The Besties - What Was the Best Year for Video Games Ever?

Episode Date: April 24, 2020

Today’s special episode takes The Besties into a new direction. With newer releases being put on hold, the gang is looking back at what was the best year for video games ever. Each present cases for why the year stood out and examine all the variables. Listeners can get in on the action by heading over to https://twitter.com/thebestiespod and cast their vote to help pick a winner! Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

I'm not going to have a lot of time to talk about this in the actual episode so I wanted to talk about how I was going over my years and video games used to be better and now they are worse that is my thesis statement

I would take one of the quarters of either of my years over any year of the past decade except maybe 2017 but video games used to be better now they're worse do you think it's a beatles situation where like like my dad was saying like well when i grew up i had the beatles and you have uh you know freaking jewel it's like that except if my answer was dad uh the bands today are better except the only band was fortnite and that's the only band that existed

and also they didn't have a metacritic back in beatles times and now we do so we have like numerical data yeah proving that games used to be better and i'd be curious to hear everybody's thoughts on why they think that censorship is the reason for that and censoring all the cool sexy stuff that used to be in games r Russ, you were talking right before we started recording about how political correctness ruined games. Right. Enough already, guys. If we could just speak on that.

With the, you know, feeling snowflakes and... Sure. You were specifically saying... Fresh saw one episode of Bill Maher and it was really digging deep to remember what happened. Et cetera. You were saying how in a lot of your favorite games, back in the day, if the camera looked up accidentally,

a skirt, you would see underwear, and now it's just a shadow, and you were talking about how that's bad and has ruined games. Russ was saying all that. Speak to that, please, Russ. Speak on that right now, Russ. Have you guys thought about how, like,

you could play Soldier of Fortune back in the day, and you could blow off every limb and, like, pinky individually can't do that anymore like no it's just full hands now no i need the fingers to feel it My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best year of all time. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I'm the chronomancer who knows and will rank all of the years. My name is Chris Plant, and pretty much any year is better than 2020. My name is Russ Froschek, and I'm the best thing of the years. Welcome to the besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in interactive entertainment. It's a book club, but for video games, a game of the year show that goes all year long.

And this year, we are now changing up the format. Remember a couple months ago, we got really excited because games were back. And I have bad news. Games have been excused from the building. Games are no longer back. They are gone from us. But the show, as they say, has to continue. And as a result, we have shaken up our format a little bit.

And Chris Plant's here to tell you all about it. We are going to talk about the best year in video games and we need your help on deciding it so we're going to run a bracket uh this episode goes live on a friday and we're going to give you eight years to choose from uh and you'll vote on our twitter feed uh the first date on friday the uh next four on saturday the bottom two on sunday and then we'll have a winner of the best year in video games and once we have that year we're going to launch a mini series uh in which we will do episodes on the best games from that year so say i don't know 2017 because that's a pretty good year

uh was the winner we would be talking about breath of the wild and mario odyssey and i don't know probably like near automata like that would probably be a thing that we would talk about um yeah that's the basics of it right so we're do we i mean i feel like we can just say that 2017 is going to be the year oh yeah that's a tough pick we got a lot of great arguments we did it's worth noting um this is a march madness style bracket and of course course, it's April now. But March was canceled, if you'll remember. Didn't happen. They didn't do March this time.

So we had to do it in April. You're probably getting excited about this series as we explain it, but a little bit worried. So let me go ahead and assuage your fears right now. We are going to take a break from it the week of May 12th so that we can talk about the remaster of star wars episode one colon racer um colon racer colon racer so don't uh don't sweat that um we'll be there to cover it and talk about our favorite pod pod racers and we and we we owe credit by the way for for the inspiration of course for this format to uh one of my favorite podcasts blank check and i know so several of your fans too they do this for uh directors we are doing it for years

uh at least for right now we might expand it beyond yeah we should go ahead and copyright it as i guess what i'm saying so we can sue them if need be um listen let's start making pitches for the greatest year in video games i'm so excited to in. I had a lot of fun going back over my years. So, Chris Plant, do you want to lead us off with your – You began – I see you squeaked in a few minutes, kind of breaking Robert's Rules of Order there. Should we ground rules it? Should we ground rules it?

Because we talked about this before, though. Let's establish – are we talking about the best year our favorite year the most important year like i think that this is an important like framing discussion before we really launch into it i mean those those are all gonna blur together i think pretty quickly right like yeah i think we should also bear in mind that we are going to have to play the games from this year i think actually what think, actually what Griffin says is the deciding metric, right? What is the year that we would most want to return to to play the games

from? Because that is what we will do. So that will come. You can't, like, sort of stroke your beard and be like, Commander Keen was very important to... No. Fuck you. You don't want to go back and play Commander Keen. We want y'all playing these games, too. Yeah, you've got to play them, too, so you have a vested interest.

Yeah, so we're going to... Justin, you mentioned giving me two minutes. Does that seem fair if we have two minutes for each year? Does that seem... Are we going to go beyond the two minutes to go deeper? Yeah, after the initial pitch we can discuss. Okay, initial pitch is two minutes. We just have to keep the follow-up to

a minute to keep everything fair for everybody. Okay, let's go. I'm ready. Chris i'm ready plant begin 2017 it's the turning point for the video game medium uh especially the modern era of it it's an evolution of open world games from action uh games in these like very beautiful but rigid spaces like horizon zero dawn to games that are fundamentally about exploration like breath of the wild uh it's the launch of games that are critiques of games. We talked about this last week and the week before with Nier Automata and Resident Evil 7 Remake. It launched arguably the biggest genre of this decade with PUBG and Battle Royale. It had some of the best indie games of ever.

Universal Paperclips, Getting Over It, Butterfly Soup, and arguably, don't give me that look, getting over it butterfly soup and arguably don't give me that look uh genre touchstones uh persona 5 for jrpgs destiny 2 for shooters prey for immersive sims and i i have all this extra time left welcome to talking about gravity rush 2 friends gravity rush 2 uh was available on the playstation 4 it's the sequel to one of the best games ever made gravity rush maybe you played it on the playstation vita uh and i see the rest of my time to you see you're on the other games you see the other games on this list that we are talking about today and you're like but you know it can hang with uh ocarina of time you know it can hang with with uh uncharted sounds like somebody who didn't finish gravity rush too that's all sounds like somebody who didn't finish Gravity Rush 2. Sounds like somebody who didn't start Gravity Rush 2.

Wow. It was a good game. It was okay. What I'm saying is 2017, pretty good year. Did you mention the fact that the Switch came out that year? Was that part of your pitch? You were speaking Did you say Odyssey? I didn't even, I guess it's just such a good year that I did have to fit in Gravity Rush 2.

It was a very good, I think it's the only good year of the last decade in terms of our list. It's the only one that we have. In terms of our list, yeah. It's the best year of the past decade, I think. Because I remember talking about the sevens being so hot. And I think you'll see that going back through this list.

Any year that ends in seven in the last 30 years has been pretty damn good for video games. Now, my counter argument, even though i was the one that initially suggested 2017 to be included in this is maybe i don't want to just do best these episodes from three years ago yeah like i have already replayed breath of the wild all the way through twice uh i don't necessarily think that it's it's it would be the most eye-opening conversation to be like hey it's still fucking really good.

Yeah, my dad's still playing it. It's a good game. We wouldn't be educating the youth. Can I hop in and make a quick pitch? Let me set my timer, because I got a lot of games. It's different from 2017 in that way, because there's a lot of great...

Okay. I began. 1996 was unreal. Okay, you had... Not unreal. You had, first off, the Nintendo 64 and the Game Boy Pocket, if you want to talk hardware,

to, like, awesome... Game Boy Pocket's an awesome evolution. The Game Boy N64 is, of course, a massive console. Let's talk games. Duke Nukem 3D. Huge. Formative. the first pokemon game 1996 in japan super mario rpg yes thank you i will have it resident evil the first one of those

super mario 64 are you kidding me quake massive uh uh uh crash bandicoot First one of those The first Persona game Griffin have you played the first Persona game? Sorry to interrupt The first Tomb Raider game Okay Then oh Mario Kart 64 If you want to get a little

You want to go below the surface a little bit That's just the top tier first string games You want to go below the surface a little bit. That's just the top tier first string games. You want to go below the surface a little bit. Let's talk about Metal Slug. The first Metal Slug came out that year. Sequels. The Elder Scrolls II Daggerfall. Not a lot of people played that, but it seems impressive.

Tekken 2. An excellent Tekken game. We can all agree on that. Did I mention Pilotwings 64? Because that fully was in 1996 dead or alive first dinner alive 1996 uh and i think that the first off i also have to mention ripper excellent fmv adventure starring christopher walk a very bored christopher walken uh excellent excellent game uh but the the the cherry on the top when i saw this i was like okay i this year

is is is going over the top and it is uh die hard trilogy which fucking rules and nobody talks about is that the one where he runs down the hallway and punches people in the face that's just one of the three games it's three different games on one disc a genre bending adventure that's my time can i uh make my my counterpoint very succinct um 1996 what if all of your favorite franchises before they were fun i mean it's not a bad point but i think you could probably leverage that argument against a couple of the years in here oh and i think my my stuff my like looking into these years really opened my eyes to how many uh sequels of these games ended up being much much better than the original game which is such a like interesting little quirk of the video games industry i will grant i will grant you by the way that this is

um it's sort of the inverse of the 2017 because it's maybe more historic than it is like fun to play good like like very I mean these are all really important games right with the exception of maybe Duke Nukem 3D but they're really important games are they I mean I think I'd play

Blood Omen again Blood Omen Legacy Kane I bet if they would polish that one up it's not I mean Soul Reaver is better, but, and Dire Archilogy is probably not as good as I remember. Probably none of these are, but. Here's an interesting one. 64, Mario 64 is unimpeachable.

Well, here's what I'm gonna say. Is this the best Super Mario year ever? Hmm. With both Super Mario RPG and Super Mario 64 in the same year? Yeah. I think that the 96, 98 block which i won't belabor this point because we're also going to dive into those is such an interesting little

cluster because it's like the 3d flip and during that 3d flip it you like inarguably is when what we know as video games today was pretty much firmed up in terms of like franchises released and genres like being invented and coalescing and like, like looking at the games across those three years, it's like, Oh, well that's all of them. That's all the games that we're still playing today. Um,

yeah. Out of curiosity, just around the horn. What of those two years would you get if you guys were voting in this poll, where would you go? Between 2017 and 1996? We're not going to bias our listeners because they don't uh care what we think really i found um i would rather replay the i

would rather replay the games from 96 i think 2017 is a much better year in terms of 2017 was such a fluke crazy great year it's tough for me to say uh yeah i don't know i can't give you an answer right now okay fair enough uh can you give me an answer about the year 2011 as a matter of fact i can the year was 2011 are you starting the clock oh it started baby adele is rolling in the deep was climbing up the charts as was lmfao's party rock anthem. Hide your daughters, hide your wives. In theaters, Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows Part 2, screamed into theaters showing the climactic end of the Harry Potter franchise, and the AV Club really, really liked the show Louie.

It was a different time. 30 seconds gone. Also came out that same year uh 2011 brought us portal 2 was the last time valve released an actual video game since halfway valix so it's been quite a step portal 2 for what it's worth one of my top five games ever um skyrim came out that year it was the first time skyrim came out not the last time it came out about 16 times after that. But this was the first time. Minecraft came out that year. 1.0. Minecraft, in case you're

still wondering, still a thing. Still very popular. As is Nintendogs. I still feed my Nintendog every day. Also came out in 2011. It was the year of the 3DS, which was a pretty good console. I didn't love it, but whatever. Not a good launch, but a huge console.

Not a great launch, but Nintendogs. And I also wanted to call out Binding of Isaac, which is a game that I've sunk countless, countless hours into. Yeah, I would say this is like a very, in parts, formative in the sense of like Minecraft, and in parts like just stellar game-making ability in the case of like Portal 2 and Skyrim. I don game making ability and in the case of like portal 2 and skyrim so it's interesting i don't think it's the strongest year by any means but it has

like a selection of precious precious gemstones and that really is yeah i don't fuck with any of those man let's start let's talk about the fucking fruit you left on the vine here though russ i don't know how deeply you dug into this year did you maybe just kind of copy and paste what plant wrote for you because did you notice when i mentioned lmfao's party rocket what about what about batman arkham city came out that year oh i missed that one yeah i searched best games of 2011 weird arkham city but well-known popular very good game weird arkham city but well-known popular very good game game that is probably my favorite of that franchise did you really batman arkham city was your favorite of the franchise why what's the best one no probably arkham asylum the first one no too spooky captain america super soldier was that year too not a great game over overrated in my that was pretty fun i thought it was okay

totally fine did i forget anything else? Griffin, 2007. I'm sure you did. L.A. Noire. Oh, my gosh. Faces. We've spent enough time on 2011. Dan Reichert's in that game.

It's disqualified. Also, weirdly, an HD re-release of a franchise that I was just thinking about that I'd forgotten existed until recently. MDK 2. Oh, recently. MDK2. Oh, damn. Why did everyone love that game? It was like a fun enough shooter. Like, eh, it's okay. Yeah, Spider-Man Edge of Time came out that year,

which is notably one of the worst things I've ever had to endure. Okay, 2007 was a massive, massive, massive year in terms of establishing the, much like the cluster of years I talked about before, establishing the franchises

and genres that we are still playing today. 2007 was sort of the zenith of the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 era, and was such a powerful zenith that I would say it also went on to define the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 era, and was such a powerful zenith that I would say it also went on to define the PlayStation 4, Xbox One era. These were the games that released in 2007. Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Mass Effect, Halo 4, Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, Orange Box slash Portal, Super Mario Galaxy, Rock Band.

slash portal uh super mario galaxy rock band in that list you have uh a series of franchises that would go on to be the biggest games the blockbuster games the like e3 capstone uh surprise announcement games uh that would continue until you know they either fizzled out or reached their natural conclusion over the course of the next, you know, I guess, 13 years. And you also just had fucking really, really, really very good games. Orange Box is, will go down in history as one of the best packages of video games ever, ever, ever released. If you could only buy one video game that year and it was orange box you'd probably be okay you also had the uh dying of the of the sun well that's maybe unfair you had at its short-lived critical mass the uh peripheral based uh rhythm genre which i adored and still to this day get extremely

nostalgic for in rock band uh which defined, from a very personal level, like, my college experience playing Rock Band at every fucking party I went to for a very long time. Like, that game is very culturally, I think, important, if not sort of necessarily, like, important to the landscape of games today. But every other thing released in 2007 is. Now, that being said, this point was made earlier, the sequels to most of these games were much, much better. I do not want to play Uncharted 1. I would much rather play Uncharted 2.

Mass Effect 1 is a fine game. Mass Effect 2 beats the shit out of it. Assassin's Creed 2 beats the shit out of it. Bioshock is probably my favorite of those. Bioshock 2 is very, very good as well. Bioshock 2 is really, really good. Portal 2 is very, very good. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is very, very good. Rock Band 2 and good super mario galaxy 2 is very very good rock band 2 and 3 like every game i listed you could argue that the sequels are better but this is the year that sort of set those up uh so i'm almost

arguing against myself because i don't necessarily want to go back and play assassin's creed 1 again holy shit i would rather eat my own head than do that it's a very boring very boring very bad game but uh christian bell's in it though christian bell's in it and we loved that shit back then own head than do that. It's a very boring, very bad game. Kristen Bell's in it, though. Kristen Bell's in it, and we loved that shit back then. Hey, did you mention Crackdown? Was Crackdown in 2007? Crackdown was in 2007, yeah. Good lord.

And I think Dirt was released in 2007. Fucking Peggle? Yeah. Peggle's 2007? We haven't talked about the seeding of the bracket yet. God of War 2? God of War 2 on PlayStation 2. We're reaching past timelines

for this year, 2007. 2007 is number two seed in our bracket to give you an idea of how significant we already think it is. What a while. Yeah, that's a while.

This is actually, also I feel like 2007 was the year i started working for joystick yeah so this this is it's weird because i had to be very familiar with like this is the this is the first year where i had to know everything about all these games uh so it's like i feel very very close to this this particular yeah i do also want to mention in terms of the seating we actually pulled the entire video games industry to determine the seating so it's actually very very precise and accurate so if you have any any issues whatsoever just understand 350 people submitted their votes

and these are the seats so like take it up with will right yeah yeah who i appreciate for his participation thank you so much will what honor, just to say it again. He's a big fan. Listen, unless we have something else to say about 2007, let's take a quick break and come back with some more great years. Okay. I know that I was very hot on 2000,

and sorry, I was very big on 1996. I remember, you guys remember. 90s kids do remember. It was a different era. 90s kids remember that I loved 1996. But 2004 makes 1996 look like a fucking dog turd. And I'm sorry that I ever said anything nice about uh 2004 or sorry about 1996 because 2004 fucking rules are you ready yes i'm ready time for my presentation hello and welcome to

2004 a ted talk by justin mccarroy about the best year in video games that ever was are you ready for this fucking shit world of warcraft it's 2004 star wars knights of the old republic 2 that's kotor 2 which is a fucking seminal ninja gaiden i think i will actually play ninja gaiden again it's fucking great mafia the first mafia game final fantasy crystal chronicles thank you yeah metroid zero mission an excellent sort of re-imagining of the first Metroid game. Ooh, how about this one? Tenchu Wrath of Heaven. I think I would love to play Tenchu again.

Far Cry, yes. Final Fantasy XI, can't play it anymore, still kicks ass. Who's that coming up? Oh, my God. Jumping over the turnstile. It's City of Heroes? Absolutely. City of Heroes is joined by its manager,

Red Dead Revolver, which is also in the ring. Oh my god, look at the balcony. It's Thief, Deadly Shadows. And over there, there's a ventilation shaft. Someone's climbing out of it with an ice pick. It's Chronicles of Riddick

Escape from Butcher Bay. I gotta blow through the rest of these because it's so fucking crazy uh uh uh legend of zelda four swords adventures psyops the mind gate conspiracy thank you i will play psyops again spider-man 2 first game spider-man game to actually get swinging right. Fable is 2004. Star Wars Battlefront is 2004. The original Star Wars Battlefront is 2004. Thug 2? Yes. Please, Thug 2. And then, I'm not even off the

like, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, Counter-Strike Source, Killzone, EverQuest 2, Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2, Half-est 2 Halo 2 Metroid Prime 2 Half-Life 2 Gran Turismo 4 and Garry's Mod This year is wild

Did you say Burnout 3 Takedown? Yeah, Burnout 3 Takedown is in that year Katamari Damacy Just like, I'm out of time but just to be fair to this year because it's so fucking jam-packed. Sly 2 The Sims 2. Jeff

Jam Fight for New York has its place. Jeff Damn Fight for New York is also in it. Jeff Damn. I'm Jeff Damn and I love cussing. What's up? Paper Mario Thousand Year Door. Do you remember Monoliths Tron

2? I forgot that existed. Yeah, that game rocked. It ruled. Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal, Legend of Zelda Minish Cap, Bejeweled 2,

Prince of Persia, Counter-Strike, Condition Zero. There's a big one that you have not mentioned. Did you mention Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines?

Thank you, Chris. That was very next on my list right after Battlefield Vietnam, Painkiller, Hitman Contracts, Manhunt,

Tales of Symphonia, Doom 3, Beautiful Joe, Pikmin 2, Burnout 3, Takedown. This list is 2004's... I'm sorry there were so many great games to deal with before I can't stick to my own fucking rule. That year is absolutely

out of control. No year can beat it. It's so wild because I think it's not nearly it's not the genre or franchise defining like year of this list but it's definitely the most like joyful little grab bag joyful little used game bin uh averages i could ever imagine i mean there is a case for it being like the a big cultural shift too because it effectively just it's the video game publishing market because everybody tries to make an mmo after wow and half-life 2 marks the launch of steam which changes how things are sold

uh i full like wholeheartedly hope that that year wins just hearing that list like there's so many of those that I would absolutely kill to go back and watch. Oh, sorry, one more, because I want to make sure the readers know about it. Drakengard, the game that leads to Nier Automata, is in that year, and we will definitely play it if you choose 2004.

Drakengard's the one with the lady and the dragon, right? Yeah, and their eye becomes a flower. Sounds good. I want to hit next with 1998, which hits that trio of years that I talked about. It is coming in, you know, obviously at the tail end of that trio of years, and it's following up on a lot of the stuff that 1996

sort of established, namely Resident Evil 2 came out, which is, I think for a long time, you could argue it was the best Resident Evil game and recently had a very, very good re-release. I think for a long time, you could argue is the best Resident Evil game and recently had a very, very good re-release. I think that this is the year of like, oh, well, this is the year where the best versions of certain franchises or certain genres came out and stayed the best for a very, very long time. You had Metal Gear Solid came out in 1998. You had Half-Life, the original, came out in 1998. Ocarina of Time came out in 1998. Pokemon Red and Blue

came out in the States in 1998. Justin tried to claim it for 1996, and I think that that's fine. Justin. It's a Japanese release. It's a Japanese release. StarCraft came out in 1998. I've never actually played StarCraft, so that would be

maybe an interesting one to go back to uh fallout 2 a fucking phenomenal uh crpg came out in 1988 and speaking of fucking phenomenal seminal crpgs you have balder's gate that came out in 1998 again like i think if you could fuse those three years together 96 97 98 you would create like an unstoppable unkillable voltron but i think that this is where like the 3d gaming transition era had like reached a comfort zone that you know then i think you could safely say that the transition was over i think nintendo really nailing the 3d transition of one of its major franchises in ocarina of time like represented like okay they've they have more or less figured out at this point.

Yeah, I think it's a, I think it's a huge, huge year. I'm torn between, like, which year in that mid-90s period is, like, the most important, but I think you could make a pretty solid case for 98. Yeah, I think 98 is, like, the year, I hate to say this because none of these games are that mature, but the year that, like, gaming became a mainstream grown-up hobby obviously plenty of adults were playing it but metal gear yeah i think metal gear ocarina of time was like significantly more cinematic and mature compared to other games half-life was half-life i mean it just feels like a turning point yeah i i mean metal gear solid was so like

i it would be interesting to go back and sort of relitigate the cultural importance and critical reception to Metal Gear Solid because it was like, people get annoyed now talking about the movies versus games sort of conversation. When Metal Gear Solid came out, like that conversation was not tired enough for people to be so exhausted by it

that it was like full force, like damn guys, Hideo Kojima done made that it was like full force, like, damn, guys, Hideo Kojima done made a movie. And it's, yeah, I would be fascinated to talk about that again. But yeah, it's 98. Y'all, are you ready for 2008? You know I am.

Here's the thing about 2008 versus 2004. 2004, but better. That's basically my entire argument. It is the year that all the franchises got amazing and also got like experimental so burnout paradise fun arcadey racing crashing game becomes the beginning of asynchronous open world multiplayer uh gta4 rockstar is like hey you know the silly uh crime parody that we have what if we tried to make it high art and create a living and

interactive world that will set to philip glass songs and kanye west um far cry 2 clint hawking was like i see that you like shooters but what if i made a game about how shooters suck and it was painful to play but good um space invaders extreme i know that this seems small but somebody made space invaders decades later and made it feel like a modern game that is amazing uh prince of persia a triple a game without a focus on combat how did it get made um i don't know what ubisoft was doing that's the cel-shaded reboot yes of, right? Not Sands of Time or anything? Correct, yeah. It's like the weird aesthetic game.

What a cool game that was. Very cool. And then there are all the sequels that finally deliver on the potential of the originals. Rock Band 2, Persona 4, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Wild. And then you toss in the original titles that really haven't

been bested, except for maybe by their own sequels. Little Big Planet, No More Heroes, Mirror's Edge, Left 4 Dead, Dead Space, and then the beginning of the modern indie game era, thanks to Xbox Live Arcade

and just easier free freeware online so that means braid and spelunky the original spelunky oh wow yeah it is a a year and if we're looking for a year that's fun i don't know if there's a year on the list that's more just purely enjoyable that xbla launch argument is pretty fucking heady. That was a moment. That was so, so cute. I'm trying to remember if Meat Boy came out that year, but it might have been a little bit after that.

I think it might be the year after. I think it might be 2009. Or before. It is so wild. Just to return to Prince of Persia for a second, that weird anomaly. So they, obviously, the original Prince of Persia, back in the late 80s, then Prince of Persia Back in the late 80s

Then Prince of Persia kind of got This rebirth in 2003 with Sands of Time It was like a platform action game That brought in like Time bending mechanics 2008 Prince of Persia Was like a reboot basically Like we're starting over

2010 you had the Forgotten Sands Which was a sequel to the previous like they're just like never mind no no i'm just kidding um this is we'll go back to the old one and there's another franchise it's been a decade since one of those came out which is why it's time for bring those back come on i don't think i knew they released a fourth prince of persia sands of time storyline game i don't think i I knew that that one existed, which is a shame because I was for sure working in the industry when that one came out. This was also the year

that pushed me to get a PlayStation 3 finally because of LittleBigPlanet solely. Wow, I'd love to play that game again. We got one more year on the docket. Frush. Don't fuck this up, Russ. Year. Now. Hold on. Don't fuck this up, Russ. Year. Now. Hold on.

Don't waste too- If you waste a minute- You're not gonna waste 30 seconds on recapping events from the year, right? Don't talk about Smash Mouth. Don't talk about Lit. Okay, here we go. Go.

Now, the year I have is 1997, and it seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind, because Candle in the Wind was the number one song that year. Also, You Were Met for Me by Jewel. Titanic was top of the charts. And Seinfeld was the most watched television show on television. I replaced my Seinfeld button with a Video Armageddon button,

so I just got to let that play. Okay. But pretend it's the seinfeld theme some games actually came out that year as well a little game called golden eye as well as final fantasy 7 uh castlevania symphony the night which invented the metroidvania format of video games the original fallout uh which was uh arguably the best one of the best if not the best fallout games ever made um i would certainly say it's better than fallout 3 which plant uh heralded um the original grand theft auto which is not one of the best grand theft auto games ever made but

it sure made parents angry, didn't it? The original Diablo, the original MDK, which I've never ever played. Did I mention Star Fox 64? Because that game was fucking rad, and it invented the Rumble Pack. The origin of the Rumble Pack that came in 1997. You didn't have

Rumble before now. You didn't know what things felt like. That's so true. Grand Tres Mo is like a racing game that people drove in circles mostly, and rumble before now you didn't know what things felt like that's so true uh grant that grand teresmo is like a racing game that people drove in circles mostly and uh bushido blade which griffin really likes but i've never played also harvest moon harvest oh and harvest moon yeah you could like farm boy howdy that's a good fucking year it is a very good year ff7 and symphony then that was a good year to have a PlayStation and a Nintendo 64. And a bad year to have a Sega Saturn.

Well, every year is a bad year to have a Sega Saturn, Chris. It's a very good year. It's not up to us to decide, right? It's up to the audience to vote in this bracket. It feels cowardly to not at least make a run and see what we would end up with right i'm gonna list off the bracket really really quick so people know what the first battles are gonna be is that okay by everybody sure yeah yes so uh seed one is 1998 that's resident evil 2 metal gear solid half-life ocarina of time going up up against Seed 8. That's 2011 with Portal 2, Skyrim,

LittleBigPlanet 2, Minecraft. Next up, we got Seed 4, 1997, Goldeneye, Final Fantasy 7, Castlevania Symphony of the Night. Going up against Seed 5, 2017, Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Horizon Zero Dawn, Nier Automata.

After that, we have Seed 3, 2004, Half-Lifelife 2 world of warcraft halo 2 dj sandras that year's just so stupidly good and it is going up against its companion seed 6 2008 burnout paradise rock band 2 gta 4 persona 4 that's gonna be my favorite uh battle yeah friday uh seed the the final round uh or final group of these seed 2 2007 is bioshock assassin's creed uncharted mass effect halo 4 modern warfare going up against seed 7 that's 1996 super mario 64 quake duke nukem 3d resident evil um wowza Duke Nukem 3D Resident Evil. Wowza.

Yeah. A lot of good video games. Justin, you were saying that we wanted to kind of share our personal favorites, do you think, so people know where our heads are at? I mean, I kind of don't. Now that I think more on it, I don't necessarily want to bias everybody by making us play games that we don't actively like. I don't want to hint to them how they could best punish us that's fair maybe we don't talk about our least favorite years then justin and we could talk about the years that we are because they're

gonna have to play them too ostensibly if they're gonna have to do anything i will say this there is not a single year here that i would be like oh yeah same like this is all gonna be fun I would sort of reiterate what I said earlier about 2017 which is like maybe it shouldn't win it's a very good year but maybe it's a little too recent yeah and honestly kind of on the same note like 2007 those games are huge and great but I don't know how much it is a year that has been so discussed and it represents franchises that have been just like turned over so so much that i don't know that like i don't know that replaying bioshock is going to like dredge up any new thoughts about bioshock right like i think i've probably heard every bioshock argument that there is to make at this point. I don't think anyone's really made any think pieces about Bioshock, to be honest.

Yeah, maybe not. You know what, weirdly, I feel like, and again, I'm sort of letting personal experience color this, but I kind of think I would go 2008. If I had to return to one year, it's really good. I was playing a lot. That was my second year at Joystick, so I was playing, and I think the first year I was good i mean i i was playing a lot that was my second year at joysticks i was playing like i think the first year i was reviews editor so i was playing a lot of video games uh

at that point and i have a lot of really good uh memories i'm worried about some of these how much of a problem do you guys think like availability is going to be for some of these most of them are i mean we're not it's worth remembering like we're not going to be able to play every single game that we've mentioned here right um we're only going to be able to do the ones that we could actually i'm pretty sure i couldn't get a hold of diehard arcade right like i don't think i think i could get you a copy i don't want our listeners to have to go through any illegal means right yeah rock band would also be a difficult sort of experience for me to recreate at the middle of the pandemic i will mention i've been learning to play the ukulele so i can actually pull that

one off we're getting we're close you know i think i'm gonna tweak the bracket so that uh 2004 and 2008 don't face each other literally in the first round because it that's too much that's probably a good idea it's too sad i'm gonna adjust uh i would i would man look at the list 2008 definitely has some good shit 2004 i think is the one that got me most excited the idea of all four of us having to go and play world of warcraft classic to uh recreate that experience is uh fucking hysterical to me uh and you know i'll play i'll play spider-man 2 i'll play burnout 3 takedown any fucking day uh wow that's a good year i think we did it y'all i think we we have made our cases it is now out of our hands oh boy for better for worse is anybody uh before we we we close

out the episode have you been playing anything else that's that's fun or interesting yeah i've been playing the game where you stare at the six rocks in animal crossing and try to get them to move in a very specific spot in animal crossing it is the most embarrassing thing i think i've ever done in a video game is covering my entire island with patterns so that the rocks can only spawn in one specific spot holy shit it is very embarrassing that's really depressing russ i I know. Something else, pal. I finished FF7 Remake and, again, kicks ass. And I don't know if we will ever have an opportunity to talk about what that game does.

I think we will. I think in like maybe a month for a B segment, we can talk about the ending. Man, holy shit. It is so cool and so smart. I played a neat thing last night with sydney it was a uh an escape room a virtual escape room that is entirely in um google docs um it's it's presented exclusively through google docs a guy named anthony smith made it if you he's on twitter anthony bl smith uh so if you go to his feed you can find a link to it. It's just called Escape. But I played that last night.

It was neat how he sort of plays with the format and the tools. You can't just, like, close the window? Huh? I mean, I guess in a sense that does finish the game. I have a recommendation that is not a game. I finally subscribed to the Criterion channel, which sounds like, oh, hoity-toity. Lots of Akira Kurosawa and Louis Bunuel.

True, that's there. You know what also is there? A little film called Death Race 3000. A little film called Police Story 1 and 2 with commentary. There is some very good, weird stuff on Criterion Channel. Is that like a digital Apple TV kind of channel or like a DirecTV? Yeah, it's just like Netflix basically,

but it's just tons and tons of Criterion movies. Cool. All right, excellent. Well, thank you for listening. I don't know, in terms of email, will we be looking for, probably wait till we figure out the winning year, I would guess.

Yeah, check our Twitter feed and we'll put some questions there. Yes. Our next episode, we should point out, is going to be us discussing the first game we select from the winning year, which we're not gonna know until like Monday. So if you wanna play along,

I would say Monday, check in on our Twitter feed and see what we're dipping into. Well, and vote Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Remember, we're going to do, you know, we'll have one round each day. So we're going to go through it quick. So make sure you don't sleep on that at the Besties pod. The voting will be there. Yes. And that is going to do it for us. Remember, you can follow and listen for free on Spotify, which you probably already knew. If you want to share the show with folks, this would be a fun time to do it. An interesting time.

Besties.fan is the URL to get them straight to our show. And thank you so much for listening. Until next time, my name is Justin McElroy, and these are the other guys. I don't normally say my name, but I'm going to say their names. Russ Freshdick, Chris Plant, Griffin McElroy. I'm not scared. Be sure to join us again next time for the besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? The Besties is a Spotify original podcast

in association with Vox Media. The show is edited by Jelani Carter. And our theme song is by Ian Dorff. Besties!