Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - The 2025 Kinda Funny Smileys Award Show - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Click this link https://www.boot.dev?promo=KINDAFUNNY and use my code KINDAFUNNY to get 25% off your first payment for boot.dev. Thank you Boot.Dev for Sponsoring! Thank you for the support! Run of Show - - Start - Topic of the Show: The Kinda Funny Smileys 2025 - Best Hidden Gem - Best Style -Undiagnosed ADHD Moments of the YEAR - Best Old Game - Ads - Best Multiplayer - Best Story - Best Mechanic/Feature - Most Heartbreaking Pokemon Nuzlocke Deaths - KFGPP aka Kinda Funny Games Preferred Partner - Best Trailer - Best/Worst Meal Ordered - Best Studio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boot. Dev takes your coding from beginner to expert, the fun way, through a hands-on RPG-like experience. Go to boot.com. And use code kind of funny to get 25% off your first year on the annual plan. Yo, what's up? Welcome to Kind of Funny Gamescast for Friday, January 9th, 2026. I'm one of your host, Blessing, Adi-Lia Jr., alongside the Nitro Rifle, Andy Cortez. Crushed it. Fuck.

Crushed it. Right next to Andy, of course, we have the legend, Greg Miller. great, bless. You look great, Greg. Thank you. Yeah, you said you haven't worn this since the old studio? We haven't worn this, apparently since the movie Monsters episode of Debatable. The show was still in the pocket, so excited to be hearing my Witcher Mario out of you. And earn it now that I'm such a Nintendo fan. Of course, of course. Next to Greg Miller, we have the lock, Roger Bikorney.

Happy to be replacing Tim. Yeah, I don't have you replacing him. You never have you on this show, Roger. And last but not least, we have the Master of Hype, Snowbike Mike. Thanks plus for having me here. You look great. Andy, you look fabulous as well. Very excited for the third annual Smilies. I'm here, baby. And if we can get a round of applause for Tim Gettys.

Yes. Yes. It's finally happening, everybody. He's at home sick. He caught a cold, so he wasn't able to come in. If you watch party mode, apparently that's what it hit him, he said. And so I was too busy fucking shitting all over him.

I noticed a drop in energy from him, but I thought he was just sad because of the game. I watched him back. He went dead silent. There was a moment where we ended one world, and I was like, we were playing one morning. He shot me to death like of like, I was like, no, Mike.

And I was like, one more. I'm dying right now. We all felt that. Of course, if you're watching live, you can be a part of this show by super chatting in on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. Remember, we couldn't do this without our producers

over on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. So thank you to Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney, the Psalm Twining. For now, let's begin with topic of the show. Tats, dots, dots, dots, dots. We're doing the 2025,

third annual kind of funny smileys. If you're watching this for the first time, you might be wondering what are the smileys, of course. On Monday, we're doing our game of the year top 10, where each of us voted in, we'll count down our top 10 games of the year until we crown our number one game of the year. That is happening on Monday.

But a few years ago, Andy Cortez came to me with an idea. We want to honor the games, just the wide breadth of games that came out in 2025. Of course, we honor the top 10 on Monday, But there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of video games that come out throughout the year that we love that we want to talk about that we want to celebrate. And we figured to be a fun idea to do categories, dress up, make it fancy, have a fancy set that Andy makes, handcrafts himself. And that's what we're doing today.

We're going to honor a lot of the releases that came out in 2025. Yes, Greg. I have a question for you. This is something for the table to discuss and figure out. When you say third annual kind of funny smileys, is this year three of it or year four? You're three. Thank you. Someone tried to pull this shit on the inaugural KFGD Awards.

Next year, it's not going to be the second annual to be the first annual technically. And I'm like that. I don't like it. It's confusing. I pivoted to the inaugural thing because somebody pointed out you can't be the first annual. I was like, that's fine. I'm not confusing them out of that way. When you see third annual, oh, it's the third year.

At kind of funny, third annual means third year. I don't want any shit when the KFGD Awards roll around next year or the fourth annual kind of funny smile is rolling. I like that. Beautiful. The motion passes. I love it. And also, it's him off his deathbed to vote. Also, but it's one of those things where, you know, the whole point of this wasn't just to give one award to the one thing because all of our tastes are so different.

It's to kind of show off all of our different tastes and the things that we're into in video games. And also just celebrate the most amount of developers and, you know, creations out there in the games industry. And so we have a list of categories here. Aind and I have narrowed down to four, sometimes five winners for each of the categories based on write-ins from the kind of fun. crew. Last year we did five for every category and had 12 categories. It went a bit long. You know, of course, we had to kind of like pace ourselves more quickly than I think we ideally wanted. And so I tried to get down to about four winners. But we'll cancel the stream today. This is the stream. We're hanging out. We're hanging out. We're having a good time.

We're going to be here for a while. Take your shoes off. You're not going anywhere. Everyone take our shoes off right here at the stage. Ready? Let's all do it at the same time. Yeah, let's all. I'm off. All right. It feels good. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I purposely just brought my Nike's because I didn't want to be uncomfortable. Now, Mike, do a shooey with whatever is in your Pikmin Cup. No, no, don't tell him to do that.

He'll do it, too. I know. He'll do it for the third annual smileys. You say whatever's in his pickman cup. Do you not think it's water? I didn't know if it's coffee. Or a child latte. Dogs are out, everybody. So this is the...

Swaps off. Swap socks? This is the list of categories we have for this year for the Smilies. Of course, we switch it up a little bit every single year. This list looks like this. We have Best Hidden Gem. That's for a fun surprise or not

widely known game that excelled beyond expectation. We have Best Style, the game encompassing an outstanding combination of visuals, music, and or fidelity. We have Best Old Game, a non-2020-5 game that deserves recognition could be

for a remake, remaster, resurgence, or something we relate to the game on. Best multiplayer. The best games to play with the group of people. Best story. The game that displayed outstanding storytelling and writing. Best Mechanic slash feature.

That is honoring a game mechanic or feature that was unique and or pushed things forward. We have, as a new one, KFGPP, that is, or AKA Kind of Funny Games preferred partner, a side character companion or character in general this year that stood out from the pack. We have a new one for this year. Best trailer. Of course, we react all the time. We watch all the showcases, so that's a big part of the identity of kind of funny.

So we wanted to talk about trailers this year. That's for a trailer that presented incredibly well and evoked a strong reaction. And finally, we have Best Studio, the studio that earned MVP status in 2025. Of course, if you're watching live, you can super chat in with what your picks are for these categories. Category by category, we'll check in with you the audience, see what you guys have to say and have a conversation. All right. Before we get in, we have anything left to say, any final words. It feels nice not to have shoes on.

It does. It does feel kind of nice. Peter getting a little bit cold. Oh, really? Yeah, I've been socks.

Can we get heated floors installed? What if we all wore crocs inside the office? The crocs are nice. Crocs are super comfortable. Are you not wearing socks? With the crocs?

I wear socks with the crocs. I wear socks with the crocs. That's the case my toes he gets cold. Do people usually wear socks with the crocs? I feel like the socks is a sandal. You have a socks with the crocs?

I think it all depends on how you're using the crox. My crocs are at the back door and my Ghostbuster crocs so that I can walk or take the trash out. So I'm just I'm in socks in my house I just put my socks into the crocs and go that way If I regret that when I got the Animal Crossing crocs

They were very I don't know if you know this They were only made for women Women's sizes That's offensive to male Animal Crossing fans Frankly is that two sizes above or below I was below Below Anyways

Anyways so like I was gonna wear those as my indoor crocs And there I would have been happier to be barefoot or whatever But no I just I sock it up in my crock But I don't wear the crocs out Except for when I got tricked And to go to the grocery store You got tricked? Yeah.

I made the mistake of taking out. I was in my bib jeans. I'm in my Ghostbusters and I'm wearing a hat. I look disgusting. I've been working on the attic all day long. I'm sweating. I went out and I'm like, all right, cool, I'm going to go drop these clothes off at one of the donation bins.

Not even like a center. Just dropped it. And Jen was like, well, while you're out, go to the grocery. I'm like, mother-fell. I'm walking around this high-end grocery store. Do you dress subject to go to the grocery store, though? Because I feel like. There's not, okay.

Again, I'm wearing Ghostbuster crocs and socks. big jeans that are covered in dirt in shit from the attic. Some worn out kind of funny t-shirt. I'm sure that I wasn't, it's not dressing up like this. It was like, I didn't look like I was human.

Yeah, but also the fear is like, do you run into people in your grocery store? So I ran into, I had an embarrassing moment. I never told the story. Well, I was at a target. Me and Leah's were in the, when the ball section of the target

bouncing balls, get bored, and then fucking Jonathan Dorbush walks by. I've never felt so embarrassed. I'm like, oh, hi. And we're just bouncing balls like little children. So that after,

After that moment, I'm like, I'm buckled up. You should invite him. Dormush would have done the exact same thing with you. Some people were running into dorm. We and Greg ran in Dornbush randomly at the Korean grocery store that opened up nearby. He's everywhere. He's ever in San Francisco. Were you bouncing balls there too?

No, we were looking for sushi. All right. Without further ado, let's get into it. Let's start off with our first category, which is best hidden gem. Again, this is for a fun surprise or not widely known game that excelled beyond expectation. What I think is really exciting is, I don't. I don't remember what I wrote down for any of these. Me neither.

I have the stats. You were reading categories. I'm like, I don't know. I voted. Well, our first pick for Best Hidden Gem. Again, this is in no specific order. Our first game here is Dead take.

Oh, nice. Of course. Clap it up. This is one that was written in by both me and Barrett. I'm sad Barrett's not here to talk about. Of course, Barrett's working really hard on game of the year happening on Monday. But this is a game that me and Barrett streamed together.

It was one that we were looking forward to. Of course, this is Abu and his team. You know them. Previously, they worked on... Zahowel, Taleson Zara. Or Tails Gonzara Zal. Yeah. I think you got to write.

And... I think you got to write, but I'm still going to try to correct you. But yeah, this is a game that is following up what was a 2D Betrayvania inspired by African mythology. And from that, they pivoted into a first-person horror game with, like, kind of walking some mechanics, kind of like escape room mechanics. kind of like escape room mechanics a little bit. You're trying to discover and figure out what's going on in this mansion that you've been invited to. There's a very interesting story being told here about Hollywood and the nature of performance and the nature of art and putting ourselves into art that I think is very well done. And I think even beyond that, something that I love in video games a lot is FMV.

I'm down to play an FMV video game, whether it's Wales interactive, whether it's immortality, right, or something like that. I'm so into the use of FMV. and Dead Take, I think, takes that and really does a good job with figuring out how to implement FMV in a way that is engaging and interesting and actually like a fun gameplay mechanic when you're going through different tapes and stuff. That's to the cast as well here. Exactly, yeah. You know, obviously Ben, Alana's in this too.

This is one that's a harbigger I haven't gotten to. You know how much I love the FMV video right next or a game right next to you, but it's just been such a crazy fucking year that I never got the chance to actually boot up Dead Take. But for the people who love this game, like I love these kind of games, I only heard good things. Yeah. Did anybody else get to check out that take? No. No, it's a pretty short one though, right?

Yeah. It won't be in one game. This is one that me and Barrett beat in one stream. But it was also one that me and Barrett stayed a little bit late to beat this game. You guys were locked in. Yeah, we were locked in. You're in that zone, is right. You think I would like it?

I feel like this is a game that I might like. I think you'd like streaming it. Okay. I think you'd like having the experience with people around you. Okay. For sure. Okay. All right, moving on to our second pick for Best Hidden Gem.

We have Keeper. Oh! This was one that was written in. It was coming up. Written in by Tim Geddes. Oh! Yeah. Which surprised me because this is one that, I guess I'll talk about this again, right?

This is one that I loved. Yeah. I was there. Me and Mike reviewed this together. Absolutely adored Keeper. I have so many good things to talk about with Keeper. But I want to start with Mike. Mike.

Yeah, Keeper's a special one. Keepers are really fun, just experience, right? I think the team over at Double Fine is known for their design, their art. They're just kind of wacky out their nature. And this game mixes all of it into kind of an emotional tale, one that you can share in a night. You could share over a course of like eight to ten hours,

depending on how deep you want to get in. But I just had fun just getting lost in the visuals, really. The visuals and the sounds were the big ones for me. I had a good time with this. Yeah, I'm sad that Tim is homesick because there was one just random day. I think me and him finished a cave to D or on a games cast or something where he turns to me off Mike and he's like, by the way,

you're right about Keeper. Like, letting me in on the fact that he had played it and really enjoyed it. Yeah, you guys did such a great games cast review of Keeper last year. They got me so excited for it. But again, I never got the time. But I remember blessing.

I think for you, what, I want to say you gave it an 8 and you're like this, but it's an 8. I love like a 10 or something. And it was like, you sold me so much on the journey of what this game is. Yeah, I forget exactly what I gave it.

But like, this is one that the art really hit me. even though there are small things here and there that I didn't really love as far as where it goes and how it changes up certain gameplay mechanics. That said, I think the art here is beautiful. I think the visuals here are wonderful. I think even just the gameplay of the tower and how it moves and how it sounds

and the audio design of it, I think is so well done. The music, the soundtrack of it, I think is so well done. And we had Paris on that episode, I believe. And Paris, I think, made a good observation and talking about the story and how it connected with him as somebody who's a father right now. I think the game has a really interesting perspective

on community and what it means to be a part of community and taking care of one another that is really cool seeing told via Lighthouse walking around. Yeah. A little bird.

We miss you, Tim. We miss you, Tim. We miss you, Paris. Our third pick for Best Hidden Gem is and Roger. Ah, yeah. Fuck yeah. This is what you wrote in with Greg.

Thank you very. that you remind me. I'm just being a fan of game, so I'm not afraid to put a... Yeah, Tim, I know also, obviously, all about this game. He talked about it recently on what the last games cast he was on, I think.

You know, this is a tough one to talk about because you don't want to spoil it. There's a bigger narrative going on than may seem, but yes, you wake up in your house and there's a person in it and you have to figure out if you're going to try to sneak out, if you're going to talk to them,

what you're going to do, then obviously things are not as they seem. You know, the most apt comparison, I think, is Florence. It is, you know, a bunch of little mini games and little things going on that are telling you an emotional tale as you go. It's heartbreaking. It's beautiful.

I loved it. Like I loved And Roger. And it's always so hard to talk about it and not talk about it. Brought me to, I think I don't, I forget if I cry, cried during it, but I definitely teared up during it.

And I had a similar moment to Tim of when I realized what it was about because I was looking enough to come in and not have it ruined for me of what are we doing here? Oh, oh shit, we're doing this. And it's something I've, uh, long known.

information about. I don't want to spoil it. You know what I mean? I'm glad earlier you mentioned you know, it's hard to talk about this one without spoiling it. There will be no spoilers for all of this show. So don't worry about anything. You know, we last year, two years ago,

we had like best boss fight and all that stuff and get a little bit spoilery. So there will be none of that here. Yeah, and Roger, you know, I think we all think of it, if you thought about it as a PC game. I do know it's out on Switch. And I think it's cheap. It's a smaller game. Bye. Switch.

On the Nintendo store? Five bucks? Yeah, five bucks on Steam over there. So yeah, you swim over here too as well. About a two-hour journey, right? It might even be less than that. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, $4.99.

I would be an hour and a half. I would encourage you all to go get it if you're that kind of gamer. If you want interesting mechanics telling you an interesting story. And, you know, it's what I love about video games when you hear me go on and on about Florence about gone home. It's being able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes

and really get a different kind of experience. Yeah, this is one that I had streamed. and I didn't cry while playing it, but I think I held it back because I'll stream it. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to, yeah, I'm not trying to have somebody click itself. Livestring fails. But it's one that really spoke to me

for all the reasons that Greg talked about, and I think the comparison of Florence is really apt, just for a game that does a lot of similar things with both kind of its art style, but even so, even so how you interact with it and how it uses, like, unique forms of puzzles and just like unique scenarios that you're trying to solve the thing

or put the thing to this thing to, like, tell, the story that it's telling and touch on the subject matter that is touching on. I think it's such a good marriage of gameplay and what the story is they're telling. I've gotten the subject matter spoiled for me. Should I still play this? 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

In fact, early on, I think I had kind of known earlier before I played this game, but I just forgot. It's one of those that I think if you are cognizant of the subject in general, when it starts, you, it's real quick. It's not like the credits rolling like, wait, it was what? No, it's revealed way before that. Yeah, like five minutes in. think I predicted it, and then it kept going. I was like, okay, maybe I'm wrong. And then it loop back and I was like, okay, no, this is exactly what it is.

And so knowing the subject matter will not ruin this game for you. Of course, those are our picks for best hidden. Oh, no, we have one more pick, actually. Sorry. We have one more pick, which is the Alters. Yay! Alters is so good. 11-bit studios with a really unique story and unique gameplay elements.

I think this is probably like, in my opinion, the most unique unique, game of the year. Marrying a bunch of really neat elements from a lot of other styles of games that I'm into, whether it be decision making, whether it be resource management. You are an astronaut named Yandolski

and you crash on a planet and the whole concept is hey, you're the only one here and if you're going to try to do all this stuff to survive alone, it's kind of impossible. So you need more help and you sort of take it upon yourself to use the technology of board your ship to create clones of yourself.

And these clones of yourself are all different. They're all different personalities. They're pretty much just different people with, you know, maybe the same backstory of, you know, here's what's happening with your mom, here's your relationship with your father. But every one of these clones took a different, made a different decision in your life,

in their version of your life, right? So their lives changed drastically. And all of these characters, all have different quirks about them. Some of them are really into, you know, science. Some of them are really into just feet as well, yeah. Oh. Some of them are just insane.

Like there's like, it goes a lot of different wild places with a lot of cool surprises. And yeah, I think the story it's telling, along with all the characters involved, are really, really cool and interesting. We've talked a lot about the altars. And I have a question over here from grad aunt in the chat. Does the authors have a definitive ending or is it endless management sim? I gave it a few hours one day, enjoyed the story, but not the mechanics so much. Oh, yeah, no, it has a, yeah, like the game ends, you hit credits.

It's over, over, yeah. Very, very cool video game. I suggest everybody check it out. Yeah, I see Marty PixelRod says it's like Mickey 17 kind of. Yeah, it's very similar to that. You are trying to survive with these different, and not only resource management, but employee person management because these are all people who are like, hey, you're the leader here, you're running shit, but I

fucking hate that we don't have good food to eat man, and you're like, oh, damn, I got to make sure he's happy. And then suddenly your altars are like, at one point, you know, or at many points might go, hey, we're going to, you know, we're starting a rebellion right now. We don't really like how you're managing this

and we think you're doing a terrible job. It's really awesome, though, that you sort of manage all that stuff and sometimes, you know, become really good friends of them and it's, it tells a really beautiful story. Oh, yeah. Well, those are our picks for best hidden gem. Congratulations to these picks.

Got Dead Take Keeper and Roger and the Alters. Of course I did ask you guys to write in. We got a super chat in from Lucid Dream who says, my hidden gem, Ender Magnolia. Are you guys familiar with Ender Magnolia? I know the name I couldn't pick it out of the lineup. I almost beat it. I think I'm like two boss by toy. Yeah, the Steam page

describes it as decades after the events of Ender Lily's Humuniculi. Humunculis. Humunculia. There you go. Humunculi. Yeah. Sorrowful artificial life forms roam the land in this dark fantasy Metroidvania face formidable enemies and explore a bewitching post-apocalyptic world. This is one that you checked out, that you almost beat.

Yeah, I got to the very, very end. I don't really have a good reason for not finishing because I dug it. I think I just moved on to other things. But it's a, yeah, 2D Satsgirler Metroidvania with really cool characters. And if you remember the trailer for Tides of Annihilation, how the whole thing is like, you are commanding the knights of the round table or whatever. It's kind of a similar thing where whenever you attack, the people attacking for you are like phantoms.

And so they're all different personalities. And yeah, it tells really kind of a neat story with cool boss fights and cool mechanics. I should finish it. I'm really close. Like right there at the end. We got one more from Rogue 4 who writes in and says, does the altars run well on Steam Deck?

Does anybody try it on Steam Deck? I think it runs, like, not great. I preferred to play it on... I think that was maybe one that I started doing G-Force now with. Because it was running a lot. Like, I didn't have a great time with how it has to kind of look really, really low-fi,

you know, in order to run smoothly. It doesn't really answer your question, but I played an hour of it on Rog AlliX, and it was fine. There you go. Let's move on to our next category. Best Style. This is for the game encompassing

an outstanding combination of video, visuals, music, and or fidelity. Our first pick for Best Style is South of Midnight. Yes. What a great pick. Who all nominated this one? This was one that was written in

by two different people, Tim Getty's and Roger McCorney, Rodger. I mean, what a gorgeous video game. Looking back on this, it didn't, when I was making my top 10 list, it did not get anywhere around it because I think that gameplay just kind of really destroyed my experience there.

Destroyed, quote, unquote. but the style of this game. It held it back. Destroyed his chances, rather, of the top ten. But this game is just, it's one of the best looking video games of this generation. It perfectly kills the puppetry,

low frame rates, vibe of everything. It doesn't hurt your eyes. It just feels like this really beautifully art-directed world. Some really unique character designs, enemy designs. It is really up there with some of the best-looking video games

of this generation. it's really impressive. Yeah, and style, as you said, encompasses everything, right? Yeah. I think the music is so incredible in this game. I adored the soundtrack to this, both the original generated song, or written songs and perform songs for the bosses,

but also just the ambiance music. And when we're talking about style, I mean, you can see it seeping through this. This is a great pick. Yeah, I also think it really takes advantage of the setting, right? This is a game that takes place in the South. And when you talk about the South, right, you're talking about a lot of the cultural density

that exists there. and I think that's an area that's not as represented in video games and South and Midnight looking into that and going, all right, we're going to take a really dynamic art style, we're going to take the music that Greg's talking about, but we're really going to represent the South with it and tell a story that is using unique characters and unique ideas that come out of the South, right?

I think is very well done, and the execution of it is top-notch, like Roger says, this is one of the best-looking games of the generation. Absolutely. All right, our next pick for Best Style is clear obscure expedition 33 course I mean duh this game just kind of does it all man

it looks gorgeous it has a soundtrack that can be so varied at any moment it's going to hit you with different genres at all at all times with its music but I I also just love the environments

and the boss fights and the characters and there are just some stunning visuals in this game that are really, really awesome to look at. When I think about some of the, the way that they play with scale, with that one boss that's like, you know, spinning around with the crazy,

like fabric all over the place. Things just look really, really awesome all of the time. And I think they, they went, they listened to Andy's lessons of like, what makes the game look cool. Like, if you just have floating rocks, that's awesome.

Oh, yeah. Floating rocks are really cool in video games. and yeah, I think this game always looks stunning and lighting-wise, everything it does is super beautiful. I want to shout out particle effects with a purpose. Andy, one of the controversial things you always talk about is metaphor of Fantasio and the art style not doing it for you. And I agree and disagree,

but the part where I agree is that I think that game has too many particle effects. It's like they fucking tripped. They're like holding a bucket of particle effects tripped and they're like, oh shit, it's all over the place. It becomes noise at a certain point. Yeah, it becomes noise. And I think you talk about the floating rocks, right?

I think there's a point at which Claire, obscure Exhibition 33 could have been doing too much with art style because you look around in this world. And it's like, oh, this thing's floating over here. Oh, this is happening over here. Oh, I parry and this thing happens and fucking, you know, the black sprays to the screen and it looks like graffiti. Like, there's so much happening, but it doesn't come off as noise. It comes off as art and design with a purpose. And I think, you know, that's something that also. loops in with the story of the game and the narrative of what's going on and like you know again no

spoilers in the show but i think that is just so well done we're talking about just the art of it in the visual perspective and in just the style of it as a whole also shop to the music of course music still again our next game that we have for best style is death straining two come on you want to talk about style that's kojima son the music the way it again fucking hits of you setting off on your journey, getting ready to climb some mountain, it pops up. Caroline Polichick. Oh, right, whatever it's going to be.

Just that I would say washed out gray, blue look of the entire world, right? And how weird and surreal it is, but also I was shocked by how homie it felt to come back to this after doing Death Stranding 1 to come back to this. We're like, all right, I remember this and that, putting on your pack and the way everything felt and looked and what it was. was good stuff. And going into the other world and seeing the whole particle effect situation there is just mind blowing.

Yeah, it's visually so crisp and gorgeous. Even on a base PlayStation 5 runs incredibly. The music's great. Yeah, this is, if I were to rank like highest fidelity video games that are going for realism, I think Destranging 2,

out of all time, I think Destrain 2 is number 1 and like Reddor Reddivemption 2 is number 2. That's my top 2 right there. Talk about the Stee's the style. The characters, the tar. Oh, man. This thing had style for days, man. Every moment there's a wow factor to it all.

Every time you go somewhere, I loved our experience with it. We had so much fun. We had a unique one, but yeah. We had a unique experience. The moment that Kevin just had pulled up in the trailer where he's overlooking all the mountains and stuff, you can see the ripples of the mountains with such detail, I remember seeing that in the trailer

and us all being like, god damn. And I think part of me when I see trailers like, that. I'm like, all right, but it's a trailer. The game's not going to look like that. And the game fucking looks like that. Yeah. Like that's the thing that blows me away about it. Of course, when we're talking about people that wrote in with the games, like I mentioned, South of Midnight was Roger and Tim. Expedition 33 was Andy and Death Training 2 was my right in.

Mainly because to the point that Roger just made, I'll put this up there with one of the best looking games, fidelity-wise. When you're talking about character models, when you're talking about environments, when you're talking about different types of, I guess, elements that come into play in environments, whether it be water and you see the sink. in low and or like the low prints well yeah the footprints the footprints the lowering and rising tides based on the weather the fire that they made such a big deal about in this game all of it looks so immaculate and then you get

into certain cutscenes with characters like tomorrow that just look and sound so fucking sick I think the soundtrack of this game is and incredible and again style like to get to that and no spoilers but Higgs to get to all the Higgs stuff and the way the game ends and boss fights like incredible our final pick for best style is Doom the Dark Ages Wow This is one that was written in by the one and only Snowbike Mike

Hell yeah Mike tell me about the style of this game Fucking in your face Action heart pumping It's got everything that I want right It's got that doom or that doom mentality of like Over the Top action

Ferocious monster design Ferocious monsters Awesome design and all the enemies that you're going after. And then on top of that, just that bullet hell of all the different colors coming in your face, right?

It's like, I loved Dune so much or Dume so much. And like every moment made me smile and every moment goes, man, this world,

this fucking narrative that they created, this thing is so cool to look at and be a part of. And so, yeah, I had to put the Dume Slay around this

because he's just badass and he oozes style and that Captain America's heel, he'll be hawking it at people and they get stuck in their chest and it's chainsaw. It's like nobody had that. Nobody got that.

Yeah, the soundtrack, I would say obviously doesn't hold up to older ones, but like it's still kicked ass in a lot of moments. To go along with the awesome visuals and the, you know, that action when you're surrounded by so many freaking enemies, I think they do really cool stuff near the near kind of the end of the game with our direction where things change up quite a bit. And, you know, you're always kind of used to lava and hell and fire all over the place. And they do some really cool different stuff near the end that I really enjoyed.

And the kaiju stuff. Kaju? Yeah. Riding the dragon. Yeah. Woo! Come on. Of course, those are our four winners for Best Style. Congratulations.

I will shout out Holiday Night Silk Song that nobody happened to ride in with which like, I don't know the protocol. Maybe that's something we figure out for next year of like, hey, nobody wrote in with this thing. Are we sure we want to leave it out? I think next year we vote for three things. And then...

Oh, I like that. Get all the... I like that. That would have been one of mine, but, you know, Claire Obscure was my... You know what I wanted to vote on, Greg? What? Create your own style. Skates.

Oh, wow. I'm the steesiest skater in the wild. Man, I'll tell you what, man. You really want to bring up the haters. You give a skate. When I hit that Christaer... Universally, I fucking hate Fortnite love, fortification.

They don't get it. I'm talking about my stees, okay? When I nose grind that rail and I'm going down at a 45-degree angle, when I hit that mega jump and I'm Christ-airing through a goddamn church window, like, that's called... I don't care about what you think that's Steve. That'll be a separate category called besties. We know, Mike and I know how well skate's going to be represented and kind of funny's top

10. That's why we kept that off of this. Go for it, go for it. I was going to say, we'll move on to category number three. Yeah, category number three, Andy, do you want to talk about this one? Yeah, sure. Sure thing. I, you know, I want to kind of like also include some fun moments through the kind of fun of

year, but also some maybe concerning moments that we, should kind of look at and maybe be aware of. And, you know, this category may not come back next year. Maybe it does. It depends on, you know, us cataloging and getting good clips and things like that. But this category is the most concerning undiagnosed ADHD moment of the year. Got it. No.

What are the rules that the audience will see today? Okay. So we've been talking about this for about a week, Snowbike, Mike. and originally we're like should be best on best and you said relay race and of course that's the most fun and then we were testing our setup

and we quickly realized that hard the movies we lose all these competitions when the team is this locked in at the same time so the rules are going to be a relay race we're going to do two rounds where each person gets 10 minutes every time

hold on Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff Nick Scarpino can you get off your fucking phone can you listen to the rules can you listen to the rules please Oh, they're not, these are not serious people, grub. These are just, it's embarrassing. Why do we even entertain this? Are you guys a little bum we didn't get taken up to it?

I have my father last week, like the last people did. I will err on the side of caution. People's fucking, why? My put's not, is my foot? Oh, shit, sorry. Why is my foot? What's left? Oh, the worst.

All right. Alright, turn your body. I hate this. I hate it so much, grub. Wait, my right, look. Close to you on it. Oh, fuck. I'm gonna need you to stop looking at magic cards on a website.

That's fucking shit. Close the goddamn laptop. This guy's been scrolling. Oh, I'm there to the watch. He's like, some place, surface. He's just scrolling a web page, looking at magic decks and cards. It's not my servers It keeps me on the day

It is Nick's Carpito Looking at Panser in the Patapuny podcast I see that little fucking thumb just scrolling on the touch screen You have a problem There we go That's good, that's good I agree Nick is a problem

Yeah Nick's phone should be removed Nick's phone should be removed When he's in the streaming room He has lost phone privilege For the smiles Okay if I don't get invited to be on the show You can't fucking throw shaking

at me from the other room. Those are the claims. I don't know. I don't know who ended in that. Number one. Number two, I can't help it if Giant Bob's boring. Damn. That's fuck them. Accurate. Winner of sight of the year on the Kind of Funny Games Daily Awards, Giant Bob. Very much. Out of sight. Out of ears out of mind for Nick. You didn't hear them. They weren't there anymore. But yeah, that was our third category for this year. Bless.

And looking forward to more for the rest of the show. Of course, thank you so much for that, Andy. Of course, you know, kind of fun is a lot about the video games. we have so much to reminisce and talk about when it comes to 2025 in video games. But also there's a lot to talk about in terms of 2025 and kind of funny. And so maybe look out for more of these categories throughout the show. Oh. Our next category. Oh, God damn.

What? I'm waiting to eat these egg bites when you go to ads. I keep hoping the next one's going to be ads. I can throw an ad right now. No, no, do you think. I'll do one more than go to ad for you. Our next category, best old game. This is for a non-2020 game that deserves recognition could be for a remake, remaster,

resurgence, or something we relate to. to the game on our first game to win best old game is Tony Hawk's pro skater 3 plus 4 remake damn rip it yeah I wonder who wrote it was out here wow everyone knows how much Tim loves this everyone knows that Tim doesn't get many dreams to come true

because he keeps losing game showdown to me right but getting this and having it be as good as it was having it be that added content having to be the skaters as they look now like Tony Hawk was such a powerhouse back in the day the fact they were able to come back and deliver something that captures that glory, you know, reimagines it, I guess, for lack of a better term, for so many different people now, it's pretty incredible.

One of my biggest heartbreaks in gaming is I lost a touch on these games and I've moved fully into skate that now when I try these awesome new remakes, I don't have the skill, I don't have the flow anymore like I used to back in the day as a kid who adored these games, that every time I pick them up, I immediately turn them off and go, I don't have it. I've lost it. So, yeah, really it hurts to see all these awesome. some remakes and go, man, back in the day, I loved this stuff.

I did play the shit out of this when this came out. I played the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 campaign like five times just off of this remake. Partly because my save kept not transferring, like my cloud save for Steam wasn't working the right way. Again, run it back. Yeah. It's funny. I mean, it brought me back to childhood to where I would rerun the campaign of the Knox Pro Skater 3 all the time. And so in a funny way, like the save not sticking kind of like made me relive these moments from

childhood where I'm going faster, right, towards like. okay now I know where the objectives are so let's see how fast I can do it first play through might have taken me three to four hours now this playthew is taking me one hour now my next play through is taking me 30 minutes right like Tony Hawk's that kind of game that is more about I think the muscle

memory and you know kind of like trying to lock in what your path is going to be what your line is going to be more than anything and so returning to this was really fun for that but on the other hand I growing up didn't play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 I skipped that one to jump to like the thub

game specifically Thug too. Hell yeah, thug. Hell yeah, thug. So this was my first time experiencing Tony Hocs Pro Skater 4, and I know this is like a different version of it because they changed certain things based off of what Tony Hock's Pro Skater 4 was. But there's never been a better time. Yeah, there's never been a better time to hop into Tony Hawks Pro Skater 4 because this

made me fall in love with those levels as well. And so shout out to Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 plus 4. I love that we're shouting it out here because otherwise, this is one that for me personally would have gotten lost to the annual 22 and 25. That's the beauty of the smile. exactly. Our next game for best old game is Metal Gear Solid Delta.

Oh, hey now. This is one that I wrote in with, of course, I love Metal Gear Solid. Everybody knows that. Reviewed them. I've been lucky enough to be around a long, long time. And so, yeah, for three to be my least favorite, and I say that, of course, least favorite, not that it's the worst, just not the one that I loved. To get in and jump in and have it be gorgeous and have it not be fucked up. You know, it's not Kojima touching it. it is virtuous coming in and doing it.

Have it be as good as it was and such a great reminder of what Metal Gear was. And I guess it is. You know what I mean? I remember playing it and coming in the next day and be like, you really forget that we don't get these anymore. You know what I mean? Like Metal Gear has been Metal Gear for so long, but we're, you know, with No Kojima, we're just not getting them. To jump back in here to have David Hayter,

to have the Kodak. It's like, what a treat this was to have it so faithfully and lovingly recreated and brought over to have it be so gorgeous, so much fun. Like just a great time that again, For me personally on my top 10 of the year, I didn't feel like giving it a place there because it's Metal Gear Solid 3. Sure.

Okay, it's a known quantity. We knew it was going to be, we hoped it would be great. It was more of the fact of to come in here for an old game as old category. I had such a great time here. Yeah, I echo everything you talked about. I think the thing that really hit for me

was reliving the moments of MGS3. Yeah. I think someone even more than the gameplay of MGS3. Oh, sure. Because I think I had rude awakening moments as I was playing this game where I'm like, oh man, this is shorter than I thought it was.

Oh, man, this section, I can just run through. I didn't realize some of the gameplay things that might not live up or age as well over time. But when you are experiencing the Halo jump or when you are experiencing some of these cut scenes or experiencing like the ending moments with the boss. The fucking pedals in the air, come on.

Oh my God, that shit hits like crack. So shout out to MGS3. This one's special to me as Greg said like, right, me and Barrett went through all the metal gears together. But I was the co-pilot. So it was finally time for me to jump in. And I haven't done that yet. It is so high on my list.

It's funny, Mike and Roger over here. We put a lot of effort into trying to make a Metal Gear Solid remake MegaStream, but of course, shout out to Andy, and Hollow Knight came in and saved the day, which was awesome to have. But, man, we had alligator meat that we're going to have Greg and Nicky. That rotted. We had that in the freezer for months. We were going to...

Shout to the company that sent it to us for free, by the way. So I'm not ever ate it. We called up an indoor playplace gym to go have... It's a Ninja Warrior, Jim. Yeah, we tried to do that. Greg do that. Like we, we were going to go all out for that.

So this one one holds a special place in my heart for this. Yeah, one day I'll play it. I love Peace Walker and I never play this one. Oh, volume two. Where's volume two? We're supposed to see a volume two?

Where is it? Oh, a piece, oh, okay, gotcha. I thought you said this is going to be Peace Walker volume two. No, no, I mean, for the Metal Gear collection.

That's basically Melchewer's a five. Yeah, that's fair. Great game. Our third game for this category, best old game is Dark Souls. Oh, which, funny enough, was not written in by me, because I played

during break, and I played mostly I just assumed that was you. No, this was written in by Barrett Courtney. Oh, good job Barrett. Yeah, who played Dark Souls earlier in the year. Oh, God. You look out of sleep. Deep in the numbers, man. You gotta get

deep into the numbers here. Damn, I didn't know he wrote that. I just, you had done that. No, this was... I wrote it with Outer Wilds, which I didn't put on the final thing, but like, shout out Outer Wilds. But as somebody who's currently playing Dark Souls, I will tell you, man, what a special game. Yeah.

This one is really hidden for me. We got to do, put on the calendar, if there's time on the calendar, Dark Souls review. I have to. I need an hour to talk about this. That was Andy and Bless playing. I was only staring at myself. I was like, I played this here. What about it?

Coke in the middle of that. That's my leg tired. What's happening here? Take up that. I remember that being a very busy, like, we were all kind of tired for some reason. A lot going on. I think Carl came into the middle of this one. There was a lot happening.

Whatever. That must have been NBA All Star break. Then that would have been if he was here. That would have been February. Yeah. Stuff was going on. I didn't know Barrett beat that this year. Yeah.

I mean, I remember Barrett coming every day and being like, bless you got to play Dark Souls and talk. I remember here overhearing him talking to you about Dark Souls and how cool it was. So good for Barrett for beating Dark Souls. Good for us for playing it on stream and then falling off of it. But I'm back. You're playing it. Yeah.

You're going to be ready for review. You think. on the 20th, Tuesday the 20th. Oh yeah, I'm beating this game tonight. Got it. Wow. Yeah, I just beat the DLC last night. Let me tell you about this guy Artorious. Man, oh, man.

Let me tell you about the other thing in the DLC that's not oratorious. It goes kind of crazy. Oh, man. Good time. Not Dark Souls. Our fourth and final game, our fourth and final pick for best old game, Hollow Night. Oh, the first one.

This is one that was written in by the one and only, Roger McCornier. Oh. In Rodin, Hollow Night. I got slapped. Yeah, as you all know, I was slapped on a plane while playing a whole night. It's his special. Kind of just changed my entire brain, chemistry, everything about me.

JetBlue has never reimbursed me for anything or messaged me back after the incident. But of course, I played hollow night in the beginning of last year. And it was really that? Yeah. I thought it was much longer ago. It's crazy. When I saw, when Bless sent me the winners, the answers, I thought Tim wrote it for some reason. No, I adored this game.

I tried to play the first four hours of it, probably five times, and then this was the time that actually stuck with me. It was so good and such an amazing experience, but it was such an all-encompassing gaming experience for me to the point where by the time Hollow Night's Silk Song came out, maybe about six, seven months later, I was almost like, I was Hollow Nighted out, which was crazy. So that kind of affected my game of the year list.

I probably would have put way more time into Silk Song if I hadn't played this year, but I still had an amazing experience. I'm happy I did it in this order, because if I waited, I would have just played Silk Song and never played this game. So this game is such a special experience. I love how different the main character feels comparatively to Hornet in Silk Song. It is a complete night and day difference.

And I actually like being underpowered and so small. I thought that was a really, really interesting fun experience. And it kind of was perfect because I played Animal Well the previous year. And that was like kind of my first real big like Metroidvania that I put all my heart into and going into Hollow Night here was such a beautiful experience. And yeah, I didn't get too lost, I will say. I didn't get too too lost, which was not.

So I think the reports of being super lost in Holo Night are kind of overblown. I think this is a great ride-in for this year, especially like partly for us, because a lot of us revisited a hollow night this year, but even for, I think, gamers at large, in the industry at large, that might have missed out on Hollenite the first time.

But with all of the hubbub around Silk Song coming out, went back and revisited it. I'm sure so many people got to go back and check out Hollow Night for the first time and maybe fall in love with it. A lot of chat mentioning no Final Fantasy 10. Yeah. Did Mike ever write that in?

I play a lot of games this year. He does. I was surprised I didn't know which one I wrote in because I think I was feeling spicy that day. Everybody knows Final Fantasy 10. He wrote a game I've never heard of before. He wrote a game called Carry the Glass. Care the Glass.

That shit was fun of the fun. Shit. Everybody blame Mike. If I wanted to see Five Fancy 10 on there, I'm like, oh yeah, that's the pick. It's like I think about it's like, here's Snow Mike's. Best old game of the years. Ready for this?

Devil May Cry 3. Woo! Man, that game goddamn rocked. Dante and his brother David, what a great time. Those two were doing, man. That shit was lit, okay?

Then after that, I go down the list. I go Half-Life 1, Half-Life 2. Half-Life 1, better than Half-Life 2. But both those games must play games right there. I can't wait for Half-Life. Alex on the VR to play that. And then... Good news you're getting Half-Life 3 this year.

I was going to say. Roger, keep yelling that Half Life 3 is real. I guess I'll be ready for that. You can also play Halfa Thalax without the VR now. People have modded it. If you want to do that. Really? Yeah, yeah, fully from start to time.

You got to add Mike not having Falun Fancy's head and ridden here to bad. The best idiotic moments. Number three, Pokemon Emerald. Oh, man. I fell off Pokemon at a young age after Pokemon Gen 1, right? So like going into Emerald, doing the Nuzlock rules and fully like committing to it, right? where if you lose all six and you fade out, that's the end of the run.

I did that seven times, and I'm happy to say that I conquered it. I did it, man. That was awesome. It's an impromptu category right now. It's a true special one. Greg's like, Mike, just let me eat these eggs. I got wrong. I'm like how special that was to develop the bonds with your Pokemon to strategize

in those early gyms of what do I need here to only be able to catch one Pokemon. The first Pokemon you see on the route was insane, right? Of like rolling the dice, hoping that I would get that goo baby, that Raltz, you know what I mean? It's like, that psychic Pokemon, I need that goo baby right now, right? And then

you don't, you get a poochie again. You're like, I don't need this hyena, but I'll take the hyena. Man, wouldn't experience, Alzheimer, okay? Number two. No, no. No, number two. Number two. Final Fantasy

10. That game changed my life. I will always remember the laugh. I'll remember the tears. I'll remember the hug. I'll remember Blitzball. I'll remember the characters. I'll remember Final Fantasy 10-2 that one day I'll play. But that's shocking realization.

You know what I mean? Like this game rocks, man. I would have prepped a graphic for this. I love this, okay? Man, Final Fantasy 10 is going to stick with me forever. The characters, Yuna. Gosh. This is like when he forgot to give me the bonus star at Game Showdown that one time.

Oh, yeah. And the number one. Number one. Number one, best old game. Carry the glass. Mike and Chris Anger carrying the glass. You know what I mean? I challenged my friends.

I said, give me one night. We're going to play one of these super difficult only up games. And I'm going to make you pull your hair out. Let's play this together. And Chris Anka stood up. He said, Mike, I'll carry the glass with you.

And I said, that's my boy, Chris. Yeah. Hell yeah. You said I got no hair to pull out. We were working on different angles, right? You got to go up. You got to go down. You got to tilt it.

You've got to run real fast. You got a jump. You got a balance. you got a little do a little syby shake carry the glass best experience thank you for that Mike

thank you remember patreon.com slash kind of funny and YouTube.com slash kind of funny games is where you can go to get the kind of funny membership which allows you

to get shows ad free and what else Greg well as you get a daily Gregway from me Gregway 50 to 20 commentary as well the diehard one

should be up soonish if it's not already out right now there you go tight run ship we are yeah exactly a lot of fun stuff

you can get the kind of funny membership. But guess what? If you don't have it, that means that you're about to watch the ads right now. This episode is brought to you by boot.com. If you're listening to this show, there's a solid chance that you, one, like video games,

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kind of funny to get 25% off your entire first year on the annual plan. There's no better time to give your coding dreams a chance just like Kevin Coelow's doing. Again, go to boot.deb and use code kind of funny to get 25% off your entire first year on the annual plan. Mike gave that, like, beautiful speech. I still don't know what carried the glasses. It's exactly what you think it is. It's one of them multiplayer games.

It's just two friends holding. It's one of them like tied together, you know, it's one of those like, you're supposed to rage type of games, you know. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, got it. Only a co-op sort of thing. You would like it when until you see what? me and Nick play soon. I offered it to Joey. I said, Joey got another really great game, but it's one of those ones

and she said, Mike, you can save that for you and Nick. You ride a tandem bicycle. Only up on a tandem bicycle with you and a friend. Good for you. I love that. All right, let's move on to our next category, which is Best Multiplayer, the best

games to play with a group of people. And our first winner here is Eldon Ring 90. This is written in by three different people. Whoa. Andy, Mike, and blessing. Wow.

I wrote in with Night Rain as well. So what's take it away. What a good time. I mean, we've just had so many laughs. It's such a difficult game. It'll make you rage. It'll get you angry. But like it's just still so magical.

I was always worried about this game, not being able to capture the from software magic. And, you know, let's just make like a multiplayer version of it. Is it going to lose any of that sort of, you know, mysticism about it? And it just didn't. It still holds up and it does some amazing shit with boss fights. And this game has some of my favorite from software boss fights throughout all their whole sort of history.

So, yeah, I'm still having a great time with this game. I hop in and run solos alone. I play with Mike. I play with you here. It's a great freaking time. This game rocks. Melissa with a while. Shout out, Melissa, our hard carry.

Shout out, Mel. Big carry. Mike, this is your favorite from soft game. This is my favorite from soft game. I really love this game. I have so much fun sharing the FromSoft experience with friends is the big one, right? I love this get good. Hey, learn the boss pattern mentality, practice and you'll be the best you can be type

video game. And doing that with friends is awesome, right? To be able to strategize with Melissa and Andy to be preparing from night one into night you being aware of your passives and all the items that you grab throughout the run, knowing that certain different characters need certain things, grabbing flash. That sense of discoverability in the map is always something special to me because I, you know, I just want to play the new map, but I love going back to the old map. I like that they have variations on the old map.

I think they did a really good job with this one, and I can't wait to see what they do in the future with Dusk Bloods, right? Like the idea of adding a PVP into this is so much fun. to me. I'm very excited because of course I've always loved the invades mechanic inside of Dark Souls. The idea now that we will be playing on a map and you're going to look at me and I'm

going to look at you and we're going to figure out are we stepping to one another or are we running away and saving it for a different time where maybe I'm going to be stronger than you or you'll be stronger than me like this is going to lead to some really fun gameplay you know so yeah this game is great. It really wasn't until this DLC drop

in early December that I thought like I just want this game to keep on going forever. I want this game to be developed for the next many years because once I saw what the DLC could be and what content and additional content could be in the future, it's like, oh my God,

if we can get like new map variations with new boss fights, getting like random NPC invaders every now and then that change up your whole run and really throw a wrench into all of your plans. But overcoming that challenge is so awesome. It's like, dude, just keep, whoever the night. rain team is, just keep doing more.

Like, I want to see another DLC next year. I want this game to continue. The thing I really love about this game is the fact that it's a game coming from From Soft, who is now in the top tier of video game developers who have so much budget, who have so many resources, and they made the messiest multiplayer game possible.

Like, NightRain could have been like, all right, what's another multiplayer game that exists, and let's copy and paste? Let's just make a battle reaerial, or let's just make a regular rogue light or whatever. For some reason, they're like, let's make something that is fucking weird and, you know, kind of like messy in some bad ways, but I think in a lot of ways that allows them to really allow the player to have experiences that

you can't get anywhere else, where it is me and Andy playing and we're playing with like one random player who shows us a volcano that you can go down. We're like, oh shit, if we come here, we can like upgrade our weapon to the highest thing. That's fucking cool, right? I think the shifting lands mechanic is so interesting. it allows for that discoverability that Mike is talking about. It being in this open world area

and having like all these different cool bosses that you have throughout from soft from soft games, at least like the Dark Souls and Ellen Ring games. Insane. Incredible stuff. Shout out, Elton Ring now. Game rules. Our next game for this category is Arc Raiders.

Wow. Written in just by Greg Miller. Hi, everybody. Yeah, Arc Raiders I didn't, I mean, compare to most of you, Mike and Andy for sure. I scratched the surface of, right? I forget if it's 15 or 20 hours I got in by the end of it. But it's like the one I

I miss having the time to invest in these games. I don't mean as Ben's dad, I mean is like, remember when Hell Divers 2 dropped and it was that perfect time or I was like, you know what? We're streaming it every day. And every day I find a reason to get in there and I pulled myself off shows. Monster Hunter. All right, I'm in there every day streaming, making a thing to do it. Like, our graders,

I tried solo and I just didn't have the vibe of when we were in that streaming room. This is, one that I would have loved to have been able to get in that streaming room with you all more for because it was so much fun to run around in grief. It was so much fun. Even when I did play solo a couple nights on my rock or on the actual computer or Xbox, because of cross-playing, cross-save and all that jazz. Like, what a great time I had with this game. And if we could have gotten in there stream more, I think it could have really hooked me and really put some numbers on the board for it. But it's just such a competitive year with Gregass games everywhere about

narratives and single players and things I really wanted to sync time into that. This is one that I vacationed in but would have loved to have lived. Yeah. Yeah, this will always be my I'm on the hunt for you video game and I still played on my rock ally X in bed all by myself solo and it's just like it makes me smile because I know a lot of people love, especially here at this desk, love the PVE, love the kind of like fighting against the arch, doing your missions. The blend of PVP has always been fun for us, but for me it has always been I'm going

to find you and I'm going to steal all of your stuff. And I love that, right? Me and Nick had so many good times from Hunt Showdown to escape from Tarkoff. We started to try all these games over the course of a week or two last year. And now to have Art Graders and it be so successful, so fun to run so well, it's a blast. And I just love getting on voice comms, tricking people into them, believing me, and that I murder them. I love walking up to someone, them looking around and I'm going like, it's on and popping, here we go. It will always be my I'm coming after you game.

We're bad people. We're bad people. Our third game for BestMold's player is Marvel Cosmic Invasion. Oh, okay. This is one that was written in by the one and only Barrett. But I know other people here played Marvel. Yeah, of course, Marvel Cosmic Invasion

didn't allow up to the high goals I had for it, the high lofty heights I wanted for it. What am I looking for? Neither of those, the expectations I had for it. But I enjoyed it and I'm excited for your deal, seeing everything else to come to it. And for multiplayer, yes. Like what a great multiplayer system.

Of course, cross play. Of course, you can just throw out a friend code into the ether, get people to come join you. And of course, the drop in, the drop out ofness of it running through, being able to beat up on these things. And again, I think for people who might struggle with a boss on difficulty, you add people in, especially because it's so easy. It's so much easier to, so easy to add people in.

The fights themselves become so much easier. And it is such a different experience as a game playing one player, two player, even versus four player, There was just chaos destroying everybody. Yeah. Shout out to Leanza. I was playing this game alone. I was getting destroyed by the Venom boss.

And I looked at it. I'm like, fucking suit up. Okay, we're doing this. And she's like, I don't want it. I'm like, you're going to have to help me. You see how fucking. You want me to, do you want me to just be crying in the corner right now all night?

We got to watch Andor. Yeah, she suited up. She helped me out. So it's nice to do it up. Yeah. You know, she's, Hey, babe, we got to watch Andor. We got to watch Andor, okay.

Stop making a saucer come help me. No, yeah. I mean, this is, you know, a Ben game, right? I talked about it that. This is the first game I've ever reviewed alongside my son. He played every thing with me, with the exception of the last two levels. He was my co-pilot out there. I was wailing on people.

And he's, like, today, it was bring a book to school and a stuffed animal. He brought Meta Night and stuffed animal. And then in the book, he brought this Marvel superhero book that we've read. And he cracked a page like, wait, silver surfers in this. And he knows Silver Surfer's Cosmic Invasion. That's cool. Our fourth and final game for best multiplayer is Schedule 1. Yeah.

fucking written in by Rodger Corny. Yeah, Schedule 1 is a special one. It's opened up. When did it come out

like February, March? Yeah, very early in the year. Early in the year, I had a few great nights with it with Mike and my brother and my friend group from high school.

And it is for anyone who doesn't know, it is a very janky experience where you are making, growing, selling drugs in this kind of open world area. It is very reminiscent,

if any real gamers know, of G-Mod, dark RP, and any of those RP servers. I was obsessed with those servers back in the day where you would just literally this. You would just hang out. You would build your own house.

You would get your own situation. You would, you know, people would be cops. People would be usually me would be selling and making the drugs. And then you would try to kind of avoid all the police and all that stuff. So it's kind of that, but a little bit more limited. Of course, you're only booting up. You can play solo, but you can play with, I think, up to four friends. Correct.

So it is a very janky experience. I'll continue to say that. It is, as you can see, the art style is kind of all over the place. I've played this game at the beginning of the year, and I'm playing at the end of the year, and they haven't added much quality of life improvements, but what I can say is how much I am having. Playing with my brother is some of the most fun we've had playing a video game in years. It is so funny because him and I, we don't really, we don't really get, he's busy, I'm busy,

we don't really get to catch up too much. Usually gaming is the way that we can catch up. We are not catching up playing this fucking game. It is like, we boot on. I'm like, I'm going dead silent because I'm going to be. be growing the drugs. Okay, how much granddaddy purple do you got? Okay, how much green crack do you got? Okay, you're the dealer. You're running around. And we are like just, we are running this drug empire. And last night or two nights ago, we finally got crack cocaine. And that's a big deal

for us. We are working our way up. We got a bungalow. I learned what a bungalow is. I thought it was just a hammock. But no, no. Is a house. So we got a bungalow. It's a style of house. It's a style of a house. And a banana hammock. Yeah, we are growing. So it's, it's very exciting. And again, I do, I know it's a small team. I think it might be one person, honestly, making this video game. So I understand it is slow going, but the core of what they have here is so fun. It is just pure video game fun with your friends. And again, it is broken. And it for a co-op video game, sharing the money doesn't really work out well. It's kind of all over the place. You just kind of, when it drops out, it's just, again, you're just sharing the money

or sharing everything. So you kind of have to figure it out. But that's also part of the fun. It's like putting the money in the ATM and being like, oh, fuck, I just put $10,000 in the ATM. Okay, you have to get the, you have to get the money out. Okay. And we're communicating, it's so much fun. Oh my God, the experimentation of mixing the different drugs, trying different strains, mixing more into the strains, right? Like, you go to the gas station, you buy bananas, you buy sleep medicine, you, you mix all this stuff in, and then you go hand it to somebody, their head explodes. Yeah.

They turn a different color and you're like, this is so much fun. I love it, right? It's a blast. And yeah, it's perfect, Roger. Like you said, I love playing it with friends. And you know, there's that moment in the night slash game session. where all of a sudden we're all talking, we're catching up. Greg, how's the kids?

How's life? And then everybody goes dead silent. And it's like, oh, we're all locked in. And there's J.D. Neal dumping soil into the pots. You got washburn throwing in seeds. I'm giggling. It's the best. Talk about a gaming journal.

You have your nice little gaming journals where you write all this up. My gaming journal, if the feds break down my door, I'm arrested. Because it is just buy weed bags, more and more weed, but soil. I need this. I need grotents. It is insane. So, yeah, this is beginning of the year and the end of the year, bookmarking it incredible time.

I love that. I want to bring in some super chats, one from Bluto, who's asking Mike to do a shooie. Mike, you don't have to do that. Don't do it. Maybe the ending. Okay.

Maybe the ending. Reschalute says my best old game is Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. And my KFBPP is Chili's. Oh, nice. Okay. I like that. I assume the rest of that.

That's actually really good. Shout out to Chili's, bro. Lucid Dream says, oh, we already read that one. Shout out, Ender Magnolia. We have another one. from Bluto who says

Snowbike Mike is my hidden gem of me and then one more from Octavio who says I started and finished death draining

thanks to your stream heart emoji let's move on to our next category best story this is for the

game that displayed outstanding storytelling and writing and our first pick is Expedition 33 of course come on

of course I mean good Lord man so many themes you know I mean themes themes. Themes.

You love themes. I mean, just crazy twists, man. By the end of it, you know, making your choice, this game just went so hard. Yeah. So many different moments. I think to try and talk about it without spoiling anything, right? Even just the main concept, the big concept from the get-go, the idea of the painters and, you know, the expeditions going out trying to save the day, the number counting down and people

all that age, like, fading away. So cool from the get-go, right? A concept that in the prologue is delivered on so well and in a way that immediately grabs you as a player. And then from then, like, being able to keep up with that concept and twist it in very interesting ways and keep the player on their toes and not feel like a game that is, I guess, holding back in any way

without wanting to dive in too deep. I think the game is just really well-ridden and really interesting. and there's a reason why everybody loves this game and that is, I think number one for the story of course the gameplay is awesome as well but I think the story really resonates with people and you can tell by the conversation around it.

Storytelling of the world, of the other expeditions we're always exciting to get that little audio log and find out like, oh, what did they do? What do you mean? We're at 33. There was a bunch before that and learning about those guys, that was really, really cool.

Yeah, it's the almost boring choice but it's the right choice. I was looking through and again I'm somebody who was said in the review I love this game I think it's really really great I didn't love where the story ended up but I love the journey right like everything about it

it kept my interest and I'm yeah again looking through the entire year this is the easy choice for best story it's incredible our next winner for best story is Citizen Sleeper 2 hey Annie want to talk about it

yeah I mean jump over the age made in my opinion like a masterpiece with Citizen Sleeper 1 and a game about, you know, a game about hope, I would say, is kind of like the main theme

of a lot of what Citizen Sleeper is. And it's a game that built into its mechanics when you are like rolling, you're rolling dice trying to make decisions. You're going for that risky call while, you know, the space feds are on the way and they're trying to like

take you out. But it's like, well, we really, really need this to save this one colony. There's just so any high drama moments. And I think that I love that the game has this built in thing of you have to be okay with failure because everybody will fail. And

you're not really ever supposed to 100% this perfect with, you know, no mistakes ever. You are going to fail. And then when you do, the game gives you like the best couple of paragraphs of how you're going to learn and grow from this.

It's just, it's so beautiful. I think it's tells an awesome tale of like the story, the story of like humanity and coming together and working together and why that's like something we need to really focus and concentrate on. It's amazing. I got to play this game. It looks so good. It's so fantastic.

They need to release a director's cut with voice acting. So I can finally play it. I tried so hard. I'll do it for you. I still want to go back to it. You just record it for it. Yeah, please. Yeah, I forget how many hours I did with it.

I enjoyed myself. But yeah, it was one I just fell off of. Yeah. Our next winner for Best Story. and Roger this might be the smiley's version of the sweep Greg do you want to talk about it

yeah I already talked about it did I submit this or this is one that was submitted by oh I submitted this shout out on Ann Roger I'm happy to talk about it more if you want yeah I mean again I'll start you off go for you picking up where I left off with Anne Roger it does what I love about video games and fiction

in general what video games especially have let's put you in someone else's shoes you know you wake up there's a man in your house what are you going to do here? It's not your parents. I love that idea. Where's your dad? And then we go from there and figure out from this perspective what is going on. Yeah. And I think this one goes hand in hand with what we talked about. I'm trying to think of the category this came up in earlier.

Was it Best Style? No. Hidden Gem? Hidden Gem, yes. I think I said a lot of the same things. But in the way that I talked about how the gameplay and the art of it is used to tell stories so well, right? like that shouldn't do a disservice for how well the story's told, like via those things, right? One of the reasons I love stories, I love games, is you can use gameplay mechanics

in really interesting ways to tell stories in unique ways that movies and TV can't. And, you know, could there be an Ann Roger movie? Sure, but it wouldn't be anything like the video game, right? You wouldn't feel it. You wouldn't feel it the way you feel. Exactly. There's something special about being able to play this experience and like, you know. It's such a great window into that world. Yeah, exactly. our fourth game for best story is

Octopath Traveler Zero Thank you Rex. Yeah, of course everyone knows I adore Octopath Traveler Zero. It is my overall game of the year. And so yeah, I hope I hope. It's one of those I hope I can get it on the top 10 list just myself, but I doubt it.

And that's okay. But I'm happy to have it here. You know, I think what I love about Octopath Traveler Zero and why it grabbed me overall. I mean, why it grabbed me is how good the story is. I think I obviously anytime you can have a story that starts in one place very simply, right? It is the festival. Your town has been attacked. Now you need to rebuild it. I love that as just a jumping off point. But what I've talked about with Octopath is that it's one game,

but it's distinctly three different movies. It could be, these could be Octopath, you know, one, two, and three or whatever in terms of this part. Creating your own character gave me stakes. Getting me into town and letting me form a relationship gave me more stakes. And then you go on and that mutates and changes and, you know, that end of the first movie, in quotes, then bridge right in that second movie. And for me to start, it'd be like, well, this isn't as strong as the first movie, but by the end, feel like, holy shit, it was. And then to see all the through lines from that that then pop up in the third one and keep going, like, I just love this game. And I think it came out at a, you know, the end of the year, which is tough to get people to go play stuff. I know JRP's are humongous, so it takes a long time to get into it.

But I felt so vindicated at the the annual Miller's Christmas Eve party where I finally got to talk to Michael Hyam in person. And I was like, oh man, I saw you finally finalized your Octopath Rew and you took it up to a nine. And he's like, dude, like that, I'm a, you know, Hiam is a student of that genre, right? Like he is, he is Anthony Ordain or whatever of that genre.

And he was like, that thing does stuff in the end that no other game has done. And I was like, that's the power of this one. Wow. Those are our picks for best stories. Great list here. Great list. We move on to Best Mechanic

Slash Feature. This is honoring a game mechanic or feature that was unique and or push things forward. And this is the start where we start picking five winners for category instead of four. Mainly because a lot of people

had a lot of different things to say about different games. There wasn't any consensus here. So we stretched it out to five for these remaining categories. Our first pick for Best Mechanics Slash feature is player pattering in hell is us.

yes thank you so much i forgot i was another one where i stopped of what did i put here hell is us is a game you also know that i adore and i also know it didn't connect to certain people didn't get played by a lot of people uh it is very much one of those double a games and when uh rogue factor was talking about this in what they were building they talked a lot about player plattering what that means is rather than handing you the game on a silver platter like so many games do and i love those games as well but you know you get the quest from some guy like oh you're gonna have to you know i'm playing fall at new vegas you got to go talk to some people. I think they're over

by the caves and it drops the pin exactly where they are. So there's no, okay, I got a fast travel the closest thing, walk over there, shoot what I got to shoot. I'm right on and think. This one being the, hey, it sounded way more intimidating than it ever turned out to be, but you have a map, but

it's not going to fill in it. You're not going to have a magical compass and you're going to have to listen to what people say. You're going to have to read the clues. Okay, it's over by the Southwest and look for this kind of sign and that. Like, you'll talk to NPCs and they'll say, oh, could you go investigate gave this person for me, but it doesn't pop up as a, hey, here's what you need to do.

Here's what they say. You have to do just the littlest amount of digging back through clues, objectives, whatever, to figure out what you're supposed to go do next. And I adored that. Our second pick for best feature, or sorry, best mechanic slash feature is D.K. Bonanza's destruction system.

Yeah. This is one that I wrote in. I think this was such a bold and someone even experimental choice for Nintendo to take a lot of what they established with Mario Odyssey as far as what they're doing with a modern 3D platformer and going, all right, now how do we throw that, like, how do we throw that on his head, right? What do we do?

How do we approach a DK 3D platformer in a way that does the character justice? And by allowing you to destroy everything, of course, hell yeah, I'm this big brooding force, hell yeah, I'm DK, I'm smashing things. That just feels good inherently. But to then mix that with these different materials and having them have different properties, I thought it was a really inspired and a really interesting way to go about making a Donkey Kong game. and made this such a different experience than playing Mario Odyssey.

And so I really loved this as a system. I want to see it pushed even further and whatever the next DK game is. And yeah, I thought this was just very inspired. Inspired for sure. And also, it was so easy to wrap your head around. I remember when I picked it up that first time, I was streaming with him, I did the first hour.

And he's like, cool, you know, whatever it is on the fucking Nintendo, right? The down face button is going to smash through the ground. The mid one's going to smash mid. Up is going to smash up. I was like, ah, this is, I love that and the idea of just jumping over here. It's such a great mechanic, but it's sadly one for me that I don't feel like scaled throughout the entire experience for me. Where by the ending of it, I was like, oh, I'm kind of bored of this.

Like I never like had the moment where I have an Odyssey where it's like, oh, Cappy, it's like, feels like it keeps on growing. And it's a get to the point where I'm in love with this feature. By the ending of it, I was like, oh, I'm actually kind of lower on it than where I started off, where it just kind of felt like a lot of noise. But I really love it, and especially the technological advancement of them being able to do this on a switch and runs pretty steady. is incredible. Our next one, our third pick for this category. The dice slash stress system from Citizen Sleeper to

This is one thousand... Barrett? Yes. Barrett isn't here to talk about it, so I'll say it a little bit about it. I hated it. Yeah, kind of just to tag along with what I was mentioning earlier about how the game

you're not supposed to be perfect throughout all of your runs and the way the game works. is you have, you know, five dice that you will be rolling for a bunch of different missions, but over time as you incur more mistakes, you know, you kind of take that permanent damage and your dice will then slowly get more and more broken. And it kind of, it adds a lot. It, it, it kind of feels like going through some tough times in life while you just really took a big haymaker from something else in your life. And it's like, oh, man, I have to deal with.

with this really, really tough thing right now, and I'm already super stressed, and I'm already bummed out because this and this happened, it's like affecting your play style in the game. And it affects your choices and your decision making because you're like, man, in any other world, I would have gone for that thing, but I'm just so broken right now that I can't do this.

And I think it's just an awesome kind of metaphor. And yeah, I think they really, really kicked ass with it. Wow, that's incredible. I didn't know about that. Our fourth pick is the south of midnight, boss fights, specifically having music telling the story of what you're doing both in the fight and in the story. I thought it was

going to be skipping the boss fight. This is one that I believe was written in by the one and only Tim. Yes, it was written in by Tim Gettys. Yeah, this is one I compliment all the time. You know, I thought that was so special. I think in terms of video game moments but for the job video game preview moments,

that's what I'll never forget is getting to that first tree boss starting to climb and then listening to the song as it came. I was like, wait, they're telling a the story that I just pieced together. What a brilliant little thing to see them do that time after time. Two-to-to-tone, whatever it was. And our fifth and final pick for this one, sniper elite resistance, the invade defeat.

Oh, man. My spot's off for 25 minutes. He's going to give us the five runner-up. Sniper elite, man, sniper elite resistance came out early in the year, and I fell in love with this game. I fell in love with the invasion system so much that I actually didn't even play the real story of the game. game or any of the levels. I just invaded

kids throughout their campaigns and I loved it and it was like so cool of like it is the invasion system that you've seen probably before but to me it was special of like it would put you in parts of the map and if you had played enough like me I would know

exactly where in the mission you were located and what part you would be on so I'd know if you're in the first fourth of it to the third fourth of it and I'd be able to dissect that immediately by the moment you plop me in and knowing the surroundings of the map going, oh, if I'm here, that means they're down

there on that map, looking for a phone call because that's the second part of the map. I'm going to find you. You didn't play the campaign. You have just reverse engineered the campaign through joining other people's games and ruining their day. There I would start crouching around. I'd start running around and I'd be listening

in, right, like the alerts of, oh, there's gunshots over here or they've sounded the alarm on this side. That's where they're at. And I'd just chase you all around. And then just that, that cockbat, that take a deep breath and then you'd snip them and you'd get that Mortal Kombat Slow Mo X-ray moment and you're like

Yes, testicle shot that rules and then they would have to restart from a checkpoint and I would win and I'd feel so good about myself because I was impacting other people's play at ruining my day Why are you so proud? Quiet part out loud

impacting other people's play It's crazy. Why'd you say that like it was a trailer? Impact You're so right. I mean, I think the only time we ever experienced this, Mike, was like during part five maybe from two years ago or something like that. Yeah, maybe. I know me and Nick did a stream of it and it was a ton of fun with Nick because you can invade two on one, right? And so we had the advantage and it always be wild of like I would be yelling at Nick like I see him like help me and Nick would be Nick. Super unhelpful. 40 yards in the back got not helping. And like we had some really good moments of Nick punching up some disasters, which was awesome.

Well, those are our picks for best features Slash Mechanic. Congratulations to our picks for this category. Our next category is most heartbreaking Pokemon Nuzlock deaths. Oh. Oh, shit.

Kevin, roll a clip. We're going to be here for a while, everybody. He's got one Pokemon. Richard, what you got? You would say. Oh. Oh, Charmilian. Yeah, okay.

You got him. I think he had him once with a good soak. He's him with that water gun. Yeah, I'm going to show him to put one of them and see what happens. But that's not a water type. move but he's uh he gets hurt to that though yeah he gets hurt to that too yeah he gets no he gets hurt to that too bagon's rage that was really cool why is it blue really scary shit well it's happened hit you with the dragon rage dude damn bro bro

why wouldn't we just use all right it's the water type against fire it's a water versus fire bro it's a water that's a good matchup right there you're i'm not I'm not in a dragon type move. RIP, rest in peace. She's gonna water move. You can tell we're missing someone in that room. Brendan, oh my god, dude, this thing's fucking insane. Use the ball, well, I gotta use it.

Ultra ball it is. Fuck yeah, bro. I want this far fat. I go to your- It fucking jumped out of the ultra ball. I go to your paralyze it. That's a good call. Who's got my paralysis move?

I got sleep. Sky has sleep, right? Yeah, it's putting it. Let's put him sleep. Yeah, this is a beautiful moment. Poo! Damn. Can't be fucking around, you found out.

That was the stupidest thing I could have possibly done. You lose focus in this game for one second. Maybe the both of us, we just stand up and stretch. And we have time to reset. Let's just stand up and shake it out for a second. Okay, hold on, let me shake it out. Take it out. What is happening?

You leave the room for five seconds. We lose this guy. Before the death, what happens is the question of not. of Nick sitting down and going, now, Pidgey, that's a ground type. What kind of a question? I read the wrong site. It's right.

He's reading the wrong site. The bird of ground type? I read the wrong site. There's a lot of misinformation. He came in with an energy today, Andy. I want you to know that. Like he was looking shit up on the loki. I was trying to do my own research.

They say all the reputable people that I follow say, do your own research, Andy. COVID, is it real? Do your own research. Is Pizzy a ground type? Never seen a fly. Fucking pissy. That was a great reply.

I said, but when it lands on the ground, it's a ground. You hypnotize me. Okay, well, we wake him up. That's why we save those wake-ups. Okay. Okay, that's a fire under our ass right there. You can tap him if we get a good move or else he's gone. We can't swap out.

Yeah, you're stuck. Okay. Because he doesn't have any other heels. Oh, shit. Oh, shit, he used the shuttle ball again. We have a lot of heels. Oh, oh, shit. What happened?

No! Oh shit! We got a problem! We have a problem. He was my favorite! Yeah, he was really good. Oh, shit. Erdy dude just blowing the fuck up.

Blow up Erdy Dude. I don't think it'll hit him though. Will that affect the Ganga? Nobody knows. It's only normal moves that can't affect Gangaar, right? Can muscle hit this guy? I don't know about muscle. All I know, I've already said, Erdy Dude and Roger can be leaned upon as tanks.

It's too late. You just start pressing buttons. Okay. I didn't finish my statement. Nobody can blame me on that. He made me look. He's fast. Okay, was that the right move?

Oh, this hurts real bad. I like that Pokemon a lot. Me too. I wanted Schwantz to die. Fuck. You're fine. You're fine. There's nothing to be worried about.

We're on even land right now. We can just, we can work through this. What have you quick attack to get it out, to go again? It's only normal moves that can't affect Engar, right? No, but quick attack is a physical move. Fuck. What did I tell you that, Nick? Oh shit

Fucking Andy Oh Oh shit Everybody stop for a second We need to talk Navigator Stop for a second We need a talk

Okay Here's a deal Gangar's bringing some unprecedented fucking battling for Is that we weren't ready for We need Oh shit We don't need this right now

We don't need whatever this is right now You don't need whatever this is. Get a slice, get a slice, big daddy. Why is he in here? Look at him. Why is he dressed like that? We got to do more videos together, brother. I think we got to hit him.

What? No, no, no. I think we got to hit him. You need to match potion. Does he have another Pokemon after this? Can we sweat? No, he has one more, but it's his weak one. Let me talk.

Let me talk for a second. Let him. Max potion him to get full health. We will take the hit and be able to reset. That will give us one more move, but we have to max potion right now. PowerPoint use a lemonade. If he gives me a mean look, we're fine. Okay.

You shot a ball. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. We're fine, but we should survive this. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm telling you guys, we got to hit him. Did hit him!

Did hit him! Just know if this misses, Roger is dead. Here's what I will suggest. Yeah. until we can't heal anymore on the off chance at this fucking idiot CPU decides to do a mean look. Oh, then we can attack. Okay.

The only thing I have now is the lemonade, and I think that'll take us. Well, click on it how much does it heal? Okay, then we'd lemonade. The last time he hit me, I think it was a crit and it knocked me out. If he gets a crit on this, we're fucked. Oh, no.

He's such a bully. Look at him. Oh! You have to hit him! It hurts. You have to fucking do it. That's what I'm saying. He was dead. We have to fucking hit him.

We got to go in. He's got to hit him. No, no, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not the right move was Erdy, dude. Not-Deed's gonna get one tap. Svon's gonna hit him with the real move. Spontz is asleep. Oh, fuck.

He's fucking asleep. We're fine. Playwheel did shit. We'll talk to you later. We're gonna talk to you later. All right, your fucking Mr. Happy Fingers hitting quick attack immediately. Can Dutnikov hit him?

He's calling. All right. Okay. Okay. Mistakes were made, Chris. Chris, it's Craig. How you doing, man? You trace any more pictures, you coward?

Damn it. I'm playing. Baby stop watching Pokemon This is a Spider-Man movie Oh, we want a new Spider-Man over here What is he a idiot? What is this character? A lot of really good winners right there.

Congratulations to all the nominees. I'm sweating. Yeah. Like, if somebody who didn't catch all of the Nuslock moments, like, felt the stress. The way that I was like, please God, don't let Roger die. All right, let's move on to our next category. It is KF.

GPP. KFGP. KFGPP. KFGPP. KFGPP. KFGP. KFGP. KFGP.

KFGP KFGP KFGP KFGP KFGP KFGP KFGP Of course,

this is kind of funny games for a preferred partner for a side character companion or character in general this year that stood out from the pack. Our first pick for KFGPP is O Yuki from Ghost of Yote. Now, I'll remind the cast, no spoilers on this one.

We don't want to talk about things that happen with this character and any of these characters that end up in this category. But O Yuki, of course, one of the major characters you meet throughout the game. Sure. This is one of Greg's ridens. It was one of my ride-ins, yes. I think a very interesting story to her

and her relation to Atsu, her relation to Yote, or the Yote 6 and everything else. it's just cool to see the history that they lay out in this story payoff and I think that's why Ghost of Yote is so great right starting you from the Yote 6

showing up in Atsu's life going all the way through and the friends she makes like her name along the way thank you so much along the way like they did a great job I was like literally I was just like blank you know why blank I was just like okay cool

hell yeah yeah our next pick for this one is hornet from silk song uh this is one that was written in by tim gettys since tim isn't here to defend himself tim did write in well he says hornet i don't care i don't care that she is the lead i love her look moves voice outfit animations 10 out of oh boom yeah tim didn't understand the same came i mean she's rocked but let's just move on it why didn't you vote for style yeah he could have said hornet in hollow night that would have worked oh maybe yeah That would have worked.

Let's get him, let's shoot him some bail. There you go, there you go. He's sick. Our third pick for this one, Invisigal, from Dispatch. Hell yeah. Good to see Dispatch finally get on one of these categories. Invisigal, aka Invisibit, bitch, yeah. Nora Bailey, what a great character.

What a great arc. What a great, again, no spoilers, choices throughout the game and seeing who she can evolve into for Robert Robinson, what can go on there. One of the reasons that, you know, this character is nominated for the Dice Awards as well. Exactly. This is one that I wrote in. I saw TikTok over the break that cracked me up that basically broke down how dispatch is Twilight for men. Yeah. It is like, it was so accurate. It's so deeply accurate. It's incredible. It's incredible.

Kind of like the kind of like the power fantasy of being Robert Robertson, a man who's just like fucking bumbling around, but also all these, the hottest women in the world just love him. Like the hottest superpowered women, you know, just either want to either like him or tell him directly to his face. I want to fuck you type of shit, right? hilarious but then also level of grabbing the bulge you know yes that said it's it works for me right like I'm somebody who I'm so down for a choose your adventure experience that gives me romantic options that I'm like

let's fucking go right I go with blonde blazer for the reasons I would go with Blondeblazer I go with Envisigal and episode I won't say I won't spoil anything but I went with Invisigal yeah it's awesome for just peer heart reasons right like and I think one of the things you talk about you know I'm often vocal especially for my RPGs that I don't want romance

options in game, right? And I think so much of that is chemistry. This is the reason why I would want them, right? Because this is a choose your own adventure like you're saying, all of Robert's lines are done amazingly by Aaron Paul. And then to have it either be Aaron for Blondeblazer or have it be Laura for

Invisigal, like you have actual chemistry there that makes so much sense and really does leave you in this place of how do you want to play this situation. But also like in a friendship side of thing, right? Because I played it my brother and naturally, like, we just ended up with neither of them, right? Like, it just became this thing of like,

oh, we were just friends with both of them. And it was, it worked out super well. And that take, by the way, the Twilight take was from Twitchreamer Stormfall. So she rocks. Yeah, she's awesome. And also to take it out of you in just the romantic context

slash relational context with Robert Robertson, I think just what she means to the story and where the story goes is for the overall arc of like great arc. Plots going. Just great arc for this character and great choices that surround this character and what she's going through.

our next pick for kf gpp is Rick from Kirby air riders yeah he's my guy bro yeah look at this fucking guy roger you sold me man this is the thing that sold me on the game okay Tim just sent me this photo and said you're gonna love this guy

and I'm like you know what $70 bang this game rules and Rick is my guy the way that he just be running his alt is just he gets off the board he just be running he's going crazy mode he's super cute yeah he's super cute of course shout out to also Darooch, the leader of the squeaks, shout out to him as well.

This is a goaded video game. We'll talk about it later one day. You know what I mean? Like one of these games, will we? One of those games. This is the top ten. This is getting the top ten? This might be the last time we ever talked about.

It will get the love and deserve one day. We'll talk about it. You know what? You know, your rungs, maybe I'll write them in my top ten. That might be. Roger, this might be my favorite nomination. Yeah, you know, thank you so much. I love this.

Thank you so much. The goat, bro. And our final one is Mike from Baby Steps. Nice. Yeah. Shout out to Mike, man. That's my guy over there. I had to look this up because I thought Blessing just got it wrong of like Mike wrote in baby steps. I thought Mike was like, you know how certain characters like a reflection of yourself.

Yeah. Oh. Mike was saying like, oh, Mike. Gotcha. No, I'm very Nathan. I'm very much Nathan, the main character. Of course, Nathan will meet many characters through his journey. But one of them is Mike who is not afraid to ask for help, who is not afraid to take the safe route to follow instructions. to prepare for the journey at hand.

And of course, Nathan or Nate, our main character, does none of that, right? He wants to do it all himself because he is afraid to ask for help. He does not want to put himself out there and thinks he can just handle the situation. So shout out to Mike for always being prepared. Good job, Mike. And shout out to our picks. These are all our picks. Yeah, I actually, I told Kevin to veto.

We're vetoing the Hornet pick. What the hell, Tim. Know the instructions. You've got to understand even what you're voting for. The preferred partner is Shurma from Silk Song. There you go. Come on. Congratulations.

God, we love Shurma in this house. Congrats Sherma. Our next category is best trailer. Oh. This is for a trailer that presented incredibly well and evoked strong reaction for us. This is a new category here. I'm very interested. This is one I was very interested to see the picks here.

And I really like the assortment we have. So we're starting off with our number one, which is Star Wars Fate of the Old Republic. I said number one. even though these aren't ranked, but our first pick that we have here. What a moment this was. And I think this is even one where... It's more of the reveal, right? Like, I think next year, if we do this again, I'll title it best reveal slash trailer.

Because this one, this is one that I think evoked the biggest reaction from us in a showcase this year. And I think that's really saying something as far as the magnitude of this announcement. Yeah, it's so unexpected, right? I think if coming into this, of course we were all like, oh, you got to see Star Wars Eclipse eventually, see what Quantic Dream says they're doing. But then to get here, like, oh, it's a Star Wars game. Okay. And then it kept getting crazier, right?

Of bringing out Old Republic to bring out the fact it's going to be this insane. Should have been High Republic. It's crazy. Star Wars has got the motion like that. No matter what. Podracer, we freaked out of it. Yeah. Right.

Like, it's crazy that Star Wars has just got the motion. Yeah. Yep. And, yeah, I mean, it's exciting. Yeah, I think really seeing just the words the old Republic tied to it, like, is one level of hype. And then for me, like, Casey Hudson is one of those legendary. unexpected thing. Usually I feel like that's something you would see of.

We see the trailer, then it's back to Jeff on stage. And he's like, I'm excited to tell you that Casey Hudson's work. The fact that they knew Casey's name would carry enough weight with this audience to put it in the trailer, money. Money. Our second pick. Unbeatable. Unbeatable. This is a game that...

This is one that... Oh, no. CEO's here! He's here! Two juniors here! Wow. Tim Jr.'s here. Wow. Tim Jr.'

Here. Rag, the real-ass gamer is here. Look at him. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the man who just got back from the dentist, Barrett Courtney, for the other than, evil. There's nothing more dastardly than showing up to your own company's award show late. Wow. Wow.

And yes, I was at the dentist. Where's evil? Clean teeth. I was at the dentist, but not my dentist. Oh. Yeah. I learned a lot about Roger Picorni's teeth to this morning. Oh, wow.

dentist. I got 10 fillings one time. Next time you go to your appointment, if you feel a little bit more of a tug, Raj, don't question it. Don't question it. You can zoom in on Baird's earring? That's sick. I love that. Thank you. This is my game awards fit that I forgot to really take any pictures with, so figured I dressed up nice today. Yeah, I just wanted to show up actually just to talk about the Unbeatable trailer. Yeah, tell us about it. This final trailer for Unbeatable was kind of like the final story

trailer we really got. And it felt like a different tone for the game. A lot of the previous trailers for this. It was a bit more hype, a little bit more cool, you know, flashy, all this stuff. But the music that came along with this final trailer gave it a little bit more of that like emotional heart that I think the final game does have eventually near the end of the game. And it gives that tease of like, there's something a bit more emotionally going on here in this story, in the, in this tale with these characters. So this was one where I was like, oh, we're going, we might be going in a direction with this game that I wasn't expecting initially. And I think it's a testament to how strong the original music for this game is, that it really, I think, like, carries this trailer, along with like the, you know, already the incredible style, the editing for the video and all that stuff.

But yeah, it really pulls at the heartstrings, which I do think the peaks of that game definitely carry on with that promise. Hell yeah. Yeah, that's the trailer that really like Evil Barrett. Evil Barrett, everybody. The trailer definitely I like that. Did their job for me, aside from the fact that I didn't play much

of the game when it released, but the trailers made me want to play this game. The trailers made this game look like the coolest game on the planet, which is exactly what you want to do. Our next pick, also thank you so much Barrett for you. Thank you, Barry.

Gracing us with your presence. We gotta get you your own entrance music, though. Because I keep thinking of Greg doubles and I walk from the back. I like that, though. I like that, though. CEO, Junior, you're allowed to use it. Yeah.

He's part of my stable. The CEO's part of his stable. Who's the secret third man? Our next pick for best trailer is Clockwork Revolution. Oh, okay. Oh, great pick. This was my write-in.

I think this is one of the best game trailers the last few years. I think one of the things I like about these write-ins is they display the different things about trailers that can really hit for people. I think was Star Wars fate of the Old Republic. It was kind of like the magnitude of the reveal. With Unbeatable, it is like,

the editing and like how it encompasses that game in a minute. And with Clockwork Revolution, I think when you're deep diving, even if it is kind of a truncated deep dive, because it's not like 20 minutes to 30 minutes, right? This was in like an Xbox developer direct type of thing. But within what, like six, seven minutes, they did such a good job of telling us what Clockwork Revolution is and what this game is is something that really speaks to me. As somebody who, you know, has played quite a few Bethesda slash Obsidian games. but I think as I go, like,

but that's the stuff that maybe hit less for me, at least it was like something like Starfield, Obsidian this year between Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed, those didn't really hit as hard for me as I wanted to. Outer World, and for somebody who also previously loved DeusX and dishonored as well, there's something about Clockwork Revolution that is giving me the things I like about those games,

but it also looks really good just visually and presentationally, and they break it down so well in the trailer, the amount of depth that they have here. Yeah, I really hope it lives up to this, This trailer was so good. What a head turner. Right to the top of most anticipated for whenever this is coming out. When is it coming out?

No idea. God. We have this conversation, me and Mike today. Paris, Lily, of course, a 12-year-old child in the chat, said that we're all in mind. It feels like what. We're going to see next year the big reveal for it. Chad, I did not do the six-seven thing on purpose, by the way.

Apparently I said six to seven. Did not mean to do that on purpose, but all hey. It's over now. Our next pick for Best trailer. It's Tides of Annihilation. Yeah. The Mirror Combat Gameplay trailer. This is written in by Tim Geddes, who's not here, but you have other people at this table who also love this trailer.

Yeah. This one rocks. This is, you know, we'd already seen kind of what the game was last year during a state of play. And then they showed this one off more recently as a way to say, like, hey, we're still working on the game, obviously. And this is kind of what you should expect from the level of our productions or from the level of our, our, our, our, our, production and the level of our, like, I would say budget, because this game, like, does some really cool big stuff later on during this boss fight with the whole kind of the reflections in the sky and the mirror thing. And it's doing a lot of really, really neat stuff. And I hope that

they continue to keep on working at it. And I hope we see, I hope this isn't like the only boss fight in the game that has this level of kind of creativity and high production value. Because they, you know, If they could kind of do this three or four more times, like, wow, we're in a really, really nice territory with it. But, yeah, they're doing just some wild stuff with tech, and hopefully it all runs well. And I think it's also really cool that, you know, you put this trailer out, and no, there are a lot of frame drops. This is a game in development. And I like that, I like that vulnerability being able to show like, no, we're still working on this shit, but it's awesome so far still. It gets me more hype when I see the frame drops because then I know it's a real video game, right?

Because this looks like such a fake video game. And then you see the frame wrap. It's like, oh, wow, this is like really actually playing on a console or some type of hardware. Like, I actually like seeing kind of that vulnerability. You're right. It's nuts that we're in a place where we're getting more and more video games that can look like this. Between this or Phantom Blade Zero or even if we go back to something like Eliza P or it. Or Blacksmith, Blue Kong, you know.

Expedition to a certain extent. Expedition to a certain extent. Like, games are getting crazier and crazier and that's really dope. And I hope that isn't like a signal to, you know, I don't know. I feel like that can get crazy and weird in terms of budgets and like overspecking of where the money goes or whatever but regardless I think it's cool that games can look this cool

and be real. Yeah. The games cast caught. That's a whole other conversation. Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to have it though. Our last pick for Best trailer is Wolverine. This is one that was written in by Greg Miller. Yeah, again, I think there were so many great trailers this year. Wolverine finally getting to get the spotlight though and show us what this game is going to look like it is real, it is coming.

Here's the look. Here's the vibe of it. And I mean, as you watch it right now, the brutality of it. I think we all had so many questions of what kind of Logan are we going to get, what kind of game are we going to get. And we're clearly getting an emirated Wolverine game, which, of course, that's what it should be and how it should be for what we're getting. And so I was just stoked to finally see it. I think as we talk about these smileys here and being able to tip your hat to stuff.

Like, I think, you know, when we talk about most anticipated games for next year, right, obviously GTA is getting all of its due credit for whatever industry redefining thing they're going to do. But Wolverine just looks like a blast, right? Like, I want to get out there and I want to tear things apart with these claws. I want to see what they're doing in this neck of the spiderverse that they've created, the Insomniac game verse. I'm excited to see what they got up their sleeves and to do something different than Spider-Man,

right? As Ben is now 30 more hours into Spider-Man too, just swinging around doing crimes. Like, I'm ready to see a different kind of gameplay from a superhero game from Insomniac after three very similar ones. I see a comment in the YouTube chat from Large Hoggamer Who says Greg is very mutant codened And I don't know what that means I just like the idea of it

You're very mutant coded Greg showed up to work one day and like Yeah like I don't know Just really hairy arms Long fingers I would have made Jall Steele Huh on fire Okay fair enough

Today again back to Ben with his superhero book He was looking for once he saw Silver Surfer On like the cover or whatever Which he's had forever I don't know why he just clocked it today He started paging three trying to find it. And then he's like, I was doing the dishes.

He goes, Dad, who's this bald guy in a wheelchair? I'm like, oh, that's Professor X. And he goes, oh, does he turn into silver server? I'm like, no, he's a different bald guy. Yeah, different bald guy. Those are our winners for Best trailer. Congratulations. And, you know, bless, going into the next category,

when we talk about games and how much energy sometimes they're required to play, you need sustenance. You need fuel. And so for the next category, this is going to be the best slash worst meals ordered at kind of funny during a lot of our gameplays and so really really excited about this category. He's ordering that food. Yeah, we're dominant. Yeah, who's ordering it.

Roll the clip. We better win. You know all I want is just to go to in and out. Like I have the easiest like just take me to in and out like, oh wow, broccoli. Oh yeah, you're going to get a burger. Yeah, you're going to get a burger. Are we getting dessert too? Fuck yeah, bro. They have a peanut butter pie cake. Okay.

They have molten chocolate cake. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I want. That's what I want. I want the molten chocolate cake.

They're my favorite. They got fucking fajitas. If you're on fajitas and chilies, it's a Chili's night. Uh. Oh. Uh. I'm sorry. I told you I'm a liability at this point.

You know what, right? You know what, Roger? Fuck it, Death Stranding 2 Marathon Strait. We eat nothing but health food. Feeling good, big dog. Everything's good. No, I'm not doing, I'm afraid of that. No, Roger, no!

What do you want me to do with this, Roger? So this is the coconut shrimp, I believe? Yeah, I fucked that up. You dip it, you just eat it. All right. That's it. You don't have to dip it, honestly. You can take it by it first.

Look, you can fucking dip it. I want to dip it. A little sweet, yeah. It's a little sweet. I don't want to dip it on that thing? You can dip it. Well, I'm looking at it. Fuck, Raj.

The coconut's too much. I don't want sweet. Damn, that's like straight up eating an almond joy. Give me a biscuit to clear my mouth. Wanna a little biscuit? No. I want a whole ass biscuit. Yeah, don't fuck with me.

This is the shrimp, this is the garlic shrimp scampi. You don't bite the entire thing. You bite from here, look me. You know how to eat a shrimp? I think this is to break it and then like rip out the meat. Oh yeah, there it is. That's good. Here you go. Oh, no!

Fuck no! Fuck no! Fuck no! No! No! No, no, no, Roger! Are you fucking kidding me? I'm not even trying that. That was fucking whack, Roger. I will eat it with you. Oh! Look at that. Dipping in. You dip it in too. Give it it in with me. We're here. I've never had it before. That was lying.

Ah! Radgen! Fucking ice cold! Alright, ready? It's a delicacy. Ready? Think it? You and me, look at me. Look at me. Look me in the eyes. Oh, that's good. Did not look at it.

Oh. Give me a biscuit A sample. And why don't you put a door dash on your computer? You ready for this? Raising canes. No. EOB bread, butter on both sides bread. Let's just also peel back the kernel a little bit.

You did have a massive cassidia of five minutes ago. Now, as Mike and Roger already ate life. Of course. You know, there's that food truck that I love that does the Hibachi. Can we take the stream IRL? I think you can order it. We're not gonna order Habachi and not see the guy Hibachi. No, no, no. It's a true food truck. It's a food truck. Yeah, he's still fucking doing it in the food truck. Like, you think he's doing the volcano in the food truck? Why would I order aibachi food truck, yeah? Yeah, it's like, if we're not coming for the

chocolate. That's just like chicken and rice. What the fuck? What if we go there? I slide the guy a little, little Benjamin. You come outside. Tell him to flip a cup of shrimp in our mouth. Would you, would you catch a shrimp in your mouth? If Mike did it? Oh my God. 100%? 100% Let's order it. Just know I'm gonna come back with a spatula and some shrimp. Please do, I'm excited.

I'll be flipping them into your mouth. I'm gonna throw a couple of shrimp at me through the window if you can't. I'm ready, I'll be right here. You just whip it right at me. Oh shit. It's hot. Okay, I'm ready. Here we go.

Good throw up. Give it to me. Oh, oh. Oh, yeah! That's what's up, bro. You're acting like ordering food takes more than one minute. This kid thinks. It's only gonna take one minute.

Oh, yeah, yeah, it's gonna take five minutes. I don't remember about. I love mashed potatoes. Yeah? I love. I like a chunky mashed potato. See, now here's the problem. There's not many places that do mashed potatoes.

We have to split our meals, right? What is a restaurant that gives you way more food than you want? That also has every type of food you can imagine, including mashed potatoes. Cheesecake Factory. Oh, the factory has it, chat. You know what the funniest thing is? Is that when I was thinking about mashed potatoes on my head, I was thinking about their mashed potatoes, and I didn't even realize. Dude, avocado toast?

Oh, okay. Cheese toast? Why? Baked Bree truffle honey butter, let's fuck with that. Buffalo Blass, have you had these? You know what, Roger? I was trying to go healthy with the cauliflower. You know what?

Get these instead. I want that. Get these. Get them. Order. What if we just get for an app? Mass potatoes? For main course, mashed potatoes.

For dessert, mashed potatoes. You forget this? Dude. Massive problem. Gonna upset you. No mashed potatoes, bro. They have his chicken and three pieces of asparagus. Are you fucking curious?

Dude, I'm not fucking kidding, bro. You tell DoorDash to get on their shit. And these asparagus pieces, they're awful looking. They're not stiff at all, Raj. Yeah, take a photo and just say mashed? Question mark? Get on the phone with somebody. I'm not going to be rude to them, of course.

No, no. I'm going to be like, is there any way you guys have sent us some over? It would never. And maybe an extra slice of cheesecake to make us feel better. Cheesecake, San Francisco. Hey, man, this is Mike, bro. I just ordered from you guys, and I didn't get any mashed potatoes

with the chicken breasts, and I was seeing if you could help me out. So we ordered the main dish, the truffle chicken hot. Okay, do you talk about it? The homie doesn't want to hear two voices. He just wants to hear me. I saw that dish in there

without the mashed potatoes and the chocolate over the clothes. No, mashed, homie. Now... I should have, like, called for it. I'm really sorry about that. That's all right, brother. If I order another round of mashed potatoes,

can you maybe double it up for me? You have to chat with Doordash and they have to process the refund and, like, re-delivery and all that. I can't do anything. That's why we say, don't even talk about them. You know what I mean? We just say, fuck them. You and I have some real shit. I reordered the mashed potatoes.

You take a look. Unfortunately, I like literally can't. Now here's the deal. Let me sweeten it up one more time for you. You know. Stop. This is nice. Wow, that was beautiful.

That was beautiful. Beautiful. We make art here, everybody. All those DoorDash orders only cost us $3,000. A lot of great stuff right. Canceled out the entire point of doing marathons. That's a Mike and Roger, the stars. 100%.

We got our money back for the mashed potato. We got our money. We got our money. Right to the company card. Girl math means we made money on that. It was huge. That brings us to our very final category of the Smiley's. Best Studio.

This is for the studio that earned MVP status in 2025. five. We have five picks for this one, starting off with our first pick of the category, Team Cherry. Of course, come on. Clap it up for Team Cherry. Of course. Andy, you want to take it away on this one? Yeah, sure thing. I mean, Team Cherry obviously put out an amazing game many, many moons ago, and then kind of just did shit their own way. I think that's the coolest thing about them is that that Jason Shire article was so awesome. Being able to learn more about Team Cherry and then being like, no, man, we don't want to have a massive team. We like our team being small.

That's why this game is taking so long to make. We like doing things our own way. We're not really, you know, beholden to anybody. We don't have shareholders or whatever. We're just doing things at our own pace, and we love making this video game, and that's kind of why things are taking so long. And after nearly a decade of hype and, you know,

raised expectations, this game could have come out and been a stinker, or could have been a really, really awesome 8 out of 10, but still underwhelming. But they still managed to deliver an all-timer and exceeded all of my expectations still somehow. And yeah, they're just amazing on what they do. And really looking forward to the DLC coming out probably in seven years. That's going to come out this year, apparently.

It'll be $100. Yeah. It'll turn to a new game. Yeah. What's funny, I threw to Andy immediately because I assumed Annie wrote in with Team Cherry. No, the people that wrote in with Team Cherry were me and Barrett. Oh. I wrote it with Team Cherry

Even not playing that much of Hollenight Silk Song, right? Just for the story. You mentioned the Jason Schreier article, which is a big part of it, but even the story of putting out this game for $20 that ends up as being a favorite of the year amongst people

and being a game that is a beefy game. I hear people talk about, oh yeah, I'm this many hours, I'm 40 hours, 50 hours into Hollenite Silk Song. And I'm like, damn, dude. Like putting that out after like being patient with your development, working on this game for years and years,

not being rushed, not doing what X, Y, Z thing, and being able to put it out for a price point that is affordable for people, people flock to it, it does really well in the sales. The whole story around Hollenite Silk Song is a special one, and of course, it's a studio that is following up after a game

that was also very successful, and so they had the luxury of doing this, but I think what's powerful is that they were able to get that luxury by putting out Hollow Night in 2017, and so shout out to Team Cherry for sure. Hell yeah. Number two, our second pick for Best Studio,

Obsidian. Hey. This is one that was written in by two people. This was Greg and Stone Mike. Nice. Come on, Greg. You know, put some respect on that name.

That team is incredible. They continue to just be the workhorse of Xbox game studios. Three games, one year. Three games in one year. And they keep going back. I mean, grounded two is fantastic as an early access product coming out and following up, Grounded one, kind of putting that to rest and saying, hey, this is the full game, go out there and have fun.

We're going to start up in a new backyard. going to go out and take you into a new survival sandboxes, a ton of fun. And then, of course, a Vought and Out of Worlds 2, which is wild to say, two big RPGs out the same year. Yeah, I think, you know, Workhorse is such a great way to talk about Obsidian. I would argue as a fan, somebody who really loves Obsidian, they're not putting out nines and tens, but they're putting out consistently eights. They're putting out consistent things that are there for you to go enjoy you to, you know, really pay off on the promise of Xbox Game Pass that you're going to get these games that are from this at a deal that is better than buying them all on PlayStation.

Yeah, a lot of people, a lot of devs want to put out one eight. Right. Exactly. And that's, they're constantly delivering. When Obsidian speaks, I listen. I think they make out, they make really, really great games. And I think last year was an incredible year for them to, you know, have, if you, to put out one of those games, I think you would have been incredibly proud as a studio.

To put out three of those games to really own that year to start, do the middle and end. Great stuff. Yeah. If you add it all up, they put out a 24 out a 10 video game. There you go. Wow. Wait, math. Didn't do the map.

Our third pick for Best Studio, Sandfall Entertainment. Wow. Interactive. Interactive. Interactive. I don't know who wrote this one in. This one was written in by Tim Getty's, but I think we'd all be on the same page here.

Yeah. Nobody believed. When we first saw the Claire Expedition 33 trailers, we were like, what the fuck? That looks awesome. Who's making sandfall? They got down on there? Who the fuck is sandfall?

Yeah, it's, what are we doing here? Who are these people? Clearly this will never live up to the hype. and then it so greatly exceeded it with such a small team. Yes, they use contractors, of course, but everybody does. Like, just incredible stuff here

to have a vision, to deliver on it and to crush it. And then to deliver DLC right at the end of the year is like a little surprise as a thank you to the fans. Really, really awesome that they're, you know,

continuing work on this while also wanting to work on the next thing as well. Yeah. It's the similar thing that I mentioned with Silk Song, except this is their debut. Yeah.

Yeah. Be able to do this with their debut and have the biggest game of the year this year, right? absolutely insane. And a game that broke out of all of our circles, right? Like, again, my brother has never played an RPG of this caliber and he finished it. He consumed it so fast. I see people, I'm at Target. I see someone with an Expedition 33 hoodie, right? Like, it's, it is becoming pop culture. If Tim was here, he would talk about his text group with all his friends

from high school, right? The people he grew up with that don't play every hot new release, but have all fallen in love with this game. And you talk about the origin of the people of the studio coming out of Ubisoft, right? Try to pitch a similar game or this game to Ubisoft and then being like, no, this isn't going to work. And then being able to put it out by yourself, betting on yourself, super powerful stuff. Yeah, I think how long to be tracked that this is the number one beaten game of the year. Yeah. Insane.

Makes sense. Our fourth pick for Best Studio, Hayslight. Yeah. This was the last minute one for me because I went back and I'm playing split fiction. I always makes up their games title. Split fiction with Leanza finishing it off finally. And I was just so taken up. back and just in awe with every single second of this game.

The fact that they're able to make this happen in a split screen format on the PS5, 60 fBS, looks this crisp, so many incredible gameplay mechanics that they're always cycling through and never feels boring, never feels stale, the fact that they have all of these side missions that have brand new worlds and mechanics that you can completely and utterly miss. This is a team that is locked the fuck in on their niche that understands what they're going for. able to make video games at a pace that is really respectable in this sphere. I mean, making a game every pretty much three to four years is incredible. Being able to have multiple

games per console generation at this point is a huge pat on the back, right? So many people do exactly, right? So for them to be able to have, you know, it takes to having a way out and now, of course, split fiction. This game, I think, came out in the beginning of the year, hit was huge, and then we've kind of forgotten about it. But when you see how special, especially the ending of this game, right, when you get towards what they're able to do visually and graphically and technically, but also just gameplay-wise, it's incredible.

Yeah, this is a studio that I'm so excited to see their growth continuously, and I'm excited to see what they put out next because they are at the forefront of gameplay and tech in this industry. We got to put some respect on Hayes' life for sure. Yeah, we don't have a best moment of the year category

because we don't want to really dive into spoilers or whatever, but like, Roger talked about the ending of the game. For me, that would be my immediate right in for moment of the year, right? I think split fit. I would even stand by, I think Hayslight, I won't say they're underrated because they got Game of the Year or It Takes 2, but I think we forget, like, I think we forget how good these games are, even with split fiction coming out and us playing in being like, yeah, it was great.

And like, it's kind of just as good as it takes 2. But like, it takes 2 is fucking excellent. Of course, there's things, there's story. I'm sure that don't, that doesn't resonate with everybody. I totally get that part. But I do stand by. I think Hayslite is one of the most creative studios doing it right now. And so.

And I love their energy of just doing crazy things and meeting them at the Nordic party. right like that i think that kind of colored a little bit but like being able to talk to them the way that they develop games and seeing the behind the scenes of them prototyping it all they're they're working at a clip and i'm very excited for the next thing and our fifth and final pick for best studio is round eight yeah this is an andy writing yeah man to to come out with lisa p and and see that a studio is able to do what from software is doing just as good and and and try to see a lot of of other, looking at a lot of other, you know, studios trying to do the FromSoft formula and always, you know, in my mind, round eight has always been the gold standard for that's how you

make a soul's like or whatever. And they crushed it with Liza P several years ago. And then to come out with what I think of as one of the best DLCs ever made. I think this, what it does combat wise, what it does expanding on the formula while introducing amazing characters with wild story beats like this game and side quests that had me in tears like this game just this game is fantastic this the

DLC for for Liza P was phenomenal and it immediately makes me like all right the next thing is something you have to watch out for because it's one thing to put out a banger of a game and then maybe you put out a dealc that's a bit underwhelming and you go ah maybe that was just like a flash in the pan no man this studio has it they know what it takes

they know what they want to do and they I don't know, they just deliver constantly. Yeah, it's crazy how I think the standard of DLC has risen over the last 15 years of video games. It's funny, having just beaten the Dark Souls one DLC last night

and like I blazed through it in like an hour and a half to two hours. Granted, I'm over-leveled. Maybe it should have taken me more like six or seven hours. But, you know, I beat Liza P. Overture over the break and that could have been a stay-in-alone video game. You know what I mean? In 20, in 2009, like,

if that came out, this would have been a game of the year contender alone, and it is fucking DLC. There is a crazy amount of quality in this thing, the music's incredible, like, you know, I think Souls likes in particular are killing it as far as what they're bringing with DLC, and to your point, and yeah, Round 8 studios,

I think it's right in that conversation with From, as far as, like, how good they're making SoulsLex, of course, from, are the, is the studio that's innovating and pushing it forward each and every time. But, like, the fact that Round Eight is fucking right there, you know what I mean? Like, they're killing in.

I think they absolutely deserve to be acknowledged in the best studio conversation right now. Hell yeah. Chad, I promise I'm not doing the sixth-seven thing on purpose. It just keeps coming out. Yeah, it's coming in from the back of your brain. It might be subconscious, I don't know. Yeah. But that is it for the Smilies.

Of course, congratulations to all of our different winners. Great job. Games are fun. Video games rock. Video games rock. 2025 rocked as a year for video games. I'm looking forward to Monday to see our top 10 games of the year at Kind of, kind of funny. So stay tuned for that. Tune in on Monday. What time do we get started with

we're doing games daily as usual and following it up with that. And then it's another day we're no stream, right? Correct me. Correct. I believe that's right. I think there might be a there's a feudy afterwards. Yeah. There's a feudy afterwards. Yeah. Putees are on Monday now. Feudy's are on Monday now. There you go. There you go. You get it. Of course, this has been kind of funny games cast for each and every weekday. We get together and talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and on podcast services around the Remember to support us with the kind of funny membership If you enjoyed the show, get on Patreon

Get on YouTube, Apple or Spotify You can get the kind of funny membership on any of those platforms Of course, Patreon is where it's at, though. But get it anywhere that you are at. We'll see you Monday for Game of the Year. And until next time, PPP, KFGPP, KFGP, KFGP, Kind of Funny Games, Rufford, Partner.