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

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

Gaming hosts Paul and Josh are back with another incredible Bonus Round. This week we’re each naming our top 5 gaming series. Join us as we talk which games made the cut, and which made the gaming hall of fame by making our lists!  Special thanks to Legendary Supporter: Jake 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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No, really. Our gratitude is forever. We'll love you forever. What do you mean I sound creepy? What? You're starting the episode right now? I was about to tell them about. Hey, all you guys and gals. Thank you for joining us today for the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast.

We release full hour episodes on Mondays and 30 minute episodes on Thursdays. And today we are delighted to have a bonus round episode where we tackle a particular subject. And today we decided to break down our individual top five gaming series. If you like what we do here, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or become a Patreon supporter at MultiplayerSquad.com where you can show your support for the show and get two extra Quick Take episodes every week. I am your host, Paul, and I am joined, as always, by my co-host,

who is serially funny and a joy to be around. It's Josh. I'm magically delicious, Paul! I thought about, as soon as serially came out of my mouth, I thought about spitballing a cereal joke, but there you go, you're on top of it. I picked up what you were putting down there, buddy, don't worry. Yes, our favorite cereals might be a future podcast. Lucky charms, man, number one, I'm putting it out there right now. Oh, goodness. So, before we jump into our regularly scheduled content, we have huge news today, Josh.

Whoa, gargantuan. It's the biggest news that we've had to date for the podcast, which has now been running for almost a year and a half. But we have our very first legendary Patreon supporter, and he's due a shout out. He is. This was, I mean, you know, it's one of those things. Ultimately, you know, we hope that the legendary, you know, supporters will grow. They're critical to helping support what we do. We get that. Hey, it's not a small chunk of change, but we know that there's people out there that, you know, want to kind of go that extra mile.

And, you know, they also get a really cool, like discord color. And we've, we've said, Hey, if you, if you become a legendary supporter, you don't ever lose the discord perks. Even if you like, you know, stop your pledge after that. So we were actually chatting about that the other day. And then lo and behold, a golden name pops up in the chat. And everybody just loses their minds. And it was awesome, man. So huge, huge thank you to Jake for being our first legendary supporter.

I've known Jake for a while. Actually, Jake and I share a love of another podcast as well. So Jake and I have been chatting it up for a while now, but yeah, he's, uh, he's a good dude. Um, and it was really awesome to see him, you know, to do that and then just, you know, have him say, Hey man, I just, I love what you guys do. I want to support you. It really, it was, it was a cool moment. Yeah. Thank you so much, Jake. then since jake is our first legendary supporter he gets a very special perk of picking any game that he wants and we have to cover it on the show yes whether whether or not we want to whether or not it's a game we've already done and jake has full

power full power and jake has told us the game i don't think we're announcing it quite yet we are not nope but we have jumped in to that game already it's a us the game i don't think we're announcing it quite yet we are not nope but we have jumped in to that game already it's a very interesting pick i can't wait to talk about it so if you want to be cool like jake you know be a legendary supporter at multiplayer squad.com you know all those people that want us to cover fortnite and minecraft you know that we've said we would not do i mean there is there is a way to make that happen there there is a way all right so what we wanted to do here for this episode in breaking down our top five video game series you know i thought it would be useful if we just laid out a couple of like ground rules or parameters But we are defining a series as any video game series that has had at least two installments.

So The Last of Us 1 and 2, that's a video game series. That would count. We don't have any other parameters. It doesn't have to be a certain number within a certain number of years. Anything with at least two installments. And this is very much individual. So we are not doing this as a consensus like our leaderboard that we do every Deep Dive episode. This is just you and I, we made our own list, our own top five. We have not shared that

information with one another. We are just going to go back and forth. We're going to share counting from five all the way to one. And we'll just bounce back and forth and We're going to share counting from five all the way to one, and we'll just bounce back and forth and share what we had. We'll spend a few minutes talking about that series and then moving on from there. So obviously there's a lot of gaming series out there. Narrowing it down to a top five is rough. When we talked about this initially, I was like, okay, yeah, this will be easy. Top five series, no problem. And then my brain just started ticking off checkboxes of different series. And that's when I went, oh, no. Picking a five is going to be really hard. This is actually way worse than I thought it was going to be yeah so there's

definitely a little bit of personal preference here you know we're not necessarily going with the top five critically acclaimed series it's just personal for what we like the most for our top five i was gonna say that's the key here right is don't think we are electing the top five like series of all time this is like a lot of personal preference here like so you know i don't want to get yelled at by people that are like i can't believe you didn't put so and so in your top five you know it's like i get it yes but there's only room for five and you know personal preference makes it matters a lot in this case so yeah and if time allows we will definitely have some honorable mentions.

If this episode goes well, maybe we'll even break down numbers 6 through 10 on a later episode. I don't know. But when I initially made a list, Josh, this is not a joke. All I did was a cursory glance at Google looking at the top-selling series. And before I knew it, I had a list of 31 series that I was considering in my top five. I had like 14, something like that. And I didn't Google at all. I just, but then I kind of X'd out a few of them because I was like, I'm old. Nobody's going to remember this series. Nobody's going to want to hear me talk about Twisted Metal again, you know, that kind of stuff. So it's like, I did kind of whittle that down quickly.

But then it's funny because my list changed dramatically because I legitimately had that problem where I was like, oh, this series needs to be in there. Oh, but wait, if I put this one in there, then there's not room for this series in there. And so that was really the challenge for me was saying, how do I fit in some of these series that I think need to be mentioned and need to be in there, but you can't? It's only five. Yeah, only five, which means we're leaving out some masterpiece series that just mathematically have to get cut. Absolutely. And that's where the challenge is. You know, it's just which ones do you leave out?

Maybe you might be right. Maybe we need to do like six through ten later on. Or maybe we'll just throw in a couple honorable mentions towards the end of the show or something. But yeah, this wasn't easy. No, it was't easy. No, it was not easy. And I feel like maybe we started at the wrong end. Like in hindsight,

maybe we should have gone from like 20 to 15. And then over the course of multiple episodes, countdown to one. But today you guys are going to get the top five. I just, I didn't care about what we've already talked about on the show before. I just said, I'm going to stay true to the spirit of the question.

What are my top five favorite series? Which means you guys can already guess at least a couple of them. But I'm definitely wanting to talk about some of those honorable mentions as well. So I'm very excited to jump into this. So Josh, why don't you kick us off? What do you have coming in with your number five gaming series of all time? I have to wonder too. I mean, I would think you and I have not discussed this list, our lists at all. So I would think that we're going to wind up having some

overlap, but I'm curious if our rankings of those are going to be different as well so if we have one you'll you know i guess we'll have to share it at that point and then talk about maybe why it's different a little bit but okay number five for me i have played all i mean almost all of these games i actually looked up like the wikipedia and there's a few of these games i was like okay i've never heard of that it was on some weird system or there was some weird offshoot you know that i never played but legend of zelda okay legend of zelda did not make the cut for me it did not no wow it i mean it it almost didn't for me because it's number five i'll'll tell you why I cut it. There are a lot of installments that just don't quite make the cut for me.

So because of that, I felt like I'm going to go more for the series where every installment is pretty good. So I did not include it, but it was definitely on my list. See, that was the struggle that I had. But when I thought about it, because I wanted some of these games to be, if it's in a series, you don't want to just feel like you're playing the same game over and over again. It has to be different enough where you're like, oh yeah, this definitely feels like it's part of a series, but it's different in a way too. And I just remember, don't get me wrong, I don't like all the Zelda games. I'm going to upset some people here.

Twilight Princess, I was not a fan of. And I know we have some listeners where they said that Twilight Princess is their favorite Zelda, so I'm sorry ahead of time, but I did not like Twilight Princess, man. But Ocarina of Time, which is probably the greatest Zelda ever made, Majora's it was a great follow-up to that i mean wind waker skyward sword of course now we've got breath of the wild breath of the wild you know right link to the past there's even some throwback stuff i mean what was the one is it was it linked to the past that they just re-released on the switch that had all the updated graphics but it was still like the top down like 2d

i think it was linked to the past no that was a different one linked to the past was the one on super nintendo and that was one of the very first zeldas that i ever played but yeah you gotta hand it to zelda i mean they've been doing it for, I don't know, what, like 38 years or something like that? I mean, immensely popular. It's just, they really are. It's neat to see the progression and regression of Zelda because not everyone can be a home run. I'm a huge fan of Breath of the Wild. I really hope Breath of the Wild 2 lives up to the hype. I love what they've done with the series with making it more...

I don't want to say open world because they've kind of always been open world. I like where the series has gone. I don't know that they'll ever recapture what Ocarina of Time was, but it's like I couldn't put a list out there without having Zelda on it

because there's just been so many good Zelda games. And I have fond, fond memories of my wife and I when we were dating. We weren't married, like playing Zelda together. So there's also a little bit of that nostalgia-like time in your life kind of benefit going there, I guess, too. But yeah there there it is man number five for me yeah and to fact check us here on the show i think the one you're thinking of is lynx awakening lynx awakening thank you which we did buy in our household but i did not play it really i here's the thing i knew it had link in the name in the title well okay that that really narrows

it down yeah i mean for me i know we've talked about before the wind waker is my personal favorite that in breath of the wild i just absolutely love so all right so you're number five the legend of zelda my number five is the super mario brother series oh another nintendo one coming in at number five, man. Another Nintendo. All right, Paul, here's a big shocker. Not on my list. Yeah? Yeah. So you picked Zelda over Mario.

I did. I definitely needed to include Mario because there are so many good ones and none of them are bad. I think some of them are definitely better than others, and this one definitely carries a lot of nostalgia for me because my earliest gaming experiences were playing Mario 1 and Mario 3 on the NES. This is where I learned about video games. They were the earliest ones I played, and that was all I wanted to do was go to my friend's houses and play Mario. I also really love Mario 64. I love Mario Galaxy. I love Super Mario Maker. There's just so many good ones I had to include it on my list. I really considered Mario and honestly, I considered it in place of Zelda. The issue that I had is I really enjoy the combat in Zelda and Mario doesn't have a ton of Zelda. The issue that I had is I really enjoy the combat in Zelda. And Mario doesn't have a ton

of combat. Yes, you do stomp things and stuff like that. But I mean, like you said, Mario Galaxy, Mario Sunshine, Mario 64 was phenomenal, man. That's probably one of my favorite Mario games to this day. My wife loves Paper Mario. There's just so many good Mario games. And that's not even... There's people that don't even count Mario Kart. I wasn't considering that. I consider Mario Kart a separate series.

Right. And see, I'm the same way. I'm talking about the adventure Mario games, and there's so many good ones. But for me, like I said, the combat, the music, you know, there's a lot, the characters and stuff like that, like the dialogue in Zelda, that was what kind of shifted it for me. But man, I was right there with you. It's one of those ones I highly consider putting on my list. Yeah, this is the only Nintendo exclusive series that I have on my list. But Mario Brothers, this will tell you how much I really love them.

I even paid $10 for Mario Run on mobile, and I never spend money on mobile games. But the Mario one was just so good, I spent a full $10 on it. Is that the one like Temple Run where you're running as mario kind of except it's more vertical they they look like mario levels but mario never stops running you just click to jump over stuff so it's all about timing but yeah uh the new super mario brothers we and we you games were so much fun to do the co-op simultaneous. And that would get really chaotic where you could run with four people at once and people are going into bubbles because they die and then you can pop each other. And I love Mario Brothers. I had to include it. So that's my number five.

I get you, man. It was a struggle for me um zelda edged it out but i kind of explained why as well um i the the thing with zelda the problem with zelda is there's no multiplayer you know like mario mario has the multiplayer and a lot of them which is really cool and i'm with you man i think it was three that was just so much fun. Was that the one where you could play multiple people? They start to blur together. Well, I mean, all of them have multiple players, but like in Mario 1, you would play as Mario, but you would play until you died or beat the game. And then it would go to the second player.

No, but they had simultaneous co-op. And then Mario 3 was where you would switch off after you would die or beat the level none of them i don't think were simultaneous until you hit maybe i'm thinking of you just pass the controller when you beat the level or when you die maybe that's what i'm thinking of but yeah all right so what you got at number four number four i don't know i don't think this one will be on your list at all but when i I thought about, man, what gaming series have I always been excited about? Every time a game released, do I get excited? To me, that's kind of one of the qualifications of a great gaming series.

I've been playing this series for a long time. And honestly, the last game in this series is still insanely popular, and it holds up to this day. And that is The Elder Scrolls. Oh, okay. I wondered if either of us would pick Elder Scrolls. It's phenomenal, man. Now, albeit it is right up my alley, I love fantasy settings. I love the character classes and your characters's getting stronger and the rpg aspects i'm not a fan of the elder scrolls online i just think it's too easy so i did try that out but that's i don't really consider that in the series it's like an mmo right so it's like

exactly kind of off on its own little planet there but i mean okay i didn't play the initial i think the very initial elder scrolls was called like arena or something like that it was really goofy but i started with daggerfall um i think you and i have had a pretty good discussion on morrowind because i remember you telling me that you played the heck out of morrowind right yeah that was the first one that i played was number three and i did play four and five a fair amount oblivion i thought really kind of catapulted the series into the modern age and then skyrim is just incredible i i think i mentioned this right i got my daughter who doesn't like anything that's not a dinosaur game you you know, like to try Skyrim.

And she was really impressed in the beginning. She thought the introduction was a little slow. And I think she was just overwhelmed because that's her first like fully open world. I think she just kind of went like, there's too much to do. But I was watching her play and I was just like, dude, this game is still phenomenal. Like, it's still so great. Yeah, I know we've talked about it a little bit before. It was always a little too open world for me, where I need a little bit more structure, a little bit more of a tighter storyline. But I know I also shared the story, I'm pretty sure it was Oblivion, where I accidentally turned

my guy into a vampire, which I did not dig dig because i'd have to break into people's houses at night and feed on people while they were sleeping i love the fact that you had to do that paul you know so uh i remember that kind of like ruining that multiple or that one playthrough where i had to go back to a really old save because i didn't even notice i had turned into a vampire but yeah you got to give it to the elder scrolls they've always been very fun they're definitely major events you know i did a google search for elder scrolls 6 and according to google the next one is scheduled for release in 2026 i don't know why they're waiting that long because skyrim has already been out for forever. But Elder Scrolls VI will definitely be one of those huge events where everyone will buy it, everyone will play it.

And that's kind of the thing is, I think they're not in a hurry because Skyrim is still so popular. So many mods for it. I mean, it's one of those things where, because there's so much to do... I love the fact that they introduced the dragon aspect of it too, the Dovahkiin and the dragon speech and all that. I mean, there was just so many things about that game that I loved. You know, there's some minor complaints. The combat got a little too easy if you knew how to kind of build your character and stuff like that. But I mean, what game doesn't have flaws, right? Right. And they've always had really cool voice actors. Like I remember Patrick Stewart was in,

I think, Oblivion and stuff. So yeah, you gotta give them credit. It's always been very high production all around. Yep. All right, what's your number four, Paul? My number four, I think, is gonna be the first time that we overlap. And this might surprise you,

but I'm coming in at number four with Dragon Age. Ooh, it is on my list. And it is my number three, actually. Oh, okay, so pretty close. Wait, are you telling me that I'm higher on Dragon Age than you are? It could be. And I'll tell you why. For one, the Dragon Age games are only loosely connected.

There is not a very strong connection from 1 to 2 and from 2 to 3. There are hints that 3 to 4 might be a little bit of a direct continuation, but you play as the Grey Warden in Dragon Age 1, and Grey Wardens don't even really exist in Dragon Age 2. And then you move on to Inquisition, and the hero from Dragon Age 2 doesn't really exist. They talk about him or her. But it's almost like a series in theme and in geography in a way. I was going to say, I think it's world. Right, yeah.

I get what you're saying. The world is the same. It's the extended universe. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so that was why i gave it a little bit of a knock but you know obviously we both love dragon age what is it about dragon age that you love i mean a lot man it's one of those things where again i'm a huge sucker for the fantasy setting right i love like good classic like high fantasy they call it with like your dwarves and your elves and dragons and stuff

like that so um you know it just it fits with one of the things that i love there the combat in that game i love like the tactical nature of it i love the party aspect of it like the progression is so good with the characters and how they interact and the gear and the magic and the the melee and you're ranged it's just like it checks every box for for like enjoyable combat in like an epic role-playing game um and then it's just like the the scope man the polish like i know like you're a huge fan of or like you're because you like origins better than inquisition right origins is by far i think the best entry in the series yeah without question and it's just but the thing is is it's like voice it's all voice acted there's the characters are so in depth it's a believable world like when

you're playing dragon age like you're in that world and there's just so much that they do right to tell the story, to suck you in. I mean, there's really not much to not like. And that's the thing, right? I think about games that I get super excited about. Like Dragon Age 4, they've shown nothing. And I'm so excited for that game to come out because I want to go back into that world, you know, and just the gameplay and the characters and all that. So that's why I put it at number three for me. Yeah, one huge thing that we didn't touch on yet with Dragon Age is that your choices matter. I mean, that's a huge part of Dragon Age where you have major decisions that will alter characters' fates, that will adjust how the world responds to you moving forward. And to me,

I always find that to be really interesting, and it makes it highly replayable. You know, let me redo this mission, but now let me take Leliana and Morrigan instead of Sten and Alistair, and then I'm going to hear all of this different dialogue. I'm going to be given different options for how to complete quests. It completely changes the game up. The one thing that you also got to mark it down for is that Dragon Age 2 is a good game, but it is a black eye. When you only have three installments, this is where I'm getting very nitpicky, but that's why I dropped Dragon Age down. I initially thought it would probably be number two, but when I really sat down, I ended up dropping it to four. But all three games are highly worth playing. I definitely recommend all of them.

And I'm not really one for fantasy like you are, but yet I do love these worlds because the stories are fantastic. The combat is a lot of fun and how it all intermixes is just like video game magic to me. Yeah, it is. And you kind of touched on the, we'll move on here in a second, but it's, I mean, I guess we kind of both had this on our list too. But when you talk about the choices, you don't always know what the results of those choices are immediately either. And that's one thing that I love when games do. It's one of the things that I love about the Witcher, um, you know, and some other games is it's like, Hey, you're faced with this choice. Okay. Like I naturally, you know, make the good

guy choice. It, you know, that's just kind of how I would do in real life too. But then it might be four hours later in the game where you see what the actual result of that is. And that's incredible because the cohesiveness and the ability for a developer to tell that kind of story so much further into the game is really incredible. And I like that. Don't get me wrong. There's some times where it's like, hey, you make this choice and then a party member gets mad at you and they're out. Like, that's kind of cool, too. Or they'll fight you to the death where you have to kill a team member because you made a choice that they cannot abide by. Right. And that happens in the game. Yeah, absolutely. Because I mean, that's kind of how real life is now. I mean, we don't all go around killing each other,

you know, but it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, if this guy is adamantly opposed to the decisions you're making in this game, then like, he's going to let you know. And there's not a lot of games that do that, man. And that, that, that, that, I think that's kind of unique to dragon age in the sense that you can really tick off your party members to the point where they won't just kind of go like, so-and-so has a bad opinion of you. They will hate you and they will try to kill you, and then they're gone from the game forever. And that's, like I said, I don't know of too many other games that do that. Yeah, I know that some RPGs will have elements like that,

but Dragon Age has a really good way of making the RPG action a lot of fun. It mixes in the action really well, but Origin in particular is still an RPG at its core, which is why I love it. The last thing I'll say about Dragon Age that I also really loved, I remember that the action would also lead into cutscenes in a clever way. So your characters, who are the melee fighters that are up in the action fighting the darkspawn, they'll get covered in blood. And then it goes to the cut scene, and your team member is just drenched in blood.

But then your archer might just have a couple splatters because they weren't in the middle of the fight. And I remember thinking, oh, this is why the immersion of Dragon Age works so well. They've thought through those little details. It's not like these other games where all of a sudden it looks like they were done with professional makeup and rolled out of bed. These guys and girls actually look like they were in the middle of the combat, and I loved it. It's those little things like that, man. Most games do that now, but when you change out a piece of armor or

something like that, right? But like you said, they look haggard from combat. The game knows what they've gone through recently and stuff like that. And I mean, all that stuff really does matter. It's one of those things you may not notice right away, but it's almost good that you don't notice it right away because it just, it makes, it makes it so much more real sometimes. Yeah. All right. So Dragon Age was your number three. It was.

So your, I was going to say your next one up on your list, do you think it's one I might have, or do you want me to do another one of mine? I think the next one might be another one that we share, but tell me what your number three is. Okay. I was going to say, I didn't, I didn't want to just jump in and do two in a row but all right my number three is grand theft auto it's my number two okay all right so we both have gta oh man that's too funny yeah so what makes you put gta on your mean, dude, what other series exists in the world that's like Grand Theft Auto, man?

They're so good. They're all classics. Every single one. That's literally the point of it, right? Like, every Grand Theft Auto was amazing in its own right. Each one was groundbreaking in some way. The characters are so memorable in every single one of them they made so many good advancements from like one to the next you know like the like just technically

like mechanically like all of the they just got better and better and better as they went along and it's like you know there's all this hype around Grand Theft Auto 6. Like, who knows when it's going to come out, but I guarantee you when it comes out, it's probably going to be like earth shatteringly good. And it's going to be so far above and beyond what 5 was. And that's what I feel like Grand Theft Auto was, man, is it's like every single one in the series was just so much better than the other one. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that they're not without their faults. And yes, Vice City was very, very memorable to a lot of people, maybe more so than 4 or something like that. I get it. Everybody's kind of got their favorites, but just from a technical development standpoint, I feel like the series just compoundingly gets better and better and better. This series more than any other, I have 100% confidence that the next one will be fantastic. There was a time when I thought that about like Mass Effect, and then you have some

bumps in the road, or maybe some other series, even Mario, you know, they have some that are better than others. But the GTA series are always, always great. All of them in their own way. For me, I was kind of curious if you have a favorite, because for me, it is probably Vice City. But that's also in part because that was when video games actually became a part of my everyday life. I played games very casually, but my girlfriend, who I ended up marrying, her older brother owned GTA 3 and Vice City. And I remember just kind of catching a couple cutscenes, and I was like, oh, video games have cutscenes? I just had no idea. My only frame of reference for gaming was mostly Mario. And I loved mob movies. I remember watching him play GTA 3, which had a whole lot of mob-type storylines,

and I loved it. It totally sucked me in. And GTA 4 is definitely one of my favorites as well. And to me, one of my favorite missions ever is the major heist at the end of GTA 4, where you're Nico Bellic, you rob a bank, and you're running through the streets with backpacks of money with an assault rifle, you know, in this firefight with the cops while running for your life. I don't remember ever feeling quite so exhilarated during a mission. They're all great. Not to even mention GTA 5 Online just added so much content that you can play online with others. What a series. It's, I mean, that's why it's my number two. I mean, it's one of those things where I have had a ton of fun playing the GTA games. I don't really have any interest in playing them right now,

because I think I've just played them so much. I'm not going to reload up GTA 5 and give it another run through. We did GTA online for one of our episodes, and that was really cool. It's insane these cities that they build. I mean, how many mechanics that go into these games, right? I feel like this is almost like what Cyberpunk tried to do, and then they just failed miserably because i remember telling you way back before cyberpunk was even you know they even had like the the big like e3 reveal where they had like 40 minutes of gameplay and stuff like that and i remember telling you if the driving in cyberpunk is anything close to what it is in gta i'll be so happy and then it was such a miserable comparison. Yeah. It did not live up to that hype. Dude, you can drive around in GTA 5. It's like a racing game, man. People do races all the

time. It's a full-fledged racer video game. High quality, right? Then the gunplay, this isn't Call of Duty, but the shooting is fine, right? I mean, how many missions do you have these huge shootouts and you have to take cover and you've got different weapons and they all feel different. And so it's literally like six games that are all very well done that have somehow been mashed together without losing any of the enjoyment out of all of those aspects. Yeah. And I knocked Elder Scrolls for sometimes not pointing you in the right direction enough. In GTA, they always give you the direction and the missions, and I'll just ignore them for hours on end because there's just so much fun to be had in the open world and just in goofing around i mean how many videos have you seen of people doing ridiculous things online just shooting their cars through the air and crazy stuff happens i mean gta is just so good not just in the storylines and the cinematics and the storyline and the characters but even the open

world it's second to none. You got to hand it to Grand Theft Auto for sure. Rockstar is always... It is definitely second to none, Paul, because it's number two for me. All right. So how about we take a short break here, Josh, and then we'll get right back into it. All right. Sounds good. Hey, guys. This episode of the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast is brought to you by Logitech. You have the opportunity to help support the show and also get some awesome gaming accessories to help maintain your competitive edge while gaming. I actually use a Logitech G413 backlit keyboard. Actually bought it with my own money back in 2017, long before the show,

and it's still running great. Actually, as I'm looking around, I also have a Logitech webcam, and they sell so much more than that. They have tablet keyboards, they've got mice, speakers, Bluetooth accessories, all kinds of stuff that you might need for your PC or for mobile devices. So you can actually head on over to multiplayerpodcast.com slash Logitech store, and that'll forward you right to their website. Thanks so much for your guys' support. Now let's get back to the show. All right, Josh, coming back. We've covered quite a few games so far. I think at this point we just gotta throw it back

to you which ones did we already read for you so you've got gta number two you've got dragon age at three yeah and you've got zelda at five i've got elder scrolls at four so actually you need to go because i can't reveal my number one series yet paul so okay well i know what your number one is gonna be at least i'm pretty sure which means do you know do you know uh yeah i'm pretty sure all right so my number two because i've got mario brothers at five dragon age four gta at three my number two is red dead redemption and i'm guessing you don't have it number one it's not on my list but man did i consider it i it's a masterpiece of a game. Honestly, Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the best games that's released in the last five years or so. It's one of those games that there is nothing wrong with that game in any way. It's graphically beautiful. It's

technically beautiful. The world is this living, amazing world. Believe me, I considered it, but that was one of those, if I put this on my list, what am I going to take off my list to make room for it? And that's why it's not on mine. But honestly, I'm glad it's on yours because they're masterpieces. Now, Red Dead Revolver is technically the first game, and I played that one when it released, and I liked it quite a bit. And then Red Dead Redemption was a completely different game. So technically there are three in the series, but I think most people are just thinking of Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2. But Red Dead 1, I remember the first time I played it, it drops you right in the middle

of the story of John Marston. You are told right in the beginning, hey, you're hunting down your ex-crew because you all had a falling out. So you need to go capture Bill and Javier and Dutch and all these other guys. You don't know who any of these people are. And then you just get shot and left for dead outside of Bill Williamson's compound. And then all of a sudden, little pieces of the story start coming into play. And then I'm going to share a huge spoiler here for Red Dead 1. And then it's also going to lead

into Red Dead 2. But at the end of Red Dead 1, you die with John. John Marston dies, and then you play as his son. And it's like, you spent this entire time building one of the most extensive, amazing worlds, and you just killed off the very recognizable John with the scars left over his face, which again, you don't even know how he got in Red Dead 1. And then fast forward a decade, they come out with Red Dead 2, and they fill in every single one of those gaps so beautifully. And I think it made it way more interesting. I don't know that they had planned this from the beginning, but honestly, filling in those gaps after the fact, I actually found to be very effective when you learn, oh, John got attacked by wolves, and now we need to go rescue him. This is how he

got his scars. And then they repeat the same formula, because at the end of Red Dead 2, Arthur Morgan dies, and then you get to play as John, and it bridges the gap between the two games so beautifully. I can't speak highly enough of Red Dead 1 and 2. The story in Red Dead is incredible. And the way that Rockstar linked those together is... I mean, what was the game that got nominated for an Oscar recently? Do you remember that? It was like a VR game or a VR experience where it got nominated for an Oscar or something like that like legitimately the story in red dead is incredible like they're that's one of those games that transcends like more than just video games you know like especially because you're playing as arthur morgan

you see this progression in his character i mean all the way up this game's been out for a while so you know all the way up until he dies you, and there's like a very large chunk of the game where, you know, you're sick and you see him and he's coughing. And it's like, there's these little just glimpses. They just, they do such an incredible job, like telling that story and having these characters be real people. They're not these super heroic people. Like they have their faults, they have their quirks, like all of these things that make people like people.

And it's, it really is incredible. Like I only played that on the PS4 and it's one of those things where I, I really want to get it for PC just to go back into that world. Like who doesn't like being a cowboy, right? Like, I don't know about you, but i like capturing those guys and then laying them across the railroad tracks too because like you can do anything you want in this game like that's the other really cool thing is it's they've thought of everything you want to go capture that guy and

ride him back to town and throw him off a cliff you can do that feed him to an alligator you know yes but that's one of the beautiful that's one of the beautiful things that Rockstar just did so well that CD Projekt Red completely fell on their faces with, with Cyberpunk. And I remember when Cyberpunk came out, you would have these times when you would shoot guns and people wouldn't move and no one cared. And then you would just see it side by side with red dead you can just sit in red dead and just watch the npcs and they'll interact and they'll bump into each other and they'll start fistfights and all these things happen in just sitting in the open world that it's incredible how much time and love and care went into those games and just the fact that they killed off john in one and then kill off Arthur in two,

they don't leave anything on the table. Like they just say, Hey, here's every single idea we have. We're going to throw every idea into this game. We don't care if we're going to be hamstrung on the next, we trust that we'll be able to figure it out later. And that's what I love.

And then the last thing I will say is, have you ever hated a character quite as much as that turd Micah in Red Dead 2? Oh my goodness. That's how you know. Honestly, that's how you know a good villain is when you hate them with a passion. And Micah is the... I kicked that guy in the face, man. I saw him. Dude, you spend all of Red Dead 2 as Arthur Morgan just begging John to be a family man, be there for your son, be there for Abigail, your wife. And then Arthur dies and John decides to be a family man. But as soon as they locate Micah, you are 100% with John where it's like, I don't care.

We're riding out. We're going to kill that SOB. And then you just, you riddle him with bullets. And it never felt better in a game than gunning down Micah as revenge for him leaving Arthur for dead. It's so rewarding at the end of that game. I'm just glad that they knew that people needed that closure so bad that they allowed that to happen because it wouldn't have been the same otherwise. But yes, you're right. And that's that people needed that closure so bad that they allowed that to happen. Because it wouldn't have been the same otherwise.

But yes, you're right. And that's why gaming is so amazing. Because you get to do it. You hate this guy the whole game. And then you finally get to take your revenge. And it just feels so good. And you and I always talk about how we play as the good guys in these games. Oh, that's being the good guy, Paul. There's something about being a cowboy in Red Dead where it just pulls a little bit of that

revenge out of you, where normally I wouldn't really care in a game. But in this one, oh, gunning down Micah is fantastic. That man deserved to be taken out. All right. So I think that leaves just our number ones, right, Josh? It does. And so, so Paul,

you think you know my number one, huh? Oh, I know what your number one is. Yeah. We both know our number ones. Why don't you, why don't you tell me what my number one is?

Uh, Josh's number one is going to be a fantastic series brought to you by CD project red wrong. The witcher wrong. Paul bull. You left the witcher out of your top five. And dude, here's, I'm going to explain this because I know this is catching you off guard. All right. The witcher three best video game ever made.

I stand by that every single time. Uh, it is, but Witcher one and Witcher two, eh, you know what I mean? Like Witcher one was pretty bad. Witcher two was like, there's a reason that they made Witcher three, Witcher two is fine.

But as a series, I can't say that the Witcher is the greatest series ever made for me. Okay. Fair enough. So that's why. Honestly, I don't want people to be like, no way, right? So again, Witcher 3 stands on its own. It's absolutely incredible.

It's my number one game. I hope that something can dethrone it one day, but that just means that somebody made the perfect video game, right? So for me, the number one series, and I have played all of these, except for the weird one-offs. There's always those weird one-off games that I've never heard of, man. But it's got to be God of War. Oh, okay. God of War. It is. Now, I know you were like, that would have been your number two. I did. Yes. Okay. So, funny story, right? Because God of War for the PS4 was coming out, and it looked phenomenal to me. I love Greek mythology. I love Norse mythology. Again,

I'm such just like a fantasy nerd, right? So, I was dying to play this game, but I didn't know what a PS4. Well, I remember our friend McKinney was like, hey, you can borrow my PS4 if you want to play it because I'm going to be getting it. And I went, great. And he says, have you played any of the other ones? And I said, well, do I need to? And he says, well, not really, but it'll probably help you understand the character a little bit more.

So I remember McKinney lent me his PS4 and he lent me the entire God of War series. And so you played the first three? I played the first three from start to finish on the PS4 right before God of War came out. Right. I think maybe I think you could play them on the PS4. I'm pretty sure it had the backwards compatibility. Maybe I played one of them on the PS2, but I'm almost positive I played them all on PS4. But yeah, so I played all of them from start to finish.

And, you know, some were better than others. You know, it's a lot of melee combat. And don't get me wrong, the older one was kind of janky and the graphics weren't the best, but the combat was still top notch. You know, you got to deal with the, you know, the gods and the titans and all this stuff. I love the story that happens to Kratos throughout the God of War series.

God of War 1, he's tricked by the gods. He saves a bunch of soldiers. I can't remember. It's been a while, right? But it's like basically what he does is he ascends to Mount Olympus in God of War 1 and becomes the God of War. He's not the God of War initially, right? But he becomes the God of War, which is super cool. And then in God of War 2, he teams up with the Titans.

Now, what's cooler than a God of Olympus? Well, the Titans that the gods were fighting, right? So it's like you team up with these Titans that are fighting the gods. Athena plays a huge role. Kratos is revealed to be the son of Zeus. So there's all this intrigue and everything going on. God of war three this is where he just goes absolutely ham because there's all the betrayal and everything and the series just keeps getting better and better and better right but bigger and more cinematic by god of war three these boss fights are bananas insane like you're climbing up and attacking the hand of a titan and it's your entire screen like the the sense of scale for these things was absolutely incredible right and i just i love the like the rage and the

the betrayal that kratos goes through like it's just nuts right like so the interesting thing so i i'll fanboy on this all night but what I love is that if you've played one, two, or three, and then you get into God of War, four, I'm just going to call it four, right? But it's like... Who is this guy? Who is this guy, right? Because you're like, dude. through if you know how many times this guy's been betrayed if you know the heartache of like killing his wife and his kids you know because he was tricked into it and all this stuff and then you see him and what i love is he he transcended like greek mythology and now he's in the land of norse mythology and you're like wait a minute but he's a god right like i guess they can do that but

it was like the first time time something has really done that. And he just wants to be left alone. He's like, hey, I've settled down. I have a kid. I just want to be left alone. And then, man, do they screw up. Oh, yeah. Because they do not leave him.

Don't make Kratos your enemy. Yes, they don't leave him alone, and that's all they had to do. And it's a masterpiece of a series, man. I absolutely love it. Don't get me wrong, I get the whole Witcher thing, but again, I can't hold that series up to the whole of God of War. So that's my number one. Yeah, I love the God of Wars. I remember running through, I think it was God of War 2 and 3 when they released. I don't think I played the first when it first came out. But I remember you fought some of the lesser known gods in the earlier installments. And once you hit God of War 3, you're just flat out fighting Poseidon, Zeus, Hades. You're taking all these guys head on. And I remember working at Best Buy when God

of War 3 was about to release. And we had the monitor that would run the game trailers in the gaming section. And I just remember watching the examples of the fights. And I remember the camera would always zoom out and the camera would move and Kratos would still be running around. And that was such a cool part of the God of War games. That's, I think, why the scope of size always worked so well. The camera was not always just stuck at the same angle behind Kratos. You know, it was not afraid to zoom out and let you see the full picture. And then, of course, in God of War 4, he's using, what is it called? The Leviathan Axe or whatever. The Leviathan Axe, yep.

And when he gets those Blades of Chaos back on, it felt so good. Dude, that was one of those game moments where when it happened, I got chill bumps because I was like, oh, it is, oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, the God of of war series is fantastic but i did not include it on my list so josh you know my number one i know everyone listening who's who's listened for a while they know the number one it's pokemon no i'm just pokemon which is one of my honorable mentions no it's mass effect clearly yeah to me mass effect is without a doubt my number one because they mapped it all out this was never gonna be a one-off they designed mass effect one to be part

of this trilogy the games escalate and scale so incredibly well where basically in mass effect one you learn that there are these machines called the reapers who come back around every 50 000 years and wipe out all organic life and you have to give every ounce of your being to fight one reaper and destroy it and that's how mass effect one ends now in mass effect two thing. I mean, that was the crazy thing in Mass Effect 1, was this Reaper was just this unbelievably powerful thing. There's thousands of lives lost, you know, just in stopping this one Reaper. And then Mass Effect 2 kind of ramps it up, where now you know the Reapers are on their way,

and the Reapers have some allies who are already here, and the Reapers are on their way, and the Reapers have some allies who are already here, and the Reapers are in dark space. It's going to take them time. And that's one of the things that I love. Because so many times when you play video games, your guy is supposed to save the princess or rescue these people. So why am I running off doing the side mission of collecting 10 bananas for this dude outside the village. There's more pressing matters at hand. But in Mass Effect, that's written into the story. There's a necessary time lapse before this is going to happen. So we have time to prepare. We have time to get things in order. We have time to do loyalty missions for our crewmates to make

sure that they're focused on the mission. And then in Mass Effect 3, you're just in all-out war, but you've been able to unite every alien race to join together, otherwise you're going to get destroyed. And so when you, by nature, allow for 300 hours of playthrough to lead up to it, it's just epic in scope. I mean, they don't land the ending of Mass Effect 3 famously, but even 85% of Mass Effect 3 is a full masterpiece. So even though the ending tapers off a bit, it is just so well executed and planned from the very beginning. Commander Shepard's one of my all-time favorites. I love Mass Effect. It'll always be my number one. I don't see anything unseeming it. I think people are way too hard on Mass Effect 3, you know, with the ending and everything. It's like, it doesn't diminish the series. Like,

would it have been nice if they had put a perfect little bow on it? Like, yes. But the series as a whole is second to none man like there's not any games out there that do what mass effect does as well as mass effect does you know it's like you said like don't get me wrong there's some amazing games but mass effect stands like on its own in that regard and again you know the choices matter. The scale of what's going on matters. The characters are insanely memorable. I think they did a great job with like making combat much more enjoyable,

like in the second and the third. So again, they took this system and they polished the, the heck out of it, you know, to where it's so great in its own right that everything else, you know, fits that mold, right? Like, everything is just so highly polished. You know, the story, like, everything. Like, honestly, I'm one of those people where I don't want to hold the ending of Mass Effect 3 against the series as a whole,

because that's being way too critical of the entire masterpiece that is the Mass Effect series. Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing I was going to say about it is just that the choices that you make that affect the world at large play out over the course of all three games. So you are given options, like in Mass Effect 1, there's this really aggressive species called the Rackni that you thought were exterminated during the Krogan Rebellion War. Well, it turns out that there are still Rackni alive, and you're given the option of whether or not to exterminate the Racknai Queen and all the rest of the Racknai that are living. And then, if you decide to let them live, in Mass Effect 2, you receive a message from the Racknai that they're living peacefully. And then in Mass Effect 3, they show up for the final battle against the Reapers. Now,

if you exterminate them in Mass Effect 1, you wouldn't know that any of that is even written into the code. There are characters that can die in Mass Effect 1. You have to make a decision. Either Ash or Kaden are going to die, but whoever survives shows up in Mass Effect 2 and then shows up again in Mass Effect 3. And so the game has all of this redundancy code written. Well, if that character dies, then it's going to be this other character. And all of these voice actors have recorded all of these lines. And it's just so, so beautiful, for lack of a better word. It really is art.

Anyone who says video games can't be art, you're probably not listening to this podcast if that's what you believe. But Mass Effect is truly art. It's artful storytelling at its best. Yeah, I agree with you. All right. So I feel like we can continue our top games maybe in a future installment. I'm a little shocked that neither of us picked Portal. Portal was the hardest one for me to leave off the list. It was really hard for me, too. And again, that was one where it's like, there's only two of them. I know that qualifies as a series,

but it was, what am I bumping to put Portal on there? And it was just, that was one where I couldn't do it. So yeah, I mean, huge honorable mention to portal. Um, do you, what other, uh, you want to do some quick fire honorable mentions? Sure. Uh, if we're just going quick fire, then I'll just say NBA jam. It can't be overlooked. There are so many older series that have just either died out or just aren't made anymore. NBA Jam cannot be overstated how fun it was to play that with your buddies at the arcade, especially once it was bumped up to four player.

All of those are fantastic. Guitar Hero, Rock Band, great series. Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted. That was one to say that was one that I had thought about, but just didn't crack the top five for me. Yeah. The last one that I'll say if it's just rapid fire is Batman. I think the Batman series might be the most underrated series at this point. I have not had a conversation about Arkham Asylum or Arkham City in 10 years. And I think that those games are incredible. They are. They're really good. You're right. They're very underrated or just not talked about enough. Arkham Knight, eh, I think that's why it kind of died off. But Arkham City in particular was like GTA, except you're Batman. And that's a great one to revisit and go back to yeah all right so some

for me um bioshock i was a huge fan of the bioshock games um i i mean it they i felt like they they did more and more and more bioshock infinite was just amazingly beautiful for the game and they all have their little twists which i thought was cool so the bioshock series is unique enough that i thought that one was definitely up for honorable mention um you know halo you know it's one of those it's such a classic like video game history thing but it wasn't in my top five it easily could be i could make arguments for it but that was if we did i didn't think it'd be on either of our lists. Diablo. Like, that was one that, man, I mean, if you played the Diablo games with friends, they were just so great, man. The memories that you had playing Diablo.

The Blizzard Trifecta, Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft. It just didn't make the final five. And see, that was the other one I was going to say was Starcraft for me. And you know I'm not a huge fan of RTS games, but I played all of the Starcraft games and they were so well done. I mean, if it wasn't for Starcraft, I don't know that esports would exist in the same capacity that it does. I mean, that was one of those games that just really catapulted like the competitive gaming and the esports industry and stuff like that so it yeah i mean all right so what's your uh what's your top five paul my top five came down to be number one mass effect number two red dead redemption number three grand theft four, Dragon Age, and number five,

Super Mario Brothers. What about you, number five? My number one, God of War, number two, GTA, number three, Dragon Age, number four, The Elder Scrolls, and number five, Legend of Zelda. That's funny. We had two of the exact same. same i mean that should tell you something about those series because we are uh we definitely have different tastes in in gaming sometimes but it's funny when you can have these series that it's like they're just great for everybody yeah they have that universal appeal yep yeah all right well i think this was fun we might have to return to something like this and even if it's not top series maybe breaking down our top five in different genres or something of that nature. I'm feeling some more top five lists coming, Paul. You talked about cereal, so I don't know.

Yeah. You know, I've already talked about that on the show previously. My pitch for our podcast was just top five lists in life, like top five foods, top five cereals, top five favorite actors. So I love breaking down top five foods, top five cereals, top five favorite actors. You know, so I love breaking down top five lists. I'm all about, you know, doing video game lists here on the show. Well, that's all that we have here for today. We finished breaking down our individual top five gaming series, and we will be back with our next episode on Thursday for This Week in Gaming.

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So we really appreciate all of your guys' support and we can't wait to see you guys again on Thursday. And thank you, legendary Jake. Yep, and a special thank you again to Jake. Thanks, buddy. See you guys. See you guys.