Video Gamers Podcast - Top 67 Games (Leaderboard Review) - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

Gaming hosts Josh, Paul and Michael are bringing you a long overdue Leaderboard review. We dive into the gaming glory that is the leaderboard and all 67 games on it. Some shocking early changes and Michael’s opinions and gaming takes mix things up and it’s time to find out what needed to change, and what stayed put in another episode from your favorite gaming podcast! Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: Redletter, Nevo, Waynerman, TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our 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

Hey everybody, it's Josh and I'm back with another Gaming Quick Takes bonus episode. Ha! Tricked ya! This is just an intro for our regular episodes. But, if you wanted to hear that sweet, sweet intro on those bonus episodes, head over to MultiplayerSquad.com where you can sign up to support the show. You get two bonus episodes every week, some killer Discord perks, and our eternal gratitude. We couldn't do the show without the support of our listeners, and you too can join those ranks over at MultiplayerSquad.com. Hey everyone, thanks for listening to another episode of the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast.

We release two family-friendly episodes on gaming every single week. And if you want to become a Patreon supporter, you will be helping fund one of your favorite pods. And you'll also get bumped up to four episodes weekly because of two bonus Quick Take episodes. Just go to MultiplayerSquad.com to see our Patreon page. And we would also kindly ask that you rate our podcast five stars on Apple and Spotify and leave us a written review. All right. I am your host, Paul. And then joining me, he initially hated facial hair, but then it started to grow on him.

It's Josh. I would look like an eraser without facial hair, guys. I love how there was news that God of War might be adapted for the screen, and you have already thrown your hat in the ring because you've already got the Kratos beard. So you're half of the way there. I've got that. I've got the big nose. I've got the muscles. I don't have the voice, unfortunately. As everybody listening can tell, they're like, that guy does not sound manly. Hey, just fake it till you make it, right? You can try. Hush, boy. And then joining us, he only knows 25 letters of the alphabet.

He doesn't know why. It's Michael. the alphabet that's the abcs right i i get to like last i checked i got to q one time uh when i was teaching my four-year-old and i was like you know what that's like i don't know like 74 percent of it i'm good that's like a c we passed we're good the the math checks out on that one. So today we are going to be doing a leaderboard review. We have not done this in quite some time. For anybody who is not aware, every other Monday we do a deep dive episode where we spend the entire time talking about a single game and then we put it on our overall leaderboard and we have to come up with a consensus of where we want the game ranked.

So it's almost like a list of what games we recommend people pick up. If you want to see the entire leaderboard, you can go to MultiplayerPodcast.com. And every once in a while, as our opinions change and as we dive back into some old games, every once in a while, we just got to get together and figure out how to move some of these games around a little bit but before we jump into the actual leaderboard review we do want to give a shout out to our newest patreon supporter we do have a new rare supporter and it is anna marie angeletti thank you so much for joining the squad the joining the squad nailed it nailed it i don't know where i was going with that one i'm more excited for angelie or just paul's mcguffin you know what

i'll say i'll say this man my daughters are both gamers uh girl gamers are something that used to be a like a rarity but now in today's day and age, man, girl gamers are out there. And I don't think that they're, I don't think that they're any less, uh, popular than, than male gamers. You know what I mean? I think they just tend to be a little bit quieter, you know, probably due to some harassment and stuff like that, that happens to occur. So, uh, you know, I, I just, Hey, thank you for supporting the podcast. We hope to see you in the Discord server, you know, but it is awesome. We thank you for the support for sure. Yeah. And then Josh, I think you've got a review that you wanted to read that someone left our

show. I do actually. Another review came in. Actually, we've gotten a few, but I know we're going to be a little short on time and we've got to get this these shows down under like an hour and a half again we've been going long yeah we have so i'm just picking one today but this one does come from across the ocean which i always love to see the title is the boom podcast please read this i love you that's a good way to get attention there. Right. And this one comes in from Turbo Witcher Pitcher from Latvia. Oh, okay. And it reads, That's a first. I love this podcast.

You are the best. I am from Latvia. I am 14. By the way, I am the biggest Witcher fan. One, what is your favorite sport? Two, what is better, Roblox or favorite sport? Two, what is better, Roblox or Fortnite? And three, what is better, cat poo

or dog poo? What constitutes better on part C there? That's easy! Okay, number one. Which do you want to clean up? Cat poo is infinitely better than dog poo. Cats are clean, they go in one spot, usually not stinky, although I did have the world's stinkiest cat a long time ago.

So that one's an easy one. I'll take cat poo over dog poo any day. All right. Well, what about favorite sport? I'd absolutely go basketball. Oh, football. No question. The sport of American football is the greatest America football pastime ever.

Yes. For being the voice of reason. And then Roblox or Fortnite. This one's easy for me, too.lox roblox we just made a lot of people very happy and a lot of people very sad josh so i'll tell you what let's play pin the tail on the map like pin tail and donkey if you can find latvia on a globe somewhere let's play that game oh i i know exactly where it is because my daughter, one of her best internet friends

is actually from Latvia. This review is not from them, but my daughter actually has a friend that she plays Roblox with or Minecraft every day from Latvia. Could be Roblox. That's so niche too. That's so random.

Like Latvia. I've never talked to someone from Latvia before. Well, thank you though. That's awesome awesome i now know two gamers from latvia we're collecting all countries by the way if everyone wants to leave a review from all uh countries that uh we've never seen before uh that'd be great just keep doing that we just need to hang one of those maps right and just keep adding little push pins yeah thereins for every country that someone leaves a review from. What's funny is we can actually see that information through our podcast distributor. And we have listeners almost all over the world.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Almost every country is lit up with at least one or two downloads. Yes. I'm always surprised. It's like there's one guy in Iceland. Yes. We appreciate you, whoever you are. Thank you, by the way. Please share us with your Icelandic friends. Please. Yes.

All right. Well, guys, let's do it. Let's do this leaderboard review. All right. I've got the leaderboard up. We have done deep dive episodes on a grand total of 66 games. And I think this is an extra special leaderboard review because Michael has joined the podcast as our permanent third host. And Michael was not here for any of the deep dives except for lost ark so michael we don't necessarily even

know how you feel about these other 65 games this will be a chance for us to kind of you know go through our leaderboard talk through a couple of games see if there's any that we want to move up or down any that need to be swapped and i was kind of thinking maybe we just go through like our top 10 read through what they are, and then maybe just talk a little bit about those games. Does that work for you guys? Yeah, I'll say this. In Michael's defense, it's very, very feasible that Michael has not played a lot of these games because we play a lot of these because of the podcast. And while, while Micah, Micah, Micah, Micah, none of us can talk boy. Uh, while Michael is a great gamer and, and likes to play a lot of games, he has not played a lot of the games that

are on the leaderboard. I'm guessing. So Michael don't feel bad if you haven't played one of these games, chances are somebody forced us into playing these, you know, if they're in like the bottom 50. And then if they're in the top 10, that was strictly Paul and I just having amazing gaming tastes. That totally makes sense. I don't feel bad at all.

Um, I might just wing it and just make some stuff up. And if I haven't played a game, I'll just pretend and say things about, I don't know, like Colonel Sam Shepard or something like that. I can't wait to start testing Michael on all this knowledge. Yeah, just fake it till you make it, Michael.

All right, so taking a look at our top 10, I think this is a really strong top 10. This is not a bad list by any stretch. We have coming in at number one, God of War. And then behind that, we have Overwatch, Apex Legends, Rocket League, Rust, Valheim, Satisfactory, Halo Infinite, Outriders, and Hearthstone. Boy, those are some amazing games. Do you guys, when you, let me ask you, when you look at this list, I was reading through it and I'm like, man, I want to play Overwatch.

Man, I want to play Rocket League. Man, it's been a long time since we've played Rust. Oh, man, you guys remember how much fun we had in Valheim? Paul, you remember that Saturday we played Satisfactory for like 12 hours straight without a break? Man, remember that build that you had in Outriders? Sure do, my melee devastator. Every game in the top 10,

I just instantly have these fond memories of. Oh, yeah, especially Apex. Remember when that's all we played for like six months for a long hundreds of hours yeah i do remember that michael have you played i know you've played overwatch have you played any of the other ones i've played uh sadly the top three so when I look at this list, I think, okay, I want to try Rust. I want to try Rocket League. I don't know if I want to try Satisfactory. I'm not sure if that's my kind of game or not. But since it's on this list, I probably want to try it.

But I've played enough of God of War to say that I loved it. I thought it was visually incredible. I definitely agree with it being at number one. Now, having said that, I haven't finished it. So I don't know for sure if my feeling on that is like it being at number one. Now, having said that, I haven't finished it, so I don't know for sure if my feeling on that is like, is this number one? Now, obviously, this doesn't reflect my top ten total because

there's games that you guys haven't done deep dives of that I think are very deserving of being on this list that we just haven't done a deep dive of. So, you know, it's kind of my job to massage that a little bit and be like, you know, Oblivion, here it comes. But, obviously, everyone knows how much I love Overwatch. I talk about Overwatch all the time.

As a non-shooter game player, that's a shooter that I love. I like playing it. It's one of my all-time favorite games. And Apex Legends, I actually kind of had fun with that, although I died a lot. But I didn't give it a ton of time. I don't know.

I think it's a great list i don't know i just i think it's a great list and all these games i think are deserving of the top award just because i said so i don't sense that you were much of a battle royale player were you michael no you know the first battle royale i played was uh player knowns pub g and uh i loved it because i got to walk around with the cast iron skillet attached to my butt, which I thought was hilarious. And I liked the idea of it. I loved it. It's just I was very good at the start.

When that game first came out, I was pretty good at it because everyone was trying to figure out the controls. And so was I. And then I just never got better. And so when I didn't get better and everyone else got better, it kind of got me out of the game. Well, it's funny too, because Michael self-admittedly says he's not good at shooters. And so not good is the biggest compliment you could pay me. I'm terrible. I'm trying to be... We're friends here, right? Thank you. I'm quite poor at them as well, Michael. You're not alone here. So you guys admit that i carry in in those games

that's what i'm hearing sometimes yeah for sure i'll take it i'll take it sometimes that's all my ego needs i i carry two i carry the cast irons kill it right there were there were definitely games when i would play war zone with you josh and at the end you would have like 11 kills i'd have four someone else would have four and you know that you definitely can can get a lot of kills in those kinds of games for my money i still think apex legends is by far the best battle royale and i don't even think there's a close second the combat the map size the sliding the keys to go unlock and fight over rooms. I think the pacing is perfect. There's a lot of issues with PUBG.

I have a lot of issues with Warzone. Apex to me really dialed that in. And I see it as, no pun intended, it being the apex of the Battle Royale genre. I'm not sure anything is really ever going to come in and compete with it. And I like it being up there really high in the top five. I kind of sense, Josh, you're kind of lobbying to maybe move it down. Here's the thing, Paul. I tried to get you to swap Apex Legends and Rocket League the last time we did a leaderboard review, which you shot me down on. And I said, okay,

I have not played Apex since the last leaderboard review that we did where I tried to get you to drop Apex a little bit. I think that Apex is a phenomenal game. I have nothing against what Apex does. And I think I agree with you that for the money, which is free, that Apex is the best of the battle royales. Now, I know there's a lot of Warzone lovers out there that are going like, what? You're crazy.

I love character-based shooters. And Apex gives you that. You can find that character that you fit with, that fits your style and all that. The only issue that I have is because I have not played Apex in... Honestly, it's probably been a year. I think I hopped in for like three matches, maybe like five, six months ago. But from what I am hearing, and this is hearsay, is that because they keep introducing new characters, there's this power creep that's going on. And the new characters that are being released are much, much stronger than the old characters. And that becomes an issue because they're trying to get you to buy these characters or to buy the battle passes that allow you to unlock them faster. But if you're making these characters that are stronger by nature than the original ones, then that almost becomes like a

pay-to-win situation. And I'm not saying that Apex Legends is pay-to-win. Don't hear what I'm not saying. But I feel like the balance of the game and maybe just the game itself is starting to age a little bit. And does it still belong in our top three of our leaderboard? I mean, top three is like the Royal Triumvirate. It is the three best games that this podcast has reviewed. Paul, you got the spotlight on you right now. I think he's called you out. So here's the problem. What do you recommend replacing it with? Because Rocket League is...

I know you're not a fan of... I feel... You like Rocket League, and I get that. But I'm not trying to say that I think Rocket League should swap it. Because I was going to say, everything that you're saying about Apex is kind of similar to how i feel about rocket league where it's like yeah it's a great game i haven't played rocket league since we covered it as a deep dive and i think that was our third episode ever maybe our fourth yeah yeah so it's very early on in the show i just haven't played it since march 2020 i know that's when it released.

I keep looking at Apex and I keep going, it's a great game, but is it actually a top three? Now, this could be Battle Royale fatigue. I don't have any interest whatsoever in playing Battle Royales right now. So it could be the fact that I'm just not in that genre right now. And I look at it and I go, go man this game's really ranked that high but then i look at games like rust valheim satisfactory and i kind of go it should one of those maybe be a little bit higher i was gonna say i think the only one you could maybe talk me into is rust well i could maybe put rust at number three could you because that's what i'm hoping for oh he tricked you

didn't he is that was that here here's why i say this right because somebody was talking about rust the other day and i went i think it was glap or you know one of our longtime listeners glap and glap was saying hey should i get rust and i was talking to him and i was saying well you run the risk of wasting 40 of your money because you might hate it. But if you don't hate it, you will absolutely love it. And I look back at Rust and all I have are the fond memories of the butterflies and the sunshine and the morning coffee and not getting raided, not getting killed on sight, not running across the cesspool of humanity. And so I have these amazing memories of rust

that only get better as time goes on. And with Apex, I kind of go like, yeah, it's a battle royale. I mean, it's a good battle royale. It's probably the best battle royale, but it's, you know, it's a battle royale. So are you willing to bump Apex to four and Rocket League down to five?

Because now I feel like this is almost a lateral move for you. Is that, is that worth dang it, Paul? Why'd you have to go there? We're not talking about a swap. We're talking about bumping rust up from five to three,

which would be okay with that. I think I'd be okay with that. To be honest, I'm not saying we have to make any changes, you know, just because it's one man's opinion, but in, in our top 10, the only game that sits a little weird with me is Apex Legends. It's Apex?

Yeah. And moving it down to four? Right. It's going to make you feel a little bit better? It's outside the Royal Triumvirate, though. That's true. We got the Triforce. It's still in the Mount Rushmore. And I'll say this, as much as I personally

love Rocket League, I get that for a lot of people out there, Rocket League is not their kind of game whatsoever. And to see that in the top four might be a little off-putting for people that don't understand the sheer greatness that is Rocket League.

And to be fair, Rust is the only game that we have covered twice. And honestly, we might need to do it a third time. I miss Rust. I would love to play Rust with Michael. Please, please. I would love to have an excuse to spend a couple weeks playing just Rust. That'd be awesome. Let's do it.

You say that now until you start running across all the Nazi flags and a lot of inappropriate words being thrown out it rust really is like the dregs of humanity along with the most amazing people the only issue with rust is it always ends bad we have never just quit rust at like when things are going well because when things are going well you keep playing it more and more until it all comes crumbling down. Like Apex,

there are sessions when you just win and you do well and you quit and it all feels great. Rust always ends up with depression, but I'm, I'm totally for it. So let's bump up rust. We'll put it number three, Apex and rocket league both fall.

Yes. All right. I just wanted to shake things up early. Sure. So looking at the rest of our top 10, I don't think I have any issues. I don't see any games that I think don't belong in the top 10. Michael,

with your experience there in the top 10, any there that you would say, what's with you guys? Why is this so high? I mean, I was going to call out Hearthstone, but we talked about it in the last episode that you guys why is this so high i mean i was gonna call out hearthstone but we talked about it in the last episode that you guys both definitely love it um i hearthstone's only going up buddy okay so uh no i have no problems with any of it i reserve my comments until we get to the next 10 question mark or

uh yeah the only other one i was thinking about bringing up was just hearthstone do you do you kind of see it sticking there at 10 josh do you think that's where it belongs i think it's so funny because i literally played a battlegrounds earlier today and came in like fourth and i was like ah that sucks man normally i do a lot better than that i was getting my team to be really really strong and then some guy that just had an amazing team at that point wiped me out. Hearthstone, it's a weird game because when you think about it, if you're familiar with it, you go like, really? A top 10 game? It's a card game. And it's a simple card game. It's geared to be easy to pick up. And I generally enjoy strong strategy type games where I can

theory craft and deck build and that kind of stuff. Hearthstone just works. It's just fun. And it's free. And when you take all that, it's this weird dichotomy of in my brain, I go Hearthstone's not that amazing of a game. But then every single time I sit down and I play Hearthstone, I go, this game's so much fun. It's great. I only want to play one or two games nowadays. But guess what I do almost every single day of my life? I play one or two rounds of Hearthstone. And then so I go, well, of course, it's got to be a top 10 game at that point.

So if you wanted to move it up, I'd have a little bit of reservation. Because it depends. Is it better than Outriders? Dude, Outriders was phenomenal. Yes and no. Yeah, Outriders, the highs of Outriders is unparalleled. Outriders could be a top four game for me if it was flawless. It could be number one.

Yeah, if it was a technically flawless game, Outriders is some of the most fun that I've had in a video game with friends in a long, long time, dude. But it was so plagued with technical issues that it brought it down to a paltry number nine on our leaderboard. And that kind of tells you. Yeah. That's how i felt sorry that's how i felt about atlas back in the days atlas was one of my favorite survival games ever it's not on your list but um or our list see what i did there um our list yeah it's not on our list but at the same point like that game was incredible it was like your sea pirates it's

literally arc if you ever played arc the survival with dinosaurs, but it's with pirate ships. That game had so many problems. My wife literally was like, you have to stop playing that game because I'm tired of hearing you complain about the server crashing or getting kicked or waking up one day and no one's raided your base. Like Rust, except there's nobody's raided your base. Your stuff just disappeared.

So I get you. I get you when you're like, this game's incredible, but there's a lot of problems. But you might log in and all your gear is gone. Oh, man. No, that really happened. That really did happen. What?

Yeah. What? Yeah. And it's a gear-based game. Yeah. When you're telling a friend a game is great and it has to come with a disclaimer, I guess it couldn't be number one or number two or three. So, Paul, if you thought about moving Hearthstone up, what would you move down?

You know, Hearthstone is one of those games where the highs are not high, right? But this is a game that over time I am just clocking more and more and more hours in to where I think it's probably now like my third most played game. And I just feel like over time, I just keep coming back to it. I think if I were doing like my own list, I could maybe even think of putting it like around four or five. Now, I'm not recommending that here because I know that I'm really high on Apex. You're really high on Rocket League. We're both really high on Valheim. I'm fine leaving He Rocket League. We're both really high on Valheim. I'm fine leaving Hearthstone where it is. That's just one that I keep coming back to so often.

I just wonder if that one won't move later on down the road. It might. I don't know what I would swap it with. The only game that I'm looking at where I'd go, I could maybe see this trading places, would be Halo Infinite. Just because we've already started to fall would be Halo Infinite. Just because we've already started to fall off on Halo Infinite. But the problem is that when we reviewed it, we reviewed it for

multiplayer only. And the campaign for Halo Infinite is incredible. And so when you take the two together, I think it definitely deserves to be up there. But that you know we don't really play halo infinite a whole lot anymore is that a sign of it's like longevity as well that's the thing with hearthstone hearthstone is a 10 out of 10 for longevity even though from a thrill perspective like at best it's what maybe a 4 out of 10 like oh i got my caligose and now i'm just cycling through all my battle battle cry minions and buffing all my dragons like that's exciting but it's never going to reach the thrills of grapple hooking a battery and then chucking it at someone having it explode and doing everything that you do in halo so yeah halo certainly has higher highs we don't need to move hearthstone i think it's okay where it's at. Okay, I think top 10 is interesting.

And it's funny that some people take a little bit of exception to that because they're like, Hearthstone, really? And it's like, man, just trust us. If you get into it, there's so much chill fun to be had there. And so many different modes. If you're not into Battlegrounds,

you can do Arena, you can do Mercenaries. There's just so much to do. All right, so getting outside our top 10 here, I think this is where we're looking at games that are probably a little more likely to move up or down because they're not quite at that upper echelon. Starting at 11, we have Divinity Original Sin 2, Call of Duty Warzone, Grand Theft Auto Online. I'm ready for your thoughts there, Josh. Terraria, Risk of Rain 2, Splitgate, Demio, Destiny 2, Rainbow Six Siege, and The Forgotten City. Michael, I know you've played The Forgotten City. And I know that you're playing Divinity

Original Sin 2, although you're not real far into that yet. So I'm not sure you're to the point where you can truly appreciate the magnificence of divinity original sin 2 but have you played any of the other ones yeah absolutely i played a little destiny 2 uh i think we talked about this a while back yeah it's it's i in fact i was surprised to see it at 18 because the reaction when i mentioned possibly picking it back up again was was remarkably negative in the discord chat um not in a bad way that was mostly me yeah it's a good game it's a very good game i played like two or three hours of it and i loved it because i'm like oh it's beautiful like the game looks great you know and i i liked playing the single player if you call it a campaign or

whatever was going on and then i just got confused like really confused about like i have to team up do i have to team up to continue i don't understand what's happening um i love grand theft auto 5 and grand theft auto online which is part of grand theft auto 5 really it's the same world i loved that i uh i know that i i got some crazy penthouse or something like that because i bought it early or something and so the online game was incredible to me. I'm pretty happy with where it's at for the most part. I mean, I don't know a lot of the games around it, though, to be honest with you, so I can't really gauge them.

The Forgotten City, though, holy cow, I loved that game. I loved that game. It's so short, but so amazing, and it gives you a really good feeling. It was such a pleasant surprise, wasn't it? It was. For a game that did not get a lot of attention that game is way better than it had any right to be and one of the endings made me cry like a baby

oh i'm not afraid to say it i cried like a baby so i i do have one game on this section of our leaderboard that i highlighted to kind of say hey I'm not sure it's in the best place. But I'm a little conflicted on that because when we ranked it, we ranked it before another game came out that I think supplanted that. And that's Splitgate. When Splitgate came out, everybody was starving for that arena shooter a la Halo multiplayer. And the fact that they mixed the portals with the Halo-ish gameplay really stood out to us and we went, man, this game is fun. Now, again, I'm not taking anything away from the game of Splitgate because I think it's very, very good. But when you have Halo Infinite that you could play for free and you have Splitgate, I feel

like the Splitgate really belong in our top 16 at this point? See, here's the thing, and I know I'm in the minority here. I would rather play Splitgate online right now over Halo Infinite. I loved using the portals in that game so much, because as someone who's not great at like flick headshots or sustained you know long range damage like you need in something like halo i really appreciated being able to be smart in placing my portals and i thought that the multiplayer experience of splitgate was so fantastic but then halo has such an amazing campaign i'm perfectly fine with halo infinite being rated way above splitgate i actually if anything would almost be tempted to bump splitgate

up a couple whereas opposed to sounds like you might want to bump it down a couple which means maybe it's in the right spot but i still love splitgate i would have no problem hopping in if people wanted to play that one tonight i it's not a bad game. That's the thing. I just got to wonder, has it been overshadowed by the release of Halo Infinite? But then again, we do have Halo Infinite at number eight, and Splitgate is at 16. It's one of those things, too, where I look at The Forgotten City, and that's another one where recency bias is almost opposite. Like the longer I go without playing that game,

the better it gets in my mind. Uh, do you know what I mean? So then it's almost like, is the forgotten city, which was nominated for game of the year for the BAFTA awards. Uh, is it,

is maybe that too low? I, I know I'm low on Rainbow Six Siege, but I would definitely put Forgotten City above Rainbow Six. Rainbow Six, I think, is aging to me, and it was a lot of fun when we played it, but it's also very hardcore and hard to get into as a multiplayer game unless you're getting into it with a predefined group of friends.

Rainbow Six is too try-hard. You know my stance on this. Games should be fun. They shouldn't be work or math or homework. It should just be a fun time. So I don't know. Michael, have you played any Rainbow Six Siege? I have not. You're kind of, in some ways're you're kind of better i'm fortunate i i have dodged that figurative bullet there but i i don't know i i just knowing how much i love the forgotten city i think my only gripe about that game is it was short like everything else about it was incredible like i i just i loved that game i'm all about bringing it up that being said i i not knowing a lot of the list,

I did rank Lost Ark based on where Forgotten City was. So I know that we're not going to talk about that one as much because it's really fresh and really new. But I would move it up. But not knowing some of these games, I can't really say that definitively that I have a place to say, let's move it up until I try it. where did lost arc end up on our leaderboard a certain someone forgot to update the website i will have to go back to the audio file i want to say i do not remember i want to say it was like 21 or something i know we put it at 18 we moved destiny down one 100 i remember exactly because you're right we agreed to put it at 18 that moved destiny down one i laughed went haha destiny 2 um so that's right yes thank you so lost ark is technically 18 which means forgotten city is technically 21 needs to move up i say we get it back into the top 20 yeah i could see

man i would have trouble putting it above Destiny because Destiny 2 has so much content that you can play for free. And then if you want to buy the newest stuff, great. I think you just get so much bang for your buck with Destiny 2. I would still keep this below that, but I am fine putting Forgotten City above Rainbow Six Siege. Okay, and that puts it back in the top 20? Back in the top 20. All right. Sound good to you, Michael?

I love it. Go with it. Let's do it. All right. Locked and loaded. All of our Latvian friends agree as well. I will say this. I also want to get back into Risk of Rain 2 because that game is so much fun.

That's another game that I go, man, I need to start playing that again. It's such an interesting game because every run is just so incredibly different you never really know what to expect but when you got those really good combinations of abilities it was a lot of fun it really was and it's a great game to play with friends too all right so we now haveten City back in the top 20. We've got Rainbow Six Siege now just on the outside, now at 21. And then coming in behind that, we've got Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War, Resident Evil Village, Tribes of Midgard, Deep Rock Galactic, Among Us, No Man's Sky, Hollow Knight, Stardew Valley, and Far Cry 5. Still pretty good games. These are not bad. There is one game I want to get the heck out of here, though. I know which one it is. Which one?

It's Tribes of Midgard. It is Tribes of Midgard. I was so... Guys, remember how hyped I was for that game? Yeah. Do you remember that? I was like, oh, guys, it's like Vikings building stuff, and you got to take down these giants, and everybody's got to work together.

And then we started playing it, and it was like, it was fun, but then it just wasn't fun. It was like a lot of fun, but then it wasn't fun. So why did it get so high on the list overall? When did you guys do this one, and what was it at when you ranked it?

Oh, it was at 23 when we ranked it, because I just got to wonder if it was a little bit of recency bias, if it was a little bit of maybe I was really hyped for that game when it released. But I have zero interest in playing Tribes of Midgard ever again. Whereas I would easily jump into No Man's Sky, Deep Rock Galactic, Hollow Knight, even Raft. Vermintide 2, I would play above Tribes of Midgard. And that's pretty far down the list comparatively. See, everything about Tribes of Midgard is kind of, in a lot of ways, tailor-made to stuff that I love about video games. I love that it's got that like isometric

view you can play with a huge group of people i don't remember the max but i think it was i think it was 10 people yeah you can play with 10 and it had elements of gathering mats and using these recipes and building better weapons defending the town as a group but then sending out people to go find you know the next little dungeon area to go into or whatever you want to accomplish. I think you were by far the lowest on Midgard in our friend group. I know Brandon and I played a lot. I mean, I was grouping up with people through the Tribes of Guard Discord server. It was one of the best communities i ever played with everybody would talk everyone was friendly it had a lot of teamwork together i i really loved it um if you're that low on it then

obviously we can bump it down a few spots i think these are all great games i'm not like married to having tribes of midgard at 23 but i think as long as it's still in the 20s i think it it should still be somewhere in that range. I just think it's a little high. I'm not trying to take away from the game because it does fit for a lot. I found it very grindy almost, in a weird sense of grindy. The beginning was really poor. That was the one thing. I always said, don't make me... I don't remember the exact recipes, but you had to literally go get two sticks and make a hammer or two rocks to make something. And I always felt like if you could fast forward the initial 10 minutes and let you just start right with the action, it would have been a lot better.

So I would nominate moving it down into the high 20s, low 20s. Dude, I can't ever. can we settle this on the show does low 20s mean like 28 29 or does low 20s mean like 21 22 i think you would say it's low 20s yeah it's like 28 29 okay okay because sometimes people go like the lower number so then that's like that would be 21 and i'm like no no it's like your air conditioning when you hey turn the ac up am i turning it colder am i turning it like when i turn it up like i don't understand making the temperature higher am i making it go faster make temperature lower i don't ever i still don't know that one and i'll never know it okay good so it's not just me then so i nominate that we move tribes of midgard into the low 20s uh 21 yeah let's

sorry wait what what day is it let's uh let's drop it let's drop it below stardew valley okay let's drop it below yeah so deep rock among Man's Sky, Hollow Knight, and Stardew will all go up one and we'll keep it above Far Cry 5. Okay. I think that's great. So above Far Cry 5, you mean basically just place any Far Cry game here because they're all really the same thing. Just say Far Cry.

Yeah. Just any Far Cry. Pretty much. All Far Cries are at number 30 now. Or 29. Yeah. I know Far Cry 5 takes some heat. really loved it i loved the story you liked the humor and the the absurdity in far cry oh sure but even the idea of them running this cult

as a family i i thought all of that stuff was really interesting i i loved everything about that game actually uh all right any others there in the 20s that we're looking to move or we feel pretty good about that now i feel good about that that was the only one that was kind of giving me a little heartburn i'm just very happy sky should we bump no man's sky up a couple it's below among us that i don't know wait is it oh no man's sky is phenomenal have you played that michael no i still haven't played it i know we talked about this on the Best Space Games episode because it's supposed to be a lot like Elite Dangerous. So I've got to try it.

But obviously, the recency with the podcast, we had this giant two launches this month and I still haven't had a chance to give it a shot. I'd be okay with that, Paul, to be honest. Because it's such a well-done game. And we should probably say as of 2022 right right because we covered it in 2020 and they've actually still kept adding more and more content as long as it doesn't hurt the placement of my deep rock galactic i'll be very happy oh i

was just gonna say are we going only above among us or also above i'm glad that paul is outnumbered now with deep Rock Galactic because I love that game. I think that game's phenomenal. And Paul does not like that game at all. And so at least Michael and I can be the voice of reasons there. I just think it's a blast. Should we bump it up, Michael?

I'm just going to do a bunch of... Well, I mean, it is right below Tribes of Midgard, so it's going to be a top battle. I don't know. My thing about Midgard. Well, it's going to get bumped up naturally right there. Yeah. So I don't know. My thing about Deep Rock Galactic is it's just, overrated or not, it's a blast to play with three of your friends. It really is.

You're just like, what am I doing? I'm a dwarf. I'm running around. I can shoot holes in anything. It's great for six hours. Yeah. That's one of those that I keep wanting to go back to. It's like, hey, what do I want to do tonight?

I want to sit down and just chill with friends. What are you playing? Deep Rock? I'll play Deep Rock. Heck yeah, I'll play some Deep Rock Galactic with you guys. Let's do it. I can only dig Alien Eggs for so long, guys. Oh, yeah.

That game. I really did enjoy it the first few hours. The longevity, I definitely struggled with. All right, so we'll bump it up one. We'll bump it up above Among Us. We'll keep it below Deep Rock. yep that sounds good i'm sorry among us you've been ejected into space you are the imposter among us is the imposter in the top 20 the low 20s the high whatever never talk about this again i don't even know what numbers are at i'm not i'm not

updating the numbers as i go through but i I am shifting them in my spreadsheet here. So, you know, I don't know if we want to keep taking these in chunks of 10, or do you guys just want to start cherry-picking games, since we've got about 20 minutes left in the episode? What do you guys want to do? Let's just go with it. We can be quick. I only have a couple more highlighted that I have to talk about.

And if we start running long, I'll bring them up quickly. Okay. Yeah, I kind of feel like when we're in the middle of the leaderboard, it's almost to me like, I don't care. If it's anything in the 30s, they're all kind of the same. They're all good games. They're all fun. You should probably play them. You might love one more than the other, but they're all quality video games at that point.

It might also be fun if we go to the end at some point and say do the ends do the does the end of the list justify like is this game as bad as the other game like i can tell you guys the well hey that might be one of the things i want to talk about michael no okay i'll be quiet for a minute it's in the high low 60s i'm sorry the joke's getting old now i I can't say it anymore. So looking at the 30s here, I think these are games that are very good, but there might be something that's holding it back from being great. I know Josh would...

Oh, I'm going to bring it up. Josh and I, we each have our one pet game that the other one dogged horribly, which is why there's two games in the 30s that are a little bit bananas. All the rest. Oh, go ahead. One of them is Outer Wilds. Yes, 100%. What's the other one? The other

one is... There's a game here in the 30s I would possibly have at five or six. Not in the 30s. It's Raft. Raft is a great game by the way raft is very very good but it's not raft i didn't guess right no it's it's rim world wait i thought no it was stardew valley because remember you made me play stardew valley i made you play outer wilds and neither of us liked the game that the other person made us play yes although

stardew valley is in the is in the 20s so yeah i see what you're saying yeah so here in the 30s we've got killing floor 2 which is the first game that we ever played because of a legendary supporter shout out to jake uh below that we've got shovel knight raft vermin tied to outer wilds operation tango keep talking and nobody explodes i know that's a michael favorite love it a way out Shovel Knight, Raft, Vermintide 2, Outer Wilds, Operation Tango, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. I know that's a Michael favorite. Love it. A Way Out, Borderlands 3, and RimWorld. Dude, these are all fun games, man.

They're all just fun. They're all fun. They're all worth buying. Right. Like, Operation Tango, even that game. I remember us playing that. It's like what a four hour game. So I had fun playing it.

Like I remember it was like, Hey, that was a lot of fun. I, I will go back to the fact that I think vermin tied to is such an incredible four player multi or four person multiplayer experience that it is amazingly fun when you're playing it. I get that the wall is made out of titanium when you hit the wall. But when people ask, hey, what's a game that

I can play with my friends? Vermintide 2 is one of those ones that I almost always find myself recommending. So I feel like it should be higher, but i know that's probably not going to gain much traction i love vermintide 2 i think one of the problems is that i also really love left for dead 2 and these games are exactly the same and yes but what a difference two decades makes paul is is number 60 yeah because it didn't age much. It's so much lower. Yeah. But it's not just about age. It's a little bit age. It's a little bit just how great is it in general. Where would you put GoldenEye 007 if it was on this list?

Would it be at number 60 or would it be closer to top 20? Probably top 20, right? And it hasn't aged well. It probably was more in the 30s. I'm not throwing fuel on the fire, but top five, top 30, potato, potato. It's really all the same thing, right? I don't know why.

Maybe it's just that Vermintide 2 caught me off guard. But even with Back 4 Blood, which we did not deep dive, but if you read the general thought, it's like people are kind of disappointed with Back 4 Blood. They thought it was going to be better than it was. It doesn't have any kind of longevity to it. And that's the most recent Left 4 Dead formula. And yet Vermintide 2 still stands out to me as just, we had so much fun playing that game with friends. Does it have its place a little bit higher or not. And if not, that's fine. The criminal one here is outer wilds being at 34 outer wilds.

It should be a top 10 game. Oh, wow. You know, and Paul, what am I stepping into? Oh, Michael,

let me tell you. Okay. Pull up a chair, Michael, you got 20 minutes. Let me tell you how Paul slandered one of the best video games that's ever been made. One of the most video games that's ever been made. One of the most unique games that's ever been made.

One of the best exploration and plot games. And then he went, I don't like it. I keep having to do the same thing over and over again. And the stupid banjo music gets on my nerves. The banjo music was the least of my issues with that game. But that is true. The banjo really did the least of my issues with that game but that is true the banjo really did drive me wild uh yeah look outer wilds it's it's it's a very good six out of ten plot it's a pretty good six out of ten exploration

turning the knife every time it's a whole lot of six out of tens if i were to break it down into categories i liked it i just didn't care about the game all that much it's still i i barely consider it to be uh innovative in how it uses the time have you played outer wilds michael used no i still haven't played that one i I own it. I haven't played it. You should play that one. Man. So, okay. So getting back to Vermintide. So Vermintide, sure.

Let's bump it up. Let's take it above Raft. Do we want to take it above Shovel Knight? And do we want to take it above Killing Floor 2? I think it should be above Killing Floor 2. Like Killing Floor 2 was a lot of fun. It's mindless entertainment. But Vermintide 2, I feel like,

is just such a better game, especially for that four-person co-op. Killing Floor 2 has just got some bananas moments, which makes it stand out. But to me, Vermintide 2 is a better game. I think Killing Floor 2 is the better game, but I think that these two kind of belong to be placed next to each other okay michael based on based on what you've heard do you want a mindless uh killing zombies game or a mindless killing by the way paul keep your lore accurate sure i i would

like to abstain um from the vote you can't you gotta hold on okay so mindless killing zombies are mindless killing rats right melee combat versus shooting combat do the floor two is more shooting vermentide is more like third person well it isn't swords flails hammers i guess it's first person isn't it yeah i like the idea of playing with 10 of my friends so that that actually piques my interest so no that's tribes of midgard just kidding like killing floor 2 i think you could also play in that's right large group no that's right i think you could do six people and vermentide was the four people it's just like left for dead two or left for dead do the zombies run at you or do they kind of go and they want to like slowly move towards you they're like clowns they want to like slowly move towards you.

They're like clowns. They run. Clowns are terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. We're killing the clowns. Put that game higher. Okay. All right.

Michael has spoken. I'm just happy. We're moving vermin tied to up. What? Two, two spots, two spots. Yeah.

We bumped it above raft. I fought for those. I fought for those two spots. You had a battle. All right. I would be willing to fight for Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes if I played more of these games. I just think it's so unique.

If you're having... You could have 10 people over and one person has the headset on and they're playing that game or even can't see the screen if you deploy the non-VR version, which I hear that's out there. What a unique idea where it's like we're flipping through this manual. Like, I don't know. I liked that game so much.

I thought it was so unique. What a great thing. It's like a board game, but a video game. Loved it. It's super fun. We had so many good times playing that game. I think the only reason that we have it ranked so low is just because when you've played it a lot,

you don't want to play it anymore yeah no i get that do you guys know if they ever released any new manuals or is it still just the one i have no idea i think it's just the one that was what i always wanted was for them to release a new manual and just switch a bunch of stuff up because we played this so much i used to have like 10 of the manuals printed and Josh was involved in some of these where we would have friends come over. We'd put our laptop on the dinner table. The person with the bomb would sit on one side of the table. Everyone else is on the other side with a manual. And we just played it so much that it was just all down to like a very quick like we had uh short term not short term we had like shortcut names and descriptions for everything where we would just say like simple

wires and then it was literally just like green two blue four cut three and then it was like boom done and we were just going through it so fast that it was kind of like we need a new manual with new instructions because this is just too easy at this point but yeah what a fun group game we started kind of getting almost to the same spot after just a couple nights of playing it i know it gets harder like there's but the only parts that get harder is like oh there's more of these specific wire ones or you have less time or you don't get to mess up as much and so i can see where you're going with that like with the symbols the symbols were so easy we had we had a short hand name for all of them and all the symbols yeah but it was fun i think it's a good game if

like hey we're having a little get together let's just nobody's played this let's play it you know but if you were to play it exclusively for a while i could see it getting old real fast yeah i think it's a lot more fun than the 36th ranking implies but that's only based on longevity of the game i think that makes sense okay in that case then i'll give you that one it's really fun to bring in someone who has never played it before and give them the bomb oh yeah and it's so funny to see them flounder. Watching them scramble and try to explain everything. Yes. It's pretty great. And this is also a game that goes beyond just regular gamers. Josh, I know you used to play this with your parents.

I played it with my parents. Oh, absolutely. And they picked it right up and they thought it was fun. And then we played it like four or five times and then that was it. Yeah. This is that kind of game, though. You can bring in young game though you can bring in young kids you can bring in other relatives anyone can pick that game up it's i think everyone

understands the concept really well um but at the same time since michael is really big on it i'm really big on it do you guys want to bump it up or do we want to keep it at 36 i would be okay with moving it up the The question is where? Yeah, I'm not sure on this one because I haven't played the six games above it. So it's like, yeah, I have no reference there. I was going to say I could go anywhere between 30 and 36. I don't really care. I have a problem putting it above outer wilds and raft which i think

raft is great i would actually move raft up to be honest with you looking at it but i you know that that's another game that just sits really well with me over time it has updates we haven't played no exactly they just keep making it better so you just want to bump it up one then put it above operation tango yeah i think that's fine operation tango is very short-lived it was a lot They just keep making it better. You just want to bump it up one then? Put it above Operation Tango? Yeah, I think that's fine. Operation Tango is very short-lived. It was a lot of fun. I think that if we were going to say, hey, guys, let's all play a game, we would pick Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes nine times out of ten.

They're almost the same game, honestly. Except one, you run around inside the world and tell someone how to solve a puzzle as opposed to one person having a bomb they're actually pretty similar all right so perfect then we'll lock that one in uh any others to change here in the 30s no i think the rest looks i think that's pretty spot on okay so yeah with the uh last few minutes that we have left taking a look here at the 40s the 50s the 60s any here that stand out that you guys want to bump up or bump down i got one that i want to bump down but michael is there any that's jumping out at you have you had the uh misfortune to play any of these bottom ranked games. I played overcooked one and actually loved it. So I'm not sure what the difference is with overcooked two,

to be honest with you. Um, I, I played it though. Again, like the same thing. We were over to friend's house. No,

I played it. You know where I played over kicked one was that it was at a, um, a place in Dallas called nerd Vana. It's a nerd. Like you sit down at a table and there's a PlayStation at the table and you play a game with friends while you eat this really nice food that's

cooked by this really good chef. And Overcooked was the game and we played it and then we ended up going home and buying it on the PlayStation and playing it. But I'm just wondering what the take is that you guys disliked it so much aside from it's nerve-wracking. Did you start yelling at your friends and being like, I need hamburger buns! Josh, I need hamburger buns.

Josh, where's the buns? No, you're supposed to be doing dishes, Josh. You know what? Yeah. Now that I think about it, I don't ever want to touch that game again. My wife and I, my wife was like, calm down. And I'm like, no, I need you to do your job. I bought Overcooked 2 for my family on the Switch or old PlayStation or something. I can't remember what. I think it was on the Switch maybe. Andstation or something i can't remember what i think it was on the switch maybe and they played it with me twice and then my family was like yeah dad we don't like that game it stresses us out yeah now sea of thieves did you guys play that early on or later on because i heard it got a lot better uh it is a lot better than our rating would imply and i've tried twice now to move it up and I get shot down both times.

See, Hood, sorry, not Hood, Sea of Thieves is very low because for me, it was like so far dead last. It's not even funny where Josh enjoyed it. And Overcooked 2 is the exact opposite. I enjoy Overcooked 2. I beat it with Todd. We played it online together. We also played a lot of Overcooked 1. I enjoy those games quite a bit. Josh, it was by far the worst at the time on the leaderboard. So Overcooked 2 was the lowest game on the leaderboard for quite a while. But that's why. It's just that one of us really hates each of those two games. That makes sense. Kind of just yanking it all the way down to the bottom. But yeah, Sea of Thieves, my biggest issue was

there was no real point in doing anything. You just found a treasure chest, you brought it back, and then there was nothing to do with your money other than to buy more missions, which were just to get treasure chests and turn them in for more quests. I've never seen a better video game that was ruined by the fact that there was zero progression in that game other than cosmetics, which Paul and I have said we could care less about cosmetics.

You might be different, Michael, but skins and stuff like that just don't do it for me. And I know they don't do it for Paul. And in Sea in sea of thieves all of that work is to just simply get a better sail for your boat or cooler looking cannons but the cannons don't do anything different they're still the same cannons they just have gold trim around them now and so that i think is what really ruined it kind of for both of us i'm much higher on it than paul is but i you know i i get that there's this just fatal flaw to sea of thieves yeah i did enjoy the arena mode or whatever that one was called combat's great yeah but that was also my biggest issue is on your normal maps there was a built-in cap of either three or four ships at once so you could play for hours and never see another ship

right yeah yeah and i see i love cosmetics personally but it has to matter for instance in lost ark i am already like i need to achieve this on this continent to get this cosmetic skin for my character because i love it but it's because i'm progressing and i want that character to have something cool as i play the game and continue to play it. Sea of Thieves is the same thing. I like progression. Being a natural RPG player or action invention player or even an MMO player at heart, progression is the name of the game. And that's what I didn't like about it too. But I also just kind of thought it was fun to just go in there sometimes and just pirate it up. Let's go go let's go kill these guys on this other boat but you're right though i didn't play the arena mode and so it kind of became like

where it's just we're looking for someone to go and fight with and there's no one around so we're just gonna go get this treasure chest that doesn't matter from an npc that doesn't progress you and doesn't matter yeah so i see it even when they added the tall tales, so they added these really cool treasure hunts where they were multi, multi-step. It would take two hours to get through. And maybe you'd have to fight. Maybe you'd have to solve puzzles. You'd have to go explore, follow these clues, whatever. Even those, at the end, it's like, ta-da! You got this amazing treasure chest and then you go okay cool what do i do with that oh well you you you hand it in and then you get gold that you can buy cosmetics

with and that's where it was just like oh like come on man right and those were also just longer quests but it was the same quests it wasn't like it was anything different it was still here's a treasure map go dig up where x marks the spot it was kind of like just the same things it was just like step two step two step two step three step four and then just you repeat the exact same concepts for the next step so what i'm hearing on this is we're not moving sea of thieves up any um do you guys want to move it up i do i would how high i would move it probably above like human fall flat because i don't think i can get any higher than that but i've been trying for two episodes to try to get sea of thieves moved up i i would struggle putting it above left for dead too but i'd be fine with

jumping over halo reach pub g and the forest i'll take anything i can get at this point paul michael do you have any feelings on that knowing that you've played pub g no i didn't see if thieves above it i i think so just because i i think i have more fun with sea of thieves but that's just my personal bias as being really, really remarkably terrible at shooters. Yeah, I hear you. Sea of Thieves is a really great concept. I'm still kind of waiting for the right multiplayer pirate game. Skull and Bones.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Hopefully. A lot of hype for a long time, Josh. We'll see. Oh, man. I jinxed it again.

When's the Black Wake deep dive? Oh, goodness. All right. So we're moving it up above PUBG? We'll move it up above PUBG and above the forest, right? Yes. I think that's good. Okay.

So I have to bring up this one game because Michael technically brought up Sea of Thieves. So that's true. I fell on that grenade for you. Thank you. Even though we only moved it up a couple. I'll take it. So here's the thing. The cycle is on our list, but the cycle does not exist. What do you mean? I vote that we either remove the cycle or we say, can we have like an addendum to the leaderboard that says the cycle removed until further notice?

You could almost split it and put the cycle version 1.0, which would be somewhere in the top 20. It would, yeah, easily. And then you can have version 2.0, which is going to be like in the top 20 it would yeah easily and then you can have version 2.0 which is gonna be like in the bottom 10 what happened to this game oh it completely got retooled so it's a blend of pve and pvp it is where four squads go well not anymore it used to be four squads would go against each other and you would earn victory points by completing PvE tasks. But you would also get points if you killed an enemy player. And if you got killed once, you would respawn.

But if you got killed a second time, you were donezo. Well, then later they added a battery. So if you went back and found your battery, you could die again. That's when the game started to fall apart. But then you had to evacuate. When a timer would end end you'd have to be ready to evacuate off of a ship so you would always do a lot of pve mixed with a little pvp in the early stage and at the end it was a huge brawl to try to fight and kill people before

getting off on the ship and now it's just escape from tarkov They retooled it where you just go in solo. If you die, you lose all of your items. Your goal is to walk around in stealth and be quiet and gather mats and then leave and buy more equipment. It's kind of like Tarkov, but it looks like Sea of Thieves. It's very weird. It does not make any sense. If you want a tough-as-nails game based on progression like that, Tarkov does it great. I feel like the cycle, it doesn't have the right aesthetic and it just does all of it

worse than Tarkov. I don't understand why it exists the way it does today. We absolutely loved the cycle when it was in its original format. It just didn't catch on. The game was phenomenal. We had so many good good times playing that we were really good at it too maybe that's because it had a small player base but there were 60 of us that would keep seeing each other in the next match and we would know oh no it's xo they're probably

gonna wipe us out we're playing for second but then like yeah yeah it was really interesting so they they tried to change the game and then they changed it and more people left and then they changed it again and more people left and then they finally went we better just reinvent this game and so the cycle is not anything that it was back in its glory days so i don't know paul i don't know how we handle a game that when we reviewed it was phenomenal but then got ruined and isn't even out now like the bait they're still beta testing it so yeah it's it's gone from something like 6 to 20 to 35 down to 51 like it just keeps falling uh i think you just have to base the game on what it is now like look at um

but it's we don't know what it's like no man's sky i know but we don't know like what if we what if the beta what if they do another beta and we play it and we're like dude that was actually really fun i played the beta it sucks did you i see i didn't get to play the beta you can always bump it back up i guess that's true it gets good i mean my thought on that is if someone's listening to the show and we say multiplayerpodcast.com and they go look at the list like this game is highly recommended i'm gonna go buy it i'm gonna play it they play it and it's the new cycle it needs to be down at the bottom because it's terrible right so i think it makes sense to keep it down here because the game does exist in some form and it's terrible so it needs to stay in terrible land yeah that's true

it's just sad because it used to be so good but we said at the time we don't blame the developers because nobody played it like they had to change something it just i it completely lost us in in those changes i think it needs to go down and I think it needs to drop a lot. I would put it near the bottom, man. If you want to play a game like this, wouldn't, wouldn't you rather play Tarkov?

I don't know, dude, I don't like Tarkov. I don't either, but I might actually, I might actually like the cycles new iteration better than Tarkov, to be honest, just because of the world.

And you still get a little bit of the movement mechanics and stuff like that so if we're going to say they're the same i think i like the aesthetic of the cycle and and like the fact that it's on another planet and you kind of have that prospector from space vibe you know versus like the oh i'm a scab soldier guy in a very dark, dingy area where I can't see anybody, and then he shoots me from the corner or the trees. Or Todd shoots you when you say, don't shoot me. I'm at the checkout line. Yes.

And then Todd kills you anywhere. And guns me down. Yeah. Okay. So keep the cycle one above Tarkov, and we're going to drop it below Valorant. Yeah, let's do that. We probably should split Valorant and escape from Tarkov anyway, because there's people that love both of those games that hate us because of our takes on those.

There are people in our Discord that still on the regular post about Valorant. Yeah. And we just could not care less. I know. I'm like, all right, enjoy your sweaty try hard game that's free all right well we are basically out of time any other games that you guys wanted to very quickly nominate to move or do we feel pretty good about it now did you guys play star wars squadrons in vr and regular uh regular i did try it in vr or twice, and it was cool, but it wasn't what we played when we did the show.

Yeah. It's just kind of one of those things where it's like, I liked it in the VR sense because it was cool to be in an X-Wing in VR. But overall, I did love the game. Right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And that was cool to be able to turn and look around and be like, dude, what the inside of a tie fighter looks like this is super cool but man that game just wore out real quick yeah that's what i thought i played it for probably maybe like six or eight hours and then i just i kept going i mean to go back to it and just never did because i'm like that's basically it

yep the the matches were super lopsided it was You couldn't really carry your team. It would snowball a little bit to where it was really, really hard to make a difference and come back. I don't know. That's one of those games where I had the highest of hopes for it, and it was okay. It wasn't bad, but it just didn't stick. I would say it's a fun VR experience

that's not really worth the 60 bucks that it's probably still priced at. And so it's like, you know, go play Elite Dangerous instead. Well, they were giving it away for free on what was it, Epic Game Store or Amazon Prime Gaming or something at that point. Yeah, I don't know how much that game

is still alive, to be honest. Yeah, it also just didn't lend well to teamwork because as soon as anyone was on you you'd have to start whipping around 360 degrees and it was hard to like stay together as a unit it wasn't like in the star wars movies where it's like i got this guy on my tail all right i'll take him out for you like you couldn't really do that because you couldn't track anything that fast so it was really easy to lose your teammates it just didn't it was missing that it factor yep yeah it totally makes sense yeah all right well that's all we have time for

here today so once again if you want to see our full leaderboard go to multiplayerpodcast.com just scroll down a little bit on the main page and you'll see it all right there and um this is good i think we should take a look at updating our leaderboard at least like once a year i think this is only the second time maybe the third time total that we've updated it but periodically we'll we'll do this again in the future especially as we play more games and jump back into them and you know kind of figure those out so any any closing remarks any closing thoughts from you guys it's been a lot of fun to play all of these games for the most part. Even the bad ones, it's been interesting to be able to play these, talk about them to our listeners.

We would not have reviewed 66 games if it wasn't for this podcast and for the people that are listening to the podcast right now. So it's one of those things like I'm very grateful for the ability to do this and to have so much support from the listeners and the fans of the show to be able to chat video games with two of my best friends. It's an awesome experience. We get that not everybody is going to agree with the leaderboard. We don't always agree with the leaderboard we don't always agree with the leaderboard and that's kind of the fun of it exactly all right well we will be back with our next episode on thursday where we cover this week in gaming and we'll see you guys then see

you on thursday all right see everybody bye guys you