Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Kinda Funny Fantasy Critic Finale 2024 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Thank You For The Support! Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Fantasy Critic League 2024 Wrap Up - The Rules - Greg’s Grievance - Breaking Down the Points - Ads - SuperChats - The Top 3 - The BIG WINNER - Game Awards Winner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Friday the 13th. Ooh. Dun, dun, done, 2024. Of course, I'm your host,

Tim Gettys. I'm joined today by blessing at E. Oye Jr. Good day, Tim. Snowbike, Mike. Good morning, Tim. Greg Miller. I wish I could say it was a good day.

Justice is being railroaded. I have a lot to say. And I want first to applaud Andy Cortez, who is protesting this farce of a fantasy critic. Thank you. Yeah, Andy Cortez will be joining us. He's just running a little way.

No, he's protesting the farce of a fantasy. Or did he forget that games cast was first today? You know, it's one of the other. Gamescast is happening before Games Daily today for a very important reason. I got a Craven. Bless. Wow. I'm craving the hunts, okay?

We're about to go watch Craven the Hunter, Greg. That might bring your day up just a little bit. Your mom's going to come hang out with us. A lot of joy, a lot of laughter, good times to be had. We'll cheer him up. We'll cheer him up somehow. I think it's pretty cool. I like the team is going out to see Craven together.

Let's just talk about the failure of leadership from the top. Oh, okay, from the tippy top. If you were even worth half your fucking wait as a CEO, Tim, you would say we're canceling everything today and just streaming helldivers. But instead, you're like, let's do this game. Let's call the fantasy. The votes haven't even been counted yet for fantasy critic, all right? We are still waiting on so many people to file their reviews.

You're like, let's call it. Let's give out the trophy. I'll do it. I want. And then you're like, all right, cool, on top of that, arguably second place game of the year, Hell Divers, maybe first place there drops new content last time. You're like, let's go watch Craven. Let's go watch Craven. It's almost like we have a thing we do here, Bless, called in review, where we rank review and recap all the movies in the franchise, and we've been doing this for years at this point. You know what I mean? I know what you mean. I was going to throw it all away,

just because Greg's upset. Also, Greg manages the games cast, call. I know. I don't even know why we're doing this today. I don't know why we're doing this today. I don't know why we're doing this. doing this today either. But I'm happy we are, everybody, because this is the kind of funny games cast each and every weekday. We get together talking about all of the biggest things in video games. For a chance to be part of this show, submit your thoughts

and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. A little housekeeping for you, like I was saying. We're doing the games cast early today. The boys are still going to do games daily after this. We need to go watch them. We've got to go watch Craven. We got to go see the first showing of Raven today. That's

what we have to do with our Friday. So we're going to go watch the movie and then come back. And if you're a kind of funny member, you're going to be able to watch our in-review live as we record it. I'm sure it's going to be a good one because we're going to be hot out of coming out of that theater. What will you have to say? Will it be the best of the Sony Pictures universe of Spider-Man characters movies? Or the worst?

I don't think they'll be in between. That's competition. That's some competition right there. Ma, did you ever see Madam Webb? Venom. Venom 2. Venom Last Dance. The note all of them.

be really good on this one. Imagine this is where you start the cinematic journey. Oh, wait, Morbius? No, that's a note. No, no Morbius, everybody. The stream will be Fortnite. Anything more you want to say about that, Mike? Yeah, the Fortnite crew is back.

You know, ballistic mode. We are holding out on hell divers because, of course, our fearless leader will not be there, Tim. So me, Joey, Kevin, we'll jump into Fortnite. We're going to bring it back to 2017. Oh, okay. I thought you were saying that we were playing ballistic mode.

because I was going to cancel my plans and come join. Another fantastic game. We're going to cancel plans. Blessing we'll join this. We'll make it happen. But Tim's like, oh, we got to make these shows. We promise these shows.

God forbid, we just say, you know what, Snow Day. When Tim said Greg, you know you have it all at IGN, but why don't you quit? Why don't you quit? And then try to support Nick Scarpino for two decades. And I said,

I don't know about that. He said, whenever you want to, you can cash in snow days and we can just play games all day long. He said that. Did you say that? That sounds like a direct.

It does sound like something you said. Sounds like something Tim Gettys would say. I'm halfway there. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs and Delaney. Twining. Today, we are brought to you by Still Wakes the Deep and Aura Frames, but I'll tell you about that later. Let's get into it. The topic of the show.

Tots, dots, dots, dots, dots. It's fantasy critic time. We've done a whole year of this. It's time to crown the winner. But before we do that, actually, I just want to give a shout to this entire crew. Shout to Barrett. Shout to Roger, who's not here right now, but I'm sure he's watching. Last night was one of my favorite kind of.

of funny nights of all time. What an amazing show. Great time hanging out with everybody. And it was such a rare thing of having the whole crew able to react to the game awards, normally blessed and Greg are gone. Not only was it a great show, great time hanging out with everybody. Amazing job from the entire team. Roger clip it out like no one's business. The set looked better than it's ever looked. Bear it with the time codes and just the overall perfection of running the shows last night. Incredible stuff. So round of applause for kind of funny. So many time goes. Incredible stuff. I feel like it's just important because, Because, like, I mean, already I saw the video has like 150,000 views, which is awesome.

So thank you guys for watching. And I decided this year to do something different. Look at Greg talking shit about my time codes, you know? You know, I time coded the world premieres as world premieres and not what the games were. So if that was the first time people were watching the game awards, they could still be, you know, surprised by things. Also, shout for you. Also, shout to Barrett. He's looking great in that insert coin shirt.

That's that persona shirt, right? Yeah, that's great on you. Yeah. Can I give a shout on as well? Go for Mike. love to give a shout out. There was a man on this panel that saw the future. He saw, I didn't see this coming.

He saw Indiana Jones, Todd Howard, Troy Baker, and then the one, the only actual Harrison Ford showing up on stage. How could Greg Miller know that? You're too good to me, my hell diver. Man, I'm not going to get my flowers for the naughty dog, new IP prediction that you all doubted me for sure of what you see there. Thank you. Thank you.

There it is. Welcome to the Game Awards, the star of Indiana Jones in the great circle, Troy Baker and the star of the Indiana Jones films franchise Harrison Ford. Oh, I'll definitely let you keep that. Thank you, thank you very much. Join me in welcoming the Fezda's Todd Howard and actor Troy Baker.

Close. They do give an award for best indie game and I think everybody here can agree you make a great case for best indie performance. Oh, who now is where Harrison Ford comes out. There was another guy though. Look at Tim.

Our eye contact here is so good. I wonder what he thinks. And here I go, oh, is it going to be a video message? And I see the feet. Right back. Right back. Who is the goddamn fucking king of calling shit for the fucking game awards? I'll tell you who?

Trending Gamer 2015. That's who can fucking call a game awards like nobody's god-dam business. Who do you know, Greg? Who do you know? Who do you know? What do you know? People in chat said blessing.

Everybody guessed the Nottie Dog new IP. It was a 1v3 on the games cast prediction episodes when I was talking about this thing. Blessing, exactly. It was. Blessing. Everybody was against me. Last night, Greg predicted Indiana Jones two days after the game came out.

Just give me this. Of course Harrison Ford's going to be there. Of course Harrison Ford's going to be there. The game just came out with his likeness. He hates going places though. But he knew. Somebody make the game's cast clip for blessings so he can see. Thank you.

Okay. Yeah. Enough about that. Not to mention, that's probably just one somebody put in his chat. Watch the lot. Who's there already?

It was in the dock. We've been doing the damn thing. The fantasy critics. We've been doing it for a couple years now. Yeah. This year we all got together about a year ago. Drafting games.

Putting them on a list. Put them on our little teams. I was going to say, you don't understand what fantasy is. Okay. But, Craig, you want to take this? Sure.

We love fantasy. Fantasy Critic here, of course. You should go play fantasy critic. Games. You can play with your friends. The idea is it's like fantasy sports, which I know not everyone is familiar with, but it's simple. Stick with me. You go through with your friends, get, you have your own teams. You then, of course, come in and draft video games for that year that are coming out. You can start whenever I do believe, but obviously you want to start at the beginning of the year like we will next month. You go in, you draft a certain amount of teams, then you have a leftover budget. You can then use that money to bid on games as they get announced throughout the year or right away if you wanted to. You assemble your squad.

Then as reviews go through, the open critic score is then used to either give you points or take away points. Every point above 70 basically, or I'm sorry, yeah, every point above 70, you get a point. As you get higher, you start doubling points, but we don't worry about that. Every point below 70, you lose a point. There's also counterpicks where you go, oh, Tim drafted this game. You need a counterpick at the draft. So I say, I think that Tim game he picked is going to actually do bad or not as well as the others. I'm picking that.

And then for every point that that one would be above 70, you'd lose a point. Every point below 70, you'd get a point for your counter pick. Then you get to the end of the year when all the games are done and it's said, and all the reviews are in, this is important. All the reviews are in. You are not still waiting on a score that could change. GameSpot. Tommor Hussein. I don't know what's going on over there.

Call him. I mean, do you want the game spot review of Marvel rivals? Like, you're asking for reviews? Barrett? Barrett, Barrett. You and I see eye to eye all the time and you know that, all right? CEO, CEO, Jr.

That's what I like to see. You know what I mean? I don't mind losing when it's fair. But this is a rigged fantasy critic. You don't want to talk about rigged fan. This is a rigged critic is all I'm saying. Like, we just haven't counted all the scores yet. So actually, before you call him,

let's give some context to why you'd even be calling him. Because I'm the champion from last year. And I'm the champion from. this year, everybody. No, no, no, put an asterisk next to that. All right? I don't know, man. Put an aster. I don't know. Listen, here we are. Listen, listen. Points. You knock over your wire. Tim, 146.63 in first place. Greg, 142.77 in second place. Your four points below me, Greg. It really feels like Marvel rivals should have an eight in the zero as that open critic score. So as Tim has called out here, we, we were coming down to the

wire here. All the other games had been counted for everybody else and ourselves. And it came down to Indiana Jones for Tim, Marvel rivals for me. As you all know, everybody in the video game industry got kicked in the head and suddenly thinks Indiana Jones is a nine. I don't know what's happening out there. You know what? It's a great game. I hate. We see I die all the time. Eights I got no problem with. Nines, game of the year, best thing you played, that's when I start going, what's wrong with you, Lucy James. You know what I mean? Is there lead in your water that I didn't know about? You know what I mean? Thank God I'm not living in the house anymore. I digress. Tim's got a bunch of points off of that, right?

Which gives him a lead right now at 147 is where Tim is on the fantasy points, right? Below him is me at 143. This has been mine. I've been out in front for a while. And it's been like all Greg's there, Barrett seemed like a threat. Tim, you know, we're going to get into the airing agreeances on this one. I know you got issues too. I know you got issues too, all right?

I just won't let everyone know, I have no issues. I want to give a big shout out again to Andy Cortez, who I know, fuming about this. So, Maddie from going to order. Yeah. Because he said it's an injustice. to Greg Miller, my hero. The man I based my entire life on.

The man who is the whole reason I Twitch stream and I should probably give him and his company that revenue. I stand down. Or you just slept in a little bit. I mean, because you was so distraught, tossing and turning last night. I mean, not everybody is like you, all right? When there's a miscarriage of justice,

they can just roll over and ignore it. All right? There's a miscarriage of video game justice happening right now. We were on the highest of eyes last night. And here we are in court right now. I'm just happy. God damn, everybody. Why's got it?

This is so tough and I'm tired. I got to watch Kevin. Anyways. My favorite thing about all this is, like, legitimately we don't need to do this episode today. Greg scheduled this episode today. Just so we can do this. Like, Greg is a monster.

And all right. Greg is like taking up grievance with himself right now. I'm actually on Greg side. The Marvel rivals should be this low. All right. A 76 unopened critic. And you go there and you start. going, why are we doing

here? I run a tight ship when I schedule all the game's content here, okay? And I put it here for a very specific reason so that next week I could rub it in all y'all's faces and every one of the shows that I was the champion. But what now? I got to say no. And we got to wait. We got to asterisk. We got to talk about this,

all right? And we got to go talk to one man. As commissioner of this whole thing, because I was never consulted about any of this, I'm not taking the final scores until the end of the year. Wow. Which sounds right. Yeah. I have also on that side. Here's the thing. You're still going to lose. Like, I do think that Marvel rivals isn't going to get you enough points to get you above Tim.

So I do think that this episode is going to be the... Tim can take the trophy today. Again, my... With all due respect. You know what I mean? I think Tim's won it. With all due respect. Commissioner, I've never gone against you.

You've always been good to me. Always been good to me. You know that. Sometimes too good. You know, I'm not who you did last year. Starfield. What a trade that was. Tim, I legitimately have no bones to pick with you.

All right? My issue comes down to one man. all right? And that man I've never met but his name is Josh Broadwell. Oh, Jesus. Now, he reviewed this in Games Radar Plus.

Now, you want to talk about most of my past haunting me from this year. Remember the whole thing when I stumbled upon the biggest story of all time that Games Radar changed their name to Games Radar Plus

like 15 years ago and nobody knew until it fucking got called up by VGC and Jordan Midler. Josh Broadwell has personally fucked me. All right.

That's what you need to know going on. You go to the fantasy, you go to the open critic where GameSpot has not weighed in, where so many other people are probably still away. They're having so much fun. They're having so much fun. That's what it is. For the record. Greg played two minutes of Marvel rivals and bounce. Oh, I don't sell it

right away. I'm not right. This game is bad at a 2.5 by a 5. But look at these scores. Simon Cardi. A man who I think is like so picture perfect for current IGN. Just vapid. Not a good thought in his head. Simon

Cardi says 8 out of 10, right? Game rant 9 out of 10. Then you go down to what do you got? Gaming Bolt, 8 out of 10. God damn, these are some good scores. Outer Haven productions, right? 4 out of 5. You go here.

Spazio Games, 6.5 out of 10, respectable. Name anything else any of these outlets do. Like, when we review video games, have you heard of the Outer Haven production before this moment? IG in Spain says 8 out of 10. You didn't know those Niger in Spain. I don't know that. Get out of here, all right.

Oh, Chor. All char. every time I'm like I need to know about an alt char. They're given a 95 out of 100. 99 out of 100. Then we got Josh Broadwell.

Games rate R plus 2.5 out of 5. That means it's a 50 out of 100. That's what Metacritic is seeing when they do this to me. It's all on Josh. You think out of all of these reviews that were given, it was the 1 2.5 out of 5 review

to bring it down. 100%. if Josh would have not been so selfish. All right? If he would have not been so selfish. Because here, let's read, it might have gone up to like 78. Let's read Josh's verdict. All right.

Very well written. It's a great review. Marvel Rivals wants to reinvent the hero shooter genre with its complex characters and special synergies. But it's so preoccupied with trying to be like Overwatch that it forgets to play to its own strengths. Its oversized roster also needs more balancing and more differentiation from,

Blizzard's stable of heroes. So well written. Totally great review. Just fucking play ball, Josh. You know what I mean? Like, come on. You know open critics going to look at that? Say it's a 50?

A 50? Throw. This game, it's trying to be over. I don't, again, I played it for two seconds. I'm like, I don't like this game. I don't like this game. You know what I mean? But I wouldn't say, oh, man.

50 out of 100. You know what I mean? Very well written review, Josh, but fuck you. So here we are. where we have the reviews. Oh, what a surprise. What a surprise. Another one of these so-called video game journalists

sinking to personal attacks. I get a DM. I'm just out of here doing my job. Simon Cardi DMs me. You're vaping, you big fuck. Listen here, Cardi, all right. I'm getting fired up everybody, all right. Big fuck is hilarious.

Cardi, do me a favor, all right? Go boil some more cabbage. And your hovel. We're living in Hobbit land over there in London. All right, nobody's got time for this. And you type that in the British accent, too. That's hilarious. Okay.

So, Marvel Rivals does have enough reviews to make the cut to get the scores on the pre-ed-open credit. That is correct. That is correct. So it is December 13th, Friday the 13th. Yeah. Technically, a day will live in infamy. This fantasy critic doesn't end until the 31st. That's correct.

So are there other outlets that, that have not reviewed Marvel rivals that might end up changing the score. I mean, how many reviews are on the open critic right now? 20. That's a lot. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't see it. Especially for December where people are going to start going on break very soon. What do you need, like, what does Greg need to get the win from Tim?

I appreciate you asking that question. Can I get the one? Games Radar Plus. Retract this review. I mean, what's the literal number is what I'm asking. What does If I mean If I need five points

Four points in time Four points in time Five to win I don't think you're getting that I don't know if you're gonna get By the end of the year That's a lot of points That's a lot of points

Again Josh Broadwell did me in Yeah Yeah but game spot Has not reviewed it though Right So if they came out and said Yeah, 10 You want to call Tam?

I think Tam's actually I don't think one 10 Would like Yeah I want to be very clear I want to be very clear I want to be very clear I don't understand how open critic works.

Because it says, you know, top critic average. So is, are there non-top critics? Are you just a critic and your thing doesn't count? I think any critic that is, that is, I guess, registered with open critic is considered a top critic. I don't think they're picking too. But see, I click on it and then it's like they have top critic stars and then they have ones that are not top critic stars. Oh. And that's my problem.

Let me double check this. Yeah. Can we sit here with a straight face and talk about. justice, objectivity and fairness, and not be making Alt-Char a starred review. They're not a starred review. Open, I'll turn it, I'll take the anger wherever I need to. Open critic. What's your problem with my boy, Alt-Char, Tom it over there, give it a 95 out of 100. Can we not? I'm sick of this Alt-char erasure. You know what I mean? Like, they didn't, they didn't do anything. Let them off the bench. Let game line are off the bench with their 9-9.

four out of five, you know what I mean? Or, again, simple way to fix this, remove Games Radars top critic. Decide they're not a top critic. They have two lists of critics here. They have the top critics, which is a long list, right? I think all the names that you would think of are on the top critic list, but then they have another list that is critics included only in the percent

recommended score. And, like, honestly, I don't recognize any of these names. And so I think the top critic is what you're looking for anyway. Like, though, that's number that matters. Matt gives it a nine out of ten. Not a top critic. You got to stop. And at some point, Tim, you know what I mean?

You look around and you're like, things walking like a duck. It's eating bread off the ground. It's in the water. It's a fucking duck. So we need to talk about open critics bias against Marvel rivals and why they're not letting people

off the bench here, okay? Xbox era. Jesse Norris. I'm the 7.5, actually. Don't worry about that one. We don't need to get that. We don't need to make them a top critic. We don't need to make them a top critic.

Eric Hodges, try hard guys. Guys, 10 out of 10. Not a top critic, though. You know, Mike? What's going on over there? What does Josh Broadwell know? It's a good question.

I don't know. I don't know at all for us. I don't know where we're going with this. I guess the results. So the results, as of December 13th, are, I'm in first place. Greg is in second place. We got Mike in third place.

Which, what? I believe Barrett's in third. I'm three points. Bad Barrett. He just fucking projected things. here. Rejected. You got to arrange for actual. You can click the thing. The arrow right next. There you are.

I think, yeah, we got it. We got it. Barrett's third. Mike is fourth. What did that happen? It's fifth. Yeah, big shout out, of course, open critic and the team over here at fantasy critic. We changed the score for Path of Exile. We put the score in.

No. Because a lot of people were saying it wasn't going to be a blessing. We got a big early accident. It says stuff next year. No. That's insane, baby. Yes. I was unfinished games as well, also.

insane. I was fourth like two days ago. So that's crazy. Damn, you. Good job. That's why I like to see. All right. Thank you. Andy in sixth. And Rodge in seventh. And like I don't want to talk shit. But like Raj has 55 points. Roger got lost this year. Got really lost. Yeah. That's a third. And Rodger. And Roger was maybe the person I was talking the most shit about Fagg's critic going into this. Like he was doing the study. Like he was doing a lot of research going into it. The moment he chose Dragon Stockmas. What happened to do your research online. As his counter pick, you knew it was. Yes. Dragon's Dogma 2 is a counterfeit was a big mistake. Metroid Prime 4 Beyond was a mistake. Meena the hollower, hyper lightbreaker, both of those fucked them for a lot of games just didn't come out. I don't know what he thought. But also a lot of his games that did come out, like even if he didn't counterpick Dragon's Dogma,

he would still only have like 72 points at the end of the day. It's just a lot of his games just didn't. I don't know what he saw in like locomotive to pick it for like a fan-s-a-critic thing. Yeah. He was trying to go further off the... He was going for the sickos out there. He was going for like those weird, super wild games that only a certain audience would be reviewed. No rest for the weekend.

He said I didn't know the buttons. Yeah, exactly. He did get fucked on no rest for the weekend. No, yeah. That was bad for that one. That game came out. And like a lot of people held back their reviews as opposed to like me with Hades and past of exile where people were like, fucking let's just review this game.

They were like, you know what? Actually, we're not ready to review this one. Hindsight is 2020. We're being able to get Hades to. Path of Exiles. Huge. I know. That's kind of fucked up.

It's almost like the rules. You just got to play by him. Maybe we change the rules next year, though. I'm all consider it because yeah. That's kind of weird. Commissioner's going to commission. I respect it. That's what I do.

Yeah, let's look at everyone's list. Yeah, go to go team by team, right? What happened? Let's go next to Andy, Cortez. Who's sitting this out in protesting? I appreciate that. He is sixth place in this. Completely unquestioned league.

And here he is, everybody. He made it. Andy, I respect you so much for sitting this out in protest. You know what I mean? I appreciate you letting me have your time on the floor here to really let everyone know that there are some big problems at Open Critic. There's a Marvel rival bias. Miscarriage of justice.

Exactly. That's what we've been saying right here. Oh, you were saying that too. And then you got Tim over here just pushing it through today. You know what I mean? He won't let me delay it. He won't let me play helldivers. And what do you want me to do today?

What do you want me to do, Tim? It's Friday the 13th, you know? A lot of problems. I got cursed this morning. Andy, is there anything you want to say about your games? I mean, okay, though, you know, I don't want to call out this Josh guy. Real quick, too. Real quick, too.

I know sometimes, I'm being serious. It's part of the big. Tim just did the face where he's like, he's not sure if I'm going serious or even crazier. I always like to, you know, I don't like breaking K-Fab. I reached out to Josh this morning, who I have not met before and DM'd with him. I was like, hey, do you care of it? He's like, no, that's hilarious. Go for it.

So Josh did a great review. Obviously, his review is great. Obviously, you should stand. I'm going to go back into character now. Fuck Josh. I had a similar Josh on, Angerfoot for me. It was a lot of eights.

A lot of like, a lot of eights, a couple, nines. And there was like one five. And that really, really broke me. Otherwise, for somebody who, you know, was not understanding the rules mid-season. And then Derek calling me out for not understanding, the rule and me not understanding.

What was the problem? You dropped Space Marine 2 for some reason and then picked it back up. And even when that happened, I didn't understand why that was something to laugh at until five weeks later when somebody was like well no, you don't have any jobs because you dropped

Space Marine 2. I was like, oh, that's why Barrett was making fun of me for that. Like I didn't understand the whole concept there. Also, Skate Story fucked me, you know? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You got to come out. You got to come out. You got to really.

So you've got to just release your game. It's unbelievable. I also kind of shocked that brothers, A Tale 2 Sons, had that low of a score when the original was already kind of like hovering around the 83 point era. I was like, all right,

well, a better looking version of the original. Yeah, but things have changed, right? Things have changed. Yeah, got an 81. Kind of a bummer. Yeah, brother, tail, two sons. But aside from that, you know, Star Wars Outlaws, you know, that was one that,

I called it. That was just a Hail Mary that just didn't work for me. I mean, that's his second round pick, right? And if you rewind to the start of the year, you didn't know it was going to... If you were like Star Wars Outlaws, you'd be like, oh, yeah, like, that's got to be an 80. 75, that's a tough pick.

I didn't know it was going to be as disastrous as it was. It was my counterpick. And I talked to you into it, and I wish I didn't. I wish I had counterpicked it. Yeah. Stocker 2 only with five points. That's a tough pick, too. Yeah, really thought, you know, but, you know,

it's a war zone over there. I should have known. They're going through some tough stuff. And I think they're heartbreaker because that is such a great example of this year, right? Of like that is such a standout of why did you have us review this then? Right. Because it was by the time it got out, everybody's response, they seemed to our review. And so many other reviews was like, oh, it's not a problem for me.

Day one patch fixed everything for me. And like you guys who were reviewing, you got like, what? There was something like 20 some hours with the day one patch. Like that was stupid because that's what this ends with. Yeah. And as, you know, I didn't know the census. was going to escalate either. I wasn't aware the geopolitical

sort of point of our nation in our world. So that would definitely kind of hurt me a little bit as well. But otherwise, I'm pretty proud of myself for not being last place. Like, the fact that I'm in triple digits, well,

that rounds up. You're technically 99.7. Nice. Nice. Three digits. I'll take it. Four digits. That's huge for me.

That's great for me. I love that. That's five digits, actually. 99. That's four, yeah. That's not easy. Frost Punk, I was proud of that one. Yeah, that was a good pick.

Undernight Inbirth 2, Cis Celeste, when I picked it. Plus, I didn't know it was a fighting game. Just thought it was a... Because I remember somebody commenting, man, Andy really reping for the fighting for the fighting teams. I'm like, why, I just got Tekkenade. And now I made a whole lot sense to me when that game came out. TechA was a huge pick, though.

Yeah. Yeah, that was a huge pick, though. definitely, I mean, it was my first one, and I thought I would have had a lot more sleepers later on, and the sleepers ended up just being me coming in late for this show. So, yeah, otherwise, I'm still proud of myself for not understanding the rules until about like two-thirds of the way.

Excited and more confident for next year. 100%. Absolutely. That's what I love, I love fantasy critic. You see there's a Patreon, like you should all support fantasy critic. I love it, and the thing about it is, Even here and losing this close, like what a fun ride it's been, what a great conversation has been. And I'm so then excited for January to go and draft a new one.

It's starting to think about what I'm doing and try to fix what I did wrong. I actually have looked at their Patreon. It comes to a lot of cool features. One of those features is you can do a conference and get up to 20 people in one league. And I was thinking, I was like, man, I wonder if there's a way that I can do this. Obviously, we don't employ enough people to do a 20-person fantasy critic. But I want to figure out some way to, like, do this, even if it's on my own time. Because that sounds fucking fun.

involve, you know, maybe like, giant bomb, get easy allies, get midmacks in here, each center of five top people. Because this isn't, this isn't Final Fantasy, or Final Fantasy football.

This isn't fantasy football, Mike, where, you know, an eight-person league is kind of pushing it, and you'll get like 12-person leagues where it's like, my fucking third pick is a shitty wide receiver who's never going to get time.

Like, there's still a lot of good shit on the bench when we look at the game selections. Totally. And, yeah, next year I feel a lot more confident. because I really feel, Mike, like, you know, I spent my time out in the second half. And it's like, at the end of the game, it's like, if I still had that time out,

that would have been great. And I would have dropped Skate Story and picked up some other shit, but I just wasn't afford it to me. Would you also have not drafted and filled up your team right after the first week that we drafted? You did do an on move there. Yeah, why? I just didn't know. Every year there's one. This is my first year. And I was kind of just looking around and like, what are you all doing?

And yeah, I just didn't really fully understand that. That's always the hard thing of that you get out of that draft and that game you didn't draft but have been looking at is there and available. And you're like, well, do I spend the money? But you have to remember how much stuff is going to come out. But then you have to remember to be on it. Like the one that breaks my heart is, and I know we're getting a little bit ahead as we go through teams, but it was Astrobat where Astrobat got announced and I was like,

fuck yeah. And I was so excited about it. But just totally spaced on going in and making a bid. Yep. Meanwhile I. I'm the price. That was the one I'm like, I'm getting after. That one breaks my heart.

Whatever it takes. Because I had enough monies where I could have, I would have outbid anybody on Astrobot and it just totally spaced on it. I always think I'll be probably still the worst-ish at this game. Like post-picking, right? Like, you know, when we have that one draft, I'm sure I'll feel really confident. But throughout the rest of the year when it comes to, you know, because I am the dude who this game is not always on my mind.

Yeah. So when a game comes out, I'll get excited, and then I'm the guy who misses out on the waiver wire picks. I literally put it on my, like, bookmarks tab at the top of my Google Chrome. Just so I'd always see it and remember and be like, okay, keep the shit in mind. That's good. That's good. I'll buy, you know what? I'll buy one of them, like, I'll just have a monitor in my room.

I'll listen to it off. Yeah. Next up we have Snowbike, Mike, who I think actually. I'm going by. Yeah, we do. Let's go to bless. This shit breaks my heart, man. Because, like, there are a few...

Used to be a contender. What breaks my heart here is I'm looking at the choices I made, and I can see the reasoning, and it just breaks my heart to see things just not pan out, right? Flight Sim. Flight Simulator. So for context, my pick number one. My pick number one was Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024,

with the idea that the previous flight simulator game, you go on Open Critic, it has a 902 on Open Critic. So I thought that was an easy slam done. At least 80. At least 80, at least 90 was my hope. Yeah. And this isn't your faultless. That's where I'm...

You did nothing wrong. I start breaking down crying. You picked Patrick Mahomes as your quarterback, and he threw four interceptions. It's like, well, that's not, I mean. This is me picking Derek Rose and him, like, breaking his ankle again. D. Rose shot. Yeah. I mean, I'm from Illinois.

But, yeah, Microsoft Flight Simulator fucked me. Going through it, though, like, Black Myth Woo Kong, I think ended up being what, it is what it is. That got in, so for context, flight simulator ended up getting a 76. Black Myth got in 82. I think I was hoping for hire seeing the trailers and saying. how cool and like, you know, innovative it looked. But it came out and it is, I should have expected this to be what it is,

which is a really cool action game, but like, is the combat bad? No, it's not great. So yeah, like that did what it did. Rises of Roran also disappointed me. And I think if I'm going by the history of Koe Techmo, maybe I could have seen this coming, but I thought this was going to be the one of them.

PlayStation exclusive. We thought something different. Yeah. It's also ridiculous that Rise the Rone was this year. Oh, yeah. It does not feel like a 2024 game. Graham Blue Fantasy Reling kind of did what I thought was going to do.

Got an 81. Pepper Grindr came in under what I thought that was going to be as well. That should be in 85. That got a 79. And that is the story of my fantasy critic team is I look at a lot of these and I'm like, you should have done better. Stelblake up an 82. That seems appropriate.

I didn't Chronicle. I thought would have been the one for the nerds. I thought that would have been the one for the GRP singles who loves to we get in. A little sleeper hit. That came in at 76, which came way below what I thought I was going to do. Lorelei was a good pick. Got an 87. Steam World Heist 2.

Good pick. Again, thought it was going to do better as the Steam World King. That got you hyped up. That's what it was. Yeah. But also like I know about like the previous Steam World like Steam World dig people love those games and those usually do really high on Metacritic Never did what I needed to do with an 87 and then Dragon Quest 3 HD 2d remake was kind of like my last Hail Mary of man. I really need something to do over 90 here Ended up doing 85 which is good but just wasn't good enough Well, if you had this list though bless you put the work in you know, this list shows somebody that was playing this game It might not have been your best game but you played it

You had a big fourth quarter comeback, that's what's always interesting about it, right? It's like watching those top, what is it, six that we draft, and then the bottom half, right? And you see the blind picks with you from the draft, right, where you don't have a lot of information, you're just hoping you want to get these big titles.

You make educated, I think, smart choices, and then you really turn it on when it's like, oh, here's something being announced late, you know, Loreline the Laser Eyes. Here's a preview. Nobody would have drafted that if, I don't even know if it's announced. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Like, we wouldn't have been ready for that. Then they said we have Mike in fourth place. And I feel there's an injustice with Mike when it comes to Marvel Rifles. Oh, Tim, you know what? Marvel rivals and I have a long story, long history, but it turns out that I'm up and they're down. Okay, you know what I mean? We might have broke up. They broke.

I'm up. Turns out I got the right pick. This is what you're ex-fines the next partner and they're like, you're like, oh, I'm way better looking at that guy. Got it. You know, after the blunder, which was Eldon Ring, Shadow of the Earth Tree pick, you know, a lot of people remember that. Maybe I wasn't there. I thought it. I was excited for it, you know.

I really messed up with Hollow Knights. Yeah, but I will say, if you look at my team, I actually think, I'll say it, I only have four misses and the rest are very strong selections, right? Two of those misses are games that did not come out. And then the other two are Final Fantasy DLC and Lego Horizon, which I'm very surprised only got 72. Really thought... Final Fantasy DLC was this year.

Holy shit. If you look at Lego Horizon, you would have thought that should have been higher, but it did not get that. And Final Fantasy, that was the ending DLC. That was one of those where it's like, hey, they kind of already gave it.

They're all, this is a smaller piece. Messed up on that. But I mean, I played the game very well on the back of early access titles that were red hot, like Hades 2 and Bath of Exile, also doubled down on DLC. Of course, with Destiny 2 the Final Shape.

I doubled down with World Warcraft War Within. So, yeah, I had some really strong picks here. If I didn't have a couple of games missing, I would be flying up in this ranking right now. Yeah, I really feel for Mike because, you know, there's a lot of inspired choices here, and it really was just like the ones that miss. It's not like you were picking bad.

Yeah, thank you. You know, and also just looking at the score and I know the motivation this year was like, you know, maybe maybe the rules kind of elude us every once in a while, Mike. But we, you know, I was really pulling for you to be Barrett. And you should. You know, you can do it. This is so close. Why me? That's because, you know, Barrett's a stickler for the rules, you know, and Mike is a rule breaker.

I'm a rule breaker. And he was like, I really want to be Barrett. I just want to talk shit to him. Hades, two, with a 90. massive Dragon's Dogma 2. That came through with 17. Plucky Squire with 12. I was very happy with World Warcraft of War within with 15 little guardsman with 14. Shout out to that great game. Destiny 2 the final shape with 22 points. Amazing. Come on. That was a fantastic. Would you be interested in trading Destiny 2 for Marvel, right? Let's get it back on your team. I will gladly send that

over to you to make sure that. I've already sent it in if you want to prove it. I'll prove that. Final Fantasy. Let me down, like I said, Lego Horizon really let me down. And then Path of Exile, three days ago, if you asked this panel, it was going to be, oh, Mike's not going to get the points for that. And then boom, I woke up this morning. I typed an open critic, and I had a big smile on my face, Tim. I was like, yeah, I'm up right now.

And so I've taken fourth place this year. I'm very proud of myself. Holonite Silk Song, I'll put the clown nose on. I really thought you were going to pull me through on that one. That again is another educate. It's got to happen. It's got to happen. And I did it because Andy's my best friend.

You know what I only know that game because of Andy. I believed in that game because of Andy. Andy didn't let me down. That team let me down. It seemed more and more true as we went throughout the year. We had that one ESRB listing in Korea or something. It's like, oh, wow, things are happening. Xbox put it on their fucking flyer and it was like, in the next 12 months,

these games will come out. It's been 38 months or whatever. Like, what is going on, man? That was two years ago. And then also didn't the team, like, right before our draft say, Hey, this game is farther out than you think. Superfluous. Team Cherry said that?

I don't know if they said that verbatim. I think they said it's like not coming in the 12 months for sure. Okay. Maybe 13. We're going to talk about the top three people in fantasy critic. After a word from our sponsors. Still Waste the Deep as a first person narrative horror game from the genre masters at the Chinese room. Featry an all-star cast of Scottish actors,

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by using promo code kind of funny at checkout. That's AURAFraFrames.com promo code kind of funny. This deal is exclusive to listeners, so get yours now in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions apply. Ourframes.com, promo code, kind of funny. And we're back and I want to go to the super chats where, of course, Engine 25 reviews,

and says, I apologize for giving Greg shit for Indy. By math, the average of provided scores for rivals is 80.6 or 82.6 after they removed the 50. What the fuck? That's all I'm saying. Josh, this is a personal little front to me.

Games rate R plus. This is your chance to do the right thing. Retract the score. Or bump it up. Or Mike approve the trade I sent you. The math be mathin over there. Can you trade if the score's already been out? No. It said I could. I can propose the trade.

I propose the trade. Let's see what happens. I am. I'm not trying to suck up to Greg here because he's my boss and I was and I blanked on this games cast. But I like, I'm not trying to talk shit to Josh either. I just don't understand how you could give the game a five out of ten when it is.

Well, whoa, whoa, okay, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. It's fun when Greg's do it in character. I appreciate you the suck up thing, but then you got a little too serious with it. Like, remember, they're on the 2.5 scale. They're on stars.

It's a different thing. So it wasn't a strict five out of ten. That is just how Metacritic slash open critics going to interpret the score. We need better interpreters. You can still have a problem with the 2.5 on five. I'm just like sticking up for Marvel rivals because I don't.

Josh's review is like I said, very well written. I'm not, it's not. I don't want to turn this into me actually or any of us actually having beef. Rainbow six extraction. Okay.

Game deserved better. Mm-hmm. God, you're so right, Mike. Rainbow six extraction deserve better. The same. It's only more bad. It's only more bad. It's only one bad.

And that's what Marvel rivals is. today. When you go to Open Critic, that should be an 80 minimum. Minimum. That was the singular bad score. The Rainbow Six Extraction was... We're not talking about any bad scores. We're just saying the number that me and Andy look at. That's all that matters to us. That was the 2023

miscarriage of justice. That was great. Wait, how much do you like Rainbow Six extraction? Why is that the example? He had it on the list. He kept on bringing it up and I didn't know anything about Fantasy Critic. I was like, Mike, they're fucking you on this. Like, this game is better than they're saying, you know? Wait, what did it get?

Oh, we got a 72. That seems right. No, I'm going to say. That seems accurate. It was a 75-80. God. In third place, we had Barrett Courtney. Again, another, a man that played the game. Very well.

Not well enough, but I'm proud of myself this year. I haven't done fantasy critic in a few years. But, yeah, of my original draft, I think there was only one game that I dropped it, because Tim, you and I were on that, like, Mario or Switch High and we're like, but you draft, I think the Mario game. Unannounced 3D Mario Platformer. So I dropped Mario Kart, but all the other games from my original draft are still here. And that's mainly because Andy counterpicked Tales of the Shire.

And once previews started coming out and I was like, oh shit, I hope they delay it. And thank God they delayed it. And so, yeah, my original picks with metaphor, persona 3, Rise of the Golden Idol and Unicorn Overlord, like the story there is trust in Atlas. they had a fucking fantastic year and Rise of the Golden Idol I wasn't invested in that game and then you know

Blessing and I got into we're Golden Idol boys now and that game's just kicks ass and yeah I'm very happy about that Thrashers one that was hoping for a bit more from that is the Thumper. Yeah that's the Thumper team

and it originally only came to MetaQuest I believe and then I think it's coming to PC and Steam later but if I'm gonna hold a grief if I have a grievance is that you know, maybe, you know, there was a couple of top certified reviewers on Open Critic who had reviews of Thrasher

that would have given more points to Thrasher that maybe I was submitting to Open Critic and then they never, you know, like, accepted, you know, some of those reviews. So I feel like Thrasher would have got like... I feel like these are all commissioner responsibilities. Yeah, yeah. In their Discord.

Are you in reviews? Well, you're not a commissioner of OpenCritic. This is specifically for the Open Critic site. Oh, I see, I see. Yeah. There was a couple of, like, outlets who had reviewed Thrasher, but for some reason weren't put onto the Open Critic,

like, meta thing. And so I would have only gotten, like, three more points, I think from it, but... Man, I had,

like, I had no idea even what Barrett's argument was, because, like, I just don't, like, open... Once Barrett was mentioned, like, no, there's some reviews that weren't put on,

like, oh, okay. That's what the rules are. There are some, like, dines from outlets who are usually on open critic, but for whatever reason, they weren't put on Thrashers. And so it would have gotten to be a couple more points. Why are you that deep in the game? God damn. Because I was looking to

win, blessing. You're like, why did this routine counten? You say the word, Barry, you say the word, Mike, you're with me, Andy, because you being late to work here with you. We go storm the offices open credit, all right? We demand justice. I'll bring the zip ties. Yeah, the big high rise they got down. I think they were from home. And that was like, that was coming out like in a time where like I thought there was, there was still a real shot there, right? Shout out to Janiceo who talked so much about Bellatro when it had a, a demo early on in the year so I picked that up. And this is something we were talking about earlier.

This should be banned. Again, Barrett was using inside sources, you know, and you get information about I listen to a podcast. I listened to a podcast about a demo. Just saying, just saying, it seems like you know, we had a bunch of rules that if we had a review code we couldn't do anything about. It's a great point. Barrett's just over here just listening. He's a rat in the walls. He's got the

recorders in the water gate. I felt good about nine souls. That's also one of just a personal favorite of mine this year. Glad that it's got the review scores that it does. I personally would love to see it have a 90, but I know it doesn't work for everybody. 85.

And here's the thing, Dragon Age, the Vail Guard, I feel like the previews that were coming out about Dragon Age, those like 90 guaranteed, maybe, maybe high 80s.

And the fact that I reviewed this though, I was like, man, fucking Christ, that was a tough one. And then my two big blunders, Alan Wake 2, the Lake House.

And I was truly surprised by the reviews of Allen Wake 2. Like, the way y'all were talking about those two DLCs, I really felt like the sickos were waiting for the lakehouse specifically. That's the one that I feel you should be surprised by. Sandland, I don't, that's the,

that's the one that looks, that's the one that sticks out like a sort thumb for me. I'm not surprised by Sandland. I said Sanlain is a blunder on my part. Oh, no, no, like I think I look at Allowake scores and I'm like 74. That's kind of surprising.

I would have thought that'd be higher. Yeah. But Sanland on the list, I'm like, I, you know, when that demo came out, I was like,

this game kind of sucks. Like, like, That's the one I'm like, like, that's the one real bad choice where everything else is just like, I called it a blunder. You should have won, man. You should have won. Sandland, take that out.

I'll trade you right now, Barrett. I'll give you another game. Yeah, my two big blunders, around the time that I was trying to make, looking at Sandland, I remember also thinking about Batman Arkham Shadow, I believe. And I was thinking about that, even though with my initial reaction, more for the Barrett Courtney Brands of having a Batman game on my list. And then the other game that I was thinking of. instead of Allen Wake 2, The Lakehouse,

that I was thinking about, honestly, for most of the year that I'm surprised nobody else picked up was Call a Duty. And those were just, I think those two decisions, if I had flipped them, that would have gotten me a guaranteed win. And so some bad choices in the second half of the year, but I'm at least right now,

proud of being the top three. What's, do we know what Call of Duty is sitting at? It's like an 83, so it would have gotten me, like, compared to Allen Wake, what, nine more points? And then Arkham Shadow was at, at an 85, I believe, so that would have gotten me 11 more points compared to Sandland. I'm going to try to pick that up. That's good to keep in mind that Call of Duty, even like this one, I would say, is kind of regarded as like one of the better ones, and it only got an 83.

But that's still 13 points. Yeah, no. I know. I know. And then second place, we have Greg Miller. Hello, everybody. It's me, Greg Miller. Miss Carriage of Justice.

What's up. What a year. What a year for fantasy critic. This is a really fun one. I appreciated how much we were committed to it. You know, blessing and me. done it through PS I Love You, then through PS I Love U, Xcast, then through

we've done iterations of it, and it's cool to see people get more and more involved, because it has been for some people said it and forget it, and they'd never come back to it. So I had so much fun this year doing, with this, arguing about it, seeing what was going on with. I'm sure you did. I did him. You know what I mean? God. I mean, imagine saying that.

He looks at his window drinking his LaCroix coffee, for some reason, I did a coffee when I was drinking LaCroix. And he just sees me just in justice all over me. I'm waiting it, and I'm rolling. It's all over my chest. It's in my hair. It's really good. It's all I wanted.

It's a good time. It's the inaction, you know? It really is. You know what I mean? Stand for something or fall for everything. Two snow days, everybody. No, this is a really good one. You know, Barrett was a threat

the entire time. I will, I will admit, I will admit, I never thought Tim had a real chance. When he had the Mario platform around there, there was something else, which you had or no? Did you not?

I thought, did you ever drop anything? Yeah, I dropped. I made some bad calls. And that was the thing is early on, I kind of laughed you out of the room where I was like, okay, Tim's, Tim, I, because I was, I was this. I was going for second place the entire time. There was the, this isn't the year, but there was the one year where you filled it all on the first day, right?

That was the first time. And so, like, I was expecting more of a performance like that out of you. You got to tell me those lessons, Tim. You're on the shows. You're watching the show. But, like, if you made that same mistake, you got to be like, hey, for the newbies, don't fill it all on the first day. You know, like you gotta, come on.

It's the inaction, you know? It's the inaction, you know. You're watching a fucking kid that, you know, not being able to tie his shoes. You're not even teaching him. It's like he's the frog from frog and toad, but he's just stepping on tadpoles. You know what I mean? Whoa. Exactly.

I love frog and toad, man. Anyways, yeah, so, you know, I had a really strong draft, I thought. Final Fantasy 7 rebirth, 93, right? 25 points. That was immediately, that was so early in the year, too, where it was like, I was out the gate ready to go. Paper Mario, a thousand year door gets me

19 points on an 89. Fuck yeah, let's go. Alan Wake 2 Night Springs, 12 points. I honestly am a little shocked by it because it was one of those that I did my third pick in the draft,

threw it down, and then it was like, should I drop that? Like, DLC's always such a weird thing. It doesn't get reviewed by as many people. Again,

the sick I was going to be there for the Allen Wake Way. I, when it got a 12, and then it was like, oh, the lake house. is still coming on Barrett's team.

I was like, the lake house might have been the right way to go because that's going to be more of the Allen Week 2 experience than this one,

which was the goofy iterations, Twilight Zone. And it was the opposite. Yeah, shocked by that. Like a Dragon, infinite wealth,

of course, this is one that there was drama to a degree about where if we remember we came in here and the rules this year where we will not

pick anything, we are reviewing or have a review code for or whatever. And like a dragon had come in two days before, but we had a conversation at the table

where it was, I wasn't reviewing it and I only knew as much about it as before. Or we all knew as much about it. But so you guys, you and Raj didn't feel comfortable. It was the thing where there was, it was back and forth because it was like a drag and then also Tekken. And also Persona. And also Persona 3 reload.

And I think the conversation was like, just because the games were what they were, right? It's like, I don't think us playing. The games really swayed us as far as like these games are what you exactly. And I wasn't playing it. Not that it matter. Yeah, Mike had a point though with it. I would have picked it, but, you know. I got my mouth said.

I didn't pick it because I had to review code, so I helped strewed to the bargain. But we did talk about it beforehand. We did talk about it beforehand. We were like, all right, these games were on the table. Yes. I remember they're making that decision. No matter how much Roger Codes. I don't know if I heard that.

Anyways, 20 points. We should really make it clear next time. 20 points for me on that when I'm stoked about that. Vessel of Hatred I thought was another gamble that paid off. You know, obviously I love Diablo and that sometimes gets hard of like, I know that I love this thing and I'm gagged for it, but is it going to play for the people. And, you know, 13 points off Vessel of Hatred. I was happy with.

My thing with Fantasy Critic is, I want double digits on every game. That's the goal on every game. I feel that puts you in a really good spot. Consistency. Yeah, right. So I was, but I was worried about it.

Another, another Crabbs treasure, my first single point game, a 78, eight points. This one, I'm shocked by that. I was shocked by.

Of, but it really proves something. I think we can look at just about every other list and find them. I think pepper grinder is another good analog too, is that Indies are,

I feel so hard. to put into these things. You look at this indie, it looks stunning, it looks cool, it's doing something different, and maybe it really resonates with you, you really like it, which was not the case with another tribe, Crabs Treasure. It was the Soulslike, right, which isn't my deal. I did play it and enjoy it, but I was like, I'm not going to be crazy for it, but what we had played at the GDC events and on our own streams, I was like, this is going to

really fucking hit with those people. And to put it on, only get eight points. I was shocked. I really thought that was going to do better numbers than that. I think this is one where for indies, you kind of have to be sure. That's why I think Bear made a good one with Balatro where you heard the preview, like you've seen the game, like you understand what you're working with here. I feel like I made a similar thing with Pepper Grinder. Where Pepper Grindr I picked because I also like I saw seeing the game.

I forget if that was, I forget if we saw gameplay before. Or no, I picked up later. Say it. I saw it at GDC was like, oh, that looks cool. It's Devolver. Surely that's going to be good. But like that's not enough. Like you kind of have to be sure that this is a thing that is going to be a hit for the genre.

I mean, I will save for the Bellatro pickup. it was purely only because of listening to Giant Bomb. I had never seen gameplay. I didn't even know really what the game fucking was. That was truly a shot in the dark based off of two men's vibes on a podcast. Nice. From there, yeah, Banishers Ghost of New Eden.

Let's be honest, I dodged a fucking bullet. I got 10 points off of that. I'm very lucky as somebody who is like, I'm enjoying myself, this keeps too long. I'm going to stop playing it, you know what I mean? Yeah, there's some of these you can look at Greg and you go, that's the developer's fault or that's the reviewer's fault.

share like Josh's fault. You would never blame yourself. Yeah. Like another crap treasured, that's the reviewer's fault, I would say. That's at least an 83 minimum. Banishers goes to be New Eden. That game needs to be half as long. Like it is, there is such an incredible game there. And the fact that while I was playing it and was loving it people were telling me in the chat, oh yeah, it's 60, 70 hours long. Like, no, no, no, that's not what this should be. That's not what I want. It's such like legitimately, I was stunned by the performances. and the story moments in my first like seven hours with it and then I was told how long it was it was like oof.

No, I don't like this much. I'm not that invested in the story and where we're going. Then you get, yeah, another pick from the heart that paid off enough for me. Obviously, I didn't win, but I'm happy. WW2K24 getting 10 points. Like I know wrestling games are wrestling games. How are they going to, you know, blah, blah. But I, you know, watch the tea leaves on this, done the previews for it.

They're putting a lot of cool shit in here. They already got a great base. They're adding on to it. It is the, you know, 30 years of WrestleMania mode, 40 years, of like, hey, there's all this stuff going on, yeah, 40. And that's going to be cool. And it worked out to get 10 points. I'm happy with that, right?

Like, WWE 2K-22K is not going to be an annual pick for me. That's not a guarantee, right? I thought this one specifically seemed like it was going to perform well based on nostalgia and where we were. And I think, you know, when we get to my top 10 list and this getting on there, I think this is such a encapsulation of where WrestleMania 40 was, right? And what that energy was and Cody Roman and all that stuff. ball.

Quitmaster. 78. Eight points. Another shocking one for me. This was one that I was at the GDC Awards and they do the independent game awards before that. And when I saw this one go up there,

I think they won maybe overall. I was like, and I looked at it. I was like, holy shit, this is amazing. And then we got it and I played it and reviewed it for us. And I was like, this is so cool. I think 78 is not outrageous. This is too far. But like, this is a game where I'm like,

this is an 80, 81 at least. Like this is so clever and so cool. cool, a typing RPG where you're discovering all this, the performance, just so clever. And get saddle to the 70. I thought we were getting inscription 2.0 with this one. Yeah, exactly. I thought this is going to be one of those, like, wow, here's this shocker 9 out of 10 that suddenly you need to play this year.

Cryptmaster is one you do need to play. I would definitely go and encourage everybody to pick that up and try it out. Then college football 25, 81, 11 points off of that. Again, super happy with it. When we were doing one of the episodes, this is after draft. one. I remember, I think it was you, Barrett, right? We were going back and forth where you were like, I was like, I picked it and you're like, it's not going to even get double digits. And me and Mike were on it. We were arguing, no, you don't understand. Like, it's been so long

since the last college football, this is going to be something special. And it barely got double digits was. But again, which is, again, first off, you lost your third place. You far away. Don't worry. I mean, you were scared though. You were saying they were 706 is what you're arguing. I hate them. Anyways, though, I get back to it. This is another one where it's like this will I will not draft college football next year. I do not expect college football to do to get higher than this. I would imagine it would be lower. And then you have Marvel rivals, as we've already said,

a steal on miscarriage of justice. We are not there yet on the scores. This is all Josh's fault. As the super chat pointed out with the actual stats of math. And then of course replaced where I, I counterpicked that, which I think might be my year two of counterpicking that. That's good. Paris Lilly, I counterpicked last year on it and I'm happy to counterpick again.

I feel like it's always a reliable counterpick that. Biggs replaced. Marvel Rivals fans stand down and stand by. You're gonna wait for the scores. And then next up is me with 147 points here.

Currently winning. We'll see. We do have two weeks left. Thank you very much. Tam knows he doesn't want to work anymore this year. Nobody's reviewing this. This is honestly, this is like a lot of your game showdown wins where you will have a big victory even though you fucked up a decent amount.

Like the fact that you don't have a game here with a score and you still have that I know. That's amazing. That's my thing is there was a couple choices I made that were bad. The main one was dropping Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta, whatever. I should have dropped mainline Mario

Platformer and then they delayed Metal Gear and then I would have had another pick. So I could have got even more points here. So I definitely fucked that up but next year I won't. I've learned I am improving. And otherwise a couple choices. I don't think I made any bad

calls with the games. I do just think that there was a couple that I was really hoping more from, Princess Pete Showtime being one of them that I really believed in Nintendo for that. He really, really dropped the ball. And Penny's big breakaway was such a shame. That game from the Sonic Mania team

to some extent really should have been I think like an old crap standout indie special platformer. And it was just pretty okay. I ended up going back to it later in the year and I enjoyed it a lot more than I originally gave it credit for. But I think it's a solid like good game, but it's not what you would think from that studio based off of coming off of Sonic

Mania. I was looking forward to like a fucking hit. Exactly. And yeah, so 77, I'm kind of there with, with Penny's big breakaway, but I definitely wished we got more. I looked out with Star Wars outlaws as a counterpicked. That was a bad call. I don't know why I did that. But it was a good call. I talked to you into it. Only losing five points. Like, hey, I'll take that. I'll take that. I'll take that. But yeah, a couple other like, it's weird that I'm in first place with like things like 77 for Mario and Luigi Brotherhip. Like I feel like

I kind of just like low point added up two decisions that brought you here, right? It's Eldering Shadow of the Earth Tree is your first pick with 94 on Metacritic or Open Critic and then Astrobot. But also don't count out like

even though they're not 90s but Animal Well and Indiana Jones and Silent Hill 2 remake which was one game that I was expecting to get like a 75. Silent Hill 2 was my like the big Tim pick of like that I was rolling the dice on that one and I looked the hell out because it looked

bad and it ended up being amazing so hell freaking yeah and then yeah animal well was another one that I just had such good vibes going into it what does that flag mean nexus high and hole I assume hover over it has a little we recently decided that this game is really more than a remake it's a reimagining

so basically it's how they categorize it so again see they can put notes on there and apologies if they want to put one on Marvel rivals call out Josh but anyway I had a lot of fun doing this this year and I feel like I did actively play it I mean you can even see it like yeah you get great to ladder half the list.

Like I did play the game and yeah, a lot of his Nintendo games because I like Nintendo. I mean, you know, somebody said in the chat, it's already gone by and I know we've talked about it too, but to win with a blank and with a minus is so impressive. But again,

you made just such great calls with Erd Tree, of course being the number one pick, but Animal Well, right, getting you 19, then Astrobot for 29, Echoes of Wisdom for 15. Like,

those are some great pickups. But going second with the mainline 3D Mario platformer, like, that was just playing a game. Like, y'all got in my heads. You know what I mean? I'm just like, why would I do that?

That was silly. That was really silly. So yeah, I'm the winner, everybody. Fucking deal with him. Give him the trophy. Guess what? Give him the trophy. I won Fantasy Critic.

I won game showdown season two. Yeah. Well, you know, if, you know, if Mike remembered that I was, you know, that I had him play from my team and he didn't blink out on the showdown. Oh, me and Bruce Green did win season one. Roll the tape back. Thank you. I appreciate it.

I appreciate it. Greg. There we go. Barrett. Two quick things. I just want, you know. I accept the formal apology from all of you for clowning on me for drafting metaphor as the first pick. And then also people are saying earlier that Mike ran a tight ship on his team.

Just a reminder that he spent $75 to bid on Assassin's Creed shadows, which then got delayed out of the year. Because you know what? Barrett's competition. A lot of people don't understand that Barrett has a giant brain and he's always working. And sometimes you've got to box out your competition to hold him back. And that's what I did. I don't know if I want it. You got to spend money to make money, Mike.

Because he was going to spend $55, I spent $65. Giant bring money hats. Boxed out. Mike, all I had was like $15 bucks locked on Mike. Yeah. Spend money to make money, Mike. The show's not over, though, everybody. That was fantasy critic.

There's one other competition that we need to talk about, and that is our Game Awards predictions. We all predicted who's going to win every single category of the game awards. So these were the award predictions. Yes, the award predictions. And I, forgot the stipulation here but something about

a dunce hat yeah bless what did you come up with I forget I think it was like you wear a sign that says I'm a loser if you're in last place

yeah hope that doesn't come back to bite me it's a little complicated not really it's a two-way time but the fact is we just of course

are pairing this with fantasy critic right so I would say whoever has the most fantasy we have of course of course we are of course we are

tied in first place with 16 correct predictions it's me and Andy Cortez come on Wow. It's really like me and Tim won at all, you know? Come on, come on.

You should share that trophy. And tied in last place. Of course. It's blessing a great. What was the score? 15, 15. Oh, we were very close.

I don't know why I picked metaphor for game of the year. Like, that was a mistake. Yeah. As we were, how many, Andy did you get? 16.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we're all like right there. We're all pretty much tied. Right there. But you're like, you're not there.

No, but we're pretty much tied. Not though. Yeah. Yeah. What a bear get? Oh, 19 out of the thing. Great job, Bert.

So, yeah, I would say, since it's paired with fantasy critic, of course, I came in second there. That gives me a point. So Bless gets the Dunst sign. Now, I think we both get it. We said the person. Yeah, the person who came in last. So since none of us came in last, technically. Now, if you want to make a really big sweatshirt that says it, and we both have to get in the sweatshirt, and I'm down for that.

Oh, maybe get that close to him. Everybody want to play a shirt through. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. We will do Fantasy Critic for 2025, starting in January. So get hyped for that. Right after this, we're going to do Kind of Funny Games Daily and then a Fortnite stream. And remember, a lot of us are going to go watch Craven the Hunter right now. And then we're going to come back and review that movie.

If you got your membership, watch it live as we review it. Please do. It's going to be an all-timer, I promise you. Until next time, though, I love you all. Bye. I'm coming for you, Josh.