Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Kinda Funny Smileys: Video Game Awards 2024 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: January 12, 2025

Go to http://rocketmoney.com/kindafunny to cancel your unwanted subscriptions with Rocket Money. Time Stamps - 00:00:00 - Start 00:04:47 - Housekeeping 00:07:22 - The 2nd Annual Kinda Funny Smileys 00:12:25 - Best Indie 00:29:20 - Best Style 00:37:51 - Best Old Game 00:47:34 - Best Early Access 01:03:24 - Best DLC/Expansion 01:13:45 - Best Innovation 01:26:41 - Ads 01:29:45 - Best Character 01:43:40 - Best Story 01:59:28 - Best Surprise 02:13:06 - Best Card Game 02:24:26 - Best Studio 02:33:43 - Player’s Choice Award Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yo, what's up? Welcome to the Conchemy Gamescast for Friday, January 10th, 2025. I want to your host, Blessing, Adi O'Ele-Jr Jr., joining me is LaCroy Pappy. Tim Moe, Buggie. Let Tim Hose. I'm happy to be here. My first ever smile is everyone. Mr. Stars in the bank, Greg Miller. That's right. That's right, Tim.

Any cheats? Want to rub our velvet together? I do want to rub our velvet together. What if it gets stuck in like Velcro? We've got the Master of Hype, Snowack, Mike. Congratulations, blessing. leaving the lab and moving to the big set for the Smilies. Congratulations. Thank you.

Big upgrade. Remember last year of last where we saw a lot of comments, even though at the front end, we were like, hey, we're in the lab right now. It was Barrett's prepping game of the year and doing rehearsals. And there were so many people just like, they bought that big, they had that big ass set. They don't want to use it. They're not even using it. Motherfucker, listen to

the show. Please God. Please God. This year I was able to do tech stuff earlier for you. Yeah. There's so many of our listeners and viewers that I wish would die. What? And that's a category. That's the vibe, Mike.

What's the vibe of the show? What's the vibe? Mike, you like this suit you got on. Oh, thank you, Bless. Went above and beyond for you because, of course, I let Tim down just a couple of weeks ago. And so the conversation was, how does my...

When Adam Sandler showed up to the game horn. So I went to Macy's, and I bought a very over-a-priced suit jacket for you. Can we do an over-over-a-game? Oh. Well, it's Macy's. Macy's that's bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So are we doing prices right? Oh, yeah.

I think we all know, except for Tim and you, right? I don't know. Well, it's Macy's. Macy's is a steal. That's where this came from. Yeah, it's a great deal. Macy's. Mine came from Macy's. So I'm going to say... Rockstand's not going to be happy with you at Macy's.

140. See, I was thinking... He said it was overpriced, which scares me, so I'll say $1.99? Oh, yeah. So I'm thinking two. 4269. What the fuck? $400.

What the fuck, Mike? Well, Roxanne said that he's on the suit coats And I said, well, for blessing, I'll do it. So you're not, okay, first of all, don't put this on me. Don't put this on me. For blessing and Andy on the smile these years. She's like $75. Who's?

Macy's was busy, okay? What did you want me to do? I mean, it looks nice. Did you say, here's $200 somebody help me? No wonder who's all bent out of shape today. He's uptight. Who's Roxanne? So uptight.

Roxanne was a lovely old lady who helped me at Macy's. She robbed you. You know, she was helping me and others. We were talking about, you know, it was a whole lot of it. That was the biggest upsell of her life. Got a great commission on that one. Over there is the nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. Hello.

Happy to be here for the second annual Smiley Awards Plus. And of course, we got the lock, Roger Corny. Someone said Andy fix her, Roger's collar. Oh, no. Probably Roger fix Andy's collar, maybe. It was sticking out. Maybe it was collar fix Andy Roger. Oh.

I've been honest. This is fucking kind of funny day. And they just went out, but on the ones and two is, yeah, Barrett Courtney, who I introduced because, of course, we're all here. We voted on the kind of funny smileys, which is kind of funny's category by category awards. Andy, you're the co-founder slash, I would say the kind of funny smile is kind of your brainchild here.

Last year, I think you were the one that came to the group and I think came to me and you're like, yo, we should do an award show. We should do more like category style awards. Yeah, because we do game of the. a year, right? Monday is going to be the big game of the year. Our top 10, we don't know what it is. We don't know what we all put in our votes. We don't know how it's going to, but there's so much other juice to squeeze out of what 2024 was. Exactly. And I believe it. And you can explain more of this, right? But I believe the idea was like, all right, cool, we have the top 10 games

of the year. We're going to do that. That is the big event. But there are so many things that happened throughout a year in video games. And there's so much to talk about beyond the top 10 games. And so let's find ways to honor a lot of the other things that happened in 2024. Let's bring a positivity, right? It's a tough. year. It's, you know, it's always been a tough year every year. And why not, uh, have a way to kind of showcase and give more love to a lot more developers other than the other than Astrobot or other than like the ones that are always, the ones that are always going to win. How can we get everybody's sort of nominations? And there's never just going to be one winner. It's always let's shout out

five things that the whole kind of funny team can kind of vote for, uh, category by category, showing off, you know, letting these smaller devs also kind of get some shine and be like, hey, we really like this. We want to call you all out. Five awards per category. Five awards per category. We're going to get into it. But remember, this is the Kind of Funny Gamescast. Each and every weekday, we get together and talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics in video games live on YouTube,

and on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcast. to get all of our shows ad-free, watches accord them live, and get a daily exclusive show. For a chance to be a part of their show, some of your thoughts and opinions as YouTube Superchats as we go.

And you know what, today? Super chat in with what you think should win the categories. If any of our five aren't the same as any of your picks, write in, let us know why you pick what you pick. Of course, housekeeping for you, thanks to the overwhelming generosity

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And real talk, this is a great way to get a taste of the Kind of Funny membership. I have a feeling if you are there at that time on patreon.com slash Kind of Funny and you've made a free account, you're going to get a member member. Like there are so many

memberships that are being given away. So word to the wise. Be there. Or be square. Jump on that. Remember we're an 11 person business all about live talk shows. The gauntlet episode of Game Showdown went up this morning. It's the precursor to the new season,

which starts next week over on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games and on the gamescast podcast feed. You won't believe who wins the gauntlet, Tim. KFGD today was the reveal of the deal of the Dice Award nominees. Right now is the Games cast and after this is nothing. We're not having a stream today

because this episode is gonna be a jam-packed episodes to strap in. If you're a kind of funny member you can get today's Gregway which is Gregory. It's me talking about a number of things, all right?

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For now, let's start with topic of the show. Tots, tats, tats, tats, tats, tats. It's the 2024 kind of funny smileys. So like we mentioned, what are the smilies? Well, we want to honor a lot of the releases that came out in 2024. I look at this as kind of the appetizer to our game of the year top 10, which is coming on Monday. Baird, is there anything you want to mention about our game of the year? Should people be hyped for it?

Oh, yeah. I mean, obviously, it's one of the biggest productions that we do every year. You know, like this set here, we take full utilization of the big set. A lot of exciting stuff, a lot of exciting reveals. I've been watching back our last couple of game of the years, just because I love seeing y'all react to what comes in at number 10 and number nine and all that stuff. And, yeah, so if you want to see the boys live react to what the official kind of funny game of the year, top 10 list is for 2024. Definitely check in Monday for that. And then also something special

next week, we will be talking about our personal top tens throughout the rest of the week next week on Gamescast to give even more love to some of the games that were on our personal top tens that may have not made it to the official kind of funny top 10 list. So as we talk about things today and categories and stuff, let's try to hold back like what games were at certain places on our and all that stuff. So no spoiling game of the year, no spoiling your top 10s here.

Paris will be here in studio for game of the year next week for both the big episode on Monday and for his own top 10 that he's going to be doing on one of the games cast out the week. So people have been asking that. There you know,

there you go. It's going to be a game of the year week. You're kind of funny. So strap in for an entire week. Exception. Oh, yeah. Can't say much yet. We got some very cool,

very, very, very cool happening next week. What? Yeah. What is it? Yeah. You know. And he really tunes out of the weekly meeting. Game of the year on Monday.

Top tens every day of the week with the exception of Wednesday when we will do the games cast at 4 p.m. Stay tuned. Wink. Wink. Two wings for you. So, this is the appetizer, right? We got 12 categories that we're going to talk about today. Each category

has been voted on by everybody sitting at this panel plus Paris Lilly. Of course, you will again see next week during the actual game of the year. We have five winners for each category based on write-ins. The categories are as follows. We have Best Indy slash Independent Game. And I'm putting that as however you want to define it. Because, of course, everybody wants to define indie their own way. I'm letting you guys define indie however you want. We got Best Style, the game encompassing in an outstanding combination of visuals,

music, and or fidelity. We have Best Old Game, a non-2024 game that deserves recognition. could be for a remake, remaster, resurgence, or something we relate to the game on. Best Early Access, the game that had the best showing in early access. Best DLC slash expansion, the expansion or downloadable content that you fall in love with this year. Best Innovation, honoring a game mechanic or system that was unique and or pushed things forward. Best Character, a character this year that stood out from the pack. Best Story, the game that displayed outstanding storytelling. and writing.

Best surprise. The game that came out of nowhere and or exceeded your expectations. Best card game. This is a 2024 specific category because of 2024 was a huge year when it came to card games. That's actually getting to gather and coming out of nowhere.

Exactly. Who would have known? So this is for the best game based in a card format, whether a mini game or a full-fledged game itself. Best Studio for the studio that earned MVP status in 2024 and the Players Choice Award.

This is a Shepard. out to a game that might not get love on the game of the year list, but you still want to give it flowers. Also, as a reminder, we don't know what's on the game of the year list, but this is kind of us thinking ahead and being like, all right, what's kind of low key? What's something that we want to, you know, before we even get there, make sure that it's

shouted out, make sure it gets the love that it deserves. And even more context with that, because I am the only one here on the show who does know what the top 10 is. We did vote for these, I think, before I got any official top 10 list of finalization. So,

Yeah. Even when we say vote for these, we put in all our nominees, right? Is that how? And then what did you do? You tabulated the ones that had multiple nominees? That's the thing is like the one. So again, I'm picking five for each category. There's about eight, nine of us somewhere around there. Basically, I went in and I pick and pick and chose. Anything they got more than one vote automatically makes it in. Okay. And then from there, I just balanced based on vibes based on like, all right, I know this thing is loved by multiple people. And so this one I'm going to, you know, give more push to you. But I'm just going to make sure to balance and make sure that. Everybody is represented through all these categories. And so this is translated through the eyes of blessing at E.O.E.A. Jr., I think a bit of Andy Cortez as well. But this is representative of all of our taste here are kind of funny.

I love that. All right. Oh, kisses us. Are we ready to hop in? With our first category, best indie slash independent game. Barrett, you can reveal the first game. It is. Palatro.

To give a little context to this one, I believe three people wrote Ineisdeme, in Bellatro, making it the highest voted one for this category. And so shout out, Belatro. Who wants to talk about it? I didn't write it in because I haven't played it. I think, Bear, were you one to the ones for this one? I don't think so. Wow.

Who wrote this in? I wrote this in. I wrote Made by one Gibroni. So shout out. I mean, Blachers is a fantastic game, right? I mean, I think the addiction you've seen from the industry at large, let alone people at large. you know, dominating as it did, you know,

when Barrett had inside information to get it into his fantasy critic. I listened to a public podcast. He didn't tell us about it. I know, right? It doesn't seem very public. It doesn't seem very public when he's like, have you ever heard of Giants bomb? I hadn't heard of G. Ed's Behold.

You know, it's out of France, I think. It doesn't matter. I didn't even fucking win last year. It gives a shit. But anyways, coming on to be that strong. I think we talk all the time about games that come out too early in the year. Oh, this would have done better if it came out last.

Bellacho had consistent love, praise, let alone then the addition of going in and we're going to add in decks for other independent games, which is always a nice look, let alone then to launch on iOS and mobile devices and really dominate the game. And see a whole new group of people being like, oh, my God. The LA Wildfires are going on,

and I've seen so many people who are like, oh, I finally down to the Balatro while I'm at my aunt's house evacuated. This is amazing. Yeah, I think the versatility of Belatro being available on so many different platforms, including mobile, right? and just how big of a hit it was, how small of a team that actually created it. And I think that that obviously adds a lot more difficulty to creating the game, but I think it also allows a lot more ability to be nimble and to do different things,

try different things and be able to collaborate with others. And you were the one in control of those collaborations. And it reminds me a lot of vampire survivors a couple of years ago where it's like that was just such a major hit. I think a lot of that was being able to like find the trends and find the moments. and like we look at something like Fortnite in the collaborations it does and how impressive that can be and I feel like anything I say about Fortnite I can say about Bellatro. That's very, very cool. That I think that they have taken such great advantage of having an amazing game and amazing

product and speaking to their users, giving them what they want and continuing to feed them more and more of that. Like shout out to Bellatro. Yeah. And this is the game that I have been able to one to one. Every single person I would be like, hey, here's this game, Belancher, you got to try it out. one to one, every single person would download it and become obsessed with it. I know so many people in my life, at least five people in my life that did not hear about

the game. Hey, check it out. It's only like, what, like 10 bucks, something like that. Download it on your phone, download it on Steam, try it out. Oh my gosh, I didn't sleep last night. I'm playing Blotter all night, right? So that's really incredible to just be able to pitch it to somebody and then just fall in love and become obsessed with it like that. So the folks who wrote this one in, where Paris Lily, Snowmike Mike, and myself, and yeah, I think the thing I would say to Palatro is the fact that it is such pure gameplay Like, aesthetically, it's a good game. The soundtrack is really cool and really it is an earworm, right?

The, like, the music of the game gets into you. But as far as talking about, like, Balatro and why I think Belatro is special. It is almost like one of the few perfectly designed video games. Like, when I play Belacho, I think of it in the same vein as I think of, like, a Tetris or even a Solitaire, where I'm like, every computer going forward should be, should come with Belatro pre-install, right? It is that good of a card game. I think it takes roguelite structure and I think applies that to the same.

standard 52 deck of cards and I think does maybe some of the best stuff ever done with the 52 deck of cards right and that is like you know taking in those mechanics of poker but you don't have to be a poker expert to play this game it is about taking that idea and creating infinite possibilities in terms of how you can play how you can strategize building a build right the amount of the jokers the amount of the jokers for people who may not have played balaccio right are essentially like the different uh uh things that alter your gameplay that you can strategize around and being able to go, all right, I have four slots, five slots, six slots for different jokers that I can use to play off each other to build the best build as possible.

It's so fantastic. It's so good. Barrett, what is our next game for best indie slash independent game? A thousand X resist. So I think this is the one that I voted for. Correct. Yeah, I wanted to shout this out specifically, and maybe me writing this in might have been better for Best Studio, but I think just there's something special about the way this game was developed,

if you don't know, a thousand X resists, is, I'm blanking on the studio name. Sunset Visitor. Yes, it is their very first game. And what they did before making games was like, they were all like artists. Like a few of them were like theater actors and all this stuff. And then when the pandemic happened, they couldn't do, like, they couldn't go out and perform and all this stuff. So they're all stuck at home.

and they're like, well, let's make a video game. And I think just like the way that came together and the way that oozes through this game of like kind of different like forms of art kind of flooding through this game in so many different ways. The way that like cinematography works in this game, there's so many like beautiful shots. There's like at one point, I met a commentary on like theater that I think is like really cool. And yeah, I just thought as this being their first game, I thought it was something really, really special. If you don't know, just the quick premise is you play as Watcher, who is a clone who lives in a colony of clones, and they're all cloned after this one girl who is the sole survivor

of a world-ending event. And it starts off with you killing the original girl, and then kind of you backtrack from there and kind of learn why your character was led to do that. It has a very interesting commentary on the pandemic, on power structures and how power structures can, or like, how people can kind of use turmoil to gain power in certain situations that I think is this very reflective of our current times. And I think it's just a very beautifully written game. I think it's like one of the best told stories in video games in the last decade. and I think everybody should try it out. This got a lot of love in the Dice Award nominations we just did over on Games Daily

in which it was written in on your wrong that it's 1,000 times resist. That's how the developers have spoken out saying that's how it's meant to be pronounced. X sounds so much cooler though. X doesn't really. I mean, just make up your mind everybody. Cross.

Maybe write the work, you know what I mean? Yeah, this is one that I played, I think probably right after Barrett played it and like evangelized it, right? And like, for me, a thousand times resist is one of those cases of a game that I play, and I'm like, oh, this stands out for the pack. It's one that I think is special and one that I think could possibly move things forward in terms of how people approach riding in video games and approach, like, you know, how we can tell, how we can portray

different themes, right? I think the fact that this is not necessarily a walking sim, but it is, I would maybe categorize it as more adventure game adjacent as far as, like, how narrative focused it is. There's gameplay around it, but like the gameplay almost feels like, hey, we just don't want to compliment this story we're telling. And the way they go about that, I think, allows for the stuff that bears talking about in terms of what they tackle thematically, right? But I think it's not just about the fact that they're talking about, you know, political structures. They're talking about like pandemic. They're talking about these different things is the fact that they're able to do that with like such emotion and such like strong feeling that by the time I finished the game, there was like an anger I felt in my heart. Right. And like, I think, I think that is something that is so strong and that's something that I feel like, you know, video games have the ability to do, but I think sometimes rarely get to that point. And a thousand X resist is one of those ones where, Bear, you can correct me if I'm wrong. This studio, I believe this is their first games. And it feels like, it feels like somebody with new and fresh ideas entered the fray. Right? Like, it feels like somebody that's like, oh, I'm not in here to, I'm not here to make my own God of War. I'm not here to make my own like 2D, Metroidvania. I'm here to make my vision. I'm here to make my vision. to have Super Mario, what's that? No idea.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and it's how they tell the story. And, you know, there's a lot of jumping through time to see different eras. Like, there's some points where you can see the girl

that you're cloned after, her perspective of when this, um, world ending pandemic, uh, starts and the pandemic, the disease that's going throughout the people is, when you get sick,

uh, you're flooded with all of your saddest memories that you cry until you have, no more moisture inside your body. And happens in a lot of time there. Yeah. And so, scary movie.

Like to see, like, you jump to like seeing her perspective. You, you know, jump to watcher's perspectives. There's some other time things that happen. And there's a moment where like three or four threads are all unraveling at the same time and you're jumping from point to point. And I think it's really impressive that like it doesn't feel jarring to jump from all these different points all within like a 10 minute span of each other. because they're all emotionally relevant to what, like, each one happening at the same time.

And so, yeah, I just think how they tell the story and how they kind of slowly reveal all of these different threads that emotionally tie together. I think is really, really impressive. Barry, what we got next for best indie slash independent game? Nine stories. Which is one that I expected to be written in by Barrett Courtney, but I'll surprise to see that it was instead written in by Andy Cortez. Yeah, I showed this game to Barrett. told him recommended it to him. Told him to give it a shot.

It's a game that I was very frustrated with early on. Nine Souls is a 2D Metro-D-Metrobinia platformer that has a lot of Sequeurot tendencies, a lot of deflections. That's how you parry. Gameplay was always fantastic, but I was very frustrated with early on. And this is a game that I, on the kind of funny channel during the pandemic, I recorded a demo gameplay for it and put up like demo gameplay, Securo 2D, whatever the on the kind of funny channel and was like,

where is this game? And it finally came out and was super stoked about it and was immediately kind of annoyed by the exploration and stuff. And kind of once I got over that and started getting into the really good boss fights, but not only that, stories and characters, it gets really, really dark at times.

But I love the journey that the main character goes on. And I think that it's, if you're somebody who enjoys kind of difficult gameplay or just somebody who wants a game with amazing characters, these bosses that always have kind of motivations that you can kind of understand where they're coming from. I love that stuff. They tell a great story.

It's from Red Candle Games. Shout out to Nintholes. Shout out. Well said. Well said. Bear, what's the next game? Thank goodness you're here. Which I look at Greg, because I assume this is the Greg Jones.

It was. Yeah, I'm never sure if you have stats on who else put it on here. Yeah, thank goodness you're here. a game that caught me off guard. I thought it looked really goofy and looked really funny, but I didn't think it would be a good experience in terms of games, right? Humor's so hard to get into a game,

let alone the fact that this is based entirely on British humor, which, as much as I love, Monty Python or Benny Hill, right? Like, I'm not necessarily into the references and all these other different things they'd be dropping in here, even though I did live with Lucy James

for quite some time. Oh, and worth pointing out, of course, that Jen, my wife, works at Pop Agenda, and they helped publish this game or help market or whatever. I don't know. But it doesn't matter. You know how much I don't like most of the games they put out. Thank goodness you're here, though. Just a great indie, hilarious the entire way through.

And I thought engaging in a gameplay way I wasn't expecting, right? You just jump and you just slap. That's all you do in this game. And I think they go through and pack this thing with funny references, gorgeous art. I think even when we were looking at the trailers, it was never the art didn't look. It was more like, am I watching adult swim? How is this going to actually perform? And they, of course, make it a slap former where you go through.

and have all sorts of little mini games, little many things you're doing to do this thing to move the next thing. You're always basically just pushing to the right, which will then loop you back around to get where you need to be. Hilarious, enjoyable, colorful, and most importantly, unexpected, I think. And I did not want my time with it to end, which I thought this is very much going to be a game I play. I'll enjoy for a little bit, but eventually fall out of it. Instead, I went all the way through and just had such a good time with it. Hell yeah. Oh, yeah.

Barrett, what's our final game for best Indies? slash independent animal well was knocked over my fucking water everybody you're 10 out of 10 roger yeah uh animal well is is a special video game uh i'm not somebody who is a Metroidvania person uh I've tried a lot of metroids this year but animal well like

stays with me in a way that I can't describe it feels like um it can all-timer experience um when it comes to games I love the exploration of this I fell in love with uh going and just going into a direction and getting completely lost and triple backing, quadruple backing, going through the entire map.

I had a moment where I took out a pen and paper and drew the entire map and I was trying to figure out where certain things were. The special thing about animal well is that there is no combat or traditional combat in that sense. So you're always just finding things to survive, right?

You never feel like you were powerful against any of the animals or any of the kingdoms. You always feel like you're just surviving. You're just trying to get by. And all of the items are so unique. You see, of course, You have a bubble blower where you can hop on little bubbles.

You have a frisbee. You have a yo-yo. It's in the visual style of it is gorgeous. It's very simplistic and the game is extremely optimized. Like, not to get into the nerd side of it all, but like this game was made by one developer, all the music, all the graphics. Everything about it is one guy made an entire engine for this game. I think he said that the game is like eight megabytes or something crazy like that. You can put this on a flash drive, put it anywhere, boot it up, and it will play on anything.

It is a really special game. and it's one that I don't even want to say more about because if you haven't played it, play it, buy it, whatever, and just boot it up and hope you love it. Because if you don't, that's totally fine, but it might be something really special for you. That out to Billy Bassu. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, with the game, it's hard to talk about the gameplay. Like, I'm definitely there with your project. Because it's so much of that game is discovering what the gameplay is and discovering how things work. I just want to shout out that if you play it in window mode

and if you move the window around, the physics of the game followed the window on PC, which I think is pretty neat. Yeah, it's incredible stuff. Yeah, this is one that I also got super obsessed with. I think, you know, you mentioning that there's not as much, there's not really combat in this game,

at least traditional combat, is such like a big aspect of what I think does make this game special, where it is purely exploration and puzzle solving, and the fact that it isn't, oh, you're unlocking a bigger beam, or you're unlocking an uppercut that allows you to, like, get to higher places. It's more so, oh, you're unlocking a yo-yo.

And you got to really think about the ways in which you can use this thing. Oh, you unlock, like, I don't want to spoil the other items, but you unlock items where it's like as you play it, as you tinker around, you kind of learn what these things get to do. And as you mess around in this thing, it's the same way that I'll point to a game like Mario 64

and like learning just how to use your abilities and move and like do these different things. It unlocks different ways of getting around. And how they work together to in interesting ways. Like, yeah, there's some, it was awesome having the playground moment with Andy. Right. As we're playing it, we would come in every day

and I'd be like, did you know X, X, Z did this? he was like, oh, I didn't even get that ability yet because I went this way the entire game. So, like, you can really go out it any different way. Yeah, it is, it's a masterclass in game design and level design specifically. That whole map is something special. And there's so many secrets in that game that they were even saying, like, Billy Batson was saying, like, yeah, like, there are secrets in the game that I expected people to, like, find 10 years from now. People will found in, like, a day, and there's some really wild stuff out there.

I almost wanted to fight Greg on Games Daily this morning. He was talking to Stella about the Dice Awards nominations, and you were going to, went through the list of outstanding achievement in game design. And you said animal well, no combat. So probably Astrobot. It's like, I didn't, I wasn't insulting it for now. No, but you were calling out what was different about its design. You were using that as a way to say, like, it probably won't win because there's no combat.

No, that was not my point. But I understand where you could interpret that. You want to, do you want to fight him right now, Roger? I think we have to fight him, bro. I didn't see if you went. I'll go after his calf. Not like Garfield cast. Congratulations to the best indie slash independent games.

Yeah. Let's move on to our next category. Best Style. This is for the game encompassing an outstanding combination of visuals, music, and or fidelity. Barrett, reveal our first pick here.

It is Destiny 2, the final shape. It was probably mine. Yes, it was yours. Probably mine. The man that's talking about the style of Destiny 2, any chance he gets.

Once I saw the nominations, Tim, I was like, was that mine? Because I could have sworn that I... Here's the thing. It wasn't.

It was mine. Yes! Yes. Come on. We had a really good time with Destiny 2, the final shape. Great entry. But really, when it comes to style,

at Ouse style, it was all over the board. It was really messing with your mind. It had some great touches, some really good music, some cool fights where they incorporated 12 people instead of just your normal 3 on the fire team,

which I really enjoyed. And all in all, yeah, this was a great little ending to Destiny 2, right? It's always fun to go back for the DLC and have a good time. But, yeah, this is how I wanted to end my Destiny 2 run. Yeah, a thousand percent. Every time you'd walk into a new place, it's like, wow, this is a wallpaper.

Amazing art direction, and I was so happy with the experience. As somebody who fell off of Destiny quite a bit, loved it. Yeah, this is one of those categories where there wasn't really any consensus, right? Like everything that's being pulled up here got written in once. But Destiny 2 the Final Shape, I pushed to the front because, you know, Mike voted it in, but I remember hearing Andy all year talking about it. So yeah, congratulations, Destiny 2, the Final Shape. Next up, we got.

Black myth Lupong. One that got voted in by Paris Lily, but another one that, like, I saw, and immediately co-signed as far as, like, I'm sure Andy will too, of, like, yo, this game looks fantastic. It has those cutscenes from chapter to chapter, which surprise you, delight you,

makes you go, wow, I can't believe people are doing this in a AAA video game. Like, this is so creative and, you know, forward-looking as far as what you can do with this medium. But then also, like, a game that I think one of the best things about it is how it presents, right? I love looking at this game.

I love the effects that happen as I get into combat in this game. I love how the environments look in this game, right? I love the cutscenes. Like there's so much that is there as far as like how this game presents that I think works and really does, for me, carry the experience while I'm playing it.

Yeah, really, really pretty. And you're totally dead on with those little interstitial cutscenes whenever you finish a chapter and you just get a short animation and it's like, here's a four minute, here's a four minute stop motion animation. Here's a four-minute, just 2D anime-style thing.

Really impressive what they do, chapter to chapter. Yeah, this is one of those games. I keep on looking at the trailers, and I'm like, man, this looks like a fake game, but like in the best way. You know what I'm like, in a way of like, I can't believe this. This can't believe this is real. Next up, we got. Never.

Never. Never. Great call out for this. This was not my pick. I think it was mine. Yeah, but it makes sense, though. I'm happy to see it here because, yeah, gorgeous. And I feel like the way that it tied.

just the look, the colors, the animations, with the music, with the ambient sounds, with the voice callouts of her calling Neva, like all of that combines to something that is like stylish for a purpose, right? I feel like the style just backs up the substance of this game so beautifully. Yeah, I really enjoyed my time with Neva. Similar to Destiny 2's, you know, every screenshot, they really let you soak in those environments. And when they know they have something beautiful looking, they will totally pull the camera out and then just have your character super tiny amongst this

amazing landscape with amazing color palettes and great environments. Yeah, they, Studio Namada really kicked ass. Next up, for best style we got Metaphor Re Fantasio.

Which was a Greg Miller submission. It was. You know, I respect Metaphor so much. much. I did not roll credits on it. I tapped out early. JRP's aren't my thing. But it is, I think, a remarkable

stylistic choice from Atlas in this team, right? And obviously, you come to expect that when you look at person, I mean, any persona, but persona 5 especially, right? For them to come in here with metaphor and have this visual style for the world. And I know we've talked at length about this Andy on shows, right? Where you're like, it's

ugly. Like, it's not a good looking game, but I don't like this, but the style is what I think carries it in terms of like, it's committed to what it is and how it looks. And I think that's why it works. In the same way we can look at Switch games a lot and be like, well, of course, it's not stunning 4K, whatever, but it's gorgeous in terms of what it's doing. I think that's what metaphor is for me.

For me, it's the UI. I mean, their UI, they always knock it out of the park. And yeah, whenever I say the game is unattractive, I think there's just some performance things where it looks noisy and maybe they go for crunchy textures in a way that doesn't appeal to my eye, but then I hit the pause menu and immediately all my complaints are like, shut up, me a little bit. The menus are so fucking wild and cool, and I love that they leaned into it being kind of messier. Like, the one thing I want to shout out is, like, all of these, like, all of these words are in different fonts from font to font, I believe. And it's just like them kind of going away from persona five and like how like sleek and cool persona five was.

And then them just getting like totally weird with metaphor. I absolutely adore. And then. A little grungy. Yeah. The, the art style in engine and all that stuff is just, uh, building off of what the Personic games have done so far, and I think they nailed it out of the part. Yeah, I think I lean a little toward Andy talking about, like, kind of the crunchiness

of some of the assets and how maybe my eyes, it doesn't appeal to my eyes. But like, Barrett mentioning even the fonts being all different font types, but like it works, I think that might loop back in a little bit to like what does work about them committing so hard to this. And also, I think what is wild about how hard they committed to this, because it is, you know, you have those, like the 2D key art. for the characters as they're talking, but when you're traveling from a location to another location, you look at the runner and you look around in the environment you're in,

it almost looks like PS2 type graphics, right? But then you look at the characters, and the characters have like this anime-ish aesthetic to them, and everything is committing real hard to almost a different type of style, which kind of gives us this really interesting, like colliding feel of, oh, y'all are throwing everything to this pot, and I think for the most part it does stick, right? When you talk to people and talk about, like, metaphor,

What do they bring up? They'll bring up the story. They'll bring up the characters, but they will bring up the style and how well it works. And I don't want to let this get lost to this, right? Like this category also encompassing music as well. And the music of metaphor is goddamn, right?

The battle music especially, I think, is one of the best songs come out in a video game this year. But even outside of that, I think it commits to the persona persona tradition of like just great music throughout. Right. And so shout out metaphor. Next game.

Our last game for Best Style. It is Dragon Ball Sparking Zero. This is one that I had to double down for this category, right? Like, this is maybe one of the best looking games I've ever seen in my life, and I can't believe that it's a sequel to the Ten Kaiichi series of Dragon Ball games. But it is, I think I knew this game had something special

in its style when I would have people walk by my desk. I would have Roger look at my desk and be like, I can't believe how good this game looks. Yeah, I think I walked past you, and I was like, I think this might be the greatest graphics I've ever seen in my life. Because it literally looks like an episode. fucking insane shit. It's insane stuff, dude.

And like, you know, when I talk about metaphor and how much I think the style, or when I talk about black myth, I think, specifically, and talk about how much the style I think carries black myth, I'll probably say the same thing to Dragon Ball sparking zero as far as like, I love the gameplay of Dragon Ball. I love like how they interpret the story. I love the amount of content. There's so many the good things I can talk about with this game. But there's something about how this game looks when you are pulling off anything, the amount of different animation sequences they have for all the special moves across. I forget how many characters. they have in this game. I think it's like a hundred and something. It is a

an incredible looking video game. And also a shout out to the music as well, right? Like so many tracks that they have in this thing. They have like a customization setting where you can like put in different tracks where when characters enter like their sparking mode. It is fucking fantastic in terms of what it brings style wise. And so that is why it's my pick for best style. Congrats to all the one. Congrats. We're proud of you and your style. Prince was once again.

But, you know, it's okay. I get it. I put Yel Taxi Goes Room as well. We'll talk about that. I don't know if we'll talk about it. Right now. We're voting in for every category. Our next category is best old game for a non-2020 game that deserves recognition. Barrett, if you can bring up our first winner, it is Dead Rising deluxe remaster.

Take my hand, Mikey. Mikey and I went through an incredible experience playing Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster on stream. It's not a good game. You know what? It's a great game. It's a great game. It's a great game, Rodgers. No, it was funny because it was my first time actually like rolling credits on this game.

I played maybe the first five hours of it as a kid so many times. So like actually playing it through it was like, wow, there's like something here. They have a message here. They're going for something. Is it good? I don't know. It's great. It's beautiful.

It's awesome that they brought this game back to 2024 and beyond. I'm so happy to they remassed this game. Hell yeah. And Dead Rising has a franchise, fantastic video game. does some really fun stuff with the zombie apocalypse world. And the first one starting in the mall. And how old that game truly felt if you were trying to play the original nowadays is tough. They've definitely brought that to a new, you know, 2024 feeling where you can play that in present day and smile and laugh.

Put up with the dumb shenanigans. But still, get to see the psychopaths and see all those killer moments. Get to try to run around the mall and try to save all of those different people within the time limits. Like this game absolutely rocks. so happy it's back. Shout out to another thing we can add to the list where Roger says,

is it good? I don't think so. But that's my, that's me though. Like, those are my favorite things are the things that I'm like, I don't,

is actually like, if I were to give this to the Oscars, like, are they going to fucking say this the greatest thing ever? No, they're not. But,

I don't want to look at the chat. I don't want to play in dead. Don't look at me, chat. Don't look at my shame. But yeah, I had a great time. I did, however, see the chat,

people were like, Silent Hill 2. And I was like, The smileys takes itself very seriously. Our next game is Paper Mario the thousand year door. You'll love to see it. I wonder who put this here. Of course it was me, everybody. One of the best Nintendo games ever. That's saying something.

I feel like this is definitely one of those games came out in the GameCube. I would say kind of forgotten over the years it has definitely gotten the credit that it deserves and is at least starting to, and I think with this remake, it's going to continue to. But this is one of those games we can talk about Nintendo and they're all stars, right?

Like, what are the biggest hits they've had? One of the best games they've ever had. And we all can kind of understand that we can come up with a list of what, 10, 20, 30, like, we know that there's a lot of great games. This is one of those like cult classic ones. These are one of those, if you know, you know type things that everybody that played this knows that it is special,

that it is one of the, if not the best of the Mario RPG series, no matter if you're talking about Paper Mario, Mario, RPG, or Mario and Luigi. This is the one. Like, this one is awesome. And I really want to give this extra flowers and credit for being one of the best remakes I've ever played. They put so much love into this GameCube game, turning it into a modern switch game. And you might look at this and be like, all right, cool, this is what it was. No, like this is the lighting in this is so, so advanced.

Just even it being like widescreen, although the way it all looks is it's perfect. This is a perfect remake. I'm so happy way more people have been able to play it. I feel like even just getting the sales numbers we got. Like I think that in the one year it's been out here, it's already like four times, five times sold what it did on game. Like that's awesome. But yeah, this game is great. And like I would continue to recommend it to everybody at this panel.

Like I feel like you would vibe with it. This game's awesome. It is very funny. The gameplay is rad. Music's great. The adventure's fantastic. It's a classic. That's the first of two Mario games

because I submitted it as Super Mario Sunshine. Okay. Not on the list. Our next game for Best Old Game is Monster Hunter Now. I assume that's me. Anyone else? Yeah, Monster Hunter Now, of course, celebrated its year anniversary over the summer, right?

And I was somebody as a Monster Hunter fan, somebody who enjoyed Pokemon Go, jumped in right away back when it first launched, and was whelmed enough. And it was like, okay, move on. As Ben's gotten older and I've had more free time in parks and walking around cities and also just sitting there while I can't commit to busting on a PlayStation portal or a steam deck and really getting into something.

I went back to Monster Hunter now and the stuff they've packed in, the latest season or the latest big season update about a year thing. It was like, damn, they've really come through and made a game that I feel is more active than Pokemon Go, at least for what I want to do in terms of like I like getting in there and leveling up my weapons. and now I'm switching this. And now I have a daily quest that wants me to use a weapon I've never used before. So I'm going to go this.

I'm going to build this. What do you hate? I'm just so jealous. I'm so jealous that you get to play a fucking new game. And I'm stuck playing this like game from 2016 that they just refuse to change. There's building on what was there. And I'm sitting here tapping like an idiot. Every time I play Monster Hunter now at a demo or an event, I'm just like, this is so much better than Pokemon.

I hate it. Yeah. And it's like, it's one of those things. It's still a time waste. It's still a, you know, a mobile game. It's whatever. I don't think it's doing the gotcha. and I'm not trying to grind at the highest degree

and all this other stuff of like making me pay or anything to that thing. But like they have a great battle pass that I really enjoy playing. They have cool unlocks. They have cool events all the time. They're giving me free outfits and this, that the other. Like, I really do enjoy it. And, you know, the way they've expanded it this year of dropping in and giving you the portals to go fight monsters

that aren't necessarily by you. It's very nice. There's the different biomes that you know from Monster Hunter, right? But they move across the map. So like, even if you were to stay in one park every day, that's where you play. every day theoretically it should be a different biome that you're able to capture a different monster and do a different thing in i love monster hunter now and i can't get enough again shout out to me going to

um osaka to play monster hunter wilds and then getting an email from capcombe r saying and while you're in osaka andy we would love to reward you with this monster hunter battle pass and here's this like in game currency and all this stuff and i saw the email and then immediately get a reply from gregg who's on the email thursday oh wait wait can i i want that Can I get that? Oh yeah. I mean, Of course.

Give me the stuff. Yeah. Our fourth game for best old game is Bloodbred. Hey, you heard of this game? Whoa. Who wrote this one in? Heard of this?

Who's this? Tam somehow. Had it great. Yeah, somehow Tam infiltrated. Yeah, I played it again for the first time since I beat it. Since the first time I'd ever played it. Played it last year. Obviously, you know, the saga, spent $1,200 on a modded PS5.

Got it to run in 60 frames per second. it was as glorious as I could have ever hoped for it to be. And, yeah, really good video game. You also check it out. Bloodborden. Never heard of it. Remake this year. Oh, man.

Frosted Donis. And our fifth pick for best old game is backyard baseball. I've played a lot of old games this year, Tim. I don't know if you've known. I've gone through all the From Soft catalog. I've played Kingdom Hearts. I've now completed Half-Life. And none of them compare to Backyard Base.

baseball. Of course, the goat, the greatest of all time. The gooch. Who would have thought that a point and click sports game would be the best sports game ever made? And I'm happy to say they did it. Okay, they knocked it out of the park. Backyard baseball 97. You draft those kids. You make the best kids, you sports team that you can and you have fun. From Pablo to Ernie, Petey Wheeler to the Weber Twins, you can have a great time, smiling, swinging, and having a good time with your friends. I mean, I'm blown away that we live in 2024, and we are now returning to the backyard sports franchise with baseball, soccer. Hopefully basketball, hockey, and football make their way onto the catalog. But I'll tell you what, nothing better than, you know, drafting nine kids onto your sports team, making the mighty melon heads, going out week to week, taking on the blue socks, the giants, the swamp rats.

It doesn't matter. It's just a fun time. And so, yeah, best back or best old game of the year. goes to backyard baseball this year for me. I'll also say best stream of the year is this stream from the over the break, which I randomly caught and you really made something special here, Mike. Yeah, you don't want to know about that one, Tim.

You don't want to know about Sue Blackwood and what she's doing out there. This is definitely one who is up. We really have to think, we really have to think the Photoshop select subject tool for Mike. I really learned, you know, Shout out to Evie.

I'm hosting parent-teacher conferences right now because my team of nine has to go to a team of eight for soccer, which means one kid will be cut. And so we're currently having conversations. You can see Pete, he comes from a split family. Of course, you know, he has a stepfather now. It's a lot of Lord. Which one is the stepfather, Earl?

No, Kenny Powers. Kenny Powers doesn't really love Pete. You know, he doesn't call the son at all. But, you know, you got to give a lot of love to Earl. He's out there trying his best. Backyard baseball to have the storyline this deep and complex. But here we are. This is built into the game too.

This is just right there. This is one of those ones where I remember streaming and raiding Mike. And I didn't know that this was happening. And he was in the middle of one of these streams. And I'd never see him commit so hard to character. And I was like, good for him. I'm just living in his best life. I'm so proud of him.

Congratulations to all of our best old game winners. Again, those were dead and rising. Paper Mario 1,000 Year Door, Monster, and Now, Bloodborne, and Backyard Baseball. Our next category is best early access. Oh, we! The game that had the best showing in early access, let's start off with our first winner,

which is Hades 2. Of course it is. Oh my God, what a video game. Honestly, I think the worst thing about this game is that it came out in early access. I wish it just came out, was finished, and amazing, because it would be the best game of all time. Hades 2 is infinitely playable.

It is fantastic. Every single thing you can say about it, It's good. Like, I have nothing bad to say about this game. Wow. That's incredible. This game is like the equivalent to the green goblin mask in my computer in the way that I played it when I played the early access when it first came out, got obsessed with it.

I played so much of it. And then after a while, I had to put it down to be like, all right, I don't want to play any more of this until final release. Like, I can't let myself play this throughout the year with the updates and all that stuff. And then not that I'll burn out on it, but I want to have that fresh experience when it finally does come out. And so like, I've had to try and pull myself back.

But every now and then I opened up Steam and I, I am looking for something to play and I'll see that. I see the Hades too and it is speaking to me like the green goblin mask will play me now and I'm like ah, I shouldn't do that. I want to kill Spider-Man. With all of the early accesses that we play, especially I would say me and Mike probably play the most early accesses, there's always the discussion that, all right, I'll play a little bit now and when the new update comes and then I'll hop back in.

What are the odds do we ever hop back in, Mike? It's very low, I would say. Like we rarely ever go back to those games whenever a new update comes because it's time was here and we moved on to something else whatever the case may be. A lot of them just stay in early access purgatory They sure do, they sure do. And uh, Hades drops and immediately

you know, 40 hours in I play it and I love everything about it. It's like, wow, what an incredible experience. And then the, uh, we've seen a couple of other DLC drops that we had the Ben Star sort of DLC recently. The something of the Olympians. I forget what it's called. Where he's, um,

yeah, that's exactly how he talks. And, uh, and I've put it in another 20 hours. And it just happens so fast. And it's just as fun and the new additions make the game even more rewarding, rewarding and more fun. It's, Tim, you're right. It may be the perfect game. And with that too, it's like, you know, we often say like, oh, it's the perfect mobile game or it's the perfect Steam Deck game or it's the perfect this game or that game. This is the perfect anywhere you play a game. Like, on the Steam Deck, I can't

imagine something being better, especially on Steam Deck Ola, this game, freaking sings. You get that 16 by 10 aspect ratio. It takes a advantage of that extra real estate and looks great. I play this on my super ultra-wide computer at home, and it takes advantage of it. Like, this game is amazing, no matter how you play it. God, I can't wait for it to be done. I booted it up in not the early access, but like the test that they gave us or whatever, and I beat that.

And I was like, I can't touch this game. That's a little 1.0. It's just so. I forgot about the test. It was so fucking good. And I was like, no, I need to just, I'll hold off. I'll hold off. That's mine as well.

Where I jumped in, tasted. I'm like, okay, I don't, I want to just wait for the final. product. Best fantasy critic draft I've ever had. Shout out. How much is that like 94? I mean, you've got to believe in the early access. You should have been able to do it again this year. Come on. Reviewing an early access game. But I cut myself off

as well, uh, Greg and Roger just because, you know, there's that moment once you can go up. And then I went up and I was like, this game is so much bigger than I expected it to be. And it's only an early access. And I don't have, I, this needs to be a different year game. Yeah. Yeah. Out of the eight of us who voted, six of us voted for Haiti's too.

I think I voted for too, yeah. That's crazy. But there was a single brave soul who did vote for our next game, which is Fields of Mystery. Oh. I'm just such a brave person. Fields of Mystery is an incredible thing.

I wish, this is the game that I regret not playing more of. I wanted to really dig my teeth into it. There was one moment where I was like, at a month where I was like, this is the prime moment to get into it. And then for some reason, kept on crashing on my steep. deck, so I just could not boot it up.

Piece of gaming. Yeah, I know, right? But now it's fixed, but whatever. I love, I do not, I'm not a Starter Valley person. I'm not even really that deep of an animal crossing person or any cozy type game, but this one just took me by surprise. I was playing it religiously

every single night. It was one of those few games that me and Leanza were playing together concurrently, which was awesome. She had her save, and we were like going back and forth and be like, hey, what's the best way to do this? How do you, you know, how do you actually deal with all of these animals? and these crops.

And I love beginning to know these characters. Like that was the part of this that I did not expect at all. I expected me maybe to like get into the farming aspect, maybe even the going into the caves and mining. But the characters are really compelling. They're so hot. All of them. It's incredible.

And yeah, I have my favorites and I'm like now trying to get the one that's really mad, that really is annoyed at me. And I'm like trying to find all the stuff so then he can, you know, date me. And like that's now my whole gameplay. I just, I'm excited for the 1.0 because I think I'm very much where I'm at with Hades, where I'm like,

this is really great, but what if I just hold off? What if I just hold off and I have the full 1.0? But the place that it's in right now is so polished. If you told me that this wasn't a one point, this wasn't an early access game, I would believe you. I'd be like, yeah, this could go as a 1.0, and I would love it. I'm excited for this game specifically to get onto Switch and to other platforms, because I think it's going to be fucking huge.

Like, this is going to be like a cultural phenomenon, Fields of Mystery, specifically. Yeah, the most recent update added the ability to, kind of go further with the relationships and added much more progression towards things. And this is one of those games I was just mentioning earlier where me and Mike are like, ah, we'll get back

to it. This is one that all year I kept saying, I'll get back to it once that new update comes through because I put in 25 hours into the initial launch and unfortunately never got back to it because just other, I would look at my steam deck like, yeah, what if I just boot a Patees too? But this is one I definitely want to get back

to you. I had a great time with this one and yeah, a lot of baddies. The color scheme is so beautiful, Like everything about like the way this game looks is, is fucking gorgeous. Good music too. Yeah. Our third winner for best early access of 2024 is Path of Exile 2.

Damn, you're the coolest. Hello everybody. It's me, Greg Miller, Path of Exile 2. The narrative here would be, of course, Zanth. Our boy. The man.

The official ARPG expert of kind of funny. The most well-spoken person to ever make an appearance on any of our shows, period. In such a good temperament, he's like, just so gentle while we're like screaming. and farting into my girlfriend. Of course, Zanth, I know from the Diablo podcast

because I'm obsessed, still am with Diablo. Excuse me, sorry. Inhale right at the wrong time. And this year would be marked with my hype for Diablo for building up to Vessel of Hatred and how I did something that does not happen to me usually with video games and burned myself out. I wanted the platinum before Vessel of Hatred.

I threw so much time into it. and I had to grind so hard for that final push, which would have been way easier after Vessel of Hatred. I then got Vessel of Hatred, reviewed it, got the retail copy, played it, and then put it down where I thought I'd still be doing my usual check-ins, working on the thing, blah-b-b-bop. So when Path of Exile 2 is coming up

and entering early access, Zanth is all about it. He is telling me and coming on the shows and talking about how it might be the best action RPG all time. And I download it truly expecting to be like, okay, but I'm burned out on Diablo. I don't want more of this. and I was so shocked to get in, oh, there's no character creator.

I just, person, that's not usually my scene, jump in and find that this game has such a different rhythm, that it is not Diablo. It is not trying to be that click, click, click, click, click, click, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, you know, numbers go up. I'm happy, blah, blah. It is, for lack of a better term, even though it's not. For me, though, it is what you guys see in Souls games so much of like, okay, cool, there's a large boss. There are bosses all over the map. I see them there. I go there, I engage with this boss, and cool, I have to learn the attack pattern.

I have to know when to dodge. I died, I'm coming right back, I'm jumping in. It's not, you know, you lose all your stuff and all the stuff. It's very forgiving on the debts. But it is this, okay, cool, I'm jumping back in, and I'm trying to figure this out, and I'm trying to crack this nut that is this one boss. I've done it. Congratulations, I've gone up.

I feel you level slowly, which is fine. I feel the gameplay is more weighted. Is it slower gameplay? It is that I walk in, and guess what? There are a bunch of ads around me, and in Diablo, we were playing hardcore the other day. Granted on normal and then we cranes it up to hard. But like you get surrounded by ads, you're going to be fine for the most part. Ads?

Yeah, you know, not your boss, your additional enemies. Yeah, yeah, that's what you call the little grunts or whatever. Gotcha. When you get Tim, come on, man. Half circle. I thought it was on the game awards. You know what I mean? Fucking Mario doesn't have ads.

You know what I mean? Well to work. Yeah, exactly. You get the show ad free with the kind of funny. Speaking of that. But when they, you know, hear a crescent of like five guys, that can be the end of you. You got to fall back. You got to get defensive.

I love how different. this plays. I think that there's room in my heart for both of them, where I will eventually be over my, oh, I had too much Diablo at the buffet. When I come back probably the next season, and when this gets more updates and when this is a full 1.0, I'm going to be off to the races on both of them. I love Path of Exile, too. Yeah, this game rocks. Spend about 14 hours on this one, got to act too and loved every single minute of it. It is the Diablo alternative that I've always looked for, right? And I love all of it that it has to offer. I know a lot of people get a little worried because it does look so overwhelming, but it's not, right? You take the

time to learn. And of course, I had Zanth as a teacher, but I love the giant skill tree that you have. I love that all the passive abilities look like the galaxy of stars above your head as you go through each and every one and level up your character. This is a must play ARPG if you're looking for another piece of Diablo pie. This is great. Hell yeah. The last two selections for Best Early Access Plus, because these were the only three that were nominated. So I took executive power and I just added two that I also really enjoyed this year. And that is Witchfire. which is a game that I cannot talk enough about first-person shooter, Rogue Light, and it's a game that's been in Early Access for a very long time.

So I say that so that you don't think that, oh, I'll wait to buy it because it's probably not very much of a completed product. This game feels very developed. This game has been in development for about, I think, like seven years or so, and then it hit Early Access in 2021, I believe, on the Epic Game Store, and then it finally hit Steam Early Access last year. This game is very, very developed. It's from the developers of Pain Killer. This is a, again, very doom sort of style

with a lot of destiny-type magic, but the progression is so damn-addicting and the amount of times I thought I was going to end the stream and said, oh, let me just check out this new gun I unlocked that marks all of the enemies when I'm aiming down sights so that when I shoot one of them, the bullets travel to all the other enemies.

Let me see how that looks, and then you get addicted to that loop. It's so creative, and it's so fun, and it's oozing with style. Visually, it's awesome, and the only thing is that I wish the soundtrack was a bit more banging, but other than that,

like, I think the, it's so addicting and so much fun to play, and this is kind of why I love roglytes. And the next one on the list is another rogeline, and that's windblown. This is one that I really want him to play. Yeah, this is a good one. And this is one that I want me, Bless and Mike to get back to, because for the amount of times that you see a game that you ask yourself, oh, you can play multiplayer, will it be as good?

No, it's probably meant for multiplayer. This is one that I looked at was like, I'm going to play Windblown just as a single player experience. It is from the devs. It's Motion Twin, the people that made Dead Cells. And Windblown is a top-down, roguelite adventure action game with a lot of the same ideas of Dead Cells. cells. A lot of that core DNA is there. But while you play, I'll play this at the single

player experience. We'll stream it with Mike and Bless. I'm probably not going to dig it that much. And somehow I dug the multiplayer experience even more than I did the single player experience. It has a really awesome feature. Whenever everybody's dead and there's only one person left in the game, it kicks on this sudden death

mechanic where the one person who's alive, if you kill a certain amount of enemies, you bring back your homies, but you die in one hit. And it's just like all or nothing sort of thing. You really have to clutch up. And moments like that just brings so much more excitement. But this game is a lot of fun. And again, progression and meeting NPCs out in the wild that whenever you meet them,

you'll recruit them back to your base. And now they upgrade this thing. And that NPC upgrades permanent things about your build that may improve future runs. It's so much fun. It's got a great style. and the coolest thing and the best decision they made is that you can't dash off the edges. It makes you feel so good and

and fast and slick while you're kind of traversing the world. It's a blast to play. And this is one that I really want to play because I think you'll see the magic. I bought it and I've downloaded it on my PC and Steve Beck and I just still haven't put it up. That's my bad. Very, very good one. This one is definitely one that I will say is earlier than a lot

of the early accesses on this list. Well, I think Path of Exile might be equal, but windbone is one that is still very early on where a lot of the feedback is still being taken into a lot of consideration where I'd say something like Witchfire and Hades 2 seem really, really kind of far down in their development cycle. It strikes me as one that's going to be really special when it gets to that 1.0.

This was like so close to making my kind of like top 15. Will it kind of get close to be the top 10? For me, this is one of those that's like, do not be surprised if you see it as a top 10 in the year that it finally releases. A lot of fun. I love that. Congratulations to all. all of our winners of best early access of 2024.

We're going to move on to our next category. But before we do, want to shout out some super chats. We have quite a few come in. Ultra hyper J-dub super chats with a birthday tax. Thank you so much for that. C.J. Splitson wrote this during our early access segment and said, Hades 2 gave me the year contender,

2025, we'll see. I mean, probably. My biggest problem is I feel like the early access shit gets in the way of all that. You think so? I think it's still going to be in the conversation, but I do think there's going to be a lot of people

that don't necessarily give it to say credit I think I'm one of those people. Wow. Failure to think, right, Sina says, PPV of Mike coaching a real kids baseball team. Jesus. I'm sure you'll get that at some point. Rails, right in it says,

Master of Hype, Snowmike, Mike dig the jacket, looking sharp gibboni. Feel great. Joe Ferrelli wrote in, I believe during our best indie segment that said, reminder, Balatro is free on Apple Arcade. Dilsh writes in and says,

got that, huh? Yeah. Apple are you. Updated. A little rocking. Dale Shrites in it says, factorial space age, the greatest automation slash base builder of all time. Play it, Mike, and everyone. Deer Six, it says,

oh man, I hope this award show has the Silk Song announcement. Beast Ritsen wants to know why you're not wearing a kind of funny blue blazer, Tim. See, I like, look how good I look. You know what I mean? You go with the offset, right? We're mainly blue. It's like, I want to pop off with the accent color.

Yeah. It's a, it's a good. confirmed with me yesterday. We had the blue and the gold. You got to pop with the gold. Oh, that's why you asked that question. Yeah. I thought it was a back end thing. You're like, hey, I got to like.

Oh, no. It was for what outfit I was going to wear. I love that. I brought my blue as well today. I was like, I wanted it back. I wanted to sit down and see it with you guys if I looked stupid. And I don't. So I was like, I'm a rock.

Killer. Thank you. We got one more from Lewis Legg who writes and it says, thank you all for what you do. Massively helped me through struggles with grief. All looking dapper as fuck. And Roger would be a great Lex Luther. Love you all.

I love that. I love that. Hire me, James Gunn. Let's move on to our fifth category here. Best DLC slash expansion. This is for the expansion or downloadable content

that you fell in love with. Our first winner for this category is, of course, Eldon Ring, Shadow of the Urd Tree. Similar to, I believe, Hades 2. Out of the eight of us, five of us voted in

with Eldon Ring, Shadow of the Erd Tree. This is one that I told Bless, if this has a lot of nominations and put someone else on the list. But yeah, Eldon Ring. I mean, what a great time. Tough, adventure, amazing, art direction, incredible discovery.

They made a whole other video game that took 50 hours to beat for their DLC in a great freaking time. Yeah, Andy and I almost missed Tim's wedding because Andy couldn't beat the boss. Yeah. That was a fun time. We definitely stopped playing co-op

and then I beat the boss. So, though, Mike got really mad at me. Mike got really mad at me. That would have me. What a great game. What a fantastic DLC, especially because I played all of the From Soft games this year, and I played all the DLCs, and to see the growth of a DLC package and what you would expect out of a From Software title to then a giant open world.

Here is just an experience that is almost like Eldon Ring where it's just massive, 40 hours, you can get lost, you can find different caves, you have everything that you would expect from it. I cannot believe that they built this and we got to play this and enjoy it this year. What a great game. Yeah, I think one that captured the Zite guys, especially in the first half of the year,

where so much of our coverage felt like it was anticipating Eldon Ring Shadow of the Earth Tree and that dominated so much of our, oh, what does this mean? Us watching the trailer and being like, okay, so what is like this sickle sort of thing that looks like a side of grace, but it isn't a side of grace?

And so much speculation was so fun leading up to this. But even while playing it, it was the thing of, you know, playing the original Eldon Ring in anticipation for, Urtree and then playing Urtree and being like, wow, y'all didn't just make more Eldon Ring. Like, y'all found ways to, you know, redo how certain aspects work, right? Like, caves are different.

The catacombs are kind of different, right? Like, you guys are adding in more of, like, the side content that you'd expect, or, like, I guess, the discoverable content that you'd expect, but remixing it in ways that makes this world feel a bit more alive and a bit more, you know, seamless as you go. That plus the bosses being incredible, like, how they, figure out the difficulty ramp, which might have been a bit much. But yeah, like, there's not, there's so much I can say, like, how vertical the world design was compared to base Eldon Ring, where it is, wow, you guys continue to level up how

you think about even how you design an open world. Very impressive with Shadow the Earth Tree. Our next winner for Best DLC slash expansion is Alan Wake 2 nightscraids. Yeah, I wrote that one in, just me, right? I believe it was. I don't know. Great play to too. I love it.

Actually, to be honest, this is a year of, like, I didn't really play many expansions or DLC, but this is the one that stood out to me. Surprisingly disappointed by the other Allen Wake 2 DLC, I thought it was kind of bare bones and didn't really move the story ahead at all, but Alan Wake 2 Night Springs, which is just a fun time, right?

It's three bespoke stories inside of the multiverse of Allen Wake 2, and they get weird with it, right? You have Jesse Faden and alternate universe, you have the waitress and a diner, and then you have, what's his face, from the, he's the detective in this one, but he's also in quantum break. I mean, Sam like himself. Yeah. Oh, no, you mean Sean Ashmore. Yeah, Sean Ashmore. So three really

weird stories that play into the multiverse of the remedy universe. And it gets really weird, but has some interesting implications for the rest of the universe, right, for Control 2 and potentially in Allen Wake 3. And it gets super meta and fun. But I just had a blast. It's such a great, you know, hanging out after work and just playing this for two and a half hours and and just I'm never I'm not going to forget this experience this was this a great way to kind of put a pain into the

DLCs for story based games are so difficult right where it is like well how much are you doing why wouldn't you go make a sequel what do you and I think so many times things get released and it actually doesn't take away but it's like well I already rolled credits so to jump into this is going to be so tough this being an anthology set in the night springs which of set in night springs which of course

is their twilight zone inside of Allen Wake 2 it was such a great little fun way of like let's give you more out of this game in this quirky universe we've made. Yeah, I just want to shout out. Just the writing as well. Like the... Hilarious.

So funny, especially with the Waitress, which I think is like, technically the first one, I think you can play him in any order, but like, that's the first one that pops up in the menu. And just the writing of that, of her kind of delusion of having a relationship with Alan Wake and how that plays into like fan fiction writing and all that was so goddamn funny. They nailed it. It's so good.

the villains yelling random barks that are just very meta about like the game development or about the game as a whole and like yeah you in the normal game you just hear a bunch of enemies saying like Wake or whatever but in this DLC just having villains yell at you like

this meta narrative is too hard to understand just random shit like that it's like very funny there's the boss fight where Alan Wake turns into like a werewolf with her that is like my my motorcycle's a werewolf too and all this shit. It's like, what the fuck are we doing here?

It's so fucking fun. So creative and a lot of fun. Yeah. Our third winner for the best DLC slash expansion of 2024 is Starfield Shattered Space. Who is this?

It's your dark horse for game of the year, everybody. So look out on Monday. You never know what's going to have any shit about that. Nobody would see it coming. You know,

everybody knows how much I adore Starfield, how much fun I have in this game. That, again, is not a 10 out of 10 minus stretch the imagination. Shattered Space was, my pick for this because of course it is a DLC that gave us what the base game should have been. Here is a planet that was handcrafted.

It's chock full of what you'd expect from a Bethesda RPG of little conversations to listen to. Here comes the quest. Here are these decisions to make. How do you want to go out? You know, you get to the end. There's going to be this big choice, this choice, who do you put in charge, blah, blah, blah. On top of that, a completely different color palette from what we had seen in Starfield before then. On top of that for so many people, it was their return to a Starfield that is far different than a launch game.

60 frames per second on Xbox of course having vehicles to drive around in the launch of the mod shop that had quests from Bethesda and then other quests from other creators that I think are better than some of the quests that are from Bethesna

had been added to it. As the Starfield stand, it was just a great way to jump back in and enjoy that world. I spent a lot of time in there and feel like, man, this is what I wish the game would have been all the way through

but I'm happy to have it now. Hell yeah. There you go. Congratulations, Sarvich. Our fourth winner, for Best DLC slash expansion of 2024 is Prince of Persia Mask of Darkness Who was this? What a DLC. What a video game.

Honestly, I feel honored that we were even able to get this expansion this year. I remember when they announced it at the Ubisoft Forward. It was just such a like, whoa, oh my God, we're getting DLC of this game. Like, didn't expect that. And if we did, I thought it was just going to be kind of like, oh, hey, here's some outfits. And they did that as well. I think that at the end of the day, Prince of Persia, the lost crown, Going to go down is one of my favorites of all time.

And with the post-release content that they've done, I think that it's only gotten better. And any kind of issue I had with the core game, they addressed. And any outfit that I wish that they had, they added. And a lot of the little quality of life things that playing through it the first time, I was like, man, I really wish fast travel work just a little bit different. Now it does. The DLC added all of that stuff.

But in addition to that, specifically the Mask of Darkness expansion here, added everything that I love about Prince of Persia lost crown. Amazing combat, amazing platforming challenges and very, very, very creative abilities and power-ups and using those in every way imaginable, getting the most juice out of it. And I couldn't believe that in this five-hour expansion, whatever it is, there's like two new abilities that are as good as the ones in the core game. And that was very special. The boss fights and this were great.

I don't know that this is as good as every single thing from the core game. but getting more of it was such a surprise story-wise. I thought this stuff was a great addition. And I just, I absolutely hate what happened to this team. They do not deserve it. But they really, really put their all into even this expansion. And I'm very thankful for it. And then our fifth winner for Best DLC slash expansion of 2024 is Destiny 2, the Final Shape.

Oh, this is mine. This is my alternate one in case it was too many olden ring votes. Because I just, again, I've, somebody who fell hard off of Destiny 2 for a long time to hop back in. And knowing that I wanted to hop back in for the final DLC, which is the final shape, I, somebody who just does, I don't know shit about the lore, but I don't, I think those final moments culminated in such an amazing way, even for somebody like me, who didn't really know every touchstone for every side character that you've met along the way.

but them having this Avengers end game moment at the end was just awesome. And gameplay wise, puzzle-wise, whatever they were asking you and your squad to do gameplay-wise was so fun. And it's just like pure first-person shooter fun. The amount of puzzles were a lot of, I think just really engaging in ways that I hadn't experienced in Destiny in a while. And I was so happy that largely the whole community of Destiny was like, wow. You all fucking crushed it. You landed the plane. This was a great time.

I had an amazing time with Destiny 2, the Final Shape. Didn't do the raid, though. Didn't get raid ready, Mike. Chris Anka didn't tell us. I got raid ready. Did you do the raid? No. No.

No, everybody talks a big game. They don't want to do it. I got raided right. I didn't do it, though. Congratulations to our winners. A best DLC slash expansion of 20204. This brings us to our sixth category out of 12. We're about halfway there.

Best Innovation. one of my favorite categories, I'll say. This is honoring a game mechanic or system that was unique and or pushed things forward in 2024. Our first winner of this category. Well, I'm going to do a half a half. Oh, yeah, after this. Our first winner is Cripmaster.

This is me and you. Wow. This one had two votes for it. Come on now. Cripmaster, a game I think that was criminally overlooked this year. In a great year of games, you know what I mean? And even recently, the developer came out on the social. social accounts like hey we have what a 95 or whatever on open critic and everybody loves us but like

we can't get in front of press and people aren't paying attention uh you know as a fan of typing of the dead which i just talked about with stella today right like this game dropping and being this you know you have four characters your dungeon crawling but you're the way you are doing is trying to relearn words and you're typing words in and trying to figure them out when you do you can then use them to cast right and go through and have these attacks like i thought taking that yeah type typing of the dead type out your attack right but have it be this, they're giving you riddles that you're then trying to solve, right? There's things you find that are other riddles to open the chest and you have to type in

questions to the Crip Masters then describing what it is. Like, can he taste it? Can he smell it? All these different. Like, this is such a fun game. I think even me talking about it doesn't showcase if we can put a trailer up, right, of this amazing black and white structure they have to it. The voice acting of the Crip Master being so cool. But then, yeah, going through and having to type and have him do things for then you to learn how you can attack and got there. So cool, right? him having so many responses to you whenever you type something and like if you say anything that is you know maybe whatever related to the scenario he'll have some commentary to it and it's one of those ones where I don't understand how they made this work as an indie game like this feels like it has

so much work put into it to make it to make it work um but it's super fun right and like the variety of puzzles in it like you know but Greg you know how much I love puzzles you're like this game very much like speaks to me in a way where I'm like oh this feels Taylor made for me and that's the thing where I think it's you know it's yeah it's a dungeon crawler but it is a puzzler, right? If you go through and you have to figure out how to open the chest and you have to figure out how to move through these doors using language and words. Our second winner for Best Innovation of 2024 is Prince of Persia,

the Lost Crown's memory shards. Timmy? You want to talk about anything? This was not on mine because I knew Tim was going to put it in there, but I love the idea. I also have tic tic tacks in my mouth. Okay, cool. Well, yeah, I did put it here.

It's not surprised, but I do think this is one of the, biggest kind of selling points to people initially when I was trying to pitch Andy and some of the team on playing this game early on where it's a Metroidvania and it's very, very big. The map can kind of, it's much larger than you expected to be, especially by the end of the game. But it had such a simple but brilliant innovation, which is these memory shards, you can essentially take a picture of a room you're in where you're like, okay, cool, I don't have the ability for this, but I know that eventually I'm going to come back and have whatever power I need to be able to solve whatever puzzle or get to wherever I need to

get that treasure especially get the treasure get the whatever it is go through a different door go through a hole whatever it is we've all played Metroidvanians we understand that that feeling of like oh man I wish I had the thing and you're never going to remember that you try to remember maybe you can pull up the map and like try your best to come up with some system of like every game has some type of like markers but like the markers or something yeah but to be able to actually pull up a screenshot of like what that room was and you remember exactly what it is

It really caused me to any time I got an upgraded ability, pull that up and be like, oh, I need to go back there. I want to backtrack there now because I have this ability instead of waiting. And it's like, that's very cool. And I feel like it gives you this like familiarity with the map and the traversing the game so much fun that I think that it enhanced my experience so much. Not just in the, oh, this is making it better to remember where to go, but also making me play the game in a different way that I think overall benefited the gameplay. It's also not, it's more than just taking a screenshot on your switch or something like that.

It, in your overall map where you see this gigantic sort of sprawling, you know, here's this, what you would expect a Metroidvania map to look like. You see that little icon all over the map of the places that you were putting down these memory shards. And then you can hover over that little icon and then boom, up opens up this little memory shard. Here's a screenshot you took with that treasure chest that you couldn't get to you because you didn't have double jump yet or whatever. And in addition to you saying, it's like, it's not just, to screenshot. I feel like explaining it kind of sounds like this is the most simple thing in the world. I think that's kind of like, yeah, this is a great innovation. Like, why hasn't every game before had this?

And I think that it works very well in tandem with all of the options this game allows you, both from an accessibility perspective, but also just from just every perspective. Like you can tweak from like a scale of like one to 10 of like how fast you want things to move, how much damage you want to take or whatever. And it's just like, it really allows you just play the game how you want. and I feel like for something like a challenging combat focused and challenging platform focused Metroidvania, being able to kind of decide how hard you want the combat and the platforming to be,

the way that this game handles it, it's like if this is an innovation, I don't know what it is. Like they truly took a tried and true genre, like a Metroidvania that has some of the best games we've ever made and innovated on how they play. I only nitpick with it is that I want it unlimited. I just wanted to be able to do it everywhere.

And then I realized, like, I max it out. And I was like, well, I don't know what to do here now. I'm just going to fucking stop playing this game. You eventually level that up as well and you get more. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, well. It sucks to suck.

I only eight of them. I need a 10. Our third winner for Best Innovation of 2024 is Metaphor ReFantazio's archetype system. Interesting. This is probably my favorite part of this video game is the archetype system. Explain to me how this is different from someone who played metaphor, didn't play persona. It's just a way more customizable. and I think it's way more deep than the persona games.

And Barrett might be able to explain it with more accuracy. So persona is different in terms of like the rest of your party have one specific like monster or whatever you want to call it that's attached to them. So they're only upgrading like that specific like as an example, Ryugi in Persema 5 has this skeleton dude who does electric attacks. Ryugi's just doing that for the entire game, right? Whereas metaphor does something different, which isn't new for JRPGs, but it is a class system

where you're able to kind of pick and choose what your team members are doing. But I think the innovation with the archetype system is being able to unlock all of these different routes for your entire team and then mixing and matching abilities. Whereas in persona, only your character, like the MC is the only one who can switch out monsters and all that shit. And so I thought the mixing and matching and being able to play around with all of these different types of gameplay styles, not just for yourself, but for your entire party, I think was such a, I don't know, big push for this style of game that I thought was, you know, that we've

seen before, but just like the little tweaks here and there, and might not be the biggest innovation. But I think it's something that really push something forward in making sure, uh, to have the player think on the gameplay and battle mechanics on a deeper level than before, especially in persona. Yeah, I know, like, I think a lot of people say, like, oh, this is just like any job system, but I think when you think about what persona brought to the table as far as mixing in the social elements with the dungeon crawling and RPG elements, I think adding in the archetype system or job system

or whatever you want to call it, right, to it, I think doubles down on the strengths of what made persona stuff great, but also the strengths of what makes job systems in RPGs great to, like, like now have something that is, oh, I am invested as a starl as a character and I am hanging out with that character in my social time, but I'm also building him

towards these things that feel way more complex than we had in any persona game on the combat side. And just the way it all unlocks as well, and I think it encourages you to try everything out to unlock like the better version of like the, you know, the mask dancer or whatever and having all these people kind of,

it loops into the gameplay, but it also loops into the story because that's definitely a persona thing where the more you hang out with all of these characters you're able to unlock certain archetypes in this as well but also having like

a reason to try out all of the kind of different base archetypes as well to get better versions of those I thought also played in another level to it that I really liked. Our fourth winner for best innovation is the pawn system

in Dragon's Dogma 2. Not an innovation. It already happened in part one but this, I feel like this was the one where this game sort of had a lot more eyes on it, and this was definitely more of the popular version of Dragon's Dogma, because I don't think part one got, had as many players as part two had, and part two, for me, was kind of like,

kind of eye-opening, because I didn't play a whole lot of Dragon's Dogma one, but I just had so much fun seeing everybody's created ponds and bringing people, into my squad. And so when you play Dragon's Lockham 2, you create your own character in this big fantasy RPG. And then you also create your main pawn.

And your main pawn, I create Rebecca Ferguson. She's the love of my life. And she's an awesome wizard warlock. She kicks so much ass. And to be able to for other players around the world to be able to recruit Rebecca to their squad, and I could set Rebecca out

in a job that says like, hey, um, I, you know, if you kill five of these enemies or whatever, I will get this reward. So if you recruit her to your squad and you kill five of those enemies, then I get a reward. And it's just, it's a really nice sort of passive way to kind of play the game as well and just have something else to kind of remember and go, oh, here's these other little additions that I'm getting throughout the game. But I just loved creating Kevin Cuello for Mike and having Kevin Coelho be

Mike's pawn and then recruited Kevin to my squad. And it was, was awesome just seeing like a four foot five kevin coelho just destroying beasts out there a lot of fun and i think they just had a really creative way of it's a really creative way of seeing everybody's creations and having these weird sort of meme moments where everybody's like man nobody's selecting my pawn because he's a because he's like not a hot lady so like and then and then like just seeing this sort of like internal struggle of please pick my guy like i need my dude to go out and jobs and get rewards or whatever. It's just a really kind of creative way to have a lot more

agency in the game and with as awesome as a character creator as that was a really fun way to kind of get creative there as well. I looked at my most played games on my Steam wrap up and I saw Jack and Zogamma 2 was there twice. One of them was a character creator because I spent

27 hours in the character creator. Wow. Good for you. That's awesome. Great time. Our fifth winner for Best Innovation is the Plucky Squires 2D to 3D gameplay. This is one that was written by the one and only Paris Lily.

But I think we all can speak to it, right? Especially with those of us who played the game even deeper, right? From me just playing, or just seeing the trailers, but then also playing the preview of it, right? Puckuswire was not one that I spent too much time with, but is one that, like, I was always jealous to see when people, when, like, Andy would talk about it or whoever would talk about it and, like, talk about, you know, how charming it was

and seeing, like, that transition from playing this legend, 2D legend is a Zelda game, and then playing this 3D game of, wow, like I can't believe a game actually pulled this off and it is out, right? It is like one that seeing the trailers, I would have been like, there's no way this game actually does this. And it's really cool to see that. It made it happen. Yeah, today, you know, on Games Daily talking about the dice knobs, this Plucky Squire made it for art direction, I believe.

And that's what I called out where, you know, I reviewed it for us. And I thought, you know, gameplay-wise, it was a bit thin in terms of what the game was. But this 2D to 3D, the arts direction, the style of that was impressive. I think my only criticism for best innovation is I feel like it's. a little bit like the medium where I wish we could do it anytime, not specific sections, you know what I mean? And I wish they used it a bit more interestingly. But in terms of the fact that it works, the fact that it looks good, the jumping out of, you know, meeting a new enemy in the book in 2D and jumping out and finding them in 3D, that was always cool.

Congratulations to our winners. Best Innovation. That does bring us halfway through our categories. And we're going to continue with our seventh one. But before we get there, I want to tell you about patreon.com slash Kind of Funny and YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny games along with Apple Podcasts and Spotify where you can get the Kind of Funny membership which allows you to get shows ad-free. And speaking of ads, let us tell you

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either either taking pee-breeks or they're getting beers one of the other above and how are you feeling so far we're halfway through the smileys we're a brainchild I love it I you know we're celebrating video games we're throwing the love as far and as wide as we possibly can blessing and what could use a little bit more love of course of course do we want to stall for a little bit because I have some things I could say oh I mean just a real quick shot I was joking earlier but like I nominated Prince of Persia for style I do think that's something that I want to speak on just a little bit because the way that the combat of Prince of Persia

kind of adapts the like Marvel versus Capcom style of like ultra moves and just like makes it all feel so perfectly dynamic with the gameplay. I just think deserves a shout out because the anime influence just gets more and more clear as you get further into the game. And I feel like the opening of the game is like the worst part of the game. And I hate that so much. It's not the type of like you got to get five hours in before it gets good. but I do think that the first like 30 minutes just do not do justice to how much style this game has.

I totally agree with that. And yeah, it's the reason why it didn't continue. It's upsetting. It really is. But I'm telling you, like, it very quickly fixes that.

But yeah, it's, I want to give that a shout out. And I also, I know we don't have the best boss fight category this year, but I just want to say like, I don't think it's the best in terms of like, oh,

it's the most difficult, definitely not or any of that. But one of the most satisfying video game moments I had this year, was the octopus boss fight in Astrobot. That entire level is kind of like why I love video games, the way that the music theme just kind of like builds up in each kind of phase you're going through, the ability you have of the arm style kind of like punch

and then like be able to Spider-Man swing. It's pure joy, pure fun, love that. Hell yeah. Everybody's back. So let's move on to our seventh category, best character, a character this year that stood out from the pack, our first winner is Ayrth

from Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth This was written in by I believe two of us One of them of course being Tim Mubbong and Gettys Of course I think the other one might have been me It was me It's Arette's time to shine

Right I feel like this game Rebirth long time coming I think Brianna White's Performance of her was fantastic I think the way that Ayrth was written In this game was incredible And I think that overall Rebirth I personally believe

an amazing story and I don't think that's because the narrative of the plot is the best thing in the world but I think the characters are just so well defined and so well written and believable and I think do such a great job of kind of continuing the legacy of Final Fantasy 7 which I've said forever is the

Star Wars of video games to me in terms of a cast of characters that I just love and I want to know more about and Aerith clearly everybody kind of knows what happens to Erith in the original I feel like being able to get more of her in this game different perspectives to get into her head a bit a lot more.

There's certain sections in this game to kind of deal with her past and deal with her relationships with different characters that I just think is like, man, there's some real, real good stuff. So overall, shout out to my girl, Ayrth. Yeah, I think Ayrth is also representative of me for, like, best cast of characters. Like, Final Fian Seventh Rebirth as a cast of characters

in this video game, which now that I'm saying that out loud, probably should have been a category. But that game has such a good cast. When you talk about Ayrth, when you talk about Barrett, when you talk about, like, you know, all these different Tifa, Ufi, whoever, all these different characters who I think get their stories expanded on in really interesting and really emotional ways. Air, I think, is the one that probably gets, like, you know, the most focus because of where this game takes place in the Final Fantasy Seven saga. And the ways in which they highlight her character are so good. One of the things I talk about with the original FF7 remake is like the scene.

I'm going to, I guess, spoil like the beginning of FF7 a little bit, but like not really, but the plate falls at some point. I'm sorry. In the scene where the plate falls in like, you know, you follow Barrett's character as he's looking for his daughter and all this stuff. There's an emotion that is conveyed in that character that is so strong. And I'll say there are scenes in rebirth that are equally as emotionally impactful for me with Erith's character. When I, you know, think about where that character comes from, the soul of that character, what the soul of that character means for Cloud and like how much that elevates the entire story of the game.

That's one of that I think is special. And also, she just has a banger theme. Like, come on. just so emotional. It's so good. And versatile, man. I love that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was like, fuck it. We can turn any theme into a battle theme.

And we're going to. Yep. Just because we're on Final Fantasy 7, there's no love for Kid G. Oh, shout out my guy. Kid G. Yeah. That is true. Never meant that guy.

That is an AI generated man. This is a real character in this game. Parapola rapper. No idea of that. I thought I wasn't alone. I was like, did I not play this game? No idea. Oh, he was in the main story, too.

Ah, shit. Yeah, fuck. I made me a magic card with Mike. That looks like a Roger tattoo. It might be a mex. Yeah, Crete at some point said Mike almost miss what happened to Airthra. Wow, my God bless you. And you was sending me all those clips.

You were so good. You sent me Rizzler memes. Pricing out of the future. Our second winner for Best Character of 2024 is Basileo from, metaphor re-Fantazio. Yeah, Basilio, I imagine I was the only one who wrote this in.

I wanted to give a shout out just because I know everybody, all the other outlets when they're talking about their favorite characters, the one that always gets talked about is Hizme. Hysme is obviously like the goat. He's like one of the best anime dads. But for, and I know a lot of people thought when I was talking,

when I was alluding to my favorite character in fiction in the last like decade or so, a lot of people assumed that was Hizmai. No, that was, it was Basileo for me. I love him so goddamn much. There is so much that he goes through, there's so much loss that he goes through.

There are so many, um, I think he goes through the most and the way he is still able to kind of put on a bright face for his friends and push the rest of the party forward. I, I just really love in, like just a person and the character. Um, and,

the way he's he has to process through a lot of the things he goes through. I think it's truly really beautiful. He is like one of my favorite kind of moments in a metaphor as well, which it's hard to talk about when it's an 80 hour RPG and I don't want to spoil it for those who may be watching. But yeah, I love him so much. And just the performance of Basileo. I don't have the actor's name off the top of my head here, but they just had so much fun with him. Anytime that he's in the party and you bring him from like the second or when it's like his turn and he just goes

I love this pot I'm just always fucking like hyped up and ready to go Matt White Church Yeah like or Matt Whitchurch Sorry he just he fucking ate up as Basilio in the performance and I adore it so much so that is all I'll comfortably say about this character

without getting into two metaphor is definitely another one that could have been in like the best cast shout out because metaphor had multiple characters written in I narrowed it down to one character just for the sake of like trying to represent more games but also shout out to Lewis Lewis Lewis Louis Louis Louis Louis

You played through this game Louis Louise Louise Louise But you know I read that name and it's Lewis Yeah exactly I'm two hours from St. Louis growing up So shout out to that character Luis is definitely the hottest character Of this year oh yeah so fucking hot If the category was hot as character

Yeah I feel like it was like in Sephora There's got to be an FF7 Yeah sepherov to be the other way I mean there are yeah yeah Get those two in a room together That's a threesome Our third winner for best character of 2024 is Ichibon. Ah, Osuga from Like a Dragon.

That's me. Ichibon Kasiga is the greatest video game character ever created. Like, he's just such a... Talk about a bright boy. He has went through so much in his history. He was in prison for like 20 years. Comes out, he's 42 years old. Has nothing going in his life.

The yakuza that he was part of, kick him to the curb, and he's just a happy boy. He's like, you know what? believe he believes in the video game in Dragon Quest, right? That's the franchise. He loves Dragon Quest, the video games. He wants to be a hero, like in Dragon Quest. So that's his whole purpose in the game,

and that's kind of the, also the reason why it's... Like a Dragon. That's not. No, not. Like a Dragon Quest? No, it's not because of Dragon Quest. It is because of Dragon. No, it's not. The games were called Like a Dragon. Originally. You're right. Fuck. Fucking Greg.

almost had you that was a thing for a while that was a thing though I remember talking to somebody that was like yeah it's like a dragon quest but yeah

Ichibon is an incredible character and he goes through so much in this game and it's wild because I could have said Kyudu because Kyudu is also a dual protagonist game and he goes through

fucking so much but Ichibon is betrayed he is hurt he is beaten down and the ending of this game oh my gosh like I can cry talking about right now

it is so powerful it is so absolute anime it is like pushing through and like you know what everyone's shitting on you everyone's throwing cans in you literally and fucking pushing you down, you're going to get back up

and you're just going to go. And it is gorgeous. Like a dragon quest. Exactly. Like a dragon quest. Like a dragon quest. Damn, somebody got me. Because I definitely, I think it was Imron or somebody.

Like I definitely remember having a conversation where I was like, yo, that's crazy. Like a dragon quest. I didn't think about that. Hey, pass me that blonde, dude. Ken Jr. in the chat says Ichibon's positivity reminds me of Mike and I absolutely feel that way. That's the reason I keep on saying, like,

you got to play this game because he's, he is what we all should aspire to be. We should all want to be like Ichibon. I want to be like Mike. They made a movie about that. Buy a suit. Not for that much money. Just tell you that right now. Our fourth.

Yeah, is getting thrown out of Macy. She tries to sell me a $400, a $400,000 drag. This may be my favorite one on the list. Our fourth winner, Mario.

Of best character, 2024, is Hayes from Deadlock. I like that you found the game because I just put a haze just so you all know. I had a Google Hayes. Yeah.

Man, what a character. I mean, so much dev. I mean, so much death. This is great. This is how you interpret. When you talk about mobas, Tim, you talk about top lane, being the strong one. You talk about bottom lane with the ADC carry, right?

Who's going to carry the team? That support role. Who's going to heal the team? And you talk about mid. Who's that magician that's going to hold down the middle? But sometimes you forget about it. Who does the ganking? Okay.

Who carries the jungles? And of course, in Deadlock, there is no jungles. So we can't really call this a jungle character. But Hayes would be a jungle character. Who's going to be getting 90 kills, you know? Hayes was broken for months on end, and I love playing this character. And so, like, when I think about Hayes,

I think about, like, the daughter of darkness, right? And so she's got this great move set of she's got the sleep knife. So when someone's pushing hard up on your lane, you hit him with the sleep knife, just let him know, back up. Okay, like, chill out. Back the fuck up, yeah. And then, of course. Because her father died in his sleep.

The way Mike is talking makes you think he didn't think this was going to get picked. And so, like, then what I tell him? You know, I think of the angel of darkness. She also has the cloak. So, like, when you need to go undercover, when you need to surprise somebody and get that other lane gink, you go with the cloak and then you jump out for that extra damage. The third move, of course, is her passive. Every time you get headshots, the guns shoot faster.

And she's got two dual SMGs. And these things, ugh. Yeah, those are given to her by her uncle. It's a deep story. And then, of course, your ultimate is the cool just spinning around like you're in wanted movies shooting at people like Angelina. and Jolie. And it's like, what an incredible character, right? Like, in a cast of characters that are all so unique, so cool, the only one that really stood

out was Hayes. And maybe it was the orange. Maybe it was the bright orange. I don't know. I do think that definitely a lot of it was that this game, if you didn't know Mike prior to his deadlock career, you would assume Mike was the best video gamer on the planet because he was always dominating at Hayes. And as soon as somebody else on a random team would pick Hayes first, Mike was just like a different player Hayes is so broken in this video game This is the magic of the Smilies, right? Is that Deadlock is not nominated for early access

And you had three early access choices But it is nominated for best character I was wondering that I wouldn't ask like why why wasn't Deadlock early access We don't know we don't know We don't know We don't forgot that We don't know

We don't know Thursday at 5 o'clock There's been no trailer for Deadlock I forgot about it It's not on their blog. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know.

Great character. Great character. Great character. I would say I would recommend reading the two comic books that they came out with first. And they watched the movie afterwards to get the full kind of character background. Our fifth winner for Best Character of 2024 is Yee from Nine Souls. Did I say that right? Is it Yee or is it Yos?

Yeah. This guy kicks ass, man. His main character in Nine Souls. He's a little dude just. hell-bent on revenge and goes through so much development throughout the whole game. I love him so much. And the amount of love and care that you slowly see him develop through this whole journey is really awesome.

And again, it's really hard to kind of convey that stuff without voice acting and without cutscenes or anything like that. I mean, there's definitely like some cutscenes, but they're not relying on that a whole lot like your traditional sort of video game. But it's still really, really impressive. of writing, I think, and I really enjoyed his journey throughout. Emotional shit.

Congratulations to our five winners of best character of 2024. I want to bring us some superchats before we go to our next category. Greg's going to get a Coke. Demon Hacker, I mean, writes in and it says isn't deadlock like early, early access. We don't know. We don't know.

We just don't know. You got to get an invite. You go to the Steam page. It doesn't even have a real game for a little bit. If you have a friend who has it, Mike, he has an invite you, send you an email. ever officially announced this game? No. Where was my email? You know what I mean?

Was there a blog post? Was there like a, hey, hey, come play this. What a fuck? What the website wrote about it? And then they got mad. That was so awesome. That was cool.

That's a problem of 2020. That should be a category. It's like the best moment. That's my favorite moment. It's like Valve released. Send me all these categories for next year. Okay. Best moment of the year.

Oh, I said Tom marks. It was Tom Warren. It was Tom Warren. Tom Warren. Yeah. He was like, hey, man. We didn't sign the NDA. So good.

And they were like, hey, man, you swore. You can't do this. 20,000 people are playing the game right now. You can't talk about it. You look at me in the eye and promise. I can't believe you do this to me. Another super shout to you guys from sort by first name who says, Ichibon Kasuga is my best character of 2024.

RGG games don't get enough love in awards. Absolutely. Mello fellow says, shout out to Persona 3 reload. Metaphor is awesome, but if someone who played Persona 3 for the first time this past year, Man, what a game. And then Lucid Dream writes in and says, best DLC shoutout, Helled Iris 2, Omens of Taranny. Oh, yeah.

I was going to vote Storm as best character from Marvel Rivals. Oh, yeah. Cool character. It's a Storm or Sue Storm? A Storm, yeah. I guess Sue Storm was in 2024. Wow. Right, yeah, yeah.

Different year. She'll get nominated next year. Got great cosmetic. Yeah. Our next category. Got that dumper. Holy shit. Our next category is Best Story.

the game that displayed outstanding storytelling and writing. Our first winner of this category is Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth with two write-ins. Who wants to start? Who was this? Not me. Did I vote for this?

I don't know what I put it. Listen, I don't know what I put either. I'm like trying to pulling up the thing right now. The two people that wrote in this were it was Mike. Mike, you wrote this in. Oh shit. Especially because I was like, I'm lost.

He stopped paying attention to the story. Tim, there's a moment in the end of Final Fantasy 1. He also said they lost me. He was like, they lost me. I knew where I was, okay? I knew where we were going. I could at least guess. Then in this one, there's so many branching paths.

You don't know which way is up. You don't know what's real. What's not real? But I do know what's real. Barrett never called his daughter. Never checked in on her one time throughout an 80-hour experience. And that's pretty fucked up. It is pretty fucked up.

He left her behind. And you know what? Other people had to come in and become her father, and that's good for them. You know what I mean? Other people stepped up to take care of this girl, Marlene. And I'm really proud of that. So best story for you, Mike.

And so, like, the story, what a beautiful story, right? Like, how cool. We lead mid-guard. We go out to this beautiful world that I didn't know about. And we just get lost in the fun from the awesome boat crews that we had that had a lot of fun. There was a lot of... Went? What's a car game?

No, no. Queens blood. Queens blood. For the record, remember, I've only played the prologger. This means. This means. It's fine. You know what I mean?

Couldn't identify Queen's blood off a fucking board. And so we play a lot of Queens blood. Then we get the Coast of Dale. So we see my main man Johnny. Shout out to Johnny. He's not the cat man. So we found out now that Johnny didn't turn into the cat man. Very pleased with that.

When do I see Parapa the Rapa? Hojo shows up and he's like, ah, snap, I got these cute girls with me. And I'm going to cause a problem at the beach. And you're like, Hojo, no. He's not being the accusation. You battle hojo Then you go up to the tippy top And we find out that Barrett

He sold out his people, bro It was pretty messed up That he sold his hometown To let them go out there Well, I'm gonna stop I'm gonna stop I'm here Who you ask what's the story

I'm gonna go Nobody else You know what I mean A fantastic story All you need to know It's fantastic story Lost me at the end now Magic cards took over

Yeah I do love that When I showed everybody the clip Of Mike Me getting mad at Mike for not paying attention during the most critical cutscene of the whole video game. Mike said, well, it lost me, the game lost it. So for him to put this on here,

I'm really proud of this stuff. He came to his census, you know? A lot of character developed. I needed about four to half hours of recap videos to watch, yeah. This is a tough category for me because I think there were a lot of like really good contenders and Final Fainter 7 Rebirth definitely was one. And it did come down to like, the ending losing me a little bit of like why I might have put

something else above it. But even still, for For me, when I think about the story of Final Faces and Rebirth, I don't necessarily think of the journey, because the journey, we can talk about the journey. The journey continues. You kind of start, end where you start in the journey, if I'm being honest. But I do think about the characters, right? This kind of goes back to my best character conversation

as far as, like, the cast and, like, the moments of the game. This game has moments for days, right? This game has a moment that, like, had me, like, you know, my fistballed up in my desk, like, holding back emotion just for the fact that, like, man, I can't believe Cloud is getting this moment, right? Like so many times in which, you know, characters, the character work in this game did justice to the fact that, you know, not only are you telling a story that needs to, I think, do its characters justice and like allow them to have their moments, whether it be Red 13, whether it be these things that I don't want to spoil, even though it's an old game. Whether it be that or whether the game is thinking about me as a fan, right? Or maybe not just me, somebody like Tim Getty's as a fan of this forever in thinking about the fact that Tim Geddes has investment.

and maybe Cloud and Tifa or Cloud and Earth or whatever these things are. Every combination. Every combination of every one of these characters. The game speaks to those people so strongly and I think does justice by that. And like it's one of those ones where for as much as I enjoyed this game, playing it as, you know, part of my first Final Fantasy Seven journey because I've never beat the original Final Fantasy Seven. I am still, you know, I wish I played the original just so I can love it that much more.

Yeah, somebody that has been there from the beginning and like with not just the game, but the movies and the world and the spinoffs and every single thing, the theorizing and all of it. Like this story to me continues to deliver, continues to make me ask questions, continues to give me new things to ponder. And at the end of the day, like story's not plot.

I feel like the plot of this game might not be the best. Sure. But I think the story of the characters, the dynamics, the backstory that they all have, like Mike bringing up the, what everything Barrett goes through, I think is so powerful and incredibly well presented in this game.

And yeah, I feel like to, me, the story of rebirth is incredible if the plot is not. Yeah. And even on top of that, right? Like, I respect and appreciate a game or a story that, like,

that might be an adaptation, that might be a remake or whatever it is, that bathes in the source material. And this game bathes in the source material. You took a, I don't even know how many hours I would say this is in the first game, but you somehow made 80 hours of it and you, like, you were in that shit, right? You lived

that shit. The investment that I have in world and in the characters and the dynamics between all of those things. Like it's unrivaled, I think, compared to maybe any other game. Yes. What are you doing, Greg? What are you? It just occurred to me that we're in perfect pairs. Like, everyone is like alt skins for each other.

Like you got the two suit jackets and the gold chains. The two t-shirts underblazers. The two collars shirts under blazers. And we're all like lined up in like, I'm button into you guys. The one button is just like nobody planned this. Oh my God. Even the chains. Yeah.

The chains. Yeah, yeah. It's like a very weird. And there's a bull from Macy's. Oh, my God. Oh, my gosh. Our second winner of Best Story of 2024 is Metaphor, ReFantazio. This is another entry that had two people write in.

Yeah, I'm assuming that is me and Barrett. Yes. I want to take this. I don't think so. Oh, maybe not. No. A magical person that said metaphor. I played the demo.

No, you didn't vote twice. They for Best Story? No, Bear, you wrote it in for Best Story. Oh, okay, never mind But I want to take it off and just say Like I'm gonna be honest Like I still have not finished this game I'm at the very very ending

Probably have five hours left But it's a story that has affected me so deeply You know, just been going Went through a rough time over the break And this game like It's one of those things that just pulled me Out of the darkness, right? Like it just inspires me

It makes me emotional talking about it And watching trailers even It's a special video game That I did not expect to hit me And it's that group of characters Right like those people and that squad that you have that really rises and also just the twists and turns

and I want to talk spoilers but I won't but like what your main character becomes is such a great metaphor for reality and also where I want to be in my life and you know how I want to grow as a human right and it's beautiful it's some beautiful stuff and that's all I'll say

I love it. Yeah there's so many like every game that this team has made before there's so many different themes, character arc stories that you could pull from to talk about. But I think like the thing that doesn't get talked about enough, because I think a lot of people focus on the kind of core narrative plot thing of it being like this big election and you winning over the will of the people over the course of a year. But the other kind of metanarrative thing that like really grabbed me that we talked about in our spoiler cast and in our review is the developers kind of

thinking about what makes art successful and is art successful when it sells a million copies of a video game or of like a DVD or whatever or is art truly successful when it inspires people to or challenges people to look at what is important to them in life and their ideals and challenges them and pushes them to live out those ideals in the real world and a lot of that is fiction truly important and can fiction change reality. All of that stuff really worked for me in big ways. And where all that goes in the meta narrative, I think is fucking awesome.

So I just wanted to give that a quick shout out. Personally, 20 hours in, like, I would put this on best story. Like, I think metaphor is story is... I'm so proud of you that you're 20 hours is. Utterly captivating. Like, I don't think I'm going to see this through just because the gameplay of it all isn't my thing. But the story of it, like, it's incredible.

Like, if this was an anime, I would watch the anime for sure. Yeah. Our third winner of Best Story of 2024 is 1,000 times resist, which I assume Barrett thought it was the one that he wrote in. Yeah, because I know the list. So I thought I voted for this one. No. This was me. Oh, I voted for me.

Oh, shit. Oh, shit. I mean, unless maybe I'm wrong. Hold, let me double check. It should have been all three of us. Let's be honest. No, yeah, I was the one who voted a thousand times resist. Yeah.

And like, I mean, the three games that are listed here already are like, would be in contention for my top three of when I talk about best stories to 2024. And the reason why a thousand times resist for me elevates above is like, like I mentioned before, right? Final Fantasy 7 made me feel. Right? That game made me feel emotions just because I died. Not that I identified with the characters, but like I felt for those characters. I love those characters. I love what they went through together.

Metaphor refantasio, I'll say, like, made me think. Like, that's the game that I think dives so well into its subject matter and so, and so well. into like the politics and how it goes about like it's depiction of an election and like a fantasy world's version of an election a thousand times resist is a game that made me do both and I think that is why it elevates above and it made me do both deeply right like like I mentioned earlier in the show it's a game that you know by the time I finished it by the time I got later into it like I felt anger like I felt anger for the system I felt like I wanted to resist I wanted to go do something right but like you know it's also a game that I think tackles its subject matter so

interestingly. Like Barrett gave the premise as far as, you know, you are this, uh, uh, there is a character who essentially like is basically Ellie from the Laselis, right? Like she is the immune one or like she is not immune might not be, might not even be the right word, but she is like the sole survivor of like an apocalyptic event essentially. And like that leads into like cloning and very interesting like sci-fi type like subject matter. And they take that and put it into such interesting contexts and really ask questions and push a shit. And the biggest compliment I can give this game talking about, we were on KD yesterday, or no, we're on games cast yesterday. It was me and Mike. And we were talking about this game mouthwashing. One of my complaints with mouthwashing is

like, it gets to a point where that game gets so trippy. And one of the things that I don't necessarily love in fiction as much, and this is a me personal thing is like when shit gets so trippy that like I can't really, not that I can't follow the narrative, but I, it, things are happening that I don't necessarily give a fuck about. Right? Like, okay, I'm walking in circles. Okay, the world's flipping in all itself. Okay, like, this shit is happening and it's a dream sequence. Like, that's where a shit loses me oftentimes when that shit happens so much.

A thousand times resist does that shit where it's like, what the fuck is happening? But it didn't lose me. Like, I was on the ride the whole time. And you get your answers pretty quickly. Yeah, and that's one thing I really appreciate it about it. And it like, it does, it navigates that stuff so well. I don't know if my nomination made the list because I know we try to limit them to five. but I mean, throw me in for a thousand times

which is because I love this story and I think it if you're somebody who doesn't want to look deeper than just the surface level sci-fi story which I think is interesting and enough on itself but dealing with all the familial type of relationship stuff with the main character and her parents and the dynamics that they have there

and them being them fleeing a country that and trying to go somewhere else and being in this place that they're brand new to and they don't feel like they are welcome. It's, it's so well done in every sort of aspect of what it's trying to do storytelling wise.

Yep. Our fourth winner of Best Story is Dragon Age the Vail Guard. Gregi? Are you? Yeah, I was wondering, yeah, you didn't remember what you did? Did you put this one in there? No, I'm pretty sure. I don't know what I... I can tell you what you did. It didn't make it. It was not, you did nine souls.

Oh, okay, got you. Got you. Sure, yeah, I put Dragon Age the Vail Guard in here. Well known that I loved it. It's the story that connected with me the most this year. I think what's impressive, of course, is that I'm not a dragon each person, and I'm not, I guess I'm a little bit more than I used to be, but I'm not a fantasy person either. Just I found that this cast of characters that you were going about and recruiting was so good. I think it was good enough to set the stakes right away. It was excellent to get us in there and give us a cast of characters to go through in towns and cities that were actually mattered and

things were going on that I enjoyed. The relationships I made with all my side characters is I ran through the decisions on who to romance, sure, but then the answers to that, the relationships that came from the people I didn't romance, I loved all that, let alone there's a, you know, kind of a six-sense thing at the end they do, right, a gotcha moment that I didn't see coming,

that leads to a cool thing, that at least do a giant fight and stuff. Like, I had a great time. I was in the whole time, it's one of those games I'll look back so fondly of enjoying every moment, not only from the gameplay, but from the story side too.

Yeah, had I not been nine souls, uh, Bill R probably would have been my best character. Yeah. loved her story, loved her development, everything about her. Yeah, I had shot out Tosh, but I didn't make the cut on that one for my favorite character. Point up. Our fifth winner of Best Story in 2024 is Indiana Jones in the Great Service. This is one that I believe was a Paris Lily write in.

Yeah. And I can speak up... Really? Yeah. Well, let me double. I believe it was a Paris Lily one. Yeah, it was Pierce Lily. I mean, speaking on... Not even his behalf, I guess, my own behalf. Like, I can't believe how...

well of an Indiana Jones experience this is from a cinematic presentation and like a story perspective, right? Like if you cut if you like stitch these cut scenes together and handed it over to me, it might be a top three Indiana Jones movie. Like it is actually top two. Honestly for me at least. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I can't say enough good things about Troy Baker as indie. It's his depiction is so good that there was a part where like I had the thought of oh man Harrison Ford. I didn't I don't know if I liked Harrison's like delivery here. And then I remembered that it wasn't Harrison. Then I remember it was Troy and I was like, fuck, that's Troy Baker as Harrison as Indiana Jones. Like that is so impressive. But yeah, the moment to moment, like,

I think one of the things that kept me in the game was the fact that I felt so Indiana Jones playing this game and so much of that is the globe trotiness of it going from the Vatican to Egypt to wherever you go later, right? Like, I love the game for that stuff. And so shout out Indiana Jones. I think it's very impressive that at the end of it, you know, doing kind of the same things that the movies does, but hitting on the same level as the movies, like the kind of last hour of this game hit in a way that brought me back to watching Last Crusade

for the first time, and I was like, God damn, Indiana Jones is actually sick as hell, and I, like, didn't give him his due and talking shit about this game for years and years. Mike, give it to me. Indie! All right, acceptable. Congratulations.

Our best story winners of 2024. Our next category is Best Surprise The game that came out of nowhere And or exceeded your expectations Our first winner of this category is Hell Divers 2 Oh, what a great lead off to this

With two riddins I believe It was Greg and Andy I believe I mean a game that we left the studio And it was like eh Yeah we went and pretty good on PlayStation Yeah it's probably going to be good for a little while

But what a surprise that it just resonated much And I think mainly what we didn't get from that preview was that there was just so much more fun to be had with the overall world. And that's why I think we were a bit down on the preview. Yeah, we weren't down as much as it was like, okay, cool, it's going to be Hell Divers 1 brought into this new perspective, right, and on a new platform. And it was when we played it, but we did the thing where we ran with Arrowhead and it was just being inundated with information. And so it was more the E3 callouts of like, all right, let's flank left. you do this. Oh, here come the automaton. They're dangerous. And they're like, just ba, pop, blah, blah. Rather than what it is, hell divers are supposed to be. You get out there

with three of your friends and nobody knows they're getting crushed by things. The bugs spitting on you, this is going on. And so to see that they kept that fun and anything goes nature and anything can happen nature of Hell Divers 1. And nine years later, right, are able to put it out. Hell Divers to have, or, yeah, and have it be ready to go and have that fun, but look better, be better, be bigger, be all these different things, let alone the fact that. that it's the only PlayStation live service game that fucking dominated this year and was great.

Hell yeah. Like the Hell Divers 2 surprised me because again, as somebody who loved Hell Divers 1 and played so much of it on Vita and played so much of it was just, I was expecting to have a good time with this.

I wasn't expecting this to be a hit, right? Like you think, you look at my games I've talked about so far, I'm the guy who gets to say things and everybody looks at me and goes, okay, and we move on because nobody else liked the things I liked this year. So what the joke was when Hell Divers 2

was the biggest thing and I was playing it and we were all streaming it every day for eight hours. I kept saying on games dealer. I'm like, I don't know what to do this. I'm obsessed with this game and so's the world.

That never happens. It never happens that way. Huge surprise. Yeah. One that like I would never have been able to guess, right? I think this encompasses this category so well of Hell Divers 2 being the sequel to Hell Divers 1 and thinking what Hell Divers 1 was, which was like a great game and a success, right?

But like one that I only knew because Greg Miller talked about it and to get here. And yeah, like you mentioned, the whole world loves it. And it is one of the biggest games of the year. The fastest selling PlayStation game of all time. Get in a movie. Crazy. Crazy. Reading a movie announced.

Yeah, like absolutely messed. Nice. Our second winner of the best surprise of 2024 is I Am Your Beast. This one had two ride-ins. Oh. I believe it was the both of us. Oh, look at us. Let me tell you.

This game fucks. Yeah, dude. This came out of nowhere. Literally came out of nowhere. It was just like, oh, it's announced. This trailer looks cool. How is it actually going to play? And it scratched that neon white itch for me.

I'm just replaying every level trying to get S-rank. And I did. I S-ranked every single level. Not the challenge. rooms was too far. I know they added more levels too and I'm like fuck that. I'm not you know what I'm doing I did what I needed to um but yeah just obsessed with it it's such a the fact that this game was developed in I think less than a year like

is insanity like it is it is so tight uh the graphics and the style the style is incredible uh there's a story going on that is cool I just didn't I didn't really fall in love with it but I love the presentation of it um with uh this incredible voice acting and this awesome typography going on it is just it is just style right it is a first person uh I would say close to like a hotline Miami type deal. It's not one hit you're dead. It's more of like a few hits you're dead. But still, it is tight. It is Twitch action and it is, it's great. It's great time. You know, you mentioned the story like not necessarily being like the highlight, right? But like,

I think the story is in service to the gameplay in such a good way where it is almost more about the vibes. The story, like the cutscenes are not long, right? They're very short and they're just setting up each mission. And it's like cool ass dialogue talking on a radio phone. And like, I really liked what was happening. I'll never nominate this for Best Story, but it's still good stuff, though. Like, you're still getting good stuff out of those dialogue exchanges between your character and the other characters.

And yeah, like, I can't believe this is a Zalavir Nelson joint. And I played El Paso elsewhere when that came out, and I really liked it. And I can't believe that on top of that. He puts out, like, he puts out a bunch of games, which is crazy. We do a TMNT game soon. He's doing the TMNT game soon. He did, um...

He's writing on Borderlands 4. Borderlands 4. He did the Click Holding game. I've been. He's done a few other things as well. I can't believe when I play this game, it plays as well as like, honestly, like, not only any other, like, very well-made indie game, but when I talk, when I play the shooting in this game, like, you could have tricked me and told me that, like, a good, like, a big developer, like, worked on this for how good the shooting feels. And it's lenient enough where you are getting those head shots when you really

don't deserve the head shots, but it's perfect. Like, it gives you that, like, kind of, like, that cycle of, like, you're shooting, you're feeling like you're good and oh no I miss that one thing I can go back I can do that better we have a best studio section coming up at some point right best studio I fucked up I'm not putting in a strange scaffold that's a great call yeah this is one that like it's my favorite

one of strange scaffolds so far like it is a very special game I'll recommend anybody play if you like these types of games our third winner of best surprise is Nico de Rico the magical world oh man any chance I get to talk about Nico de Rico the magical world I'm going to worst name video

game of all time for something that is like truly, truly incredible. It's the best surprise for me because I said this when I reviewed the game a couple months back, but I saw this game on Twitter get announced a while ago. And it was like, all right, this is cool. I'm going to put it on my wish list. And I don't believe I'm ever actually going to play it because it just has that look to it. It's like, all right, cool. It's a mix of Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze with Crash Bandicoot 4. But it is on modern consoles. So you're getting actual great resolution and frame rates and stuff, Nintendo could never.

And I'm looking at it. All right, cool. This is either going to get shut down by somebody because of how much it is just copying the things that I said, or it's just way too ambitious for a small team, so it's not actually going to come out. And then lo and behold, one day, I pull up my Twitter and people are like, oh, the game's out.

And I'm like, it's out now? Like the full game. What? And I played through it and I was like blown away. This game is incredible. If you like any of the platformers I mentioned, you should definitely check. it out. It is coming soon

to all consoles if it's not already available there when I played it. It was only, it was on a weird set of systems. I played it on PlayStation but it wasn't on Switch or it wasn't on Steam. There was something weird about it that I was surprised about. But anyway, very, very

good game. I realize it was co-op. That's awesome. And yeah, you can also be co-op. Yeah. I haven't downloaded on something. I think it's switch because I think it recently came to Switch. You're all going to love this game. Like the worst parts about it are the name and the main character designs are like a little uninspired but that's

really it. No, they're not they're going towards a specific audience I feel like with the characters and they deserve video games yes and they deserve video games but also blessing you're not allowed to play this game until you've played Tropical Freeze and I think that's fair too. That is very fair I understand that. Our fourth

winner for Best Surprise of 2024 is Batman Ark and Shadow a very good pick for this one You know, the journey I've had were y'all filmed me watching the trailer for this and just not being enthused and more so not being enthused by WB's handling of the Batman Arkham IP. But really, like, camouflage showing up and actually showing that they understand what makes the Arkham not games and just design, but just lore and world so special. And they really fired on all fronts and were able to adapt it to a different platform. VR setting and translated that so well and brought their own twists and turns on like a Batman

Arkham formula that I think fit for the story that they were telling. And I said this on the review of like if WB ever wakes the fuck up and or like, oh shit, we need to make another like the flat screen Arkham game. I think there's a lot that could be learned from this game if like Rocksteady ever goes back to Arkham. And yeah, I was just, I was really fully impressed by it. Like I was like going into it expecting like, all right, it'll be the fifth best Batman Arkham game that's like a full release, right? And it's like, I think it's better than Origins.

I think it's like tighter and has a better like vision of what it does. And honestly, like I don't know if it has a better story than Origins because Origin's story I would say is like up there in in terms of the entire series. But like they did some really special stuff and the way they tell the story is utterly fantastic. My only critique is that there's some flashback cutscenes, and maybe this is just a platform thing, Greg, maybe you can answer this for me.

A cut scene would start. I'd be like, oh, this is like an artistic choice to be in black. And then I'd turn around, be like, oh, the fucking scenes over here, cool. That's funny. That's like my only major criticism with it. But besides that, like Keep your head on a swivel. He'd be having a swivel out there, and I love that they brought the

origins cast back for this, right? Like Troy Baker coming back. Robert Craig Smith coming back and like reminding me of like how fucking good he is as a young Batman and Bruce Wayne. But in particular, why am I blanking on the actor's name? Kevin Conroy. Yes. Like being a young Kevin Conroy Batman, he is just so goddamn. I get so much FOMO hearing this because this game is made for me.

I'm such an Arkham Origins guy. Like I love that game so much. I just sadly is a game that's cemented. I just can't do VR. Like I just don't have the space for it and I just don't have the stomach for it. and that just sucks. How much did you play with the accessibility stuff? I played all the time.

I was just punching things in my wall. I was like almost punched my cat a few times. I was like, okay, I can't have had it. I'm talking about with your stomach. Yeah, yeah, I did. I still did. It was just like, it was just not worse. Yeah.

When I didn't turn on the, like, when it, like the default is just like having the full screen on all the time. And then turning on like the like, what is it, the focus thing? Yeah, the vignette or whatever. The vignette when you move, like turning that all the way up helped me so goddamn much. I'm not vomiting. Our fifth winner for best surprise is I'll just say it is deadlock. Yeah.

I think this might be our strongest category. Like I'm just like everything here. I'm like, oh yeah, these are all surprising in different ways. No. Did I put this? Probably. I probably. No one else would have.

Paris. This is you, Mike. You know what? It's something special. There's very few games that can. just suck the time and daylight out of you and that's what Deadlock did and it's very few games that can step into such a crowded and competitive genre as a MoBA right and do something totally different to step into the mobile world and say hey we're going to make a third person

hero shooter in this and make it really really good it was awesome I love Deadlock I like the style that they did I really love the map I love that we were invited to and then other friends got invited to. I like the secrety of it all and then I like how we just kind of pop the top and now we're playing it. But the gameplay moment to moment, it is the game of the year when I think of one more game. Run it back. Let's go

again. The complexity of all of the heroes, the by-stations. It is League of Legends. It's Dota. It's smite. But with a third person shooter and that is so well done and not hard to do. But I'll tell you what, I can't wait for this game to make a splash.

I hope it is big and better than it's so much fun. I need to hop back in for sure. Great time. Congratulations to our best surprise winners. Yeah. I do want to give like a shout out to Marvel Rivals, which I think would have been a shoe in here too

for the fact that that game was announced and released to this year. Yeah, that was also one we reacted to and we're like, oh, shit. Legitimately like I feel like for best surprise. Like I'll never forget all of us gathering around Greg's desk. And we're like, let's see this new Marvel game

and Nettys pops up and we're like, oh. And you see the gameplay? We're all like, wait a minute. He's like, hold on. Wait. And like, what a story. And it's like, fuck.

So fun. I want to bring in a super chat from Eric Black, who didn't write in any text, but did give a $50 super chat. Wow. Yeah. They gave like a little emoticon of a little, it looks like a hippo guy in a treasure chest. Hippo with sunglasses inside of a box. Yeah.

It's what I read on the screen. I appreciate that. That is awesome. Thank you so much for that super chat. I know you didn't specifically do it for this reason. Maybe you did. But I do want to give a shout out to. I know y'all might be watching this to be like, oh, they do shows every day and they do this stuff.

There's extra work put in and like Andy made these assets and stuff. And like we had to test it, make sure things look good. Like there's just like an extra level of production that isn't just as easy as like, oh, make a thing and put it on the thing. It's like there's testing and there's time and there's a lot of love put into this stuff. So I appreciate you all understanding that because Mike bought a four and a few dogs. Yeah, Mike went hard. For you blessing anything. Tim, I'm sorry.

Don't blame me. I appreciate it. I was going to say a lot of work put it and then everybody just to forgets what they nominated. There's so many good games that we all like. You're like, I get, what was it? Well, it's also because a blessing had to smartly use a Google

Docs, like, submission thing. But that means that I can't just look back at Slack and be like, what did I send Bless for these answers? The way you guys vote for game that you guys is Slack me, so you can easily just be like, oh, this is my list. Yeah. I also nominated my things like a month ago, so I truly

don't remember. Our next category is Best Card a game. This is a 2024-specific category. I think somebody brought up like, oh man, we don't have best boss fight. I think it was somebody in chat that was like, oh, no best boss fight.

It's because, like, this year, I try to think of things that fit the year. Like, last year, 2003 was such a big year for, like, Souls-like type games and action type games and games that had really good boss fights in them. I try to think of what in comes to this 2024. And I felt like there's a lot of card games

that we got into this year. Plus Messmer from Eldon Ring would have won anyway. Exactly. You know, if we had the chance, like we would have nominated something from Nine Souls 2. That's true. honestly as we talked to these games I'd have been like I thought that like man

actually this year there were a lot of good boss fights but it is what it is our first winner of best card game of 2024 is Queensblood let's fucking go this had three come on three people voted for this one

who wants to start Queensblood is the best part of Final Fantasy 7 rebirth I'm not afraid to say he's fucking right it should be broken out into its own game it's crazy that we're a year away from rebirth and it has not been broken out as its own game. Like, which or three figured that shit out of like, oh, people really fuck with Gwen, let's make that its own thing.

It is, like, even with how big a release that I'm sure we'll talk about as well on this list, Blot Trail, like, Queen's Blood fucks in terms of strategy in terms of just like how fun all of the different like party compositions can be and stuff. And it's like, it's one of those things seeing y'all play magic in the last couple of months, I'm like, yeah, I get it because I got into Queensblood, but it's like, I'm already into Queensblood. I'm just waiting for that. I don't need to get into another game. Yeah, I adore it so much. And yes, it is the best thing of rebirth. And it is definitively the best card game of this year. I feel like, to make a mean girl's reference, right? Like, there's the

quote of like, you know, stop trying to make fetch happen. Like, you're trying to make fetch happen. There have been so many examples of like RPGs or big games that they try to have a card game. They try to have a mini game. What was the one in Horizon? Machine Strikes. We'll make a PlayStation blog post about Machine Strike. Like, let you guys know, like, oh, there's a board game you can play in this game. Like, these games keep trying to make Fetch happen. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth made Fetch happen. Yeah.

Like, this is the best card game in a video game since Gwent. And, like, a lot of developers have been trying to chase that, but it's so crazy how from the first... Comments on Machine Strike. But she said it fucking sucks, but she just like sucks straight ass for real. People really hate Machine Strike, goddamn. But, like, I can't believe from the get-go of... I don't remember if it was the first game of Gwent or not Gwent, sorry, of Queen's Blood or the second. All I know is that early on, I was like, oh, you, y'all got something.

When we first, when I first got to preview Rebirth, actually second time we got to preview rebirth. I got to play for like five hours. And it was essentially the opening of the game, not the very, very opening, but like a bunch of it. And when we get to calm and you get to the part where you start playing Queensblood, I remember just you talking about the make-fesh happen thing. It was like that where I'm like, I don't want to do this.

Like, let me skip this stuff. Like, I want to keep going. I want to get to the battle. I know what I want for Von Fes and I have rebirth. And it's not this freaking card game. And immediately, I was like, oh, shit. The way they have it set up of like, you beat one of them and you're like, oh, wait, there's a couple other people in this little town that I can face off against.

It feels like there's like story implications to this. Yeah. It turns to do a Yu-Gi-O story. Exactly. And, you know, Mike talking about the cruise ship, it's like the way they handle the Queen's Blood story on the cruise ship. In Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the mic. Damn, y'all.

Y'all did something special. Such a good time. 1,000%. Our next winner of the best card game category is Bellotro. Let's see. How are you going to talk to death again? Yeah. There's one that was only written in by Paris Lily, but I'm sure most was here with me.

Yeah, we talked about it before, but like the fact that this game can just like spark addiction, like nothing, like nothing else, right? taught me what the poker hands were. But also, like, you know, we talk about how the fact that when this was nominated for Game of the Year at the Game Awards, you saw the immediate wave of people being like, what, this fucking card game? How was this nominated with Black Myth and all these other games? And then, like, the next week, it was like slowly people discovering Bellatro and being like, oh, I'm sorry. Like, this shit fun.

I wasn't familiar with your game. Exactly. Our third winner of the best card game category is Pokemon TCG Pocket, which I'll be honest, wasn't going to make it until I wrote it in. I think I was like either the second or second to last person to vote. Oh, and actually, I forget where I came in on the votes. But like, I was the only person

that wrote in Pokemon TCG Pocket. And like, this is one that I think, as far as time accumulated playing a card game, I think this got that from me. I'm still every single day opening this up, opening packs. Rip in packs. Rip in packs. And like, there's an event, there's a blast voice event happening right now. And like, it's taken over my phone to where now as I'm getting

ready for work during the morning. Like, if I'm taking a shower, put that thing on auto play. If I get like, once I get out of the shower, tee up another auto play while I rush my teeth, right? Like that, like, it really is like, I freak, I think it was Kevin on the ones and two is a few days ago talking about this. If they were somehow mining Bitcoin using this app, they would have gotten so much Bitcoin out of me. Like, it's one of them ones where I just constantly have it open. And it's a problem. But I absolutely love it.

It tears me apart. I don't want to give this game any award, period. Like, just period. Like there's so much things that I'm like y'all are You're messing this up I don't like the way you're monetizing this I don't like the way that you're wasting my time here I have so much bad things to say But I fucking love this game and I play it every day and I'm addicted to it

Like this game is a problem I think in every single way possible But yeah shout out to them for taking over my life But also like come on guys come on Come on come on Yeah that's thing is like I think about the card games that I played in the last year Like there are better playing games as far as like rules There are better presented games as far as flare there are better like collectible card games that I've found

Manch's Gathering right like there's so much there's so many other games that have caught my interest in greater and better ways but for some reason I keep coming back to this one and it's because of the fucking Pokemon it's the magic Pokemon man gotta catch them all speaking of our fourth winner of the best card game of 2024 is Magic the Gathering this is a Greg Miller right in well throw it up who would have known who would have thought magic the gathering is a good game but just like all of your careers and working here are kind of funny

you can trace it back to Ghostbusters thank God they had me reveal these Ghostbuster cards so I can finally understand what magic was when Mike got excited about it when Blessing got excited about it and then I have a takeover here right if you're gonna talk about 2024 on card games obviously Balatro

obviously Pokemon but I think for kind of funny especially for the Smiley's you got to talk about magic because that was just such a great stream where me and Blessing live on the air fall in love with magic and Blessing takes it to another level by becoming super obsessed and having free time to really, really, really get into it. But even me playing arena when I can, you know, wanting to play Thanksgiving,

wanting to continue to learn. And Mike's, you know, passion for magic reignited, right, and going through and how great, you know, foundations is, which did launch this year, right? Of, like, cool, here is this box that I thought was just probably the best step-by-step tutorial for a card game or a board game I've ever seen. Where it was, like, you and me are reading the pamphlets and getting it in real time of what we're doing.

And then for them to take the hands off the wheel and be like, all right now finish it. You know how to, you know, I was like, that was great. Magic's so fucking cool. How hard is it to collect every Ghostbusters card? Oh, easy. No, I mean, that's not that many. It's not a collectible thing as much as just a buying thing. How hard is it going to be to collect every Final Fantasy card? Is that going to be more challenging?

No, that won't be difficult. No, they make them smaller packs. Like 8 to 12. Very nice cards. I'm joined. Oh, I mean, Bob Fantasy is going to get me. At least buying these things. Yeah. I think the best thing I can say about magic, like, outside of even just how fucking deep and

complicated this game is, which the more I play, play it the more I'm starting to fall in love with the fact that you can play it the way that me and Greg played it during the tutorial section where you learn the basic rules right but once you go down deep down that well you learn that this game actually has limitless possibilities it's very crazy as far as like you know my uh playing with my with some of my friends and like my friend Zachary who's been into magic forever he's like oh yeah they're introducing like these cards that are like you know you can actually not that they're introducing it but they have these cards they can like load in vehicles with people and attack with vehicles or like you can

saddle up other cards and do all this different shit, right? And I got the Fallout commander deck that like has like cards that essentially you load up certain cards with all these different other cards. It's fucking crazy how this shit works. People are calling out that Final Fantasy is going to be an entire set. So easily over 200

cards representing Final Fantasy 1 through 16. If you're like, I mean, I mean, that's cool. You got a whole binder. That's what I want. That's what I want. That's what I want. I was going to speak to the community. Cheaper than the suit. Where like the thing that that has made me fall in love with that even more,

which is, like, how much it has contributed to community for me. Where, of course, my friends, like, some of my close friends love magic. So now, like, I'm playing with them, and during the break, we're doing magic mornings for a little bit there. Like, I've been able to connect with other people who I know in my life who, like, love magic.

But, like, now it's like, oh, shit, we got something to do now. Like, we're going to hang out and do this. And now I want to infect everybody, like, like, a fucking disease. If Tim Geddies, like, gets the Final Fantasy card, like, immediately I'm looking at Mike, and I'm like, yo, book a stream. Like, we're playing magic. Yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah, I got excited because I was like, man, I can play

Magic the Gathering with the new Splinter Cell cards, and then I realized that I just completely made that up. Maybe it was a dream, maybe I just imagined that. That's amazing. That's amazing. I know they're doing like some Assassin's Creed thing, so I assumed that they were going to put Splinter Salons. You didn't even look at Splinter Sal and you're like,

they're like, I would have been in, bro. I would have been in. Psychotic. I want all the different Sam Fischer's. Our fifth winner of best card game of 2024 is Gwent question mark I put Gwent I just wanted to remind you of how great Gwent was Don't forget you know as Barrett says it's own stand-alone thing

Still gets expanses you should always be playing Gwent Because you know the Witcher will return And I hope that you a Gwent game is strong So don't forget about it I think I think I might have changed my answer to Pokemon TC pocket Because I think I assume Mike was going to write in Pokemon TCG And I saw Gwent and I was like there's no way Somebody's got to stop this

There's no way he didn't just forget that Pokemon's Pockett came out this year. Did you play any Gwent this past year, Mike? No, but I thought about it. It's always on his mind, Barrett. I mean, what's your for? Yeah, I mean, come on. Think about it. Watch out.

It's coming back. Did you play the one-piece card game? You know, I did spend a lot of money on the one-piece card game. And I do want to take his phone to let you all know that, like, the one-piece card game is out there as well. And if you've been on a grand adventure, you should go and check it out. A lot of people love the game. I love the cards. I mean, I need that Nami card.

I got a bow a Hancock card on my, phone. What's happening in your brain at any given moment? What's going on? I just want to make sure you know about it. Remember, go ahead. I'll go for a bear. No, I'm just laughing.

I do want to shout out what I thought was also going to be a given for this category. The Mind. That's another one that did take over. Oh, I want to put the main universe for a second. So shout out to the mind. Our next and second to last category here for the Smiley's is Best Studio, the studio that earned MVP status in 2024. our first winner

is Team Asobi with three riders I mean God damn dude the magic of video games I don't know if it's ever been that well captured 1,000% like this is one I think me and Roger had a special experience going to visit Team Asobi and seeing

like the inner workings and how they approach things and seeing like all the sticky notes that they have of different ideas how small the team is how small the team is the kind of their philosophy of like wanting to retain the smallness right and like one of the things they mentioned during our interview was if they were to expand out into being a bigger team they would still want to work on smaller projects and just like work on maybe more projects in that way like they like retaining that smallness and working quicker and i think there's something special about that because that leads to a game like astrobot which isn't a god of war it's not a horizon it's not a last list right it is this very charming 3d platformer that is concise but does everything you want a video game to do and i think playing through astrobot you play it and you immediately go man, I hope we see more games like this out of

PlayStation especially because like it adds such a level of charm and such a level of personality among like all the other juggernauts that they got over there. Alien slime guy, best character for this year? Oh. You know?

That's the one thing. I'm like, man. Next to the deadlock guy. We gotta take the, what's his name from the god of war? Like he just went, well he was on the god of war dev team. Roth. Roth. They got to bring Roth over to Astrobot, man. Yeah.

Get some inspiration. That sounds like an overkill bless. sounds just right that'll fix any problem that Astrobot has give me a visionary All right anybody else have anything to say

about Team Osobie this is a given no I mean yeah this is a given I was gonna put it on there but this is not even my pick I'm sure we were talking a lot about Astrobot

in Game of the Year yeah you have to worry about I know it knows how great it is especially for how much has been applauded I just want to shout out y'all's interview again

just because that brought up so much delight of things that I didn't know about Osobia just like their head space around designing, their headspace around purposely making this

a smaller title and I don't know, keeping that team small and taking care of that team in a very particular way to make a game that feels so grandiose when talking about the best games this year but is just so tight and

kind of has like a very clear and small vision. Yeah. That I just, yeah. Yep. Our second winner of Best Studio of 2024, the MVP's we got Atlas

this was my write-in for this category Atlas I think I did a stream recently where I did a power ranking of studios in 2024 just talking about like you know which studios are bringing it right now

what are the best studios right now in this moment in 2024 and at the top two I had from software in Atlas right and I looked at it and I thought about it for a second I moved Atlas to number one the reason being when you think about

2024 and what Atlas brought to the table. They started off this year with Persona 3 Reload, a remake to a game that so many people love, and a fantastic remake, right? One that, like, I finished overbreak and, like, you know, fell in love with especially as a barrel toward the ending of it. They then followed that up mid-year with

Shin-Megami Tensei 5 Revengeance. Revengeance. Yeah. And then wrapped up this year with metaphor re-Fantazio. Don't forget Unicorn Overlord. And they did unicorn Overlord as well. Overload? Overlord. Overlord. Overlord. Overlord. Overlord. Overlord as well, right like they had a fantastic year that i think might go a little bit under the radar just because

like you know unicorn overlord i don't even think about his atlas but is atlas right they published it right they published it and that's the thing i think vanillaware made it i don't i don't remember if i wrote in atlas or not if i did i do take it back because i do think it's cheating a little bit because they're a publisher whereas like all of these games that you just uh listed are developed by different studios that it's yeah it's like nintendo you know yeah it's the weird thing of Nintendo or like Capcom right of like Atlas games are also published by Sega but maybe not all the yeah it's weird yeah it's a it's a weird one but I still look at them as like oh but you still are putting out some of the best games of the year like multiple of the best games of the year so even

if I was just limiting this to metaphor still they get the right in for me but I'm including persona three in the conversation and she magamataense in this conversation and unicorn like they just Atlas in general had a banger of a year it was crazy bangor year I just want to say I feel like you bring up from software and Atlas I feel like metaphor is the Eldon Ring for them. I was just like, yeah, you've had the Souls games before, but like, Meta, and you've had the Persona games before, but like, metaphor of Fantagio, hit on a different way where like, have the Prasonic games, correct me if I'm wrong? Percily five took over the fucking world. Well, was it nominated for Game of the Year?

Yes. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. I take it back then. I still, I still stand by what I say. I think metaphor is way bigger than persona. It's my Aldenry. Our third winner of Best Studio of 2024 is Studio RGG. Yeah, this was me. They only released one game this year, which is very... Unlike them.

Unlike them. Yeah, exactly. They had infinite wealth, but they also announced a virtual fighter, which is fucking insane, and Project Century. And they also announced this year is Pirate Yakuza, the Majima game. So they are just fucking cooking, right? This is... Talk about a team that knows what they are.

They understand that they don't have to be the cutting edge of graphics, right? They have a formula, and they are going to work towards serving a fan base of people. they did that with Infinite Wealth, which is a leap forward in the Yakuza-type games, and now they're, you know, feeding that fan base with Pirate Yakuza, but then also expanding into Virtual Fighter, right, which is being featured in Vindia ads, right? So it's like, hell, no, this is going to be our, like, for a way, for a ray into graphical, high graphical fidelity video games. So, yeah, it's exciting.

And, like, I think every single year, I'm going to put RGG here. Like, I love that. Yeah, it's just like they are just, they are just, they, Keep on delivering. Breaking news, they just released another game. Oh shit. And I am absolutely certain. People were calling out the yacht

they did super monkey ball banana rumble as well. That is also true. Like they just have so many random fucking side quests. And these guys just know what they're doing. And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised by, I mean, Roger Dama's already said.

I think they're going to announce another yakuzy game by the end of this year, right? Like they are just constantly, constantly innovating. And you saw that at the game award. So yeah, shout out to Studio RG. They are really fucking incredible. And everyone should be looking at.

If you want games that are like, oh, I don't want a game that comes out every six years and is $700 million, like these people are doing it and they're focusing on the video games that people are actually buying. It's exciting. Our fourth winner of Best Studio of 2024 is Ubisoft, Montpellier. RIP, man, done the dirtiest. I absolutely hate this.

I can't say it enough how bullshit it is that this team does not exist in the form that it did just a year ago putting out a game like Prince of Persia of the Lost Crown. But in addition to that, putting out things like Raymond Legends and Rayman Origins back in the day. Like, I think those games in particular back in 2013 to 15, wherever they landed, like,

there's not a bazillion 2D platformers coming out. And I feel like in the indie space there is, but like in terms of the bigger AAA, Ubisoft level, 2D platformers where there's a lot of love and care being put into them, that it's not just like, eh, here's an IP people like, let's just fucking put something out,

but actually be like, let's push this forward and not just be like, oh, well, Mario's better. Let's have a conversation of like, this game's different than Mario and succeeds in ways that are unique. And I look at those games and I talk about them as if they're some of the best platformers of all time because they are. And for them to then, again, I don't need to be a broken record about Prince of Persia lost crown.

I love it. I think they absolutely crushed it. This team is incredibly talented and I hate what the industry has done to them. Horrible. Our fifth winner for Best Studio 2024 is No Moda Studio. Yeah, this was my nomination. I never played Grie. uh, grease.

And finally, there's an S everybody. Oh, wow. Because it's Spanish for gray. And, um, I never played it, but I know that it had a lot of great reviews. A lot of people enjoyed that video game. And then for them to follow that, uh, you know, very enjoyable experience up with Neva. And just show everybody, hey, like, this is what we're doing. We, uh, we're making games that are maybe not the longest things, but they are, you know,

short experiences that will respect your time and you will I think it's I think never is just like one of the most efficient games I've ever experienced where it's just like we are going to quickly get to the things that matter either gameplay or story beat wise and yeah no matter it showed me this year that like oh whatever they're going to keep on doing it's kind of like on the same thing where I'm like what is um what's ember lab working on next what you know the people that made seafood

what's their next video of soccer turns out Fifu. But yeah, I think Nomada Studio is definitely that studio this year for me that says, all right, keep an eye out for the next thing they're doing because it's going to be a banger. Congratulations. For our best studio winners of 2024. Moving

on to our final category of the 2024 Smilies. We got players' choice. This is a shout out to a game that might not get the love on the game of the year list, but you still want to give us flowers. Do want to remind people that us sitting here and everybody here who voted. Don't actually know what's going to end up on the game of the year list.

This is more preemptively us giving a special shout out to a game that we want to make sure gets a shout out this year. And specifically for me, even though I do know it's on the game of the year list, I send in my votes for this like a month ago before any of you all voted for game of the year. So this category is a bit different from our other categories. This one I did include every single person's pick. We each, of course, wrote in one game, and I wanted to make sure to highlight them all because this is the player's choice.

Starting with our first winner, which is, thank you. goodness you're here, which was written in by two different people. This was a Barrett write-in and a blessing at you a junior write-in. Good picks, guys. Good picks. Yeah, I shouted this out when I wrote it in. Wrote it in, Jesus. When I wrote it in, just because I'm not sure, at the time, I wasn't sure, again, it's weird to talk about this. If it was going to make the top 10 or not, and I just wanted to give it a lot of love just because this game made me smile front to back in terms of just its humor and how like deadpan it's delivered,

but how absurd a lot of that humor is. It does remind me a lot of like a flying circus, but just also combining how cartoony and weird and very adult swim it is. I just adored it and I appreciate that there's like a localization translation subtitle option to like help me kind of understand this very specific humor. and it's just it's slapstick joy from front to back and yeah I loved it so much. Yeah, this is one that I think I was the most scared of not getting its flowers this year when we like barreling toward the end of the year for end of the year content when I'm like even

formulating my top tens and thinking about other people's top tens and thinking about dice and game awards and all these things. Like thinking about thank goodness you're here, I'm like, man, people got to make sure to remember this game and remember how like good this one is because it's everything that Barrett mentioned, right but I think it's also just you know this game has a charm that I hope to never see go away from indie games in the future it is funny it is uh complete as far as like it's art style and voice acting and like you know somebody made this like a small team like a small team really put their hearts into this and like you can feel it by how singular it is a game like this would never

be made on the triple a level like a game like this like you need a few friends in a room to like be like, yo, this is what we think is funny. This is what works for us. And like, we're going to make something that we want to make. And, like, I think all that stuff shines through so well in this game. And also I want to give it just a shout out to, like, how technically, technically well this is made on just a comedic angle where the loop, the, or the jokes loop back on themselves so well, like, it applies the rule of threes, right?

Like, right when you think a bit is over, that bit has another thing to add to it. And it is always funny. Lady die. Yeah, like, there's like the fucking chimney. Coming down the favorite bit of the year. The way you break that man slowly over the course of the entire game.

Like that is, God, it's so big. There's like a, I think one of the categories we thought about is like best moment, but it's the hard thing if we don't want to spoil games

on the show. But I'm sure if we did best moment, there are probably moments from this game that enter the list. And like the one that Greg shared when they reviewed this game was what got me to play it. Milk Shy No More.

Yeah, Milk Shy No More is just like one of the most absurd, funniest things. And it also just a, another reason why this game was special to me is because, you know, I grew up loving 90s point and click adventure games. And even though this isn't point and click, it still had that vibe of just going around being like, where the fuck, what do I need to slap? Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, stuff.

Yeah, you know, and just exploring around this very tiny area that feels so alive. And having, like, the area, the entire town slowly changed over the course of the game, I thought it was just so well done. our next choice for players choice award is Dungeons of Hinterberg This was Pairs Lillies right in Nice, a great place I love dungeons yeah everyone knows I talked about Dungeons, maybe don't that's a weird thing to say

Dungeons is a game that I played and talked about on the show How much I enjoyed it and how much it caught me off guard If I remember my pick correctly, it's not this, but it's something similar Where we had seen this at GDC at the beginning of the year And the art style was like, that's weird, I don't really know about it And then I was in a place where I was between reviews, wanted to play something, looking for something new. Pop this on and you find, you know, this woman who's, what, a legal assistant. And she goes to this Hinterberg town that, uh, 10 years ago, I think it is, dungeons appeared in.

And now they've turned it into a tourist attraction where people come here and take on basically the bunny slopes all the way up to your K-12s or whatever, which would be, you know, a skiing thing, right? Uh, it's fun. It's easy to get into. It's very, it feels like a vacation plane. it. I played it on my vacation when I was up in Quebec this year and it felt like, oh cool, there are these little puzzles, these are fun battles, you know,

I'm doing this, I'm finishing the day and I come back to my hotel and choose how I spend my night, who do I want to spend my time with? There's a whole, you know, town full of compatriots out there. You have these relationship levels. They lay it out so nicely of like, when you are looking at the map, you can decide, oh, if I hung out, hang out

this person, I'll go to two stars and it will give me this buff. It will give me this benefit. You can really make your build kind of based on what you need to go do. Really fun, really fun game. Our next choice for Player's Choice Award is content warning. I put this one on because I love dumb, fun, awesome video games. Content warning is a game I don't want you to forget about

from the chain together experiences that you'll have with your friends to this game where it takes over the zeitgeist for a month and we all get together and we play in a game like a lethal company where now we become YouTubers getting sent off to another planet and we have to go out and film content and try to get more views and get that higher and higher. This game is just fun. There are moments in life where you're going to go to the Steam page

and you're going to find just awesome fun games that maybe a lot of people don't like it. Maybe they put their nose up at. But you and the world will have so much fun playing and that's what Content Warning was this year. It was the lethal company of this year where you will start laughing and having a great time with your friends. And man, oh man, once you get everything singing with in-game audio and you just

start running around screaming and laughing, someone's holding the camera, someone's got a flashlight. This game is great. What a great game this year. That should have been best innovation. I was going to say that. The innovation of having somebody recording with the camcorder, and if they die, you have to go pick up that camera in hopes to bring it back. But then once you're all back at the home base, you all collectively get together and you sit around the couch and you watched the thing you just recorded. And it's edited too, which is crazy. And the prox chat, the way it all works

to like hear, you know, you have somebody like, hey, you know, some bike might hear it. Oh my fucking, you just hear like the audio cut out and it's a freaking blast. Yeah, this was a great stream when I got to come in. I think maybe I did two of them with you, but I loved playing this game with y'all. Such a fun time. That was a great choice, Mike. Thank you.

Don't forget about some good games out there, y'all. Don't forget about Gwen. The suit was worth it. Shout out, Mike. Shut out Gwen. Hayes. our next winner for player's choice is Caravan Sandwich Hello it's me Greg, this is the one I put on here

Which I do feel is very similar in tone and vibe To Dungeons of Hintraberg The thing about this one, of course This is one of my late games from last year So you might have heard me talk about it in what November Caravan sandwich Even when I reviewed it on Gamescast I forget what I gave it but I was like it's not like

I don't think it's like this Amazing, incredible yada yada When we're talking about game of the year, right? It shouldn't be on the short list by any stress the imagination. But it's a game that I do think into your, you know, the category description, right? If things are going to be overlooked, it's not going to get its flowers. This came out in September, I believe it was. I completely missed it.

Finally saw it TikTok about it. I was like, wait, this looks like such a Greg game. And it was such a great game. No combat. Explore at your own pace. Drive this van around. Figure out what happened in this world. Interact with a bunch of different people and characters and build this thing out.

And take it to your own pace. It was a game I really didn't know. needed till I was playing it, where it was such a great palate cleansal like we talk about. It was such a great stop in the middle of review season to be like, oh, here's just something that is scratching that itch. I go in, I go over there, I get the hook, I do the thing, blah, blah, blah, and I'm on my way. But then there are moments like you just saw where you walk up to plateaus, sit down, and the camera just spins for as long as you want to, right?

It is about enjoying, yeah, what this game looks like, enjoying these characters, piecing together what happened to your sister and stuff like that. It's just a really serene, nice time. congratulations Dungeons of Hinderberg Nope Caravan to

yeah but congratulations that's too you know hilariously Koki over there goes the lowest origin story

because your character looks so much like Lois Griffin there was there was an amazing moment when I found out about this game

and then started following it I scrolled back and it wasn't too long after I found the game where it was

literally the character art next to Lois Griffin and the creators like how the Fuck, I've been making this game for seven years. Why did no one tell me?

They were so into it. They had no idea they had just made Lois Griffin. Our next winner for players' choice of 2024 is Witchfire. I've talked about this a lot. Game rocks. Next one. Everybody play Witchfire. Support the devs, buy it.

If you love, fast-paced. Amazing Rogue Lights, first-person shooter with great, great progression, and a lot of cool difficulty. and just really, really neat surprises. And a lot of depth there. This is not an early access that you feel like you have to play in two years once it's all done.

This feels like a very, very deep video game already. It rocks. Our next choice for players' choice of 2024 is Sonic Cross Shadow Generations. Hell yeah. Who would have done such a thing? Hell yeah. It would be me, of course.

I've been my entire life, I've been a Sonic fan through the ups, through the downs, uh, and through the memes, through the quality, through every single thing. here, there, and otherwise. I can't believe the era of Sonic we're in right now, whether it's the movies, whether it's the shows, whether it's the games.

The last couple of years have been hitting hard. And it feels great to be rewarded for being a fan, again, through the good and the bad. And I think that generations when it came out a decade ago was such a great celebration of all of that, and it kind of created one of the best Sonic games ever. Shadow Generations

does the exact same thing. The level of love and care put into making every single level have as many set pieces for every moment that actually mattered from the previous games. So great. So hype. I feel like this is kind of to me, the pinnacle of 3D Sonic so far.

A perfect game? Absolutely not. Fun as hell. Yes. Speak for yourself. And our, I believe, final choice for a player's choice award is

UFO 50. Yeah. That is mine. Actually, I almost wrote Shadow Generation. So that was going to be my second one. But I was hoping that you would, give me the layup.

Yes, UFO 50 is really incredible. It's a game that I know we're not going to talk about on game of the year. I don't think anyone here else played it other than me. But it's a game that shouldn't hit for me, right? Like, it's a game like it is based off the nostalgia of the NES period that I was not alive for. And I never really had any nostalgia for any of it. I started playing games during the PS2 generation.

So I was like, okay, let me try it out. The idea of this is that it's 50 unique video games that are made by indie developers. and it tells a story of a alternate universe Nintendo competitor that over, I think, the course of nine years releases 50 games. So you start from the first game in chronological order, and then you can go to the last game, and the graphics have improved.

There's an intro sequence for UFOSoft is the company in this universe, and it's really, really cool because, you know, of course, I didn't finish all of these games. I only finished, like, I think, two or three of them, but I had a great time booting it up every single night, and just playing a little bit, right? Like bouncing around and going in chronological order and finding that one right there.

That game I finished. I forgot the name of it because there's 50 games. But finding those ones that hit for me, the ones that don't hit for me. And it's just such a unique experience and one that you have to call out, right? This is definitely the player's choice for me when I saw this category because it's so unique.

It is so interesting. And it's such a tough sell sometimes, you know, because there is so much. And it's hard to pinpoint the specific one because you start pinpointing, like that's, I think, party house, the name of that game, which is like a card,

like deck builder type thing with people at a party. It's like it becomes really weird and hard to nail down, but it's a great experience. And I was talking to Lianz about this. I was like, I hope our like kid one day naturally I can show them this game and they have the fun that I had of just going through and finding the ones that they like and they didn't like

because it reminds me of those, it's a better version of those shitty knockoff games that I had where it would be like a thousand and one. Like 500 of them would be, you know, all Mario robots. Yeah, exactly. but like this is all like handmade really interesting stuff here and like this is derrick you right yeah which i i don't know how it breaks down in terms of like who developed what and who was doing what but yeah this is it's it's moss mouth uh productions but it's uh it's really interesting and it's a it's a

it's a really cool experience so yeah everyone check it out and uh it's supported because it's a one one's the lifetime once in a lifetime type of video game congratulations to our players choice winners thank congratulations to all of our winners throughout the smiley's 2024 i do want to shout out how just like the variety of games we play. I know this is natural because now we have so many people on our team when I see so many 11. But like still enough so that like we all, all of our different, I think, tastes get to shine. And as I go through all these games, I'm like, damn, we really got all of our bases covered, right?

Like I think the only thing left for us to do is to play Zeno Blad Chronicles and we pretty much conquered. Nix on there, right? Yeah. But yeah, congratulations. And also thank you guys for such a great smile. Thank you, blessing. Thank you, Andy.

Great job, everyone. Again, tune in this Monday for our game of the year top 10. That's where we're going to go through and talk about all of our best games of the year and crown our actual game of the year winner for 2024. And then that's a tease there, huh? And throughout next week, we're going to be talking about our top tens of the year individually as well as you don't want to miss the content for next week. Is there anything I'm missing out on as far as like promotion?

4 p.m. Wednesday. that's the day. 4 p.m. Wednesday, there's a special games cast. I can't tell you about it yet. Also this Saturday for Patreon stuff, right? Right.

For the giveaways, yeah, 9am. You can go to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny and get gifted a kind of funny membership. Get ready ahead of time, of course. Go to Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. Click join for free so you have a Patreon account

and then the post will go up at 9am. You click on the link. If your fastest fingers, you can get yourself a kind of funny membership to enjoy on behalf of all the other kind of funny fans. who are supporting us. Remember, it's not too late to support us. You can buy patreon.com slash kind of funny memberships.

Gift them. They give you a link. You send it to support it. Kindoffunny.com. We put it into the post for 9 a.m. Saturday. Before we get out of here, I do want to shout out the rest of the super chats we got in. Sorts, my first name wrote in and says, if I could have, if I could have best VR surprise specifically, it would be Maestro, a rhythm game. We are the conductor of an orchestra. Gary talks about this one a lot. Gary wanted me to play this. That sounds really cool. Get out of my house.

how should you get in here? It's 2 a.m. Bread Boy writes in it says, I wish more of y'all play through Silent Hill, too, and Roger didn't forget about it. I shouldn't have forgot about that one. Because I think it would have fit right into biggest surprise and best story.

They should have put remake in the title, then I wouldn't have forgot about it. I thought it was a new game. I forgot about it. Breadboy says it is their game of the year of 2024, by far personally. Joshua Burns writes in and says,

do you guys ever want to do vintage Pokemon or Magic Box opening DM me? I'm a high-end collectible broker and... Broker. can get you guys anything. I love that. Anything.

That's a bossal sets. It could not be dangerous. Yeah, that sounds super dangerous. Mike, return your jacket and take that money and send it to this man. Omega Buster writes in and says, The One Piece, TCG is about the friends we made. Demon Hacker writes in and it says,

Bluebird equals Best Studio for beating the expectations. Yeah. Honestly, yeah. Yeah, that's a really good call. Oh, yeah. Total X garbage writes and it says, Hey, Barrett, love your shirt. Where'd you get it?

Great question. Great question. Oh, he's gatekeeping. I know gatekeeping. No, I have no idea. I don't remember where I buy things. Sort my first name says, yes, Rod, reppping RGG. Christopher Burnett writes in and says, this is for Snowbike, Mike, to give him some hope. Rockstar announced in the past release, Rockstar announced in the past release dates for GTA4, L.A. Noir, MaxPain 3 and GTA 4 in January. They're removing one post-a-day counting down to January 21st. Think about that, Mike. Brocherdamus. Think about it.

I love that. and then Just to follow up on the shirt thing Tim knows this I used to buy shirts just on Instagram algorithm all the fucking time Think I'm writing that shit down Where I bought this?

Yeah everybody just saying to your phone Barrett shirt Barrett shirt No pop up on. And then Christopher Burnett Jake Jarmel Gives us more money To finish his Super Check

Because that was only the first half Oh wow He then continues My prediction is that Rockstar announces on the 14th That the second trailer drops On January 21st With the release date

of either September 16th or October 28th and will score 97 on Jesus. I love it, dude. He's from the future! Thank you for that, Christopher Burnett. Of course, this has been the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we get together

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