Video Gamers Podcast - The Games Everyone Played... Except Us – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and Ace are coming clean about the biggest gaps in their gaming history! We’re talking about the legendary games and iconic series that somehow passed us by, despite millions of gamers calling them all-time classics. Which titles are at the top of our "how have we not played this?" list, and which ones do we think deserve all the praise? If you love video games and great gaming discussions, this episode is for you. Grab your video games and join us for another fun gaming conversation filled with laughs, surprises, and a few embarrassing admissions on the Video Gamers Podcast. Gaming fans won't want to miss this one!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp and NightWizard63   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

Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the Video Gamers podcast. What's that game you're always embarrassed to tell people that you've never played? What's the one franchise you know if you go, I never played it, people will gasp and say, what? How? Well, on today's episode, we're breaking down our biggest gaming regrets. The franchises and series we just never got around to playing, and why, after all these years, we still have regrets. about not experiencing them.

Before we get to the shocking reveals, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me, his list had about 100 entries, but we told him it's not his fault. He was allowed to blame his destiny addiction for it. It's Ryan.

I hate that there's like this, like, eight-year gap of just nothing that, uh, that destiny and a few other games took over, but I'm here. I'm here. here, let's do this. I'm ready. We're fixing it, Ryan. We're fixing it, man. We're fixing it. We're fixing it. We've been

fixing it over the last few, like, what's it been? Almost three years now? We have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Ryan doesn't love all this fixing going on all the time, but we've at least broadened his gaming. I'm tired, boss. And joining us, he tried to tell us he regrets nothing, since most of the ones he could think about were AAA games, and we all know how he feels about those. It's Ace. Guilty is charged, I guess. I don't really.

I had to really scramble to find one. I was like, do I regret missing out on this? Okay, maybe a little bit. Okay. Well, recently you played Red Dead Redemption 2. Yep. After refusing to play it for, you know, a long, long time. And this isn't, and I told you so.

But you came away. away from Red Day 2 going like, all right. I told you so! I'll say, I told you so. Oh, you're just going to rub in my face. Oh, Red Day 2 is really good. I still Josh's I told you so really quick. Dude, I know, because you know I was going to do it after you talked about it for a little bit.

But that's my, it's not your favorite game. It's my favorite game, so I had to steal it. It's up there for me. I mean, yeah. So let me ask you this, Ace. You know, Red Dead Redemption 2, widely held as the greatest video game ever made. Is it the greatest video game ever made in your opinion? I think it's probably the most polished video game ever made.

I don't think it's the greatest. Okay, that's a fair response. Favorite is different. Like, everybody has their favorites, which is like, that's a different question than is it the best. You know what I mean? Like, and not to put you on the spot, but what's a game that you think is better than Red Dead 2? Oh, the Red Dead 2?

Yeah, not your favorite because, again, we're judging like the quality of the quality of the game and the impact of the game versus like personal preference. There's rats in Red Dead too, dude. Remember. Yeah, there are rats. Ryan Sway and I can't have hating from Reddoll. Oh man, rats.

I would maybe give it to God of War, 2018. Oh, yeah, you're tired. Dang it. Yeah. Just gameplay wise. That's fair. No, that's that's that's

or maybe even like the Last of Us for story and gameplay because I enjoy both of those. I love Last of us. Yeah, like it's hard to say. It's like there's a scale and they're all very balanced. What a thing though that we have like recently within the last, you know, eight to nine years like these games that are upper echelon of just all time. You know, it's something that that you can always look back to and that is so, so good.

Love it. Goodness. 2018. What a year, 28. Man, we got the two best video games ever made in the same year. Can we ever beat it? I hope so. I hope so. All right, well, listen, welcome in everybody. We get seguued, you know, it's pretty easy for us at this point. If you should be used to it by now. We go where the wind takes us, but, you know, we always have a topic that we try to stick to as well. This one's a fun one. And there may be some people that have been like, haven't you guys kind of sort of talked about some of this before? And it's like, yes, you know, I think topics come up and we can. kind of go, hey, what's a game that you never played, right?

Or that you wish you had played or something like that. But this episode is more geared towards the franchises and the games that every time, like, people in our community are talking about something and they ask us and they're like, Josh, have you, like, you said you like StarCraft? Have you played like Command and Conquer? And I'm like, no, bro, I actually missed that kind of phase with my friends because I was a little older or I was playing something else. And then people like, what?

That's what I'm like right now? played that, you know? And then it's funny because it's like, okay, I get it. And then there's people in our community that, you know, have been played God of War or Red Dead 2 or some of these games or Eldon Ring. You know, we got a bunch of people playing through Eldon Ring for the first time and stuff like that. And so it's just, this is a fun topic to kind of go, hey, what are the, what are your blind spots? What are these franchises that you missed out on? I honestly, I don't know that I'll ever go back and to play any of these. You know, like, it's like I've gone this long without playing them.

So am I really going to dive in now? Like, don't worry. We're going to get it. Probably not. We're going to get plenty of remaster. We're going to have to play something. Like, yeah. Yeah, probably.

No one's getting out of here without playing one game on their list probably. Yeah. I mean, that's fair. And we could, we could maybe make that a challenge. Like, you know, if we get something like, I don't know, five new supporters of the show. You know, that sign up. and we'll say, all right, you know what? Let's do it.

We will issue fourth the challenge. If we give five new people to sign up on our Patreon in the seven days since this episode releases, this episode's going to release Tuesday, the 14th, July 14th. So by the 21st, if we have five new people sign up, we will let the community pick a game for one of us to play to fix this egregious error. Does that sound good, boys? Yeah, all right. I'll take it. I'll take that. I guess so because I don't have a choice. So yes. I say, yeah. Ryan, you were just talking about how you love the gamble. Like, this is your gamble right here. Here's your gamble, buddy. You got a one and through chance. It might be you. It might be me. Probably going to be ace.

Right. There's a lot of AAA games out there. It's probably going to be me. We're going to, there you go. Just an impromptu challenge for the listeners out there. We are men of our word. We will absolutely, uh, stick to it. You know what I mean? So there you go. We've thrown the gauntlet down. There's a link in the episode description, by the way, if you do want to sign up, it's Patreon.

We're on Patreon at VideoGamer's Pod, but there's a link in the episode description. It'll take you right there to do that. All right. We're going to get started with our list here in just a second. But Ryan, we've got a new review that we are going to read. And here, guys, one other call to action. We don't do this a whole lot, right? But a call to action, we are 38 reviews away from.

a thousand reviews on Apple podcast. Come on people. If you listen on Apple podcast, write us a review. Write us a review. We read them on the show. We'd love to know what you think about the podcast, but we want to hit that thousand mark. That's like, it's so close. It's so close. So go to a thousand.

Ruto to a thousand. All right, what you got for us, Ryan? This is an amazing five-star review from Skaterick 10. Skate Trick Skate Rick Skate Eric Not the name

Skater Eric Yeah we got to quit making Ryan Yeah we got You know maybe we should start with the names And then he can get in Skate Eric Yeah Like hey right

This review comes in from Skate Eric Hold on Skate Eric or Skater Rick Like there's only one E Skater Rick Skater Rick Man maybe With RIC

And not Eric Yeah maybe it's Skater Rick I'm gonna go with Skater Rick Skater Rick Just say it all in one go. Skater Rick 10. There you go. It's a five-star review titled already my new favorite podcast, short and sweet.

I am only five minutes into the episode and I knew instantly that this is my new favorite podcast. Exclamation point. Exclamation point. Exclamation point. What episode do you all think it was? Probably the Batman one. It's got to be the Batman. Right.

It's got to be the Batman one. That was pretty early. That was pretty early. I had the mask on. Yeah, I was going to say, what would have gotten somebody hooked within the first five minutes? Watching Ryan's face squished into a mess that was entirely too small and the A's dying. Oh, they made me die in my chair. But thank you for the review.

That's wonderful. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you for the review. If you have it, listen, if you're a fan of the show, borrow somebody's iPhone. You can do that and just say, hey, let me leave my favorite podcast to review. because we know not everybody has Apple, you know, and so you can't do it that way. Rightfully so, by the way.

You can make Apple accounts. Oh, my gosh, we're not getting into this. Yeah, well, yeah. Oh, boy. You don't want to lose. All right. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I would win.

But anyway, all right, so let's talk about, let's talk about some of our franchise fomos, our gaming regrets, our confessions here about games we try to keep this more towards a franchise if possible but there's also this is going to this is going to just include some straight up just games as well because sometimes there's just a game that you should have played uh Ryan why don't you start us off here Mr. Destiny Boy and then talk about some of these games that you haven't played because of your eight-year

stint with Destiny. I did not, man counts for nothing since the game is shutting down. does account for nothing and that hurts my soul so bad i know all those like literally thousands of hours like i played that game and it's just all gone but we have the memories we made along the way you know and that's the most important right right um i'm gonna go with one that i think a lot of people if you ace will know this for sure because he's in the indie world but Celeste Oh yeah

As a fan of platformers and high intensity like movement games or however you want to describe it I don't know if it was just because I was so intimidated by this or because the graphics are so God awful I'm not sure what really threw me off

but I had never played it even after everyone talking about how amazing it is how how they went through and did this and that throughout the game to unlock these extra features and everything that it offers, I had never dove into the world of Celeste. And yeah, that's one that's one that I think is like a gap that that needs to be addressed, but it's, it's there as of now. That's like the perfect game deck game.

Yeah, it's the graphics. It's for sure. Trust me, I know. I know. No, because listen, because. Because we, I understand Ryan, and I was the exact same way. I only played Celeste in like the last year and a half. Okay.

That was on a whim with an episode with Paul where I just on a whim said, you know what, Paul forced me to play a game. Fine. I'll play one right now. And then he goes, play Celeste. And I go, fine. And then I was like, oh, you stupid. Bang it? You know, in my head, I was like, greg.

And bro, Celeste is one of, if not the best platformers out there. It's so good. It is genuinely so, so good. Booty Cheeks, graphics aside. Like, it is one of the best platformers that exist. Do you know what the Steam score for Celeste is? It's got to be like low 90s, right? 95%?

It is 94. Upper 90s. It is 97% out of 60,000 reviews. Listen, listen. If you're out there and you unplayed Celeste, and you were like Ryan and I and you were dumb because the graphics just kind of suck. Like get over it because this game is awesome, dude. It really is that good.

I just, for me that I just, I don't know, I have a hard time thinking if you have a game that that's, that good. What more would it have taken? And this may be a different episode, but like what more would it have taken to step up the graphics to another level? Like something more, maybe a little more palatable for people like us that are. That was never the vision, though. The vision was a simplistic style with very tight controls. Okay.

Yeah, you have very tight controls, but if you have very tight controls in an amazing world, but it looks good, that's not a bad thing. It doesn't mean bad. I like how Ace always is like, no, you can't, you can't ever talk about making the graphics better.

It's horrible. It's horrible. It's pretty bad. It's horrible. It's horrible. It doesn't. Listen, but I'm converted. I'm a believer now. I'm a believer people because like I said,

sometimes the gameplay can truly just carry the game and for Celeste, it absolutely carries the game. Like I didn't even notice how bad the graphics were after a while. Like 10 hours in, I stopped even noticing. After like 15 beers, like it was... Ace is dying right now. If I make a short of this later, no, no, don't do it.

You are going to get raped over the calls. Make it. Just like last time. Blah, blah, blah. I'm messing up your short right now. I love Celeste. Celeste is amazing everybody. Celeste is the best platformer out there.

I'll make your short right now. Celeste is lucky that the gameplay was good because the graphics were horrible. He's dead. He's dead. All right. Clip that. Dead and buried. This guy doesn't even play games.

Ryan, you love platformers. Yeah. And Celeste is so good. I'm going to have to check it out. I'll check it out. Yeah. It also, if you want it to be, can be like insanely hard.

Like when you get to the B and C sides, like the C side of the tapes that you collect, are ridiculous. So this is the type of platformer where if you really want to be a masochist and you can, you know, it gets insanely difficult. So all right. Ace, why don't you hit us with one of yours, buddy? What do you got? I think I'll do the most obvious one and the most recent one. I have never dove into any grand theft auto games outside of the online mode, which I don't really think counts

because that was like for an hour maybe. I just never picked one up, never booted one up, had zero interest in it. I still kind of have zero interest in it, but I got to know. I can tell you of zero interest because you are the least excited person in the world for GTA 6. I'm having a blast at the game I want to right now.

It's because he hasn't played GTA 5 or 4 or 3 or 2. I got to ask you, Ace. Everybody else on November 19th will be racing home. I mean, racing home from work to boot up GTA6 if they even went to work that day. And they didn't call out sick or just scheduled the day off. Good point. I feel like you are the opposite where you were going to be like to, I guess I got to play this.

Yeah, I will be dragging myself to my computer and then dragging my mouse over, Overwatch? What would it take for it to change your mind? Like, I want to know like what, like, how many hours in is it going to be where Ace is like holy crap, okay? One. You think one? I don't think one hour. One hour. Game cannot win me over

one hour. One hour, dude. Because you're doing it because it's not real. It's not real. It's not real because it's not real. You're doing it because you're an indie guy and you love Indies, which is awesome. And you're an indie expert and it means so much to us in the community. But

Your intentional dismissal of AAA titles because they're AAA titles is why you haven't played any GTA games. That's why you never played Red Dead. If this was a Red Dead, if this was a Red Dead sequel, I would be excited for it. Because you played Red Dead. Because you played Red Dead. Go play GTA 5. Go play GTA 5 and then you would be excited for GTA 6. I guarantee it.

I just have my doubts on that. You can have all the doubts you want that you haven't played it. I love this. Also, I don't have time to dive into GTA 5 in the middle of 2026. GTA is better than you think, Ace. It's better than you think. Listen, I'm not the biggest fan of GTA. Like, they're great games, but, like, I don't fiend over them like Ryan does.

Like, I would, I prefer Red Dead, like, hands down. You know what I mean? But, like, the GTA games are freaking really, really good games, dude. Like, I don't get the same, like, level of, like, hype and anticipation like Ryan does over them. But they're really good games, dude. like really well done. Story-wise, like action-wise,

like, they're just complete. They're complete games all the way around. Like, they're, it's Red Dead. The people that made Red Dead

don't just suddenly forget about story or world- job or any of that stuff. Or any of that stuff. I mean, okay. I mean,

I'm just saying, you know, just saying. But the same, you know, they keep saying that, but it's not the same developers from GTA3 either.

Like, like, there's, the, game is the game and they have a template and they have what they want to do. It's going to vary throughout like the, the way they go through it. But man,

I will play it. And if I enjoy it, I enjoy it, but I just doubt I'm going to be able to build any hype beforehand. No, you won't. You won't. You won't. You won't. And then you're going to play it and you're going to say, I was wrong. This is one of the best games ever made.

Make Ace play GTA5, people. Oh, come on. Make Ace play GTA5. All right. I don't not have the time of day for that. Oh no, he'll miss out on some more rivals. I know, right? Oh, no, I have to not play rivals for a little while.

I don't have time for it. There's new skins, but there's new skins. Oh, my goodness. I'm going to be quick on mine because people have heard this before. But for those that haven't, I've never played any of the uncharted games. And this is a crime because I feel like I would absolutely love these. You can get them on PC, so I don't even have the excuse now because you can get the uncharted collection on PC. I have heard time and time again

that it's like, hey, one wasn't that good, two is pretty dang good, and then the series just gets better from there. Is two the best, or is it for this? I thought four was the best. Two, two that has the best story and the overall, like, kind of essence of the game. Four is the best

because it's the most recent and it has the most, the best gameplay overall, far and away. Four was so amazing. Four you can hop into right now, and you'll have the absolute time of your life, we're playing Assassin's Creed right now hiding in the bushes

and doing the things they play very similar so it's one of the best the scenery the emotion the world the building like everything about it it's it's a crime you haven't played at least four Ethan Drake pops up all the time

before I played four when four came out before launch date I was literally at the gym watching for the last like the week before I was watching a full cut scene play through of one through three. Like that's how good four is like to prep for it. It's just watch the cutscenes and then and then play the game.

You don't have to, but it makes it easier and better. But four is really good. This is this is, at all the ones on my list, this is probably the one that I have the highest chance of actually going like I need to play these. It's the new. It's new to.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not that long. Is it charted dead? Like is that series dead? Because I feel like we haven't seen or heard anything for it in years. probably because that's naughty dog right maybe and until like you know the studio needs money and then they just well now because then naughty dog will just release a remaster the last of us too

well that's what i'm saying it'll just be you know uncharted one remastered oh if they remastered uncharted two i would buy it 100% that's why i'm i'm a sucker yeah these remasters for sure fair enough all right listen we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back and talk about some more of our missed out on games. We will be right back. The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus, starring Emmy Rossum. Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th,

only on Hulu on Disney Plus. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. All right, guys, I'm looking at all the games on my list and it's like, I know these are good. I know that I should have played these games and I just don't know why.

You know what I mean? Like, there's part of me that's like questions that just like the listeners are about like, bro, why didn't you play these? You know? All right, Ryan, we're back to you. Why don't you give us a... We got to speed up a little bit. We are.

I know we got this to go through here. So what's another one on yours? Another one for me, this will be another big egregious one, kind of like you're uncharted or Aces, Grand Theft Auto, uh, mishaps. I, other than watching Paul play and playing just a little teeny bit throughout the series, have never played the mass effect series. Oh, this one hurts. And as somebody who is a...

It's one we share, bud. A super space nerd. You too? You too? Me too. Yeah, me too. Bang. Uh, as a super space nerd and, uh, I love astronomy, astrology, like, all that stuff.

I, I, I, I love sci-fi. I love fiction. Like, it's, it's, uh, I don't know. I, I never got around to it. I never got to play this game. I never bought it. And I, it. And it's a black glaring hole on a game that I should have played for sure.

I picked up the legendary collection and then I did something dumb and joined a video game podcast. So now I don't have time. Well, there goes that. Dude, the Mass Effect games are all timers, dude. This is like people that say I've never played Bioshock. Like legitimately, like, it's up there. And I know you both know this, but like I'm just going to rub it in a little bit anyway. because it's like this is how good like the mass effect and i know all the characters because of how

like amazing it is i know the i know i know i know all them by like kind of image i can see and i know that that's from mass effect but i just i've never played it like it's it's one of those i missed out on this is another one of those the story the gameplay the characters the exploration it's like they are all encompassing games like every aspect of mass effect is just good in its own right, dude. And I'm pretty sure they remastered the first one, right? I feel like they did. I don't know. But first three. Did they? Did they do all three? Yeah, because it's the legendary collection. It's all three. I guess so. That's one, man, I can't make me play it. No, no, guys, no, no.

Mass Effect. I'm going to say this. I, like, if I could make you play GTA 5 or Mass Effect, Ace, I would make you play Mass Effect. Oh, wow. That's how. Really? Really. it did like legitimately and this is no I'm not throwing shade to GTA but like Mass Effect is an all timer of a series like everybody needs to experience Mass Effect dude. It was like

it was peak BioWare. Yeah it was peak BioWare and like BioWare in its heyday was oh my gosh dude They were they were so good to experience Peak Pyreware the last time he played a Firework game. Oh no Was that VeilGard? That was that

What's the opposite? of peak gutter gutter bioware that's called Dragon Age that's what the opposite of peak is well don't you slander the first couple dragon ages man yeah because origins and Inquisition were fantastic all right

all right that's one we got to fix at some point boys I know it's a glaring at you and for you listeners out there if you haven't played Mass Effect you are you are missing out man all right Ace what's up next for you Uh, another big one, honestly, is the Death Stranding series. Hideo Okijima's, you know, new IP that has two games in it. It's basically, oh, man.

We listen out on that. According to people in our server, we are. Yeah, they say it's just weird and interesting, and it's, there's no game like it. This is like Josh with the altars. He just hates, like, anything like that. Anything weird. Yeah, anything weird, like, ah. Too, sci-fi.

I love weird. Too sci-fi. I love weird. And I love sci-fi. I'm sorry, the time rain and the carrying around a baby fetus isn't weird enough for you. Dude, listen, I made myself play Destranding, the first one, because I really wanted to experience Death Stranding, too, because it looked incredible. And it was up for, like, game of the year. Like, I mean, you know, it was all this hype.

And I was like, you, A, so I was like, I've never played this. So I literally made myself play the first one. and I think I got about 18 hours in and then I finally just fizzled out. Like, the world is incredible. The presentation outstanding. The sci-fi aspect, oh my gosh, dude, like mind-blowing. The graphics, incredible. Like, Hideo Kajima, that dude's weird, man.

Yep. He's weird. You know? But he's weird in, like, the best way. It's like Yokotaro. I just eventually couldn't get over the, like, I'm just trying to, walk from one location to the other or you know you do get like a like a little motorcycle thing at one point the gameplay really just kind of lost my interest the story in the world and all that were

absolutely phenomenal dude but i think you need a lot of patience and a lot of like i'm okay with the gameplay elements on this being fairly repetitive after a while to like power through like i know some people absolutely love it i think if it hits for you it hits really really hard for me it was the parts of this game hit but the other parts where it's like I'm trying to have fun like don't I would watch it if it was a movie like any day of the week but playing it as a video game is a little bit different do you think it was more like um it was more like metal gear solid but like without combat yeah it was like that yeah so it's weird and it's again it's Hideo Kajima like you know so there are parts where it's like whoa this is pretty mind-blowing to witness

and to experience but like Metal Gear has that action and that kind of fun gameplay element, whereas death straining, it just really took a back seat to everything else. And eventually it wore me out. Like, I just kind of went, okay, I've lost interest. Like, I feel like I know what the game is at this point. And I kind of went cool. Now I know. But also it's not for me necessarily. Yeah, I feel like that's fair criticism, honestly. Yeah. What about you? What are you got? I am going to group a bunch of games together here because this is, you got a few. Dude, this might be the most glaring hole. Like, for a lot of people. I have never played Crash Bandicoot. I have never played Ratchet and Clank. I have never played Jack and Dexter.

Like all these PlayStation platformers that, you know, like, were exclusive to the PlayStation, I was, I went to Xbox, you know what I mean? And I was Xbox and PC for the longest time. And I missed out on all of these franchises, dude. So I have never in my life played a Crash Bandicoot game. I know what they look like. You know, I'm familiar with the franchise. Yeah. I've never played. played Ratchet and Clank, and I've never played Jack and Dexter. Now, I feel like Jack and Dexter is probably the least known out of this bunch. Jack and Dexter is definitely one that's kind of gone innate. It hasn't gotten a new game in ages. It was one of those PlayStation exclusive platforms. But I know, like, Ratchet and Clank. It got a new game not too long ago. Ratch and Klanck just had a remaster or new game or something like that. And I remember thinking like this looks great. Like the 3D platformers of old, you know, it's one of those. This, this era of the 3D platformers, I am completely blind to. because I just didn't have a PlayStation at the time. Oh, okay. So I was going to ask why.

So it's used to have a use. That's why. Because I love. Yeah. I love 3D platformers, man. Like my, you know, I've played like Banjo Kizui is, you know, a game I love. Super Mario 64. You know, I love 3D platformers.

Like legitimately AstroBite. I mean, one of the best ever made. I really, really enjoy the genre. But I just missed these. Like, and I grouped them all together because I, I didn't have a PlayStation. They were PlayStation exclusive. Or if they came to Xbox, it was later on or I was doing something else. And it's just a gaping black hole in a genre that I really enjoy.

And you never, like, gain any interest when they got ported to PC with like the remasters and the remasters? No, I'm interested. Like, honestly, I would like ration and clank. I remember seeing whatever the newer one was or the remaster, whatever it was, and thinking like, bro, this game looks so good to me. You know, like it's pretty. It looks like it plays well. not the same though. And I just never dove in.

And that's kind of it, right? Part of me is like, is it, did I miss the, did I miss the window? Does it not hold up in 2026? That like late mid to late 90s window of playing Crash Bandicoot, I can say personally, like, I had a PlayStation. I loved Crash Bandicoot and I played so much. And like, I could tell Josh, you know, like, who would sugar? And like, you would think like, what is that? You know?

And so like, there's, there's so many. sounds that if I heard it on the spot, I'd know what it was from. And it's, you know, those old platformers like that. And so, Crash Bandicoot's one of them. I was never a huge jack and dexter guy, but Crash Bandicoot was one of the biggest.

I absolutely loved it. So, yeah, I think if, even if you were to try, even if they, like, remastered it or something, like, it would not hit the same. There's just, there was something about that timeline and that time period with that game. I don't think

it would hit the same as it would now, but it's a bummer you miss out on it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bummer. At least there's a new crash bandicoot that's like modern, so there's that. Yeah. And again, it's weird because I could get if I didn't like the genre, then it's like, okay, well, I don't really feel like I'm missing anything.

But like, I actually really like, I will say this. I don't like only collect athon. And this is going to upset some people, but like Spiro the Dragon, I did not like because it is only collecting the coins. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like there's... You know, like, there's some of these where it's like, I don't... I'm not interested in only collecting, like, things in a level.

I need some kind of progression or new abilities or, like, boss fights or... Well, you get that progression. You'll get that crash, yeah. Yeah, that's what I mean. But, like, so Spiro, I just get bored within the first, like, hour or two. I'm like, okay, cool, I'm collecting coins. Like, what's the point of this? Fair enough.

Yeah. All right, Ryan. What's up for you, buddy? Um, this one, uh, is somewhat poignant, uh, due to new games that we've been playing. Um, recently released Assassin's Creed black flag. Uh, I, for some reason, I played the first two Assassin's Creed's, I absolutely love them and I never played a single one after that. So there's 14 entries as of now in this Assassin's Creed. There's a lot. There's a lot. There's a lot. 14 of the main ones. That's just main line.

That's just mainline. There's some other stuff and spinoffs and other side games and stuff like that. There's 14 Assassin's Creed mainline games and I've only played the first two. And I absolutely love them. I have the most fondest memories ever. And then it just fell off. I don't know why I can tell you why. I absolutely loved it.

And I just never played another one. that's such a bar. There's more games after two where you get to play with Etsio all the way through his life until he dies. Really? Yeah. You go through his entire life. It's really cool.

See, I'm with Ryan. I only played the first two, but I did play Odyssey. I do remember really picking up Odyssey and probably putting 15 hours into it and then it was just too cluttered. It was too big and too aimless. It's a good RPG.

Like, don't get me wrong. Yeah. It is not a good. But it was an Assassin's Creed. It's not a good. And that was, yep, I agree. So I'm with you, Ryan. I only played one and two, which were phenomenal.

And then I feel like the series just lost its way after that point. It just got two RPG focused. I'm glad to be diving into Black Flag. It's nice to be able to see what people are talking about. You know, we're in it still, so we're not going to give our thoughts on it just yet. But we are deep diving that probably next week. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Yeah.

All right, Ace, what's up next for you? I don't think any of us have dived into this franchise, but the Yakas is franchise, which is, you know... Yeah, I know it's on... It's on my, like, extra extra list. It's like, it's just that weird, like, action RPG, like, beat them up from Sega that

none of us have really bothered to dive into for some reason, despite it having, like, pretty big acclaim. Like, people really like it. You know what it is? The visuals. It's the art style. It really bugs me, dude. It really bugs me.

I don't know why, because it's not, they're not bad looking games, but they're just weird, and I don't like the way the characters look. and I don't like the styling of like how they do the combat and the menus and stuff and I know that's such a petty thing to like you know actually say but like

it just does they don't interest me because of that like my brain and my eyes see it and they go I know people love these games I just have zero interest in them well even like the newer ones that are more tactics RPG yeah like the like a dragon and stuff but again it's it's like the I don't know dude it sounds stupid but it's like the menus

and the fonts and stuff and I just don't like I don't know why but it's it's impot possible for my brain to get excited about. That's pretty funny. And it's like, because I have no excitement or interest, I'll probably never play them. If I don't like the HUD or layout of a game, that's enough to put me off of it. I'll be really. Yeah. Yeah. And I know they're good. That's totally fair. People speak about them all the time very highly, but I can't. It reminds, for whatever reason, like, the movement in the gameplay reminds me of the old, like, virtual fighter games. I don't know. I don't know why,

but it's like, it's like a weird. But I didn't like virtual fighter either. Yeah, and it's not Street Fighter or it's not the other ones. It just, yeah, it just doesn't, you know, you feel like something's off. Like, it just doesn't look right to you. And I'm sure a lot of people are like, you guys are idiots. What are you talking about? I'm sure to enjoy it, though, because I love like those weird out there kind of games that explored, like, the stranger sides of Japanese culture. Like the fully grown adult men who dresses babies and jump you in things.

Yeah, it's, yeah, but that's weird too. And they have their own idea of like, yeah, either. Yeah. All right. I'm going to jump in here. I'm going to, here's two. I'm grouping these two together. Age of Empires and Command and Conquer. I loved the real-time strategy genre when it came out with Warcraft and Starcraft. I played Warcraft 1, 2, 3. I played Starcraft.

You know, through that whole collection, I loved them. And somehow, some way I missed out on what people say are the best. Like, age of vampires too is still insanely popular to this day. Rightfully so. never, I have never once even seen a like a screen from, I mean, I've seen a screenshot online, but it's like I personally have never loaded one up. I was never at a friend's house while they were playing it. Like, I'm so blind to, to these games and these franchises that I, and I'm sad because I hear people talk about age of empires. They still play with their buddies and they still do

this and command and conquer, you know, where I hear voice lines and people talking about that. And it's like, bro, I've never, I don't know what I was doing, but it wasn't playing these games. And now I can't go back because number one, the genre is basically dead. Yeah, that's like I say that genre is kind of gone. That's the unfortunate part. But it should have be gone because it's so, I mean, it's so good. And especially with the way graphics are now. It's so sweaty.

That's the problem, dude. It's like, you have to be like, you, well, you need a thousand actions per minute if you want to be able to compete. Well, that's, so it's basically like anybody that can click faster and, do more stuff in a short period of time is just going to win. That's the same with StarCraft or Warcraft or any of those, like, back when they do it. Because you get those Korean guys that are just like, you know, when you see the comp, comp modes. But, um, you're, if you've never played Age of Empires, dude, you really, really have to check it out. It's, it's such a cool RTS game.

If you like RTS games, it'll hold up 100% and just play with your friends, play with your buddies. it'll never happen. Dude, why? I'm not playing Age of Empires in 2026, man. Because I'm going to load it up and it's going to look like booty, man. You know what I mean? It's all like shrunken down. I mean, it's been a lot since I've played, but I'm sure to look at line.

I bet if you looked it off, you'd be like, oh. Yeah, exactly. I know people love it. I miss it. I'm sad. Like, this one makes me sad because I feel like it would have been so much fun with your buddies to just dive into, you know, match or a night of age of vampires. I played more age of

vampires too than you can even imagine. I just say how many hours do you think? Oh, dude, hundreds. Like, oh my gosh. This is like, this is like early, you know, early internet days and playing online days and then like just playing with friends and laying, land parties. And I played a lot of age of vampires. It's so good. Dang, dude. All right. We're running low on time, boys. Ryan,

hit us with one more and then, uh, we'll do ACE and then I'll, I'll wrap us up here. I'm going to do. I'm going to do one that is a very popular game. A lot of entries in the series. I'm going to do Devil May Cry. Oh, yeah. That's on my extended list, too. I've never played a single game.

Never a single one. It's so weird, too, how we always question, like, why did you ever play that? And then we have another game, and everyone is like, why didn't you play that? And so I just, I don't know why. I like this style of game. I like the way it looks. I love the aesthetic. everything about it, like, is what...

The humor and the writing is what makes... The humor, like, all of it. Everything about it makes for a good game for me, personally, and I've just never touched it. I don't know why. I don't know why I never got around to just like, oh, I need to get that game. But yeah, Devil May Cry, the whole entire series, I've never played a single one. Hey, rumor is, we're getting a from the ground up remake of Devil May Cry 1, so... Oh, really?

Yeah. That would be pretty cool. Might be time. It would be... Is it, okay, because I've never played Devil May Cry either. I hear Ace talk about it all the time. I see everybody cosplaying as Dante all the time. Like, this is an absolutely beloved franchise.

Is there a barrier where you go, I miss the window? Because for a lot of these, that's me. Like, I miss the window with Age of Empires. I miss the window with Devil May Cry. No, you didn't. You know, like, I mean, I'm just, but like, but it's hard to go, like, I'm going to play this game that's old at this point and try to pick it up, you know, in 26.

And I know that Devil McRive's like what, five is the latest one and it's probably not that old. Yeah. And you can honestly pick that up to be fine. It's the trying to jump into a franchise

when you feel like you're on the tail end of that franchise or you don't like my brain tells me I need to go play like one, two, three, four. Right. Like, and I know you don't have to do that necessarily. But like it's a barrier for me to go, I'm going to go try this franchise out.

Well, see, I think that's what justifies remakes and remasters at this point. It's the only thing that justifies. That's what kind of justifies. there are people who think like it's too old to go back to. I miss the window. Other than the copious amounts of money. Yeah, of course.

But no, this is like Uncharted. Dude, Uncharted 4. Amazing game absolutely would hold up today. If you downloaded it right now, it would play so beautifully better than most games that are being released right now. But I can't jump into the end of the franchise. But that's what I'm saying is go, go and watch say Uncharted cutscenes. one through three.

And you can watch all the cutscenes. It'll take you probably two or three hours. You could do it while you're in bed. You could do it while you're at the gym. And then you're completely caught up. And that's what I did before the game launched. That's what you need to do with maybe Devil May Cry or something like that. Like if that's a type of game, like there's ways to get around it.

But man, some games hold up and, you know, the later versions of it may. Yeah. It's more a mental barrier than like the game not going to be fun kind of It's just tough to jump into it and go like, I don't know anything about this. You like hard games too, so I know you'd like double make crying. That's saying it's like, it's a hard hack and slash. My final one, I love horror games.

Absolutely adore horror games. Resident Evil, probably my favorite horror franchise ever. I have never died to do a Silent Hill game. Like, played it fully. Me too. What? Me too. Wait, neither one of you?

I've never played a Silent Hill game. No. Amasia, Resident Evil and Outlast. Yes. Silent Hill. not so much. Dude, Silent Hill and Resident Evil were like Twinsies back in there. I know, they were real close with one.

You played the other. You know? And now I've got Silent Hill two remakes. So like, I don't have an excuse not to. We've got Silent Hill F that came out last year. And then we have Townfall coming out this year. So it's like the franchise is alive.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I haven't played F or Townfall, but it's starting to just kind of look like. I heard F's not great. But Townfall doesn't look bad. One or two are phenomenal games, dude. And especially with the Silent Hill two remakes. make like that's yeah i've been i mean that's gonna seem like a next gen game at this point uh those games

were fantastic dude like you talk about atmospheric creepy like really just kind of make you terrified of the fog and maybe we should that for october game we should all spare your silent i mean it's been a minute it's been a minute for me since i played a silent hill but i did play them originally and and absolutely loved them look at ace trying to set stuff up for october hey i'm always looking for a spooky game for october he's like let's go ahead I have two, but I'm just going to list this one. Smash Bros. Yes, I have played Smash Bros.

I have played it. I know what it is. I've only played it maybe six times in my life. I'm terrible at it, which I don't like. But I missed that whole window of Smash Bros. Being like the thing that everybody played together. I was playing Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. And then whatever happened during the age of Smash Bros, I was playing something else.

at that point. And it makes me sad because it's like, I know that this for a lot of people and honestly an entire generation was like the game that you played with your friends. Yeah.

And I just completely missed out on that. So you, and I like fighting games. You've kind of missed the boat when people ask you like, what's your dream character to get out to Smash Bros? Because you just don't care about Smash.

Yeah, I don't care about it at all. Like, honestly, I kind of hate it. I'm not going to lie. Like, I played it. But like, I kind of hate it because number one,

like, it's not the traditional, like, like I'm used to and I hate it because I'm not good at it. And the whole knocking me off the map thing, I really despise because people knock me off the map really fast. And then I just fall to my death and I'm getting mad. We just got to get not knocked off the map.

Yes, I understand the concept there, but I'm not good at that part of it. But yeah, I completely missed that window. This is, like I said, this is a game and a franchise that I have played a few times, but what a just gaping hole, especially as somebody that likes fighting games too and loves multiplayer in combat and stuff like that.

Yeah, that's a bummer, man. Yeah. Do you guys have any other quick hits? Any ones we didn't mention, but we don't have time to get into? I got one, Alan Wake series. Yeah. That's a hit or miss. Yeah.

I liked the first one. Incredible presentation. People, it's one of those people love them or they hate them kind of thing. Not hate them, but they find them to be really boring. I kind of find them to be boring. Oh. Kind of, but I can appreciate them. Get them.

Get them. No, no, no, no, no, no. I can appreciate the quality of the game. I just couldn't really get into it. What about you, Ace? Anything else on your... The Sly Cooper series, which is the sort of stealth thief game where you played as the raccoon by soccer punch

before they moved on to Ghost Sishima. And I guess they moved on to Infamous and then Ghost Sishima, and then they abandoned both for Ghost Sishima. Yeah. Good call. Good call, by the way. That was not a good call to abandoned Infamous.

Yes, it was. No, yes, it was a good call. If Ghost Sishima is amazing. Shishima is far better than infamous. Ask the studio which game they're like, what's the game that you made that you're most proud of? They're going to be like, Ghost of Sushima.

Screw those other games. Yeah, they probably would be. They probably would be. That's fair. The last one on my list is World of Warcraft. Never got into it in its heyday, especially for somebody that absolutely loved MMOs. Yes, this is kind of like Smash Bros.

I have played World of Warcraft, but it was so far after the fact that it was completely dumbed down. I would love to have been able to play it. during the days of like vanilla wow, where it was actually really hard and stuff. With me and Paul playing that back in the day with Bill, Bill Joe 439, man. Oh my gosh,

there was nothing like it. Oh, yeah, everybody. Like Andy was like, and I missed that. Like I said, now, you know,

my wife would kill me if I tried to play wow right after cracking out on EverQuest for a long time. So that's why I didn't play it. The relapse. So it's probably a good thing. But it is that like a glaring hole in the like, everybody in the world played World of Warcraft except for me, you know.

Yeah. Oh, I didn't, so there you go. Well, there you go. Yeah. Two of us. All right, well, listen, we want to know what games you should have played. And you know, all of you out there know the games that you're up to, dang it immediately. Like as soon.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And we want to know that game or that franchise where you're like, as soon as we talked about this episode, you're like, yeah, this is the one for me. Well, we want to know so we can call you out on it. You know, so leave us a comment. If you listen on Spotify, you can comment on our episodes. We see every single comment that people leave. We've actually have some people testing us lately being like, if you guys see these comments and reply to me.

And I'm like, here I am. Ryan jumps in there, Ace jumps in there. So we do see every comment. But we want to know what the franchise or the game is that you know you should have played by now and you haven't. So don't be afraid to confess. We might make fun of you a little bit, but you know, just a little bit. But if we can do it, you can do it.

you can do it too. So join us in the fun. Remember to join our community. We reference it all the time. That is our Discord server. We are close to 1,400 gamers at this point. We're inching our way closer. Super active, awesome community. We just had somebody give away like five awesome games today. So shout out to Jiglepuff who did a game giveaway. There were some good titles. Yeah, those were high-quality games. Yeah. Yeah. So it is just an awesome place to hang out with people, meet other gamers. We've had people meet up in real life and have dinner and lunch together from the Discord server. It really is awesome. It's family friendly. It's a safe place. I hate that term sometimes, but it really is like there's no opinion shaming. There's no people mocking you because

you like a game or you don't like a game or something like that. It really is an awesome, awesome gaming community where you're allowed to like things and dislike things and nobody's going to get mad at you for it. So come join us. There's a link in the episode description. All right, that's going to do it for this episode, everybody. Until next time, happy gaming. See ya. Peace out.