Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Tim, SnowBikeMike, and Roger's Top 10s 2024 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

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What's up and welcome to a special Kind of Funny Games cast for Friday, January 17, 2025. Of course, I'm your host Tim Geddes. I am joined today by the tastemaker, Roger Percorney. Good day, Tim. And the master of hype, Snowbike, Mike. Tim, they saved the best for last.

Yes, they did. Let's fucking go, boys. Come on, Roger. Let's fucking go. This has been Kind of Funnies game of the year week. We kicked it off big, real big. On Monday with our overall game of the year. We did our top 10.

We did not know what games they were going to be. We reacted live together with y'all. It was a damn good time with an amazing set that we're still using now. And throughout the week, we've been doing our personal top 10 lists in different combinations of people. You already got Greg and Paris. You already got Blessing Andy and Barrett. And now you're getting me, Roger, and Mike. Throw it in there in case you missed it.

Greg Miller also got to interview Shuhay Yoshida in his first interview after leaving PlayStation, which is a very big deal. So definitely go check out. Incredible interview. Incredible stuff. Seeing Greg in his element is always fun. Because like you forget. Yeah.

You forget how damn good he is. And also through all the insanity, through all of the bits, through all of everything, through all of torturing you specifically, Tim Geddes. You forget how good he is. There's a talent.

There's a talent there. And you know who else was good this week, though? Roger. On Tuesday, we had a phenomenal stream. Roger, Nick, and Joey. playing what? Sin to Nurtle. So much fun.

So fun. So I paid $8 on a plane, Tim, just to watch it via the wide. Of course. No, you would have done that no matter of one. You would have done that no matter of one. I only tried it. I only watched it. I could have downloaded those things beforehand.

You have YouTube preview. No, I couldn't watch. I had to watch the video. So good. You could still do that. No, I watched live show. Oh, okay. Gotcha, got you got you, got you.

I appreciate that. I appreciate that. It was a fun time, everybody. You guys should watch it. Me, Joey, and Nick. hanging out and Nick's in his element, man. I've never seen Nick so cranked up, pun intended, as yesterday.

I've never seen crank. I've only seen scenes from crank on Twitter. So one day I'm going to see Frank and make some sense of it. He was so cranked up, Tim, that it was my turn to play and he literally pushed me aside and just did it himself. I didn't get to guess any games. I didn't get to say anything. It was just Nick for an hour and a half playing by himself,

and I was just, they're a broken man. He's a broken man. That is, that's for sure. But everybody, this is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch, and podcast services around the globe. If you

love what we do, support us with the kind of funny membership. Of course, you can get that on Patreon or YouTube. And now you can also get it on Apple Podcast and Spotify. For a chance to be part of the show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. So if you have any thoughts about our personal

top tens or any games that you're surprised maybe didn't make our personal list, please super chat them in and we'll give those some thoughts. A little housekeeping for y'all. You wanted some of our kind of funny 10th anniversary merch and now you can get it. Kindoffony.com slash store has multiple shirts. It has water bottles.

It has notebooks. It also has the entire line of our basketball stuff. So check out Kind of Funny.com slash store to get some of the sickest merch we've ever made. I can't wait to wear this 10th anniversary shirt. Yeah. It's so cool to see so much stuff. So good. On the stuff. Remember, we are an 11 person business all about live talk shows. So we're in the middle

of the day. We have so much more to go. But we also had so much great stuff earlier. Kind of Funing Games Daily was an excellent conversation between Greg and Bless all about the insane PlayStation cancellations that happened over the last 24 hours. The games that could have been. What has Blurred or freaking Blue Point been working on? Now we know. God of War live service game.

They were cooking it up. Mike, how much would you have spent on that God of War live service game? Oh, man, easily buck 20. You know what I mean? come in at a $60 price tag add another $60 to look like the coolest guy around, yeah, definitely. Wild stuff. Yeah, such

bummer. Shout out. Then after this, we are kicking off Season 3 of Kind of Funny Game Showdown. It's going to be an absolute banger. I can't wait. Yeah, you're not going to want to miss this one. Me and Bless and Barrett have been working on something real special, real fun. Yeah, just get ready.

I'm excited. There's some secrets and I don't know them. And then after that, the fun doesn't stop. Mike's going to be playing Dynasty War. Warriors. Dynasty Warriors is out. People saying it's real good. I'm going to play it. He's going to play it, everyone. And then, of course, you also get a Greg Way, if you're a kind of funny member later today. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Delaney, Twining, and Carl Jacobs. Today we're brought to you by BetterHelp ExpressVPN and me on these. But for now, let's start with the topic of the show. We're doing our personal game of the year. Top 10s for 2024. Here's how we're going to do this. Everyone, every group's done in a little. little bit differently.

And these boys here talked, we're going to do it even differently than the other two have done. We're going to start by giving one honorable mention each, a game that did not make our list that we want to talk about. Then after that, we're going to go number 10, one by one, the number nine,

one by one, and so on and so forth. If one of us has a game that someone else has on the list, we're just going to let the people talk about it where their number is. So if Mike has a game higher than Raj, when it's higher, Mike doesn't talk about it. And then when we get to Roger on the list later,

Roger is going to talk about it. Everybody wants to have their time to shine, their moment to kind of like speak on their games and why it's on that place on their list. So that makes sense to everyone. Love that, Tim. I love it. Let's kick it off then with our honorable mentions.

Mike, let's start with you. Oh, Tim, you know, I approached you. I said, Tim, I got 30 games in my top 10. I got a lot of places I could go. And I'm going to stick with my heart here because I want to go somewhere, but I don't want to go there. Okay. I want to go with Microsoft Flight Sim

2024. Oh. Because I found a lot of love in the skies. I still to this day constantly think about turning it on and pulling out my little accessories and just flying. You know, I put on a little Nelly Furtado in the back. Oh, I love her. And I, I sore.

And, you know, this game has had a lot of problems since launch. It's still having a lot of problems. But I have found the fun in the career mode where I am learning to fly a plane, everything that is needed. to become a pilot. I've earned my PPL. PPL Drizzy. And I've had a lot of fun playing this game.

Really quick is that the other day, it was insane. We're driving and then me and Leander driving in the car and we see like a helicopter like on the side like it's like a helicopter. You know, you can you can learn how to drive a ride helicopter, right? And I look at him like, hey, would you ever like learn how to fly or whatever? And she was like, no, but like Mike did, right? Like Mike knows how to fly. He has his license. And I was like, no, that's a stream where he's playing a video game. He doesn't actually have his license. Like, she thought for a while that you just had a license to fly.

Roger, what if I told you that my new dream, is to play Microsoft Flight Tiff all year long, like get real good to the point where maybe I could go get my private pilot's license. So like keep an eye out. You never know. I just can't stop playing this game, Tim. It's so much fun.

It's a blast to take to the skies and fly for as mediocre as I am. I love everything that I'm doing. And so, yeah, I'm just having a blast with Microsoft Flight Sim. It's crazy to say that right now. And yeah, I can't wait to play more of it. So it's my honorable mention for the year. I love that.

Love that. Rodge, what's your honorable mention? Mine is Fields of Mystery. It's also my pick for a game that I wish I played more this year, right? It's an early access, farming, Stardue Valley-like game. It has romance elements in it.

It has mining and dungeon crawling. It's a fun. little time. I'm not that type of person. I'm not somebody that necessarily falls for the Stardu like video games. I'm not a cozy gamer necessarily. But I just enjoyed my time. There's something about the art style, something about the way that they drip feed the story,

how there's fantastical and magical elements in it out of nowhere. It's just a fun, good time. And it's one of those ones that, like, I had a great time being able to talk to Leans and being like, hey, you're the expert in this type of stuff. Like, what do I do? Like, how do I get better at this game? And her and I like finding out secret. it's and be like, oh, did you go here?

Did I go here? Oh my gosh, that's awesome. And again, as I said in the smile, is everybody's hot in this game. Everybody's so goddamn hot in this game. It's just incredible. And I love the seasons of it all and how everyone in summer,

they're just all slutty. Everyone's just showing a little bit of cleave. Everybody's showing a little bit of cleave. We hybridate in the winter. We get to that. Spring comes out. Let's close. Let's go.

It's incredible stuff. But yeah, I wish I played more of it. There was a period where it just wasn't working on my steam deck for some reason. So that hard stopped it for me. But yeah, I'm definitely going to be checking out the new update that came out, I think a month ago. And 1.0, I'm hopeful for 1.0 in the next year.

And hopefully this game comes to Switch 2 because I feel like that's the perfect switch video game right there. Yeah, Fields and Mystery, everybody. Look out for maybe 2020. Yeah, 2025, game of the year, maybe. Well, maybe up there, maybe up there. Maybe up there. My honorable mention is an important one. Never.

Really, really big fan of this from Devolver Digital. It's important because I totally blanked making my top 10. And I thought that I had everything covered. And somehow my note, because I keep notes for every game I play, and my note for Never was in the wrong folder. And so I'm so sad because this definitely deserves a place on the list. Now, where would you have put it if you remembered? That's my thing.

I think it would have been number 10. So I don't think that it's necessarily like that high. But I really, really love this game. I think it's really special. And I feel like it's the type of game that anybody can look at. And if you have anything in you, it's like, oh, I'm interested in this. You're going to like it.

Like, I feel like I can definitely recommend it to you because they make the most of the very small runtime of this game. I think it's like four hours in total. And I love that it doesn't get too ambitious from a gameplay perspective. It kind of sticks to what it's good at. And it is really thrilling in a lot of moments. And it makes you really engaged with the characters and connections between the two characters that you got here.

And it is very derivative. stylistically of things that we've seen in the past, but we love those things. And I think that it kind of takes all of that to create something that is fresh and new. And that's one of my favorite things, when you can kind of remix the familiar to create a new piece of art

that hits you in a different way. And yeah, I mean, the game's gonna fuck you up. You know what I mean? Like you look at it and you kind of, you know, you know, you know what's coming. And it's, you know, I don't want spoiling. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, maybe it does it a way you didn't expect.

But I can tell you, it's satisfying. And it's a good little journey. So I put this in chat, knowing that if you put it at 10, it still wouldn't have made our top 10. So I think Andy can rest a little bit easier now. Yeah. I played halfway through that. I enjoyed it.

Yeah, I was looking forward to be in my planet Laudan this year, where I kind of step out of my box and try something that's a little more archy than my taste normally go with with Call of Duty, as you know. And I enjoyed it. It didn't quite capture me. I'll see if I run back the second half, but I did enjoy the first part of it. I'm like, okay, I see where we're going.

And the soundtrack's fantastic. like so moving and just like epic as hell and it like it backs up and it sounds as good as it looks so that's saying a lot let's get into our actual list Mike kick us off from number 10 I get to kick us off yes you got it you know I sat way over here because I was going to go third you know I wanted to make it all about roger of course but you know what I'll kick it off with my number 10 final fantasy seven rebirth was on my list of put it at the bottom because I just had so much fun with it this is a game that I had never played before. We jumped into remake last year,

made a big deal out of it playing my first ever Final Fantasy game, and I fell in love with the cast, the story, where the journey was. I never really, I still, to this day, have not fully clicked with the combat. I enjoy it, I don't love it.

It always feels like I'm trying to get the fifth gear, and I just get stuck in fourth, and I want to kick it up to the next level, but it doesn't matter to me because I'm there for the most epic journey. I'm there for a killer soundtrack every time the music picks up and you're in some special spot.

I love it to death. And this one really went out there, right? We were outside of being underneath the plate this time, which I really enjoyed. I love seeing more of the world than just Midgar. And it's crazy to even say those words right now. As someone who never played Final Fantasy, I know all of these locations out.

I have a connection with them and these characters. And so I had a really great time with it. You know, me and Andy collided about halfway through. He said, Mike, you know, I enjoy playing the game. but on the Twitch side of things, I'm just slowing down with my energy. And I said, Andy, I'll gladly team up with you. I'm just kind of playing it on my own. And we made a lot of fun out of it, right?

We made a good memory together, playing it together and sharing this experience. I mean, I like Final Fantasy a lot. I love where this is going. I can't wait to see the finale of this all with a part three. I did not care for the side stuff, the open world, the Mughgal farm of like, I don't love it. I don't really care for the invisible, beat, you know, counter. That was fine, whatever. But all in all, if you put me in front of

Tifa and Ayrith and Cloud, and we just go on this journey, you can sign me up for another 80 hours. I'll be there. I loved it. Roger. Number 10. My number 10 is Indica, a game that we talked about, I think it was during, we did a Crow Country review, and then we also did Indica. Indica is a, people have been saying it's like a 24 video game kind of deal. It follows a none and it's like very slow in the beginning. It's kind of like a walking simulator type deal. A nun who does not want to be a nun internally, right? She has the demon, a devil inside of her that is speaking to her the entire time. And the very interesting thing about this game, it starts off and you're literally filling up a bucket of water from a well for like in real time. Like you see it right

there. It's like it takes like maybe 10 minutes to do the whole thing. Right. So it's very slow, very methodical. But once it gets going, it gets going. And this is a story that has really like after I finished it, it took a while and I just keep on thinking about the story. I keep on thinking about the journey that they take me on. Because this was a must be like April-ish, right? Yeah, yeah. Very earlier in the year. Exactly.

I'm not replayed it, but I just keep on thinking about the story because it is rough around the edges. It is a small team. It is a team that actually fled from Russia in order to continue making this game and get to safety. But besides all of that, the story is, it has a lot of great themes of religion and hope and also putting too much hope into religion and maybe not enough in some places.

And it has this interesting juxtaposition of it has a very realistic gameplay style and it looks gorgeous and it looks like it's Unreal Engine but then it also stops the game fully and then it goes into like this 8-bit style and you're collecting these random little trinkets and you're leveling up and the leveling up is like, okay, what am I leveling up for?

Like what is this? But it has kind of a meta-commentary on video games and how maybe it is like religion. And the, it's, it's wild stuff. I'm serious. Like, it is some wild stuff right here. And the, the main story is, you know, she's trying, she's going on a trek, basically, deliver a message.

The nunnery doesn't really like her. So, like, you know, you just go do this random thing. Go across the country. Deliver this message. And then she meets with somebody who is on the run, a criminal who's on the run. And they kind of have this buddy cop situation. And, yeah, they both are looking at religion in similar ways, but in different ways. And the ending of this game is fucking dark.

It is bleak, but it is something that I'm so happy that I played, and it definitely deserves number 10 because, at least to be on my list, because, man, whatever this team does next is going to be special. I hope they get a fucked ton of budget because they have some chops here. Cool stuff. I hope they do another really striking and scary-looking video game cover. Yeah.

Because the cover for this game is wild-looking. That would probably go down as like one of mine, I'll never forget this video game art cover ever again. Yeah. Because that was crazy. It's incredible stuff. my number 10 is Paper Mario the thousand year door

remake on the switch this is a tough one for me we're just kind of internally and I feel like even just year to year this even can change based on the games around it it being a remake I put it a lot lower because this is one of the best games of all time so it's cheating to an extent while if this was a brand new game

I think it would be very very high like top five for sure on my list but yeah, putting it in at number 10 just because it's a remake. Having said that, it's an incredible remake. This is everything I could have asked for

for the most part. There are some things where like, the FPS thing, like whatever, honestly though, for this game does not get in the way of it at all. I feel like that is one of those more stat comparisons as opposed to experience comparisons, you know,

getting caught up and all of that. And like also I respect it. I get it. Like this should be 60, like, you know, I don't want to make excuses for it, whatever.

But just the reality is, doesn't get in the way of my enjoyment of this game. And also, we're talking about my number 10 here. We're not talking about my number one. So, um, having said that, amazing story, amazing cast of characters, incredibly engaging combat system that's so fun with this kind of theater audience system where you're actually like trying to entertain the audience as you're battling and they'll, uh, sometimes get involved and like kind of jump in and start fighting with you or sometimes helping you. Um, a lot of charm, a lot of character. And, um, this remake was obviously made by a team that has so,

such reverence for the original source material, and they're like, we got to get this right. Some of the lighting in it is just incredible stuff. And it continues to remind me that Nintendo's art styles are the most important thing the video game industry has, because that is the heart and soul of it all. And we can add more tech, we can add more K's, we can add more all of it. But when you have the starting place of just good style, then you can remake things and have it sing even more, but still feel like it's the original. and I think that's incredibly special.

So shout out to Paper Mario 1,000 Your Door. I would highly recommend it to people that haven't played any of the Mario RPGs before. If you want to jump into one, this or Super Mario RPG remake, both of them coming out very close to each other. A little weird, but both are worth playing. You're not going to go wrong.

Also two dream games, right? Like two remakes that people are like, oh my God, are we going to do what are going to do? And they did it so close together. It's crazy stuff. Crazy, crazy stuff. Mike hit me with your number nine. Number nine.

Do you hear that, Tim? Oh, bring it in a day. the school band and the drums are kicking. It's EA Sports College Football 25. I thought it was back here at sports. Man, I really found my groove on that one. I can tell you. I can tell you.

I really found my groove on that one. EA Sports College Football. It is so amazing and awesome that it's back, right? It took 10 years to get here. We had to pay those kids what they deserve. And I'm so happy we are. And it is beautiful that it's back. It's not perfect by any means.

but it is so much fun to play. We are back to the stadiums. We're back to the pageantry, and we're back to just having fun college football memories and moments with our friends. And that's what I got out of this year. I'm so happy that it's returned.

It absolutely plummeted the resale price of my NCAA 2014. No big deal, but like a big deal, you know what I mean? Because I was holding on to that. That was your child's college fund. That was your idea of an investment. But truly and honestly,

I'm so happy. me that EA Sports brought back college football. I'm happy we're paying those kids. I can't wait to see what they do next year. Please put in a soundtrack like every other sports game because the drums were just annoying. I hope they really build off of what they did with Road

to Glory. I think if you played Road to Glory multiple times you saw the text messages get very samey and the whole story of what your character can do. But on all in all, you have dynasty, you're drafting all the kids, seeing them go on after four years. You have the transfer portal. They nailed.

it's football. It was a lot of fun. So shout out to that being on my number nine. Fuck yeah. Roger Raj. Roger. Number nine. Number nine. It's been a big year for Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog has been taken over the world and it's taken over my life with Shadow Generations.

I've been asking kind of ironically as a joke and as a meme for a new Shadow game. And then we actually got Shadow Generations which is a new piece of content in Sonic Generations remaster. And I kind of expected to my, yeah, whatever. It's a fucking, it'd be fun for the memes, but whatever. Let me try it out. And for some reason, about three hours into a

four hour game, it just fucking clicked. It just became something where I was obsessed with. I can now proudly say that I have not only S ranked every regular level, I have S ranked every single boss level. So I went back, I was watching tutorials, I was trying to do every single thing, and I will not get all the fucking, you know, the little collectibles. I refuse to do that. But S ranking is where, is what I fell in love with. Yeah, it's a great, it's one of those games that I had this and I am your beast where I was just going back and forth and S-ranking, trying to obsessively get to the end of the level fastest and min-max the entire situation. Yeah, Shadow Generations is exactly what I want. It is the style. It is the fun. And it just has that energy. And it's just,

it's such an easy pickup and play and then hard to master type video game. I'm watching YouTube shorts. People were like, hey, actually, if you press this button at this time, it's actually a little bit faster than this time. Like, I did not expect in 2024 to become obsessed with the Sonic game unironically, and I am. So yeah, I'm excited to see what the future of Sonic and Shadow is. Are we going to get better than this? I don't know. I think you're very pessimistic about that. I'm

potentially optimistic about it because people really love this one and I hope that they see a good thing going here and they're like, maybe we can just capitalize on that. So yeah, Shadow Generations 2 would be top five most anticipated games ever if we announced that. So yeah, I had a great time with it. I'm so fun. So fun. Welcome. Welcome

to the club. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. What is yours? My number nine is Tekken 8. What an amazing product. This game is so much fun. I am a very casual Tekken fan. I would say Tekken 3 was probably the peak of my interest in the whole thing. I remember when 4 was coming out, I was hyped for it.

Like it was a game that I would look forward to. I had pre-ordered. Like I was very much like, oh man, like Tekin is my thing. And falling off on it for many, many years, I feel like in the last five or so years, the Mortal Kombat games have got me really into fighting games from a single player story perspective. And I really love what Nether Realm does over there

with like their very Hollywood-esque portrayals of a story in a fighting game. And you don't really need to be good at the game to have fun with the game. Tekin has that in a way more. If Mortal Kombat is Hollywood, this is anime. Like high budget anime production values and presentation. so much great single player stuff that does an amazing job of introducing you

or re-familiarizing you with this cast of characters that's been going on for decades at this point with such a history and lineage and it's so ridiculous but it's so ridiculously fun like it's every time you hear something you're like no fucking way that like are they really about to do this and every single time they are going to do that

but yeah I feel like the single player campaign in this was so special to me because there is the big story mode that's awesome but there's also also these character episodes that allow you to kind of like learn a lot about the character's history, but then also like see their individual stories go forward. It reminded me a lot of old school fighting games, of playing through street fighters, different characters just to get that final screen with one line of dialogue that's like their story. But this is the 2024 version of that that is, no, we're actually going to have full on

cinematics and like crazy stuff going on. And I've said this before, but there's nothing that hits harder than the Tekkenate menu music on the PS5. when you're just blading over and this shit hits, it's like, oh, we're having a fucking fucking rid of party

right now. Yeah, shout out to second. There's a reason I used that twice in our game of the year show. It's just good. It's just good.

Let's get to Mike's number eight. Number eight, real special. Tim, in 2024, we rode the high of playing Pokemon Fire Red with one Nick Scarpino

and Pokemon had taken over my life for about two and a half months. And because of that, I got really lucky because Pokey Rogue dropped, which is a rogue, like Pokemon Battler, and it was so much fun. It fed that addiction that most roguelike to do for many people, similar to Balatro.

This is just Pokemon battles nonstop from level one all the way to 200, endless modes, and beyond. It was awesome. And so this roguelike was really special because it has the touchstones of all your favorite Pokemon's. You would pick starting Pokemon at the beginning. You get 10 points. You can pick any starter evolution within, from general.

one to gen 9 and put them on your squad, depending on what points they were to make out 10. And then you would jump in. And you would go from level 1 to 5 to 10. You would battle other trainers. You'd battle your rival. You battle special monster Pokemon at the, you know, 10 and 5 level that were much bigger. The EX will call them stuff like that. And it was awesome to have to think about the different styles of Pokemon.

What are they? Are they steel? Are they grass? Are they fire? okay my team is leaning towards water I should go to a biome because after every 10 you choose a new biome So it's like what would play better to my style

And of course after every single time you can go to a shop You can buy special speed EXs You can buy other things that will upgrade your Pokemon And then you can also catch Pokemon as well To add to your starters at the beginning But this was a blast to play Especially riding the high off of our Pokemon Nick Nuzlock to then just jump in an only battle

have to work with the chat to figure out where I am, what I'm good at, where I should be, and just keep going from level 1 to 200. I loved every moment of this. And I'm glad that so many people played this. Whoever created this, shout out to you. Great game. And thank you Nintendo for not taking it down while I was playing.

That's insane that has not been taken down. It really is. It's awesome. And dude, I didn't play it, but I loved how obsessed you got with it, Mike. And I love it because you were saying, like, there's that quality of these roglights where it's like, oh, man,

I'm interested in this. I get the gameplay loop, but it's great. But then there's also the Pokemon side of the original early gens of Pokemon, like all the way up through Gen 5, even, I would say. Like they are such comfort food for five generations of gamers. Like it's like it's crazy to think about how many people go back and it's like, you know, a lot of us have like emulator devices or ways to whatever. And it's like what games does everyone get?

It's whatever their first Pokemon was, right? Like they're the most downloaded ROMs in history. It's like for the early Pokemon games. So it makes a lot of sense that like the hacking community and all that are so invested in this. But looking at it, like, I love that it's, it has the Pokemon all the way up through Gen 9. And it's based on Gen 5 of having the animation of the pixels there. Like, she looks hot. I love it, man.

It was fantastic. I recommend everybody jump in. Actually, you can still play it to this day. I turned on the web browser today and played it. It's on your phone as well. That was a blast. That's a great game. That's super cool, man.

Next up. Raj. My number eight is one that you and I were obsessed with in the beginning of the year, and that's Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom. It is a platformer where you play as a yellow taxi. There's no jump button necessarily. You can do some flips and some weird backward stuff. But man, such a fun art style.

The music is insane. And yeah, it has this PS1 type art style, but also like PS2 vibes with it, but also Game Boy Advance vibes. Like, I don't know. It just feels like my childhood in one video game. And it is just so bizarre and weird. And I was pleasantly surprised every single level by how they just change up the formula, right? Certain levels, of course, are like, oh, it's just, you know, get to the ending, get enough of these little collectibles, little gears in order to finish the world.

And some are like, hey, it's a top-down kind of stealth situation. And some are just playing with the formula. So, yeah, it's very creative, very interesting. And this team is already on, like, one of my two look at every single time. Every time they're like, hey, we're doing this other type. They're doing like a, what was it? Like a rogue light, like where they're doing like a first person horror game now where it is just the whole gameplay is a slot machine or something like that. I'm like, I don't know what the fuck that is.

Oh, yeah. They're doing some weird stuff. That game looks rad. Yeah, man. It is really cool. And this game specifically is a fun time. And yeah, this is, that was my Steam Deck game for four months. And that's crazy because like I am very much like I start a game.

I don't finish it. I move on to the next thing. I was just, I just kept on going back consistently for like four months. keep on toiling at this game. So I had a great time with, yo, taxi goes for him. Is that end up on your list?

It is. Okay. It is. It is. Oh, man. That's cool. Yes, it is on my list.

My number eight is the Legend of Zelda Echoes of wisdom. Really, really, really, really love this game, even though I don't think it is

even close to being the best Zelda game, but that's the problem. Zelda games are incredible. So I do feel like it's kind of that double-edged sword of, you know, some people might look at it.

It's like, oh, well, if it wasn't Zelda, would you like it as much? But then also it's like, well, Zelda,

I expect more from it. You know what I mean? So it kind of like is a catch 22 there. But this is a really great game. I think I gave it at 8.5, if I remember correctly, maybe an 8.

Either way, that's kind of where I'm at with this. I love 2D Zelda games and I was incredibly excited to be getting another one in this art style because I really love what Grezo did with the Links Awakening remake.

And I was very shocked to play through this game. and see that it was a lot more styled after the Breath of the Wild Tears of the Kingdom, big kind of open puzzle solving type stuff than it was the more traditional top-down 2D things. And I think that it worked really well. It's not what I would have wanted ideally from this game just because I really do miss the traditional, more action-focused top-down Zelda's. But in terms of dungeons and what I miss from those, this game I think does a really,

really good job. It has some of my, maybe not the best of all time dungeons, but some very memorable, some of my favorite in recent memory for sure going on where I think they did a much better job, I would say probably the best job in a 2D game for sure of making the surrounding world cast

of characters matter more. Like every time we're in one of the regions, the vibes of the region, kind of the culture of the region, really stood out to me in a way that is usually traditionally only in the 3,000, 3D games that you get that. So I feel like this game is much more than it seems on the surface. But I don't think it necessarily meets the heights of like,

oh, this is one of the best games of all time. But definitely worth your time. It's not that long either, which I think is nice. Like it doesn't overstay. It's welcome. But yeah, this is a great game. Love play in a Zelda. The soundtrack's fun too.

Yeah. Shout out to this game. It's just, it's always to me telling for who I am in the type of games that I like. if Nintendo proper puts out a game and it's not in my top five that just means it didn't quite hit where I needed it to you know

but hey shout out to the number eight for me yeah I could have actually seen this going to my top five if I finished it it was just this or metaphor right like I was just like I have to choose one right now and I'm gonna choose metaphor but yeah I had a great time with the time that I played with Echoes of Wisdom

Mike number seven number seven Oh shit Astrobot It was kind of funny his game of the year Of course as many people know and you all know my top 10 is always, hey, clear your mind and think about the games that brought you a lot of joy and that were just the most fun to play. What was that experience? And that was Astrobot. Astrobot is pure fun. It's just a great time. They nailed this console mascot platformer that you can get to know and love. Of course, he's had other games, but this is the breakout game. This is the one that put this jabroni on the map for me and I loved every single minute with it. I still think about the sound of when he ice skates and just the blades clanking and. clicking on to the ice and drawing little hearts.

Every single time I ice skated, I put hearts on the ice. And it was just like, oh, you nailed it, y'all. And yeah, the boss fights were fun. I loved collecting different, you know, PlayStation bots. I wish they did put a name on it, but it was always fun to try to guess, oh, who is this? Why don't I know this one? Oh, why are we doing an Ape Escape level? I've never played Ape Escape and then Fall and Love going, okay, this is cool.

That's a great time. And so, yeah, Astrobot, just a fun game to play. So you get my number seven spot. Love that. Roger. Play Ape Escape, too. My number seven is UFO 50. A game I talked about on the Smilies a little bit, but it is published by Mossmouth, the developers of Spilunky.

It is developed by a lot of people because there's 50 real full video games inside of this one package. The whole idea is that it is kind of like an alternate universe Nintendo competitor that from 81, I believe, to 89. we're producing video games. So yeah, in this lore, you can go from in chronological order, from the first game to the last game, and they increase in technical prowess and gameplay design.

And also, like, there starts to be, like, an intro and, like, a logo. Like, there's a storytelling mechanic throughout all 50 of these games. But, man, there's 50 fucking games in here, and some of these are really incredible. And I would not say that any of these are bad. Like, that's the crazy part about this.

Like, a lot of these are not for me, right? Like, inherently, there's some that are, like, aping off of, like, a civilization. I'm like, okay, that's not for me necessarily, but there's some here that I'm like, oh, shit, like this is absolutely my shit. Like, there's one that is a kind of

it's called, I think, Lords of Dysktonia, which I finished, which I loved, which it is, I don't know how to explain it, basically the whole mechanic is you have these ponds that you are going up against, and the combat is that you flick your pawn

like that, right there, against the other ponds, and the damage is based on, I'm not explaining this right, basically like pool. It's basically like pool with you these little different types of enemies. Whatever. There's a lot of different games in here and I can go to party house. I can go to Lord's Dystonia. I can go to anywhere, but there's something here for everybody and I want each of you, if you're interested in this, boot it up and try it out, right? You're going to find something and I had such a great time going from the first game in chronological order to the last game in chronological order and just booting it up for five,

10 minutes and finding the ones that I boot up for literally one minutes and finding the games that I boot up for four hours. And there's even an idle minor in here, which is insane, right? There's a game that you can just go in there and then you mine some stuff and then you boot out of it and you play other games, then you come back into it and you've already gained some coins and stuff in the background. So it's a really fun time. And yeah, if you are interested in it, try it out for sure. Incredibly cool concept. And also they pulled it off.

It's just, it's nuts to see what they did there. UFO 50, incredibly special game. My number seven is Sonic Cross Shadow Generations. Big platforming year for your boy, Tim Getty's.

Platform is one of my favorite, if not my favorite genre. It's weird where I feel like after Prince of Persia, I've cemented Metroidvania's are my favorite genre. But I think a lot of that, what is the difference

between a platformer and a Metroidvania in terms of like, I think Metrovanias are just kind of like the big kid platformers. You know what I mean? Because like, you look at Prince. It's like, all right, cool. It is, or Hollow Night. Like, it's just very dexteritous, like, um, the platforming challenge mixed with a little bit more combat and some puzzles and stuff.

But like overall, a lot of overlap there. This is a huge year for platforms for me, though. There was a many of them made my list. Um, I have been a Sonic the Hedgehog fan my entire life and, uh, through the good, through the bad. Um, but generations was all. always the highlight for me up until Mania, where it really did try to make the most of

the good and bad of Sonic's history and to try to make it as good as possible. So to have generations come back, but then also have this new adventure with Shadow that very much just feels like the most modern version of generations possible was such a

very welcome surprise to see this announced and see it actually be way more of a new game than I even expected when they first talked about it. And I don't think that there's ever been set pieces as cool as the Shadow campaign for this game. And I'm all about it. It's just pure hype. It leans in all the way.

And yeah, I love it. I hope that they can continue this run because Sonic's killing it right now. I feel like it's just been win after win after win. So let's hope that keeps going. But yeah, very special game. Happy it exists.

I'm happy to go back and play this every couple years, just like I have with generations for the last decade. Did you play the DLC? I did. Oh, yeah. And it's freaking sick as hell. It's so good. Gano Reeves and Shadow, you kidding me, Mike? It's crazy that I played it. You can't believe that? I turned it on. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I cannot believe I turned that game on and I played it. And I had so much fun playing as shadow,

getting to know it and yeah, going through that journey. You know, becoming a squid thing sometimes, trying to flow down water. What a time. What a time. What a time. Let's get to your number six. Yeah, number six for me. Call of Duty, Blackop, Six. Blop six. I've said it many of times and Roger and I have really praised this one. Call of Dutty Blackop Six is one of the best entries into the Call of Duty franchise in quite some time.

It will go down as one of the best, right? I know it is very difficult in today's age to deal with hackers, cheaters, bring that quality of life that the players expect in a live service game at all times, right? And of course, that's where we currently stand as this game is just plagued with hackers and cheaters. And it's not fun.

It's very difficult to play. But when I get down to just the core moment to moments of Call of Duty Black Up 6, I loved every moment of it. I had so much fun with the COD campaign. I thought they nailed that. It was stellar. It was the ultimate popcorn movie, action movie. It had the blockbuster set pieces.

They tried new things with open world missions. They tried things with different branching narrative missions that you could do and see they had that dumb little hub home where you talk to everybody. And they're like, I don't want to talk to you, fool. Let me shoot this gun. He's like, well, let me tell you a story. You're like, fine, tell me the story, dude. I don't care.

And, yeah, then they had the scary missions. Of course, many of you, if you haven't played this, you should check this one out. It's that good. Of course, multiplayer nailed it, right? I think Stakeout 24-7, we all love stakeout, leveling up guns. Bringing back the traditional prestige was fantastic. Gunfight. I love the 2v2, Roger.

That is my favorite game mode that Call Duty has ever created, the intense, very highly competitive 2V2. where every single round is a new gun, we put you on a small map, and you just battle each other. And whoever kills, whoever first gets the point and we go off a rounds.

I think gunfight is fantastic. Adding prop hunt is a fan favorite. Of course, we all love that. And then to zombies, right? Like, we're continuing to build out this package. I'm not even done yet with Call of Duty zombies, which nailed it, right? It brought back that old school,

Call of Duty Black Ops 3, called Duty Black Ops 2, zombies mode that everybody loved, right? Because if you remember previously, they went with an open world zombies. That wasn't really as loved as just the normal, tight, round-based zombies that everybody is used to. And so the full package was there

and then adding on to Call Duty Ward Zone with Area 99, right? You have to have that new map that matches the tone and the setting of the new game you're putting out at that time. And they nailed it of like, let's get on that right away. Let's make sure we add this to the free-to-play war zone and have that interconnected feel. And I think of Call-Duty and like, even to this day, my friends might have hopped off because of how frustrating it is,

but I still play, right? I go into solo war zone now because I'm highly competitive and I don't care about losing my mind and getting gray hairs. I just can't stop playing this game. And so this year for Call of Duty is one of its best. I'm really, it's crazy to say that after a couple of years of being like, you missed the mark there. This team absolutely nailed it.

And I will continue to play Call of Duty. I can't wait. I hope that Verdance comes and maybe we can really. get a hold of the cheaters and hackers later this year. But like when Verdantz drops, it's going to be crazy once again. So yeah, and Omni Movement was such a great touch, right? Omni Movement was just that little slight elevation of like, oh, it really clicks right now, right? And there's the movement demons that will embarrass me.

But like, I'm a Gibroni. I'll get after him too. So I love this game. Great job. Robyns. Robynos got after him. Rod, what's your number six? My number six chat, it's finally happening.

Someone at kind of funny is talking about Silent Hill too. this is something that came out of nowhere again for me where I never played the original Silent Hills I of course was aware of them but of course there was that feeling in the air of like is Bluebird gonna fuck this one up like the trailers didn't look too good

the graphics in the first one was like well I don't know what this is this just kind of be like a Resident Evil 4 ripoff type deal what is this going to be but they nailed it shout out to Bloomberg like this is a very technically impressive video game the stuff that they do towards the ending which I will not spoil it's hard to talk about this game without spoilers

because the first four hours which they show are kind of the lowest points for this game for me once they start getting some insane stuff outside of the mist outside of the fog that you see and all the trailers like the game gets fucking nuts but yeah the stuff they do later on in the game is so impressive and the story was really compelling especially once you get past those first four hours

it starts to ramp up in a way that I did not expect I love the nature of this game feeling like a true nightmare right like as I'm playing this game, I continuously felt uneasy. It felt like I was in a dream. Like I'm doing things that I'm, I don't know why I'm doing it,

but I just have so much conviction. I'm just going forward. I'm putting my hands in holes for some reason. And my characters, my character's just not thinking about it. And I'm like, oh, what's going on here? And oh, it all makes sense by the ending. I also really enjoyed, like,

kind of playing this game and being like, oh, this is where all of like the fun stuff of Allen Wake 2 that I love. This is where it originated. This is the origin of all of this. And yeah, there's a lot of, there's enough negatives in here, though, that put it away from not being my number three, number two. I could have seen it being there, but again, the first few hours are rough. I don't love some of the visual treatment of, like, the way that they deal with fog.

Like, there's two modes in the game, right, where it has the normal, like, natural mode or whatever, where I just think it's a little too bright. And then they have, like, a classic mode that just adds a vignette around everything, which makes everything a little too dark. And it's just like there's a little bit. Holy locks. Yeah, it's just like this weird in between. And that's a very small nitpick, but it's also not, especially when you get hit in the game and then you're trying to find some type of health,

and then the whole game is vignetted red, and it doesn't stop being vigneted red. So you have two vignettes on top of each other in the classic mode. I don't know. There's just enough little nitpicks there where I ended the game and I had an amazing time, and that story's really incredible. But I just was not engaged necessarily with the combat or some of the visual treatments to keep it from getting to the top three or four. But either way,

game is fucking awesome. You got to play it. If you're into horror games, if you're into survival horror games, you got to try it out. I've been trying to get Greg to play it because it's tough. Those first four hours, you're like, what am I doing? Why am I here? I can be playing any Resident Evil game. But once you get past it, it's more art house than I think some people

let on. So yeah, Silent Hill too. Awesome. You guys got to play. My number six, once again, you're the platformers for me. Yellow taxi goes for a baby. Rodger put me onto this, and he was like, Tim, this has you written all over it and my God, you know me well, my friend.

This game is such a damn joy. It is a fever dream of a video game, clearly made by people that love a certain era of video games and that era being the Nintendo 64 all the way through to Dreamcast, I would even say. So many different inspirations, because it's like, you can talk about this and be like, oh, it's a Mario 64 rip-off. But then you can also say, it's a crash team racing rip-off.

You could also say it's a crazy taxi rip-off. But then it's all of those at the same time. and how does that make sense, but it does. The chaotic, frenetic energy that this game has at all points is just noise and filters and just it's everything, but somehow it pulls it off. And I think it's because it has a unique gameplay style of there is no jump button.

How do you have a platformer without a jump button? How does that even make sense? And they make it make sense with drift boost mechanics that you are used to finding in a cart racer. So combining those elements together really creates, something special and I was obsessed with this game. It is so much bigger than you would ever expect. You're talking about playing it over four months.

I had to play it over probably eight months. It was always a joy to go back to. It's not the type of game that you're going to forget where you're at and not know what to do. You can just hop right back into it. And I love the creativity of each level. It reminds me a lot of playing Mario 64 for the first time and then all of a sudden you're on a snow mountain and you're going down this slide. And it's like, well, this is different.

and then you are in a level and the gimmick is, oh, like if you jump here, the level's big. If you go somewhere else in the painting, the level's small. This game has that energy

where every level has some gimmick or something about it that's just totally different. Like all of a sudden, it's a top-down stealth metal gear type rip-off. And it leans into it being a metal gear rip-off, like with the characters they introduce

and like the music and stuff. Elon Musk is essentially the big bad guy. And like they lean into that in a very fun and creative way. It's, Yellow Taxi Goes Room is entirely worth your time. Incredible Steam game. The visual style of it is awesome. I think that they,

they did a lot with this. And it deserves, I think, a lot more love than anyone would give it. But shout to Raj for always finding those little hidden gems. Yeah, number six for me. I just want to go off from what you said really quick of like, you were saying it has all this stuff and it feels so authentic. It's like always on the precipice of like, if you wrote all these things that are in this game,

there's a poop level in this game. Like there's so much random bullshit. shit in this game that it's like, oh, could this be crinish? Like, could this be like trying to art, XD, Rar, Narwhal, random? Like, it is that, but it's not that, because it is so genuine to itself, and it creates a world there, you can have, they have a rat update

which is a bunch of rats going on, and it's just like, yeah, fuck yeah, like, this is, this is the world. Fuck yeah, dude, like, I'm so hype, like, yeah, they are, they are true to the source material, the source material, the material that they're creating and they commit to it so hard that it's not like, winking at the camera, just like, no, this is the fucking crazy, insane world that we're making.

It's awesome. Yeah, like, one of my favorite levels is this like bowling alley essentially. And then you like you're you're kind of like driving around, platforming around this bowling alley that's very 80s, 90s themed bowling alley. But then you burst through the pins. And then all of a sudden you're in like an 80s arcade, like a giant 80s arcade with like a bunch of challenges that are themed after like

just experiences that we've had as kids like throughout our lives. It's very, very cool stuff. Like constantly being rewarded with something that makes you go, whoa. It mores my heart that like, Ben's playing this game or has played the game in the past. Like the fact that kids can be playing this game and like this can be one of their first games. Like that's so awesome. So cool.

Makes me so happy. We're going to get to our top fives of 2024 right after a quick word from our sponsors. This episode's brought to you by me undies. At some point in our illustrious love lives, we've all asked our partner the same age old question that guys have probably been asking for thousands of years. Am I big? While me undies doesn't know the actual answer to that, or if your partner gave you the actual truth,

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We got some super chats coming in before we get to our top five. Here's a little hot tip for whoever wants to take it. Demon Hacker says stop sleeping on First Preserker Kazan for fantasy. You know? It wants to do it.

Demo currently out. You know, bids are out. I think they closed this afternoon. So just, you know, maybe you might want to have. Not true. Sunday. They're Fridays. Sunday.

No, it's Saturdays. All right. Well, I'm just letting you know that maybe people put down bids. Maybe you have 24 hours to start putting down bids, you never know. You never know. See what I picked up? I didn't. I picked up. Here's War E-Day. You know what I mean? We're going to get a date this year. I want you know I was

going to put a bit on that. So like I appreciate it. Well, yeah, yeah, but then I get to drop it, right? So I mean, just in case it is this year. And then I picked up Talos Principle Re-Awakened, which is the remake of Tullos Principle 1. Fucking huge, bro. That's huge, bro. Watch that. We'll talk about this shit. Yeah, bro. Wash that shit.

Mark Lopez says college football 25 would have been my game of the year if it didn't have its quirks and issues. I have at least 250 hours in it. Astrobot, Belacho, and college football 25. Take my top three. Fuck, yeah. So back. College football, so back.

Then Scoopy 5 says, my top five are Concord, Echoes of Wisdom, Dragon Age Belgard, Astrobot, and Final Fantasy 7 Reber. Man, we lived through Concord. We did. We will get to talk about that for the rest of our lives. We witnessed.

Yeah. A good game that just came out, and the people said, no. And I was like, all right, well, that game is dead now. That was crazy that we lived through. I would remember that for the rest of my life. That's beautiful. Mike, what's your number five?

Number five. Same way to say that. That's how I win, bro, just so you know. My number five is Bellacho. Hey. Balatro. Wow. Stole my time.

Stole my energy. Stole my love. I love this game. They made a stuck-up boring game like poker so much fun. As someone who has walked many of casino floors in their life, the poker room is always the smelliest, boring looking spot you could be in all of the casino. The craps table's always electric, roulette's always

cheering. You look over at poker, you're like, man, those people look like they're going to die over there. That doesn't look fun at all. But somehow, they made this so much fun. So shout out to, of course, this was created by one person over there. This game is so much fun. The way you play it, of course, building off of just the traditional poker that a lot of you know, maybe some of you had never played poker before and you learned through this game.

That was so much fun. Having the Jokers and the Celestial cards, having those all play in to different multipliers, and then, of course, adding onto your scores where you have to beat the small, the big, and of course the final blind that after every single turn was so much fun. I loved this game.

Like I said, it made something to me that I hated, was never interested in in poker, something that I couldn't get enough of, and I wanted to play all the time. So shout out to Balatro. Fuck yeah. Shout out to Belatro. Raj, what's your number five?

Number five, add a one to that. That is Black Op 6. Black Op 6 is my number five game of the year. I got to be honest. If I were to redo this list, I'm dropping this lower. Not higher, lower. I'm dropping this down to like maybe an eight or nine because I'm fucking mad at them. What is going on with FreeFrar?

I only play FreeFriR. All I do is play FreeFron. For some reason, it is broken for me. Please help me. I'm so sad. Dude, last night, I'm fucking, I'm awful. I'm just, I'm literally bottom three. Somehow, victory.

I'm top three. What the fuck is happening? What is it? There's no rhyme or reason. It's broken, everybody. I don't know. I digress. I have a great time with Blackop Six when it isn't broken outside of that.

Because the, this is a call, every call duty, every year. I'm like, man, maybe this is the one. Maybe I get back into it as much as I got back into Call of Duty in 2019 for modern warfare. Right? And just year after year, just like, nah, nah, no. Almost there, almost there, almost there. Fucking click, click, this is the one. For some reason, I think it is a mixture between the amazing campaign,

which I finished every campaign since 2019 Modern Warfare, but this one just takes the cake with how weird it is, right? There's so many moments where I'm just like, are we actually going to go this direction? Like, I didn't even know this was possible. Raven Software did an amazing job with that campaign. The multiplayer, as much shit as I can talk about it right now, and it's a very specific place.

It has everything I want out of a call of duty in terms of new. tube tubes, people running around with knives, insane skins, but also it just feels good, right? It has the gun combos that I'm looking for. The gunplay is great. The maps are great this time around. That's the big thing here. The maps are really incredible. And the Omni movement is fucking awesome.

I talked about that in the game of the year, but like the Omni movement is a game changer in the right ways, but not a game changer in the wrong ways, right? Like it's not going to, a newcomer's not going to pick up a Call of Duty. Blackop Six and be like, oh my gosh, this is not how games should feel. Like, it just feels right. Like, that's the cool thing about Omni movement. I do hope this is the future for Call of Duty, right? We're setting up a lot of great baselines for the future of Call of Duty.

And also, it was just a great personal experience because all my friends were playing it because a game pass, right? This is the first time I could look at all my friends and be like, pay the $1, get the month of whatever of Call of Duty, um, of Game Pass on PC, right? And all my friends are playing it. Like, it was a great situation. So I think it's a nice mixture of this was a great game, but, also a great timing situation with game pass and

where everyone was just open to Call of Duty black up six. So yeah, I want to play zombies more. So that's one thing that I'll put out there. I felt like they cut out a lot of the fluff too. They got away from the big team battle mode that just was never quite right. And they were like, let's focus on what we're good at, let's know. And it's also shows you, right? When you look at the landscape of around them on the first person shooter side, Battlefield, gone,

right? Halo, not here right now. So like, Call of Duty is still that number one juggernaut that's holding it down. Now we're in a different world of fortnights and battle royals and extraction shooters all trying to get up in here and now with Marvel rivals as well. But like crazy to think that here we are in 2004 Call Duty releases and you don't look over and see a Titanfall, a battlefield, a halo

like we used to a decade ago where it was they were all competing all the time for you to jump in there. And now Call Duty has stood the test of time and it's still there. Yeah, we got Squid Game 2. Squid game 2 in it. Oh man, dude. played that squid game mode red light green light and like you think to yourself oh it's just red light green light till someone comes up and stabs you in the back and you go ah then you die

my number five is nico derrico the magical world the worst game name that's so fun to say yeah sent his list and i said tim you can't just make up games for you list yeah yeah do that here's the thing man this game is uh i think the most under the radar of any game on any of our list just because it is just such a what the hell like what the fuck is that um it is a donkey con country returns like if you want to go that far uh but it's all i mean it should be a genre i want so much more of this but it also mixes in uh the best of crash four and here's the thing donkey con country returns hd just came out uh today i think uh don't buy that buy this wow i mean no i think that that is the easiest easiest uh sell i could ever give it um this game is is so much better than don't

Country Returns and I love returns, but I keep saying this. I reviewed returns a couple days ago, Returns HD. Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze is where you should go on the Donkey Kong side. This is up there with Tropical Freeze. Incredible platforming, incredible soundtrack by David Wise, who is the composer of the Donkey Kong Country Games? Who did not compose Returns? Wow. So inherently, this game is better.

But yeah, the title of this game, not great. The looks of the characters, not great. everything else about this game, incredibly great. I can't believe what they were able to pull off. They straight up just stole the style. And how did they not get sued for this? I truthfully do not know. But you can play it on PlayStation.

You can play this with like great graphics, something that you can't do on the Nintendo Switch. So really, really great stuff to see. Even their gimmicky levels, I think, are better than with returns fresh in my mind, with some of the rocket barrel stuff and the mind cards.

So much creativity in this, incredible boss fights, seamless transition between 2D and more 3D platforming, the right difficulty level, the right levels of collectibles and all that. Truly love this game. And I hope it gets a sequel.

I was gonna say you're never, no, right? I hope somebody plays it. I don't know. It's like they go to Rico. They've been porting it to like every system. So I think it's everywhere now. So check it out, man. It's good. I have it downloaded to my computer and I keep on forgetting about it. And I go to my desktop, but I see a furry. I'm like,

the fuck. I know. I gotta hide it from Leansse. I gotta be like. Yeah. It's Crash Bandicoot. Yeah. So if you like Tropical Freeze,

which you should, here's the thing, everybody. Oh, shit. I gotta say it. I gotta say it because Donkey Kong Country Returns HD just came out. Play Tropical Freeze. Play that first.

It deserves it. It's the best. And it's not the best. It's the original. Original best. It's not returns. Tropical freeze, then Nico Dorico.

If you love those, then you jump to return. Sorry, Barry Barrett, will you agree me? What were you saying there? I was clapping for you for Tropical Freeze. I can't say here nor there. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Especially with those character designs. Yes. But I'm telling you it does. I'm telling you it does. But Tropical Freeze is the one. And then Doggy Kong 64. Yes.

Everybody loves the D.K. Crew. Unrelated stuff. Let's get to number four. Number four for Snowbike Mike. TCG card shots. I was going to download this the other day. Yes. Fuck yes. As many of you know. As many of you know, here kind of funny, of course, with our streams and our crew, we love the simulation games. We love those sim games that you can jump in with your friends or even solo

and run your own gas station, run your own power wash simulator. It doesn't matter. But this year, we got TCG card shop sim and oh my gosh, this game is incredible. It is the, I dare to say it might be the best

sim game than I've played yet. And I've played a lot of them. And you know what? I won't say it is. the best sim game. You have all the fun of running your own card shop so you get to stock the shelves, interact with customers, hit the cast register. Of course,

sometimes customers are going to come in stinky so you spray them down with deodorant. Which is so much fun. And then you upgrade your shop. You can hire employees to run the register for you. You can put down tables and run your own card tournaments. But most importantly, what the addicting factor was is

it is a TCG card shop, which means you get to buy your own Pokemon-like cards and you can sell them. You can open up packs. You can then take the singles and sell the single solo. On your own supply. It was crazy that they had multiple generations of cards that you unlocked through the leveling system that I would shut down my shop late at night and I would just start ripping packs.

I would sit there all night long and I would rip packs looking for the big hits and then I'd try to sell those for triple the profit. It was so much fun. this game is the perfect sim game. You should be jumping on that if you're ever looking for that. They just came out with fast food simulator that's up to six players. Can't wait to play that. Is that the same team or just?

No, just another game. I mean, I'm turning out, bro. You got a shout out. You got a shout out the good ones, Rod. You got a shout out the good ones, right? And so, yeah, TCD Card Shop Sim was that good this year. So much fun. They even had people modding it where they actually put in Pokemon cards into that

instead of just the made-up characters they had and you would go crazy for that one. This game is so much fun. You got to play that. Play that game. Mike, I'm buying it for you tonight. 12 bucks. I'm going to buy it.

I'm going to buy it. Why don't you open up a fast food submit with me as well? I'll buy that for you and you come in and be one of my employees with me. Give me a great time. Rod, what's your number four? My number four is Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth. An early contender of last year's, yeah, in last year where I thought, oh, there's nothing.

This is the game to beat, right? It was, I think, a January. This game came out. I fell in love with it. I'm a new yakuza fan. I play Yakuza Zero, jumped into Like a Dragon, and then Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth,

hyped as hell for Yakuza, pirate yakuza coming out early this year. But, Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth, got me in the fields, right? I mean, it's a dual protagonist video game. There's so much going on here. You have two different lands. You can go over here.

You have Kyudu's story, which is such a tenured character in video game history, and you're potentially doing with one of his last video games. And then you have Ichibon, this new character in the Yakusa franchise. and somehow they merge both of those stories perfectly. And it is just insanity, right? Like you see the term-based system,

which I got to be honest, I think is the best term-based system I've ever played in a video game for me specifically, right? Because you can cheese it, right? You're running around and you can, it has this circular situation where you can, in real time,

walk around an enemy and get close to an enemy and then throw things at them and then throw the enemy at an ally, and then that person gets a free hit. There's just so much insanity you can have with that just pure gameplay of it all that kept me engaged through about the 60 hours that I played. I do wish that I played more of it because there are so much more, right? There is so much side quest.

There's a whole Pokemon side quest situation where you can go and you can battle people called Sujiman. There's a whole Animal Crossing ripoff that I just did not have enough time to get into during the review period. So there's a lot there that I just still have in touch. The issue with this game, it's a very small issue, but it was an issue. that I ran into when I was going back and making this list is I wanted to try New Game Plus, and that's behind DLC. That is, I think, the collector's edition of this game. I think it's like 20 bucks or something like that,

which I think is so stupid. And that really kind of screwed it when I was like, oh, let me try out this game. Let me go back and see all the things I missed. No, I have to reboot the entire game or spend $20. So, yeah, other than that, this game is incredible. It's insanity, and, yeah, I love the gameplay of it all, and I love the story.

Man, Ich, Bon. What an incredible, incredible character. Makes you feel and he is Snowbike Mike personified, right? Like he is the good in the world. He is an anime protagonist that just wants the best for everybody and it is a true power of friendship

and it's an insane situation where you have so many games that they're making, Studio RG, so much, such high quality and also such innovation within the franchise that they pioneered. So yeah, shout out to Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth. What did I put there, Ratch? The games I wish I'd play

in parentheses more of. your dragon and infinite wealth is number one. I bought it on two consoles just so I could try to play more of it. Of course. I failed, Roger. I tried my best. Yeah, you've fucked up. Shout out to that, though.

What's your number four? Well, we got some super chats. I want to get to you real quick. Lucy and saying, my personal game of the year is Silent Hill 2. The original was the first PS2 game I ever played, and I'm glad that Blueburn knocked the remake out of the park. Fuck yeah. Hell yeah.

And then, uh, demon hacker says, does Tim like the art of Nico de Rico or Astrobot better? Honestly, my criticisms are the same for both. They're just like, it's just incredibly generic. And like that's it. I don't necessarily think that they are bad. It's just they're generic. And I mean, both deserve better.

But Astro deserves a lot better. So Niko-Doriko's better, everybody. I like that, Tim. You got the eye, Tim. Jim says Nico-Duriko's Walmart brand, Donkey Kong country, let's be honest. It is. I mean, that's kind of exactly what I'm saying here in terms of like the look of the characters and stuff. But in terms of the quality of the game and level design and all of that, it's like, I'm telling you, it's better than returns.

Like, I'm not saying it's better than Tropical Free. I think an argument could be made for that And I wouldn't be upset at you if you said it was But someone's got to develop a mod Where you could just swap out the main character Make him Donkey Kong Just making him Donkey Kong You know what I'm crash

Make him Sonic fuck with him Yeah, make it Roger Oh That would be fun That's what I want My number four, Hades 2 Hey My God

Fell in love with Hades many years ago When they put out the early access Even the demo of the early access For Hades 2 Drop like 12 hours into that Over the weekend and then when the actual early access came out, like I am like, what, 70 hours into it now?

Love this game so much. I've said it many times recently, and I will continue to that I think that when all of a sudden done, Hades 2 is going to be one of my forever games that I will never get sick of, will always come back to. And I think that this is one of those like top 10 of all time type situations. Love how versatile the game is.

It is incredibly fun. I feel like the advancements that, too, has made so far, even which the main playable characters gameplay feel is so impressive. I love how much faster it is. I love the differences of the cast system or whatever it's called. And just the level of story

and the amount that I care about every single thing in this game is, I think, a testament to its quality where I want to hear every line of dialogue. I want to walk up to every support character in between runs and make sure that I know what's going on with them because it feels like,

it matters. Every single thing in this game matters. And I love when you are, of course, doing the one more run, one more run, like that whole thing. When you get into a run and a combination of perks and weapons and everything hits in a way that you haven't experienced before and you're just like, I am unstoppable right now. It just creates this new level of fun that I didn't know the game had. And how is that possible 70 hours in? Right. This game's not even finished. I get that. What's, here is so damn good that it is in my top four of this year. And if the game was done, it might have been number one, baby. Yeah. It might be number one. That's beautiful. But it's not done. So it's number four.

What's your number three, Mike? I like that, Tim. Uh, you know what? My number three is a special one. I loved it so much. It's Powell World, Tim. Hell yes, Mike. God bless you.

Love Powell World, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, let's talk about it, right? Talk about the survival crafting games. You talk about the dream Pokemon game. that we've always wanted, and Pal World absolutely delivered. There are moments this year that we look back on, and we talk about the hype of Helldivers, and we talk about the hype of Powell World

and how that took over the world for about a month and a half, and everybody in their mama was playing this game. It's one of the best survival crafting games that has come out. Each one is unique. Every single one has its own touchstones, and this one being a Pokemon-like where you go out in the world, and you can go catch and battle these creatures, I'm just going to call them Pokemon for now.

Roger to make it easier for people. We battle Pokemon. We catch these Pokemon and we have a ton of fun. It was an absolute blast. And then coming back in base building and working with your friends and also having the Pokemon work on the base was insane, right? What a wild time. Yeah, this is crazy.

That's what happens? That's Pal World, bro. Yeah. Oh, shit. They had world bosses that you'd go fight the larger pals. They had raid bosses. where you would fight other trainers that had their pals at these different ones.

They had a crazy story going on as well in this. And the world is beautiful. The survival crafting mechanics were right on the money with any other survival game. The use of the Pokemon being able to catch these pals, use them at the base to help you build different resources and then come back out and battle with you. This game was a blast.

I wish we played more of it. I know I played a lot with my friends. We rented our own private. its server and had eight of us jamming in there. A bunch of pals working at the base. It looked like mayhem. But man, was it a blast.

This game, so much fun. J-Man in the chat said that Nintendo was going to use this in the wall seat. It's just calling it in a Pokemon. I was just going to call Pokemon. I was called Pokemon. Just called Pokemon for today.

Rod, what's your number three? My number three is Astrobot. What a lovely time. I talked about it on games on the Game of the Year podcast where I kind of took this one for granted. Just how fun and how beautiful this game is like it is such a there's no friction with the fun right you just pick up this game and you are just

smiling ear to ear uh it is like a 4d experience when it comes to the uh the controller and every way that it uses the dual sense and yeah just effortless fun so by the end of the year i was like i don't know what am i going to do like maybe this game is like number eight or something it seven i picked it up for the speed running levels and the holiday level that they put out there and i was like oh wait no this game is on another stratosphere right it is just so much fun it is gorgeous and I know I'm a little biased, right, because I want to, you know, the team of Sobe's headquarters, right,

and talk to them in person, right? But I can't get out of my head the fact that there's 70 people working on this game, right? I can't get out of my head that there's eight animators on it, right? Where every single thing has a, you have an action, you have a reaction with the environment, with the characters,

with just even these bots, right? Going up to every single bot in this game, every specialty bot, hitting them, and they have maybe one, two, three, four potential animations, right sometimes like that you can do right like going up to qi to you and he's dropping every single thing uh that he's had from uh from all of the history of the yakuza games right like these so much deep cut so many deep cuts so much love to the franchises and also just creating something new right it's not just a love letter to playstation it is astrobot right astrobat is something new something

special and i'm looking forward to what they do next i'm just i'm blown away by astrobot and i'm so happy that I got to play it and play it with Lanzah by my side because, yeah, that was a fun one of, even though we're not passing it off every level, like, I can just look at her and be like, you take the controller now. And that's very rare in our household, right? We're different types of gamers. So it's exciting to have that and meet it there. So yeah, Astrobat is my number three.

Tim, how about you? My number three is Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Getting into my top three this year was very difficult because between the three of them, I feel like one is a 10 out of 10. one is the most Tim game ever and one is just, I can't believe it exists for how ambitious and big and how well it pulled off everything I needed it to and that is Final Fantasy 7 rebirth.

This game to me is incredibly special in the same way that Spider-Man no way home is special. How did it happen? How are we here? How did all of these things that I love so much come together and be more than they used to be in all of that? Final Fantasy 7 rebirth moment to moment just made me smile so much, made me feel so happy to be able to revel in the nostalgia of the things that I love,

but being presented in a way that is so beyond what I ever even saw in my mind. They care so much about this. I don't know that anyone making a game ever cared about source material more than the team that made this game. And it shines through in every single battle, every single line of dialogue, every single nod and wink at the camera. Like, there's, it's impossible for me to choose my favorite moment of this game.

And I think that that is so impressive for, a game that has that's built on moments. Like the Final Fantasy 7 is built on moments and storylines and things, but it's like Rebirth in particular, I think took it up a level for me where I was like screaming at the TV the entire time, whether it was joy

or shock or even being upset with some of the decisions that they made. I can't believe we have one more adventure left in this world. I can't wait for it. Rebirth was so damn good and I'm going to be thinking about it for the rest of my life.

Dio. Him coming on, and he was so cool. Roady coming back. You're like, no way! He's taking it to the red line. Oh my gosh, dude.

That's it. That's what it's all about. It was fan. What it's all about. When he fired the cannon, Roger, and you're like, no way.

And they had the big parade. It was a beautiful. Parade. Never forget pizza slice. Pizza slice. Come on, man. Like you said, it's just like these moments

where you just go, oh, wow. And the characters that come back, the new characters, the cast and crew, it was special. What a special time. Let's get to your number two.

Number two, Eldon Ring's Shadow of the Earth Tree. The perfect DLC. It was fantastic. It was a journey. It had everything that I wanted in a from software game. And it was unbelievable that it came out and they just nailed this DLC, a bigger open world. You know, we didn't know what DLC could really look like for Eldon Ring. They're like, you know what?

Here's a big slice open world again. We're going to just do that. We're going to let you explore. We got new touchstones. We got new mechanics in here. We got new weapons. And we have new fun. for you to go out and engage with.

And the boss fights were fantastic. Music hit. The idea of them trying to add in a crazy stealth section in the swamp was nuts. Like, you were supposed to run from bush to bush and hide from these scary monsters that would come up and just blow your head off, which was crazy stuff.

That was crazy as well. To just every moment sharing it with Andy throughout our co-op experience was a blast, right? Getting invaded by MPCs, fighting the golden hippo, getting up and fighting mesmer. I mean, all of it was so, so good. I mean, it was the perfect DLC.

I loved every single moment of it. Shout out. It's beautiful. Raj, hit me with the two. Number two is Animal Well. And this is one that I think could have been one on any day and it just ended up in two. But Animal Well, I gave a 10 out of 10 masterpiece and I stand by that wholeheartedly, a game that, again, like a lot of this list, was a year of Roger exploring, right?

Came out of nowhere, not a Metroidvania guy, not somebody that grabbed. It gravitates towards that genre, picked it up on a whim, and it blew me away with how different everything was, right? It felt like I was transported into a world, right? For specifically one that does not really tell you much, you just are able to, from the sheer will of just the amazing game design that Billy Basso was able to create to find yourself in this land of predators, right? Like you are just trying to outsmart these huge animals and kind of figure out where your place in the world is, how to get a lot. around them and using these interesting items, these household items in order to get around them, right? So you have

balloons, you have a yo-yo. There's a bunch of little things, ones that I don't even want to spoil for you. But yeah, it was the sense of discovery that I got from this, which I thought was really incredible. Being able to, by the end of it, map out the entire world and be like, oh shit, they want me to do this very specific thing where I have to go from this room to this room to this room and having to practice for hours.

essentially in order to pull off this. It felt like a heist. It was a heist, right? This heist moment where it's like, I'm stealing something and it's like a Mission Impossible level shit. Like, it's incredible. And yeah, no, me in bed playing this and like lands right next to me on her phone and then just the, like the guttural

like relief that I had when I made it happen. Like top five gaming moments of all time for me. It's incredible stuff. Yeah, they really killed it. Billy Basso, one man developer, made the entire engine for this. it is like something like 12 megabytes like it is super super small and one that everyone at least needs to try right

because if it's not for you that's all cool that's fine but if it is for you holy shit like that's gonna unlock a part in your brain that you're not gonna think you're not gonna stop thinking about I can see a lot of younger people playing this game like 12-13 that I'm like oh shit it's like one of my favorite games of all time like I can see I don't unlocking that because I know myself if I played this one I was 13 I'd be like oh fuck like this

a new side of my brain is unlocked now some great really amazing stuff my number two is kind of funny is number one astrobot um like roger was saying on any day this could be my number one this is to me a 10 out 10 this is a masterpiece this is uh pretty much as good as video games can get um it is from every perspective whether it's production presentation gameplay sound design everything it's just freaking good i i think it's so funny that people get caught up in the the PlayStation nostalgia of it all it's like it's it almost makes me feel like did you play the game

Because that stuff does not get in the way of it at all, period. And like, if you look at it, if you play it like, this is a PlayStation commercial. It's like, all right, I kind of feel like you need to remember to enjoy video games. Because like there is just so much heart put into every single part of this. And at no moment does it feel like it's like winked at you like, hey, buy other stuff. It's like, no, this is just freaking a celebration of things that we love or things that we might not know that we might love. There's so much history here. There's so much future here.

Like I think that Astrobot represent. and what Team of Sobe has done represents such a hopeful shift in PlayStation. And I feel like with all the bad news about PlayStation happening right now and all of the good news around Astrobot, I hope that we get more things like this and that

other teams are able to kind of get a little bit more creative with smaller projects. This is to me exactly what I want to see from PlayStation studios. Not all of them, but multiple of them. And from studios that aren't just PlayStation as well. Like there's

this just gives me so much more hope in video games Not that I was losing it But this is a reminder of why Oh we still got it Yeah we still fucking got it I totally feel that Mikey Number one

Number one big deal The game I had the most fun with this year Roger Tim You know me I like one thing One word Competition I love being the best

I love competing to be the best I love battling to be the best I love seeing who's the best who's the best. And that's why my number one game of the year is deadlock. I love. Wow. I love you so much, Mike.

I can't play enough deadlock. I have 80 plus hours going into the hundreds. And I have never, there's many games in my life that I found like this. But this year, this was the game that time melted. Time stood still when I played, but it passed by very quickly each and every night

as I screamed one more game, one more game. And whatever this is, team is cooking up over at Valve to make this game, you are on the right path. Now, this game is very early access. This game isn't even early access. And so this game is so special because it's that good. It runs that well. This game could be released tomorrow and it would shake the industry of people jumping onto this and probably getting turned on to MoBas. Multiplayer online battle arenas have been seen as just really Dota, League of Legends, and Smite. and some other smaller titles that have come and gone.

But I think when you hear the word moba, your mind goes to those big three. And a lot of people get turned off by that because it's very competitive, it's very toxic with how people treat each other, unfortunately. And it is a game that is hard to master. It takes a lot of time to understand everything that's going on into it. But when you put it in a third-person shooter,

it's a little more welcoming. And you can understand a little bit easier than the point and click like a league of legends, where now you just know, hey, I have to aim at the end of me. I'm just going to shoot and hopefully that will do well. And you can do that as a beginner and learn. And then you'll start to get better when you have the balance of abilities and the different heroes. Of course, working with your team and synergizing.

And so this to me is the game of the year that I just can't play enough of. I can't get enough of. I want to play this every day with my friends and get better. I want to try different techniques and battle strategies of all five of us, rushing one lane, right? Or all five of us rushing one lane. Or having someone play a jungle, there's not really a jungle in this game. And that's that person who plays the middle and bounces from lane to lane,

providing help and trying to get that one pick to maybe sway the tide of battle. They don't really have that, but you can do that in this game through communication. That's what mobas are. It's about communication and working as a team. And I love working as a team, right? I love winning as a team. and I like games that make people come together and say, hey, how do we overcome this obstacle? How do we be better?

And that's what this game was to me this year, was playing with Andy, Chris, J.D. Washi, Roger, who I broke, Kevin, Maddock, everybody of like, hey, let's all play different heroes. We had people in the chat like Average John and Send Nuggies and more who got really good at this game and joined us each and every night. But I loved the different heroes that they had. I was impressed with the lineup that they had. For a game that's not even released, as Barrett said, or not even a pre-alpha, right? They had like 12 plus champions that were all well-thought-out,

well-utilized on the battlefield, that all had their own unique style, gameplay, look and feel, and they added more to that as we played. They even have an area where you can see the pre-released heroes that they're still working on and test them out and help them with that. They added a small ranking system, But, yeah, deadlock to me is that game where it's like, oh, I can't get enough of that. I want more of that.

Now I'm playing League of Legends in 2025 trying to rank up in that because I just can't get enough of that competitive multiplayer that I seek out from so many games. And that was deadlock to me. So, yeah, I loved this game. I had to put it as my number one because one more game, hours gone. I don't even, I was in a blur all the time, Tim, living and playing in this game. Yeah, every single day. when you come home, when you would come back to work on the next day, you'd be like, regaling us with tales with you and Andy about one more game, one more game.

The small amount that I played with you, I fucking loved. I had such a good time. I mean, it reminded me of what I liked about legal legends until I hit that toxic mentality of like I would play with people and they would just be so mean, so beating you down. This had that energy. I don't know if that is just because it's new, right? People are getting used to it. I don't know if it's just, it is a little bit more beginner-friendly because it is a third-person shooter, right, at the heart of it.

but I'm interested to see where it goes because, yeah, I could totally see this rising the ranks and, you know, becoming something that I go back to and play. Yeah, it's interesting to think of like where this will be, right? Of like, mobas are already a very difficult place to jump into. It has people who are on the fence more like, ah, I've heard about those and I don't want to play that, right? But it's approachable with the third-person shooter.

It has the valve back. It's valid, right? Like, where does this go when it does come out? How high can it really reach, right? And so, yeah, I love this. game. This will, you know, I know we've had a lot of talk about early access games here, kind of funny on our list, but this will be the only time you will hear deadlock for my top 10. I'm a first impression only Jibroni. This is it, and I've given it the love. I'll play it,

but I won't have it on a top 10 next time when it fully releases. You're saying that now. I'm saying, Roger? And then they change everything about it and the game looks gorgeous and it has a one point out. I'm just saying it's going to look gorgeous. It's going to do all this things. It's going to have a whole steam page. Everyone's going to be playing it. And it's going to be on your number one. This game's so good. This is so good. It's not a broken. It's the beauty of how we do our list and how we do our individual list is like, yeah, Mike

this is Mike's list and now he gets to talk about. I'm saying you should. He should put it multiple years. I love this is your number one. Fuck yeah, Mike. Like, you clearly backed it up. You've done it before because in 2021, you did have Sea of Thieves on your top 10. Shout to Sea of Thieves. Shout to Sea of Thieves. Yeah, but we did

see a thieves because Sea of thieves had the big Pirates Life DLC and we had to put that on the map because me and Me and Greg, we got lost in the Pirate Live. I'm just saying with Deadlock new content updates and stuff. I'm just saying, never say never, Mike. Don't start with me.

Don't start with him, everybody. Roger, start with me. What is your number one? Metaphor, Refantazio, filling out the arc of Roger trying things that he would never try before, right? I started up an Atlas game, and I've started a bunch of them before.

I put like eight, maybe 10 hours, 15 hours here and there. 80 hours in this one. Finished it, and I had a blast. What an incredible. incredible experience. What a group of characters that I really care about, man. Like, I, again, getting choked up looking at the gameplay, right? Because these are my characters, these are my guys. It is a full anime, uh, all in one. It feels, it does not feel like a season. It feels like an entire show. Uh, and I had a great time, especially with, uh, all the twists and

turns. And they, they just got me when it came to it. And that's saying all those things on top of the fact that I'm not really a turn base guy, right? Like, that's not my, my, my stuff. But the way that they connect it with the actual story of it all, right? Like the fact that the archetypes are things that are connected to the characters and they are awakened after a very important part of the story every single time. It is so hype. Like that's such an amazing hype moment is every single time you have a follower and then they have that awakening of, here's my archetype.

And it's like, oh my gosh, your heart's pounding. Your eyes are welling with tears. Like it is gorgeous. And the way that they make you care about every single one of these characters, to varying degrees, of course, right? But I was so surprised, constantly, the game does have 15 endings, you know, just constantly is ending. I'm like, hour 60, I'm like, oh, we're about a wrap up.

We're just keep on ending. I think that's my only negative, because I did have to put this game at my number one before I finished it, right? Just because of the way that it was, I was like, man, this is so strong. I do think it is still my number one. I stand by that. But, yeah, it is definitely a toss up between animal and metaphor, but I'm so happy I played metaphor.

I'm so excited for the future of that team, and I'm so excited to continue to evangelize this game, talk about it, think about it, and what it means for me is like a gamer as a person, right? Like, this story affected me emotionally in a real way. And I look at this list, and a lot of these games are really incredible, but this game had such an impact on my personal life

that I just can't not put at number one. So yeah, metaphor of Vantasia was absolutely my number one. And yeah, had an incredible time. Hell yeah. Love that for you. So cool. I think it's so cool. Like not only did you play, but either of the day up as your number one. Like, shout out to the team, man. Incredible.

They pulled it off. They really did something special day. I can't believe it. I thought Yakuza was going to be it all the way through for Roger. And yeah, it's awesome to hear Rogers list. And to see this so high on so many people here are kind of funnies list, right? I mean, I even tried the demo because of how much hype it was bringing to it, right? Of like, people stepping out of their boxes and trying new games and having it resonate with you is really cool to see. I love that.

Beautiful stuff. one. No surprise to anybody. It is Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown, a game that is very special to me. And it's one of those games that every time I think about, every time I talk about it. I want to play it. I want to go back and play this game again. It is so, so great. An incredible feeling, Metroidvania. I feel like this is earlier I was saying, like, what's the difference between platformer and Metroidvania? And I think that this game is a great example of that of just how fluid the movement all is, which is a core element. of every Prince of Persia in the past. Whether it was the OGs or the 3D ones or now this,

it is just so fun to move around in this game. The level design being based around not just platforming challenges, but also ability challenges, but also combat challenges. It just is so seamless and God, it's so creative. I mean, even what we're out right here, can you rewind just like five seconds? Like one of the biomes you're in is this time frozen ocean

where there's like a pirate battle happening. So ships are mid being blown up by cannonballs. And what you're walking on is time frozen waves. How fucking cool is that, you know? And that's just one example. There are dozens more of things that I don't even want to bring up because I was just so wowed by not expecting from the different environments in this game. I can't believe how hype it all gets by the end of just how you become this overpowered God.

And it just feels so damn good. some of the most creative, if not the most creative abilities I've seen in a Metroidvania. Every single enemy encounter feels like a boss fight. And the combat feels, I've said this a couple times, but I really think it's important.

Like playing this game, moments and moment feels like a thrilling 1V1 Smash Brothers game when both of you are equally matched. I love it. And like that is just so damn cool. And you feel like a badass killing just a random little dude.

So then when you face off against a bigger enemy or one of the bosses, and you finally understand what it takes to take them down, man, it's rewarding as hell. Love the DLC as well. I 100% of this game, but due to a couple of dumb issues, I didn't platinum it because I was playing across multiple systems.

So my safe file on the switch fucked me up, so I can't get some trophies. It's very upsetting. I think I might need to go back in some more. I think I might have to, man. But yeah, this game's incredible. Definitely play it. And it runs amazing on everything, right?

It runs amazing on everything. Yeah. Say that last part pointing in. And what's up? Say the last point. Yeah, it's also now on Steam deck, so please play it there. But fuck Ubisoft. Straight the fuck up.

This game was incredible. Obviously, it's very special to me and very special to others. The fact that like, this isn't just a Tim being crazy thing, right? Playing this game, like, I know I'm way higher on it that a lot of people are. Principers lost crown won multiple outlets, respectable outlets, game of the year. Yeah, yeah. And if I, so Giant Bomb gave a game of the year.

And if I read correctly, Minmax as well, gave a game in the year. I don't think that's right. Then I've read it incorrectly. But somebody else did. But what was it next to his game of the year? I believe they were Astrobat as well. Oh, well, hey, they have fucking taste too. Okay?

We're talking about a great year of video games. We are finally putting it behind us. After an amazing week of content here, talking about our top tens, doing the Smiley's last Friday, doing our big game of the year on Monday. If you haven't seen any of those, please check them out. This has been an absolute blast. Can't wait to do it again next year.

Um, stay tuned. The day is not over. We still have kind of funny games showdown right after this. And then after that we got Mike playing some, um, Dynasty Warriors, Tim. Origins, everybody. So till next time, love you all. Goodbye. Pirate Yaku is a game of the year 2025.

Pirate.