Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - The Game Awards Winner Predictions! - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Tim Gettys, Greg Miller, Blessing Adeoye, and Andy Cortez give their LIVE predictions to all the nominees for the 2022 Geoff Keighley TGAs. Go to https://www.amazon.com/gameawards to shop the nominees of The Game Awards all in one place. Time Stamps - 00:00:00 - Start 00:02:45 - Housekeeping 00:10:20 - Our Game Awards Winner Predictions 00:44:12 - Ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to a very special kind of funny games cast. Of course, I'm Tim Geddes and I'm joined by the new face of video games blessing at E. E.O.A. Jr. Tim, you ever look online and you see a game and get a really good review and you're like, ah, damn, now I got to play this game. Yeah. And Pentzman got a 10 for my JN today. Now I'm like, hi.

Really? Guess I got to play Pentiment. Yeah. Getting incredible reviews out there. Pentment. Killing the game, everybody. Go check out those reviews. Are you surprised?

Big Daddy. Greg Miller. Yeah, of course I am. Yeah. We've seen Pentimate, you know, get announced and come out and be like, oh, is this really what people want from this developer? And then it's kind of, I got a good art style. It's kind of got a thing.

I'm like, all right. And like, I'm with Bust Now. I'm like, God damn it. And I got to fucking make time for this game too. Yeah. And it's 15 to 20 hours, which, you know, if it was like five, I'd be like, hell yeah. We're running out of hours this year. Isn't that right?

Nitro Rifle, Andy Cortez. Great morning, everybody. I'm so excited for that. Great morning. I'm putting out a tweet and accidentally. I actually typed in bonermonger. dot com. Do it. It so works. We paid for that one. That goes to you.

Remember you too can go to bonermonger.com. But for everybody else that doesn't want to do that, you can stay right here because each and every week we get together to talk about video games, all the things we love about them, because this is the Kind of Funny Games cast. You could watch it on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games or right now, a very special event. You can watch live on Twitch, Twitch. Twitch.combe slash Kind of Funny Games. We're doing the Game Awards nominee.

We're going to talk about all of the reveals of the nominees. and then predict who we all think is going to win each and every category. Maybe not every category, because there's some categories we're like, we don't know who the best e-sports players? Ask the thing. We'll see if we do, but we're going to have a fun. It's Idaum. It's Idon.

It's I don't win. Yeah. Maybe nitri rifle. I'm a runner-rime. A lot of good stuff about that, dude. Of course, of course. But this is a rare thing that we're doing the Gamescast live. We're doing it live right now on YouTube and Twitch.

But normally, if you wanted to watch Gamescast live, you would have to go to patreon.com slash kind of funny, just like some of our beautiful. beautiful Patreon producers, Morgan Lorraine, Fargo Brady, Hillary Bernard, ID Raven, immersion fragrances, Delaney twining, Christopher Rodriguez, the kind of funny Destiny 2, PC clan, Carrie Palmer, Elliot, Brian Cheney, Trevor Starkey, Super Daddy Kyle, Under Topian, David Mindell, Eric Velasquest, Velasquez, Scotty Wyatt, Alex Gritell. He said right the first time. Velasquez.

See, now I'm realizing there's a mistake where there's the kind of funny side, the kind of a game side. one side has beenessingation. Velasquez, everybody. David Whitesell, Scotty Wyatt, Alex Gradle, Al Tribesman, Jason L., James Davis, Makes, nanobiologist,

Ryan T from Tennessee, Derek, Gareg, Donald Eccles, Christopher Rodriguez, and Tall Tree, 81. Oh, and Joseph A. Carlson, thank you all so very, very much. Because of that, you won't have to listen to our ads later,

which include PolicyGenius, Shopify, and Rocket Money. But for everybody else, we're going to hang out and have a good time together with that. But speaking of some housekeeping real quick, I want to say that all of our Game Awards coverage is brought to you by Amazon.

You can go to Amazon.com slash game awards to discover and shop all the nominees of the game awards in one place. So once we go through all these, if there's ones you missed out on, head over to Amazon.com slash game awards and get what you haven't got yet this year. So many fun things.

Maybe pets been now. You know? Who knows? I feel like I'm far away from Greg. I don't know if anybody else feels this. Right there, though. It's right there. I didn't have time to really set the chairs the way I wanted to, so you guys are just really far away.

You're always close to my heart blessing. And IPS. I love you, X OXOXO. XO each and every Friday, YouTube.com slash kind of funny games podcast. I'm looking for the one gif that I just can't find. I'm surprised nobody gifted out of, and this is, by the way, a clip that I went, had to go back and rewatch of Jeff Keely being like, Batman is dead.

Here's a long-awaited game. It is finally time. And it was Eldon Ring. Oh, my God. That's one of the best moments of my life. That's really sad. Yeah. Really sad.

Oh, you'll find it. You'll find it eventually. It's out there, right? And maybe you get another moment like that. Maybe that game gets awards today. Do you think they're going to nominate Eldon Ring for Game of the Year? Or do you think it's going to get snubbed? I think it gets snubbed.

Yeah. Every category. Not a chance. It might get nominated in an adventure game. We'll see. So right now, the nominees are going to drop. It seems like Jeff Keely is doing the announcement video on his site. So once he starts doing that,

we're going to kind of like delayed go through category by category. Yeah, we want to go category by category as they, as he does them. And then we discuss them. So if you're looking for an actual watch long racks, go watch Jeff's the dream. But you come back to see us in the moment, find out. So chat be cool. Don't be jumping ahead. Being like, hey, best racing game.

They canceled this category. I'm excited. Because normally the nominees, they just kind of like they show up one day. And it's like, all, this is what we're dealing with. But I feel like with this one, we've been talking about this differently. Like, I think it might have to do with the fact that we have the two titans going up against each other. with God of War and Eldon Ring, where filling in the gaps of everything else,

I feel has been more difficult this year than in any year. Because while we've had years that were like, okay, we have the big bangers. We've had all the years that are like, we have a lot of nine out of ten. We've had some years that are like, oh, the indie showed up. I feel like this year we kind of got all of those things in some way. And balancing them against each other is like, oh, I don't know what I would put where. I was looking at my profile on the GG app. G.

And forgetting games that. When I played them in April or May thought to myself, this is easily a top 10 of the year. Stranger Paradise. Stranger Paradise. Yeah. When am I going to fight chaos? And just like trying to build this 10, this top 10 list seems impossible because you kind of have like, I feel like I have three or four definites. And the rest of them, almost like our MCU list where it's like the top number five through 20 can all be kind of just interchange or depending on what day you're kind of.

feeling that that mood or whatever. Well, the day right now, Andy, is November 14, 2020, a beautiful Monday. I'm not allowed you guys to think about this at all. What are the games that, for sure, for sure, are in your top five. Go. Don't think! Eldon Ring, Ragnarok,

seafood, neon white, Kirby, Greg. God of War, Marvel Snap. I'm looking at my list. I don't care. Immortality. Because they're not organized on Gigi app.

I'm looking at my GG app as well and they're not organized. So this will change. I'm not held to it, right? Cult of the Lamb. I said immortality, right? That was one of, that it's a toss-up of like,

do I go with Horizon? Do I go WWE? Do I go Rogue Legacy 2? Do I go to Escape Academy? We don't have an answer. Yep. No gut. There's no gut there, Craig.

Sure, no. You have to guess. All I know is that it's God of War followed by Marvel Snap. Put it on the fucking board. Please, Melvin. I did. Sucks.

Wow. I did. here. Andy Me and you're great our park. Let's go. Actually, I'm a dork, so I have this all written down.

I keep up with it during the year. So yeah, I'm here. I have Eldon Rings, Seafood, Immortality, God of War Ragnarok, Live, and that's five. And I'm adding my six, which is Horizon for Redden West. There we go. Yeah.

Yeah, for me, God of War, seafood, Marvel Snap, Kirby. Those are the four that I have locked. I want to keep that fifth spot open. Now, see, the game awards had a tweet where they're asked people to predict, like, what games do you think are going to be up for game of the year.

And my six for that looked drastically different from my own top six of the year, which there I do have, Eldering Ragnarok, which I would think are locks. But then I think the rest of the four, I'm like, I can see these switching out for whatever. But then I have Horizon, Kirby, Xenoblake Chronicles 3, because of course those ZenoBlade Chronicles are out there. And also, that's like one of the big Nintendo games, one of the big JRP's. That's a game that I think has a lot of people going for it in terms of quality, people

like vying for it. And then I have the Empire Survivors is like the indie darling that people are pushing in that I believe it was on Friday. You guys had a great conversation on Games Daily. No, that was with Jordan. So it must have been Thursday. You and Tim had this conversation. I was listening to drive it into work about Game of the Year, the toss-up for it,

and does Elden Ring, or I'm sorry, does Horizon end up getting snubbed? Does it fall out again? And you got a great point of like, well, name them all. And then you guys got through, I think four before you were like, well, now it's like fifth and six or like things could be a toss-up. Oh, was the bridesmanian. What I'm fascinated for today, you can talk about it, Tim, of like, these noms feel a bit different, right?

what I'm fascinated about today for these noms is the fact that we get to get outside of our bubble. You know what I mean? We're in our bubble. When we talk about stuff, it's something else you guys talked about on the show, right? That seafood has a lot of juice around here. Does seafood have juice everywhere? Is an IGN pulling for seafood too? Is that on their short list of five?

And in the same breath, when you start bringing in the Xenoblade nerds, the Kirby nerds, what does that do to a horizon, right? Does horizon fall by the wayside and become everybody's, yeah, that's a sixth place game. We loved it. We had a great time with it, but it was just more of, you. no A-Lew. It wasn't this amazing thing. That's what's going to be fascinating today with all the outlets that have come together to cast their votes here.

Can I predict a snub that is going to kind of bum me out? But I feel like I did this to myself. Give me your snub-nose shotgun. When we talk art direction, I feel like art direction is something that is so important to me and a game that I really kind of disliked this year that maybe I'm looking back and thinking that it sucked more than it actually did. But at the time, I was like, this is like a total like. okay game that I don't recommend

anybody going out and playing immediately. Trek to Yomi. Oh yeah. Trettiomi's art direction, I think, is absolutely phenomenal. And I think that it will not make the list just because it was, it came out of the time that it's easy to forget about.

Yeah, it wasn't a great game. Yeah, it wasn't a great game either. But I feel like we've had that in the past. I think that there have been games that are, hey, here's an art direction nominee, but you're not nominated anywhere. Sure, of course, of course. So Barrett, you're telling me right now

that the nominations are starting to roll out. Are you prepared and ready to have us roll out? Yeah, I've got a little makeshift way to roll it out to you guys. Are you ready? Let's do it. So first up, we have Best Performance. Oh, starting with a big one here. Best performance.

Ashley Birch, Horizon Forbidden West. Man, look how it's going fast. Playtale rack. Christopher Judge, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Let's go. Man engage.

Mortality yet. Sunny for God. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. There we go. Big snub for Freya.

You know how it is of like that's the thing you come into of like how many times can you have the same game in there? And I'm talking about as an outlet vote. You want to just vote down the line. Thank you very much. This is helpful. I'm going to start. So wow.

Yeah. This is great. Bear. This is perfect. So Ashley, Charlotte from Plague's tale. Plague's Tale. Christopher Judge Kratos. Manon, Gage, right?

Manning gauge, we think we said. Manning. Man engage from immortality and then Sunny from God of War. For me, wow. Amicia. Amicia. Amicia.

She's amicia. You clear the mechanism. You fire it off right now. For me, it's a race between Manon and Christopher Judge. I'm right there with you. Like, I'm still happy Maning got 100%.

If you didn't play immortality, play immortality. Immortality is so fucking great. Yeah, I would go as far as to say that, man, and gave maybe one of the best performances I've seen in a video game. It's tough because it's a cool ass name. It's F&V, right? So it's in a different place, but even for what her role in that game

is, right? She's playing essentially four different roles as a character, right? She's playing herself, and then she's playing her character in these three different films. And in each one, she she's giving it, right? Like, she's killing it. And I think for me, it's something unique to video games in which I'm like for sure. Yeah, this separates

It separates itself, but then I think I look at Christopher Judge and I'm like, oh, man, there's some performance moments as Cratos in that video game that I think are going to hit people, right? And I think if I'm predicting, which I don't know if we're in the prediction stage of this yet. I mean, we're going to have to go around the table and lock in. I'm riding everyone's predictions down. So, what do you want to start off? I don't like it. It's scary.

Even though personally I would go, make an engage, I think I'm going to predict Christopher Judge, just based off of it being God of War, it being his best performance as Cratos. it having moments that I think are going to go down is like oh, this is a video game moment of all time. I think Christopher Judge absolutely killed it, and I think people are going to give it to him for that. I'm right there with you. I think it's Christopher Judge.

He crushed it, just like he did the first game, but I think this one even elevated the performances that much more. I feel like everyone on this list, like this is a banger year for performances as well. And Sonny, I know Andy, I've heard you say that you weren't the biggest fan of him in Ragrott. I don't think he's as good as he was in 2018. I feel the opposite. Like, I really enjoyed hearing him just a little bit more grown up and having him have a little bit more fun.

And without getting into plot points, I love where he went and the things he got to do and how he performed those. But I don't think it held a candle to Christopher Judge, who I think just really is, he shows you how it's done when it comes to this stuff. I'm going to go against my gut in boat for, by the way, if you switch the first two letters in their name,

Gannon Mage, which is crazy. Oh, my God. Wow. Cool. I'm going to vote for them just because I haven't played immortality, but I feel like that's going to be a... Play in mortality! Holy shit. Play Elvin or anything.

I did. I at least tried it. You haven't even tried immortality. Yeah, I'm watching a movie. I don't even watch movies at home, you know what I mean? I'm going to vote for them just because I feel like it's going to be one of these independent-type darlings that we've seen. Sure. Similar to how Disco Elysium won game of the year.

Her story, right? Yeah, I was going to say the woman from her story, if she won performance a year. Yeah, so there's definitely a shot. And I think we had the best Christopher Judge moment in 2018 of, you will always be a monster. And I know, like,

I feel like that cemented that performance. And I think giving it to him again, did he win that yet? Red Dead. Oh, he didn't win a last. Oh, shit. Okay, well, maybe he's due then. Maybe he's due, but I'm still voting for

Manor. Craig Miller. So we're predicting, right? Yeah. I'll tell you right now, I would vote. I would vote Manon. As somebody who looks, I mean, God of War Ragnarok is insane. Don't get him wrong. I love it. And I think it's a complete package. It's a masterpiece. And I'm not taking anything away for Christopher Judge's performance, what I think is amazing.

But I also, when I think of perhaps the strongest performances in that game, I think of other characters surrounding him maybe a bit. Or maybe it's just the fact that the entire cast is elevated to such a degree. whereas, yeah, Manon for what a personal game of mortality is, and I mean your own journey through it, of you finding the clips and finding the next thing and doing the thing, seeing her performance change,

the fact that she does so many, no, spoilers, playing mortality, the fact that she does so many different things with her character in the game, like, I think it's incredible. And I think it's also her story is so impressive. Uh-huh, her story. But her Manon's story is so impressive. Like, she's brand new.

She, like, just came out to acting school, and San Barlow picked her up for this part and in this role. you see you're getting all this acclaim, deservedly so, because I think she's doing such impressive stuff. I would vote for her. However, I think immortality is criminally underplayed, and I do think Christopher Judge will be the one who wins. There you go.

I hope Bain Engage gets shoutouts and, like, legitimate, like, film awards. Here's the thing, though, right? First off, we're talking how we'd vote for her right now. Great. Roger, clip it out, we'll tweet it at her. Then, guess who we're going to meet then? At Game Awards, you and me? Oh, shit.

Hell yeah. Make your own award. you can give her your game award. Sure. No, no. No. First of all,

you think I'm carrying that thing down there. You know how heavy that guy? I think Jeff Gile would feel if we made our own kind of funny awards and then brought them to the game awards. It's true. You'd love that.

It's the game award. You know what I mean? Like, we have our own. We're just at the after park. Yeah. At the hotel bar. We're live streaming.

TSA would confiscate this shit out of all. I love it. Now, Barrett. We ready for the next one. Now the website's up. So now I feel like it's it's up to you guys where you got, I want to go next.

Oh, it's like Chevry. Yeah, I saw you. I saw the nominees for one of the categories. I won't say which. Yeah, chat, be cool. Chat be cool.

But I saw one. I'm like, yo, this is a fucking category right here. Always until we get there. Let's start with the stuff that we probably don't know. I say let's work for the bottom up. And then we'll just,

we'll go from there. We'll decide as a group. Okay, best e-sports. Yeah. I want to see esports. Just so we can see him. And we'll celebrate the nominees.

I want to see if I go. Evo 2022, 2022 League of Legends World Championship, the PGL major Antwerp, 2020, the 22 means and sees of invitation on the Valoran Championship. I think this goes to Evo because it captured that moment on the internet where I feel like all of the other e-sports aren't necessarily big in our sort of side of the industry. I'd personally vote for Valerant, but I think Evo kind of owned that weekend in a really big way.

My question is, who's voting? Because, of course, we're one of the game awards, outlets that votes, right? But I don't recall, Greg would know this better than me. I don't recall this being a category on our thing. No. And so I wonder if this is going to e-sports people and how that affects it. Yeah, you may be right. Because if we were voting, I would think, yeah, I think Evo would get it because

Evo did have that moment online. And Evo, in terms of how it displays fighting games, right? It's very watchable. It's very easy to follow. And it's very fun, right? Because it is you going from game to game of, like, if you don't care about tech and you might care about Street Fighter, you don't care about Street Fighter, you you might care about guilty games.

or Smash or whatever. You know, Smash. I don't know was there this year. But, like, you know, I think there is that.

Specialized juries also convened for other categories including e-sports accessibility and best adaptation. So, yeah, then I wonder if, because world is world, right,

in its league, right? How much does that carry an impact in the e-sports world that cares more about something like that or the Valoran event? I would personally go for Evo, but I'm also not equipped to judge it because I only watched Evo

Evo out of all these. I thought Valoran was going to win last year. There was a category where I think Tens was one of the nominations. Was that already a year ago? Holy shit. Yeah, I think that was already a year ago. I think Valerant is going to have its moment

amongst more of a common sort of side of the fan base. But if this is, I think League of Legends won last year. I wouldn't be surprised if League of Legends won again just because of how massive of a performance that happens and how big it is overall. I had a little Noss X there. Yeah, the most recent one did, yes. Absolutely.

Yeah. So there we go. You were at Worlds, though, Eddie. You're not going to rock for a little harder, personally? Those worlds even on there? Yeah, it was. I don't know if they were. I mean, I like Valoran as an esport more.

Yeah. Damn. Is this because Mike left you? No. No, I just League of Legends. I just don't quite fully understand everything yet. but I like first-person shooters and watching two really good squads go face-to-face and having epic comebacks is always really fun to watch.

Moving out to the next category, Bad if we could bring it up. We have Best E-Sports coach. We can skip this one, I bet. Yeah, yeah. I like Bisckech. Shots everybody there. Best E-sports team. Andy, any thoughts or blessed?

Any thoughts on these? I have a question. Is L.A. Thieves 100 thieves? Yes. They changed their name, huh? No. No, that's too many hundreds, huh? No, now they're more than 100.

Yeah. LA is one of the hundred. I would have, uh, I'm voting for the Dallas fuel there, even though they're not there. All right. All right. All right. And two. All right.

All right. All right. All right. Frank. Greg. Make sure. Greg. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll vote for LA Thieves there. I assume that they're going to win right here. This. Do you actually, you think they're going to win? LA Thieves. Yeah.

I think so. Where is I, um, sorry. I'm getting ahead. Um, if we want to go to the next athlete, if this doesn't go to Yey on the far right, they're out of their fucking mind. Yay,

Yay, he's been saying some wild stuff in the media. Yay, they call him El Diablo. He used to play for Team Optic, and then Team Optic just decided they weren't going to have a Valoran team anymore. I don't know how that gets decided. It's fucking bullshit. It's the first time Greg,

I've ever had a team just disappear on me. Like, can you, like, the first time I've experienced what, the Browns and the Colts and the Ravens and all that bullshit, where suddenly they're like, well, the Seattle Super Sonics don't exist anymore. Now they're in Oklahoma City. That's how it felt with me. I was like a huge optic fan that have friends there and they used to be formerly team envy. They owned Dallas Fuel.

And then they just decided, I don't even think it was their decision. I think it was the Valerent League that's kind of forming. They just don't have a team anymore. It's fucking sucks. And all the players just went everywhere. It's really heartbreaking. But I think Yay will win it. Yay is like such a dominant force in Valerant.

Okay. I love the idea of Kanye being a dominant force in Valerite. Next category. Best e-sports game. Best e-sports game. This one, we can predict. We should probably read through them for audio listeners also. Yeah, so reading through this one, we got a Counterstrike Global Offensive.

Dota 2. League of League, Rocket League, and Valerent. Shout out to Rocket League. Hell yeah. Still, like still just there. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's legal legends, right? It's always legal legends.

I'd vote for Valour, but it's always legal legends. I abstain. Riot is just dying. Okay, if you're abstaining, then we should count the predictions. Okay. Which I think is fair. Like, because, yeah, I'm not going to say it. You imagine when Riot gets their project L game?

Oh, my God. Like, God, damn. They are just a force in the Eastport world. It's unbelievable. Next category. Most anticipated game. This is the one I don't think we need to actually predict because this is that weird, like, audience voted one. Well, I mean, like, I think it's fun to do it.

Because, like, whatever, it's the audience. Now you get in their head, right? It's tiers of the kingdom because that'll be the first game on the Nintendo. One, 100% right? Final Fantasy 16, Hogwarts Legacy, Resonimo 4, Starfield, The Legends is all the tiers of the kingdom. And I'm so upset that there's no Street Fighter here. Oh. Big snubber.

What more does Street Fighter 6 have you had hyped all up? We've given everything. I'm going Zelda. Zelda. Yeah. Zelda. With a bullet. Actually, actually,

this is counting towards our prediction. This is counting towards a prediction. I'm going to predict Hogwarts legacy. Okay. All right. Hogwarts. Legacy. You're trying to get some point.

There's no way that's happening. I'm really laughing. Spider-Man too didn't make it on there. And they say. I think a lot of people just forget that it's supposed to be coming out next year. Yeah, they haven't made the noise about it. Yeah. I'm not going to stand away.

Next up, we have best. adaptation. Oh, Arcane, League of Legends, cyberpunk, edge runners, the Cuphead show, Sonic the Headchalk 2, and Uncharted. There's only one right answer. You know what I mean? Of course, it's uncharted.

But Sonic the Headchog 2 is not going to win, which is absolute garbage. You really don't think it will? You think Arcane will? Oh, it's going to be Arcane or Cympunk. It's easily. It's easily going to be Arcane, where, like,

Arcane is thought of as just one of the best shows made, not even just adaptation. The amount of people I heard talk to me about that. I was watching this video game show, like family members, right? Yeah, right. And I'm like, oh, you're watching Arcane. Yeah, okay. See, I've seen people say that Cyropunk is one of their favorite anime's ever made.

Like, people are giving that similar amount of acclaim to Cyropunk as well. So I think it's for sure going to come down to those two. And I don't know what's going to separate them. You want to know, you'll think I'm doing a bit, but you want to know it'll separate them? What up? Anime. Like, I think putting something into the anime category immediately limits it's appeal to how much people. Like, oh, I don't like anime or I don't watch anime.

Whereas I think Arcane being a... Imagine Dragons. digital show, yeah, I think on Netflix, right? It didn't scream of being in a genre other than animated, which is one of the reasons I wasn't super down to go watch it or whatever. That's why I think I lock it in, arcane for... Episode one of Eddrunners is also like the people that are like,

I've always wanted to be a cyberpunk one day. That's so funny. I'm going arcane as well, but I'm going to mark the fuck out of Sondh, Hedgehog 2 wins. What are you locking in, bless? I hope uncharted wins just to fuck with everybody. If it's not a charted wins, I'm no. Not a bad move.

No, no. I like the charted, but, like, it is not the best adaptation. I'm walking into Nottie Dog and Custin'all Neal Truck, but if uncharted wins. Like, I had nothing to do with this. How dare you?

Could you tell me you fell out of an airplane? Next year, though. I'll lock it in right now. Next year, last of us on HBO wins. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, twist the metal, when does that come out?

That does come out next year. I'm walking to twist the metal. Lock me in for cyropunk. Ooh. I just want to separate myself. I like it. I'm just saying, Tim, if you had any love of content and excitement,

you would allow me in blessing to lock in Last of Us in Sweet Tooth right now. Then it gets double points if we're right. Oh, yeah. If you do it 365, sight unseen on both shows, I think that's your count. Chat remind us. Hold on. So you want your vote for Last of Us to be locked in down. You want his vote for Twisted Metal on Peacock to be locked in now.

He was very brave about it. Grandfrey was going to win anyway. Oh, man. I was not a show. It's a movie. It's a movie. It's a movie. No, I'm talking about Twisted Metal.

Because you need a time for the nuance, Andy. It's going to be great. You're going to be all. You're going to be like, Anthony Mackey. Just put on the performance of a life. They're going to be a fucking cool boarder show next or some show. If we're so lucky, Andy Cortez. What's the next category?

You need a fallout show. Indy debut. Best debut. Indie. We got neon white, Norcoe, stray, tunic and vampire survivor. Oh, what a category. Norco I'm unfamiliar with.

I feel like I've heard. I've heard about Norco on like the Waypoint podcast. And every time they talk about it, it seems like a fascinating game that I keep meaning to play. It's a 2020 point-click adventure video game released on Mac and Windows in March. The game takes place in an alternate version of Norco, Louisiana. Oh, I thought it was no-co, but an Australian made it. Oh, I, Gavin it!

Norco is a text-based point-and-click adventure that immerses the player in the sinking suburbs and industrial swamp lands of an increasingly surreal and distorted, South Louisiana. That sounds fucking awesome. This is tough. Also kind of a weird cheat code for

Ben Esposito to be here because like it's, I guess it's, yeah, that's not his debut. It's his studio's debut. I guess it's like

his brand new studio, but he worked on Donut County. Yeah. He made Donut County. So I... Front of the show. That's a weird one.

But that's the first game that the team is coming together for. A game isn't just one person, Andy. Yeah, jerk. Thank you. I always viewed me on White

as a follow up to Donut County. In my head. Like, like as Ben S. Vestito's next game. So I do think that's a weird one, but I get the technicality of it. I personally, it's going to be vampire survivors. Yeah, I vote.

Survivor survivors too. Vampire survivors is my vote as well. Though personally, I'll probably go neon white. I think it would go stray. I do think Stray has a shot because a bunch of cat perverts out there. Yep. Are you a cat pervert chat? Only you can decide how you live your life.

Next category, please. Content creator. This is the- Nibel. Carl Jacob. Let's go, dude. This is the category I was talking about. So we got Carl Jacobs, we got Ludwig, we got Nibelian, we got No Brew, and then I assume that's cutey cinderella is getting cut off by the video.

I assume that's what it is. What a category this is. She was by me at World and I was like, that's cutey. That's cool. Nibillion. Dude. What a fucking saga. Yo, I want him to win so bad.

I don't think there's a chance. No, I don't think he has. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, man. We got to pull for our boy Carl Jacobs, though. Of course. Of course. Of course.

I think Debellion retiring kind of gives him some juice here of like if we're going to give him his flowers. You think he's going to come reveal himself on stage? Oh my God. That's incredible, right? Who walks up. It's fucking Phil Spencer. It's been me the whole time. Oh, man.

I feel like I might be losing points here, but I got to do it. I'm putting an eyeball down. I'm putting an eyeball down. Is it a prediction? It's my prediction. I'm fucking doing it. Is this one that it'd be. This is a fan voted, though.

That's the thing. Oh, is it? Isn't it? Remember, this is how I won back in the day for trendy gamer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it a percentage fan vote or is it entirely fan voted? I think it's entirely van voted. That's interesting, because we were the ones the nominated people, right?

Yeah, we nominated this category. Yeah. So. I think it's, I think it's, oh. Ludwig and Qudy split the vote. They're, they're, they're determined by a blended vote between the voting jury 90% and the public fan vote 10%. Okay.

fans can vote for their favorite games, this, that, the other, yeah, okay. I mean, fuck it, dude, I'm putting an eyeball. I think it goes to Carl. You have a good point there, Andy, of Ludwig, and QD being the power couple that probably splits the votes there, you know. I'm going to say Carl. So this, for sure, is voted, you said 90% by the... I mean, that's just the generalized, how does it voting work on this thing here? I don't have anything else about that specific category, like, in the old days.

Because that totally changed my answer. Because if it is fan voted, I'm going Carl. but if it is like outlet voted I'm going Nival I'm going to go Carl Yeah Carl has the power of Minecraft dude

Yeah Carl just has the power Yeah I got the power I'm going I'm predicting Carl Okay I mean

It's the whole question Of where do the votes come from Have some fun Live your life I'll vote for Carl I'm personally gonna vote for Carl

as well You can He has my endorsement That's wild Yeah Shut up Conts the creator of the year

I can keep a word Carl Shout up to you, my dude That's so wild Freaking incredible Use of a Nick Codian Choice Award The kids choice of

Next category Best Multiplayer Call of Duty Modern Warfare Two Multiverses Overwatch 2 Splatoon 3

Or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shreders Revenge Oh teenage Muton Ninja Man I kind of forgot Multivers

Came out Yeah Yeah Kind of came and went Huh Yeah That one's going to be tough. I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be Splatoon.

I think the industry, kind of, our industry especially, right? This isn't like, this isn't necessarily the big popular vote. I don't think there's a lot of people out there that are super into, on our side of things that are like playing cod, like all the big outlets and stuff like that. I don't think Overwatch 2 will win it either. I'm going to say Splatoon. I feel like it's one of those kind of. industry darlings I don't think it is

I feel like a lot after that first initial week I feel like people who stuck around with Splatoon 3 just rev valentine All they do is talk shit about it because of the mistakes that they keep making

Last Nintendo though Yeah Get that bump I'm going multiverses I feel like with this list of games Again do you make a good point of Like there wasn't one that like I think stuck with the industry Yeah

And yeah Call of Duty might get the edge Just because it's Call of Duty and people seem to be really enjoying the multiplayer as well, right? Yeah, yeah. Again, it's one of those things where, like, the internet isn't real life. So, like, just because you hear a popular streamer shit on the game, it doesn't mean that the game is bad because a lot of people aren't there.

A lot of the casualers are still enjoying it. Yeah. I just looking at this, it's like, I love Ninja Turtles, and, like, I think it is an excellent game. I put that more in the family multiplayer as opposed to, like, this category of what they're talking about. Splatoon, I don't think quite hit. right. Overwatch 2 from you guys sounds like it just kind of didn't do what the sequel

to Overwatch needed to do. So yeah, multiverses for me. For me it comes down to multiverses and Overwatch 2. Even though I think there's a lot of stuff you can throw out of Overwatch 2 to bump it down, I do think that critically the outlets that are voting just fucking love Overwatch

so much. And Overwatch 2 being more Overwatch and kind of giving us that hit again of Overwatch, I think it's going to do a lot for a lot of people. And I think it just has that name recognition, right? where outlets look at call duty and they go, oh, it's more called duty. They look at Splatoon 3 and they probably either go, oh, it's more Splatoon 3 or they get upset over like Nintendo Online and all the shit that like I think holds that down in terms of baggage. And then TMNT, I don't think stands out enough in terms of it being a multiplayer game to give it that edge in that way.

And so, yeah, for me, it comes down to multiverses and Overwatch too. And multiverses does have that thing that Andy just mentioned too where it kind of came and went and how much how much is that going to come into play during voting where you look at multiverses and go. Oh, that was fun for a month. If the game came out last month. Yeah, the game was still like high. If it came out last month, they were still in it. I think that would have a lot going for it. But then you have Overwatch 2 there, right?

Which still has Overwatch in the title that I think carries a lot of weight for people. I'm going to go Overwatch to. Yeah, you know what? You convinced me. No, no, you locked it in too bad. No, I'm changing. I'm changing overwatch. Is that allowed?

Can we do that? Is that allowed? You can only get 0.5 points off of it. I'll walk it. I'm going to go multi-verises. I'm just, after all that said, I'm doing Overwatch as well.

I wanted to try in my head to build a case for TMNT that all these other competitive multiplayer games would kind of take shots at each other, erode the voting base. And then you'd have this one game TMNT that everybody enjoyed playing together and came and went, sure, but that's kind of how what that game's supposed to do

rather than games as a service, but I am saying Overwatch 2 because of freaks like Lucy. I think if that happens, it'll happen we'll call it duty in Overwatch 2. where I think those can split the vote and then multiverse rises from the ashes. Sure.

But I'm still going to go over. I also just don't know how much our industry respects a game like Call of Duty or Overwatch enough to nominate them at least, you know? Overwatch got a game of the year in 2016.

Yeah, I don't know. I also just think of Activision Blizzard being shitty this whole year, you know, past couple years and yeah. Next category, please. best sports slash racing game F1, 2022, FFA

23, NBA 2K 2023, Grand Turismo 7, or Alli-Ali-W-W-W. What a snub for WWE. Yeah. Wow. WWE should be on here. 100%? Unless they don't, like,

do we count that in sports and racing? Yeah. I mean, W is a sport, right? It's non-traditional sports. Non-traditional sports. Yeah, so I'll count that in there. I mean, I think it's Oli-A-Olly-W-W world.

I hope it's all the Oli-Olly-W-W world. My gut. says Gt7 for whatever reason, but it better be all the other world. Gtsey 7 had all that like micro-transaction shit, though, that people hated. Yeah.

I'm going... Was that that that game? God, that feels like five years ago. Yeah. I'm going FIFA 23. That was a fire entry. I'll just vote in my heart and say Allie Alley World, but this is one of those categories I'm really not versed in.

I'm going for Allie Allie World as well. Yeah, you are. Get out there. Kick Flip it. Yeah. Tony Hawk won. It's here. Next category. Next, Tim.

Best Sims slash strategy game. Dune Spice Wars. That came out. That's hilarious. Dunes Spice Awards, Mario Plus Rabbid, Sparks of Hope, Total War, Warhammer 3, 2-point campus, or Victoria 3?

I want to say? I had never heard of Victoria 3 until I saw a TikTok about it last night. Did you immediately go play 1 and 2 to get caught up? You know what? New Spice Wars did come out. I'm conflating that with the MMO that they announced at Gamescom. I'm voting Mario.

Me too. Another one that. that's an industry darling people really love didn't get a lot of juice it came kind of got overshadowed by the games around it but you still see people loving it and then even today the npd numbers came out and it's selling well so i'm going with mario as well and i also got to assume that that was on a lot of other people's game of the year list as well i think it has that game of the year juice um but it may not have made the cut we'll see bless i just the end roger and i asked how do you like two point campus because he's the only person i know that played that

Can I ask Mike as well. That should tell you something, though, if they're the only people. That's true. That's a good point. I'm also going to go Mario. There we go. I think Mario wins, but only because of name recognition. Wow.

Just throw shade of Ubisoft and Nintendo. Yep. Oh, Mike's here. You thumbs up? You like two point campus? He gets the thumbs up from Mike. Well, Mike, should I put it above? Oh, he's gone.

He does what Mike does. He left. Remember, Mike, of course, is the one who previewed Mario Plus Rabbins. It was like, yeah, it could be a game of the year contender. I was like, awesome. You're going to play it. it comes out, he's like, no. This next category

is, the message from Roger, and you said, it's fine. Best family game. So, can I read the description in this one? Because it's always really weird. For the best game appropriate for family play, irrespective of genre or platform. So we have Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Lego Star Wars, the Skywalker Saga,

Mario Rabbit Sparks of Hope, Nintendo Switch Sports, and Splatoon 3. Jeff Keeley at someone has to rewrite what the description of the same. It's the Nintendo category. It's the Nintendo. Games for kids. I'm going to get this to Lego Star Wars. Wow. I don't even know. I don't remember that game coming out and blowing off the socks of people, blowing off the doors, blowing down the doors. You were right. It struggled a bit. Blowing my socks off. You usually knock your socks off. Knocking my socks off. Not just they didn't knock people. I guess that doesn't work too. But I think all the Nintendo games there will eat each other up in the Star Wars. I think people who love Kirby are going to vote Kirby down the ballot when they see it. And I shouldn't say that because I don't know where else it's nominated. I think this is an easy one of like you look at the competition here. hearing you're like oh this is my chance to give kirby flowers i'm saying kirby gets it here

i'm also going to predict uh that's a great call the only the only thing that makes it tough is like what are the outlets thinking when they say when they see best family game because every single year there are people on twitter that are like family game like it you can't play this with your family it's single player and i'm still like i don't know what jeff means when he says best family game um that said i think if you just look on the games on this list and you're like i'm gonna vote for the best one i'm kirby in the forgotten land you i think he means like you can play it knowing that like a titty isn't is going to pop up on screen okay That's where he's wrong about Kirby, you know, endgame.

Give me your mortality. You know what? Put, pull me down for Kirby. Okay. We're changing the rules. You got to make a lock in. You changed it. I didn't.

I didn't. I said I changed back. I kept a multiversis. It's got to, who wants to be a millionaire where it's your final answer. If you lock, if you lock, if you lock it, lock it.

I didn't lock it. I mean, I didn't lock it. Kirby. I don't like it. I don't like it. Kentucky, Kirby. Then I'm going to go Kirby as well.

Kirby's, I mean, this game's fantastic. It's the best Kirby game we ever had. People have talked like that. They know that, right? That's kind of the public sentiment about all this. I do think Shredder's Revenge got snubbed from this category because, like, it is a family game. Like, that is a fun game that's cool for kids and you can play with your dad and stuff, and it's going to be fun.

But they're stabbing, though, you know, Shredder. I think y'all are right, though, that Kirby will be nominated further up on the list in other genres and it will not win those. Yeah. So this is the one, this is its chance to win. Next category, please. best fighting best fighting game DNF dual

Jojo's Bazaar Adventure all-star battle are the King of Fighters 15 multiverses and seafood they released a multiplayer patch what the best game design primarily around head-to-head combat

someone someone thought they were clever as shit at some out that they're like I'm a guy any game with a hand-to-hand combat now we were allowed to nominate for best fighting this is what I'll say

somebody who wrote in for our when we were doing our nominations and voted in the best fighting game category. Not that many fighting games came out this year. So I think they got to four and like outlets struggled and they're like fuck what else. Because like DNF dual, I played quite a bit of DNF dual. It's not the best fighting game this year. Like Jonas Bazaar Adventure, All Star Battle are I also played quite a bit at Summer Games Fest.

It games fine. Like I think King of Fighters, if you're talking about best fighting game, best traditional fighting game, on this list is going to be King of Fiders 15. Multiverse has had the juice in terms of popularity. So I think that's up there as well. And then I'm surprised that. I'm surprised Sioux who made it on here, and it wasn't either W.W.U.2K.

Or Rumbleverse. I would have thought that those would have been people's fifth choice. But if I had to predict. I'm going to vote for multiverses. That's Locket, Locket, before anybody else makes an argument where this kid can't, you know, wiggle out of it. I'm also saying multiverses while you're over there.

I think that's the game that the industry played the most. The most popular. Yeah. Yeah. See, I, sorry, did you lock one yet less? No, I have not. Okay. But you can go for it.

I'm between multiverses and Cifu. Because it's like, I think Super is a dumb answer for this category. But I mean, obviously But we got a current situation going to It's a much better game. Yeah, where it's like, oh, people are going to want to give it something. And like by the definition, it's not like it's like outside of realms of my, I would argue this is not fighting.

It's like, okay, head to hand combat, whatever. I'm still going multiverses though. I think that this sheer amount of people that played it and the fact that it's actually a fighting game. Yeah. For me, it's a battle of critical reception. and like critical, I guess, review versus popularity and like how many people flock to this game because multiverses has the juice

in terms of how many people played it and like the conversation around it and like TikToks and infiltrating social media and streaming. King of Fighter 15, I think it's just a better fighting game. Do it? Do I want to go King of Fiders 15? I'm gonna go King of Fires 15.

Yeah, you are. Plus, you're feeling the way we feel during kind of feudy. Oh, man. Like what's the right answer versus what did the audience pick? Yeah. Oh, damn.

I don't feel great about it, but I'm locking it in. Let's do the next category. Best role-playing game. Eldon Ring. Live-a-live. Live-alive. Live. Pokemon Legends, RCS.

Triangle Strategy. Triangle Strategy. Zeno Blade Chronicles 3. Where is a Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Order? I mean, it's Eldon Ring. It's Eldon Ring, but I'm so happy Live-A-Live. I've got the non because I was worried. Yeah, I'm going with the Linden Ring.

I also don't want to battle. I don't need to get into this mental battle of like, well, maybe people vote for something else here in case Eldon Ring get there. No, I think this is Eldon Ring. Yeah, yeah. I'm happy for all the Zeno Blade Chronicles fans, though. Oh, yeah. Congrats, Cisco.

They've been singing the praises of the third iteration in that game. Yeah, great year for RPG players. Oh, my God. Yeah. between all these. These are a bunch of bangers. My thing with this category, too, going back to Eldon Ring is the fact that,

you know, Elden Ring isn't a video game that happens to be an RPG. Like, it is an RPGs video game, and it excels it being an RPG. So, like, if you're voting best RPG, I think you've got to go Elden Ring. And I think it deserves it in this category, too. Before we continue on reading the rest of the categories,

I want to tell you about some of our sponsors, starting with Amazon Games. You can go to Amazon.com slash Game Awards to discover and shop the nominees of the Game Awards. all in one place. Shout out to them for sponsoring this episode. Amazon's partnering with the Game Awards to showcase all the nominees in one place on Amazon.com slash game awards where you can pick up the best the gaming has to offer. If you're excited to dive into this year's masterpieces like pick it up God of War, Ragnarok, or Eldon Ring, getting hyped for the stacked new release

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This is great. This is a great idea. Here we go. Best action adventure. Now we're starting to get in those categories like from RPG on where you're like, okay. There's a lot of overlap here. Where are we going to put what?

Best action adventure, a plague tale. Wechrium. I don't know why I said that so weird. God of War Rai Gron. Horizon Forbidden West, Stray and Tunic. Wow, Stray's getting flowers, dude. Yeah, because a lot of people love Stray. It's hard to believe so many people are wrong about games.

Action, whatever, I'm not going to get into it. Got to work. You're telling me this cat went around an adventure? Adventure, I'll give you. What action is there in Strait? You got that gun, you got that little fire gun for that one level. When they introduced that one mechanic for that one level. I'm going to go

God of War Ragnarok Combining combat with Traversal and puzzle solving I'm just saying Like what did this Oh you're talking about straight I'm still talking about to rise up We're about to talk shit like God of War

Like that's what did that cat Throw hands with Those little mites that came at them Remember? Like two scy A head craves A little face huggers Oh man those head crabs

So we got Andy on God of War Greg God of War I think God of War is one of the We talk about like Kirby of like oh I think God of War in very specific I mean when we get to game we're weird

of a different thing but like Best action adventure and you read that description that's God of War to a T yeah I'm going God of war

also just for that same thing of like Eldon Ring is the RPG ass game right like that is the best RPG on that list I look at this list and I'm like

oh yeah best action adventure like God of War Ragn rock embodies that like God of War Ragn rock It's funny you say that I was thinking while we're in ad break

of like maybe Ellen Ring isn't an RPG you know I just thought I had didn't look at the chat or anything I didn't feel Andy's blood

getting in water One thing I'm surprised there is like in the action category are we going to get Kirby there because like Kirby had some puzzles solving yeah I would say Kirby was more action

like then I think they got to redefine some of these categories. Like Mario has like puzzles in it but it's still I'd say How much more are we actually going to see Kirby on the rest of this nominee?

That is fair he better be amusing. My my gosh the thing I'm going to propose is turn best action adventure just make it best action and adventure game to encompass both those categories and then put like best open world game on here because like that's a that's a wide swath of video games i feel like action is different than action adventure god this is a topic to itself of like the fight the category but i feel like it's so it's such a minuscule difference for like video game categories that you can combine the two and it'll be fine because what are we gonna like when we get to best best action action action like seafood's action i wouldn't call it action i actually seafood's fighting you i fucking god damn this sucks this whole thing's horrible it's call it all off. I'm also going God of War.

We're going to get like the Golden Globes where we have like 12 nominees. Yeah, yeah. I'm going God of War as well. My gut tells me to go with Horizon just because it's like people will be like, oh, God of War is going to get the game of the year. So we'll give rise to them. That's not how Game Awards works. We've learned that a million times now.

So God of War locking it in. Was there really so? Next category. Lose. Best action game, Bayonetta 3, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Neon White, Seifu, or Ninja Turtles. shredder's revenge. Bro, no Kirby.

Oh, this hurts. Oh, okay. It's not going to be any. Yeah. I think it might be given there. I'm voting seafood here. Me too. And again, that's a weird hard one.

Seafood deserves a win, man. And I, for me, looking at this, Bayonetta three, I haven't played much of it. I just started maybe like an hour in. I've heard mixed things even from fans. I know some people love it. I know some people are like,

this is not. A lot of people hate the ending. Yeah. So did not vibe with the ending. Oh, really? I was talking to her about it. And she was someone else saying, counting in the love category.

Well, I think she loved the game. Yeah, I think it's just the ending. I feel like that's the only main criticism I've seen from it, though. I thought it's, I've still seen people talk about it.

They love the gameplay and it feels like Bain and it is what they wanted, but then the ending just kind of do a curve. I've seen mixed things from that. Like my, my homie, Andy Leoneke, who is like into action games, like really into them.

Admittedly, devil make cry is like his favorite stuff. So I think there might be a little bias there. but seeing his tweet threads and seeing the way people were responding that seemed to be in that community that's what's leading me to believe that but microcosm of opinions

and I also think with the thing with Bainette also is that like I've seen enough people say that I like Bainetta 2 better like I don't know if it exceeds above and beyond what Bainetta 2 did and especially in like the fidelity category like picking up Bainetta 3 I feel like if I go back to Bainetta 1

it probably looks fairly similar just because there's not you know much to step up there in terms of I guess this quality of fidelity, so I don't know if that's going to bring it down for some people as well in terms of this conversation, best action game. Bear, can you bring it back up so we can look at it for a second? Because yeah, Call of Duty, I don't think is going to get action game. Neon White, I think, is fantastic.

I think, Andy, do you have an argument for that? No, because my vote's going to go for Seifu as well. I just don't, I don't think enough people played Neon White. I think Seifu is one of the more memorable games from that part of the year. year from that sort of early winter, late spring sort of thing. So, yeah, I think Sifu gets a nomination for sure. I'm also voting Sifu because it deserves it. Hell yeah.

I think my, I wanted to be Sifu, but I feel like, again, like the reviews for Sifu being a little bit more lower than like how we all feel about it. I feel like it's going to get in its way when people kind of think about like what they actually enjoyed throughout the year. my gut goes almost TM&T I think I feel like people don't want to show love for that You'd be wild to give best action

TM&T shreds revenge Game I loved Yeah and yeah It's not even like out of this list Not even my favorite It's a popularity thing Yeah That's where my gut goes

Of where the rest of the I don't think that's a bad call Yeah Next up Best VR slash AR Among is just came out Among us make it in there.

Holy cow. You were on the voting committee. Remember when I hit you up and I was like they're trying to get you into these. We're trying to play this ahead of time. We got after the fall, Among Us VR, Bone Lab. Hey, Bone Lab from Brandon Lodge. Oh, okay.

Freddie Wong and Brandon back in the day. Rocket jump and stuff. That's cool. Is that the same bone as Bone Works? I think so. Bones. Yeah, Bone Works. I think is the like the program or whatever he made.

And then they're they made and they're making games with it. Moss Book 2 and then Red Matter 2? Yeah, 2. I've been meaning to check out BoneLab actually because every single thing I've seen people talk about it online, people are over the moon on this game. People keep talking about how incredible it is, so I've been trying to make time to check it out. I did try out Amongus VR in the last couple days. Let me tell you, it's a really cool experience. Yeah? Yeah. This is one I would vote that we abstain for voting on.

Yeah, I don't have a... I'm fine with that. I mean, I have a prediction. I'll predict Bone Lab. I would predict Amongus VR just because it's one of those popularity things for me. That's my thing, whereas I wanted to be Mossbook, too, but I would predict among us. Yeah. Are you going to join the Legion of Boners out there? No, I'm not doing the Legion of Boners. Next category, innovation and accessibility. Can I read the description for this one? Recognizing software and or hardware that is pushing the medium forward by adding features, technology, and content to help games be played and enjoyed by an even wider audience. As Dusk Falls, God of War Ragnarok, return to Monkey Island, Last of Us Part 1, or the Quar

I love this. Like just these entries, I think, are great entries. Because the Lastest Part 1, I think, might only get its flowers here. And I think that deserves something, just because I know, even though a lot of us might not have wanted this, like, a remake to the Last of us, it came out, and it was very quality. And yeah, they did do a lot of stuff for accessibility and, like, just put in terms of pushing the PS5 further in terms of how this game looks, how this game runs, all that stuff. So shout out to Lastest Part 1 there. I never even thought about Corey in this context. and I think that makes a lot of sense as well

just in terms of them adding in the mode where you can make all the choices and then the game plays it for you right like they provide a lot of different ways to play and enjoy that experience as well. God of War Ragnarok of course pushing forward the Sony first party like the thing they've been doing for the last couple years now I think

starting with maybe the lastest part two where they've been adding all the accessibility settings to their games that makes sense as well then yeah ASS falls for a similar thing as the quarry of that is a very simple game to play in control right like you just need to make the choices and it goes. I think the last of us part one gets it.

How come? I think it had its moment on the internet where it's sort of like, hey, not only did they make the game prettier, but look at the links that they went to make everything sort of playable. And having a part of the accessibility community saying, hey, you all that keep talking shit

about like, enough with the remakes, it's like we're finally getting a chance to play these games now. These games are actually made accessible to us now in a multitude of different ways. So, yeah, I think that gets it. I only think part one doesn't get it because I don't think it did anything new other than adding the stuff that part two already had

where is God of War I keep hearing for like the last week of how much more that they have even when it comes to accessibility. Yeah, if I can jump in there, that's my pick as well where I think Last of Us is Last of Us Part 2 again, which is great and deserves to happen. God of War Ragnarok is a new, bevy of different options to go in there and do

where you can get into such minutia of obviously do you want to tap the button, hold the button, do you want to do this color blend mode? Do you want options or do you want to have, you know, things get scanned or this? You can go through and set different color profiles for what you want things. Timing and puzzles all that. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. There's a million different features in there that again, I don't think straight too far from what the Last of Us part two introduced with this accessibility suite, but I do think speak to it being a very specific experience for God

of War and what that game is. And I think that speaks louder than, oh, it's last of us is, it's last of us again with the same stuff. It's like, all right, cool. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of different flowers that been given to it. But I think Ragnarok really made it its own. Sony Santa Monica really made that sweet for God of War. And I think that should speak loudly. Yeah.

I'm going God of War. I was personally wowed by the amount of options and how much I enjoyed even looking through them and seeing just like what it can offer different people for different play styles and things. I think that they really did some special that I imagine future Sony games are going to in the same way Last of Us did for Last of Us 2 to 1 all that stuff I think we're going to see in the future a lot of this stuff

that God of War Ragnarok introduced in the next Horizon or the next Spider-Man or whatever. I'm also going to lock in God of War Ragnarok. Very large text in that video game. I did not have any trouble reading that. And that drop shadow, that blur drop shadow they got on some time. Let's color-coded too.

Color-coded for who's talking. I don't get used to this. I might make this my new default. Next category. Best community support. there's apex legends Destiny 2 Final Fantasy 14 Fortnite and No Man Sky

I mean this is I'd be down to abstain from this one Because this is so specific to You have to be in these communities to know the differences Yeah exactly Yeah I would see 14 always gets a lot of love From this one Yeah they do don't they Destiny 2 did a lot this year I guess

That's my thing where I think it's a toss up between Destiny 2 and Fortnite I do think it's really cool that I know the ongoing I don't know I've also gotten so used to No Man Sky by the way That's what I'm saying. 14 won last year. So, yeah, the thing is, I think it's really cool

that for community support and for ongoing game, it's a lot of the same games every year because the games are ongoing and the communities are just continuing to support what the games they're doing because, like, there's not a million

ongoing games out there. Like, these are kind of the cream of the crop, right? Like, how many times have we talked about each one of those games on games daily in terms of what they're adding and what they're doing? And every single time the Hello Games put out, puts out one of those tweets,

it's like, here's no man skies pyramid update and you read through it's like a bullet list of like we've added multiplayer we've added uh like another quintillion more planet this does your taxes now but god of war ragnerocks in here somehow like they keep adding shit where it's like how in the world do y'all keep doing this also how do you make money because you guys don't sell stuff in this video game like you can stop at any point you can just stop yeah you can make another game that will make you more money but they're just like no we're going to keep iterating on this thing uh next category. Best mobile

game. We have ApexNit Marvel Snap! Let's go, baby. We have Apex Legends, mobile, Diablo, Immortal, Genshin Impact, Marvel Snap, and Tower of Fantasy. This is easy, right? It's snap, baby.

Let's go. What I was fucking playing during the ad break. Yeah, it's got to be Marvel Snap. Let's fucking go, Andy. I will not go. It's Snap across the board. I'm happy that it's getting something. I imagine it's going to win.

Like, I do think that that, that this category is a lot. What a fucking game, Tim. Yeah, man. I cross-collection level a thousand this weekend. Very excited. Very excited. What happens when you get to play the game three months earlier or whatever? Yeah, one month, Greg, one month. Okay. Next up. Remember when you play Mario Golf earlier than me and I still beat you? I don't. I don't recall that. I was like, I had it like a day early. That was good. Best indie. All right, y'all. Things are getting spicy, everybody. We have Colt of the Lamb.

neon white, seafood, stray, and tunic. This is what I like to see right here. Oh, God. I, maybe I've just been out of the loop. I didn't realize people love tunic this much. Tunic is getting some flowers. Good for Tunic. Yeah, I think Tunic did enough unique stuff,

maybe not overall as a game, but like mechanics that people really held dearly. I've heard a lot of it. My thing about it is I, and I'm not trying to take away from Tunic at all, obviously, I know we didn't love it necessarily. I didn't love it. I don't know, whatever.

Five out of five of five of them. amazing for Mandy Cortez and kind of funny games. But you, I don't know a lot of shit about it. Everybody in the comments were like, I don't know about this, you know? Yeah. And it was how we review stuff. Five out of five, we talk a lot of shit. I just feel like it's, you look at these and these are, and I'm, these are all triple

eyes. These are like the big indies, right? They had the most, I think there's probably better indies out there. I think we all have maybe an indie or two that spoke to us a bit more. Where is immortality? Loudly, that's a great fucking question. But I think you get into those being underplayed and these are the ones people know about and put in them.

Also, where's time? Can you can. God damn. Dude, Tyneken. You and I never had a fucking chance, man. Get tuning off here. Put Tinykin in here. I'm sorry. I even go to Greg's point of the triple I. Right. Like all of these games had a,

the marketing push in some way that we were familiar in anticipating them before they came out. Right. Which like for an indie game, I think that is the differentiator between like, is it going to potentially be an award thing or are people going to have to fight for it for it to like kind of get recognition? Because Colton Lamb is the only one that I, I don't remember seeing in like a direct or a state of play.

Oh, and it was there. And I'm sure that it must have been. Yeah, we saw it playing. Yeah. I mean, Coles,

I knew it going in, but it's like, it's Devolver as well, which adds that extra level. But like, Tuning Cepu Stray, neon white, I think all of those.

And then, yeah, Colts is like, this list is, this is probably the best list of, for this category we've ever had. Like, it's as competitive as a game of the year category,

you know? Yeah. Like, I don't even, I have no, I have no fucking clue what to, even think would win. It's Colt of the Lamb because it hasn't been nominated yet for anything.

So I think this will be the one when people finally see Culta of the Lamb nominated for something. They're like, oh, yeah, we're voting for that. See, I go to reverse where is that the signifier that we're not going to see a win here. Like, the fact that it's only showing up here is that people then going like, I don't know if I can fit this any category of any category getting the best indie gaming and going. Oh, yeah, I guess I'll vote for Colt of the Lamb in here, but not enough juice being there to actually get it to win. Or maybe the lamb gets it here. I wish you did. I love that game.

I think right now, Barrett, if you toss them back up, I think it's up between seafood and stray. I think one of them is going to walk away with it. And I think honestly, this would probably be the chance

where since there's so many weird fucking cat people out there, this might be where Stray actually gets its actual flowers where people are like, oh no, this is where I want to do it. I'm voting stray. Lock it in.

Also, where is vampire survivors? What are you here for indie games? A game we all love because of our amazing Steam decks. We're not sponsored, but we should be. And so, like, if you weren't there, right, you're playing it?

Who knows? My gut, not my heart. My heart's with Cepu, everybody. My gut goes cold to the lamb. I hope so. But that's a criminator played one. I talk about that game all the time. I was like, ah, I didn't try.

What, Col to the Lamb? I feel like people talked about that more than stray and longer than stray. Not this fucking building. Well, our building is a small building in the wider pantheon of the industry. I knew he was going to say Pantheon. I knew it was coming. It's funny because when I get him into my, my personal taste.

Personal Duffy. My personal Duffy. I'm going to piss a lot of people off. Do it. I look astray and I was like, Stray is fine. It was fine. You know,

best indie game of the year, have y'all played immortality? I look at Colts of the Lamb and I'm like, it was cool. I had a good seven, eight hours of Colts of the Land, but like the best indie game

of the year, have y'all played Tinykin? And then I look at neon white and seafood. Tinykin is not as good as Colton LAM. Oh, Tinykin is fucking great. Are you seen our style in fucking Tinycan?

It was incredible. Then I look at neon white and seafood and then I'm like, oh, now we're cooking. Now we're cooking. My heart wanted to be neon white so bad. Me too. It's so good. But I'm going to give it to Sefu because I think Seafood has that magical combination of like,

this is a good ass video game right here. And I think enough people played it. Like I think there's enough choose behind it in terms of, you know, people actually seeing the recognition, people actually having their hands on the sticks on it. Whereas Stray, oh, damn. Stray out of these are, I would say, is maybe the most popular, right? I think most people had the most to say about stray. But I don't know if every single person loves stray.

My heart's with Sifu. I'm voting for Stray. Bless, I tabulated over the weekend after you came over. I now have 120 hours in Neon White. God damn. Lock and Sifu for me. Oh, it's locked. I think the most split we've been on a category with Andy saying Stray,

Bless saying Sifu, Greg saying stray, me saying cold to the lamb. I like to cold to the lamb a lot. Good again. Thank you. Very, very good. Thank you. Next category, sir. Thank you.

Best ongoing. We have Apex Legends, Destiny 2, Final Fantasy 14, Fortnite, and Genshin Impact. Very similar categories. I was going to say, is it not the same checklist? The community thing. Same argument as always, right? If you're not in it, you're not in it. And so I would guess Destiny 2 or Fortnite, but.

Yeah. This one will, we won't actually put our predictions in, but. I'm going to guess Final Fantasy 14. Yeah, I'm going to guess Final Fantasy 14. Although I think that, I think the hardest core of, of destiny fans, and I think of somebody like Skill Up who goes deep into the grinding

of everything and notices all the flaws in how grinding the game can be. But last year they were nominated for the Beyond Light expansion. This year would have been, I believe, Witch Queen, or was that at the end? I forget when Witch Queen came out, but everybody

kind of universe, all the Destiny fans loved that expansion. And so I would not be surprised if Destiny 2 won it there for, mean finally like final fantasy 14 we get it you're incredible that's somebody else when when when did zero build happen for fortnight was that this year because zero build happened this year i might give it a fortnight because that changed the game literally i think it was i want to say it was this year yeah yeah we're i remember playing a long year yeah zero build was huge and also i think

they added zendaya zendaya for the third time fourth time yeah this year that was in july full i would have guessed it was two years ago yeah right yeah lock in four unless we're not voting Well, we're not voting for this one. Yeah, but... Chat locking for a night for me. Chat locking in. Next category. Games for Impacts.

A memoir, blue, as dust falls, Citizen Sleeper, ending extinction is forever. Hindsight, and I was a teenage exo colonist. I've only played one of the games, and that's Citizen Sleeper,

and that's one of the best stories I've experienced. And a game that is totally out of my wheelhouse. I had to, you believe I had to fucking read for about 12 hours. incredible. A game could get me to do that, but that's how just, like, enthralled I was with what was happening in this world. It's

an RPG, yeah, the digital dice, roll the dice, get your choices, but it is... Interesting. I've still been thinking about it since I played it, and I beat it about, like, six, seven months ago. That's the thing where I look at this list, and this is my kind of fucking category. I've played a memoir blue, I played as Dusk Falls, and I played

Hindsight, Citizen Sleeper Endling, and I was a teenage exos or colonists. I have not played, but since they're all in this list, I definitely want to. my question is because I also played asses falls and I fucking loved asses falls but like what was the social message there what was the provoking pro-social meaning or message don't do crimes I was going to say if I'm reaching it's nature nurture kind of thing right is the family dynamic of being raised in a shitty family do you want to be a shitty person how does you know how do you pull away as the character you play as but I'm with you of like it doesn't really smack in the same way as the other ones did but what's hard about it then is like a memoir I believe I wouldn't personally have put there I was disappointed by that and then hindsight similar thing where I just didn't vibe with hindsight so I really don't have a pick for this and I need to play the rest

so I abstain I need to play the rest Tim I will be back I'm interested in this family you'll be back you'll be back to this category I'm gonna I'm gonna play the other games I have to play this dude should we vote on this one or abstain for this I don't think we should do it I can't play this one but yeah I'm looking to this endling game

next up we have best audio design Call of Duty modern warfare to Eldon Ring God of War, Ragnarok, Grand Turismo 7, Horizon Forbidden West. Oh, Horizon has some good sound design. This is an interesting one because we always talk about it where it's like Call of Duty. They always talk about their gun sounds and they focus on the sound design.

So I think that that usually gives it the leg up. We didn't have those in-person events this year. So I feel like that storyline's gone. So I don't know, man. All these games are excellent. This is one that in our nomination list I put Overwatch 2 because it was one of the few games that I saw like, again, Overwatch 2 was coming out. What do we

promote? It's just more Overwatch. What can we promote? And they talked about the advances that they had in audio. So that sucks that it is in here because they really put in a lot of work of like, this is how a gun sounds inside of a small concrete building. And here's how it sounds in a big sort of hallway. Like they do a lot of really cool

stuff like that. I really don't even know. I would guess Horizon Forbidden West. I think the... I think the dinoes have really cool noises. It's a dino. Andy locking in Horizon. Yeah. Can you bring him up again, Barrett, please? I'll send a text to Michael to ask.

How good did Grant Rizmo 7 sound? Oh, I mean, incredible. That's the whole point of that game is like the realistic engine sounds and the like... I could do that with my phone. When you turn on your high VD is right there. That sounds just like the game. Thank you. Holy cow.

A little good thing. Oh. I didn't know all his podcasts with a couple cars. Polyphony hit us up. We'll save you some dough, you know? Yeah, it's rough. This might be the toughest category so far. Because God of War sounds damn good, but I don't think anyone's going to vote it for best audio design.

You don't? That's my thing where I'm hung up on it where I'm like, I think I might lean that way. And I think even after launch, this was something that we didn't talk about in review. Like, there are some weird audio mixing things and bugs that happen that I feel like I've seen people talk about in its first launch weekend. So, yeah. You know, I'm going to call it, dude. I'm a simple dude. I'm going to say God of War.

Man. Do you remember how Eldering sounded? Because the music, of course, is one thing. Yeah, I mean, it's no more special than what I think God of War, Ragnarok, or the other game sound like. I just think that when I think of the creativity required in stuff like Horizon for Ben, West, where it's like, we don't know what a robot dinosaur sounds like. We got to fucking figure that shit out. where all the other stuff is like, here's what a car is, here's what a gun is,

here's what a body is tearing apart. A roaring monster sounds like or whatever, but I just think the imagination from Horizon Forbidden West gets the vote for me. I'm also going to lock in Horizon from West. I think this is where Horizon finally gets his flowers. And that might be one of the reasons it does, right? If you get this tough category, you're like, well, I haven't voted for Horizon anywhere else, I assume if it's going to pop up in the further.

Plus, Ashley Birch is always like, oh, did you want to get a fucking something? That's sound design. Yeah. next category, please. Best score and music, you fucks! You absolute fucks! There's no Kirby! One job! One job!

Again, this is... Everybody played the first two hours of Kirby, and then they got bored, and then they didn't play the fantastic last two hours. Are you talking about Kirby or are you talking about TM&T? There's no Kirby on here. I'm talking about both. Those are the...

TM&T should be on here. That was it. I can't believe it, man. T-lopes, you are absolutely robbed from this digital soundtrack. was fantastic and Kirby, come the fuck on. So to read through the nominees, we got a Plague Tail Requiem,

Eldon Ring, God of a Ragn Rock, Metal Hellsinger, in Xenobleda Chronicles 3. I'll tell you right now, all right, I'm going to come out with the spicy takes today. Metal Hell Singer is on here because it's a rhythm game. The music in that game was cool. It wasn't like above and beyond for rhythm games. No, metal hell singers on here because they were able to grab a bunch of musicians

from the metal industry that are known for their works in different bands and stuff and had them create original music. I think that's pretty huge. That's dope, but I also, like, I don't know, the music from Metal Hellsinger didn't stick with me. Like, I've not thought about the songs

after finishing up the game. I think Elden Ring wins. Do you think what? Eldon Ring wins. Andy for Elden Ring. Like, there's... Also lock in Eldon Ring for me, too. There have been, like,

I just think of the moment of, obviously, you open the game up every time, you hear how hype that song is, and they're getting that reprised, in a remixed form of the intro song in the final boss fight is one of the hypeest things I've ever experienced. How's the rest of the music in the game?

Amazing. It's always fucking hype, dude. They always bring it. Can I see the categories again? I'm so sad. The nominees are all of the categories. No, no, sorry. Just the nominees for this one.

Okay. Yeah, I'm tilted about this. Some bullshit. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Tim. There's some, like, specific tracks I really love in Ragnarok, but I think it goes Zelda Ring. My thing is, I think Ragnarok is it's as polished as the rest of the game.

Like the soundtrack is perfect. Like you can't get better. Like there's no notes. There's nothing I'd improve. It's varied as hell. It's the most professionally recorded thing ever. It's so damn good. But I wouldn't, I don't know.

I think that it's not that special at the end of the day. I also just, I also still think of the, like, it's still a lot more of 2018's theme that you hear. which is fantastic, but yeah, it is, yeah, my vote goes Eldon Ring. Because like, like, it's just, it's like the score. The score is incredible in God of O'Ragnor, right? Like, Barry McGrary got into his Barry McDuffie for this one. But it is, yeah, more of reprising a lot of the themes of 2018. And there's new stuff as well, but it doesn't stick out to me as much as like,

compared to 2018, right? Like, I'll put it on that same level, whereas Eldon Ring has a lot of new themes that had me like, oh, let's fucking go, right? Every single time any boss music came up in Eldon, ring. I'm like, oh, let's fucking go. And Zilbe Chronicles soundtrack is always fantastic. But that I think is also just more of the same. But

Greg, God of War. I hope. Shout out to Loki's theme or the Sun theme in Ragnarok. Because that might be my favorite song in a game this year. I think it's one of those for me why I'm voting that way over Eldon Ring, because obviously I didn't play a lot Eldon Ring, but I'm not taking away from what it's doing. But I think it's just

the fact that I think more people will have played God of War. And I think when the music fucking hits, it's fucking slaps. there where there's giant epic moments are happening. All these fucking insane things are going on. And again, as I always talked to you, Tim, right? You're that guy. You're that score guy. And I am not. So when I recognize, I'm like, oh, my God, all the components are coming together right now.

And this is amazing. I think that goes along with. More people will not have I told you that in the final boss level. I was like, oh, no. It's the turtles fighting against Shredder. And then the Wu-Tang Clan starts rapping about them fighting Shredder. Sure. Yeah.

Also, shout out to neon white one time. I knew it wasn't going to do it. Introducing me to drum and bass. going to be here, but that was a really good soundtrack. I hope T. Lopes, Connie West, onto the stage. I think neon white was on our nomination list as well as Kirby. I am blown away. It's not even one of those, like, I hope Kirby doesn't get snubbed or whatever.

I just assumed it was a shoe in. That's really a bummer. I think less people play that game than we originally thought. Number says something different in terms of sales. I'm talking about. I'm talking about people in the industry, Tim. Fuck the industry. What's the next category?

Best art direction. Why? We got Eldon Ring, God of War Ragnarok, Horizon West, Scorn, and Stray. Did you get to the museum level in Seifu? Oh, you're right. Are you kidding me? I don't like fighting games, so I didn't want to, you know. I fucking hate you.

I hate this industry. I want Al-Won. Who's a fucking out of scorn? Oh, man, okay, sorry, best art direction. Eldon Ring, God of War, Ragnar, Rock, rise in forbidden West, Scorn and stray. Scorn, shout out to you for making this list. Yeah, and honestly, I kind of respect it.

That game, if anything, had an art direction, right? Like, we know that game, we know that game because of its art direction. So if I'm removing one here, it's Ragnarok. Like, I am so bummed out that Sifu is not on this list. I can't fucking believe that. I can't believe. When that game is like, not only was it so much fun to play, And it felt incredible, but they also brought all of the aesthetics with it.

I am shocked. Like, the second level going into the club and, like, first, stepping into the club area and seeing how incredible. And then the club turns into the fire and flashback stuff. Like, what are you talking about? The fucking museum, every single room in that museum fucking slapped. You go into that one room and you have all the fucking, like, plastic. The leadership hanging from the ceiling.

Yeah, there's the pendulum one. There's the pendulum room that then turns into the boss fight room, dude. I am blowing. away. That is such a heartbreaker. Rack and Rock should not be on here. I nominated Forbidden West. I think I was one of a couple

of people here who voted Prize for Bidden West on our personal nomination things that we submit to Keeley because I, I'm still blown away by how good every NPC looked in that game. Where 100% when I get to when you play a

other open world games, you're just used to seeing the character is just kind of like look normal and they don't really have a whole lot of love. But like every NPC had the same motion capture love that every other main character got. And that really blew me away. So that's why I nominated Forbidden West. I think Eldon Ring is an obvious choice because the enemy design and the character design. It's their character design. It's their environment.

It's the imagination. Dude, when you put into everything. When you first beat the big first boss in Eldon Ring and you step out and you. you have like one of the, you know, stepping out of Vault 101 moments in that video game and you see the vista and it's like, oh shit. And that's, and that's, that alone can win this category from you. And that's the first time of about eight or nine times that you do experience that in the game. Oh, yeah.

Like, it's Alden Ring. It's obvious why, why Eldon Ring is there. I am so beside myself. Tim, I'm voting Eldon Ring. Lock it in. They got a bunch of weird ass gothic bullshit that people fucking love jerking off to and that's what's going to get the votes. Yeah.

When you take the elevator down and you're like, oh, my God. To seal for a river. You know what? I'm going God of War. Fair enough. He's going God of War. Because like the, I feel like the God of War is like the way I talk about Game of Thrones compared to other TV shows, God of War compared to other video games where it's like

the production value is just so high, the costume design, the set design. I think God of War did that too. Like I feel like each of the different worlds we enter like looks so distinctly different, but lived in and believable all the characters and all that. And on top of that, this catarrow. where we're talking about design and animation. Like the animation in God of War, I'm blown away by every little thing.

But I also don't know how Eldering like that. So I might lose this one, but I am locking in God of War. Can we bring them up one more time there? I'm really torn on this one. Lock in Eldering for me, if you haven't already. I think Stray's world building was phenomenal. Tray is a good looking game.

Yeah. But I'm going to give it to scorn. Squelchy It's scorn I hate that I hate that so much It has the juice

Scorn does have a lot of juice in that game I'll give it to I'll give it to Horizon Wow Over Eldon My heart is with Eldon Ring But I think this

Lock it in first of all That is wild You're a wild It is It is wild It is wild It is wild is because I just played Sonic Frontiers, which is also

like another open world quote unquote game. But like I play in Sonic Frontiers and like other open world games recently and I'm like, man, Eldon Ring deserves every single flower. Because even the draw distance alone in that game, I'm like, y'all did the damn thing. Well, I just think of the, the imagination again. The same reason why I voted Horizon for sound design is like

these robot dynos look damn good every time. But you see those told people with the big beady eyes that be walking around in Eldon Ring? The ones that give you like the fucking curse. serve the black oh it's so gross dude my heart's with Eldon Ring like and also the fucking hands Eldon Ring has with all the fingers

the thing I love about You hated that hand I know I hated it so much But it looked real good The thing I love about FromSoft games is that like They They rarely have the graphical fidelity That you want right They never look like God of War

They never look like Horizon But their art direction and their art team Is so strong that they kind of Make you forget that you're not playing The Sharpest looking game ever it's like they overcome so much of their technical limitations, which are largely due to themselves. I remember when we did the let's play and I saw like the big door, a big gate or whatever,

and I was like, damn, it's a good looking door. That's a good ass gate. Yeah, like I've never seen a door look that good in a video game before. My vote goes to Sifu. I know. I'm fucking, poor one out. Yeah. It's upsetting, dude.

Next category. Best narrative. A plague tale wechrium. Eldon Ring. There it is. There it is. Right and Rock. Horizon forbidden West and immortality.

Let's fucking go. Immortality getting its flowers. Don't lock that in for me. I'm just shouting out of mortality. It's going to be out of this and I think it rushes to God of War. It's God of War. Shout to Elton Ring being on here, though. I was not expecting that.

All that lore, you know. A lot of lore in that video game. I think it's God of this. I think it's God of war. I think that any single person that played immortality is going to fight as hard as they can to make it happen. I just don't think you can beat the sheer power that is Kratos. Yeah.

And the story. And the deservedly amazing narrative. I'm locking in God of War. For my personal voting, I do struggle a little bit between immortality and God of War Ragnarok. But I think at the end of the day, I'm going to predict God of War Ragnar because, yeah, I think you have the big budget. If you voted, what would you vote? I don't know. I had to sit down and really think about it.

I love immortality. I'm glad to see it finally start popping up a bit more on the list. And it's like, I would still vote God of War, I think. Again, just like, what a fucking. story. What a journey. I mean the twist, the turns, the character moments. Yeah. I'm going to vote for God of War as well. The God of War.

There we go. Next category. Best game direction. Awarded for a standing creative vision and innovation in game direction and design. Eldon Ring. God of War, Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, Immortality and Stray. This is where I go

Eldon Ring. This is where I go Eldon Ring. They took a an amazing formula and made it open world and there are a lot of doubters and how is that going to hurt the experience and if anything it made it so transformative. This is the, there's been no other game this year

that I am like looking for every possible thing that I can do. Let me tell you about Sonic Frontiers. This is where I realize that stray is probably going to be nominated for Game of the Year, isn't it? It's been in so many categories. best game direction you put this right

like I was telling you earlier I don't think so for this category I'm going to predict immortality actually I was going to say Tim what I need you to do is going to the kitchen and start working on a sauce because I'm cooking up a batch of upsetting spaghetti and I'm saying immortality immortality is going to take it here too

oh wow I think it's also important to understand that in my opinion the fact that Disco Elysium won as much as it did in 2019 goes to show that it isn't always going to be the popular vote or the one that you think that is going to win the most. But like Tim was saying for the last category, I think the sheer power of Eldon Ring and

what that did with the combination of open world design and soul's design, I think people are just going to flock to it in terms of like in other categories as well. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But I think when you're talking about, you know, outstanding creative vision and innovation in game direction and design, obviously like a lot of these comparisons are apples to oranges is in no reality should I be comparing Eldon and Ring to immortality in terms of of game direction and game design. But I think when you're talking about what sticks out in terms of game direction and game

design, immortality out of all of these, I think, sticks out to me, right? Eldon Ring is an open world. And it's an open role on a different level and it pushes the boundaries and all that stuff. But like it is a game that we've seen before, to some extent, right? God of War Racken Rock is more God of War. Horizon is more Horizon. You know, Stray is an open world adventure puzzle game. Immortality, yeah, we've seen this before with like San Barlow's other games,

but I think immortality does it in a different way and on another level that really pushes it, right? When you're talking about, hey, we're going to create multiple different films for this game that all have their own stories, all have their own scripts, and this entire game is going to be found footage, and it's going to be on you to figure out

how to find the footage. To me, that was an experience. That was unlike any other that I would say I've ever experienced in a video game. And to this day, I'm still like, how did you figure that out? Like, how did you make this game, right? the fact that it is keyword association, but the keyword are images on the screen.

And it is, hey, click this person's face. Click a cup. Click a fucking, I don't know, click whatever you want to in this frame. And we're going to link it to another, you know, video in this database. The fact that they pulled it off in that it was as fun and as engaging as it was. Incredible. Exactly. Yeah.

I think that, you know, you talk about Sam Barlow and you talk about his games, it would be easy for them all to be the same. But each one has changed, right? Each one has evolved the concept and done something different with it. And I do think this is the most impressive one that they have done. And I think it's the most complete game and it's the best narrative they've done. And I think that all plays into the direction of taking, as you're saying, these three different films, right? Stitching them together in this completely what seems overwhelming, daunting and incoherent way, right? But then actually having it become a story that I define and I discover as I go and make that work from multiple angles.

Where that like, you know, we did the spoiler cast where I can have one experience, bless can have another, a Reb can have another. We can all go through and get what we're getting out of the game. And at the end, get to the same, not conclusion, but we've all seen the same facts and we all have our own theory about it before Reb says, no, this is exactly what happened. It is the definition of, you know, choose how you want to play, right? The idea, like when we talk about Eldon Ring is the fact that you come into this

world and you can go whatever direction you want and experience it the way you want to do it. Immortality does that as well, too, right? Where it is the idea of player choice? It is, all right, where do I want to start off? All right, I'm going to start here. and I'm going to go this entirely different route than what Greg or Reb did

to get to that final spot of, okay, this is what this story is. And it completely puts that in your hands, right? For a game that is an FMV game that we associate with narrative and we associate with performances and all that stuff, the gameplay in immortality for me is actually what makes it.

Right, I was addicted to this game for multiple days when I was playing it. And I could not stop until I actually completed it. And so I think I can see getting the nod here, right, for what we're talking about in terms of game direction and innovation

and creative vision. Next category, please. The final category. Is it really? Yeah. Whoa. Game of the year. Straight was not that good.

Y'all was, though. We need to sit down and talk about Strait. A plague tale, Requiem, Eldon Ring, God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, Stray, and Zinoblade Chronicles 3. No mention of vampire survivors throughout this whole thing. Really shocking.

Wild. I'm also kind of excited and happy for Plag Tale. I know Plagetail has such a rabid fan base, and we see it in our comments all the time. Finish the game, finish the damn game. I eventually will, because this was not on any of our nominations. I think it also just came a little bit later in the year. Yeah, wasn't that good. My heart is with Elven Ring, but I think it's going to be God of War Ragnarok.

And that's also me kind of like... Just bracing yourself, protecting your own heart. Yeah, protecting my heart. I'm gonna lock in Elder Ring. Locking Andy, God of War. Lock and bless, Elden Ring. I think for me, it's the... It's 2018, a bit, right?

Where it was the reverse, obviously, with God of War, 2018 coming out, surprising people and people going, oh, this is new, this is fantastic, this is innovative. We've never played anything like this before. And then Red Dead 2 coming out later in the year and kind of being the big opposition in that Game of the Year conversation, but I think Red Dead, being more Red Dead and also being a, hey, this is a rock star ass, rock star game. I don't think that stood out as as special compared to what God of War did in 2018. I think it's going to be the reverse here where Eldon Ring comes out and it's something that is like God of War in 2018, innovative, fresh, new,

captured our hearts and also just fucking became popular, right? Everybody's playing Eldon Ring. Whereas God of War Ragnarok, I think, what's going to injure it in this category is that it's a known quantity, right? We've played God of War Ragnar before in God of War 2018, and Ragnarok is bringing a different story, right? New and exciting stuff, new characters, and all the stuff that we absolutely love. But is it sticking in our

brain, sticking our heads in the way that Eldon Ring for so many people in the industry is sticking in the brain, sticking in their heads because it is pushing the boundaries in ways that I don't think any other game is doing this year. Think of the sales numbers on Elvin Ring. Yeah, like outsold Call of Duty for that 12-month period. Like the only,

a new IP, right, one of the best-selling new IPs in the last like what, however many years. I forget what the previous contender was before that. But yeah, like, it has that mix of popularity. It has that, it has that effect of when you go back to February, March, right? You look on TikTok and it is elder ring videos populating everywhere. And I feel like there's been no other game that has won over as many doubters. When I think of the amount of people that I've seen on Twitter, it would be like, you know what,

I'm not feeling this. And then two days later ago, goddamn. Like this, it's all I can think about. And I was right there with them. Yeah, I went from what, like being 20 hours in and being like, okay, no, this is dope, but I don't know if it's like the best game ever made to them being 90 hours in and being like, this is one of the best games ever made. Like, there's nothing, there's a few games that are better than this.

I'm voting or I'm predicting Eldon Rings going to take it for all the reasons you guys are saying. I do think that this is the closest year we've ever had in the game year, game awards, like between Ragnarok and Eldon Ring because I think that Ragnarok is not just more 2018. I feel like it is everything we loved about 2018, but then they also did everything right of not going too crazy and changing it, but just adding things that made sense for what made that game special.

And I think that it is as good as it could have been for what it was trying to do. I just think that Eldron Ring does have that like culmination moment. So yeah, I'm going Eldon Ring, but I think it's going to be really close. And I think that we're talking about a 5149 in my mind. I think also the fact that a game like Sekido, which is one of the

toughest games in terms of accessibility and stuff, could win in 2019. But also 2019 was a year of niche games, though, I would argue. But still, like, for a niche game to, like, stand above the, like, the other titles, I think does, that surprise me enough where

like that is what puts me as the 51-49 is the Sekaro thing. Yeah. And like, to that Sekiro point, right, like, Eldering is basically super Sekiro. You know, it is, the ideas of from software taken and applied to this in a way that is more approachable, not necessarily for everybody, but approachable to way more people

that sold way more than Secreau that is on a mainstream level in a way that's way above that. Like you're talking about a souped-up version of a game that won game of the year in 2019 versus, again, God of War Ragnarok, which again is, I understand the 51-49 thing when you're talking about it there

because right now it is that same thing where I look on TikTok and it is all God of War Rackenrock videos, people reacting to the big moments, people reacting to the first hour and all these character turns and stuff, right? And people talking about it being like, oh man, game of the year is here, right? Like it is a close race. Yeah.

But I still got to give it to Eldering. And the last thing for me is I think that just knowing like how this voting process works and all this, when it comes down to the conversations that are going to end up being had at all the outlets between these two games, let's just be honest. I feel like the people that are going to fight for Eldon Ring are going to fight so much harder than the people that are going to fight for God of War, Ragnarok. But the same reason that Eldon Ring was the most anticipated game. And everybody said, what the fuck is Zelda? ring. Like, how was Zolden not the nominee here? Greg Miller comes down to you. We have Andy locked, God of War.

Blessing locked, Eldon Ring. Me locked, Eldon Ring. Greg Miller. The arguments have all been laid out, I think, appropriately and correctly. And that's what makes it so difficult. I think it is anybody's race between these two. And how does it shake out and where does it go? And recency bias and what you thought before. And more of 2018 versus an open world souls game versus da-da-da-da-da. I do. I think it's, I, I, I, I think it's, I, I would vote God of War. For us, I will vote for God of War when it comes time for our kind of

Funnies game of the year. In this thing of predicting what other people are going to do, I do predict Eldon Ring will win the Game Ward's 2022 for all the reasons listed above. I don't think we need to go through them all again. But I mean, that's not to, you know, and, you know, this is a personal preference of which amazing game do you like more, right? And I like God of War more, but I understand why people like Eldon Ring. But more importantly, I understand the fact why God of War 22 is a known quantity because of

2020 because of 2018 and i would argue well obviously the story beats the payoffs the fidelity the amazing things and that you see in this game and do in this game make it stand out more but again i think starting elven ring there was that question of are they going to deliver on this will this actually be amazing you know i mean with god of war starting it was there any real concern about that no i don't think so i think you you were it was a harder hill to climb to surprise and and rapture gamers and I think Sony Santa Monica did it, but I think that Eldon Ring was able to cash so many people off guard and do so many different things.

And to the point that even if you're a gamer like me that it didn't connect with, you still know the love everybody else has for and the stories you've heard from it and these things, you're like, I get why that's incredible. And I think that comes back to your point, Tim, of in an argument, if you're going to go into an IGN, a game spot

of whoever's war room and have these conversations to vote this ballot, I do think the Eldon Ring people will not let it go, whereas a god of war person would be like, hey, you're really passionate about this. You know that I love God of War and we all love 2018, so it's whatever. Yeah. Absolutely. If we had like a debate style game of the year sort of format as opposed to the voting style,

yeah, I would be one of those people that would be like, God of Ward Ragnarck is now what is. Like I'm right there with you in that argument of like in the IGN rooms, right, or in the game spot rooms where it is, all right, let's talk this out, let's figure it out. I think the Eldron ring people are going to fight hard. And I'll tell you right now, Corey Cudden, you can clip this. if Elder Ring doesn't win, the industry loses. Wow. Wow. Wow. In what way?

You did like the Bill Clinton and Obama thing with the hand. Malia? The amount of times I heard you fucking say that. Hey, Barry, can you bring up the nominees one more time here for the final thing? Because now that we've gave our predictions for who's going to win. No, Ms. McGovern won the Eldon Ring to win. What's that? I said, Ms.

He's doing more Obama stuff. Looking at the category, I mean, I'm pretty, pretty surprised by this. Honestly, how it all shook out. Like, we knew, like, we had the conversation about, like, what might be there. I didn't expect Plague Tale. That definitely was one that I just wasn't thinking about. Zeno Blade coming over Kirby, very surprised by. But people, the Xenoblid fans, they love three.

So good for them getting some representation here. Not going to win, but hey, the nomination's great. And then, yeah, Stray, another one that, uh, the popularity is there. I'm surprised, though. It's a great game. You'll die. I'm, like, there's just a couple things here. Like, I'm surprised by.

Shocked by a plague tell Requiem. Yeah, I would have thought. I've not seen the conversation on it online. It's another one of the people who love it, love it. But I just don't, yeah, they're vocal about it, you know, out there. Very, very interesting. Any final thoughts overall on the Game Awards nominees? I mean, you heard our complaints.

You heard our cries. All the cries are out there. All the complaints are out there. Come on. Don't play Tinykin. Y'all want some smart direction play Seafoo. Dude, seafood, bro. I can't believe it.

I can't believe it. Remember, you can go to Amazon.com slash game awards to discover and shop all the nominees of the game awards all in one place, as well as upcoming games for 2020. You can get the pre-orders and all that stuff. Amazon.com slash game awards. Thank you for help and sponsor all of our game awards content for the rest of the year. Let us know in the comments below what you think got snubbed. You know what I'm talking about? Sure.

What's your Sreter's Revenge Final Boss music? You know what I'm talking about? Where's a stranger paradise final phoency? Find me chaos, everybody. But yeah, let's know in the comments. What you're going to be on? You know we're going to die like to. For what's your game of the year pick?

Who do you think's going to win? Where's your heart? Where's your mind? Give us everything out there. Leave that in the comments below. We will return later with a whole bunch of really cool content all across the kind of funny network world, universe even. I don't know.

But until next time, I'll love you all. Goodbye.