Video Gamers Podcast - Bonus Round: Overhaulin’ the Leaderboard - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

Gaming hosts Paul and Josh are back with a fantastic episode you don’t want to miss. This week we dive deep into our gaming Leaderboard and make some much needed changes to the best list in all of gaming. Since introducing some single player games, we had to reconcile how to fit them in and where to properly rank them as well as updating some under-ranked games and maybe fixing a few that were ranked too high. Only one way to see what happens in this awesome episode! Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our 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

I am the genie of the podcast and you get one wish. Oh, that's an easy one. I wish their Discord server was free to join. Wish granted. That's right. You guys and gals asked for it and we did it. Our Discord server is now free to join. That's right.

You get to come be a part of the best gaming community out there. You'll find the link in the episode description and over on our website at multiplayer podcast.com. Now I know what you're thinking. We do definitely still need your support. All right. So if you love the podcast, if you love what we're doing and you are just thinking to yourself, this is awesome.

I really want to support these guys. Head over to multiplayer squad.com. That's where you can help support the show. You do get some awesome perks, but more importantly, you get our eternal gratitude. All right. Now enjoy the episode and we'll see you on our Discord server. What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast. We are just a couple of dads who love having family-friendly conversations about gaming,

and we are very excited to have you guys here with us today. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast, rate us 5 stars, and leave a review. And also, we'd like to ask you to consider helping support the show, which you can do by heading over to MultiplayerSquad.com, where you can help support the show starting at $5 a month. And also, you can join our free Discord server. So feel free to check out the link in the episode description. We would love to connect with you guys there on Discord. I am your host, Paul. And with me, I have a co-host. And in reviewing my friends, you know, Josh, you rank somewhere here near the top. But it's Josh.

You guys know him. He's at the top of everyone's leaderboard. Dang it, Paul. You stole my intro. I was going to say, on my leaderboard, Paul, you are number two. Fair enough. Wait, ask me who's number one. Who's number one, Josh?

Me! It's me, Paul! I'm so surprised. I sit atop my own leaderboard. Yes, so today is a bonus round episode. Every other Monday, we do a deep dive into a particular game. And then every other Monday in between the deep dives, we do some kind of bonus round episode. Sometimes we do a Q&A mailbag from our listeners. Sometimes

it's a draft and tournament. And today we decided it's been quite a while since we have reviewed our leaderboard and we felt like it was time. Yeah, it's definitely time. It's been a little while and it's looking a little stale. So for anyone who's new to the podcast, Josh, why don't you share with them what our leaderboard actually is? So our leaderboard, every deep dive review that we do, so every game that we talk about in depth, we put on the leaderboard. It's a lot of fun because these games are from all different genres.

So we have a lot of fun kind of trying to figure out where to place it on the leaderboard. It's a lot of fun because these games are from all different genres. So we have a lot of fun kind of trying to figure out where to place it on the leaderboard. And I think as of right now, we have like 43 games on there. But we do admit to some recency bias that occurs if we're right actively in the middle of playing a game that we love. And then when it comes time to talk about it, we tend to rank it maybe a little high. And then sometimes there's games that we're a little sour on that we put near the bottom that we then come back and say, hey, maybe that wasn't fair. And so every now and then we go back to the leaderboard to look at it and say, hey, where did we mess up? What is not a fair ranking? What's a game that really, in hindsight, it wasn't as good as we thought it was? Or maybe, as we have seen with some games,

where the developers patch the game or change the game to where it makes the game terrible. And then we go, hey, this game doesn't really deserve to be this high on our leaderboard because this game sucks now. Yeah. So we like to try to keep our leaderboard recent and updated. We don't want to leave a game near the bottom or at the top if it's changed over time. And so we're going to get around to that here in just a moment. We do have a little bit of housekeeping to do first. We did want to give a shout out to a new Epic Patreon supporter. So we wanted to give a shout out to Red Letter. He is pretty active here on our Discord server. He's currently deployed,

but he did say he was able to bring his Switch with him and he does have an Ultrabook. So he does like to hop into World of Warcraft, but you probably won't see him doing anything too graphically intense on that ultra book no no i think i've seen him playing world of warcraft which you could play basically on a half-baked potato at this point um but yeah no it's he's been super active it's really cool to uh to see that i mean he's an epic supporter which is you know light years above a Rare supporter.

So not to put any pressure on the Rare supporters there, but Red Letter is number one in my book right now. Yes, our listener leaderboard, Red Letter, is number one. Yes, that's right. Yeah, yeah. So we're super excited to have you. Thank you so much, Red Letter. We definitely appreciate the support. And then, Josh, I think you have a couple of reviews you were going to read for us.

Do you have a couple of reviews? They've been rolling in. So thank you. And I'm just going to remind everybody, if you're listening and you have not left us a review, it takes about 15 seconds to leave us a review. It really helps the show. And we might select it to read it. So I've got two this time. First one comes in from Jaycon, and it's titled Fun Wholesome Gaming Podcast. Can't recommend this podcast anymore. And I had to pause there because I was like, wait a minute, you can't recommend us anymore? Like, what happened? But I think he's saying, like, I can't recommend this enough.

Like, I can't recommend it any more than i am right now uh great hosts varied gaming perspectives and relatable personalities and gaming preferences regular content that has become a staple monday and friday activity for me whether i'm at the gym walking around town or driving to work these guys have become my new best friends and i enjoy their work donations inbound once I quit being lazy and putting off signing up for your Patreon. Well, thank you, Jaycon. That's a very lovely review. We're always happy to have a new best friend, so welcome aboard. And he is my new best friend, Paul.

As an Epic supporter, he know is up there now so um and then uh this second one comes in from eric b moy from denmark oh okay i know man i love these foreign reviews these are awesome uh and it's titled i love it and he said i love listening to you, especially the prank stories episode. I loved the self TP. That was in reference to me teaching myself to throw people off my trail. And I love listening to these ever since Denmark went into lockdown. So that is super cool. I like that prank episode as well. But yeah, so that's really cool. We've got a listener over in Denmark. I'm sure we have thousands, but he's the one that left the review there. I think everyone in Denmark listens to this podcast, right?

I think we have like a 99% listen rate in Denmark right now. Well, I'm sure there's at least four or five. So we got a review there from one. That's very neat, though. Didn't we have a review from Prague or something just a couple weeks ago that we got a review there from one that's very neat though didn't we have a review from like prog or something just a couple weeks ago we read belgium yeah there you go all over all over the uh the world really oh very cool interestingly mentioning the pranks episode our friend andy from over at the fantasy footballers podcast he was driving in the car and texted me and said he was gonna listen to the pranks episode and i said uh-oh because i talked about a prank that you have not yet discovered and so it did kind of spoil it a little bit but andy did finally find the book that i had left on his bookshelf how to teach your cat about gun safety satanism abstence, and other threats to your cat's nine lives.

So Andy did hear about that on the episode, and he did find the book on his bookshelf. This was years later, and I actually saw Andy a few days ago, and he had the book with him. Oh, you saw it? Yeah, he was giving it to another guy so that that guy could then give it to somebody else and continue that prank. So Paul, this might be a lifelong generational prank at this point. Oh, yeah. Pay it forward, right?

You know, you got to take these books or these license plates, whatever we're pranking people with, and yeah, pass them on to the next victim. All right. Well, Josh, I think we're ready to jump into the leaderboard review. I am always ready to dive into the leaderboard, Paul. I'm doing a swan dive this month. Wait, what's the triple Lindig? Do you remember what movie that's from?

I have no idea what's that from. What's the one with Rodney Dangerfield? Back to School? Back to School, right? Where they're like the high dive guys. Oh my goodness, that's really stupid. I saw that movie once a very long time ago. Well, and you remembered the triple windig, didn't you?

I do remember it now as you're jogging my memory. That's right. All right, let's go ahead and jump into it. All right, so Josh, we did not discuss yet exactly how we want to review this leaderboard. In previous reviews between you, me, and Todd, who is our occasional third host on the show, in the past we've just kind of thrown out games that we thought were in the wrong spot. In this case, since it's just you and me, probably a little bit less discussion than normal. I don't even know if this is going to go a full hour. I kind of thought maybe we

should just break up our leaderboard into like five game chunks and then maybe just quickly reading through them and then talking about if anything seems out of place. Oh, I like it. Does that work for you? A little bit more methodical, but yeah, because honestly, that kind of helps people because like, oddly enough, I don't think that everybody has actually gone to check out our leaderboard. Right. Which you really should if you haven't.

But I do like that because it's going to give people kind of an idea of where games are, where they stack up. And maybe even we can rehash why certain games that some people might have a veryorant, might be so low on our particular leaderboard. Sure. And then also, since we decided to just start arbitrarily throwing single-player games on our leaderboard, by nature, some of these things are going to have to move around anyway. I'm still waiting for that person to call us out and be like, you guys are idiots, man. Do you realize that Resident Evil Village is not really a multiplayer game? Yes, we are aware. So also, I was going to say that it's also a nice just reminder of what games we've covered in the past. Because sometimes people join our Discord and they're like, hey, have you ever done an episode on Outriders?

And it's like, oh, well, yeah, we did. We actually did one really not all that long ago. So also as you hear us go through the leaderboard, if there are any games on this list you wanna hear more about, I've got good news for you. There's a whole one hour episode devoted to that game. So let's go ahead and just review the first five here. So at the top of our leaderboard, these are the games that we have enjoyed the most.

We recommend them the most we recommend them the most it's a very arbitrary list this is based very much on our personal preferences but we are coming in with number one overwatch two apex legends three rocket league four rust and five valheim how are you feeling about that top five, Josh? That's a really good top five, man. And you know what's funny? Before I even looked at the leaderboard, the one game that popped out that I was like, man, where did we rank this game? Because it really needs to be high up there was Valheim. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, honestly, I was watching one of our listeners by the name of T-Foles was streaming it in one of the channels on the Discord the other day. And I kind of had just hopped in there and was chatting with him and watching a little bit of the gameplay.

And I missed that game, man. You know, he was just running around the meadow and looking for copper and all that. And it was just like the music was playing. You know, it was a beautiful sunny day in Valheim. And I was just like, I was playing you know it was a beautiful sunny day in valheim and i was just like i got a little nostalgic and i was like dude this game came out of nowhere and it was so stinking fun man it really was and we got so many people to play it we had a good 10 people on our private server everybody yeah we were telling everybody about it it's funny

because i almost think we were a little too early to that game. I think, man, if we had waited to play that a little bit, we probably could have had 20 people in that world playing with us. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that we did have it in our top five because legitimately, I think it belongs there so um yeah i don't know that i'd change anything i'm never gonna get you to put rocket league above apex legends no did i tell you i played the arena mode in apex like a week ago i i think you posted about it on discord and you said it was not fun because you got wiped completely, right? It was so bad.

I haven't played Apex in like a year. Yeah. And trying to hop into 3v3 arena mode out of the blue, my teammates probably hated me. But man, it did not. It didn't go good, Paul. Didn't win a single match. I think I played like five or six matches. But it was cool to see that mode. I could see it being fun if you actually had like three coordinated people

um but i i think the top five is perfect to be honest with you i think that's pretty well set the top five yeah i've actually had the battle royale bug a little bit the last couple weeks i actually a small piece of me was curious to pop back into pub g despite us ranking it so low because of all the cheaters and the mouse script users you can never go back i know i want to go back to like the old beta pub g when it was still awful but it was incredibly fun you didn't have as much cheating at least you just had to worry about all the rubber banding all right so the top five then we don't really need to touch very much we highly recommend those five games the next five on the list starting with number six we've got call of duty war zone hearthstone outriders gta

online and rainbow six siege how you feeling about tier two one of these games i uninstalled recently paul and actually i'll say this two of these games i have thought about uninstalling recently one of them i actually did uninstall and i will say this the other one i think is not far behind it i'm assuming you already uninstalled outriders nope heart that's the one that's coming soon. Okay. I don't know why I'm leaving it there. Like on the off chance that like you or Andy is like, hey, anybody up for like a round of Outriders? And I'd be like, yeah, let me see if they fixed all the bugs yet or not. Nope, they didn't. I hate this game. Yeah, I really love Outriders. I really liked that the developer came out and said, this is going to be our new franchise moving forward.

So I think there's no doubt we'll get DLC. We'll get future installments. And I thought Outriders was a ton of fun. If anything, I think it might be a tad low, despite all the bugs. But I don't have any major heartburn there. I still think Rainbow Six Siege might be a little high to keep that in our top 10. Really? Yeah, maybe that's just personal preference.

I almost thought it was too low. The time to kill is just... There's so many times that I would die in that game without ever seeing the enemy. So the game that I uninstalled was Warzone. Oh, you did. Legitimately, it was this weird... I've had it installed forever. I don't think I've ever removed Warzone, but we haven't played it in, what, five months or so?

I think Jared just felt a disturbance in the force. You know, right. I actually confess. I confess to our buddy Jared, because he's a huge Warzone fan. And we were playing some Rocket League the other day, and he was actually like, man, you need to hop back into some Warzone with me.

And I did the like, Jared, there's something I have to tell you. And he was like, oh, no. And I was like, I uninstalled it. And he was like, really? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, I get it. I'll be honest. I'm much more inclined to play Apex right now. Like legitimately, like if you told me like, hey, I'm getting the Battle Royale bug, like let's play one. I would say, Hey, let's hop back into apex. I don't know why the difference,

maybe it's the, I mean, there's been a slew of hackers going on in war zone. Um, you know, not that there's not hackers in any battle Royale, but for some reason, like the war zone is just down the list for me. Like I'd be more inclined to play apex or even like you said, give pub G like that one or two game, try to see if it's really as bad as we remember or if it's actually gotten better. Um, so it's funny because we were all reminiscing about rainbow six siege the

other day and talking about the operators and stuff. And I was like, man, that, that is a really fun game with friends. Todd picking Blackbeard every single round. Oh, yeah. Putting that little shield on his gun or

whatever. But it was one of those, it really is great with friends if you can get a group to play together on that. That's why I was saying I almost thought it was ranked a little low. Well, that means it's probably in the right spot then. Yeah, I mean i mean maybe i don't know is there anything in this six through ten that you think we should change i think it's pretty good i

mean for me personally hearthstone and outriders i've always had above warzone as much as i love warzone i mean these are all the cream of the crop i mean these are my favorite games uh i don't have any major problems the only one in the top 10 that i would say is definitely not in my personal top 10 is just rainbow six siege but if you're higher on it than me you know it might get bumped down later anyway as we look at some of the other games i could legit see moving war zone down a notch or two you know like that's gonna cause some flack from some people, especially people that love shooters and battle royales. And it's not to say that Warzone is not a phenomenal game, but you think about how many people like just don't play battle royales, you know, and to say that this game is like number six out of our entire leaderboard, you know, that could be pushing it. I don't know. I could see bumping it down one or two.

Okay. How would you feel about bumping it below Outriders? So dropping it below Hearthstone and Outriders. The only thing... What if we bumped Outriders above Hearthstone? Oh, okay. So rearrange all three. So instead of going Warzone, Hearthstone, Outriders, go Outriders, Hearthstone, Warzone? Yes, because technical issues aside with Outriders, that game's phenomenal with friends.

When it clicks, it clicks so well. You know what I mean? And it's not a battle royale. It's not that that's a niche gaming thing but i think like a lot more people in general could enjoy outriders versus like warzone because it's cooperative not like that pvp where you're just getting sniped from across the map and getting frustrated so i mean i could see doing it like that okay yeah so we'll just swap outriders and warzone we'll have them leapfrog and then we'll keep Hearthstone right in the middle there for number seven. I like it.

I think that looks good. I feel nothing stands out as wrong in that tier. Yeah, that's a pretty killer top ten, I gotta say. It really is, yeah. All right. So then tier three, starting with number 11, we've got Destiny 2, Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War, Resident Evil Village, Among Us, and No Man's Sky. This is where I want to mix it up, Paul. Okay. All right. All right. What you thinking? I want to move a game up a lot that's not in this tier. Okay.

I think Deep Rock Galactic is a much better game than we give it credit for. And they still, to this day, are making improvements to that game. That game is updated fairly heavily almost every single month by the developer. I just saw a big thing where they gave one of the dwarves a rocket launcher, a missile salvo rocket launcher thing now. That game with friends, I get that it can get old after a while. where it's like a rocket launcher, a missile silo, like salvo rocket launcher thing now. Yeah. That game with friends, I get that it can get old after a while. Like we've talked about when you hit that wall that you hit it kind of

hard. Yeah. It's got a built in timer until you hit that wall though. That game's really good. Especially it's a four player co-op. There's so much fun to it for me. I would want to like almost like swap it with like black ops cold war oh wow yeah for me uh i would put it below all of those in tier three to be

honest but if you want to bump it up a bit i don't mind that at all so deep rock galactic right now we've got down at number 19 and you're talking about bumping it up you know maybe to put it in the top 15 instead so you know i can i can deal with bumping that up a bit i know i'm higher on far cry 5 than you but if you want to bring it in i would say as long as it's below black ops cold war and below resident evil village then i'm good i think those should should be in the top 13 should stay there yeah but if you want to put deep rock up a few spots i just it's one of those things i was on reddit the other day and i was in like the pc gaming reddit and somebody was saying like hey what are some really fun like co-op games that

me and my buddies can play and it it was weird because 70% of the responses included Deep Rock Galactic. Really? I'm kind of surprised. Like legitimately, because it's such a good co-op game. And it's fun to play with friends. It's cooperative. There's a fairly large amount of missions and things that you can do. There are some aggravations. The map in that game is terrible. I mean, it does have some issues. But I think as a co-op game that you can play with friends, I think it deserves to be in the top 15. Okay. Above or below Among Us? Man, we just had some fun with Among Us the other night.

I think above. I would put it one above. One above. So, okay, so we'll keep Destiny 2, Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War, Resident Evil Village, but then we'll bring in Deep Rock Galactic and Drop Down, Among Us, and No Man's Sky. What do you think? I'm okay with that. I know that Todd was also much higher on deep rock galactic than i was so i feel like he would agree with the spirit of that decision even though he's not assuming there's no way i can get you to move destiny 2 down no in fact i was gonna say if anything i would rather swap destiny 2 with rainbow six siege to put it in the top 10 but i know you wouldn't care for that, so I kind of figured let sleeping dogs lie. I mean, man, we have a lot of people that love Destiny 2 out there.

It's just so grindy. You know what's funny to me? It's grindy, yeah. Even the people that love it, they were like, Josh, we know you hate it, and then they troll me because they're like, do you really hate it that much? And I'm like, no, I really don't hate it that much. Like, it's a fine game. It's very well done, right?

Like, there's nothing wrong with Destiny 2 except all the stuff that's wrong with it. It's so grindy. It's so disjointed. It's so... It's very bloated at this point. And it's like, I pick on those things probably more than I should. I get that a lot of people love Destiny 2. I could see it, especially co-op with friends. I think that's part of the lure there is like doing these missions with friends and the raids with friends and stuff like that. The problem is like, how much do you have to grind to be able to play with your friends? Yeah. able to play with your friends yeah and i know the answer is technically zero but really like

you know there's some and there's some fantastic things in destiny 2 like gambit mode so when we were talking about pvpve elements like that's honestly it might be the the singular thing that does that the best is Gambit within Destiny 2. But yeah, I think I even said on the Destiny 2 episode, if you could only have one game, you're going to want it to be something like Overwatch, Apex, Rocket League, the ones that are PvP focused. But if you also wanted a game with PvE and PvP, destiny 2 world of warcraft those are probably the two best ones where you can sink every hour of every day into those games and not really run out of stuff to do do you want to move it into the top 10 i'm okay with that take advantage of my moment of weakness

paul okay so we'll put destiny 2 in the top 10 and then move you who's gonna be very excited oh i know everybody that loves Destiny 2. I'm still not 100% how to pronounce his name, but Glapsadir in Discord is going to be ecstatic. Glapsadir, this one's for you, buddy. Yes. Destiny 2 has cracked the top 10. Let it be known that I don't hate Destiny 2 as much.

No, I really do, but I can compromise. All right, so then tier three is set we'll jump into tier four here so starting at number 16 we have no man's sky which dropped out of the top 15 and then we have far cry 5 raft star wars squadrons and warhammer vermintide 2 all right you ready for another shakeup? Sure, let's hear it. I'm in a co-op mood, Paul. That's the problem. Oh, okay.

You want to bump up Vermintide? It's just co-op games are so much fun, man. They're so much fun. They really are, right? I think Vermintide 2 deserves to be higher. Okay. Now, I think that we approached Vermintide 2 deserves to be higher. Okay. Now, I think that we approached Vermintide 2 as a game that we had played a ton and we were sick of. That's probably fair.

Because it was not fresh when we covered it on the show. We were coming from a place of already playing it when it first released, letting it run its course. So maybe we were a little harsh on it. Put yourself in the newbie shoes of vermintide 2 with like three friends how enjoyable is that game if you're all playing it for like you know the first five to ten hours oh it's pretty great i would say it's way more fun than squadrons i agree 100 so i would definitely swap those bumping up Vermintide above Squadrons. The question is, would we bump it above Raft,

which has had recent updates that we have not played, and Far Cry 5? This is what's throwing the monkey work in the wrench, Paul. The monkey work in the wrench. The monkey work in the wrench. Are you going to say Far Cry 5? No, I Wrench, Paul. The Monkey Work in the Wrench. The Monkey Work in the Wrench. Are you going to say Far Cry 5? No, I'm not, actually. No Man's Sky just had another update.

It was called Prisms or something. I didn't even look into what it is. These dudes are on fire with No Man's Sky. Uh-huh. They need to stop developing it. It's already good. I know, right? Stop worrying about No Man's Sky. It's a great They need to stop developing it. It's already good. I know. Stop worrying about No Man's Sky.

It's a great game. We kind of joked about it. Like, you've paid your dues. Move on. Like, you know, you've earned your place. Here's the problem. Ever since we started, like, incorporating single-player games. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No Man's Sky would be way up there in the single-player game. Because that game's phenomenal. We rated it a little heavily because of the multiplayer aspect really not being so great. We kind of even referenced you play it alongside your friends. You don't really play it with your friends. And I'm having a hard time with that, because I want to give No Man's Sky the credit that it's due as being a phenomenal video game. But where does it belong on our leaderboard? Yeah, I don't think it belongs in the top 13. So for us having it at 16...

I wouldn't want to move it up, but I don't really want to move it down. That's what I'm saying. This is like that game that tips the scales just both ways over and over. I think it really just highlights how many great games we've covered for the show, and we have not covered a ton of terrible games. So even though it's closer to the middle of our leaderboard, I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but it's way up there. It's a fantastic game. No Man's Sky is phenomenal. It's one of those games you can play for a thousand hours and still find enjoyment out of. I do think... Let's do this so we don't get

completely twisted around here. Let's figure out... I think we should move Vermintide 2 up. Sure. I definitely would put it above star wars squadrons i've got no problem with that you could probably talk me into putting it above raft even though personally i i thought raft was such a fun co-op experience raft was a big surprise for me yeah like i really did enjoy playing raft let's put it up one okay i think a lot of people haven't heard about raft and if we can get people to play raft with a friend i feel like that's a win because i think that people will really enjoy that and i don't want to bury that game because it's not very well known okay yeah you know um so okay i mean we only moved vermin tied up one, but I guess that's a small victory for it.

Sure. It's got some tough games to compete with, you know, up there at that high. All right. Well, let's go ahead and take a quick break here and hear from one of our sponsors. This episode of the multiplayer gaming podcast is brought to you by the

blizzard gear store by fanatics. If you're a longterm listener of the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast is brought to you by the Blizzard Gear Store by Fanatics. If you're a long-term listener of the show, you know how much we love Blizzard games here. We even have Overwatch as our number one game on our leaderboard. And I've got great news for you guys out there. You can actually help support our show by purchasing Blizzard gear through multiplayerpodcast.com forward slash blizzard store. There is clothing for men, women, and children. There's collectibles, toys, so much stuff to browse through and look at. I was taking a look and saw you can order a replica of Genji's sword that you can hang on your wall. There's Lego sets, D.Va onesies. What more could you guys want?

So please check it out at multiplayerpodcast.com forward slash blizzard store. Now back to the show. All right, Josh, we have kind of settled in our top 20. Although I have a feeling we might be shaking it up again because now in this next tier, we have at number 21, Divinity Original Sin 2, The Cycle, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, A Way Out, and RimWorld. And what really makes this tier interesting is that we have two games in here that are technically single-player games first, being Divinity Original Sin 2 and RimWorld, both of which we were pretty harsh on

because the multiplayer experience is not great. So I know Divinity in particular is one of your all-time favorite games. So I'm assuming you've got to want to bump this up, right? I really... It's funny because we were talking about it. Somebody was... Oh, I know what it was. I saw it on Steam sale the other day. It was like $17.99. Yeah. And I just went, I can't think of a better way to spend $18 than to pick up Divinity Original Sin 2 and just get immersed into that amazing video game. Yeah.

And I haven't talked to anybody that's actually picked it up that doesn't just fall in love with it. There's just so many great aspects. I would love to move that up. Honestly, the multiplayer part of it is not... I don't want to say gimmicky, but it's not for everybody. It's going to play very slowly. It's going to play more like a... Almost like a D&D campaign at that point. But if we're starting to talk about single-player games, I would put Divinity above Resident Evil Village, in my opinion. I think it's second to none as far as video games go.

I was even gonna say, I'd be willing to put it all the way as high as number eight, Call of Duty Warzone. Would you do that for me, Paul? I think anywhere in that eight to 13 range is totally fair. I mean, dude, you don't have to tell me twice. I can't recommend that game enough to people, unless you just hate role-playing games. If you hate role-playing games, then fine. This game is not for you. But if you like role-playing games, even if it's like sometimes, I don't think you can go wrong

with this game. The world building, the different cultures that you run into, the characters that are so interesting, the mysteries that you uncover over the course of the game, the replayability, just the single fact that any single quest you can complete 20 different ways. It's a delightful game. And and yeah divinity i i want to bump it up way higher i'm with you oh you get i just gotta chill paul do you see that are you gonna start downloading divinity again i'm start start another playthrough wait i don't think i ever uninstalled it actually maybe i still have it after like 200 i actually i have like 200 hours in that game i did finally uninstall it i finally went like okay i don't think i'm gonna play this again after 200 hours

but uh so what do you think do you think eight is too high to put it above war zone i don't think so at all i mean if we're talking single player and we're starting to mix single player in that's perfect you know um i mean i don't I mean, I don't think it's, I don't think it ranks up there with the likes of like Valheim and rust and stuff like that. Right. But the very next tier, but it's like right there at the very next year for sure.

I totally agree. And, uh, unfortunately that does push destiny to back out of the top 10. It did not last very long. It did not last long, but it did. It did briefly have a spot in the top 10. It did not last very long. It did not last long, but it did briefly have a spot in the top 10. Just remember, I stood up for Destiny 2 for those three minutes, Paul. You did. You did. That's, yeah. All right. Anything else in this tier that we want to move?

Dude, this is looking so much better already. I'm so glad we did this. Honestly, it's like this is just making me feel a lot better about stuff. I think the cycle... The cycle, I want to move down. It's got to go down. Oh, dude, this game keeps dropping like... I think when we initially did the cycle, it was like number four. It was in our top ten, easily.

It might have been up to number four. Yes. Yeah, but it just keeps dropping more and more. I say go lower, Paul. It's definitely... Lower! Lower! It's out of this 25, for sure. Lower!

I mean, with the current iteration... How about I just move the cycle to the side? And when we get to the proper tier, we'll bring it up again. I think that's great because we got to talk about that. But I'm not sure that game belongs anywhere close to the middle. All right. So how do you feel about RimWorld? It's not my cup of tea, Paul.

I'll be honest with you. It's just not. I know it's yours and I know you love it. And almost because you gave me Divinity, I almost want to just say, put it where you want. As long as it's below Divinity, I'm fine. But it's a hard game to learn. It's very long-term based. Remember when we talked about it and I was playing it at regular speed? Do you

guys remember that? And then you guys laughed at me and you were like, oh, you were like, no, dude, you got to play it five times speed. And I was like, what? Five times speed? And you were like, you'll never get anywhere in this game if you play it at regular speed. And that's kind of the thing for me. But I also recognize the infinite replayability of RimWorld almost. It's almost more of a sandbox than a true game in that sense. That game's kind of a conundrum for me because it's not my cup of tea, but I also appreciate what that game actually is. And I appreciate the fact that I think there's a gajillion people out there that could get hundreds of hours of entertainment out of that game. So what I mean, I kind of leave this one in your hands, Paul.

The only thing I was thinking is maybe dropping squadrons. I know I was always the lowest on it in our friend group. That's the only thing I was thinking, because I love keep talking and nobody explodes. I love a way out. I love RimWorld. I don't love squadrons. I like squadrons. So that's the only thing I was thinking, because I love Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. I love A Way Out. I love RimWorld. I don't love Squadrons. I like Squadrons. So that's the only thing I was thinking. Believe it or not, I'm okay with that. I had a conversation with somebody the other day about Squadrons, and I loved that game when it first came out. Loved, loved, loved it. Bought the

joystick. I mean, all that. But it did get old real fast. Like, it was great for a little bit, but then it just got to the point where I was like, I don't know that I want to keep playing this game. And I've had zero desire to, like, play Squadrons ever since then. So I think that's telling, you know? And so if you want to move it up or swap it or... I don't really know what you want to do with that but i think that's fine okay so then we'll just drop squadrons a few spots to put it below keep talking a way out in rim world which will just basically drop it down to 24 which i think is fair it's kind of

like smack dab in the middle of the leader that moves keep talking and nobody explodes up a little bit too right yeah because that game's so much fun like little spoiler we played a game that's similar yeah to that operation tango operation tango which i had never heard of but i had a absolute blast playing today and it was very reminiscent of keep talking and nobody explodes and then that made me realize how much i actually enjoy keep talking and nobody explodes as a game to play with friends. Yeah, absolutely. So moving that up is also a win in that case, I think. Very nice.

All right. I kind of feel like this is a little bit of a dividing line. Now we're getting into the games that we did not love, but there are still good things in these games. These games aren't terrible, but I kind of feel like this is a little bit of a divider. We're now looking at games like, so we have our top 24 set, and now we currently are sitting with GTFO, It Takes Two, Phasmophobia, Cuphead, Payday 2. Anything that sticks out here? I've been telling you guys I have the itch to actually dive back into GTFO. I feel like it's been almost like a year or a year and a half since we played that, and I see where they're

still updating that. It makes me wonder how far that game has come and if they fixed some of the issues that made it a little lower down our list. They added matchmaking, apparently. Yeah, and they added matchmaking now, too, which is great because it used to be you had to go on a Discord server. Go find a group of four. Anybody want to play with me? But I think it's at the top of this tier, which is probably where I would actually rank

it. I'm okay with that. Would we put the cycle in this group of five, or do we think the cycle is still lower? I think the cycle probably belongs in this tier. I'd do we think the cycle is still lower i think the cycle probably belongs in this tier i'd put it above payday 2 this is assuming that there's enough player base to even get a match right oh payday 2 is still very popular no there's plenty no are you mean for the cycle

oh for the cycle yeah yeah in an instant queue in payday 2 or a 20 minute queue in the cycle where you're either gonna mop the floor with everyone or get destroyed in a second place finish this this makes me sad because in a in a vacuum the cycle is such an incredible game yeah um and i would play it any day of the week over Payday 2. But the problem is that they've ruined this game so much, and they're actually changing it for what I think is going to be the worst. I think I'd rather play Payday 2 at that point. Oh, okay.

And Payday 2 was not super fun for me. I mean, it had some redeeming qualities, but put it under payday two, man. Okay. It'll keep falling. That's fine. I think that's probably where it goes, to be honest. Okay. Yeah. I'm fine with that. Yeah. For those who aren't aware, the cycle is actually going back into development despite being out for such a long time. They are going to make it a little bit more like escape from Tarkov, where if you die, you lose the gear that's on your player. But if you escape the planet, you get to keep your gear. So I'm kind of curious to see how that turns out.

But the cycle, I mean, look what they've done to my boy. I mean, they've slaughtered it. It used to be so good. It was the craziest game that nobody had ever heard of. And everybody that we told about it, and we were like, trust us, download this game, would play it and then go, where did this game come from? This is like a triple A title, super fun, amazing, well polished game. And we went, right? Like, how was like, dude, this game is great. It's free. Like, how? And then they just patched it and nerfed it into Oblivion.

And it still to this day makes us so sad, man. They nerfed the field of view that you could switch. They nerfed the boxer suit, which they took out the best parts of the boxer suit and made it almost worthless. They added in the goofiest lobby that serves literally zero purpose to the game, and it just never had enough players. That's the thing. You always had to wait, and there was always a small handful of people that would destroy every match. Yeah, it's just rather sad what happened to it. All right, so the only other thing I would say in this tier is I would probably bump Cuphead above Phasmophobia and It Takes Two.

I would probably put it above GTFO personally, but since GTFO is at the top for you in this tier, what about moving Cuphead right below it? That's fine. Cuphead's a masterpiece of a game. The single player is great. The single player. That's the problem, right?

But I'm not even really looking at Cuphead from a multiplayer standpoint because it's pretty terrible um you're really just getting your partner killed in that regard um too much on the screen yeah but from a if you like difficult games it's so well done um i'd almost say put it higher but then it gets really frustrating if you're not in the mood for a really difficult game. So it's like, let's temper that, right? But no, I think that's fine. You kind of have to be in the right mindset to play Cuphead. Right.

Yep. All right, that works. So the cycle, we are not going to plug back in yet at this point. The next tier that we have here is Fall Guys, Escape from Tarkov, Valorant, Human Fall Flat, and Civilization 6. I actually feel like this is where the cycle should go. Okay. Near the top or the bottom?

If there's still fun... If there's still fun to be had in the cycle, I would rate it over some of these games. I just don't know if you could even play a match at this point. But some of these games are just pure frustration. And the cycle is not frustrating.

It's just sad. Yeah, it's more sad and depressing. Right, yeah. I would put it in here at the top of this list, which would put it in at number 30. I would. I would put it at 30. I think that's the right spot.

Okay. And then what about the right spot. Okay. And then what about the rest of this group? Fall Guys, Tarkov, Valorant, Human Fall Flat, Civ 6. I actually think Civ 6 might be a little low. I was just looking at this and I was saying most of these games tick me off. Yeah. Legitimately, most of these games I just think about think about, I'm going to rage if I play these games, and I'm going to cuss and scream and get upset, except with the exception of Civilization

6 and Human Fall Flat. Yeah. I think in this group, as much as I hate to say it, I think Fall Guys, Tarkov, and Valorant are the worst three out of the five we just listed. I agree 100%. And if you like these games, I apologize, right? Are they good video games? Yes, they are. Valorant is finely tuned, easy to run, and it's a masterpiece for those very specific people that like that kind of game. And so I get it. But for the majority of other people, I think they're with us and that this game is just going to lead to nothing but frustration

and anger. And that's the path to the dark side, Paul. Exactly. Yeah. Tarkov and Valorant are just very sweaty. Even when I would win and do well in those matches, it just felt more like relief than it did fun. Those games feel like work. They're not, it's not entertainment at that point to me. So yeah, I,

I actually do have fun in human fall flat. Civ six. Yeah. You know, I'd probably put them in that video game. Like I want to give it, it's credit where credit is due. I just think it's one of those it can drag on a lot and it can feel like work.

Yeah. Civ VI is almost better as a single player game to just kind of mindlessly click around and do that. Yeah. As a multiplayer, I think that's where it hurts it a little bit, even though I know there's people that love playing the multiplayer portion of it. But yeah, that game doesn't really frustrate me like the other ones do. So I think that moving Human Fall Flat and Civ 6 above the other three is definitely the way to go. Okay.

And do we like Human Fall Flat more than Civ 6 or vice versa? Human Fall Flat, you've got a lot of community mods the gameplay just lacks for me a little bit i mean honestly two buttons you know it's just yeah grab left grab right six above it okay from the looking at the single player aspect you know like i there was some enjoy and that's civ six really isn't my kind of game but i think i enjoy that more than human fall flat okay that's fair like human fall flat will make me laugh and it's a lot of fun it's humorous to to just cackle for like 15 minutes but after those 15 minutes i almost go like hey guys let's go play a real game now yeah i i can i can

understand what you're saying yeah yeah so the question now becomes do we want to plug in fall guys tarkov and valorant or would we use any of the next tier to jump them because coming up after this we have minecraft dungeons the forest halo reach and left for dead 2 would any of those leapfrog you have to like as frustrating as they are you have to honor the these are good video games. Mm-hmm. Maybe not fall

guys. I don't like I get that escape from Tarkov and Valorant are really sweaty. Uh-huh. Fall guys.

I hate fall guys so much. I wish I didn't think I wish I didn't hate it but I do. You have to play two hours of fall guys two hours

of valor or two hours of escape from tarkov and you can't leave your chair until you put in two hours which one would you be like oh man i would do valorant as much as i hate to say it i would say i think is at least like the least torture of the three. And plus, with Tarkov, you've got that built-in rust depression where you finally earn all this gear and you're going to lose some of it. I mean, I know that there's the insurance and all that in Tarkov. And you can always spawn as the scav, right? Yeah. Where it's like you don't care about your gear at that point.

So I would do Valorant, Tarkov, and Fall Guys, to be honest. All right. Fall Guys keeps on falling. Fall Guys is just stupid, man. It was a great idea. It was fun for four games until I realized this is terrible. People are just knocking me off the ledge. I failed for no reason, no fault of my own.

Yeah, and I think we said it on the episode, but they have like 40 minigames, which sounds like a ton. But it's such a small pool, especially for rounds one and two. You're playing the same ones over and over and over. Yeah, it gets repetitive very quickly. Yeah, I'm fine respecting Tarkov above Fall Guys. Okay. So now in this next tier, we've got Minecraft Dungeons, The Forest, Halo Reach, Left 4 Dead 2, and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

I think the only one out of place is Left 4 Dead 2. That one I would put a little higher, but that's just me. Where? I would put it above Halo Reach and The Forest, and I'd leave it below Minecraft Dungeons. All right. I was going to say, Dungeons can be fun. It's a fun little co-op game. It's simplistic, but fun.

Yeah. So let's do that. The Forest can be a lot of fun, but as a multiplayer game, there's a ton of just rando wandering around and stuff. Like, The Forest, when it clicks, it clicks. But when it doesn't, it's almost like, what am I doing? Like, what is this game? Like, are we just looking at trees? Like, what's the point of this?

Okay, so anything else we would change there? So now the order that we have is 36 Minecraft Dungeons, Left 4 Dead 2, The Forest, Halo Reach, and then PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Are we being too harsh on PUBG? No, Paul. I don't think we are either. And that's really sad. For a game that I played, I legitimately played for like 1,200 hours.

Here's the problem. This is like the bad relationship that you forget how bad it is because you don't think about it for a while, right? And then it's like when you actually start thinking about it, you go like, oh, that game treated me so bad. The hackers, the snipes, the unfair this, the squad hitting the— The squad match where one guy dies and now you have to spectate for 30 minutes. The car hitting the invisible rock and exploding and killing everybody when you're fully geared. Josh, nobody dies in the red zone. Yeah, right?

It's like, I get it though. There's a part of me that's like, but that game was so great. It was so great. But I think it's that abusive relationship. I don't want to go back to it alright yeah that's fair I'm okay with that so everything else look good in that tier?

I could see putting it one above Halo Reach to be honest because if you asked me today which one of these two I would rather play I would be 100% more inclined to install and play a couple rounds of pub g with you than i would to play halo reach with you i've never agreed with you more josh halo reach down to number 40 player unknowns battlegrounds the big comeback coming up from

40 to 39 who saw it coming it it really is it might start climbing its way. What I'm waiting for is for you to write everybody and be like, so I played a few rounds of PUBG the other night and it really wasn't that bad. And then everybody will be like, oh, well, let me give it a try. And before you know it, all four of us will be playing PUBG again until we realize that hackers and mouse scripters are still just completely ruining that game. Yeah, and just the pacing on a lot of those maps is just so slow. You know how when you pick up a gun and it's not loaded and it doesn't have ammo? Yeah.

Or when you go to click the door and it doesn't open, and then it opens and closes right away? Like all of those things? Oh, goodness. Yeah. See, you forgot, didn't you, Paul? A little bit. A little bit. A little bit. I'm not normally one to have rose-colored glasses on things from the past. If anything, I'm almost too pessimistic.

But Battlegrounds, when it was good, it was so good. I have a soft spot in my heart for it. I read two new maps. I was like, maybe I'll check it out. But I know it's just going to stomp on my heart and I'm just going to leave depressed. Well, I'm waiting for you to say it, Paul. I know, I know you will. I know you'll give it that, that try.

All right. And then coming up in the very rear, the caboose of the leaderboard we've got at 41 Sea of Thieves, 42 Hood Outlaws and Legends, which was our last deep dive and 43 Overcooked 2. All right, Paul. I did read that they are fixing the assassinations in Hood, Outlaws, and Legends. Define fix. Now if you're getting assassinated, the assassination will stop if the person takes damage.

Okay, which is the most Captain Obvious thing I've ever thought of in my life. I still wouldn't put it above Sea of Thieves, though, because I like Sea of Thieves. So even with assassinations fixed in that regard, it's still goofy in the middle of combat to start assassinating someone, but whatever. So is that enough to move it at all, or you would still leave it at 42? They still have other things I got to fix, man. Oh,

Oh, the other thing, since we're talking about this game is, you know how we complain about matchmaking and that, Hey, level four people should not be playing level 100 people. Do you know what their solution is to that? Uh, what?

They're not going to show people's ranks anymore or levels. So when you're in matchmaking, they just don't show the levels. Are you kidding? I'm not kidding. They said that the level indicator or the MMR system that they use is some true talent system or something like that, right? And they said, so to avoid people from getting upset and leaving a match because they're ranked against a higher level person they're just not going to show players levels at all and i was like this is this is how you solve problems right

oh my gosh we're just gonna hide it now we're not gonna fix it we're just gonna hide it so that you don't know that's the dumbest solution possible. All right, whatever. I think it's fine where it's at is what I'm trying to say. All 800 people currently playing Hood are going to be sure. All right, and then Overcooked 2, still dead last for you, Josh? Still dead last. I don't mind Overcooked 2. The worst thing about Overcooked 2 is when you play with three or four people. It just is so chaotic with throwing food and everything else but overcooked two is a good way to ruin

friendships so i have a question for you josh someone had kind of suggested on our discord that we start a brand new leaderboard almost as like a new season because they said they can't really imagine our top five ever being cracked, which I thought it was kind of funny because Valheim only came out, what, like two months ago? It really hasn't been all that long. But do you see a game ever challenging our top four here in the near future? I really don't, is the thing. So it's like, do we, do we move those into a hall of fame and then, but then the problem is like, are we going to just look at the next four? Right. But then, or does that open it up? Do we say that, Hey, like Overwatch, Apex,

Rocket League, Rust are now in our hall of fame where they belong. And then Valheim, Outriders, Hearthstone, Divinity, does that make those easier to unseat at that point? Or is it like, are we doing it just to do it? Or does it actually feel like it would mix things up? I almost feel like it's almost like you're Mount Rushmore, right? Like our Mount Rushmore games unquestionably are Overwatch, Apex, Rocket League, and Rust. But I could see something unseating them. Not anytime in the next couple months, I don't think. But Outriders got darn close. Valheim did crack the top five.

Hearthstone we didn't even cover all that long ago. So honestly, three out of our top seven were pretty recent. Overwatch 2, who knows? Maybe. Very well could end up as one or two. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. I wonder if we shouldn't have a Hall of Fame, though. That does sound like a good idea to just say, look, some people might look at it and go, yeah, no but then at the same time like i don't think a lot of people

think about rust that way you know and it's like but rust is such a good game with friends at the same time you know and it's like you could never fight or shoot in rust and i think have a good time with just the crafting aspect i mean yeah you're gonna get killed and stuff like that so but i don't know. I mean, I guess we'd have to talk about it a little bit, but I think it might help to shake that up. But then it's also, like you said, a lot of these games are fairly new to our top 10. Yeah.

And now that we've kind of opened the floodgate for single player games, you know, something like Dragon Age 4, I could easily see cracking the top couple you know potentially yeah mass effect they're gonna come out with another mass effect game we've had a teaser for that so you know i i don't i don't know that we necessarily need to remove anything from the leaderboard but maybe we should just do a special designation for what we see as the clear 1A games, which I would say are the top four. I would not put Valheim in there quite yet. Oh, it's close, though, isn't it?

It's close. I mean, that game's in early access. When they finish developing that game and they add everything that they're talking about adding to it, ooh, look out, buddy. Yeah, very possibly. So yeah, maybe we'll just kind of designate the top four,

I would say, as the unimpeachable Hall of Fame. But that doesn't mean they're locked in forever. They could still get unseated. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. All right. Well, taking a look at the list here, Josh,

any late nominations before we close this episode out? I don't think I have ever been happier with the leaderboard, to be honest with you. I feel like right now, it's pretty much perfect. It's pretty darn good. Yeah, it really is. Rimworld might be a little low, but other than that, it's looking pretty good. Didn't we move that up, Paul? We put squadrons below it, yeah. So it essentially went up. Okay, so we did move it up. Gotcha.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the cycle. The cycle went below it as well. The cycle had to get out of there. That makes me feel better too. All right. So if you have not taken a look at our leaderboard, once again, you can find that at multiplayerpodcast.com. It's right there on the main page.

You just got to scroll down a little bit. And as a reminder, all of the games that we mentioned here today, we have full episodes on. So you can always go back and check those out in the archive. And then please consider supporting the show. Multiplayer squad dot com. Be a Patreon supporter.

Come join us for free on discord. Hit us up on social media. Multiplayer pod is where you can find us everywhere. And then we will be back with our next episode on Thursday for this week in gaming. So, Josh, we'll be back with that episode then. Very soon, Paul. I do have one change to the leaderboard. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. You're my number one now. Oh, thank you, Josh. Is that all I had to do was let you move Divinity up to number eight? It really was. We started this episode at you at number two, Paul, and now you're number one. Thank you. You can be my number one too, Josh. I'll reciprocate the love.

All right. Goodbye, everybody. See you, guys.