Triple Click - Our Favorite Games of 2023

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

It is time once again for that wonderful annual tradition: the best video games of 2023. One More Thing:Kirk: Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation (Kevin Roose, 2021)Maddy: Pit Bulls and ParoleesJason: DredgeLINKS:Jason’s piece on the Insomniac hack: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-12-22/playstation-employees-at-insomniac-studio-fear-identity-theft-after-massive-hackFeaturing soundtrack excerpts from Jusant, Hi-Fi Rush, Alan Wake 2, and Super Mario Bros. WonderSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/GAMES OF THE YEARJasonOctopath Traveler 2The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the KingdomBaldur’s Gate 3Chants of SennaarSuper Mario Bros. WonderStar Wars Jedi: SurvivorParanormasight: The Seven Mysteries of HonjoSpider-Man 2Diablo IVCase of the Golden Idol DLCKirkJusantDredgeLies of PHi-Fi RushAlan Wake 2Baldur's Gate 3Chants of SennarCyberpunk 2077 2.0Shadow Gambit: The Cursed CrewThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the KingdomMaddyThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the KingdomAlan Wake 2Baldur's Gate 3Metroid Prime RemasteredVenbaDredgeChants of SennaarCocoonDead SpaceSuper Mario Wonder Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

It is time now for the Triple Click Battle Royale. Many will enter. Ten will survive. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. Today, we are going through our games of the year, saying goodbye to 2023 by lifting our 10 favorite games each. Me, Maddie, Kirk. Let's go through it. I'm Jason Shrier. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers. Hello. Welcome back. Hello. Hello, y'all. Welcome back after our little break. I hope you both had wonderful Christmases. Yeah. Yeah, you know.

It's pretty nice. I had a wonderful Chinese food evening. That's what we did. That's what we did. Our fridge is full and I beat Balders Gate 3. That's what the people really want to know about. That is exciting. That is exciting.

It is exciting. Well, people will have to wait to hear about that. Speaking of which, as many of you know, and as we will say, for the final time in 2003. We are a listener-supported podcast, and that means we are entirely supported by you all, fine people.

You make this show possible by being members of the Maximum Fund Network, which anyone can do. You just go to maximum fund.org slash join, maybe do it as a holiday present to yourself or a New Year's resolution to yourself. Be like, man, my resolution is to support my favorite podcast. And if you do become a member,

you not only make this show possible, but you also get bonus episodes every month, including the one that is going to go up on New Year's. New Year's Day is a little 2024 treat for everybody, where we do a deep dive, beans cast, aka spoiler cast, into Baldur's Gate 3, which Maddie, of course, have just completed. So that'll be very fun to talk about. Yes, I can't wait. Yeah.

That's going to be, yeah. The first we're opening, opening it yet, but I can't wait. It's going to be great. It is going to be great. Right, opening the year off with a banger of a bonus episode. And of course, we will have nonstop banger bonus episodes throughout next year and a backlog of nonstop banger bonus episodes. So become a member, get them all. All right.

We have a lot of games to talk about today. We sure do. We are doing our annual Games of the Year episode where we're all just going to break down our top 10 games of the year. might be some repeating entries, might be some that we all talk about, but we're just going to do it. Fun fact, last year, we all had three games that we all had in common,

and two of them were kind of expected ones, but then one of them, the return to Monkey Island, came out of nowhere, and we were all like, oh, whoa, cool, that's on all our list. So let's see how many games we all have in common this year. I expect there will be a couple that we're all kind of expecting,

and then maybe a dark horse contender for common triple click game of the year. I predict more than three commonalities this year. You predict more than three? Okay, cool. All right. You guys want to make it interesting? Okay, yeah.

What is this? Put some cash on it. River wins this. This is the tiebreaker in case we tie. See the tie breaker on the tiebreaker? No, I guess we are. No, we're ready to be. This is a parlay or I don't know.

This is getting really complex now. Kirk spent too much time with me. He's like trying to gamble on everything. You're rubbing. You guys want to make this interesting, huh? I'll throw it out a couple of dimes. A couple of bills. All right, let's get to you.

So we're going to go in order of me and then Kirk and then Maddie. So you guys ready? You're ready to talk about some video games? Super ready. Okay, so we're each going to break down our list one at a time, our list of 10. And so I'm going to do my list before. I do. I just want to give a shout out to a few games that I didn't play enough to, like, be real contenders on this.

I hear that. Allen Wake 2, cyberpunk, phantom liberty, Liza P, and Trails to Azure. All could have potentially made the list, but I just haven't had enough time to play them. So maybe they'll be contenders next year. I don't know.

We'll see. But let's get on with the real list. Number one, Octopath Traveler 2. Yeah. Octopath Traveler 2. Phenomenal JRP, one of the best JRP's ever made, perhaps. And what's really tremendous about that,

what's really impressive about this game is that I just had no expectations going into it because I thought the first game was actually pretty mediocre. And kind of, I was one of the few people to call out many of the flaws that I think were in that game. And some people certainly liked it. But I think it was definitely polarizing. And so I did not expect the second game to blow it out of the water, but it totally did. And just surpassed my expectations in so many ways.

The two things I'll highlight is that, number one, other than like the music and the presentation and everything else, that it has going for it. Number one is that it fixes the biggest flaw of the first game, which was that every single chapter unfolded the exact same way. It was like town, dungeon, town, or sorry, town, use special ability, go through a dungeon, boss, and every single time you did this 32 times, four times for each of the eight characters. The second game totally switches that up, which by itself just totally makes it feel like a brand new experience and makes it really cool.

The second thing is that the side quest really impressed me because unlike many RPGs, they don't just give you like an indication of where to go and then let you follow markers just kind of mindlessly to go collect whatever. Instead, they give you hints and you have to kind of figure it out almost Eldon Ring style, which I was super impressed by and just really, really enjoyed. Again, it's an evolution of the system for the first game. So yeah, Octavitis Travel 2, just a phenomenal game. So wait, by number one, do you mean it's your number one?

No, this is in no particular order. No order. No. Okay, okay. Just the order I thought of them as I was writing the last. Number two, The Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. I just want to say I won't go on too much about this game, which is one of the greatest ever made.

I think it's gotten kind of lost in the shuffle this year as everyone, like this game of the year, this goatee season as everyone raves about Balders Gate 3. And, man, don't forget about Tears of the Kingdom. That game is tremendous. No, man. Probably if I was a game awards voter, I would have voted for that for. game of the year over Baldur's Gate 3. That said, number three on my list is Baldur's Gate 3, which is also just a fantastic accomplishment. Just what an achievement. I've been hyped about

this game since the second I saw Larian Studios was making a successor to the Baldur's Gate series. And I'm really happy that it's kind of like penetrated the mainstream and become this mega hit, both critically and commercially. I'm just really excited about it and excited to see all the games that learn from it and take ideas from it and really trust the play. Trust like that the player doesn't have to see everything in a game. I think that's kind of a big flaw in a lot of RPGs. It's like no developer wants to waste a lot of time making stuff that not every player is going to see. And I think the developers abouters Gay-3 were like, we're making stuff that only 1% of players are going to see.

We're fine with that just over and over again. Number four for me is Chance of Sinar, a game that is a very special. small game made by just a small handful of people about it's a puzzle game it's about deciphering languages and logic puzzles and kind of roaming through it's it's inspired by the tower of babble myth you're kind of roaming through this tower and translating languages and connecting people and I found it really inspiring and emotionally impactful for me and the puzzling is really cool and it made me feel like a genius as I was figuring out all the different languages is just a brilliant game that very much is into what I think is one of TripleClick's favorite genres,

the kind of Mindvania type games. Mindvania. The Metroid Braini. That's good. That's the term that's bouncing. Number five is Super Mario Brothers Wonder, which is just a delightful, as I described it a couple months ago when we were doing our triple play, it's just kind of a joy to play every moment of it. It's just constant delight as you play that game.

I've beaten most of it. I want to go back and kind of do all the special levels, which I haven't had a chance to finish yet. But just a tremendous platformer that just is constantly shaking things up on you and throwing new twists in the formula with its wonder seeds in which you are going through a level. And then you'll find one of these wonder flowers. And suddenly everything will twist around in some crazy way. and the way they manage to keep surprising you as you're going is just such a thrill and such a pleasure to play. So like one level you might be just playing kind of a normal 2D platformer and then you'll get one of the Wonderflowers and then everything will switch to like a top dimensional perspective where it's like you're walking as like it's Hotline Miami and you're just like staring at bar his head.

It's just such a cool game. I just love it so much and the music is just so tremendous. I don't think it's like definitely not like one of my top three of the year, but just, just in the top 10, it's 100% there. It's like, it's not mind-bogglingly incredible the way Tears of the Kingdom is, but it's still just a tremendous Mario game. And I can't wait to see what that team, that Mario team in Nintendo keeps making. Some creative people on that team. Yeah, man, I can't wait to see, like, presumably they've got a 3D Mario in store,

like maybe for the Switch 2 next year. And, man, cannot wait to see what they come up with. Same, yeah. Number six for me is Star Wars Jedi. Survivor. I know this game got got panned for its technical issues, but when I played through it on PS5, I did not run into many big issues. And I had a great time playing it. I didn't finish it, but I got pretty close to the end. And while the story, I could take it or leave it, the combat and the platforming especially just feel so damn good to play that I could just keep playing that game. Like if I had more time on my

hands, I would probably just dive into that and like try to 100% I get all the secrets and stuff. Oh, man. So good. I should go back. I should like start it over almost. I don't, I don't remember what I was doing. You really should. It was fun and it runs well on my PC now. I should just play it. Yeah. Yeah, you really should. It's, it's, especially now that they fix a lot of the technical problems. Just the fact, I talked about this when we, when we did our triple playing on it, but just the fact that like you start off with a lot of those kind of traversal abilities that you gained in the first game, like double jump and like zipping and stuff. And you get an air dash as you go. It's really, it's just like, this is the hollow night bringing air dash to every game has been a very welcome, very welcome thing. So, yeah, I just really liked it. And like the soul's inspiration is really cool.

There are a lot of tough bosses that you can find. And I really enjoy that. I really enjoy the way it blends the kind of approachability that you would expect from a Star Wars games. There are tutorials and they're kind of, it wants you to know how to play it, but will not, doesn't kind of like, skimp on the difficulty, especially if you're playing at some of the higher difficulty settings, which I was. And I really just like it.

It's just a really well-made game. One quick little tidbit, by the way, I don't know if you guys remember this, but a couple of months ago, I reported that Stegas Muson, who is the director of this game, left respawn the company that made this game. So it'll be interesting to see what happens with the third one,

because the third one has a new set of directors who have kind of been, like, promoted upwards to take over. And so it'll be totally, fresh blood for the third game, which I think could lead to some more innovation and interesting stuff. And I don't think we'll see it for quite a few more years, but it should be very interesting to see. Nice. Number seven, this one I played and beat in the last week, thanks to a Kirk Hamilton recommendation,

and it made the list. It is called Paranormacite, the seven mysteries of Hanjo. I really like this game. This game is a visual novel in the style of the Jason game. games that I rave about all the time. The Dangen Rompas. Jason Corr. Yes, Jason Cor.

Yes. Jason. There's a zero escapes in the dangan Rompas of the world. There's a whole flowchart. Whenever a game has a story chart, I'm sold. So I'm just like, yep, story chart, you got me. Yeah, I saw that. And I was like, okay, Jason's going to put this on his list.

Whenever there's a branching, enough of a branching narrative that you have to leap between characters and stories and stuff, I'm in. This game, I would say it can be a little convoluted. There's a big glossary of character names and mysteries you have to know about. It's only getting more Jason Core, the more you go on. Yeah, even for me, Maddie, even for me, it is a little convoluted. That's probably the thing I've struggled with with it is keeping everything straight. It's a little compliment.

Yeah, but the writing is really good and I just really enjoyed the way it plays. It kind of, it's people who come into this and are like, oh, I should check that out. So let me kind of give you the premise of it. And then I'll tell you about how it's a little bit of a bait-in switch. So the premise is it's set in Japan. It's set in this area called Hanjo. And there are a bunch of kind of mysteries. And it's the middle of the night.

And what happens at the middle of the night in the fiction of this game is that a bunch of people, like nine different people, get these stones that are called chursed stones or whatever. And they become curse bearers, which means that they have an ability that they can use to kill somebody. If certain conditions are met. one condition, for example, the first one you get is that someone has to be facing away from you for you to kill them. And the reason that people are encouraged to kill one another is because if you kill enough people, you get what's called soul dregs, and then you can use them to fill up your curse stone, and then use that to cast what's called the right of resurrection to revive someone that you know or someone who has died. And that's the core premise of the game. And then it

unfolds over the course of a couple of days where you were watching a ton of different characters, kind of reckon with this and figure out how to deal with it and maybe figure out how to everyone has their own motive some people want to make the right like go through the right and kill people other people want to stop the whole thing from happening other people have their own kind of kind of like increasingly complicated motivations and it's just a really fascinating story that plays with some really interesting ideas and also plays with some really interesting mechanics in a way i've never really seen a game do before that i think is really cool very Kojima-ish, like in Metal Gear Salt.

Reminding me of... Without saying any specifics. Yeah, without getting into specifics. But it reminded me of, what's the name of that weirdo fight in the first Metal Gear Sal? A Psycho Mantis. It's that kind of stuff. It's reaching out of the game in some very fun ways. Yeah, it's cool.

It's a really cool game. I really enjoyed it. The one thing I'll say is that there's kind of a bait-and-switch in that the first part of the game makes you think you're playing this kind of like going around and cursing people on killing people. But it's very much that. The most of the game is reading. It is very much a visual.

novel. So keep that in mind if you're going to check it out. Number eight, this one's pretty easy. Spider-Man 2, just a straightforward action adventure romp. The three of us talked in our beans cast about some of the story issues that we found in Spider-Man 2, and I won't say it's a perfect game, but it was so much fun to play through that I just think it justifies a spot on this list. Swinging around New York just does not get old. Also, by the way, we haven't talked about this because it all happened while we were gone, but that huge insomnia leak last week where, like, um, hackers posted 1.7 terabytes of, uh, leaked data, everything from like future insomniac plans to, uh, personal information about employees. I wrote a piece about it that will link in the show

notes for Bloomberg about, uh, the kind of fallout for employees and how horrible it was for them. Um, but I will say, uh, that I think the, the revel, of the revelations, one that I'm sure Maddie is very excited about is that Insomnia has signed up to do an X-Men game and the kind of my light-hearted observation here is that playing Spider-Man too, I was like, man, I wish I could swing to Westchester

in New York, but maybe they're saving that for the X-Men game of coming, which is a fun revelation, but of course a very tragic leak that really hurt a lot of people. I wish that hadn't been how we found it out. Yeah, it's a sad way to find out of it a game, right? Like, it's

in that context. But then again, I mean it's not like diminishing the hype like that stuff is whatever the thing that's really horrible is the personal information like people having to spend their holiday breaks worrying about identity fraud like that's the type of thing that's really scary um the amount of stuff that got leaked out there so uh here's hoping that uh for the best for that nobody gets caught up in identity fraud because that would really fucking suck and then also there there's a revelation in there like there slides people found about upcoming layoffs so that really friggin sucks too so just a mess of a situation all around.

But hey, they should be proud of Spider-Man, too, because it's a really good game, and I liked it in many, many ways. Number nine, Diablo 4. This almost, this kind of like... I'm glad this made your list. This kind of doubles as a Steam Deck recommendation

for me, because something that I've really been enjoying since I got the Steam Deck OLED, which is incredible. Full disclosure, got that from Valve, as a review unit, so I did not buy it. But since I got it, I've been playing Diablo 4 many, many nights in bed, before bed, while watching TV with my wife. And she's playing Zelda next to me. And it is really just the perfect game for mindlessly doing anything. With apologies to Blizzard's

like sound team and music team, because they do incredible work. Playing it with a sound off of watching TV is the best way to play it. I've been really getting into it. I've been playing my cold, build, sorceress and like taking on all sorts of challenges it's gotten increasingly it gets really tough um are you doing the story stuff or the seasonal the story stuff i'm playing through the campaign it gets really challenging the campaign is cool there's some really cool stuff toward the end i really like yeah and it gets really tough um i struggled a lot with do you remember kirk that boss on the top of the mountain who's casting all the druid spells at you like the storms and the lightning bolts and stuff that was a tough one um yeah it's really fun it's a really well-made game and i don't know i

I haven't finished it yet, so I don't know if it's like one of those. I mean, with Diablo games, it's almost two games. There's the main campaign and then the end game part of it. I'm probably not going to get super into like end game grinding and stuff like that. But as just playing through the campaign, I'm really enjoying it. It feels great, looks great. The story, I mean, whatever, I'm not really paying attention to the story. But like, it's just a great package and it's super fun to build out the sorceress and play around with her abilities and stuff.

15 or sorry 10 I don't know why I said 15 10 I have 15 entries on this No number 10 So this one this is a tough spot I had a few contenders for this But ultimately I went with what was really My heart told me to go with

Which is the DLC for Case of the Golden Idol Wow I was going to take this So this year Case of the Golden Idol One of my favorite games of 2022 I think all three of our one of that was one of our Triple-click game of the years that we all, games of the year that we all picked. And just really loved it.

Love that game for so many reasons. It's, of course, a game about investigating kind of mysteries and these tableau images that are just really fun and really challenge your brain. And this year, the developers released two different DLC packs, each of which has three episodes. So the equivalent of, like, not quite a new game, but almost a new game. I mean six new episodes, so I think it's fair to say. And they're all really good, and some of them are the best, even better than stuff in the main game in terms of just kind of the puzzles and the way it forces you to think about things and the information

that you're kind of achieving a lot or figuring out a long way. So I really loved it, and I feel like it just deserves a spot on this list, even though it's not technically a new game, it's DLC, but it was good enough. And then I'm sure next year, the sequel, which was just announced at the Game Award, is the rise of the Golden Idol. I'm sure that I'll make my list next year, so stay tuned for that. But, yeah, I mean, when it comes to these Metroid brain-brainias, is Kirk.

That's great gold. I really cannot get enough. I cannot get enough of these Jason core games. And that's my list. Octobath Traveler 2, The Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, Balders Gate 3, Chance of Sonar, Super Mario Brothers Wonder, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Paranormacite, Spider-Man 2, Diablo 4, and the Case of the Golden Idol DLC.

All right, Kirk, you're up next. Nice. I have a, yeah, I have a huge list of shoutouts and runners up that I'll maybe do at the end. Just I'll run through the names just because there were so many games that I liked this year. And that was a remarkable thing about this year is I liked most of the games that I played. And I don't know, like, there are usually a few games at least that I start. And I'm like, ah, this isn't my thing or this is really kind of bumming me out. And there were really only a couple of games that I found.

all that disappointing this year. So it was a very fun list to make and also a list that required cutting a lot of worthy games. So I will go through my games now. These are, as always, in order of name length. So we're starting with the shortest and we're ending with the longest.

The first game on my list is Ju-Saint, a French game by Don't Nod that I talked about on the show just a few weeks ago and have played more of since and really, really love. This game is really awesome. Did either of you play this game at all?

Climbing. Maybe I don't know. The climbing doesn't really seem up my alley. But yeah, go ahead. Well, it is wonderful. So I love a game that centers on an unusual mechanic and specifically traversal. In a lot of ways, this actually reminds me of death stranding, in that most of the game is about moving through space.

And they've made the moving through space really interesting and just consistently engaging as you play. But also the vibes of this game, the look of it, the world, the storytelling is really, great. I just found myself playing it and wanting to play more because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. What's going to be at the top of this huge tower? What am I going to learn about this world and how it came to be this way? And I just really love it. I think it's beautiful looking. It has gorgeous music. It sounds, I'm not sure who the composer is, but the music reminds me at times of that movie Amelie. It has that kind of floating ethereal

and somewhat French sound. It wouldn't be surprised if it was a French composer. It It has a sort of European aesthetic in the music. This is the music from Jusant. This is by the composer, Guillaume Ferrell. Just wanted to shout him out because he wrote some beautiful music for this game. So that's my first game, and the game with the shortest name is Jusant. Highly recommended. Next with a slightly longer name, a similar-length game, though, is Dredge,

which I really just kept coming back to. When I started playing it, I just couldn't stop, really. I got into the groove and then just coasted along. It was one of the most playable games I played all year. And I guess the thing I'll share about it is that scope, the size of the world of this game, is a thing that I really liked. So Dredge is a sort of cosmic horror fishing game, I suppose you'd call it, where you're fishing in this weird sort of down and out little archipelago, and you gradually go out from your starting harbor town or I guess port town. I don't know if it's a harbor. Maybe it is a harbor.

Anyways, you go out from the harbor to environs around and sort of discover more and more cursed weird places, and you are fishing the whole time and pulling up fish and then having to arrange them on your ship, which you're constantly upgrading and adding more space. There's the kind of Resident Evil-style inventory mini-game where you have to get all the fish organized. You have to deliver them and sell them before they go bad.

But then you start pulling up fish that are all warped and weird and have giant eyes. or weird growths on them or are covered in slime or have some poison that starts to get on the other fish in your hold. And as you play, there really is kind of a story. Like the longer you play, the more you start to wonder, okay, what really is going on here? And who am I?

Because you don't see your character, but you are somebody. And it becomes clear that you have some kind of a relationship with the people around you. So one of the fun things about the game is the way that you kind of learn this story as you play it. And then especially through the end, it sort of surprised me in the final act. with how I suddenly, I found myself with all these unanswered questions about who I was and what was going on.

And yeah. Would they say unanswered or they are answered? No, no, they are answered. Well, depending on if you, there are multiple endings. I think I mentioned this on the show earlier. But if you go back and you get the sort of full ending, you do learn what's going on. But it does require you to dig up some secrets. Well, fish up some secrets.

I guess that's true, dredge up some secrets. to the thing about the scale, I think this game kind of feels a little bit like Outer Wilds. And I don't want to mislead anybody saying that because Outer Wilds is this work of design genius that's speaking of Metroid Braini. And again, to underline, not my term. Fresh Dick used that on the besties and he credited somebody else. Got it. Nick Sutner or somebody, I don't know. At this point, it's just a term.

But it's not that kind of game. It's not like Outer Wilds. It doesn't have that kind of wild, you know, sense of exploration and discovery. but the size of it, the way that you trundle your little boat from one area to another, and how quickly you realize, oh, suddenly I'm in this new weird orange zone or this weird swamp zone, it just feels like in Outer Wilds when you go to another planet and you're like, oh, it was right there, but now suddenly I'm in this whole other world. Like something about the sense of scale.

There's even the same anglerfish from Outer War. And there is, yeah, a little bit of that sort of cosmic, because Outer Wilds does have some real cosmic. Yeah, fish are scary in both games. It's true. So true. And there's like that unspoken kind of fear that does linger just outside of your view in both games. The universe is mysterious. I'm wiggling my fingers. Imagine that.

So anyway, Stretch is just a very, a very well-made, very confident game, and the team that made it should be very proud. And I think it did pretty well for them. Okay, my third game, the next longest name, this is a game that completely derailed my attempts to play some of the games that didn't make my list because I got so into it over the last week. And that is Lies of P. This game rocks. You guys have got to play this game. It is so, so, so good. I played a little bit of it.

It was my one more thing earlier in the year. And I played enough to be like, oh, this is cool. It's pretty much Bloodbourne, but with Pinocchio, and it's better than you'd think. And because I had played, you know, three or four hours beaten like the first boss and got into the second boss. I figured, all right, I've kind of seen what this game is. It's a lot like Bloodborn. I don't know if I have one of these game me right now. I mean, the first level, which I also.

played over the past week, it's Yarnum, like straight up, yarnum. Well, I mean, I don't think it's fair to say that it isn't a clone because I think that actually what they have brought, the developers, Round 8 studio, a South Korean developer, has brought. They brought a lot of inspiration and some cool ideas, both narratively and in the mechanics. I'm just saying the first impression is like, oh, this is just Bloodborn. Like, my first impression after playing an hour of it is like, oh, this is just Bloodborn. But yeah, go on. Well, so what I think is remarkable, for starters, is one of the greatest games. made and this game is so close to it. I mean, I've played a lot of from likes from other developers.

I've never played one that felt as much like a from game as this one did. I've never played one that had a narrative hook as strong as this one, and I've never played one that had combat that was as fun as this game. So Liza P. I'm sure a lot of people listening already know, but it is a lot like Bloodborn, so it's a soul's-like game with kind of that same steampunk. They describe it is the Belle Epoch era, but, you know, that kind of vibe with Gothic horror and a lot of sort of rain and city streets while you're fighting against horrible monstrosities. But in this world, you are Pinocchio, and this is the world of Pinocchio inspired by the literary world of Pinocchio.

And they take that so far and lean into it so hard in so many awesome ways that I am like, I am blown away by how consistently cool the tone. and story of this game are. Like, it was actually on the besties. They talked about it. Justin McElroy was, he had been joking about this game forever. And then at the start of their episode about it, he says something along the lines of, you know, when you actually sit down and you're like, oh, okay, so there's a world where puppets do everything, but then the puppets rise up and they're evil.

But then Pinocchio, because he's part human and part puppet is the only one who can stand against the puppet army. And actually, wait a minute, that's a really cool idea for a video game. And he's right. I totally agree that it is a fan. fantastic idea, and I'm just amazed by how well they've executed it. So, okay, I have played a ton of this game now. I'm probably two-thirds of the way through it. I've beaten a lot of the bosses. I've had a great time making my builds and, like, customizing my characters. I could talk about

this forever. I won't, but I will say there are so many little refinements that they've made that I think are the mark of real brilliance, because it's hard enough to make a game, like, feel like Bloodbourne and have the energy of Bloodborn and the combat to be as satisfying as Bloodborn, especially when you take elements from other From games as well. So this has Bloodbourne style combat where you lock on and you do a quick dodge. There are pretty limited eye frames, but you can do that, but it also has a Sekiro-style parry system. So you can parry every attack. And if you're really good at it, you can play the whole game with these like wicked parries where you're disarming enemies by blowing up their weapons and in this really aggressive mode it has you have a prosthetic arm that can

get all of these different abilities that are that's also like securo and then there are all these little things like i don't know if you use up all of your estes flasks basically your last one slowly charges up as you damage enemies or as you damage the boss and then you can get one back so once you're totally out of healing if you play well and kill a lot of enemies you'll get a healing flask back which can turn parts of the game into this really fun kind of risk reward thing, just a cool new idea. Or a weapon customization. The handles of a lot of weapons can be separated from the blades and they're upgraded

separately. The handles manage what the weapon scales with and the blade manages what kind of moves it does or like what kind of damage it does and how much damage. So you can combine and mix and match in a way that just gives a ton of freedom for builds. I've been really struck by looking up build guides for this game. I'll find there are just a million people recommending every weapon. They'll be like, I like playing with this handle and that weapon. I like the wrench with the police baton handle.

Well, I like the sife. Well, I like the puppet ripper. And everyone uses a different weapon, which goes to show there's no, like, one best thing. You can kind of have fun however you want to play it. And really, I just, I can't say enough good about this game. I'm really obsessed with it. I'm going to finish it. It feels like getting to play another from game.

And that just amazes me that this developer kind of came out of nowhere and managed to pull this off better than anyone else I've seen clone it. or at least they made a game that I liked more. So Liza P, it's fantastic. I will keep going to another game that I really want to rave about, but I'm going to try to limit myself so we don't go too far over time. But the next game is another game that I came back to, after talking about it earlier in the year,

and played a whole ton of and I'm absolutely wild about, and that is Hi-Fi Rush. Holy crap, this is one of the best games of the year. This game totally rules. What fun. I knew it was good. I knew people liked it. I knew everyone said it would be up my alley since it's a very musical game.

I did not realize how good it was. So, Hi-Fi Rush, again, remind me, because I've been talking for a long time and I wanted the two of you to say something. Did either of you play this game at all? No. I mean, hey, I'm still thinking about Liza P. But keep going, Kirk. I'm transitioning to imagine. Yeah, I suspect we're all going to wind up playing Liza P.

I know. Yeah, I think you'll both like it. High-Fi Rush is so good. So this is a game that came out very early in the year. It was a total out-of-now-now-where surprise. It's made by Tango GameWorks, the makers of the Evil Within, very surprising turn for them. And it's a very kind of 2000s console game,

meets Saturday morning cartoons aesthetic, devil may cry style fighting game, except that it's also a rhythm game and everything in the game grooves along with the music. So this game is so fun for starters. It is so distinct. I've never played an action game that felt like this, where everything you're doing is in time with this rock music. And so your attacks, your paris, your combos are all just, um, chat, um, hey, um, hey, you're countering and you're dodging, and the enemies are all moving.

And the whole world is this, like, lockstep groove that's going along with the music. Sometimes, like, the product you'll come on are nine-inch nails, they'll play these license tracks. A lot of the game, though, is really great original music that just plays. you are hearing some gameplay of High-Fi Rush, which is really the only way to hear the soundtrack, which was composed by Chiichi Kobori, Rayo Uritani, and Masayoshi Yanagi,

three great composers who really crushed it for this game. Bing! It's at its weakest when you're platforming. The whole world also moves in time, and there are times around platforming, and I'm like, ah, I don't like this. But then I'm in a fight, and the fighting is so cool.

It's the most I've ever enjoyed this DMC style, like jumping up, juggling, bouncing around high mobility, quick interrupt counter fighting. It's very, very different from something like Liza P or a soul's game, which I do really like. It's just got its own speed. But because it's in time, you can really just kind of relax into the groove. And when I get in the groove and I'm thinking ahead and I've got all my combos down and I'm watching the enemies and I'm calling in the special moves when I need to, you just get in this sort of this groove with it.

And it's so, so fun. It's just continued to be fun. I've played a whole bunch of this now. I'm probably two-thirds of the way done. And the other thing about it that I did not expect is that the story is good and the characters are very funny. And I find it to be just very charming and funny. When I started it, it has a look a little like sunset overdrive and someone could be forgiven for looking at it and be like, oh, that looks obnoxious. Oh, man, that's going to be a bunch of people screaming.

I am not interested in all of these, like, you know, just listening to these. One-liners, cool, video game, skateboard vibes or whatever. Yeah. It's not that. I mean, it has a sort of cartoony energy, and it feels a little bit like, you know, a kid's movie. But it's a lot funnier. It's a lot more clever than I would have thought. There are just, you know, tonally, it reminds me of tales from the borderlands, which was the borderlands telltale adventure game, was a similar deal where it kind of looks the same, like it has a similar kind of art style or graphical style.

And there was something in that game, too, where there's just a, you surprisingly come to really like the characters. I think this game has a really cool view of disability in that just a lot of characters in the game have robotic limbs or in some way dealing with a disability and it's just not a big deal. They're just working to take down this super megacorp and every character has just got a kind of something that they're overcoming or that they're working with

and they're all so charming, they bicker, they fight, they all make fun of the main guy a lot because he thinks he's so cool but he's kind of not. And it's just like there are so many little bits and little jokes that make me laugh. I don't know. I love it. I really think that it's wonderful. So again, that is another longer rant than planned. My next games I can go through a little more quickly because we've talked about them more.

Yeah, Kirk, I was going to say you've hit the amount of time I have. I know. It's the end of the year, man. No, it's fine. If you don't mind editing, I don't mind if we're going on. That's true, I guess, in the end, it's on me. No, I will, I'll take that. So anyways, those two games, really, Liza P and Hifai Rush were two that I needed to go a little longer about because we didn't talk about them much, and I think that they're both really wonderful. So the next few games I can go through more quickly.

Alan Wake 2, we've talked about it a lot. It's one of the coolest games they've ever played. I loved it. Show me the Champion of Light, et cetera. What a great game. I just absolutely loved it. That song has been stuck in my head since the game orange. It's so good.

And you haven't even seen it in the game yet, have you? Oh, man, wait until you. It's very good. Next, Baldur's Gate 3. Again, incredible. we're about to talk about it on the Beanscast forever. And to what you said, Jason, about a developer that's not afraid to make things that you won't see. I really think that's the key to this game is it's not, it's that it's there.

It's that you know there is a path not taken. I would suspect that the three of us made a lot of the same choices through this game, but knowing that we could have made different choices is such an important part of making the story have the impact that it has. So I really loved this game. So Baldur's Gate 3. after that chance of Cynar. Another wonderful game. This was via you, Jason.

I really appreciated the recommendation. And yeah, I was glad to play this one on a plane. I played this on Steam Deck. And I think it really benefits from just being somewhere where you can focus on it for a period of time because you do have to relax your brain and let in all of that, you know, that whole language matrix that you have to start to figure out.

And it takes a minute to get going. At first it's like, okay, what is going on? I just have no idea. Am I even going to be able to do this? and then you get your first little handhold, and then you get your second, and then it starts to cascade, and then pretty soon you're like,

oh my God, I just want to play this forever, which is the way that any of those kinds of games really should work. Rainworm games. I loved it. Yeah, I loved it. And just I think those developers, again, I think their first game, they should be very proud. The second, but yeah.

Second, incredibly well-made, and could not have been easy to design that game. Holy crap. All right, three more. We've got cyberpunk 2077, and I'm putting down Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, partly because the name length

looks better if I'm doing my names as they get longer, but also because I loved Phantom Liberty. I think it was an incredible expansion. I really just thought it was fantastic. It was a great addition to the game, but I really liked

Cyberpunk 277 as well. I had kind of played through it earlier in the year and then played it again with 2.0 and really relaxed, took my time, did the whole thing, like really saw all of it, Johnny's story, saw all the endings, and really came to appreciate what a wonderful game it is.

It certainly has its problems. It has some quests that don't work for me. It has, like, weird. You can still see the pieces of the game that didn't work. Like, they wanted to make it into something that it wasn't. And to this day, like the GTA immersive cop stuff, I just don't care about any of that. They could have just made it a story game. But it bears all the hallmarks of a game that wanted to be something much, much bigger than

it wound up being, but what it wound up being is really, really good now. So I just loved it and was very happy for all my time I spent with it. Next, we have the most bittersweet entry on the list, and that is Shadow Gambit, the cursed crew. This is the, I guess, the third major real-time stealth tactics game from developer Me, Me, a German developer that shut down after shipping this game because it just didn't sell well enough and it was hard for them to make it, which was really sad because I've loved all of their games. I loved Shadow Tactics. I love Desperatos 3. And I love Shadow Gambit,

The Cursed Crew. I played a bunch more of this over the last few weeks. And man, I mean, I love self games. I love to look down at a little field and figure out a million different ways to solve a given problem. I love all of the ways this game has variable difficulty and just allows you to tackle things in all these different ways. It's the most welcoming of these that they've made with so many different options, so much that you can do. They've added all this DLC with like returning characters and just there's like an almost infinite amount of stuff to do in this game and it's endlessly interesting. I think it's so well made and they got so good at making these games. I'm sad that they're not going to make them anymore, but they have made an incredible, like they

have a real legacy here and I really encourage anyone to check these games out. I mean, all of them are good. They're all pretty equally good, though I would say actually that Shadow Gambit does feel like a culmination. So it's an incredible, incredible game. A great swan song, you might say. Yes, a great swan song. And last, but certainly not least, the Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. What else is they say about this game? Beautiful, amazing game. Made a whole strong songs just about the music.

I'm glad you didn't forget about it because so many people seem to have. No. It's amazing to me that they outdid Breath of the Wild. And I think that they did. I know some people don't feel that way, but I feel that way. I think it was just like a tremendous achievement. So an absolutely wonderful game. That's my 10th.

So my list of 10 is from shortest to the longest title. Jusant, Dredge, Lies of P, Hi-Fi Rush, Alan Wake 2, Balders Gate 3, Chance of Cynar, Cyberpunk 277, 2.0, Shadow Gambit, the cursed crew, and the Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. And then I went so long, I don't know, there's a billion games that I played that I didn't get to fit on. Say your honorable mentions, it's fine. Don't say anything about them, just listen names. I will literally just list them. Octopath Traveler 2, Sea of Stars, Resident Evil 4 remake, Blastphemous 2, Tcha,

Lil Gator Games, Super Mario Brothers Wonder, Venba, Asgard's Wrath 2, Paranormalasite, Seven Mysteries of Hanjo and Diablo 4, all great games. And they added roguelikes to, like, Hitman and God of War. What a year, good God. Are those, just for clarity's sake, are those games you might have considered if you had played more, or those are games that, like, just didn't make the cut? Both. Kind of a mix of the two.

Like if I had played a ton of Octopath 2, it might have made it. And I've heard nothing but good things about Asgard's wrath too, but I just barely started it because it just came out. There are a few like that. I've been seeing commercials for that game, which is hilarious. It's like, I wonder how many copies they're selling of an Oculus Rift game to like justify. The reviews of that are wild though. The reviews are like, this is the best VR game ever made. Like there are reviews being like, it's better than Half Life Alex, which is crazy.

So I don't know. We'll see. I still got to play it. I'll probably talk about that in the future on the show. Maddie. take us away. All right. We got some repeats here, so this won't take very long.

So I guess I'll start by saying, I can't remember if I put Marvel's Midnight Suns in my list last year because it came out right before the end of the year. I think you both did from what I remember. I made my list. But I'm going to just say it again anyway because at least at Polygon, I didn't get to vote for it last year. So we included it this year in our top 50.

And I played it a ton at the beginning of this year. so it feels weird to me not to mention it as one of my 10. But I guess technically it's not. So I'll continue on. This is in an order, whatever. Number one, Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. Great video game. My game of the year.

Sorry to all other video games, but I did play some other ones. You did. Maddie, you did. I just looked it up. You did put, both of you two, but Marvel's been nice times. Glad we made it in time. This is why we record this. A game that deserves to be on two game of years.

at the very end of December so that we don't have to make these heartbreaking decisions. Exactly. Exactly. We get to include everything for the entire year. All right. Alan Wake 2. Jason, we're going to make you play this. I don't know. I don't know how. But it's so good. I love it. And I just want to talk about all the spoilers. So preview for maybe a Beanscast will record someday in the future because it's it's so freaking cool. What a weird, scary, great video game. Here's hoping.

Yes, I promise you guys I will play it, but like Alan Wake, I must write to this date. So when I'm finishing my new book, then I will go play Alan Wake too, I promise. I understand completely. All right, my next choice. Baldur's Gate 3. I probably wouldn't have circled back and played this game, if not for all the social pressure to do so. And I'm really glad that I did that because this game is very fiddly and very, very

tedious and it doesn't explain a lot to you. I never played Divinity Original Sin. So that was, that really hurt me on the learning curve. But I'm just, I'm so glad that I gave it a chance because it is a masterpiece of RPG design and character writing and theatrical performance acting. Does it feel like enough of a word to describe some of the things that happen in this game? And I love it. And I'm really excited to talk about it on the Beans cast. Continuing along, Number four, Metroid Prime remastered. This is kind of a joke that Nintendo played on me specifically, where as soon as I installed Metroid Prime on my Steam deck and beat it in full,

they released this for the Switch, and then I had to play it again, and I did that. And that was something I did earlier this year and really enjoyed doing wonderful video game. They should put out the other two Metroid Primes and maybe even that fourth one. That'd be nice. They should. I would love them there. Maybe they will.

Number five, Venba. I talked about this on the show. I don't remember when two episodes ago and episode ago. But it's kind of a cooking game meets personal memoir style family that emigrates from India to Canada and a kid growing up in that environment with their immigrant parents and just a lifetime of memories. And kind of combining that with cooking game mechanics, it's like almost impossible to do this well. I feel like anytime I play a game that's two hours long and it just feels perfect, it just seems almost magical. Like it was just fully formed and they knew exactly what to write.

But I also know how incredibly difficult it is to even write a really powerful personal essay, let alone having something be interactive and personal and poignant and all of that. It has original music in it. It's just a really beautiful game. So Venba, really recommend it. Next one. Dredge. This is a really cool horror fishing game.

I loved it. I thought the storytelling in dribs and drabs was really cool. Kind of reminded me of Hades a little bit to have little marks in the game that you keep returning to, people you keep talking to. You learn more about them as it goes along. And then you go out and you do your fishing work. You do your difficult fishing work. And then you come back and learn more about the world. I really like that storytelling style.

I think it works even outside of a rogue-like or rogue-like setting, and it's cool to see another indie game kind of playing with that as a format for telling a story. And number seven, chance of Cinar. We all liked this one, too. Really good, really good. This is maybe triple-click core. I think we could say that.

This is a puzzle game with process of elimination style, the solutions, which is maybe not the best, But my favorite part of it is actually the context clue elimination format for puzzle solving. So Case of the Golden Idol does this too, where maybe you don't have a great guess for something, but you just keep looking at the context of the puzzle. And you're like, okay, I've got this blank spot here. I don't know what it means. And I'm just going to look at how other people are reacting to this, be it an object or a description of a situation or a clue.

And I'm just going to keep thinking about that until I figure it out. And whatever form of Rain teaser that is, the context clue in order to figure it out, I think we all really enjoy. And that's on full display and chance of Sonaras. You're deciphering each of these languages. Number eight, cocoon. This is just a really fun indie game that I played in like two days and kept thinking about. I love it when a game is just all environmental puzzles.

I just, it's like my favorite part of a lot of Metroid games. So no surprise. I really like cocoon. Plus it has that kind of alien bug. I was going to say there is, yeah, there is a lot. I played a bunch of cocoons here and definitely has some Metroid to it. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Really good. And then I picked for number nine, I put Dead Space, the remake. I really liked this. Really scary game. Didn't even beat it, but thought about it a lot after playing it and how good it was, how well designed it was, and just the choices they made with the sound design in that game. I just loved it.

It was really spooky and good. maybe I'll go back and beat it someday. And then last but not least, Super Mario Wonder, yet another triumph and sound design. Really, really beautifully sounding game. You got to play it in headphones, folks. Like, yeah, it's Mario,

but, man, they did full orchestra implementation for some of those sounds, and they just sound so freaking good, and it just takes it to the next level, you collect a new object, and then everything changes. The plants start singing. Plants start singing. Everything starts singing.

singing everyone. Yes, which is a musical number. This was really the year of the musical. Multiple games on this list ended up being musicals, and I love that for us. Yeah, it's great. It's definitely something we'll complain about. So, okay, Maddie, read your list,

and then we'll discuss the ones that we all have in common. You want to read your list from the beginning? We'll do. So it's Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, Alan Wake 2, Balders Gate 3, Metroid Prime Remastered Venba

Dredge Chance of Cannar Cacoon Dead Space and Super Mario Wonder Cool

so yeah so once again we have three that we all have in common Zelda Zelda and Balder's Gate are kind of

the obvious ones but then Chance of Sinar as the dark horse for triple click favorite Mario was on me and Maddie's

list but me was only a runner up for Kirk and Alan Make 2 was on the two of your list, but I did not have time to play enough of it. Yes. As well as Dredge, we both think of it. Dredge? Yes. Well, I'm about to talk about dredge in a sec. You know, I had one thought before we take a break that I wanted to share that

I just thought was interesting. I was looking at where all of the games on my top 10 list were made. None of them were made in the United States, and they were made all around the world. I love that. And it's kind of a really cool representation of how global the games industry is. There's games made in Paris, in Toulouse. So two from France. France, there's South Korea, Tokyo and Kyoto in Japan, Germany, Poland, Finland, Finland, Belgium, New Zealand. That's where Black Salt Games is based. So it's very cool to be playing these games that were made from all around the world that wound up being my favorite games of the year. And I just thought that was interesting. Where was Dredge made? Yeah, where was Dredge made? New Zealand. New Zealand. Oh, interesting. That's Black Salt Games. Small team. You know what's really cool? Yeah, it's like, I remember like a decade ago, maybe even sooner, like more recently than that, like more recently than that, people. People, People used to think of European games and specifically European RPGs as like Euro junk because

there would be a lot of mediocre kind of buggy ones. And now we're talking about a game of the year that's European RPG and Balders Game 3, cyberpunk, which is a European RPG that is like got this incredible revision. So yeah, different world than we used to live in. The United States don't have a stranglehold on genres and yeah, yeah, very clearly globalized industry. which is really cool. And especially like seeing the amount of creative stuff you're seeing out of other cultures

that maybe like a U.S. designer wouldn't think to make. Totally. With different storytelling traditions and conventions, which is part of what makes these stories so exciting for people all over the world. Really cool. Yeah, it's very cool. Okay, let's take a break and then I'll talk more about dredge. Hey, this is Andrew Reich, the host of Dead Pilot Society,

the show that takes comedy pilots that were sold and developed at networks and streamers but never produced. gives them the table reads they never got a chance to have. If you've never checked out Dead Pilot Society, this month's episode might be the place to start. The cast is incredible, headlined by the one and only Zoe Deschanel, and also featuring Padgett Brewster, Michaela Watkins, Hamish Linklater, Asif Ali, and Maximum Fun's very own Hal Lublin. So go to Maximumfund.org or your favorite podcatcher and check out this incredible cast on the latest episode of Dead Pilot Society. Try ST-O-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-I. Hmm. Are you trying to put the name of the podcast there?

Yeah, I'm trying to spell it, but it's tricky. Let me give it a try. Okay. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, call S-O-P-P-B-A-D-I, it'll never fit. No, it will. Let me try. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try ST-O-P-P-P-D-C-O-O. Oh, we are so close.

Stop podcasting yourself. A podcast for a podcast for. maximum fun.org. If you need a laugh, and you're on the go. And we are back. We'll do some quick one's more thing today because we just, we went long talking about all these games.

And I will go really quickly. Dredge was basically number 11 for me, which is why I wanted to put it as my one more thing. And I think... It's literally a one more thing. Yeah, it's my one more item on the list. And I think it probably would have made the cut if I had that time to finish it.

so maybe it should have been one of those, like, if I'd played this more. But I did play a good chunk of it and really, really dug it, especially one thing you guys didn't talk about is the mini-games, which are so satisfying to hit. They're such brilliant little, because they're so, so the way it works is every time you go fishing, you have this kind of little mini-game where you have to hit the button at the right time. And it's such a perfect type of minigame,

because unlike many, I find fishing minigames in, like, RPGs to just be so tedious and boring. But in this, it's got that good balance between, like, quick enough that it doesn't wear out its welcome, but also, like, interesting enough that, like, satisfying enough and kind of has that feel of just making you really happy, get that little endorphin rush every time you make progress on your fishing meter. So they're really well done. And then on top of that, the inventory management has got that classic Diablo II style or Resident Evil 4 style of, like, got to get a, got to fit my brief. It's just right. Feeling when you get it perfect. And then it's also got the good economy stuff of like I'm going to go on this loop of like going and finding fish and then selling him and then upgrading my stuff some more and then staying out too long and losing half of my ship's hull to. Yep.

Friggin nightmare. That's the thing, you know, related to the fishing mini game. A thing I also really like is there's this extra little layer of tension on top of it because time begins to progress as you're doing. You know, you're dreading something. You're like, all right, awesome. I'm going to get some cloth. I really need it, but oh man, it's 5 p.m. and the clock is moving. So it has that extra little

tension there that I really enjoy. Yeah. And something, one of the reasons I haven't made too much progress is because I was kind of being conservative when it came to trying to take out my ship before I moved to each next area. So I'm after a few hours only on like the second major area and still figuring that stuff out before. So anyway, I'm really enjoying that game and we'll probably keep playing it and talking about it more as time goes on. But yeah, just did not make the list just quite this time. Couldn't make the cut this time. Otherwise, maybe it would have.

Yeah, there are too many good games this year. Too many good games, which is why it's actually, it's pretty impressive that our lists had so many in common, whether it was like a bunch of them that were just on two or the three that were on all three of ours. All right, Maddie, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is a reality show called Pit Bulls and Parolees. This is a really old reality show that is still on, I think. There are 19 seasons of it and it started in 2009.

This title tells you everything you need to know about the show. It is about a pit bull rescue. So these are some dogs that have been sort of societally maligned. But they're the best dogs. But they're the best. And I feel like in the past 15 years since the show has aired, people kind of know now that pit bulls are just total softies. But 15 years ago, people just thought of them as attack dogs.

A lot of them are in fighting. rings, illegal fighting rings. So many of those dogs, especially ones that have been forced to fight, are rescued by this woman Tia Maria Torres who runs a pit bull rescue, a massive pit bull rescue. It starts in California, I think Sacramento when the show starts, but they do a bunch of locations over the course of the show. And she also hires parolees to work with the dogs. And so you get to know all of these guys who are on parole and can't get a job anywhere else who take a job. take care of these equally tough dogs. And then you're just sobbing because you're like,

oh my God, the Pipple made a friend and like the parolee made a friend. And he's like, cynical. I think I would just cry the entire show. And you're just like crying the whole time. This is like the most cynically manipulative concepts that I remember. It feels like it's real though. It's not because so like I feel like if it were anyone other than this woman,

the show wouldn't work. Okay. But this woman is just like completely captivating. as a person because she has no guile at all. She's just one of those extremely stubborn people who's like, yeah, I'm just gonna do this because no one else will. But that's not like something she's saying to be heroic or like to get attention or something.

She's just literally like, yeah, I don't know. I'm super no nonsense. I don't really give a fuck about anything. I just really like dogs and my husband's in jail. So I know how hard it is for people to rebuild their lives after they've been. In her case, she says her husband was wrongfully accused. And many of the parolees described that as their situation or they're in situations where you can tell that they had no other choice.

Like they grew up in impoverished conditions and they ended up selling drugs. But just you can tell that like they really didn't have many of their career options. Yeah. She pretty much only hires nonviolent offenders. Although there's a couple exceptions where it's like kids who were really young when they did the crime, like an assault and battery when they were 17 and they were tried as an adult, for example. So you learn a lot about how unjust that system is. but also mostly you just get to know this really strange woman who's just stubborn and is like, I'm against these societal norms.

And it's hard not to like her. And even though you might think it's a manipulative kind of a setup, you just end up being like, wow, maybe the world could be a more beautiful place and we could actually rehabilitate people by letting them take care of dogs and reenter them into society in a way that actually supports them and cares about them. Holy shit. They're 19 seasons and 203. Nine of seasons. Yeah, I don't know of this show.

It sounds great. So this is going to show you watch. You put it on the background while you're doing chores. Right. Okay. And you're playing Diablo 4. Oh, you're playing Diablo 4 or in Dina's case you're playing Pickman 4, which I haven't even played, but she's almost completely beaten by this point.

Speaking of great games from this year. Yeah, but none of that's really dig into. Yeah. For my wife. I know. So I don't know. Pitbulls and Parolees is the name of the show. It's great.

You don't really need to like watch it, watch it. But like, you just put it on the background and you're like, hey, maybe the world is going to improve just a little. bit. And that's a nice thing. It kind of sounds like Pipples and Perugis, which is also a show. Yeah, that's a different show where Pipples just eat dumplings and they have a good time. That sounds pretty good. Yeah, it does. Nice. Okay, Quartz, you're one more thing. Well, my one more thing is carrying on from my one more thing from two weeks ago. So two weeks ago, I talked just a little bit about how I had started using

GPT4 and experimenting with this advanced large language model AI and just sort of messing around with it, which I have continued to do. I find it very interesting and think, I don't know, it's one of the most important and wildest developments in our culture. So I am interested in... Just say you're in love. It's okay. Well, it's funny. So I'm very interested in learning more about this and understanding it better. And so to that end, I read this book. That's going to be one more thing. I was struck by a few people. I just heard from a few people who were really really, who are really, really aggressively skeptical of AI. And there are people out there who just like really are not on board.

And I totally understand. I think there's a lot of things that we should be really worried about. And I also just want to understand it better because I really think it's important that we treat this like a thing that's actively happening and not a thing that is going to happen to us and there's nothing any of us can do. It is big. The more I use it, the more I have this feeling. that I sometimes describe like you're standing in the fog and then you realize suddenly that you're standing against a massive structure that you didn't realize was there. This is the feeling you sometimes have.

Yeah, sure. That happens to me constantly. Well, if you can imagine that feeling, that is the feeling you sometimes have when interacting with some of this advanced stuff because, I don't know, you can talk to GPT for, which is very strange because it just talks back to you like a person. In Scarlett Johansson's voice, yeah, and you're like, wow, it sounds really nice. you do have a conversation with it and it just feels like you're talking to a person. And then there's that feeling of like, okay, well, if it can do this now and it's, you know, this kind of limited, very limited version of what it could possibly be, you just start to think about possible uses for it.

And then it just starts to feel like, whoa, like this is really major. Like this is potentially like really major technology. And that's a scary feeling, like just because it's so big. So I am interested in this. I do want to learn more about it. To that end, I read a very good book that I would. recommend to anyone as a kind of primer for starting to think about artificial intelligence and our role in the kind of automation age in this coming sort of new, if you want to call it,

a new industrial revolution or however you want to think of it. Because it's going to be a pretty wild time. I mean, it's always a pretty wild time, right? But it's going to be a pretty wild time over the next 10 years. So this book is called Future Proof, nine rules for humans in the age of automation. It's by Kevin Ruse, who's a tech reporter at the New York Times, co-hosts of Hard Fork, a a tech podcast that I, and I'm sure a lot of our listeners like, which he hosts with Casey Newton, who's been on the show before. And it's a great book. It's a really easy read. I read it in like a day.

It's just one of those books that you can just kind of roll through. It takes a look at different types of automation. He uses automation consciously and not AI because he wants to talk broadly about the idea of automation. He talks a lot about jobs, the idea of people losing work to, you know, in this case, AI in the past. Though he looks kind of at his He has a great recommended reading list at the end of books that I think some of which are more, are a little more dense and a little more academic, but that might be fun to get into. Like they aren't fully academic. They're just like a little bit more involved in this book.

But it's a great starter. And just a really interesting recipe for a way to start thinking about what it means to be a person and specifically a person with a job, like a working person in an age when AI is going to be able to do so many of the things that, we currently do. And he's kind of in the middle. Like he feels, I think like a lot of us feel, where there's some exciting stuff happening and it's pretty cool. And also it's really concerning. And you can see a lot of potential for harm, a lot of people who could lose their jobs. So it's like this hard balancing act where you just have to kind of try to take it all in, figure out how you feel about each individual thing, and then try to imagine what the best

version of it might be. And I think in a pretty slim, pretty straightforward book, he, actually does a very good job of embracing that. And he also really underlines that idea that the future is not just something that's going to happen to us. It is something that every one of us can be a part of actively making, even though obviously it's easy to feel disempowered. It's easy to look at Congress and to look at these tech companies and be like, well, we can't do anything. But that's not really the case. And I think better to know what's going on than not to. So anyways, I am definitely going to be playing with this thing more and just trying it out in different sort of creative capacities that I think it's sort of useful for.

I'll probably talk about that more on the show. I'm sure the three of us will. But I just wanted to recommend that book to anyone out there who's been thinking about this stuff or finds it interesting, a very easy read. And again, that's called Future Proof, Nine Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation by Kevin Ruse. And yeah, it's a really good book. That's interesting.

It feels like I think all three of us kind of, we weren't really old enough to have a sense of what was going on when the internet was first emerging. Kirk, maybe you were, but like... I did. I was like, you know, in high school, I guess, but I was still pretty young. Well, do you remember the feeling of like, well, this is going to change our world? Because I was too young when the internet really started popping up. Yeah, I think I was too, because you really have to be old enough to have like an adult sense of the world to realize that that is what's changing. So that's what I mean.

And so it feels like we're at one of those inflection points now. I think that's right. And that's what a lot of smart people are saying, and it'll be interesting to see which way this goes. Wow. That manifests. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a while to think about. Well, I mean, with the job stuff, it always feels like there are always going to be new jobs that pop up as a result of technology. And there always are going to be some that become obsolete as a result of technology. It's just kind of an inevitable part of human progress, right? Like, is there something different about this that, like, Rousse identifies or that people have talked about that? that makes people feel like it's a sea change in some other way? No, I mean, I think you could certainly make an argument that this technology is going to be even more disruptive than past revolutions. But no, he doesn't really get into that.

Like, this is going to be even worse. But he does underline the fact that that is a very common rebuttal from people who will look back at history and be like, well, look, when the Industrial Revolution happened, like, there were all these new jobs because people needed to make it. So it was fine. And that that isn't really the case. Like, when you actually look at it, a whole lot of people really suffer. It was like pretty brutal. And then just a generation later, you know, we carried on. And then that kind of happens in each of these major revolutions.

So he does mention that, which I think is interesting and worth keeping in mind, that yeah, like there will be new jobs. And in the perfect world, you know, AI makes it possible for us not to do the things that we don't like doing and to focus on the things we do like doing. But of course, it is likely that it will cause a lot of hardship as well. So, yeah. Yeah, I wonder, as writers and podcasts, creators of stuff.

I don't know. I've said this before, but it always feels to me like you can kind of, something feels off if there isn't a human, artistic kind of intention mind. Well, that's with our jobs,

but our jobs are, I think, more safe. One of the big things he comes back to is leave, if you have a lot of handprints on your jobs is the way that he describes it, you are doing better. Like the humanity, the soft skills of the office,

being able to talk to people, being able to, you know, manage people's emotions and be friendly and sort of regulate people and have relationships. Like those are things that we do really well that AI doesn't do well. But if you're just,

if your job is, he describes it as an endpoint, which is a programming term, but if your job is like, you are basically a point between two computer systems that talk to one another, that's when you're in trouble.

So there are a lot of jobs that are just like, going to completely go away. It sounds like the bullshit jobs that Mattie talked about with that book that would be kind of kind of automated. I wanted to read them.

Yeah, it's fascinating. Like there are a lot of jobs where people are actively training the robots that will replace them right now. Yeah, it's crazy. It's wild. It's an interesting book. You should both read it.

I'd love to know what you think of it. And you'd both read it super fast. I think I think it's like, yeah, you just want to be. I'm going to read it slow. Why not? Take your time. Because I'm human. You want to be the Netflix and not the blockbuster of this new technology, I suppose.

You want to future proof for yourself. Yeah, that's true. That is something that I think people should be thinking. Yeah, easier said than done. True. But yeah, I mean, lots of you. the reasons for optimism too, not to end 2023 on a bleak note. I think

what we've seen from AI, I mean, I think there are going to be benefits that like generally like I've seen theories and heard people talking about how like AI could potentially help with climate change by coming up with like solutions. Or could cure cancer or other horrible diseases that we're

struggling with. There are a lot of things like that that are possible. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of cause for optimism too, for sure. Good stuff. All right. That is it for this year. Yeah. Wow. Maddie, I'll see you both next year.

Yeah, see you in 2024. Wow. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes.

Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll consider. consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximum fun.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpods, send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.