Video Gamers Podcast - [Bonus Round] The BEST Video Game of Each Decade - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

The Video Gamers Podcast is back and gaming hosts Paul, Josh and Ryan are bringing you an episode for the ages. We’re picking the very best video game from each decade! That’s right, we’re breaking down the very best of the best of each decade, and then arguing over which video game sits atop the throne for each of the last five decades. It’s an awesome and hilarious gaming packed episode you can’t miss! Thanks to our LEGENDARY Supporters: Disratory and Ole Jake Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.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 to the Video Gamers Podcast. We are three lifelong gamer dads, and today we are getting into our time-traveling DeLorean. We're gonna talk about our favorite games of each decade and come to a consensus pick for the best game of every decade from now back to the 80s. I am your host, Paul, and joining me, this is not a dig.

It's just simply a fact. He is the oldest of us three. He is totally tubular. He's wondering where's the beef as we talk about his golden age of the 80s it's josh we've got to go back to the future okay let me just say this for the record the 80s were the greatest decade that humanity has ever known movie wise debatable wise gaming wise okay boomer movie wise dude back to the future karate kid goonies like i mean i could go on forever but i can't think of any more movies right now tell me you're wearing depends without telling me you're wearing depends oh man no

80s movies were great that that's a subject for a different podcast. I'd argue the 70s and the 90s defeat the 80s, but we'll hold off on that for now. And then joining Josh and me, he is the youngest of the bunch. He's all that and a bag of potato chips, my home skillet. We're going to talk about his golden age of the 90s. Booyah, it's Ryan. Whatever. You're an L7 weenie

that was 90s right what's my 90s i think so close i think so hey uh like as the matrix said uh was the was the pinnacle of of technology and we basked in our glory or whatever 90s yeah i'm with you ryan what. What a decade. All right. Well, before we jump into our best game of each decade, Josh, I believe you're going to read a review someone left us. I do have a review. This one's going to be quick because I know we are going to go long on this episode because this is going to be a fun one. But if you have not left us a review, please take just a few seconds to do that. If you're listening on Spotify, you just tap us five stars. If you're on Apple, you can actually rate us five stars and

then leave a written review. And if you do that, good chance we're going to read it on the show. Like this one that comes in from Penguin are awesome. And it's titled Please. And it says, can you do an episode on Bloons td6 also this podcast is really good let's do rule i like to get the game request in first and then you know end on a good note kind of thing so i you know it's funny i've never played any of the bloons game and i hear they're great for someone who says that he likes tower defense games, I can't believe you've never played balloons. It's by far the most popular. I do like them.

I don't play a lot of them. It's one of those things where I just don't dive into that genre very much, but maybe, maybe we will. Bloons tower defense six is an amazing game. I played so much of five and six. Uh, I don't know that we're going to have any deep dives coming up anytime soon,

but we really appreciate the review yep also penguins are awesome by the way so penguins are amazing have you ever seen clips of like people in zoos who walk around with the penguins and they just follow around and they're just chilling they're kind of giving giving everybody the head nod maybe that's just how birds move but it looks like they're kind of giving everybody the what's up nod have you seen like in their mouth it's like a death oh it's wild yeah it looks like uh like the little worms from um star wars or something yeah or dune yeah something crazy like shred and rip all the fish as they eat them yeah it's wild don't don't stick your hand in there that's for sure all right so guys let's get started we're looking at the the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s.

We're even going to give a winner to the 2020s so far, even though we're not even halfway through it quite yet. We just thought it would be fun. I love going back now that we have hindsight. Let's look back at these decades. Not everyone's going to agree with our picks. We know that now people are going to get mad. That's okay. We're just going to look at each decade. We're going to bring a couple nominees. We're going to list a couple of the popular games of the decade. We'll give a couple of our thoughts on some of our favorites, and then we're going to have to come up with a three-man consensus, and that might require a little compromise,

which we're not always very good at, but I think it's going to be fun. That is the kicker. And that is the catch is it's very easy to list like, you know, five or even 10 of like the top games of an entire decade. Yeah. But getting the three of us who have very different gaming takes on a lot of games to actually agree on a game is it's going to be a wild ride.

And I, I'm here for it, man. I've been saying all day like i'm ready to fight boys not to mention it's sometimes it's pretty hard to get the elderly to you know change their mind yeah i'm very stubborn in my old age that's true ryan hard to teach an old dog new tricks i have a feeling the 2000s and the 2010s are going to be the more lively discussions i feel like the farther back you look it's a little easier easier, but we'll see. Maybe I'm wrong. We'll see. All right, guys, let's start in the beginning. Let's start with the decade of Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson. We know games existed before the

80s, but I didn't want to argue like Asteroids versus Space Invaders or something. I don't think that would make for all that great of content. So let's just jump to when home consoles really took off. We're talking people had NESs, they had Sega Master Systems. Ryan, I know you and I were too young to actually play games in the 80s, but Josh, you certainly were. You have famously told your story where you dug a very long ditch in your parents' yard to earn money and nes's were all sold out and you couldn't wait so you bought a sega master system yep uh horrible horrible decision still regret that decision to this day yeah well i still love that your brother had one and hit it from you yeah he had a nintendo and hit it from me because it was like i mean i will say at least we had both

consoles you know at one point which was great but we had both consoles, you know, at one point, which was great. But yeah, if I could ever, you know, if I was ever visited by the ghost of Christmas past and he was like, hey, let's take a look at your life and look over your mistakes, you know, me buying that Sega Master System would definitely rank up there. Oh, man, I can't even imagine. All right. So when I looked at games from the 80s, I noticed that it's a lot of platformers. I think that like kind of ruled this the end of the era, at least. And it's a lot of arcade style games. And that's kind of like what stuck out to me. I did not write down a whole lot of nominees for this decade.

So I'm kind of curious to hear from you guys. Like when you look back at the 80s, what are some of the initial games that come to mind that we might just want to toss out there? I mean, it's kind of like you said, Paul, this was the age of the arcade type game. These are games that were all really hard. They weren't easy to beat because the only thing that kept you going was like the attempt to actually beat these games. I mean, these are not in depth. These are very simple. I mean, we talk about eight bit graphics, you know, back then, boy, graphics were bad. I'm trying to think like the Atari came out, I think the Atari released in the late 70s. But I mean, it actually landed, you know, in homes in the early 80s. And then obviously, we got to the early eighties. Um, and then obviously we got

to the Segas and Nintendos that really up to the game at that point. Um, I mean, for me, a lot of these are going to fall on the games that you played with friends because there was no internet. You had to take turns on a controller, or if you were lucky, your friend had two controllers, but games like double dragon, you know, Contra,ra, Tetris took over the world in the 80s. Legend of Zelda, the very first one that came out, was very unique and different at the time. Really fun arcade game, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. That's a game that a lot of people remember. And because I would be remiss if I did not bring this up and I know that neither one of you guys have played this game but there's going to be four people out there that have heard of this game and

know it and are going to be like still alive I understand this is when Sierra games really started to hit the mainstream right and I know you guys know of the Sierra games we've talked about that but one of their earlier games was a game called Heroes Quest that was later changed to King's Quest over some trademark ordeal or something like that. But King's Quest was one of those phenomenal games where choices mattered. You could approach things in a lot of different ways and things like that. So the King's Quest, Heroes Quest, Police Quest, and all these Sierra type games in the early 80s were pretty legendary, man. They really pushed the boundary of gaming and allowing you to approach things from vastly different directions. I remember Hero's Quest actually had combat where

you fought monsters and stuff, which I thought was amazing because it was actually over the shoulder third person, which nobody had done before. Yeah, it was just they were incredible games. They were very much like adventure point and click type games. But in the early 80s, for those that remember, they will remember the golden age of Sierra. Yeah, good decade for Sierra. Never played any of the King's Quest, so it's certainly not going to win. Ryan, I have a feeling you probably played the fewest games from the 80s. Do you have a couple nominees you want to toss out

that we might crown the winner? Josh named a few of them that I had played. A couple others that I really liked from back then that I had played was like Golden Axe, obviously. I know we've talked about that. I love Golden Axe. That's a great one. Everybody's played Minesweeper.

It's kind of a classic go-to time waster. That's not going to win. Sim City is a big one. I think that was one that I had spent a lot of time on just at a friend's house in the 90s playing. They had an old computer that had Sim City on it, no clue what to do, but trying to figure out how to build these city grids.

And then, oh, wait, I have to get water. Oh,'ll have to get power to these places yeah it's just uh something totally different but yeah not not too much of those 80s games were uh in my wheelhouse yeah well let me toss out what my nominees were and you guys can let me know if any of these can immediately be scratched out because when i look at the 80s to me there were two really heavy hitters that i think are the heavy favorites mario brothers 3 and tetris but i know josh does not like tetris i would say for me tier 2 would be contra and megaman 2 megaman 2 for a very long time i said is like probably my favorite platformer but now i always say it's celeste um but to me those are like the four big nominees do you guys feel like one of those might be the winner or do we need to add any or scratch some off um i agree with you here's the

thing i am not a huge fan of mario games i tend to find I get that they set platforming to another level. It's the face of Nintendo. It launched Nintendo into every household in America. Super Mario 3 is really good. It's so good. We just thought this up on our bonus episodes that we give to people that support the show. What game have you played over the longest period of time? And Paul, you mentioned Super Mario Brothers 3. It's such a good game, dude.

I mean, it really did kind of at the time push the envelope. Here's where I'm a little torn. I agree with you on Tetris. I agree with you on Super Mario Brothers 3. I personally am a big proponent of Contra because if you had buddies, you were playing Contra with your buddies and trying to beat that game. And it was co-op at the time. You really needed your friend to be good. So we'd start pairing off and like, no, dude, I don't want to play with you. You die too easy. You're going to burn up too many of the lives. Let me play with Mike. Mike's good at this game kind of thing. But I get that Contra was earlier 80s, so it may not resonate with as many people. So I do agree that I think it would probably be between Tetris and Super Mario Brothers 3. I would certainly be fine with either of those. I am a huge fan of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!

I think that was one of the more fun games of the 80s, in all honesty. Like that fun level and the different characters and the progressing up to Mike Tyson and trying to beat Mike Tyson, which is the hardest Elden Ring boss you will ever face in your entire life. You know, so there was something there.

And then my only other one, because I mentioned it was Double Dragon, because you could play that in the arcades with your buddies and again it was a co-op side scrolling brawler which was just a ton of fun to play with buddies we got some new double dragon coming out soon too oh yeah i i i would not put double dragon on the short list i mean but it's worth mentioning yeah i played a heck of a lot of Double Dragon, but I do agree. It's not in that upper echelon of like, this is the best game of the 80s kind of thing. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I intentionally didn't say Super Mario 3 because I knew we did just talk about that. I knew I left that for you, Paul. I think to me, it's definitely between that and Tetris. Those are the big hitters that kind of made the most noise, I guess you would

say. Because when you think about games, people still play Tetris or Tetris-like games. And then Mario's still taking over the gaming universe every few years. They come out with another crazy one and are always innovative and do something fantastic. Now, let me jog my memory because Super Mario Bros. 3, was that the first time they introduced the raccoon tail? Yes. So you could actually kind of fly through. And then it had the level where you could fly up through the ceiling and skip over like four worlds if you ran along that long walkway at the top.

That's Mario 1. Is that Mario 1? Mario 3 has the whistles. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. And it had the frogs for underwater. You could also be the hammer brothers that was in there and the p-wings i for for me as much as i love tetris mario 3 holds up so much better in my opinion that is the game of my childhood if you said paul what's the most memorable game when you were little? It's going to my friend's houses and playing Mario

3. That's my vote. What are you guys going to vote for? That's a pretty simple vote for me. I'm going to go with Mario 3 as well. It's just one of those that to this day, the series and then all that it's meant and how many people it's brought to gaming, I think it's

the clear winner. You call that as the picture sure i i am cool with that i will say that i i think if we are looking at which game had the most like effect on the world it's tetris yeah you know at that point i mean if you're trying to say like what's the most influential game of a decade then i think that would be Tetris hands down. But we're saying what was the best game of this decade, you know? And so I am famously not a fan of Tetris. It frustrates me. It gives me anxiety. I'm not good at it, you know, and therefore I hate it. So I'm with you guys. I think Super Mario 3, it really kind of catapulted Mario to the next level. You could kind of see

where they were going with some of the ideas or how they were going to progress this franchise and stuff like that. And it was probably just the most all-around complete game out. I mean, you could make the argument for Legend of Zelda, the first one in that regard. But yeah, I think Mario 3 makes sense. And killer music. Gotta love it. All right. Well, before we jump into the 90s, we would love to ask you guys to consider supporting our show on Patreon. You can head over to MultiplayerSquad.com. You can sign up starting at five bucks a month. You'll get a shout out on the show, bonus episodes, special channels and Discord, all kinds of perks. Make sure to go check it out, MultiplayerSquad.com. All right, let's move up to the 90s. So this is the heyday of Super Nintendo. Nintendo 64 comes out in the middle of the decade. We've got the Sega Genesis. We've got the first PlayStation. PC gaming also kind of for the first time really starts to take off. This is the decade of Wolfenstein, Doom. We've got Myst, which really brings PC gaming to the forefront. The addition of the CD-ROM to the PC. So,

you know, this decade's got some heavy hitters, guys. I mean, I know we're not going to give a Mario game the winner of every decade, but, dude, we would have to consider Super Mario 64. We have to consider Super Mario World on Super Nintendo. Ryan, the nostalgia

pick, you and I freaking love Castlevania Symphony of the night but but we've also got golden eye we've got starcraft we've got half-life i think i could honestly make a real case for tony hawk's pro skater for the game of the 90s as well i mean like what else am i missing what are some other games of this decade oh dude there's there's a million this is now we're talking about in my wheelhouse i mean you even have a jam nba jam you have pokemon red and blue like that's late 90s pokemon was taking over the world unreal tournament uh age of empires was a huge one smash bros in uh 99 came out josh hates y'all y'all's list is so different than my list and this is why

i love this because it's like we're talking an entire decade, right? So it's like we're spanning 10 years here, and it's hilarious because you guys have not mentioned anything that's on my list of games that stands out to me. Half-Life? Half-Life, yes, for sure. Super Mario 64? I like hearing Ryan going through his and stuff,

and I'm like, I don't have any of those games on mine. Don't forget Metal Gear Solid, obviously. The first one yeah what's on your list then josh what are you guys final fantasy 7 uh one of the greatest rpgs ever made even though you two weirdos don't agree everquest came out in the 90s uh gold and i paul you did mention that ocarina of time yep quite possibly the best zelda game ever made street fighter 2 one of the best fighting games ever made paul you did mention half-life x-wing versus tie fighter you got to do space combat like come on man starfox yeah yeah so yeah i mean this is where things are going to start getting really difficult real quick for us.

So let's start to quickly pare it down. What do you guys see as being heavy favorites for this decade? I would say Goldeneye is absolutely on the ballot. Yeah, that's on the podium for me. I would also say less so Half-Life, mostly because I'm waiting for the next decade. But I would say Goldeneye, Super Mario 64, and Castlevania Symphony of the Night, for me, are the first three that I would nominate.

Yeah. Okay. I got one of those on my list. I would say mine are Goldeneye, Ocarinacarina of time i mean that game is heralded as one of the best games ever made i get that it's dated i know you hate the camera stuff you try to go back and play it paul and you're like this game sucks i know i didn't i didn't play it when it came out so i don't have the same fun memories i know the way i do like the wind waker how i had a 64 all those years and never played Ocarina of Time is beyond me.

I literally cannot... I don't know how that one passed me by. I just don't get it. But for me, that would be a tough one only because I never played it and trying to play it now is pretty rough. So are we thinking maybe Goldeneye is kind of the early heavy favorite? Yeah. I mean, if I had to pick a third for me personally i could make the argument that everquest changed the history of gaming but i know that's gonna fall on a lot of deaf ears yeah i know we didn't play it and you guys don't like final fantasy 7 either which honestly at the time was again one of the greatest games the world had ever seen i like it i don't i think and i, oh, Ryan, you don't like it at all. Yeah, but when did you guys play it is the question.

Because I know a lot of people that played Final Fantasy VII like decades after it came out, because they're like, oh, I heard this was the best game ever made. And it's like, dude, when it came out and you were playing it, you were telling your friends about, dude, I just got this summons, or I just found this materia, or I just did this quest, or oh my goodness, Sephiroth just... I don't want to spoil anything for a game that's 30 years old. It came out in like 1997.

Sephiroth kills Aeris. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, for me, the third would be a tie between EverQuest and Final Fantasy VII, but I think the top two are Goldeneye and Ocarina of Time. And I think most listeners would be fine with either of those. What about you, Ryan? What do you have at the very tippy top? Yeah, I mean, there's just so many.

I think, oh gosh. Yeah, 007 was just, GoldenEye was just such, it was that one that everybody was playing. Everyone had to get it. I had told the story that I rented a Nintendo 64 from Blockbuster so that I could play it at home when I wasn't at Aunt Mary's house you know

playing with everybody it's just such a hard decade to pick one but I think that that's got to be it I mean obviously Half Life's up there Metal Gear Solid was an amazing game in that decade but I think i think 007 is that or ocarina but i'm gonna lean towards 007 that's where i lean to and we kind of lucked

out because perfect dark released in 2000 so we don't have to have any kind of debate of perfect dark v golden eye let me let me bring up a point because there's people right now that are losing their minds i get it you're listening and you, oh, this was a smash hit home run for Ocarina of Time. Right? And they're like, how are they picking Goldeneye over this game? Here's the thing. The thing that people are forgetting about Goldeneye was it wasn't just the multiplayer. Goldeneye's campaign was fantastic, dude. And it was everything in the movie. You got to

play it all. But I don't think people realize how good the campaign for GoldenEye was. So you had that all-around banger of, I could sit at home and I could try to play this level. And they had different difficulties for the levels. And if you were playing on whatever the hardest level was, it was a nightmare, dude. I mean, you had to have things like down to the second, like, okay, I'm going to round this corner and I need to be firing before I round the corner. So I can kill this guy fast enough that I can reload and then turn around and kill the guy that's coming down the stairs. And I mean, it was just such a precise thing. And so people hear us talk about Goldeneye or people talk about GoldenEye and all they think

about is the couch you know the fun that you were having with three of your buddies on the tiny little four split screen multiplayer part of it but the campaign for GoldenEye was fantastic dude so this was just a complete game all around yeah I played that first level where you drop out of the vent in the bathroom with the guards so many times so many times because you're just you were in the movie you were playing it you're like oh i gotta get to boris you know it's just it's one of those things and this is again it's not like okay we picked this game so all these are well below it no this is like we're talking decimal points and the differences between how great these are but we have to pick one you know it's super mario 64 obviously way up there like we said zelda it's just you know this is this is the kind of the one that we we have to pick one you know it's super mario 64 obviously way up there like we said zelda it's just you know

this is this is the kind of the one that we we have to pick gold and i was just such a force i mean i know ocarina of time was as well but gold and i i i don't know that a single gamer was alive that didn't play it that's the thing there were gamers like me that just weren't really into zelda so any any ocarina of time fans you can blame me for this one don't don't hassle josh or ryan hold on hold on now is it is it the pronunciation question here is it ocarina or ocarina it's ocarina it's ocarina technically oh oh we got another debate you can google the pronunciation go ahead go ahead i know i'm right on this one, but it's okay.

All right. With that being said, let's go ahead and take a short break and we'll be right back. Sick of dreaming smaller? Sick of investing but not seeing your money grow? Sick of feeling like you're leaving money on the table, paying high fees, and not knowing if you're even making the right investments? With Questrade, you get the right tools, stock insights, and proper guidance so you can become a better investor. It's time to get the financial future you deserve.

Get yours. Questrade. TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a tfsa stands for total fun savings adventure maybe reach out to td direct investing all right guys 2000s oh my goodness this is where the gloves come on guys

i i think if you polled most people at least least our age, they're going to say the 2000s were the best decade. This decade is so incredibly stacked. There's like 12 games that I don't even think I would fight you guys on for saying that's the best of the decade. I mean, PC gaming is clearly in full effect by the 2000s. We've got the Dreamcast, the PS2, the PS3, the GameCube, the Xbox, and the Xbox 360. I mean, Josh, we've talked about this decade. This is when you had such incredible tech

every three months. There was the new bigger, better thing. You've got all of these consoles releasing in the 2000s. I mean, there are so many games. We are talking just GTA alone. I mean, now we're used to a whole decade between entries. The 2000s alone gave us Vice City, San Andreas, and GTA 4 all in one decade. I mean, those are already some crazy heavy hitters.

We've also got Diablo 2. We've got Bioshock. We've got Portal, Gears ofablo 2 we've got bioshock we've got portal gears of war we've got the first god of war halo 2 half-life 2 world of warcraft uncharted 2 yeah i mean these are some of the best games of all time i mean throw out a couple others i'm sure you guys have some that i missed you even got uh elder scrolls oblivion i don't know if you named that one um oh i i i think i even missed it yeah that's the thing is there's just so many you got the counter-strike um there's just not only so many games that were just amazing within that decade but games that have continued

on within the series that have just progressed and exploded with even more popularity throughout so yeah it's just looking over this it it reminds me i'm like oh yeah, it's just looking over this. It, it reminds me, I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's just one after another. Oh, Metal Gear Solid 2. Yeah,

two and three. My favorite. Yeah. So that's way up there. Uh, I'm going to throw out a few. Um, deuce X was one of the greatest games ever made.

You can't really go back and appreciate it now, but that is the game that catapulted games like mass effect i mean any game where you have choices or you can approach something from multiple different angles to say hey i want to shoot my way in i want to sneak my way in i want to hack my way in i want to talk my way in deuce x pioneered all that dude or i mean they put it together in like the most perfect package um tony's Pro Skater 2, which was the perfect evolution of Tony Hawk. I mean, that's the one that everybody remembers playing. Yes, like there was an original Tony Hawk, but if you and your buddies were playing Tony Hawk too

when you were hanging out. Paul, Dragon Age Origins? I know. Quite possibly one of your favorite games ever made. Mass Effect? Mass Effect 1. Yep. Gears of War, I think you mentioned. Majora's Mask. So when we talk about Zelda games, there are a lot

of people that think Majora's Mask was better than Ocarina of Time. And a sneaky but heavy hitter Knights of the Old Republic 2 came out in the 2000s, which to this day is one of the best RPGs ever made. Can you go back and play it and enjoy it?

It's probably a little old right now. But I mean, back in the day, you and all your buddies were going like, dude, where are you at in KOTOR 2? Have you made it to the twist? Oh, my goodness. You know, and it was blowing everybody's mind. You had the, what was the assassin droid's name? IG-88, or not IG-88. It was HK something.

He was like one of the best characters in a video game because he just wanted to murder everybody. You know? Yeah, I mean, dude, this decade might be the greatest overall decade of gaming. Like, does it have the greatest games ever made? Like, maybe not. We'll get into that as we get into the 2010s and the 2020s. But I'm not sure that I would pick a decade that I would say is

better than the 2000s. And I think part of that is because there was not very long gaps between entries within franchises. So this is where every year you've got heavy hitters. You don't have that so much now. You know, we've talked about how I think it was 2021. You kind of have that year where the best games were like Deathloop and it takes two. That's like a huge down year. There is nothing like that in any of the 2000s. I mean, even like Guitar Hero, you have to throw out there. Obviously, it's not going to win.

But like, what a decade. Ryan, what you got here? Oh here oh man this is so hard like because you mentioned and i mean this isn't on it but like there was actually three metal gears released in that decade i got you got two three and four the um oh four was like yeah four was late oh wait yeah i think yeah it was an oh wait um but i'm just because i pulled up a big list of the of the 2000s just looking at every single one you're like man that could win that could win that could win um but if you if you have to narrow it down which is so hard to do and i don't know if we mentioned this one too but for me i think it's one that i spent a lot of time and i think it was a really good game a great evolution in this genre and type of game

but um grand theft auto 3 was like one of the biggest the biggest to come out you know in that in that time frame and i was in 01 so that was um pretty early too but i think half-life 2 and WoW are the biggest, in my opinion. I think... Go ahead. Oh, I was going to say, I totally agree. I would also throw in Diablo 2.

Yeah, of course. And, uh... I would say Uncharted 2, but Josh has never played it, so it's not going to win. But Uncharted 2 is like... Is that the best Uncharted game? Yeah, it's the best.

It's really close because Uncharted 4 has like, that's like probably the best Uncharted game. Yeah, it's the best. It's really close because Uncharted 4 has a lot of comforts and ease of gameplay. A little bit more modern too. Modern, better graphics obviously and stuff, but 2 is just so dang good. That's the thing, there's just so many. My personal favorites are Mass Effect 1

and Dragon Age Origins, but I know those aren't going to win. I would say Diablo 2 halo 2 half-life 2 world of warcraft those would be my nominees and gta 4 i wouldn't blink an eye at either yeah this is what's crazy because there's so many good games call of duty uh for modern warfare yeah that's another one yeah which is what i mean modern warfare's or is it modern warfare 2 that's like they were everybody was like this is the greatest this is the pinnacle of call of duty they were both and then they had because they had zombies um and that's when it

really took off but it's yeah there's just there's too many this one's tough i mean the original halo halo combat evolved came out in this decade as well, which blew everybody's mind. I think the, is it that the competition between the consoles was at its peak? You know, I mean, I know we're still in the whole consoles, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, but it's like, I feel like the 2000s were the decade when like people were starting to plant their flag on like a certain console, Xbox or PlayStation. We're really going at it to try to like, you know,

just land, you know, to, to win that war. Right. Remember when a Blu-ray and HD DVD came out and it was like, it was that war of like, which one's going to win.

I don't know if that was a two thousands or not, but like that was a huge deal. Right. Because it was like one of these formats is going to win. And then whichever one does is going to be, you know, the future of this format. Well, it turns out Blu-ray won, right? And likely because PlayStation adopted the Blu-ray. But yeah, man, I don't like what a golden decade for games on this one.

For me, Half-Life 2 is an easy nominee nominee that's the first one i thought of i will say this and i have to give credit because i know neither one of you are going to vote for deuce x because i don't think either one of you actually played that game i'll say this world of warcraft while i am not a fan changed the history of gaming like no other video game ever has. Most influential of the decade. I cannot think. Honestly, most influential game ever? It's up there. Yeah.

I mean, think about it. Everybody on the planet was playing World of Warcraft, man. You know? I mean, this is what made Blizzard the multi-billion dollar company. I mean, yes, they had good games, but World of Warcraft basically launched them into the forefront of game devs. I'm a little torn on this one, man, because I honestly, I think Half-Life 2 is the easy answer, but I think World of Warcraft had more of an impact and had more people playing it than any other game that I can think of. I mean, I missed it because I was just coming off of my playing of EverQuest,

but every person I knew was playing World of Warcraft. Husbands are getting their wives to play with them. And then, you know, it was just like, it was global, dude. So people met their spouse. Do you know how thousands of people are married to someone that they met on WoW? The one thing that you could easily argue against WoW, and I did not see myself on this side of the debate against Josh, who has very rarely said positive things about WoW.

Over time, it did really get diminished, and there are some really bad expansions. And so, over the life of WoW wow it had a very high peak especially early on the first couple expansions were great but especially pandaria on it definitely suffered a lot more i'm kind of shocked to hear you put it in the contention josh because i was pretty firmly in half-life 2 halo 2 or diablo Yeah, those were the three I thought of initially. Diablo 2 would be my third nominee if I had to say what are three on this one because it perfected Diablo.

I think people have been chasing Diablo 2 ever since Diablo 4 just didn't do it. You know, we were hopeful there. I just, Diablo 2, I feel like, is a little bit more of of a niche game for people. Not everybody likes that type of game. Hack and slash. You know?

So it's like, if you like it, it really resonated with you, but you're not having the impact like World of Warcraft or even Half-Life 2 had. You know what? Diablo 2 was also a little grindy. Oh, it was very grindy, dude. I can't remember the name of the bow. Swift something? Wind Force. Wind Force. That was it. Yes. also a little grindy oh it was very grindy dude well i can't remember the name of the bow swift

something that i do like wind force that was yes that was shot really really fast yeah you tear that up with a bunch of sojs and your amazon was like i can't i can't tell you the number of hours that i spent trying to farm freaking wind force in my course yeah so i still yeah i was actually talking my buddy sean he still is playing he's telling me right now, because there is still a huge group of people that still just exclusively play Diablo 2, and they're doing all these crafting and the Roger Cubes and stuff. He said he's playing hardcore,

and he's playing it like a roguelike. And so they're like, just picture it like a roguelike, and you just can't die. See how far I can get. Yeah, see how far I can get through. He finished the first, and now he's going through Nightmare

and then trying to work his way to hell but he's so paranoid he's gonna just kind of get uh complacent and bored and then accidentally die and just ruin all that time but yeah it is it i mean it's one of my favorite games ever but it definitely is um maybe hard to put in the in the kind of for the decade so i don't know it's just tough. Here's the question. I think it's unequivocally between Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft. The question is, for me anyway,

I don't think you guys would disagree just because you both played World of Warcraft so much, but like Half-Life 2 is the better game. I agree.

World of Warcraft is the better industry mover. Everybody in the world. If I said World of Warcraft is the better industry industry everybody in the world if i said world of warcraft to anybody they'd be like yeah i know what that is you know like even like your grandparents if i like if i call my mom mom have you ever heard of world of warcraft she'd be like oh yeah you know and i'm like have you heard of half-life too and she'd be like never you know and so it's like so what do we you know it's kind of hard because are you going with like the planet moving world of warcraft or do you say half-life two

really push the boundaries of gaming it is a more complete experience you sure we're not sleeping on halo the halo fans are screaming right now i mean we are that's why this is so hard that's why this is so hard. That's why this is so tough, because there is. I mean, but which Halo then? Because Halo Combat Evolved was the first, and nobody had ever seen anything quite like it, dude. The Warthog, all the, like, the Covenant, you know, I mean,

it was pushing the boundaries of the new tech. I mean, what a campaign. But then Halo 2 came out, and everybody went, whoa! Like, they made halo way better well that's kind of kind of too with like half-life and half-life 2 like it's great game and then the second is polished and has everything you wanted from the first and so that just it kind of steps it up you know yeah half-life 2 brings the huge advancements to AI controlled opponents, the physics,

storytelling, gravity gun. I believe we named the best weapon of all time on this show. So it sounds to me like we're leaning half-life too. I think I'm leaning half-life too, but I just want to give credit where credit is due because again, there's going to be people that are slapping their foreheads and going like, what,

how could you guys do this? And it's like, dude, we get it. Like we absolutely get it. I and going like, what, how could you guys do this? And it's like, dude, we get it. Like we absolutely get it. I mean, like I said, there's 20 games on this list that anybody could make it.

I could argue for Tony Hawk pro skater. I probably played that game with my buddies more than any other game, you know, my buddy on passing the controller, all that stuff. Like I legit consider just coming in here hard on Tony Hawk and being like, guys, it really is the game of the decade. If on Tony Hawk and being like, guys, it really is the game of the decade.

If you think about it and, uh, he made so much money. It's not as hot of a take as you might think. Like, it sounds weird, but it's, especially if you were alive during that time.

I mean, you're saying everyone played. Wow. Everybody was playing Tony Hawk. Oh, for sure. I, there was nothing like passing the controller to your buddy.

You were doing that mall run or something, and it was like, here, give me a try. I can't get the K. I can't get the high score. You're like 10,000 points short or something like that. Yeah. Oh, man. Doing those Benihana's.

I think I would vote for Half-Life 2. If we're saying what's the best game of the decade, the most complete game, I mean, think about it, guys. This was back in 2000s. I don't know the exact year for Half-Life 2. But people to this day, 20 plus years later, are still clamoring for Half-Life 3. That's how good this game was when 20 years ago,

people were going like, are we ever going to see the sequel? Because if we do, people are instantly assuming it'll be the greatest game ever, right? Yeah, it's been 20 years. Right, so it's kind of like... Came out in 04. That's why they're not making it. Well, right.

How do you follow that up, right? So I think I'm going to cast my vote for Half-Life 2 on this one. I just think it fits. You can nitpick any of the other games we've mentioned i don't think you can nitpick half-life 2 it's like an unimpeachable nominee so i'm totally fine i think we can lock that one in here half-life 2 it is all right all right well it's that time let's go and take our last break and then we'll come back in. Oh, boy. 2010s. It's going to be fun.

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Get tickets now. All right, guys. 2010s. I think this is what we've been waiting for. We're talking the era of the Nintendo Wii. I don't know they're going to get any nominees from that. We've got the Wii U, lol. PS4, now we're talking Xbox One, Nintendo Switch.

Dude, so many nominees. My all-time favorite game is in this decade, Mass Effect 2. I know I'm a lot bigger on it than you guys. I know it's not going to win, but it's way up there. I don't want to give all the accolades to Valve, but Portal 2, I think absolutely is on the short list. We've got Red Dead 1. We've got The Witcher 3, which so many people consider to be the best game of all time.

Metal Gear Solid 5, The Phantom Pain still holds up. We all just recently played it. Zelda, Breath of the Wild. And I mean, guys, I'm leaving out arguably the two best games of all time. You've got God of War 2018, and you've got Red Dead 2. Not even to mention stuff like Disco Elysium which josh and i are super high on you got the last of us gta 5 i mean skyrim we're skyrim i know that i it's like how do you like how do you leave off skyrim right i mean yeah it's like i you know oh my goodness dude like

terraria there's there's people that love Terraria screaming into their car right now going, what about Terraria? I mean, I get it. I get it. But, you know, Overwatch came out. I mean, I'm still playing Overwatch to this day. Yeah. You know, at the heyday, I don't know that there's a game that our friend group.

You shouldn't be, but you are. I know. It's true. It's true. But, you know, I don't know that there was a game out that more of our friends were playing at any given time than Overwatch, you know? I'm not saying it's the greatest game of the decade, but I think it deserves to be mentioned at least before it got brutally murdered.

A personal one for me, Rocket League. You know, one of the pinnacles of esports right now. I mean mean that game has lasting power like crazy i know you guys aren't really into it i don't think it's the greatest game of the decade but again probably deserves to be mentioned um i mean borderlands 2 one of the best borderlands game an iconic game but again not gonna win but dude as good as borderlands 2 is it might be like number 30 i know that's what i'm saying that's what's so wild but that's the crazy part is like borderlands 2

is a fantastic video game and it's not holding a candle to some of these other nominations man it's not even close it's it's a mile away yeah yeah i mean and then this is the crazy thing right hollow knight fantastic beloved game doesn't doesn't touch some of the heavy hitters in this decade, dude. No. Even a big flash in the pan one, Pokemon Go. I didn't even think about Pokemon Go. Took over the world. So yeah, I was watching this little clip the other day

where it was showing about units sold or people playing the game. And all of a sudden, after it came out, it just shot up the graph up to the very top and just blew everyone away and then you know quickly went back down but that was one of those crazy crazy big ones we had um i don't know if you said the the the fallout fallout 4 came out and new vegas hadn't even mentioned fallout yeah games fallout games were there there's just it's it's one of those. Horizon Zero Dawn came out. That was, you know, not going to win again,

but it was still an awesome, awesome game. Beautiful, you know. Did we mention GTA V? GTA V. I don't think we've even mentioned GTA V yet. I had on my list, but I might have forgotten the list. Yeah. There's just so many.

How do we narrow a list that has 10 of i mean honestly i could probably name 10 of these games and say these are some of the best games ever made and the you know the the best-selling game ever made minecraft well and that's the thing yeah minecraft is the best-selling game of all time yeah you know and it's like none of us really care for minecraft that much but we're old dudes that you know necessarily fit into that Minecraft world. But Minecraft's doing something right. I mean, you could make the argument that that is the best game easily because it sold the most and every kid in the world has played Minecraft.

We didn't even mention any of the Souls games of i know 2010s either i'm trying to contain my souls my love of souls games because i know it's not present company appreciated very much we'll give you time for elden ring yeah i'm gonna take that time when it gets to elden ring honestly that's fine so like when i look at this decade i'm not delusional enough to include mass effect 2 metal gear solid 5charted 4. I know those aren't going to win with this group. Breath of the Wild also, super on the short list. I think when I looked at this list, I immediately thought the winner is unquestionably going to be between The Witcher 3, Red Dead 2, and God of War.

I was like, there's no way anything else on this list is gonna win gta 5 i would love to see when i i don't think for the three of us it's going to skyrim is the only other one that i thought you two might really push hard for it i don't like skyrim nearly as much as you guys do um so i don't know i felt like witcher 3 god of war red dead 2 is where it's at paul also you failed to mention your favorite game well i've mentioned mass effect 2 a couple times no i'm talking pub g buddy oh yeah g came out in this decade as well 2019 every now and then every now and then i see paul has you know a little steam pop up he did it today i started

playing pub g of course i messaged him i was like started playing PUBG. Of course. I messaged him. I was like, I see you. To be fair, when you messaged me, I was just AFK. I just left it on. But yeah, I still play PUBG pretty much every day. Yeah. I am with you, Paul.

Am I wrong in those three? No, I don't know how you... I mean, I feel like I could make a mass market appeal for Portal 2 to say if you're trying to appeal to the broadest category of people, Portal 2, you could make an argument to say this is the greatest game because it's easily approachable. I can't tell you how many threads I see where it's like, hey, so my girlfriend, my grandparents, whoever are getting into gaming for the very first time, what game

should I have them play? And almost unanimously, people say, start them with Portal 2. Because it's approachable, it's fun, it progresses in difficulty and interest and the humor and all that stuff. And it's a complete video game. The problem is I can't put it up against the likes personally of Red Dead 2, God of War, and Witcher 3, in my opinion. So it's like, again, we want to give credit where credit is due, but at the same time, I'm with you, Paul. I don't know that I could say another game is above those three. The hard part's going to be how do we

pick which one of those three? So here's what's so funny about this decade. I'm looking at my top 10 of all time, which is on our website video gamers pod.com i've got mass effect 2 at number one red dead 2 at number two portal 2 at number three uh you know it's like these are my all-time favorite games like this decade is is killer i think the 2000s has like a longer list but i think the 2010s bring higher highs portal to at its peak. I don't think any game is more fun, but portal two is very short. And so that's a little bit of like a nitpick.

Like you have to get real nitpicky when you're comparing these. So it's like, well, gosh, I can get a full 50 hours with red dead too. But then at the same time, you know, there's some criticisms of the opening snow levels and not everyone loves riding around on a horse. So then some people might say God of War

being a 16-ish hour game. I don't remember exactly how long. It's a lot shorter, but it's much tighter. So I don't know. But then The Witcher 3 is the only game all three of us have in our top 10 of all time, which then kind of tells me maybe it's The Witcher 3. the only game all three of us have in our top 10 of all time, which then kind of tells me maybe it's The Witcher 3. So I don't know. I would say Witcher 3 beats the pants off of Skyrim, which is why I didn't include it on the shortlist. Yeah, Skyrim is fantastic.

Honestly, this is no shade. Again, this is not throwing shade at any particular game. I have played the heck out of Skyrim. Probably not as much as Ryan, who I think owns 10 copies of skyrim at this point pretty close i've bought i've bought a lot of copies over the years for sure and that's i mean on my leaderboard it's one and two red dead and skyrim it's like choosing between kids man yeah i was gonna say ryan's a little sad that we're dismissing well i mean are you okay with that ryan would you push for Skyrim being the greatest game of the 2010s? Leaving out personal preferences,

I think it's fair to put it a notch below those games because I personally love it for the reasons I listed in our squad cast too. I just think it's such an amazing game for me. I think for a lot of other people as well, but I think it's just below those other ones because they're just they're just heavy hitters and and i know what my answer is i know you guys are kind of wavering but i think not only is red dead redemption 2 the greatest game of this decade i think it's the greatest game ever made i think it is brilliantly written beautifully polished i think even though some people disagree, the gameplay is flawless almost. Everything you want to do in a game, it pretty much has. So that's without a

doubt for me what I'm going to push forward and you can't change my mind. I think a lot of people also forget a lot of the impactful quiet moments in Red Dead 2. The fact that Arthur keeps his journal and you start to read it and you look at his sketches and you just see his character transformation. I mean, Arthur Morgan, I have said is my all-time favorite video game character. I love what he goes through. I find him to be so funny. Watching my son play Red Dead 2, I'm like, this game is so much funnier than I remember. And it hasn't even been that long since I played it. It's only been like three years and I already forget some of that stuff.

I'm with you, Ryan. I have it as number one of the decade. The question comes down to how much further down does Josh have it? If Josh has it so far down that we need to consider Witcher three, I have no qualms with that. I think I would have both of those above God of War 2018. I know how much you guys love it. For me, I would say it's between Red Dead 2 and Witcher 3.

Yeah. And here Josh is going to come in with God of War 2018. This is tough. I will say this. These games are all amazing. I loved every game that I have played of God of War, Red Dead, and Witcher 3. I've played them all multiple times at this point, which is very, very rare for me. But I can honestly say I have played through Red Dead Redemption 2 twice.

I have played through God of War twice. And I've played through... Actually, I never played through The Witcher 3 all the way twice, but it's a lot longer of a game too. I want to give the respect to Red Dead 2 that it deserves because I'm with you guys. I just have a hard time... And Paul, you kind of touched on this. You could name flaws with any of these games, right? I mean, they're basically perfect games, but if, like you said, if we're really putting them under the microscope and getting nitpicky about them,

you know, I, I, I'm not a huge fan. Like you said, Paul of the gameplay portions of red dead too. I can make the argument that God of war got a little repetitive with its creature design and maybe a little bit of its combat.

And the story isn't as impressive as red dead too, over the long haul. And Atreus sucks atreus yeah i mean honestly witcher 3 famously takes eight hours to get going man like so slow huge flaw you know ripcord trying to start the lawnmower you got to pull it 28 times before it gets going and then it takes off right and then it's like whoa this lawnmower is awesome but I mean, a lot of people just go like, it's not worth it to me. I'm not gonna spend eight hours to play this game. I'll say this.

I have a very hard time personally saying that I wanna nominate Red Dead Redemption 2 as the number one game for this decade. My personal most fun game is God of War. But I think overall, and Paul, you touched on this, it's the only game that's on all of our top 10 lists. It is probably the most complete game as well, where it blends gameplay, story, world building, graphics, characters. I'm going to put The Witcher 3 up there because I think it's the most complete game.

It's a 60 to 100-hour game if you want to get in all the side quests. It has some of the best quests we have ever seen in a video game. I get that it's melee combat, and it's kind of starting to feel a little janky. I actually went and played Witcher 3 a while back, and I was kind of like, ooh, this combat's not quite as good as I remember. It it's its weakest that and and and roach roach's mechanics are pretty yes and i agree but there's just things like there's just moments in that game that to this day stand out to me you know the the crones even when you get to skellige right and you're crossing like the ocean and you're sailing a boat all of a sudden and it's nighttime,

you know, the characters, the factions in this world that is at war and just terrible and I mean, I don't know. So I am personally going to say I think Witcher 3 deserves the title. You guys are both kind of staring

at me going, man, I didn't see that coming. I thought you were going to argue for God of war. God of war personally is above for me, but I think I'd have a harder time getting you guys to agree to that than I would. Which are three. This is kind of what I hinted at in our discord a little bit earlier where we weren't going into details,

but we were saying like, how hard are we going to have to fight over the 2010s? Ryan and I have read Dead 2 number one. Josh probably has it somewhere around number 10. God of War. I don't think it's in his leaderboard. No, it's not in his leaderboard still. It's not on my top 10.

It's not in his top 10. It's not in his top 10, right? But I'm saying of just the 2010s. Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Josh might have it like number 10. God of War. Josh has number one. I probably have it around like six or something like that. But yet

all of us probably would say The Witcher 3 is not our number one of the decade, but we've all got it like number three. Mid-tier, right. So cumulatively, it would be like, okay, well, this game is probably the most universally appreciated game. Here's the other argument, right? We know plenty of people. We've seen them in our discord server that say, dude, I couldn't get into red dead. You know, I tried it. I couldn't get into it. It just didn't grab me. You can make the exact same thing for God of war. I don't want to play a game where all I'm doing is just slaughtering thousands of creatures and just fighting all the time. You know, that's not my style of game. I like, I wouldn't tell my daughters to play God of war. You know, I don't, it's not my style of game. I wouldn't tell my daughters to play God of War. It's not their kind of game. Whereas I could maybe say, hey, one of you might like Red Dead

Two. It's got an incredible story. I wouldn't really let them play The Witcher 3 just because of the mature nature of that game. But if I was going to say, hey, if I had to pick from these three games, which one do i think would have the most impact or which one do i think would grab the majority of people the most or resonate with the most people i think i would put witcher 3 out there i think it's just more universally uh beloved from a wider range of gamers you're crazy man everything the witcher does red dead does better no yes everything i don't know you you're you're taking crazy pills man what are you talking about dude i i i know you love red dead 2 so much ryan but witcher 3 is a more complete game talk

talk about getting into the game and slow start you just said it yourself it takes eight hours to get into the game and get it started i'll take the combat is janky the combat's janky it's slightly garbage the only saving grace in that thing is tess uh and well and what's what's uh yennefer's yennefer you got tris you got i mean yeah or tris that's what i meant yeah there's a lot of I got things for redheads. Yeah, I'm going to... I mean, for me, Witcher 3, you know, I think it's the best game, man. Do you see this around me? It's the best all-around game. It's a hill.

It's a hill, and I'm not getting off it. Yeah. I don't know if you can see it. It's right around here, guys. All right, so we're... It sounds like we've crossed off God of War 2018. I honestly thought that might win. Personally, my nomination would off God of War 2018. I honestly thought that might win.

Personally, my nomination would be God of War, but I understand that God of War is not going to resonate with as many people. It's probably not as complete of a video game. That's what I'm talking about. I'm taking The Witcher 3 as a whole. The world, story, combat, characters, graphics, audio, memorable quests. I mean, it is literally the total package when it comes to a video game.

Its flaws are, it takes a little while to get going, and the combat's a little weird. But at the time, when you first started playing Witcher 3, it wasn't that weird. It's just starting to feel slightly dated now, but it's also the older game. Are you falling for this, Paul? What do you mean I'm sad? We're still going Red Dead, dude. Well, here's the thing. starting to feel slightly dated now but it's also the older game are you falling for this paul what do you mean i'm sad we're still going red dead dude well here's here's the thing no no no here's the thing me what are you talking about i'm 100 with you ryan i think red dead 2 is better all right in every way but it has to be a three-person consensus and josh is is a lot lower on red dead

than us the witcher three is the pick where none of us is thrilled but i feel like it minimizes i mean i'm pretty disappointed which is so good dude okay so if i say okay right let me ask you okay since we're arguing and we're gonna spend a little bit of time on this since we're arguing have you played through the witcher three yes have you beaten it yes i i was fortunate enough that when it came out it was not too long after or before my knee surgery. I had ACL surgery. And so I had

all the time in the world. So the opening didn't bother me. And that doesn't bother me that much in games. I personally love the snow opening in Red Dead. But I love the game. I thought it was amazing. What are your issues with Witcher 3 that puts it below Red Dead for you? That I think, like I said, everything that Witcher does, I think Red Dead does better.

I think the story's better. I think the gameplay's better. I think the world is better. I think how you can move through the world is better. I think all the little things that you still find to this day that Rockstar puts into their games is better like you can have hundreds of hours in in uh in red dead and you can still find new things there's so many different levels and layers to the game where witcher 3 is absolutely amazing

and and almost kind of one of a kind but it just doesn't have that same depth and feel that i think red dead does red dead has the best open world mechanics and ai with npcs nothing even comes close to it in that regard i mean we've said before like red dead 2 you can literally just sit in a city and do nothing and be entertained. Yeah. I would not say that about Witcher 3, but Witcher 3 is a very different kind of game. Witcher 3 is a more traditional RPG, action RPG, obviously.

Red Dead 2 is more of like a cowboy simulator. Like, they're just, they're so incredibly different i i this is the only one where i don't really know what to say because like how how down on which your three are you ryan because like this is still a game in your top 10 and i feel like you're you're pretty hard fighting against it i i will i told you i am on this hill like it's i i just i don't know i don't see how which are three can be can be rated above it um i just like i said said, I think Red Dead does... It's a more complete game, man. How can you say that, though?

Because Red Dead is a lot more narrow. It's not, because, dude, you're going to continents. Red Dead, you're going across these plains, and maybe you go to the swamp. Witcher 3, you're going to different continents. You're crossing oceans, man. You go to Guarma. You're fighting huge...

You're fighting huge griffins and dragons and all these incredible boss fights. What are the boss fights in Red Dead 2? It's not a fantasy game. The missions in Witcher 3, I can think of 10 missions off the top of my head that are way better

and more memorable than the ones in Red Dead. I'm not saying that Red Dead doesn't have good missions. I'm just saying that overall, the memorable aspect of Witcher 3 is, I don't want to say light years above Red Dead, because that's a bold statement, but it's above Red Dead, man. Well, I think our audience is getting bored to tears at this point.

We got to choose something and move on. Listen, God of War would be my vote, but I'm trying to compromise, and my compromise is to say Witcher 3, because i think it would be a more universally beloved and appreciated game amongst a wider variety of gamers i would agree with you more if you said god of war than than witcher i was just gonna say ryan do you have less heartburn if we say god of war i'll take god of war i'm fine with any of these doesn't want to lose now this way no no it's just that i never know wildest dreams would have thought otherwise but you guys you guys can outvote me i mean it's

two to one i'm still saying red dead but you can outvote me i i tell you what i'm gonna do i will post a poll to socials that says out of these three games which one do you consider the greatest game just to get just to get the public opinion as well whatever do what you want let's move on we gotta pick one we have to win do we just uh individually vote no and then just winner take all i'm fine with either god of war or witcher 3 i'm fine with any of the three i Ryan's only good with Red Dead 2. Red Dead 2 or God of War, I will tolerate. Okay, so we have Red Dead 2, God of War.

I said I'm fine with God of War or Witcher 3. I'm putting in God of War 2018 because we have to move on. Even though Ryan and I both agree Red Dead is the clear pick. All right, I'll be right back okay it's gonna be gotta with an asterisk next to it that says under duress yeah yeah yeah with a picture of brian vomiting all right and then let's very quickly knock out the 2020s i mean obviously i mean what are we gonna do list the consoles. We've got Xbox Series X and S. We've got the PS5. Obviously, the Switch is still crushing it.

This one, I think, might be tough because I don't know that we've all played the same games. I mean, my list here that I wrote down was Tears of the Kingdom, Cyberpunk, Half-Life Alyx, Baldur's Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, i know josh did not like as much as i did mario brothers wonder like mario bros wonder is so incredibly good it's a very good game we started playing it this week again in our family it's fantastic i know josh is going to argue hard for elden ring which ryan and i will not be voting for because you two guys even though it deserves to be like on the podium um for me it's it's three games elden ring is one of those i'm just gonna go ahead and concede since ryan conceded the red dead thing to me i'll concede that elden ring is not gonna get nominated even though i think it's one of the best games ever made here's the problem so that leaves for for me, Baldur's Gate three and cyberpunk.

And it's very difficult because I get the Baldur's Gate three is not the type of game that is for everybody. And Ryan has not played it. I do think it's probably the best overall game of the 2020 so far, but we all have played Cyberpunk 2077, and we all very much hold that game in high regard. So that would be my two nominees is Baldur's Gate 3 or Cyberpunk. I have a feeling we're going to probably wind up saying Cyberpunk, but I don't know.

Ryan, what do you think? Tears of the Kingdom. Tears of the Kingdom. I was just going to say, I will quit this podcast right now i was gonna say dismiss what josh said and paul break down tears of the kingdom episode break it down to josh josh deserves it ryan is smart enough to say he's come around and tears of the kingdom rules i am not even kidding that i have come around more than you can imagine on

tears of the kingdom the the non-verbal nature nature of all the NPCs and some of the things still drive me absolutely bonkers. But you can't even wrap your mind around the physics in that game. Being able to design and create anything you want to do, anything you need to do, is just, I don't know how you can go past that like it's just beyond beyond you know gaming really it it's art you know i don't know how to describe it uh josh is dying right now he's falling out of frame tears of the kingdom i have as my number five all-time favorite game it's the only one from the 2020s in my top 10 other than cyberpunk which i do have right below it um for me tears of the kingdom is the answer and i still

think josh is crazy i i i don't want to reopen the old wars but hearing josh say that he would just eat stamina food and climb a mountain by hand is so freaking weird to me and i said that's like it was one part of the game paul but that's not how that's not the game that i didn't play this game the right way because i decided i'm just gonna climb this mountain instead of spend four hours building some zonai device to take me to the top that's being mad at your car because because you had to drive somewhere and instead of driving your car, you just pushed it. And, like, cars are dumb. These don't even work right.

That's exactly what it is. That is exactly what it is. You have the tool. Use it. You can build anything you want, man. I think you two are absolutely crazy if you try to say that Tears of the Kingdom is the best game of the 2020 so far. I think we are going to get ostracized.

You are going to be blown away how many games in the future utilize that type of of physics and features man yeah i'm not trying to say it's not but compared to some of these other games tears of the kingdom is not even close man we're gonna have our work cut out for us on this paul i am not i will absolutely i can tell you right now i refuse to even consider tears i just refuse you too you too can steamroll me if you want and i will absolutely say that i had no part of this whatsoever because there are better games out there than tears of the kingdom i mean i'm fine i'm fine with cyberpunk if we do that but my my nomination is tears of

the kingdom I would say Cyberpunk, if I made the same argument for Witcher 3, I'm going to make that same argument for Cyberpunk. I think it is going to be more generally universally... So Josh just wins. Josh just wins everything. No, I'm just not winning. This is a consensus. I just

think, man, if you pulled 100 people and said out of these games, I don't see tears of the kingdom breaking 20 of people saying that game's the best game so far another poll put the other poll up i still think that josh played tears of the kingdom entirely wrong the fact that josh said things like tears of the kingdom has less content than Breath of the Wild and really stuck to his guns. It's rehashed content. Oh, we made a dark zone, guys. Congratulations. We tripled the size of our game by making a

basement with no light. Tears of the Kingdom is very beloved by gamers and critics. Josh makes it sound like we're the crazy ones for liking it. You're the outlier here, Josh. I know. I know this. Most people think it's one of the best. I will say I don't want our list to be so narrow that we're picking very similar games.

Tears of the Kingdom, I have as the best of the decade. I am also fine with it being cyberpunk. I find this kind of funny as well because I was very early on the cyberpunk bandwagon. When we did our first hot takes episode I came out and said I think cyberpunk's better than the witcher 3 and that was before the fixes to cyberpunk I really love both of those games I am completely fine with either I think tears of the kingdom is the better game I am fine with both is this gonna be like last round where where we all have cyberpunk in the top two but but Josh is just so low on Tears of the Kingdom that Ryan and I get the shaft?

Ryan, no trolling. Are you really trying to tell me that you think Tears of the Kingdom is the best game of the 2020s? Yep, 100%. I think it is too. Honestly, like the last couple months of playing, we got back into it with my son. It's just, it's totally, I liked it before. Over Helldivers 2? Yeah, dude.

I mean, it was. We're not giving it to Helldivers. Really? Get out of here. All right. I mean, if you both feel that strongly about it, I will, I will concede to my buddies and my co-hosts because this game, Ryan was not big on this game initially. This is the one I don't care about though.

I care about Red i care about red well i'm just saying man i don't if you guys feel that strongly about it i will put an asterisk next to it and just say decided by crazy people but i won't fight you guys on it josh is too low on tears it's the better game but we have to give it to cyberpunk and i don't like just giving josh a win in every round would be my actual i think this is truly like the best game but i didn't even beat it you even play i don't beat a lot of games paul you beat cyberpunk i did beat cyberpunk yeah but i mean you know it's but yeah and the dlc cyberpunk is the is to me is the makes the most sense as a candidate i'm fair and honestly it's

gonna get dethroned by the end of the decade i don't think cyberpunk will be on the top something else will come out gta6 does that does that make you feel better ryan if we know it's only gonna sit here at the top no temporarily no it doesn't at all i said i'd concede to you guys don't i don't want it because now i'm going to have to listen to Ryan. I don't care about this round. The last one. This is the consensus part, right? Like legitimately, Josh, Tears of the Kingdom.

Where do you even have it on your leaderboard? I closed my screen. I don't know. It's definitely not in my leaderboard. Oh, gosh. Let's see. Well, we know I'm going to have it near the top. Josh gave it an 8.5.

That's respectable. It's respectable. It's not a terrible game. Oh, my gosh. You have it below Dead Island 2. Oh, Dead Island 2 was a lot of fun. Dead Island 2 was a lot of fun. You know what game wasn't a lot of fun?

It's Tears of the Kingdom. Josh, you're insane. We have to give it to Cyberpunk. Josh is way too low on tears, and that's preposterous. Did you take your medication today josh i'm gonna do i'll tell you hey man i'm gonna do two things i'm gonna make two polls i'm gonna make one for the 2010s for god of war red dead 2 and witcher 3 and i will make one for the 2020s what do we want the three to be balder's gate 3 cyberpunk and tears of the

kingdom balder's gate is gonna win but i still say why is it gonna win because it's a better game but see like and i know this is like a funny argument but it's so hard for me to accept balder's gate 3 because dos 2 is better and it's like i don't disagree too many i don't too many people sleeping on it balder's gate 3 is is is a step down by lar. And it's funny to me that just more people discovered Baldur's Gate 3. It was more mainstream. You made a worse game than DOS 2, so I'm not going to name it best of the decade when it's a step down. I'd be more likely to give it to DOS 2 for whatever year it came out.

Probably last decade, probably 2018 or whatever. Yeah. All right, so here's the thing. We got to wrap things up. We're going to give it to Cyberpunk, but it's not going to sit long so for the 80s we've got super mario 3 90s we got golden eye 2000s half-life 2 2010s god of war 2020s cyberpunk that's a darn good list of games guys i think i'm the happiest out of the three of us i am a hundred percent fine with this list i'm fine with this list it was fun to argue over.

And that was really the point of this whole episode. And honestly, like I said, we know as listeners that you guys are arguing with us and saying you guys are crazy. Josh, you're an idiot. You know, Paul, I can't believe you didn't mention this one or fight harder for Mass Effect, you know, or something like that. It's the fun of this stuff, right? It's not getting chiseled into stone, but, you know, it's fun to try to come up and say, hey, what game do you think universally? And that's the point, right? Consensus. We had to come to agreement. Is Cyberpunk truly the best game of the 2020s? Maybe not. There's going to be thousands of people that are saying, you guys, it's Baldur's Gate 3, hands down. How could you say Cyberpunk? That game came out in a in a crappy mess right but the point is is that consensus wise what would the majority of people say is the best game of this decade yeah and if

we didn't list one game i would almost guarantee we probably read over it or thought about it and it's just there's just so many and a lot of these decades so it's so hard to cover everything that that was amazing and it really does make you look and think of how many just amazing games there are like you talk people talk about their backlogs no wonder look at all these games we just listed you know one for each decade and it's a big list so i i do love that we're arguing over like three of the greatest games ever made and then like trying to diminish one of them like it's not some incredible gaming experience that literally everybody should have at the same time i think the one we're going to take the most heat for is cyberpunk cyberpunk's the most divisive out of the ones listed i agree with that that's why i said i think balder's gate three i think

the majority of people would say okay you know as far as that goes that have played it elden ring if you've played elden ring you know i haven't ring but i mean i honestly last boss you beat in elden ring elden ring i fought i fought like four of the main bosses and one or two of the side i i gave up i'm not trying to call you out i was just curious i can't remember how far you actually made it in lb uh so you've got margit you've got godrick right yeah you've got the wolf boss uh you've got the girl the woman who shoots the stuff and is like yeah i i did that maybe one more boss after you were like a quarter of the way through yeah i played a decent amount i i liked elden ring it's i can't troll you for playtime paul because let's be honest i don't play all these games to the end either so yeah and uh i really want to give another shout out to

alan wake 2 i had that above balder skate 3 i think alan wake 2 is the most inventive game we've had of the 2020s so far other than Tears of the Kingdom. For me, those are the two that are like the real game changers. But alright, Cyberpunk it is. I'm cool with that. I love Cyberpunk. It's in my top 10 of all time. It's such a good game, dude.

It's such a good game. Alright, well that wraps up this bonus round. We want to say thank you to everyone for listening. As a reminder, please rate our show 5 stars, even if you don't like these pics that we made. And you can sign up this bonus round we want to say thank you to everyone for listening as a reminder please rate our show five stars even if you don't like these pics that we made and you can sign up for bonus episodes and more through patreon at multiplayer squad.com and until next time happy gaming see ya i gotta give ryan a hug next time i see him. All right. See you, everybody.