are way too high of a choice, and people are like, they get it because they've heard me talk about it. They know how much it means to me and blah, blah, blah. And again, for me personally, that's the only way to do it. Otherwise, why aren't we just ranking by Metacritic? And since we're not on Metacritic, going to a spreadsheet looking at every review we did, saying rank by score and then we go over the top 10 of that.

That's not fun. This is what we're talking about. When you're talking about art and what you pull out of it. And my list is the same way. I talked a lot about it on the show a little bit. But like, you know, my back half, my 10 through five, yeah, are really, or maybe six are games that I gave high scores to and really enjoyed, but they just didn't stick with me. They didn't have that sticking power when I look at like a game. For a fact, there's games I gave lower scores that are higher than the nines and nine

fives I gave. And it's not to say I was wrong, it's to say that in terms of what my year was defined, this, at least to me, defined it more than a high score game. I enjoy how we do it. I also love, like not many of us talk to each other about our list, right? It's not like Mike and Roger in the corner giggling going, I got this, this, that's right? Like, we have some. But do maybe two of the best opinions and games talk to each other about where they're putting some games? Maybe remind each other about Monster and then getting hung out to dry.

Oh, that we forgot about it. Hey, you guys didn't even do that secretly. You just did that live on a podcast. And then after that conversation, I went to Andy A. It was like, hey, we need to make a last minute assets for skate. Make a skate graphic. Make a skate graphic is right. And so, yeah, it's a fun one of like we all come.

And it's cool to have the big list. But also it's exciting that we've now carved out part of the week of like, hey, let's sit down and talk about it, which I'm really excited about. And one final one is like, you talk about that six through 10. There are so many games this year that I loved. And I had trouble putting down certain ones. There are a lot of titles that I would love to have. on my list that didn't make the list, right?

Just in the fate. Couldn't fit. I'm the same way. When we talked 10, I probably got 20, 25 that I would love to just like highlight. But we're going to talk about the top 10, Greg, and I'm excited about that. I like that a lot. Okay. So number 10, what was your pick?

Let me take you to number 10. A hit game for me. A special one shared with friends because nothing's cooler than selling drugs with your friends in Schedule 1. Schedule 1. I did not have it higher. Go ahead. Okay.

Schedule 1 from TVGS, Tyler's Video Game Studio, based in Australia. One kid, now with some other people it looks like and seems like, what a special one, right? In a world that we live in, for me in particular, of the French slop genre, the life sim genre, where you all of a sudden work your 9 to 5 and then punching again from 5 to 9 with the secondary video game job sims. Schedule 1 found a perfect mix between the two of them, right? Of like having the job sim sewed down from starting in a small hotel room with one pot, some soil in a seed, and then growing your empire of drugs into a barn and beyond. And then mixing that with the friend slop genre of you and four friends running around and doing this together, right?

Like this is a game that is up there with the gas station sims, the power wash sims. that I could zone out and be all by myself and start running my own little micro drug business and smile and laugh. And then at the same time, now invite my friends and just get overwhelmed and giggle at. Chris Anka won't let me in the grow house

because he's dialed it in so well. Jady, Neal and Washburn are out selling the drugs. I just sit there and like kind of water the plants occasionally put in seeds and just kind of laugh and run in circles. But this Tyler, Tyler's video game studio created a really fun, like mini open world, a cute, dumb art style that is like so indie video game-esque with these characters from a Rick and Morty cartoon, it feels like,

that it just made this perfect blend and the idea of starting out with weed and then getting crack cocaine and being able to blend different ingredients with those to make your own strands and profit from them and also test them out. Nothing's more fun than going up to Susie out of the basketball court. handed her a dupy that I've laced with banana and like, you know, blue rhino pills. And all of a sudden her head is giant. She's running around in circles and you're just giggling laughing. Like this one was awesome. I know it sold really well as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There is a genre here on Steam that is like really blowing up from peak RV there yet. Repo that is finding it. I think we've talked about it. But it's always in passing or something like that. You bring up friend Slop, which. some people take offense to, but you understand what we're talking about. We're talking about a peak. I think even they call it that for Magro Crab, yada, yada, yada. But why is this a genre we saw rise up in 2025?

What is the draw? Why is this so successful? Then we turn to the mega AAA companies. We talk about their multiplayer games. We can get to work. Me personally, why I think we're seeing this really succeed is price point, the games themselves, and the idea of having these fun multiplayer experiences, right? like there's this market on Steam and like I've

growing up as an Xbox kid I always looked over at the PC thing going man I wish I could play that game and they just never really came over we're starting to see those now really get the consoles but there's this weird market of like a five to $20 game that you know you and your friends are probably going to play for one night to maybe 20

and then you'll never play it again but they just come out and they're just just perfect enough but also janky enough where you have that fun experience This is where these independent developers come in, these small devs, this one-man team that puts out a great idea, gets this crazy success, is able to grow the business, just like in the video game, grow their own, scale up the team, make something spot it. And it's like that idea of like when it first comes out, it's always usually in early access. It's super buggy and it's the very bare bones. But if you were to play Schedule 1, Day 1, and then probably play it now, you would see, oh, wow, that money made such an influx for Tyler in his little video game studio in Sydney, Australia, where he's high.

hired three or four people, I bet. Now the game is bigger than it's ever been and it runs better and it is more fun. It's like there's this ride that you go on and everyone has their different lines or ability that they play where it's like, yeah, I played that three days. Oh, no, I want my money's worth. I got to play it all. You know what I don't do early access. I'll come back to it.

And so, yeah, I think. And this is the conversation with those low price points that I see you do all the time. It's easy to be, I'll buy it for you. I'll toss the game at you for $5. I remember the opposite of that with me and Poe. Where it'd be like, if I wanted to play something with Po, is like, oh, man, am I ready to put a $60 risk on a game for my non-gamer friend that I don't even know if he's going to commit to or have the time and time differences?

How many times have you had that is right? I think there's like coming out of COVID where we're all so lonely. And I mean, multiplayer games have always been their own genre and always been big. But like there was this COVID, everyone's off work. You're with together with your friends. You have found this like new flow of your life of like, hey, we have a routine where we're spending a lot of time in Discord calls. we're hanging out together.

Then we started to get out of COVID. We're like, friends are now going back to work. You're going back to work. And it's not quite the same. But we still hold on to those moments. And I think we find some a lot with these friend slop games. Hell yeah. So yeah, I wanted to highlight schedule one for number 10.

Greg Miller, I'm excited. What's your number 10? My number 10 is Donkey Kong Bonanza on your list at all? Didn't make the list. Okay, there you go. Great. Donkey Kong Bonanza, I think, such a stellar switch two game. and for me, as somebody who didn't love Mario Kart World, that first true Switch 2 game,

first two Switch 2 experience, right? I was playing my Pokemon a lot there, you know, of course, Violet. If you don't know, I'm the Pokemon fan. It's kind of funny. A voice of a new generation. And so I put obscene hours into that on the Switch 2 once I got it. But Donkey Kong Bananza was that first like, okay, it's the launch of a new game, midnight launches, winner, where the codes, there's a party of the Nintendo store,

yada, yada, yada, to be part of that zeitgeist on the system I was excited for. and on top of that it was one Ben was so excited for if you remember so I got to bring this home and have me and him jump into it it was when Po and my best friend from childhood and his son who jack at the time was 12 maybe this is 13th birthday i forget he was celebrating with us uh in in san francisco and we played with ben we've then played when ben went to bed and the next day you know i took them down to union square to show them the nintendo store and jack did the dad it's my birthday could i get a switch do and i was like i'll buy donkey Kongpo if you buy the system when we did it and Jack came home and tore it apart. It was like such a fun family bonding experience outside of the game. I'm not even talking yet about what the game was,

but I think it was such for me, even though I knew, a great encapsulation of what we talk about. It was like, and the game award for family game of the, well, I was like, all the Nintendo category, which can be insulting and can sound insulting. But when I got to live the zeitgeist of this with my nephew, my son, me, you know, my best friend, and we all were playing and passing the controller and doing crazy shit. And like, then you get into what you're doing in the game and how whimsical this is and how much fun this is. And again, the destruction and the discoverability.

You know, I did that. I didn't start it until we had launched codes. Tim was the one who reviewed it, right? Is that right or was it? Yeah, it was Tim, right? And I remember him sitting down for the let's play where I did the first hour of it or whatever and discovering the smash and seeing the bananas hit it and then seeing the mass. and then seeing the map and get it.

I was like, oh my God, like this is a Nintendo game that's checking all of those boxes I have in my head from my Ubisoft games and my platinum that I like to go get of

go find all of these things and everlasting gobstopper of content. And that led to a, I would say, month of really being all about Donkey Kong Bonanza. And it was this really interesting thing because there to this day

on my switch are two save files. There's my safe file and Ben's save file because I'd be playing with Ben and I didn't want him fucking up what I was doing. but then I also didn't want to go too far. So we did this whole thing where I did this, I played however many hours of Donkey Kong Manza.

And then when Ben was really into, I'm like, we're going to start over for your own same. I did that again. So I still haven't rolled credits on Donkey Kong Bananza. And that's why we find it here in the 10, this 10 slot for me. Because on break, I had a hit list of things I needed to go finish four game of the year,

just for my own sanity. And when Donkey Kong Bonanza came up in the rotation and I jump back in, I was disoriented. And it was the, what am I doing? not obviously I smash get bananas, but where was I in the narrative? But where am I dry? And I just couldn't get the momentum back that I had back then. And I think for me, again, it speaks to how I've described Nintendo games.

I think for a long time, if not pretty much my entire career, is that I think Nintendo makes great toys. And I don't mean that as an insult to what they make. They make great toys, which are jump in, smash the shit out of it, get a cool power up yet da-da-da-da-da-da. But as someone who is so, I need a narrative backbone. what am I doing? Why am I doing it? I feel like for so many Nintendo games, that's their failing for me.

Where it is just like the fucking bad guys suck this into the thing. And so I'm doing the thing. And it's like, that's not enough for me to be like, ah, I can't get enough. I can't get enough. But I don't want to discount the time I had with it. You know, if we weren't working these jobs and reviewing things nonstop, I'm sure I would have kept on with Donkey Kong and rolled credits and don't whatever.

But it stays on the switch, right, as something that I know I can hop into on a plane ride any and just go smash some bananas and maybe find that wild hair that grabs me and pulls me back in. But for me, in terms of a year, this stacked with experiences I couldn't get enough of. This is gameplay I couldn't get enough of. But the surrounding tissue for it didn't pull me out and through the way I wanted it to. I like that. Yeah, Donkey Kong didn't make my list. But of course, it's one of the 25 I could name off that I loved this year.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was that gameplay, like you said, right? That world that they created, that whimsy. there's something special about Nintendo games and it makes me sound when you bring up your son and the family and playing with Jack and Poets like Nintendo was that for a lot of kids out there for me with the N64 right?

Like that's Rampage World Tour where me and my little brother were the crazy rampage Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love Rampage, Lizzie, what up? It's so special. And yeah, Donkey Kong, like, as a Donkey Kong 64 kid, like Barrett and Bless, this one was really cool of like, man, we get a Donkey Kong

and it's open world and he's smashing going wherever he wants. It's not just the 2D plane jumping up and down. I loved it and I had so much fun. I liked, I mean, all the bright, beautiful colors, the crazy character designs. I liked the bad guys. Like, it felt ripped right out of the Super Mario world, the Super Mario movies. It's like, man, they did a great job with Donkey Kong.

And, yeah, it was a system seller. You know, I think hitting me with Mario Carts and Donkey Kong, it was like a really easy one of like, yeah, I have to have this switch. For sure. Yeah, yeah. Definitely is it. And so, yeah, I fell off similar to you. One day I'll go back.

Did you ever play a lot of co-op? Because I don't have someone to play co-op. No, dude. That was, what was that like? Garbage. It's the, it's the, whatever insulting little brother mode, partner mode. I mean, like, Ben was so excited to play co-op with me. Yeah.

And when we jumped in, he discovered what it was. He was immediately like, I want to be Donkey Kong again. And then this is how bad you know he knows it is. He didn't even ask me to do it. He wasn't like, do you want to be Paulina? I was like, I don't want to be Paulina. You know what I mean? Like that conversation never had it because he had no fun with it.

So we never had to worry about it. I mean, they also added the rogue like mode, right? We had blessed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stream of it. But like, it is impressive. Like a couple of my games here, it's like, man, they really hit you with the content this year. It was like, here's the game.

You'll wait for DLC or more content later on. A lot of the games on my top 10 and Donkey Kong, it's like, hey, here's the game. A couple months later, we're already hitting you with more content. Let's keep you involved, keep you in there. I love that. Hit me with number nine, Mike. Number nine for me. Battlefield 6.

Do you have it higher? I do not. I had a feeling. Number nine for me, Battlefield 6 coming from, of course, Battlefield Studios. If you forgot,

this was EA bringing everyone together to finally make another battlefield that would hit the top charts and actually stay. So you have Criterion in that one, dice, ripple effect, and motive,

all under one umbrella with Vince Sampella. RIP, my guy right there. But yeah, brought them all together. to hopefully make Battlefield relevant again after about 10 years of being a couple of misses since probably Battlefield 1.5, I forget the number when they went back to World War II. That was one. That was one. One was the big one. Then they missed a couple times after that. But man, oh man, from the jump going out to L.A. to participate in the Battlefield Creator event and then having the demos out with your friends before launch and then launch Battlefield delivered. Battlefield 6 came back. and made a big splash, and I'm so happy to say that,

because I had a lot of concern following Battlefield 2042. I didn't think this team could do it. There was just so many moments and proven factors that it's like, they can't deliver it at launch. Maybe six months down the line, three months after they work out the bugs and server issues, people will say, oh, Battlefield's back like it's really good. And it's like, well, you miss the window. We're here for the first three weeks.

That's when everybody wants to play it. And then we can ride later on as it gets better and better. if it sucks at launch, I'm not coming back to it. That's most gamers, yeah. And so for Battlefield to launch and like actually be strong on the server side, very lacking in bugs and like not have giant issues like Battlefield 242 was huge. And all the maps are awesome. I think they launched like 10 to 12 maps.

Shortly after that, they launched their own Battle Royale with RedSec. Like they delivered. And I brought it up before with the game awards. Like the audio design in this. all Battlefield games is something special. The audio design is so good that it is screaming in your ears 24-7 and making your ears bleed.

Like it is something that is unmatched in all these games. I know we had the right end of like, I'm so bored of call of duty and Battlefield getting awards of like, yeah, you made guns sound better. But it's like if you put on your headphones and play Battlefield 6, there's nothing like it, having people screaming around you, a jet fighter screaming above your head, people gunshots, footsteps, the tank, like,

all of it is amazing. And so, yeah, to have Battlefield 6th, like, finally come out and deliver on such a good scale, I'm so happy. And like, nobody beats the 32 on 32 all-out warfare like they do. So somebody from the sidelines who just talks about games on games daily and doesn't play games like Battlefield. Talk to me a bit about this year Battlefield Call of Duty fight. Because Call of Duty, I know, underperformed, under-impressed. Did Battlefield, do you think, win back gamers here?

Some gamers, some goodwill? I think Battlefield won back a lot of gamers on the Call Duty versus Battlefield side. But there was a big three. And we talked about that leading up with me and the boys throughout a couple of games, casting games daily. There was a kind of unknown question mark. And that was Arc Raiders. Right?

Like there was a third game in this that actually rose above the rest and came out on top, right? It was Call Duty versus Battlefield. But then we started talking about Arc Raiders, a game that had. some great showings during the summertime, finally got a release date in October against the big two, and really came out on top at the end of the day. I think when you look at and probably ask gamers, they're going to say positive things about Battlefield.

They will say that call duty underperformed and did not deliver, and they didn't. And then on top of that, it's like, you look at our creators, it's like, that game is still on top. That game changed the mindsets of many and really opened up the extraction shooter to a whole new audience that is on now console and PC. people are excited to play it.

Embark Studios, that team figured it out. Just, I think we're going to talk about our crairner soon enough. So we can put a pin in that conversation. I'll tell you my number nine. My number nine was Luminous Arise. I feel like on my list of games, this is the most boring choice. For Greg. Okay.

Everyone, if you have, so many people, I've been following you since I was in junior high. I remember you from beyond, that, da-da. You know how much I love Luminous because on day one when I got hired at IGN and I showed up. I was like, man, I love my PSP, and I love Luminous. I've had it forever, and this is the thing, and these are my high scores, and this is what I've done.

So throughout my 19-year career in March, I have reviewed so many Luminous and talked about so many Luminous, and I can tell you why I like ones and why don't like this and da-da-da-da. Luminous Arise is, once again, luminous, an amazing match-four little block that comes down in Square Puzzle game that is, I think, the best. I know so many people love Tetris. I love Tetris. I think luminous is better and I enjoy it more

both for the aesthetics, the music, the style of it. I think even watching luminous arise or a luminous base game, so many people, oh, it's like Tetris Effect.

And it's like, well, yes, because they made so many luminouses before they did Tetris effect. That was like, Tetris effect was them luminescing Tetris. And so luminous arises,

luminous strictly as Tetris. It's a whole thing. But like, it's luminous. It's great music. It's great block matching. Burst mode is their new thing. Better visuals, better quality. You can play it in VR if you want to. More online functionality,

yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. Like, it's here because I love luminous. I think if, you know, it's one of those, when we talk about this list and how you rank games and so on and so forth, blah, blah, blah. For me, this is one, like, if luminous was brand new, this would be so much higher on the thing. But it's such a known quantity. And again, this back five, I feel like I talk a lot, I will be talking a lot about known quantities and why then it didn't wow me enough to when I I think back to 2025. These are the games. These ones in the back, like, oh, yeah, they were great.

They were awesome. Luminous is great, but knock on wood, every new luminous will be the best luminous. And I will always be like that. You should go play that luminous rather than, oh, no, no, you need to pick up Avita and you need to play Electronic Symphony. I just love that it's a great reminder, right? Like, you are the luminous guy in my life. I've never even heard of that game before you bringing it up, right?

And then, like, I have my close friend Washburn, who loves this game? Wash A. like, Washington's like, this game is amazing. And I'm like, only you and Greg talk about this game in my little circle. Like, I don't know many people playing it. But then you put me on to this. It's like, oh, it is amazing. Like, I would spend more time in this, right?

Yeah. I sucked a Tetris effect. So like, maybe I'll be cool with this one. I don't know, you know. Give it a shot, Mikey. I'll try. Instead, they'll move on to tell me what is your number eight. Number eight.

Arc Raiders. There it is. From Embark Studios, of course. You know them from the finals. This team is cooking. And they are cooking with gas. gasoline right now. And they have really found a couple of hits. I think the finals did so well at bringing in this fun team arena shooter mixed with the awesome levolution and destructible environments

that you wanted to see. But it wasn't quite set the world on fire. It was, hey, bring a name to this studio. Hey, let's steal a couple of players. Let's get people excited. But it wasn't what Arc Raiders became. And Arc Raiders is the takeover the world. Everyone's talking about this. it feels like the hell diversers of this year. And I'm really blown away that I'm saying that because hell diver is known as a PVE game. I think you and your friends really loved that game because there was no stress of Mike in the sweaties coming out and all of a sudden you're getting... Hey, your brony.

How you doing? We're not going to hurt you. We're not going to hurt him. It's cool, right? But like then all of a sudden for Embark to be like, we're going to make an extraction shooter, a PVEVP situation and the world is going to take to this. never would I have thought this. I had so much doubts with extraction shooters.

After me and Nick played a number of them, they're fun, they're exciting, but I didn't think that the general audience, the mass audience would go, worrying on this tenfold, and we want more of it, right? And so to have Marathon come out and say,

hey, after playing all these playtests, turns out we don't like what we're doing here, Bungee, like, let's hold up. And Embark being like, we found something and people are really viving with the art style, the world that we have with Sparanza and the top side with these kind of like very desert-esque maps

meeting these very like white clean robots like people are viving with this right now and they want more. And you know what I think of like gaming moments here are kind of funny. Like you have those, you know, things there. Like oh my God, they delay GTA, yada, yeah, yeah. I'll never forget when it was like day two

of the marathon beta or whatever it was. And you got, Nick was very vocal of like, oh, cool, can we play our creators? is the arc-grade a bait? And I was like, I, at that point, Arc Raiders was so nebulous.

It's an extraction shooter. It had, I had no real, I was like, wait, what? You want to play that rather than this? Like, or it was a Concord.

It doesn't even, whatever, they were, you were choosing the AAA big one. Or I'm sorry, you were choosing Arc Raiders over the AAA, big one.

And I was like, what? Like, what's going on? What is this game? And then for it to drop, arc Raiders is one of my sob stories of the year of like how much I enjoyed playing that with you all,

but my multiple weeks of that release, weren't available for me to do the hell divers thing of cool I'm off of every other content and I'm going to go and do that I was reviewing whatever I was reviewing so much fun and then going home in soloing I enjoyed but I didn't enjoy as much and so then it became well this is the one I'm going to go stream with y'all but I only got in there a few times with it which sucked but it's like it is on my short list on the other side of the 11 to 15 thank you tim yeah there's something there that I know you would have loved with your division days where they found a

mix for people who might not want to sweat and be super pve competitive gamers. You're like, hey, there's a casual fun side to this, which is the division. You're going to hop in with three friends. We're going to give you some basic missions to get you out and exploring the world. You're going to loot some rubbish. It's fine. And you're going to shoot some robot arc. And like, you're going to have a good time.

But there will always be the looming threat. And there will always be the thing in the back of your mind for as casual as you are of like, what if I took that fight? What if they came to me? Am I ready for this, right? And it's like that perfect balance that they found with proximity chat as well of like people being so excited to be on comms and be like, what up, dude? We're fighting the art.

Come join us. Or I'm totally cool. Like, don't kill me. I got a free load out. Like there's this just mix that they found that made it so much fun to jump into. You jump into escape from Tarkoff like me and Nick. There's no fun to be here. Right.

Like there's none of this. And so I'm so glad that the world enjoyed it, got onto it. and it feels like hell divers, right? I'll bring up Burt Peanut, right? Like, people are yelling goop at their partners and their partners, just like hell divers is like, well, he's fighting for supremacy. I don't know.

They're strengthening the globe. I don't know what happened. It's like, I got to go get the goop. It's like, all right, sure. Go get the go. Go get the goop, I guess. That's what you got to do. But yeah, I love Arc graders.

I had to put it on the list. You know, I can't wait to play more. And it's just a great time. Greg, what do you have is number eight? Number eight for me, I have Ghost of Yote, of course, Atsu's Tale of Revenge. What a great, gorgeous, amazing game. I'm pretty sure I gave this a nine on our review scale when we were out there, and I don't regret it whatsoever.

Like, I had so much fun with this game. I thought it is the benefit and then the knock that it is. It just improved on everything Sushima did, which I think is so dismissive and throws away years of hard work from stuff. sucker punch, but it also is a credit to how much we loved Ghost of Sushima, and here we are with a better map, a better thing, game plays better, like it looks better, which is already beautiful. Like you go down the list of everything they did here.

I thought it was such a, you jumped into this game and you were fucking in it. Like, you know what I mean? You jumped in and you were immediately locked into Atsi's story. You're thrown right into the action. Here we go. The tale of a revenge begins. And the way they flash you back to get you caught up on the story was so well done. I did not, because I'm an idiot.

Expect the twists and turns. the story took. Like I thought I was getting a very direct, hey, this is what it's going to be. So when things happen, I was like, oh shit, I'm a moron for not even thinking that through.

I didn't think, and blah, blah, blah. No spoilers. I thought it just delivered on a game we had wanted for so long,

the sequel to Ghost, right? But again, it ends up in this back half because I feel this half of games is kind of described, as I talked about in the top 10

for me is frictionless. That's the thing we throw around. And I think that makes for a great blockbuster that makes for a great entertainment property when I'm going through and doing it. But then when I get to the end of the year and I'm like, what games resonated with me? It is the struggle. It is the, this thing that I rubbed up against that made the experience better or did something for me in a way that this one didn't. And, you know, again, for me and how fast the world moves for us in this job and the amount of

games to review and yada, yada, I found it telling to. I think that I never even thought about doubling back to platinum this. Like I finished it and I was done. Like my story was done and I was on to the next one because even though the side stories are more thought out and there's better characterization, it still is that now that friend Slops stolen it, it is that open world slop that I do enjoy.

And I coined that before Friend Slop, if you remember, that I enjoy, but I didn't need more of. Again, it was that I'm at the buffet and there's so much to do, but I know there's these more curated experiences or different experiences that are going to give me a, vibe this year that I want to go chase and experience. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this was something special.

This one I quickly put down, it falls victim against and just like me not turning on my PlayStation all that often. But like, this was a game that did capture me. Like you said, right off the bat, you get hit with that story and you're in. You're like,

okay, like I'm in for this. And then immediately you are greeted by that giant mountain in the middle of the map and you go, wow, this is beautiful, right? Like,

I'm all in on this. And I thought I would really be into it. I enjoyed the open world. I like, as Roger put it, things kind of came to me. It felt like, which I really liked. I started really vibing with the characters, but I found myself not turning it on, not going back to it. And I don't know if that's open world fatigue.

Like, this game should be for me. As someone who's always been yelling, I want Assassin's Creed, but was samurai, right? And when they finally do that. They make those shadows. It's like, I never touch these. I'm done now, right? So there's just weird world right now for me of like,

this open world fatigue that I'm just not. vibing with, but I know there's a game, right? There's something out there whether it be The Witcher or a Fallout. There's something that's like, oh no, I'll drop everything and get lost in that world. I just haven't found the one yet. And I wonder to, you know, you bring up

Fallout. I think that's a game we talk so much about on content. And granted, I'm the one saying it, but I've heard other people say it too. Of like, you know, your favorite fallout or the most special fallout is your first fallout because it is that you come out of the vault or you walk into New Vegas. And like, holy shit, I can go anywhere and I can do anything.

And then everything after that's trying to chase that high. And I think that's the thing here where, again, Ghost of Sushimo was so good. And like, maybe you don't like to pay saying, maybe this, that the other, but like to walk into that world and be in feudal Japan

and be a samurai slash ninja. It was like, oh my God. So to do it again here is like awesome, but I know what this is. It's a known quantity. We now talk about you and join this game. Are you interested at all with legends?

No. I mean, I'm interested in, hey, it's out tomorrow. We're going to put you on the stream. Sure, let's fucking rock it. Yeah, yeah. But I do not see a world where I'd go home that night and be like, yeah, let's go.

Because it's just not classes and the mystical world. And I think, you know, you bring up division in comparison to arc Raiders. And that is one of the things of it. It was so close to the division, but it wasn't. Yes. Where arc Raiders alone, you know, I complete. I come back with the tin can and it's like, okay. And it's that thing of like, I don't feel the progression.

And then even when I did, it was like, all right, now I'm going to go lose this gun. If I take out, it's always saying, I don't want to take my good shit out. Yeah, yeah. And I can either not take my good shit out because I'm alone or I can not take my good shit out because I know we're going to flip on somebody.

It's like, what's the point? So it's like division, I always, whether I was playing with a group, one other person by myself, I always feel that I'm getting better. I'm getting a cooler thing. I'm leveling up. I'm doing a thing.

Whereas to have that washed away in arc graders and then to a degree with however they're going to run Sushima Legends. I'm sorry, Yotei Legends. just is not my vibe. That's not the multiplayer experience I'm looking for. We giggled a little bit, but we do need to talk about Assassin's Creed, right?

It's like you have loved a lot of Assassin's Creed games. We finally get Shadows, right? Which is the dream for a lot of Assassin's Creed OG players, right, going to the setting. Did you try that all? Did you... Oh, yeah. You pulled it all for it?

Pulled no. No, no, no. I forget how many hours I put in. We talked about it in the reviews and the conversations around it or whatever. But it was the traditional thing I'm talking about earlier on with that narrative backbone where it was just like it starts in a very interesting place I thought but I then immediately

didn't feel like we were getting pulled through enough breadcrumbs for me to be like oh I need to engage and keep going and I'm never I'm never I'm never I think of there's a what's the exception to the rule but I'm going to say I'm never a fan of the dual protagonist okay I play a video game I want to be in somebody's shoes I want to be making these choices these decisions and seeing it from their perspective right like I think something like last of us throwing me into Ellie shoes I'm talking about number one at the end was a smart call. And I guess last was part two, giving me the two things. But even that, I think that's a different vibe than you can be Yoseke or you can be,

what was her name, Barrett? Nowe. Now, you can be either one of them, right? And it's like, okay, but I don't want to. And it's like that thing where I think Yoseke's story is more interesting, but I don't like his gameplay as much as I like her. Yoske. Yoske.

Sorry. Yoske. Put him in there and do that. Yeah. It just didn't work for me. Okay. It'll be interesting. I really liked Assassin's Creed Mirage.

I know me and Barrett talked about that of like kind of return to form a little bit smaller compact experience, but like there's just something about that Assassin's Creed parkour mixed with the stealth gameplay that I'll always hold dear to my heart and love. And it's like I am, I'm like, I wonder why I didn't jump at this and try it the way it is. Maybe I got put off when it went from Origins to Odyssey and Val Holloway. It's like, we're going to make these so massive that you'll never get through it unless this is your game. And it's like maybe that's why I kind of hid from it. But there was something about Mirage lately that or recently that I was like,

I liked that. Give me more of that. I think, you know, part of it is to compare it to these two assassins. Well, you know what I mean? Assassins created a Yote, right? Also what you're talking about of the story coming to you and meeting you and telling you a story. I think that goes so far rather than the, all right, cool, what can I do? Where do I want to go?

Even the way Yote presented its cards, its characters, its map I thought was so, oh, I'm here. I'm doing this as Atsu. Mike, what's your number seven? My number seven, skate. Greg, do you have it higher? Believe it or not, I have it higher everybody.

So we don't have to talk about skate right now. Why don't you take me to your number seven? Why don't you take me to your number seven? I would have my number seven. I have it higher, Greg. There you go. We will pause that conversation. We jump back to six.

Seven for you. Yeah. You and I have a little seven switch. Okay. A little seven. We call there, yeah. Number six, I know you don't have for sure. Sniper elite resistance.

Oh, you'd be, no. Coming from Rebellion Studios, of course, this is that How many sniper elite games are there? 10, maybe 12? I don't know. But man, oh man, did I fall in love with this one? I mean, you could ask me about the story.

I wouldn't be able to tell you a single thing that happened in the story. But I could tell you that somehow... I shot people. I shot a lot of people. And it had so much fun because they found this perfect blend. And I know this is kind of my first sniper elite. I've played other ones. But this is the one where I really gave myself to.

and they found this perfect blend of like Hitman Open World Sandbox Gameplay mixed with like sniper duels and it just spoke to me at a time I think early in the year when it might have been a little bit later on releases where I could just get lost and fall in love with this right I loved being dropped into these little sandboxes

and say hey you can go any which way you can snipe any person go get these objectives done and I was enjoying missions one through four but then all of a sudden a new gameplay mechanic was introduced And that was the invade system. And that's where I fell in love. The idea that someone, similar to Dark Souls experience that I always love,

someone can come into my game and thou be the threat. Right. Like I still have all of the PVE, all of the AI are still coming after me. But now there's an even bigger threat. And that's humans, right? That's man coming after me. And I loved that, right? Of like, you are watching, you're looking for glints.

You're looking for movement. You're trying to identify where that bad person is that's looking to stop your run because if they do stop you, you have to rewind all the way to the checkpoint. So that progress that you made gets halted. And I loved that thrill of the fight of, uh-oh, like now I've got to be really mindful of how I'm playing.

The AI, then maybe not as difficult as I need them to be. I can just kind of walk through them. Now I have to worry about someone. And those first couple of fights got me so deep where then I started looking into the system. I was like, well, I want to do that. And I just became the nemesis at all times.

I would invade other people's gameplays, and they would put you in any level that anyone was on, so you would go from a range of Mission 1 to 8 or 10, and wherever you would go, you would just, your goal is simple. Go find them, kill them, stop their run. I fell in love with that. I got addicted to that where they even had a progress bar

of how many kills you got, and I was looking to earn all the little season pass rewards on that kill bar. I was going to get 50, get the super one. But there was something where it's like, I got so in tuned with the gameplay, that every map that you dropped me into, I would know exactly where I was, where you should be in the map

on that progress. And how I can find you. And I loved that. I would be dropped in the map number three on the big dam. I might be up on the top side of the dam. That means you are directly across from me, diagonally across the dam,

over at that little cabin picking up a cell phone. And that means I'm coming to find you. And I loved that. We have a question from CEO Jr., aka Tim Jr., from kindof-fony. Barrett, Courtney. Barrett parentheses evil Mike, do you ever fuck with death loop?

I never fucked with death loop You would have loved the Like that is the same thing with the Deathloop stuff. They have invaded? Yeah, where you invade and you just hunt someone down in the middle of them trying to get their like perfect run. Oh, that's awesome. Because yeah, I fell in love with this

where it's like I am now the only thing I want to do is invade your run. And like, you know, it's a little bit of snowmike, Mike, you know, I get just immediately, when I hit that sniper on you and like we get the awesome mortal combat X-ray vision and I giggle and laugh. As the game goes, you're being kicked out of their match. Like you go find a new match, right?

I giggle and I think to myself, man, I'm having flashbacks of me on fall guys. Just slime primed on the Twinkies. Grabbing jelly beans going, you're not making it. I love it so much. And I think, yeah, this year with Arc Raiders, of course, Battlefield, but like there was something this year about like the. toxicity and gaming. That you brought.

The thrill of the hunt. I loved it, right? And like, I love that, like, when we play art creators, everybody's like, I'm out here for the loot. Like, I'm out here for a good time. Like, we're going to do this. It's like, no, you're bringing the loot to me. Okay?

I'm going to take your loot. That's my goal every time. And just like in sniper leads, it's like, I'm going to find you and I'm going to stop your run, make you go to the checkpoint and do it all over again. Yeah. I'm going to be that pounding force in the back of your head that's going, why am I playing this game? And that's Mike.

That's Mike everybody. I love this game. Doesn't that sound like fun? Greg, give me your number six. Number six for me was Monster Hunter Wilds. Of course, you and me playing this,

streaming it, being all about it at launch. And I kept saying, don't forget about it for a game of the year. Because I was having such a good time. On the games cast, I gave it a 9.5 out of time. I thought it was so good.

And I still do. So why is it so back on number six on my list? We're back to the frictionless part, where this is a monster hunter that at launch was so easy. And even the monsters they put in after launch in the beginning, because I didn't come back for all of them, were so easy that this is one of those games that its entire narrative through the year, I think means more here at Game of the Year rather than what I thought it launched.

I still think it's a great game. I still encourage you to go play it. I think you and your friends would jump in and have a lot of fun with it. But again, we're back to the fact that I think it is a blockbuster film. There was a lot of sizzle that I really enjoyed playing, a lot of cool monsters, all these different things. but Monster Hunter World, a game that I put, I think in the review, I talk about 150 hours, 160, 135, whatever it was like obscene hours into,

it was about I am grinding these fucking guys out the gate to get the thing to take on that, like on Thay. You know what I mean? To go get the bigger monster to go do the biggest thing, yada yada yada. And this one, it was early on like, oh, okay, I've done, I've climbed that. And then it was like they would drop a new thing and I would go in and do it or do the weeklies.

and I still have it bookmarked on my tab of what are they doing? What are they dropping? What's the item to go get? But it just all became such a content mill that I didn't need to think about, that I wasn't doing it. And then I know they've put in harder stuff and yada yada yada to it. But it's like back to what we're talking about, we're playing so many things and doing so many things that to get me to go back with a player base that's gone down so much

that there isn't this excitement of the office. You're not playing it. Joey's not playing it. Like my friends moved on the people I would play these games with. I have this amazing honeymoon period with it that I still stand by and still love and I can't not put it on my list for some reason. But the idea of booting up Monster Hunter and jumping back in right now, it's like, well, what's going on and why should I do it? And they, you know, I'd be turning it on for the seasonal events. I would make you stream the seasonal events, right, run through and do the thing. And it was like, okay, cool. I did it. I got the thing. I built the new outfit,

but what am I doing? Why? So it's here because I love this game so much this year. But it's also this weird, heartbreaking one of just like, okay, this could have been so much more. This could have really been the thing, I think. Yeah, it's so fun. I'm so happy you put it on your list because we talked about it all year long. Don't forget Monster Hunter because it was so special. And I love hearing you talk about it because I've told you before, my Monster Hunter is so different, right?

I played with Sad Boy, Sean, a long time ago, who introduced me to Monster Hunter at the first time and was like, okay, well, now we grind. And I immediately said, no. Yeah, I'm not doing that, Sean. I'm not going to grind this Philociraptor for a pair of gloves that takes hours on hours. Like, I am a one and done monster hunter fan of like, I love the world. I love the cinematics. I love seeing the big monsters.

I love fighting the monsters. And then I am wrapped up and done. I cannot do the grind. And this time around, I was really impressed. I loved the cinematics I thought looked beautiful. I thought they took a step in the right direction with multiplayer. It wasn't perfect. And that was the other thing.

Yeah, we're playing better. You know, you me and Joey playing in there. and we have to individually go do the story missions and come back. It's like, this sucks. Why is it like this? It's like from software where it's like you're getting closer. Like good job, but like you're still not there. And then even stepping out of my comfort zone and like putting down the dual blades

and like stepping into a different weapon where like those weapon systems are very tough to learn and then even harder to master. But to say, hey, this time around I'm finally going to try a different weapon. And like I'm going to actually spend time learning it and trying it and like understanding it it's just so much fun because yeah it's one of those of playing so many monster hunters and just always grabbing the same

weapon knowing I know how to use this this is it to be like I'm going to try something different that was a really fun experience this year well we turn our eyes to number five on the list but first we turn our eyes at the kind of funny membership Patreon.com slash kind of funny YouTube.com slash kind of funny games Apple Spotify you can pick up the kind of funny membership

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and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with Factor. Hey, you, join us in person for our live in review of Howard the Duck. That's right. Howard the Duck joins MCU in review Wednesday. day, January 28th at 7.30 p.m. at Cobbs Comedy Club for SF Sketch Fest. You can come watch me do all the podcast within a podcast you love. Andy'll be going do do do do do do do do do. Nick will be shopping for pants during it. But everybody else will be there too for you to come hang out and see. All you have to do is go

over to kind of funny.com slash sketch fest right now to get your tickets before they sell out. Because come and watching a bunch of people talk about a very old Howard the Duck movie is really Selling tickets fast. Number five on Mike's list is. Greg, I'm having such a good time with you and I'm going to make you smile. Let's hang out another two hours. Number five baby steps. Ah, it makes me smile.

Gabe Maxie and Bennett Fottie. A Fottian style game. A special one. I was never big into getting over it. But a man did I love only up. Yeah, you did. There has been this push and pull inside of me lately that it's like I love these uber challenging games.

I love these like moment of disaster games where you get to the tippy top. And if you make one false move, you fall and lose all your progress and you got to do it again. There's something inside of me that loves the challenge, loves the thrill.

And you and I went during GDC, got to sit down with the team and play a little bit of baby steps. And right then and there, I knew I was interested because it was Mike and Greg with the controller, slowly taking steps,

and then we headed it over to Benefati who immediately, starts running, right? And I'm like, I'll get to that point one day. Like, I got a feeling I'm going to get that good. And when the game came out, I loved it. Right. Like, Nate and his journey about taking steps

to bettering your life, asking for help, getting out of the parent's basement and a one piece. You know, coma really spoke to me, really connected with me on a deep level, which I enjoyed. And I think they did a great job of

this giant mountain that is, ever ongoing, but all of the fun side activities, all of the fun side paths that you can go do that might have fun challenges or different alternating paths that you can go take. Like, they did a really good job with this. And I loved baby steps. I loved the challenge. I loved learning more about it.

Yeah. And like there was something, the music is just so annoying but so weird that I loved asking, I loved asking during our interview with the dev team of like, what the hell is going on? And then, like, making it all up and just having fun with it. I have to highlight baby steps. It's just so good.

Hell, yeah. I'm glad you did. Yeah. Like, I liked what I played. I thought it was really funny. I just knew the gameplay would drive me up the wall. Yeah. Because I'm not that, like, I want to only up it and do the thing and lose hours of progress

sliding in the demo just sliding down the mountain where we're like, fuck. We fucked this up. And now we're all the way at the bottom. This sucks. It's so much fun. I look back on it. And I only got better every single time. It's so funny.

We had the review period, right? where you're learning, you're getting better at the game. And at the end of the game, it shows you the whole map of the mountain. And it tracks every step you take on this cool map. And they show you all the things you did. And there's this moment where you can see during the review where I got stuck on this one challenge. And you can just see me doing circle after circle after circle of like, I distinctly remember that moment going, I'm going to do this.

I don't know. And then finally saying, why am I taking this path? It's too challenging. This isn't the right way. You need to get out of that right. you need to go do something different. And then all of a sudden you see a hard left turn and I find a different path that's easier.

That's cool. Maybe I'm more equipped for. And I go through, right? And finishing the game, having that moment with Nate who finally asks for help. He's got to find the potty the whole way. And he finally has to ask, can I use your bathroom? And it's just so much fun.

And yeah, to see the whole map come to life, see all the steps you've taken and then immediately go, well, I can do that better. Right? And I looked right at the camera. I said, I'll do that better. And there's a piece of me. I think I can get sub-90, maybe sub-an-hour.

Oh, wow. I couldn't move in this game. I really got the path down. There's something about me in video games. I love a map. I love charting the map, seeing how I can get better navigating the map. And, like, this is that kind of game. And then also the man-breaker.

The ultimate test, right? Here it is, the man-breaker. You don't have to take this. You know, our good friend, he made a whole staircase. Mike is using the staircase. Just take the staircase, and you can get up to the next level. No problem. Or you can do the man breaker.

Yeah, yeah. I said, I'm going to, I'll break the man breaker. And doing that and the controls, right? Of like, it sounds so basic, right? Left foot, right foot, R2, L2. Left foot, right foot. Left foot, like, and it's like, you get that. And then it's like, okay, well, there's a balance as well with the stick, right?

Of like, how far you push forward? How do you push back? And then that next level of gameplay, Jeff Grub comes into the chat. And I'm on the manbreaker. I'm like two thirds up. and you hit this challenge where it's not a whole step. It isn't a full lean and lunge. It's a softly pick up just your toes

and just softly move them to the right and dig your toes back into the rock. And I didn't understand that. And you can just mess with the L2R2s just enough to just lift it up, keep it small, scoot it over, and then put it back in. It's like, you think about that

and you hear that and you're like, oh my God, the gameplay changes so much. Now you're in a uncharted, train that is hanging over a cliff and now you've got to climb up the train with luggage and chairs and you're like well everything I know is just forward right it's this 3D world and I just move forward what do you mean I'm climbing up and then you start moving your feet sideways and getting them in different angles and moving it's like wow I didn't know it could be that deep it could be like that it's like that figured that out and it's such a fun challenge

there's like some really interesting narrative going on there some really weird wacky characters that you meet. Nate is like a really fun character that like you've had someone in your life like that. Maybe you're that person, right? Like you connect. And then at the end of the journey where it finishes, it's like, wow, that was really cool. And so yeah, baby steps for me, a special one. I love, you know, Ben and Fottie. What a cool dude. Got a interview. You had him on you. Check out that stream. It was a lot of fun. And yeah, baby steps for me a great game this year. Hell yeah. Greg, hit me with your number five. My number five is the Outer Worlds two. course, Obsidian Entertainment, MVPs of the Xbox ecosystem this past year. You start with

Avaught, you go into Grounded 2, and then you hit with the Outer Worlds 2. The Outer Worlds 2 is that genre I love. Y'all know it. It's a Bethesda. It's an RPG. It's an open world RPG, Western RPG. It is that first person, maybe third person perspective, as you go through and make choices and see how they net out in the world. You know, I had been so hyped for this one and definitely on the outside coming in, playing at SGF and then talking about it and seeing everything, I had it as front runner for what I thought my game of the year would be. So to hit five isn't to hit number one.

And it was just a bit, as I talk about in my review of that overarching story doesn't nail it and didn't keep me going. and I thought kind of fell, not apart, but sagged under the weight of its own aspirations. However, these games are always about the journey rather than the destination. And getting the chance to play my evil slash gray character and then go into my good character and see the differences and see the changes and see this person that I said goodbye to in the past is here multiple years later doing this over here. There's this ramification or is that.

the you know I was so blown away to get into that second play-through and be like oh I'm played in third person and I'm going to commit to these two attribute for skill points rather than these two and have it play be like man this is a different game like this feels and looks like a different game I am engaging in conversations differently I am engaging in battle differently you know being such a weak little sniveling bad guy before and having to hide and sneak and you know try to power through this shit now to be able walking like the fucking Terminator and kill everything

like different experiences and I think again what I want out of these RPGs is to role play and I think Obsidian really gave you with the flaws with the ability

you go into these attribute points and commit to who you are on these two, whatever you want to be but I committed to two things like I am still role playing in the outer worlds too because I still have to finish my good playthrough but so much fun in this such a gorgeous game

gunplay feels so good the sci-fi nature of what they're doing really getting to play with that and again to as much as i talk about uh susima to yote oh it's a better version of this this is such a better version of the outer world it's like this is improving on so many of the things that kept in outer worlds as like a seven or a six whatever it was when i reviewed it back then and even when we redid it this year and played through it where it was like man this is very rinse and repeat whereas this they really did focus i think on giving you artisanal selections and choices and how it's going to

pivot out and like giving you more of the are you going a or b because that'll then influence x y and z as you go out like they really delivered on a lot of the mechanics i want from this type of game and so again not my game of the year sadly but i had high expectations and i really turn my eyes and go all right i'm sitting what's next like we talk about you know right now as we are going i see you talking about it there's big news the animal crossing 3.0 update came out earlier i thought it was i already started and i'm so back i'm so fucking back we'll be talking about that tomorrow on the games cast plays. But I look to avowed. And of course, in February, I think it's February 12th, we're getting that anniversary update that's coming to PlayStation. Sure, but

here's a new game plus. Here are new races. And it's like, I love tinkering in these obsidian games so much that even avowed a game that I think I six or seven. It was just like, it's fine. I'm excited to start a new thing there and see, what have you done in that year that I haven't seen in terms of quality of life updates, let alone what you're bringing for this big update? Because Obscity and I would say, even though they have never made one of my favorite games of all time, they have never, they're not my number one game of this year. They are

a developer I fucking love. I love them taking chances, iterating, and doing different things. And so when they show up, I show up. Yeah, it's really awesome. I mean, to have them still be making great RPGs, but also just making different passion projects and games, right, grounded to a survival

crafting game. They had pentamint out there, and it's like, man, Xbox and Microsoft are really letting that team work and create and do whatever they really feel like. It's pretty awesome. What do you think about, you know, the big one for Outer Worlds One was the selling point of like, it's a more smaller condensed version of a giant Bethesda game, right?

Now you come out with a Vaud and Outer Worlds too. Were you happy with that? Is it getting bigger and bigger? Is it getting so big where it is now all of a sudden the fallout where it's too big? They are small or open world RPGs. I would, if Obsidian was taking advice from me, And I hope what the community is giving them in terms of opinions go smaller.

What we should be doing, I think, with these kind of RPGs. And I say this is somebody who adores them. We should be aiming for 10 to 12-hour play-thrus. Not 10-to-12-hour games. It should be that I make this choice and guess what? I'm off this planet for the rest of the game. And then I come in and I talk to you and you're like, I made this choice and I never left that planet.

Like we should be making, rather than scoping, it out into this outrageous. There's a million points and you can go do it. And the shit that never makes sense where it's like, well, you can, yeah, the faction hates you, but you can still take their quest and you can still be on. We should be these kind of RPGs and something Ballers Gate does really well, right? Should be you make choices and you live with the ramifications. And that's what this Outer Worlds 2 does better than Outer Worlds 1 in many of the games

that stands shoulder to shoulder with, but still could do more of it. It really should be that like we are, and be upfront about it. dial it down. We're doing eight-hour play-thrues. We want you to be able to, we feel that there are however many paths you could do to do this, but this is what it is

and how it's going to play out. Because I think that's also what hurt my experience of outer worlds two and my evil character. We set off with what I think is an easy objective. My character, I was very clear. Like, she is on, this is Lee Everett,

she is on a revenge mission. She got roped into being a space ranger. This is all based on the choices I had there, right? She didn't want to do it. She's doing it. And now she has revenge. And I was like, clearly, this will take me. Oh, that was like act one.

Okay, well, we've achieved revenge. And now there's other things happening that the character you just allowed me to create in my head would not give a fuck about. She should be like, fuck, I all, peace out. You know what I mean? And go. And like, they give you enough reasons why that wouldn't work. But it's like, you let me build this character that way. And I would rather it be that that was my, that storyline went and did that.

And even the way I did it. You know, because the games always do that of like, all right, you're there and it's a revenge. Do you want to kill the person or let them go? And it's like, obviously the game wants me to let them go. You know what I mean? But I love it that I kill them. And like, cool. Next division.

Oh, my God, the universe is ending because you did. Oh, well, that makes sense that I should go and replay it and do the thing. Yeah, I don't know. Thank you, Mike, for letting me rant and rave about what open world RPG should be about. For you, I turned in number four. What should number four be about? Number four, Greg Miller, Eldon Ring, Night Rain. Do you have that higher on your list?

I don't have that another at all. Yes. Let's talk Eldon Ring Night Rain from Software, a base game and a DLC this year. Great job. They somehow, kudos to them. This team is for real. Snowmike, Mike, let's make money. Let's print money.

Let's live service this game to death. Somehow. This team stayed on track. They kept it all in game. No micro transactions. Nothing funny. No season passes. Nothing weird.

Just here's the game. We're going to. add content along the way and we're going to get to a DLC that we're going to sell for a price, you're going to buy it, you're going to add on, and you're going to have a good time with. And Eldering Night Rain for me, I've said it before, is my favorite from soft experience.

This is number one for me. It is an experience that is so snow bike, Mike, it is crazy. What if we made the complexity and the difficulty and the challenge of all of your favorite Dark Souls games, we put it on a giant open world map, and we make it into a battle royale where a circle is constantly shrinking,

making you make split-second decisions in your gameplay. Should I fight this boss? Should I leave this boss? Do I need these routes to level up? Do I need to go for that extra flask for health potions? What do I need to succeed before the circle closes? I have to fight night one's mega boss. And then we reset and we do it again in preparation for night two and the final boss.

They figured out exactly what I love in games right now. what I want and just nailed it with their execution. And so, yeah, for me, NightRang has been a ton of fun. I love being able to play these games with your friends. They've had updates where it's solo and duos now. But to be able to play with up to three friends and you and your threesome run out on this beautiful, awesome, dark souls-esque, Eldon Ring-esque map that is like just screaming to you, explore me, find the hidden pass, find out all these things.

And then on top of that, having weapons that you have. have characters that you don't have to worry about, right? I think the big one always for people who jump into a from soft game for the first time, well, what do I level up into? What should I be? What should my weapon be, right? Throw all of that decision. Get out the window.

You're going to pick one of the six characters. They're going to have a class. They're going to be very defined of what their role should be. And you're just going to run. You'll level up. The points will be added already. You don't need to worry about anything. We have two cool special moves.

That's all you need to know. and I love that they did that. They really found a streamlined way for players to not have to think about that because there is so many more things happening on the map in the gameplay that you're already thinking about, right? Making these split-second decisions. And then having a weapon system of like you're not going to get tied, you'll get tied into one weapon,

but you're going to collect six and all of those weapons tie into you through these passives, right? So now as we're making the runs, I'm going, okay well I want my spells to cost last mana I want my spell duration casting time to be shorter right and so I'm collecting six weapons that will all build in and feed into my character but I'm most likely going to just use the one mega weapon that I find at the end but I want all these to play in and man oh man awesome music great boss fights all unique bosses they made all their own bosses with callbacks to some of your favorite elden ring and dark souls bosses on the map throughout the nights like man this game freaking rocks Greg. I love. Got me 10 points on fantasy critic. Thanks for nothing. That's like, you warned you. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Quarantine. Remember that? That game was better than 72. That game was better than 72. Should have got me more points. But yeah, this game rocks, Greg. All the bosses were awesome. The music was awesome.

A standalone experience. He didn't need Eldon Ring. This is like such a perfect mix. And I love that they tried this as a company that is so known for a single player experience and the multiplayer is like just like this funky add-on that never quite works right and is so obtuse and like doesn't ever play right for you and your friend to be like, hey, this is supposed to be with you and your friends. Hey, maybe we're testing systems for future games. But to have them nail this so good, such a blast, I would have been printing money. Okay? I would have been out there yelling make costumes, sell a battle pass. Let's crush this. And they said, no, Mike. Sit down with a.

the players are going to love this, and they did. So yeah, for me, Eldon Ring Night Rain, number four. We beat the game, beat all the bosses. Now there's harder bosses. We'll get back in them more challenges. They had cool maps too, Greg. They had one map to start off with, but it had different variations from a giant icy mountain, a giant volcano, a giant volcano, a cool palace that you'd go into. And like, all of these were gameplay decisions of like day one.

Should I go into the heart of the volcano? Okay, well, maybe I'll wait. I'll get stronger. I'll go to day two. And then you get rewarded for that, right? we go down this crazy volcano with seven levels that you've got to fight different bosses in and they get down to the bottom of you fight this giant magma dragon. You kill him and they're like, guess what?

You got rewarded more shit. The ultimate upgrade and you're like, yeah, I feel so powerful, right? Or you go into the giant castle. You've got to navigate all these crazy intertwined winding pathways that you'll get lost in knowing that the circle could push you out at any moment. And you're like, I got to fight this mega centipede death creature. And then they're like, guess what? You got the superpower.

And you're like, nice job. And then they added a new map on the DLC. And I wish you could choose one or the other. I wish they just made me play that all the time. Because, like, it was so exciting to get a new map, learn a new map. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what they added there? It's like, nice job.

Greg, what's your number four? Number four for me is And Roger. I feel like this is a hilarious game to have on this list because this place went from no one talking about and Roger to I feel it is the most talked about game in 2026. Crazy. I had played it and done a Greg way some point in 2025. Blessing, of course, played it on stream shortly before the end of 2025,

and then Tim played it during break. And so they came back so talkative about it. I was shocked that it actually made our list. You know, me and Blessing were able to get it onto the kind of funny top 10 list. Blessing, of course, yesterday talked about it here on this episode of the games cast for their top 10. Tim talked about it. So I really don't need to spin my wheels too much, especially because it is a game. You should play not knowing as little as possible.

And Roger, as we all describe it, it has Florence-like mechanics where you're going through tracing, doing this, X, Y, and Z. It has an emotional storyline that you should go through. Again, as I've said multiple times, it's the reason I like video games and the reason I love video games and play video games and everything else about video games because it puts me in someone else's shoes, experiencing something hopefully I will never experience. And at that point, I would just say, that's enough that you should go, it's on every, it's on me's list. It was almost on Tim's list. It was on his, he said that 11 to 15 range in there. It made him weep at his computer. There's a lot to love and be bittersweet about.

So go play and Roger. You guys have talked about it so much that you've gotten even me, the ball and gun guy, excited and interested to play this game. It's like we talk about these experiences and I've seen so many of them now that like all speak to these different stories that really hits you right at your core and talk about humanity and life and experiences that hopefully maybe in life you'll never have to experience, right? But you feel this connection.

you understand, right? And so, yeah, to me, it's like, add that to the list of games that I'd like to try because... Super short, you can get in. You know, Sinar Wildheart still always speaks to me about breakup and moving forward, right? Like, I love that. I wish I played to a T, right? And, like, got a little more of that message. Like, there's games that have, like, these really special messages that I hope all the audience

maybe takes a moment and says, yeah, I'll try that, right? Because, and Roger is that for us. Speaking of Tucker Danzie Films Super Chat and says, Greg, thanks for putting me on to Ann Roger played last night. Redacted. It was cathartic redacted. Redacted. So there you go. There's a lot going on there, Tucker. I'm glad it was there for you. And as you put cathartic, Michael, that brings us to the top three. Big three. Give me your number three. I got a banger big three. I got a big three that I couldn't, couldn't argue with. I got a big three that I looked at and I said, I'm glad you can't argue with yourself about it.

I couldn't, I could not change this because at number three, dispatch. Thank you very much. I know you had that at your number seven. I had that at number seven on my list. We are big fans of dispatch here. Kind of funny. It did rank number two overall in the kind of funny top ten list this year. Adhawk studios, eight episodes, episodic adventures, superheroes.

Greg, this one hit me and this one was good, right? I played all in one sitting. I was so happy. I waited. Aaron Paul and the whole voice acting cast brought life to some really awesome relatable characters in the superhero world that you could see that you could believe in

from the MCU DC of course the boys that we all kind of live in this superhero just filled world and somehow they created characters that stood out and like were characters that I wanted to connect with I wanted to get to know more characters that I fell in love with and it's like oh man

in a super saturated market you somehow stood it out and like delivered and I loved that right and I'm a telltale guy just like you right of like you got some great stories about that but for me the telltale storytelling and fun sometimes got lost in that hey now you're lee ever and I want you to slowly walk around this house and find the keys that I hid in the fifth drawer that you'll look at and sometimes those moments dragged when I wanted more story I wanted to stay with it and for me when they were like no it's just hacking and dispatching. I was like, I took a breath of like fresh air of like, yes, this is what I need.

Like let's keep it short, simple to the point and let's get back to this awesome story. And I did fall in love with dispatching. I really enjoyed the fun idea of looking at the big spider web and going, what characters fit this web? What team do I need to send together to maybe I attack this and get the job done correctly? What person can go out solo that might benefit from a solo experience. Why do I keep sending Young Gravy out? Because I love Young Gravy. You got it. It's crazy. And I love the dispatching.

The hacking, I would say it was just good enough, right? You know, as we like to call it serviceable, right? It's like, wasn't anything that stood out, but it was fun enough where I didn't have to go find drawer number five in Aaron Paul's house. Like, I'm sure the keys will be. Cutting that out was huge. Yeah. Again, for me having the summer list, it's

seven, a game I loved this year, a game that I think almost, I would say, did the impossible of like, at the announcement of this, it was like, oh, okay, they're bringing telltale games back. They're doing a superhero and they're doing episodic. Like, is this shit going to work out? And then for them to assemble the cast they did, have the story they had, have these emotional beats, this animation.

Like, this game is just layered with great shit. And, you know, for me, it's just the thing of, I didn't enjoy the act of dispatching. I enjoyed the conversations had around dispatching. I enjoy the ramifications of my choices outside of that influencing, maybe who would work with me, who wouldn't be, who'd be late for. work so on and so forth. But like the gameplay part of it didn't wow me by any stretch the imagination. And so many people have said, you know, oh man, I would love a game that's just that. And for me, I would as well because I think the mechanics would be more fleshed out,

which is what I was missing here. But none of that takes away from this game being amazing. Like what a great time this was. What a nice twist on the superhero genre. And even saying that is one of those are like, is it a twist? It's guardians. It's suicide squad. It's a group of outcasts who come together and it's like they fucking crush it. They just crush it. It doesn't matter that it's like, okay, maybe on paper you could make some allusions to this.

It's mature, raunchy jokes like we see in the boys. Like it fit all the things that we like in the superhero genre right now that are like the cream of the crop. And it's like, yeah, this is what I want to be. And man, there's a couple more highlights really quick. I mean, of course, the decision making, you always love that. They had some really good decisions in this game.

Of course. Right of like, who could you, who could you romance? Who could you romance? Who do you not romance? What do you want to do? Who's on the squad? Who's not, right? Who will we bring in in?

Like, I love that. I made decisions. You know, I have a person in my life that played this like seven times. And like, we would always go back and forth. And they would tell me all the fun things that they did. And it's like, I played it once. And I'm probably only going to ever play it once. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But like, I would have loved to see all those other options or, man, I can't believe I failed this. And this happened. But it was so badass. Oh, you didn't pass that? If you passed that, this happens. You're like, oh, that's so cool. And, you know, we had a great kind of feudy. where it's like beef is a standout character.

Chase is great, right? Like there's so many good characters here. And Visigal, it's fun, that you fall in love with, and the music. We have to highlight the music. You got to turn on license music and let that thing bump. That song, radio or whatever, I listen to that daily now. That song where they're dancing in the apartment

will be a standout music hit of the year for me. And I want more of that. One thing I don't think we talk enough about, especially for that episodic vibe of it is the fact that you can feel one way about an episode and then two episodes later they give you something that makes that episode that makes so much more sense.

And that's one of those things I think that benefited them of doing episodic releases and twos and dropping them in a different way. But really getting them out there and when you finish that game, I wanted to replay it because now that I knew everybody and where they were coming from, I wanted to feel that again from that angle.

Give me your favorite characters. Oh, yeah, Garden's Agassia. They're all villains, but they turned heroes. We like that. Give me two. Give me two. Give me a couple. I mean, I enjoy a visigal.

You know, I chose her. I had a role with her. And I think then, you know, Prism is a standout of just great lines or great conversations. Like when, oh, you, yeah,

Prism temporarily blinded me. Temporarily, you brought it forever. Like, so fucking good. She was great. I loved her mechanic that she can become two,

right, as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I really did like, Moist Critical and Charlie as Batman. You know, the bat guy is like, oh,

I'm this cool, smart dude with a bad head. All of a sudden, I'm man, batting. I'm freaking it out. You're like, that juggle was always fun. I liked that a lot.

Of course, I brought up Young Gravy, I thought it was just great with the voice acting lines of, you know Young Gravy and you know his music, and we all know that music's probably not for you who's listening, right?

But like, you know the voice. And the moment you hear you like, is that Young Gravy? What's the point of that? And I love that. So, yeah, all the characters were so great for me. I love that.

Excellent. Greg, take me to your number three, your big three. Number three for me, hell is us. Of course, from Rogue Factor. This is the game that talks about player plattering. I got an 8.5 from me, and I still stand by that score, but it's high on the list because it did something out of the ordinary.

I think it gave us such an interesting world to explore and so little guidance, but not none. You had the guidance in there. You are able to read through your little data pad and piece it together, but it made me work just enough for it. Not, and when I was talking about this and why I like this, so many people are like, but Greg, you're not a soul's guy, because it is very soul-z-e, you know what I mean?

You got to parry, you got to get out there. You know, you pay it at the right time, you do the thing. You're going to be able to get back the health rather than even have to use a health pack. You know what I mean? There's this idea to the gameplay and the obtuse world. But it is the idea that I think Souls games make their world, for me, beyond that threshold of acceptable obtuseness. where this is still a game they want you to enjoy.

This is still a game they want you to find the piece of paper and connect the dots of this is what it is. It is a game they want you to have a notebook with and keep little notes and little pads of what you're doing, and yet, yada. But it's all obtainable. It isn't some mountain I couldn't get over. And then even beyond that, beyond,

if you want to, you can go into your accessibility and really dial this into what works for you. But more than anything, it was just a world I loved exploring and I did love hitting the wall. But as I said in the review and in the TikToks and all the stuff, about it, right? Like, for me, what was shocking that I didn't expect is that it's a masterclass

in level design. It really is that thing of, you get dropped into these new areas, these blown apart towns, these tombs. And like, in the preview when I went to Montreal to play it, they were like, oh man, you finished the demo? I was like, I didn't finish the tomb. I was fucking, I could not figure it out. You know what I mean? It's so lost and confusing.

You spend however much time you spend in these areas, and suddenly it does become like the back of your hand. It does become, I got this key. Wait, there was locked door, and he did that, and then suddenly it connects in a way, suddenly it's your playground of like, okay, cool, I can take this shortcut through this house to pop up over it, and I'm just getting where I need to be and go do this thing. And then, uh, you know, the storytelling they're doing in there, the things they are tackling, the mature topics of a civil war

and not shying away. There are dead children here. There are children grieving. They're dead parents. Like, and I'm not saying that's like the benchmark of storytelling, but glass of games don't fucking do that. They won't lean on that. They don't want to go this way. And this one went into a civil war and had you working on. on both sides of the equation and seeing how they are both just looking at the other side of people who used to be their neighbors and now they're no longer people, they're animals that need to be put down. And the way they were talking about it is jarring and fucked up. And I think does a great job of illustrating how stupid war is and how stupid it is that we can't all look at each other

as human beings, right? But from a gameplay perspective, I loved being lost in that world. I loved figuring out the puzzles. I loved having those aha moments. You know what I mean? I loved seeing what they were doing with it. And again, I think it's a game that you get to the end of and is like, that came together way too quickly. And I don't find, I, but by the time I'm processing that for the main story, they have the after credits or the whatever cutscene at the end of it. We're like, oh, fuck if I'm in, I give me the number two or where are we going with this? And so like, it's a game that is far from perfect, but I think in a year where we're talking so much about, and me, so much about frictionless experiences.

And we're also talking as a industry about AI, about, you know, everything being ruled by committee, it all being the most blasé thing. Like this is a game that is obtuse in rough edges, and it's because a very small team worked on this. And they made something, I think, truly unique and truly special. And I wish more than anything on this list, this is the game I wish more people played, took a chance on, took a shot on, because it is, oh, we want new IP, we want new experiences. I think this one is doing it and doing a lot of cool shit. People would like, even if you're not the soul's person or whatever, like it's existing

underneath that benchmark in terms of difficulty in terms of combat awareness. But it's like there's something really cool here. I love, love, love that you've been that guy for us here in this office with this game. Right. I remember when it was first announced and we all were interested, but there was like, isn't another soul's like. And then we had that extra layer of like, well, they're not going to hold your hand, right?

You're going to have to be the detective. You're going to be the one to figure it out. And everybody kind of perked up of like, that's interesting. Like, okay, like prove to me that this is worth it. And you have been the guy in this office to really hype this game up, Greg. And I love hearing that, right? I never took a chance on this game, never tried it. But like every time you talk about it, I am a little more sold on.

Like, maybe I should make a night, maybe two nights of this game. Because, yeah, I do love the Souls games. I love good level design, right? I think the best part about a lot of those Souls games is the branching different paths and you go down the left pass and you take 50 steps. You go, I'm going to go back to the right one. And then you go to the right one. You go, oh, well, if I go this game's filled with that.

I love that. I enjoy that, right? And so, yeah, maybe this is it, right? Because this was kind of the first step of a couple other kids. I think Adam Fall did something similar of like, we're not going to just give you a map quest or we're not going to put a pin down. You're going to figure it out. It's like, okay.

For me, Adam Fall was too obtuse with it. Where it was like, go to the Southwest. I'm like, I'm in the Southwest. Give me more than this. What am I fucking looking for? This isn't doing what I want. There was a game that came out, the Ukrainian studio from X, that teamed up with Xbox, came out, but it was super.

buggy, but I enjoyed the thrill of it, that I would try more of it. Stocker two. Stocker two. If you gave me stock or two with that shooting mechanic with this kind of stuff, I think I'd be more in. I'd be in. What were you into for your number two game of the year? Number two, Kingdom Come Deliverance to.

There it is. From War Horse Studios. Yeah, I fell in love with this game. A lot of people are going to say, Mike, you said that you weren't really an open world guy right now. And I will say Kingdom Come Deliverance too didn't feel like the super big ultimate packed open world game like a lot of them are. But it is, right? This is a very dense game.

This is explore as you go. I said it and I still believe that this is a crawl of a game. You are really slow going at the beginning and it's a crawl to a soft walk video game. It's about your journey. It's about what you and Hans and Henry do throughout this awesome epic adventure out in the European countryside.

And I fell in love with it. I gave it a chance. I know our first time we talked about it, Greg, it's overwhelming at first. There's a lot of systems. There's a lot of different things that play that kind of hits you as a player that go, man, this is almost too much. It's daunting. I don't know if I want this.

But it is a journey. It's an adventure. It is as long as you want it, 40, 60, 80, 100 hours. It's your adventure. And how deep you want to get into it really is your kind of play style. When you start to give it your all and you say, okay, like, I understand that I'm not going to speed through this. It's not going to be that kind of game. I'm going to enjoy this.

It kind of opens up in a different way where I fell in love with it, especially the characters, the stories. There is some fun twists and turns. There are some great content in there that you were going to fall in love with. But I just couldn't get enough of it. It's crazy that I'm talking about right now. You pandered and it worked out. I didn't think I would love it as much as I did. and I did.

And the combat, I hated at first. And I still don't love it. Don't you encourage the sword that kills everybody in one blow? The moment you learn the master strike from Tomcat, Tom, it is like the game gives you the easy way out. If you are someone like me who doesn't enjoy the star and doesn't enjoy the very slow, methodical, brutal combat of, hey, I'm looking at Greg, come at me.

And I'm choosing which way he's going to attack me left, right, up, down. and I have to make sure I either Perry block on that side or counter him on the opposite side and start swinging. If that's not something for you, if you don't want to try the other weapons, right? Because there are more weapons than just the sword, then you're going to go to Tomcat Tom like me and you're just going to get the master strike,

which is simply read your opponent, whatever they do left right, you're going to match them and you'll get the instant counter and attack. And that becomes boring and kind of brainless after a while. Yeah. But it is the alternate. out of if you don't want this, then this is the way you're going to continue. And you'll find that it is not a all-out war, this giant chivalry-two type game where it is

a hundred people running at each other. It is very one-on-one, one-on-three, you kind of put them in a line and you slow. You'll find that you'll get overwhelmed quickly if three or more people are around you, it's over for you, right? Because it is that kind of combat. And man, oh, man, I loved the music. I loved the design. The game is beautiful.

There's this difference. When I talk about a giant open world Bethesda game where the map is massive at hundreds meters of cross, this game doesn't feel like that. It is that, but it's not that. It's broken into smaller sections, but those sections are such so rich in detail and so much depth to it that the smaller section

still does feel like a giant Bethesda game, but it's not, right? You can walk from side to side. You can ride your horse, but the stuff that they have layered inside of it from getting lost in the forest and having someone tell you, well, I lost my daughter and her favorite place is this waterfall. And if you go down to the creek, go to the creek down, you'll see a giant rock, then take a left at the rock, walk up there, you'll see a path,

and she's going to be out there in the open field. And it's like, you do that, and you're like, man, like, this game is big, and it doesn't feel like that, but it is. And they added so much great side content, and the stories are so good to get you off just at normal narrative of like, I'm going to stick to the main quest. Everything that you do has something going on that you'll get to fall in love with. There's purpose, right, of like, I got branded a couple of times. I got put in the stocks.

Oh, no. Because I was caught stealing. I was at a point where I needed things and I didn't want to bang on steel all day and be a blacksmith, right? I didn't want to sell potions at the apothecary. And so I started stealing. They caught me. And all of a sudden, they were putting brands on me.

And now people treated me different when I, went to that city. And even Henry had the brand on his neck. Every cutscene, it was so cool. And so, yeah, Warhorse Studios created something special with Kingdom Come Deliverance to. And I'm looking forward to what they do next. It is a team now that, like, I'm definitely in on.

And this was a RPG that I don't think I've ever played at such a deep level with all the rich stuff that they had going on. I just, do you never, you've never role played this way in an RPG? Is that fair or what do you mean? You never played at this level. Role playing, I think is different. Role playing is me and Roger and Balders Gates. No game gives me that, like you said, right?

With like the training wheels and the safety rails and the bowling alley are off. Yeah. Where I can kill anyone and do everything. And all of these games I find, I want to be evil, Mike. I want to just terrorize the city and kill everyone. And you don't really get that.

And this, I got a little bit of it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This guy asked me, he's like, hey, I've fallen in love with like the King's daughter here, but they won't give me any respect because I'm just an average jabroney. She's going to get married to this guy. What I want you to do, steal from the city

planted on him, then the city will go against him. Well, this old lady found me stealing. She ran to the town guard. I might have stabbed or killed her, pressed over. Fair enough. I like that role playing. But like, I'm Henry. I'm Hans, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not making him. It's not Mike and Roger going, oh, we're going to cut Carlax hunt off just for fun. And it's like, okay, well, that's a massive. Andy was so mad. They have a lot of this. that. They have more of that. And so, yeah, I mean, yanking my pizzo. Like, some of the lines made me smile.

I was at the bathhouse way too many times. I opened up my own bath house. Which was great. The story at the end was really powerful. Brought me to tears in my eyes. Like, I really, really enjoyed the two of them and the bromance that they shared, the fun, the twist, the bad decisions that I did make, made a couple bad decisions. And I paid for that. You know, Lord von Berghoff, he was sweet talking me. I had to believe him, you know. You had to believe it. But like for those who played it, I'm sure really loved it and enjoyed it. For those who are on the fence, give it a try.

But this was a game similar to Expedition 33 that everyone was talking about throughout the year. And I'm happy that I did give it a try because I fell in love. Greg, let's talk about your number two. Let's talk about my number two and your number seven. Yeah. Skate. This would have seen, I think when you and me were on a game of the year on Monday, this might have been the pick that got the most chatters up in arms right away,

immediately pissed off that skate was in front of Ghost of Yote. Because Skate was what was it, Bair, number eight or seven, I forget, I think overall was. It was tied at eight with Night Rain. Right, right, right. So there was a lot to that or whatever. And I went on a spirited diatribe about skate. I adore this game.

I think all the criticisms people have of it, I understand where people are coming from, of course. but I think what we do, and I disagree in the chat right now, I see what you're saying. I can't get over how much fun skate is to play. I think so many people came in with their own expectations of what skate would be, especially after skates one, two, and three. They set up a thing of what skate is or has been. And so for skate to come out here and be always online, to be early access, to be multi-ploid.

I totally get the reaction people have had to it and what's wrong with it in their mind's eye. But for me coming in, I just wanted to skate. And I think that sounds too simple. It may be, you know, boiling it down too much, but it's true. And that's what I do in skate. And what I mean from that is that this game feels so good to play, period. I was never a Tony Hawk pro skater person. I was a thug person. Okay, let's go around a world. Let's go have these missions. Let's go skate that way. But the combo stuff of Tony Hawk was never my vibe. It is the vibe for me as somebody who my wife will not allow me to go skate. My friends tell me I can't go skate. I am too old to learn to skate. This game is just jumping in and skating. And what I imagine a real skater when they

go to a skate park and want to just blow off steam and practice, that's what I get out of this game. So I understand where people are like, oh my God, I hate that they have these battle passes. or not even that. I hate that I'm grinding for these tokens to get clothes I don't want. To which I understand saying that, but I think, and this is eye the beholder, obviously,

never have I thought that is the goal of skate. When I turn on skate, I want to go skate. And so I will do a challenge here. I will do a challenge there, but I'll probably just head off to the skate parks. Maybe I won't and I'll skate through the city until I find a spot I want to fuck around in

and jump off of. I think EA, bad battle passes bad always online bad like there's so it's so easy to just immediately hate what skate is because it is uh based on the terminology is used but for me to jump in there and just play it i think for you know i i don't have my stats in front of me for the year right but if you add at my playstation time alongside my rag ally time you'd have this very high and literally the most hours I've put into a game this year. And I say that because if you were to look at my map,

there's three areas that you can get rankings on, right? 10 is the max. I have one at nine, one at seven, and one at six. Because I am not turning it on going, I got to grind out my XP in this thing. I go, I got to go have fun. What are I personally like session challenges where I look at the map and I go, okay, cool,

this is going to be dropping area and you have amount of time to do this many kick flips, this whatever, da-da-da-da. I like the ball barrenes. ones enough. I don't like the slam into the ground hall of meat-esque thing. That's not like skate legitimately is what do you want out of this? And I think so many people have had adverse reactions to it because it looks like Fortnite. Again, everything I ran through with battle passes and microtransactions and always online. I think so much of that has obscured what is actually there. And I will stand by and like, yeah, it was earlier. I know like,

you know, Greg likes Avengers. Greg's like Starfield. Da, da, da, da, da. When I like those games, I'd like to think that I present why they aren't tens out of tens. And I can tell you, again, with everything I've just run through of what Skate is, blah, blah. I do think that the things and terminologies and publishers of Skate have gotten in the way of people being able to say, wow, it actually feels great, though, and it is fun to play this game. Greg, I'm right there with you. Right? Like, come take a ride with me just like you rode with Greg of like, Skate period sucks. Skate sucks. It is not

Skate 4 that we all wanted. It is a live service game. It is an always online battle pass ridden multi-currency ridden Fortnite-looking video game. I hate that we have a fourth area that somehow still has not been opened. I hate that I have to do these

daily quests and missions to grind up levels in certain areas. There are so many things to be mad at and to hate that because it's not skate four. But at the end of the day, it's on my game of the year list. And now we're game of the year list and there's this shared passion because skate is fucking fun to play. It feels good.

The team at full circle nailed it. That flicket system that skate was built on continues to this day to be the ultimate skate experience. I crave it. I want it. I want it in a snowboard game. I wanted more games. It is the ultimate sport,

enthusiast, extreme sport, just mecca. They found it. They nailed it and they created it. And the catch. thing about skate, like Greg said, is like, skate is about just having fun, and I want

to have fun with my friends, and they did that. They made this giant open world that's now shared online with your friends, and I just want to go skate. I want to do the challenges sometimes. I want to find the giant downrail, and I just want to have a session with my friends. There is nothing more exciting to me than

turning on my own Spotify playlist and just skating around and getting lost for 30, 40, an hour, sometimes two hours of just skating different spots. and they nailed that. There are so many things I wish they did differently, but at the end of the day, I can't argue

and look you in the eye and say, that's not fun to play, because it's a blast. It is so much fun. I'm going to be fascinated. I said this in Game of the Year talk, but obviously we're not having that kind of conversation there. Of like, what happens with skate?

I stand by the fact that I think in a year to 18 months, it probably doesn't exist. I think that EA has pulled a plug on it. It did not. you can go see the steam concurrence and stuff like that right like whatever the crazy we publicize it this is how many people are there to where you are in the 24 hour high and yeah it's seem it's in the it's in the doghouse it's in the shitter but it is early access and i don't my my concern is for somebody who enjoys skate so much right now and has seen the improvements they've made from

adding in handplants right to having a season past going to giving you these new things and new challenges and adding in, you now have local co-op or not co-op, a voice chat. You know what I mean? For whatever you're like, they're adding in the things that first, that people have wanted. Secondly, people would also say that should be there at launch. But then you go, well, it's not launch. It's early access. But they're charging for it. Well, you don't really have to buy it though to go enjoy. Like there's so many conversations to have that like we're never, I don't think we're ever going to get sadly to a no man sky moment where people are like, it's where it's where it is and it's amazing. And I think it's because they'll run out of time from EA doing it.

because I just don't think they get it back. Yeah. But like to your point, there's a fourth of the map that is open. You can skate in, but it isn't ranked and there aren't challenges to it.

When you're up on the high rise, there's an island over there attached by a bridge. You can see what they're trying to do, right, of where you're probably going. The underground tunnels they've added, the 90s themes. Oh, when it launched, they don't have any brands.

Editas is in there now. Thrasher is in there. Now, Creatures in there now. Clearly this is spinning up. But I don't, I wonder if they're, if when they get to,

hey, we're leaving early, access if that's enough to get people to try again and do it, or if it's just DOA and dead and everybody hates V as they should because she's annoying as shit. I mean, the positive, right, is it's a free to play title. Yeah. Right. And that's a big deal for skates, right?

There's the diehards who love skate one through three. And it's like, yeah, of course I would have paid $60, right? But I think there is a universe out there that's like, we're trying to get more people involved in this, right? We know that you were going to buy this, right? But there's so many more that wouldn't have bought this for a full price. And we need them to try it. maybe fall in love with it and be convinced to get involved and be a part of it.

And yeah, Greg, you start to worry how long is the legs on this? Yeah. What will be the moment where they go, hey, we're turning off the servers for good and you'll still be able to play the map? Not a chance. Or maybe it's dead. Nope. And like, you have this moment of like, yeah, you hope. You're like, well, no, I want them.

I don't know, maybe like a rumble versus knockout city where it's like, just turn it off, but still let me be able to play it, right? Because like, I need my skate fix. I don't want this to end because you did make a great world. It is fun to skate. Like, I hope that we get to that where it's like this. But yeah, what is this roadmap? Where do we go?

They'll never have the peak concurrent players like they had the first week, right? But they do have a baseline of like people love skates. And if there's some way that the marketing team can resell skate in a big way with version 1.0, that's your moment and that's your hope. But I don't know, Greg, like you said, I don't know if we'll ever get there. I don't know. Which, yeah, sucks, but they made their own bed to little stuff. but for me in terms of 2025,

like it's a game that defined my 2025. But Michael, what is the number one game that defined your 2025? Yeah, number one game. There's a game, Greg, that I said, stood head and shoulders above the rest this year

that made a just splash in my life that I will never forget. And that is clear, obscure, Exposition 33. Kind of funnies overall game of the year. A turn-based video game. Are you kidding me? I fell in love with Final Fantasy 10 earlier this year.

I tried it for the first ever time. I have gone on record many of times saying, you know, turnbase is just a little too slow for me. I appreciate it. I've played many of turnbase games that I enjoy. But when I come in, I want to play video games on the couch, I like something to be a little bit moving faster than that. But Final Fantasy 10 put me in my place and I fell in love with it.

I got down with the systems and I enjoyed the ride. And I said, I don't know if I'll have time for Expedition 33. I don't know if I'm burnt out on. this, but maybe I'll get to it. And I'm so happy that we had a break during Thanksgiving, where I said, you know what? Barrett approached me. He said, Mike, just play one whole Saturday where you play all the way to the end of part one, see if you vibe. And from the moment go, the story pulls you in. What do you mean they're getting gomaged? They're getting gomaged. They're getting erased out of the universe? What do you mean they got to send a group of

groponies at the age of 33 across the pond to go fight some giant pantress behind, next to a giant monolith and like there's been 97 voyages out there. What do you mean this is going on? And right away, the story pulls you in. The combat is a ton of fun. The Perry system added to this to make it a little more active than just I attack. I sit back and I wait for you to attack. Then I attack.

Like I love that. It keeps you involved all the way through. And I can't say enough good things about this game. I am blown away that that team over in France, Stanfall Interactive was able to make a debut title, an indie game, whatever you want to call it, and make it so freaking good. The characters you fall in love with, the voice acting is phenomenal. The stories of these characters that you will learn and grow with over your time playing the game

are awesome, heartbreaking, grounded and fun, and I loved every single moment with them. The music in this game is top tier. It's crazy that all of a sudden you meet this. this gosh darn paintbrush monster, the gesturals. And they hit you with the craziest saxophone solo you've ever heard in your entire life where you're dancing, you're having fun. You're screaming, Mona me at the screen with Eski. Eski, and it's like, I love that.

And it was just so good. And then to have stupid sexy Ben Star coming to my life. Stupid sexy. And look at Ben Star and just be like, you're getting benched because I'm going with all the ladies here. I'm doing a Final Fantasy 10, 2, and fall in love with Miel, CL, and of course, Lune, and, like, make our own journey and have those guys compliment that was great. To have the PICTO system and learn that unlock new PICDOS, which then fight with them four times. You unlock that forever.

Oh, now there's passives that you can add on to your characters. We're sharing all the PICDOS. Monoco, who's just eating people's legs and then getting their powers. That's a crazy system that I never use. this open world map that was beautifully designed. I wish it was like a little bit better to use with the cursor and maybe had like names on all of them that I just can get from the bat. But like the open world map was beautifully designed.

Each level, each world was beautiful to get lost into. All the exploration was rewarding and fun to fighting different cool chromatic, chromatica blasted enemies that got you more. The crazy mimes that were doing the dance and you had to break them to get new outfits for them. The outfits for each character was awesome. The DLC adding new outfits and more story was fantastic. Act two finishes and you go, game of the year, great story, unrivaled, awesome. I don't need anymore.

And they're like, guess what? We got an act three. And you know what? I love seeing the division with the act two, act three people have like, they could just end at act two. I'm good. I didn't like act three. I loved act three. I didn't think I needed act three.

I thought act two was crazy. And then act three got even crazier, even more learning about the world, this narrative. I could go on and on for hours about Expedition. You have. Your review is available. It's kind of funny you guys.

Freaking rocks. And I can't believe I'm saying that. I loved it. It was emotional. It was heartbreaking. It was everything. And so to end the year and say, yeah, Expedition 33 was my number one.

I'm just, I'm happy to smile and say, yeah, that was it. Greg, take me there. What is your number one game in the year? My game of the year for 2025 is Octopath Traveler Zero. If you've been watching listening, you knew that was coming. Because after I reviewed at the beginning of December, I said that. And so there wasn't much time for anything to shake it up.

You know, Octopath Traveler Zero is such an unexpected occurrence here. I did play and love Octopath 1 and 2, but I never rolled credits on either of them. They were both games that came and weren't reviewed for kind of funny. I forget why if it was whatever. but I played them, enjoyed them, had lots of positive thoughts about them. But the eight-play-eight-character narratives of them, as I've talked about in this very episode, I'm a fan of being in the boots of one character. So it would oftentimes, in Octopath 1 and 2, there were storylines I couldn't get enough of Primrose.

What up? And then it would be jumped to somebody else. And I'm like, I don't really vibe with what you're selling and what you're doing. Octopath Traveler Zero having us create our own hero from the beginning. Name your favorite dish from the town. I had ownership immediately over who I was and what I was doing, let alone to be surrounded by such a great cast, you know, Fenn, Stia, like these people that I was in me like, oh, damn, I'm riding with you.

And to take it even further of, your town gets destroyed, you come back to it. It's like, we're going to rebuild this town, but also seek revenge and head off on that. I thought that narrative was so strong. And I was then awesomely awestruck and shocked to find out that that was part one. As I've said in my review and I talk about this game, this game is really three games in one

you get your first movie your second movie your third movie and I think that first movie is so good the characters and the villains are just eating the fucking scenery marvelous like it's fucking awesome to then go to the third and be a little bit like or second I'm sorry and be like oh this doesn't seem

like my fight but I'm mixed up in it because I got told at the end in a very I think back to the future one way of like it's all done doc shows up and he's like Marty no we got to go and you're like what the fuck really we're doing okay cool then by the end of that second story be like I fuck with all these people

you know what I mean renew what up what are we gonna do I love what I'm doing here and then to go to third after the credits the game is rolled credits you go in here and it's like well now we're gonna come out

why not bring out Deborah Wilson right now who we've been hiding for fucking 50 hours we'll bring her out here to do some shit and it's like fuck this game is so deep so cool and again it really came to me when I needed it most this is the year of me

not being able to get into Expedition 33 and having a games cast where I was like, I think I'm done with turn based games. Like I could not do persona five. I cannot do Claire obscure. Like, I don't know what's wrong with me. And I cited in there how much I like octopaths, but maybe I'm done with it. And so to fall in love with Octopat zero, not be able to get enough, have the combat be so

snappy, have the team building be so great, have these eight, you know, characters that I'm controlling as a team on the screen to move around and find the best combinations and figure out who should have what spell to do this, to do that. Like the strategy of it, even though it's turn-based RPG, the story of it, the feelings of it, the introduction of characters like E, like Octopath Traveler Zero was on another level this year. I'm so glad that I had the time and was able to make the time to really play it all November long for that December review and Bargo and just fucking, I love it.

I love Octopath Traveler Zero and I hope other people give it a shot too. Because again, it's one of those like JRPGs, turn-based RPGs, gigantic fucking games. That is a commitment and it's hard to get people to make time for it. So I was happy to be able to. I love hearing it, Greg. I love hearing you. I'm thinking about that. This has been a ton of fun. This has been great, Greg. Well, guess what, everybody, it's not over.

I mean, this episode is, of course. This has been the kind of funny games cast. But tomorrow you'll get even more top tens as we head into Friday, where we will then do our predictions episode for what kind of funny's top 10 in 2020 will be. But for right now, this has been the games cast. Remember each and every weekday we run you through the biggest topics in video games

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says Mike had his pizzle yanked by until next time, everybody. It's been our pleasure to serve you. Thank you.