Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - What Is The Best Year In Gaming History? - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 21

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

Tim, Greg, Blessing, and Imran debate what is the greatest year video games have ever seen. Time Stamps - What Have We Been Playing? 00:03:10 - Spider-Man 00:07:15 - Assassin’s Creed 00:15:00 - Last of Us 00:21:00 - Huntdown 00:25:10 - Topic of the Show: What Is The Best Year In Gaming History? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guys, welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Gettys, joined by one of the coolest dudes, one of the happiest dudes ever, Greg. We won everybody. Snyder Cut's coming, everybody. Snyder Cut's coming, everybody. Justice League, four hours, maybe six episodes. It's going to be fucking dope. Fuck you, Tim, for all the shit you talked.

Suck it, Kevin. Suck it everybody in the world. The shit will still be talked. This doesn't change any of that. I am so excited for it. of the Justice League cut. I hope it they do do the miniseries thing. I think that is the best possible outcome for this.

Give us more. Let's just, fuck it. 10 hours. Why not? I hope it to death, man. They give them $20 million to finish this movie. Finish the movie. Do a documentary.

Tell everything. Have a fucking tell a madden strater where he's circling everything into the weed and cut that he didn't do and doesn't want. It's funny, man. I was looking at Justice League and I was really trying to think about it. I was like, what was wrong with the movie? Like, what do they need to? Oh, more money.

That's what we need to do. Let's give them more money. That should fix everything. We have the former and former Imran Khan. I like the idea of taking things that aren't well liked and giving them just different directors to give it. Like, give Tyga Waititi Game of Thrones season eight. I just let him redo it. You imagine.

Can you fucking imagine? I would die. Blessing. Adia Junior, the new face video games. How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. I released the Hideo Kujima cut of Melliger Solid 5. Of course.

There you go. Perfect. Let's go. of course. You'll get the Konami Plus coming soon. It just has more of him in every scene. The Kind of Funny Games, Cass. You should be read right here on YouTube.

com slash Kind of Funny Games. We get together, talk about video games, all the things that we love about them. You can watch the show live with us. If you are a Patreon supporter over on Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. You also get the show ad free. You also get the exclusive post show. So many goodies for you out there. If you don't want to do that, that's cool.

You can watch it later on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games or roosterteat.com. If you want to listen to us, That's cool. You can search for Kind of Funny Games cast on your favorite podcast service. And guess what? We'll be there too. We like to give you so many options. Speaking of so many things,

there are so many Patreon producers today. Yeah, killing it with the segues. Muhammad Muhammad, Al Tribesman, James Hastings, Sancho West Gaming, Agent Cody Banks, Trent Barry,

Julian the gluten-free gamer, Joseph O. Yusuf, and Scott Radloff, all of you are gentlemen, all of you are scholars. We appreciate you all very, very much. but you guys, I want to know what you've been playing, what you've been going on. Imron, I want to start with you. I'm seeing you on Twitter talking some shit about our boy, Spider-Man.

I love Spider-Man. I love Spider-Man the game. I think Spider-Man, the DLC, is a real big misstep in a whole bunch of it. So I have a stress ball. I use this when I'm, like, recording or whatever, so I have something to fiddle with. I broke it playing Spider-Man. It is now deflated and, like, air is coming out of it. because that

Spider-Man the game has a very good difficulty it rams up in complexity without getting too hard as like stable agents are just like more things to keep track of but not necessarily like that much bigger on HP or damage Spider-Man the DLC does the complete opposite

and like here just a bunch of fucking guys that take like a ton of damage, have zero wind up on everything and are just impossible to kill in like prioritize in a way you would do in an argument game. It's that and it's the fact that I just don't think it's very well designed from like a bit like really

any perspective like the missions aren't fun like the whole only thing good about the DLC is the stuff that was good about Spider-Man traveling around the city the actual core battle system. All that stuff is still intact. It's just this feels like things that were

oh my stress balls leaking beads. This feels like things that were Are you stressed out to be on the show right now? this feels like things that were rejected for the actual main game and then just not put in there. It's like, oh, we got to put a DLC, so let's just use these old ideas. Interesting. I really enjoyed it. What you were saying there about the things that you loved about the Spider-Man game, you love about this.

I agree with what you said there, adding on story and character. I feel like the kind of overarching plot that the DLC added, I thought was really interesting. It didn't feel like content. It did feel kind of like a side story that gave me enough of a great beginning and great end that I enjoyed. The middle was not good and got a little bit kind of messy. But your point about the actual combat itself, I completely agree with where it is, it's just kind of like dialed up to 15, it feels like, and of just more. Everything's more. They're all flying now.

They have stronger guns now. They're all just there. And you can't, no matter how good you are at playing through the game, it feels like a battle that should be over in. 45 seconds takes five minutes. Just because of how much they, how many waves there are and how much they just keep throwing shit at you. And that type of padding, I feel, was very out of place for what the Spider-Man combat kind of exceeds at.

It feels like it was a thing that they should have called Challenge Pack 2 or whatever. And not like, but they put a story around it. They made the second part of a DLC arc. So it's, it's the thing of, oh, I need to get through this to finish this game. But it also kind of sucks to play this part. And also, Hammerhead feels like a villain that they didn't want to waste

for Spider-Man too. They didn't want to use a good villain for this DLC. So they brought in Hammerhead who by the time he shows up in the third DLC as like a fucking robot is the dumbest thing

I've ever seen because it's just a robot body and him is the head. It's like, oh no, you guys didn't decide this well at all. Now you're just the triple Spider-Man. That is hilarious. What else you've been playing?

It's mostly been that, honestly. I'm like trying to get through my backlog and figure out what's next. And then I look at it as like, oh, everything I've put aside has been like a massive open world game. So it's like, okay, well, I can do this. But I also have Ark of Night and Horizon and a bunch of other stuff.

Like, there are games that I want to get through, but I don't want to do the exact same kind of game over and over. So I think I started X, well, our XCOM, XCOM 2. And I gave that, all I did was get my customized characters in. so right now it is just people from my Animal Crossing Village or like animals for my Animal Crossing Village as people. But I will probably dive deeper into that once Spider-Man is done. But for right now, that's kind of my main focus. Are you trying to have platinum Spider-Man?

Yeah, I figure at this point it's more inertia. The fact that I just, I've had the platinum on the original, so I want to keep the platinum on the DLC as well. So I think I finish everything that's going to be annoying. Now it's just the main missions left. That's good. Okay. Now you get to reward yourself. Have some fun.

I got the Spider-verse suit. That's all I care about. Hell yeah. Greg. Yeah, buddy. What are you been playing? So I've had an interesting week. Of course, we had done the Ghosts Hashima reacts, right?

Today's only Wednesday. So a week at tomorrow. We did it for that. And it got us all talking about how it looks so much like Assassin's Creed, which is then put Valhalla back on my mind, which then just put Assassin's Creed back on my mind. So I popped on to Odyssey. I was like, I never finished a legacy of

First Blade, the DLC, you know, first one. Let's jump into do that. Thought I had a whole much to do. Actually ended up, I was one mission away from the end of episode three of Legacy of the First Blade. So I did that and rolled the credits there. And I was like, well, this is a good stopping point. I want more Assassin's Creed.

I never really gave origins a chance, you know, Biax's whole story. When it first came out, I popped it in when we were talking about Game of the Year's stuff. And the first hour didn't grab me. And I just walked away. And then, of course, fell in love with Odyssey and put 100 plus hours on that game. So I was like, let's do that. I feel like that and let's do that.

I downloaded that all the DLC, started that up. I would say probably played a lot of it. And it was that thing, you know, a lot of it being like five hours. I'm talking about, you know, in a week or whatever. I played a healthy chunk of it, you know, I finally made it to his wife, God on Cleopatra's court, you know, got the gist of like I'm the, you know, magi of Egypt. Like, you know, fully, not just my town anymore. And enjoyed it and was playing it. But the thing I found, Tim, was that no matter what I did in that game, I kept having that

nagging feeling of like, why am I not doing this in Odyssey? Like, why am I not in that world? I love Cassandra so much. I've invested so much time in that character. You know, playing origins, I missed having choices, even though they're just dialogue choices, right? So they barely change anything. But having the ability to guide the character a bit more, I thought the combat, well, I mean,

so, so similar. I didn't feel like enemies were as aggressive as they were in Odyssey, and I didn't bother tweaking, you know, difficulties. I'm sure that could have changed something for me, too. Overall, though, it was just this thing of, I started getting into the rhythm of origins. And again, having a great time. It's a good game.

It's Assassin's Creed, you know, it's so similar to Odyssey. But it was that thing like, all right, cool, I'm running here and I'm checking this off. Also, you know, Odyssey had introduced the exploration mode, where rather than just put the icon on the map, it would do the whole thing of like, well, it's in this region and it's north of this camp. And it's, you know, like you'd have to actually do a little bit of searching, nothing dramatic. Or it just didn't have that. So it was back to, you know, very much like, go here, do this.

Go here, do this. And I was just running through that, you know, checklist of, you know, why I love a Ubisoft game, an open world Ubisoft game. And I, you know, I think it was Saturday night or Sunday morning. I just couldn't resist the call anymore. And I fucking went back into Odyssey and put in another, I didn't even know. I played it. It's been outside of Predator last night, it's all I played. So I probably put another 10 hours up on Odyssey already.

just running through. And like, I was like, okay, I didn't do the fate of Atlanta's ELC, which is the second, you know, their second expansion, major expansion. And when I have been talking about it on games daily, where, you know, I didn't know if I wanted to do it. I'd seen people in the chat say it was good. So I was like, I'll start that. And so I started that and I was playing it. And I got to the end of the mission where it's like, all right, cool, you know, you've done all the things. The door to Atlantis is going to open. And then like there's a scuffle about, because you're in modern day stuff now, scuffle about with your cohorts and they're like okay cool like this we need to take care of this thing so you know can you wait a little bit longer to open the door and your your character's like oh yeah you

know like it's waited this long you can wait longer and it pop the trophy and i was like okay so that's the end of episode one of fate of atlantis like what's going and then i went to try to find the mission and i couldn't and then i went in the dlc and i had to i was like wait none of fate of Atlantis is installed. What I thought was episode one of fate of Atlanta was really just the bridge between a legacy of the first blade and what was setting up. So if I would have played it in real time,

you would have beaten the legacy of the first blade, done this mission and then waited for fate of Atlantis, like motherfucker. So I downloaded all those episodes, started into Fate of Atlantis, like for real in a brand new area, in a brand new map, running around Elysium,

sinking points, doing this, hanging out with Hermes. And it's like, fucking dude, like this game, I was telling a blessing about it. Like, I have,

like, depending on how much you want to put into it. And I know that the, you know, for some people, this is the problem with Odyssey, that it's like the everlasting gobstopper. There's like just so much content to it. Like, I can easily see putting in like another 30, 50 hours on this of doing this DLC and then cleaning up all the side missions and running through all the additional feats and quests and stuff that are out there for just trophies in the similar, you know, vein to Imran with Spider-Man right now is we're all in this spot right now where we have time to work on backlogs. Like, you know, I platinum to Odyssey, obviously,

but now I have that thing where it's like, you know, whatever, 67% right now is my total trophies, right, even though I have the platinum, because there's all this DLC stuff I didn't do. And it's a time investment, but I fucking love being in that world. And I love how beautiful it is. And I love Cassandra. And it's so crazy to me that I was, as soon as I jumped back into origin, like, oh, I see it more of like, you know, even combat, right? I remember when I first started origins at launch, I'd be like, what's this new combat

system? I don't really get it. The then playing Odyssey coming back to it, me like, oh, this is where all this started. It got refined for Odyssey or changed, you know. playing in Origins is just like it and it is great don't get me wrong but it's just that weird thing of like knowing there's more to do an Odyssey I can't commit myself to Origins because I've already come so far and made a narrative in that game. So you're the entire time that these games have been out you've been super on Odyssey and like kind of whatever about origins. With Falhalla coming obviously we don't know too much about it yet.

Sure. But do you think that it has potential to exceed Odyssey to you? I mean, I don't know. we haven't seen enough of it, right? I love the setting. I love the setting looks different. I think that's the, you know, for me, such a big part of it where I would say, you know, before either of these games, I didn't have a special affinity for ancient Egypt or ancient Greece, right? But something about Odyssey's world, I mean, Kevin have talked both privately and on shows about it speaks to me way more than Origins World. And even playing through Origins World again and, you know, running across deserts and stuff like that. Like it was that this is cool, but I like, how Odyssey looks. Odyssey always looks like a beautiful, lush painting to me, and it's because, you know, Greece and it's, you know, the green fields, the way they play with

sunlight and mountains and shadows and water. Looking at Valhalla, and granted, you know, from the gameplay trailer, in quotes, I think that England looks like it's going to be dramatically different. I think that all the characters are going to be dramatically

different. This idea, you know, that cinematic trailer they showed it with of the way the English think about the Vikings and the way the Vikings are actually, you know, you know, in what they showed, of course, like in it for the right reasons of family and community and all that jazz. It, that gets me. Like I like, and I like the idea of what they pitched of, you know, building your Viking town and doing all these things.

Like bringing a few of those things that I loved about Assassin's Creed too into it here, combining it with hopefully, you know, the RPG stuff we liked of origins and bringing that in here. I think all that works for me and I think I'm going to really dig it. But it's, it's, even with origins, it's not that I don't dig it. I think, you know how I am, and I think a lot of gamers are, but you need to be in a mood for a game. And I think when Origins hit, I wasn't there. I didn't, for whatever reason, by Hooker Crook, I didn't want to jump into the Ubisoft checklist, what's going on game.

Whereas when Odyssey hit, I did want that and I did want the RPG-like mechanics, right? And the ability to change your outfit and do all these different things and change it piece by piece and have armor sets and all that stuff, what that looks like in, you know, Valhalla remains to be seen for the most part. So I feel like since it's going to be the continuation of it, and by that point, knock on wood, I will finally have, I'll be off the drug that is Assassin's Creed Odyssey and have kicked it out of my system. Hopefully I'll be able to give myself fully to it. There you go. I've been replaying Last of Us to prep. Yeah. Two coming out.

And I'm not too far. I just met up with Bill. But it is such a crazy experience for me because I played it when it first came out. Then I played it when it came out for the remastered, but I haven't played through since. And like that's been long. I mean, at what point that was like five years ago? Yeah.

Like that's a long time for this game that we all know so well. Kind of going back to it, especially in this time, I feel like I'm having such a weird, unique experience with it where it feels so much more real and intense. And this is at a level where I'm playing on my theater screen. So it's 120 inches of the game. and the camera work where it's so close to Joel like at all times and just the way the motion blur works,

it like really makes me nauseous and it's not it's not good. Like I can't play for like extended periods at a time without like really not feeling well. I feel like that's mixed with just kind of how dark and eerie the game is and how much it talks about quarantine zones and like all this like real shit. I'm just like, oh my God, this is like so fucking real right now. but like all of that together kind of is adding to the experience a lot for me where it's like it's making the game it's making me feel a dread that I didn't know I could experience when I already know what's happening you know from from playing through this game and god damn those first the first hour is just it just grabs you like I want to replay it again with Gia and cool Greg and I just so they can see just the the intro um but I won't talk too much about it we already know of the last of us and we have a lot of last of us content coming up soon but um I definitely recognize you man giving it another shot like going back in and playing to prep for two i feel like that game benefits a lot by turning off listen mode and i like i know some people just it's too stressful without it but just as a stealth game not knowing what's around the next corner is actually really

it really works well for the theming of that game interesting maybe i'll try that i've i also recently started last list i screamed like the first i want to say like hour and a half of it last night doing a similar thing trying to prepare for last this part two. And with that, I've also like taking a break from Persona 5 Royal. Oh, what a surprise. I mean, the best game all time. Just nobody can fucking play it in a reasonable amount of time. Weird.

I'm just saying 60 hours in, you know, you just got to take a break. You can't have too much of a good thing at once, you know. Gerard, the completionist, just put up his completionist video. Yeah. And I don't even mean it's Royal. I think it's just persona five. Yeah. I think it's been like hundreds of hours.

500 hours. Yeah, man. It's really. But yeah, like last of us, replaying it now, because I'm in the same boat as Tim, where I played it originally when it came out. I played the remaster version,

I think a year or maybe a year and a half later, and I haven't played it since then. And so going back to it as a game that, you know, came out for, came out at the end of the PS3 era in 2013. Playing it in 2020 is an interesting thing because in my mind,

that game has always felt like, you know, it's always felt like the most polished game of all time, right? It always felt like the most, like, well-paced game of all time. And, like, in 2013, for me, I think it hit those standards. But now going back to it about seven years later, I'm starting to see places where I'm like, oh, yeah, this is a PS3 game, right?

The game is so beautiful. The PS3-ish elements of it really blowing my mind. And I'm just like, I can't wait for the PS4. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's been my big takeaway so far is that, you know, going back to it, there are moments where the game absolutely, like, looks beautiful and still ages. amazingly. And even, especially in cutscenes where I remember watching one cutscene where it's Ellie and Joel and they're in an apartment tonight and they're looking outside and it's raining.

And I remember being like, yo, this rain looks incredible. Like in 2020. Yeah. And with HDR, I'm like, man, this game looks great in a lot of places. But then there are quite a few places where I'm like, oh yeah, like once you jump out of cutscenes, like you can see the difference between cutscene and actual gameplay. Like actual gameplay does look PS3-ish, right? Looks like a very amazing, very technically advanced. PS3 game, but it still looks like a PS3 game. In the ways that Noddy Dog is good at animation and camera work and presentation and like framing shots and all these different things, like the game still holds up so

well. But yeah, like as I've been playing it, I've been like, dude, I can't wait to see what last this part two is because if you imagine that the jump between Uncharted 2 and Uncharted three going into Uncharted 4, like if you imagine you're going to have that similar level of like, oh yeah, and Chartered 4 definitely took things up a notch when you look at it graphically and in presentation and how it runs and all this stuff. If you apply that to the last list

dude, this like last list part two is going to be incredible. You haven't played anything else? I also been playing this game Huntdown, which I actually played specifically for a segment on PSLW where we pick a game from the PSN drop in just like a random non-Triplea game

and we play it and report back the next week. Huntdown with You just installed it? Yeah. Yeah. It looks great. It looks like a, like, Neo Arcade Contra kind of thing. Yeah.

And it's exactly that. It's like Contra-ish, metal sluggish, like 2D retro style 16-bit shooting game. Really cool. Has a fantastic style. And usually, like, for games that we play for PSW for our ranking segment, like, I usually don't return to them. I usually don't like talk about them past that segment. On to the next one, right?

Yeah, usually it's onto the next one. But for Huntdown, like, Huntown is a game that I've actually been thinking of in the context of like, yeah, this might be one of my favorite games

I've played this year, right? Like, it might be like my top 20 so far as far as, like, games I've played. Like, it's really like stuck with me. As far as,

like how awesome. Yeah, like, I'm gonna send assets a link to bring up the trailer here. I, you want to listen to the trailer because it actually has like, like pretty funny narration.

Yeah, like the narration is good. And that narration, like the tone of the narration carries through, through the game itself because there are hilarious voice lines in the game. the game looks great right it's 16 bit style but they do a good job of making the game feel like there's so much going on and it's vibrant um this is the trailer that i've been pulling it right here let's listen to it too for like at least 30 seconds uh you got to give me a minute set that all right go all good all good

well you're about the blessing as like remind me a super time force at least in like tone is that correct or i didn't play too much super super super time force but i in terms of because i remember super time force being what like pretty like light in terms of its tone. Yeah like it has it definitely goes for a more comedic vibe with with what's going on. Like basically the setup is you're a bounty hunter and in each of the levels you're going through one by one and taking out each of your bounties who are the leaders of these different gangs. And so you'll go into one level and it's like a gang focused on a specific thing, right? Like it's very the warriors and like the setups of the gang.

So like say you are going after a gang that is the warriors. You like go in, you do a quick level. the levels are surprisingly short, but I think that works to its benefit. You get to the end of the level and then you fight the boss of that gang. And with all that, right, like, that's kind of where it stops as far as, like, it being serious. And, like, from then on, everything is pretty light and funny in terms of the voice lines, in terms of the style of the game, in terms of everything that's going on. It's really cool.

All right. I'm ready to rock and roll. Let's do it. And I'm not heard of a good book. Enter a future where crime rules the streets. When the citizens are in trouble, they call the authorities. When the authorities are in trouble, they call the bounty hunters. This is awesome.

Yeah. Inaconda, she knows the meaning of life. That's why she can take it away so easily. And there's a cover. That was big a jacket size says 30-8, special, and her favorite smell is fear. Dye. John Sawyer, Cyborg. He's been a man since he was a boy.

Everything he owns is made out of metal. Oh, reliable. His blood type spells AK-47. Okay, care, we can, we can go out there. Yeah. So, like, that that is the same tone and vibe you're getting as you're playing the game. Like, it keeps that level of comedy. And yeah, like, I almost forgot to mention, like, there's a cover-based system, which I feel like you don't really get in in 2D shooters. But it works pretty well as far as you approach, like, a box that's in the way and you, like, duck under it.

Or, like, there's an opening of like a garage door or something so you can duck in an or dodge bullet. It's a really cool, really awesome game that honestly, like, I recommend anybody to check out, especially if you're into like this style of arcade classic shooting game. Are you playing it solo or co-op? I'm playing it solo. I'm not positive if it has online co-op. Yeah, I'm not sure either. And as I said that out loud, but I feel like at some point in the trailer,

they mentioned co-op. And I was like, huh, I wonder if that's like online. There's definitely two-player co-op. But I can't remember if it's online or not. But yeah, I didn't play out co-op because I didn't have anybody to play it with co-op. It's on every system. PS4, Twitch, Xbox 1, Mac, PC. Cool shit, man.

We're pointing out. You say, you know, you never heard of. Coffee Stain. This goes back to Games Daily today with me and Imrod. Coffee Stain, one of the many, many, many, many, Embracer group-owned game studios now, formerly T.HQ Nordic.

Oh, that's really cool. They're part of the Justice League Avengers, whatever the hell you want to call, the 118 games that got over there. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to get to the topic of the show, but before we do that, let me tell you about our sponsors.

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You can support the show, watch what you want, and protect yourself with ExpressVPN at ExpressVPN.com slash Kind of Funny. So now, guys, I wanted to do this topic for a very long time. What is the best year in video game history? I wanted to keep this kind of open and kind of just more of a discussion. a notepad out that I'm going to kind of like start putting some things down in case we need to to rile this all together. But off the top of your head, what comes to mind? Let's go around. Bless. 2017, like, that's the easy answer for me. And, like, part of that is because I think 2017

speaks to me personally, as far as video games go. Like, a lot of my favorite games of all time came out in 2017. Like, you look at Breath of the Wild, Persona 5, Hellblade came out in 2017. And then even, like, looking beyond that, right, like, Mario Odyssey, who, Horizon Zero Dawn, Near Automata, Destiny 2, Wolfstein, the New Colossus. Like, I feel like as far as the amount of games and the amount of not just great, but amazing games that came out in 2017, I've like trumps all other years. And then you also look at the console launch of the Switch, right, which was a huge thing for that year.

I think all things considered, you look at 2017. And for me, it's hard to really put up a year that goes well against it. And left off the ace in the whole man for 2017, Friday 13th. Come on, bless. Oh yeah, you're right, yeah. Fortnight where you at, come on. Oh, Cuphead. So, 1998, actually probably,

verifiably the best gear of gaming. Let me just run down some of 1998 games for you. Aquarina of Time, Tekken 3, Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid, Grim Fandango, Resident Evil 2, Street Fighter and Alpha 3, Panda Dragon Saga, Banjo Kizu Kizu. Let's see, Zeno Gears. Pokemon, red and blue. Was it 98?

Yeah. Okay, yeah. Why are you laying? W and W. W. Rvenge. F0X. Unreal came out that year.

Torok 2. 1080 snowboarding, NFL Blitz. It is actually probably like, in terms of medic critic scores, actually probably the best gaming year. I mean, it's insane. Like the 98 and 2017 are definitely the two that come to mind immediately from me. Greg, what about it? Yeah, buddy.

Well, of course, you know, when we did this, I was like, this sounds familiar and sure is shit. In 2017, I did it. video for GameStop TV saying that 2017 was the best year in gaming, but sadly it was then superseded by 2018, ladies and gentlemen, Redhead Red Hattsch 2, God of War, Monster Hunter World, Spider-Man, Smash Brothers, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Celeste, Into the Breach, Octopath Traveler, Tetris Effect, Detroit, Return of the Oberdin, Pokemon, Let's Go, Astrobot, Fallat 76, J.K., Florence, Gertels, Moss, Gree, Minit, Valquer, Valkir Chronicles 4 and the Messenger. Come the fuck on. It's insane, man.

So these three are, I was like doing some Google and trying to see what other people's lists had. And they come up a lot. There are, though, a couple others that are some standouts. I actually want to read some of our Patreon responses here to kind of get the tone. So here we go. This comes from Jacob Meyer. He says, the best year in gaming is undoubtedly 1987. Wait, come back.

No, I'm not Jared Petty in disguise. but my neighbor band looks a lot like him. Let me explain. This is what I call the Nick Scarpino method of ranking. 1987 was the year of beginnings. Beginnings for nearly every game franchise we love today. Contra, double dragon, street fighter, metal gear, legend of Zelda, punch out, Castlevania 2.

It's not the first one, but indulge me. Mega Man, Maniac Mansion, Final Fantasy, Fantasy Star, Sid Myers Pirates, just to name a few. The only real big name we're missing was Mario. And honestly, that would just be too much. It's interesting. I do not subscribe to the Nick Scarpino way of thinking where just because it's the first doesn't really give it that extra boost. Yeah, nobody goes back to Street Fighter 1 at this point.

Yeah. But that is still a banger list of games. I mean, I do think that that is like an interesting argument. I think the interesting thing about this conversation is the fact that like I'll hear any argument for any year aside from like 2014. um because like 2014 was the year that like dragon agent was mission one game of the year for yeah i remember that was a weird year because like bay and then a two came out and like nobody really acknowledged that for game of the year then it was like oh it's dragon a shadow mortar i'm like yeah

which shadow mortar amazing game i absolutely love shadow of mordor but like when that's like the bar for like oh yeah this is game of the year i feel like then yeah like it's hard to really say that that was a great year secret best game of that year was actually Mario Carnate. I'm going to review the Wikipedia 2014 in video games. Among video games originally released in 2014, critics gave the highest reviews to Smash Brothers

for Wii U, Dark Souls 2, Bayoneta 2, Shovel Night, Velocity 2X, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mario Card 8, Heartstone. Other significant games were Destiny, Middle Earth, Shadow of Mordor, and Monument Valley. So yeah,

like kind of a, eh, year. But like that aside, right? Like I'm, I'm willing to like hear the argument for, uh, what was it, 1983? No, that one, it was 1987. 1987. I'm willing to hear the argument that 1987 was the year where a lot of things got started. Like I think, you know, in the ways that we look in, in the ways that we look at the way people talk about, you know, what makes a year great to them. Like, I think, I think that's very valid. I think also another year I want to point out. I'm sure somebody in there has written this to you, but 2004 was a very huge year if you talk about video games right like that's gta san andria's

burnout three takedown i believe half-life two was that year i think shadow colossus was that year mellugos solid three yeah that league that year is wow it's san andreas it's half-life two it's halo three it's fable sims two uh metal gers solid three cotor two jack three thug two metroid prime two spider man too come on now catamara city of heroes prince of persia warrior with it Far Cry. Unreal Turner. Oh, no, no, hold on.

That's where I skipped over. I put it in column view. That's right. Far cry. Unreal tournament in 2004. Chronicles of Riddick, escape from Butcher Bay. Counterstrike,

sores, Ninja Guide, and Metal Gear Solid, the twin snakes. Zelda, Four Swords Adventure. Very, very solid year.

If RE4 had managed to make its December release date in America, then that would, yeah, it would be 2004 with a bullet. But that's slipping,

like, one month is like, if only. Andrew, the alarming Emu, doubles up on the 2018 all the games that made shed. But something that I think Greg missed, I think, was Shadow the Colossus remake.

Oh, I did. And the Messenger, which was both that year as well. I had Messenger on there. I had Messenger on them. Yeah. Shadow Clausus remake I freaking love, man. Yeah.

No, the more I think about that game, the more I'm like, man, I got to go back and play it again. Because, like, I, the original Shadow Colossus is one of my favorite games of all time. I played the original like probably two or three times all the way through and then the remake I played and I feel like I kind of rushed through it just because that's kind of how I play games nowadays. Right. Like I get a new game and I immediately just sit down and just blow through it. Yeah, I devour it, right? Yeah, I devour it, right? And that's like what? Like if you know what you're doing, maybe like a five, six hour game. And so I think I play Child Colossus in one or two sittings and I haven't played it since then. And the more I feel like that kind of left me with not a sour taste, but like a, a, like a, a. well, that was Shadow the Colossus, you know, kind of thing.

On to the next one. And I didn't really sit. I didn't really take the time to really appreciate it as much as I appreciate the original games. But the more I've kind of had time away from it, the more I've kind of thought back to it. And the more I've kind of heard people who have gone back to it, play it and appreciate, get to appreciate Shout Colossus for the first time through that game. It's made me want to revisit it again because that is a game that, for me,

Shadow Colossus, right? You look at games and you talk about games is like, you know, amazing stories or works of art or whatever you want to do. I think Shadow Colossus is like the shining example for me of like, yeah, this game, especially when it came out in 2004, was the game that came out and it did things different and it pointed to a different direction in which you can take a game and have people kind of digest the game. But yeah, like as far as great games in 2018, I feel like Shadow Colossus doesn't get mentioned enough as far as that. It's a weird one too, even when it was revealed. It felt so out of place and shocking. Like I remember when we were doing the reactions to the E3 conference. And, you know, Sony'd been having just Bangor conference after banged a conference year after year, like with your dreams.

Like that's kind of like the origin story of all that stuff. And then all of a sudden it's just there's after Last Guardian had came out or at least we'd known it was coming out around there. I can't remember the timeline exactly. But it's just like the trailer came up and it's like, is it this is Shadow the Claw? Like what the fuck are they doing? And it's a remake? Like it just felt so unexpected. Like I would have never predicted that Blue Point would make Shadow the Colossus remake.

Yeah, it was such a weird thing to process as it was happening because I remember that was when PlayStation was still doing the theater experiences for E3 and I was in the theater for that. And I remember, yeah, dude. And I remember, I remember like the trailer coming up and me being like, huh, this game looks cool. And then it was the bridge. Like when they showed the bridge, that was the thing that made me go like, y'all, this is Shadow Colossus. And legit, I was the only person in the theater that was excited. But I was excited to the point where I was like, let's go. Like, I was like, tolerate in the theater.

And nobody else was with. And I was like, I guess I'm the only person to hype about this. But yeah, as it was happening, it was one of those things where I was like, really? Like, y'all did this? All right. That's wild. But let's go. Like, yeah, let's do this.

So I haven't played that remake yet. And I feel like my issue with graphical remakes is we're on the verge of the PS5. So now it's like, okay, well, it's a graphical remake, but it's from the. end of the current gen hardware. So I kind of wish they just would have waited a couple of years to put on the PS5, but then at that point, like, why don't I wait a couple years to put on PS6 of it? It's a weird thing, like, Tom, about graphical remakes,

and I've been thinking about this a lot because a Tony Hodge Pro skater coming out, where when it is just, here's the core game, it feels exactly the same, but we're just going to make it look better. No matter what, it's going to look different. And an example of that is, like, the Crash Bandicoot games when they remade them,

I love it. They look beautiful. I love how the remakes look. But they lost this like dark shadow. They lost this like the art style of it. And seeing Tony Hawk, it's like comparing the look of warehouse to how warehouse looks in the, uh,

the new version. Obviously it's beautiful and it looks great. But it's just the there's lighting. Like lighting alone changes the feel of it, you know, where it's just like it used to be such a dark, dingy warehouse. Now it looks like a building with windows that sun's coming through.

And like it's, I'm just kind of making. get an observation. There's not really a point here. It's just like, it is weird to say qua. I mean, like, that's a real thing. Like, there's a feel to a game and when, especially our classic game, right, something that we all know so well to get it again and have it be, hey, we made it look better. We do these things. Like, it can then either show the seams, show how an empty environment is, change the color, change the feel. And then it's always just going to be a shadow of itself. Yeah, the cause is actually like, they change wanders face a little bit. And some people, for some

people that's like actually a breaking point of they're not going to play the remake because the face is a little different even though you never see it yeah it's crazy and with shadow colossus that's like with shadow colossus that's actually like a big thing right because i feel like for that game on pfc when it originally came out it was such a visual game like a big part of that game was how it looked how big the world felt despite it you know being empty not being actually that big that big when you look at the grand scope of things. But then also, like, the scope of the colossi and how big they feel compared to how small you are.

And so in the remake, like, you know, for a game where you are redoing all the assets and you are basically changing the way that everything looks, you still have to figure out a way to maintain all the same fields that you had playing the original with the look of it. And that is, I mean, no pun intended, but like, that's a giant task, right?

That's a colossal task to take on. And I think for the most part, they nailed it. For the most part, they figured it out. Like, you know, I was still impressed playing Shadow Colossus remake and still feeling like the Colossi were larger than life. They maintain that feeling of how big the Colossi felt. Granted, in some moments,

I felt like the world didn't feel as big because we've gotten so many other big open world games within the last couple of generations that it's hard to really maintain that feeling of scope when you're making a one-for-one remake of the original. But, yeah, to what I think all of you guys saying right like it's it one it's gonna be different but then yeah like it's kind of a difficult thing to take on yeah it's it's funny because i feel like uh with the face stuff aside and all those little things

and i also shadow clauses i love but i don't have this it's not like near and dear to my heart like tony hawker crash um but shadow the colossus remake i feel nailed what i'm talking about about the color palette and i feel like they nailed the feel of it where it's like i was okay with it because the art style while change still felt the same because it was still in the same kind of realm of of just different types of colors and like the grass felt right. You know, the mountains felt right when you see them. For sure.

Alex Brown writes in and says, Hey, guys, I saw this week's games cast is about the best year in gaming history. And I want to know what you guys think. When you look back on 2008, for me, it's my favorite year of gaming. We had Call of Duty World at War,

which was my first online gaming experience. And GTA4, which is one of my favorite games of all time. As well as that, we had so many other great games that year, including Fallout 3, Spore, Left for Dead, Metal Gear Solid 4, Dead Space, Mirage, Far Cry 2, Brawl, Smash Bros. Brawl,

Mario Kart Wee, and Saints Row 2. That's a special year. And Ninja Guy 2. Gears 2, Little Big Planet, Sowers Force Unleashed, Midnight Club, Los Angeles, DMC 4, Burnout Paradise, Battlefield Bad Company. When looking back at that list, I can't think of another year, which was as packed as that with awesome games. Really, they're forgetting, I think, like, one of the bigger hitters was Persona 4. It was like a late, late, late PS2 game, but it was a huge game in that, like, it set persona, it set a persona series up for success in America.

You're also forgetting Mortal Kombat versus DC Universe, everybody. That's not happening. I mean, yeah. Dude, something that's really impressing me, actually, is like reading through this and having this discussion is like, cool. We all kind of have the obvious, the 2004, 1998, 2017 conversations, but it's like, there's been a lot of years with just a lot of. Oh, yeah. Dude, I want to make an argument for 2016, which I think gets overlooked as far as being an incredible year, right? Like, let me turn to my other tab because I switched it off.

But 2016 was the year we got Overwatch and charted for a thieves end, Dark Souls 3, Inside, Dishonor 2, Final Fantasy 15, The Witness, Titanfall 2, Firewatch, Doom, 2016, right? like these are those are like big generation defining games some of those and like for me that's that's for me i think 2016 might stand behind 2017 is like my favorite year of the gen right like i didn't even mention like last guardian which could be hit or miss depending on who you are um in quite a few other games days x mankind divided um hitman the original the the not the original the remake or not the remake the reboot um yeah like quite a quite a few great games come out in 2016 we got a McKell writing in bringing up 2010. Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare,

Fallout New Vegas, Mario Galaxy 2, Limbo, StarCraft 2, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Halo Reach, Bioshock, Dante's Inferno, Super Meatboy, enslaved, vanquished, Alan Wake, God of War 3, Collardeeed Black Ops, Heavy Rain. It's interesting. This to me, like, that's a great year, but it's not the best year. And I wonder why I'm feeling that.

And I think when we look at what makes 2017 and 1998 special is the fact that, and even in 2018 to an extent. God damn right. Show some fucking respect, Tim. It's that they're not just sequels. It's like kind of, or even if they are sequels, it's not just like derivative. Like we expect that type of sequel. It is a Breath of the Wild type game or a God of War type game. I feel like the games that came out in 98 and 2017, especially are games that have either have impact, as we can say about 1990s or we can

foresee to have impact as I would say about the games 2017, right? Like, the legend is Zelda Breath of the Wild. Like, I could see in ways in which that game is going to continue to influence open world games. PubG, right? Like, that was the game that really broke out as far as Battle Royale and what Battle Royale would be. And I believe Fortnite came on in 2017, but didn't

no way, actually, no, it got it got Battle of the world. I think end of the year, Battle Rail came out. Yes, end of the year we got Battle Royale. But Battle Royale didn't really pick up, pick up until 2018. But, yeah, like, you know, and the other Hell Blay, right is a game that I think was innovative

Cuphead was a game that came out and had an impact and had people rally around it because the game felt so special and so different and so cool near automata I feel like a lot of people make the argument that that that game had such a unique and one of a kind story and tackled its themes in a way that felt one of a kind to that game like there are so many games

that came out in 2017 that I feel you can attribute to like the start of something new horizon zero dawn you know also like the start of something new taking that in this whole conversation and kind of having a tangent for a second, do you guys think that there's even a chance that PlayStation will ever have a better two years than 17 and 18? Because I just feel like that's magic in a bottle, right?

2001 was really good for them. Do you remember that? Have you seen that image of like here's 2001 in the place? It's like Devil May Cry, GTA 3, F of 10. Yeah, solid. God damn. Yeah, that's pretty freaking good. but I just feel like over 24 months

like they had some ridiculous games 2017 was Horizon Zero Dawn Uncharted the Lost Legacy Persona 5 near Automata just for PlayStation And I guess Resident Evil is 7 if you count VR for that

And then And I think Hellblade was also exclusive for PlayStation at first And then yeah in 2018 That is when you got Shadow Colossus God of War Spider-Man I honestly don't

Lessig I like you a lot you were missing a very crucial part of 2017, which is Yakuza Zero. Fair. And there was like a run of Yakuza games, right, from 2017 to 2018. Once Zero became successful, they were like,

oh yeah, let's bring everything over as much as we can. Yeah. To your point, Tim, I mean, it's possible. It's going to be really hard. And some of that,

I mean, you look at that and you wonder about, well, delays, was this always the plan? How did that shake out? But you figure with the stable, first parties they already have and then them getting their games out in this way,

you'd imagine that head. into PlayStation 5, right? Maybe the chips fall that way again. Maybe you do see, you know, Santa Monica and Ben and, you know, maybe a second naughty dog team or whatever start delivering in a cadence, right, where it is all on a stream. Because, I mean, you figure here it all played out well for them, I think, in terms of pacing and everything.

And then you look at this year with delays and shit, right? Where Last of Us is on top of goes to Sashima, which is on top of PlayStation 5. Like, I'm sure that's not how they wanted this to actually shake out. Yeah. William Ramos says, what's up, games cast crew? To me, the best year in gaming is undeniably 2007.

Some of the biggest ever released that year, and a lot of gaming and most beloved franchises made their debut. We got Mario Galaxy, Halo 3, the most anticipated game ever up to that point. Bioshock, Modern Warfare 4, which was the birth of the Call of Duty juggernaut, uncharted, portal, and of course, Mass Effect. To me, the only other years that even come remotely closer, 2011 and 2018. Anyway, games are cool. We've had a great run lately.

Let's hold this training. We've had a great run. I'm like, we're backing it up. We're done, everybody. We're done. We've had a great run, everybody. Let's take 2021 off because of the pandemic. The orange box was huge.

Yes. The orange box is one of those things. Like, when you think about it, like the value of it like zero sets of why would they put all these things together that are worth, on their own, they probably could have gone for a 60 bucks. I understand, like, there would have been an uphill battle. But Portal is one of the most influential FPS is out there in terms of like, it made it, FPS mean something other than like,

a World War II shooter. Team 4Gus 2 is a foundational multiplayer FPS. Yeah. It's a huge thing. Like, Team 4 has led to Overwatch in a lot of cases. Yeah.

Dig deeper in 2007. And maybe some of these got said, and I missed him, Tim. I apologize. But puzzle quest, debuted, Final Fantasy Tactics, which one wasn't the, War of the Lions, yeah. Skate, Warhawk,

Peggle. Orhawk. Eagle, baby. Do you think we'll ever get a Peggle 3? yeah probably right I want it so fucking bad you guys or I'll even take

Pegle too on it's weird yeah like I now that think about it it's weird that Peggle did not become a big mobile hit because it feels like it was really poised to

it was in there early it just EA did not capitalize fucked it all up man what a surprise for me yeah what a surprise um let's see here So this is actually some fantastic insight and research that Billy the door did. Hey guys, I got carried away.

Here's a link to a spreadsheet with the top 50 games is rated by Metacritic from 2000 to 2019. I took the average scores to get what everyone on the internet loves, an arbitrary number to sum up an entire year's worth of creativity. Our winner is 2001. Based on the games list, it's tough to disagree. This year had a ton of bangers, melee, halo, GTA3, DMC, Paper Mario, MGS2, Final Fantasy 10. God damn. 2001.

And our loser, to no surprise to anyone, is 2014. So there you go, plus. You know, it's more arbitrary than metis scores, user reviews. 2003 takes it with Wind Waker, Cotor, and the best Mario Kart, which of course is double dash. Something interesting I noticed,

it seems like there is a pattern of the year of the year after console release, 2006 and 2014. The numbers take a noticeable dip, perhaps due to the lower number of games released. But I think that also says something about console life cycles. I know it's not perfect at all, but I had a fun time plugging away on the true game of the century, Microsoft Excel.

Thank you, Billy the door for this. So that's interesting. So 2001, but I guess that like, Metacritic and like the way that he did this says one side of the story, but there's also that's also bringing in a lot of the bad. And when we think of best year in gaming, we're not thinking about the bad.

You get what I'm saying? No. What do you mean bad? Do you mean like disappointing? games? No, but I mean like this would take into consideration if there's a shit ton of bad games out that's going to change the

conversation whereas when we're talking about best year in gaming we're not mentioning the things that were bad. We're only talking about it. We're only talking about the highlights yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, I see what you're saying yeah. I didn't bring up Bass Effect Andromeda in my 2017 however thing. Let's see, an interesting pick.

What's up Greg? 2001, interesting pick. Yeah. I don't agree. I go for it. I just think it's an interesting one because kind of what we're talking about, about the sequels and stuff like that. I feel like 2001, when we look at those games,

that's kind of like the definition of the PS2 era. And I just think that when all said and done, the PS2 era is going to be going down in history as beloved and super nostalgic. Like there's going to be so much great memories tied to it. But I don't think that those are going to be the games that have that kind of like ocarina of time level conversation. Like I feel like

Metal Gear Solid 2 for everything that it was will never be looked back on the way Metal Gear Solid 1 was. No, you're crazy. People like go crazy. People go nuts over American Solid 2. Well, people go nuts over Metal Gear. I would say like me being one of them. Like Metal Gear Solid 2 was definitely that kind of game

that was divisive. But I think it has more of a bit, it has a bigger fan base in the original in terms of just people who go looking at games individually. I agree with you that has a bigger fan base. And that's absolutely true. I think Metal Gear Solid 2 is the most popular Metal Gear Solid period. But when we're talking about

quality, I feel like people have a rose tinted glasses looking back at the experience and what Metal Gear Solid 1 did that they don't talk about the bad. Whereas Metal Gear Solid 2, there are a lot of people that are like, well, this, this, this, this. Are we talking about like the year specifically? or are we just talking about like PS2 versus PS1 in terms of the way we look at the games?

I'm talking about 2001. Those games, that lineup of games very much represents the Xbox GameCube and PlayStation 2. And while some of them are super iconic, like there's, I don't know, but GTA3 is iconic. All those games are iconic,

but I don't know that we would necessarily say it's the best year in gaming because of that, right? Yeah, I see exactly what you're saying. For a second, I thought we were talking about like, you know, iconic games of the PS2 versus like iconic games of the previous generation to where I would have brought up Melga Solid 3 as like a game that people I think hold up there

comparatively to Meliger Solid 1. Three is the best in series. Do you say three is the best in the series? Yes, for sure. You're absolutely right in Ron and Ron. Ron is the correct one. Melger Solid 3 is the best Melger Solid game followed by

five, oh, not five. Five has the best game. Follow by any of the Meliard solids. Really just three is the best one. Just at all an amorphous blob a minute of your cell out of that side. Every miller solid is unique. Yeah, I can stand by that statement

in that statement alone. I'm with you on 2001 though, Tim, on what your point is. Yeah, three years, but it's like, how many would you go back and would those be the ones

you want to play, especially in those franchises too? And that's kind of my point, is that they are so iconic. And I just feel like even just that generation of games, there's something about how they'll age that I don't think holds up in a way that a lot of the other games

we're talking about do. Like, because it's just like there was like a, a core something about half-life that it coming out in 1998 is fine. It's still half-life. Whereas some of these games have just changed so much and evolved so much over time that they're not necessary. Like, GTA-3 is one of the most iconic games of all time, but it's like, it's not the gold standard.

We don't talk about it. We don't talk about the thing we talk about Ocarina. Yeah. It's true for some of them, but I don't say all of them. Like, I don't think you'll find some people who will say Half-Life Alex is a better than Half Life 2, but I don't think the vast majority of Half-Life fans would say that. Yeah.

Liam Dixon says, I believe 2017 will go down as the year that helped define the future of gaming. Breath of Wild's the game that all future open world titles will be compared to. Mario Odyssey did what 64 achieved in 1996 and redefined the 3D platform genre, and Persona 5 is now the benchmark for all JRP's. Outside of gameplay, PubG was the catalyst

in the success of the battle royale genre. Resident Evil 7 showed the world the possibilities of VR and the loopbox controversy of Battlefront 2 kickstarted a conversation surrounding micro-transactions that will persist for quite some time. While the games from 2017 are without a doubt some of the greatest ever made,

the influence of that year is something that I believe should be considered when discussing the greatest years of gaming. I feel like there are some reaches there, but I understand the overall argument. Honestly, like, we were talking about Sony's best year, I think 2017 might be Nintendo's best year. In a way that they fired on all cylinders

at the last two years they spent recovering from it. It was Breath of the Wild, Spatoon 2, arms, which whatever you think of it is a big information from them.

Yeah. Mario Odyssey. Mario Cardi, Deluxe. Yeah. There was a ton of stuff. One T-Switch. Yeah.

Unless that. But in terms of software they were making or publishing, that was probably their most, like, the highest output they've had in the last five, six years. Yeah. God, Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild.

I remember people, like, they just straight up did not think Odyssey was going to come out. Like, there was a threat in recent era that was like, why does Nintendo keep lying about Mario Odyssey's release date? Because there was no way that Odyssey and Breath of the Wild will come out the same year, but Nintendo was like, no, fuckers, buy a Switch. And no, my fuckers, they're doing it.

Yeah, like, to the point of the person who wrote in the question, right? Like, Mario Odyssey, as a game, I don't think we'll redefine 3D platformers in the way that Mario 64 did, because Mario 64 kind of came out and kind of redefined 3D games, period. No game is going to do what Mario 64 did. Yeah, like I think that at this point it's just kind of impossible to see that kind of revolution again. But I do think Mario Odyssey is argue.

I would hear the argument that Mario Odyssey is the best 3D platform ever made. Like, I think that's a valid argument to make. So that's all the responses we got here. Like there's a ton of people saying 2017. A surprising lack of people bringing up 1998, which I don't know if that just says something about age or. My generation. Or, yeah, or what? Can I give a shout out to 2015 also?

We didn't really have 2015 at all. Yeah. Yeah, no, your solid five, the Phantom Pain. Like, I remember the argument going into that year of like, oh, what is game of the year going to be? And I think it was mid-year that fallout four was revealed because it was at that E-3. But even leading up to that, right, as we're getting the Witcher 3, I think that's when we were like, okay, cool.

We know Fallout 4 is coming. Fallout 4 is obviously going to be the game of the year. but then Witcher 3 comes out and everybody's like, fuck, this game, this game's incredible. And then Metal Gear Sol 5, Phantom Pain comes out. And like, in the ways that we're talking about games kind of redefining what a genre is going forward. I think Metal Gear Solid 5, you want to talk about

stealth games and stealth combined with open world. I don't think there's a game that's done it better than Phantom Pain. And I think like, you know, we haven't really seen games necessarily take direct influence from Phantom Pain yet. But I think, I think you can make the argument that Breath of the Wild has, some influence from there. As far as like,

creating big worlds that are totally influenced by systems. And so, yeah, like between those three games, Fain and Pain, Witcher 3 and Fall 4, but then also throw in their Rocket League and a few others.

I think it was a very, very, very good year. MDS 5 was the game that convinced me that, like, oh, it doesn't matter if Kodema,

it doesn't have access to Margar Sullet or like, he doesn't write crazy stories. He can still make an incredible playing video game. I was super wrong about that, but I still think in general,

how do you? Death Stranding is going to be a future classic. Best training is the opposite of M.js 5 in almost every single way. Also, for 2015, until dawn, life is strange, Undertale,

Glory in the Blind Forest. Yeah, no, Overwatch. 2016. Her story, Moral Combat X. Like, 2015 had a lot of, a lot of excellent games.

Yeah. It was Bloodborn D. D.L.C. was that year as well, right? Because Bloodborn was early March, and the D.O.C. would have been December, I think. And the D.LC is like some of the best DLC out there.

Like from software DLC almost never fails to deliver. Dying Light, Mario Maker also. So to close the episode out here, I want us to come to an answer. At least try our best to come to the answer. What is the best? So right now we got 2017, 2018, 1998. Let's start with 2017 versus 2018. Okay.

I feel, I feel like 2017 has the argument of just numbers. Like, I feel like the amount of amazing games that came out in 2017, compared to the amount of amazing games that came out in 2018, I feel like 2017 has a, has a larger number. And you're fucking grinning as you say it because it's not true.

You know it's not true. You're out on a ledge you haven't counted the games. There's more games than 2018, period. It might actually come down to like a cultural preference in a way, because like most of 2017's bangers were Japanese, most of 2018s were Western. Hell yeah. That's a good point. I didn't think about that.

Hmm. That's a very good point, honestly. Boulder in the years. I still think that 2018 has the, the, the juice, the nudge. I think that carries it over. I mean, as someone did redemption too. I feel like 2017 is it for me. It's a much better year.

It's funny because, I mean, like, at the end of the day, I'm an Nintendo guy. So it's like that gives me, like 20s. Not giving it to 2017 is crazy, but 2018 had God of War and Spider-Man. Yes. And smash, right? And those are the type of places. Yeah, but Smash is, I don't count it even. Like, Smash coming out that year, like, Smash Ultimate.

I fucking love the game, but it's like, it, I don't credit, like, 2018 and Smash Ultimate. Like, that's just kind of like a living games. It's like, yeah. Some of the biggest announcements for Banjo. And it came out in, like, December. Yeah. Which I know doesn't necessarily. so take away from it being a 2018.

This isn't your personal opinion about what fucking year the game came out. The game came out in 2018. It goes to the fucking of 2018 games. I understand that, but that's to go back to my argument of like, they're just derivative sequels. It's just a derivative sequel. Like, I'm not going to like weigh that higher. Like, that's one of the like top five games we're talking about for 2018.

Even though it's definitely my favorite. We were just making the argument about GTA being like there having been better iterations on the same formula. I think smash qualifies on that same logic. Yeah, like I think it's the best, but I don't know. I don't know. It didn't make 2018 special to me. You're a weirdo.

You're a giant weirdo. I don't understand you. I mean, and even then, like, okay, Smash Ultimate versus Breath of the Wild is Mario Odyssey. Like, fair. That's fair. That argument I'll give you. Sure. I remember, like, 2018's, like, in Game Informer, when we did the game of the year conversation,

it was by the time I called in because I was working on something else and called him to the meeting, it was literally just Goddivore versus Red Dead Red Dead Redemption 2 and I was like I was in there prepared to fight for Monster Hunter World really hard because like oh no everyone are cast by that

it's just it's these two games with the discussion and I think that's the thing is like that was the caliber of that year and we joke around about it but like how you know Spider-Man was so excited at dice to win

best graphics or whatever the hell they won because they finally won something this game Spider-Man that any other year would have not had an all easy cakewalk but like would have at least and number two would have got the silver medal

instead is like fucking constantly playing bronze to Red Dead and God of War or Monster Hunter you get involved in there, like, or Celeste. Also, I mean, it's so much, I feel like 17 and 18 in a lot of ways are a tie because every single thing you just said, I feel like we can replace those game names with equals for the other year. Yeah, because for 2017, I'm like, dude, we're forgetting about the amount of unique indie games that came out for Switch in that first year.

Like, we're forgetting about golf story. We're forgetting about Snipper Clips. Fuck off with Snipper Clips. You would still have this conversation by bringing Snipper Clips into it. Nipclips was excellent. I have a little shockerbeg that all this 2018 evangelizing

you've been doing, you did not say Odyssey once. I did. I did in the original run, but I'm not crazy enough to sit here and tell you that it would have been Game of the Year over this. That's how to talk you on that. The bench is so fucking deep. Tetris effect I can go grab. Obriden I can go get. Florence, I can go get. I'm just saying.

Astrobat. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Mr. Adioia. Do you remember Astrobot? Do you remember that? Sonic Mania, though, you know, came out in 2017. Also, you are high. You've been smoking stuff. I don't even know.

The reefer over there. Tim, I just noticed your lights mash your jacket. That's a brilliant move, and I appreciate you. Thank you. Divinity original sin, too. Not my cup of tea. But 2017 has that, Greg.

What are you going to do? Shut the fuck up. The messenger, Valkyria Chronicles. I was playing that with my girlfriend last night. I've never seen her get more irritated at a video game than that one time. Yeah, I saw her tweet.

this morning about some boss or something that wasn't fun. Yeah, there was a fight. There was just, the enemy just keeps respawning as long as there's fire on the ground. And she got so mad, we reloaded back about an hour. For a second, I thought you're talking about an actual real-life boss. Like, I thought she was fighting with somebody at her work. Oh, wow. Should we be talking about this on air?

2017, we also, we got Resident Evil 7. We got Cuphead. We got Hellblade. We got near automata. I'm saying, like, when you're talking about Brett, Night in the Woods, Breads of the White. What remains of Edith Finch? You want to agree with me, vote.

Go ahead. 2018 had dead cells. Yeah. That cells is fucking amazing. Moss. Inside. Hollow Knight was 2018. Inside.

Yeah. Inside was 2016. Might have been a point. I think. Oh, the Switchport. Yeah. I'm looking at a thing of like games that scored higher than 90. I still go 2017 personally because like 2017 has multiple game of the generation

candidates for me. 2018 does have Monster Hunter and Spider-Man, which are two games I love the most that year. Did you not love God of War? I thought it was fine. It made me a little motion sick, which is the main problem I had with it, but I personally,

I wasn't not in love with it as much as everyone else was. Fair. All right. I'm just personally going to say there, Ty. How dare you? Taking the conversation now of bringing in 1998. It's so hard for me to not give it to 98. Ocreen

That's nostalgia talking No, but it's not though Because we're talking about the best year We're talking about like Think of these games And the reviews that they They got at the time And deserved at the time

Of Aquarium of Time Tech and 3 Halflight Metal Gear Solid Resident Evil 2 Pokemon Red and Blue It's like

Are we running off Are we running up 2004? We sure are Shut up blessing I think I would not put 2004 in the same League as these I think it's right behind.

I don't know if you guys agree. If I'm the only one that's thinking this way, then it's fine. I like 2000 5 a little bit more, but yes. Oh, God, I just realized how dumb this conversation sound. Okay. Yeah, but yeah, Banjo-Kazio-Kazooie, dude, like, crash warped, Oddworld. There's so many, so many freaking classic, classic games that are legit good.

Like, they have the quality and, like, the generation-defining elements to them. For me, it's, can you go to those series that still remain and go back to those original games and go like, have an argument for those being the best games of the series? And if so, then I think that year stands up. So it's kind of the opposite of the 1987 conversation. Yes. Because I think there are people who would legitimately make the argument, Aquarium of Time, is the best Zelda game. They're people who definitely said Tekken 3 is the best Tekken. About that for MGS as well.

Those people are absolutely wrong. About Tekken 3? What would you give it to? Tekken 7. Yeah. Tek and seven is fucking perfect. It's a, it's, it's, it's incredible. Tegad 3 got 10 out of tens, man.

Yeah. Yeah. They were doing it. Video game Revereers just got to the point where like, they just, they don't want to get fighting games 10 out of tens anymore. That's, that's right. I said it.

Wow. It was the last fighting game. They got a 10 out of 10. Smash, probably. Probably. Actually, you're probably right. Half-life, man. Pokemon, man.

I don't know. I don't know. I will say probably no one's good. There are a lot of people who have nostalgia for Pokemon red and blue. I don't think anyone would go back

and say they're the actual best games. No way. I'm with you on that. But I also don't think, I think that Pokemon's probably the

example out of all of these red and blue specifically that would drop the most in review score. When you look at the future of the series and like how it all kind of plays out. But I think that

comparing 98 to 2017 and 18, I feel like there are more 10 out of 10 quality games in 98. But you're saying, so you're saying there's more 10 out of tens here. And I would ask though, but what about nines out of tens? I think the more. I mean, I think that as well.

I mean, Starcraft also came out that year. Yeah, sure, but I ain't no fucking Charles on yet nerd over here. I want to play that crap. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. But a lot of people were. I know. I know.

Hey, man. Whatever side of the argument benefits me and what I want to argue that's what I want to argue. That's what I'm going to make for the moment. For the moment. I thought from being we should do this objectively. And I fuck no. I like God of war. I love it.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I... Residentable 2. Like, I think legitimately people will go back and say, even after the change, even after the remake, people might go and say Residentable 2 is the best in the series. They're insane. Yeah, I understand. I understand that.

Pokemon Blue and Yellow came out in 98. So here's the thing. Wikipedia is wrong about the Pokemon release. You could have just stopped early. He could have just said Wikipedia's right. Red and blue came out in 98. Yellow came out in 99. I don't know why.

If you look at their individual Wikipedia pages, they have the right dates. Gotcha. All right. I was confused because I was like, I didn't really, I didn't, because I'm looking at a thing that said yellow came out in 98. And so I was like, wait a second. Yeah, it was a Japanese age release. That's why they're listing it. Gotcha.

All right. Yeah. Okay. Well, Tiffany is a great with 98. What the hell? At a certain infinity of the night Oh yeah Castle Media's Sphina Night

That's the other one It's like we're talking 10 10 10 10 It's insane Are we talking about US release Specifically I think we are For all these games I think we're trying to

Unless if it's our argument Then we're changing it Exactly If it benefits your argument That's how you argue All right here's what we're going to do To definitively rank these Symphony and I came on in 97 in both North America and Japan.

Wait, what? Why? Yeah, Symphony. It was a staggered release. That's why. It was a staggered release? Saturn release. Saturn.

Our ported is a Saturn. Oh, Saturn. Yeah. Got it, got it, got it, got it. Okay. So what we're going to do is each of us is going to rank the three years. I like it. I like, I like, 2018, 2017 and 2018.

Do you guys have your answers? Yeah. Yeah. Greg's going to be so mad at me. Damn right. I am. Okay. Timron.

Go. I'm going to say 98, 17, 18. I did the exact same thing. I'm sorry. Plus. 1798, 18. Greg. 18, 17.

98. And there you go. 1998 is the greatest year in video game history. Thank you very much for joining. to us this week on the Kind of Funny Games cast. We are about to do the post show of the Gamescast for Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games supporters where I'm just going to click on some of the other years we didn't talk about and just see what, like, what's up with 1992?

We'll have to, you'll have to support our Patreon to find out.