Video Gamers Podcast - Gaming: Ten Years Later - Video Games Podcast

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Video Games hosts Josh, Ryan and Paul look back 10 years and talk about where video games were in 2013. Now a decade later, we see which video games stood out back in 2013, and how far gaming has come. Filled with nostalgic video games chat from 2013 along with current trends in gaming, this is an episode that’s sure to take you down memory lane, and make you appreciate how far gaming has come in the last 10 years.  Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: Skippy, Kiitaclyzm, Gideon Is Lit, Toro, Scrump, Gaius, Remi, MarbleMadness, Dr. Catatonic, Blackstar (DQ), Glapsuidir, Phelps, Michele B, Redletter, Nevo, Waynerman, TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Gaming 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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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Hello, all you beautiful gamers around the world. Welcome to the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast, which one week from today will become the Video Gamers Podcast. We're going to have new music, new logo, the whole works. Although, don't worry, you'll still have the same hosts and the same great content. Today, we are doing a 10-year anniversary retrospective on the year 2013. We'll be spending most of our time talking about the best games that stand out along with the benefit of

hindsight now 10 years later. We'll also share some of our thoughts on other major events regarding the release of the ps4 the xbox one some other thoughts of things that happened in 2013 i am your host paul and joining me are my two gamers in crime first up you can find him wreaking havoc across los santos with the rest of his crew, Michael Franklin and Trevor. It's Josh. I love wreaking havoc. I feel like I'd fit in with those guys pretty well. You know, like that's your title.

Yeah. Havoc. Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask real quick. Did you either one of you back in the day when you had to wait for the game? Did you wait outside of a Best Buy or a game stop or anything for grand theft auto

oh absolutely yeah i remember i did i remember waiting there at midnight yeah gta 5 red dead 2 um trying to think what other games come to mind that i stood out and waited for i can't remember all of them but yes those are the big ones too many yep yeah you know gta 5 i i don't know if our listeners are going to get that reference guys I can't remember all of them, but yes. Those are the big ones. Too many. Yeah. Yeah. You know, GTA 5. I don't know if our listeners are going to get that reference, guys. It's such an old game. It came out on the 360.

It's such a long time ago. Nobody even heard of it, probably. I'm sure no one plays it anymore, right? It's practically an indie game, right? Because it may as well be. All right. And then coming up next, he is a smuggler in a post-apocalyptic world taken over by mushrooms. He's creeping around using shivs to defeat his enemies.

It's Ryan. Somebody say mushrooms. I want to live in Ryan's world. How come I got the GTA world? Come on over, bud. We got mushrooms and Molotov cocktails. The walls are floating.

Nice. Yeah. To be clear, not those kinds of mushrooms. Oh, all right. I'm back to Trevor. There you go.

All right. So before we start our retrospective here, we do have a new Patreon supporter to thank. We want to say thank you to Raging Rhino NC, who signed up with epic status very special thank you we really appreciate that support uh josh you want to tell the people a little bit about our patreon i thought you were gonna say raging rhino because i was like i i mean he's cool we've seen him in our server and he supports the show so raging rhino a okay in my book uh

yeah but no if you want to be amazing like Raging Rhino or any of the other supporters of our show, you can head over to MultiplayerSquad.com to sign up, support the show. The signup is super simple. I know a lot of people go, I'm not going through all that. It takes like three minutes to sign up. It really does. You can help support the show. You get bonus episodes. You get ad-free episodes. You get cool Discord perks. I mean, just all kinds of stuff. But more than anything else, you get the satisfaction of knowing that you are bringing this podcast to the world. So you're basically a hero at that point. Be a hero. Sign up on Patreon.

We also want to say thank you to our current legendary supporters gaius 214 and red letter along with epic supporters yaya arizona ace of shame dros lol hg knight casmon grilled chicken man skippy the magnificent michael the butler yoda remilia Yoda, Romelia and master Wayne. Oh, one along with now raging Rhino and see. All right, guys, 2013. That's 10 years ago. If my math is right,

maybe, maybe someone should double check. The world was a very different place to give you a couple of like timestamps to get you in the right mood to think about what was going on in 2013. This is smack dab in the middle of the Obama presidency. The top songs of the year

include Thrift Shop by Macklemore, Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke, and goodness gracious, The Harlem Shake. Guys, why was The Harlem Shake such a thing? I don't remember two out of those three songs.

Oh, really? I know The Harlem Shake, but I don't remember You don't remember Th out of those three songs. Oh, really? I know the Harlem Shake, but I don't remember. You don't remember Thrift Shop? No. I'm going to have to listen to these now. Going to pop some tags. That was a long time ago. $20 in your pocket.

The dementia is kicking in. Yeah, maybe. I don't. Yeah. I am old. I'm going to pop some tags. Could you play that on the record player, boys? I'm gonna pop some Jags. Only got $20 in my pocket.

I'm hunting, looking for... I don't think so. The top movies of the year were Iron Man 3, the second Hunger Games movie, and Man of Steel, the Superman reboot with Henry Cavill. Oh, what a hunk. Yep. And if you really want to make the year feel like it took place forever ago, guys, this is the year that Temple Run 2 released on mobile. So this feels about a million years ago.

Is there anything that stands out 10 years ago as you look back at your younger self? Anything that stands out that you think of? I had just moved to Arizona. So that to me, we had a major life change. We moved from Louisiana to Arizona. We had lived all over the country. So moving from one state to the next, for us, wasn't that big of a deal.

But we finally were able to actually settle down. That's where I met Paul and I met Ryan and all that. So I mean, this was right in that time frame where we had just moved. Our kids were young. They were babies still and all that stuff. So yeah, I mean, honestly, phenomenal time of my life, busy time. I had young kids. We had just moved. I was getting acclimated to like a new position at my job and all that stuff. So yeah, I mean, definitely one of those moments in life that you remember. But also it's funny because looking over this list of games and kind of what happened in

2013 feels like it was just yesterday. Yeah. So part of me is like, I just played that game like a year or two ago. Right. And then it's like, no, that was actually 10 years ago.

And then I go, oh my goodness. The time flies. The games don't feel that old to me, but the songs and the movies feel like a lifetime ago. Oh yeah. I, I went back and looked at emails that we all shared with each other back in

2013. And the main things that Josh and I were doing together was playing a lot of Battlefield 4. There were about 47 emails in a row that just said, are we playing BF4 tonight? Yep. And then that was it. And also a lot of Payday 2 emails because our buddy Mike over at the Fantasy Footballers gifted you and me a copy, Josh. And we played along with Andy and we did a little bit of heisting in Payday 2. And Josh gifted me a game in 2013.

I believe it's the only time you've ever done it. I don't remember ever gifting you a game, Paul, unless it was like we did this for Dungeon Defenders where we bought like a four pack. And then I just said here, you you know here's the code for it i cannot for the life of me remember gifting you a game and so now i'm trying to like scrub the old gray matter to think like what game would i have gotten paul the only reason i would ever gift you a game because let's be honest it's not out of the kindness of my heart it's because i want you to play something with me and maybe gifting it to you i would think paul now has to play it i'm going to guess vermintide no dang not vermintide this made me laugh so hard because it said like you know jay leave my one or whatever has gifted you a game on Steam and I click it. It's

Dota 2, which is free to play. I don't even know how you gifted me a free game. I mean, Paul, that's the kind of guy I am. What are you talking about? You're welcome, Paul. You're so generous, Josh. Thank you. Do I have your email back that says, wow,

Josh, you're like the best friend ever. Thanks. Absolutely not. I tried. Hey, if anybody else out there wants me to give them a free game, just come to our Discord server, hit me up. I got you. Josh will mail it to you on floppy disk all right this is actually kind of a sneaky great year for games i don't know if you guys felt that way but there's some real big heavy hitters yeah i also looked at our deep dive list to see what games

did we cover from this year and there's actually a few we did do deep dives on the cave payday 2 gta online and even rust entered early access in 2013 a lot was going on this year it's probably most fun if we start with the games do you guys want to start there oh yeah let's show it all right so let's maybe just take turns bringing up memorable games maybe they're classics that played great maybe it's really disappointing games just whatever really stands out ryan why don't we start with you what's the first thing that you think of here with 2013 gaming well i'm gonna go with a heavy hitter off the bat of course let's do it oh per per the standard the last of us in my top 10. One of the greatest games ever, ever, ever made. Amazing graphics.

Amazing cinematics. Amazing storytelling. Amazing gameplay. Scared the britches off of me. It's one of those that is top tier. That there's a reason they remastered it and we released it recently it was uh absolutely amazing definitely changed that genre that type of gaming for me oh not only did they remaster it i think they remastered it like a year later because it came out on the ps3 and then they

remastered it for ps4 yep uh ryan this this might make you angry, but ask Josh what he thinks about The Last of Us. Josh, what do you think about The Last of Us? I mean, it's okay. I've played, like, I don't know, five hours. When you played all those hours, how did you feel about all those hours you played? You know the part in the beginning where you get Ellie and then you're trying to escape through the tunnels

and the little broken down buildings and stuff that's that's the part i made it to it's like 90 minutes into the game yeah i'm so impressed i'm impressed you know her name that's very very good well i did watch the the hbo series oh there you go i i legitimately i i might need to go back and play the last of us at some point it's on pc now although i think the pc port was kind of garbage uh but yeah that is one it's i feel like i'm just missing out even though i know the story and the twist and all that from watching the hbo series people love this game i mean all you hear about is how great it is it's iconic at this point yeah and i'm not slandering the game i just if for whatever reason i played part of it and then just kind of went, yeah,

and I got sidetracked with something else. But yeah, I really do need to go back and revisit it because everything you hear about it is phenomenal. This is on both of our top tens, Ryan. You have it at number six. I have it at number eight. People can actually see this if they go over to videogamerspod.com

and we have a leaderboard here where all three of us did our own individual top tens so two of us have the last of us top 10 of all time i mean that's huge praise for my money i think the last of us still to this day is the best opening 20 minutes of any game ever so it is so riveting and if you don't know what's happening the first time you play it's like gut punch and you're like crying and it brings so many emotions I got goosebumps right now just thinking about it yeah

I mean I think it's fair to say we're going to share a lot of spoilers with games so I think we can just kind of spoil you know the rest of us these games are a decade old at this point spoilers are fair game dude when his daughter gets shot and you just realize that like she's gonna die like i could not believe that's how this game opened off it opens with the murder of your daughter like it's crazy yeah and then of course the famous ending is also really fascinating. You know, I, I love how Joel is just so heartbroken from the loss of his daughter that

when Ellie is going to have to die in order to save mankind, he's like, no, I'm not going through this again. I'd rather kill all these doctors, leave humanity doomed to save Ellie. And I'm going to lie to her. So that way she doesn't think she can save the world

and that's the only way to keep her safe. Man, what a great, great story along with fantastic gameplay. I'm a bit of a Naughty Dog fanboy, but I love The Last of Us so much. Yeah, they did such an amazing job. Dude, you really, anytime you want to go play Rocket League

or some other whatever game, just go play 30 minutes of last of us you'll end up probably playing two and a half hours you'll get sucked in you'll explore it's it's unreal man for real i feel like i really need to because like i said i think even knowing the twist like what's funny is and i joked about this before is i thought i knew the twist but because i had never played the game all the way i thought the twist was like going to be obvious and then when it happened when i was watching the hbo show i was completely caught off guard and i can only imagine like i mean a video game is such a better storytelling medium

in that regard so it's like i can only imagine what playing that game was like and then having that happen and then being like oh oh, my goodness, man. Dude, running through the hospital is Joel and you're just murking everybody. Everybody. You're like, boom, boom, boom. Just taking out every single one of them. Oh, man. It's very weird to play a game where you think you're the good guy, and over the course of playing the game, you kind of start

to realize Joel is just so murderous and aggressive. Is he really good for Ellie? And you kind of realize that the answer is very complicated. In a way, yes, but in a way, no. What a great game. I love The Last of Us. Let's go ahead and move on. Josh, what game do you want to talk about next dude there's so many good games that came out in 2013 i didn't realize until i actually started doing like some research you know for this episode um i mean i gotta bring up bioshock infinite i i know like i know you guys have played bioshock but i get this feeling like you guys didn't play Infinite. Like you just stopped maybe after one or two. No, I 100% played it. You did, Ryan?

Paul, did you play Infinite? We have talked about this on the show. I bought Infinite a couple years after it released. I bought it on Steam sale. I just pulled it up. I bought it in August 2015, and I only played 72 minutes. And I don't really know why. I don't know why I fizzled. Oh, man, and I only played 72 minutes. And I don't really know why. I don't know why I fizzled.

Oh, man, because I'll tell you what. I love the Bioshock series. To me, the beginning of Bioshock Infinite, when you walk out into that floating city, that is one of those grand video game moments. It is like leaving the vault in Fallout, or the sewers in Skyrim. Honestly, it's akin to that, to where it's like you get there and then you just walk out and it is just this incredibly beautiful, well-realized city in front of you. And it just sinks in

that you are about to have this amazing experience. Bioshock Infinite is so good. I will dare say, hot take, that I think Infinite is more memorable than the other Bioshock games, with the exception of the twist in the first Bioshock. But I mean, the game itself, the characters, the gameplay, and all that,. It really for the third in the, like, you know, the third in the trilogy, they did what they like set out to do on that one, man. It was so good. And another great twist at the end of that too. So for me, Bioshock Infinite is one of those games that I think is kind of underrated to be honest. Oh, it's, it's so good. And the fact that I could get it on my switch now too

and be able to play it just kind of traveling or if i'm you know having to go on a flight or whatever but that that area where you walk out and then you're just in like that carnival and it yes i played it with my son and he he's watching and we're playing and then he's like who are those people you know the the twins that keep popping up or whatever? He's like, they're weird. And just all of the stuff is amazing. It's absolutely amazing. That world, the fountains, everything when you first come out, like you said, it's beautiful. The complete rest of the gameplay, too.

The grappling hook that you can run around and you can ride on all the tracks. All the train rail things. Yeah, all the train rails. Yeah. All of it was just, it was absolutely brilliant. Definitely, they're really close between one and two for me, but I loved that one. Yeah, I don't know why I didn't stick with it,

but I do love how the series bookends, where in the beginning of Bioshock, it's entering the city underground, and then in Infinite, of course, it's the city up in the sky it's it's pretty cool when you look at it in comparison maybe one of these years i'll finally get around to it we're gonna have space bioshock in another year or two yeah you know i don't remember the name of it but it's being made it's on my wish list guys i wish listed it it's uh hang on hang on it's the new studio made by the guy who was the game director of bioshock yeah uh once i hear it i'm gonna i'm gonna kill myself for not remembering

oh here we go it's um judas there you go judas yeah see yeah also this is why you wish list games people so you can remember them we're too old to remember the names you need help remembering games like yes i do oh goodness all right moving on to the next game here uh we'll pick a short one and i want to hold off on maybe the other heavy hitter we'll make people wait a little bit for that how about i'm gonna bring up one of my favorite games of the year. We have talked about it on the show. I don't know if Ryan ever played it. Brothers, A Tale of Two Sons. Very good game. Played it.

Yosef Fares. Wasn't that his first game? It was his first game. So this is before it takes two and a way out. Yep. Brothers is the first one. What stands out about that game to you, Josh? Thinking about it 10 years later.

I'll tell you what stands out to me on that game what I thought was really really interesting in the main hook for me was that it looks like it is a two-player co-op game but you play it solo and that to me was the really interesting thing where one like thumbstick controls one character and the other thumbstick controls the other one and And so you have to kind of, you don't have to necessarily simultaneously move them, although sometimes you need to. But I thought that was such a neat idea to say, here's a game where it looks like it would be two-player co-op and it's really just single-player adventure, but you're controlling these two characters. And it was so well done. It tells a very good you know like a lot of his games do honestly um but yeah to me that was the neat hook was just the feeling of the atmosphere you actually felt like

these two characters were brothers and they really cared about each other and like there was that kind of big brother aspect from the one to the other and stuff too but you really you you get invested in them oh absolutely and i don't know what was in the air in 2013, but there's like multiple games that are about grief and the loss of a family member. I don't know why that's like prevalent this year, but Brothers really also plays on the emotional heartstrings. I would say absolutely that Brothers is a must play game from this year. If I had to pick like just three or four it would absolutely make the short list definitely highly recommend it to anyone who's not yet played

it all right well we're going to go ahead and take a short break and we'll be right back with more multiplayer gaming podcast this is an ad from better help online therapy we always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important to focus on the green flags. If you're not quite sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify those qualities so you can embody the green flag energy and find it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online and sign up only takes a few minutes. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Okay, we've returned.

Ryan, coming back around to you, what other games stick out from this year? Well, you know me, I always got to go with my ladies. So I am going to go with a game that I actually didn't play in 2013. I played it a little bit later but Tomb Raider the reboot the reintroduction

this is when they got really good they were good before but this is when they got really good this is when I just remember I always loved Tomb Raider I loved exploring I loved adventure games I love history and archaeology and all that stuff that's my bag baby so when this game came out and i really kind of got in the weeds with it and you're exploring through these tunnels and you're you're looking at all these artifacts

and it's really in depth and then you're crafting arrows and you're you're upgrading your um weapons and your armor and all that stuff it was it was just one of those games that really really clicked with me and i was blown away by i don't remember what year i actually played it in but um i'm very very happy they made it and did this reboot because it was amazing i love it because they took laura croft and they kind of made her a more three-dimensional character. Yeah. Like, the original Tomb Raider games are fun, and they're great, and they're kind of like OGs when it comes to, like, adventure action games. And it's really funny how you had this dance,

or almost like this cycle between Tomb Raider and Uncharted. So, like, famously, Ryan, you and I love Uncharted. That's another series that Josh hasn't even played at all. But it's really funny how Tomb Raider was very successful. And then Naughty Dog kind of came out of nowhere and released Uncharted. And do you guys remember the nickname that people gave Uncharted? I don't know if you guys know this, but when they first announced Uncharted, they didn't have a name for the game yet.

And so people had to make up their own name and they called it Dude raider dude raider i mean there is let's be honest there it's like i view those games even though i've not played uncharted i have played almost all of the tomb raiders and in my mind they're the same yeah i mean i know they may not be the same but like in my mind they are the same i think that's a fair comparison to somebody that hasn't really played all of them but i do equate them to be very similar yeah it's it's very much like showing how competition is like a rising tide of all boats because you had tomb raider which was getting maybe a little bit stale uncharted now comes in like a wrecking ball and they're selling like 15 million copies and people are eating it up and they really kicked it up a notch so then here tomb raider is like well now we gotta reinvent our game and so they have their own reboot and i think the tomb raider games and the uncharted games are

all just their their masterpieces i loved this reboot of tomb raider i love what they did with laura croft's character and Uncharted and Tomb Raider. I mean, they're basically the same, right? Like it's Indiana Jones trying to find mystical items that have some kind of magical, you know, attunement with it. And I think that they are all an absolute blast. I'm so glad that the modern Tomb Raider games exist. Oh, yeah, it really took this series to the next level.

I mean, like I said, we I think we all played the original Tomb Raider games, you know, and they were fun, man. I mean, there's a reason that this series became what it was. But when they did these reboots, this was one of the first times where a reboot was better than like the originals in my mind. You know, I mean, they really stepped it up. And I just remember being blown away by like how good these were and where they took the tomb raider series at that point yeah super super solid all right josh what else do you want to talk about um for me i mean there's so many good games on this list we got to talk about rust any chance i get to talk about rust i want to talk about rust. Any chance I get to talk about rust, I want to talk about rust.

We're going to have to get Ryan into rust at some point, man. I'm in, baby. We go back to it, what, once every year and a half, it seems like, where we really get sucked in and we start playing again. The sirens start calling. I mean, it's just, I don't know what it is about that game, man. And I get that it didn't officially fully release in 2013. I get that. We're arguing semantics at that point. But Rust is just one of those games

where even though I think there's other games like it now, especially like we've played someone, we've said, oh, this kind of reminds me of Rust or something like that. There's nothing that I have played that takes the place of Rust at that point. And it's the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. People know our feelings on that game. But I mean, for Rust to come out along with the likes of Bioshock Infinite, GTA 5, Tomb Raider and stuff like that. I mean, it carved its place. There are people... I just saw a Reddit thread yesterday where a guy says,

if I play video games for seven hours a day, does that mean I'm addicted? And he just said, hey, I love Rust. I put all of my time into it. I play it for about seven hours a day. Does that mean I'm addicted? And it was like, no, because he goes and he goes to work and he works out and all this other stuff but it was just like that's rust they're still playing this game for thousands of hours because you can just do whatever the heck you want absolutely love it we're gonna have to get ryan to play it man it's such a great game and a lot of people don't know that when it first right before early access the game had zombies in it and they pulled them out and instead they made the environment

more like wildlife and and dangerous with survival aspects oh thank god weird so weird to think that this used to be a zombie game in the early days but yeah rust is what what aspect of rust makes it so fun josh is it just the prospect of raiding a base and getting to steal all their stuff is that what it really just boils down to it is the for me it is the highest risk reward game that i think i've ever played and so for somebody like me to take the risk of like, there's a dude over there and I can fire my bow at him. And if I kill him, it might be a loot pinata. But if I fire my bow and I miss, this guy's going to wreck me and then I'm going to lose everything I have on my body. And so there's just that massive risk reward feature. If you're raiding somebody's base,

are you going to... Number one, is it going to be successful? Are you going to get away with it? Is somebody going to counter-rage you? There's just so much of that. The other thing that I love, and I don't want to spend all night gushing about it is just the randomness, dude. The, the fact that we played, yes. And we captured a guy and turned him into a zoo attraction and then met some crazy streamer from Europe whose name was Evil Digger that tried to convince us that he was our best friend in the world and then wound up being hilarious at the same time.

Like, this is Russ. This cannot happen in other video games, man. Me going around playing my guitar and being the mad shredder and trying to go up to people's bases and not get shot right away because I was like a bard. Like that, everything. It's just all of that stuff that comes together to make Rust the experience that it is, man.

Let's do it. It's such a great game. And then it tears your heart out. Oh, it does too. And you swear, I'll never play this game. The best part, not the best part, probably the worst part about rust is that the game takes about six minutes to load. And the whole time it might finish loading and it might say you're dead and

your primary base is gone and you're just going to uninstall like you, you could be right in the middle of loving everything about rust. And if you had some bad luck and all your bases got blown up, like at that point, that's always when i just kind of quit i don't know that i'd say it's like rage quitting but it's like yeah all right i guess i'll wait until maybe it resets next month and maybe i'll start back up oh geez right remember that i love rust remember in the i think this was our squad cast that we just did where we said have you ever

been dumped and i told a horrible story. That's Rust. So if you're not afraid to get your heart broken, then Rust is definitely for you. You're assuming I have a heart. Yeah. Well, you will. Believe me. Rust will give it to you. You'll be like, guys, we got AKs. We got a base. We got rocket launchers. And then you log in and you go, guys, dude, where's our base? It's kind of dude where's my car like dude where's my base and it's like no man your base is gone oh it's it's crazy all right let's uh let's move on here i want to bring up a lesser known game i don't even know if either of you guys are going to remember this i want to talk

about surgeon simulator for a minute surgeon simulator oh yes what is this do you remember this game ryan is this a vr game it was not in vr initially but it's in vr oh yeah yeah what's your recollection of this game ryan i would just uh maybe partake in a few adult beverages and throw on the VR headset and then just flop my hands around and see how I could do. That was the gist of it. The funny thing is I remember laughing so hard watching other people play it on YouTube that I didn't buy it initially, but I had so much fun watching it. And I remember it popping up on Steam sale and I bought it and I didn't have any VR. The buttons of that game are so freaking weird, man.

You use the buttons A, W, E, R, and space bar. And each one controls one finger of your hand. And then you take your mouse and move it around. And then you have to try to like grasp and pick stuff up and move it. And half of the fun is just how hard the controls are but like they weren't afraid to throw in goofy stuff like famously they added where you have to do a heart transplant for donald trump you know there were like alien autopsies you'd have to perform all kinds of stuff like that but i remember once i

actually owned the game playing it actually kind of sucked it was way more fun to watch other people play it it really is yeah but for me that game really stood out i just remember like not being able to breathe just laughing so hard at watching youtubers play it all right ryan coming back to you anything else from this year that stands out well i know we had talked about it. Unfortunately, I don't know how we didn't play together because I played millions of hours of Battlefield 4. Yes.

And so I do not – I would literally go to sleep to that – that music, that load music. I would fall asleep to it like every night. was that was my lullaby you know i don't know how we didn't play but that game was so amazing. So good. I loved Battlefield 4. Now, I will preface that by saying that I did not play Battlefield 3. So I feel like I went from 2, which is the best Battlefield, hands down, to 4, thinking, oh, this is a much more modernized thing.

I remember the big draw with Battlefield 4 was the huge, destructible environments, like the skyscraper level where you can see for the pillars and the whole skyscraper comes down and it changes the map and all that, you know, and that was the big selling point there. In

retrospect, Battlefield 4 was the last good Battlefield released, in my opinion. I think it's the best Battlefield. I mean, Battlefield 2, you probably couldn't go back to Battlefield 2 at this point. Battle Bit battlefield released in my opinion i think it's the best battlefield i mean battlefield two you probably couldn't go back to battlefield two at this point battle bit is probably the closest thing to battlefield two um but battlefield four i have a lot of fond memories of i what's weird is i had no friends that played that game with me oddly enough so it was just i wanted to

play battlefield and i would just hop in solo all the time and play. And it's funny because like, even then you, you still meet like the same people that play on the same servers and stuff like that, you know? But yeah,

I mean, rip battlefield after four. And I know there's people that are like, Oh, battlefield one or battlefield five. And it's kind of like, no, I hated battlefield one.

They're just not the same man. Yeah. Well, you know how much Ryan loved it, because I sent you guys a screenshot where I was trying to convince Ryan to come back to World of Warcraft, because I was still playing it ever since release. And I emailed you, Ryan, and I said,

what, Mists of Pandaria is only 10 bucks? I guess you should come back and sign up. And all you emailed back to me was, I have a PS4 in Battlefield 4 battlefield for sir i will do no such thing good answer and i was like dude you can play more than one game but for you you were like nope this is all i need i just need battlefield four and i'm a happy man dude flood zone on battlefield floor i i would fight everyone to get the little mini chopper, the little like cricket chopper, the small one. And I would just bank around all those skyscrapers and just mow everybody down.

That's all I did. And I would do it for hours. And it was the same thing, but it was one of those things that I just had so much fun over and over and over. And it never got old to me. It never got stale. It was such a blast.

There are a few things in gaming, like having a good chopper pilot and a good gunner in battlefield if you had if you had two of those i i was a chopper pilot man like i was a decent gunner but man i could do some amazing things but every now and then you'd get that gunner that was with you and it was like the stars aligned and you were just you were just battlefield bros man like you know complete random stranger yep but and then you'd get blown up and then you'd both respawn and you'd run straight back to like the chopper spot you just do it again you're like yeah you go right to gunner

because he knew and you know and you just you bank those corners and you know so my my father-in-law asked me he's like why are you so good with a drone? Battlefield 4. No joke. Yeah. 100%. Prepped you for it. It's like an Xbox controller with a lot of these drones now and the way they have the joysticks. I flew so many hours on that game that with a drone, I'm a wizard now.

It's crazy. Oh, it's too funny. All right, Josh, coming back around to you. Back to me again um you know like there's some other big name games here but i think i kind of want to dive into some of like the lesser known ones for a little bit yeah go for it rayman legends man i'm just gonna put it out there i'm not a platformer guy we We just had this big discussion in our Discord server. I was trolling Celeste for no reason other than to just be a troll.

Yeah. You know, I... We know. I know. I know. People know me. I love it. What?

No. And then I pointed out, because Paul, your question was, there's no platformers that have good graphics. And I went, well, Rayman Legends does. And then you kind of went like, not really. It's like Nintendo graphics. Like, is it? But compared to Celeste, it's, you know, it's night and day.

But I will say this, man. Rayman Legends is a deceptively good game. It is not a game that I think about very often. But when I go back, because my wife and I actually played this game together, she hates difficult platformers, but she likes watching me do them. And it's just an all around good video game, man. Some of the level designs in Rayman Legends, like some of the mechanics of it, it's just, I think it's one of the better platformers that I have played in the last like 10 years, to be honest. Now, to be fair, I don't play a lot of just purely platformers, but Rayman Legends is one of those ones that just stands out to me.

Oh, Rayman Legends does it perfectly. The multiplayer, the fact you can play with two people is great. The fact that you didn't even bring up the music levels, and I've said this before on the pod, but the music levels in Rayman Legends, for me, is the peak of platform gaming. I don't think Rayman Legends is the best platformer. I said in our Discord, my Mount Rushmore absolutely has Rayman Legends in there. I think Celeste is the best platformer, but the music levels of Rayman Legends

are more fun than anything else you can do. The fact that they sync every time you attack and jump with the music is just so much fun. And it's set to like the song Black Betty and stuff like that as you run through these levels. It's such a blast. If you're into platformers at all, you've probably already played Rayman Origins, Rayman Legends. But if you haven't go check them out they still hold up extraordinarily well all right coming back here around to me

i think that i want to bring up the wolf among us i want to play this game paul and i know that you played this game recently i've heard such good things about it. It's in the vein of, it's a telltale game, right? Same developer. Sure is. Right. I've heard nothing but good things about this. I have heard that this game is truly gripping from a story standpoint and just kind of one of those wow factor type games. And I remember you playing this recently and having praise for it, but remind me because you might talk me into this one. Well, actually the first thing I wrote down when I was like jotting an outline of what I want to bring up, I wrote, this is on my short list for force a friend. So when we do our new deep dive format where one of us picks a game and we pick which host has to

play it, I was thinking that that's one that at some point I'll probably pull out of my back pocket. I love the Telltale games. I think all of us agree that they can be sometimes they can even be hard to shake because the games can be so emotional, especially like The Walking Dead. I know how much like everyone loves that. The Wolf Among Us, though, is this like really weird, goofy, super mature telltale game that's nothing at all like their others. So it's all based on fairy tales. So The Wolf Among Us is like, you are the big bad wolf, and that's what you play. And inside this world, there are famous fairy tale characters, which is very weird to think about. But the game also hits you with a

lot of, for lack of a better word, rated R content in it. It's definitely very adult. The game starts right out the bat with an assault, and you're showing up and trying to figure out what's going on. And I was like, whoa, I didn't expect this. This is like Telltale, but it's like a fever dream in a Telltale style game i think it really stands out it's made up of five short chapters kind of like all their games are but this is one that will probably pull out at some point because they are making a sequel i think it actually might still be on the docket for this year but the wolf among us too is like one of my more anticipated games that i can't wait to play i i feel like does this game

still hold up too because i i feel like telltale games with the art style and just the type of game that they are they're not going to age a whole lot it kind of has more of like that comic book right that's what i mean so i feel like you're not like if you play you don't feel like you're playing a game that's 10 years old at this point yeah you know you know what you're going to get into when you when you get into the game right i i haven't i haven't played you know the the prior version of it you know i know you're saying the newer one's supposed to be coming out so uh yeah i'm excited i might have to check this out as well it's also really fun because when you beat a chapter it goes over all the choices you made and they tell you what percentage of people made all the different choices. And it's really funny.

Perfect. You're an idiot. You're an idiot. You're an idiot. It's like really only 4% of us made that decision. It's always really funny to see the stats. I love it. All right. Well, we're going to take our last break and we'll be right back and we'll wrap up this episode. All right, guys, we got about 20 minutes left here. Any other must talk about? Oh, we haven't talked about GTA five. We probably should bring that one. I mean, wait, what game?

What game is it? Fine. GTA five. All right. Did all of us play this game either at release or shortly after release it sounds like we did if you both stood outside of stores i played the night of i was waiting in line at best buy and got the game and then it took however many hours to freaking install it but i was playing it and then i played for like an hour and then i went to sleep because i was tired but yeah i was there first first day for sure do you guys remember your initial impressions about it i remember thinking it felt like gta like to be honest like it was very smooth and i mean it definitely felt a little newer

but it still had that GTA familiarity to it. I mean, I had the same DNA and stuff like that. I do remember just wanting to jack like a really nice sports car. That was like my main goal was like, man, if I could just find somebody driving like one of those Lamborghinis, man, that'd be great. Yeah. Yeah. I remember being so beyond hyped for this game that I don't think it would have met

my expectations no matter what GTA 4 I have in my top 10 of all time and the GTA trilogy was very much like over the top almost a little more arcadey and how the cars worked and and how the stories ran and then GTA 4 is weirdly more grounded and more of like a human story. Nico's actually like a very sensitive character. And then 5 kind of like swings the pendulum right back to the trilogy with these really over-the-top characters. And you're like torturing people as Trevor. And I remember my first playthrough being like, I don't know if I'm totally into this.

I mean, I still loved driving in the open world and I had fun, but I almost felt like I had to warm up to the game, which is weird to think about because it's one of the all-time best. I think on Metacritic, it's like a 97. I mean, everyone loved it, but I was a little slow to warm up initially. You know what it is, Paul? I can put my finger on it 100% because I mean, I'm knee deep in Baldur's Gate 3. I'm probably close to actually beating the game. I'm in the last third of the game easily. And as much as I sometimes want to be a jerk, I can't. It's just not my nature in a role-playing game. Like I got to do the right thing.

Grand Theft Auto is the only game where I can sit there and commit mass homicide. Yeah. You know, run over pedestrians, get out of cars and punch people in the face for no reason whatsoever and feel perfectly fine with any of it. I don't know what it is, but I think for you, Paul, it was probably that weird, like, this is okay, but it's not sitting right with me until it becomes okay. And then it feels great. A little bit yeah i was so attuned to nico that trevor is like trevor is trevor the most psychopathic character ever it's like it's him or micah from red dead 2 right like it's a short list

yeah there is it it's so horrific because there is no other medium where I would think it's funny to just run around and punch random people. I love nothing more than running around in GTA and punching people in the back of the head and they just go flying and everyone starts running from you and you're just sprinting to catch up and you're throwing haymakers. It's so much fun. Yeah, there's a reason we all remember the codes. What was it? L1, L2, R1, R2, left down, right up, left down so much fun. Yeah. There's, there's a reason we all remember the codes. What was it? Uh, L1, L2,

R1, R2, left down, right up, left down, right up, you know, star select,

whatever it was like to get all the, all, all of the guns and all the weapons and all those things. And then the stars off, turn the stars off. Yeah. I think. And then,

uh, with, with Micah and Trevor, I think they're the same person but just trevor had meth so that just made him a little more crazier but there was there was nothing better than that feeling when you're playing the game and you go you hit start and then you turn off auto save you're like all right it's time to have some fun. And then you just go crazy. I can't tell you how many hours I spent

just whipping down under the bridge, turning back around, and then just... There was a spot where you could ramp into the air base on the military base and then go steal the fighter jets. And I would do that every day. I would go and I'd steal a fighter jet, fly around, shoot stuff, have just a blast for no reason other than just to blow stuff up.

And that's not what this game is, but you can also make that game that. So I had so much fun doing all of those crazy, crazy things, sometimes questionable, like off the wall, crazy things. But yeah, there's know not too many games like that for sure yeah it was gta is one of those rare series along with red dead where you could ignore the entire storyline yeah and just run around in the open world and still get 400 hours of content out of it like it's that much fun. There is no other game in existence where just hopping in a car and cruising around is so enjoyable to me. I don't know what it is. At this point, I'm not playing GTA 5 anymore, let's be honest. But I could easily hop in that game, pick up a car,

and just cruise around the city, hit the highway for a little bit, go back to the streets. Can I take this turn? Can I run that guy over? I mean like it's just just flipping the radio stations you're just yes through the radio stations looking at listen to all the different the tracks they play like it's crazy everything hits in that man oh there's some great songs that they licensed for gta5 there's some bangers in there yeah one thing of note i don't know if you guys remember but the gta online launch in 2013 was like absolutely horrendous people kept getting dc'd they their games would freeze like no one could play for a while and that's a little bit of like a trend in 2013 when i was looking at these games i was like like, man, Battlefield 4 had launch issues. GTA Online had a bunch of issues.

SimCity was like, that was also a reboot that came out that year by EA. And like people couldn't even play it for the first two weeks. I remember the launch being so bad for SimCity because this was like probably the first game I ever bought that had DRM. So you had to be online at all times

and that was to prevent fraud. So that way you couldn't like download it on torrent and use key crackers and all that jazz. Yeah, but no one could play because all the servers were overloaded and they all got shut down. That EA gave a free credit and said buy any full price game you want.

We'll give it to you for free. And that's how I got dead space three. That was $60 game that I got for free to say, go pick another game on us is unheard of. Now we get an apology letter, you know, like we're, and we'll make it right.

Yeah, we'll make it right. Guys. Don't worry. Wait for 14 patches and then our game will be okay. Um, yeah, dude,

this, there's something about, I feel like I don't want to pin it all on 2013, but I will say that I think 2013 was where we started to see the downfall or the effect of this DRM being put into video games and being so like heavily pushed by developers. And I get it. You want to protect your property. You want to get paid for the product that you make. But at the same time, like you mentioned GTA Online, right? Well, I don't know. Do you remember the SimCity reboot, like debacle that popped up where people couldn't

play the game for like the first two weeks? So you had this brand spanking new game that you were super hyped for, because let's be honest, SimCity. Single player. Yeah, SimCity is a huge name, or it was back in the day anyway. And the whole purpose of this game was that it had to have an always on, you had to be online, because what the draw for this was is that your friend's cities

and other people's cities would be connected and adjacent to yours. So they said, well, you have to be online for that to work. And people went, oh, okay. Well, they had the DRM in there and it was crashing everything and nobody could play. Yeah. And so, you know, you think you go and they figured it out.

They said, oh, well, it's the DRM and this multiplayer aspect, guys. We're really sorry about this. Like, and when I say people couldn't play, I mean like nobody could play. Yeah. Yeah. So you think that they would look at it and just go well we better pull the drm guys

but what does ea do even further no longer multiplayer we're gonna make it a single player game guys everybody went what people just wanted to play at that point so of course you know they're're like, all right, well, I guess so. Because then they could play the game. But now you have an always online game that is only single player. So stupid. And this is like, this is still an issue today. Oh, that's my point.

Yes. Oh, there are people in our Discord who talk about living in remote areas where internet access is very spotty and they can't play single player games that are online always and this is another reason why larian studios is being lauded with balder skate 3 because guess what it's a single player game that you can play offline if you so choose put it on a pc that's not even connected to the outside world you can still play it and kudos to larian all right couple last things here to close out the show so i mentioned it here in the intro this was a year with some major hardware releases we got the nintendo 2ds i don't think any

of us really care but we also got the ps4 and the Xbox One. Do you guys have any stories about those consoles? Maybe buying it or picking it up somewhere around that time? I got a pretty good PS4 story, if you want to hear it. Oh, did you like line and then somebody gave you their spot and you landed one early, Ryan? Everybody want to hear it? Yeah. Yeah, Ryan, tell us your story. Oh, okay.

All right, all right, if you insist. So, PS4 release day. I'm working, but I'm also not working because I'm calling every store imaginable throughout the whole valley in Phoenix metropolitan area, as is my wife. We probably called 30 to 40 stores throughout the day it comes to the evening i'm calling this was back when believe it or not toys r us was still around nice we found in paradise valley arizona toys r us right by the pv mall that had one ps4 left that is roughly 20 25 minutes or whatever or so from from my house so we have a drive yeah we hightail it thunderbird my wife is tokyo drifting like the whole way there she is hauling balls all the way to toys r us she is flying as she drives and uh which is not like her she's very very respectable uh legal driver normally but i'm surprised to hear this it doesn't seem like her personality

it was like yeah for this it was let's get this ps4 so we fly there we get there we walk in and i walk up because we had called and we talked to somebody and i said do you have a ps4 we called him uh 20 30 minutes ago and he said yes we do he pulled it out set it on the counter and i said let's go yeah it was like right there yeah right there because you know nobody will hold it you know they can't they can't hold it for you so as as we're doing that and we're checking out, we're finishing up the process. Do you want the warranty? Do you want this? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

We're finalizing all that. This grandma comes in and it is kind of a commotion thing. She was like out and about looking back at us, looking away. She had come in, found out that they had one, and then went outside and said, can you hold it for me? And the guy's, well, kind of not really. But if you're still here, I might be able to hold it. And she's like, well, I just have to check to make sure that they want me to buy it. And you showed up in between?

And I showed up in between. I snaked the PS4. And she's coming in because she was hemming and hawing with them on if she should buy it or not. And then she comes in and I told you to hold it for me. And he's like, I can't hold – I couldn't hold it for you. It was first come, first serve. I told you that. I held it for 30 minutes.

You didn't come back in. And so then she's in tears. Oh, no. The people pleaser in me and like the I want to like just make everybody happy was like I wanted to give it to her and be like, oh, no, no, no, you can buy it. But also it was like, I want this PS4. So I was like, well, see you later. And I bought that sucker and I headed out and I had a PS4 that night. Ryan.

Some grandkid, she was complaining like, it was for my grandson. And I'm like, well, you should have bought it when a PS4 that night. Ryan. Some grandkid, she was complaining, like, it was for my grandson. And I'm like, well, you should have bought it when you were here, lady. Ryan. To be fair, she had every chance. I have some life advice for you, Ryan. You snooze, you lose, granny. All right, yeah. Oh, man.

That's hilarious and terrible at the same time. I know. I felt so bad. I felt so bad. If she was gone for 30 minutes, that's on her. If she had gone up and said, do you have a PS4? And the guy's like, yes. And she goes to the car and she's back within like five minutes.

That's a different story. You know what I mean? At that point. But yeah. If it's like I literally left my purse in the car, I will be right back. Right. Like that's one thing. Yeah.

But if she was gone and shopping and oh yeah let me ask billy bob about that ps4 you know yeah i remember him specifically saying you know it was 20 30 minutes i couldn't hold it any longer and i have a customer here to buy it like we're not supposed to hold it at all you know at all do you realize the short window that you landed that ps4 in because that lady was she came back while you were buying it man yeah yeah it was awesome and that's after we called 30 40 other stores i called everywhere in the valley that i could and no one had any so it was it was the craziest way to get a system that i'd ever seen or heard from anybody it was was nuts. It's like the ending of the movie Signs,

where you just see in hindsight how everything in your life, all the years of watching Tokyo Drift, having it on in the background, your wife was ready, drove the exact speed to get there right before this grandma bought it. Oh, it's too funny. Very nice. All right.

So last thing I wanted to ask you guys because i always love going back and looking at like who won game of the year and i love doing this whether it's like the grammys or the oscars because sometimes you you give one game or movie all the accolades and then 10 years later it's like what were we all thinking they got it wrong it should have gone to this other thing right like? Like it happens all the time. So looking at 2013, this is before the Game Awards existed. So the Game Awards started in 2014. So this is like during the heyday of like the Spike Video Game Awards.

If you guys remember those, they were like televised, but a lot of people felt like it was more commercial. So some people actually prefer like the bafta awards but i took a look the spike vgas gave game of the year to gta five and the dice awards and bafta gave it to the last of us did either of them get it right or did they both get it wrong what do you guys think? GTA five and last of us. Yeah. You can't go wrong with either one.

I mean, it's kind of like Elden ring and it's like our leaderboard, right? That's like why we do the leaderboard is because it's like, how do you compare these two games? But yet we make ourselves do that. I mean, it's tough because it's like the last of us is one of the best stories told in a video game.

But then GTA 5 is one of the greatest games of the last decade. The gameplay is just unreal. Yeah. I mean, I think I would give it to GTA 5, to be honest. I think that The Last of Us is unquestionably the better game, but GTA five was like by far the most culturally influential, if that makes sense. Yeah.

So I totally get why they would give it to GTA five, but yeah, it's also kind of like the first God of war and red dead too. It's like, you really can't go wrong. Some awards are going to give it one way, some of the other, but yeah,

really good year for games. Last thing that I'll mention to you guys because this is kind of crazy the highest revenue games are all mobile so this is definitely like during the beginning of the heyday for mobile games candy crush saga and puzzle and dragons each brought in 1.55 billion with a B, and they were the top two selling games. World of Warcraft, despite being on the decline clearly during Mists of Pandaria, still brought in a billion dollars that year. So those were the top three selling games, which is kind of crazy in hindsight. Mobile gaming and microtransactions, man. Here's a question. Because in mobile gaming, that's how you monetize, right? You're not selling a game on an app store for $40. Did that bleed over?

Do you think that's what happened? Is mobile gaming ruined normal gaming for people because of now Blizzard's putting microtransactions into Overwatch 2 and all that. We want a piece of that billion-dollar pie, guys. So if mobile can do it, we can do it. I mean, this is why you hear companies come out. I don't remember. I might be getting this wrong. I think it was Sony where they had a plan where in four years, half of their game releases

are all mobile games because they bring in so much money. Look at Diablo Immortal. half of their game releases are all mobile games because they bring in so much money. Everyone that was, that was blatantly trying to capitalize on the mobile game market, but going from PC to mobile instead of the other way around. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, if you're, if you're hearing that candy crush is bringing in 1.5 billion and you're

making like the last of us, which is making like 200 million losers. Yeah. Like billion and you're making like the last of us, which is making like 200 million losers. Yeah. Like what are you, what are you going to start developing next? You're going to make your own mobile game. Why do you think we have a million candy crush clones? You know,

there's a reason. Oh my gosh. That's, that's ridiculous. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. All right. Well,

any closing thoughts? Do you guys want, you know what? How about, how about this? If you guys don't have one, that's perfectly fine. All right. Well, any closing thoughts? Do you guys want, you know what? How about, how about this? If you guys don't have one, that's perfectly fine. I want to share like a game that's like under the radar, kind of like a forgotten gem that I would highly recommend. Oh yeah.

I would, I would say Call of Juarez Gunslinger is absolutely fantastic. It's a cowboy Western that's like pure action, but it's also very funny because you have like an unreliable narrator who's narrating the game while you play it but then he'll be like oh no no that's not right billy the kid wasn't there that day that was later and so then like the game will change around you and now you're playing so there's like stuff like that built in that's really cool and you can pick that one up really cheap i'd so that's like a forgotten one that i'd recommend do you guys have any recommendations like that um i don't but i'm gonna check that one out that sounds awesome i love cowboy games i

think they're all good and that's one that kind of slipped under the radar for me i talked about this game antechamber phenomenal puzzle game very very different um in like perception and how you perceive things and you know a wall may not just be a wall kind of thing um so that's a really really good puzzle game um stanley parable i still have not played and i hear nothing but amazing things from people that have played it it's a different kind of game um you know breaks the fourth wall a lot and that kind of stuff too um and then daisy man that was another game that i think was very influential in gaming but probably not remembered by a lot of people i can't remember the last time anyone even talked about it yeah but i mean remember when daisy came around and then there was warzy and there was all these games knocking it off and all that.

It was insanely popular, right? Insanely popular for a while, but now it's like 10 years later and it's like, it's just kind of like a whisper anymore. Yeah. I don't even know if a lot of people even know that like pub G grew out of like Daisy mods and stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Pretty crazy. Don't forget. Uh, wouldn't be a podcast without me mentioning Metal Gear. So, don't forget about Metal Gear Revengeance. Oh, Revengeance, that's right. Yeah, Revengeance came out, good old Raiden

with all mecked out and Super Ninja with the sword and the lightning guy. Yeah, still the great cutscenes, over the top characters, story and gameplay were were really unique and just you know kojima i don't believe was part of this one but uh yeah still one worth worth checking out yeah well there you go tons of good content from 2013 the weird thing is like i bought almost none of these games the year it released. I think I only bought like four games that year, but I've played all of these in the

years since. So it's never too late. All right. Well, thank you so much to everyone out there for listening to this episode. As a reminder, make sure to swing by MultiplayerSquad.com to check out those Patreon support options. Also, make sure to rate our show five stars and leave a review if you have Apple podcasts. And luckily, we release multiple episodes every week you're not gonna have to wait until 2033 to hear our retrospective on this year so

until next time happy gaming see ya all right see you everybody