Video Gamers Podcast - Bonus Round: Top 5 Gaming Moments - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

Gaming hosts Paul and Josh are back with another incredible Bonus Round. This week we dove into our Top 5 Gaming moments. Those moments in a video game that give you chills, make you cry, have your jaw hit the floor. Paul and Josh each talk about their top 5 gaming moments and share what made them so special. Get ready to laugh, get ready to cry and when it’s all done, share your favorite moments with us! Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Here on the show, we have two hosts. We are both dads and seasoned gamers. One of us is in our mid-30s. The other is in his early 40s, but I won't say which is which. Although, you might be able to guess because one of us confessed their favorite candies include bottle caps and score bars, but we'll leave it as a riddle. We'll let our listeners try to figure it out. But my name is Paul. I'm joined here by Josh. What's the word, hummingbird? Hey, shiny! Get off my lawn,

Paul! Wow, we're starting the show with the age references here, huh? You know, I wasn't sure how to introduce you, and when we created some new introductions for the show, which actually are people who support the show won't even hear the ads but you know you have confessed of your love for bottle caps which i still think is the funniest take of all time so i thought why not have a little bit of fun you get your trolley intro i'll just troll you a little bit in the introduction that's what it's probably

well deserved too but okay before we get back into this whole debate who doesn't love soda flavored sweet tarts that's all bottle caps are man they are perfectly fine i like basically all candy you'd be very hard pressed to find a candy that i would say i just won't eat but on the on the scale of candy bottle caps for me are just like a two out of 10. They're still good, but relatively speaking, they are so low on the list. That's terrible.

Licorice is the one candy I will not touch with a 10-foot pole. I cannot stand. I mean, black licorice. I know there's red licorice, but is that really licorice at that point? That's just like a red vine or something, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Red vines, I twizzlers i love the twizzler pull and peels are fantastic but i'm with you on black licorice i won't touch it like the old school good and plenties

that might be like the only candy i'm not willing to eat i feel like black licorice was like what they had during like world war one where there was just no option except for this really horrible tasting stuff. And if you wanted to say you had candy, you just were stuck with that. And so people were like, oh, I love licorice. I can't believe that the train is off the rails this much just two minutes into the show. I have a very distinct memory in my head of my mom telling me that my grandfather loved blackjack licorice gum. And she bought me a pack and I put the whole thing in my mouth thinking it was going to be like this delicious gum that my grandfather loved. And it is just ever since that moment, I can't stand licorice. I can't eat it. I don't even want to smell it. But that strong black

licorice gum was just so disgusting i never was able to get it out of my head that's when you realize that old people have no taste buds at all which is why they eat things like bottle caps and score bars yeah well these are the people who grew up in the 50s like all they ate was pot roast like you know the food was bland nothing was salted pot roast what's wrong with pot roast? Pot roast is fine, but that's all you ate in the 50s. I'm pretty sure it was all pot roast and steak. There was not a whole lot of variety. I don't think very many people were cooking Asian food or anything, at least here in America.

It was a lot of leave it to beaver. Meat and taters. Yeah, yeah. TV dinner style. Wow, Paul. Well, you know what? For a gaming podcast, man. Yeah. I think that's a record. A little off-brand. Yeah. All right. So before we jump into our bonus round content for today, you've got a review to read on the show? I do

have a review. We are inching ever closer to the 250 mark. The deal stands, man. It's summertime. I get everybody's on vacation. People are swimming. It's busy. Don't forget about your favorite podcast, man. We need your reviews. And honestly, here's why I'm reading this one, because we had the other one not very

long ago, where it was like, hey, I've been listening for like eight months now, and I'm finally getting around to leaving a review yeah and uh this review uh is it's better late than never is all i'm gonna say so this one comes in from vi ramey v v rami or it could just be seven ramey okay i'm thinking it's vi so vi ramey. And it's titled Happiness. I like where this is going. You guys are awesome. Been listening to y'all for months now. Y'all make me want to play all these games.

Sorry it took me so long to review. I listen to y'all at work, and it definitely helps the days go by. Number one, hello fellow Southerner. I say y'all as well, because I spent lots of time in Louisiana. That's the very first thing I was going to say. I was going to say, we all know where this person lives. That was a lot say y'all as well because i spent lots of time in louisiana so that's the very first thing i was gonna say i was gonna say we all know where this person lives that was a lot of y'alls it is hey but i'm down with the y'all for sure and then you know way to confess that

honestly i like that been listening for months finally got around to leaving the review this could be you fellow listener who has not left us a review yet. What are you waiting for? Yeah, we love our longtime listener, first-time reviewers. No shame in that whatsoever. That's right. All right. So for this episode here, this is a bonus round episode. We do these every other Monday where we dive into some kind of topic or we answer listener questions. We do something that's not a deep dive episode, which we do on those weeks in between bonus rounds. And recently we started doing this thing where we each make a top five list

of a certain gaming topic. And then we kind of just bounce back and forth. We share our lists. We talk about it. You had the idea for the topic this week, Josh. Why don't you tell the people what this bonus round is about? I'm excited for this one. And it's not because I picked this one, Paul. I mean, normally I try to hype up my ideas and squelch yours, you know.

I'm just I'm excited on this one, man. And we're talking top five video game moments, like in-game moments. Not like, hey, that one time I got the first choice of loot from that WoW raid or something like that. These are moments that happen in a video game that stand out to you. I always joke around that they give me chills, like the goosebumps on my arms. I know that something is hitting home, whether it's a song or a game moment, if I get goosebumps on my arms. And so I think all of these moments did that for me. Or I just look at the screen and I go like, no way. And I legitimately just exclaim in awe about what's happening. And so that's the idea for tonight.

Yeah, so these might be major plot reveals. It could be the death of a certain character. It can be a surprise ending. I think it's fair to say we're going to have a lot of spoilers about a lot of games. So I think we'll do our best to start talking about the game in general, and then we'll start to dive into some of those spoilers. But I don't think we're talking about anything, or at least on my list, nothing that's terribly spoiler-ish from the last year or two. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty confident in saying that. So I don't think any

of my stuff will be all that crazy anyway there's gonna be some mega spoilers but yeah none of my games are in the last year or so um so don't tune out just because of that and and again we'll mention the game first so if it's like hey i haven't played that i don't want to hear anything about it you know you can just skip forward on that part but i yeah i'm excited on this one man one, man. It was fun to go down memory lane. And then I actually, I was telling you before we started recording that I actually went and rewatched the gameplay footage from these moments.

And then in every one of them, I was just enthralled again, where I was like, oh, oh yeah, this is the best, man. Yeah, I think a lot of what ended up on my list are plot reveals that you just can't believe that this game did it. That's a lot of mine. Mine were just moments where my jaw dropped to the floor and it was like, what? They did that?

And so that's a lot of what made up my list here. So I don't think we have these specifically ordered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We just each came up with our top five. I don't think we'll be giving them in any specific order. And then if time allows, as always, we've got some honorable mentions. So how about you hit us up with the first one, Josh? What you got as one of your top five gaming moments? All right.

I got to say this too. I love these top five lists. We've only been doing them for i don't know this is like what the third episode that we've done like a top five but it's so it might be our second but is it it's so fun because like i love that the people that are listening right now are instantly like in their minds are picking out like oh yeah that's an awesome game moment that's an awesome game moment and it's like are we gonna see eye to Are they going to have like terrible takes? You know, is like, I just, I'd love to hear about people's lists too. So after the show, if you want to hop in the discord server and tell us what your top five list is, come join us in discord. And then,

you know, I'll either agree with you or I'll tell you why that's a terrible choice. But all right. In no particular order. This is actually just kind of how I wrote them down. All right. So this first moment, I think I've mentioned this one before. You're not going to get this one, Paul, because you did not finish this game. But the game is Jedi Fallen Order. Now, I already know what moment you're talking about, but go ahead.

I am on record for saying that I think Jedi Fallen Order was game of the year material, and it came out of nowhere. I mean, people knew that this game was coming out. It wound up being way, way better than I ever expected it to be. Now, I am a huge Star Wars fan, but I don't think you have to be to appreciate Jedi Fallen Order. But in this game, I got to set it up a little bit, right? So you are Cal Kestis. You start off not even realizing you have the Force in the beginning of the game. And then throughout the game, you slowly get

stronger. And you're slowly developing your Force powers and your lightsaber abilities. And towards the end of the game, you're pretty much like a badass Jedi at that point, right? You really do spend all game just getting stronger and stronger and then realizing like, man, this guy, he's good, right? And the final boss in the game is this lady called Inquisitor Trilla. There's a whole bunch of plot that goes into all of this, but the final fight with her is super tough. I tried this fight probably 20 times. Now, I played it on a hard difficulty level too, but I just remember I was so excited when I finally beat this boss. I knew it was the last boss of the game.

And there's some talking between characters. You have a friendly character that knows Trilla and is saying, I failed you. She thinks she kind of pushed her to the dark side. So there's this whole emotional moment going on. And you're trying to get her to turn back towards the light. And then all of a sudden in the background, Paul, some steam starts to rise. Which happens, right? Star Wars space stations are very steamy.

Sure. Yeah. And then all of a sudden through the steam comes freaking comes darth vader right he has not been mentioned he has not been talked about this game does no mention of darth vader at all up until this moment and he comes walking up and he just ices trilla because she failed and then you you're like, okay, the one lady, your companion is like, you need to go now because she knows nobody's messing with Darth Vader. You actually take a couple swings at him. The game actually, you think you're about to fight

Darth Vader, right? You take a couple swings. He blocks him like it's nothing. You try to force power something. And without even looking, man, he just locks that thing into place. You instantly realize in about 20 seconds, oh no, I'm toast. And then you just run because that's all you can do. But that moment in this game where Vader comes out and you realize you are a bug compared to Darth Vader. And you've spent all game, man, all game getting stronger and stronger. And then you realize the difference.

I just remember being blown away. It was the coolest reveal in a game. It was the coolest set piece because you actually have to run from him and he comes after you for a little bit. And oh man, can you tell I was hyped up? I rewatched the cutscene and everything, and I got pumped all over again for it. I have seen that sequence on YouTube,

because you did mention it once before, and I went and watched it. But yeah, I did not get that far in my playthrough. But I'm really glad that they handled Darth Vader that way, because it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for this newly found Jedi power to be able to use the force and then fight Darth Vader. It wouldn't make any sense. So I really like the way that they handle that, because if Luke couldn't fight Vader after lifting some rocks on Dagobah, then neither should Cal. So it kind of makes sense. All right, so we got Josh's first pick there. I am taking a look at my five, trying to decide which one to talk about first. I think I'm going to talk about Portal 1. Ooh, great game.

Now, we are both on record loving Portal. I think most people who think about a major event in Portal probably thinks about opening the portal to the moon in Portal 2. It was a consideration for me, I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, yeah, I thought about it. But for me, I thought that there were two, so I'm kind of cheating here, I'm doing a two for one in Portal 1. But I loved how in Portal, they set this whole game up where you wake up and GLaDOS is the AI robot who's having you run all these trials on these preset courses that have all these puzzles to solve. And you start to realize that GLaDOS is evil. And then all of a sudden, you start portaling your way out of the trials. Like, you go off into a stairwell behind,

and then you're up in the rafters, and then you start reading these notes that other people have left and you start to kind of piece all the parts of the puzzle together and i remember that that was such an exhilarating moment because you actually break out of the trials and you start running around in the background and that i thought was so exciting and so clever to do in the game and then the two for one, along with that, is the fact that when you do end up fighting GLaDOS at the very end, you basically kind of disassemble her piece by piece. You throw all these pieces into a fire. And then it goes to the closing credits. And I know that we've talked about this on the show before but the closing song is sung by glados providing commentary on the experience of the game and how she talks about even though you destroyed her that she still

won because it was all of the research that needed to be done and all of that is complete you played your role in running all these calculations and numbers. And ultimately, she is still alive. And ultimately, she won. And that game just fused so many wonderful things together. The humor, the plot reveals, the gameplay, everything about it was so great. And then even that closing song, Still Alive, is a great song. Every once in a while, I'll play it on my Google Home because it's just so great. It is really amazing. Yeah, I had to give a shout out to Portal.

It's funny, man, because the moon thing was the one, like I thought about that one as like one of those crazy moments because the game doesn't really tell you like, hey, shoot this portal at the moon. It's just that you can see the moon and everything that's going on. And it's like somehow naturally your brain just goes like i wonder you know and then that works but i know exactly what you're talking about you're you're

in just that laboratory setting in portal and then all of a sudden it's like peeling back the curtain a little bit and you start to see what's going on behind the scenes. And it really does just add to like the mystery of that game. It's part of what sets it apart so much. And I remember those levels and it is, man, it's incredible because you just, you're spending all this time doing these tasks and everything that GLaDOS has you doing. But then it's like, you kind of get behind the curtain. And if I remember right, she doesn't know you're back there, does she? Well, she definitely eventually figures it out, because she will make little sarcastic comments. Like, don't even look over there, don't go over there.

And of course, that's exactly what you have to do. But yeah, it's almost like where you finally get a one-up on GLaDOS. And that feels really exciting, and you can't wait to see where it goes next yeah so i know we both love portal had to throw that one out there those games such masterpieces man they really are oh man all right um okay so next one for me all right let's go with the the mega, right? Since you just talked about reveals a little bit. The game is called Bioshock. Okay. Now, it's a little bit older now.

I don't remember when the initial Bioshock came out. I feel like it was probably around 2010 or so, maybe even older than that. But Bioshock was great. The gameplay was great. It set this world of rapture that's underwater. And you slowly discover that things have gone crazy. But the whole time you're playing Bioshock and you're in Rapture, you've got this friendly Irish fellow named Atlas that's just talking in your ear. He's keeping you company. He's telling you what's going on. He's super polite. He's always saying,

Hey, would you kindly go over here and check that out? Would you kindly go over there and talk to that person? There's a big bad guy by the name of Andrew Ryan. That's kind of the guy that owns or controls all of Rapture. And, you know, he's like a big tyrant and stuff. So this Atlas guy really doesn't like Andrew Ryan. And they start to kind of quarrel and bicker and stuff like that. And ultimately, in Bioshock, you go to find Andrew Ryan and kill him. But when you do that,

all of a sudden, your friendly Irish buddy Atlas, his entire demeanor changes, his voice changes, and he starts to reveal to you that he is actually a guy by the name of Frank Fontaine that had a falling out with Andrew Ryan long ago. And that's when this big reveal happens that this guy has been tricking you the entire game. And that part alone is mind-blowing because that is like the big aha moment, Right. And you're like, dude, I can't believe like I thought you were friends with me and he has been mind controlling you this entire time because every time he says would you kindly that is the trigger to force you to do whatever he wants you to do so this is almost like winter soldier type stuff right like you're kind of your person your own person until he says, would you kindly?

And in the game, you don't even realize it. Like you go to do, he's like, Hey, would you kindly go over there? And you do it because you're like, yeah, sure. That sounds like a great idea. And then it's like, you realize he's been forcing you to do this stuff the entire game. It was one of the most mind-blowing game reveals, I think, ever. It's one of those things like the ending of The Sixth Sense, and then when you go back and you play Bioshock again, you really appreciate it even more because you see all those things along the way. By the way, is this why you named your dog Atlas? Is he named after Atlas from Bioshock? It is not. No. I love love mythology so Atlas actually got named after the Atlas that holds up the planet yeah sure yeah that is a good one I did enjoy Bioshock I

don't think I finished the second one and then I jumped back in for number three it was one of those series that I always liked I just I know I did not finish all three but I know the first one I did and that was quite a shock. Yeah, that moment three has a really amazing moment too. Bioshock Infinite has another one of those aha moments at the end. I don't remember a moment in two, to be honest. Bioshock 2 doesn't really stand out to me for whatever reason, but I do know Infinite has one. So maybe if we get into the honorable mentions, I'll talk about that one a

little bit. But that series just does such a good job of messing with your mind. And even when you're expecting it, by the third one, you know, hey, there's something that's going to be going on, but you can't foresee it. And so when they start to put the puzzle together, that's the part that I love because you can see the flashbacks throughout the game and realize that all of these things have been happening, but you just didn't know any of it until it's revealed to you. And it's perfect storytelling. Yeah, it's very cleverly written. And yeah, that reveal definitely stands out. All right. The second one that I have on my list, I'm going to go with a game that you and I have

both played. We've played it together. And this is not like a story reveal, but it's more of the first time that you see something in a game. And I wanted to talk about Valheim because we love Valheim. We just picked up Tribes of Midgard. We're going to be playing that here later tonight. And it really kind of put me back in the Valheim mood. And I really just wanted an excuse to talk about it. But when we first started playing Valheim, you, me, and Todd did not do really any research. We had just heard it was great. We said, all right, we're going to

jump in blind. We're just going to buy it. And we started playing. And as soon as we started venturing away from our camp, the first time that I ran into a troll was one of those mind-blowing experiences. It was so great. And we were all together on Discord, and I remember just yelling, you guys have to come here, there's a giant troll. And I remember I was walking up an incline, and then I hit the very top of this hill and i just see this massive blue troll head and as i keep going up all the way to the crest i can see the full troll's body these trolls are what like 40 50 times the the size and the mass of your character i mean they are enormous yeah that part i'll tell you what you were the first one to see it, but I remember you

getting super excited and you were like, guys, come here now. I need your help. There's this huge thing. I think it's a troll. Maybe it's a giant. And then I just remember thinking, yes, they did it. Because at that point, you'd only ever seen the little graylings. Or like the deer.

Right, yeah. Part of you was just like, how awesome would it be in this game if they had really cool monsters or these things that you had to be really scared of? Maybe they're kind of rare. And when you started yelling about that, I just remember getting so excited because it was like that moment where i realized valheim is going to be incredible like if they're putting this stuff in the game what else is there gonna be right like and and it was awesome and we we we did we all swarmed that guy man like we were plinking him

with arrows and we did we killed him yeah it was a long fight though i remember i didn't even want to fight it at first i assumed we would be too weak i, it was a long fight, though. I remember I didn't even want to fight it at first. I assumed we would be too weak. I think it was Todd. Todd just opened with arrows. He's like, all right, let's fight this guy and just start zinging arrows. And I remember that we had not very good weapons. It was a couple minute long fight.

But yeah, I thought that was such a fun moment. It really was just like that childhood glee of exploring and running into something that was almost like the scene in Jurassic Park when they first see the, you know, whatever they're called, the brachiosauruses or whatever. That was how I felt seeing the troll. I did not expect to see anything of that size and stature. And the fact that we fought it and defeated it and then looted its head and threw it on the ground and had this massive troll head in our base it was hilarious i had to include it it was either going to be that or the first time you chop a tree and it falls on you and you die oh my goodness i was i was gonna pick one or the other but i felt like the troll reveal was the the better one that was the

better one in the sense that it gave you an idea of what this game was going for. The tree, the chopping the tree and having it fall on you and kill you was absolutely hilarious. And that's when you realize like the developers like cared about their game and wanted like little things like that, you know, in it that were like, Hey, if a tree falls on you, guess what? You're dead. Yeah. Like in real life, right? Yeah. You gotta be careful. Yeah. So, so oh what a good moment dude see that's what i didn't even think about that and then when you started talking about it like i just got the fuzzies like right away because it was like yeah man that was great it was kind of like the sea serpent out at sea now you weren't there for that one but that was

another moment see this is what made valheim so great was you know we've told the story of todd and i sailing out at sea for an hour and then you're a little terrified. Yeah. On a tiny little raft. And then me Googling furiously, are there monsters at sea? And people were like, yes, there are. And then I just, I was convinced we were going to die the whole time.

But the first time we saw one, I was like, I told you. So yeah, Valheim was just such a treasure. The way I started making my list of top moments, I just went to Steam and I glanced at every game and just thought, what's the first thing I think of? And is that something that I'd want to talk about? And when I saw Valheim, I thought about the trolls, the trees, the first time we fought a goblin.

Like, that game was so fun, and I think a lot of it was that we did not know what to expect. Jumping in blind to games is just sometimes the best way to do it. It really is. I mean, there's so many moments in Valheim. The stupid death-skeetos. You know, like you said, the goblins. Me getting impaled by the goblins.

How many corpse runs did we have to do because of those stupid mosquitoes? Oh, yeah. Oh, goodness. The death-skeetos. That's what they're called, right? Yeah, right. All right. Well, we're almost halfway in the episode. Let's just take a quick break and we'll be back after hearing from one of our sponsors. All right, Paul, you know, we love our listeners, so it's time to help them out. You see that guy listening? Yeah, that guy plays games using his earpods from his phone. I know, it's a travesty. Well, we're here to help out. Head over to

multiplayerpodcast.com slash logitech and see what you've been missing out on. From mice to keyboards to headsets and everything in between, they've got something that's sure to improve your gaming experience. The best part is, they won't break the bank. And since they're extremely high quality, you know, they're going to last. Do yourself a favor and improve your game over at multiplayerpodcast.com slash Logitech. All right, Josh, I think we've each covered two thus far. What you got for your third top gaming moment?

Oh boy, I think I'm going to save this next one. So let me hop it. All right. Here's a moment. If you know it, you know it is all I'm going to say. And the game is Halo 3. Okay. Okay. It is the ending sequence of Halo 3. Now to set the stage a little bit in Halo 3, this is when you have discovered that the Flood is in existence. You've discovered the purpose of the rings, the Halos, right? And those are weapons to wipe out the Flood, to destroy all the life in the universe or galaxy or whatever it is. And you're on this ring, but it's not 100% complete. But you're like, hey, we've got to light this ring. The Flood are overrunning everything.

And at the end of this Halo, you hop in a warthog, you've activated the ring, and you are fleeing for your life. And I cannot think of a more spectacular moment or series of moments in a video game than when you are madly trying to just drive this warthog as fast as you possibly can, there are things blowing up around you. There are just hordes of Covenant everywhere. You're driving over them. You're splatting them. You're firing at them from the back seat. These panels, because you're on part of the ring, are blowing next to you you're ramping things you're going through tunnels the halo music is just blaring you know it's just a dude like i'm getting amped just talking about it and did you play did you play this i see i don't you were playstation at

the time right you didn't have a xbox then did you i this was on the 360 uh yes i believe yeah it was 360 i i played all the halos except for halo 5 and the thing for me is i would always play through the campaign once and then spend a thousand hours or more in the multiplayer i don't think i could tell you a single thing about any of the Halo storylines. It was kind of in one ear, out the other. I know I enjoyed them, but for me, it was just always so much about multiplayer. I never returned to the campaigns. Nothing really stuck. I know I beat Halo 3. I have zero memory of this moment. What? Even though I have heard both you and Todd talk about this moment, jumping with the Warthog and all that, I have no personal memory of it.

I don't know why. You probably just blocked it out from sheer awesomeness, Paul. It could be. I mean, I only have so much Halo room. I probably just replaced it all with memories of sniping in Halo 1. I just have thousands of hours sniping in Halo 1, and that's really what I remember most. Yeah. It was one of those moments. Halo had two of those moments for me. Yes, the story was a little weird when you first find out about the flood and

all that stuff. But when you very first step out onto the Halo ring in the first Halo, and it's all this green lush area and stuff like that's a really really cool moment and then in halo 3 this escape sequence it's like a five minute sequence and it is white knuckle holding the controller there's just a thousand things going on at once and the whole time you're trying not to get distracted by the the the stuff that's exploding and the hordes of Covenant. And you've got to drive, man. You've got to just floor it.

And you've got to avoid these holes in the ground where these panels have collapsed and stuff like that. It's just an amazing sequence in the game. And it just stands out to me. That was one of those things when I was thinking about it. I was like, dude, the ending of Halo 3 is incredible. I wish I remembered it. It makes me want to go back and play Halo like I I can't wait for Halo Infinite to come out I will be really tempted to pay for the campaign even though the multiplayer is free because I love single-player campaigns like that and I I think it's just too much time. I just don't remember. So yeah, I wish I did though.

All right, for my next game that I'm gonna talk about, this one might be a little bit of a shorter story, but did you ever play Telltale's The Walking Dead? Oh my goodness, Paul. Is this on your list? Is this the Clemon Lee? Yes, this is Clemon Lee. It's on my list!

Is it? It's on my list! That's the one i said i was gonna save do you want me to save it for later then no no you go for it because we'll just do it we'll do a two for one here so the telltale games i think most people are at least aware of what they are but basically they take these other ips and they make these games where you play inside that world you get to make a lot of decisions i even made a joke not that long ago in discord where i don't even remember someone made some kind of joke and i typed paul will remember that and that was like my throwback joke to the telltale games and the walking dead i loved season one of The Walking Dead so much.

I hated and loved the various seasons of that show. That show was simultaneously the best and the worst show on TV. When they were stuck on the farm with Herschel for a whole season, it was terrible. I know. Yeah. So I had this whole love of The Walking Dead. I am on record for how much I love games that are more like interactive movies.

Spoiler alert, I got one of those coming up later also. But The Walking Dead was one that was so fun, and it put you in such a sad, depressing world, which is normally not my jam. But the game has decisions that matter, and they have implications on the rest of the game and this poor girl clementine who has lost her parents in this zombie outbreak ends up with lee as a father figure lee ends up being bitten and is going to turn and you have these closing moments between clem and lee where they both know that Lee's going to turn and you

have a decision and now Clem is a little girl like I don't remember how old she is cute sweet little girl man she's like trying yeah she's like nine years old she's trying so hard to be like the good kid in the game and to be strong and And she's just been beaten down. I mean, like you said, man, she watched her parents die. She's all by herself. You wind up picking her up in this game. It's tragic what this poor girl has gone through. Yeah. And then Clem, who's this awesome guy, winds up, like you said, winds up being a father figure to her, winds up taking care of her. Throughout this whole game, they get closer and closer. This is straight up by the end of the game, father-daughter bond that they have. Yeah. And so your choice is whether Clementine

is going to shoot Lee, and that way he will be spared his body being used as a zombie to go kill others, or if she's going to turn away and just leave him and let him be. And I think when you play it, you know that the right answer is to shoot Lee. And the game knows that you know that, but they know that you're going to be heartbroken over that decision. But you have to do it. Like, everyone I know shot and killed him. But it is one of the saddest moments in gaming. You do not see it coming. It is just absolutely heart-wrenching.

And I think it's one of those moments that anyone who played it cannot forget that moment. This is on my list as well, Paul. It's so funny because I even said when we started talking about this topic, I was like, I don't think we're going to have any overlap. And I was like, maybe there's one game. I said, I don't even know if you've played it. And this is the one that I kept saying, maybe one, right? Yeah. And I mean, this is one of the first things that jumped out when I started thinking about video game moments, because this will legit make you cry. I don't know that I have

ever felt so emotional in a video game. And I love these. I've talked about Firewatch as a great little story. It doesn't have those kind of moments. But I don't know that there is another game that has a moment like this. There are characters that die in video games and they're dramatic and stuff. But in The Walking Dead, when you realize what has happened to Lee and that it got bit and Clementine realizes it, the whole tone just changes. And for the next, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes of this game, you're not in a safe place. So you have to get to safety. And he got bit. And so it's like they have to focus on just getting somewhere safe. But then when they do, that's when the realization hits that Lee is gone, man. You got bit. There's no turning back from that, right?

There's no cure. Yeah, nothing you can do. Exactly. And that's when you're watching and you're just like, oh my goodness, man, this isn't happening. And then you start to realize that Clementine has to deal with this. And it's like, you just start welling up inside man and clems or lee is like going like he's telling her hey you have to take me like you have to end this you have to shoot me and she's

crying and she's like no and lee just looks so heartbroken that it's like he's leaving her and can't protect her and can't protect her exactly and dude't protect her, exactly. And dude, I can't, I'm getting sad just thinking about it, man. Because video games do such a good job at instilling excitement and exhilaration, and you're used to that kind of adrenaline pump from the action that when a game hits you in the feels like that, sometimes you just aren't ready. Because this is a scene that's in every zombie movie that's ever been made, right? Every zombie movie you see, someone has blood that drips in their eye. If it's 28 Days Later, or if it's something else where a character gets bit and they hide

the bite with their jeans or their long-sleeved t-shirt they're gonna turn that's in everything but for whatever reason in the walking dead it's animated you don't really expect it you don't expect one of the main characters to die in that kind of fashion so it really does kind of creep up on you even though it is a very common trope but it is very memorable and the the real kicker on this is is it's it's like you said you have a choice to make and both choices absolutely suck like that's the thing because you play at like you make the decisions as the characters in this game and so you have to decide are you gonna shoot lee or are you just gonna turn around and walk away and it's not that you're turning around and walking away out of like any kind of spite it's that Clem loves him, man. That's her father figure. He's done everything he

can for her. And so to bring herself to shoot him is almost impossible. And that's the thing in the game is you're like, dude, I don't want to make either one of these decisions, but you have to. And it's like you said, everybody knows like, yeah, you're supposed to shoot them, but you don't have to. And if you don't, like, you know, she turns around and she walks away and that's its own thing. And if you do shoot them, so it actually affects like the ending of the game as well, which I love. And that just follows like how great the Telltale games are because your choices matter. And so you will see what happens later on in her life if she chooses to shoot them or what happens if she just walks away. Yeah.

Oh, man. That's so funny that we both had that. But man, what a that game's a masterpiece of of storytelling and emotions. And I guess I don't think a game's ever made me cry before, but that one got me like teary-eyed, man. It's way better than any season of the show, which is really saying something because when the show worked, it worked really well.

But I still think that this Telltale series on The Walking Dead was just better. But poor Clementine, man. What a way to traumatize a kid, you know? And me. She's seen a lot by nine years old all right so even though we both had it josh go ahead you're up next what else you have on your list so this is my last uh official one i've dug into this well before a little bit paul i have not done anything to hide

my love of this game but this is one of the reasons why I absolutely love this game so much. And that game is God of War. Okay. Okay. Now I know you're going to like, okay, wait a minute. The newest one, the 2018 PlayStation 4 God of War. And I'm a huge mythology fan. I, you know, I talked about the God of War series was one of my favorite gaming series. So I have a lot invested into this personally. Right. But in the 2018, so this is the most recent game that I'll talk about.

So if you haven't played God of War and you don't want any spoilers at all, skip ahead just a little bit. Um, in God of War, I love the fact that Kratos is a father to his son. Right. And he might just refer to him as boy, right? This whole time.

But in the game... Was that his name? Atreus? Atreus. Atreus, right? Yeah, yeah. It's really... Well, I don't want to give away too much, but...

So at one point, you're fighting this guy, and the boy starts to go crazy, but then he passes out and he gets really, really ill, right? Like deathly ill. And you wind up rushing him to Freya, who's another God that can heal him. That's, you know, Kratos is kind of trusting her. And she says, Hey, look, you have to go to Helheim, which is the land of the dead, right? To get like the bridge keepers heart, or she needs something, I don't remember the exact details, to heal your kid. And so obviously, you're Kratos, you're going to do what you need to do. But she tells you, hey, this is the land of the dead in Norse mythology.

And she says, are you familiar with the land of the dead? And it's this one little quip, right, where Kratos says, not here. Because he tears up the land of the dead in his own in his own mythology um but she tells him like hey your axe is going to be useless because you know he's got the leviathan axe but in the old god of war he has the blades of chaos which are the blades that are at the ends of the chains and all that stuff they're're super awesome weapons. But people always wondered, hey, where are these? Why does he have this axe now? The axe is cool. Don't get me wrong. But she says, hey, your axe is going to be worthless. You're going to need to find another

weapon. And you just grunt and you're like, okay. So then you go home. There's this long boat ride. Athena's messing with your head a little bit you go into your little cottage you start digging under the floor you pull out this little bundle and that's when like the realization starts to hit and that's when you're like oh no is it no because they don't mention them at all in the whole game right like you just think hey he's turned he's got a completely new life like that's the past the past is is the past. And he pulls out this bundle, and he slowly unwraps it, and it's the Blades of Chaos. And that's when you're like, oh, yes! Right? You just start getting excited.

And then Athena's kind of talking to him, and he's slowly wrapping the chains around his forearms. Because if you remember, they were fused to his forearms, which is why he wears the bandages right there. So he's wrapping these chains around his forearms, this big, long process. And then it's just like, you go outside, you kind of say something to Athena. You go outside, and there's this instant fight where you just get to put these things to use. And you wail the crap out of everyone around you. And you wreck house, man.

You really do. And it's like, look, I got chill bumps right now, right? Because it's just like, what a moment in a video game to get you amped up the realization that what's about to happen. Now, there's some really cool dialogue and plot points that go into that whole thing, too. So that really helps with the reveal and the process. And then to go outside your house and just wreck it, man, like instantly to put these things to use.

It was one of the coolest moments in a video game to me. I, I love it, man. I just got so excited talking about it all over again. My memory might be wrong, but I, I think they also play a lot of really Epic music as he uncovers the chains

and starts to bind them back to himself. And so I remember it just being such an epic moment in that game. It was definitely a turning point. And it was really cool, especially having played the earlier God of War trilogy where you understand exactly what's happening. Yeah. There's so much to it. I mean, it's the dad doing what he's got to do to go save his son. I love it because it plays into the why I love Kratos in that game so much, even though people joke that he doesn't have a ton of dialogue and stuff like that. Or personality.

Yeah. But it's a glimpse into him. And if you've played as him throughout this whole series, it's just such a dynamic thing. That was one of those moments that i instantly was like oh man if i'm gonna talk about something i'm talking about that point because i'm jonesing to play it again now yeah yeah such a cool moment all right so i guess i have my last two and then we'll see if we have time for honorable mentions this is one where we're gonna have to just nerd out a little bit about

some fantasy game details, but I wanted to bring up a certain moment in Dragon Age Origins, which we both love. Phenomenal game. Great game. The best of the series so far, at least in my opinion. And to very briefly give you some summary, basically it takes place with dwarves and elves and humans. It's kind of typical fantasy stuff. And the darkspawn are these demonic creatures that come out from underground tunnels. And they only come out when there is a new archdemon. And I think the archdemon is one of the old gods who somehow gets let loose or whatever.

And then they start what they call the Blight. And all these dark spawns start pouring out from underground tunnels, and you find out that the only way you can end a Blight is by a Grey Warden slaying the Archdemon. Now, you don't really know why, and this is one of the best things about Dragon Age Origins, is that you slowly learn all of this really complicated lore over the course of like a 60, 70 hour playthrough. But in the beginning, you get turned into someone called a Grey Warden. And the way you do that is by going through a ritual where you drink dark spawn blood and a lot of people just die from it. But if you do survive, you suffer from nightmares for the rest of your life,

but you can also sense where the darkspawn are. But the big reveal at the end is that you find out why a Grey Warden has to slay the Archdemon, and it's because if you kill an Archdemon, its soul will go to the nearest darkspawn and then take over that body. Well, as a Grey Warden, you have what they call the taint. So it thinks that you are a darkspawn, but it'll actually kill the Grey Warden instead, thereby also destroying the Archdemon's soul. And so you find out at the end of this game that you're going to die if you fight and kill this archdemon. But then you get hit with this crazy solution out of right field where your longtime companion, Morrigan, who you may or may not have romanced in the game, says, hey, we can do some of my crazy witch magic, and it's going to come into the baby instead,

so you'll live, and I'm going to raise this demigod, but I'll teach him to do right. And it's like, at the end of this game, this is all just so bananas. You don't know what to do. You don't know what choice is right. The idea of using a baby in this way feels wrong, but then if you don't do it, Morgan leaves your party and she's just gone for the rest of the game. And I felt like that was such a neat reveal that it kind of clicks into place all these details about the Grey Warden that you just didn't really know. You just kind of accept it at face value. Okay, only the Grey Wardens are capable of killing the Archdemon, but that's actually not the fact. There's actually a lot of deeper lore that comes into it. And then in later games,

Morrigan does show up with a child. If you made that decision in Origins and load that save into your later Dragon Ages, you can actually talk to Morrigan's child. And I just thought that was such a cool development in dragon age i had to bring it up it's amazing because it's been a long time since i've played origins but i do remember that whole thing with the gray wardens and it's like when you first start playing you're just like oh yeah gray warden they're like a hero right like you know they they've got like you know you just think you're just some heroic guy or champion or something like that. And then the game does an amazing job of slowly revealing like more and more about the Grey

Wardens, like you said. But it's funny because I do remember the arch demon part. And I do remember that you have to make this choice. But what's so bananas about it is this isn't like a choice of like, do you want this object or this object you know do you want a sword or a shield like dude you're talking about the fate of the world here like are you gonna are you gonna like slay this arch demon and then die to sacrifice yourself okay well that's i mean the noble thing to do or Or, like you said, hey, let it possess this baby and then hope that you can raise this baby to be good. Like, look, you and I both have kids. We know kids ain't always on their best behavior.

I can't imagine having an archdemon baby running around. But that's the choice that you have to make. Like, these are not easy little choices. These are like earth-sh, major, major things. And then like you said, the best part about all of that, like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, this is what we love about Bioware, right? Is you may not see the results of that until like two games later. Yeah, where it pops back up. Right. And then you're like, wait minute morgan wait morgan's kid and she's got this teenager with her like clearly you know yeah and that's just so so cool when you see that stuff pop up later yeah it really is those are those wow moments where i wish every game

could tell a story like that because that's why dragon age is so incredible that's why mass effect so incredible you know those those games have just done such a phenomenal job of giving you little bits and pieces until you can put the whole puzzle together and then you get to sit back and just be like whoa look how awesome this puzzle is but then you have to make like this choice like are you gonna you know you're gonna dump the puzzle or you're gonna slap some glue on it like you know and then you've got to make this crazy choice and it just keeps going on and on it's phenomenal and it's one of the reasons why i like origins so much more than two because in dragon age 2 you're the hero of ferelden or i think that's what his title is but he's just like a dude who runs around and fights stuff. Just fighting stuff,

yeah. Yeah, it's just not as interesting. 2 had some fun combat, but the story itself was really lackluster. Inquisition, I thought, came back in a huge way. I know a lot of people didn't care for it. I absolutely love it, which is why I can't wait for Dragon Age 4, but they really did a good job with the lore in Inquisition, which I won't talk about or ruin, but there are some reveals at the end of that game that were really interesting that are going to carry into Dragon Age 4, and I can't wait to play it. All right, and then the last one on my list, I have to bring it up. We have not talked about Heavy Rain in a while. We probably have a lot of listeners who have not heard this heavy rain in a while we probably have a lot of listeners who have not heard this in our early days of running the podcast it was kind of a running

joke that i would just bring heavy rain into any episode that i could possibly make any excuse to bring it in heavy rain okay look this is kind of like my love for the fast and the furious franchise like i i understand from a critical perspective, Heavy Rain has a lot of problems, but it might be my favorite game to watch somebody else play for the first time, because this game is dark. This game starts with the death of one child, and then the kidnapping of another. These are the opening credits, is where your child gets hit by a car.

Yeah, they don't waste any time. No time wasted. And very quickly, you find out that children have been getting kidnapped, and they're being drowned in rainwater. They're being thrown into pits, and as the water level rises, they drown. And your son's been kidnapped. And you have been given a series of tasks that if you complete them, it will tell you where your son is and then you can save him. relationship with his father and wanted to see are there any fathers out there that are willing to really put themselves at danger and to really cause themselves harm in order to save their child

and you know what my ethan was fully up for that buddy and i think you probably know what moment i'm talking about oh i know the moment it's my all-time favorite gaming moment, for real. It is where you arrive at this abandoned apartment, and there's a little phone, and you hit play. And basically, the kidnapper says, all right, you need to chop off one of your fingers on camera, and I need to see it, and then I'll give you a clue for the address of your child. And then you have like a minute to do this. So the game doesn't give you a whole lot of time

and you start looking around and there are axes, knives, scissors. Oh my goodness. And then there are all these other things that you can use or have ready. Like you can choose to put like a piece of wood in your mouth and clamp down. And all of these decisions that you make play out very differently in how this goes. And by the way, you don't even have to do it. If you don't want to maim yourself, just walk out the door and that's fine. You can still finish the game. But if you decide to do this, your character is maimed for the rest of the game.

And by far the best way to do this i hate to say it it's the scissors man i can't believe shaking his head no i the you got to do this with no antiseptic no wood in your mouth you go to town on your finger with these scissors and ethan is just screaming bloody murder the whole time it is the funniest thing in the world to me it's one of those things where like you can't really look and you're just laughing because it's so horrible and you get an achievement called butcher if you use the scissors because if you have to sever a finger this is the worst way to do it. Like, use any other instrument in this house.

One and done, buddy. But the scissors, man. Not scissors. It's funny. It's like a two-minute scene. It really is. And one of the things that the game does really well is that this timer is ticking. And so this guy says, you have to do this within, like you said, I think it's like a minute or two. And so your guy says, you have to do this within, like you said, I think it's like a minute or two. And so your guy instantly starts looking around. But the whole time, there's a clock that's ticking down in the corner of the screen. And everybody does something

different. That's the crazy thing. I got up and I instantly started like, oh, let me find some antiseptic. I think I used an axe or a screwdriver or something like that because I was like... You can cauterize the wound. I need to whack this thing off real quick. remember like heating up a or having a lighter so that i could cauterize it like i was all prepped for the what to do after the finger thing you know you were saying like when you played it you used the scissors because that was the most bananas thing you could think of you know uh our buddy mckinney played it i think he used something else, but he didn't do any of the antiseptic stuff or any of that.

And it's just like, that's why this game, now this game's old at this point, but it still holds up because it's the, how does your natural personality affect the decisions you make? And in this case, like you said, you don't have to cut off your finger. You can turn around, walk out the door.

Now you won't get the clue that says, hey, this is where your kid is. So maybe you don't find your kid. Maybe he dies at the end of the game because you didn't want to chop off. But hey, that's the choice that you made. And that scene is nuts. Heavy Rain's got some really dark endings. I mean, the whole game is dark. But you can end the game where Ethan commits suicide and

the killer gets away scot-free, or all the way to where you find and rescue your son. So it's one of those games where I remember telling you, if you fail something, don't load an old save. We're just going to keep playing because you can't... I mean, you can have a terrible ending, but you can't really fail the game. You just keep going and see what happens but yeah what what an incredible scene in that game um we're basically out of time i do want to give a little caveat here two of my top moments for real i just didn't want to talk about because we've already talked about them at length one of them was red dead redemption 2 when you kill micah i think that was just like three or four episodes ago where I talked about how much I love that moment. And also the very end of Mass Effect 2, the suicide mission is incredible.

But previous shows, we've talked about it ad nauseum. So I wanted to bring all new content. One that almost made my list was Aerith's death in Final Fantasy VII. Oh, okay. And since the remake was so popular... See, now she... I don't want to spoil anything in the remake. But in Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth kills her. And she's one of your companions. And she's just the sweetest person in the world. And so when she dies, that is one of those moments where you keep thinking like, he's going to wake up and this is a dream or something,

but no. And it's one of those moments where Final Fantasy VII is one of the most epic games ever made. But that scene in that game with the accompanying soundtrack that's like her death, if you watch the video, you'll see what I'm talking about. But it's the most heartbreaking thing. And then the next fight, like, it's the most heartbreaking thing. And then the next fight, that theme plays throughout the whole next fight. So it's like her death just lingers with you for a while. And so that's one of those moments where if you're a little bit older like me, that's one of those moments that is probably going to stand out to a lot of people as one of those video game moments that was just jaw dropping

very sad like kind of hard to overcome for a little bit because you couldn't believe like what this game just did and back then like games didn't really do that a whole lot and so it was not often right it was pretty epic that they did that one and then um last one since i'm talking about old games is the I've talked about this one, too. But the reveal on Samus in Metroid, where if you beat the game in five hours or you had to beat it, you had to beat the whole game in under five hours. But then it revealed that she was a woman. And so that was like a really big thing back in the Nintendo days. And I know it sounds goofy now because you're like, well, so what?

But back then. They were damsels in distress and that's it right zelda kidnapped you got a rescuer princess peach kidnapped you got a rescuer like women were very rarely a playable character or they were very rarely ever actually in power so samus that was such a cool moment it really was yeah so i want to play all these games again now paul so yeah hopefully you guys enjoyed here this last hour talking about gaming moments like josh mentioned earlier if you want to come join us on discord we'd love to hear what your guys top moments are as well there is a link in the episode description also you can come let us know on social media at MultiplayerPod. And we would love to hear if you have any suggestions for future top five episodes. There's a lot we can do, whether it's top five on a certain console

or top five games that take place in space or whatever it might be. We'd love to hear if you guys have any great ideas. So come hit us up. And then we will be back with our next episode on thursday for this week in gaming and now uh i think josh and i are going to jump into tribes of midgard and hopefully we'll be having some fun in that world oh yeah let's go kill some jotun all right see you guys in a couple days see everybody have a good week.