Video Gamers Podcast - Bonus Round: The Greatest Year of Game Releases - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

Gaming gurus Josh and Paul come together in another amazing Bonus Round. This time we do our research and come up with the best year for game releases. We dive into decades worth of gaming and decide which year was the top for releases in a single year. Which year will reign supreme? Will Josh show his age and go back in time? Will Paul be lured by the big name gaming releases of yester-year? Will we ask another question in this episode description? Will you listen in to find out? Support us on Patreon Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe on YouTube Visit us on the web Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey fellow squad mates. I am so excited to share with you all that the multiplayer gaming podcast now has a live Patreon page. We run this podcast independently and this is a great way for you guys to come support the show. That way we can keep delivering to you all two podcasts per week. In addition to supporting the show, you'll also get access to our exclusive Discord server where you can come interact and play games with Todd, Josh, and I. And also offer recommendations and to submit questions for future shows. You can find a link to our Patreon in the episode description, or you can visit www.multiplayersquad.com.

Thanks so much to all of you for listening and subscribing. Now on to the show. Hello everybody. Welcome to the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast bonus round. We are coming to you guys here midweek and today we are going to be talking about the best year in video games. So I am your host, Paul, and each week we like to break down a multiplayer game. And here midweek, we're doing something a little bit different. And I am joined this week by my co-host, Josh. What's going on,

man? Hey, hey, dude, I'm super excited about this episode. I am too. It was, I mean, we actually had to do a little bit of research because I mean, you, it's hard to find a year that you can say this was the pinnacle year for video gaming. Um, and so it was, it was cool to go back and look, man. And then it just got me all amped up. Yeah, absolutely. And to give you credit, Josh, you know, this, this was your idea. We, we kick around ideas during the week, try to figure out what we want to do. And since Todd went out on paternity leave, you've definitely been picking up the slack. I

think this is the third bonus round where we just took your idea. So, you know, you wanted to do that overwatch draft, which was fun. We knocked out some would you rathers last week. And today we just decided, let's go back, take a look at, you know, video games historically and which year do each of us think is the best year in video games. So I think people tend to do this a lot with movies or music. Like a lot of times you'll hear kicked around that, you know, 1999 was one of the best years for movies. You know, you had The Matrix, Fight Club, American Beauty, Magnolia, Office Space, The Mummy, Sixth Sense, all those came out in one year. And I don't know that I've really heard anyone really talk about what year they liked the most for video games. So I think it's a great idea. Do you want to talk

a little bit about how you went into determining which year you thought was best? Man, it was kind of daunting at first. If you start looking at what games were released what year, then you get 900 page lists of games. It amazes me how many games are actually released in a year. And so trying to filter through that was nuts. And then, so I kind of just took a, like a further back approach and I went,

okay, like, let me look at like the top 10 or maybe 20 games that were popular for a year. And then that really kind of helped me kind of hone in and like, oh man, I like, it was,

it was kind of eyeopening really, because I didn't realize like some of these games released the same year. And then, and then just when I was like, oh yeah, that's like the, that's the best year ever. Then I'd like,

I'd hop to a different year and then I'd be like, whoa, like these games all came out that year. Like I had no idea, you know? And so it was, it was interesting, man. Yeah. I definitely had to take a little bit of a scientific method to this.

Just being the inner nerd that I am. You know, I'm the kind of kid who saved up money and bought a really nice graphing calculator in high school. I thought about being a math major in college. I can confirm that makes you a nerd. So yes. Oh, absolutely. I was in marching band, all the AP classes. Oh yeah, for sure. So I actually opened up Excel and I just went back and I started in 1989, which was when I was five years old. I don't really remember any gaming prior to that we did not own any gaming systems but I did have my best friend who owned an NES in 1989 so I went back I took a look at all the games all the notable games released every year from 1989 to 2019 and so I would jot down the game what system

it was on and I gave it a score of a 1, a 2, or a 3. 1 means it is a very good game. A 2 is that it's great. And a 3 means that I think it's like a masterpiece. And so then after I did this for, I can tell you, I got my spreadsheet up. I ended up going through 234 games. And then I assigned a score. So if the game was a masterpiece, it was worth 3 points.

If it was great, it was worth 2 points. And if it was very good, it was worth 1 point. I added up all the scores, compared every year, and there was a clear winner, but there was a second year that was pretty close behind. So hopefully you didn't tune out or fall asleep

talking about a little bit of math there, but I just couldn't help it. I had to go about this, not just glancing at a couple games. I went all out with the spreadsheets. I have realized that I now feel drastically underprepared. So thank you for that. I thought I really went above and beyond. And actually, I found six years that stood out to me. And I physically typed out the eight or nine games that released in each of those years that really impressed me and why I thought these six years belonged, and then narrowed it down from there. So I was really kind of proud of myself for doing that much work to try to narrow this

down. And now you've just crushed all that and made me realize that I'm really just of proud of myself for doing that much work to try to like narrow this down. And now you've just crushed all that and made me realize that I'm really just a slacker. Well, it'll, it'll just help because when you point out a year, it might even be better than you realized. I've,

I've done a little more legwork. I've got my list. I'm not even joking. I even made a couple of graphs. I put my, the, the, the overall score each year on a scatter chart, and it's great. So I've got all the numbers, all the data. Don't worry, Josh, that you don't necessarily have all of it. I'll fill in the gaps.

Okay, that's good. All right, so how about, do you want to go first? Okay, so I got to touch on something real quick. I am seriously, seriously torn between these two years. So you still haven't made a decision? Is this going to be a game time? I have legit not made a decision. So I think what I'm going to do is I think I'm going to mention both years. I will force myself into a decision live on the

air. And then we'll just kind of see what happens from there. Does that sound good? Sure. So which two years are we looking at here? Okay. I'm going to throw these years out. 1997. Okay. Okay. I'll mention why. So 1997 was the year after I graduated high school. Okay. Now we all joke that I'm the oldest of the bunch. Okay.

So for those that feel like doing math out there, do your math. You can figure out how old I am. But 1997, I had just graduated high school. I had a free ride to college. I was super pumped. And then all of a sudden, I'm a freshman in college. All of these amazing games come out. And you would think I don't have a whole lot of time to play like games in college and stuff. But no, I'm a freshman in college, all of these amazing games come out. And you would think I

don't have a whole lot of time to play like games and colleges up. But no, I had time. It was, you know, one of my best group of friends in my life. We met up all the time. We played a ton of these games together. It was just it was that like that time in my life that just resonated with me and stood out, you know, as like not only a good time in my life, but like then these games were in there too. And I have so many fond memories of these games. Okay. So let me, let me read you some of these games that came out in 1997. Sure. Let's hear them. All right. Number one, GoldenEye. Okay. I mean, that's a no brainer. We talk about how epic

GoldenEye is, but that is the year that GoldenEye released. Golden Age of the 64. Final Fantasy VII. Heralded is one of the greatest games ever made. I mean, that game is epic. So that game came out. Curse of Monkey Island. How good are the Monkey Island games? I mean, super great memories of those. Castlevania, Symphony of the Night. Yep. I mean, Heralded is again one of the best games for 2D side scrollers. The best 2D game ever, in my opinion. Right. Yeah, exactly. So Star Fox 64. Awesome multiplayer. Yep. Age of Empires. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the Age of Empires, but we know that Todd is, right? Age of Empires 2, he still plays almost two or three times a week, right? Yeah.

Ultima Online. Now, a lot of people may not remember Ultima Online. I played the Ultima games, but Ultima Online was the precursor to the MMO. Legitimately, Ultima Online is what led into the MMO genre. So, I mean, that right there. Quake 2! Great shooter. Quake 2!

Quake 2 was like the heart of multiplayer shooters. That was when they were just gaining ground and becoming awesome. And you were rocket-launchering people. Turok! Turok Dinosaur Hunter! That game, dude, I remember playing that game. That game was amazing, man. You actually got to fight dinosaurs.

That was great. The original Fallout. Which I never played, but I saw that on the list. Right. I mean, Fallout, the series was born in 1997. This one is near and dear to my heart. X-Wing versus TIE Fighter. I played the heck out of that game

i bought i saved up my money and bought a joystick my parents thought i was stupid because they were like why do you need a joystick it's 1997 and i was like i got to have a joystick to be able to play x-wing versus tie fighter the right way was it one of the super deluxe ones that had like 20 buttons on the joystick or was it just like it had two missile lock no it was i didn't have 20 buttons but the main thing it had is it had the missile lock with a little plastic cover uh-huh so that when i wanted to launch missiles i had to pop it up with my thumb and then hit the button to launch missiles so that was like my main requirement there very nice and that that was the best of all the x-wing games x-wing versus tie fighter was the best yes grand turismo okay now i

was i'm not a huge racing game fan but i played a ton of gran turismo grand theft auto number one number one the original grand theft auto now i get maybe the originals aren't as great as some of the newer ones but again a series was born tomb raider 2 and tekken 3 and the list goes on and on you might be able to find more, but man. I will throw out one that I can't believe you didn't mention. Diablo 1, 1997. That was Diablo? Diablo 1.

Like, how did I miss Diablo, man? Yeah. Okay. NFL Blitz, also, 1997. Probably the best football game. Yes, that is one of the best football games. Yeah, it's a phenomenal year so what what are you comparing that one up against what's the other one so now i don't know

maybe this might have helped me but then again you chime in because i can't believe i missed diablo and then secondly then i have to look at like that was a long time ago admittedly we're talking the 1990s uh-huh and then so now then i'm looking at some recent games you know i'm getting into the to the more recent years and then i find 2015 killer year kill dude i had no idea this was my number two some of this is recency bias because you know we remember the newer games and stuff like that 2015 witcher 3 okay i make no qualms that witcher 3 is my favorite game ever made okay but that's the year that it released fallout 4 phenomenal game now i know maybe it's not the best fallout but fallout 4 was still very

good rocket league yep witcher 3 and Rocket League in one year? Like, come on, man. This is, like, how do I not pick this year? Bloodborne. Now, admittedly, I don't pretend to be an expert on all these games. I have never played Bloodborne. But I love the Dark Souls series. Right?

And I have played a lot of Dark Souls. And Bloodborne is very similar to that. And it's got amazing reviews. And I've seen tons of video of it. I know it's a great game. Rainbow Six Siege. Oh, I didn't even get that on my list. I didn't even run across that.

Rainbow Six Siege came out in 2015. Now, again, it did not release to the greatest fanfare, and it took them a couple years to get it to where it is. But, I mean, that's a phenomenal game. Rise of the Tomb Raider? I mean, that was... They mean that's a phenomenal game rise of the tomb raider i mean that was the they remade it you know what i mean it's a great yeah it's a great game batman arkham knight yeah another one of the great batman series starcraft 2 legacy of the void that was 2015 was released there arc now we love rust and Ark is Rust with dinosaurs. We have not played Ark, or at least I haven't played very much of it, but my kid plays a ton of Ark and loves that game, and I know that

it's huge with a lot of people. Super Mario Maker. Yep. My favorite Mario game. Yeah, Ori and the Blind Forest, which started another series that's a great, great platformer. I mean, 2015 for me, if I look at Witcher 3 and Rocket League, just those two games are two of my favorite games of all time. Big heavy hitters at the top. So it's like, but if two of my favorite games in the last decade are on in that year, then how do I not pick that year? I got a couple more heavy hitters for you that year, too. Tell me. Yes, yes, tell me.

Metal Gear Solid V, The Phantom Pain. Oh! Fantastic Metal Gear Solid. You know what? I have that written down, dude. I have that written down, and I forgot to read it. So yes, that's a phenomenal game. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, previously covered on our podcast.

Was that 2015? 2015. Dang it, this is getting harder. Splatoon on the Wii Uii u possibly the best game on the wii u i loved it i liked it more than you i think you did it i was it was a super cool game i can appreciate what it was and honestly we bought a wii u so you're right it was like one of the best games released on the wii u i just wasn't a huge fan of the wii u you know what i mean but splatoon was a great game.

And I'll throw one more out for you. Vermintide 1. We had a lot of fun with Vermintide. I think we played a lot more Vermintide 1 than 2. So that's another great one for 2015. When I made my list, I added up how many games from each year made it on my list. And 2015 had the most number of games. Now, it had a lot of ones and twos for me.

I mean, there's some on there that I had that you didn't mention. I love The Escapists. Just a silly little 8-bit game trying to break out of jail. A couple other games, Broforce, SteamWorld Heist. Those are all games that I love. But there are so many good games from 2015. You had some pretty young kids in 2015. I'm surprised you could fit in that much gaming.

I mean, I just, I find time for it. It's, I don't watch TV. So funny, funny thing for most people is I really, I watch maybe an hour, maybe two hours of TV a week, like total. So my downtime is video games. And I kind of feel like that's kind of around where smaller indie games really started stepping up. So instead of having to go out and buy $60 games, you could buy these $15, $20 games like SteamWorld Heist or Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. And you could get

tons of hours out of, you know, pretty good cheap games. So it was a great year. It wasn't every game was 60 bucks and you just hope that it was good. Right. You know? Yeah. I mean, there, you know, you were like Rocket League. Rocket League was $20. It's the best $20 I've ever spent.

I'm going to stew on it for a little while while I listen to yours, because I really don't know, man. It's tough for me. So I'm going to keep thinking about it, and then I'll give you my decision. Sure. All right. So 2015 for me came in as the second highest score on my spreadsheet, but it did not have the overall highest score.

Like I mentioned before, just because it has a lot of ones and twos. The year for me that came out by far the highest was 2004. Not on my list. So interesting. I just went ahead and sent you a screenshot there, Josh. If you want to take a look at it, that's my graph showing how many games I marked as a masterpiece by year. Whoa. And most years... That's not even close. Most years would have, I would say two to five, kind of looking at that graph. and there's one year that just spikes and it's 2004 i had nine games that year that i considered to be a masterpiece you're talking almost one a month all right i'm gonna hit you with a few of these these are the cream of the crop when you think back over the last 30 years of gaming all right you ready i'm'm ready. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. Great game. Halo 2.

Great game. Half-Life 2. Oh, phenomenal game. Metal Gear Solid 3. Great game. World of Warcraft. Unbelievably epic game. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2.

Oh, I love the Old Republic series. Slightly lesser known, but they were masterpieces to me. Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 2, which was an amazingly fun action RPG that you could play with co-op. Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth. Oh, that game is phenomenal. So much fun right in the middle of the RTS, you know, genre when that was such a big genre at the time. And Battle for Middle earth one and two were both fantastic i mean those are just a couple oh fable fable one on xbox a couple other games that

weren't masterpieces that also came out that year x-men legends and i loved i feel like from 2000 to 2004 there were so many really good up to four player co-op games like X-Men Legends where you just got to play as the X-Men. You'd play through these levels together. It was very similar to games like Gauntlet and X-Men Legends was great. I mean, they still make that line of games now. It's just Marvel Ultimate Alliance. And that was the first one of the series. X-Men Legends was

fantastic. Also, you had Red Dead Revolver. And I bet some of our younger listeners probably don't even know that this game exists. Because there was Red Dead Redemption on the PS3, and then Red Dead Redemption 2 that came out later. There was actually a first game in the series, Red Dead Redemption 2 that came out later. There was actually a first game in the series, Red Dead Revolver, which was very different. It was not an open world. You did not play with, you know, John Marston. It was a completely different series, but it was a great game, standalone just by itself. And that also came out in 04. So that is just a killer's row. I mean, even just the top with Half-life 2 metal gear solid 3 world of warcraft come on i mean these are incredible games at the top i'm gonna throw out a couple more in 2004 because i actually did look at this year thief so the deadly shadows

that was a very well-renowned game um doom 3 came out um and thenhmm. And then Paper Mario. The Thousand Year Door. My wife, any game that my wife plays a lot, like, you know, always sticks out to me because she's not a huge gamer, but she loved that game, man. The Paper Mario series is great. I do love the Paper Marios. I had put down Paper Mario on N64 back in 01 on my list. The second one, I just didn't play as much,

although they're great. The first one was just so new and novel where you could switch back and forth from 2D to 3D that I'm kind of surprised we don't see more games like that. It was very clever playing with perspective and space. It was completely unique. Great, great series. So yeah, there's one that I didn't even put on my list. And then you had the birth of two more series. You had Far Cry. Okay. The initial Far Cry was released in 2004.

And then Star Wars Battlefront. Yeah. And I mean, Battlefront's, yeah, you know, people are kind of, it's a money grab, it's EA, you know, there's that. But I mean, this was the first time that people could play a good multiplayer first-person shooter as Star Wars. And that's going all the way back, not the newer Star Wars Battlefronts. This is back in the original on Xbox. And my wife, Nikki, played Battlefront a lot, believe it or not.

For some reason, that game really stuck out to her. So there's probably something to be said for 2004, because this is a couple years after I graduated high school. So I was going to college. I was working part time. And my wife and I had very staggered schedules. And so I was actually going to school later in the afternoon and then working at night. And so I had my mornings and afternoons basically wide open. And so I was just knocking out a lot

of games. This is before I had any kids. So it was a lot of gaming. I was able to kind of play everything in 2004. And that's probably a big reason for why that stuck out so much to me that's a really good year man i mean world of warcraft alone launching that year could almost could almost win that single-handedly yeah yeah and i i put in so many hours into world of warcraft i remember because i was also very poor at this time and the only thing i could ever spend money on was video video games i mean i would just save up everything and i'd buy the next game and i'd sell whatever games i owned to game stop to be able to get it and when i got world of warcraft it was amazing because i just

had to pay 15 a month and i didn't need to buy any other games i mean i remember at one point looking back and just adding up how many months i had spent in world of Warcraft. And it was like $790. No. And I was like, I can't believe I've spent this much money on a video game and it's totally worth it. And I, I played world of Warcraft on day one that it released.

So, you know, Oh four, man, what a, what a heavy year for, for amazing games. And then out of curiosity,

do you want to know what scored the year for for amazing games and then out of curiosity do you want to know what scored the lowest for me what year the yeah because i didn't look at like terrible years at all yeah i mean i know we're talking about the best but since i have the numbers here the two years that scored lowest for me were a tie 2014 and 2019 so interesting that they were both 14 are you kidding me that's on my list no no not at all oh we gotta we gotta argue over this 2014 was a pretty sad year i included mario kart 8 and the sims 4 and honestly those were both borderline i didn't even really want to include those and then infamous second son is kind of on my list only because the PS4 came out. And that was like one of the first games.

And there was nothing else really to play. So I played a lot of Infamous. And really the only game that year that I love, which I had marked as a masterpiece, is Dragon Age Inquisition. I was going to say, how does that not rank higher for you? 2014 is a bad year. I only had four games on the list and 2019 i legit haven't highlighted as one of my like top three years as 2019 no no 2014 oh 2014 oh no that's a terrible year okay all right let me read you why okay because this is one this is

funny that we're so different on this. In no particular order. Middle Earth, Shadow of Mordor, which the Middle Earth games. Not as good as the first. Are great. Dark Souls 2. I don't. Have you. You're not a Dark Souls fan.

But I played the first one and I played Bloodborne and I'm not crazy about that. Yeah. Dark Souls 2. Dragon Age Inquisitionition which was a phenomenal game hearthstone so i know you're not a card game see this is just straight up like different genres that but like i loved hearthstone i played the a ton of that far cry 4 which we just did our far cry episode and i told you and i said in that episode far cry 4 to me is better than far cry 5 destiny so this is that's the year that Destiny launched.

Destiny wasn't that great. Destiny 1 in particular. Elder Scrolls Online. So this is you finally got a chance to play the Elder Scrolls. That game was garbage, Josh. It's terrible. Elder Scrolls Online is not worth mentioning at all. It's terrible, but when it came out, it was very popular because it was finally

you were able to play the Elder Scrolls as an MMO. Yeah, I played it at release and and i hated it diablo 3 sure and then uh vanishing of ethan carter that was a great great game too yeah but you can't compare these to the likes of halo 2 half-life 2 this is a i didn't think it was the worst year there was some very good games that year and 2019 was honestly pretty poor i mean there were a lot i don't want it to sound like there were no good games but to me the only ones that really stuck out were apex legends bloodstained ritual of the night which again i loved castlevania symphony of the night and that was the spiritual successor and and Super Mario Maker 2. Those were the only three in the whole year that really stuck out. I don't mean to dive into another year,

but one year that I think had a lot of good titles, but no real major ones with the exception of one, was 2016. I'd be curious to see where that ranked on your graph. 2016 is going to rank very high because of Stardew Valley, One of my all-time favorite games. Overwatch. Uncharted 4. There's some good games. This is why. So to give a brief.

So in 2016, Overwatch, Titanfall 2, Dark Souls 3, The Witness, Uncharted 4, XCOM 2, No Man's Sky, which released. It was a terrible release, but it's a great game now. Pokemon Go. All right. You talk about a year. I mean, Pokemon Go changed the world for a little while. Deus Ex Mankind Divided. I love the Deus Ex games.

Stardew Valley. The Division. So the initial Division, which I thought was a really cool kind of new style of game. Gears of War 4. I'm not a big mobile game, but I know Clash Royale was super popular. And then Job Simulator. We were getting into the world of VR. Oh, get out of here.

Josh, these are not great games. You're mentioning average games. Job Simulator is an average game. Oh, I'm not saying these are all great games, but these are all games that are worth playing you know i mean so 2016 was a year that had a lot of like a pretty good stock of games i'm not saying it's my best by any means but it was a good year i feel like every year has seven or eight games like that so i i didn't even look at those i i was just trying to look at the top of the bunch i know we have different personalities

and different types of games that we're looking for. That one actually ranked pretty low for me that year. I think it's pretty crazy that 2015 is in my top two and 2015 is in your top two. Yeah, even though we had

different games listed. I mean, we had some overlap, but we had different games for why we loved it. Yeah, that was a great year for gaming. Yeah, so I feel like we're due. We need some really big games that everyone's playing

at the same time. We're due for it. Cyberpunk comes out this year. That's all we need. Maybe. Maybe it comes out this year. It might come out this year. Please let that game be everything that I'm really dreaming it is.

All right. I think I've decided. I've been looking at my list here. I've been looking at the years. We kind of touched on a couple other years, and I think that helped me out too. All right. What's the winner? 2015 or 1997? My official, I think, the best year in video games is 1997. There's just too many great games, dude. And I know that may not hit with some of our younger listeners,

because they're like, wait, what? You're young for a 51-year-old, Josh. I'm not 51. How dare you? Don't put yourself down with your age. I just, I mean, there's just too many good games. All right. That's my final answer. Just to be nitpicky, The Curse of Monkey Island was not a good Monkey Island game.

The first two of Monkey Islands were amazing, and they are far older. That was one of the goofy, cartoony ones that they made later wait am i thinking of escape from monkey island the the no you're probably thinking of the secret of monkey island or monkey island 2 le chuck's revenge those are the good ones oh dang it yeah so that was my only nitpick the yeah the whatever that one was called it was not as good still still a good year yeah all right well i'm sure we've we've bored our audience to death by listing game after game after game but thank you everyone for joining us it was fun you know talking a little bit about what years were the best in gaming and come join us again for our regular show which is structured you know quite a

bit differently than this but on on Monday, we will be talking about A Way Out. And also, come check us out on social media. You want to tell them a little bit about where they can find us, Josh? Yeah, Twitter at MultiplayerPod. We're on Instagram, MultiplayerPodcast. And I'm

going to post these years and some of the top games from the years. And we want to know what you guys think if we missed it and you think there's a gear that are you like man you guys are crazy how about this year like share it with us you know that's that's what we want to hear for sure if you want to agree with me that 1997 was the best gaming year by all means please do that so i can rub it in paul and todd's. We're going to need, we're going to need the baby boomers to come out. Yeah.

If you served in NAMM, come, come check out our Twitter. Come vote for Josh. Oh, oh goodness. Well, in any case,

I think there is something to be said that both of us picked years when we were in college. Yeah, that's true. So there's something to that. So if you're college-aged, enjoy those games now, because you will never have as much time to play them in the future. That's right. All right.

See you guys on Monday. Awesome. See you guys.