Video Gamers Podcast - [Bonus Round] You Don’t Turn Your Back on Family [REMASTERED]- Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

The Video Gamers Podcast is back with another Bonus Round, and gaming hosts Paul, Josh and Ryan are bringing you another can’t miss episode. It’s family time. That’s right, we’re constructing a video game family from some of the most iconic gaming characters and then seeing which family will reign supreme in a series of questions and topics. It’s another hilarious and awesome gaming filled episode! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp and Night Wizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us, because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise.

CBC News. Welcome to this bonus round episode of the Video Gamers podcast. We are due for another draft in tournament, and today we are going to battle it out to see who can build the best family with gaming characters. And I know that that might not sound super exciting, but stick with it. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. We also have a little bit of a twist to determine who is going to be the winner. I am your host, Paul.

And joining me, I guess you can call him the dad of the podcast, because he has the most wisdom and old man. and strength, it's Josh. Yeah, that's my favorite intro ever. Wait a minute, I'm wise and strong. I guess that means I'm really ugly, though. And all three? Yeah, you got to share the wealth.

This is the nicest thing Paul has ever said to me. There you go. It's about time. We've only been doing this four and a half years. And then joining Josh and me. Now, I don't know, Josh. Should I introduce him as one of the kids of the podcast or the pet? Oh, the pet for sure.

The pet. All right. The pet of the podcast. Hey, Ryan. Can you go get me this, Ryan? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, real quick. Here you go. Oh, it's Ryan.

Yeah, thanks. I'm not even going to say anything to that. Ryan's face was all happy. And then he was like, wait a minute. Oh, goodness. All right. It's been not too terribly long since we did our last draft, but this one we're doing a little bit different.

So, Josh, we were brainstorming last night because we always do this at the last minute. Why don't you tell the. people, what exactly it is that we're doing today. All right. So we love being stupid with video games. We have always said our show is kind of like the conversation you have with your friends about video games. And sometimes those conversations just veer into absurdity. We love doing these types of shows. We call them bonus rounds. On this one, we are going to craft a video game family individually. So we're actually going to compete with each other to where we have to draft a dad,

a mom, two siblings, and a pet to build out a video game family. We are then going to vote on who has the best of each category. And then we have some random questions at the end or categories to see where those families might fit. And then we'll give points for whoever's family fits those categories the best as well. So just like friends do, we love, competing with each other. We love talking video games and we love just being stupid and silly at the same time. So you are going to get all of those on this episode. Certainly stupid. I will definitely give you that. Yeah. So to give the people a little bit of an idea of some of these like bonus questions that we're going to ask at the end, we have nine of them total. I think we'll just do all nine. Like why not? We've got, I won't read all of them, but we got some stuff here like which family would survive the longest in a zombie apocalypse. And we all. also have something like, you know, which family would you want to be your neighbors? So we're going to go ahead. We're going to do this. We'll tally up the points. See who puts together the best

gaming family. Now, Ryan, when you like went together and put together your list, did you struggle with any of these categories? The only one I really struggled with was the kids. Believe it or not, there's like not a lot of amazing kids in video games. Most of the time, they're kind of just whiny and annoying. It's kind of put there. So, I struggled a little bit with that, but I think I got a pretty solid list so far. Okay. Yeah, I did not struggle too much with children. I felt like finding a good gaming wife was a little bit tougher.

Since generally you have more protagonist, like male characters, I felt like dad wasn't terribly hard. The others are a little bit rougher. And we did agree to play a little bit loose with the children's siblings. They don't necessarily have to be like minors. But if they are childlike or younger in children. general than they're going to qualify. And also pet, we're playing a little loose with that. Doesn't necessarily have to be an animal. Maybe it is. Maybe it's more of like a mascot companion

that might be the pet of the family. Somebody that lives in your house with your family that is like part of the family. Exactly. Yeah. Guys, guys, guys, I get it. I get it. You're messing with me. You don't have to keep calling me a pet, right? Oh, and we need to mention one other rule. Our other wrinkle to at least keep this somewhat varied in what we pick. If anyone picks a character from a game or a gaming series, that game or series is off the charts. Gone. No longer available. I like this rule.

So if someone drafts Reinhardt from Overwatch, all of Overwatch is off the table. You cannot draft a wife or a child or anything from the rest of the game. It's just off the board at that point. We're making this hard on ourselves, boys. A little bit, little bit. All right, so we did randomize our draft order, and I got to pull it back up here. The order is going to go Josh, Ryan, and then me. And then it's going to go snake style, so it'll reverse every round.

So basically Josh and I will be doing back-to-back picks this whole draft. Ryan is the one in the middle. We'll go five rounds, and then we'll match everything up against it. Sound good? Yeah. I'm pumped, man. This is going to be a fun one. There is a little bit of strategy here with like trying to block off a certain game.

things like that. Yeah. I think this is going to be interesting. So Josh, you get the first pick here. You got the 101. What are you going to go with? Okay. I'm 100% going with this character because I want to block off this series and game from YouTube because it has a lot of very memorable characters in it. And I feel like some of these characters, especially with this family dynamic would get picked. I, and I'm also kind of going where I'm trying to build out like an actual decent family. You know, I sometimes I like to get a little crazy on these drafts, like drafting a head crab for an actor. Oh, we remember. What?

I still hear about that to this day. So that has taught me to not be crazy because you'll never live it down. I am picking Freya from God of Or as the mom of my family. So number one, she makes a fantastic. mother. She is caring. Look how, look what she did for Balder, man. Look how he turned out. Well, I'm just saying she loved Balder more than anything. She took care of Atreus when he was sick. She's willing to help people. She cares for them. She nurses them back to health. She's got that mother, motherly instinct. And I also want to block you guys from being able to draft any God of War

characters. So that's why she is my first pick overall. Fantastic mom, by the way. Yeah, I was trying to argue. Far better, far better mom than wife. I will say that. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. I was, I was just going to say, I'm trying to argue against it, but that's, that was my number one under moms too.

Yeah. Not a bad pick at all. Totally understand it. And, uh, yeah. All right. And that, so no Cratos, no Atreus, Ryan. I know how badly you wanted to draft Atreus to be the child in your family, right? Gosh.

I just wanted to go on God business. Ryan just wants to like ground Atreus, man. Well, it wouldn't be a draft without a god of war appearance somewhere, and I'm glad it's Freya this go around. I like it. All right, Ryan, you get the second overall pick here. Are you, uh, what are you going to go with? So, I think I'm going to go with something that also to kind of block out a series,

also a really solid character for this category, and then with some of the questions in mind, I think it will fit equally as well. I'm going to go with Ellie from Last of Us for the kids. That was top of my siblings list, man. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was for me too. Dang it.

You want to survive the apocalypse? Got one of the best. And she's immune. Also just deleted Joel from the dad's category there. Yep. Yeah. No more Joel. I like this.

I like this style doing it this way. Yeah, until we run out of picks and then I'm like, I got nothing, guys. Well, that's the end of the episode, folks. All right. So we had a. and we had a child go first. Wow. Okay.

All right. I get my back-to-back picks here. Let's see here. Boy, I could have my pick of dads, but I feel like that's the easiest category. Now, Paul gets two picks here, which is dangerous because it's... I do get two. Yeah. I think I am going to take a child, because we have such a limited list here.

I also know it's a beloved series. Might be one of Josh's favorites. I am going to draft Siri from the Witcher 3. That's a good one, man. That's a good one, man. That was on my list, too. Yeah, I'm a little surprised. We had three female characters to start out our draft.

I don't know if that's ever been the case before. So, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and book Siri from the Witcher. Removing Yenifer from the mom's category. Yep, no Yenifer. No, Geryl. They are gone. And then I, you know, what, even though Josh already took a wife, I'm going to go ahead.

No. Mom. I'm going to wait. Mom. It's a mom, not a wife. Still have. Mom slash wife. Still have Professor garlic on my list.

So, oh, yeah. You're going to battle Ryan for that one. I am going to go ahead and you know what? I'm going to go on brand. I don't care. Best dad, Ethan Mars. Oh, yeah. Babies.

You guys are crazy. Don't make us explain it again. I will never agree with this take. Would you cut your, would you cut your finger off for your kid? Yeah. That would make you a good dad. I wouldn't let my kids get kidnapped, Ryan.

Oh, excuse me. I wouldn't black out, I wouldn't black out and wind up in an alley while I took my kid to the park. Okay. Not from a car accident, that's for sure. We're going to mark it down. Ethan Mars,

the man who would literally do anything. I would even argue more than what Freya would do for her children. You know, Freya was willing to fight Cretos, but I don't know that she was willing to, you know, drink poison and all these other things. So I've got Ethan here as the dad, Siri as the first child, and now we are coming back to Ryan.

Okay, so, man, these series keep falling off pretty quick. I know, no more heavy rain picks, right? I know, right? yeah i was totally going to pick um it's gonna say you don't want scott madison yeah i was gonna say madison oh scott yeah scott for dad scott is the dad

um i am gonna do i'm gonna do the mom uh category here i'm gonna pick someone who's loving kind caring compassionate they're there for everybody willing to help in an expert archer i'm going with aloy okay as soon as you said archer

I knew that's where we were going with this. I figured that'd give it away. How old is A. Loy? That's my question. Please be 18. Early 20s? I feel like she would be early 20s. But let's see what the, uh, oh, oh, oh, 20, 21?

She's 18 years old at the beginning of the first game, Ryan. So there you go. You're getting awfully close, dude. Awfully close. All right. Not a pervert, but pervert. This show did not get awkward very fast, thankfully. All right.

So, Aloy, huh? All right. Aloy from the Horizon games. Taking lost off my dad's list. Oh, man. Okay. This one is tough because I feel like the sibling category is the hardest category,

but I also feel like I have two that I do not think I'm in danger of losing on that one. I do feel like I need to pick a dad here. And I only have four. on my dad list that are left. And, you know, we talked about, we actually had a long time ago, a Best Gaming Dad's episode. And Paul, do you remember who the winner of that episode was?

The winner was Ryan Hart. That's who I'm taking. Maybe I'm taking Ryanhart. If he won one of these, he can win a second one. Oh, geez. Also removing all of the Overwatch cast because I don't want you guys to get Mercy or Anna,

in the mom category either because those were two very strong picks in that category. Yep. Which are now off the table. I did have mercy on my short list for that. Yeah, I figured. Yep. Good defensive pick there. No Winston is pet.

So Josh, you went with the two parents here first. We got Reinhardt and Freya for you. I did. I'm really counting on my siblings not being characters that are like in mind for you guys. Because if they are, I'm in real trouble because that list is a lot smaller. Very nice. And yeah, you still get your second pick here, Josh. Oh, I get back to backs.

Oh, well, I'm taking one of the siblings then, of course. Oh, or do I go with the pet? No one's taking a pet yet. There's one pet that is easily above all the others. Is there? Yeah, there is. Dang it, I don't know. Sounds like a value pick.

You should go that way then. No, I'm going to hedge my bet here. I am going to go with Zelda as the sibling and also block out any characters from that series as well. Dang it. Zelda. It's a little bit of a boring pick, I got to say. Isn't it for a sibling?

I mean, it's Zelda, dude. You know how much cool stuff she can do? She's got her own game now. She can get kidnapped. She's got her own game. Finally. What are you going to pick? next, Princess Peach. That's okay. I got a good pick for sibling. I have to lock this up, man. I went crazy last time. I'm playing a win this time. I feel like it's been, what, like 38 years or something since the first Zelda game and now she finally has her first one. I don't know. We'll see. All right. Ryan, coming back to you. So you've already got your mom and one child. Where are you going next? Oh, man. So I think I'm pretty safe on the other category.

I'm going to do a kid again. I am going to go with recency bias on hype level for a new game coming out and I'm going with Astrobot. I looked it up. He was born November 15th, 2013.

Was he born? That's what it said. Yeah, as a child. Judge is ruling? Does this count Josh? I mean, I think so. I like the creativity. It's like I could have seen going

in the pet category as Astrobot to have like the family rober. But if you want that for Simlin, I get it. If you play the Astro's Playroom and stuff, he's definitely much more like individual, like a child and kind of kidlike than, you know, of just a robot. Right.

I got you. So, yeah, going with Astrobot. What a dream team, Ellie and Astrobot? Not bad, not bad. All right, I get my back-to-back picks here. Let's see. So far, I've got my dad, I've got one child.

I want to, finish out the children and go for my second one here. I am going to go with, I think this might be a little bit of a controversial pick. This is a child who's not necessarily the most obedient, but they have a lot of heart, they have a lot

of spirit. I know a couple of the questions sometimes require a little bit of violence, and this person fits the bill. Josh, do you remember ever talking to any neighborhood children over the fence in any CRPGs? Are you picking Kudow?

I'm taking Cuno baby. Oh, that's a great pick, man. What a dysfunctional family you got, Paul. Cuno's going to be a terror. Oh, yeah. We're going Cuno from Disco Elysium. What a fantastic game.

I hate that kid. What a crazy kid, man. Cuno's got a couple screws loose, but that's okay. I'm going to stick with it anyway. Ooh, Cuno and Ethan. I've got some wild cards. Yeah, your family is going to win the most likely

to wind up in jail category. the mental illness is running He's going to pass out and end up somewhere else And Kuno is going to run wild for like a week Oh my goodness This is going to be wild All right and then I have another pick Now none of us have taken a pet yet

And I feel like there are a couple of decent ones I did think about trying to take Mimir as a pet I have them on my pet list Did you really? I do yeah we think the same Paul Because I was like he's just the family like dude That's hanging out Kuno go feed Memeer

you know, you're going to have to like take care of them. So I felt like he might qualify. I am going to go with, and I know that once upon a time, Josh said that this was not a video game, which is bananas, but I am taking Pikachu from the Pokemon games. Oh, good pick. That was on mine. That'd be a good house defender.

Yeah. So not all the pets are great at like fighting or survival. So I feel like Pikachu might. you might give me a couple points there. Also, your power bill will be much less. That's true. Yeah. In Arizona in the summertime, our electric bills get real high. Just plug pick at you in and be like, hey, go to work. Yep. Charge it up.

I was, uh, maybe I shouldn't go there, but I was going to say, where, where are you putting the plug, Josh? No, no, no, the tail goes into the plug. Oh, the tail goes into the other way around. Okay. Other way. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I hear you. All right. With that being said Oh my word Let's go ahead and take our first break And then we'll come right back All right guys

We are in round four Ryan, we are back to your pick You've already got your mom And your two kids All you have left is dad and pet Where are you going here? Dad and pet You probably should go pet

Because Josh and I already have dads Yes Don't give him hints Paul Oh I will Because I already have my pet This is true I have two that I'm struggling to decide between on the pets. I'm going to go with the popular vote on this one, and I'm going Yoshi.

Oh. Yoshi, you have not only a good pet and companion. He got transportation and you got eggs. You got some breakfast. Doesn't he eat a lot of stuff? Yeah. Yeah, where he just eats the. cleanup service, multi, multifunctional.

Now, is it not pooping eggs everywhere? Yeah, you got a non-ending supply of eggs. This is a feature, Josh. Oh, this is a feature? Not a, okay. Yeah, exactly. You know how much eggs are these days? Oh, yeah.

All right, so I went ahead and marked Yoshi just from Mario Brothers. I think that's where we first saw Yoshi. So that's going to take off the table. Mario, Luigi, I don't think anyone's drafting any of those characters anyway. Okay. So let's see. Josh, we are back to your last two picks. You got to give us one more child and a pet. Yeah, buddy. This is one. I'm so happy to get this pick. And I did not think that either one of you would have thought about this character as a sibling. But you know, Paul, you insulted my Zelda pick and called it boring. I did. And so I'm going to spice it up a little bit and go with somebody that is just a ton of fun, is overflowing with personality.

loves playing Dungeons and Dragons has a fantastic sense of humor. I am taking Tiny Tina as the other sibling to pair with Zelda. I definitely thought about her along with But Stalien as the family pet, but I guess But Stalion would now be off the table. But Stalion is now off the table. So Tiny Tina as a child. She's childlike? I mean, I don't know how old she is, but she's definitely a child in nature.

just keep her away from Ryan. She's not available, buddy. Yeah. All right. And then I get one more, right? Sure. And Tiny Tina, Tina I'll mark as Borderlands

slash Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. I think that qualifies for, like, that's all one series. It's the borderland series. So that would be my, that's what it's from. So yeah. Okay.

And then pets, man, I'm kind of torn on a couple of these. Like, I think the one, this one might require a ruling, but, We made a ruling on Astrobot.

But, you know, we talked about the pet doesn't necessarily have to be an animal. It could be somebody that maybe is just part of the family in the household, you know, is there when you come home. Maybe, you know, you get home late at night and you walk through the door and you say, hey, Cortana, turn the lights on. I wasn't sure if this was going to be Cortana or Glados. I was thinking you were going to go. I thought he was going to go. I was about to type in portal and chat. house, man.

You know, like, that wouldn't make sense unless you have a giant mansion that you're going to put her in. But Cortana, you know, she fits in the palm of your hand. What do you think, Ryan? I'm going to vote. Yes, I think it's fine. Yeah, we'll give it to him. He needs it.

Sweet. He needs to help. You need the help. No way, man. My team's awesome. Yeah, I'm a mental institute. Cortana from Halo is going to round. out Josh's team. Very nice. All right, Ryan, your last pick. You got to go with a dad. You left

this category for last. I did. I did. You want to go when you're looking for a father figure, you want a protector, someone who's willing to give anything, do anything, much like your pick, Paul. Thank you. Yes. For their family and for their kids. What better than the person with the highest medicholorean count ever. I'm going with Darth Vader. Not Anakin Skywalker. Literally Darth Vader. He didn't say Anakin.

He just goes straight to the Sith Lord. Oh, of course. Because he would do anything for his family. That guy. If he could save Padamay, he could save his kids. Dude, he was going to smoke the emperor. Luke joined me. He did.

He does smoke the emperor. Yeah, he does smoke the emperor. Well, technically. I will say. If Luke had joined him, he would have been like all about being that dad life. Oh, yeah. You know, because he wanted to rule the galaxy with Luke. And then when Luke was like, no.

Yeah, as father and son. I know. So I could see it, man. As long as you don't get on his bad side. And then he's just got to smack him. Quit doing that stuff with your sister. Yeah. That's true.

And of course, Vader is father in German if memory serves. So yeah, pretty fitting. What more do you want? All right, not bad. All right. We are now to my last pick. and I have to fill out the mom role. And there's still a couple good ones on the table.

I'm kind of surprised. I think, boy, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but we're going to leave Lara Croft on the table here. I am going to draft Lady Demetresk from Resident Evil. I know that might be a little bit of a controversial pick, a little bit like Ryan's. I am going to go for it anyway. I think the one downside here is that,

Ryan, you never actually played Resident Evil Village, did you? I know I did not play village Ryan's missing out Ryan would love Lady Demetresk Oh If I know anything about Ryan Ryan Ryan would be like This is great

She's very tall She has a very big hat Yes She does smoke though Which is kind of a Gross Yeah that's true Smokers are jokers

You just get her vaping Ryan You can do it All right so I'm sure that we all have a whole bunch of honorable mentions. We've got some great ones that did not get drafted. So I'm curious to hear from you guys. What are a couple honorable mentions we should bring up? I had to look this up, but I can't believe nobody took Nathan Drake or anybody from the uncharted series because Sully could have been a dad. Nathan Drake's 38 years old. So definitely of age to be a dad. So that's a popular one. I had Lee Everett from the Walking Dead.

Oh, okay. I mean, what a nice. That dude would do anything. Let's see, for moms, I had bayonetta. That'd be a fun mom. You know, you don't mess with her, man. Do you want to have the hot mom of the friend group? Yeah. Do you think so? Yeah.

Doesn't that like instantly make you popular? Not in the right way. I think you get teased a lot. Not like Stifler's mom, right? I think that's exactly. Is that? Is that? Okay, maybe not then.

All right. Well, that's going to take quiet off my list then. I did have Knicks from Hades. That's a good mom. Okay. She's the one that's like the mother to, uh, uh, what's the dude's name? Um, the Hades guy. Yeah, anyway.

The Hades guy. Yes. You can also get Cerberus as your, uh, family pet, right? Yeah, that would have been a good one too. Good protector. Yeah. Um, and then the only other, the other one for sibling that I was really, uh, looking at going with would be Elizabeth Booker from, uh, Infinite.

Bioshock. Bioshock. Yeah. that makes a lot of sense. What about you, Ryan? Who'd you leave on the table? There's a few good ones. I know on the kids, I had found a couple later on, but I just couldn't go with them.

But I had Bart Simpson. I thought that'd be a fun one. Did you love those old like Sega Genesis Simpsons games back in the day? 100%. Yeah, those were. They were fun. Yeah, those like arcade stack ones where you could go around as Bart with the skateboard and Marge had the vacuum.

Oh, especially, yeah. The arcade game I used to play. that was all my money back in the day. At that cabin that I stayed at in the fall or whatever, they had one of those and Simpsons was on it and I just played that like the whole time. Yeah. It was pretty fun. But I also had, for the kids, I had like tails.

Tails would have been a good one. That's a good choice too. Ness. Oh, I had Diddy Kong on my list. Yeah, Diddy Kong? Yeah, he was on there. I even put just getting real crazy. I put Kevin McAllister from Home Alone because there is,

there is 1991. Home Alone game. There is. That's pretty old there. And then for dads, I had Big Daddy was on there. That's big time protector there. And then also Big Boss from Melger Solid Series. Oh, okay.

Yeah. So, so good of a man that he had kids with a surrogate mom and clones made of him. Very true. Yeah, the ones that I had on my list that you guys didn't mention, Commander Shepard, As a dad, I think would make an awful lot of sense. Great leader. Probably would make a good disciplinarian, but also well-balanced. Also, any of the dwarves from Deep Rock Galactic, I think would make for a really fun dad.

That would have been good. Yeah, I had Ethan and the dwarves, and I put in parentheses, I guess, my driller. Those were my top two that I was hoping to take. The family of minds together, stays together? Yes, exactly. And Galerius from the Forgotten City would be a fantastic. Fantastic dad as well. He would do anything for his family and run around. For wives, I think we got most of them. I thought taking the ballerina from Atomic Heart would be a little bit out there and a little bit of a funny pick.

Moms, Paul. Not wives. It's moms. Moms. Yes, yes. And mercy from Overwatch. Does that change things for the ballerina for you? Nah, why not? Sammas. Samis, yep. For children, Cuphead is very. childlike for sure. Interesting pick. Yeah. Gets in trouble. You know,

you don't necessarily want your kids running around making a deal with the devil, but, you know, or a mug man, wasn't that his brother? Yeah. Either of them,

I think, would make for decent kids. Juliana from Death Loop, I know that she's an adult, but she is Colt's daughter. It's true. And you talk to her a lot throughout that game.

I thought that would maybe be a good pick. Frey from Forspoken, I thought about doing just to bug Josh because he would have gone bananas. Yeah. missed opportunity. And SpongeBob from Battle for Bikini Bottom. Definitely could be one of your kids.

Can you imagine? Okay, so that means we could have wound up with siblings that were SpongeBob and Bart Simpson. That's very true. How did we not? I would have been. How did nobody put that together? I know. Would have made a lot of sense.

And then as far as pet goes, the only ones, I mean, dog meat, I felt was like way too obvious. Yeah. He was the one where I was like, this is the easy, like, first pick, but a little cliche, too. Could also go with the Shiba Inu from Ryan's favorite puzzle game, Humanity. Yeah, that's true. Spiro.

Or a Spiro, Sherrod, get your own dragon. Or Chocobo from Final Fantasy. Oh, that would have been a good pet, man. You can ride them, put him to work. Yeah. Sure. Ooh, BD1 from Star Wars, Fall in Order. Could do that as well.

I also thought about Cal as a child, even though he's a little older. he's young enough. He's young enough. Yeah, I'd get that one. Yeah. Nobody had the companion cube as the pet, huh? Nope, nope. Thought about it, but too boring of a pick. What a good babysitter, though. Oh, you know what else would have been a funny pick that I didn't think about? The baby from Who's Your Daddy? Talk about chaos. All right, so let's go ahead and recap our teams here. So, Ryan, you are coming in, with Darth Vader, Aloy, Ellie,

Astrobot, and Yoshi. Gotta say, Aloy being the mom of Ellie, not a huge age gap there. Ailey made some bad decisions when she was younger. They might have some issues.

Let's just say that. Josh, you are coming in with Reinhart, Freya, Zelda. I think that's your one glaring weakness. Tiny Tina and Cortana as your pet. That's a little bit off the wall.

What a team. What a family. I sort of went a little more team chaos slash team evil question mark. I've got Ethan Mars, Lady Demetresk, Siri, Kuno, and Pikachu. Paul's family. It's so crazy, man. Oh, my goodness. You can make a lot of arguments either way, right?

All right. Well, with all that being said, let's go ahead and just take our last break and then come back and determine our winner. All right, guys. Taking a look here. We're going to go through. We got to vote for who. has the best dad, best mom, best child one, best child two, best pet, and then we'll go through

our questions. Let's just start out with dads, all right? You cannot vote for yourself. Are you guys going to vote for Darth Vader, Reinhart, or Ethan Mars? Well, I can't vote for myself. Correct. And you guys know that I think that Ethan Mars is the worst dad. And normally I would say Darth Vader, I'd be like, what? But then I think you're right, man. Like I said, we kind of talked it over if Luke had joined him, he would have been like a phenomenal dad. Ain't nobody messing with Luke. So I'm picking Darth Vader. Yes. Oddly enough, as weird as that sounds to me, I think he would be a good dad, man.

Last argument before, you know, final answer. Yeah, hit me eye. Yeah. Okay. He did choke out his wife carrying his two children. It was, that was a mistake, Paul. Yeah. People make mistakes. Yeah. That was a. That was, it wasn't on purpose. Okay, we're going to call that a mistake, huh? Yeah. All right. So we have a mass murderer who blows up planets for fun as a negotiation tactic or

Ethan Mars who would do anything for his children. You're sticking with Darth Vader? Dang, you make a good point, man. Why did you have to bring blowing up planets into it? That was more, no, that was more like the general. I was going to say, isn't that more like Emperor Palpatine and Vader just doing what he was told to do at that point? Because when it comes down to it, Vader, in the end,

still grabs Emperor Palpatine and throws him down the pit. And he just works there. He just works there, man. It's true, man. You don't know what, like, you know, can you imagine if you don't have health care nowadays? He might have just been looking out for his family. You know, he didn't want to lose them benefits. He's got his 401k in that company.

He doesn't want to go. The empire has good benefits, man. Yeah, I'm going to Darth Vader. You know what? Last point. All right. So if you and your wife died, Josh, you would rather leave your children in your will to Darth Vader.

over Ethan Mars, absolutely. Okay. All right. All right. So clearly... They're going to live on a death star. I've seen Ethan Mars's apartment. That place is a dump, man. All right. So Josh is voting Darth Vader. I have to vote between Darth Vader and Reinhart. I'm voting Reinhart. Yeah.

For sure. What smart. He won the best gaming dad. And he already is a great dad. He is the father of Brigida. They have great rapport. Ryan Hart is a fantastic dad. He's kind. He's gentle.

Sorry, Ryan. Yeah. He wants the best for people. He aspires you to be your best. So now what do we do? What do we do if I go Ethan Mars? If you go Ethan, then it's just a three-way tie. No one gets a point.

Ethan Mars. Nobody gets a point. Very nice. I am all for it. So we have no winner for the dads. That is, wait a minute. Well, what else you're supposed to do? There's three dads.

He could have picked the best dad in, voted like he should have voted. Ethan Mars is a fantastic dad. You can say whatever you want. But right, Paul, he's a good dad. He should be the winner. Is he a better dad than Reinhardt? Listen, let's not get into details.

Oh, okay. All right. So this is Ryan just throwing a wrench into the works here. I would never. No shade, Ryan, but Darth Vader is, I just have him by far behind the other two person. So, all right, moving on to the moms. The fact that Paul is going to let this stand instead of saying Reinhart is the best dad also. I did vote.

Well, I voted for Reinhart, but I would vote for Ethan over. Yeah, exactly. You're not voting for Ethan over Reinhart. What is this? What is these shenan? I'm not going to protest. I'm not going to protest. But these are some shenanigans going on right now.

I drafted Ethan in our best dad's draft. So I have been consistent in believing he is a fantastic. He lost in that one, too. And in that. draft, I did take Joel from the Last of Us with my number one overall pick. You already blocked out the last of us. I would have gone with Joel. Joel, I think, is the best gaming dad, but since Last of Us was off the table, I had to go, Ethan. So I stand by it. The human race to keep Ellie alive. Yeah, that's what he was willing to do. Got to love it. Moving on to our moms,

we've got Aloy v. Freya v. Lady Demetresk. Interesting. This is... I'll throw out my vote first. As much as I like Aloy, I think Freya by nature is a better mom. Yeah. Yeah, she's also of like mom age. I didn't know she was that young, okay? The 18 year old mom is with a 17 year old daughter or, you know, whatever,

is throwing me off just a little bit. That's why I was saying. This category is weird. I feel like there's only one right answer in this school category. man. MTV with Scoop her up in a heartbeat for teen mom. Very true. Yeah. So I'll throw my vote to Freya. Uh, what about you, Josh? Are you voting for Aloy or Lady Demetres? I know, this is, how am I supposed to vote for either one of these, man? Like, can, all right, so here's a, here's a real serious question. Can vampires birth children?

No. Or do you have to, like, bite them and then, like, they just become your children? Because she has daughters in Resident Evil Village. Like, four of them, right? But I feel like she created those daughters by like biting them. She might have. It doesn't matter. Maybe she's an adoptive mom, you know, she just has to serve in the road. I feel like this does matter. I feel like, but also I don't want to vote for A Lois because it's like she should be under the sibling category, not the mom category. Yeah. I mean, okay, let's be honest. Lady Demetresk gets super ticked off when she finds out that you may or may not have killed.

her daughters, I don't want to put any spoilers out there. So I'm going to vote for Lady Demetresk. Aloy is the nicer person by far, by far. But my brain is having a hard time being like, yeah, she's a mom. I guess I should have looked at how old she was. Yeah. Aloy would be the winner for like family, like friend of the family. I think she would win in that regard.

But as the actual mom, I don't know, a little bit of a tough pick. Okay, so we have one vote for Freya, one vote for Lady Demetresque. Ryan, you get to be the swing vote here. I'm the decider. He's going to take the vote. I'm going to have to go because it was also number one on my list. I'm going for Freya. All right, I had a feeling.

Way to totally redeem yourself, Ryan. I take back everything I thought about you in between these two picks. Yeah, she's the mom of moms. even though she didn't do the best job she was willing to do anything. Fair enough. So that is one point for Josh. Moving on to Child 1.

Now I assume we're going to split the children and vote for each separate or should we vote for them as a combo? Let's do combo. Because we've got to get to some questions too. So yeah, because this is like who, which family has the best pair of siblings? That's why we went two siblings.

Okay. So we've got Ellie and Astrobot. We've got Zelda, who doesn't talk, and Tiny Tina, who won't shut up. Yeah. And then we've got Siri and Kuno. Oh, my gosh. That's quite the pairing there. It really is.

Boy. I'm going to. I'm good. I don't know. This one's tough. I'm trying to think. I could see benefits to both. I'll let one of you pick first this time.

Go ahead, Ryan. Why don't you go first? Oh, man. so gosh I hate Kuno though and you're going to have to hear you're going to hear Zelda talk no that's Link come on now Zelda actually

yeah that's Zelda actually speaks oh she does speak and she's got a soothing voice Link you have to save me again she's not even going to be around she's going to get kidnapped and be gone every other week she'll be off to college yeah great exactly

yeah what better sibling Siri and Kuno that you put those two together If they're loyal to one another They're gonna protect each other's backs Snitches get stitches Ryan Siri and Kuno are gonna have each other's back There's no way

They're gonna sell each other out Within like minutes You think so? Oh yeah man He's gonna try to like post up on Siri or say something Like nobody puts Kudo in your corner And then Siri's just gonna be like That little lightning dash

thing that she does in the winter and just yeah cuno's going to be like sliced in half man well cool then i won't have to deal with cuno so then i'm i'm going my uh my hate of cuno is overtaken by my love for ceres so i'm going to go with syri and cuno okay i will also say ryan that if you ever go back to disco elysium cuno has a potential really fantastic redemption story also you can uh deputize them you can make them a cup which is hysterical. So there's a lot that you can do with Kuno. He might win you over if you ever go back to it. I was playing and we were outside checking for, you know, clues or whatever. And that's one of the last time I played because I was so annoyed with Kuno. Nice. All right. So Ryan is voting for

my combo. I am going to, boy, I don't know. I love the L.E. Pick. Astrobot is a little off the wall. How is that off the wall? It's like a child. He's a better pet. No, he's not. It's a boy. It's just like Astro Boy. Like, he's a robot, but he's a boy. Astrobot is like the same thing. He runs, he jumps, he plays. I'm going to throw my vote to Ellie and Astrobot, mostly because of Ellie. Ellie is a really good pick.

I was going to take that with my first pick. I was going to pick Ellie and Astrobot, yeah, too, to be honest. So that just kind of solidifies it. So that's one point for Ryan. Okay. I can see them being like best friends, dude, because Ellie's like, she's nice. You know what I mean? Like she wants to talk and, you know,

have that companionship and stuff. And it's like, you can see her and Astrobot bonding really well. Yeah, they go out and go on. I do think he would have made a better pet pick, but since he's in that sibling category, like, I'll give it to you. I can see them looking out for each other. All right. So Ryan takes home the siblings.

Best pet. We've got Yoshi v. Cortana v. Pikachu. Who? The Cortana one's hard. This seems very clear to me, but I want to hear what you guys have to say. I mean, I would just argue that Cortana could, I mean, you know, we're in the age of AI. People are starting to see like the advantage of like being able to just ask any question, have AI drive your car for you, you know, any of that stuff. And Cortana's the most advanced AI that has existed.

So that seems like a huge benefit to me to have that in your house and your family. You know, she could be watching out for your kids. She's tracking them, you know, while Ellie and Astroids. robot are off playing at the park, Cortana could be like, I'm keeping tabs on their position. You know, checking heart rates. She can't do anything. Well, she could tell you. So Josh's, so Josh's argument is we already have AI.

Why not have a slightly better AI? No, my argument is we are seeing the advantages of having AI. So can you imagine if you actually had that like the super AI in your family available to your family only as like, you know, your family friend slash pet? You know what we don't have? Pet dinosaurs and electric Pokemon. So electric Pokemon that are going to basically

zap all the electronics in your house because the second Pikachu gets excited, now your computer and your graphics card that you just... Oh no, that thing's fried, man. Getting better performance. No way. Your house is having electrical problems.

Yeah. And then Yoshi is going to be pooping everywhere. Can you house train Yoshi? Of course you can. Can you? Are you just saying that, Ryan? Because you want it to sound good. You could totally house train Yoshi.

Also, Yoshi don't move super fast. So it's like you could ride Yoshi, but you could probably just run faster if you really wanted to. He can jump. Yeah, you can jump. You can jump. And if somebody bugs you, you just eat them. A real world example of Yoshi. Oh, so you're just going to murder people now.

Oh, yeah. I picked Vader as my dad. Okay. That's true. So which one are you voting for, Josh? Yoshi or Pikachu? Oh, my goodness. Pikachu's lowering your electric bill.

I got my electric bill last one. That's a lot. I'm taking Pikachu. Pikachu's also a very cute pet. You're not going to want to call over Yoshi and like pet him. I don't like Yoshi. I know that might be a hot take, but I don't like Yoshi in general. I'm not a huge Yoshi fan either.

I'm kind of with you there. Sorry, buddy. Listen to Paul Pandering. Paul Panderin right now. I don't like Yoshi either, Josh. After the show, Paul's going to be like, dude, Yoshi's great. I only said that to get you. to vote for me.

I don't pander. I don't care who wins these drafts. There's no stakes. Well, I'll tell you what, I got my power bill recently as well. And the amount of money that these kids cost me by leaving lights on and doors open and doors open and stuff and windows, I wouldn't have to worry about that anymore. Just get a big old battery and have Pikachu charge it up once a week. I'm going Pikachu. Yeah.

All right. So I get a point there for Pikachu. And so my vote doesn't matter, but I would have voted for Yoshi. over Cortana. Only because, only because I feel like it better fits the definition of a pet. Cortana is a, you know, a clever twist on it, but it's a twist too far. Are you saying you would have voted for dog meat then, Paul? I might have.

I might have. I saw a look at Paul's face. He's like, heck no, I ain't vote for dog meat. If it was a chokobo, butt stallion, Mamiere, I'd vote for all of those over Yoshi for sure. Cortana would have been better mom in the mom category. She can't be a mom. She's not a physical being.

She could, she's an AI. She could design a bot and then just do it that way. Yeah, you've seen, I know you hated the movie, Josh, but Blade Runner 2049. That was, that's like an AI in a physical form too. There you go. Yeah, that as well. Yes. Good old ex machina.

Should we have another pronunciation argument on the show? You're probably right. It probably is Machina. But, you know. It is. What a great movie, by the way. It was good. Love that one.

All right. So we got to move on to our questions here. This won't take very long. Which family would win in a street fight? So give me the trophy now. What? I got Freya Reinhart. Dude.

Zelda? She's a battler. It's definitely Josh. Josh is winning with Reinhardt and Freya alone. Josh has a god. Ryan had or a goddess, I guess would be more proper. Ryan, I love your team as a whole. but like,

Aloy, Elie, Astrobot and Yoshi, they're not going to help you at all. You've got just Darth Vader against the rest. That's all you need,

baby. And I think they're going to lose. And my team's not winning in a street fight. I don't have the, uh, you guys kind of capitalized on the magic slash godhood powers.

Yeah. My only one like that is Pikachu. So I know I'm not winning this one. I'm going to vote for Josh. What about you guys? Yeah, I'm going to vote for Josh too. I'm going to vote for me.

Wait, are we allowed to vote for ourselves now? If, honor system, sure. Why not? All right. Which family would put on the best. Oh, sorry. Which family would put on the best podcast? Oh, man.

Ooh. Hmm. Okay. Ellie would be a good talker as Aloy, I think, would have some stories to tell. Zelma ain't talking very much. Tiny Tina would be hilarious to listen to it. That would be, yeah, that'd be a pretty good one. Tiny Tina's going to be great.

So, I think my. team would have the best subject matter, but I don't know that I've got the charisma of like podcast hosting. Kuno, I think, would be funny to listen to for a little bit because I loved his segments in the game. Yeah. But I think after a while, you just keep get real annoying real quick. Darth Vader.

He's not a speaker. He's a doer. Yeah, Yoshi. Yeah, but that smooth, crispy voice. I mean, it is a good voice, but also all the heavy breathing. Oh, all right. The breathing. On this podcast, I want to tell you about my pick.

I think I want to go with my own tea. What Star Wars are you watching? I have never heard a Darth Vader impersonation like that. But Josh has won me over. The Darth Vader breathing on the pod is no good. Oh. Ryan doesn't want to admit it, but he knows. I can see the look on his face.

I think it'd be good. Vader would be good on a podcast. He's got the family drama. I'll give you that. Yeah, he's got a lot to say. I think Tiny Tina, legitimately, I know I'm biased, but Tiny Tina,

I think would clinch this one. That's the only one you got, but I think it's good enough to take it home. Yeah. We'll give that one to Josh, and then we just got to move on. Which family is most likely

to wind up on date line? Well, that's Paul's family. Paul's family. That's an easy one. That's the only question I'm going to win. It is that one. Oh, my goodness. Between Ethan, Lady Demetresk and Kuno, any one of those three, you could picture like a dateline episode.

All right. We'll give that one to me. Fair enough. Moving on. Which family would win in a game of backyard football? I think this is where Darth Vader takes you over the end zone. He needs speed. He's picking.

everything. Every throw is an interception. Now, he's not fast, though. That's the one thing. Vader always walks. You never see Vader run. Sure. He's going to be the quarterback. And you can use the force, guide the football. You're not missing any field goals. He's going to be your kicker. Aloy is very agile.

This is true. I think that's Ryan's team. This is Ryan's team. Vader and Aloy combined would be, yeah. As much like, Reinhardt, Freya, they're great picks, but I don't see them playing. Not in football. Freya is not going to want to play no football, man.

I could see Ellie playing football, Astrobot. This is Ryan's team for sure. Yeah, it's Ryan's. Yes. All right. Next one here. Which family would survive the longest in a zombie apocalypse? Okay, well, Ellie knows how to do that.

Yeah, Ellie's done it. Yoshi is zombie meat, so he's out. I feel like Reinhardt is fully armored. Freya doesn't have to worry about zombies. because she's a goddess. Cortana doesn't have to worry about zombies because she's a eye. Tiny Tina is probably getting eaten pretty quick, but she's kind of scrappy,

isn't she? Tiny Tina? Yeah, I mean, she's scrappy. She'd be like a good scavenger. I do feel like, okay, Ethan Mars, immediately does. Ethan Mars is just laying down and saying, thank goodness, I can get out of this.

Oh, I'm not winning. Lady Demetresk, I don't, I mean, vampires beat zombies 10 out of 10 times. Yeah, and Siri. Siri would be all the zombies. Kuno would just talk a bunch of smack and then get eaten. Pikachu, I feel like electricity's not going to hurt a zombie. So that's like a weakness right there.

You don't think so? No. They're dead. I mean, maybe paralyze them a little bit, but you're not like, they're already dead. I'm running to the head, I think might fry the brain enough. I think this comes down to Vader and Ellie and maybe Eloy. for Ryan and Reinhart, Freya, and Cortana for me? Is it survive?

Astrobot's pretty solid, too. It's, it's Ryan. Okay, yeah, I forgot about Astrobot. He can't get infected. And he can jump in like laser enemies underneath them and stuff. Very true. Yeah, and they're not going to care about Astroblatt. All right.

Which family is most likely to win family feud? You got to be smart on this one. Which family is the sky? artist? Yeah. Cortana's really pulling you up in this one, I was gonna say,

I feel like that alone is winning this one for me. Freya's a guy, she has a lot of knowledge, especially herbology, you know, and that kind of stuff. So she also like lives

in a land with like 14 people. I don't know that she's gonna like have the pulse on the population. Ethan's kind of dumb. So he ain't really doing much. Siri, she's a fighter. She's not a,

she's not a scholar. Kuno, dumb as a brick. Pikachu. Doesn't even talk. Just can't say more than one word. So Paul's team is out. Astrobi.

I don't know. How, Astrobot's not smarter than Cortana. No, I think Astrobat's, like I was saying, more kind of kid-like. I don't think it's like AI territory. Like Cortana. I feel like on this one,

Cortana and Freya would carry my team. Yeah, that's fair. I think it's Josh. Yeah. All right. Three questions left. Which family is the best looking? Vader's really hurting you now

Dang it I mean Anakin Yoshi I don't think's doing you any favors I don't see that one being Ryan Josh's team I guess is all right It's pretty good I think my team's all right I don't know that any of us have like

Between Paul and me Which are we going like Halo 3 Cortana Or are we going like Halo Infinite Cortana What's got Siri What does it matter I know Siri Siri and Lady Demetresque Yeah, that's going to clinch it for you.

Hey, look at me. I didn't think I'd win two questions. I'll take it. All right. Which family would be most likely to have their own reality show? That's Paul's. That's Paul's. Yeah.

People don't want to watch no boring people. They want that, they want that drama, that crazy. The backstabbing? Yeah. Can you imagine? Who knows at it again? All right. Wow, look at this.

I didn't think I'd be in the running. Oh, okay. Well, I'm certainly not winning the last question. Who, which family would? you want to be your neighbors? Oh boy, I think we're back to Josh on this one. That's one. Josh doesn't have any evil.

Like, Ryan's got Vader. I don't think I want Vader as my next door neighbor. He turns good. I don't want Yoshi either, man. I already expressed my disdain for Yoshi. I don't care about Yoshi. Vader's the one I'm a little worried about. Vader would be, he'd like take people's,

the neighbors trash out and stuff for him. I think so. I will say this. He's just take it down. My team is clearly the winner here, but I could make some arguments where it's like, if Vader's just domesticated next door neighbor Vader, but still has use of the force and stuff.

You know, like, I took out your trash yesterday. Yeah. That was almost Bain. That was kind of more. That was more ban than Vader. I started off and I was like, oh, cool. Ryan's going to do a really good impression. I don't have a cup.

I need a cup. Yeah. I think I'm voting for Josh. Yeah. Yeah, I'll vote for Josh too. Ryan Hart, Freya, Zelda, Tiny Tina Cortana. There's zero, like, issues there. There's potential issue with Vader.

I like the rest of your family, Ryan. Clearly mine's not going to win. You're not going to want to live next door to a vampire, a guy who blacks out and a murderous child. So, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and say Josh. Yeah, you guys, Ethan would be over every other day. Have you seen my kid? All right.

So we're going to get to Josh. Yep. So I think Josh won. Let's see. One, two, three, four, five points for Josh, four for me, and three for Ryan. I'm a little surprised. I thought Ryan, I thought Ryan's team was a little better than mine, but. You really sucked, Ryan.

Yeah, Ryan, get good. Yeah, wow, man. You guys don't like Vader. That's what happened. Vader and Yoshi, I think we're the two that Judge and I bristled against a little bit. All right. Well, Josh wins. He did have the number one overall picks, so, you know, not terribly unexpected.

I had to get those God of War characters out of there because Cretus as a dad would have been a good pick as a dad. Etraeus is one of the siblings or Agraboda if you wanted a non-annoying one. Yeah. Was another pick for a sibling that would have been a good one. Mimir as the pet would have been a great pick. So Mammar's a great pet for sure.

Oh yeah. He'd be good of family. Oh, you're right. Mimir would have cleaned up. All right. Well, I think that wraps up everything here for this bonus round. If you guys enjoy our show. and you like what we do.

We do rely on listener support. You can sign up for Patreon starting at five bucks a month in return. We try to make it well worth your money. You'll get bonus episodes, shout out on the show, Discord, access to additional channels, all kinds of stuff. Go check it out at Multiplayer Squad.com. And make sure to follow us on socials at VideoGamersPod and rate the show five stars if you can. You can do that through Apple or Spotify.

Thank you so much for listening and following the show. Until next time, happy game. See ya. All right. See, everybody.