Triple Click - Our Favorite Video Games of 2022

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

It is time to see off 2022, as the Triple Click gang gathers to discuss the year's best games. Jason, Maddy, and Kirk each discuss their 10 favorite games of the year, plus an 11th bonus game that didn't come out this year. Which games took the top spots? Which made all three of our lists? And what are the biggest snubs? You'll have to listen to find out. One More Thing:Kirk: White LotusMaddy: Redefining Realness by Janet MockJason: Glass OnionLinks:Richard Clark’s podcast “Videogame Feelings”: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/video-game-feelings/id1616908609Support 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 YEARKirk:SignalisElden RingImmortalityCitizen SleeperEscape AcademyTrombone ChampVampire SurvivorsMarvel’s Midnight SunsReturn to Monkey IslandThe Case of the Golden IdolMaddy:Elden Ring Norco Kirby and the Forgotten Land Citizen Sleeper Neon White PowerWash Simulator Return to Monkey Island The Case of the Golden Idol Pentiment Marvel's Midnight Suns Jason:Elden RingTactics Ogre RebornCase of the Golden IdolTriangle StrategyThe Legend of Heroes: Trails to ZeroReturn to Monkey IslandLive A LiveChained EchoesThe QuarryGod of War Ragnarok 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

Should old video games be forgot and never brought to mind? Well, if that's the case, then good news, friends. For a long last, it's Game of the Year time. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games of the year to you. It's time for me, Jason, and Maddie to go through our top 10 games of 2022, and we actually each have pretty different lists this year. So if you're looking for some cool new games to play, this is where you want to be. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Trier. Hello. Hello. Good morning, Kirk. Bright and Early for Kirk Hamilton Eggs and baking It's triple click

I've got my coffee Part of a balanced breakfast We're there Along with the glass of orange juice I've got my Just took a cold shower Did you really? You took a cold shower

I went out in the freezing In the freezing ice of Portland To walk my dog I did do that It didn't take a cold shower But it was the next best thing Some people like swear by those They think that it just completely

energizes them I think that's insane Yeah no I mean, some people are into that. Not a good idea. I would never do that. A hot shower. I mean, if you want to just genuinely shock your nervous system first thing in the morning,

that's a good way to do it. Yeah, if you want to be deeply, physically uncomfortable. The other day, I woke up and I checked the weather up on my phone, and I just cracked up because it said six degrees. I was like, well, that's a fun New York morning. Just a single digit. Just six. Who needs more than that?

Well, this is the show. I'm waiting for Kirk to wake up enough. to remember it's history to talk about maximum fun. segue to something. Well, she said. We're up to the races, folks. This is a listener-supported podcast. It's called Triple Click.

We mostly talk about video games and, you know, TV and the weather. And we love all of the maximum fun members that support our show. And if that's you, thank you. Because you make it possible for us to keep making this thing. If you want to become a member, you can go to maximumfund.org slash join to do so. and if you do that, it gets you, as Jason likes to say, that warm, fuzzy feeling. That's right. Supporting us making this show.

Especially necessary when it's six degrees outside. Yeah. It'll warm you right up. If you're in a cold shower. If you take a cold shower in the morning, you need a warm feeling. This is an important legal disclaimer. It will not keep you safe if you're trapped outside in the cold. If you're hiking Everest right now, donating to Max Fun is a great idea still, but it's not going to help you.

Also, if you have a good enough signal to download an episode. show from Everest. I'm impressed. Tell me about how you're doing that. Well, if I were, if I were climbing a mountain, I would just load up my phone on the podcast before. Right. Of course. You become, you become a supporter while you're still down on the ground, I think, and then you go ahead and download all the bonus episodes, which, what are those, Kirk? What might one download? There are monthly bonus episodes of Triple Click that we record, and we've been doing it. There are 32 of them now, so we've been doing it ever since we started the show. I recently recounted all the ones that we did this year when we ran a bonus episode in the

main feed last week. So we had a really fun year of bonus episodes this year. But of course, if you become a member, you get all the past years. And the most recent one that we did was on Star Wars and Or, which was very fun. A show that I've been talking about a lot recently and could still talk about yet more. But we had a great time talking about that. But we did God of War or Horizon. We did a really fun one this year on the games that made us as children, are sort of formative games. That was a standout of the year, I think. And then you'll also, you know, if you're a you'll get all the future episodes that we do as well. So yeah, maximumfund.org slash join, become a member.

All right, it's the end of the year. Jason, take us away. It is time. It is the end of December. It is our last episode of 2022. And of course, as is our annual tradition, it's time to get into the games of the year. We do not, as an institution,

we do not pick just like triple clicks game of the year. We instead, all three, make up our own list. People beg us to do that and we won't ever do it. For those of you wondering, for those of you who are coming in here and being like, wait, where are the predictions? Don't worry. We're doing a predictions episode. No one's coming in here wondering that, Jason. I think some people are.

Every week. Well, I think some people. When to expect that episode? That's true. But they also, we skipped last week. So it's a time break and you forget things. And they might just be panicking. What's going on?

when is the predictions episode? I assume that there's a person who starts every episode and is like, is this the prediction episode? That's the only thing that keeps them listening? I assume that that exists. I mean, who knows? I mean, there's all sorts of people out there. No, but this week we are, of course, going over our games of the year. We are each in order going to give our list of our 10 favorites of the year.

Plus an 11th bonus game that did not come out this year, but that we feel like deserves an honor. Maybe it was our favorite. it maybe we played it for the first time this year or maybe it just stuck with us this year for some reason i have a feeling i know what kirk's is because it just kept playing it all the year um so without further ado let's get to it we're going to go in order each of us is going to give our entire list and then recap it and we'll talk about each game as it comes i imagine if we have games that we share we can each get to give our our own thoughts as we do our lists so kirk we're going to start with you

take us away give us your list all right well i've got my list as usual in the order of title name. So this is ascending title name order. And this is a pretty interesting list. This wasn't a list I would have predicted going into this. I kind of just sat down and picked the games that I most enjoyed

or that most stuck with me. And I wound up giving each of them an award for something. Oh, that's a clever and they all get an award for something different. So my first game is Signallis, which gets the Lynch Award for Achievement in Vives. And that's because this

This was probably the vivious game that I played this year. And it did a lot of things really well. This is a sort of Resident Evil mechanics meets Silent Hill vibes kind of a game. What's remarkable about Signalis is just how dense the storytelling is. There are so many sequences in this game where these really weird out-of-context cutscenes play. And you just get all this visual information that's very abstract but starts to coalesce into something. and some of the things you're seeing are foreshadowing, and they're actually, you know, they have a specific meaning in the game,

but some of the things you're seeing are never explained. And it manages to live in this world of dreamlike mystery that just really sticks with me a long time after I've stopped playing it. I think this is a really an amazing game made by a very small team. More people should play it. I believe it is on Game Pass, and even if it weren't, people should just play it. This is the kind of game that I'm glad exists, and I'm really glad that I played.

So that's my first game, Signalis. Second game, a shocker, I'm sure, for both of you. Eldon Ring, which wins the Century Award for Staying Entertaining for More Than 100 hours. That is a hard award to win because any game that I play for more than 100 hours, I mean, I guess if I play it that long, there's like an argument to be made that, well, it was probably entertaining for that whole time. Not always. Yeah, exactly. I know what you mean. Well, and some of the games this year that actually didn't make my list, some of the big AAA games, were very long, and I played a lot of them.

And it was partly because we were doing beanscast on the show, but also just they didn't quite, you know, I played them that whole time. They were fun. They were fine, but they didn't really stay engaging in that way that Eldon Ring did after whatever it was. I think I listened back to our beans cast and I said 140 hours that I played, which is ludicrous. It's still a ludicrous number. So Eldon Ring was more to come whenever the DLC hits Oh yeah my God well and I kind of want to start a new character I think about that game constantly

I mean I still I still think about it And can I just say I've seen a lot of people say that they feel like they forgot about Eldon Ring compared to how much people talked about it when it first came out I just want to say that's not true of me I've thought about it constantly I saw that sentiment in our Discord a little bit And I love y'all triple click Discord but like Eldon Ring is one of the best games ever made.

I've seen it a lot of places besides our Discord. I've seen it like reporters that I follow, people on Twitter. A lot of people are saying that. And I'm like, maybe it's just that years feel really long to you. And I can totally understand that. And like it came out at the beginning of the year. So it feels like it was a thousand years ago. But Eldon Ring, freaking incredible.

I think about it all the time. I'm constantly comparing other games to it. It is the benchmark of my heart at this point. It's freaking good. So, Maddie, you're saying that Eldon Ring is on your list. It may or may not make an appearance on my list. We'll get to that later. All right, so I'm going to keep going.

Immortality is next with the Francis A. Johnson Award for Strange Ambition. Now, who is Francis A. Johnson? Well, if you are a strong song's listener, you would know that Francis A. Johnson is the man who rolled the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota, among other weird inventions that this guy did. And that song, which I did an episode on, is a monument to his. strange ambition to the fact that this guy in the mid-20th century was just like, I know, I'm going to roll some twine every day for 30 years until I have the biggest ball of twine in the world. And immortality is a game that it's a really cool experience. It's a really fun mystery, as we

talked about in our mystery episode. I think it's really well done. It's the best realization of Sam Barlow's whole thing, what he was doing and telling lies. And her story, you can there was a bigger team on this. He made this with the studio Half Mermaid. And really, more than anything else, what strikes me about this game is it's strange ambition. It's so ambitious. They basically made three whole movies that didn't exist. And there are three movies in a different style. Each movie looks like a different style of film. And there's behind the scenes action and you're kind of seeing the making of the film. And there's a whole additional layer to this game that I guess I won't really get into because discovering it is kind of the fun of the game, and I do think

this game is really cool. So it's a kind of vague story. It's not totally clear what it's saying. I've read a couple of different interpretations of what it means. But what it means to me is just the feeling of discovery that I had playing it and realizing just what they did and how convincing the films they made were. So this was just a really, I don't know, it was not really like anything I've ever played before and definitely not like anything else I played this year. And for that alone, for that strange ambition, it's on my list. So that was number three. So number four. That was number three. Number four, Citizen Sleeper, which wins the Constellation Award for Narrative Design. This was going to be the Constellation Award for cast of characters, because the more I play this game, which I was

just playing this game over the weekend, a whole bunch of it, the more struck I was. Explain that that's why you're so tired today. Yes, that's one of the reasons that I sound so worn down is that I was up until like two in the morning because I just couldn't stop playing. But I realized, yeah, the cast of characters is great. The more you play this game, the more characters you meet, the more you just fall in love with them, or at least I've fallen in love with them. And I think this game does something really important that Maddie, you mentioned because you had played more than Jason and I had on our triple play episode.

Yeah, I think I had beaten it by that point. Yeah, you wouldn't, so significantly more because Jason and I were sort of in the early stages. And Jason, you and I both talked about that feeling of desperation that you have at the beginning and how you almost feel like you're stuck in a cycle and it's so hard because you're, you know, to anyone who didn't listen to that, you're this sort of starving, desperate android on a space station with just nothing at the beginning. And there's this constant feeling of pressure. On the run. From the corporation that earns you.

You're on the run. There's this like assassin who's coming to kill you. You have no money. You're kind of living in this trailer just on the outskirts of this salvage yard. And you're so desperate. It's just even getting food, like just figuring out. getting your bearings, knowing what's going on is so hard at first. And there's a feeling of like, oh my God, is that just what this game is? Is this a survival game? And then the more you play,

the clearer it is that no, it's not. And really, by the point, I'm like much, much farther in it. I'm nearing the end. And it's a narrative game. It doesn't actually kill you when you mess up. I mean, I know there are ways, I think there are ways that you can really blow it and die. But even when a timer runs out and someone who says they're going to get you comes to get you, like they don't because it's more interested in just having an endlessly branching narrative. And that's what makes the game so impressive. The more you play it, the more you realize, oh, this is just whatever happens, whatever choices I make, the story will just keep going and keep growing and evolving into something new. And then along the way, you meet these

amazing characters. I mean, this game is so well written. But more than just being well written, it's the narrative design of it that I think is so impressive. It's the way that this game makes you feel under pressure and obliged to people at the same time, it feels real in a way that I don't know, it's hard to articulate. I recently was, you know, do you remember Bliss, Maddie, the character? No, I remember no character names. She's the, she runs a salvage yard, like a salvage operation up on the like, so you give her, you give her loan to get her business started, which is a significant amount of money.

And she gets going and then the very first job you do, run the, into this snag where she can't pay you. And I was, at first, I was like, okay, I'm going to give you this money. This is a gamble. I don't really have it. I gave her the money. We do the thing. And then she can't pay me.

And in the interim between when that started and when that happened, I started making more money in other ways. And I'm actually kind of comfortable now and I'm doing pretty well. And now she's coming to me like, I need help on another job. And I'm like, man, you didn't pay me last time. And the way that my feeling toward her has changed in direct relationship. to my own material safety, like to how secure I feel in the money that I'm making, is so interesting the way that I felt desperate, but willing to take a gamble. And now I feel more secure

and less forgiving and less willing, but then able to help a lot more people because I have more to give. There's so much in this game that's like, it's not hitting you over the head with any of it, but it really says a lot about, like, about how we move through the world. The exact same thing happened to me and my playthrough, which makes me think that the way that those quests are timed is very well done. Yes. Where the moment when you give her the loan is always going to be when you barely can afford to give it to her. But of course you're going to do it because it's like one of the story beats that you're advancing and you're perhaps naturally curious about what's going to happen. And then when you lose the money, it's a big deal. But also that's when several other quest lines

open up for you to earn money in relatively simple ways around the space station. So by the time she approaches you again, probably you've managed to survive and maybe even make a living by then. And yeah, you're right. Like the whole point of the game isn't just survival. It's making a home for yourself and putting down roots and actually making friends with the people around you and becoming more secure over time, which is something that like a survival sim doesn't always provide. Some of them do. But they don't always because that stress is kind of the point of the fun. Right.

But that's not really what Citizen Sleeper wants to do. do. No, it's really interesting. And there's always an element of precarity. There's always something in the background that's kind of ticking down, which life feels that way. My life feels that way. As secure as I feel in so many ways, there's always something, you know, even if it's just eventually I'm going to get old and die. You know, there's always something ticking away in the background. Even if it's just, oh my God, it's 2 a.m. and I'm still playing Citizens League. Right. Right. And I have to get up and record a podcast in the morning. So anyways, a tremendous game. A really, just a really, really, really.

amazing game that I think everyone should play. All right, moving on, Escape Academy. This is the next game. This wins the High Five Award for local co-op. This is a game that I think a lot of people missed, that it wasn't on a lot of people's radars. It was my one more thing recently, and I mentioned how it works.

This is a co-op split screen, if you want it to be an escape room game. That's just really well made and really charming and really fun. Sorry, Kirk, you mean triple-click Escape Room game. Wait, when did I... Oh, oh. I feel like Kirk didn't. even understand what you were saying and I watched him understand that joke.

We can't, we can't do this. I thought I actually misspoke. No, Kirk. No. Oh my gosh. I'm like doing my best. I'm skating along the surface and then Jason just grabs my anger. It's like that perfect time that prank Kirk is early in the morning. This is a this is a triple click, a triple click co-op game that you play in triple click. This is a split screen go-off game. Yes, it's a it's a split-click. screen co-op game. It's really fun. You do escape rooms. I don't know. It's great. I loved it. It's a very straightforward pleasure, so I'll move on. Next game is Trombone Champ. Of course,

this had to be on my list. And Trombone Champ wins not just for being funny. It doesn't just get a place on my list for being funny. It wins the Sneaky Edison Award for subtle innovation. Because I really like when a game innovates in a kind of subtle way, like a way you didn't really expect. And Trombone Champ didn't need to be innovative. It could have just been really funny because, you know, it was a game where you post funny videos of yourself failing, and it sounds terrible and is funny. But I think that the way that this game built a playable mechanic on top of the Guitar Hero formula, by making it so that every time you press the button, the trombone sounds, your play is expressed in the game in a way that I think is actually

really importantly different from Guitar Hero and is central to what makes it so funny. It's not just that you're bad. It's not just watching someone fail. at a really hard guitar hero song because that just sounds like it just sounds like the guitar part isn't playing. In this case, you are playing the trombone and it's just like, and you hear the bad trombone playing

and that's what makes it so funny. Yeah. Yes. And so I think that that design is actually really ingenious and the way that they made it work, just the feel of the sort of acceleration, how hard it is to get the trombone in the right place,

is really innovative and. and very funny. It's sort of central to the joke. So this is a much more clever game than I think you might give it credit for if you just saw all the videos around and didn't really play it or think that much about it as a music game. So Trombone Champ, wonderful game. Moving on. Next game. Another one with simple inputs, vampire survivors, which wins the Golden Gecko Award for Pure Lizard Brain shit. Now, this was my one more thing earlier in the year, and then I didn't play it for a while, and then I came back to it. And this game got a 1.0 release this year. It was an early access, I think, when it was my one more thing. And now it's gotten so much more stuff. I mean, there's way more stuff in this game than I've seen. But did either of you play very much vampire survivors? Not really. I played plenty of other lizard brain games this year and felt like if I played another one, I might lose all brain activity. That's fair. That is fair. I would say at some point, I would love to hear what the two of you think of it, because it's one of the most ingeniously designed games. This is a game to,

Explain to anyone who didn't play vampire survivors, where you do not press any buttons. You just walk around. And that's the whole game. There's no button pressing. You just move the stick. Or if you're on your phone, which a lot of people are on their phones because this game is great on phones and it's free. You just walk around by touching the screen.

But because of the way that it's designed, your character just keeps attacking on regular rhythms. And as you upgrade and level up, you get new attacks. And soon, your character is just this whirling dervish of destruction. with like seven different kinds of fireballs shooting out of them and blades and spinning books and like a bird. I have like, there's one of the best powers is this bird that just carpet bombs around you in circles. And then you're attacked on all sides by monsters. And eventually you're being attacked by, no joke.

I mean, like there are probably a thousand monsters on screen at once or more by the time you get toward that 30 minute limit. And I mean, you start playing it and then you can't stop. Like you just play and play and play and play and play and play. It's amazing. And just the fact that they did all of that without a single button press input with just the stick is pretty incredible. So Vampire Survivor's Golden Gecko Award for Pure Lizard Brain Shit. Next up, Marvel's Midnight Suns. This gets the $20 bill award for pleasant surprises.

This is like finding a $20 bill in your pants pocket. Very good. Perfect. This game, I was expecting it to be a good tactics game. I was not expecting to like the story as much as they do. and I really want to underline that since we just did a triple play on it and I've been playing the hell out of this game since then. I just kept playing it because it was so fun.

Maddie, I know you have been as well. Yeah. This game rules. This is one of the most, this is like one of the best games of the year. This game is so freaking good. I'm near the end of Act 2. I've unlocked a ton of characters, so many cards, so many tactics. I'm fighting like unbelievably varied battles against all kinds of different enemies.

The level of design in this game, the complexity of it, this is just the strategy game, is incredible. I'm so into like deck building and team building. I'm taking different teams every time into combat. They're all totally different. It's so fun. I just play and play and play and play and play and play. And the thing about it that is the surprise is that I really like the story.

I find it charming and cool. I really like hanging out with all the characters. Magic in particular, which I think we talked about on the triple play. Yeah, she's a real standout. She's the MVP of the game. But they're all great. too. There's other cool characters that I'm surprisingly invested in. Yeah, and even these, this game's take on Dr. Strange, for example, he's a good character. Like, they, I really like all of

these takes even on familiar characters. And just, there's a book club that you do in this game where you're- Blades book club is freaking adorable and it's so good. It's so good. So Blade has put together a book club because he wants to get closer with Carol Danvers because he has a crush on her. But then Captain America heard Blade inviting Captain Marvel to the book club and was like, oh, cool, a book club? So then he came too. And he thinks that Blade really wants to be friends with him. But actually, Blade is like, dude, you're getting in the way of me and Captain Marvel. And then Wolverine starts coming.

And Wolverine, the first time, like, didn't even read the books. He's just kind of there. And then what's amazing is there's a book assignment. And then the book, like an excerpt from the book, is sitting in the library and you go read it. And then you have actual conversations with everyone about the book that you read. and the conversations are like interesting and fun and charming. And like that's this game. Like that's the $20 bill aspect of this game that's so surprising is that I'm really enjoying that part of it,

despite the fact that I love the tactics part of it and I'm playing for that. This game is like knocking my socks off. I think it's so good. Same. It's so freaking good. I don't want to play anything else. I'm definitely going to beat it. All I want to do is play more Marvel Spindnight Suns.

There's so many characters. I feel like some of them are definitely stronger than others. I've been known to skip dialogue with Tony Stark from time to time, but largely I really enjoy just about everyone, and the tactics are freaking incredible. I'm like 30 hours in, and I can't believe how much more there is to everything. Same.

I cannot wait to play more when they add an ability to pause cutscenes. I know. That part, I'm still like, I really planning out my water breaks around things. It's like a transaction. Yeah. It's true. Yeah, it's really good. All right, so I've got two more.

One of them is the return to Monkey Island, which is the Helen Mirren Award for still having it after all these years. Back yeah. Return to Monkey Island. I am now, I have not finished, but I am quite a bit farther in it. I have loved my time playing it. And more than anything, I'm just so struck by how funny and charming and great it is and how of a piece it feels with the first two Monkey Island games.

They're really just all the best of Monkey Island. We talked about this on our triple play, but just what a delight. that this game is so seemingly effortlessly charming and fun and it never it just totally it hits a frequency that I hadn't felt from a game in a long time and I really love it

a lot and looking forward to finishing it and then last the game with the longest title on my list which will surprise none of you and none of our listeners is the case of the golden idol which wins the welcome guest award for taking up residence in my brain this is a special award for any game

that mostly takes place in my head in the way that this game did. I had played this one on the couch with Emily as well. We talked about it so much on the show, but I mean, just an amazing, an amazing mystery, a really fun narrative to piece together. And an out-of-left field surprise as well,

just a game that Jason just mentioned as one more thing, hey, this game's supposed to be good, and next thing I knew I was playing it and falling in love with it. So those are my games. I'll read them down really quick. Signalis, Eldon Ring,

Immortality, Citizen Sleeper, Escape Academy, Trombone Champ, Vampire's Survivors, Marvel's Midnight Suns, return to Monkey Island, and the case of the golden idol. And your bonus? Yeah, what's your bonus game? Well...

What is it? I'll keep everyone in suspense. No, it's persona 5 Royal. Because I've played a million hours of it, and I'm still playing it. The other game that might win the Century Award for 100 hours of keeping you entertained or whatever it was?

Yeah, you know, I'm not to 100 hours yet, but I guess it probably will. It probably would have, if it had come out this year. Yeah, I think you pretty much have to get there to, like, once you get into the new stuff, like after the main ending. Are you up to the new stuff yet? I am at the new stuff.

I'm doing the new dungeon. And it's very fun, man. Well, yeah, it's very fun. There's a voice actor who gets to have a lot of fun with the new stuff. That's what I'll say. But yeah, it's great. And I've been sort of putting it off just because I wanted to play all this game of the year's stuff. But I'll get to it and we'll certainly finish it.

But, yeah, I mean, it was kind of the game that defined the year for me. I've been playing it since March or something, and I'm still playing it. Cool. That's me. Maddie, you're up. Okay, so there's definitely some overlap here. I decided to put these in order of release date because, like Kirk, I didn't really want to rank them. But number one is still Eldon Ring.

Would I have put it at number one? Who can possibly say? Yeah, I don't know. This game's freaking great. We don't need to go on and on about it. You can listen to the Beanscast we put out last week. We already did go on and on about it. So I'll go right on ahead to number two, which is Norco, which is a six, seven-hour narrative point-and-click adventure game that I think I'm the only one of the three of us who played.

And I still really recommend it's sort of mundane sci-fi story set in a future version of Louisiana that's owned by a corporation, your daughter coming home to your childhood home, your mom's dead, your brother's missing, and your family has a pet robot. and that's just totally normal. That's a normal part of your life having a pet robot. And also there's a haunted iPhone app, mobile phone app that's like a gig economy app that your mom was working for. And it's haunted by this otherworldly presence. And so you have to kind of dig into the haunted phone app

and how it works. And the ending is completely fucking bizarre. And I don't even know if I like it, but I loved how much it was doing. You know, you play a game and you're just like, One person made this. They had a really grandiose idea. Don't know if they landed the plane, but I loved the flight.

And so, yeah, I really recommend it. That's Norco, is what it's called. Number three, Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Oh, man. This game, really fun. One of the most popular Kirby games, because it's on the Nintendo Switch, I will say playing it made me just think to myself, I wish Kirby Planet Robobot and Kirby Triple Deluxe could somehow be on the switch, because I think those two are.

better Kirby games, but they are relegated to the 3DS. Kirby and the forgotten land. Still really freaking cute, though. You can turn Kirby into like a vending machine. He's got mouthful mode. He can inhale a vending machine. He can inhale a car. I mean, how can you not love that? I don't know. I played this game for a very long time. Number four, citizen sleeper. Great video game. Kirk really said it all. It's really wonderful. If you like narrative games and you like feeling a little stressed out, but only for the first couple hours and then getting to know some wonderful characters on a futuristic space station.

You should definitely play that one. Those are pretty specific things to like. I know, but if you like those things, you will like Citizen Sleeper. You're just waiting for someone to recommend a video game like that. Citizen Sleaper. Number five, neon white. This one is,

almost didn't make the list, but I liked the gameplay enough that I ended up putting it in my 10. So this is You're in the afterlife And going on race courses It's sort of like first person Obsticle courses

That you have to defeat as fast as possible There's also a plot and like a reason why you're doing what you're doing You're like sort of a fallen angel type of guy Cool guy and there's other angel types you can flirt with And I didn't ever really care about any of that But I really liked racing against my friends And seeing this team later on this game Or that was the challenge for me, was bouncing off the narrative, which I gather is a kind of a common thing.

Because the gameplay is pretty incredible. It's really good. If this had had a slightly different wrapping, that game probably would have made my list. I would have stuck with it longer. Absolutely. I still recommend it. I think it's really fun. I feel like the zeitgeist is over and that the leaderboards thing is probably washed off a bit.

But it was very fun. And if you and your friends happen to all be playing it at the same time in your competitive and healthy way, neon white. I recommend it. Number six, power wash simulator. So this technically came out in 2021, but I'm going to count it because it had a full release in 2022. And I played quite a bit of it. This one I really enjoyed on the Steam Deck, perfect to play while you're also watching TV or doing something else. Or perhaps on the Xercule.

On breaks at work, you're just picking up the Steam Deck off your desk. For example, maybe you're doing that. Breaks. Yeah. This game, you just power wash things. I don't know. You've got a power washer and you wash off a really dirty yard or in person. building or van or a set of fans.

I don't know. That's all you do. It doesn't sound like it is entertaining as it is. Each time you clean the thing to 100% it goes, ding. Yes. And tells you that you cleaned it to 100%. A very important part of this game. It's really good.

It just scratches that lizard brain itch that we love to talk about. Number seven, return to Monkey Island. I actually did circle back and beat this one for Game of the Year times. Wonderful. also have heard from people who never played any other Monkey Island games that they still really enjoyed it, which I think is what makes it such a masterstroke. It manages to please me, somebody who recently watched the let's play of Monkey Island for this show, and also people who don't know any of these inside jokes.

It just works. Number eight, Case of the Golden Idol, Game of the Year, 10 out of 10, 8 plus plus. What are you doing? What are you doing? Do you like mysteries? Go play it. Why haven't you played it yet? Case of the Golden Idol.

Number nine, pentament, another one that just kind of barely squeaked on. I think this is an example of a game that didn't quite work as well for me as so many other people. I thought, I think because I went in expecting a different kind of mystery story than what it really is, it's much more of like a narrative adventure where the mysteries are there, but they're telling you something about yourself. There's enough about it that I really love, the historical fiction of it all. It happens to be about a time period that I was pretty obsessed with in college. And so playing it was fun for that reason.

And yeah, I really recommend it if you like narrative games and especially if you like historical fiction. It's a very good one of those. And then 10th, Marvel's Midnight Suns. It's taken over my life. Number one, Iliano Rasputin Stan logging on. She's so freaking cool. Laura Bailey's performance is her. So good.

When do we get a magic movie? I want more magic. I don't know. I feel like magic's everywhere now. And she's got some really cool story. lines in the comics right now that they could adapt, by the way. Like, she's, like, surprisingly appearing a lot in current Krekkoa era X-Men comics. So I'm like, maybe everybody's into magic now.

Are they teeing her up for an MCU appearance? I don't know. Anyway, if you want to know who she is and why we think she's so cool, check out Laura Bailey's performance. Who do you think should play her in Marvel's Midnight Suns? Well, I actually really liked Anya Taylor Joy's portrayal of her New Mutants. Although that movie is not good. but maybe they'd let her keep the role.

I don't know. They're kind of loosey-goosey about that. That's funny. I had no idea that Anya Taylor Joy played her in ruins, but Anya Taylor Joy was somehow my first, like... Probably because I mentioned it on the podcast last week, and it was buried in the back of your head. Yeah.

I didn't know that it was Laura Bailey in the game. Yes. I found that out recently, and I was like, of course, it's like one of the top tier voice actors doing this. I should have known that. And also, the woman who voices Nico in the game as the same person who played her and the live actions

runaways show, which I loved. I thought it was just somebody doing a stellar impersonation of her, but no, it actually is her. So just another wonderful voice acting performance in the game. But I got to say my 11th game,

which will also come as no surprise. Had to go with Assassin's Creed Origins. I haven't forced you guys to listen to me talk about it every week, but I've played so much more of it. It has been my Persona 5 in the background of my entire year. And I also wanted to shout out

that I appeared on the podcast video game feelings to talk about it. And so if you want to hear me talk about it even more, that was a really fun episode that I did on that show. People should listen to video game feelings. That's a good show. Richard Clark's show. I was on that show.

It's very funny because you came late to the party on Assessons Feodor Origins. Yeah. And it's now become your favorite game ever. It's so good. I'm just really, really into it. And I love that it's just the right size. It's enough that you can really sink your teeth. into it and enjoy the open world of it all, but also you can actually complete the game,

which is not something I did for Odyssey or Valhalla and may never do. So that's me. All right. Do you want to do a quick recap? Oh, sure, sure, sure. Okay. One, Eldon Ring. Two, Norco. Three, Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Four, Citizen Sleeper. Five, neon white. Six. Power wash simulator. Seven. Return to Monkey Island. Eight, the case of the Golden Idol. Nine. Pentiment 10 Marvel's Midnight Suns. So there are three games that are on all three of our lists. Other than that, I'm actually impressed by the diversity here because we all have pretty different lists. Let me go next.

So last and also least. Oh, yours is in order of quality. Wow. Controversial. No, no, no. No, I was saying I'm third. Oh, oh. Well, yeah. No, no. So what I did was, I begged you game and I wanted to describe each game by like a favorite moment that I had that I'm going to describe. Love it. Great.

So, Eldon Ring, obviously, best game of, like one of the best games I've ever played in my life still remains though despite whatever like anti-hype has gone around. So one of the best things I've ever played. And the most iconic moment, the most memorable thing from that game is when I was playing multiplayer with our buddy Mike Reggio, shout out to Mike, who is now doing PR for Minecraft. Whose guides to Eldon Ring I have repeatedly used from Polygon.com. Just ran into him in L.A., which was cool, catching up with him. But anyway, he and I were playing, and we were doing the academy.

And he was like, check this out. Go to the basement. And I was like, cool, let's go to the basement. And we were like exploring the basement. And I accidentally got killed by this big metal thing that swallowed me up. And suddenly I woke up and I was in a totally different section of the map in Volcano manner and I was like, what the fuck is going on, dude? And it was the funniest thing and craziest thing. And I was just like, I'm in love with this game. Like this game is surprise and delighted me unlike anything else. Number two on my list, Tactics Ogre Reborn. This game is phenomenal. The most memorable moment of this big strategy, like beefy strategy, grid-based RPG that I think you guys would both love if you give it a chance or if you play more of it one day. The most memorable moment is at the end of chapter one of the game where you have to make this choice. And long story short, a little spoilery, but you have to decide whether or not to kill a bunch of civilians for a good reason.

And what's weird about the game is that like it calls, killing the civilians is called the law route. And not killing the civilians is called the chaos route. And it goes, it kind of goes off the rails if you don't do it. And you get the best characters if you do do it. So of course I did it because I wanted the best characters. But it's just a very memorable moment in a game that just like is constantly throwing awful shit. at you and is a really bleak storyline in a medieval fantasy world where a lot of awful things happen to people.

Good stuff though. Number three on my list is Case of the Golden Idol. This is the most memorable moment. This is the second of our shared games that are on all three of our list. The most memorable moment of it for me was the big endgame plot twist because I had no idea. Did not see it coming at all. That's so fun. And it just blew me away.

I won't spoil it, of course. but very good, very good game. It blew me away too. It's freaking amazing. Yeah, Kirk had guessed it. To be fair, Kirk you were playing with someone else so you could talk about it and be like, hmm, what's the deal with this?

Yeah, whereas me and Jason were like, what? Yeah, we were playing on our own and, yeah, no time to really talk about it. It did change it. I think if you just played through it and kind of took it as it came, it would be different than having constant,

because if you're talking about it all the time, you start to identify which sort of tropes you're seeing or, you know, things like that. But still, Incredible game, obviously. And, yeah, just everyone should go play it if they haven't already. Is Peter Batley the video game character of 2020? It possibly is.

He might be. It might be the video game character of all time. I don't know. Maybe. I feel like not enough people have played it because I haven't seen it a nearly enough game of a year list. And I think if more people actually played it. Unfortunately, the art style is like such a turnoff at first glance. But it's actually so good when you're playing it.

Once you get into it. But like you see Spitzisodes. And you're like, anyway, number four, triangle strategy. Another big strategy RPG this year. This is a good year for strategy RPGs. Love this game. Really cool. Also, just like appeals to me for the same reason that tactics ogre did,

maneuvering characters around a map and like getting hits off and like getting your target just in time and making lots of interesting decisions. My most memorable moment is also kind of a spoiler, but there's a character named Benedict, who is like your loyal advisor. and he has some wild motivations, but they're not like, normally in a case like that where you have this, like, this loyal advisor who might be doing shady stuff. Who's named Benedict. Who's named Benedict.

Yeah, Benedict Arnold. You expect him to be this like rat like traitor, but that's not it at all. Like he has his own wild motivations that aren't that, but are still surprising. So it's really interesting. Like he's a really fascinating character in this game. Number five, the Legend of Heroes trails to zero. I've ranted and raved about this game many times. It's a fantastic term-based JRP.

I think the most memorable moment for it. So one of the things that is really appealing to me about the entire Legend of Heroes Trails series is that all of the games take place in this one big interconnected world. And at the end of Chapter 1, this is a minor spoiler, but at the end of Chapter 1,

or like somewhere in Chapter 1 in this game, you suddenly see the two heroes from the previous like kind of trilogy, the Trails to the Sky, Charles in the Sky trilogy. And they appear in this game, Estelle and Joshua. And they're like, hey, and they're NPCs in this game. And you can go and talk to them and they play a role in the plot.

And it's really, really cool. So seeing them show up was a great moment for me. Number six, this is the third shared game on our list. Return to Monkey Island. I knew it. Wow. Got to be. I love that game.

Good job, Monkey Island. Crazy ending, Kirk, I'm excited for you to see the ending. Yeah, I'm very excited to see it. Very Ronald Gilbert ending. But my memorable moment of this game was when Guy Britch Thriek road revealed that he could no longer breathe for 10 minutes under the weather. He could only hold his breath for 10 minutes underwater. He can only hold his breath for eight minutes underwater, which really is just like this poignant reminder of how age affects us all. And he just, he's just, he's just, he's just older.

Yeah, even Guy Brish. He's a grisle five. He's only human. He can't hold his breath for 10 minutes anymore. Just eight minutes. And it's very funny and also kind of sad. All right. Number seven, live alive.

So this is a game that is a remake of a Super Nintendo RPG that came out this year for the first time in America. Really, really cool game for a lot of reasons. Kind of falls apart at the end because like the whole game goes without random encounters and then in the end they have this long-ass chapter that sticks. Random encounters in it for no reason. It's very frustrating. But anyway, there's this one chapter

It's broken up into a bunch of different chapters Each is like a little short story themed in some way or another There's a street fighter chapter where you're It's like a fighting game. Yeah, Maddie. I remember you talking about this is like a Wild West chapter And I was like, that does sound cool. But then I'd play it.

The creepiest one and the best one and the most memorable one for me is the robot chip chapter because you essentially play as this helpless little robot who is like sent on all these quests by the humans surrounding you and the humans are all kind of nasty and have their own motivations and stuff. And then there's also this like creepy AI computer that is clearly like running things behind the scenes. This is like the R2 chapter.

This is the Wally chapter. 2001 Space Odyssey is the real real touchstone for that. And just the revelation of him doing his thing is just a really cool moment on that. Number eight, chained echoes. So I haven't finished this game yet. I'm actually playing it. I do want to play this.

I'm playing it. as we speak. So it's kind of like a more recent edition. During the show, you're playing it? Like it's so good. Yeah, I'm playing it right now. You can say. But it's so good. It's so good. Like it feels like it's, there have been so many games that try to emulate Super Nintendo RPGs, some better than others. This is like the closest that's come to like

feeling like it could be an all-time classic. Like up there with Krono Trigger. That's how good this game is. The one downside is that the English writing is pretty mediocre. It's clearly written by someone who's like English is not their first. language, but everything else is incredible. The game design, the characters, the art, the music, everything is phenomenal. And the one memorable moment for me has been, I talked about the combat a little bit a few weeks ago and how cool that is. So the game keeps introducing all sorts of new twists every so often. There are robots you can pilot, and that plays differently. I just did the coolest thing, like one of the most clever ideas that I've ever seen, which is that you're

fighting this boss battle and you're in the middle of these underground mines and you're on kind of like a cart that is moving. And you, during the boss battle, you can press the Y button to look at the map. And when you look at the map, you see this kind of like maze of winding passageways. And on each passageway, it'll have like a different icon. One icon might be like a poison icon. Another might be a heart. Another might be like boulders falling.

And you have to decide which way to go in the middle of the map by like hitting these switch buttons. So like you use one of your characters turns to hit the switch button. so you'll be like, okay, I want to go east, I want to go north. No, well, unlike FF6, this is during combat. So you do this like as a turn during combat. And unlike FF6, like you can see the whole map in front of you and decide which way you want to go to like maximize your route.

And like it adds this whole new element to this other one. Like the combat that's really cool regardless and really complicated and interesting, even aside from this. And this just adds this amazing new wrinkle. So very memorable moment. This game is incredible. I mean, I feel like I've only scratched the surface of it And another one that has just gone very much under the radar

But I think everyone needs to play chain decos Number nine, the quarry, which I don't know if either of you have started this It's been installed for a while One of a few that I wish I'd had time for I suspect that this is one of those that might be on your list If you guys have played it because The Quarry is essentially a spiritual successor to until dawn Which is by Supermassive Games

And it's the closest that we've come to like the interaction cinematic, amazing horror game experience that like we all love. It's full of cornball dialogue and characters like that come out of summer camp thrillers and this is a summer camp thriller. And it's great. My wife and I played it and we have almost beaten it. We were about to beat it and then we had a baby so we had to put a pause on that for a little bit. But we were just talking about finishing it off. And it's incredible. I mean one of the most memorable moments and this is a little bit spoilery but it's from the beginning is that like In the prolog of the game, you run into this cop.

And he's kind of creepy. And he's telling you that you should go to a hotel instead of going to the camp where you're supposed to be going to. And then, of course, you don't listen to him because you're a bunch of teenage, like, horn dog. Like, I don't know, malcontents. You're the stars of a slasher movie. Yeah. And, like, one of the first things you see in the prologue of the game is, like,

the cop, of course, coming behind you with a syringe and, like, drugging you both and kidnapping you both. then it turns out later well I won't spoil it but he's a character with his own backstory and personality in depth to him he's not just like a creepy monster he actually had very good reasons for drugging you that day he does wow got to play to find out what they are

anyway the quarry is really good and it's got this amazing couch co-op mode where like because the game just kind of rotates through this big cast of characters I think they're like eight characters you can set it up so you have player one controlling these four characters and player two controlling these four characters and then the game I'll tell you

okay player one's turn okay player two's turn and so it's perfect for like playing with a friend or a partner on the couch yeah that's awesome number 10 this is the hardest one for me I suspect that if I had played more midnight suns it will be in here but the pause seriously no I don't play me it's like I keep waiting like every time I open steam

I click it and I'm like please update please put in the pause one yeah I just so I have a feeling that this would probably probably be on my list, but I just haven't been able to play enough. Same with just one quick runner-up is a game called Patrick's Parabox. This is this really cool puzzle game that I played earlier this year, but just haven't played enough of to fit in onto the list. So instead, I'm going to go with the game that I bet a lot of people are like, where the hell is this game? God of War Ragnarok, which eeks it out. It makes it and slips in. Just barely making it in.

And I think the main reason, I think all of us were a little bit underwhelmed by this game for in varying levels for various reasons. First and foremost, because God of War 2018 just kind of blew us, blew at least me and Kirk away, and this was just kind of more of the same, and it's hard to be as impressed with more of the same. Not even more of the same. It was like too much. Too much of this more. Yeah. Same with Horizon, really, which didn't make any of our list.

That's kind of a similar feeling of just like too much. It was kind of similar games. I think maybe overall I liked Horizon more than God of War. They were both kind of duking it out for the big PlayStation's fun. I think I might feel the same way. I thought the combat was more fun in Horizon. I'll say that. So the reason Ragnarck has made my list is because of a man named Richard Schiff. And every single time, every single time he was on screen, I was like, this is incredible.

And the most memorable moment for me, of course, is when you're in Asgard playing as Atreus, and he does this walk-in talk with you. I was, like, losing it at my desk. It's so funny. One of the greatest experiences I've had this year is just watching him do a Toby Ziegler-style walk-and-talk through Asgard, where he is just, like, greeting and making it. Stark and comments to people as he passed. And I think that like, yeah, without him, I think this game would absolutely not even have a chance of cracking my list, but like because of Toby Ziegler, Richard Chiff. He really carries it.

The story, I had some real issues of the story overall. The game was very fun to play. The combat is as good as it ever was. Amazing combat, for sure. I could see myself going back and playing more just to like go do those challenging, those extra guardian fights or whatever. But, yeah, Odin really made it for me. And that's why I got a Vore Ragnar because it's on this list. So that's my 10.

And my bonus, my bonus Oh yeah, your bonus, right. Is a game called Papers Please, which I played for the first time this year. Nice. Good pick. Good thing. Play through it for a triple play and loved it.

And it was one of those games that I was always going to play eventually, but had an excuse to play it because of the show. And it just blew me away. I was enamored of it. You can hear my thoughts on it in our triple play where we really got into it. But I'm not surprised because I loved Return to the Obriddin. Lucas's Pope's next game.

So why wouldn't I love papers, please? So that's my list. Let me do a quick recounting. Eldon Ring, Tactics Oger Reborn, Case of the Golden Idol, Triangle Strategy, Legend of Heroes, Trails to Zero, Return to Monkey Island, Live, Chained Echoes, The Quarry, God of War, Ragnarok. Bonus, Papers, please. Nice. Can I throw one, I want to throw one thing out there before we wrap. And that is just to recognize the piece of hardware that completely transformed the way that I play video games this year.

Since we're at the end of the year, I do want to mention that the Steam deck, honest to God, change the way that I play video games this year. We've talked about it a bunch, so I don't need to belabor it. But looking back on the year, I mean, from the minute I got this thing, the only game that I have not played on it was God of War Ragnarok, which I played on the TV. You wanted to harness the power of the PS5. It's understandable. I did. I did. And actually, I played a fair amount of that streaming as well via Chiaki. But everything else, even if I'm streaming from PC like Marvel's Midnight Sense because it doesn't work that well on Steam Deck, played it on the Steam Deck.

I play everything on that thing now, and it's like video gaming is a handheld pursuit for me now. It's awesome. And so it's remarkable to buy something that completely changes the way you play video games after as many years playing video games as I've had. So I did just want to kind of mark that because, wow, that was unexpected. Hardware of the Year, Steam Deck. Definitely. Definitely hardware. Steam Deck wins it. All right.

Let's take a break and then we'll come back for one more thing. I'm Miffy Wadiway, the host of maximum film. I'm Alonzo Duraldi, also the host of maximum film. And I'm Drea Clark, yet another host of maximum film. Every week, we host, Huddled Up. Usually with an illustrious guest, and we talk about films. We have film news. We have film quizzes.

We answer your film questions. It's like the maximum amount of film talk. That's why we call it maximum film. Maximum film. Maximum film. podcast that's not just a bunch of straight white guys new episodes weekly on maximum fun dot org and we are back and it's time for one more thing mattie why don't you go first sure so i'm listening to an audio book uh of redefining realness by janet mok she reads it herself this is a 2014

memoir so i'm very late to the party and i had meant to read it in 2014 and then i just never did even though I really like a lot of her other work. She does a lot of consulting for this TV show called Pose, which is about black trans women set in the 90s. I love that show, have watched all of it multiple times, and it's great. And this is her memoir. This is about her coming of age in Hawaii.

She has a native Hawaiian mom and a black dad and realizing that she's trans and what that was like. As a child, she transitions fairly early in life compared to the norm. And it's about how she makes that happen. And it's fascinating. And I know that a lot of people probably heard about trans people in the first place in 2014.

She did a pretty intense interview on Pierce Morgan in 2014 as well. So people might remember her from that for a bit before Orange's the new Black made Laverine Cox really famous. She was like the most famous trans woman that a lot of people knew about. And this book is very,

much written in that style of like, you probably don't know what a trans person even is, so let me lay it out for you. But I just want to say she's an incredible writer and she's just really got this gift for describing her own life in a way that manages to be poignant without also seeming, I don't know, cloying or like going over the top and how she describes some of the things that have happened to her that are pretty sad. And also moments of really wonderful luck that she has. And I don't know, it's just a really good memoir. So I super recommend it. It's called redefining realness. Of course, a reference to the idea of realness in the way that trans women in the ballroom scene describes it as like, you've got to be real so you can survive in this world.

And her figuring out what that word means to her as she grows up. So yeah, really good book. It's also rad to hear her read it as well. Cool. Redefining realness. Kirk, you're up. Next. My one more thing is a show that Maddie has already watched that Jason, you and I both watched. Yeah, because I made you guys watch it. He forced us to watch this very popular and beloved show. That is the White Lotus season two, which we tore through with a little less hesitation than season one. And I will say, Maddie, you are correct.

I think I agree with you that it's a more approachable and generally more entertaining season of television than season one. Maybe it doesn't have quite as sharp teeth as season one. Like it's not quite as subversive, but it is more entertaining and delightful. Less floundering, I would say. Season one has some more moments that really nothing happens. This is very plot-driven. Yeah, and season one really builds to an anticlimax. It's a more subversive show.

It's just about, it's like in the end, the awful, rich white people will do their thing. That was kind of the moral of the story. Like, I remember, I haven't listened back to our conversation, but I remember talking about season one and basically being like, man, Mike White said what he was trying to say. He did what he was trying to do. But what a bitter ending. Like I didn't like it exactly. I was pretty bummed out by it, even though I thought the show was really, you know, it was largely entertaining and very successful what it was doing.

Season two, I just found to be a delight, even though it still has plenty of pointed commentary. It still has a lot of awkward, terrible people interacting with one another. But it's just a kind of slightly lighter on its feet. that also, without spoiling anything, doesn't build to an anticlimax. No. This time he was like, all right, we're going to do the thing. We're going to go somewhere and make this really entertaining at the end. And I think that was the right call. That finale. If only to change things up, yeah, if only to change things up from the first season. And it's wonderful to watch a show that is totally written and directed by one person.

This show is just so clearly the vision of one guy. And that makes it, I think, really distinct in a way that is interesting and cool. In terms of comparison points or genre descriptors or whatever you want to use to describe this show, there's really just nothing else quite like it. The way that it's this, it's like a mix of a sort of bourgeois comedy of manners. You've got all these different people from different social strata interacting with one another. There's some class commentary and like class comedy as well. It's a sex farce. I've heard it described as a whodunit and I'm like, that's really not it. Well, so, but the thing is, well, so, but to continue, you're blending these genres, it's got elements of those things. It's a sex farce in that there's a lot of

like, there's a lot of sex. There's a lot of sort of people having sex with other people who they maybe weren't supposed to be having sex with. And there's a lot of like, what does sex mean? And how does it play out in different relationships? Is it a transaction? How is it a transaction? Yes. Right. Like, what is it a what does it mean? And then then there's this element of mystery on top of the whole thing. Because you know at the beginning that there's a death, which was true of season one as well, it puts you in the mindset of a whodunit where you don't know who died and you don't know what happened.

So the whole time, you're interrogating every interaction, all of these different sexual liaisons, each awkward conversation, you're thinking in the back of your head, maybe this is why this person kills that person. Like, you're always kind of in that murder mystery mindset. Or you're worried about F. Marie Abraham's character's health

because he keeps having bandages on his head. And I was like, is he just going to keel over at some point? Right. And there are a lot of enjoyable. red herrings and then as a result you just kind of you kind of wind up interrogating what is generally a sex farce and a comedy of manners with the mindset of a person watching you know uh jason's one more thing for example yes a person watching a stone who done it and so it makes for this really cool experience watching it there's just nothing else quite like it i thought it was great and i think

that jennifer coolidge is just the goat she is just unstoppable owns this season just the weirdest character i thought ever seen and she nails every moment of it. And Mike White just knows what he's got with her. There's a scene early on where she just eats a noodle. She like sucks up a noodle. And it's the funniest thing I've ever seen. And I was like, dude, he just knows he can just point the camera at her and she'll do something

incredible every time. The way she always looks unsteady on her feet. And that's not her because I've seen her in so many other things. But like as this character, she always looks like she's about to fall down. It was like terrifying to watch her walking. You're like, oh no. What are you getting yourself in? do now. So pitiable

and yet terrifying to have her stare at you angrily from across a restaurant Yeah, she could destroy you. Stop my heart. So anyways, it's a great show. I really, really enjoyed it and recommend it. It's great. Fun fact, Mike White actually wrote the first season of White Lettuce for Jennifer Coolidge. Like, they were supposed to do some other project and then came up in this. Well, and I think, and wasn't

the other project, sort of had some plot similarities with some of the plot beats of season two. Oh, okay. That's fun. I don't want to spoil anything. He took some ideas from whatever that project was. I mean, I feel like that's the other piece of it is that Mike White, I mean, he's gay and also is critiquing so many aspects of gay culture and like the things that gay culture fetishizes. And like season one got into that a bit, but season two is like fully in that zone. And I don't think I've ever seen a piece of media do what that show does in that specific lens of like, I'm just going to critique this one thing that annoys me. Mike White likes to do that.

Yeah, it has that very personal vibe. Speaking of Who Done It, my one more thing is a movie that just came to Netflix called Glass Onion, A Knives Out Mystery. I love this movie. We watched it on Friday Night and we're extremely entertained, and I could just watch Benoit Blanc mysteries

every couple of years for the rest of my life. I would just be thrilled to have that. He's entered the territory of Phoenix Wright for me, where I just wanted to keep going and never end. Yeah, so this movie, it's a murder mystery, sort of. It's about a bunch of people who wind up on this island, run by this rich billionaire who acts like you would expect.

I guess rich billionaire is a little redundant. I should say tech billionaire who acts like you would expect. He's like every tech billionaire you can think of. Played wonderfully by Edward Norton. Edward Norton is having so much fun in this role. And I mean, he, Benoit Blanc, among others, are summoned to solve the mission. history of his death. And obviously, like an onion, there are more and more layers that are kind of like unwrapped from the whole thing as you go. And it is all just wonderfully absurd and delightful to watch and extremely fun and clever. The whole plot kind of like rests upon the performance of Janelle Monet who just blows it out of the water. Like she should win an Academy Award for her performance in this movie. I have loved Janelle Monet in every single performance I've ever seen in my life.

including live concerts. So that is not a surprise to learn. Stunning. Like in this movie, she just like, oh my God, she's incredible. And obviously Daniel Craig is having so much funny,

so much fun as Vinoy Blanc. They really just let him keep doing that accent. Really just a great cast of character. I like, I don't want to say anything because I don't want to spoil any bits and pieces of this. If you haven't seen it yet, man, get ready for the Jill.

Janelle Monet performance of a lifetime. Like, she's incredible on this. And so, yeah, I mean, it's just a really great mystery. There's some, definitely some twists that, like, you wouldn't be able to see coming, I don't think. I don't know. I have to rewatch it and see if they're like hints in the background. Yeah, it's not solvable.

It's a little like the first film in that way. It is like the first sort of postmodern or whatever. There's definitely, yeah, it's definitely a subversion of kind of like the murder mystery that can be solved if you're paying enough attention and notice all the clues. Like this, it's a little bit more about deceiving. you as an audience and making you look somewhere else or making you not like there are many clues as far as I can tell um although there are some clues there are clues into like the ultimate ultimate like ending some of them are very fun especially because the big reveal of of which I will not say anything about is a very enjoyable in what it is it's it's different than you you would be

expecting right which is similar to Knives out where I could never I don't think I personally could have ever guessed the end of Knives Out, but the reveal upon reveal at the end. The parlor scene moment, as we call like, the built-in class commentary of it all, which is also very similar to the film. And this is just, I mean, the thing about Clascenian is like, even aside from that, like putting whatever mystery, unfairness, like, whatever deduction aside, it is just like one of the most fun to watch experiences that I've had in a movie in a very long time. And that, like, the only movies I've seen this year are basically Marvel movies. and none of them have been nearly as fun as watching Glac Onion.

Like, moments of a moment, it is just like, you can't look away. It's just so much fun. It never stops being fun. And it is just like a solid two and a half hours of just pure delight. It's amazing. I loved it to death. Cool. I'd say, yeah, I really liked it, too.

It's a little lightweight. Like, I will say, like, having watched it, it's not a movie that in five years, everyone will be like, man, that was a stone classic. No, it's no parasite, but it is life. Or even the first film, I think, just had a stronger cast. Like, this one is good, but the characters are a little broad. Some of the targets are it's like, oh, an annoying influencer who gets canceled online, like a men's rights YouTuber. It's a little, like, a little broad.

It's a little light. But everyone's having so much fun that I think I described this as a trifle to someone. It's just a movie that you put on and everyone will have a good time. And then there's all these cameos. I mean, everyone clearly just wanted to be in it. And the whole time, I mean, it's just endlessly funny. And then, yeah, if it weren't for Janelle Monet, I think I would have actually found it a little disappointing. But because she's so strong and so central to the film, she really does elevate the whole thing.

Yeah, she takes it to another level. But it's just so entertaining. It's just such an entertaining movie. The most, my favorite kind of running joke is that they're on this billionaire's island for most of the movie's runtime. And it's supposed to be just them. So just this small group of people. And then they see this guy walk by. And he's just like this guy in like Hawaiian gear with like a joint in his mouth.

And Edward Norton's character is like, oh, that's just Darrell. He's just staying. He's like, I'm not here. I'm not here. I'm not here. And Darrell just keeps walking by at random points in the movie. And it's just like an incredible, an incredible running joke. He's just kind of hanging out.

He's just, he's just there. He's just there. He's just bumming a ride. Anyway, Glacenian really enjoyed it. It's on Netflix so anyone can go watch it. And yeah. Really enjoyed that. All right, guys.

That is it for 2022. We did it. Another year. We will be back next year. That's, it's exciting. 2020 will be our fourth year in production as Triple Click. Wow. Really?

Wow. Go us. Yeah. We turn three in May. So, 2020 will be our fourth year. Mm-hmm. We will begin our fourth year then. It's pretty exciting.

Happy New Year. It's very exciting. I'm excited for everyone listening. Happy New Year. Full of exciting podcasts and games and really cool stuff. Huge, huge, huge games. Unless some stuff that shouldn't get delayed gets delayed more, it's going to be a hell of a year for games.

Which is always possible. It should be a hell of year for games. Should be a hell of year for Triple Click. Maybe we'll come up with some fun surprises to make the year. Maybe we will. Very exciting. And yeah, looking forward to it. Looking forward to 2023.

So happy New Year to both of you and to all of the listeners out there. And as usual, we will see you. you next week. Yeah, see you next week. 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 supporting us by

becoming a member at maximum fun.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpod, send email the triple click at maximumfund.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum fun.org. Comedy and culture.

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