The Ringer-Verse - 2023 Games of the Year Draft | Button Mash

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

Ben Lindbergh is joined by Jessica Clemons, Steve Ahlman, and Matt James to commemorate a great gaming year. First, they name “naughty” and “nice” industry trends, from massive hacks to surprise releases (0:00). Then they celebrate the highlights of the year in gaming by drafting the most unforgettable titles of 2023 across several categories, including epic RPGs, sprawling action adventures, and indie gems (33:00). Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Steve Ahlman, Jessica Clemons, and Matt James Producer: Devon Renaldo Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, what's up? This is Chris Ryan. On Mondays and Thursdays, you can find me co-hosting The Watch with Andy Greenwald. We are still cranking it out. We talk about a lot of things in pop culture, music, movies, but most of all are ever-changing TV landscape. So check out the watch. For recaps of your favorite TV shows, updates on the streaming wars, and recommendations on what to watch, because there's a lot to watch on Mondays and Thursdays on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active

ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping.

Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. And welcome into the ringerverse, your nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I'm Ben Lindberg, a senior editor at The Ringer, introducing myself for the final time this year. Because, folks, we have come to the last Ringerverse podcast of 2023.

It's all been building up to this. And what better way to close the calendar year than to bring you to Buttonmash Games of the Year, extravaganza. The Goody Pod we've promised for months is here at last. To talk about a year with more great games than usual, we need more great guests than usual. So we have fired up the full four-player split-screen action with a midnight boy's sized crew, including one actual midnight boy, my Alman brother, Alman, sweet talking, Steve Alman, making his on-mic button mash debut, not counting that time when he was producing, but still spoke up to Trash Starfield.

And I will do it again. Thank you so much, Ben, for that. having me. That take held up, I think. You were on the right side of history there with Starfield. Love a ringerverse crossover episodes. Midnight Mash, mintmash, whatever we're calling it. We're crossing the streams here. Also with us, Matt James, ringer deputy art lead used some sort of time rewind mechanic to play approximately every game released in 23. So of course, he had to be here. Welcome back, Matt. Thank you for having me. I took some time out from playing every game known to man to be here. So, yeah,

appreciate having. Is there anything left? You've got a couple days left in the years. Is there anything else? I know. I've been, I've actually been catching up. I have a couple new things. Since he last spoke to me. Got some games for Christmas. But I've buried the lead because we have an authentic ring orverse reunion happening here. It gives me great pleasure to tee up for the first time in a few episodes. Founding Button MASH member, Ring orverse royalty, a genuine new rock star, Jessica Clemens. Jess, we missed you. This was such a. Rick Flair, like wrestling. I just saw the Ironcloth. She's coming down, walking a strut.

I'm going, walking a limousine a mile long. Now, back. No, such a good introduction. That movie's very sad. No one go see it. But very happy to be back. Very happy to talk about games and be better than the Game of the Year awards. Yes.

Well, we will give even less time to the developers, I guess, but more time to ourselves. Inquiring minds, including dozens of comments. on Reddit and Facebook want to know where you been, Jess? What are you doing these days? Well, Jessica Clemens has taken up a new life as a freelancer, something that she has not done once in her time in L.A., and I've been here for 10 years. And freelancing is just like a normal thing that a lot of people do.

And I just wanted to have the freedom to go do everything and be on everything and people to see me everywhere, still young in the game. So I was like, oh, I'm going to go do everything. So respectfully, I'm doing everything. That includes appearances on button mash, though. Yes, it does. Doing stuff with the ringerverse and a lot of other places.

So I'm everywhere. Yes, we want you to be everywhere. We don't want to hug the Jessica Cummins, much as we love having you. And we had to get that situation sorted before we could address it on air, which, believe me, we wanted to. Yes, thank you. Thank you. But I'm glad I got to launch this show with you.

always welcome on it and I will look forward to your returns from time to time on Buttmash and Mint Edition in 2024. Someone has to make me play horror games and someone has to make you play puzzle games. So we need each other. I said yes. No, please, never again. I will say there is a puzzle game in my draft today and I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of it. But we'll get to it. We'll get to it. Okay. We are indeed doing a draft. Jess, I think the first pod we did together this year was a draft that built the best Spider-Man movie pod. And it's coming full circle because the last pod we're doing together this year is also a draft. This one will be a little less scary because Mal's not here.

Yes, absolutely. I'm very happy you're here because we have so much to get to. And we talked about games so much this year that it feels right to have you here for the wrap-up. Now, at this point, you've probably all heard or read a ton of top 10 lists. In fact, Matt and I published a joint top 10 with many honorable mentions smuggled in there on the ringer.com. What a great website. So you probably don't need another countdown that ends with Tears of the Kingdom or Baldersgate 3. That's the only source of suspense, which one of those games will win. So we wanted to do something different and have some fun with the format. We're going to

gamify it and settle this the way we settle most of our podcast disputes at the ringer with a draft. That's just kind of our thing. So we've chosen several categories. We'll eat. construct a roster of our favorite games from this year, which we will then put online for public praise and ridicule. But before we do, let's set the scene by briefly recapping some of the highs and lows of this year in gaming. It's still the week of Christmas. So we're handing out noddies and nicest, just some of the trends, some of the developments that defined gaming in 2023, some of which we liked, some of which we disliked. So, Jess, you can start this off. What's your naughty?

What's your nice? You recommended this, and I can't speak towards it enough because it's one of the only games that I'm good at genre-wise. And actually, I take that back. I'm not good at this. But I love the fighting game resurgence that's happened this year. And I love that it's coming back. And I can't speak for that highly enough. It's so hard.

I know it is button-bashing. It's the name of the game. It's the name of our podcast. But it's so fun. And I just love that they're opening the doors for it again, even bringing in storylines that are just so chaotic, so fun. And it's been so long since we got like Street Fighter. And then to bring it back and bring it back like so amazingly, it's just so fun for everybody that is old that plays it. But new people are like, oh, what's this world map I can do?

And I'm like, this is really fun. Just run up and punch people in the head. So I think the fighting game resurgence, I said for Nice. Yeah, that's a really good one. Yeah. Keep riding that train. Oh, keep going. keep coming.

These incredibly long-running franchises, but also really extended a hand to noobs like me. The Real Butt-Mashers just more accessible, right? Like whether it was simplified controls or a reboot with Mortal Kombat. So we got Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat in the same year. And it's going to continue into 2024 because we got Tekken 8 coming soon, Kuma the Bear back. We've got maybe the League of Legends fighting game Project L coming sometime soon.

So, yeah, these are the golden days for fighting games. for fighting games. They're back again. Yes, they're back again. And then hopefully it's just easy for everybody's little hands like Ben to play them. That came off. Shady? Ben has a hard time with these buttons.

I do. I don't know. It's because your hands are small. Maybe it's just, I don't know. The original Xbox controller was a tough one for me. Okay. We should talk about that. I mean, we're smaller then. Maybe by hands were smaller too. I always had big, hands.

Other people are like, let's bring back the original, the OG Xbox controller. I'm like, I cannot reach all the buttons. People didn't know how bad we had it back then. They really, they really did. The carpal tunnel was real. Oh, no, the carpal tunnel is real. For Noddy, I did Xbox acquiring Activision. Microsoft just wants to sink their teeth in every fucking thing.

And this is where I don't like Microsoft. And I worked for them, so I'm allowed to say all this shit. So it was my first internship. And I don't like what they're doing. I don't like the exclusivity of what they're. doing, especially coming as a poor child and getting one console, and then just being told one day, hey, this very popular game that everyone's playing is going to be switched over randomly one day. You probably won't hear about it. It's just going to disappear on yours and it's going to be only on

Game Pass. And for kids that don't have Xboxes, because not a lot of kids have freaking Xboxes anymore, they're playing PlayStation and their PCs. I get the money scheme. I get the money business that they're doing. I just don't like it. I don't trust big companies like Microsoft. Yeah, as opposed to tiny little companies like Activision Blizzard, I guess. Yes. That old mom and pop shop? Maybe. I think it's also, I have a, me and Microsoft have unfinished business.

Let me tell you. And that's from internships. That's from being an intern. Okay. Not in video games, but still. It's got some history here. At least Bobby Kodick is out, right? Today's the day, finally.

So that's something. But yeah, I guess the Federal Trade Commission would approve of your naughty pick here. I think there are some ways in which it could be beneficial. It could be good for some of those studios. Microsoft at least pays lip service to supporting unions, et cetera. But we'll see. It's clearly been one of the trends over the past couple of years. It's just acquisition, consolidation.

And that has already backfired in some cases. So we'll hope it doesn't in this case. Steve, what you got? Well, I'm going to start with the naughty because it almost kind of piggybacks off. of the money scheme that Jess alludes to. And that would be the thousands upon thousands of games industry workers being laid off by multiple companies across the board. Layoffs numbering in the thousands and many, many articles in reporting coming out about

the idea of the games industry not exactly being sustainable for long-term labor. And it basically makes a work environment and a work atmosphere that a lot of game developers and game workers are constant. on the job hunt, constantly in fear of their next paycheck and livelihood. And from what we see about these mega corporations being absorbed by even more mega corporations, it creates an environment where it has to churn out money and turn out these massive quadruple and 10xA titles in order to make a sort of games for live service and whatever things can generate income. And we see a lot of jobs at the cost of it. We see

the unsustainability of like a Destiny 2 not bring a profit ever since Sony acquired it and is just, Sony's just waiting in the wings to chomp that up at the bit and it's a story that keeps coming. It's

not a great thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's never been a stable profession where you could count on working at the same place for your entire career unless you work for Nintendo maybe, but this year was just over and above the typical year. Kind of a correction or a reaction to the post-pandemic downturn, right?

When no one could go outside, they were all living like I do in non-pandemic times. People suddenly discovered, hey, video games are great. And then a lot of private equity came in and said, wow, it's a great business. Let's pour a ton of money into this. And then people went outside again, some people, not judging. And that led to fewer players and a little less revenue. and this massive reaction, perhaps overreaction. It wasn't just the video game industry,

also tech, also media, some industries that may affect those of us on this podcast from time to time. But yeah, it was a rough year. Great year for video games, rough year for the video game industry. And lots of closure, studios closing down, games coming and going quickly. Also tough just because there was such stiff competition this year that if your game came out at the wrong time, you were sort of screwed. Like, games were moving around release dates,

but the calendar was too crowded to get out of the way of every big game. So some games just kind of slipped through the cracks, and I feel sorry for those games and the people who made them. Hey, Horizon Zero Dawn, take notes. They don't budge. Zelda's coming out this week?

We don't care. Not the first time. What was the good news? Well, the good news is probably a big reflection on what is likely going to be the game of the year for pretty much everybody else that said it. And it's thanks to Balders Gate 3 for getting everybody in the world

interested in Dungeons and Dragons. That is probably a net positive in every single respect. This entire year, my TikTok feed, my YouTube algorithm, every single thing that I come across is people, A, discovering Baldur's Gate and B discovering, oh, this is what Dungeons and Dragons is.

This is like you could basically think of, do, perceive, and create anything you want and every single thing is at your fingertips, this is a wonderful new opportunity. And so many friends of mine, acquaintances, people online, I've been playing Dunds and Dragons for the better part of like 10 years. And everybody asked me, oh, so wait, what do you actually get to do in this? Is it like Balders Gate 3? I'm like, it's kind of a lot like Balders Gate 3. And let me tell you about all these books that you can read. Yeah, I was like just a lot more books. Let me preach the gospel to you now. I think that that's a wonderful thing because not only is it a great

onboarding experience for something that I personally enjoy, but it's a really good creative outlet for a lot of people that have come in my life. It's a wonderful thing. That is a very nice thing that happened this year. Yeah. Shout out to the D&D movie, too. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. That played a part. Dude, both those things paid very positive parts in D&D. But the fun thing about that is that that movie came out before Baldersgate 3 so that every time that we were like, oh, well, he clearly failed a persuasion check there. Like, people don't know what we were talking about until they're like, oh, so it's a dice. Oh, okay. Right. Yeah. I guess the only silver lining of all the layoffs, you're naughty, is that it did lead to some collective action,

some unionization. That was sort of a trend, but it gathered momentum just by necessity. People are trying to build in some protections. But yeah, it's tough out there. But not for D&D. Matt, naughty and nice. Notty and nice. Let's start with the nice. So this is a golden age of handheld gaming that were finally in again. Handheld PCs were huge this year. Steam Deck released the OLED edition, which is gorgeous, much better screen, better battery life. It's been the year of the ROG ally.

The Lenovo Legion Go came out. Just tons of products on the market. You know, more competition is making for better devices out there. And also, you know, on the emulation front, there's a ton of handhelds that are out now. the market is fierce. Android handhelds and smaller handhelds than that. It's a little bit of a hidden world right now, I think, to most people. But I think in the next year, you're really going to see handheld devices that are kind of not in the mainstream right now, kind of seep in. It's a really, really exciting time to hold a video game in your hand again. And the nostalgia is overflowing for a lot of us. Yeah. Strong year for the Switch, too. Even the last gasp of the system. Just lots of great stuff came out. So everyone wanted a switch or a switch alike, something like it,

even if it was a Steam equivalent. I'm with you on that. What was your not-so-good news? Well, PSV-R-2, man. Extremely, not Intel. Not mobile. We laughed. Yeah, so, man, I was ready to buy this thing.

I was like, this is it. This is going to be it. They're going to crush it. And I'm ready to buy it. And then the price tag came out. I said, well, you know what? Let me wait. And you know what?

I am still waiting. And I think I'm going to be waiting a while because you know that saying if you build it, they will come? Well, they built it and the games are not coming. No. They're not. And neither are the players. And neither are the players.

So maybe that'll change next year. Maybe there's just all these games in development and they're going to come out. And we're all going to have to buy. This sounds really unrealistic, doesn't it? It seems like it's a flop. It seems like it's dead just as soon as it has arrived. Yeah. So keep an eye on that in the next year.

Can I ask, like, I feel like we always wonder if VR is going to ever officially die, or if that trend, or if that corner of the gaming industry is ever going to, like, actually stop itself. But it seems to keep winding back up every so odd. often because Sony will always perpetuate something going on. Quest will always come out with a new iteration. There's always going to be like a slight, small, very expensive resurgence for the enthusiasts to glom onto.

Every so often, do you ever think that it's going to fully go away? Or do you think that it just really needs like another decade in the oven to finally get going? And like, okay, if it's the size of your glasses, then we'll finally be able to have something. I think we'll eventually get there. I really do.

I think there's two things. I think one is the burden, the physical burden of having VR on your person and dealing with the space that you're in. And the other thing I think is hands. This is my theory, at least, is that when we get to a point in VR where your hands are easily manipulating things by finger by finger and it feels immersive in that way, I think the combination of those two things eventually,

I think we'll make VR happen. But I do think you're right. We're just in a cycle of like, let's check in every few years, see if this is a thing yet. And I think someday it will be, but I don't know how much closer we are than a few years ago.

Yeah, I think it's too compelling to ever go away completely. It's just the stuff of sci-fi dreams. But really, when you try it, when you play it, when good games actually do come out, it really is pretty great. Like, I'm in the target market for a PSVR2, which is why it's even more disappointing that I really wasn't even tempted to pick one up this year,

because I have a PSVR. I like it. But the PSVR 2 just didn't have enough games. There's no backward compatibility. I understand why there isn't technologically, but it's just an extremely tough cell and an expensive cell. So I don't know if it was a completely lost year for VR entirely, like the MetaQuest 3 came out, as you said, and was sort of a success. But for PSVR 2, yeah, there just doesn't really seem to be much of a heartbeat there. You need some kind of killer app or some library to be built up to justify the expense, and it's just not there yet. That's the thing.

I can't, I can only recommend maybe two killer apps for VR in the existence that have ever messed around with it. And I've had, I still have a Quest 2, like pre-Facebook acquisition. And I don't think of there's anything that, like, justifies this very heavy price tag, let alone a catalog of games to actually explore. Let me give you my nice and naughty. The nice, I know we've all enjoyed this, surprise game drops. That was a thing all year long, starting in January with Hi-Fi Rush,

Metroid Prime remastered in February, and then in December, God of War, Ragnarok, Valhalla, Final Fantasy 16, DLC, no warning in most of those cases. There were some cases where, say, the finals or Xbox Balders Gate would drop, sort of without warning, but we knew it was coming at some point, and they just sort of surprise released it on us. But in a lot of cases, things came out that we had no idea we're even in the pipeline, right? And in many cases, they were free.

It's like, wait, I get this now. You're just telling me that this exists today, and it's already available. And in some cases, I can just have it without giving you money or anything. So this is my favorite trend of the year. Because usually game development, if we know that something's in development, like it drags on for years and years.

It's so impossible to make video games now. It'll be years with no notice, no news, no updates, and you're just wondering when will this come out. I love this trend of just like, I didn't even know that I was waiting for this. And here it is. It kind of gets my hopes up. It's like, what will come out tomorrow?

I don't know. Maybe some great game that I didn't know is even in development will be in my hands tomorrow. So I don't know if this is like spoiling me or if this will turn out to be a long-term trend because not every company can do this, can afford to just keep these things secret, but when it happens, it's awesome.

There's this weird, like, thing in my brain that breaks whenever, like, a hi-fi rush or a god of war valhalla comes out. And it's like, oh, like, in the world of games, PR's kind of a scam. Like, it's kind of a scam. And it also is, like, a thing that inadvertently generates bad will whenever something goes wrong. Like, if Rock Studies, Suicide Squad killed the,

Justice League just came out in February and you didn't know about it, you would never know the turmoil that that game came out with. And you'd actually probably have a better time with it after the fact. And I don't think I've ever had a better experience playing High Fi Rush knowing that like, okay, I see one trailer and the next thing I know it's out and in my hands and ready to play it. It makes me want to play it more just because it's there and already at my disposal. It's a weird thing because it's this kind of like interesting idea where Hi-Fi Rush isn't this giant AAA game that's going to be taking dozens and dozens of hours of your time.

It's a great little small experience. And it's that weird introduction of that like middle ground of gaming where things can like not be too big. But I've loved it ever since. And I didn't need that big of a buildup for it. I loved it. Yeah. You don't have years and years of anticipation so that you build up expectations

that it can never match. And sometimes you see something in a trailer and an announcement and then they have to cut a feature along the way. And then everyone's bummed because they thought that was going to be in it. None of that. Just skip it all. Just put it directly in our hands. Love it. Please keep doing it.

My noddy for the year is kind of the antithesis of that. The thing that makes that so difficult is that we had a whole lot of leaks and hacks this year. Things came out that were not intended to come out, right? We learned a lot of things that companies prefer. to keep secret. Now, in some of those cases, that can be entertaining. Maybe it's sort of a victimless crime. It's informative. It tells us things about the video game industry, which is usually so secretive that sheds lights on how games get made. In other cases, though, it can be really damaging. It can be really disruptive. It's not a new phenomenon, but it happened a whole lot this year, whether it was

suicide squad leaks, whether it was leaks in the Microsoft Activision Antitrust. case, whether it was GTA 6 and 5, just everything constantly leaking. You know, if it's like a trailer gets leaked the day before it's going to come out and then whatever the trailer comes out and we have to rearrange a ring reverse recording, but it's still the most popular trailer ever. Like, it's not that long-term damaging. But the Insomniac hack, for instance, goes way beyond that. Yeah, we learned a lot.

We learned that Insomniac is to marvel what Rocks is to DC, that they're just going to be pumping out Marvel games for the next decade. We basically have a Marvel video game universe being built here. So let's hope there's not too much superhero fatigue or it's going to be bad news for Insomniac. But it was also bad news for Insomniac because they got held hostage. They didn't pay the hackers. And all this private information came out, all the developers, their personal information, which is not great because developers get harassed by fans, quote unquote,

fans often. So now people have their personal information, their personal private communications, correspondence about potential layoffs. So now people know that that conversation is going on at the studio. That's just really not good. Right. So we don't want that. If it's just some juicy gossip about how much Microsoft is willing to pay for a certain game or something, fine. But when it comes to basically doxing people and putting stuff out there that none of us would want to be out there about our personal lives and workplaces. That just takes it too far. Should we mention just a few more, just kind of a lightning round of naughty and nices for this year. We've talked about some of these at length, right? Good game-related TV movie adaptations. That was a big

trend this year that we talked about. We potted about. We wrote about. We had lucrative game adaptations with the Mario movie, Five Nights at Freddy's Jessica Clemens' favorite. We had the of us being super popular, but also winning awards. We had some surprises like twisted metal. Even the low end, even the quote-unquote bad video game adaptations weren't that bad by historical standards, things like Grand Turismo. And then you had animated stuff. You had Castlevania Nocturn.

This just felt like the year, right? This was the tipping point. And there's more coming in 2024 and beyond. Obviously, the success this year is not going to slow down Hollywood's appetite for the video game adaptation. So, buckle up. But for once, that actually seems to be good news now. Anything that gets the Josh Hutchinson redemption arc going is an ACE's in my book. I don't love Five Nights at Fridays. First off, I need to correct that because you say that. I will not. I love five next to guys. I think it's fun. Oh, well, the game, love.

Movie is fun. Josh Hutchinson, put it back in the box. I loved him in 2011, and I need that. That ship does not need to come back. I think everybody deserves a second chance at redemption and fame. And I think that he is a swell. He seems like a small guy. I think fame, redemption, go for it. Thirst traps on my TikTok, get out of here. I don't need that.

A couple other good things. Huge year for Nintendo, right? Even the last guest, the tail end of the Switch. We had the Mario movie. We had a theme park opening, Super Nintendo World. New Zelda, new Mario, new Pikmin. kind of new Metroid. It was just a flexing year for Nintendo, right?

Also, one of my naughties, though, is that Switch ports struggled this year, right? Like, first party Nintendo developed Switch games, great. They managed to just eke out more out of that system every year. Everyone else, though, it's just the longest loading times, the weirdest mortal combat characters you've ever seen.

Buggy as hell, I think it's time for Switch 2. But that's a topic for 2024. Other good news, we had a great year for DLC and comebacks, games that kind of changed the narrative after starting slow. We'll probably draft some of those. That's kind of a category. So we will get to that. But a bunch of games that sort of sullied their reputations early made it all the way back this year.

It's never too late. Also, next gen finally meant next gen this year. Or maybe we can just finally say current gen. because a lot of games were finally developed just for the current generation of consoles. Now that there aren't hardware shortages, now that you can actually get your hands on a Series X or a PS5, developers were free to develop for those systems and really make the most of that hardware,

other than the Switch in contrast to the Switch. And I think that paid off in games like Spider-Man to it. It finally felt like, okay, this generation is here. We're seeing what they can do with that. Also, huge year for RPGs. Every kind of RPG, action RPGs, D&D RPGs, turn-based RPGs, we have a whole category in our draft devoted to RPGs, and it's a deep category. And a lot of the great games this year came from developers all over the world. It wasn't just U.S. and Japan, the old standbys, tons of studios in Europe, Spain, France, everywhere else got into the action this year.

Alan Wake 2, Balders Gate, Cacoon, Sea of Stars, Blastomous 2, the Talas Principle 2, On and on, that's part of the reason why this year was so good for games, is that more and more people were making games and they were breaking through. A few more, noddies, things that weren't so great, sort of a live service slump this year, right? Which I guess could be good or bad, depending on whether you like live service games and whether you want them to continue to be made. Okay, so maybe that's a nice for you.

Nice. Not so much if you were making them. A lot of Sony live service games got delayed. Suicide Squad got delayed and reworked. The Last of Us, multiplayer spin-off, canceled, destiny lost players, Bungy had layoffs, a bunch of games shut down. Marvel's Avengers, Babylon's Fall, Knockout City, Rumbleverse. I think the market just got too crowded.

Just too many copycats, not everyone can be Fortnite, and people found that out this year. Also, I complimented Nintendo, the Xbox first-party lineup. I don't want to rile up the fanboys here, but sort of a so-so year, right? This was like a prove-it, put up or shut up, make-or-break kind of year. And it was better than prior years. High-Fi rush, great surprise we talked about.

Forza Motorsport, pretty good. But Starfield, all-and-all, kind of a disappointment relative to the expectations. Redfall flopped. Good game pass year. But I don't know if it was everything that Phil Spencer wanted it to be. I mean, is anything ever what Phil Spencer wants it to be? Because if it was, then we'd be wearing our Xbox jumper suits right now. That's true.

Not Jess. From Edge. Yeah, no, not Jess. She's still, she's got a bone to pick with Microsoft. Look here. Over her back pay or something. I'm going to stab them in the heart with a steak because they're not going to do. Whoa.

That's Red Soap life out of Dane. Show us that 3D printed swords you got again, Jess. Yeah. Oh, I just knocked over everything on my desk. This is what I get. This is what I get. And lastly, I guess the AI apocalypse didn't quite come this year, but it was a big year for AI, not just in gaming, but also in gaming, gaming maybe more so than anywhere else, right?

And that sort of replaced the NFT craze and the metaverse craze. And there was similarly a lot of nonsense. So there were fears and there were fads and there was a bunch of garbage that just had the buzzword of AI. And then there were some things that were sort of disconcerting, like are we going to put people out of work, but also is there some potential here? Could we do away with some busy work and make games better in some ways? It's obviously overturning the entire industry. And so that was a constant refrain. I guess it could be naughty or nice. It'll definitely be naughty when SkyNet happens. But as for now,

I guess that's still sort of an open question. But that was definitely one of the things that defined this year in gaming for better or worse, for better and worse. I don't know how you all feel about the year in AI. You naughty SkyNet. Yeah. Yeah, definitely SkyNet's naughty. All right. We got to get to the games

because the games were great despite all the naughties. However, quick programming notes before we get to our draft, next Wednesday, the Midnight Boys will discuss season two of what if. Revisit their predictions for 2023,

make some new predictions for 2024. Next Friday, Mint Edition, will whip out the confidence meter for 2024 nerd culture releases. I'm sure it's all going to be great, guys. Over on House of Our, Mal and Joe, we'll cover episodes three and four Percy Jackson next Wednesday, followed by an annual tradition next Friday's 24 House of Our Hype Drafts. I'm guessing no games will be selected on the House of Our Hypedrafts. So that's where we come in. Just keep it following Monday.

We'll have hype pods of our own here on Buttonmash, where we'll talk about what we're looking forward to in gaming next year. So email us at ringerversegaming at gmail.com. to let us know what you're excited for. Lots of great games coming out early next year, just when you thought you'd have time to catch up on all the great games that came out this year. Not so fast.

Speaking to which, let's draft those great games that came out this year. This episode is brought to by Nass Energy, introducing new Nass Energy Grand Prix Guava for those that want to be fueled up and fired up with a hundred-bound-hour tropical tasting power, ignite your taste, start your engine,

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Corn salsa. 40 grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New Sweet Green wraps. hit different. Order now at order. dot sweetgreen.com. It was just really tough to decide not just what the best game

or games of the year was this year, but even if you narrowed it down to a subset of gaming this year, it was tough to decide, like if you wanted to decide which was the best entry in a long-running fighting game franchise that was also surprisingly accessible. You had Street Fighter 6 or you had Mortal Kombat 1,

the best fishing game that wasn't really a fishing game, Dredge or Dave the Dres, diver, the best game about climbing a mysterious tower. You had Jusant or Chats of Sinar, right? The Better Souls-like, Liza P, Remnant 2, retro role-playing games, Sea of Stars, Octopath Traveler 2, on and on, even if you wanted the best survival horror remake. How do you decide, Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, the better Nintendo remake or remaster, Metroid Prime remastered, Super Mario RPG.

Can't go wrong with any of those choices, but we have to make some difficult choices. shall we go over the ground rules just to make sure we and the listeners are all on the same page? Because drafts can be kind of confusing. Just like, yes, please, please. And don't yell at me. Don't yell at me if I choose the wrong one.

I would never. So here's how it's going to work. We have six categories. Each of us has to draft a game in each category. We have role-playing games, action-adventure games, ongoing games. So that can be either a live service game,

that never really ends or a game that got DLC or some sort of expansion. So not necessarily released in 2023, but added to spruced up in some way in 2023. Next category, the rerun. Now, this can be a remake. It can be a remaster. It can be a re-release, whatever you want. It just has to be a game that came out in some form before and is coming out again, whether it's in almost identical form or remade from the first.

round up. Literally anything dog does at this point, pretty much. Indy is its own category. We can all argue over whether Dave the Diver qualifies again. And lastly, wildcard, which can be any game in any genre. So some games won't fit into anything except wild card. Some games could qualify for multiple categories. So let's say you have an indie RPG you want to draft. You could take that as your indie game. You could take it as your RPG. You could take it as your wild card. So you've got options. There's some strategy here. Depends on the depth of the categories. And genre definitions can be kind of squishy. So we can be a bit liberal with those. If you want to argue that an action-adventure game has enough RPG elements to count as an

RPG, you can make that case. We have five people on the call counting producer Devon so we could put it to a majority vote and decide. We're going to do a snake draft. And you can fill your categories in any order. Very important. So we're not just going to all draft. We're our RPGs at once and all draft our action venture games at once. There's some freedom here. This is a non-linear draft. As long as you have one of each at the end, the sequence is entirely up to you. Producer Devin has randomly determined a draft order.

So this was out of our hands. No one cooked the books here. And guess what? Jess, you got the first pick here. This is exciting. It's Jess, me, Steve, and then Matt. Matt is so lucky Matt You don't understand how lucky you are

No I do trust me God damn it gets to go twice A lot of fantasy leagues And I know this is a good spot to be This is horrible as number one Because I'm gonna just take I'm gonna take one that I know you guys already Have in your drafts

But it's not like the one God damn it I love the stress that comes from Jess's drafts I'm sweating I'm sweating It's a chaos draft Because you know what happened with the Spider-Man one I chose a stupid one I chose it

I chose Catherine Hahn, Doc, and everyone got silent and was like, that wasn't even on my board. Everyone was like, that wasn't even on my board. And I was like,

oh, okay. You were following your muse. Just take Travis Kelsey. That's the best advice. Let's go. Did Travis Kelsey play a game? I'm going to do for, I guess,

because we got rid of open world. I'm going to take it for action adventure, because it is kind of an action. adventure. I just need to take it. I'm taking Spider-Man. Okay. I just have to take it.

I just have to take him. I got to take it because I know someone else is going to. Yep. I'll be honest. I'll be honest. This, Spider-Man 2 wasn't on any of my categories. Well, that's because you're a traitor.

That's because you're a traitor, Steve. That's because you're a trait. I know you voted in the Game of the Year awards. I know that this is as much hater energy as I have. I genuinely loved playing Spider-Man too. I think Spider-Man 2. I think Spider-Man too is a fantastic game. It just,

it never, really stuck out to me as the same level of great as that first one was. You're insane. And that to me just doesn't really push it over the top for anything that I would put it in this draft for.

I just don't. I played it. I hundred percent of it. It's a great game. It's a fantastic game. I love this choice. And it's not even on your board. It's not even on my board. So I'm not in L.A. right now and I have COVID. Because I would find you. Because you would take that that pink sword and you would find me.

I'd go, Oh, shing! Wait, wait, oh, ching. No one can see it. No one can see it also. But no, Spider-Man 2 is a fantastic game. It's a very, very good game. You know, we're collectively going to draft 24 games here, right?

So it doesn't have to be at the top of your board. But to not even be on it, a game you 100% it that you were saying you. I had a great time with it. I just, it didn't stand out to me as more the ones that I wanted to talk about this year. Okay. Wow. All right. On to the next one.

On to the next one. Okay. Well, I guess we've got to run on action-adventure games here because I'm also going to take my action-adventure game. Oh, boy. Look, there are two finalists for Game of the Year this year, right? I mean, most lists are going to end with one or the other. Right.

They're both great. But the one that I spent more time with personally, if only because I had to wait a while for Paltors Kate to come out on console, was the legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. Yeah. You know, it's a chalky pick, right? I mean, it's the first on my board here. But how can you go wrong?

I love this game. The only way you could ding it is by saying that maybe it wasn't quite as innovative as Baldersgate or even as Breath of the Wild. It was obviously building on the foundation of Breath of the Wild. But it didn't just run that game back, right? It changed things. It added things. Like Spider-Man. Yeah.

We're not getting into this again. We're not. But I did put tears in the case. kingdom on as my action adventure too. It's a good one. It's got to be there, right? Yeah. Look, don't sleep on the web wings in Spireman, Steve.

That was a genuine innovation. No, that was a genuine innovation. That's fine. Okay. All right. Also, Steve, I don't know what you're playing at. I don't mean to take you. I don't know what to play it at.

I wanted to craft myself as a villain of this draft already. Go ahead, but this is a draft. And you are, we're trying to win the people. We're trying to win the people's going. And I feel like, work the people too. I don't want the baseball. I'm just going to these games. I respect it.

I respect it. Two games dominated the discourse this year, right? I mean, Baldersgate owned the internet for months of the time, but so did Tears of the kingdom. It's incredible, really, that anything arguably surpassed or even came close to Tears of the kingdom given the reception to that game. When that game came out, I think we all assumed that it had sewn up Goaty right then and there.

Right. And the fact that people were experimenting with that game. all year long, that they were breaking it, that they were building things, that they were figuring out how the physics system works and all the incredible things you can do in that engine, the fact that that game works as well as it does, despite how much freedom it gives the player, which you could also say about Baldersgate. I would have taken one or the other if the other was off the board. So got to go to yours of the kingdom. Steve, your pick. My pick. Now I have to pick this one because I have to take for my RPG is Baldersgate 3.

Baltimore's Day 3 is going to be talked about for like the next decade plus. Yeah. Not only because of how good of a game it is, but the idea of what it brings to the table of what games can do and what games can be and how ubiquitous of a hold it can have unpopular culture across anybody's interests,

anybody's actual creative endeavor towards wanting to be a part of the gaming experience. Baldur's Gate 3 did. And anybody that was willing to try it, anybody that was willing to put in some time and explore, genuinely explore, is rewarded tenfold. And I don't think, like, we can all remember, like, amazing things that came across our YouTube or TikTok algorithms of people just trying shit out and it working or not working spectacularly. That's the D&D experience.

That's the peak of gaming experience. The people at Larian have made something that I did. know could be done. And it deserved everything that I got this year. Every single amount of goodwill was earned. It's an incredible, incredible game. And it was also sort of a surprise, right? Not a surprise release like the ones we talked about earlier.

But no one saw it coming, right? We knew that Baldersgate 3 was coming out. And obviously it's a name brand, but the franchise had been dormant for so long and different developer. I don't think anyone really foresaw that this was going to be, arguably the biggest game of the year and maybe have the biggest legacy. Because you're right, as many great games as there were this year, I don't know that you could stack up to some of the great gaming years of the past

in terms of just influence and legacy and innovation, except for Ballersgate. Like, it's tough to do something totally new in the RPG genre, which dates back to before we were born. And there were a lot of great RPGs this year, but a lot of them were kind of in the mold of games that we're, we played before and did that incredibly well, Baldur's Gate 3 felt like it just pushed the genre forward, right? Exactly.

It made D&D big, as you said before, bigger than it ever was. And to the people that this game took by surprise, like this was in active, open, early access development on PC for the better part of four years. And people were tooling around with this for a minute. And even in, and like I bought into this. I had owned Baldersgate 3 since the past few years.

And I hadn't touched it because I just had good faith from Larian's working Divinity 2 that they would make something great with it. And I had no idea that they would hit it out of the park this hard. It was absolutely staggering. Nat, you have two picks to make. Ah, thrilled. Damn it. Okay.

I'm going to start off in the category of rerun. Okay. Okay. I'm going to pick Resident Evil for remake. Okay. Nice. Okay. Man, this game, you know, when Ben and I put together our games of the year list on the ringer.com,

we determined that the remakes were sort of ineligible for some of our awards of Game of the Year, which I stand by. But also at the same time, Resident Evil 4 was one of my favorite gaming experiences of the year. They took a game that was already pretty much perfect and re-released it with quality of life changes and other. updated graphics, and man, it was just one of the best things I played this year, hands down, so much fun. I have to pick that. I got to pick that because it really is amazing. And I've been a big Resident Evil guy since the beginning days of PlayStation of terrible voice acting. So I got to represent for Resident Evil.

Yeah. I thought about this in an ongoing game, too, just because of the separate ways DLC, right? Could have qualified in either. Yeah, I guess so, right? I mean, there's also, you know, there's some games that came out and in the same year released DLC as well. Yes. There's another one I might pick later that I did something similar.

We'll see. There's one you're looking at it. That's my first pick. Okay. And then I'm going to pick in the action adventure category. The other real scary game this year, maybe even scarier. No. No.

No. I knew I should have chosen first. That's right. That was my biggest fear. You really had me going when you pick. I'm running the board on scary. Yeah. Damn, now I don't have anything.

God, damn. This game rules. Alan Wake 2 also could have picked in the musical category. Hell yeah. Hell yeah, baby. Hell yeah, baby. Alan Wake 2, I played Alan Wake, I played Alan Wake.

I played Control. I love that little university of going. And I still had no idea that Alan Wake 2 was going to be this good. Damn. It's one of the best directed video games. I've ever played. Maybe the scariest game I've played in a long time. I don't really like playing games that are super scary unless it's worth it.

And man, was it worth it? I can't recommend it enough. I really didn't want to go into that basement to replace that fuse. Yes. The lights off. Why are fuse is always out, man? They're hard to find. Limited bullets.

You're getting attacked by a wolf. you don't know where to shoot. Stay tuned for my next horror game pitch where you were just an electrician going into basements, fixing fuses. That game, that sounds like the scariest game I've ever heard in my life. Ghost love fuse boxes.

They really do. And they love placing them next to scary pieces of paper for you to look at and then jump out in front of you. I love Alan Wake to you. And like the game direction is absolutely incredible. And it's this amazing balance of immaculate tone, some like David Lynchian

style weirdness, and the worst, cheapest jump scares of your life. Yeah, that's like, get me so mad, and I'm like, also what it's about.

That's what it is. That's what makes it so good. I'm just walking. And then there's a zombie head of his face in your face. That's also like horror video games. It's just always been horror video games. Like,

hey, this cheesy, stupid. It's literally just you're not doing. You're not playing all the ridiculous ones. And this is so good. I have to agree with you. I actually really disliked some of those jump scares. And yet it's still one of the best games. I was playing it a lot on the couch with headphones on next to my wife.

And she would just see me just like jump, like a foot in the air on the couch, like silent in the room. And I'm just like jumping off the couch. She just keep laughing at me. And I'm like, well, there's a man's face in my face. There's a space in my face. I could not finish that game. That's the best compliment I can pay. But it was so good that I watched the rest of it with the lights on sitting next to someone at all times.

Because I wanted to see what I was missing, at least, even though I didn't have the nerve to play it. One last point on Alan Wake 2 real quick is just that the storytelling of Alan Wake 2 is so phenomenal. So good. The way in which the story is told is really, you can only. tell a story in this way, in this interactive medium of games, it's just really amazing how the story kind of unfolds in this game. And it's worth noting. I'm so happy. I don't care how the rest of this draft goes or how weird Steve picks because Alan Wake 2 is all that matter to me. And that's all that matters. I was playing the first Alan Wake, no one liked that game. They didn't care

about it. And then this Ellen Wake 2, I was so happy at how well it did. I'm just, oh, I can die happy now. Washington, Washington State. Rise up. Do you want to make next, Steve? Probably not a weird pick. I think that I'm going to I'll probably take the category that I was like, I'd say more and less the least prepared for, but I

genuinely enjoyed this one. In my remake category, I'm going to do the best thing that EA did this year and that is the Dead Space remake. Oh, okay, there go. Man, had a blast with this one. We're running it on Scary as well. Really, all this needed to do was

put a shiny new coat of paint on an already phenomenal game. And it more or less did that. But again, there were some really great quality of life things that made you realize just how long in the tooth the first Dead Space was. And I never really thought how well this could have been improved. But I was very, very impressed. This is a gorgeous looking game.

And playing that on PC at full spec is a real treat. I loved Dead Space. And this was my favorite remake of the year that wasn't RE4 because Matt James picked it. I love Dead Space too. I actually never played the original. So it was particularly a treat to me to be able to play through that game this year. And that would have been my remake pick if it weren't for Resident Evil 4. I loved Dead Space.

It was so much fun. And like I really hope that they keep this going because I really like Dead Space One is really great. I need them to do Dead Space too. I think that has a lot more, like, that would be the equivalent of an RE4 remake if they really will. All right. I'm up. There's a pick I want to make basically a block Matt. Okay, good.

I was like, don't take from me. You can't stop me. But I'm going to get to draft again before Matt does. So I'm going to wait and I'm going to take the highest game still left on my board. Shut. Not Jessica Clemens' board. Don't worry, Jess. I'm not going to steal this one from you.

But I'm going to go with my wild card, which I'm inclined to leave toward the end of the draft, except that I don't think this game fits into any other category. We didn't have a platformer category. So I'm going to go with Super Mario Wonder. Still on the board. It fell to me here. I'm thrilled to get this with my second pick. I knew what I was doing.

I knew I was saying goodbye to Mario Wonder. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Now, we had a divisive conversation and reaction to that game, Jess. but I... Yeah, me, you guys could take it. I really admired the way that Nintendo went about trying to reinvent 2D Mario.

It obviously follows certain templates and traditions that you expect with 2D Mario, but they injected enough life, enough creativity into this. They just threw everything at the wall. They brought out all their ideas that they just couldn't fit into any previous 2D Mario game. And it felt fresh to me. It felt like this is old, but it's all. also new. It's kind of a blend of 3D and 2D, old school Mario and new school Mario. It was endlessly inventive. I thought it was weird, which is what you want a Mario game to be with the

flowers, with all the strategy that went into it. You could replay this game countless ways, just with different power-ups and finding different secrets in this game. So this is, I don't know, one of the five or so best games of the year, certainly top 10, I would say. So I've just, I got to go. with my wild card here because I think it only fits into the wild card category. Super Mario Wonder for me. Yeah, I haven't cared about a 2D Mario game

since probably Super Nintendo and I barely even got myself to buy Mario Wonder and it blew me away. I couldn't believe it. I'm never like inherently impressed or like thrilled that a new Mario comes out that's 2D because I'm like,

like how are you going to literally reinvent the wheel? Like the wheel that is platforming. And every time it's like, oh, wait a minute. No, the wheel still works and the wheel's great. We use wheels all the time. Yeah, they just made a different version of a wheel. It's not, it's not, it rocks. It's as I can't get mad at them making a new Mario game,

even though I pretty much know what I'm going to get most of the time. It's all about the personality and small little things they can inject into that. actually make it fun and enjoyable. That's where Mario counts, and that's where Mario still excels. And I can respect that. I personally, because it came off like, I hated it.

I love Super Mario 3 so much. And I think the fun part of that for me was not only just the nostalgia, but just like seeing how fast you could do it. And it was more about like obstacles. And that's when I realized, I was like, oh, I don't know if I'm the biggest fan of these games now,

because when I was younger, I was just speeding through it. Yeah, not enough whistles. Yeah, and I was like, this isn't meant for speeding through. This is for you to enjoy and do everything. And I was like, no, I want to run. I want to run. And I will stand behind Super Mario Galaxy for the rest of my life. Oh, yeah.

Hell yeah. It's my turn. Yeah, back to back. I might have questions for mine. And this is, again, I'm playing for the people. Okay. I'm playing for the people because for RPG, I think I'm going to take cyberpunk. Okay. Yes, you can.

Is that okay? Okay. I think that, yeah. I mean, it's an RPG. I was like, I'm willing to, no, I'm not willing to move. So I looked at the other list of where I could put it. I could put it on the DLC. I could put it under my DLC, but I had an ongoing game for my DLC.

And I'd rather put Cympunk an RPG because I don't want to put Diablo. I think it qualifies, right? anyone want to dissentic it? As long as you have the semantics of Phantom Liberty, I think it qualifies. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And, okay. Yes. This was, yeah, Cyberpunk was actually going to be,

it was at the top of my board for ongoing game, just because of the way that it went from the same flop that made everyone mad to, oh, this is actually good now. And also Phantom Liberty, right? So it was the patch to the original and then the DLC. So, yeah, that would have been my top pick

in that category, but it would have fit, I mean, you could have fitted in probably like four different categories here. I was thinking about, I guess I could put it in, well, I have a specific game for remake and then I have a specific game for ongoing. So I was like, I think for RPG, first of all, of course, my RPG was Boulder's Gate and I knew I was not going to get that as soon as I took Spider-Man. So I put Cympunk as a Phantom Liberty as my second. Diablo, I love to death when I first started playing. And then it drifted away. And I think that's how a lot of other people felt.

It just didn't hold up for a very long time. But yeah, I'm going to take Cyrupunk 277 Phantom Liberty for my RPG. And, oh, this is hard. I don't think you guys are going to take my ongoing game because I think I'm the only person that plays that game. I, no, okay. God damn it. I love the dialogue you do with yourself while you're drafted.

Well, it's because it's a, I don't need to fight for this, but I just want to take it from Steve. Are you going to address strategically? Are you going to take it from me, Jesse? I think I'm going to take this from you. Will you guys care about the remake? No, you guys won't care about the choice I've made for remake. I think I'm going to take Dave the Diver. Oh, wow.

And the thing is, in what category? In what category? Is it Indy or is this wild card? I put it on Indy. Are we going to fight about why? That's fun. It's fun. No.

I mean, I'm not fighting you. The Game Awards did it. It caused a huge backlash. Let me lie. Let me lie. Let me take it away from India. I'm putting it under Wildcard.

All right. Because I have a lot of picks for indie that I can use and you took away Al-Nake too. I was like, no one's going to touch Al-Wake. I'll put it out. That's fun. Man, did the touch. Touch.

Yeah. I know. I watched people play it. and it looked really fun. And I downloaded it. I just never opened it. I never opened it. We were playing so many games around the time of Dave the Diver.

I just did not have time to play it. It's one of those games that, like, it feels like if you could package a Mario game into an actual, like, narrative that made sense. That's what Dave the Diver actually is. Because you do so much in this game that seems like random bullshit. Like, you're just running around serving sushi. You're chopping up things and throwing them into pots.

You're going underwater and fishing for fish. and like then you're going to a farming simulator. Like there's way too many things that this game does and it shouldn't do any of them that well. It has no right to. And it did. You were the first person. You were as soon,

you like, I remember the day you downloaded it. You were like, have you heard of Dave the Diverts on sale on Steam? And I was like, no. And you were like, I'm going to play it. And then you were the first person that put it on everyone's radar. Yeah.

Yeah. It was big. Yeah. Me too. Me too. It's incredible. And it's the idea that there is, it's a cacophony of school.

small things that just like that hook you for like a very small amount of time you're never doing one thing for more than like I'd say five minutes and then you're off doing that and then now you're cooking sushi and now you're managing the restaurant and now you're managing your underwater inventory and it's a wonderful experience it's so bright and funny and like it's it's one of the best games of the year god damn it jess you took one the good one i did it and i knew that you would be upset I didn't know it was going to be our bad vins. I got some juice in my later draft. I'm all worked up.

No, I'm good. I'm good. This is good for you, Jess. I'm happy for you. Thank you. Merry Christmas. I'm going to make a spite pick two, although it is, it's also personal taste. I won't be spiting Steve.

I will be spiting Matt and blocking Matt in this case, probably. Okay, go ahead. For my RPG, I'm going to take Final Fantasy 16. Wow. I didn't think you had it in you. Oh, yeah. I did. Did you like Final Fantasy 16?

I did like Final Fantasy 16. I didn't know you did. Yeah. Now, this could have gone in ongoing games too. Not as much as I did. Yeah. Not as much maybe as Matt did. But quite a bit.

Now, you know, of course there was the whole debate about, is this an RPG? What is an RPG really? Is there enough role playing in this game? Isn't every game a role playing game when you really get right down to it? Could have taken this in action adventure, I think. That would have been justified. Could have taken it in ongoing game because DLC, even though this game came out this year, There's already DLC that was a surprise drop.

And it was good. I'm going to take it in RPG, even though there's some strong RPG still left on the board that I'd be happy to have. This was just a really good game. And despite all the debates or really because of all the debates about what does this mean for the franchise and what is a Final Fantasy game, I thought this had the trappings of Final Fantasy. It felt like Final Fantasy, but it also felt like a lot of other good games that I really enjoy. and that mashup of genres, it worked for me. So I liked it, you know, kind of the kingdom heart-sization of Final Fantasy, those things melding and blending in Final Fantasy 16 with the graphics and the scale

and the music and everything that you expect from this franchise. It was all there for me. I had a lot of fun time. I say this is somebody who loves Kingdom Hearts. I feel like the Kingdom Hearts is the Kingdom Heartsing of Final Fantasy might be one of the worst things that happened to it. Wow. Okay. Because it's only because like I love that glossy, like the best version of that, I think that we hit in the Final Fantasy 7 remake. And I think that the balance of that story,

and obviously that's a beloved entry in the series. That's why they went back to it. But their way of telling story in 16, I think was probably their best entry for in a long time. Yes. Yes. And I think gameplay was like a tiny bit off for me because it just felt too glossy. It felt too clean. It never really felt like I was being as tactile as I would have wanted, but you can't beat a Final Fantasy story because world building is their bread and butter. And it's so, so, so good. And I can listen to Sid's voice forever. Yes, of course.

I can't. I think you said in our top 10 active lore system should just be in everything. That's so good. That's the best. Do you love Wiki entries? Yeah, just the pop-up video for video games. It's great. Wow, that's the legacy of this game.

Pop-up video for the old. 90s kids. Okay. Were you going to take that match? Was that going to be your ongoing game? Okay, then I feel great about. I'm surprised you didn't take that sooner because I also put Final Fantasy on mine too.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was close. It was fun. It was great. All right. Back to you, Steve. I'm going thin in my categories again because ongoing games are getting snatched up left and right. And I don't.

Yeah. They're really the tight end of this draft. It is. I'm going to show my ass here. and probably go through like one of my most shameful pick of this draft. Oh no.

What is it? My pick for ongoing game is Marvel Snap. It's good. So I'm going to admit that when my Steam wrapped came to me, it showed that I spent 150 hours in Marvel Snap.

This year alone? This year. Is that on like you're playing that on like desktop? not even on your phone? Yeah. Or is that? That's unbelievable.

Steam. You're sitting at a computer player. It's also on my Steam deck. It's also on my Steam deck. It's also on my Steam deck. I'm not going to, sorry. That's just on, in my Steam client, that's what it's playing. Okay.

I'm a, I'm an absolute fiend. I kind of legally have to as I'm being held in Marvel Snaps bunker and I have to show up a picture of today's newspaper. But I really like how they've like constantly balance updated this. Steam. And it's made a really. really, really fun entry into this. I am not a monthly season pass purchaser. I will say that. I'm not

that in the bag for it. But I just, I've really loved the, if you'll pardon the phrase, snappy gameplay that it comes with. And the balance that comes with new expansions and new cars that they constantly update the game with, I've really loved it. And nobody was going to pick it. And I'm really, really ashamed. And that's fine. And I love you all. And that's my ongoing game pick. I was going to pick it. It was. gonna pick it. It was my ongoing game. You were not. Yes, it's on my ongoing, it's on my ongoing game. You know, it's really freaking funny. I was like, no one's going to allow me to choose this because I didn't think of it as an ongoing game because I just, I play it online with friends. Yeah. It's like, it feels like

Heartstone to me where I'm like, I don't really think. Marvel Snap got me out of Hartstone jail. Dude, I'm still up. You know, right back into it. Oh, you ain't get me out of there. You ain't going to get me out of there. Hartstone is too many things. Heartstone has become like Fortnite for card debilers and it's terrible. I work so hard on my damn dicks. You ain't going to give me out of Hardstone. The simplicity of Marvel Snap has stayed the same. And that's why I think it's great for ongoing because despite all of the things that

Hartstone has become nowadays, Marvel Snap still seems relatively simple and kind of bare bones. Like the idea that it's only 12 cards in a deck, the only way to either get cards is by leveling up your cards or just constantly playing the game. is simple and it doesn't feel predatory yet, I'm sure we'll all get there. Eventually. We'll all get there. But I really have enjoyed Marvel Snapp a lot.

It's very fun. I can't stress it. It's so insane how fun that game is and so simple it is to play with people. I shouldn't have said that I've played 150 hours of time. I shouldn't have said that. That is the weirdest thing you said today. What is that? I play Ballets Game more.

I play Gwales game more. Okay. Well, that makes sense. Marvel Snap does it for 150 hours. Most of my audience. Ongoing games are games that did something differently this year, like evolved in some significant way. And you're picking Marvel Smet mostly because it just didn't.

You're just like they didn't have to do much. It's not that it didn't. I mean, it's a consistency of nothing, like, because there's a weird balance when like a game's at its height of popularity where you, like developers could either make a really big mistake that throws off the balance and then people jump ship really hard.

Or they make things way too power creepy and everybody's doing these cheat mechanics that end up breaking the game. that hasn't happened yet in Marvel Snap, at least on my opinion. And it's maintained a pretty good balance throughout this year that I've really liked. And like, I've never fallen off completely,

but I've never really felt like this is like a two over-the-top, like, cheap game just to get my dollars or get my time. Okay, two more Matt picks. All right. Okay. I'm going to pick an ongoing one now, too. Oh, man. I think out of the four of us,

I'm the one who kind of, hates the ongoing games format the most. I don't like the idea of battle passes. I want to buy a game once. I want to beat it. I want to put it down. I don't want to play games where they want me to play only that game. And they are designed to suck up all of my time.

Yeah. It's okay for games to end, right? It's okay to stop playing them. I mean, granted, Steve will never stop playing Marvel Snap. But it's okay if you don't play games forever. Right? That's just me. That's just me.

I'm with you. I agree with you, Matt, but they have my money in my PayPal account. All right. Well, so in the spirit of kind of hating this category, actually, I would have taken Phantom Liberty, no doubt. That was my number one here. So, kudos to you for stealing that from me. Hell yeah, baby. Phantom Liberty, man, what an expansion.

The whole 2.0 upgrade for cyberpunk was fantastic. Definitely my runaway winner in this category. But I can't pick that because you're smart. So I'm going to take Diablo 4 here. Okay. It is a live service game. Controversial pick. It is, in my opinion, the best game I can pick in this category

that is not a category I like. And Diablo 4 is widely criticized for at least season one not being fantastic. Right. However, Diablo 4 is a very, very good game. and I think that it's the best game I can pick in this category. So I'm taking Diablo 4 for ongoing. So Diablo 4 just got you in semantics, really?

Yeah, it's just I got to pick something in that category. And that's the best game I see. I like where you're standing, though. In that business that you're standing on, I respect it. Because I was like, oh, there's a lot of options for this category. And then when you were like, I don't want them to take my money. I was like, okay, that gets rid of five. There's a lot of options.

You know what? I was actually, no, I'll save it until later. I'll tell you what I was thinking about later. So the next pick I'm going to make, I think I'm going to make in the, I guess I'll take my role-playing game now. You all have picked those, but I'm worried that someone will put this in a different category. So I'm going to take Sea of Stars. Oh, yeah, that was going to be my indie.

That was my. And that will be in role-playing, not indie. so I figured I got hurt y'all with the ending. Damn, damn, damn. You returned fire. I took Final Fantasy. You hit me back where it hurts.

That's right. Direct hit. Steve Stars, great game. If you have nostalgia for the old, like no one's going to question is that a role-playing game, right? Like, this is designed. Oh, man.

Capital R. Yeah. I mean, this is nostalgia personified. This game, beautiful, beautiful game. Amazing soundtrack. Cool. modern RPG combat system. Just an absolute joy to play.

Just a great success of a game. Okay. All right. Back to you, Thieve. All right. For my wild card pick. Oh my God, what is it? I'm on the edge of my seat.

My wild card pick was mentioned earlier today, and it's going to be Hi-Fi Rush. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was one of the best surprises of this year for me. I don't think I could have been more happy with a game like this sneaking up on me and making me have a great time.

I love character action games, and I think this is probably one of the coolest and most inventive types of gimmicks and pastiches to be put on a game that's sort of like Scott Pilgrim meets Rhythm Games meets Devil May Cry mashup that is just immaculately executed, and a lot of great winks and nods to

some really great games. There's like a, like, a, Tales of Symphonia Easter egg for nobody but like me and three people. And I just, I love the juice that this game has. And it's got a lot of great heart and personality. And I like, it cannot go unuttered because nobody ends up talking about a game that comes out in January if you're not Zelda. And this game really, really stuck the landing for me.

Great. I loved it. I loved it. So much fun. Really creative, inventive. It felt like a dreamcast game somehow. Yes, very much so. I mean, the cell shading, the music aspect to it.

Yeah. It's that perfect. And it talks to that, like, anti-Triple-A, like this return to the middle. Like, this feels like it comes out in the Xbox 360, even PS2 era of something, where it's like this great, tight little, like, 10-hour thing that you can easily pick up and put down. And it's a perfect, like, bite-size experience that I, I genuinely had so much heart for. It was so good.

All right. Great pick. For my next pick, I'm going to go with an ongoing game. And I actually share Matt's philosophy when it comes to ongoing games. I know exactly what you're going to pick. I have no doubt. I know what you're going to take a game that I didn't expect to be ongoing, at least not this year. What are you taking?

God of War Rag and Rock Bell. Oh, well, all right. Yeah. Yeah. Unless you're going to argue with me on that. the definition here. No, no, yeah. Like, this is the semantics argument, but yes, yes.

Wait, what is the argument? I mean, it's not a live service game, obviously. No, but no, like this is a DLC. It's a DLC. It's an ongoing game. And because that was a surprise, completely out of the blue drop, just announced a few days before we had it in our hands. And, by the way, it was free.

I don't know if you all noticed that. Love free. Great price. Yeah, that was the right price for me. gave you several strong hours. This was like just a really nice epilogue to the Ragn rock adventure, which was itself sort of the epilogue to Cretus's latter day adventures here. It's a rogue-like kind of a Hades-inspired game.

And yet, well, like Hades, but maybe even more so, builds in some actual emotion and character development. It's kind of like a boss rush run through Cretus's history, through some of the set pieces from God of Wars Pass, some of the bosses. It's got a great action progression. You get to use all his weapons to fight your way through this thing. And he actually learns and grows as a character,

and he therapieses himself by slaying everything inside, which is kind of classic Cratos. And because it was free, because it came out at the end of the year when none of us was expecting it, this was the pick for me. This was the one where it was like, well, okay, I will gladly accept that and play that for free.

Yeah, I haven't tapped into this yet. And initially, I didn't know how interested I was in it, because in God of War, the recent God of War games, I haven't been too interested in like the combat trials. And when they said Rogue Light, I was like, and I like Rogue Lights, but I was like, all right, this is going to be like a combat trial kind of thing, whatever. Right. But what I'm hearing from everyone who's played it is that they really do build on the story and the lore and the emotions of the characters.

And that has drawn me in, and I do intend to get to that very soon. Well, you will not get to it in this draft because I just took it. All right. Just cut me deep. Jess, two picks for you. You know, that's so funny because I understand why everybody hates a lot of the live service games that I play too much of. I am addicted to Fortnite and Valerant and all those games. games and it's so bad because I will buy every skin.

And I own battle passes for almost everyone. And do you finish any of them in these games? Do you finish any of the battle passes that you buy them? I do, I do. I do. I finish it for Valorant and I finish it for Fortnite every time. But the thing is a new season comes and then I get a new battle pass. Right.

When you finish it, oh, isn't it just like that? And it's like crazy. Jessica, they're going to take more. But I. It's an ongoing game. Valerant, I'll renew all the time because I just like the skins for my weapons. but for Fortnite, sometimes I don't renew the Battle Pass of the skin. Like, they had like the Peter Griffin one this year, and I was like, this isn't a fun one.

And I know the other one. So I didn't do it. I didn't do it for that season. It was such weird. I didn't like it. I didn't like it. But I think I'm going to take my indie game. Okay.

Game that I did not like because I don't like a lot of the games Ben has me play. But I do like a lot of them. There are new surprises. I'm taking Jusson. What? Oh, wow. How could you do this, do you? What a game.

I'm taking Jussar. I gave you actively dislikes and that I loved. And you are so, you are so. Respective. The fact that I made you play this game, you are now punishing me by taking it off the draft board. I didn't mind Kukun. I actually like Kikun. And I loved Art, my Princess One, but I did not like Juson.

It was too. Because I need an indigree. and I know that Ben really liked it. And I'm playing a little cutthroat here. Oh, my goodness. I went until the end. I was very nice in the beginning. I thought Mallory was not here today.

What is going on? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've got a killer in this draft. Tagan, Jusat. I think it was a very fun game for everybody else respectfully. And it's very pretty. Respectfully.

That's so funny. That's so funny. Where was it on your category that you waited this long to not use it? But I thought, well, there's no way that. Jess is going to take Ducson. Remember when we did the Nintendo Draft and I took Luigi's Haunted Mansion? I love Luigi Hodge Mansion, but I know you do and I still took it. That's like me picking Spider-Man too being like, this game wasn't, it was okay, but I'm taking a game.

I'm taking a game. I hate it. Are we playing the game? Are we playing the game? Are we friends? Are we playing the game? Okay. Because I'm taking that game.

Yeah, I'm taking Jusson for my indie game. So it leaves me with my ongoing and my friends. I rerun or remake. And because I still have time with my ongoing, because I do not think, have we all done our ongoing or a DLC? I have, yes. I have.

Yeah, everyone but remake, which I will, it's not like remake, but it's a continuation. Can I do Street Fighter Six? Wow. I feel like that's a new game. It is a new.

That's a new game. I think you can do Mortal Kombat 1, but I don't think you can do Street Fighter 6. That's what I was like, I don't think I could do Mortal Kombat 1. but I thought I could do, okay. No, that, those are. Okay.

You said, when you say rerun, do you only make remake? I mean, remake, remaster, remake, remaster. Remake and release, you know, just like, same game, fresh coat of paint. You guys took all those. You guys already took all of them. There's still some good ones left. I haven't taken mine yet. Damn it.

I'm trying to think because I put, I literally put Final Fantasy in Street Fighter 6th. Remember, I didn't have this category planned. It's true. I'll take one of these two. Yeah. I'll think about it. Let me think about it. I got time to think about it.

Do you have another category left? Yeah. I'm going to go and I'm going to take Fortnite. Yeah. Honestly, I respect. The fact that they did go back all the way to the beginning and give people that play, because I didn't play at the beginning. It was very fun.

I don't think I'm the only one. I didn't really like it. It was very horrible. But I think it was a great experience. I think it was a good try, and then they are just updating as it goes, and it's very fun. It's becoming better. I think, yeah, it's really interesting what they're doing now. They're really, like, they figure like, okay, how do we make another hit game?

Like, Fortnite is a giant. We can't possibly make another game. So what they're doing is they're just releasing their new games inside of Fortnite, which is brilliant. It's insane, and it works. If I played Rocket League a lot, I'd be really pissed at this because Epic also owns Rocket League. and they saw fit to update that and not Rocket League. It's really crazy because they've also incorporated rhythm games and your emotes becoming different songs

and singing with other people's emotes if they emote with you. There's just like really small like actual inventive things that Fortnite's doing that like I'm not entirely mad about because if you want to make it a be all end all hub, like the Lego Fortnite, that's like a small Minecraft thing. Like I, that's kind of a,

incredible. Yeah. And I'm mad because they made me install that fucking game and buy the Teenage Muti Turtle skin. I did it. I did it. I did not. I did not. I did not.

I did not. I bought it. I'm proud of you mad. I wanted to be the Teeny Ninja Turtles. That's the problem is they make it. I play in a team with three other people and we always play together like all the time every night. And so Teenage Muti Ninja Turtles, they keep grabbing like, even Star Wars characters.

They're like, yeah, here's the mains. And then you can also be a Stormtrooper. So it's like perfectly made for teams of people to just. dress up and be stupid. And my song is vampire by Olivia Rodriguez. So I moat to that after I win and get my victory royals. It's disgusting how addicted I am. It got me as a young person and then I just kept going.

No, I hate to say it after what you just did to me. But this is a great pick. If Valhalla had been off the board, I would have taken Fortnite. Yeah, I considered it. Yeah, like this is the year that people stop talking about the Metaverse quite a much. But it's also the year that I think everyone just kind of conceded that if there is a metaverse to the extent that there is, it already exists and it's Fortnite. It is.

It really is. Like the graphical upgrade, I guess that was at the end of last year. But then the Unreal editor is just like incredibly powerful. Like you can just live inside of Fortnite. So it's not just the OG flashback, but the fact that games are just inside Fortnite. Like it's just taken over gaming, like in addition to the usual. pop culture crossovers and tie-ins and concerts and everything, it just feels like this is becoming even more the all-encompassing thing five or six years in.

At this point, it's amazing that they have sustained this and grown it. I think that was both my two. My last one will come back to. It's back to me already then. Okay. Well, since you stole Jussant, drummy, There's no target on my back anymore. I'm a thief.

I'm a thief. I will be taking a different Indigate. game, the game that was second on my board, and that's cocoon. Coon is also an excellent game. Yeah, it will break your brain. There was sort of a trend toward worlds within worlds and games that make you look at things from a different perspective. Kekoon was among the best of those just really satisfying puzzles.

We talked about it a few weeks ago. We all liked it. We were all challenged by it. Even puzzle hater, Jessica Clemens, found a lot to like about I did. It was very sweet. Yeah, some of those puzzles will stick with me, I think. And I got a great feeling of accomplishment, even though I looked up the solution to a few puzzles, just in the interest of finishing the game in time for the pod. That's the only reason I resorted to such trickery. Matt said, boo! I don't think Matt looked up. Matt didn't look up. No, he didn't look up. Yeah,

you didn't look up things, man. He's a purist. He's a hardliner. I caved, but it was really satisfying. It was really well designed. It never felt. fair and it feels like a lot of games are going to be taking their cues from cocoons with that kind of mechanic. All right, Steve, you're up, huh? All right, I'm up. Unless I'm going to be vengefully stealing Armored Corps 6, Fires of the Rubicon

from you in Action Adventure. No, but that's a good pick. Then that's mine. I, I for the longest time, felt like Armored Corps 6 was like, if you thought Souls games were inaccessible,

Armored Core pre-Dark Souls was like, impossible to understand. And I think Fires of the Rubicon, there's still a learning curve here, but there's really nothing better than building a sick robot. And I really think that

they did their damnedest to actually make this a more understandable, like, economy that this game exists under. Like, you have to, like, balance a lot of your money and a lot of your, like, engine integrity and a lot of other things to just make a very exciting and challenging combat experience for Armored Corps 6,

but man, when that game hums, it's kind of incredible. I'll still say the story's nonsense. I'll still say that there's a lot of things that can be done to make this a lot more, I guess, easy. But when you finally sink into it, it's really, really cool.

And I kind of, it gave me, some Zoe 2 flashbacks when I was really having the most fun with it. To you. Yeah. I've heard nothing but great things. I haven't fully gone through it. I've played a little bit of it. That's one I've been meaning to get back to.

I've always loved the MEC games, you know, the history of like MEC games throughout gaming history. I've been a big front mission guy, even more so than armored core in the past. But yeah, from software. Have you owned any of the incredibly complicated controllers for MEC games? No, the like $200 controllers that are only useful for one game. Listen, until I get in the flight simulator and get my whole shit going.

Yeah. Like that. Yeah. That's what we need VR for, the MEC cockpit. Yeah. All right. Matt, is this the end for you? This is the end for me.

I'm pretty confident that it's the end for me. Which one haven't you done? I haven't done indie and I haven't done Wildcard. Okay. Close it out. So I'm going to do indie first, and I knew y'all wouldn't take this from me. I'm taking my indie game of the year, I think, maybe tied with Dave the Diver. Chance of Cinar.

Yeah. I can't shut up about this game. And I know a lot of people haven't played it, but it's basically the other climb the mysterious tower game that isn't Jusant of the year. And it is a linguistic puzzle game. where you are going up the tower, meeting a bunch of different cultures that are isolated from each other, learning their language and symbols,

translating between these peoples and continuing to ascend and discover the mystery of the tower. This game's incredible. The puzzles are unbelievable. It's very unique. It's got a great message at the end. I just can't recommend it enough. I think everybody should play it.

This game does look beautiful. if I am a dumb man, will I be able to enjoy this? Hypothetically. I am not, I, these puzzles do not look like I'm going to be solving them.

I, I, you're not a dumb man. That's why I said, if, I said if, if, I don't know who is,

but if one were to be. If one were a, a dumb man, as many men are, I, yeah, I'd still, look,

if you want to look stuff up, look it up. But it's, it's a, it's a really great game. It's a really great game. It does. It does look astoundingly gorgeous.

There's only one puzzle somewhat laid into the game that I found to be like very challenging. Aside from that, I think at worst, you can get through 90% of the puzzles, 80, 90% without looking anything up. And I think you're just going to really love the experience of it. Wonderful. Yeah, so highly recommend. And then it's up to my wild card pick, which is another game that I wasn't worried about any of you pick. and one of my favorite gaming experiences of this year, Remnant 2. The most...

This was a game of the year for me. This made a splash. Remnant 2, you know, if you liked from software games, I think you're going to love, love Remnant 2. Really challenging, but not too challenging shooter, really customizable builds, incredible co-op. This is the best co-op gaming experience I think I had this year, pairing up with somebody. unlocking things together, discovering the secrets and lore. The online community is really incredible. The developers have hidden things deep within the game

to encourage this community to come together, you know, off outside of the game and uncover these secrets. Are you geocaching in this? Pretty much, man. It's cool. I mean, it's... Oh, God. Steve, don't. There's some secrets that, like,

people have had to like go through code the code of the game to find stuff and are like collaborating together to it's it's really but outside of all that interesting community stuff like the gameplay that's what it comes down to it's an incredible incredible shooter with a lot of freedom to to play the way you want to and again you can you can go through the same levels multiple times and they'll wind you along a different path. You have to play at the levels multiple times to see everything. It's so cool. It's so fantastic.

Please, everybody, if you like shooters, if you like co-op games, give Remnant 2 a try. I think it's free on Game Pass if you're not an Xbox hater. Oh, hot. I respect what you're doing with this draft. If one were to an Xbox Hater, I admire what you're doing here. You're not pandering to the crowd.

You're not going lowest common denominator. You're not trying to win this draft necessarily in the public vote. I mean, not that these are obscure games, but these are personal loves of yours. You're using your platform here to recommend games you truly care about. Yes. And I save that to the end. Yeah. I got all my.

Yeah. All right, Steve. Steve, last pick. All right. Pick last pick for me. I was swept away by this indie game. I don't think anybody has talked about it that I know about. It is called RoboQuest.

Ah, yeah. It was released on Steam and I believe a couple of other platforms. This is a first-person shooter rogue-like in the same vein as like a Hades or what happened. Free on Game Pass. Free on Game Pass.

And you play as a big ancient robot that is helping a girl find something in a beat up old van. And if I could say what this game evokes, it is something akin to Borderlands, meets, I guess, I guess Hades because of its,

it's rogue-like things. It's just, what's most important is how this game feels. And this game feels incredible. And probably not since like the best of Borderland slash Titan Fall 2 has the shooting mechanics felt this good. There are great little classes and unlocks you can have with each run. All of the guns are super fun. All of the characters and levels are super great. It's not inherently violent.

You're just a robot shooting other robots and you meet other cute robots along the way. Great co-op experience. I had a blast with this. This is a great pickup and play game currently on sale now and on Game Pass. It's a blast. Okay.

My final pick. We left Ben a good one here for him to do. What category are you? I have a rerun remaining here. I know what you're going to do. It's a good pick. I don't know that you too. And asked.

I was like, what games have we played that remakes? And he sent me like two. And I was like, I think Ben's going to take this one. I doubt it. I'm not going to go far off the board. But I don't think this is what you're expecting me to take. Maybe because it came out in January. And you got to cast your mind way back to remember that this even came out this year.

But I don't know if you've forgotten. GoldenEye-O-7 came out this year. You're right. That was 2023, people. That's a good. Don't sleep on Golden Eye. That's true. That's good.

in multiple versions, right? So it came out on Xbox with like high-res 4K blocky guards. And it also came out on Switch, looking like it's old school self, but with online multiplayer. Yes, you look to Nintendo to lead the way when it comes to online play. But you could get it in either version. You could get it looking modernized or you could get it playing or feeling the same, but also online. and you could play this old classic with dual stick controls if you wanted to, or you could go old school. Yeah, you did want to.

You really did want to. Even if you don't think you did, you did. And this was like not GTA level, but do you remember just the rumors about Golden Eye remakes and re-releases dragged on for years and years, right? And there were some aborted efforts at like remaking the game from the ground up that never panned out. but people were so hungry for this game. And people were kind of into it. I think some people played it and were like, you know what?

The nostalgia is strong here, but it doesn't play quite the same in 2023. But also a lot of people got into it. And for the first time in 25 years, everyone was playing Golden Eye again. And it felt great. It felt great just to have it accessible on current consoles again. You really surprised me with that pick.

I knew I would. Genuinely, genuinely, Ben, How did that game feel? It felt, I mean, I played it on Switch. Right. And it felt like to play it with dual sticks, which you can say for some other remasters that came on on Switch this year. I mean, it doesn't feel revolutionary anymore.

So for me, who played it at the time and was obsessed with at the time, it felt good to go back and also not to be burdened with the single stick. But if I was picking up and playing it for the first time, I might not get exactly what made it so amazing at the time. But sure. You know what? It ran okay. It was good to get back in there.

And who doesn't love Gold Knight, 2007, right? Like, people forgot that this game came out this year, which maybe is not a great argument in favor of it, but it allowed me to snag it here with my last pick. And there were some other strong candidates, which I will not mention because I don't want to give Jess any ideas here.

No, go ahead. Please. Make your pick. And then we can discuss what else we could. have picked in this category. Damn, almost. Final pick of the draft. I did play a lot.

I realized I was, a lot of the games I chose were not, I did not play on the Switch. And then I remembered that a lot of them did come out on the Switch. And I did play Kirby's Return to Dreamland. Oh. Oh, yes. And I liked it. I liked it more than Super Mario RPG. So that is why I think I'm going to go with Kirby.

The obvious snub in this category, I guess, that we all, Metroid Prime Master. right. Oh, I thought you're going to say, Advanced Wars 1 Plus 2 reboot camp. That too? Nope. Which would have been mine had that been a lot better.

There's also system shock. System shot. I was going to say. Star Ocean, second story are quake two. We love Katamari. Like a dragon. Yeah.

Your solid master collection, which was kind of bare bones, but it came out, I guess. Not that one. Not that one. It was a big year for reruns. I'm a social. shocked that no one picked Metroid Prime remaster. I was thinking about it for fans, but then I was like, I think I know more people that

played Kirby than played Metroid. I think because when you post, remember, you were like, when we post these images up on Twitter, it's like people are mainly just looking at the images and then they vote. And I think a lot of people, it's just like, I feel like Kirby's more universal than Metroid is, but that might just be amazing. I just feel weird that Metroid Prime comes out in a remake form and it barely makes a dent in the discourse this year. Like, that feels crazy to me.

I don't know. I felt, I felt it make an impact in my sort of gaming sphere. I certainly played in the whole thing. Especially because it was a surprise release, right? We're all waiting years and years for any morsel of information about Metroid Prime 4, which we didn't get. But it was like, hey, here, have Metroid Prime remastered. Yeah, it's pretty much the only remaster, aside from like Windwaker that I was like,

Oh my God. Give it to me. Winwaker now. Metroid felt really popular. Well, the people that I was hearing in amongst were like people my older brothers. It was like older boys that I heard a lot. That's me.

Like me. Which is funny. No, but it was like, because I remember my brother and all his friends were talking about it. And I was like, yeah, I'll probably jump in and play it. But like, I don't know, maybe it was, it feels like Kirby fit with like young girls and older girls. And Metroid was just, I don't know, maybe shy of it.

Maybe it's just me. I love it, but I was like, maybe it's just me. I mean, I love both games. I think, you know, that's a good thing. Is Kirby man? Is Kirby, Jenman? I believe. I don't know.

You know what? I'm not going to put that on them. I've seen those images of those feet. I've seen those images of those feet. I know that Samis are on as a woman. I don't want to go down this road. You're stereotyping. And also, if we're playing smash, people are usually going for Kirby

before they go for Samis. I guess. Samis is my, yeah, exactly. Samis is my second, but people always go for Kirby before they go for Sam. Okay. What else did we snub here? What else didn't get mentioned or drafted that if we had just been doing a straight top 20 or whatever instead of categories would have been included?

I think one obvious one, Star Wars Jedi Survivor. Oh, yeah. On my and Matt's list of top 10 games, we love that game. We did a pod on it pre-butt mesh, but it just, it wasn't. Tears of the Kingdom, I guess, and it wasn't Spider-Man maybe, so tough crowd in the action-adventure category. I think the platforming in that game still feels really janky, and it's odd. You're still mad about the gardening that you can do in that game? Yes.

I am also mad about the gardening, because, again, Dave the diver did that better. Okay. He ain't wrong. He ain't wrong. No, I ain't wrong. I snubed Timothy Shalomey simulator Liza P. I was going to say Liza P. Yeah.

Yeah. Liza P is really cool. I want there to be like a dark fairy tale Souls Game universe because they, spoilers for the end of Lies of Pete, they allude to Wizard of Oz. And I genuinely want that to also happen. Like I love this like macabre sort of souls like that like, you know, we're never going to get bloodborne to.

So this is the closest thing we got. And I had a really great time with it. I've just learned that in Japanese media, Kirby is usually referred to with gender neutral pronouns and terms. whereas in the English localizations, it's masculine. Oh, wow. Interesting. In Kirby is a ritual form.

Interesting. Yeah. Can't be bound to one gender. We didn't do any of the fighting ones. Yeah. Didn't take, I mean, you tried to take street. I tried. I could have put it somewhere else, but it wasn't worth the putting some world over the other ones.

Pickman 4. I feel bad about not taking Pickman 4, but just, you know, Picman 4. I do love Pikmin 4. Unpictamin 4. Wow. God damn. Nice.

Yeah. What else? Octopath Traveler 2 is just deep, deep RPG field this year. We left Starfield. Starfield. I was ready to pick Starfield. Really? Yeah.

If there was a space for it, I loved Starfield. I think the blowback on that, I got over 100 hours in that game. I think it's great. Oh, we didn't bring a Pandora. That came out, like, literally. It was a very pretty game. It was a very pretty game. It was a very pretty game.

Yeah. I had an ongoing game I was ready to pick that I think would have sent you guys over the edge. Oh, please. Disney Dreamlight Valley. Okay. Wow. Okay. So give me the scoop on Dreamlight Valley because apparently it's now in final release.

It has just been released in the past month or so. So here's the thing. Remember during the pandemic, everybody was playing Animal Crossing because the world seemed like it was coming to an end. and boy, Animal Crossing was a nice little vacation from reality. Hell, yeah. There's big vibes of that in Dreamlight Valley. It is so relaxing to play. The IP obviously you're deeply familiar with because it's all Disney.

And to be honest, it's a well-crafted game that is just very soothing and enjoyable. I played a game like that called Pollya this year, and I grew addicted to it. And it's now available on Switch. I don't know how it's going to look on Switch. It just became available. And it's just like Animal Crossing, but it's much more intensive. You can fall in love with the people in the village and the island. Oh, I will.

What is this called? It's called Pallia. Pallia. I was falling in love on an island? I'm in. I'm in. Yeah, you can. And there's different.

So different villagers represent different things like the shop and like this person does archery and this does this. And every time you talk to them, you can choose which ones you want to start romantic relationships with. And then you get further like. become with them. They let you into their world. And it's very nice. And it's very sweet. And I'm in love with the robot.

I'm going to look that up. That sounds good. It's a very sweet game. We didn't draft any driving games, the crew for Viewfinder, Blasphemus to. I had a bunch of... Yeah.

Ongoing games, man. No call of duty. No, Assassin's Creed. No Assassin's Creed. Yeah, we had a lot of ongoing game candidates. Like, I thought about Genschen Impact or Warhammer, 40K, dark types.

No Man Sky, Dead Cells, DLC. Damn, there's a lot of games. TMNT, DLC, Horizon DLC, right? Like, Apex, Battlefield, Halo. Yeah. For a lot of those games, yeah. Can I change my NICE for this year to Genschen Impact for giving us

the Order of the Oratrice Mechanique de Elise Cardinal? I don't know. I don't know what you just said. You said it. Why can you say it so well? Because I hear it all the time on TikTok. I can see one more time. say one more times? The oratrice Mechanique

Danilez Cardinal. Wow. Sweet talking, Steve Alman, man. Making my heart flutter. Yeah. Sorry, that was too good. That was Gengen Impact's impact on the year. All right. I was going to say there is an ongoing game that I do play.

It's Final Fantasy 14. Yeah. Oh, hot damn. Another good year. They didn't have a house. They didn't have a big update this year. Yeah, I do have a house. Thank you very much. Yeah. Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah. CounterStrike. CounterStrike. Counterstrike 2? Does that count as ongoing? Yeah.

I don't know. Different game. Overwatch. There's just not the great search. There were so many indie games that I could have picked two. More indie games than ongoing or remakes. Yeah. I completely didn't think about lethal company.

Mm. Yeah. And I love that game. I didn't even think about that. Damn. See, these are the things. Yeah. I mean, look, apologies to anything we didn't draft any platforms.

You don't think we gave appropriate love to. It's not because we hate them. It might be because we hate them, but probably not. There was just a really strong field. Okay, before we bid goodbye to everyone, let's do the traditional draft results recap. Devin, can you do the honors and remind everyone what we drafted? I sure can, Ben.

All right. So let's start with Steve coming in at Action Adventure. He picked Armored Core 6 Fires of Rubicon for his wild card, Hi-Fi Rush, RPG, Balders Gate, ongoing game, Marvel Snap, indie Robo Quest, and for his rerun, Dead Space. Ben, you went with Legends of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom for Action Adventure. For your wildcard, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, RPG. Final Fantasy 16, ongoing game, God of War, Ragnarok, Volhala.

For your indie game, you picked Kekoon and for your rerun, a very good game, in my opinion. Golden I-O-O-7. Matt. Great picks, Ben. Great picks, Ben. Congratulations. Matt, for your action adventure, Alan Wake 2, Wildcard, Remnant 2. A lot of sequels here. RPG, Sea of Stars, ongoing game, a classic Diablo 4, indie, chance of Cinar, and for rerun, Resident Evil 4.

And then that leaves us with Jess, who came in hot with her action adventure pick of Spider-Man 2, Wildcard Dave the Diver, RPG, Phantom Liberty, ongoing game, Fortnite. Indy Ducon and the illustrious rerun of Kirby Return to Dreamland deluxe edition. Love the French pronunciation of Jucent. Well done. Thank you. All right. Great job by everyone.

We did it. It was a great year for games, a milestone year for gaming coverage on the ringerverse. Steve, Matt, most of all, Jess, my original and still occasional co-host. It was great to talk to you today. and throughout 2023. Thank you all for joining today and in previous pods. I love being back. I love talking.

This draft was so much fun. I'm so glad I got to steal Jusant. I'm so glad I got so Dave the diver. I'm so glad you stole Jusant too. My black heart just got more black. I'm so happy. Just stealing things from each other. You know, looking at the board, it's hard to pick a loser,

more than it's even hard to pick a winner. It's really like, yeah. We were all winners this year. No work. I could have picked Ghalem. I was going to pull out Gowling. If I was way ahead, I was going to pick Gawlom. I would have turned off my computer. Just take your dress. I would have walked away. You've all got great taste in games, even if they differ from mine. So check the Ringervor's socials for the draft results. Jomey will whip up a graphic and we will put this to a vote. Happy Bobby Codick leaving Activision Blizzard Day. Happy New Year.

Speaking of the new year, but Mesh will be back on Monday the 8th for our gaming hype pod. email us at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com to let us know what's on top of your anticipation list in 2024. We're not getting GTA6 until 2025, but that's okay because I'm sure we'll be busy playing Hollow Night Silk Song on our Switch 2s till then. She's. Yeah, yay. It's going to happen, I'm sure. Thanks to Devin Ronaldo for producing today. Thanks to our Juno Rimpal for helping us launch this show this year. And thanks to you, yes, you for listening and support. our podcasts, both on Button Mesh and in the Ring of Verse at Large. Happy New Year, everyone. We'll talk to you in 2024.