Video Gamers Podcast - The Games that Defined Consoles [REMASTERED] - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and Ace boot up the nostalgia engines to explore the legendary titles that didn’t just sell consoles… they defined them. From the plumber who made the NES a household hero to the cinematic juggernauts that pushed PlayStation into the future, this episode celebrates the video games that turned plastic boxes into cultural icons. Each console has its crown jewel, a game that sparked fandoms, launched franchises and shaped the gaming world forever. Our trio breaks down why these classics mattered, how they changed the industry and which ones still hold up today. Whether you grew up blowing into cartridges or waiting through endless installs, this look back at video games history will hit you right in the memory card. Get ready for a power-up of pure gaming joy on the Video Gamers Podcast! 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. Mario and Nintendo, Sonic and Sega, those are easy for most people. But what games define a console? What would you say defines the Nintendo 64 or the original Xbox? Well, on this episode, we're talking the games that define the console. But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host Josh. and joining me, he's defined by his love of bandanas,

MMA, ice hockey, working out, hunting without getting anything, loving every multiplayer game he comes across, and just about anything else he gets distracted by. It's Ryan. I'd like to say I'm a man of many talents, but I'm not. I'm just a man of many distractions. That's a good word for it, yeah. Yes, I see something shiny.

That's why I like open world RPGs. I'm just like, oh, shiny, and I just run that way. So, yeah, no, that's a very apt description. Yeah. And joining us, he's defined by his love of Indies, his disdain for AAA, his overwhelming love of rats, cosmetics, chicken sandwiches, and Metroidvania's. It's ace. Are you reading my dating profile right now?

Don't forget bad pizza. Oh, that's true. Cardboard pizza is another one. That's, yeah, I forgot about that. Don't you dare besmirch cardboard. Oh, and drinking straight from two liter bottles is another one too. So, yeah. I mean, let's be honest, we could have just gone on and on here, but we got a show to get to guys. Yes, we do.

Oh, man. Well, listen, welcome in to everybody. Today's episode is going to be a lot of fun. We are going to be talking about the games that deploy. find the console. What's funny about this one is we actually started off with the game that defined the console. And then as we started sharing our lists with each other, we noticed that none of us had like a singular game and that we kind of had like two or three.

Yeah. And then I was like, okay, I think we were having like some struggles here trying to pick which one was the actual like console to find a game on this. So we're going to be talking about Sega. the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, the Nintendo Switch, and PC. So we've got a neat little mix here. We didn't want to go all old school, you know, nostalgia. We wanted to have some kind of more modern ones.

And so a mix of consoles here. We're going to get into that in just a minute. But Ryan, I believe we have another new review to read. Is that right, buddy? We do. We do have a review. And these, we always love these reviews. definitely brings a smile to our face every time we see them come through. So if you're able,

go ahead and hop on to the, you know, Apple if you have it and leave a review through that with the pod. It really helps us out and helps the algorithm and all that good stuff. But anyways, this one comes into us from BJ in the Morning Pod. It gets got their own podcasts. And it is titled, First Time Listener, Longtime Commenter. Just kidding. I've been around for like six months now, been meaning to leave a review for a while, met you at Phoenix FanFusion, have been listening ever since. You all make my days at work easier and I've steered me towards games I've never played before. Thank you for the last, the information, and just entertaining me throughout my survival job. Good game, gents. Nice. What a review. And we got to

meet these fine fellas. I love it. I have Fan Fusion. Absolutely. We sure did, God. Hey, you were, hey, you were invited, Ace. I know, I'm coming this year. Yeah, you were invited. It's not an art fault. You didn't fly all the way out from Virginia, all the way out to Phoenix to stay in a hotel and to come to the convention and to do, you know, come on, man. Bro, my job wasn't even able to pay my vacations on time. I was not getting that time off.

Oh, man. But listen, you know what? Hey, there was a critical piece of information in that review. and that is, I've been meaning to leave a review for a while. And then you did it. Do you know, look, I'm talking, I'm talking to all you listeners right now. All of you out there that are like, oh, yeah, I've been meaning to leave a review. Oh, I keep meaning to do that.

You know what? Do it. Do it. It's in your side quest bar. Don't you want to finish the side quest? It costs no money. Do the review. Don't you want that platinum video gamers podcast trophy?

the last thing to get the 100% is to leave a review, people. Just leave the review. Look, pause the episode. It's okay. We'll be here when you get back. You'll just hit play and here we are, probably still like whispering into the microphone

like idiots, you know. Idiots to be confirmed for sure. Confirmed. Yeah, yeah. But listen, we absolutely love the reviews. That's why we read them on the show. Thank you to everybody that's taking the time to do that. If you're on Spotify, you can leave

us five stars, uh, like this star that comes in from unknown listener who left five stars. Yeah. Thank you. That's all you. Yeah. Good job. Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, man. And I do get a kick. You can't comment on Spotify too. So I, I read all the comments and I put up a poll usually or, uh, some sort of thing, you know, every week or every episode. And, um, I do read them all. I try to respond. Josh responds to like there, there.

We do look at it. we do, uh, you know, try to, try to communicate back. So we love it. And the polls at the bottom for those who are asking. Yeah, you got to scroll down to scroll down to the bottom. All right. Yeah. People find them though. I've been seeing lots of votes on these polls. And Ryan, you know, like the stooges we are always likes to have some kind of crazy poll down there or mine are highly professional and very, very specific dude. They're definitely how people describe us as professional. Oh, yes. Professional and specific. That's us. All right, guys.

I'll tell you what, let's do this, man. This is a lot of fun. Now, again, take a second, listeners out there. And when we'd say, hey, the Nintendo, because the, you know, the NES is not on our list, what game in your mind defines the Nintendo entertainment system? Right? Like, we're not talking the characters. We're talking the game.

Like, most people would probably say Mario. Yeah. You know, but, you know, there's a lot of games that come to mind. You know, the original Xbox, we're not covering that one today, right? But it's like, to me, the instant, the instant game that comes to mind for me is Halo Kombat Evolve, right? If you're talking the original Xbox, what is the console defining game that comes to mind when you think about that console. So that's what we're doing today. We do have different games.

Like I said, we did share our list on this one. And so we do have some overlap because. I think we're obviously going to have some overlap when you talk about these types of games that define the console. But we also have some differences, which is going to make it pretty fun. But what we want to know is what you guys out there think is the console defining game as well. So make sure you leave a comment on the episode. Hop in our Discord server. Let us know what you think.

We kind of have a no-brainer. So we kind of said, hey, man, we're just going to mention this one quick because we don't know that there is anything. else that actually defines this one. But we're going with the Sega Genesis, boys. Oh, boy. I wonder what it is. We're starting there. There is one game. We all just kind of said it.

What game is it, boys? It's Sonic the Hedgehog. Yeah. And Sonic the Hedgehog, too. Both of them. Oh, yeah, with tails and everything. Yeah, I prefer the second, but yeah, that's just me. Do you guys remember what the claim to fame was about the Sega Genesis over the Nintendo at the time?

Sega does with Nintendo. 16 bit. 16 bits. Do you remember baby? 16 bit? I remember seeing it on the, they had it on the console.

Like you could look down and see you're like 16 bit baby. And you're like 16 bits. And you're blowing in your cartridge to like make sure it worked. This is old school stuff. Pains that people don't know these days. Do you remember how colorful and vibrant Sonic seemed compared to like Mario at the time? Like that was the main takeaway with the Sega and Sonic was just, how vibrant the colors in the game were and how fast, like, you know, Sonic could move on the screen.

I think those were like the two takeaways. But, yeah, I mean, I was talking before we started recording. We always do a pre-show for the supporters of the show, where we do a little bit of kind of pre-show chatter, some behind-the-scenes stuff. And we were talking. I had a Sega Genesis. And one of the first games I got was Alex Kidd, which probably very few people have heard of or remember. but initially Sega was trying to brand Alex Kidd as the kind of icon for the console. Well, Alex Kidd's stupid.

And so it was a dumb character and it didn't work out. But thankfully they kind of fell backwards into Sonic at one point. And then they went, oh, well, this is a way cooler character than Alex Kidd was. So, you know, thus we have Sonic now, thankfully. That's why you listen to this show, though. Because neither of us knew about Alex Kidd, man. I'll tell you that much. Don't you slander Echo Ace.

Yeah, I've already been down that road. I've been down that road. I've seen it. I played the heck out of some echo, man. And to this day, nobody knows what the heck you're supposed to do in that game, dude. But I can't tell you the countless hours I spent playing Echo as a dolphin, just trying to go like. The death didn't know what to do.

They didn't even know what they made it, man. Like, is there an ending to that game? Nobody knows, man. Everyone falls asleep. You just, it was pretty peaceful. unless you were too far and you were about to drown, then it wasn't peaceful. I forget dolphins can drown. Oh, yeah.

They're mammal. Yeah, they're mammals. I forgot. I was like, wait, dolphins can drown? Wait, dolphins can drown? Yeah, Ace, they're mammals. They're just like me and you, Ace. Oh, man.

All right, guys. Well, let's make this a little bit more difficult now, okay? let's talk about the Xbox 360. All right. Now, to me, the console defining game was the game you played

every time you turned it on and you saw the little ring turned green. Okay? Because that was the real take for the Xbox 360. It's not red. No red ring is there.

Oh, it's over. I went through three red rings. Just so you know, three. I had three, dude. Did they replace it each time? I sent two back and then the other one, I was just like, whatever, and I just trashed it. And it was like late in the series.

And so I had a new system. Fair. Dude, my initial Xbox 360 made it. I want to say like nine years, dude. Oh, that's crazy. I was not a red ring. I barely even played this thing anymore at the point that I got the red ring, but I forget what I was trying to do.

And I turned it on one day and that red ring showed up. and I kind of went, huh. Like, okay. So then you could still because I'm pretty sure the warranty was like extended to like 10 years or something crazy like that. So sure enough, I sent it in. They sent me one back and then I think I played like one more game on it. You would send it in. You sent it in?

Well, yeah, man. Of course I'm getting my replacement. You know? I don't play anymore. Oh, that is such a Josh thing to send that in later. You didn't put the penny on the head. That's very fair. I can't even argue this.

Yeah, I know. I know. Just like, I'm going to look up this warranty. Yeah. I sold it, though. I mean, I couldn't sell it if it had the red ring, guys. So, you know, it made sense. All right.

When we think about the Xbox 360, what is the console defining game that comes to mind for you guys? It's Bioshock for me. Bioshock was exclusive to the 360 when it came out and like. It was. It was so appealing, dude. The world of rapture, the use of the, you know, the plasmids and actual weapons in order to take down these creepy spliced out enemies. It's just so iconic. The big daddies.

Yeah, I'll do. Big daddies. When they were showcasing those and announcing those was the most terrifying thing you could imagine. And I still to this day, remember Ken Levine talking about like, you can try to take on a big daddy. And it is possible. And then they made it. Are you sure about that? Yeah.

Like, are you sure? You know? And I just remember being terrified of those things, but also going like, one day, one day I'm going to take you down, boy. Yeah. Bioshock, incredible game, incredible game. It's weird to me, it's because, like, I agree with you in a sense. But, like, I completely forgot that Bioshock was an Xbox 360 exclusive for a little while. Yeah.

Yeah. It really was. Um, what about you, Ryan? This one for me is hard. There's a few that I remember and, and I feel that are like defining because, um, this was, 360 was kind of like, not my youth, but my older teenage years to where I really dove into gaming. I mean, I played a lot of PC, but I would say more than anything, it was Gears of War. Yeah.

Uh, yeah. Gary Jules, Mad World in the trailer and, and just like, every time I hear that, song I think of the game and then I think of the Xbox 360 and I think of the time drinking Mountain Dew Amp energy drinks and just playing Gears of War till 2, 3 in the morning, 4 in the morning like that to me

defines the Xbox 360 I know there's other games, maybe sold more copies but to me that was the one that really anchored in what that series not only like the Gears of War series were but like what Xbox could do

you know with that next generation, that next level of shooters and gaming. So to me, that is absolutely one of the first things that came to mind. And then the other one for me was Halo 3. Okay? I mean, when you talk about a console defining game, Halo 3 was the instantaneous. Okay, it's got to be Halo, right? Like, any time you mention Xbox, it's got to be Halo.

But then I went, yeah, that's kind of the easy answer. I don't want to just say that's the easy answer, man. It is. So, but then I started thinking about it. it and I started going like what game do I remember playing the most and obviously like I said gears of war and halo but guys mass effect yeah mass effect is one of the most iconic franchises in gaming it's one of the most incredible franchises in gaming and a similar to bioshawk mass effect was xbox 360 exclusive yep for a little while it's my brother's favorite game and again people have to

remember, this was back in the days of exclusivity. This is when, you know, Xbox and PlayStation were going head to head on who had the best exclusives. And that's why we ran into these, like, exclusive periods on these. But man, Mass Effect to me is the game that I actually remember like playing the most because it was at the time one of the greatest like RPGs out there. I've always been a fan of RPGs. You're playing as Commander Shepard. You know, it was just an incredible game. So I am officially making Mass Effect my console defining game for the Xbox 360. That is a

console selling game. That is absolutely a console selling game. Well, and that was the thing, right? Because these other ones are sequels too. So I, you know, to think of a game that sold the console that defined the console for me, Mass Effect was it because we had never seen anything like that before, man.

What do you think you played the most of on the 360? Oh, uh, Halo. Halo 3? Yeah, that was me too. If we're talking just playtime because, you know, Malt player, the campaign, the Warthog run. I mean, yeah, you know, you're fun with buddies and stuff like that. Like, yeah, Halo 3 for me, that's

why it was the first one to come to mind, too. But I do think that Mass Effect was like the game that, like you said, Ace, it's the reason you would want to buy a 360 at that point. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. All right, guys, I'll tell you what,

let's take a quick break and then, man, this one's going to be tough. And I am very curious to hear what people say about one of the best selling consoles of all time the PlayStation 2 we're going to talk about that right after this break i think ryan was trying to make the PlayStation logo with his hands is that nests is that is that i don't think that's right what you're doing there is that a nash uh which way that i got it yeah that's an s okay yeah now make the p ryan there you go no that's a that's a q that's a lower-paced cue okay

never mind anyways continuing on all right guys place PlayStation 2, what's funny is these next two were going to be two of the best selling consoles ever because we're going to do the PlayStation 2 and then we're going to do the Nintendo Switch, which actually might be the top two best selling consoles of all time, except now we have the Switch 2.

Yeah. Muddies the water. Guys, for me, now I will say this. I did not own a PS2. I had a very, one of my best friends in the world at the time had a PS2.

I had the Xbox 360. so it was like we had it covered we had the bases covered so for me this is an easy answer because I was so jealous that I could not play this game at home I'm going to leave that as a tease Ryan let's start with you what is the console defining game for you for the PS2 so I absolutely have the PS2 it is one of my most memorable consoles that I ever owned especially in my you've um and it's funny you talk about how long you had your xbox 360 dude i had a ps2 no joke our big old you know tube color TVs we had one that fell off the entertainment center onto the x or onto the ps2 the whole sides like split open and that thing ran for like another 10 years

dude it was an absolute tank that thing ran no matter what i absolutely love that system um What I personally remember and what personally I think of when I think of a PS2, obviously Metal Gear Solid 2, that's what I go to immediately. That's always my go-to is one of my favorite games of all time. But what I think defines PS2 for me would be Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. I think that was the man, you know, GTA 3 came out and like, there was like, oh, okay, this isn't birds eye view this is is something different and then san and dray's san andrea has just refined all that to make a really really solid pure game that people still quote people still love to look at and

play and talk about like this is this is just an all-timer game for an all-time system yeah no it really pushed the boundary too of the system at that point it felt like you were playing next Gen. Like, people could not believe, like, what they were seeing and how well, you know, the, the, the PS2 was a juggernaut at the time, man. Yep. Yeah. Yep.

Getting chicken at chicken shack and working out and then, oh, snap, here we go again. All right, Ace. What do you got, man? All right. I kind of have, like, two in my head. Like, I have to mention it or it's going to bother me, but twisted metal black. Oh, my man. Oh, yeah.

I freaking love twisted metal. Twisted metal was so good. And this is where we get the most iconic look for our main man sweet tooth. Like this is where the best look comes from that, you know, that Samoa Joe is rocking in the actual TV show. But if I'm talking like what I think defined the PS2, for me personally, it's Kingdom Hearts. The clash of the giant that is Final Fantasy and Disney creating one of the most confusing RPGs of all time. but it's still going, so it's clearly doing something right.

It's confusing because people don't know if they like it or not. People love Kingdom Hearts, I know, I know, I think it's so dumb. My little brother freaking loves Kingdom Hearts. I love you, Jake, but I think it's the stupidest.

I hate Turnbase anyways. I think it's such a dumb game. It's not Turned, I will for one thing. Donald Duck is the goat. He is not. As an outsider to Kingdom Hearts, I'm with Ryan on this one where I'm like,

what the heck are we doing, man? You're taking like Final Fantasy and you're mixing it with Disney? Like Mickey Mouse and these Final Fantasy characters. And then like, you know, Donald Duck is the most powerful being in the universe. Spoilers, that's the last game. People? What are we doing people? But I do know from gamers that it's like, bro, if you got into Kingdom Hearts, you absolutely got into Kingdom Hearts.

It's hard, dude. I'm so, dude, I am so filled with jealousy right now and, like, FOMO because I missed out on a lot of these games, dude, a lot of these games. And again, I had access to a PS2 with my buddy, but we were always just playing, like, Tekin and, like, Pod Race or, you know, these other, like, multiplayer games because we were hanging out, right? Yeah, yeah. In my mind, there are two games that I think of when I think of the PS2. And one is one of my favorite franchises of all time, which is God of War. Yeah. I remember being so insanely jealous that I could not play the God of War games.

And that all of my friends that had a PS2 were like, bro, Cratos is amazing. Oh, there's like this really inappropriate scene where you can go in and do these things. And, you know, I'm like a teenager at the time. So I'm like, well, I want to be able to do that. I want to see it. And then they're like, dude, at one point, you're climbing this Titan and you're fighting like the gods and it's the most amazing combat you've ever seen and I just remember being like green with jealousy.

So when I think of the PS2, like God of War is the series in my mind that defined it because it was all I wanted to play. It was all I wanted to experience. And I never got a chance. Guys, everybody knows I love God of War 2018. It's probably my all-time favorite game. I did not get to play the God of War games until like 2018. Like I played

I played them on whatever the PS Now thing is where you can like play it through your computer but you're playing in Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I played those in preparation to play God of War 2018 so I did not get to experience God of War until fairly recently There is one other game

And I still to this day have never played this game But anytime I think of the PS2 I always think about this game instantly And it's Shadow of the Colossus Yeah I don't know why I don't know why that game comes to mind when I think about the PS2. It looked incredible. The scale, the, like the environment, the kind of beauty of the game, you're climbing these absolutely colossal creatures.

You've got the weird Griffin looking thing that's your companion. I still, to this day, I've never played it. But those are the two games when I think PS2, where I'm like, these are the ones, man. These are the ones that define the console. Twisted Metal One of my favorite games to play And the number one game That I wish we could remaster

Reseract back into existence So that was a good choice Bro, give me Twisted Metal Black remastered Like any day of the week That's what I just Yeah every time I think of the I think of the sweet tooth And you know

In the clown and stuff And then I think of the dude With the just the arms up In that one vehicle When he just like that Axel! Axel weighs two wheels He could turn on a dime though dude That was the beauty of Axel, man.

Yeah. Yeah, he's fused into the wheels. Yeah. I love the lore in that game. I love the characters, man. And all sorts of crazy characters. My, I know multiple people like us and stuff have grown up in religious families. And so I was always afraid to play that game because it was kind of like dark and edgy. It was dark.

Yeah. And so like I was like, I would play with friends and I'm like, I'm not supposed to be playing this. You know? It was, that's exactly how it went. I would go over to my cousins and we'd play it like co-op. And it was like, all right, we're not going to tell our parents. Nobody's going to know. It's just cars with machine guns.

Yeah, that's all. That's all. All right, guys, I'm very curious if this one is easy for people or not. The Nintendo Switch, you know, I mean, a world changing console, Nintendo just hit it out of the park with the Switch. my wife is she literally just picked up ukulele some version she's absolutely in love with it it's the it's not just the base one it's the ukulele something something it was the repack or whatever it was for i don't know she started playing it and she's like oh i love this game so she's been playing it every

night's of the nintendo switch still very viable one of the best selling consoles of all time what is the defining game for the nintendo switch for you guys oh man for me it's mario odyssey I love Mario Odyssey Okay, see this is, I think that's the popular answer But I think it's Breath of the Wild Breath of Wild was on the Wii U as well though It wasn't exclusive to the Nintendo Switch Yeah, but did you really want to play it on the Wii U?

It ran fine on the Wii U, I played it on the WiiU and the Switch People bought a Wii U Wait what? Yeah, I got the right answer Ryan Who bought the Wii U? Who bought the Wii you? What do you mean? I had the Wii fit ring

I had the Wii fit balance board. Oh, I had that. Wee bowling was, come on, guys. Decked out in the Wii house. Oh, that's great. The ski jump in the Wii sports was the best, man,

because you had to balance on the balance board and then you'd like squat and put your arms out and it would get it. But you couldn't like come up off the board too much. I was like, don't jump on me. Oh, yeah, nope. No, you couldn't do that. I'm picturing Josh play the WiiU.

Oh, my God. Dude, I was the Wii bowling. Wii bowling is like, come on, man. Yeah, we've only How many hours I played I spent playing Wii U bowling, dude My other answer is Smash Ultimate Because that was the ultimate

collision of all these Nintendo properties All these gaming properties Into one final clash under the original creator Masheur Sakurai I mean they brought back Snake That was cool They did Yeah, smash smash was a good one for sure

No absolutely Mario Odyssey I think is the popular answer For that one ace I mean number one It's an incredible game God, dude. I'm so ready for another 3D Mario. Same game.

A good, a good 3D Mario. A good 3D Mario. They generally do pretty well, unless they're trying to just capitalize on like the, what was it, the Super Mario Brothers. Well, they just. And some of these weird offshoot ones. Well, they just repackaged Mario Galaxy 1 and 2. So. Yeah.

I mean, Mario Sunshine was pretty good. Mario Odyssey, incredible. I'm still hoping that we're going to get. Listen, Nintendo. I know we troll you a lot. If you give me Super Mario Odyssey 2 for the Switch 2 before Christmas, I'll buy it. I'll buy it. As much as we troll it, I'll buy it, dude.

I'll buy it straight for Mario Odyssey 2. You got a Swiss 2? No, I'm saying I'll buy a Switch 2. Oh, you'll buy a Switch 2. Okay, all right, dang. But for Super Mario Odyssey 2, I will absolutely buy a Switch 2. It's so good. That's a console defining game then if people will buy a console for it.

Yeah, absolutely. Dude, that's awesome. So, Ryan, what about you? What was, what's your answer for this one? Oh, man. So this one's hard. Obviously, you know, um, you know, ACE's is good with that. And then, uh, Odyssey and, and, um, smash and stuff.

But I'm going to go with Animal Crossing. That was the COVID game that I think kept people saying, dude. Okay, that was the reason I bought a switch. So we were into it. I played a lot of Animal Crossing with, um, good old, former host of the show, Paul. And his, his, uh, wife, my cousin. I played a ton of OG Animal Crossing over at their house when I was growing up. I spent a lot of time there.

A good comfort game, something that drew me in. And this thing, you know, I think like a lot of people bought it because of this game. And a lot of people still play this game, you know. It just is one, when I think of Nintendo and the Switch and these things, I think of New Age Animal Crossing. And that's just kind of what it hits for me. That game's how I ended up with three Switch lights in my house because I had to go out and buy them because other people kept stealing my game card while I was trying to play animal cards oh no dude I remember I remember Paul like messaging because my wife was playing it too

and he this is so Paul but he had like a spreadsheet of like all the different fruits in the islands oh my god that's not the turn of stock market oh he was like here's the here's the island code and if you buy this fruit on this day and then you can go to this friend's island and sell it and you know it was it was such a Paul thing man but it was like he had it down to a science dude like meanwhile I'm just running on the beach I'm just digging up seashells like do too yeah yeah yeah

kitchen bugs that's why I got so bored and then I was like this game is dumb it's not as good as when I was a kid and then I got rid of it all right guys this is a tough category because there are not a lot of PC only games out there so you know but

there were some iconic games that released exclusively on PC for a period of time before they were available on console. I'm going to just start us off here. Ryan, one of your favorite games of all time, which is also one of my favorite PC games, Diablo 2 was only available on PC at the time. I still remember the box for Diablo 2 and the artwork on it,

going to the store and buying the CDs and bringing them home and playing Diablo 2. it is also tied for me with Half-Life 2. You know, a lot of times, like, when you think about PC gaming and kind of exclusives, you had the Orange Box from Valve when they were actually making games, which was Portal, Team Fortress, Half-Life, you know, one of the best deals in gaming. But Half-Life 2 and Diablo 2 are the two games to me that defined PC gaming at the time. Yeah. No, that's great.

I'm going to just kind of piggyback off that. Because those would probably be mine. I was of that era. Diablo 2 was just a mainstay. I would log in to dial up internet and then hop into, you know, a blizzard and then, you know, boot up Diablo 2. But for me, the most is Half-Life 2. That was, I think, defining moment in what gaming could be. I remember doing, and I know I've talked about this before on the podcast.

is running like the before the game was released, I was going through the dev stuff and they would do kind of like a simulation on just what the game was going to look like and you can see the water effects. And now obviously they would look so bad compared to what we can do these days. But back then,

it was unlike anything I've ever seen. And still to this day, like there's a reason people continuously ask for Half Life 3. Like, give us Half Life 3. There's a reason Half Life Alex on, VR is so well loved and renowned. Like it is, it is, it is something that anyone who is in the PC world knows this game and knows what it is.

So that has to be something that's kind of near the top or at least on the Mount Rushmore, you know, of PC gaming. We, we often talk about cutting edge games that push the boundaries. You know, for a long time, crisis was the game that you use to test like graphics and stuff like that. Like half-life two was so far ahead of its time, man, that it was truly mind-blowing. Like, it was a game that, like, you absolutely remember, like, was way beyond what anybody had experienced with, like, again, like the physics and just the graphics and stuff, too. Ace, what do you have for this one? I didn't, like, grow up with a PC in my house, so I didn't have quite the same experience.

But when I think of, like, what the definitive PC game is to me, it's Portal 2. Or, oh, yeah. the best games ever made. One of the best games ever made, absolutely. One of the best puzzle game, definitely. But, uh, and also, it's not like PC exclusive, but I'd say cyberpunk, man. Whenever I think of like playing a game on my PC, I think about booting up cyberpunk and like, that's how we like, you know, get people to stress test their PCs when they just built one. It's like, oh, yeah, you should boot up cyberpunk and see how many frames you can. Exactly. That's, dude, that's exactly when Josh said, you guys were talking about with Half Life,

yeah. When I built my PC because I joined this pause, I was always a PC gamer, didn't have one for a while. I had a bunch of consoles and stuff like that. And then I got on to the podcast. I'm like, well, I better give the computer. And I got it. And then I'm like, I'm going to stress test it with cyberpunk. You know, see what I can run for frames.

And I'm like, oh, man, I'm running this. I'm Max Ultra. And, you know, so yeah, that's the one. So, no, that's a good, that's a good pick too. That is definitely a defining game. And there's, I mean, there's still a lot of ups and downs about it. It makes it controversial. but that's what makes a good game.

You weren't playing it on console when it released. You were not. I got a PS4 copy for $5. I kind of think like Cyberpunk is the new crisis where it's like you can absolutely just rush your graphics card with trying to play it. But my goodness, if it is not one of the most

visually impressive games that I've ever seen at the same time. It's always so pretty to boot it up, man. Just walk around the city. Yeah, I freaking love Knight City, dude. Cyberpunk's one of my top. top five games of all time, honestly. So good, good choice there.

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