Video Gamers Podcast - Total Rating Recall – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and Ace are putting their memories to the test in this nostalgia-fueled episode of the Video Gamers Podcast. Instead of replaying old favorites, they’re diving headfirst into gaming history and attempting to rate recent titles purely from memory. How accurate are their takes? Has time made these video games better than they actually were, or is nostalgia clouding their judgment? From unforgettable boss fights to mechanics they swear were revolutionary, the guys debate what still holds up in today’s gaming landscape and what might deserve a lower score on a modern scale. It’s a fun, chaotic look at how we remember video games versus how they might actually play today. If you love bold opinions, questionable recall, and passionate arguments about gaming, this is one episode you won’t want to miss!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, and Dettmarp   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers podcast. How much does recency bias come into play when you think about a game? Hell Divers too took over the world, but over a year later, would you still rate it the same? Well, on today's episode, we're testing that theory out. We'll be rating games from memory and then seeing where we rated them fresh off of playing. How far off will we be and will some games get better? or worse with time. Well, we're about to find out, but first, some introductions are in order.

I am your host, Josh, and joining me, I initially rated him a seven out of ten, but years later, he's a perfect seven and a half. It's Ryan. I'm going up, baby. I'm going up, bup, up. Oh, God. We're going to get copyrighted now. Copyrighted.

And joining us, he's only rated three AAA titles in his professional career, and he gave one a 10 out of 10? This guy loves AAA Studios, apparently. It's ace. I gave one a 10 out of 10. When did I do that? Red Dead Red Dead Red Dead Red Dead Redemption 2. Oh, okay. Well, that's the obvious.

Okay. No, that's a 10 out of time. You forgot about it. It's not that obvious. Was it? Yeah, I know. Well, here's the thing. I'm kind of loosey-goosey sometimes, so I couldn't remember.

Ace just throwing out tens to all the AAA studios out there. I don't give them, man. Tends mean nothing if you just get him out willy-nilly. That's fair. Guys, this is going to be a really fun episode. I have a feeling that we may end up looking like idiots when we throw out a rating for a game that we played a while back, and then it's so far off what we were like,

who those games amazing, man, like we just got off a play in it. It's like, it's totally a nine. And then now we're like, uh, like a seven, eight. Like, you know, so that, that is what we're doing on this episode. You know, this is something that all gamers do, right? And this is kind of why we're putting ourselves to the test on this to see when you first play a game and you are fresh off of that game. You know, do you rate it higher or lower if it's, if a game is frustrating and it's like, dang it, man, this game really irked me. Do you, you know, do you slam it a little bit more on the rating?

But then over time, you go, you know, that wasn't that bad. You know, and then your rating goes up. Or is it recency bias where it's like, oh, we just had so much fun. But then in hindsight, it's like, yeah, the game was good. But it wasn't like everything. And so I am very curious to see how this goes. I'm going to give a huge shout out to Jigglepuff, who is one of our awesome community members, longtime listener of the show.

And now partial historian for the podcast. Our curator. Yeah. Jiggle Puff was like, bro, I got you. He found all of the ratings and put them together in this really awesome Google Doc where I cannot see the answers until I actually click and change the color of the cells on this one. So this is going to be really cool. We are going to guess what our rating was or how we would rate it today. And then I will actually reveal the ratings and we'll do it like that.

Ace, there are a couple games where you did not give an actual full rating. but Jiggle even went so far as to pull up some comments that you had on this as well. Oh, gosh. Yeah. And so this is going to be fun, man. I'm really, really looking forward to this. Going the extra mile. I love it.

But Ryan, before we get started, I do believe you have a new review for us to read. I do. And as always, we love the reviews. They really mean a lot to us. Every single one we read and we try to read them all on the show. This one is from Mr. Tussler, titled Absolute Cinema Gents. Love it, five-star review.

And it goes as, you guys are so funny. And I love this pod. Five-star-a-moji, star-moji, star-moji, star-moji, star-moji, star-moji. Also, Halo or COD, campaign-wise. Oh, that's an easy answer, Halo. Absolutely. And Halo's campaigns are legendary, man. Legendary. Call of Duty.

I don't know that I've played a Call of Duty. Oh, no, I have. Actually, I have. I played a couple of Call of Duty ones. I take that back. Okay, so that right there tells you I had to think about whether I had played Call of Duty campaign. Less one. And Halo, that's an easy answer there.

Yep. Absolutely. Thank you for the review. Hey, if you have not left us a review yet, we are only a few reviews away from 900 reviews on Apple podcast. So please take a second to go over there and review the show. there's a good chance we'll read it on an episode as well. And if you haven't rated us on Spotify, hey, we are darn close to 2,000 ratings on Spotify as well.

So if you haven't done so, please take a second to tap that five-star rating there and help us get to that 2000 mark. Guys, are y'all ready? I'm scared. Are you all ready? I'm scared too. Okay.

Hold me. Here's what I'm going to, I'm going to just give the list of games right up front. Okay, so people know what games we're going to be talking about. All right. So here's the games that we have to go back and rate, and then we're going to see what we rated them. We did deep dives on all of these games, by the way. Blackmuth Wukong, Space Marine 2.

Game of the Year runner-up, death loop. Split fiction. Blueprints, hot game from last year. Night Rain, Eldon Ring Night Rain. Minecraft from, our infamous Minecraft episode. I know there's a ton of people out there going 10 out of turn.

Jet out of 10. Peak gaming. Subnautica, Diablo 4, and Deep Rock Galactic guys. So we've got a mix of some indie games in here, some AAA titles, kind of games of all genres as well.

All right. Ace, let's start with you. Oh, no. Always in the hot seat. All right. Black Miss Wukong ace. Very good Soulslike, really took the world by Storm.

Everybody was super hyped for this game. I don't think it disappointed. What do you think you rated Black Myth Wukong? Or I guess what a better question is, what would you rate it from memory? What would you rate this game looking back at it right now? From memory, I remember playing a lot of Blackmuth Wukong. In fact, I played like through every optional boss.

I beat the game like before. anyone else in our server had. So I was like, man, this game is great. Even then I did have my issues with it. So probably like a 9-4, I think, is what I would rate it. 9-4 for Blackmuth Wukong? Yeah. Just to prove that I didn't cheat, you actually didn't officially rate this because

we covered this one with Paul. And so Paul rated this. Paul-law-Rated it a 9-7. So, A.S., you were very close to Paul's rating on this one. I am a little bit lower than him. And Paul even said, I don't know about this one, but this is a little crazy talk in my opinion. But Paul rated at 9-7 and his comment was this

to me is so much better than even God of War Ragnarok. This is by far the best game I've played this year. Wow. Wow. You gave it a 9-4 from memory. Paul rated a 9-7. All right, Ryan. Now, you did cover this game with us. I did.

And I remember that... And I know you're rating on this one and I want to see what you would rate it now. Yeah, I remember that I liked it, but I didn't think that it was, I was nowhere near as high as Paul was. I think you and I might have been kind of similar with our rating, but

I'm going to go... Oh my gosh, this is hard. I'm going to go with like an 8-5. 8-5? Yeah. That's what you would rate it from memory? Yeah, from memory, yeah. Because I liked it, but I knew it was good. I think that everything

about it was... I just didn't really have that it factor to like take it up the level, but I thought it was a really quality game. So... Okay. Well, here's your comment on the game before I reveal your school. your comment was it's not really my style of game, but the combat and spells are what really tipped it over for me. And you rated it an 8.3.

Oh, you were darn close. You were close, man. You were close. Darn close on that. I don't like this guy's. Like, I just realized it's my turn to, man. You're like trying to rewind your brain and like, wait, what did I say? What did I think?

You know, and it's like, I do remember loving the graphics. and loving the combat. I will say the one thing that I remember standing out to me the most on this is that I felt like I had to hit like most of the creatures like a thousand times to do damage

and so some of the fights felt a little bit more drawn out than they should have felt. I do remember really liking the game. I think I rated this like an 8.7. So that's my guess. Let's see. Oh my gosh.

I did it. Eight points. On the money. Oh, wow. And I promise you guys, like I said, like I said, I didn't know A's didn't rate this game. And then I was like, well, this is a weird start to this episode. I'm not looking, guys. I swear.

I'm not looking at all. I promise. I'm not cheating because that would make this way more boring for me just being right all the time. And my comment on this was I'm starting to enjoy it more now at 24 hours in than I was at the beginning. I've got my head wrapped around the combat, but the game does have a few flaws for me as well, especially with boss fights requiring getting 30 hits in without not without getting hit more than four times. So that was, and that's why I say that still to my memory stands out to me that it's like, I have to hit these suckers a thousand times and I can't take four hits before I'm dead.

And that to me felt a little drawn out and kind of exaggerated. They were all so spongy. And even even when you use their alts and your other stuff or whatever to like make special attacks. But yeah, that's what makes it worth it though to persevere the fights. I'm very much looking forward to the sequel. I guarantee you I'm not going to get on these other ones. That's right. All right.

Well, I'll tell you what, we'll just do a little bit of a jump around here. I'll go next on this next one. Space Marine 2. Incredibly visual, visually impressive, a really good, like Warhammer 40K. This game we were super excited for. I don't remember saying a lot of bad things about Space Marine 2, other than that the weapons felt very sameish. Like I never felt like I got that weapon that I was just in love with. But I feel like overall this was a legit, like really good game.

I am going to say an 8.8. Did I like Space Marine 2 more than Blackmouth? This one, I have no idea what this is. I'm going to say 8.8. I think you're going to be pretty spot on, dude. I think it's, I'm locking it in. Okay. And my comment was, this is the range of game score where the games are fun, but are just too shallow.

If you want to have a good time and have a couple of those draw-jopping moments, this is it. And I rated it in 8.6. Ah. Okay. So not bad. But to be fair, these are two of the more semi-recent games that we've covered as well on these. So the memory is still fresh on those. All right, Ryan, what do you think you rated Space Marine 2?

I'm trying to think if I was a little higher on it than you were back then. Because I know we played some and I genuinely did enjoy my time. I loved the weight of the world in that game. And I loved the, what was it, the new dynamic that they had with like the swarm technology or whatever. Yeah, the swarm tech, which we're going to see in Toxic Commando. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which was so cool. And it was really neat thing to see in a video game. So I'm going to say, I don't think I was on the nine.

So I'm going to go with you with the 8-8. 8? Yeah, I think I was got to be somewhere around there. Your comment on Space Marine 2 was graphically beautiful, breathtaking. The combat was great, and playing co-op or in a group was what really saved it for me. And you rated it in 8.9. Oh, you were right. We're not far off, guys.

So far so good. Ace, you did not play Space Marine 2. Not with y'all. Too much. Did you play it? I did play it. Oh, I didn't know you played Space Marine 2. Okay.

Yeah, I played. We don't. I found it to be in the nice. his words, bare bones and shallow, because the campaign was very short. There wasn't very much weapon variety. There wasn't a lot of game modes outside of that when I played it. Now they've added a ton of stuff. For the emperor!

Yeah, I'm also not super in the space Marines. I'd probably give it a 7-4, honestly. 7-4? Ooh, Ace. Okay. Hey, clip that. Ace can't be bought with flashy graphics like Ryan and I can, man. Oh, yeah.

Like, Ryan and I are like, I can't eat. Pretty. Oh. Yeah. You guys are too bought by like metallic metal and reflective surfaces. Hey, I like shiny things. Okay.

All right. All right. Now, here's one I know all three of us played. And I feel like this one's going to be, this one is a divisive game. Divisive, divisive? I think both count.

Yeah, there you go. Because there are a lot of people that thought this game deserved all of the nominations that it got for game of the year. And then there were other people that played it and went, this game's kind of duky, man. And that is Death Loop. So, Ace, we're going to start with you on this one. Of course we are.

Of course we're going to start with that. We're going to start with you. What would you rate Death Loop? Now, you didn't officially deep dive this because this was before you were on the show. This was ages ago. Oh, gosh. I know you played it. So what would, in your mind, what is your rating for Death Loop?

Death Loop came from Arcane, which was the studio that brought us dishonored. So I had high hopes for it. However. However, comma. I found Death Loop incredibly repetitive and boring. I'd give it like a four. That's the word, dude.

A four? Boring. I hated Death Loop. I hated it. A four. Okay. All right. Ryan. What do you think you rated Death Loop? Ace hit the head, the nail on the head there with the boring.

Like, that's exactly what I remember it being. I was very excited for that game. I thought it was going to be a cool premise and a good kind of setup. And I just was so. so let down and I was just like, why? And I just kept waiting for it to get good and it just didn't get good. So, um, uh, trying to think back. Man, I think I was a little down. So it wasn't, you know, it played well. It just wasn't a good game. So I would say probably in the low sixes. Let's say six three. That's six three. Okay. Uh, now, Ryan, you did rate this game, but you were not

officially on the episode. So I think you were playing it in the background with us or something like that. I had played it before. Yeah, your rating was a 5.9. So you're not that far off. And you even said low sixes. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Ryan's got some love for Death Loop apparently.

Apparently. He went up. I mean, a five, a five nine is pretty darn low, guys. That is not a good game score. I know, here's what I remember about Death Loop. I remember being like you, a super duper excited for this game thinking this is going to be the most amazing play it how you want, approach the situations how you want, like the, like the, like

the, like, you know, Arcane Studios does. But then I just remember being massively disappointed with this game, dude. It presents well, but I just remember not liking it. I am, I don't know that I slammed it, though, because I appreciated that there was a good game there. I'm going to, I'm going to say from, I would rate Death Loop like a, like a six, eight. I almost wanted to give it a seven, but I'm going to say six eight. That's so high. Yeah.

Is it? This game is a chore. Like, genuinely. Here's my comment. I said, I think it's fine. I think it's fun. But I would only recommend it near the $30 to $40 price point. And I rated it a $7.2.

So in my memory, death loop is worse than what I actually rated it fresh off of playing. And this is why I love this episode. Because in my mind, death loop is garbage, right? Like, death loop, like, it's all I remember. We played this game. What year was that? Was this 2020? That was 2020, I believe, or 2021.

I think it was 2020 because that's the year that it takes 2-1 instead, right? So I think it was 2020, somewhere right around there. And so six years later, my opinion of Death Loop has gotten worse over time, where it's like, no, no, that's like a 6-8, you know. But at the time, I guess I was trying to be nice to it. And I said 7-2. So. 20-21.

Paid streamer for sure. I will say this. Paul did rate this one. And since Jiggles got this in here, Paul said the biggest thing I grew tired of was the same parts of town a little bit too repetitive. The first few hours were really exciting and pulled me in, but it got old quick. And Paul rated it a six four.

So I mean, across the board, none of the four, you know, including Paul of us gamers, really thought Death Loop was that good, man. And I definitely didn't deserve those nominations. Yeah,

that loved it. So, all right, we'll do one more and then we'll take a quick break here. This one's a little bit more recent. I'm just going to jump around, Ryan. We're going to start with you on this one.

And that is split, fiction. Oh, okay. So I know we all thought favorably of split fiction in my mind. I think about this game fondly. I don't actually remember when I rated it. So Ryan, I mean, from memory, how do you rate split fiction? Knowing that I got a little neighborhood kid that's playing with my son. He's nine, and I think his buddy Dean is also around nine. And they're playing. He's a fantasy. Tolkienhead They love fantasy worlds And then my son loves space and all this thing So melding it together

I'm like buddy you got to play split fiction And they sat them down together And watching them play Reminded me just how awesome this game is And how much I loved it I want to say that I thought it was really really good There were some things that would change

But it was definitely in the low to mid-nines for me So I'm going to say nine three Nine three Yeah Your comment on this was Which is a high score for me That is high. You are a little tight with your scores. You kind of, I will say, like, you tend to like games a little bit more when they're not as good.

Like, you know, you're a little bit more generous to, like, bad games, but you're tougher on the really good games. So, like, you have this, like, narrow window to me of, like, how Ryan would rate things. Here's your comment on split fiction, though. You said there's not too much to pick on for this game. It was just so dang good. Yeah. And you rated it a 9-5. Oh.

So you actually, your memory has gotten a little bit more sour on split fiction. I guess. Yeah. I don't know. I'm too generous. I mean, you're still super close. Point two. Point two.

I think it's just that you're easily entertained, Ryan. This is true. It's like, Ryan's like, I was entertained. It's a seven or an eight. Oh, you're not entertained? Yes. Yes, I am. I am.

Yeah. Ooh, pretty. Ace. What? Yeah. How would you rate split fiction? I know you played it. I did play it.

after we did the deep dive, you played it with your spouse. So you don't have an official rating, but from memory, how would you rate split fiction? I remember really enjoying split fiction. I'd played most of the games that come from this developer

with my spouse on the couch. I think that's the best way, honestly, to play it. It's just right next to someone else. If they throw you off a cliff, you could just hit on them and hit on. Yep, yep. But I think it's a 8-9 for me,

honestly. 8-9? Yeah, I really enjoyed it. That's honestly a good and fair rating. I really enjoyed split fiction. My memory of split fiction is nothing but fun and good gameplay and amazing levels and stuff like that. I am going to say from memory,

if I had to rate it right now, I'm going to rate it a 9-5 as well. Like there's just not much to not like about split fiction. The star level. That was cool. That was cool. The fun. The co-op nature of it and all the fun

and relying on your teammate and all that was incredible. I like the pig level. I don't have a rating on this one, apparently. I have a comment. Wait, what? What's going on here? Josh, did you forget to rate to the game? No.

Whoops. Okay. Well, all we have is my comment on this one. It is the end level on this game is truly one of the best end levels I've ever seen in a video game. In my opinion, this is an absolute must-play game, which means it's got to be a 95, guys. That sounds like a 9-5, yeah. Well, we'll take it a 9-5. Well done, Josh.

Well done. Spot on. Yeah, yeah. Nailed it, boys. All the money. All the money. Awesome. This is proof that I didn't cheat and look at these because otherwise I'd have been like, wait, I'm missing a score on this one.

So there you go. All right, listen, we've got a bunch more games. We're going to have to speed this up a little bit. We're going to do that right after this break. All right. We're back, guys. Next game up. This one.

Man, this one, I know this one, this one hit on different levels. Blueprints. Ace, I'm just going to start with. you because I know you hated this game. I know you hated Blue Prince. I did not like Blue Prince. You hated this gay so much. I did not. I did not like Blueprints.

Part of that's like just my own impatience with it and it felt like it was mocking me a lot of the time. I was like I hate you game. I hate you. Why do I have to keep opening you and playing you? When I joined this podcast? Puzzles. Wee!

I think if I rated Blueprints higher than a 6-8, I would be surprised. Okay, so that's your rating from memory. Yeah, yeah. Well, Ace, you apparently like Blueprints more than you think. Oh, it's a lot higher now than you did back then. You rated it a six on the time. Oh, okay. So I've got higher on Blueprints. You have. And you said, I felt like it wasn't getting enough progression, even though I was getting permanent progression rooms. And so, you know, before you know, it, Ace is going to be like, Blueprints? Yeah, that's an eight, man. That's an eight for me. Just three years down the way. I think I was just bullied into liking it more

than I do. Because people are like, how can you not like Blueprint? Okay, okay. Yeah, it's pretty good. All right. It's pretty good. Okay.

I'll give you back your points. Okay. So I'm going to go next on this one, guys. And here's the thing. At the time, I remember going like, I can appreciate what this game is. I like puzzle games.

It's presented well. The internet's losing its mind over it. I remember being very excited when we found out about this game. But my memory is not so nice about the game. Uh-huh. the game in hindsight on this one. So I, if I'm rating it

truthfully today on what I think the game is, I'm going to say I think it's like a 7.8. I have a feeling I rated it a lot higher at the time. So let's see. I did. Yeah. So I said 7.8. Here's my comment. I said all the negative

things. I do think this game is unique. It is a very good puzzle game. And if you're in the mood for a puzzle game, then blueprints will definitely scratch that it. You just have to be willing to put up with the frustration of it. And even with that, I rated it in 8.5. Wow. So it is souring to me over time, which, you know, that's telling, man.

Yeah. Some games we remember the frustration. Other games, we remember the joy. And apparently to me, I remember more of the frustration of Blueprints than I do the good times on that one. Well, I mean, just look back at what, when we were looking at the nominees for indie game of the year, Blue Prince was up there. We were just like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

All right, Ryan. What do you think you rated Blueprints? Oh, man. This is a hard one because I have different memories of it, like between good interactions and bad. I have a feeling at the time I might have been like you where I rated it a little bit higher. I might have been in a low eights.

But what I would rate it now is probably the high sevens. So like a high to mid, let's just say like a seven five. Seven five? Yeah, seven five. Your comment Your comment on blueprints was I do like that there was a little bit of story to guide you along.

The story, music, and setting were good at keeping you in the mindset, but the RNG was a little frustrating. You rated it in 8.3. Really? Okay. Both of us have soured on blueprints. Ace love blueprints.

I probably like it slightly more. Ace love is a very strong word, sir. Definitely not love. All right. Well, here's the game I know all three of us played together a lot. and that is Eldon Ring Night Rain. And this is a different style game.

Co-op. It's Eldon Ring. It was combat. We had a lot of fun with this. Ryan, I'm going to go straight back to you on this one. Your first foray into the Eldon Ring lands. What do you think you rated Night Rain? I had so much fun with this game, especially because we got to play together.

We got to stream it. It was just overall an awesome experience. I think it's instantly an 8-5 plus, but I'm just trying to think of where I put it, because I don't think it was like way up there in the nines or anything like that. But I'm going to say like an 8-9. 8-9 for you? 8-9. 8-9.

It may be a 9-1 that's what I did in the moment. But like I'm going to go with 8-9 right now. Okay. So your comment on this was right off the bat, I freaking loved this game. It's the first game in a long time that I've thought I need to make time for this game. I was very upset with how detrimental the R&G could be to a run, though. and you rated it in 8.7. Oh, that's close.

Very close. But again, more favorable in hindsight from memory than you were at the time of playing the game. It's a fun game, man. It's fun. They have a DLC now.

Yeah, there's DLC now. Yeah, they do. All right, Ace, what do you think, or how would you rate Night Rain? I remember having an absolute blast with Night Rain. And as someone who already loved Eldon Ring in general and all of Frumsoft, like it was easy sell for me.

I remember our stream. were a ton of fun. Yep, yep. I'm going to say I rated it a 9-3. 9-3. Ooh, that's up there, man. I think so. Getting into the low to mid-nines.

Yeah. Your comment was, as a man who loves rogue likes, Eldon Ring Night Rain was just a blast. That being said, it's not going to beat the original Eldon Ring experience, and you rated it an 8.9.

Oh, okay. So we both, yeah, so you have a little more favorable on it. memory of Night Rain than you did from fresh off of playing it at the time. That's insane. Isn't that crazy how this is so cool? This is so neat to say. It is really, it is fun, man, because it's neat to see, like, and again, I think we're really close on a lot of these, which is good. I like seeing that we're not just all over the place because it means we do have some consistency in how we rate games and how we think about them later on. But it is neat to see that, like, in your mind, Eldon Ring is more

favorable from memory than it was right off of playing it, you know? Yeah. All right. For me, I Remember liking Night Rain. I do not think it's like the best co-op game, but I do remember having a lot of fun with you guys on it. I do remember having some frustrations with the, I hate R&G in games. My belief is that I probably rated this. Like I'm,

I kind of like what Ryan said. Like it's got to be over an 8.5. I'm going to jump in and just say 8,8. It might be, my brain wants to say 8,5, but I'm going to say 88 just because Night Rain is. a good game. Dang it.

Dang it. I rated it in 85. I should have left with it. Oh, why? Three points away. So close. Dang it.

Okay, so I did officially rated in 8.5. I was the lowest out of the three of us on this. And I said this game epitomizes the one more round idea. I would like better progression. That's not to take anything away from the game. It's fantastic.

But you're better off just playing elder ring with your buddies. So, I still want to do that too. I was, I'm just, look, my brain kept telling me 8.5 and so I think I nailed it. Even though I gave it an 8 8, I guess I think about Night Rain a little bit higher from memory than I did right off of playing it. It's good to see we all do though. Yeah.

That's kind of nice. Yeah. All right, guys, I'm scared on this one, dude. This is the one that I'm most scared of. The internet's going to rip us apart on this one. We're talking Minecraft that everybody in the world wanted us to review Minecraft. We finally did it. We got ripped apart on social media.

One of our highest performing reels ever of us trashing the Minecraft movie. I got my first death threat. Oh, Ace, yeah. Ace may have gotten a death threat out of that. So, Ace, let's start with you on this. No, you know what? I'll be brave. You want to be the brave one.

I'm going to be the brave one. Dang it. I think, I, we're always honest. We're always honest. And it's one of those where it's like, I think we were trying to be fair to Minecraft. I think we probably went, hey, you know, we know how iconic this game is, but if we're rating it from, you know, a gameplay, just a game perspective, I'm going to say I rated this game like an eight two. So that's my official answer. Okay.

Well, this is the Minecraft effect here, boys. Here was my, oh, my gosh. Oh no. Oh, no. Here we go. Oh, no. Okay. Well, here's my comment. There's just no surprises in Minecraft. Valheim has new biomes, things you can craft start popping up on your screen. Minecraft has this massive world, but where's the surprise? That was the quote that got us in the most trouble. I rated Minecraft a seven. Yeah. Oh. I did. I did. Which that's fair. That's a very fair story. I think that's fair. But here's the thing. From memory, from going, how would I rate it?

My brain tells me Minecraft is beloved. It's a beloved game. And I gave it a full one point, two points higher than I felt after playing it right off the deep dive. And I think that's why I say. That's the Minecraft effect, man. I think you hear Minecraft and people go, ooh. And apparently my brain goes, ooh. And then it's like, no, because when I was playing it, it's just a, it's just, it's a seven.

Don't hate me, people. I'm sorry. But also, I really hope you guys screw this one up too. We're going to you. Oh, no. Okay. I feel like the longer I'm away from Minecraft, the less fond I am of it. But when I am playing it, I do have some nostalgia and stuff like that.

I'm going to say 7-5. I think I rated it as 7-5. 7-5? I was already getting ripped apart on the Internet, so what could I lose? Your comment on this was, this game encourages creativity and has a massive modding community. It's just always been a massive game that I pick up for every console I own. Uh-oh. Well, that sounds like somebody that loves Minecraft.

That does sound like somebody that loves Minecraft. You know who hasn't played Minecraft since the horrible experience? Yeah, me. I'm playing with us. Yeah, sorry. You rated it in an eight. Okay, not that far off. Yeah, but it's funny to me that you have a harder, a harsher memory of Minecraft

than you did at the time of playing it. I guess I've just built up my gaming repertoire to be a little more sophisticated at this point. His palette is a little better now. Yeah. Yeah, well, hey, and that's true. There's better games than Minecraft out there, people. All right. All right, Ryan.

All right, Ryan. Okay. What do you would, how would you rate Minecraft today? Oh, my gosh. I don't want to, I'll get. Ryan's like, I don't want to anger the internet again. He's got a, he's got a death threat. I'm about to get a freaking hundred of them.

No. I'm thinking, uh, probably something like, I mean, it's, it's, there's, there's, There's a lot to be said for what it did for gaming and what it did for the kind of gaming world. And then for the youth to be able to play something cool like that and innovative and creative to get their juices flowing in their big old brains. But I'm going to say that it's around a six, five. Six five. Wow.

That's a dangerous rating. Ryan's going to get swatted on his next stream. It's dumb colored blocks. Oh, man. All right. Well, your comment was I'm kind of in the same vein as Josh. It's a little bit of a turnoff of something I'd want to play long term. And you rated it exactly like I did, Ryan.

You gave it a seven as well. Oh, okay. Ryan remembers it worse than at the time, you know? Okay. The Minecraft effect affects Ryan differently. Yeah. A seven, a seven and an eight for Minecraft. I got a nine-year-old, so I got to deal with Minecraft.

I was going to say, I legitimately, in the same thing, is not shade to Minecraft, but I think that people that grew up playing Minecraft have that nostalgia and that fondness for it because it's what you grew up playing. It's that buffer. As like gamers that have been playing games for a really, really long time, I think we view Minecraft as it's a good game. I get that it appeals to a massive selection of the population, but as a game, it's just kind of mid, man.

And I'm sorry to all the Minecraft people out there, but apparently that's how we feel about it. I will say I grew up with Minecraft but I also grew up with Terraria I'd much rather play Tararia right now than Minecraft I feel like most people would think that clip that clip it clip it Oh I'll have them fighting for me in the comments There's so many Tararias dance

Yeah Taras beloved man Torari is loved I think my kids would say the same thing And they've played the heck out of both of these So all right I'm curious on my rating on this one guys Subnotica Oh everybody knows I love subnautica dude. I mean, I

recommend this game. You know, we, Ryan was forced to play this game. I made him play it. I made hell of it play it. I'm trying not to just make everybody play it because it's like, hey, you have to play it. You have to play it. And you play Subnotica. And you play Subnotica. I know.

So, Ace, you've never played Subnotica. No, I have. You've played some Notica? I've never, I've never beat you. He just secretly played all these games is what it is. You've sat in VC and watched me play Subnotica before. Oh, I did. That's right. See, but I watch a lot of people play Subnotica.

Josh, you say it like if you haven't beaten it, like, it's not a thing. Josh hasn't beaten more than like four games ever. I've beaten Subnotica. I rolled credits on Subnotica. Yeah, you beat Subnotica, but that's like one of the four ever. Well, Ace, we don't have a comparative rating for you. So just off of memory right now, you know, how would you rate Subnotica? Probably an 8-8 off memory.

That's what I was going to guess you would say 8-8 on that. So, like, legitimately. I'm also terrified of, like, open ocean. So, like, Sub-Nodica is a nightmare for me. me. Leviathan. Ah! Yeah.

Like that's the worst. You also like to be scared too, so that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. A from A's. Scared me, baby. Ryan, what do you, what did you, how would you rate subnotica from memory?

Oh, man. I'm trying to. Here's what I'm going to say, I'm going to preface this by saying, when you played subnotica, we were really busy with the podcast. And I felt like it was one of those games that you had to kind of rush through to play. And so I wonder if that affected your, like, rating or your opinion of this game and that it was like the like I'm obligated to play this game I'm not playing it because I like I want to it doesn't mean that you didn't enjoy it but I do feel like it was more of that

like you're playing this for the podcast not as like a gamer for a game that you would want to play so how do you how would you rate subnotica in hindsight uh I would I was trying to throw him off no I'm just no because you're not you're not wrong like there is there is games that we like, you know, once we get going and we start playing and stuff and it's like, oh, I got to check these markers off. I have to get enough hours into this and I have to, you know, and so you start to press and you start to do things you wouldn't do otherwise when you're just naturally playing the game. But I absolutely love this game. I would recommend it to anybody just as you do. So I would say, I almost want to say 8-8 again. But I'm going to go,

I'm going to go like a, let's just do 8-9. Well, you should have listened to your intuition, Ryan, because you rated it in 8-8. Dang it! No way! Yeah. No way. And you said, I feel like I genuinely enjoyed this, but I would have loved this so much more playing with others.

The tidbit of story here and there did pull me in. I just wish it was a little easier to take the steps to continue that story. Charge your batteries, folks. Charge your batteries. That's what I'm looking forward to with Subnotica 2 is the multiplayer. Yeah. All right, here's my thinking with my rating for Subnotica. I love this game.

I know people would be like, well, wouldn't you give it like a 10? A billion out of 10. No, I wouldn't give it a 10 out of 10. I would try to be fair on my rating with Subnotica to tell people. So I'm going to rate it from memory as a 9-2. To me, I don't think it's a flawless game, but I think it is one of the more memorable experiences out there.

I rated it a 9-4. So I was doing it. Why do you hate somenautica, bro? Yeah, well, why do you hate some-notica? Why did I rate it lower? Am I trying to just, I think it's trying to temper Expectations. Like if I say, hey guys, it's a 9-2. Yeah. I think that

tempers it a little bit, but my comment was, this is honestly in my top 20 games, to be honest. It's almost like I want to go back into the ocean for a little bit and just take it in for a moment. Not a full playthrough of collecting everything again, but just opening up the game again. You know, getting that vibe, dude.

The vibes of Synodica. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it really is. All right, we got two left, boys. We've got to speed this up just a little bit. We've got to speed run this. Diablo 4. We all played Diablo 4, right? We did, right? Yeah, we did. We played for one night.

Best cinematics in gaming, in my opinion. Gameplay, I do remember being slightly disappointed with Diablo. I'm going to say I'm going to give Diablo an 8-6. It presents well. The game plays Chris, but they could have done so much more with this game, in my opinion. And lo and behold, I rated it in 8-6. Oh, wow. Good job.

My comment was, there's nothing that this game does wrong. and I had a blast playing it. Is it perfect? No, this isn't the best Diablo, though. There's a lot of faults, but I really did have a blast playing this. So, all right, Ryan. Oh, this one for me, I'm a big, big, big Diablo fan. Diablo 2, Diablo 2, Diablo 2 R, D2R.

But this one, I know we had a lot of fun. I agree, the cinematics. Blizzard is just, you know, second to none when they really put their, you know, money where their mouth is and create something crazy. but I would say this is between an 8-9 and a 9-1 for me off a memory, but I'm going to go 8-9 because it's just not D2. You nailed it, buddy. Yeah?

Did I? Yeah. And you said, I was always on this game way more than I needed to for the deep dive. For my hot taste, the end game, I'm not as drawn as I thought I would be to play through it. Yeah, that's kind of similar. That's how I feel. That's crazy. Yeah.

How would you rate Diablo for? I didn't really like DiLBA four that much. So I would give it probably an 8-1. 8-1? It was okay. It was not my style. One day the three of us are going to hop in a Path of Exile 2. I wouldn't mind that.

I'm just going to call it right now. We're going to deep dive Path of Exile 2 when it fully releases. Okay. I'm very curious to see how you guys feel about that game. All right, boys. Last one. A beloved game. I mean, we talk about this game all the time.

I mean, all I got to do is just say. Rock and Stone Rockinstein I'm convinced you could yell that in an airport and you would know who the gamers were instantly because the call must be answered you know Deep Rock Galactic

a ton of fun with your friends a beloved indie game a great community I am very curious to see how we rate this one from memory Ace let's start with you how would you rate Deep Rock Galactic Deep Rock's always been a good time like genuinely anyone you hop in with

you have a great time you could figure out the game pretty quick with anyone. I absolutely love Deeprog. I'm going to say I would give it a 9-7. 9-7. I think Deepak's fantastic. Wow, that's super praise. I think it's fantastic.

I love Deepak. Yeah, that's higher than I thought you would, you would rate it, to be honest. Okay, Ryan. I'm trying to remember. This was, I think, early on in my, uh, what? Yep. A while ago.

Yeah, it was, it was very early on when I, when I started with you guys and stuff. So I don't know my ability to rate games was as crisp as it is now. But I would say from just the amount of fun you can have with that, with people, without people, and just playing the overall world, I'm going to give it a 8-7? 8-7? 8-7.

Your comment was, for someone who came in fresh without knowledge of the original deep dive, because we deeped over this game a couple times, I found myself looking forward to what my or your characters were going to say in the different situations. There were so many different side parts of the game that I just loved. And you rated it in 8.5. Oh, okay. So, close on your rating, a little bit more prominent in your memory.

I really like Deep Rock Galactic. I don't think it's a perfect game. I do think it can get a little repetitive after a while, but it is absolutely a blast with friends. It has the worst map in a game that I've ever seen. Oh, yeah. It does have a bad man. This game is incredible. We recommend it to anybody that's like,

hey, what's a fun co-op game? I'm going to say an 8-8 for me. And I rated it in 8-5 as well. So, White and I were both. You guys are really low on Deep Rock. I'm surprised. This goes way back to the Make Love Mary murder rating. And I said this is an easy Mary for me.

It's not a different game. It's just such a vastly improved experience. I love the humor, the camaraderie, the community. I really just love everything about this game and recommend it as a co-op experience for everyone. So apparently I remember it just a tad more fondly from memory than I did after playing it as well. All right, well, there you go.

That is our rating recall. Listen, my takeaway is that we know what we're talking about when we rate these games. And in memory, we might vary just, a little bit, but we're pretty accurate as far as like how we actually rate these games and how we think about them later on as well. It's a fun exercise. So here's a thing. Here's what I want everybody to do, you know, that was listening and playing along with us. I want you to leave a comment on this episode with a game that you remember whether it's fondly or you have

negative opinion on. And then just just comment with that game and why you think about that game the way that you do because it's always really neat for gamers to go right off the rip. I just played this game. I think it's great. Six months later, you kind of go, yeah, you know, like, okay. I used Hell Divers 2 in our intro as an example. I wouldn't pull the ratings on that one, but it's like at the time, I bet we all rated Hell Divers too, like in the high nines.

That's in the high nine. That's a hundred percent of high nines. I will say in like now, I don't have a lot of desire to play. play hell divers too because we've kind of exhausted the content. So it's like, do I, am I harsher on it now than I was back in the heyday, right? That game release, that FOMO, are we going to see this with like Arc Raiders, right? We're two years down the road, you know, will we look back at Arc Raiders and be a little bit more harsh on it in our memory because we haven't played it in a while?

I don't know. I just think it's really neat to do. So, you know, let us know in the comments. What's a game that you have a hard time kind of remembering from memory or what your thoughts on it were that you haven't played in a while. We want to see those. Thank you for hanging out with us, everybody. We don't take it lightly that all of you tune in during your days and your commutes and your gym sessions and your chores and all that stuff to hang out with us, three goofballs to do this. We love this podcast. We love our community. We love gaming with people.

It's something that we're super passionate about. And we are very thankful that all of you that are listening are on this journey with us. So thank you from all of us to all of you out there. And again, just a quick reminder, if you haven't rated the podcast, it really does help us out. It helps other gamers out to find the show when people are looking for a podcast and they look and they see good reviews. They're going to give us a chance. And that's all we ask people to do. If you would like to support this podcast, because we do need the support of our listeners. You can do that on Patreon.

There's a link in the episode description. We try to give you a bunch of thank yous and perks for doing that. But we need your support. And so if you get enjoyment and entertainment out of us doing this, then think about giving back a little bit if it's on your heart to do so. Guys, this was fun, man. It's neat to look back. We might have to do this again at some point and just pick another round of games too.

All right. Well, guys, let's go play some Overwatch. Let's go play some eugenics. The hotness right now. Until next time, happy gaming. Remember all the flame climbs high. The ass travels farther. See ya!

Death Loop sucks. Peace out.