Video Gamers Podcast - Beyond the Blockbuster: Surprisingly Good Sequels - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

Gaming hosts Josh, Paul and Ryan are back with a long awaited gaming episode that’s been a popular request for some time now. We dive into the gaming world of the best video game sequels, but with a twist. You’ll find no Mass Effect, God of War, Portal 2 etc here. We’re talking the best video game sequels that aren’t the first to come to mind, and we each give our top 5 list in this incredible episode.  Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: Skippy, Kiitaclyzm, Gideon Is Lit, Toro, Scrump, Gaius, Remi, MarbleMadness, Dr. Catatonic, Blackstar (DQ), Glapsuidir, Phelps, Michele B, Redletter, Nevo, Waynerman, TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q  Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Hello, fellow gamers. Welcome back to the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast. Today is a bonus round Monday, and we have decided to each get together and make our own individual top five lists for best gaming sequels. I am your host, Paul, and joining me, he's been pining for the sequel to Pong ever since he first played it on the day it came out in 1972. It's Josh. Okay, number one, I'm not that old.

Number two, Pong 2, the remake, is going to be legit, man man and i've heard it's coming really soon most anticipated game of all time of 2024 maybe five depends they're really delaying it because they want to make sure they nail it 51 years of putting those final touches to give you the best possible experience well don't forget don't forget about the battle pass now where you get like five different pong balls you know so yeah unlock the the blue pong ball the red pong ball yeah excellent all right and joining me and josh he is still new to the show i suppose in a sense you could call him the sequel to michael his name is ryan and i just want to know r Ryan are you going to be a sequel like Terminator 2 or more like Speed 2?

Both equally amazing. Are you a Speed 2 fan? Absolutely not. Good. I was starting to question your judgment there for a second. Alright so before we break down our top five lists I think some

new reviews have been rolling in right Josh, I think some new reviews have been rolling in, right, Josh? We do. The reviews have been rolling in. And hey, if you haven't left the show a review yet, do me a favor. Take a second. It only takes a little bit to leave us a review. Helps the show out immensely. Good chance we'll read it on the show as well. Like this one that comes in from Alpha Sloth 86, it is titled the Beatles are overrated. This podcast is great. And it says Paul's face already is. I was going to say,

I didn't want to interrupt you, but I was like, I wish everyone could see Paul's face. Oh man. Go ahead. Okay, here we go. All right.

And it says for everyone that says the Beatles are the greatest band of all time. Do you actually ever hear anyone listening to them? Are there really any memorable moments in movies that you can think of and be like, remember when that scene had the Beatles music montage? Nah, doesn't happen. Some movies I had to Google to see if it has. Can't Buy Me Love, Love Actually, Parent Trap, Bowling for Columbine, The Rolling Stones,

on the other hand. Some of the greatest movie montages, some movies I can think of off the top of my head that have dropped the stones, The Departed, Apocalypse Now, Knives Out, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Goodfellas, and Blow. So if the Beatles are so great, why are they never chosen for the best scenes in the best movies? Anyway, The Beatles' Blow, Blow the Movie also has a great Stones mic drop scene, I just remembered. I'm terrible at names, so Paul, Ringo, you guys are amazing

and John will be sorely missed. I will become a subscriber soon. Keep it up. P.S. My Guitar Gently Weeps is about all the crappy songs they created. All right. No, we don't have time, Paul. We're just going to have to move on everybody

but thanks for the review alpha sloth 86 all right now listen up alpha all right alpha i love you thank you for leaving your review and considering patreon but you know i have to respond to this strongly right all right oh goodness all, where do I even start? Do you ever hear anyone listening to the Beatles? Yes, Alpha. XM Radio has channel 18 devoted to the Beatles. Out of 151 channels, it's the lowest number to feature a single band.

On Spotify, the Beatles are currently the number 44 most listened to artist. In the top 80, there's only three bands that are active prior to the 80s. That includes the Beatles, Queen, and Michael Jackson. Rolling Stones, by the way, number 148. You say there's no memorable moments for Beatles in movies. First of all, I don't think that is the standard for what makes for a good rock band or the greatest of all time. But do you not know how music licensing works for movies? You have to buy and pay for it, and the Beatles are in such high demand that they can charge an arm and a leg

so you don't see it as often. Mad Men famously paid $250,000 just to play Tomorrow Never Knows during the end credits of one episode. I mean, there are entire movies based on the music of the Beatles. I don't need montage scenes. I've got entire movies like Across the Universe yesterday, which just came out, what, like two years ago? You did mention Can't Buy Me Love. Yeah, that's a whole movie based on the title of a Beatles song. I mean, there are scenes that have great Beatles music in them too. My favorite comedy of all time, Royal Tenenbaums, features Hey Judeude my probably favorite movie of the 2000s the social network also includes beatles music and i'm going to take a second here to talk a little

bit about the rolling stones all right um the rolling stones i i will concede great band but you can't say the beatles blow and the rolling stones are great josh you're gonna have to wake up and listen to this because i'm sorry guys i fell asleep there all right what was the rolling stones are great josh you're gonna have to wake up and listen to this because i'm sorry guys i fell asleep there all right what was the rolling stones first hit anyone remember oh is it i wanna be your man which was written by john lennon and paul mccartney did you know that the rolling stones were just a blues cover band they only started writing music because of the beatles did you know keith was, quote, obsessed with the Beatles? Also, go on YouTube, go do a search for the Beatles Rock and Roll Hall of Fame introduction.

You know who does it? Mick Jagger. Guess what Mick Jagger does? Goes up there and thanks the Beatles over and over, says, we wouldn't exist without you. Thank you for influencing us to write our own music. Thanks for paving the way for success outside of the UK to open up the lanes for bands like the Rolling Stones. I mean, this is completely crazy. Last thing I'll say, Keith Richards said, and I quote, without the Beatles, the Stones would never have been there. And I'm done.

All right. Not going to have to defend the Beatles anymore. They defend themselves. But there you go. That's my piece. Hey, Ryan, let's take a vote. Do you agree with Paul or Alpha Sloth 86?

I agree with Alpha Sloth 86. I agree with Alpha Sloth 86 too! Yeah! Josh has done such a good job getting everybody so on this train, but I will... No, it's 12 people. It's not that many. I will personally ask everybody to

get off the train so i don't have to listen to paul rant like that ever again yeah good i'm all for it i will say i am i am impressed that those facts were just lined up you were ready to rock so i feel like yeah i feel like you get this often and maybe it's because it's true paul has formulated an official defense. Anyway, if you guys want to trigger Paul just like we do, just come over to our Discord server. Just pop in there. Talk about why the Beatles aren't that great. And Paul will absolutely show up.

Oh, I will. I will. If you ping me and say anything about the Beatles, good or bad, I'll show up and I'll comment. Be ready. Yeah. All right. So one last thing I did think would be fun before we jump into our top five sequels of all time. There's a little bit of

a game that I thought we could play. Now, Josh, you surprised me and Ryan with a game on our latest Squadcast, which by the way, if anyone doesn't know, most of the support for our show comes through patreon if you want to sign up it starts at five bucks a month it's at multiplayer squad.com and you get two bonus episodes a month if you sign up over there in our last episode josh at

the last second said hey i've got a little bit of a game for you guys and uh ryan got completely annihilated. No, technically Ryan won. Spoiler alert. Sure, yeah. He won in the same way the Rolling Stones did. Ryan, what did I eat for dinner last night? Yeah. So now it's my turn. I thought since we're doing a top five list,

there's a little bit of a fun game we can play with top fives. I want to call this the blind top five. What this is is I have a list of five games they're all sequels so it's related to our topic i am going to read these games one at a time and you guys have to rank them in your top five before you know what the rest of the games will be so you are locking in your answers in the top five going in blind. Without knowing what the other ones are? You will not know what the other ones are. You're going to get these one at a time. I love it.

Right? And then I will post on Discord that these are your top five lists. Oh, man. Alright, so here we go. The first one I have here is Star Wars Jedi Survivor. Five. Your list of top five. Five.

Josh, you're putting it five? Five. What about you, Ryan? Four. Next game coming up, Destiny 2. Oh, dang it! No! No! He's just going to get worse and worse. Oh, man.

Ryan likes Destiny. Ryan likes Destiny. I do. I played a whole mountain of destiny i'm gonna put destiny two at uh three i'm gonna say three i gotta give myself some wiggle room above and below here so okay i like it next one is diablo three oh i thought you were gonna say diablo two dang it um nope diablo three ryan you can do one two or. Ryan, you can do 1, 2, or 5. Josh, you can do 1, 2, or 4. I'm going to say 5. I'm going to say 4.

And really hope that there's two good games in this list. Paul, next on the list is Fallout 4. Okay, 2. I'll say 2. Dang it. Do I want my 1 to be 4? Paul's going to have something like some Pokemon game or something. I see him smiling.

I know. I'm going one with Fallout 4 because I had a lot of fun with that game. I'll say two. I'm going to roll the dice here. Paul's grinning already. I regret this. I regret this already. Can you read that?

No! What's the last one? Battlefield 2042. Dang it, no. Josh's favorite game. You heard it here first, people. Josh has Battlefield 2042 over Fallout 4, Destiny 2, Diablo 3, and Star Wars Jedi Survivor. For hype level, that's true.

Full list. It was true. Until the game came out nice all right so josh has got 2042 fallout 4 destiny 2 diablo 3 and star wars jedi survivor you could almost like reverse that list and i feel like it's more accurate pretty close ryan's got fallout 4 battlefield destiny 2 star wars jedi survivor diablo 3 i thought you guys were going to put diablo 3 higher i mean it was okay it was good it wasn't diablo 2 but yeah yeah it wasn't anything fancy but it was also the not knowing what else was coming out diablo 3 is where i

started playing the game and going like uh-oh all right well it's about time we start the actual meat and potatoes of this show, guys. So basically, this is an idea that we've been kicking around a really long time. It's been suggested in Discord many times. Somehow, we have covered games without sequels. We've covered bad sequels. And this time around, we're finally going to talk about good sequels. Although I will say here at the top, I do not know anything about Ryan's list, but I do know that Josh and I were saying, you know, we're always trying to avoid talking about Mass Effect, The Witcher, Elder Scrolls, GTA. It would be so easy just every single one

of these top five to just keep talking about those games. So Josh and I tried to be maybe a little bit more outside the box thinking. I think for our list, it might almost be more in line with like forgotten gem sequels or something like that. But in any case, we're just here to celebrate good sequels. That's what it comes down to. I'm really excited about it. I can't wait to hear what things you guys picked. Let's all just start. Did you guys put them in order from five to one, or do you just have in any random order?

I went just kind of any order. I didn't want to try to give myself that heart of a task to say this is the best off-brand sequel of that kind of thing. And it's like... Sure. And Paul said it, but I just want to reiterate it. We are not saying that these games are the best sequels of all time. There is a reason that we are not talking about Red Dead Redemption 2, Witcher 3, Portal 2, these sorts of things. Because listen, if you've been listening for a long time, you're probably tired of hearing about those. Everybody knows those games are generational. And they're fun to talk about, but it's like

we're trying to broaden that for a little bit. So if you are a new listener, don't think we're crazy. It's just we've covered those games enough that it's like we don't want to rehash that content. And so I know for myself, I try to think of sequels that really stood out to me that maybe aren't – like these are well-known for sure. But I don't think they'd be one of the first five or six games that would come to mind when somebody said, hey, what's one of the best sequels out there? And so I think that's kind of the angle I took, but they are not in numerical order by any means. I love how we say that, and now Ryan's list is going to be Red Dead 2, Portal 2, Skyrim. I know, right? I like the best list, guys.

Can we put it to a vote? Vote for the champion. All right, so who wants the honors? Who wants to a vote? Vote for the champion. All right, so who wants the honors? Who wants to go first? Not it. Nose goes. All right, I'll go first.

I don't mind. I'll jump in here. I got to try to... All right, I'll jump in with this one, because this may be on one of y'all's lists, but Borderlands 2. Okay. Border... I had a feeling this would come up. We have played all of the borderlands not every dlc that comes out because let's be honest they they definitely push out a lot of dlc

um but borderlands 2 to me is the height of the borderlands series you know borderlands came out and it was new and it was fresh and it's this looter shooter you know it's just that it was really really good but borderlands 2 was the game that perfected what they were trying to do in my opinion they nailed the characters they nailed the humor they nailed the worlds they expanded on the guns and the gun play and i think wasn't the claim to fame for borderlands 2 like that they had over like a million weapon combinations or something like that oh i'm sure probably even more than that yeah something crazy yeah it was nuts i mean it's really far out there i remember playing borderlands 2 through a couple times actually because the replay value was there because once you finish the game and you can just keep playing and you keep getting even more

fantastical weapons and stuff like that it was great with friends um and then you know borderlands 3 comes around and we're all excited and what happens we play borderlands 3 paul you were there for about three hours yeah it's fine and then paul bailed on us just this is not borderlands 2 borderlands 2 is almost too good because it's hard to play the other entries when you've got handsome jack one of the best villains of all time the gunplay is immaculate i love borderlands 2 it's by far my favorite in the series even comparing things like tiny tina's wonderlands and everything else i mean out of all the gearbox stuff i think borderlands 2 is just their absolute apex i agree and you know we've we've played tiny tina's we've played borderlands 3 and they just don't capture what borderlands 2 did totally agree you're a borderlands

fan right ryan yeah no no i thoroughly enjoyed them yeah no i agree it was i i would say yeah additionally best best in the series for sure yeah i think the only downside to borderlands 2 is that uh it didn't have ain't no rest for the wicked by cage that was a good intro yeah that's my only criticism it was just cool i love the classes i love the skill trees i mean they really they really just, it had everything, man. And I don't know how you can't recreate that. I mean, I get it's tough, right? But it's like, there was a magic about it that we have not seen since. And even though the formula is there, Borderlands 3 and Tiny Tina's and some of the DLC, it just hasn't been the same. So when I think about really good,

just top tier sequels, what's a game where they just absolutely nailed it the second time around? Borderlands 2 is just right at the front of my mind. All right, moving on to you, Ryan, what you got coming in here? Well, this is my only one out of the AAA peak triple a peak mega list

the band list I'm gonna do it because it so basically I'm going with the Witcher 3 I'm so glad and the reason that I am going with it is because I like I said I think it was in the

squad cast though but I train a lot of martial arts so I was helping a buddy get ready for a fight. And it was the day before Thanksgiving in like 2015, 16, something like that. And snap, my ACL goes pop. I'm out of commission. I'm sitting there for a while trying to recover, trying to rehab other ways. It didn't work. So I got to get ACL surgery,

clean tear completely in half. I go and I get my surgery. I can't get up and walk. I can't move. I can't do anything other than my standard rehab from the doctor for a few weeks. What am I going to do with my time? Lo and behold, Witcher 3 is waiting right there for me. So I ended up setting up a whole kind of gaming area on

the couch so i was nice and comfortable and just like a a melted potato in in the couch and and i just played witcher three for oh gosh i was playing like 10 hours a day because what else was i going to do i'd get up and hobble over with my crutches to to go to the bathroom and and get some water or whatever else and then come back and just grind it out. I played so much... What was the card game in there? Is it Glint? Oh, Glint.

Yeah, I played so much of that dang game at like 2 in the morning because I couldn't sleep. I'd have inflammation or whatever and I'd be up just playing that for hours in the middle of the night and I wouldn't get bored of it and then you know running around switching through the swords i i loved that game so much it uh definitely got me through uh through the rehab for sure well you know josh and i love that game we both have it in our top 10 of all time so it's

definitely an all-timer the funny thing is i tried playing the witcher one and two before i played three and i could not get into either one at all and the witcher three is just such a jump in quality and storytelling i love it i will say after i played three i did enjoy going back and watching all the cut scenes from two without like a full 60 hour playthrough or whatever. So I appreciated it more. But man, The Witcher 3 just hits in a way with the combat and the gameplay that the first two just don't get there. I what a game to be able to just sit and play for hours a day, too, because you start to

live like in that world, man. And it is one of the most finely crafted worlds in a video game, man. Between the Nilfgaardians and like the war going on, you get the fantastical cities, you get the just downtrodden area. Like you feel it, man. And it's hard to quantify to somebody that's never played it.

The other thing is that game is beautiful. And that game came out when? 2015? 2015, yeah. Dude, boot it up today you still opening it's just like dude this game looks so good man so that's a yeah what a perfect opportunity to just dive into one of the best games ever made in my opinion yep yeah great great pick gotta love it all right so looking here at my top five i will say that my list skews a little bit older uh i think this is the old yeah this is the oldest one on my list so i'm gonna knock this

one out first i'm gonna say sim city 2000 that's a good game man that's i played a lot of sim city okay did you i wasn't sure i felt like there was a 50-50 chance where you absolutely loved it or you just never played it and didn't care. Yeah. No, I played it a lot, man. So for me, there's been a lot of city builders, including in the SimCity series. But I think that 2000 is just the pinnacle of city builders. I think it's my all-time favorite simulation game. I like it more than The Sims. I like it more than any modern simulation game. I think SimCity 2000 did it best. It came out back in 93, and I did not play it right away because our computer could not run it. I've mentioned this on the show before, but the day that my dad bought a CD-ROM and a sound card,

we bought them both on the same day. And I think our CD-ROM is what came with SimCity 2000 for free. And I just remember plugging that in and I played, I kid you not, probably like 8,000 hours of SimCity 2000 in my teenage years. Like I just played so much. I had played the first one at my school because we actually had the OG SimCity. I don't know if you guys ever played that one, but it's like just to give you a little bit of an idea of what changed between the first and the second, they came out four years apart from each other.

But this was when technology was in such a boom that four years was like, it may as well have been 50 years of technological advancement. So the first one has a bird's eye direct overhead view, which is very goofy. Your little menu on the left side of what you can build only has like eight buttons. It's very rudimentary, very simplistic. When they moved into SimCity 2000, they used an isometric view. They added mountains and hills. They added underground stuff, where you had to run your water pipes and you could run a subway underground. All that got added in 2000. They added tons of new buildings, things like prisons, schools, libraries, museums, and hospitals. And one of my favorite things is as time goes on, every once in a while you'd get the newspaper and you'd be able to read the articles and crime at all time high in the name of your city.

And you could actually learn things about your city and you would learn about new technology like, oh, fusion power plants are coming out this year. And then you could get rid of some of your old power plants and have this new fusion power plant. So I don't know. I absolutely love it. And weirdly, it was strangely educational. I feel like I really did learn a lot about taxes and policies and crime rates and all of those kinds of things because of SimCity 2000. So for me, it's very nostalgic, but that has a very special place for me. I played that game a lot. And it was such an upgrade over SimCity because I played a lot of SimCity as well. But when you built a neighborhood or a commercial area or something like that in

the original SimCity, it was just like a colored rectangle. There was no real three-dimensional anything in that. And so when SimCity 2000 came out and you actually, like you said, you've got this kind of three-dimensional view and you're building neighborhoods and commercial areas and stuff like that. You felt like you were actually seeing a city like born and evolve. And you're right, man, you had to put thought into it. You had to have electricity. And if you didn't have a police station nearby, you know, like your crime rate would be really high.

So I love that strategic aspect of how you would approach building these things. I remember like building roads and like nobody wanted to live in the neighborhood that had the highway going through it. Yeah. So then I'm like, oh, well, next to industrial. Yeah. So then I'm like, I guess I got to have neighborhoods, you and stuff like that but yeah what a fun game and you guys know i don't really like sim games that much but sim city 2000 was probably one of my most played sim games

and at the time i absolutely loved it did you ever play some city 2000 ryan yes i did and actually i was thinking about it um i don't i remember what episode we talked about it on but with timmy our cousin uh he i remember sitting and watching him play that and he was like a mad scientist the grids he would set up and watching the pipes and going this and that you know all the way through um yeah that's how i learned to build the cities on that game but i i you know i'm sure i didn't play it as much as you guys i was a little little younger but i definitely i definitely enjoyed it and you'd always go you know you'd go to the neighborhood kid's house that had a dad that actually had computers or a mom you know whatever the his parent their parents had computers and they'd have that game and you could

sit and you you and your buddy could sit and playCity and just build some crazy city and see how much growth you can do. But yeah, no, that's a good pick for me. Last thing I'll say about SimCity, PC Gamer UK named it the best PC game of all time in 94. And they said it was near perfect in conception and execution. So that's like that big of a leap going into that sequel. Yeah. All right, well, we're about halfway through this this episode so we're going to take a short break and we'll be right back with

more multiplayer gaming podcasts get groceries delivered across the gta from real canadian superstore with pc express shop online for super prices and super savings try it today and get up Okay, we are now back. Coming to you, Josh. What's the next game you want to bring up? This one's easy for me. I'm actually, I will wind up playing this game again, which is rare for me, but Doom Eternal. The Doom series, I mean, you know, beloved, well-known classic. So many different adjectives

you can use about DOOM. But I'll tell you what, man. For somebody that's played every DOOM game, except for the really weird offshoot ones, DOOM Eternal is perfection when it comes to a fast-paced, gorgeous, optimized, exciting, chaotic, difficult shooter, man. Honestly, I can't think of a game that just hits every checkmark that a game like that should. The soundtrack, the graphics, the gunplay, the variety of weapons, the variety of enemies, the frustration of some of them, the challenge. I mean, I can just go on and on and on. But if you've played Doom Eternal, you know how good that game really is. And I feel like all of the previous Dooms were kind of working up to what Doom Eternal was,

man. It's honestly almost a flawless game if you like that kind of game. If you think of high-quality gunplay, is Doom Eternal the first thing you think of? Honestly, it really is. Because I feel like you bring it up a lot. It really is. I mean, if you haven't played it, play it. You can pick it up dirt cheap now, too. But it's just fun, man.

They added stuff like movements, the dashes, grapple hooks. So not only is it perfect gunplay and a variety of things, you've got this awesome progression. You wind up getting movement skills that you have to know how to use to survive in that game as well, man. It's just absolutely peak sequel, in my opinion. Heck yeah. Well, when you play it again, let me know because I don't think I've played that one. Oh, really? So I'll be down to get in with you.

Oh, man. What's funny is you can't play co-op, but they had a PvP mode where one person could be all the demons. Like you could actually select the demon that you wanted to be and you would fight against the slayer. It sounded really neat. I played some of it. It's not as good in actual practice or gameplay, but Doom Eternal is phenomenal. I'll tell you what.

You're building that new PC, Ryan, and Doom Eternal is a beautiful, just perfect implementation of ray tracing and 4K and HDR and all that stuff, man. So if you want some eye candy, maybe we'll hook you up with it. Oh, there we go. Yeah, whenever I can get to put this bad boy to work paul did you ever you never played doom eternal either have you no i've always been hit or miss with the series where i'll check back in every few entries i played the 2016 one but that's the last one that i played so good so one of these days I'll get around to it for sure. So good. Yeah. All right, Ryan, what's next on your list?

Well, for me, I'm sure in the few episodes I've been here, people have learned that I'm a big fan of Metal Gear Solid. So I am going to actually go with Metal Gear Solid 2. Okay. As my third pick. That's my third pick, right? Yeah. Second pick. Yeah, second. Two. Two and two third pick, right? Yeah. Second pick.

Yeah, second. Two. Two and two. Yeah, two and two. There we go. Yeah, that's why I did second. I would say, call back to the beginning when Paul mentioned Terminator 2, I would say this is the Terminator 2 of sequels.

It's way up there. The first one was just, it was, the first one was so good. Well, the Metal Gear one was so good uh well the the metal gear solid was so good but two came out and this hideo kojima he he you know all the games that he has made he's just got such this vision and and the way he does it and and the the different things that he does within the games that just make them so unique and i just felt like it was so ahead of its time um all the differences and i know i'd mentioned before how even you know the graphics back then you know you look at it now and you're like whoa but back then i remember looking at it thinking this is just the best thing i've ever seen i played that game through more times than

i can count but that one that one for me is uh is top tier definitely it really was ahead of its time in a million ways and it's not just the technology but even some of the themes and the stuff that it gets into about like political conspiracy theories and existentialism it grasps at a lot of high stuff and i feel like some people weren't crazy about that with uh death stranding because it leaned more into that with death stranding but metal gear solid 2 for me had that perfect mix of storytelling and plot along with the stealth slash action gameplay it's it's like a flawless game i have no criticisms of mgs2. Oh, yeah. Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake just announced a couple days prior to this recording, and I got to say, they don't show a whole lot, but I am definitely intrigued.

And listening to you two gush over Metal Gear Solid has me very sad that I missed this whole series somehow. You've missed out for sure. Oh, yeah. this whole series somehow you've missed out for sure oh yeah yeah no it's definitely not only just the the quality of the game because i mean like uh just metal gear solid 2 i think it's a 96 on uh metacritic um so it's you know it's up there and then the other one snake eater 3 is is just just equally as amazing and they always what kojima always does is he always cuts the you know has these just crazy villains that are just so outlandish and wild. And they're kind of weird.

And you're kind of like, I don't know about this guy. But then you're also like, he's kind of cool. Like Vamp and that. Ocelot. Yeah, Ocelot. And Psycho Mantis. Throughout the whole series, there's all these crazy guys. But I will say, speaking of the remake, I hope they bring back, now that Kojima's out of the mix, I hope they bring back David Hayter for the voice of Snake.

Here, I thought you were going to say, I hope they bring back Quiet. Oh, I would equally be as appreciative of that. Now, what's funny is, I know nothing about this series, but I know who Quiet is. Yes. Yeah. I love that they were willing to get really weird with villains and protagonists where it's like, yeah, she breathes through her skin. So she's got to dress a little more scantily clad in order to breathe properly. It's like, yeah, okay.

We all know what you're doing there. Breathing's important, Paul. Yeah, it sure is. All right right moving on to my next pick here i've got super mario 64 yes oh that was on mine was it okay for me it's kind of funny because my favorite mario games are actually mario 3 on nes and super mario world world on Super Nintendo. But Mario 64 so beautifully ushered in the 3D age of gaming, I had to choose this for the best sequel. When we went from 2D side-scrolling platformers into 3D, there's a reason why a lot of those games fell off. There's a reason why you did not see as many Prince of Persia successful games or Sonic or others. A lot of them just fell by the wayside.

But Mario kept going strong because they just know what gamers like and what they want. And being able to step into 3D Mario and have the game play so well and so creatively, it really was just top notch. I mean, I have to give them all the credit in the world. I loved the way they handled boss fights. I love being able to, you know, grab by the tail, swing around and throw off the map, you know, things like that. You didn't have opportunity in 2D. So having that in 3D was just so neat. The camera was revolutionary at the time. I didn't even really know until reading the Wikipedia page on this this but they actually said that mario created which is still used today the mechanic where the camera dynamically turns and accelerates based on

your actions so the whole idea of you turning and the camera automatically swings around and follows that was invented by mario there were other 3d games before but they didn't use mechanics like that so i had to pick it here just to read one quote, because I know we'll have to move on pretty quick. PC Magazine said that Super Mario 64 is the first truly realized 3D platformer with the integration of camera control into its core gameplay, which is the medium's true evolutionary leap. So they understood what 3D gaming could do. They understood the Mario IP. And what a great sequel there. That game was magical, dude. Honestly, I still remember playing it. The different levels, the secrets that you could find. Like you said, it was Mario in 3D. And it was done so well. This wasn't like we tried and we kind of sort of nailed it. Like this game was

everything that you would expect a 3D Mario game to be. I remember playing this a lot with my wife and it was just, there was always something that was catching us off guard or a secret. What's that painting? And then you jump into it and it's like, wait, this is a whole new world. What's happening? Or you'd get into a it and it's like, wait, this is a whole new world. What's happening? You know, or you'd get into a world and then there would be all these cool little different mini games within the world. The time trials,

racing penguins, you know, hit that penguin way over there with a snowball. I mean, it was just insane how much they did with, with that game, man. And the game knew if you cheated.

So if you shot yourself to the top of the mountain with the cannon they'd say well that doesn't count in the race against koopa troopa you can't just shoot yourself with the can and go back and try again and i always thought that was really clever uh yeah no and when uh when this came out i mean i had played some of the other the marios but this came out in 96 so i was eight years old so at eight going from those to this you know i didn't play them for very long but going going into this i played a ton of this game and it you just get so sucked into that world and you're looking at you know those other 2d scrollers like you were saying and you get to come to this and it's just a whole

different atmosphere and and you get to to dive into it you get to go through the the pictures do do all that stuff yeah it was it was awesome it's it's almost like you can't go back like it was such a revolutionary leap forward that you're kind of like i don't want to go back to 2d mario like i just want more of these and i mean they ran with it look at you know super mario sunshine odyssey i mean, they realized what they had. But that game changed gaming in a lot of ways. And it had the triple jump, which everyone loves. Yeah, all the sounds.

Yahoo! Wahoo! Wee! All right. Moving on to you, Josh. What you got as your third? Oh, back to me, huh? Dude, StarCraft II.

Oh, nice. I mean mean let's be honest here i'm not an rts guy i really have never been an rts guy i played warcraft i think i played warcraft 2 and 3 i don't remember if i played the initial warcraft or not but you know starcraft came around oh everybody loves space you know okay fine. But Starcraft 2, again, to me, is one of those where they took a great idea and they realized that they had something going and they just perfected it in so many ways with the sequel at that point. They broke it up into three different parts, right? Like StarCraft II, there was... What was it? Heart of the Swarm, Wings of Liberty, and something else. I can't remember because it's been a long time now. But I just remember being blown away at all of the different aspects of StarCraft II. The story, the characters, the gameplay, the graphics. I mean, this was a time when we were upping, really making advances in processing

power and stuff like that. And to see a Zerg horde on your screen with legitimately 400 things going on at once was like... That was so scary. It was bananas. And so there was just so much about StarCraft II. I still remember to this day, you've got your levels where you have to build your base and you collect your resources. But then they had the levels where you just got this little squad, right? You had to make it work. And you had to make it work.

And maybe you'd find a couple guys trapped in a room if you went the right direction and stuff. But I just remember they did so many different things with that game that on top of a really good story, man, Reiner and Kerrigan and what was going on with all that stuff was just really interesting. They fleshed it out. Again, one of those where when I think about it, I just go, they nailed it. They absolutely nailed a sequel to this game. They improved on just about everything without trying too much in ruining it it which we see with a lot of

sequels or it's like you tried a little too hard like bring it back bring it back just a little and starcraft 2 just absolutely phenomenal to me that's that i mean because that's the way to do it when you when you have something like you said a good idea and and all the bones are there you have a good premise and and it all just needs to kind of be fine-tuned put a little cool tweaks into it fix it up a little bit dress it up and and then you're gonna have something amazing and that's that's exactly what they did yeah i think when a lot of people remember rts games they just think about the pvp i think they forget that there actually were really robust campaigns associated with Command & Conquer

and Warcraft and Starcraft. Dude, fighting the Protoss? You know? It was like, whoa, dude, this technology is bananas, you know? And then it was like, yeah, there was just so many things. Protoss cannons everywhere, baby. Oh, yeah, the carriers, man, with the little swarm shifts and stuff. I still

do all the little audible sounds that they would make you know all those honor guide me yeah sting thy bean uh i love starcraft yeah what a great series and two was phenomenal all right ryan moving on to you what's your third uh so i don't you guys didn't mention this specifically so i don't know if it's on the ban list but i'm gonna go uh with with just the transition from the first to the second and also what the the engine and what it did to gaming i'm gonna go with half-life 2 oh it's actually on my list so i don't think that one's banned just because it's getting to the older point revolutionary game but yeah that's a great pick yeah i know we're picking a lot from back then,

but yeah, to me that, because like I said, I was so into the first Half-Life, I would sit and I would try to build maps and I would go over everything. So when Half-Life 2 was coming out, I remember watching just the little trailers they would have just of how the engine's performing and seeing the water ripples.

And gosh, I mean, obviously now this stuff makes it look like kids play. But back then, it was something completely different. You know, Gordon Freeman before looked like a big old rectangle cruising around. But it was such a fun game. And you just got into it. And you see the bad guys coming., and you're like, oh, okay. You can hear their mics through their helmets and all that. And smart.

Smart AI. Yeah, exactly. It was like the first game where you'd chuck a grenade. They'd actually run and rush you and stuff like that. And you didn't see that in games before. Oh, no. Yeah. It was definitely one that made a huge impact on my, I guess you would say, gaming life as a child.

And something that I thought was just such a huge transition from the first one to the second one. And then it impacted so much in gaming. I almost put Half-Life Alyx on my list. Even though I know Half-Life 2 is the better game. But for my money, not a single game even holds a candle to Half-Life Alyx on VR. I still think it is so head and shoulders above everything else. It's one of the all-time best games, I think, full stop. And it's definitely the best VR game. Almost put it on my list. I have Half-Life 2 on my list. And it's one of those things where it was such a leap forward.

They tried so many things and they succeeded, honestly, in all of them. The physics in Half-Life 2 were unheard of. That was the thing that really helped set that game apart was just like, wait, this world behaves like it should. Something's on top of a box and you break the boxes and it would fall um the other thing was you know here's a first person shooter that was not i mean you know the mechanics were good but the story like they you know they were telling the story not through cut scenes which a lot of the older games used to have to do right like hey we need to we need to have this story so X, you know, an exposition dump kind of thing where we have a

cut scene and we tell you everything Half-Life two told the story through the actual gameplay and the characters you would come across. And, you know, and it was just, it was a, to this day is a masterpiece. It's just, it sucks in a way because i know it's so old at this point that a lot of people won't understand like why and what they did but again that was one of those games that absolutely revolutionized gaming it's just too bad we'll never get half-life 3 i know yeah what did somebody say half-life 3 no i was gonna say uh the um just just any game that makes you want to stay in an area because you're having so much fun doing what you're doing there. When you got to, what was it, Ravenswood? I forget the area where you meet the priest or whatever.

And you get the gravity gun. And you're shooting saw blades. And you're just ripping them into the walls and through the guys and everything. I hung out there for as long as I could just enjoying that area because it was so much fun. And it was something that I'd never done before. So, yeah, any game that can get you to do that throughout the playthrough, it's going to make a big impact. I mean, the other thing was like... Yeah, like Tears of the Kingdom. Talk about simulator.

They had the driving segments. remember like the first time in halfway to hopping into like the little dune buggy thing and i'm like wait am i really gonna get to drive this car and then next thing you know you're driving and it handled like the way you would expect and you're like this is bananas like how did they put this in here gatling gun thing on top too you can shoot around yeah Yeah, no, that was... And you got a helicopter chasing you. Yeah. I just actually replayed it maybe within the last year.

May have to do it again. I love it. All right, going here to my next pick. Continuing the RTS trend. I thought it was funny you had an RTS here, Josh, because I do, too. Command and Conquer Red Alert. Yes.

Never played it man missed out on that one too what i know i know yeah josh didn't play command and conquer so here's the thing command and conquer was such a big success along with warcraft that you started getting hundreds of rts's flooding the market there were were so many. And this is before StarCraft. StarCraft, I think, was 98. So this is still several years before. But Command & Conquer came out in 95. And then Red Alert came out in 96. I can't believe it's only one year later. But Red Alert is technically a prequel to Command & Conquer. It goes back in time, alternate history. You've got the Allied forces against the soviets and you get to like replay history and hopping into red alert the reason why i loved it so much is that every other rts at the time basically in order to keep uh parity and fairness in pvp both sides always had

the same units it might just be like a different color or a different name, but they operated the same command and conquer went the complete other way. They said the allied forces have their strengths and weaknesses. And so do the Soviets. And we're going to build that into the gameplay, which is in part what made it so much fun. This is why you have things like Starcraft having Protoss, Terran and Zerg because that didn't exist before Command and Conquer. And I love how they handled it in Red Alert. The Allied forces had better medics,

so your units lasted longer. Their tanks were not as strong, but they were faster and cheaper to make. But then the Soviets, they owned the air, but they had a really bad navy. And so it was really interesting where you could play to the strengths and weaknesses of either side. I remember doing dial-up 1v1 with my buddy Kyle every single night, because this is before you could play online with a ton of people. You had to do direct dial-in. But the fact that you got such a great sequel only one year after the first just really blew my mind uh game spot said that red alert belongs in the same category as civilization 2 and quake games that followed legendary

predecessors and immediately eclipsed them so red alert is my third pick here all right moving on josh what you got here you guys are making me sad, man. Metal Gear Solid, Command & Conquer, all these games that I just somehow missed. I mean, not to sound like the old man episode or this nostalgia episode, but dude, I gotta talk about Star Wars TIE Fighter, man. And I know people are gonna be like, what? Star Wars what? And it's like,

but you talk about, again, these are sequels that absolutely perfected what the games before them were. And Star Wars X-Wing was a phenomenal space combat simulator. It was janky you know tie fighter comes along and first of all i can't think of a game that allowed you to be the bad guys prior to like tie fighter coming out it's the first time i remember being the villains yeah yeah i mean maybe there's a game that that was but i can't remember at this point so i remember thinking like wait a minute i get to be the bad guys in this game. All right. And yeah, honestly, it was just such an upgrade. I mean, I don't want to beat this one because I know there's only a handful of people that are going to be like fist pumping with me on this one. But it improved everything.

It had one of the first 3D rendering engines. So all of a sudden, graphics took this big leap forward because it wasn't just triangles it was smooth curved triangles um things like that um it actually played into the mission briefings a lot more so you actually cared about why you were doing what you were doing um you know it you you had you got to fight big capital ships star bases like you go on this mission you're like wait am i really gonna fight this mon calamari cruiser you know you got to be all these different, um, you know, different tie fighters that you'd never had before. Um, it was just, it was so good, man. It was great. And having those 360 degree space games, whether it was descent or tie fighter,

or even like, I almost put X wing versusIE Fighter on my list because I played that a lot more than TIE Fighter. Yeah, Wing Commander was back in the day, Freelancer. That genre really started to blow up because people were trying to capitalize on that. But yeah, what a great pick. I loved TIE Fighter. Played it a ton.

Had to use those joysticks for something, right? I bought a joystick for that, man. I remember thinking I was the coolest thing around, man. I had my joystick and I was like, yeah! I'm a TIE fighter pilot! Alright, moving on to you, Ryan. What you got? For me, I guess we're going to keep the trend of

older games. I am going to go with one 98 on Metascore. Or Metacritic. Is this Ocarina of Time? I was going to say. It's got it.

No. No. As a 90s kid, it's going to obviously be Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. Oh, yes, dude. I played that game so much. How could you not? It was obviously how famous and amazing the first one was. And they come back.

Soundtrack. I was reading something on Reddit the other day. It was like, what games have the best soundtracks? And Tony Hawk came up a million times on there. And then just, I mean, it was the same level over and over. But you just could not stop playing it you could just do these these different you know combinations throughout and i and i you know i i'm a little biased because i skated you know all through junior high and late in elementary and high

school and stuff like that so it was a big one for me it was a game that they kind of did those little tweaks and those refinements to to streamline and make it even better and uh you know i guess that's why it's it's a 98 you you also dabbled in some skateboarding as an adult ryan i remember oh you mean a couple years ago when i broke my wrist and shattered it yep oh man that's exactly what i was thinking of yeah quick story uh day before halloween i i guess i'm the uh i get injuries right before holidays but it was the day before halloween i go my drop my daughter off at a uh halloween party with her friend and i'm like oh there's the old skate park you just skate out right next door so i go to the skate park actually just build a skateboard right there because i've been wanting to do it for a while i'm out there i'm at the skate park for about two or three hours skating,

and I had a whole group of kids I was trying to teach how to do stuff, and I broke my wrist. I completely shattered it. I had to get surgery, two plates, 13 screws right in front of all of them. They looked so scared. I fell, snapped my wrist in this big 12-foot bowl, stood up. My wrist looked like a z and i was like well that's broken i climbed out of the bowl i said all right guys i gotta go to the hospital good luck

and they're like oh my god you want to call an ambulance i was like no i'm good and i drove myself to the hospital and and waited there forever to get in but yeah so that that's why you don't skate when you're older kids that's like a real hold my beer moment you're like all right children let me teach you come on over let me show you this immediately break your wrist there was probably eight or ten kids all standing around and they just their faces were white they were just white looking at me so yeah i got a lot of uh physical ailments due to my inability to stop myself from living in my teenage years oh but what a great pick i love tony's tony hawk uh so many benihana's i i just remember doing benihana after benihana getting those points yep all right let's let's let's bring up something a

little more modern guys i'm gonna bring up something that came out within the last couple years i want to bring up a risk of rain too yes thank you paul i i started to put this on my list and then i was like i'm going down this nostalgia road and i didn't get a chance to talk about it so i'm so glad you brought this up i had a feeling you might even have it as one of your top couple but risk of rain 2 is my all-time favorite roguelike game ever since this one's not quite as popular if anyone doesn't know risk of Rain is basically where you pick a character, you start running around killing stuff, and you get power-ups. And you keep playing until you die or you beat the game. And as you complete certain challenges, you unlock new characters that have different abilities.

And every run-through is different because you're getting different power-ups. And sometimes you really luck out and they synergize amazingly well together and sometimes they don't. But Risk of Rain 1 was a 2D game. Yeah. And so bringing it into 3D and for the game to work as well as it did. I never played Risk of Rain 1, but I've watched a lot of footage. I can't help but think playing 2 is immensely more fun than the first. I love unlocking the new characters.

I love that it's multiplayer. You can play with three other people. Over time, I've said this before, but it just keeps growing in my estimation. I get more and more nostalgic for it. For me, I'm not a huge fan of roguelikes, but this one for me, I really, really loved. So I really wanted to bring that one up. Dude, this is why I get pumped for upcoming games like Hyper Light Breaker and Endless Dungeon and some of these that I keep going like, guys, guys. And then it's like because I'm chasing that Risk of Rain 2 feeling. And these games kind of remind me of that a little bit. So phenomenal pick, Paul.

And I mean, dude, if you've seen Risk of Rain 1, it don't look so good. Risk of Rain 2 is, again, this massive leap forward from one game to the sequel. Yeah. Nice. All right. Well, we got time for one each. Josh, what's the last one in your top five? I'm just going to actually do a little quick fire uh since it's my very last

one i'll just mention some ones that maybe we're not going to get to talk about um diablo 2 that's probably up there in the band list but i you know i gotta mention diablo 2 because i know we all played the heck out of that game um kotor 2 again old game but you talk about a leap forward from an original game to a sequel. Shadow of War over Shadow of Mordor, which is a phenomenal game. Super fun. I do have Ocarina of Time on my list because, let's be honest, that game, again, was one of those revolutionary ones. And then Battlefield 2 because Battlefield 2, to me, is the best in the series. I know that 1942 in Vietnam, I think they were both before Battlefield battlefield two they were battlefield two was like where it kind of went modern i'm shaking my head

because it was on my list oh really okay i was like yeah so for me and then i have divinity original sent to also but people are tired of hearing me you know praise that game rave about it oh i never i didn't know you played that game ever. Oh, well, yeah. Did you know he also plays Rocket League? Oh, really? Is he competitive on it or is it? I hate you guys. So, Ryan, you said that we already mentioned the last one. Which one is it?

Is it Battlefield Vietnam? Battlefield 2 was the one. Oh, Battlefield 2. Yeah. Gosh, I played so much of that game. Let's go, guys. Let's just jump back in. We'll find a server somewhere.

Dude, I'm in. I'm in for sure, especially with my new computer. Dude, I'm the world's best helicopter pilot in Battlefield 2. If you give me a good gunner, oh, baby. In 2 or 4, I'd have to use controller, but I was amazing. I remember my father-in-law, he loves drones. He got a bunch of drones just from naturally playing Battlefield. I could fly the drone like you would not believe.

Yeah. So it was great. But I guess for my pick, I got the same thing, kind of some honorable mentions. I got Roller Coaster Tycoon 2. Which I think was made by one guy. I think one guy programmed that for me. No way. I didn't know that.

Oh, wow. I'm pretty sure. I just, I don't know. I'm sure everybody would drown, drown their patrons in the, in the lakes,

but age of empires too. Um, that's a, that's a phenomenal game. Yeah. That one played. Yeah. I forgot the code.

You could type in whatever code and you can get a bunch of vipers that shot rocks driving around. I think that was an age of empires 2 um halo 2 uncharted you know you said diablo um bioshock 2 was yeah pretty good uh and then my pick is gonna be last of us 2 something something more recent so i i thoroughly enjoyed the playthrough um that's just my type i don't know why I'm so obsessed with post-apocalyptic worlds. Just seeing things frozen in time, something hits with me there. And so I love, I just, I'll spend the vast majority of the time of my playthrough,

not even on the missions, just exploring, looking around. I'll zoom in, see what dumb magazines are on the counters in these you know rooms and stuff i i for whatever reason those games hit with me but this one you know you get to play between you know la and abby or whatever and and uh you get to go through the the long series and the stories between them too and how they kind of mesh together uh from the first one so yeah no that that's that's gonna be that's gonna be my last one nice uh bad news for battlefield 2 it is averaging 8.2 players concurrently over the last 30 days it's about to be 10 10.2 the the peak over the last 24 hours was 15 people so it's

gonna be a smaller match man you might have better luck in Battlefield 4. Oh. I'll still play some Battlefield 4. I would actually play Battlefield 4. I remember waking up to that stupid, the crazy music at like 3 in the morning because I'd fallen asleep. Oh, yeah.

All right. Well, with my last pick for best sequel, I'm going to go with Beatles Rock Band. No sequel i'm gonna go with beatles rock band no i'm just kidding oh i was like what like a good game paul i did own it great game just for the record but moving on i am going to pick batman arkham city yes that was also on my long list but yeah i have brought this game up several times over the last three years, but it's for a reason. I never hear anyone talk about the Batman Arkham series anymore, and I don't know why. It should be right up there with all the other all-time great trilogies.

Why we all talk about Witcher 3 all the time and no one ever breathes the word of Arkham, I don't know why. But the first entry, Arkham Asylum was fantastic. I absolutely loved every minute of that game, but for the most part, it was linear and it was just in the asylum. It focused a little bit more on stealth, but then you, over time you learned new abilities and you could reach other areas of the asylum and it was great but then arkham city was basically gta batman like it opened up the entire city to you there was so much you could do there were tons of villains in the world there were even i had to look it up because i was curious remember how they had all

the riddler challenges 440 in the open goodness my i mean there was so much stuff you could do in this game i still recommend it to people if they haven't played it. It's not that old. It still plays really well. It plays better than Gotham Knights. Yeah, it looks beautiful. It does. Yeah, it still looks and plays great.

And you still get Mark Hamill as the Joker. There's no reason not to try playing it. I also do have a quote for this as well. Game Informer gave it a perfect 10 out of 10. They called it the best licensed video game ever made. They said that it surpassed every standard set by Arkham Asylum in every way. So yeah, I think it's just the perfect way to build a game. Start slow and small, build the characters and the story, and then let it open up into this giant world

where now you can play with all the toys. And what a fantastic game. I mean, Arkham Knight is also still really good, but for me, Arkham City is the one that I think about the most. Yeah, no, I agree. Being able to just, you're driving in that Batmobile,

and if you see a bunch of guys, you can just switch into like super mode and just go side to side and do all that stuff. And then also when you're driving in that Batmobile. And if you see a bunch of guys, you can just switch into like super mode and just, you know, go side to side and do all that stuff. And then also when you're driving, you can just launch out and you can use your grappling hook. Start flying.

Yeah, start flying and then excel yourself more. You just boom, hit another wall. You know, it's almost like, you know, with Spider-Man being able to swing, you can just go through the whole city that way. And yeah, I had so much fun. It was a little too tough for my son

when he was wanting to play, but he was hooked on it. You know, some of the scary parts I'd keep them away from, but, uh, but going through there, it was, it was, there was nothing like it. And, and like I said, it's, it's a beautiful game and I, yeah, I'm the same way. I would definitely recommend it to anyone. And it was, uh, it was a quality sequel. I would, I would still, I would still load it up right now and have no problems playing it i feel like a lot of games have tried to capture parts of that of that series or or that game in particular and they've just failed miserably you know and we get excited like gotham knights we got excited about we were like dude is this going to be like the spiritual successor and then it, you know, it's worse than Arkham Knight in a lot of ways.

Yeah. You know, and so it's just, it's one of those, like, again, a lot of people have tried to capture moments where the combat system or something,

and nobody's been able to nail it since then. Well, it's just a different philosophy about making money on games, right? It's a little bit more push it out early, let people buy the game. We'll fix it later. We'll fix it to the bare minimum that it's passable, as opposed to the old model, which was release finished games, and that will increase our brand awareness and brand loyalty and people will buy the next game. And so I think that's why we might

be in like a little bit of a dip right now, even though it's such a great year for games, and I'm going to have some very strong things to say about Tears of the Kingdom when we deep dive that. In some ways, I think we are seeing some very creative games, but on the whole, it just feels like people aren't really trying anymore. They're just trying to make something barely good enough to sell. Whereas 10 years ago ago you saw more swinging for the fences and actually getting those home runs so yeah i i had to bring up arkham city

great game i love it a couple other honorable mentions you guys didn't mention left for dead two monkey island two megaman two time splitters two oh yeah x-men legends two dead rising two it's a lot of twos uh infamous second son i also really loved and balder's gate dark alliance technically a spin-off but really it's a sequel to balder's gate so i thought i'd bring that up as well and the uh tomb raiders which i think did you mention tomb raider ryan i did not but those are on there for me too fantastic yeah i put those in there. Yeah. All right. Well, I think we're all done with this bonus round.

Any closing thoughts or anything else before we close this one down? Oh, and for our younger listeners, I apologize. But you all know I'm old anyway, so it's tough when you start getting down that nostalgia road to start like, Oh, this game was great. Oh, that game was great. Was this our most old man episode yet? Okay. To be fair, we said at the very beginning that games like God of War, 2018, Ragnarok,

Red Dead 2, a lot of these companies, Grand Theft Auto V, a lot of these companies figured out how to make a really, really, really good sequel. And these are much more modern. But like I said, everybody knows our thoughts on those. So we kind of have to go a little bit deeper into the well if we're avoiding talking about some of those games too. I think the only one that was more old man than this was josh when you and i recorded our whole episode about arcades oh yeah back like like from 86 to 93 like what were arcades like and that that was probably our most old man moment yeah speaking of i am surprised i did not hear a street fighter too i again that kind of ranks up there with people sick of me talking about that game too if it gets brought up every third episode i think j Josh and I were like, we just gotta

bring up something different. Yeah, exactly. Alright, well thank you so much to everyone out there for listening. Thank you to all our Patreon supporters. Once again, if you want to go check out Patreon support, you can do so over at MultiplayerSquad.com to see how you can support our show while getting bonus

episodes. We hope that you'll join us again in the future. We do have episodes every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. Make sure to hit the follow button to stay up to date. And until next time, happy gaming. Is this a standoff, Ryan? I was waiting and then I froze. I'm like, I can just run the music right after this.

That's cool. It's fine. I don't care. All right. See you, everybody. See you.