Video Gamers Podcast - Top 5 Games of the Last 5 Years - Video Games Podcast

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

Video Games hosts Josh, Ryan and Paul dish out a fantastic top 5 episode as we break down which video games from 2018 and on make our personal lists of the best of the best video games to come out in the last 5 years. It’s not all what you think as we go beyond some of the blockbusters you’d guess. All gaming, all fun from your favorite gaming podcast. 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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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast. We are a podcast that is devoted to all things video games, and today we have a bonus round episode for you all where we will be breaking down the games that we consider to be the best ones over the last five years. That means we are covering a range from 2018 through 2022.

I am your host, Paul, and joining me, I'm wondering if he's gonna put Baldur's Gate 3 on his list, even though he just started playing today. It's Josh. I have a whole 40 minutes into that game, Paul. And let me tell you, game of the year, baby. Lock it in. Character creator, just top. How many hours did you put into character creation. I not very much. The thing that I spent the most time on, like the face tattoos, because I made a drow elf. And then I was going through all the different colors. And then I was like, I'm playing a rogue.

So then I was like, oh, this skull mask, like the tattoos make it look like your face is a skull. But then I was like, I think I get really tired of that after a few hours of looking at that. So tough, tough choices. But. All right. Well, we'll see if it pops up on the top five games. a few hours of looking at that. So tough, tough choices, but all right, but we'll see if it pops up on the, uh, top five games and then joining Josh and me.

I'm curious to hear his list. I'm a little worried about his mental capacity because he's been working out in the Phoenix heat all day. I thought, I didn't know where you were going with that one, man. No, I'm just,

I'm just worried about Ryan and heat stroke. It was like, Paul's bringing the heat early, man. I'm, oh, I feel just worried about Ryan and heat stroke. It's like Paul's bringing the heat early. Man, I feel so hurt already. I'm not a smart man. I haven't even given my games and I'm already hurt. It's not a dig on Ryan. It's a dig on our stupid Phoenix Sun out here.

Yeah, I'm the dumb one that works out in it. I know. Yeah, Paul's got a point. Yeah, we're just worried. hydrated ryan all right well before we jump into our top five games here of the last five years we do have two new patreon supporters that we owe a thank you to so we want to say thank you very much to i don't know if we should do you guys say joff or do you say jwaf i say jwF in my head. That's what I say in my head too.

All right, I'm going to stick with that. Thank you to JWAF and Matt178901. Both of them have signed up with Rare Status, so we want to say thank you very much. If you guys want to join the ranks like them, you can help our show while getting bonus episodes and other perks. You can go check all of that out at MultiplayerSquad.com. All right, so top five games of the last five years. We landed on this one yesterday. We've had a little bit of time to prep. Now, Ryan, I love episodes

like this because you're still relatively new to the show. I think this is a great way for our listeners to find out what kind of gamer that you are. Do you like making top five lists like this or do you find it to be really difficult? It's a little tricky. It's hard to kind of clear out the garbage. And, you know, I'm a sucker for cinematics and different games. So I'll get sucked into pretty much anything. My wife always makes fun of me.

Anytime I walk by the TV, I'll get sucked into pretty much anything. My wife always makes fun of me. Anytime I walk by the TV, I'll get sucked into any show that's on. So same with the game. So it's tough to narrow everything down, but I think I got a pretty good list. Nice. Josh, I feel like you always struggle with lists like this whenever. Paul, I was cussing you earlier.

To your face, no less. Well, it was so great when you just posted out of nowhere, Paul, I was cussing you earlier to your face, no less. Well, it was so great when you just posted out of nowhere, Paul, I hate you. And I was like, what did I do? And you're like, how am I supposed to pick my top five games? I'm like, this was your idea, Josh. Yeah, I forgot about that part, Paul. You're the one who came up with this.

You did it to yourself. Yeah, you agreed with me, though. Yeah, this is tough, man. I had 13 games that I came up with and then trying to narrow that list down to five was really hard. And then I kind of went, listen, everybody knows.

So to clarify, these would be games from 2018 to this year. So I mean, everybody knows, you know, there's the big ones, right? Like God of War, Red Dead Redemption 2, Elden Ring, and some of those. And I just went, do people really want to hear me talk about, you know, Elden Ring for the 15th time and how great that game was and stuff like that. So then what I did is I kind of pivoted a little bit and I went, what are some games that were super memorable to me that I would put in that top five arena, especially for recommending to other people? So I think that's where I went with this list. They're still easily in my top five, but I stayed away from the really big, just obvious heavy hitters too.

I kind of did the same because I'm just banking on Ryan to bring up Red Dead 2. Oh, baby. I decided to reserve an extra slot on my list, just hoping Ryan's going to bring it up. Yeah, I kind of felt the same as you, Josh. I think most people out there can already guess a few that would be on my list. I did make my list of what I think are the five best crafted games that I think stand alone. But for the purpose of this, and I'll read that at the end, but I kind of pivoted to my five favorite experiences with gaming over the last five years. So it's not so much necessarily the best game, but if our friend group played it for a long time and I had a blast, then something like that is more so what ended up making my list. So it's a little bit of nostalgia.

It's a little bit of fun with others, whether it's family or friends. That's kind of what I leaned into. So when I think back like in 2018 what was i doing as a gamer and what were my favorite gaming experiences uh what about you ryan did you just straight up say these are the five best games or did you have any kind of twist on this kind of i didn't really make a big twist at first i didn't truly understand what we were talking about so i went through each year and i looked through each game and i'm like man some of these years are bare there's like nothing here you know and then and then i talked to you guys you're like oh no no it's it's over the last five years six years your your top five games and i was like oh okay that makes it a lot easier yeah at first you were

trying to pull one from each yeah one from each year and then you know some years there'd be like three or four that were some of my favorite games. And then the other years there'd be absolutely nothing. I'm like, I don't even think I've played a game this year. You didn't pick game of the year? It takes two, Ryan? Come on, man. Oh, no. I just left the one out. It was a hard choice, but I left that one out.

Or game of the year, Deathloop. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Oh, don't even remind me of that. That was one of my wall games, I think. Oh, yeah. Was that 2020 or 2021? What, 2022? I think it was 2021.

I think it released in 21. Did it? I think so. I think so. Goodness. I think It Takes Two was 2020 and Deathloop was 21, but I could, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because 22 was Elden Ring.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the order. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah. All right. So basically, the way we're going to do this is I kind of told you guys, let's make our top five. Let's talk about them in no particular order, but maybe save just your number one for last.

So that way we have something fun to look forward to a little bit later in the show. And then we'll just kind of go round robin we'll pull up our five games talk through them all and the show so i think that's the plan who wants the honors of going first i am really curious to hear ryan's list and ryan's trying to do the nose goes but i i'll be honest i have zero clue what ryan is going to have on his list my the only game i'm going to guess is diablo 4 just because of recent bias but i have no clue because he can't pick metal gear solid because the the rule is it has to be within the last five years this is true yeah phantom pain's too old okay so in no particular order aside from our number one game at the end i'm gonna go with ghost of tsushima oh okay that game and again no particular order um but that's just the one i wanted to talk about

first probably shows my uh excitement for the game i have never been so blown away by just like yes like the calmness of a game but also like the veracity and in in the the craziness of a samurai and all the stuff you can do this game was it was it was i it blew me away i loved it i absolutely loved the ps4 version the ps5 uh you know upgrade it was it was absolutely beautiful i get in getting chill bumps just listening to Ryan because it... Dude, you never played this, did you, Paul? I didn't play it, but I watched a lot of footage. Did you? Oh, man. And it's wild that Ghost of Tsushima and Red Dead 2 were last gen games and still look better than almost anything out there today. Ryan hit the nail on the head. I played this on my PS4 and I remember I was super

stoked for this game. And I remember thinking this is one of the most beautiful games that I've ever seen. And Ryan, you nailed it where you go from this just calm, serene atmosphere almost with the flowing grass and just the beauty of the island to then just this insane ferocity and death of like you just mowing through people and sneaking into forts and like enacting revenge and stuff like that it's such a cool just juxtaposition of like those two things and they dude they meld it so well i freaking love that game dude yeah you go you go you go and sit uh by the lake and do haikus yeah and then you go and just destroy a whole little village you know of the bad you know the bad guys that are that are taking over the area and you just murk every single one of

them it's i had that game is absolutely amazing yeah i feel like it's the one biggest missing spot for all the ps4 games that i played somehow just never played tsushima so yeah i that's i think you would really enjoy it paul the combat is really good but not overly done like it's not like you know uh like a crazy combat system it's it's pretty enjoyable and there's a good bit of stealth mechanics in it and stuff too yeah i love some good stealth mixed in with action all right love the pick ryan that's a great one uh we have some changes coming up to our deep dive uh selections here later this month that we're going to be announcing and maybe ghost of tsushima will show up at some point who knows all right moving on how about i go first josh we'll let we'll let you go last that way we can save yours as the uh final finale at the end all right i don't know if

you know this game ryan i'm very curious to hear your reaction to this i am going to bring up bloodstained ritual of the night oh i know blood you know bloodstained. Oh, that's a good game. You know Bloodstained? Yeah, yeah, I know Bloodstained. Okay, because Ryan, you and I have very fond memories of staying up until the wee hours of the morning playing Castlevania Symphony of the Night. That's why I know Bloodstained. Yep. Yes, because we both loved Castlevania. Yeah. So if anyone out there doesn't know, it's actually kind of a neat story.

Basically, the guy who was in charge of Castlevania left Konami. Everyone kept begging him to make another game like Castlevania Symphony of the Night. And he went to Kickstarter asking for $500,000. And people love Symphony of the Night so much that they gave him almost $6 million instead. They met the goal in one day. Everyone was funneling money to him saying, yes, I just want more Symphony of the Night. So it's very much the spiritual successor. It came out in 2019. It features all the stuff you want

from a good Metroidvania. You learn new powers over the course of the game. You know, go back to old areas. Now you can get access to new loot and new areas of the castle. Lots of hidden corridors, secrets that you run across. I love Bloodstained. Did you ever play it though, Ryan, or are you just aware of it?

Oh, no, I played it. Yeah, I got a buddy, Sean, that I used to play Destiny with, and he kept hitting me up because he knew I liked Castlevania and that I played it. And he's like, dude, you got to play Bloodstained. You got to play. And he kept hitting me up, and he was just relentless. And so finally I played it, and I'm like, you gotta play bloodstained you gotta play and he kept hitting me up and he was just relentless and so finally i played it and i'm like okay you were right this is this is pretty freaking sweet you know it's so funny because you and i played so many games together

and then when we entered adulthood we mostly still connected through poker nights or like talking about movies and stuff but you were playing so much destiny and you were all console and I was all PC and we didn't play games together for like six years. So I feel like I have no idea what you played in the mid to late 2010s, but I'm really happy. I can't believe you and I have never talked about Bloodstained. No, it's yeah. Me too, man. It's awesome. You got me to play that,ul without intending to but you talked about it so much that i remember i picked it up and it's it's a great game man it's i didn't beat it big shocker i know but i played it i played it a pretty good bit and if you're for a metroidvania

it is absolutely top notch if not i don't know that i want to say it's the best but it's one of the best. I'll just close this game out by reading one review that I saw on Steam that I know Ryan will enjoy. Konami, your words are as empty as your soul. Mankind ill needs a savior such as you. Some good old Castlevania references there. All right, moving on to Josh, what you got first? Okay. So just so again, so people don't think I'm crazy again, I tried to go beyond the mega, mega games on this one and just kind of trusted that Ryan was going to bring these up. So, you know, when people are like, wait a minute, you're saying that game's better than this game. And it's like, no. And Paul, I love what you touched on because I think this really classifies a crafted experience, right?

A finely crafted game. That to me, it stood out with a lot of these games that I picked. So I'm, and again, in no particular order on this, I'm picking Doom Eternal. Now, people are going to hear Doom and they're going to say, what? Doom is one of the top five games? I don't think they'll say that. People love it. Yeah. I mean, they should love it because unless you just don't like shooters, right? Doom Eternal is one of the most finely crafted video games that I have played in ages. What it sets out to do and what it does,

it executes absolutely flawlessly. It is buttery smooth. The action is over the top incredible. The gunplay is phenomenal. The soundtrack is banging in Doom Eternal. Doom's always got a good soundtrack. Dude, it's one of the most... Everybody's complaining about optimization and stuff like that nowadays. It's one of the most optimized games that has been released in probably the last decade, to be honest. It's just such a fun, wild ride. And I know it's not one of those games that a lot of people think of when they think of what's one of the better games in the last five years, but it's like, I need to give it its due because they nailed everything about this game. Unless you just don't like fast paced

shooters. If you don't totally get it, you're, you know, yeah, you're going to disagree a hundred percent on that. But if you like shooters and you've never played doom eternal, you're seriously missing out and you pick it up. You can pick it up for dirt cheap now, too. It's just so good, man. So I had to put it out there as saying, this is honestly one of the best games in the last five years that I've played. It was also really fun in early quarantine where Animal Crossing and Doom, which could not be more different, were so popular at the same time. It's a little bit like what we have now with Barbie and Oppenheimer,

where you had killing demons with fast-paced action and the very quaint and peaceful animal crossing where you know you're just planting see what are you going to bring up next um man so out of this again not in order um i'm gonna go with last of us part two i am a huge sucker for post-apocalyptic worlds i will spend almost as much time as i am playing the game uh just exploring the world for whatever reason i'm weird like that i i love to just look and then just wonder what it looked like when the people were living there you know even though it's totally fictional it's a video game i i just will run well i'll just you know rummage through see if i can find any little hidden things and stuff like that.

So but that game, it was, you know, obviously a sequel to Last of Us, one of my favorite games ever to my top 10. So in the last five, six years, that's that's a banger for sure for me. All right. You want to hear something totally crazy, Ryan? I would love to. So we all put together our list of our top 10 games of all time we did an episode about it uh when michael was still one of the hosts of the show and i've revamped my list since then and i have the last of us part one in my top 10 as do you we both have

it in there i bought the last of us part two the day it came out and it sat shrink wrapped i never played it and i sold it because josh and i had just started this podcast and i i went back to look at the release dates and josh and i were in the middle of playing far cry 5 a way out raft and minecraft dungeons that month and we were such obviously better games obviously of course really underwhelming games in comparison i've still never played the last of us part two i i want to so bad i need to play it i feel like paul would love it i've never played it i know i'll love it i i played eight hours of the first last of us the first the series though the first hour you're the first hour of the first game or the second game

you'll love dude it's oh my gosh yeah i don't even know i don't even want to say i feel like that's like ghost of shishima with paul where it's like do you have to play these games at some point dude this is the craziest thing we all probably experienced this looking at the list i josh sent a link to like the polygon art polygon.com articles for like their top 50 games of every year. And I'm looking at the list being like, I played 30 of these 50 games and I still didn't play like games that they have rated in the top five or six. And it's crazy how many games we play, but you still have these giant blind spots just because, and back then in June of 2020, we were only covering multiplayer games

so the last of us had to get set to the side and i just haven't had time to come back to it so that one's still on my list of something i gotta play to catch up on yeah a hundred percent yeah i and i know it too all right well it's time to hit a break guys. Let's take a short break. We'll be right back with more multiplayer gaming podcast. Okay. We are back. Ryan has shared two of his so far, Josh and I, each one coming back around to me.

Uh, all right. I almost put this game as my number one overall, because other than overwatch and pub G, I think it's the game that I've played the most in the last five years. But Overwatch and PUBG came out before 2018. So I'm going to say Apex Legends is absolutely in my top five.

It almost made my list. It is on my long list, but it's not in my top five. But you and I played a lot of Apex together, Paul. Dude, so much Apex. It's such a well-done game, man. Yeah. I still say, I've said it before on the show, for my money, it's a free game.

But for my time, I guess, it's still the best Battle Royale out there. You know, we loved PUBG. We played Fortnite. We played Ring of Elysium. We played every Battle Royale we could get our hands on. And I think Apex Legends has just done it best. And the fact that we knew nothing about that game, just all of a sudden one day, Respawn and EA were like, hey, we're releasing this game.

Here's a look. And it's available right now. Go download it. And every streamer who played battle royales like you know doctor disrespect shroud everybody immediately picked it up it took the world by storm and i don't know if we're ever going to experience something like that like apex is still in the top five of concurrent users on steam every day it's always up there and that's a game we knew nothing about that's so crazy to think about there was no build up no marketing whatsoever just shows you don't need to hype something if you have a good game.

I'm not really in the Battle Royale sphere anymore, but if I was ever going to jump back in, Apex is the first game that I would install. Yeah. I love the pace. I love that it's 60 players, so you win a little bit more often as opposed to Warzone. Yeah. Yeah, like Warzone, you have 150. It's a lot harder to win. When we started Apex, Josh, there were eight characters to choose from.

Do you know how many they have now? Oh, there's a ton. I think I played like eight months ago, and there was like 14 characters or something crazy. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I've never played. I have no idea. Let me guess.

Sure. 18. hold on hold on hold on i've never played i have no idea let me guess sure 18 you are much closer than josh and you're still way too short 24 characters there are 24 characters 24 now oh my goodness man she's crazy the one downside of that is it's hard to jump back in because the last time i did play i got obliterated man like there's these people that have not stopped playing apex for the last four years and yeah yeah you hop in then it's it's like oh okay i remember now why i uninstalled this game yeah i'd say for a solid year and a half that was my immediate go-to if i had a break at work it was apex when i was done for the night and I had time alone, it was Apex. And that's all I played.

So I had to put that here on my list. It could have been number one, but instead I decided to keep it here in the bottom four instead. It deserves its place. All right, Josh, what's your next game? This one, I absolutely loved this game. It came out of nowhere. It was just wildly popular with our friend group. I, I could not wait to come home and play it. I played it as much as I possibly could. The experiences, the stories, all that. It's a game called Valheim. And I'll

be honest, man. I Valheim solo, completely different experience. I would not put it up there. But if you have friends to play Valheim with... It's almost trash. Yeah. I mean, honestly, it is. It's funny because we have a few listeners that have like, I played Valheim and I mean, it's a good game, but I don't get it. And then I'm like, did you play with friends? And they're like, no. And then I'm like, yeah, dude, I it's, it's, it's weird because it's almost in that like EverQuest, like memory for me, where the first time through and the memories and the wow, and the exploration and realizing how big this world really is. It's just impressive, man. And I loved everything about it. I still recommend it to people that

are like, what's a good co-op type game that we can play. And oddly for the graphics sucking, it's one of the most like beautifully atmospheric games out there, man. It's so hard to describe to people. This is all you need to know. Okay. I only have 36 friends on steam. All right. It's a pretty exclusive list. And honestly, about five of them are my friends' kids. So I'm looking right now and I see Nate the Great playing Rocket League as we speak. It's our buddy Andy's son. All right, that's even half my list.

Out of my 36, 17 of them own Valheim. Like it's almost everyone that we game with was playing Valheim. We had 10 people on our private server that I had running on a computer that I use for work. That's always turned on. So we hosted our own. I mean, the discovery of finding new items in that game was so fun because the crafting system, it was so incredible to like kill a death skito or whatever they were called for the first time. You loot one of

their needles and then it just starts popping up you just learned all these new recipes and that was so much fun and i wish more games would do that that's one of my favorite memories was just killing a troll for the first time or killing one of the goblins and then getting new loot and just seeing all these new recipes stack up. No level scaling. You didn't know what you were going to come across. A stupid mosquito wrecked our entire party. And then we spent 30 minutes doing a corpse run. But it's like, that sounds terrible, but that's the stuff that builds memories in video games with your friends. So Valheim for me, so simple. What was it? Like a team of three people or something that made it?

We actually went back to it for a little while and we blew through it because we knew what to do. It wasn't nearly as good the second time around, but just that initial sense of discovery has carried Valheim for me for so long. And it's, it's, it's,

it's in my top five, man, just from that experience alone, the fun per dollar spent of Valheim is like through the roof it was like the best 20 bucks we ever spent yeah yeah all right coming back around to you ryan what you got next hey guys uh good to be back part of the podcast there yeah after you're done talking about valheim yep oh ryan you would have loved valheim knowing what i know about you now dude especially with the little bit that we played arc you would have been over the moon with valheim dude

probably so honestly like arc but 10 times better yeah in almost every possible way yes that's my type of game sorry sorry arc lovers um so with my pick i'm gonna have to go i guess well i was gonna try to not do it but i can't help myself i'm gonna go diablo 4 so i know i know i know i know i just the aside from nostalgia i had so much fun playing this game i I played it with some of our listeners. I played it with you guys. I played it with my brother. It was just one of those games where you could just hop on.

Somebody was on, Hey, let's run a dungeon. Hey, let's go do this. Hey, do you need any missions? Hey,

do you need any quests? It was one of those games where you could just get on and just play and have fun. And again, recency bias it was 10 years or whatever between the two releases but uh i i enjoyed it so much i had so much fun playing so um the last uh diablo 3 i built a computer diablo 4 i built a computer it just keeps me going so yeah that's that's gonna my pick. There's something to be said for games allowing you to just drop in and out of multiplayer and

making it very, very easy because that was one of the best things. It's just, oh, so-and-so's on. I don't even need to hop on the mic. I can just join their game, start wrecking stuff with them. You follow them around the dungeon. It just works, man. And it's funny because I remember Paul having to set up a server for Valheim so we could play that. And it was a royal pain in the butt. It would crash half the time. He couldn't log on, blah, blah, blah. And then Diablo 4, I mean, they got so much of that game right. But that's one of the best things they did was just made it super easy and convenient to play with friends. Oh, yeah, absolutely. The only thing with Diablo is it's funny that if you asked me to rate Diablo at hour five, hour 15 and hour 25, I would give you completely different answers for that.

Yeah. So I always think about this with our deep dives, like whether or not you beat a game, whether or not you play it for 15 hours or 25 hours, it's almost like a very different experience. The first 20 hours of Diablo is like second to none. Loved every second of it. And then it was just like, I'm just not into the repetitive nature of the end game and I'm just kind of done. And then all of a sudden it's like, you almost like quickly forget the first 20 hours that were so good. And I probably kind of underrate it now because of that. Fantastic game. Some of the best cut scenes of all time, fun combat. I mean, I have nothing bad to say

about it other than the end game just didn't work for me. Did not to get off on a tangent, but if they had just cut out the MMO end game grind and just said, here is an experience and then you beat it and you're done and the endgame grind and just said, here is an experience, and then you beat it, and you're done. And the end credits roll, and it says, thanks for playing Diablo. Would your opinion... Because I feel the exact same way. I said it's one of the games where I hit that wall hard, but it's like, would your overall thinking of Diablo 4 be vastly different? Yes, but the people would riot. You can't do that in Diablo yeah but i would love it i was like holding my tongue right there i was like that's not a diablo i mean i get it but i'm just saying it's

because i'm with paul in a little bit and then it soured my opinion of the game as a whole and it's an incredible game as a whole with the exception of hitting that wall on it so i just it's weird how that can change how you look back at something. Same with Final Fantasy XVI, right? 10 hours versus 20. Vastly different thoughts. Just the other day, I had some time and I was going

to get on and I played Dave the Diver instead of Diablo. And I was like, I got to see what this sushi business is all about. So i'm playing dave the diver instead of diablo so i get i get the wall and i get the grind at the end but that's what makes a diablo game it's ryan makes diablo so but i still i love it good pick i still i can appreciate the pick for sure all right next one here on my list okay if

i take any heat this is the one people are going to come at me for but i'm gonna say it anyway so just let me explain after i say the name of it do you guys remember nintendo labo no wait was that the cardboard building where you build the cardboard boxes and stuff sure is josh that is exactly what it is. I've seen commercials. No, I've never played it. I've just seen commercials. And then remember going like, okay, interesting concept. Yes. So I am specifically talking about the variety kit. There were multiple kits you could buy. That was the best one. The reason why I'm bringing this one up is because out of my five kids, my two boys are the perfect age when that came out. They were nine and seven. And so this is where you got a big old box that had basically like Lego instructions,

but it's for all these cardboard cutouts. And you could build them all together to make different peripherals for different mini games. So you could build like a fishing rod, and then the Nintendo Switch would actually go inside a little holder, and you had a fishing rod with a string and you would actually like use it to reel in fish. It had where you could create a piano where it had, I think it had like rubber bands and stuff that would like hold the keys up and you could like press them down and actually play songs on it. I mean, it had all these little mini projects like that and it was so much fun to go through that with my kids like they were so excited opening that box and having nintendo labo to work through and we're also kind of protective with our kids with screen time we always have limits but we kind of told them like this is more educational it's a physical project you work on and then you get to like interact with it in a technological way. And so we just let them go to town with it.

And they had a blast. I had a blast doing it with them. I think my only big beef with that is we ended up with these like eight large cardboard things that we had nowhere to store. And so it always like littered our little TV stand. And inevitably people would step on them and they'd stop working, right? And what is, where's the game part of this? Like, I mean, I know that it was a Nintendo thing and it was a physical thing you built. So how did it, like, I have zero clue how it incorporated

the actual Nintendo part. So each one was a little bit different. So sometimes it had just like a little stand, kind of imagine like on a piano where you have a stand for piano music and you would just set the switch there and then it would interact in different ways. You could also build remote control cars. You could do two of them. And so you would actually attach like a joy con to it and then you could actually control it with like another joy con. So it was really neat in how some of the things were just purely physical like driving an rc car but then other ones like there was a fishing minigame i don't remember exactly how it would work but you'd put the switch vertically and like a fishing hook would fall down and then

you would have to like um move your fishing pole which had a joy con inside it so it could get motion but then you actually had to physically reel in your fish on a string that's connected to another joy con so they were very creative in how they used the switch technology which is not great for displaying graphics as we all know but i always thought as much as i hate motion controlled stuff ever since the wii came out i hate that so much for normal gaming but labo found the right way to use that stuff in a way that i thought was really inventive so that's a very fond memory of mine i i had to bring that one up i love when games try to incorporate stuff in the real world like there's

also mario kart yeah we can like put down the checkpoints yeah i think that stuff is really really cool but it has has augmented reality stuff. All right, that's it for mine here. Josh, what do you have coming up? People have heard me mention this before. Paul, I'm going to need you to just zip it on this one because this game is absolutely phenomenal. It is one of the most memorable games that you can play. It's a game called Outer Wilds.

It is incredible. Do a google search for most memorable games and you'll find forums and threads where undoubtedly a lot of people mention outer wilds it's just it's an incredible mix of exploration mystery puzzle solving it's got really good controls and mechanics in it. The spaceship's a little wonky, but once you learn to fly it, that kind of becomes its own little game in a game there because you have to land sometimes precariously and stuff like that. You explore these five planets. The planets are all vastly different. They've got just the sense of discovery in Outer Wilds. And what you piece together as you play the game is there's

no other game like it. Honestly, if you like mysteries and like what is going on, what does this writing mean? What does this message mean? And then you find out, you know, four hours later, it reminds me of a movie like Memento, right? Like, I mean, what a phenomenal movie that blew everybody's mind. Outer Wilds is like that. And you have to play it long enough to get that payoff. Because if you watch the first 30 minutes of Memento, you're going to say, this movie doesn't make any sense to me. I don't understand. But if you play it all the way through, it almost like the payoff is there. And once it hits, it hits so unbelievably hard that it becomes one of the most memorable games that a lot of people have played. So if you haven't played it, I strongly recommend you play it. It's got a very, what I think is neat. And I get that for Paul, this totally put him off. And I understand that for some people

it will, but it's got this really neat loop mechanic that adds this kind of sense of doom to the game because it resets every 22 minutes, but there's just, or you fall into a black hole or you fall into a black hole and it starts sooner. I mean, yes, but dying, dying, you have to die to progress the game. So dying or having the sun supernova is not a detriment in, in, in this really weird sort of way. And I get that, you know, if you're right in the middle of something and you're about to discover something and it supernovas and you got to go, oh man, you can't wait to go back and then figure out what you missed the time before. But I'll quit ranting on it. But Outer Wilds is one of those games that I

think deserves to be played by everybody. And it's just, if it hits, it's going to hit unbelievably hard. Oh, I know I'm in the small minority here it's like 98 on steam polygon had it as the best game of whatever year it came out in 2019 yep yeah that's as i say that sounds about right yeah um josh you and i just have our alliance i'm not gonna speak ill of outer wilds and you're not gonna speak ill of stardew valley no that's fine the p street two of the highest rated games on steam that somehow we both love one and hate the other. So it is what it is. I almost compare Outer Wilds.

Almost. I like the Memento comparison. It's also a little bit like Lost, where there's just like artifacts and writings and weird things and mysteries. And you slowly start to piece it together over time. It lands the plane a lot better than lost yeah i was gonna say except for the really bad endings in the last few seasons yeah hold on hold on hold on let me see here it's been a long time 4 8 15 16 23 42 absolutely people still play the lottery with it all the time. You'll see articles like 27 people played the lost numbers in the lottery,

and it's like people still. Nerds. Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!

Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!

Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Yeah, Outer Wilds, that's a cheap game, too. I think it's like 20 or less. The sequel is super good too by the

way sequel came out i think a year and a half ago or something like that goes a little bit darker but just like the original game so if you played outer wilds and you haven't played the sequel this is your reminder that it is well worth picking up very nice all right we've all got two games left to talk about ryan you're up all right, since these guys are giving me all the juicy goodness, I'm obviously going to take God of War 2018. Yeah, there it is. I was counting on you, Ryan. There's nothing else.

Really, I'm so surprised. Oh, yeah. Oh, so surprised. Okay. This game just absolutely was next level. It was something that even, okay, I'm a really good dad, I swear. But my son, he was two years old, and he sat with me almost the entire bit of that game. He didn't know what was going on, but I would yell boy to him, and he would respond, and that made me very happy.

So to this day, I yell boy to him and he would respond and that made me very happy so so so to this day i yell boy to him yeah i think all you need to know is when josh and i did a two-man god of war deep dive it's our longest episode it's two hours with only the two of us yeah and my very first question to josh was is this a perfect game and we both said yes like there's not many games you can say that about no i've i've i've replayed many many games i'm a like i said earlier i'm a sucker for cinematics but this one i i have probably played it through four or five times completely start to finish i i have uh uh figurines and you know hanging on shelves i these characters are just like a part of our family almost it's it's crazy yeah i this one is is definitely uh near and dear

to i guess my family's heart but it's it's a very very very good game i i i, I'm going to just echo that 100%. It is my favorite game in the last five years, hands down. I think it's honestly, to me, it's the best video game ever made. And in just how it puts everything together in that regard, I loved absolutely everything about it. I had to play it very quickly the first time around because I had borrowed a friend's PS4 to play it. And I kind of had to blow through it. And then when it came out on PC, I really got to just take my time and do all the Valkyrie fights and really kind of try to get some of the special armor sets and just explore. I cannot... I want... If you gave me the choice and said, Josh, do you want to go live in the Nine Realms? I would be like, yes, I do. Like, please, let me go live on the Lake of the Nine.

I mean, like, it's just... You're probably getting murdered fast. Well, I mean, probably, but, you know, it's just, it's one of those things where it really is just ingrained in my brain about how much I actually love that game. I would pick Jotunheim. You can survive there,

but you're going to be very lonely, alone out there in the mountains. Yeah, I want to be lonely. That's torture for me, so... Don't want to liveotunheim. You can survive there, but you're going to be very lonely alone out there in the mountains. Yeah, I want to be lonely. That's torture for me. Don't want to live in Helheim. I'm going to take a pass on that one. I will say that some of my all-time favorite emotional parts of gaming

come from God of War. You know me. I love gameplay, but I'm a story guy first and foremost. If you have a great story, I can get by on bad mechanics god of war of course gives you both but um spoiler alert even though this game's five years six years old um when when you fight balder and are getting ready to kill him because he's going

to kill freya yeah and freya is screaming at you. I got goosebumps, man. Freya is screaming for you to stop doing everything in her power and you're like, I'm just trying to save your life and your son is a psychopath murderer and you kill Balder. And Freya

delivers that speech of, I'm gonna hunt you down. I don't remember all the words. I remember quoting it in our deep dive. I will rain down every agony, every violation imaginable upon you. I will parade your cold body from every corner of every realm and feed your soul to the vilest filth in hell that is my promise he saved your life he robbed me of everything and i'm like i love the complexity of this because she is a good moral character that loves her son knows that her son has gone astray but still has that motherly instinct to protect and it leads to the conflict between you and her i really love when

games dive into complex relationships like that and that really stands out for me as like a real apex and they and he you feel bad for for him too because he had something done that he had no control over you know and now he can't he can't feel anything for his him too because he had something done that he had no control over you know and now he can't he can't feel anything for his entirety of his being you know because of his mom it was her fault yeah it's i can't think of a game where it's so brutal but the like you said the emotional impact of that game is like it just lasts like it resonates with you and sticks with you for years afterwards, man. It's just, to me, it's one of the most perfect game experiences.

So I'm glad you mentioned it, Ryan, because it gives me a chance to talk about a different game at that point, too. But man, it is really... If people just said, best video game ever made, go. It's God of War for me. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, I would have put my money on you

saying either that or everquest or witcher 3 i feel like those you tend to bring up as like your top yeah all right my turn here all right i've got the top steam review ready and i'm gonna ask you guys if you know what game this describes i think you're gonna know it's the vr system seller i recommend holding off on playing this until you've explored more of what VR has to offer because it's all downhill from here. Nothing else comes close. I literally wrote this game in when Ryan said got a board because I was going to bring it up, Paul.

So the fact that you brought it up is even better. Half-Life Alyx will ruin VR for you. It does. It really does. I know that's crazy, but it will absolutely ruin VR. I just saw an article, I think it was yesterday, where it said Half-Life Alyx is still the best game in VR three years later, and it's not even close.

Yeah. When we got our Quest 2, because I didn't have a Quest 2 when this game initially came out. You had one, Josh, or maybe you had a different VR, but you always had VR. I had several friends who had VR. You know, Michael did our buddy Andy. So I never bought one because I was like, well, they're so expensive. I can just play with you guys.

And to me, it always seemed like more of a novelty, almost like 3D movies. You know how when you watch a 3D movie and they start like pointing toward the screen and it's not natural, it's clearly just because it's a 3D movie. That's kind of like how I experienced VR. Like it's neat. It's fun to show people who have never done it. Here, make it look like you're on a bridge. Now I'm going to pretend to push you, you know, as a prank. That stuff's all fine and great. Half-Life Alyx actually uses VR to make the experience better and more immersive. I love every second of that game. I will say it is a two-edged sword. It makes other VR games unplayable. I remember playing Superhot first. That was my very first

VR game. And I'm like, this game's incredible. I'm i'm like okay maybe there's more to vr than i thought oh beat saber oh you know i love ddr and this is just ddr with my hands this is great and then i play half-life alex and guess what i can't play any of those other games i strap them on and i'm like it's just not worth the effort of wearing a headset i'm gonna get the goofy band on my forehead for the next hour after playing the only VR game that I still like playing other than Half-Life Alyx is Demio. For me, those are the two that I will still fire up the quest to on. But, dude, I mean, Half-Life Alyx, I love the way they immerse you where you have to, like, pull your ammo packs out of your back. You have to physically load them into your gun.

You have to stab yourself with the med pen. Yeah, you stab yourself in the stomach. Oh, and I stab the tar out of myself, man. I get that you. You have to physically load them into your gun. You have to stab yourself with the med pen. Yeah, you stab yourself in the stomach. Oh, and I stab the tar out of myself, man. I get that you don't have to, but I do it like I'm injecting my heart, man. Every time I need to heal, I'm like, Like an EpiPen of adrenaline. Yeah.

There's a couple of those, oh crap moments in Half-Life Alyx. And what's really funny is, I remember going back to look at the footage on YouTube and it looks so stupid. But I don't know if you remember, there's a scene where you're calling in a train and the train derails right next to you. I know exactly what you're talking about. I remember seeing that in VR and feeling like I was in danger. Your body's natural responses are, this debris is going to hit you and you're going to get hurt.

Like that's how you experience it. And then you watch it on YouTube and it's like, Oh, it's just a train. That's like close to you. So you cannot do it justice unless you play it. But half-life Alex is one of those games. I'm not alone.

It's a 98 on steam. It's absolutely great. Last review. I'll read. Here It's a 98 on Steam. It's absolutely great. Last review I'll read. Here's what the person wrote. Feels like a ripoff. I purchased on sale. What a mistake. Should have paid full price when it was possible. That's perfect. It's worth every penny. Honestly, I gave my dad, because my dad started getting into VR, I gave him an old pc just so he could play half-life alex and he's played through it three times now because he likes it so much and i mean he's 70 but a 70 year old dude playing half-life alex and just having his mind blown over and over

again is the perfect like explanation for what this game does how great would the gravity glove be in real life by the way yeah be fantastic i would love it so good all right well time to take our last break and we'll be right back all right fellas we got four last games to cover along with some honorable mentions we are back to josh uh do you have anything to replace Half-Life, Alex, or do you just want to take a pass? No, I'm going to replace it, but I'll go really quick because I don't want to run too long, and I want to save some time for my actual last pick on this.

I'm just going to bring it up. This is a very well-known top game, but Cyberpunk 2077. We've talked about it on the show. I won't beat this horse. This game has completely redeemed itself. The thing I love most about Cyberpunk is that it tries and executes so many insanely good ideas. It's unlike any other video game out there, in my opinion. And I know that there's people that played it and said, I don't get it.

But man, again, if you get it and this is your kind of game, it's going to catapult up into your upper echelon of games. The characters, Jackie Wells, Johnny Silverhand, the missions, the heist mission that you go on, the gear, the driving around Night City. I mean, forget all the bugs, forget the terrible release. I know all that stuff. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the best video games that I have played now that it's been fixed. So if you're still bitter, let that go.

Play this game. It's absolutely phenomenal. I can't think of very many video games like it, to be honest with you. So I know we obviously know how Paul feels. So you're talking to me right now because I felt I had a lot of issues on launch and I had a lot of issues playing the game. I have a computer now that could blow this game out of the water and it can run max settings.

Play it again. 80, 90, 100 frames a second. It's completely different. And I get that. And so, like, I mean, I even got pretty far in the game. Like, you know, I did the heist. I jumped out of the windows far in the game. Like I, you know, I, I did the heist. I jumped out of the windows and, you know,

I had, you know, all the, all the stuff that happened. I really want to get back into this game. Like I do it the way you guys have talked about it. It's made me really want to try it again, especially with,

you know, the PC I have now to really get not only, you know, the game itself, but the graphics and everything that it, you know, entails. have now to really get not only you know the game itself but the graphics and everything that it you know entails like i uh i don't know i'm excited the more you guys talk about it and the more you guys bring it up the more i want to get back in there so you talking to those people i am those people so i'm excited i want to get in dude getting the

experience from start to finish without all of the distractions and bugs and what the heck is that and why is this game in the state that it's in is completely different. It's like watching a favorite movie, but you have to get up and leave the movie theater like four or five different times. Even though you know it's a good movie, you're not going to enjoy it the same way. If you can just sit down and enjoy it from start to finish and that's what you can do with cyberpunk now and it is so good when you can do that and the parts that you haven't

seen i would argue are the best parts of the game the final two to three hours is absolutely incredible storytelling and gameplay it really ramps up in the final moments uh and it's also one of those games where you can make a lot of different choices so the day i beat cyberpunk i immediately went back to old saves to see other playthroughs if i made other decisions uh you've got a little bit of time before phantom liberty releases so if you're interested in the expansion ryan maybe maybe play through cyberpunk here in the next six weeks all right let's do it i'm in it's so good i'm sorry dave the diver also really fun to play as a female v because johnny will make comments like your hormones are out of control like i'm not used to this so the fact that

they even change little lines of dialogue like that is really really cool yeah that's awesome yeah and they have fixed some issues where if you just like turn around police don't just immediately show up like there were issues like that back in the day yeah it's been overworked quite a bit all right coming back to you ryan we're we're up to your number one now right numero uno ladies and gentlemen get ready so like i said since these guys are giving me all the juicy good stuff, I obviously have to go for the best game ever made, which is a very, very, very thin line between God of War and this game. And this game is Red Dead Redemption 2. I'm with you, Ryan.

So good. I have never. I'm with you, Ryan. So good. I have never... I am a kid. I was born in 1988. Very, very far cry from the old Wild West. But I, since I can remember, have been twirling a little six-shooter, plastic or real or whatever.

This game did something to me mentally that I can't even explain. It was, it was one of the most amazing games. Every time I just feel like I need to play something or I need to do something, I'm like, I want to go to the snow and I go and I start Red Dead and I just end up in the Alps and I'm like, Arthur Morgan just drugging through the snow. Oh man, why, why am I up in the Alps and I'm like Arthur Morgan just drugging through the snow. Oh man why am I up in the snow? You know I don't know Dutch. Should we go up

here? Have you ever walked by someone that you've never talked to and gone howdy mister about 500 times when I'm trying to get the good Arthur Morgan finish. Yeah, just to pump up all those morality points. Howdy, partner.

It's one of those things, Paul mentioned it the other day where he said he plays video games for escapism and it is the absolute best escapism that you can possibly experience in a video game. Hands down. I mean, I don't love it quite as much as you two do because I'm a little bit more on the gameplay side of things. So I do edge it out with God of War.

But I cannot deny what Red Dead Redemption 2 does. It does miles better than any other game out there. And it is that sense of like I'm living in the Old West. I can behave like I want to behave. The emotional attachment that you get to the characters and the growth and changes that you see and the characters you wind up hating. Oh my gosh, I want to punch that guy in the face, man. And just the story that it tells are... Honestly, it's better than 90% of Hollywood blockbuster movies. It's the true art form of video games, just perfected. Great storytelling all the way through.

There's a lot of people in our Discord server that say it's so boring and they can't play it. And I don't understand that. I can't even grasp that. Because you're not making it what you want to make it at that point. It's not GTA. I understand the argument, right? But it's a flawed argument because you're not making it what you want to make it at that point. It's not GTA. I understand the argument, right? But it's a flawed argument because you're approaching it in the wrong way at that point. I love gameplay. And yes, I'll say that the gameplay in Red Dead is not the top notch, but it's like you play this game like you want to play it.

If you want to go trudge through snow and go hunting and fishing and just live in that world, you can do that. And if that's what you you have fun doing then have fun doing it because that's what the game is don't force yourself into a path that you don't want and then go well i don't like this path i'm on it you are putting yourself on that path at that point you know you can do anything in this game go play poker for five hours if you want you know honestly which i'm not i'm not happy to admit i've done i've been i've been i've been playing poker or blackjack or whatever and i look at the time in the morning i'm like oh crap it's like 12 30 in the morning i'm like i should probably go to bed yeah well and to anyone who doesn't get the opening hour or two hours that

are in the snow it serves a purpose to the story. You have to know how desperate this gang is and why they're willing to go to the ends of the earth to follow Dutch. They're that desperate and they have to cling to their little maid family. And I get that. It adds to the experience and the action comes a little bit later. Yes, in the beginning, you're hunting for food because people are starving, but that plays into why your group operates the way it does so it's not like it's pointless they're not trying to make the beginning boring you just got to get through it and you meet one of the most beautiful characters ever of all time is sadie adler oh i love sadie her story is awesome her story is so awesome she get her whole her husband and her family just gets destroyed a poor helpless woman who turns into the best bounty hunter yes ever is awesome

all right red dead too i love it ryan great pick all right the one that i'm coming up with for number one i think is going to surprise josh but i think once you think about it it'll make a lot of sense the base game actually came out in 2014 but i played it didn't like it did not care for it at all then in 2019 they released a new mode that is nothing at all like the base game it is for all intents and purposes a standalone game and i still ignored it because i did not like the base game then it hit our friend group in 2021 and i think every single person in our real life friend discord server was playing it on a daily basis hearthstones or hearthstone battlegrounds yeah guess what i've been playing a lot lately

paul have you been playing or just hearthstone legitimately i've been playing battlegrounds and battlegrounds yes i play those two exclusively yeah so i i had zero interest in hearthstone because it was largely pay to win you had to buy decks or grind for eternity just to earn them. It didn't interest me at all. Battlegrounds I loved because everyone's on equal footing. It's like a deck builder game, right? And so everyone's on equal footing. You just hop in with a group of eight.

It's kind of like Battle Royale mixed with a card game. I love the auto battler tactics. I love being able to put taunt on guys. And am I going to use like swipes and aoe and do i have to worry about shields you know am i gonna bring in an unstable ghoul in the very last round to counter all these dragon shields you know stuff like that the only thing i will say is when you care too much about your sr it's very easy to start hating. That's where you can go wrong. Yeah, I searched our discord Josh for battlegrounds and I found about 15 messages where you and I literally the only thing we say is I hate battlegrounds. Yeah, and that's the only thing we typed. But if you ask

us any day, we're going to say it's a fantastic game. We love it. It will feel at times like the RNG gods are out to get you and you'll start to get a little stale. I'll get salty. It's a game I always come back to. I'll give it up for six months and then I'll come back to it later. They do change the game a lot, which is, I think,

both a pro and a con. Every time I come back to Battlegrounds, I have to relearn all the strategies because they're all different. If I tried to play the way I played a year ago, I'm going to get destroyed. So, yeah. And it's also fun to watch streamers. Like I got fully into that more than any other game. I got into watching battleground streamers, of course, like creparian dog, Slyssa. I loved hearing them process why they would do the things they did and then improve my skill. I love Battlegrounds. Great game.

I keep going back to it. It's my favorite chill game. If I'm eating a snack or just want to kind of kick my feet up on the desk and be able to lazily click my mouse from time to time, it's honestly the perfect game for that. So I play it when i want to be slightly distracted um and not have to pay a lot of attention uh it's yeah it's a really good game i i didn't think i'd ever go back and then i i did and now i'm back in it again and it's fun all over again so it just tells you how much like longevity it has nice do you want to do some honorable mentions before you're number one josh or do you want to do your number one first? We can do some honorable mentions real quick. For me, I had Hades.

I mean, I won't even say Elden Ring. Hogwarts Legacy was a big surprise hit. We just talked about that one. And Recency Bias. But man, I'm telling you, having played almost the entire game now, Rem 2 is so freaking good dude and i love the fact that our server has listened to me go off the rails on this and then people have picked this game up solely based on okay josh is going crazy let me see what this is and then people go dude this game's great and then i'm like yeah it's just it's been the biggest surprise hit for me i've seen a bunch of people all of them

are talking about remnant 2 with josh and i i'm feeling a little left out yeah it's really it's really that good man so and like i said i know it's recency bias on this but you know how i felt about the first one this game just does everything right. So for me, that's the honorable mentions. That makes a lot of sense. The one thing, Ryan, I will warn you, if Josh is really into a game, you got to join him right away because in three weeks he will be, I'm never playing it again

and he's on to the next game. In three weeks, he's already going to be on the Baldur's Three tomorrow. Like, so we're done. I'm not going to lie. As much as I have been gushing about Remnant 2, I probably have seven days left before I probably don't touch it anymore. Yeah.

Like our buddy, Brandon will always come in three weeks later. Like, Oh, you guys are still playing it. I guess it's real. I'm going to go pick it up. And I'm like,

dude, Josh is going to be done within the next three days. Yeah. You missed it. My honorable mentions, super Mario maker to every Mario maker game is so good um immortality is almost not a game and a lot of people out there would hate it but i absolutely love it that's kind of like an interactive movie really really well done and just weird west i know that's

kind of like my corner i irrationally loved everything about that game i love playing as different characters where all their stories interlink almost a little bit like pulp fiction or something like that um that game really took me by surprise and i really love it normally i'm not into games that have like uh werewolves and and things of that nature but that one really worked for me what about you ryan you got any honorable mentions um yeah i got uh tomb raider star wars uh fallen order the 20 fallen order fallen order was on my long list yeah yeah that was really good uh division i played a lot of the division division that was awesome uh spider-man josh are you listening someone didn't play when they had my playstation maybe a deep dive yeah halo infinite uh yeah so yeah there's a few of them but

nice all right so here's my actual real top five best made games i've got red dead 2 coming in first then i've got zelda tears of the kingdom cyberpunk 2077 disco elysium and god of war those are my top five i think all those games are killer i know not everyone loves all five but uh highly recommend all of those there yeah all right josh um i think it's time one more one more honorable mention because we didn't mention it on anybody's but disco elysium. We have a couple listeners that are talking about their playthrough on it,

and it's just so good, and I love hearing people talking about, like, dude, this game is really unique and amazing, and it's like, yeah. Yes. My one piece of advice is don't save Scum until it's your second playthrough. Do that on your second. Just let the first playthrough, if you fail a roll until it's your second playthrough. Do that on your second.

Just let the first playthrough, if you fail a roll, it's okay. The game will still move forward. And on your second playthrough, do it to your heart's content. That's my only advice. But somebody like me will probably never play it again. All right, my number one is a game

that changed my outlook on an entire genre. uh, is a game that I picked up on a whim. I don't even remember why I picked this game up, to be honest with you. Uh, I played it. I went into it having zero clue what to expect. I had, I went into it not thinking I even liked this genre, um, but it opened up a whole new world for me because it made me realize that I absolutely love exploration and I love survival and I love discovery. And that is a game called Subnautica. Came out in 2018. We have not dove it on this show, but we have talked about it before. I loved everything about Subnautica with the exception of the, I can't find this last piece

that I need to progress. And I had to spend two hours hunting around. It's so funny because my daughter played it on my recommendation and she hit that exact same wall. She was like, dad, I can't find this piece and I'm getting really frustrated. I went, just keep looking. You will find it. And then this game just takes off, man. You know, that's why I quit, right? I know. Exact same thing. I had to find one thing. I couldn't find it.

And I gave up and I quit. I don't know why it is that way. But man, I can't think of another game where it just blew my mind where I thought, OK, this is it. You know, this is really neat. I've kind of made it to the end of this game, so to speak. Or I've made it as low as I can go. I don't want to spoil anything. And then it's like, oh, wait a minute. This is just the beginning? And then you do it again. And then you go, this is surely got to be it.

Okay, you got me the first time. And then it gets even bigger. And then you just go, what the heck? It's a finely crafted world. It's a finely crafted experience. It ends when it's it's a finely crafted world it's a finely crafted experience it ends when it's supposed to end and it made me realize that i absolutely love this entire genre of exploration survival discovery so subnautica for me one of the most memorable games that i have played in a really long time and still sits up there for me is just one of the top games that i've played in recent memory how long is it like 15 hours yeah it's like 15 hours i mean if you start really wandering around and getting into all the little audio logs and stuff like that it's probably a 20-hour game but it doesn't overstay

its welcome either which is really nice yeah yeah yeah that's the one that usually if i quit a game it's because i really hate it. I was enjoying Subnautica. It just got to a point where I tried to look up guides. I couldn't go anywhere and find what I needed. And after 45 minutes, I was like, I guess I'm just done. Like, how many hours am I going to search for this one thing before I give up? So that's one that I might return to at some point because I really did enjoy it. So you're a quitter. i i joke all the time i will beat bad games and just stick with them like for spoken

i played the whole game and i beat it but then there are games like if i just get stuck like that and i literally can't finish the game that drives me crazy because i am a completionist are you familiar with it at all ryan have you played it have you seen it i i have not but uh i'm interested to check it out yeah it's so good man it's a little bit of base building a little bit of mystery i'd love the fact that it's like you're the whole thing you're underwater for the most part but then it's like it gives you things that you wouldn't think you would get you know and i mean the game's old at this point it's not a major spoiler but like at one point you build a submarine and then you're like there's no way this game is gonna let me pilot the submarine next thing you know you're tooling around in the

submarine and you're like really you guys let me do this and it's just that's everything about subnautica is where it's just like you're really gonna let me do this is this really gonna happen and it's it's scary, man. Ask a lot of people. A game that is deceptively scary and subnautica is up there, man. There are some freaky moments and scares in that game, too. Oh, you should have told me that. Yeah. Got some thalassophobia over there, Ryan. Some fear of the ocean. Just a little bit. Yeah. All right. Well, I think that wraps everything up so many good games in

the last five years guys i'm really excited about the future of gaming i mean we got unreal engine five we've got ai all these things are just going to improve gaming moving forward i can't wait to see what we get here in the next five years we want to say thank you to everyone for listening to the episode as a reminder make sure to go check out multiplayer squad.com to see patreon support options. And then we'll have our next episode ready for you all this Thursday when we cover gaming news. Until then, happy gaming. See ya!

All right, see ya everybody! Thanks for watching! Thank you.