Video Gamers Podcast - [Bonus Round] Top 5 Funnest Games - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Gaming hosts Josh and Ryan are back with and we’re breaking down our personal top 5 funnest games. That’s right. Gaming is about having fun, and some video games stand out above the rest for us. Graphics and story are taking a back seat on this one as we talk about pure gameplay nirvana. The gaming takes will be hot, and the video game chat will be flowing as we dive into what’s sure to be an episode for the ages! Thanks to our LEGENDARY Supporter: Ole Jake (and to everyone who supports this podcast) 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

Paramount Plus. Behold! My name is Maximus Intertanius and I come to you with big stars in big dramas like Gladiator 2, Dexter, Original Sin, and 1923. bonus round episode of the Video Gamers Podcast. On this incredible episode, we're doing the impossible and breaking down our individual lists of the top five funnest games to play. That's right. Not the most memorable, not the best story, not the best of a genre, just pure, simple fun. What games get you smiling and despite graphics or anything else are just an absolute blast to play? Well, we're going to break it down for you.

But first, some introductions are in order. I am host josh and joining me he's like a mix of the glory days of halo multiplayer and four player split screen golden eye all in one it's right i am i'm not i'm not like millennial hybrid man i got the old school in me you know i played an atari i remember playing pong but i had all the good new stuff when i was you know at that youthful age so you know maybe you're like that born at the best time mix yeah i'm the old guy where it's like i remember playing pong yeah you know but it's like you you know that golden eye was a great game oh but you probably played more halo than you did golden eye this this is true yes yeah exactly so dude ryan i am super pumped for this episode we love doing these kind of top five lists for people um and you know we kind of

had the idea we've done you know our top five role-playing games our top five first person shooters and things like that you know and maybe this comes off the heels of playing astrobot but we were like what if we just do fun man yeah let's talk about games that are fun you know and then we kind of both like went that sounds like a good time let's do it let me ask you did you have a hard time coming up with your list um i had a hard time narrowing it down i will say that uh i have about uh 12 games sitting in front of me right now and i keep uh juggling like number four and number five off the list and back onto the list and stuff yeah uh so it's gonna be it's gonna be interesting that's for sure um you know we did want to start the episode with a little bit of housekeeping um first of all we have a new supporter that signed up over at multiplayer squad.com a huge shout out to

and i love this name dingus khan who signed up for rare so So dingus, thank you for supporting the show. Also hopped into our discord server right away, said hi, and has been chatting with people as well. So love to see that. And then, you know, Hey, if you want to help this podcast, if you've been a listener for a while and you are, you know, coming back time and time again for these episodes, or maybe this is your first episode and you're tuning in, go ahead and follow us on your podcast app. It's always a little bit different. I think on Apple, it's like a plus.

On Spotify, it's a follow. Whatever app you use, there is a button that says, hey, I want more from these guys. I want these episodes. So make sure you do that. And you can also leave us a five-star review as well. And if you want to be like Dingus and support this podcast, you can head over to MultiplayerSquad.com

and sign up for as little as five bucks a month. And it goes a long way in helping Ryan and I do what we do and keep this podcast going. Yeah, and I will say real quick, dingus is probably one of my favorite words ever to use. And I use it regularly. Dude, we call our dogs when our dogs are being dumb or our cats for that matter. Yeah, that's exactly it. And we're like, dude, why are you being a dingus right now? Oh, man, that's funny. So, all right, Ryan, we're just going dude, why are you being a dingus right now? Yeah. I love it. Oh, man. That's funny.

So, all right, Ryan, we're just going to jump into this because I am excited to talk about some fun video games. Now, I do want to preface this by saying these are our personal opinions. This is not us trying to come up with like the top five of all time or anything like that. So you are definitely going to get a glimpse into the type of gamers that we are. And I get it. This is intended to maybe make you go, what? Like that game's not that fun. They forgot about this one. Come on. Yeah, exactly. So you know

what? That's kind of the point. Everybody's going to have different things that really stand out to them. But that's kind of the fun of it. So if you disagree, that's awesome. Hop in our Discord server, tell us how stupid we are or how much you agree with me and how dumb Ryan's game takes are. We love seeing that stuff. So all right, Ryan, let's talk about the lists here for a second. Then we'll get into our first pick here. When you are looking at a game and you are saying, hey, what makes a game fun to me? We decided we're just going for sheer, pure fun of the gameplay, of the games that maybe stood out to us. Maybe it was games with friends in those moments that stood out in that regard. But how did you approach this? This was mostly of when I thought about what were the most powerful gaming moments to me where I just was, like you said with AstroBot,

pure joy. Where did I remember that first thing that came to my mind with what game you know where was i you know that type of thing and and i made my list based off that what memories popped right into my head immediately of of my kind of you know career if you will of gaming you know over my lifespan and and that's the way i made my list i that was the first thing that came to mind for me as well but then i kind of went you know what people probably don't want to hear me talk about everquest oh yeah and you're doing like the high end raids on everquest you know and it's like there are the there is the nostalgia factor when you think about fun right like i mentioned goldeneye at the top of the episode uh you know

when we did the intro for you. Goldeneye was an absolute blast, but there's a lot of people out there right now that don't know the golden age of Goldeneye. And so what I tried to do with my list was keep it a little bit more modern and a little bit more current. That's kind of hard. I mean, especially for us seasoned gamers, it was definitely difficult for me to not go back to the past and think about when I was in college and me and my buddies would all get together at my one buddy's, you know,

because he had his own house at that point. You know, it was his parents' house, right? But it was like, he got to live there. Yeah. And so when you had that friend that was like, dude, he's got his own place. We can go over there. We can all hang out. We can play games till the wee hours of the morning. Those memories definitely stand out to me. But I try to consciously stay away from the nostalgia

trap on these and go like, what games would I just sit and play for hours on end with a grin on my face and just absolutely having a blast for? So that's kind of how I approached mine. Why don't you start us off, Ryan? I'm very curious. I don't know. I will say that my list is in no particular order. It's really impossible for me to say this game is like number one.

So when we do a top five, at least for me, it it is like these are just the top games yeah this is all kind of the mashup up here for sure yeah um i mean mine same thing no particular order uh but what i'm gonna start out with is a game that you know it is it is fairly new i guess uh in its release it's it's the most recent release of this game it It may have been a while, but it is new-ish. What do you want to do? What does everybody want to do? They want to break the law. And where can you go and just break the law

with no ramifications in the real world? You can go play Grand Theft Auto V, right? GTA V. GTA V, baby. I mean, I had to come out of the the gate take this one before you snatched it up and just say what's better than just logging in playing as any of the characters or even going online doing heists robbing banks uh stealing cars racing you know parachuting like you could fight jets you can do everything in this game there's there's just limitless you know fun to be had and it's

just one of the funnest games i've ever kind of just just pure joy type game i love gta5 to me stands out because of the amount of different things that you can do yeah you know that's the kicker for me is it's like sometimes i would just steal a car and then just cruise around the outside of the map like on the highways and actually like not just crash into people like actually just highway driving yep you know and like i don't know why but that was like so cathartic at the time but then other times it's like i would just be a murderous jerk and just be inner city just plowing people down crashing into cars like jump out of one car carjack somebody out of another car like get out yeah and that was fun too man dude i was golfing i would go and i i'd have like regular golf rounds i'd go to the you know the fancy area and go play golf round as franklin or whatever and

and it was just like why am i doing this but i had i was just enjoyed it it was just so much fun no matter what you did it was just pure pure joy yeah i i love that pick sandbox games for me i sometimes get lost in and i kind of go like there's so many things to do that i don't know what to do yeah but gta 5 is is one of those exceptions where it you could do anything man and that definitely lent itself to some good times fantastic pick i'm gonna i'm gonna go a slightly different route and this is a game that people that have been listening for a while know I absolutely love. It is the game that I have the most playtime in as well. For me and people that like this game, and I get that this game is

not for everybody, but this game to me is probably the most pure fun I have had from a game due to its mechanics, due to the competitive nature, due to just how polished this game is. The ceiling in this game is infinite, in my opinion, so you always have something to kind of strive for. And that game is Rocket League. I remember when Rocket League came out that it was getting a ton of hype and people were saying, it's soccer with race cars. And I thought that sounded absurd. And I remember going like, I'm seeing so much hype about this game. I picked it up. I played it. I did the little like, oh yeah, the driving's good. You hit the ball. The first time that you score a goal and it does the goal explosion and your car just goes flying across the map. And it's like, this is like the most spectacular thing ever.

Something in my brain just triggered like this massive dopamine hit. And I was just like, oh my goodness. And I remember instantly, instantly texting Paul and Andy like right away. And I said, dude, I've been playing this game for 15 minutes. It might be one of the funnest games I have ever played. You guys need to get this. We need to play it together. And like good friends do, they both went, I'm in. And like 30 minutes later, the three of us were driving around trying to figure out how

to play Rocket League. And Andy and I stuck with it. Paul played it for quite a while and then kind of just fell off at that point. But Rocket League to me is some of the most fun that I've ever had in a video game. Andy, I mean, we've done tournaments. I have gotten up to champion rank in that game. I cannot think of a like more just pure fun. Like that's the point of this episode, right? But for me, that competition, the first time you do an aerial where you start to learn that you can fly and hit the ball while it's in the air. And like I said, the goal explosions,

the come from behind wins with 20 seconds left and you need two goals and it seems like an impossibility. And then you pull it off with zero seconds on the clock and you lose your mind. You know, like, oh, I freaking love it. Yes, yes it is no other game has made me just cheer and fist bump and like my family knows when i'm playing rocket league because i am screaming and yelling the neighborhood knows such a blast yeah it is so good dude no other game like in my opinion and the thing with it too is that uh there's there's you know there's layers to it there's two levels you know you have just playing the game, and then you have playing the game, the game within the game, to where, oh, cool, you scored. That's whatever.

But how did you score? What did you do to score? What did it look like when you scored? And that's what I see. I have nowhere near the time that you guys have in it. To me, I personally think it's cool. I get why people would love it. It just didn't click with

me as much as it would other people still had fun with it but um i can see the the enjoyment that people would have and then i see the layers within that game to where people are like doing some crazy stuff to score a goal and you're like oh oh that was that was pretty cool yeah yeah the the the ceiling on that game i think is, is infinite, to be honest. Like I said, the pros now are so far beyond what the pros were like two years ago that it's pretty mind-blowing, to be honest. All right, what's next on your list, Ryan? What you got? Oh, man.

So I'm going to go with a very, very recent one, One of this year that you played with me. I think this might be on my list too. You probably do. What are you looking for? You want connection. You want a bond with your teammates, your family,

and the cause. That cause is liberty, baby. Because I'm going for hell divers to democracy. I haven't played a game that, that we had all jumped in like that. And just, that's all we did for like weeks and weeks and weeks on. And it's,

it's Hey, you getting on, we're getting on. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We'd all hop on. We'd play as many matches as we could before we had to,

you know, go back to the real world. And it was just, I don't remember a time that it wasn't just fun and I wasn't laughing or screaming or anything crazy like that. You know, as we played, it's on my list, it's in my top five. I agree with you a hundred percent on this one. I don't, did you ever play the first hell divers? You didn't, I did not know. I did not either. So it's like, we had no idea what to actually expect from this game. I remember us seeing the trailers. I remember us being like, Oh my goodness, here's a multiplayer game that looks like it could be an absolute blast. And I remember all of us like rushing home from

work to hop into hell divers for like the first time to be like, guys, guys, let's do this. It's out. We can finally play. We dropped in with the drop pods, you know, and I turned and I shot Paul instantly because, you know, I heard there was friendly fire. And that is just when the antics started and they never stopped. And I cannot think of another game in recent memory that was that fun to just play with friends dude yeah i mean the situations the running from these hordes the killing your you and your stupid mortar bro the more i still i understand to this day i got so many kills and very very little team kills you guys just freaked out whenever you did die to a mortar. I know.

But I mean, even that was part of the fun. Oh, yeah. The arguments that you and I would get in over you using the mortar and it killing me and then me getting mad at you. You know, Helldivers 2 is one of those games. And it was one of the first ones to come to mind when we talked about this episode, where it was just an instant lock for me, because there are very few games like it where I can think of playing with friends, that many different hilarious situations, diving into the drop ship at the last second while you're the last guy alive and no reinforcements left and stuff like that. Absolutely fantastic game. It's funny because Helldivers 2 has kind of fallen off lately,

where in the sense that it's not getting as much hype, but I think it's just, I mean, I have like 140 hours in that game, man. Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, you put a ton in. And like we've said, if they come out with some new, you know, enemy types and new, you you know kind of crazy weapons i'm sure everyone would hop right it would take one match for us to all get sucked back in literally just released a big balancing patch today um where the is getting a lot of praise and people are

saying that they really fixed a lot of like the balance issues and like the anti-armor stuff for the bile titans and it's like the game just feels a lot more fun now which is crazy to me because i'm like dude the game was already fun exactly you know so we absolutely will dive back into hell divers 2 uh at some point i think it will be when they release the uh the new alien race on that one but i am kind of getting that itch too yeah oh yeah well that was one of mine as well ryan so um i'll tell you what i'll go with one real quick uh and then we'll take a a quick break here i'm gonna shout i've been shouting this game to the world forever in a day if i ever get the chance ryan i am gonna make you play this with me and yes i have already beaten this game three times oh okay um which is insanity

um but i will play it again just to play it with you and see your reaction to this game. And that is Remnant 2. Remnant 2 was my all, I mean, it was my favorite game from 2023. I mean, out of all the crazy good games that came out in 2023, Remnant 2 stands above all of them for me as far as this is the game that I had the most, just pure enjoyment playing. I have played it with Andy. I have played it with other friends. There's a guy that I work with that I recommended it to that is so enamored with remnant two. He was like, dude, I can't believe I didn't know this game existed. And it's one of my favorite games of all time. Now, like it legitimately is that fun. It is custom made for me, number one. I love the kind of looter

shooter, tough boss battles, almost like a Dark Souls with guns type game. The graphics are spectacular. It's polished to a level that most games aren't. The boss fights are some of the most memorable boss fights in gaming. It's the perfect challenge level. You get loot. There's secrets. I mean, I cannot tout this game enough to people. And I know that there's listeners that are like, oh, here goes Josh on his Remnant 2 monologue again. I'm going to cut it short. Trust me. Trust me. Remnant 2 is so underrated that you owe it to yourself as a gamer to check this game out and pick it up and play it. It is one of the best games I think I have ever played.

Like legitimately, it's that good. And I want to cover it on this show, Ryan, because I want to put it on my leaderboard and I want to see what you think about it, man. Well, we'll have to get the Force of Friend back, you know? So I don't know whose turn it is since Paul was the last one. one it's my turn so oh it's just your turn it's my turn even though i was i was just picked so i you know i guess dang it what i mean i was only picked three times in a row but yeah that's true it might be your turn but yes so that's like i said i'll

step off my remnant to soapbox well it is it is. Anyone that's been listening for a while knows that Josh doesn't finish video games. And for him to go, and I swear, like every time he's like, oh yeah, I'm playing it with this person now. Somebody new would get on and he'd be like,

yep, let's do fresh playthrough. He'd hop on, start, finish to end and play through a whole nother session of it, which blew my mind that you would play through a game not only once, but multiple times. So it must have been an all-timer for sure.

I mean, we're talking about funnest video games. When a game is that fun, I will keep playing it, because it's just that joy of the actual gameplay itself. And Remnant 2 is perfection in that regard for me. So, all right, Ryan, we're going to get to yours, but we're going to take a quick break and then we'll see what's up next for you. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa visa card the credit card that rewards your good financial habits earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month

level up from bill payer to reward slayer terms and conditions apply all right we are back you know what i'm having fun already right just talking about these games get me amped man i kind of i want it man. I kind of want to play Rocket League again. I kind of want to play Helldivers again. You'll play some games right now. I could do another run of Remnant 2 right now. So, all right, what do you got? What's up next for you?

So this one may be a little bit older. A little bit of the nostalgia. But it's one of those that you just got to mention because of the amount of time you put into it the the fun with friends the fun of just playing it overall i'm going with halo 3 oh i was gonna there's no way we were getting through this episode without halo getting mentioned exactly at some point it's just it's it's that kind of posts-end-of-high-school type for me where I had time and I had money and I could play games and buy a bunch of junk food and just hang out and veg out and just have fun. to where not only does it have one of the most amazing levels that I ever remember in a game with the Warthog run, where you're just driving over all the platforms as they fall. I remember failing at the end on purpose to just replay it again,

and we would just keep doing it just because of how much fun it was. And then just online play, multiplayer. The voice, I know we all hopped in recently on halo and uh played and just that that announcer voice is just it like is in my psyche in my brain of just you know it just hits the dopamine the second you hit you know like multi-kill you know and stuff so over already i know right dude uh i it's funny because halo i didn't even know which halo to say i just that's the hard part yeah halo like just halo multiplayer like even infinite right which i know that there's some criticism for halo infinite out there but we had probably a month where our our a lot of people from our discord

server were hopping in and playing hey that was awesome yeah we need to get that back yeah i'll be honest man like it's one of those things with the big team battles and you can have 16 people on a team and and you know it's just it's so accommodating to a lot of different people and we talk about like hell divers and remnant 2 and it's like a lot of the multiplayer games now you get like three people you know we're playing space marine 2 right now and it's like it's a lot of different people. And we talk about like Helldivers and Remnant 2, and it's like a lot of the multiplayer games now, you get like three people. We're playing Space Marine 2 right now, and it's like, it's a squad of three. You got four friends, too bad. But Halo was that game where it's like, oh, you got 16 friends? You guys all want to play together? Hop on in, man. Yeah. So they just did it right. Halo 3 also is widely considered the best of the Halo multiplayer as well. So fantastic choice on that one.

Love it. Plus, you got me thinking about that Warthog run at the end, too. I know. That's like best gaming moment. I want to just go play it now, you know, like, yeah. All right. This one is a little bit kind of I think some people are going to say, well, I didn't expect that. Right. But I think you'll understand when I bring this up.

There's an indie game that we told you about that you played with Paul and I, when we were hyping this game up. I know that like Ace of Shame has jumped in this game and played it with us as well. I think I know what it is. And this is a game called Risk of Rain 2. Yep. Okay. Now, most people have said, oh yeah, I've heard of Risk of Rain. I've never really looked into it. I never played the first Risk of Rain. It was a 2D game, apparently. Risk of Rain 2 is like a 3D sequel to that. I don't know what the secret sauce is for Risk of Rain 2, but when you play that game with a couple of friends and you start getting into these crazy builds where... Risk of Rain 2 is a roguelike game where the levels that you play are randomized in a certain... They're the same levels, but they're all randomized and you don't know which world you're going to wind up

popping into. And as you run around and shoot monsters, you collect these power-ups and you just try to get stronger. And the entire game is kind of on a timer. So the longer you go, the more difficult it gets. But it's one of those games where if you get the right build, you become like Super Saiyan, man. You become like the most unbelievably like destructive thing and whereas like the initial boss is the super hard fight by the end of the game if you get a good run every enemy you fight is a boss at that point and you are just tearing through things it is some of the most dumb fun that you can have in a game and And it's like, every time I start talking about Risk of Rain 2, I want to jump back in because it's like, you have different characters that you can unlock.

You have different builds that you can just, maybe you wind up putting together in a run and you're playing with your buddies and it's chaos. And it's like, oh no, I died. You got to stay alive for, you got to beat this level you know and it just it lends itself to that just pure fun graphically speaking it's not that impressive you know i mean there's i don't think it's meant to be you know it's it's not and that's the that's the kicker right because it's like what it does it does phenomenally well and it's funny because a lot of times we get people that say hey i got you know what's a good game that i can play with a friend that might be something I haven't played before? And it's one of the first games that we recommend to people because it's insanely fun to play. So again, if you have not

checked out Risk of Rain 2, again, you can watch the trailers. It really doesn't do it justice. But this is a game that we will continue shouting to the world is just unbelievable pure fun to play yeah and i and i again have nowhere near as much time that you guys have had on it but from the second i got in and got through those first couple matches of figuring out okay you have to stack this with this and that with that and then these are good together and and then you're like, Oh, okay, I'm mowing everything down now. And it doesn't get boring when you do that because it keeps throwing

different kinds of changes at you. But the combination of, of stacking those builds and it's always random and you're never sure what you're going to get and you're playing with your friends and it's just utter chaos all lines up to just be so, you know, so perfect. It's just, it's one of those, um,

that just really hits all the marks. And so there, there's no question that it should be up here on the list. Everybody that we have introduced this game to that has played this game feels exactly the same. And that tells me that's like a universal thing at that point. I don't know that anybody that's played this, that's just gone like, yeah, I mean, it was okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, you play that. You're like, oh, that was awesome. Yeah. All right. What's up next for you, Ryan?

What you got? So this is one that may be a little bit of surprise for you. And it's something that I've, you can call me Flipper if you want. I've done a big time 180. I know what this is. I think you know what it is. I'm not going to hold it against you, Ryan. Our former host, Paul, will be very, very excited to hear that I genuinely think Tears of the Kingdom is just pure fun.

It is one of the things with the ultra hand and the ability to go through the different kind of variations with the height of that game in the sky level and then underneath and then the main area. It's one of those that it's literally the sky is the limit. You can do and build anything. I still constantly see all these crazy things people are building, creating, using to just kill a few enemies or to traverse this land it's it's one of those things where if you just want to veg out and just have a good time tears of the kingdom is one of those games if you're playing it in that mindset to where it's like this is what i'm here for like it's it's beyond fun i i'm to the point where i'm not disagreeing with you guys on this one. I think because you are the, here's why you're the example, right?

We played tears of the kingdom. We knew we had to do the episode on it. We were, I was trying to beat this game, you know, which is, it's a big game. Oh, for sure. Hard to do and say, Hey, we're going to beat the tears of the kingdom in two weeks when you have, you know, full-time job and a family and all this other stuff too. So I do remember grinding Tears of the Kingdom and you did the same thing and you kind of felt very similar to me when we did the episode on it. And then you went back to it with your son and you kind of took your time, right? And you just said, hey, we started just kind of puttering

around and just experimenting and taking time and exploring. And some days we would just build these zone eye contraptions and stuff like that. And that's when you started to really say, you know what? I think I was wrong. I think this game's way better than I gave it credit for. I have not had that, like, let me play it again and just kind of take my time with it. But I can understand it because it gives you the tools to just say, go play. Yeah. Go play. Go outside. Go have a good time. Go play with your friends.

You know, here's some toys. Go figure it out, you know? Yeah. And it's one of those things where I get it because you can just sit around and be creative and put these contraptions together. Or you can do quests and look around the world and go explore and find things that you never found before and stuff like that. So I, I am not as opposed to tears of the kingdom being up there as I used to be, because I do think that it's one of those games where if you just relax with it and take your

time with it, you're going to enjoy it a lot more than I think what, what, what I did as far as just trying to grind through and see what the actual story and endgame stuff was. Exactly. And that's the big thing that I had said is I was just playing it to beat it. I was playing the game wrong. As weird as that is to say because it's a game based on individuality and play it how you want. We were playing it to just grind through, get the stuff done so we could talk about it but you can't really truly talk about it unless you kind of get to that level to where you're just experimenting and then once you start to do that it just opens up a world of possibilities and uh

made for just a completely different game that i've honestly i've fallen in love with i'm still nowhere near on high as it is as Paul is with the game, but it's one of my favorites for sure. I can appreciate that. I think I'm getting to the point where I'm not going to say I'm wrong, but I think that I can understand why people feel a lot differently than I did about it. And I do think if I ever revisited it at some point, I would probably feel closer to you, like how you feel about it. And I do think if I ever revisited it at some point, I would probably feel closer to you, like how you feel about it. Weapon durability is still the worst thing in a game ever in that one though. And I get that too, but that's not what ruined the game for me. I say ruined. I mean,

I still have it ranked fairly high. I just didn't think it's like the greatest game ever made like Paul did. But yeah, maybe one day, maybe one day I'll go back. Probably not. All right. So this next one, this is where things get really tough because it's like, I only have one choice left. I don't even have a single player game on this list. I think you could tell a trend that for me, some of the most fun is playing stuff with people. Some competition or some cooperation really stands out to me. I thought about including a single player game on this, and I will mention it in my honorable mentions, but I have to. There's a part of me that doesn't want to, but there's a part of me that just says I have to. And part of that is the nostalgia,

because there was a time when this game was the best game in the world. And our entire friend group was playing it. And we were having a blast every single night. And then I hated this game. I hated this game for the longest time because it was stupid and nobody knows how to play it properly. And I got to rely on teammates that are healing me or a tank that just flies off on his own. And then we all die and it's the worst game ever but now i'm back playing it with my kids and friends and it's like oh yeah this game's really fun again

this i don't feel good about this but i have to ryan if you haven't guessed it i'm sure you can in a second it's overwatch it's over and i mean mean, listen, I'm not proud of this one. I can't, you know, it's a little gross. There's a part of me that just kind of goes, but dude, I cannot deny the amount of just pure fun and enjoyment that I have gotten out of Overwatch over the years. And it has made me rage like no other game. Overwatch is the, listen, I'm a nice guy, right? I mean, we talk about not being toxic in gaming and being nice to,

Overwatch brings out the worst in me. I cannot help myself. I admit it publicly here and now, I am a troll when it comes to Overwatch. No. I don't understand why. It is the't understand why it is the only game it is the only game in the world that does this to me but i think it's because i have to rely on other people and if you are not doing what you're supposed to be doing then it makes me miserable

at the same time and so that's like the catch but dude there's no i mean like i said there's no other game that I have had multiple friend groups that have played. And when it's clicking, it is clicking on all cylinders. When you have a team that is playing together and people are doing what they're supposed to be doing and you are popping off and crushing the other team, or you pull out that last second victory, there's not much that compares to that in my mind. It has infinite replayability because of all the different characters and stuff like that and how the game's evolving. I'm just going to leave it there because it's Overwatch. And I know there's some people that are going like, ew, gross, Josh.

Like, what are you talking about, man? But I think Rocket League is my top played game and Overwatch is probably my second most played game. And it's because it's just fun, dude. That's the whole point of this. I would not keep coming back to this game if it wasn't just fun. What are you doing playing on Sega, bro? Leave the lobby. Go sell the system. Get off the game. Go outside, bro. I told my kids the other day, I said, I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm not going to troll anybody. I'm not going to complain. I'm not going to tell anybody to uninstall anymore. And then my kids are like, yeah, we'll believe it when we see it, dad. So I don't know. It's the best and the worst for me at the same time.

What are you, Ray Charles? I'm right here. Heal me. Do you not see me? Heal me. Yeah. It's one of those love-hate relationships for sure. But I have to give it a try love hate relationships for sure but i have to

i have to give it oh for sure yeah and i mean it is it was it was one of those games that was a top kind of all-timer had that that awesome uh not community but just just the people that got on and played they loved the game and so they played with passion and uh and you just you know it's one of those that some things change some things happen to it but that's cool that you loved the game. And so they played with passion and, uh, and you just, you know, it's one of those that some things change, some things happen to it, but that's cool that you were able to get back on it. And now you're playing with your kids and you found that kind of love for it

again. Um, yeah, hopefully, hopefully it keeps going and they kind of re reinvent the game. Maybe I reserved the right in two months to come back and say, I hate this game. And that was the worst choice I've ever made on an episode.

What was I thinking? All right, Ryan, what's your last one? Oh, man. So this was tough. When you're narrowing down kind of a topic like this, to get to five is pretty tricky. I know we'll have some honorable mentions and stuff. And when you're going through it, like, I mean,

I've got so many hours in Diablo 2 Would I say that that's my funnest game? No It's more misery than anything I keep playing this hardcore and I keep dying And restarting a character And then just suffering through it But I can't stop, I'm addicted

So that's not what we're looking for On this subject I guess this topic. I'm going to go with a very, very recent game. I'm going with Astro Bot, dude. I was wondering. You said it again, like pure joy. This game was just one of those where you just smile

the whole time you're playing it. Everything you do in the game you smile you laugh you go oh you go wow you know every kind of emotion up and down with air where and it's never it's never misery you know even when you die he like pops like a balloon and like deflates and goes you know and and puffs out and then you know you respawn so it's just it's one of those games that i know i rated it very high it's it's 0.1 below uh red dead redemption and god of war 2018 for me um two of the best games of all time in my opinion so it's way way up there and it is one maybe it's recency bias maybe it's not i just i think that it is one of the most fun games that you can just sit down and just have fun.

That's that's what if somebody asked me for that kind of interaction and that engagement, that's what I would direct them to. It was it was in serious consideration for me. Yeah, I kind of went. Is it just recency bias? But I don't think it is. I don't think it is either. We have seen, no lie. I have seen, I mean, probably at least a half a dozen people between social media and comments in our Discord server that said, I went out and bought Astro Bot because you guys hyped this game up so stinking

much. But then they went, but you're right. This game is incredible. I'm so glad i bought it it is an absolute blast to play so i i recency bias aside astrobot is just pure joy and fun to play um and i can't fault you for that at all and honestly i kind of agree with you but i just like i said i wanted to try to say like oh it's because we just got done playing it right well i took it so you didn't have to so now you have you have another slot because it does deserve to be mentioned, honestly. Oh, yeah. All right, Ryan, real quick, because we've already kind of gone long. Any honorable mentions for you that were real close to your list

but didn't quite make it into the top five? I mean, for some kind of old school nostalgia, I had more fun than I care to admit playing WoW. Yeah. Hopping on there a ton with Paul, especially when I was younger. Counterstrike. I used to go to internet cafes and meet up after school like almost every day with friends to go play um day defeat old school one uh newer stuff um geez i'm trying to think i mean even tony hawk was a big one tony hawk was in serious consideration for me dude that's a big one for sure i mean i loved i i genuinely did

too it's more of a chill fun but skyrim um was one of the big ones where i would just hop on and i'd always have fun never a bad time but it was kind of more of a like it's like the comforting fun yeah that kind of chill relaxed vibe hey it's it's raining and it's kind of moody out i'm gonna i'm gonna kick back and play some skyrim type thing but yeah i'm sure and i'm sure there's a ton we missed people are gonna freak out and let us know so if you got more honestly we love hearing that yeah oh absolutely you know you guys miss this this this and i'm like yeah we did you're right yeah some honorable mentions for me doom eternal is i tried to think of a single player game because literally every game on my list is multiplayer. Doom Eternal is perfection in a certain way.

Borderlands 2, stupid fun. Didn't quite make my top five, but that game with friends was really good. You mentioned World of Warcraft. I wasn't really into WoW, but I did put any MMO with friends. Oh, yeah. Because just that living in that world

and kind of progressing together is a lot of fun um and then shadow of war slash shadow of mordor those games were just insanely fun games to play you can pick those up for like two or three bucks now and i we just had i think it was disretory that played shadow of war i think and was like dude this game is so good even in 2024 yeah um so that's another one where it's just a really, really enjoyable time. Rust. Rust is the love-hate relationship. But man, when Rust peaks, it's so much fun.

But then it's the worst thing ever, too. But yeah, listen, Ryan, you said it. If you have games that you think are like, how did you guys not mention this? Let us know. Come tell us about it. Yeah, hit us up on social media. You can tag us at Video Gamers Pod. You can hop in our Discord server

and tell us how we forgot this most amazing game. The link to that is in the episode description. And, you know, if you enjoyed this episode and you want more like it, like I said,

follow the show, subscribe in your podcast app. Remember to leave us a five star review. It really does help. And honestly, one of the absolute best things you can do is just tell a friend, tell a gamer, you know, if somebody says, Hey, I'm looking for, you know, this and tell them, Hey, video gamers podcast, you can listen on your way to work while you're doing chores while you're at the gym. But it really does help get the word out as well. So one last note,

if you have not played any of the games that were on my list or Ryan's list, you are missing out big time. Oh yeah. Like big time, because these are some of the top, most just enjoyable games that you can play. So make sure you check those out.

Wait, did you give a fifth? Yeah. You did five? Well, we both, yeah, I did. We both had Helldivers was it. And then I did the real quick Remnant 2 thing. Gotcha. Okay. I know you probably expected me to go in for that. I thought you were building up to give me a finale here the whole time. I'm like, man, he's drawing this out. No, I was hitting that outro, man.

Okay. All right. I'm like, man, he's really, he's going all in on this, you know? Really building up that suspense. But no uh no but listen thank you for sticking around with us thank you for supporting the podcast thank you uh for tuning in we really do appreciate it means the world to us and until next time happy gaming see ya Bye.