Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2023: Day 1

Hey, everybody, it's Game of the Year, the actual fifth season of
the year. Forget fall, forget summer, forget winter, forget spring,
forget whatever made up seasons. You got. The fifth season, the final
season of the actual calendar year is upon us, folks. Game of the
Year season in today's day, one of the real Game of the Year awards
here giant bomb dot Com. I am your host, jen oh Shoa,
bringing to you today seven lovely faces, including mine, and seven lovely categories
for Game of the Year twenty three. One of those lovely faces, Jeff
Grubb. Yes, that's right. We were renaming wet season to Game of
the Year season. That's right, it's happening, that's right. That's right.
All here on God's favorite podcast, The Taylor Swift of podcast Feeds,
speaking about Taylor Swift, a Taylor Swift correspondent's changing the beat entirely. Jeff
Backler, that's correct. I am familiar with one Taylor Swift song, therefore
prepared for Game of the Year. I've also started and completed eleven games since
we all last spoke, so I am overly prepared, but underrested. Speaking
about underrested, she doesn't need rest she stays perpetually unrested. Lucy James.
Hello, Yeah, I've been traveling, so I'm far behind and unrested,
but my spirit is willing. Speaking about far behind, he's slapping his behind
constantly to get him hyped for the day. That's right, Just wtch out
for the turnbuckle. He's gotta drop on you, Dan Rikert, how's it
going, Jan, Your new place looks fantastic. You got coffee. You
look ready to go. I am ready to go. I also have no
sleep. You know who's constantly ready to go? Though, Dan, who's
constantly ready to go? He stays going, especially now with his new crocs
on his feet some more Hussein. I I don't know if that's true.
I suffer from insomnia and I very I'm very slow going, but you're still
going. Oh yeah, I'm going. I'm always going. Yeah, that's
the that's the thing. I'm going so long that I don't sleep because I'm
too busy going. The speed doesn't matter of you going, just as long
as yeah going. I currently I'm currently not wearing crocs. I'm actually rolling.
I've got a foot roll at the help of my plant defect. Yes,
I'm constantly rolling the golf ball or the frozen water bottle, or I've
got like a frozen actual mini roller. Oh nice, nice, really cool?
Yeah nice? Speaking about rolling, we're rolling into the first cat gore
here, just kidding. We have our seventh member of the crew and deliberations
today. I wish I had that queued up on a soundboard somewhere, but
I don't think Limp Biscuit would allow that. We we have our own Hollywood
Mike Minatti. Hello, Hello, You can all call me the Computer War
Tennis Shees. Now no nickname reference, folks, that's very long. You
know who you know who started that movie? No, no one does.
No one knows. Jeff. Jeff literally just knew. Why did you know
that? Grub? Because I had to Google to see this is a real
movie. All right. You were to ask people to name Kurt Russell movies,
do you think ninety eight percent of people would not say the computer that
worked Tennis? I think nine point nine would not say that. Mike,
before this whole conversation about that movie, if someone asked you name a Kurt
Russell movie, would that computer wan be the first one you said? No,
it would be on the board, probably say thing or Escape from New
York. Okay, Trouble Guardians in the Galaxy Volume two would probably come up
first if you were in the UK, and if you weren't pointless, that
would be a pointless answer though, because like you have to get the answer
that no one else said. So that's interesting to hear about the two more
obscure sequels to The Computer War. It's a trilogy and it all take and
then it takes place in the same college as you're taking. I see the
viewers dropping like flies talk about wrestling quick George, the animal steal suck are
not really as much. But I'm looking at a review for this computer,
this computer with lower legs. What's called and uh Jean Jean Ciscol said,
I rather enjoyed the computer wore tennis shoes, and I suspect children under fourteen
will like it too. Grow up, say it, get it. All
of the people need to grow up. All right, I'm getting a call
from my building manager. We're just not going to answer that right now.
They're just gonna barge in here and stop it. He's like, is your
apartment also filled with like a white light? Are we dying? Uh?
You know it's yeah, I'm not facing the window or anything or like,
it doesn't face anywhere. It's just a brick wall. I don't know what's
happening anyway. We have seven categories today. For Day two, which will
air on Tuesday of next week, we'll have seven more categories, but none
of that matters right now because we're here on day one and day one our
first category of the day. We haven't really decided when we're gonna take breaks,
but we'll figure it's when I show I'm gonna piss myself the first time.
Yeah. Uh, first category of today is Best Debut, and that
INCLUDESI in parentheses here, Character Studio, Yep, et cetera. The nominees
are p from Liza p Cocoon, Dredge, World of Horror, Shadows of
Doubt, Venba, Talking Flower. I'm assuming that's from Wonder YEP. That's
the chuckle fuck thing, the chuckle fuck thing, all right, Solomon Name,
Idris Elbin, Cyberpunk Songbird, Asterian Shadow Heart, Walter Rusty both from
Armored Core six, Chai Saga, Anderson, James Savage, Clive carlac Oachi
and Peppino Spaghetti Mug. That's the guy's name. Yes, that's his name.
That guy's a freak good name. I'd like to add g One Michigan
from Armored Core six as well. Get into my head name an Armored Core
six character. I couldn't do it, and that's one of my favorite games
of the year. I love those dudes. Can we just put Armored Core
six as best debut because as far as I know, it's the first Armored
Core game. That's me. Okay, well, we like grub did we
can we can add people if they pop up on top of mind, or
we can start cutting if anyone can cut Garl from See If Stars and Chatting.
That is correct. Actually girls should get some love. Yeah, I
think we should cut go. People are saying high five Russian. Yeah,
I mean we got to put the game in there. There we go,
There we go. My debut from Tango though. Yeah, true, you're
right. I mean it's I P I P. But I think I think
you're right, Lucy. That's that shouldn't count. Isn't kind of a mediocre
like male supported by competent women. The characters around Chai are better, But
I think it does. The thing that happened in the Star Wars Jedi game
where it made the main character better, but I still want to give the
credit to the supporting cast, right, Mike, Yeah, I'm looking.
I'm looking to see what my my list was. Does any anything from the
games what I have played? So I put on here and I'm okay with
like making an early Cutubochi. I just wanted to get heavy fantastic when I
was hoping, what happened that I would say that I'm doing the chant strategy.
Yes, LEXI think you enjoy you from like a dragon guidance. Not
here you get a nose. It's weird dogs have noses. I agree.
I agree universe like I think humans barely have noses in that universe. Well,
you have a giant some do. Some have giant ones, but I'm
pretty sure some of them don't have any nose, right, they just have
mustaches? Yeah? Tick? Some characters, yeah, okay, do we
potentially have too many Balder's Gate three characters? Yes? Uh? We only
have two? Right? Three Armored corese six characters. That game doesn't even
show anybody's face. Okay, we have three. Karlac is at the bottom.
Oh yeah she is. No, she's not, she's at the top.
What are we talking about whoa oh yeah wait, yeah, well I
would say cola of a shadow Hot any day. I like Shadow Heart,
But did you fix them? I did fix her, Yes, I did
fix her, and I liked the journey of fixing her. I don't know.
Shadow is just a neat character. I think her design is really cool.
She's got a great voice, the kind of like whispery but loud voice.
I don't even know how people will do that. I don't you try
to try. Oh no, don't give me smoker. It's not like an
old smoker any imitations. And so like the person from macers Inc. That's
what I sound like? What is it? She says? She says like,
hello, No, that's what does she sound like? Cause when you're
like, can we talk about our romance? Of course, that's what I
imagine. It's always like checking in to make sure she still likes me.
Of course, Okay, sounds nothing like I feel no Shadow Shadow Hot.
Shadow Heart was too nice. I was really excited about Carlac. I liked
her energy. I wanted her to be a bit more of an uh lover.
Yes, yes, you wanted her to be capital m Yes, yeah,
it's kind of a lowercase m okay, uh, well, let's do
the the inverse here. Are there any locks that for sure should make like
Flower three top five Flower? I was gonna I was gonna offer up Dredge
as a cut. I think I think Dredge is a really solid ish No,
I take it back, not really solidish. It's a good game.
I think the loop gets a little like predictable and boring. Like I know,
it introduces the horror elements and stuff like that, but it's kind of
just it gets tired after a handful of those loops. I will I will
swap Dredge for tragg Door. I can't believe. I can't believe we missed
them. Guys. Turgle, Oh Turgle Actually yeah, yeah, no,
he's a frog guy, a fantasy dog. There's a Turgle and a video
game and they also sounded like that. But yes, yes, the frog
man man the best thing y when there's I played like an hour Jedi Survivor
last night? Is it? Later on in the game they come back a
few hours and the to the have you been to the bar yet? And
JENNI, okay, yeah, you know, once you get there you'll need
him. That Vader. This guy is fucked up. Look at him,
right, Yeah, I think that's why it sounds like him. All right.
As far as characters, I think, out of all of these people,
if we're just looking at the characters, I think P is the weakest
character. Yeah he's been around. Yeah, we're not. We're not.
This is a critique of Pinocchio. No, they never call him Pinocchio.
They just call him P. But he's supposed to be like, shoot Pinocchio.
He could be like a Master P. Pinocchio is a Master P.
West Texas Rednecks. You don't. Oh my god, Mike, you're raising
your hand. No limits, soldiers. I knew a guy in high school
who went by Master P. Literally, That's why when you were saying that,
I was like, we know the friends in high school boy Scouts,
and the scout master's son was in boy Scouts, and he gave a whole
speech about how he wanted to be Master P. That's who Master P is.
Okay, Okay, get rid of P. Let's get rid of P.
I think lies of people get shine in another category. It'll be fun.
I'm not worry. Also, I don't know. I don't want to
say this. Bottle thing. Are you talking? What's going on? I
said, I don't think Jory accounts. Jory was already in the game.
No, I'm in there long because I think it's a funny bit. Yeah,
it's a funny bit. But like he hes in, Like I think
he's a brand new character. But he's a brand new character that's already been
seven Like, you can't prove that in the court of law that he's the
same person, right, that's right. Yeah, it's not the fact that
he's the same person. It's the fact that Jory has been in another game.
This new character has been in a it's not a debut. That's that's
a fair argument. Yeah, totally. I'm gonna say, maybe Turgle,
we put a star next to what is that? What does that mean?
Like a lock lock that boy in? Yeah, I didn't. I didn't
know. Can you change the color instead of doing a star because you got
a chef? I think I would put a star next to Saga Anderson,
considering she's a new character to the series and the guy the series is named
after is a worst character and worst gameplay segments than Saga. Oh interesting,
she upstages the guy that the game is named after. I don't know about
that. I might that's she's a very straight lace, like you know she's
married, or Alan Wick is like, oh man, I'm fucking falling apart
and know what's going on. I wrote something, is it suck? Is
it good? Oh man, it's coming to life. It's like falling apast.
Meanwhile, so just like I need to solve this every times and be
like make a joke right after. I kind of just can't get down with
Yeah no, I like, yeah, I like soccer. I just think
like as a character, she's very plainly always. I could see that argument
because I think maybe I just like her so much because every time it cut
to her segments, I was like, Okay, good, I don't have
to do this light bullshit. You know, like you know your stuff.
You know you're in control of that, right, you can just play as
long as you want. You don't have to. Well I did, but
I mean I wanted to go back and forth and make sure one didn't get
too far ahead of him. You know. It's like I just I preferred
the saga stuff. But you're right, the character herself is not super I
think I think she's definitely the best dress character of the you that at least,
let's keep soccer for now, Let's keep I think there's cuts here.
Yeah, okay, that's we had a request to fix the spelling of turgole
it's t u r g l E. I can do that. I can
do that. Thank you, thank you. There it is perfect because I
didn't I thought. I thought that's where I thought, that's where that ends.
Opposite Dan, Actually, what what if we swapped Clive for Ben's Star?
So this is literally what I was thinking last year. I don't want
to I don't want to Clive in there. But Ben starts taking over the
video game industry this year, I do. I do. I think there's
a real solid case to be made for Ben Star being a better character than
Clive. Speaking, I will say that, have you seen this video about
playing one of Three Birds in g T A are good? It's incredible.
It's like, I'm like playing in that game. I want to see him
as Ben Star, thinks that resident before his game of the Year. So
all right, got to figure it out, do we? I'll swap Clive
for Ben Starry first it first, I mean, this was game I think
because he was in midst of a murders, which is big IMDb. He
was in a way out So that was two thousand and eighteen. Okay,
is his first debut as a leading a leading role. I say, let's
do it for now. Let's change him in there for now, and then
we'll come back. Okay, The The Shadows of Doubt. I also put
that one up there. That one is the miracle game for me, where
it is about being a detective and solving crimes and it's all procedurally generated,
and it's, uh, it empowers you to do things on your own in
a way that most games are so terrified to do because they're like, there's
so precious about their stories, and here the world is the story. But
it's early access. I think it's going to keep getting better. I just
kind of wanted to mention it here and say it it really is an amazing
thing and it's an amazing accomplishment, but we can cut it for now.
I that's that, you know what? You thank you for reminding me of
that one, because I started playing it, but I was playing it on
steam Deck when it just kind of launched out and it wasn't good, and
I was like, I'm going to cut back to this layer, so they
do a ton of lighting stuff, so it's really hard to run on the
steam deck. So we can cut World of Horror. Sorry, sorry,
sorry, Tam, Come on, I mean we're can also cut of Horror.
I really do want to play that. It's good, it's it's it's
really good, Lucy. I think you'd really really enjoy it. Yeah,
I bought it. I've got it ready to go. I know you have
so many games over Christmas. I know you haven't streamed in a long time,
but I suggest checking that out that that was one of my stream games.
It's it's very, very playable, like with other people watching. It
was available on Itch what seems like forever ago. All right, World of
Horror, goodbye. I'm gonna say I think Cocoon should be a lock Coon
rules. I like Cocoon a lot. I haven't finished it yet, but
great, it's really good. All right. Also, debut came from that
studio right like it's that guy who worked on Inside Dead People. Hello,
everyone, I would like to take a minute of your time to present a
case for cutting Solomon Reed. Oh you don't even have to present a case.
I think that No, no, no, I want to hear it
anyway. I I think that it was elbows great. M hm. However,
his accents are killing every performance that he does. He he he starts
talking and I'm like, why why why did you? Why did you do?
Why did it have to be in a my an accent? You have
a very like recognizable voice in a in your British accent? Yeah? Why
does he need to do every time he speaks in that game? I'm like,
I really like this character of Solomon Reid. I hate it when he
talks. I wish I could make him mute. How do you feel about
his performances? Knuckles? I know what I'm saying. He's got a good
string of bell. It doesn't make any sense. He's got a good He
did a good accent for the Wire, and then every American accent since then
has been the greatest macavity in Cats of course, Yeah, he's actually no,
he's good in that movie. But Taylor Swift as like his hype girl.
Yeah, if you if you're address Albert or your address Elber's agent,
stop making him do an accent. Just let him do his awesome British accent.
It sounds great, all right? Buye Solomon, goodbye Solomon. Good
brand of shoes, though too narrow form my feet. Okay, we've got
a battle of dogs here, and I'm not talking about that dog inside all
of us. We have Ochi and Togl, and I'm not saying we can
only have one dog on best debut, but I think one dog may be
stronger than the other here, just ask we are doing this as like one
winner and two yeah runners unranked runners up? Yeah cool, all right,
just noble checking no dogs. I love go to Giant Bomb Game of the
Year. Head. Oh no, it's a patter of Ochi. Ochi's adorable
and great from a gameplay perspective for that game. But I have not seen
this uh to tourgle based on the spelling, but just from a Google image
search, this is like a fucked up little fucker. And I'm kind of
talk about Togl the next one down on the list. Wait wait, oh
yeah, because this guy looks more like a frog. What the buck is
a Torgel the dog from Finals Fantasy Mike, how do you feel about dogs
and games? I think it's uh, you know, thoughts are fine.
I think usually when they have them in games, it's pandering and they're always
like somehow little angels, and then you pet them and you get an achievement,
and the achievement is always name, Yes you can pet the dog,
And I rolled my eyes. I love how you're too cool for this.
That's that's the fact. This is below. That's true, as if where
do you get the right? You agree with the dogs, you agree with
me, get rid of both. But I also think Star Wars is lame.
So part of this, I know I'm talking about the other guy talking
about that. Okay, how about this? Can we cut all the armor
core characters? But they're just codec calls that you don't see. Yeah,
Rusty Bug is rusty. So Rusty is the guy that calls you buddy,
your friend. Okay, I don't think I heard a single word coming.
Who cares about what you don't pay? At you to any stable, I'll
remember him. I mean, you play this game. You were just talking
to your chat during all the cuts. He's of course you one time.
I played it a billion times. That game is fucking awesome. So Buddy's
got these really good russ He's got these really cool moments like he does like
treat you like a war buddy, and I cause you that. And then
he's they do this interesting thing where they center him at a certain point of
the game, like they the camera follows him into battle, and uh,
it's like treats him like, Okay, no, this is actually going to
be the protagonist now. And you see who's gonna go fight and it's you
and you turn around just like all the villains do, and it's like this
really cool moment. Uh, and it like like kind of flips things and
you realize, oh my god, Rusty's not who who you thought he was
this entire time. He's been an undercover agent for the Rubicon Liberation Front.
It's a cool moment. I really like Russy. I also really like Michigan,
who is the like the badass like drill sergeant guy, but he knows
the names of all his soldiers and he's actually like secretly like a real softy
and that like that, like Diconomy always really gets me. The who Rock
guy, that's the who Rack guy? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So
let's cut Walter. Yeah, let's do be called Walter. That's fine?
Yeah? Oh yeah, the Handler. Yes, who do you play as
in that game? Who is the one character? One Raven yeah again,
they're not on here. How many times did you play that game? I
got halfway through a new game. Plus I want to say, okay,
cool, I understand why. That's the kind of game where you don't know,
like yeah, yeah, but it's like that, that's a little radio
play and then they dambled it. It's so well done. Cool. I
like it. Yes, I'm a big fan of it. I could see
like we're already getting a lot of locks. I could see it being hard
to get some of them on there. But I would like to keep Rusty
around at least cut Rusty we can, we can, we can cut Michigan.
Okay, let's cut Michigan for that now. Then I would like to
submit James Savage for a cup. I was about to say that we can
cut James Savage. Okay, I thought you were going to be all is
a Max fan, but no, no, no, as good as yeah.
Yeah, he's a thumb out. Yeah we lock a Starian please.
Yeah, I've I agree with this, But also I've seen the Internet turn
on the Storian in a way that has been really interesting. He's a bad
person, right, yeah, everyone just like this guy actually sucks, like
and he's people like people are like now doing run they like stars it's fun
hot, like yeah, everyone does. I mean I like annoying bad characters,
like evil characters, but like really turned on exactly the internet has really
turned on that guy. Okay, but I have not. Yeah, how
do we feel about maybe cutting Venber? No, let's cut the brown characters?
Is that the race car got played immediately? I'm strategies right off the
top, played it against the other brown guy. All right, well we'll
keep then, but on I'm talking to either about the game or the mom.
Uh cut the dogs? We never cut? Do we ever cut the
top of dogs? Cut the dog? Going the dogs? Keep the frog
thing? Do keep the frog? We can cut mister Door because isn't he
in quantum break? Yes? Oh is he? Yeah? Yes, it
was supposed to be red. Yeah, oh okay maybe yeah, it's like
sure, yeah, hey all gloried to Peppino Spaghetti. What an incredible name.
Pizza Tower is actually a pretty cool debut. We can cut them,
but I love you if you are ever a fan of any of the warrior
Land games, specifically warrior Land three. It's a warrior Land plus Tony Hawk.
What that game that's really cool. I mean I assume we only get
one Bolter's Gate character in there, so it doesn't have to be we can.
Yeah, we can. I mean sorry and shadow hot? I would,
I would. It's between a Starry and Colac for me rather than yeah,
sure is not very rememberable. Okay, I love, but I love
I love, I love Colac. I remember the Nights? Who is Songbird
from Phantom lib? Okay, that is that the president? Or that is
that she's the president on there? She's hot? Oh Elizabeth Mayas. Yeah,
but she's older, so it's not gross. It's actually like really respectable
and cool that I said that, you're a hero cutting to say it,
thank you, Mike, Yeah, cut some word. Okay, what about
hi? I stand by my mediocre male thing. Now? Does he cross
to himbo territory because sometimes being a himbo can save you. He's got like
a Spikespiegel thing. Yeah, but I mean he's like, it's even him.
Okay, if he's himbo over the year, then he could stay.
I think. So he's not a himbo. I think he's just he's just
doesn't really it's just not very interesting. He has a child. He's not
interesting. I think he's too much of a dip ship. He's not interesting.
Also, Jeff Beckler reveally he does not understand who spikes speel is at
all kind of Spikespiel guy, I don't mean yeah, no, I find
Spike a lot more interesting. I'm just mad at him for that v V
Beta Max whatever it was. He's just like machine and it's just broke,
and I'm just like, what are you doing? Spike? Okay, well,
Chay, can we put Chay the drink back on all the time?
But that's you know, that's not new debut, right, Yeah, try
again coffee again from that game? Okay? Is it to cut Jory?
Yeah? Fine, if that character wasn't a previous yeah, I think that.
Yeah, can we also call it gl whatever? Man? Okay,
cutting girl? I mean look, I mean we can probably do it.
I'm not actually quite a silent as some people. I think he's like,
again, a little bit too much of like an angel just sent down from
heaven. Right as a fellow chubby person that enjoys cooking. I'm gonna kick
girl to the curb. Gaul is like a plant. It's like a industry
plant. It's like behaving in a way that's like, is he is he
a baby? He might be a he's a baby. He can still be
a good boy and be a neppo baby. Look at it. A good
Boy of the Year over torgl even to be honest, Wow, good Boy
the Year. Okay, we're also coming up with unofficial official categories, so
keep canning. Yeah, let's create a little sidebar with Himbo of the Year
and all that and good Boy of the Year. How many? How many
were trying to lock these three? We're trying to get to one winner to
Okay, so yeah, here's like maybe we could start moving these down and
create like that space above to move them up. Can I The one that
really matters to me is talking flower. Yes, that is the one that
has to be on the list for me. Absolutely. It's a thing that
we all thought was going to be a giant pain in the ass and then
we're we're gonna turn that off. I hope you can do this, and
then it turned out, okay, turn it off, and then you turned
it back on and I did because I actually ended up joining him like that
boom away. I'm like, Dan's not gonna have the patience for this.
So the fact that you him went over to do fun stuff with them,
and the actual performance is fun and they do little gags like die is a
couple of times and literally it's actually funny. It's funny writing. It's delivered
really well, completely charming. They do it constantly. It never gets old.
That is a miracle, like that shouldn't working. It does. It's
a memorable character in the market. That is that is not one of like
a character that you run and jump around ads. Yeah. Right, and
it's not from like the RPGs or something where it's like they had all this
space to write all this stuff. It's yeah, it's really impressive. I
think we can cut Saga Anderson. I think Saga is better amongst everyone else.
I agree, her is a character. And if we're cutting, we
can cut Rusty. Rusty is not going to be able to hang here,
so wow wow. Shout outs to Rusty, though shouts out to Saga.
Cool ast name. I think I think we can get Venba as well.
Yeah, between other Brown Guy wants to cut Venba. Do we get rid
of both of those or do we get rid of Dredge. I'd be in
favor of I would prefer Cocoon. Odd game on this list. Cocoon seems
like the right one. Yeah, oh ship, No, the the Coscala
brothers like a ship. Do we put them as one? No, they're
two different. Well, well I do think you can couple them. They
are. Yeah, I think actually want the couple. Make it right?
Is full spoilers? Yeah, I don't think it's no in that game of
the year. We've always done spoiler full spoilers in the game. Are they
Are they one person? So that no, there are two characters? Then
is it the same actor for both different? Oh my god, the person
literally it's the guy wearing a fake bit serious play the whole game thing like,
Oh, I bet these are a couple of guys on the debt team.
They're doing a great job. Christ also plays Clark Kent motherfuckers. Superman
would actually work, right, dude, I'm looking at a picture. This
is amazing. I love that this dude make up full down, full down
by just playing, Oh my god, where who is it? Where's I'm
gonna I'm gonna go away for a bit, I'll be back in this okay,
all right, that is very odd way. I don't know who this
is. Somebody got in a discord call face blind ise. I'm looking at
a picture of them standing next to each other and I there's no way that's
the same person. Oh and they're exactly the same height. That is weird.
The face is wider on the one with the nick cap than the one
with a baseball cap. You and Chris, it's like you and Chris.
You are you are our cost brothers. That's like your bit. That's a
different guy. That's a different guy, though I believe in the tooth Fairy?
Shall we make a case? Is there a case to be aid for
putting Sam Lake on this list in a real way? But beyond that now
established, Yeah, he's also like Alex. It's not even close to a
baby. Yeah. Isn't the first time that we saw Thomas Thomas Jane,
Yeah, he's been men. Isn't a driver? We've never week one.
We haven't seen Alex Casey before, have we. I don't like I don't
like the road we're attempting to go down here. Okay, but also we're
just saying Alex Casey, I don't think that character is that memorable either.
It's more difficult. So Cocoon and Talking Flower, does everyone agree that those
are lots, so we have one talking flower we once. So we're talking
about do you want a Starian or do you want one of these characters from
all I think Storian for yeah, okay, okay, and then our boy
Turgle. Oh cool, I would take Yeah, me too, and I
don't even I like, okay, okay, are we going to cut Carlac?
Yes, okay, okay, we're cutting Now? Are we cutting Ben's
Star because technically this isn't his debut in a game? Can we just change
this category to Ben Star Presents best Debut? There you go, perfect?
Yeah, okay, sponsored by cheesecake Factory. No no, no, no,
okay, no cheesecake Factories, Ben Star Presents. I think we could
do that. That's right. One word. Hey, look, I like
this those two funny guys from Alan Wake, but talking Flowers, Starry and
a Turble seems like a really strong three to me, I would pack I
of everyone else everything this. Listen. I agree. Yeah. I feel
like if you pare them as one entry as well, they become the most
strong. The only hardline for his talking Flower to be honest, same,
that's number one. I would like to make a case, to make a
case for pairing ill mon because like one on their own isn't isn't agreed,
they are tandem. They are double like there are two characters though we're saying
the double act is hold on, hold on, hold on, here's the
thing, here's the thing we can do here, Jane. Yeah, right,
if we look at the parentheses characters, there is for audio listeners.
He added an S to the word character, amazing and changed the whole game.
Well there you go, master Craft, thank you. If it's an
act, if you're talking about the debut, is the act of these two
guys that works. That's what I'm saying. They're double like You're right,
Okay? Do we cut frog Boy Nosterian? Maybe a comfortable too long?
What worry about it? Dan? I was, yeah, Now do you
guys think wait, he didn't going back to Alloway? How far have you
gotten in that? Al? And you? And what do you think about
the actor that played Thomas Dane. I know that's Alan Wake, all right,
that he just doesn't have facial hair you like a mirror? Uh?
Dan, you know that Alan Wake is a d RD right, yeah,
yeah, we told him that yesterday. Why in all the dialogue the voice
with the fish. Wait, the actor and the voice actor are different.
Yeah, yes, adr can also be the same. I had no idea,
and man, that's crazy. I obviously Sam Lake and the Alex case
about Zane and Wake, but not the fucking look at that face. Yeah
exactly, exactly, Okay, okay, the same, dude, do we
do? We want to make the gambit here where we potentially cut cocoon,
which probably will wind up in another category later on. Yeah, to keep
the boy talking. Flower and Yaku and IM what a mediator is this again?
Again? Shout up? A cocoon though, is great? Sign it
so what we're doing and you just say it's we cut taking coon. Just
let just let me do this bit. We cut cocoon for the frog boy.
Okay, cool. Everyone was talking so I couldn't hear what you're saying.
Oh oh okay, I see him looking down. I don't know is
he making a sound boards? I'm not doing anything. What are you?
You're playing something? What's happening? I'm telling you there's a wolf inside of
you. Yeah, okay, talking flowers number one And you know what,
I turned around on this frog freak. I love him. Yeah, just
look at him, you know I now want to play Star Wars Jedi Survivor
to get to the frog freak, Like, what's up with your eyes?
Dude? What's happening that fucking that frog guy? You know what I think
this he does? I don't know. He's played by invadersim the alien from
Destroy All Humans, not the main one, but another one. Okay,
so much wiring from his eyeballs to his brain. It's just so crazy.
I think that speaks to the strength of Turgle, because Lucy is not generally
a Star Wars person. Same with me, I could not care that.
I mean, I feel like I feel like I stopped playing off the I
got and I was like, I'm going with this Wars. I was like
snow an hour last night. Yeah, I think, I say, what's
going on? Did you play Psycho Knauts the second one? I didn't like
the first one that much, but the second one I liked a lot.
The main character from that that voice. Oh oh okay, all right guy,
okay, cool, yeah, okay. First category out of the way.
We've completed it, Folks, Cheesecake Factories. Bend Star presents Best Debut
Parentheses, Characters, Studio I, p et cetera. The winner being Talking
Flowers from Super Mario Brothers, Wonder, runners up being Third Goal from Star
Wars, Jedi Survivor and Yako and Ilmo as a pair from Alan Wick two.
Really want to go to Family Whenever those guys talking, I want to
seem great. Okay. Next category is best running around the nominees al good
category. The best nominees are or not the best nominee the best nominee.
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, there we go, My floodworks,
Uh, Marvel, Spider Man two, Super Mario Brothers, Wonder, Little
Gator Game, Liza p Thirsty Suitors, Ghost Runner two, Assassin's Creed,
Marush Sorry, uh, Star Wars, Jedi Survivor, Street Fighter six,
Alan Wake two, Resident Evil four Remake, Pizza Tower, Call of Duty,
Modern Warfare three, Hi Fi, Rush Hans, Armored Core six,
Wild Hearts, Tiers of the Kingdom, Cavern of Dreams. All right,
I don't think this is an official rule for this category, but I cannot
imagine anything succeeding in this category that doesn't have a jump button or some sort
of jumping around, flying around vertical it is. I know it's running around.
I know it's running around, but like when I think a good running
around, I think, I, like, you know, Mari're running,
jumping, flipping and stuff like that. So do we cut Marvel spider Man
two? Then? No? No, no crazy I thought it was.
I thought we had to run around? Is well no, no running and
jumping like moving around. This is the moving around, jumping around, getting
around category dancing. He wants to cut like residual floor and Alan Wake two
is what he can cut. I was going to ask him any of these.
Yeah, I did not have specific ones. I was targeting which ones.
Don't have this conversation, Dan Good, hands hands raised, hands raised,
We have questions. We have giant bomb, you go first. Who
came up with the running around thing? Is this a you thing? Beckler?
I thought this was a you thing. This is an old feels like
the thing. I think it was a me thing, right, I think
here's the running around. It was an old best cast. It's a good
question because it's running around. You are kind of the thought of this,
so therefore I can interpret it the way it is written in the doctrine.
John bombs James, you had your hand up. We can absolutely get rid
of Assassin's creed mirage. Yeah, I also put that on there. Just
note that it does have running around, and then to have this, let's
just get the games and the dog ship Timor. You cannot tell me that
that is good. It clings to every edge and he doesn't run, he
doesn't jump, assassins s freed game that's ever the old ones when Unity take
me back to Unity, the best of free running in those games has ever
been anyway. I gave Unity a ninety two out of one hundred and right
to do it. I think I don't think you were right to do that.
But the running around is six. I got to say that doesn't seem
to fit here. This is whoa. I know. If you're talking about
that running around, well, I mean you can't jump, dude. You
could run around and challenge a grandma to a fight and then beat the chev
that's great, but that's not really just running around. You can punch anyone
while running around. We also, I kind of didn't stop talking. I
think when I first said this, I was legit asking how the running around
was. I didn't ask. I wasn't talking about swinging, I wasn't talking
about jumping. I was talking about, Hey, how how was running around
in this game. You were thinking about jumping. I wasn't thinking about swinging
either, which is why I think. In fact, in fact, the
running around in Spider Man two is pretty bad. Okay around, the swinging
around is great. They were jumping around. It's easily the best cool That's
the best part of that game by far is the locomotion and then getting around.
No, but not what he's saying. Specifically, when you're on the
ground running that is the worst to take. Let's stop you have a cigarette
and literally just running, because then it feels like no category on that best
movement. Yeah, I know, it's getting around. Around can be can
it can mean traversal and movement and jumping and swing. Anyways, anyways,
let's call of doing Model Warfare three. Yeah, it's okay, making a
very long joke so everyone can do all right, you can do this spear
of this thing. I'm going to say something. It's a watermelon game.
The watermelon game a different watermelon game. It's it's one of those only up
or just getting up games where you have to climb a bunch of stuff,
but you play it's a watermelon. We can cut it, goodbye, my
friend. Watermelon can't run. I'm going to say something controversial. Please,
Oh what a shock. Let's go. What makes the run around in Super
Mario Wonder good? Yes, it's the best running around this year? No?
No, but like is it better then? Like I played it?
I was like, yep, this feels like a Mario No if it's better?
Okay, so snappy, it's so immediate that you'm grab your right,
You're right. It's literally everything Mario has always been. I feel like it
feels better here than it has one especially different. I want to I want
to back tam here. I think because when I think running around, I
don't think too as much as I love Mario and I love Mario Wonder,
when I think running around, I think just running around kind of aimlessly,
just like getting collectible, seeing what's over here, what's over there, And
just like the act of running around getting around is super fun. And like
Mario Wonder is you know you're moving from left to right, that is I
mean, the actual jumping and stuff mechanics are amazing, but you're not really
like exploring the way you would And like what I'm trying to make is you're
interpreting the category correctly and tillam is just criticizing this game. I'm not criticized,
but saying it doesn't talk about what Dan said, Dan, I don't
Yeah, you're not exploring the world. What does they have to do with
this cat? For me, there is an aimlessness. I think to this
the spirit of this category where I think about like when you're in the at
the beginning of Mariosixplorer, when you're just in the courtyard and just run around
jumping, doing flips and climbing trees and stuff like that, that's like some
of the best immediate running around feel, and it's aimless. It's just exploratory.
That's how I always though. Look at it too. I like that
too. But we're so we're gonna not uh, we're gonna box out games
because they don't have like a free roam mode. No, no, no,
that is different from what I'm saying, Well, I'm saying different.
What I'm saying is like if we keep giving Mario awards for running around,
at some point, like we won't stop because like I haven't it's been a
while since I played a bad running around in a Mario and felt bad.
Like maybe New Super Mario Brothers is one of them, Like I'm not saying
it's like not bad, though, I'm saying it's fantastic, and it's compared
to new Super Mario games that we've gotten for the last twenty years. Yeah,
I understand with but like somebody, I get what you're saying. But
also also what I'm saying is, like most the vast majority of Mario games
I've played, I felt like this feels good. I played this game Mario
Wonder, and how it felt does not stand out to me at all.
Around it second it stood out to me, I got it. I was
like, oh, yeah, this is good, this is good. This
feels like a good Mario game. And then that was it. I didn't
think about it again. Let me put it this way. I think if
this was best platforming Mario Wender wins because of the reasons grub is saying.
But running around that spirit, I don't. I don't. This is not
like my favorite game. Every second of movement in Spider Man two, barring
when you're running to gain momentum felt good and like a joy agreed, Like
every turn I did felt satisfying. Every you know, swip of a web
was like that impactful with Mario. I guess for me. For me,
like I registered it as like is this good Mario running picked box, never
thought about it again, and then from that point on it was like very
worried that it wasn't going deeper. So so what I'll add here is that
Super Mario Brothers wonder introduces different badges that affect the move movement and the running
around. I just we can keep I think we can keep Spider Man two
and Super Mario Brothers Wonderful. Now we don't need to want to me.
I think those both are locks. Though I think so too Lucy James.
So I have one that's not on here, but I thought the running around
in Cocoon was actually amazing, was good, it's pleasant, It's pleasant.
Just responded with me. With that answer, we would have been moving on.
Can we cut this a wake and resonate? Yeah, yeah, Court
of course. I literally did put those in there so that we could have
the conversation about what this category. We should also cut Star Wars Jedi Survivor.
Yeah, the Wall Run is really good, but it's the animation.
I don't mind this so much. But I think when you have a movement
in a game, if you can combine it with great animation like Spider Man,
like Mario Wonder that takes it to the next level. Respawns games are
like, listen, We're going to kind of be a little bit limited on
the animation so that you could do more as a character. And I think
that still works for me. But maybe it doesn't rise to the level of
these other games. Okay, I don't. I don't enjoy the movement.
I put on a little Gator game because it is very much like the spirit
of running around is all that game is. It's a pretty platform last year,
did it? I thought that was the last year game? Okay,
but I don't know. Little bit it is. It is nothing but running
around, but I think the actual mechanics of it aren't going to hang against
some of the step on here. Are you comfortable cutting it down? Yes?
I am Mode Wolf as well are modern Warfare? Yes? Absolutely?
The running around it happens to be okay, but it's not the end of
the year. What is zer Worthy Cavern of Dreams. It's a throwback retro
style in sixty four platform or that just came out. The good movement in
there is that you can jump up kind of do the sonic spind and take
off and it feels really good in three D. It's not gonna hang.
It's a really good game, though. Should I play that game? The
sound good? I think you would really get a kick out of that one.
I ask some questions about Armored corese six because the movement feels good,
specifically because the flying around. That's running, sorry, that's running in the
sky. Yeah, if that's true, like it might win because that feel
good? Awesome, Yes, so good. I've never felt cooler than playing
Armored Course six. Yeah, okay when you hit when you hit the thumbstick
in and you're flying towards it and you left or right and then you do
those side and you stun them and you get in there with the sword and
giantzer shooting at you and you're dodging on the lesson. So good. Yeah,
doing that let's cant Yes yeah okay, I mean like emulates the jumping
in the soul's like games so accurately. That's bad. It sounds like you
should walk. Let's lock Armored Core six first. Yeah. Yeah, really
good. Okay. Street Fighter six surprisically good move running. Actually, I
just because you have ladies. Yeah, I guess we're pro old ladies here,
apparently that's really the now. Wild Hearts is a game that is similar
to Monster Hunter, and I think it almost has better movement than actual Monster
Hunter. And I think the different gadgets that you have, like the springboard
and like like the kind of diagonal spring you got, really add to it
very well. I don't think it hangs with some of these other games.
Yeah, I kind of. I include that one last night. It was
because I was thinking, I know, me and Jam played it, and
I think Jan felt the same way I did about that movement, So I'm
glad we just got to mention it. Yeah, I agree, let's cut
it. Yeah, I think it just gets in the same way that Monster
Hunter can get kind of clunky, where you get stuck on stuff. It
unfortunately also copies that aspect of it as well. Goodbye Wildhearts. I'm okay
with cutting Tears of the Kingdom a game that I really do like running around
really yeah. Yeah, I mean it's got great running around, but a
lot of that is down to the environment being so nice to move through because
it's so immersive, with the animation of the of the foliage and everything in
the sound of that The first thing you think of about the like they do
it, like everything in that game. They do a great job with it.
It's just not the thing I'm even coming to it for. And I
don't leave thinking, boy, what a great moving around experience. I have
all these other stories I'm telling. If it was best messing around like best
like building ship and seeing what happens and you see what you know, like,
then it wins. But running around maybe not the most complicated running around
skill issue. You know, Ghosts. It's funny because ghost Runner too that
has it running in the name. Yeah, and it's and it does that
thing really well. And based off your reasoning just now, Grub, it
is what I think of when I play that game, and or rather when
I'm not playing that game is the running around. And I didn't play Gostrunner
too lot. I mean, I yeah, go ahead, Jane, I
think we keep ghost Runner two for now. I think, first, for
a second, I don't like it's odds, but for a second, yeah,
I think you can cut thirsty suits. It's got a really cool skateboarding
mechanic in there. That hasn't it has no need being that good, but
it's it's weirdly good. The skateboarding. The shouts out to the upgrind because
I still don't know what to officially call it, but I like the thing
and being able to grind that way, Tony Hawk, why didn't you try
that? Speaking of upgrind, Sci Fi rushhat a lot of that. I
like the movement in that game, just because, like you do have incentive
to keep the beat even outside of combat, so you kind of like time
your dashes to the beat even and I think you could even sort of cancel
them into a normal attack and do like dash dash, dash, attack dash,
and that's the right movement. And it felt very good. It feels
really good. I think it says for now yep. I like that now,
Cocoon. I like the running around, but I wish I could go
a little bit faster. Yeah, he's a run button or something. Yeah,
around walking around like it's like a trott. Yeah, walking with purpose
of the Someone in Chack keeps every time we say, like make up a
new category on the fly, Could you keep track of it for us so
we can have a list of that when we're done. Good Boy of the
Year and all that stuff. Resident could be in best walking around Yeah,
Yeah, I walked too much in Allan Wake too. Yeah, Pizza Tower
does have really good running around, but maybe it's it's almost maybe a bit
too frenetic. Uh. It's like, yeah, it's it's cool to feel
out of control and yet still a little bit in control, and that game
does that really well. Uh, but I don't. I don't feel a
need to. I'm not compelled to put it on this list personally. Yeah,
it speaks to the rhythm that Hi Fi Rush kind of has you go
through, but then it's it's pretty like linear and there's not a lot of
the exploration to it. I mean like you can kind of like experiment around
with levels and find the best roots. But I don't it. You're right,
Grub, it feels too out of control. I would want to cut
high by Rush because I think running around is about just like freedom. And
it's why I didn't like HYPEI Rush is because you're locked into this beat mechanic,
and so I don't feel like I'm just like exploring my own pace and
having a good time running around. I feel like I'm locked in to this
beat thing. You second, you have no rhythm, right, I just
fla does that have no interest in that? Game. Yeah, okay,
like it if I really my number one, uh, I like it to.
Okay, let's let's nominate a number. Let's lock in one other game.
Then it's a movement. It would be Spider Man too. The spare
of movement, yeah, spider feels so yeah. I mean that's more fun
than the actual game, which usually is combat, which I don't hate or
anything, but the fun part is actually going to a mission, more so
than doing the mission. Like and Mario, I do think it'd be crazy
if Mario Wonder wasn't on here. Mario Wonder is ten times the video game
of Spider Man two is, but for this category, Spider Man two takes
it over Mario for sure. Oh yeah, listen, I'm just talking about
locking it in and getting like the three games. We can have a conversation
once we have the three games. But I think when I'm looking at Ghost
Runer two in High Fi Rush, I think we'd be crazy to include those
over Mario Wonder. And I get the arguments. I can agree with that.
I don't think they they don't put Mario off. Yeah, okay,
I'll take Mario Mario Ghost Runner, High Fight Rush for sure. Okay,
I do think Ghost Runner is u one of the most under pre games off.
It's like it's the runner Runner up. Okay, up, there you
go best ghost Runner up is a good category. We done it. Okay,
we need to crown number one one. Spider Man. The arm cos
like real good. But Armored Corps six, the movement and everything feel amazing.
But that spirit of exploration Steven Spider n too. That is like just
swimming around the city, flying around the city. Ooh, what's that on
that roof? Oh, I'll fly over there like that is like Armored Corps
is a little more like I'm going to the objective marker. I'm fucking that
thing up, I'm moving out the next one. It all feels amazing.
But yeah, the one thing about almed Core is there is a limitation to
that movement and that like you have, but I think it's it's limiting in
a way that it is confined but deliberately so so you have to make decisions
and that makes me feel more engaged, where like I am choosing for my
mech to move in this way and I'm leaving some other things out because I
want it to be faster, or I wanted to be heavier, and no
matter which direction you go with it, it's satisfying. Like you might,
oh, that's a big, heavy, lunking beast with four legs and he
kind of floats up there in the sky like just walking in the sky.
All that stuff is just so good. I guess I didn't realize this was
about like like a Crackdown memorial award. I didn't realize that's what there's locomotion
about. Getting around Yeah, I mean, I agree with what you're saying,
but like there is always the thing that I'm coming back to. It's
like in Amor Cole, there's a slight second of disappointment when you can no
longer do those things where it's like, oh man, I can't anyone now
have to recover, And that does not exist in Spider Man. Like I'm
always enjoying. It's like a perpetual motion and the satisfaction is just constantly streaming
in. I think like that makes it in the spirit of the category in
all respects. The last, the last thing I would say about Spider Man
two is that it is just Spider Man two basically from GameCube and Xbox twenty
years ago. It's like, yes, the flying is new, but other
than that, it feels just as good as that game Diad and that game
still feels great today. I don't know there's severely underselling, Like I don't
think I think it's understanding that that Spider Man two game, the original one,
they really didn't. They did a good job of it, but like
it just cannot function on the same level, like the physics system, the
presentation, like it all goes into how it feels to move around this game.
And I'll say the flying does put it over the top, so you
can do a sling shot, you can do like cannonballs and about with it
being Spider Man too. But Armor Core six is like right there for me,
I want you to think about this. I want you to think about
how many tiktoks you've watched, just like me, of people just swinging around
to music and Spider Man. When they come on, I don't turn them
off. And the ones were like those ones where like Miles jumps off a
building and then pull and then ye yeah. I also want everyone to know
that Miles Morales feels better to swing around as versus Peter Parker. It's all
mental. He his dash feels better than Peter Parker's weird, like my extra
spider legs are going to come out and give me somehow thing. Yeah,
yeah, okay, are we locking ian that? Marvel spider Man two is
the winner here? Yeah, all right, best running around parentheses the spirit
of moving we have winning the category Marvel's spider Man two, Super Mario,
Wonder and Armored Core six as lovely winners up in the category. Wow,
Jeff left him protest. He's really upset about this Wonder. He's got to
blow off some steam. It's okay, okay, how do we feel?
Do we want to take a quick break? Do we want to keep going?
One more category and then a break? One more than a break like
that? One more and then a break? Okay, all right, all
right, the next category. Let me just push all that other stuff down.
The next category, third category of day one. He is best twenty
twenty two game. We didn't talk about Jeff's back. He's he's blue off
the steam. Nominees are Immortality, Mario Plus Rabbit, Sparks of Hope,
Night Suns, Chained Echoes, Norco Power, Slave Exhumed. Oh god,
okay, it's in the right category. It's in the category okay, okay,
two more, two more Live Alive and Somehow Strangers of Paradise that okay,
okay. I I tried to do this last year, but Tam would
have let me. I think we cut Strangers of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin because
I talked about I don't know if we should cut I to talk about it.
I think there's a good there's a good moment had to discuss. I
feel like, Jhen, you deserve to give them Paradise as Flowers. I
know you love that game, and I think it's really sad that from harassment.
It's like when you put a shy person up to talk about something that
they're not prepared to talk about. We'll keep it up for a little bit.
Did I talk about Mario bus Rabbit Sparks? I hope. I feel
like that was like that was my top ten last year? Yeah, you
did put on there. I didn't really talk about much, and then I
played this year. But we can really good. It's really good. We
did talk about it. I guess we didn't talk about it. It's the
most egregious, like poochy character, like oh that rabbit, Yeah, yeah,
boy, Poochy. That is exactly the same even has the sword has
the same haircut? Yeah? Yeah? Am I crazy? Or did we
not? We talked about Norco like, like I did a lot. I
feel like at least the game of the year. We uh like sort of
a point clicking thing, A good job that knew you would appreciate it.
No, I got it. I got it. I just overlooked it.
So are we cutting Norco? Yeah? Because that was even I think that
was like my number ten last year? Did we did we talk about Pentiment?
Yeah? Yeah, it did well? Yeah the top ten? Did
we talked about we had West? I don't think we did? Yes,
yeah we did we Oh no, the Evil was the Best West? Was
that on? The Best West? Or Evil West? We did talk about
weird West? Weird West, weird West. We did? Uh, we
definitely did a quick look. I was into it for sure. I liked
it a lot. Okay, well, let's keep it for now, live
alive. I think I put that on and I think I talked about it
a bit. Yeah, we talked about that pretty Yeah, but I put
that on because again, yeah, it's just but that game just didn't get
quite a love. I know you gave it love. Jane, I appreciate
it, but just want to once again reiterate that Live Alive is fantastic.
Yeah, if you bounced off maybe Octopath Traveler to this year in one like
a really lengthy JRPG to sing your teeth into. Who the fuck is locking
Strangers of Paradise on this dock? Definitely check out Live Alive. Check out
Live Alive. I'm not much of an off the path person. I can't
get into those games for some reason as much as I want to. But
I love Live Alive. Yeah, it handles a two and a half D
graphical style. I think it's one of the best. Better pace, It's
a snappier game, yes, much better paced. Okay, grub, I
have no idea what Power Slave Exhoomed is. Well, I tell you Power
Slave Exhumed. Power Slave was like a nineteen ninety six or so first shutter
for the Saturn. That is like a prototype for what Metroid Prime, which
Manastry and I am old Speed run right now, it's inspiration pace. And
then last year Nightdive Studios, who does all those great remasters slash remakes of
older first person shooters. I think they're TURROK three just came out they did
well for this, it did not get as much attention, so its because
it's a more obscure game to start with. But this is the best one
they've done. This is a fantastic game. The whole thing has that ancient
Egyptian setting to it, right real Chris graph It's kind of Quake where there's
some three stuff but still some two D sprites or like that. Up my
style looks really pleasant. But the exploration is a ton of fun. You
are getting ability upgrades so you can access new areas. There's secret items you
can collect to get the good ending. It really is like, yeah,
prot It's like Metroid Prime six years before we got Metroid Prime and it went
completely under the radar. Let's keep it. It's good stuff, Let's keep
it stuff. So visual b just said, did you all talk about the
Quarry game of the Year. I think we did briefly, Yeah, But
the other one I don't think we would have talked about because it would have.
I think it came out after cut off. Everything we didn't talk about.
Forgot the name was the one that the cut it cut it. The
guy forget what doesn't make it ideal for brocle Oh listen, Lucy about it.
It was December. I think, yeah, it was like came in
real hot. Okay, we could talk about it of every game, but
we didn't know past anything though. I mean, but it's not best anything
talk about it. This is the game name of the category. I think
a Wednesday game. We didn't talk about Wednesday. The word best is here,
so Wednesday a wardful best twenty twenty two game that didn't deserve to be
talked about. So it would be funny we have a category called just a
game we didn't talk about last year. That's a lot of that. How
do you call that? Right? That? Like the uorry? Okay,
okay, we'll keep the chorus now, I think we didn't we sure we
didn't do a street Wait are we specifically? This is about game of the
year game we didn't talk about during Game of the Year last year? These
games, I don't know. I don't know. I don't think. I
don't I don't think we need Crystal No, I agree, now, okay,
I don't. I mean, and Weird West I feel like was definitely
a game that had its chance to be in discussion towards last year's end,
did not arise to the occasion. I like that game, but yeah,
I felt really bad about not having played Chained Echoes apparently. Really, I
was going to say Chained Echoes I think might be a lock for me personally,
Changed Echoes it unfortunately gotten. It unfortunately got lost because of like the
December release so close to like the game wards and Game of the Year season,
so folks didn't get the time to check it out. I think the
same level of praise at See Stars has gotten. I think Chained Echoes also
should have received. Tam am I correct, Chained Echoes. It's a very
small team, if not one dude, I think it's a small team.
I don't know if it's one dude, but it's definitely a small team.
Okay, but yeah, Chained Echoes for some reason, whatever reason. Maybe
it's because it had Giant mechs in it for a bit. Yeah, it's
oh yeah, it spoke to me more than Sea If Stars did. But
maybe that's just my flavor of RPG that I like more. It's it's it's
a little bit of everything from that era. Yeah, and it's it's one
of those games that brings it to life in the way that you remember,
not the way that it actually is, so it's like maintains the kind of
like gloss of nostalgia. I'm going to lock it. Yeah, okay,
you west Sons Jan you talked about that a lot. I did. I
did. I think that was another unfortunate thing that like he probably trailered very
poorly in people expected it to be. When you know, when folks here
card game battling system, what is this image? Oh that's me as ross
from Master's Incorporated. Like whoski, you didn't foul your paperwork. I think
Midnight I'm not going to chat, so I have no idea what you guys
are talking about. It's fantastic. I think Midnight Suns is an absolutely fantastic
game and a good twist on the x com formula. I don't want to
cut it just good. I think I think I really like Midnight Sounds.
I feel like it got done so people. People forgot it yo, and
it has blade I know, and it's good and it's satisfying to play.
I'm going to replay Midnight Sounds goodbye. It's a good Steam game. Yeah,
fantastic Steam dead that makes sense. Okay, well we'll keep it.
We'll keep people. What about the Quarry and Weird West. Oh yeah,
fine, you get rid of them. No, we don't have to get
rid of both. No, the thing is is it compared to the other
stuff, They're not as I was good, but I had I had such
a fun time with the Quarry. A streamed that one. Weird West was
great, they had like first person in them. Oh really, yeah that's
cool. But compared to Stranger Paradise, Final Hands, the Origins, you
know, yeah, nothing touches that, right, Jane like, okay,
yeah, it's right, get rid of Stranger Parodism, Highlight, Power Slave
Zoomed. You guys already talked about You guys even know a game that a
game that no one knows about. This is that we all adore on Love
that got missed out last year. I don't know if we could say all
adore Okay, if we're looking at this list here, if we're looking at
this what five games? And again I can't speak to Power Slave e Zoomed.
I feel comfortable cutting Immortality because in terms of best game, it's very
slight in that regard. I'm a big fan of movies, as we know.
But then the mechanic in there was really powerful. The first couple of
times you did it the first couple Watch our episode of audio logs on it.
Yeah, it's cool. How it works. Yeah right, it's behind
the scenes. There's an algorithm to space out where the scares are. It's
not just like randomly picking it. It basically figures out how long you've gone
without having a scare or an ultimate scene, and then it gives you one.
Okay, okay, well I'll sit back down. We need to cut
one. You're actually gonna You're actually gonna sit down. You're standing up right
now. No, I'm sitting there. All right, let me actually talk
about Paradise. I'm the final great guy. It was ready, I am
okay, alright. Look I went into that game for a lot of dread,
just because everybody was basically just laughing at the game and I was,
and everyone's like, for Jam except for Jan Well you know Jane. Jane
has no sense of humor, as we know. But look I went into
that game with a big frumpy face like this looks really stupid, This looks
like a B tier game, This shouldn't be found fancy, And then it
ended up actually being a lot of fun and I kind of got one over
by it. But the game is still very stupid, like the presentation aspect
of it is really rough. Even just some of that stuff that I think
comes from the look at the joy On's face right now from that game as
very cut signs you can't interrupt to have him go shut up, bitch,
which I thought you would be able to. So we needs to cut Stranger
of Paradise because we had a whole thing about this. Yes, this was
right. This is trying to talked about more than any other game. Last
year, it hung out in the top twenty, almost reached the top ten
because Tam would let me cut it. I don't know what you're talking about.
I's gonna give you permission right now to cut it, right, Tam,
John, I think you should do what you think is right for you.
There we go. Oh, I can't believe you did that. I
do not be associated with Stranger of Paradise. I've already chose my other weird
Square game. I was I tuned out because I'm a bad person. You
guys feel that strongly about chain that goes I think so, yeah, okay,
I love that there's like a switch that you manually flipped like I've had
enough of this, just like he's like, this doesn't concern me. It
tried that game and I felt playing it. If Grub had a mind place,
like, uh, what do you think is in there? It's like
this when you when you pressed the back on, when you press the back
where does he go? H he has like a tiny cup of espresso,
a bean bag. Yeah. I love the idea heat delivery. I love
the idea of like when he retreats his mind place, it's just the room
that he's in that right now, the exact same right now, I think
you're wearing like soundproof headphones, writing a lawnmower. And then he has at
least twelve Chinese knockoff handhelds in his pocket. Yeah, that's right there.
Right over there, he's a fighting insects under his house. Mike, you
you spoke pretty passionately about power slave game rules. He's right, this is
this is what This is the ideal game for this category. That's the game
I wish for people. Now, Look, if you're like somebody who just
can't handle like that era of first person shooters, right you like you just
think like there's something off putting about that or something you can't give with it's
aged and maybe it won't win you over, but you have any affinity for
the quin unquote gamer shooters. This this is the one that you missed out
on. It's a really impressive remake project as well. I also like the
word exhumed. Yeah, good word. I feel like you dropped Midnight Suns
in there as well as one of the three. Yeah, I mean sense
wasn't good, you know, like Midnight Funds. All right, everyone amen,
locked in? Okay, Yeah. Immortality I think is a fantastic game.
I love when movies and video games shake hands and become friends for a
little bit. Uh, you know, we see that extensively with The Quiet
Man. But we can quest of course we can. Uh, we can
cut Immortality way if we pull back Strangers of Paradise. What if we did?
That's interesting? No no, no, no, I have some more
things to say about it. No, no, no, no no.
I hate how when you beat up enemy you get like fifty pieces of equipment,
so like what I even do. The only thing you can do is
just like auto equip That's the whole game. Really. It's like I had
an iPod and it had like new Metal on it that doesn't make sense.
None of this game made heads. None of it did. They had power
eggs, they had jo crystals that they touched with each other. Yeah,
game's you're making a compelling case. Put this back on. Are you talking
about it more which further disqualifies it? And what was your final bill?
Jan? I was like, I page and I would do ultima to defeat
my enemies pretty much. But I just kept the bowler hat on because the
fedora, because you know that swag. Who's the winner of this category?
I think it's power sleeping soon say for power slave? Yeah, power slave.
Let's go more like why I had to be a power Paradise God?
What can I live on this? Weird? We only have two? All
right? All right? Yeah, Midnights on this way? This guy le
okay, you know what, let's get this out of the way. Let's
reward Mike's gusto now, so we get it out of the way. I'd
only encourage him. It needs a win. Win. We're going to stop
the momentum. Don't worry everyone. Also Midnight says we talked about way too
much. I like did multiple things with Jan last year where he played it
and we talked about it, and yeah, like we talked, we Midnight
Suns was featured prominently on Giant Bum. I have go to guess that there
was basically zero Giant Bomb coverage of Power Sleeving zoomed. I think I'm gonna
mention that I played it because you talked about it so much and then finally
got me to play it. But I don't know beyond that. That's it
twenty If he sings again, it's oleo fo. Midnight Suns does win the
twenty twenty three of the best way to feature Blade in All Media, does
in all meetings to the best Blade? Please someone add that to the list.
All right, folks, that is three categories out of the way.
Today, pooh pooh. Recapping those categories, we have cheesecake factories. Ben
Starr presents Best Debut, with the winner being Talking Flower from Super Mario Brothers
Wonder, with Turgle and Yako and Ilmo as runners up. Best Running Around
the Spirit of Moving Marvel's Spider Man two taking that category. Runners up being
Super mar Brothers Wonder and Armed Corese six, with Ghost Runner two being the
Ghost runner up. Best twenty twenty two Game of the Year. We didn't
game. We didn't talk about Midnight suns Chained, Echo's runners up with Power
Slave Exhumed taking that category. We're gonna take quick Break, your break,
and after that break we will be back with Best Alan Wait Character. Stay
tuned, folks, We'll see you right after this. This show is sponsored
by Betterhelp. Yo. We are near the end of the year, and
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get ten percent off your first month. That's Better Help h e LP dot
com slash BombCast. And we are back everyone for day one of the real
Game of the Year. Here giant bomb dot com. Everyone is still here
once again. We are already crowned three categories. If you're joining us late.
If you're joining us late on a podcast, that's weird. Why'd you
do that? Why'd you skip a whole hour ahead? Anyway? That's impressive?
Next category and I want everyone to remember listening now. Spoilers are abound.
It's Game of the Year season, So if you haven't finished a game,
sorry, are you sorry? Sorry? But the next category is best
Alan Wake character. Nominees are Alan Wake, Saga, Anderson Atti, the
Janerator Janitor Jane is a hard thing to say. That's a good point.
Is a great name. I Costella Yako Castella. Mister, do you guys
know the same actor, same guy that helmet as well. Ye, look
up the same actor mister door Rose tore odin the Moose, who I'm assuming
is the Mocha Moose. Yeah, I'm not very amused. Yeah, the
Coffee World Moose. Yeah, Mayor center and the Coffee World mascot. Wait
is that the same thinks their center is the dog Mare? Well, yes,
the World mascot. Yes that's not yeah okay, oh yeah, Wait
do we not have tim Break break Breaker? Okay? Sure, yeah,
man Breaker is really taking his situation in stride. I have to say he's
very calm about Wait, wait do we do we not have the old people
from the Valhalla? We have like the Victor? Is that guys? Yeah,
I'm only gonna wear a towel. That sounds are good to Yeah,
moving the robe, just the towe really rob? Okay, so this is
the Jor in the Brothers, right, Yeah, I'm something didn't put in
Alex Casey. I feel like, oh yeah, yeah yeah, but yeah,
I really like Alan Wake Actually, I mean I think he's I think
he's a likable guy for sure. I think I mean, don't think it's
like quick here. Do we also put Sam Lake he plays case Oh no,
he doesn't like yeah like the actor yeah, yeah, yeah, sure,
okay, just juice and Sam Casey. Yeah, so so we go
wake it's obviously ADI right, Like I mean, this is a fun exercise.
Yeah, yeah, this is a fun exercise, but is without a
doubt a luck Like he's always saying such ridiculous ship like the in the kitchen.
You know, you're all right whatever the coke is in the kitchen.
No, he talks about like cooks and kitchens and yeah, it's like it's
like I don't care what you're saying, AUTI you're You're fucking fantastic. I
also have a repeat act though, because he this is the character the same
stuff. No, he doesn't do this. He's like me, way more
involved in the best character now this is Yeah, it is one of the
best way around before too and Alan wake one famously that's right fortnight. I
love that you don't deliver that with such anger. That's awesome. I also
love that has a poster of himself in his own that is. But I
think it's all earnest, you know. It's like, oh says like amazing
stuff like I love everything. Like the more you think about the more cool
he is. He's like he's a like a realm traveling Janet every time,
listening to music, every single time him. I saw saw him and he
popped up. I got a kick out of me, Like yeah, I
just wanted to hang out with him. Yeah. When when I was first
going through like the studio and then I heard humming, I'm like, wait,
wait a minute, no, no is it not? And then I
bust through the doors, like and it's like, all right, this motherfucker,
I feel at home. Can we cut Alan himself? Because I feel
like he just has that one mode. Was like like it's just that the
whole game. So I would react if I was suddenly in hell turns out
hell there and like the whole or like furiously writing like it's those are those
are crazy? It is funny, like the whole thing that the Like there's
plenty to make fun of about Alan, Like I think it's right for the
picking, but I just love the whole. Like I'm panic writing such a
talk show, that's fine, that's fine. It's the writing where like imagine
having to write a novel with like a gun to your head. It's just
like what the And then theicole did this and I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
He's not like Saga. He's just too cool to be scared finding out that.
Yeah, I'm and they want to kill her Saga's whole attitude. I
guess when you finish the game, you can maybe make the case for like
why Saga acted the way Saga did. But I mean, I don't know.
I do think she is unaffected in a way that is like very troubling.
Yeah. So has everyone here beaten Alan Wake two except for me?
Yeah? Yeah, So here's here's my question. I've heard that alan Wakes
arc of like learning that he's a bad writer is very interesting and powerful.
Is that true? Does that apply? Does that? Does that make Alan
Wake stay on the list? Yeah? I don't really know where that's coming
from, some sort of real issues. I don't even think he's a bad
writer. No, no, yeah, that's that's people like reading between the
lines and being like trying to find something more there a bit, but like
he's good. It's open to interpretation a bit, Like you can interpret it
that way because broadly speaking, is about like you know, uh creative,
how creativity and like syndrome and to like be creative again. Like that's and
the whole like bad writer thing is is like, I don't know where that's
coming from. He's like very much inspired by Stephen King, And I don't
know anyone leveling the claimed that Stephen King is a bad writer. I wouldn't.
Yeah, I feel yeah, I feel like he's like his whole thing
here is like he's chaotically panic writing to try and fix what's going on around
him, and he's struggling his way through it in a lot of ways.
But yeah, the arcist isn't specifically that let's keep let's keep Allen. Then
I think there's people the bottom of the list we can come. Yeah,
I think yeah. I mean here's the thing though, right if if you
if Alan stays, then like, how do the brothers, you know,
well, they're obviously doing well. They already were in another category, right,
Oh oh they'll feel good about that. Then I guess we could add
an ass to character and get them both them. That's thinking, Dan,
that's thinking. And I really like mister Door too, man, Yeah,
I like him. I really enjoy what is implied with mister Door. Yeah,
that's the thing. What's the implication that he's Saga's dad? Oh?
Really? Yeah's dad? And he also maybe has some multiverse powers and that's
why he probably is that character from Quantum Break because remember that bit Dan where
he's like, you you fucking got my family involved in this? Oh I
don't remember. I just remember at the end he was in like the speaking
parts in her head and was like why is he here? He's constantly like
insinuating that Alan wrote his door into the store's eye. Yeah. Like they're
talking about how O's like didn't like Saga's father, right, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah yeah, And then they talk about how through Saga's mother's
side is how she gained access to the mind place, but then through mister
Door she's able to navigate it. Yeah. I think we keep mister Door
for now. I feel like he's he's a good character conceptually, but there's
not enough substance to him right now to make him take a position over pretty
much everyone else. The facial expressions like he's really just cheating. He's like
pointing and we're saying and all that. Like I do it that he's kind
of there to almost be a set up character, and you don't even get
the impresson when you're playing the game. You know that this character's mystery is
not getting sold here. We're kind of setting things up for control too.
He's going to be in control to causing problems. Yeah, if we're talking
about facial expressions, how do we feel about ro maybe the most facial expressions
too much facial expression ing? Right, I mean version and Valhalla version.
I thought it was just such an interesting character. She's great one character which
is cool like that she came back prominently. She's great. I just don't
know if it's as strong, Okay, but that's look. I think it's
a testament to the to the cast here, right, Like that's true,
that's true. It's a very good cast cast of the year even over like
Boterskate three, which is the saying okay, uh, Thomas Zane I needed
a bit more. Yeah, he reminded me of me a huge No,
he reminded me of myself. No, there's some like some British like washed
up rock star kind of vibe, you know, like, what's that guy
you got canceled? He had a talk show and he was in Russell Brand.
Thomas is better than Russell Bran of course. No, Russell Brand's the
guy who plays Russell Brand's dad. And get him to the Greek from start
called me okay, all right, well he reminded me of a bottle.
Remember Debaucherous Guy's Balta. Yes, same energy. Okay, we keeping Thomas
Zane for now? Then? No, No, you could lose him,
and I think I think you could lose Lake and Casey. Yeah, but
Casey's cool. If we're trying to narrow down to three. We got wark
to do. Friends. We are like at fifteen here cut the moose.
The moose doesn't really do the mask the mascot. I was gonna reveal my
tattoo of the Coffee World mascot. Good, good tattoo. Yeah, people
can go. I feel like I don't feel like Tim could go. It
was a fun surprise. It's a fun surprise, especially when it's like,
why are you so calm here? Yeah, he didn't make any progress either
in his little fucking whiteboard. I don't, I don't. I think that
is We're gonna see a lot more of him. What is sorry? What
was the thing with Tim when he just a cop that was around? He's
from Quantum Break that it was the same character as quant Bak's the same,
But it's like the name tim Breaker quant to break Oh ship, I put
that together the sheriff in the first game. And okay, it's cute to
have a surprise dog silent Hill too, did that better though? Whatever?
Oh yeah, sorry may Okay, what about these two old people torn Odine?
Fine, I'm not going to make it on top three? Oh oh
grubs, I'm having internet issues. So he's popped off for a second.
Okay, fun this is okay, Well that's the thing. Well this looks
like this now I'll figure this out. Keep keep talking. Yeah, I
love this. I like I do like Rose. I like Rose more than
I like Sam, like that real person. That's not true, but like
in the game, Samlake plays it himself only for a little bit when he
is on the talk show and it's funny to see him, meaning yeah,
yeah, no one dislikes Sam, a universally loved person. Right, So
that's enough. I but what else do you want? Every time I'd see
Sam before, I'd be super calm. Now I'm scared that I'm gonna like
freak out to yeah, fan out too much. One to see him next
time, which is a high likelihood because of the game awards. Sam loves
being Sam les Mike Manatti who loves being Mike MANAUGHTI I appreciate that. Yeah,
you know, I I was getting tired of like the pomp hairstyle,
and you know, partially for my motivations for shaving my head. But Sam
makes me want to go back, makes me want to grow my hair back.
It makes sense, I get it. Yeah, so can someone cut
Sam Lake for me? Because you can't physically can't do it. I'm moving.
You only have so many arms, all right, He's so upset he
can't do it. We want to cut both of the protagonists, like they're
both good. I think they're both protagonists. I don't think either of them
are the best characters in the game. Yeah, I personally agree. I
think Saga like fun playing as like we can lose there. I love I
love both of them, but if you stack him up as characters compet to
I'm gonna my vote is like ati Ilmo and Yako. Even though I love
Rose and I love mister Door, I'd say the Coscalas and mister Dor.
I agree with Dan. That's the first time I've ever said that, but
it's true. I agree with Dan. That's my final three. I would
take that on the soundboard. I'm not against that, but I think I
feel like Alex Casey has more to give than mister Door. I agree,
Actually, yeah, I think. Yeah, I feel like we're really like
under still selling how his how good his performances. He's like a main character
in that thing he's whereas mister Door is like pops in and out. He
does that Dohnson and Pawn, but like Alex Casey doing the hamming up the
the noir detective thing, sure listen then like losing his mind towards the end,
and I feel like that's a way more compelling character talk. It's fair,
but but I think puts Door over the top is his scene performance,
the caliber of it when he first interviews Alan and he's just like playing it
so well, So naw, he's a better actor straight up. But also
uh, a phenomenal execution of that scene where he is basically leading Alan along
and Alan's just like I'm a reuter my book's doing and him being like,
oh no, you're so brilliant and smart like that whole scene for me.
Puts uh puts him over the top for me. So we feel comfortable cutting
Alan and Saga correct, Yeah, yeah, Alex is just there's so much
going on with that character. Yeah, I feel the same name as the
character that Alan Wick has written about. It's also clearly a stand in for
Max Pain in a lot of ways. This character exists in the dark place
and in the real world. Right, there's just so much going on there.
Every time, every time I saw that line up, the black and
white thing, I was so excited. I was like, Oh, yeah,
we again, Alex more. Yeah, I mean that's also what's his
face? I mean it does? It does. We're talking about the character,
so it doesn't matter. It's not the it's not the actor, right,
but yeah, yeah, yeah, James McCaffrey like nails that performance so
well, and like even like the Sam Lake stuff is pretty cool. Like
the acting, his acting is surprisingly really good for someone who's not a trained
actor. Really, Yeah, I like mister Door, but I feel like
Alex Casey has got like way more substance and texture to it, way way
like significantly more. Here's what what about this? What about we cut mister
Door and Alex Casey and keep Rose on? Do you love her? Doesn't
she? She writes some slash fiction. No slash slashes gay fan fiction yeah,
how like I love how she's like in love with Alan Wake and that.
Yeah, the diary entries right, like, yeah, she always has
been. I like, I like you. I like she seems crazy but
it's actually correct, right, Like she's getting secret messages. But even if
Alan doesn't remember, like that clearly did happen because the things that she did
were important and helpful. Mm. I also feel like her just straight up
being the first person to kind of shake up saga and be like, hey,
such kid died. Yeah, yeah, seeing the diner is great with
her. Yeah. I guess if we wanted to just have Door and Casey
cancel on, I'd be okay with that. Maybe they cancel each other out,
Okay. I like Rose, fantastic job, bro way to sneak in
there. Okay, Audi wins, Audi wins right, Yeah yeah, yeah,
okay, thanks Jeff, Thanks Jeff, I'm here for you. Yes,
yes, Jeff, yes, Jeff, all right, best Alan Wake
character winning. This is Atti the Janitor, runners up, the Coscala Brothers
and Rose. I do I want to imagine what an Ati DLC would be
like. It'd just be like the slowest powerwash simulator, a lot of mop
and yeah, make like a band origins sa thing but with ati yeah yeah,
and then you could have like a yakuza karaoke game when he's just singing
yep, and then he has to recharge by going to the sauna every thirty
minutes. Yeah, excuse me, what grub? So thank you? Thank
you there you're welcome, thank you? All right, all right, all
right, that's another category down. Next category friends is best game you bounced
off of. The nominees are Atomic Heart, Star Wars, Jedi Survivor,
Dead Island two, A E W Fight Forever See If Stars, Spider Man
two, Diablo for Overwatch two, Remnant two, Assassin's Creed, Mirage,
Octopath, Traveler two, Liza p Curbal Space Program two, and Viewfinder.
I mean, game has to be good, like best, this is the
best game you bound but you bounced off. Okay, real quick, let's
qualify bounced off. That does not have to have a negative connotation. Here,
we started playing, we didn't finish. Yeah, either as a group
of an individual person like really liked the game and then didn't finish it.
Yeah, I would say, aw is not winning this, Like there are
these ideas there and they're these good intentions with you guys. Yes, right,
I never played issues. It is not gonna it's not gonna beat a
lot of the stuff on it. I never played a second of it.
Again, I like, I kind of like this game just from watching Dan
play it. I thought it was fun to do. It was even very
endearing elements to There are endearing elements to that game, for sure, but
it was just playing it as Dan. That's right. I did enjoy Dan
learning about like regional foods though, yeah, uh huh, it does have
to do it. Only game is here. I had that trongle, isn't
it? Oh, thank you, thank you. No, no, I
was about to ask for that. Thank you for reading my mind? Is
brash accent again? Yeah? Oh is that what that was? Yeah?
Yeah, that's a viewfinder is Yeah, it's okay, it's okay. It's
never beyond that that Steam demo pazzing that we did. We're like, oh
my god, this gimmick works and it's awesome. It never really got past
that. You know, it does not rise above that. I agree,
I think we can cut it. I think I also didn't like that there.
You know, I feel bad for saying this, but there was more
there than there needed to be in terms of the story was distracting. Yeah,
okay's the question here, story as a potential lock here? How many
people started Spider Man two, enjoyed it a lot, and didn't finish it?
Just you did? It? Was just me okay, yeah, okay,
okay. I played like, yeah, thirty forty hours or something.
I didn't stopped, but I think it's very good. How did you finish
it? Because everything else I did, all the side ship and love,
I was really enjoying it. And then it was just story missions left,
and I was any one out of thirty one in and I started on what
happened? It was a Mary Jane Stell thing, and I was like,
fuck this, I don't like these story missions. Like I did all the
fun stuff, So yeah, okay, Mary Jane stuff is got better.
I think it is much easier when you realize that she's got so much,
like there's so much forgiveness in her stuff like this. Didn't care about this.
I just didn't care about the story either, So I was like,
if that's all that's left, I don't care. So I bet, Okay,
how many people here beat Jedi Survivor because that's definitely one that I I
want to get back to it. That's that for me, that's a big
one. Same. I like it a lot. I played about five six
hours and I dropped off because I started playing Zelda and back does that keep
it on the list though, So because you bounced off, yeah, I
think that's that's when I think we can easily caught Atomic haw because I was
going to ask Jeff because back when I think you enjoyed this the most out
of everyone. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if it's the best game
I bounced off of, but it's certainly a game, a game that a
memorable game that I bounced off of, and okay, good, I don't
really think about it that much, but I uh, and I did really
enjoy that, and I think there's a lot I think that game was a
bit of an impressive, like technical thing. For for what it's worth,
that game was all right. It had a lot of really like sludgy kind
of like second act that I wasn't a huge fan of, and I think
that's what really got me bounced off. For a rebound off it sounds like
yeah, but then I came back because when I think I played it,
when you guys went out to SGF and I was holding like a Friday and
I played because he missed us, right, and I was just like,
let me try this. And there was this big boss battle that was like
really fun. I did that. So yeah, for me personally for twenty
twenty three, that is probably the best game that I bounced off of.
Oh well, let's keep it on then. But yeah, but one person,
you know, I can't really I gets too much weight. So yeah,
we did have it on there first. For recent I think it's the
one that came to mind. I think I tried that game, but I
don't have any feelings about it really. You know. For me, I'm
such a BioShock, uh you know that, Like, yeah, I just
you're a monk. Yeah, tam cool with the wrestling stuff, I'm sorry
I was talking about and I just wanted to you know, it's Mark exclusive
to wrestling. I don't think that's also from Carney's Yeah, my friend Mark,
So yeah, exactly. And you could also be like a Marc ass
bitch too, right, so WHOA, what's aggressive? I don't know,
you can kind of sorry, it was just swear about it. He had
no cuss rule this year. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So yeah,
for me personally, it most certainly is. I think there is probably one
or two more in that. Can I ask cover what it feel about Dead
Island too, because that's one that is. Yeah, but here's the thing
where I bounced off Dead Island Too, was like, I I'm kind of
like, I'm with you. I love that game, but I definitely got
sick of it. It ran its course. But I don't know if that
should disqualify it from this category necessarily. It's just like you didn't finish it
because you but what you played did you like? Because that's how I feel
about it. Anybody else there not even started because I didn't even started,
played a few hours at a little bit, did a stream? Yeah,
yeah, yeah. I do kind of wish we had that category of like
the game you played once with your friends and then never touched again. I'm
putting some of that mustard on this category. Yes, yeah, So for
me Dead Island, who really plays here? I think, oh yeah,
cut around. I mean you could finish in thirteen hours. I played and
I read it. Lucy, tell me about Overwatch too, tell me about
Overwatch as well. I think I bounced off it before they even did.
I think I'm just sad man weird. It's it's weird because it's a good
game, competent in many ways, but this it's just there's something about it
that as like it's missing now, Like I feel like I started, I
was like, something's off here and I don't know good Will. Yeah,
it's missing Goodwill. It's missing, like the buzz it's missing. I feel
like it's got a lot of baggage. And I don't even know the names
of like the last three heroes, which sounds if you told twenty sixteen,
twenty seventeen me that I would, I would think you're aligned like popular and
successful, like widely like outside of this group. No, it's it's a
harder times. Well, I think I think what happened is they they balanced
and designed the game more for competitive sports, and everyone went, we hate
this ship and now and now they shut that shit down and now everyone's like,
oh oh, and like everyone's now now now they're paying attention because they
are slowly making it more fun again. So yeah, I mean like they
made the wrong gam bet, and it was a very obvious bad bet.
It's just weird where games like this that have to live forever where when they
come out, even if they have war it's like man like Overwatch one,
it's one of my favorite games in the world. That was the game was
every day And it's just so weird that like I have to now, like
what what do I think about Overwatch in general now compared to where it is
now? And of course at some point I'm not going to play it that
much anymore. I guess it's been what seven years or whatever, But it
is just it's weird that when when I try to go back to it,
it just feels really off. There's a bailed in the story mode and that
was Yeah, it sounds like it sounds like we'll have a bad taste in
your mouth. That it makes y'all hesitant to check out the future of Overwatch.
Just can't scramble to get back up, you know, I feel like
I'm too far behind now. Yeah, okay, there was a There's there's
something about it where the original Overwatch you could stop playing for a few months
and come back to it and still feel good playing it, whereas you come
back to this one and you just it feels like because of the way it's
balance for competitive. You just feel like you're you're just getting bullied constantly.
Okay, And even like I would say, like we're good Overwatch players,
even I'm playing, I'm like, it's just not satisfying, Like I'm not
getting the momentum is not there. I don't have a good game. You
know, One of three is a good game. It's just it feels like
everything's a struggle and I feel like I'm bad because of it. Like I
have a more enjoyable experience playing Counterstrike, which is a just the sweatiest of
multiplayer games. Also, the Steam filmmaker porn isn't as good as it used
to be, so yeah, yeah, so weak Overwatch too. Yeah.
How many other people bounce off of lives of p desplite really enjoying it and
beat it? But me very much. I played that for like ten hours
and I was super into it, and then I just like kept on living
my life a game for this category if it, Yeah, I'm like not
finished it, but I'm I slowed down because I was enjoying it so much,
because I was like, I don't know when Shadows of the Tree is
coming out, so I'm taking my time with this, Okay, So I
think. Yeah. I mean I I played it it games Calm, but
I didn't I didn't do the full release. So well, did any of
us play enough Remnant two to bounce off of No, it was definitely the
one one of those ones where it's like played it online with you guys and
then never touched again. I touched it a few more times, to be
fair, I really like that. I want to go back to it still,
but I don't know if it's enough to push it onto this list.
But yeah, I just want to find a place for Remnant too in my
life. That's how I I feel about that game. Yeah. Yeah,
Well I would say the same for Octopath too, Like I feel like that's
a game that I wish I had more time to play, so maybe that
qualifies it. I know that game is good. I can tell that game
is good and yeah, and like what, I've been talking to Michael Higher
and he's like it's his game of the year. Yeah. Every time he
says speaks about it, I'm like, man, I wish I'd spent more
time playing that game, and it's like near the top of my list to
be like one of the Christmas games. I'm gonna think loads of time.
Yeah, I always I feel bad because like the people who like this game
really like it, And right when I finally did start it, and then
like a few days later was when C Stars came out and got all this
buzz, So I sort of just immediately jumped ship to that, and I
haven't really been able to go back. And I was really skeptical because I
did not really like Octopath One's about try with two, Like I played a
few hours of it and it's still like, yeah, I see it's good.
It hasn't really grabbed me in that way these people who are super excited
about it are. But I definitely regret not being able to spend more time
with it. I wanted to bounce off both of those games. I just
didn't have enough time. I wish I could bounce off that. And I
think maybe we include Sea of Stars in that cut. Yeah, I mean
I did anyone else besides me beat Sea of Stars? I didn't bounce off
of it. All Right, Well I'm gonna I'm going to hit delete here,
or you know what, let's keep seeing stars. Let's cut Remnant two
in Oxopath two. Okay, Diablow four, that's interesting. Oh yeah,
just real quick, does Spider Man still need to be on there? Well,
I would say if we're cutting Spider Man, we got to cut a
Tomic Heart two because I think it's a similar thing where one person likes it
and didn't finish it, you know, like I always I'm maybe I'm the
best game because I think Spider Man two is a really good game, and
I bounced off, so I think by the letter of the law, it's
very much in this category. But I'm the only one, So I would
say if we cut it, we should probably cut Atomic Cartoo since that's the
same thing with back large. Yeah, I might think it was like a
bunch of us be as well, see exactly. Yeah, I get the
logic. What do you consider bear bouncing off of the four? I beat
the campaign and then played quite a bit, but there's like as a campaign
and then as a life service game, and that I did bounce off of.
I think bouncing off of like, you know, maybe not completely finishing
the game, but being disappointed, like, ah, you know, I
want to circle back to that eventus. Yeah, yeah, I bounced off
of Damp before. I really enjoyed what I played. But we also had
a situation where we had to play the first act multiple time. Yeah,
right, hits that same scenario the Dead Island two does, where I played
with y'all, really enjoyed my time there, but then never came back to
it. Yeah, I wasn't too interested in keeping continuing our play through after
that. So it's like I didn't I didn't think about the Albo four that
much after that. So do we cut it? Because it sounds like I
have a hard time here with like Dead Island. And the other thing is
like, how many people want to go back to the I can't tie that
you. I'm not really that. I won't want a new when a new
class comes out, that's one I will get that. Yeah, where some
of these some of these other games, is at least one persons like I
would like to go back to that. Yeah, yeah, I like Halsey.
I do like Halsey curbal Space Program too. Yeah, cut it.
It's early access, but I do I was disappointed at how fast I bounced
off it. And that's that's just comes down to the game not really being
complete in a more significant way than early access might might imply. I know
it got a recent update that I haven't checked out, But yeah, it's
not gonna play in this category just because of that early access stuff. All
right, Scout, calm down, please his opinions. I'm in a new
house. Whoof I smell my neighbors? Okay, so we have four right
now. Look, let me do a quick test here. How many of
us started Jedi survivor me? Yeah? Okay, literally all of us?
How many of us finished it? Literally? None of us? Okay,
Well that's the winner. It's clearly a good game too, is all the
winner. I played a little bit of it a couple of days ago,
like the first of ever. I'm like, this game is good? Why
did I It's biggest lock I've ever seen a game, yimous and unanimous that
I also bounced off of it earlier this year because of like the performance on
like the Steam Deck was is that moment it's gonna be on TikTok so?
Who who are the runners up here? I think it's down on two in
lines of p all right, yeah, yep, yeah. I think I'm
the one who likes sees the start of the most. But I beat it.
I don't actually hate it. I just think it's boring, which I
guess is more damning. I don't think if you meet to a video game,
but you proved me wrong. Okay, best game you bounced off of
the winner definitively, extremely unanimously with a bullet. Star Wars Jedi Survivor shouts
out to Turgle, Runners Up, being Dead Island two and Lies of p
I mean it's still a best category, So that's a positive positive. Yeah,
it's still a win. I want to go back. This is the
game I'm most looking forward to going back to. I also, I also
feel like for the next day week, adjust the naming of this category.
Sure, Ben Starr presents the best gaming bouncy it makes more sense for sure,
because I feel like fell off is more running. Yeah, we had
this conversation. I bounced off is less pejorative. I think bounced off makes
she pushes you away. I think it just like to me, it's it
implies that there's something in there and I Yet for some reason, I still
bounced off because it's like and fell off is just like things that bounce also
have a category called the most Confusing cagary. Yes, we circle back to
everything we've ever DoD like that. What is game of the Year Actually mean,
all right, folks, another category down. We're moving at a clip
here, perhaps the most let's say traditional category this year. Yes, yes,
Mike, do we want to Did you want to do that one?
When I'm you're gonna be gone? Well, we're we only have two left
and we're ending with a bigger one we were going to do. We have
Best New Hardware nominees. PlayStation Portal, Steam, deck O lead the p
s. I'm gonna put PS five Slim. I do enjoy the PlayStation one
Slim, the Roger Ally, piz Ver two, met A Quest three,
Lenovo, Legion Go and Razor Kitsune Its five slim. It's welcome to have
something kind of smaller, but it's that same form factor. It's just as
non portable and non packable as ever. And it's not like I stacked up
all the slims and PlayStations next to each other. I think we're going to
do it a TikTok of it, but it's it's crazy seeing the difference between
like the PS two and the PS two Slim, and then like each one
of them, the slim is less slim, and this is maybe the biggest
offender with that, It's still good. Still well, but it's it's not
winning this body. Yeah, I feel like easy like contend as for winners
a Steam Deck O. Yeah. I think it's the exact opposite of what
the PS five Slim is because it's like they're both supposed to be small upgrades,
right, and yet the Steam Old is like surprisingly significant in so many
ways. I would also like to nominate the Rogier Ally because that thing is
incredible. Yeah. The only thing I dislike about it. The only thing
I dislike about it the fact that boots into Windows and it's called the thing
session sucks. I'm just gonna say it, Jeff, you are a steam
Deck fanboy, My goodness, I like. No. I like the the
Lenovo Legion Go. I've been using a lot, and that uses Windows and
that also has kind of weird software, and yet it's better than the Ally
in almost every way, except it also has the problem of like they don't
go to sleep. No. Yeah, listen, the steam Deck does it
right. These other ones do it wrong. I mean that's the how is
that my fault? The problem with the Ally is like you just want it
to work like your game boy. You just want it to work like a
DS and all this stuff because that's what it's shaped like. And it's like,
no, actually, I'm still secretly a laptop T T and it's at
least just behave normal. Why can't you just be normal? I hit the
button to put you to sleep, and you immediately wake up. I didn't
touch anything. I swear to God, I didn't touch anything. It just
there's it's just wasting battery over there. It happens to me all the time
constantly with that thing. It's because you plug it in, like you could
go going the window settings and like nag all these things. I just shouldn't
have to do that for these No, I've not done any of that stuff.
I've not messed with any saying so I it's when I use my roger
Ally as like a when my steam deck is out of battery or when my
where I'm in a different room, I switched to the roger Ally because it's
slightly more powerful and like, so I play my steam Deck like and then
until I'm getting bed and then I have my roger Ally by my bedside,
turn that on, play it for an hour or so, turn it off
fully down like not like I'm not using it as like a Daily Driver.
I'm using it as like a before bed kind of thing, and it's it's
lighter, and it's like got a little bit better battery for me, and
I just really like it as a almost like a this is the most fucking
privileged thing ever, like as a backup to this Steam deck to bed.
Yeah, going into my other room. It does play games better, it
is more powerful, and so I have us used it a lot because of
that. Okay, okay, maybe we if you want to take it off,
No, no, no, I think we keep it on for now.
Yeah. I think I'm just everything else and I'm like, I think
we can cut the p S five slim. Yeah, yeah, definitely cut
the PSBR two. Holy shit. Oh yeah. Someone had to tell me
I reviewed a game on that the other day. Yeah. I was like,
I think that's it, right, because it's like this is the one
where it's we had the conversations lead into it, like, hey, it
just needs to have a lot of support and a lot of software and maybe
there's a bunch of games we don't know about, and there was just nothing.
I mean, Sony literally threw it into a black hole. Yeah,
we saw it and then we saw it disappeared. The headset is good.
The whole like just kind of getting set up and everything around the room is
very good. At It's like one of the better BR headsets for that stuff.
But like, what do you how could you possibly recommend that to someone?
Library? You know, when it came out, the majority of the
games where games that already existed yes or compatible yeah, And the new games
were games that use mechanics that were very familiar in VR and we're done in
other games. So it's just like, what is this thing? Man?
Impossible to recommend? Okay, cutting the piz for two, I got some
Quest three it is. It's good. So the hardware itself is really good.
The pass through really works. The ar gimmick is it's pretty cool,
like that New Horizon's demo comes with where you're in a room and all these
aliens start breaking in and everything like it's it's effective. It's actually one of
those good show piece BR things. Like when my sister was in town,
it was like, hey, check this out and she was kind of blown
away. So it feel like washing dishes and you want to watch like YouTube
in the corner as well. That was a private here that was a conversation
we had all right, I thought that wouldn't make it out, so so
I do think as it's my favorite VR headset. My complaints about VR and
my thoughts on the VR not being there yet are still present. There's not
a lot of games I want to plan it actually now that they added that
steam br thing though, because that Steam Link deal works and steambr I'm going
to play a half my Ballox finally. I might start this weekend. So
I it's it's pretty solid. I'm not playing a lot, but it's good.
Yeah. Well, Steam steam via what happened. It's like a Steam
Link thing where it's like you can play so you can download like the Steam
VR or Steam Link app on the meta quest and then anything in your Steam
library. You can just run off your computer and it'll wirelessly. They're just
announced it. It's like a day or two ago they put it. Rebel
put out a press release. Yeah, it might, it might work differently.
There have been ways to do it. Well, you could do the
link cable, you could do it, but I did. Hey you say
wirelessly, yeah I connected sure, sure, Yeah you know it's wirelessly.
Now I got one to the jan got one. I've really been surprised to
how much it's like, oh, wow, VR is cool, because I
was at a point where I'm like, VR can go in that space where
I don't really think about it all that much anymore, and then I'm assed
around with this thing and a lot of it is the ar passed through stuff
does work really well, and it's cool to have this really high resolution video
window just sitting there and you can just watch a movie. I watched Actually,
I rented a three D version of Ghost to the show with Asian person
Scarlette Johansson representation Matters Baby, and it was like the IMAX format and it
was really big and the three D worked really well, and it was like
that was really neat. Actually, now that's the question question. Yeah,
was that because that was the only movie available on the fucking stool. There
was like there's like six or seven movies and that's the one. Listen,
the trailer got me, What do you want me to do with that movie?
Is you wanted to watch it? He was like he saw that he
saw three D Scarlet Henson and anything else that was it. Yeah, that's
right, But I don't know. It's a cool novelty and I like it
a lot. I don't know, all right. You know, Tam alluded
to it. I tried washing dishes with the metaquest three, not using the
like, yeah, he just couldn't get out the grease because you know,
I Dana talked very highly of the pass through I put it on. It's
I haven't had too much experience with VR. I'll say that, having to
wear glasses and put on several VR helmets in the past, dog Ship,
this one worked surprisingly well. Good. Maybe don't try and wash your dishes.
What happened. What happened. I just left some grease on a plate,
and I was like, oh man. And then maybe before that I
tried. I tried cooking with wearing the helmet, trying to live the dream
because trying to escape his reality so hot. Because I did like get up,
like in the middle of the movie and like I gotta go to the
bathroom, and it was I could like make the video come with me,
and I'm like I thought about it, but I'm like, I'm not gonna
go have the splashback happen. And then I'm my VR and knew VR headset,
so I did take it off, but I'm like I thought about it.
And you know, maybe the technology isn't there for like the pass through
to be like one for one or whatever, because I may have it's closed
for some food. But it's really great. I think the Meta Quest three
stays for now. I'm not familiar with what the Razor kitsune is. That
is really thin fighting stick without the lever, so it doesn't have a joystick.
It's just but yes, I want to try it. I want to
play one, but it's too expensive to just be like I want to try
this. They could put a picture of came on it too, that's nice.
It rules. It's really really well done. Now, you know,
I've I've had hit a miss with Razor in terms of reliability over time,
but in terms of just like out of the box functionality and be impressed.
I picked it up, start playing Street Fighter three Third Strike and was like,
oh my god, this this feels like I can actually do the things
that I always thought I was doing with a joystick but wasn't working half the
time. Now it's like it's just a little bit of new muscle memory and
you're good to go. Now It's just a hip box at the end of
the day. But they did a really good job with the bill quality at
least out of the box. I like it. We gave it, Yeah,
we gave it a super good review. I reviewed it for us and
said it was like, really good, one of the best ones. Yeah,
it really is very well done. Are we keeping it? Are we
cutting it? I don't think it's good. I think I feel like I
feel like we keep No. I would get behind Matt Quest three over the
kids in there. Okay, yeah, I think it's going to have a
hard time with the other things on. I was defending the Roger ally,
but maybe could suit Day over Roger Alley. I don't know. I do
like the sound personally. I think we can cut PS portal. I've been
messing around with that this week and it's like the build itself and the screen
is solid, but like the use case thing is just like I don't really
see it happening much so, Tam. I was in the office yesterday and
Tom was like, do you want to like play around with it? And
I picked it up and like my first lizard brain reaction was to snap it
over my knee. I don't know, and I was like, oh my
god, why did you do that. I didn't snap it over money.
But I genuinely was like, oh, it's just I just want to do
that. Like I felt like a lemming I jump off a cliff or something.
It is like an irresistible, intrusive thought when it comes to that thing.
I don't know what's wrong with me. I've been using a decent amount
and like enjoying it. I don't think there's anything wrong with it right now.
No, no, But like I was like, I because it's weird,
because I had a situation a few weeks ago. I was like,
I wish I had a PlayStation Paul right now while I was like playing Spider
Man for review, because I was like, I want to place by carry
on playing Spider Man, but I need to move away from my PlayStation into
other things and you know, socialize and be in other places. But I
was like, if I had the port, I could do that. And
I found myself doing it a decent amount, Like I was sitting on the
couch watching TV and like playing Yu because at the same time, and it
was like working really well. The fact the issue it has is like the
your internet has to be perfect. It needs to be perfect, and if
you're like doing it purely wireless, you're gonna have a rough time. Your
Internet needs to be like your PS five needs to be hard wired in,
and even then like it's it's you know, can be a bit shaky.
And also what you're essentially getting is like a premium experience that you can have
somewhere else. You can have other devices do this, but it's just like
you're doing it on in a dual sense. That's like weirdly shaped. Mm
hmm. I think we should have to keep Portal there for now. I
can. I'm I'm not advocating to keep it there by the way, I'm
just saying, like I could, I could, I would take Metaquest three
over Paul as well. Okay uh. The Lenovo Legion Go is a steam
deck like it's like Roger ally, it is bulkier, bigger. It works
a little bit like a switch where you could take off the joint kan equivalents
on the side. Yeah, just that last thing, take off its sides
and then the controllers will still work and it has to kickstand and all that
stuff. The weird thing about it is there is a mouse optical eye on
the bottom of the right one, and you can attach a little disc on
it. Set it down and it turns into a vertical mouse, so you
could be playing basically like mouse control shooters with your little PC. So it's
like it has the full suite of capabilities and that's really neat. It is
like a Swiss army knife, though where it doesn't do anything particularly great.
It just does a lot of different things. Although it does run games pretty
well. It's not as powerful as the Ally I don't think, at least
not my experience, but it's you know, at least equivalent to a Steam
deck and probably a little bit more powerful in some ways. It is.
It's interesting. I think that if you are someone who's like, man,
I need to have my mouse, it's a very cool thing, a cool
solution to that. But I don't know if I want to put it,
if I'm ready to put it on the top three here, okay, I
think it's I think you can go. I think the Lenovo Legion go can
go holes from give bomb Oh yes, I have to bounce for a big
guys. I don't know if Mike I can go. I can go,
but yes, I look, I I've left a note on the one category
I feel strongly about. Hopefully I'm back to put some words to it,
but I don't know. But otherwise, okay, fantastic another break after the
new hardware, and yeah, yeah that would be great. Cool, all
right, thank you for keeping your face around, Mike. I'm just gonna
stare at it constantly. I wanted to bring up something that was a joy
for me to see, and it was TAM's ghost gimbal. Dude. I
was using it the other day and it's still fucking haunted. I don't understand
what is going on, Gimble. I have literally got a haunted gimbal,
like it just tries to like balance it with nothing. No, I'm using
it and suddenly it's like I'm just going to do a spin and one that
attaches. Yeah, that with mine. I did it thing with Leo Beata
recently, and it did with his. I think they might just not be
great. Like Jen Haus and like he's nailing it. I'm using it and
it's like, whoa, I'm very balanced. What can I say? I
human gimbal. I have a slight squat. I've actually called gimbal at the
avy place I used to work at. No one could fucking balance a gimbal
and I had to do it. For every single person. Anyway, we
can cut tam'scost gimble because it's haunted. Marino says, what about the Jewel
Scents Edge, It's good. I actually the panel. I like the panels
a lot better than I like him on the Xbox Elite controller, I like
just a kind of more. Yeah, the battery is really bad. That's
the swapping between the profiles on the fly is really easy. I do like
that. I like the overall better build field to it. It's definitely bulky.
I also found myself like accidentally hitting those short cut buttons too often.
Yeah, I haven't even touched one. The issue. The other issue is
like ergonomically if your hand like I know Lucy has this problem, I have
this problem. Who we work with has a problem if the ergonomics of the
existing dual sense like tie your hand out and like, because they make our
hands hurt a bit when we use it. The edge still does that and
that's kind of annoying. The batteries not good, Like I wish it had
more juice in it. Having said that, I use it still a decent
amount. I use it in Spider maun. A bunch are using it in
lines of p are using Armored Core and remake. Yeah, yeah, it's
like really it feels like a good balance between functional and not overly complicated,
if you know what I mean. I feel like the with the Elite the
Elite I think two is one of the best control I've ever made, but
it's also a nightmare to like you're go into the software and you're like,
what is this a celemitary data is confusing? Like just sign this, hit
the spot on and move around and you're good, And like, I really
like how the easier use and it is it's just a battery and the economics
are steel bad. Ye, sounds like we have a three here with the
steam deck O led, the Roger Ally and the Metaquest three? Can can
I get the Kitsune over the Ally? I'm I'm willing to to to give
up the Okay, I would I would like the fact that I want one
because I've heard enough good things about it as a lot. Yeah, I
too would like one. The thing with the I've never I've never used it,
but I have friends who really really like it. But I also feel
like it's it's so demonstrative of like an opportunity to like really get in now
that a bit of like that, you know, category has been fleshed out
a little bit and some of that dust is settled, Like it seems prime
time for someone to like really slot in and learn from everyone's sort of shortcomings
in that thing. So who whoever you are out there, make the right
fucking one. Make it easy to play EGS games on the go. I
mean how I does do that? Yeah, but like you, you talked
me out of getting one. I feel like, listen as well, It's
not like I did that and I actively hated every waking moment. It's a
rough experience. Yes, I agree, Yeah, listen, I I the
problem is always going to be that the software is going to be the hard
thing to pull off of, Like how do you put a layer over on
top of Windows that makes it feel more like a good friend held? And
the reality is you're just going have to wait for Microsoft to make a handheld
version of Windows, which they claim that they're doing, and then how good
are they going to be at that? I don't have a lot of faith
in it being decent. So yeah, we'll see. Ali is I'm harsh
on it. It makes us a lot of sense for a lot of people.
I just I find it a very frustrating thing to use a lot of
the time. Sounds like we're cutting it. Then yeah, let's do the
Razor counsus because that thing is is really fabulous. Roger, Roger cool word.
Yes, definitely so PlayStation Portal, Dual Sense Edge, we feel safe
cutting? Yes, I mean I'm gonna use the edge a lot more than
I use the portal. Yes. Okay, Still all that being said,
I still kind of want a portal. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm still gonna
get one, John, there's one in office that you can probably borrow for
extended periods of time. Dope. All right, Uh so enjoy. We
have our three here, the Steam Deck O Lead, the Medaquest three,
and the Razor Kitsune. And it's gotta be O lead, right, I
think so? Oh yeah, it is a it's such a game changer.
I left at a point with with Dan like really like kicking rocks and just
saying drat of like, man, welcome, they give me an extra one.
Huh they're really Honestly, the screen itself is so good, but some
of those little bonuses, like you know, the battery is a bury significant
upgrade. The case for me, I can't. I like to pack light,
but there's a lot of times I'm working on like a switch and a
Steam game and I would like to take both. But back when it was
two big bulky cases, I just never did that. Now I just took
a Thanksgiving trip with both of them and it was no problem at all.
Like I love that new case, you know, the small things even like
the the faster response time, the input lag is lower, and so it's
like it all like every game is going to benefit from that and the haptics
being better, so typing on the screen feels a lot better. I think
just every little thing got tweaked and improved and it's it's really impressive. We
also got the co sign from Turbo Shan. Hell yeahs Sean didn't love the
original Steam Deck either, so yeah, I was just gonna say, like,
I also feel like it. It exists really well alongside the original Steam
Deck. Yes, it doesn't like outdate it in any meaningful way. Like
I I people who want to get an old d I'm like, yeah,
hell yeah, I do it if you've got it. But like I still
feel like if I I would recommend the original Steam dey now of course there's
a lot of the buttons orange ye. Yeah. Also the weight of it,
it's I don't want to say significantly lighter, but moderately lighter. Runs
col yep, oh yeah runs cooler. Yeah, it's all right. Have
you seen the custom boots that games? The Hades one is so good?
Yeah, I might have. I just started up hang on, give you
a second, Yeah, audio listen lightning. Yeah, that's really neat.
Yeah. So, like developers are making custom boot sequences for it and from
the from the from Steam into their game or into the Yeah, you could
always there was like a reddit, a subreddit that like had like custom boot
screens that you could in yourself. But now Steam has a customization option built
in where you can go to like their not their real store, their Points
store and use your Steam points whatever the I can finally get rid of those.
Yes, you could finally use those, and you could buy these ones,
like a Haites themed boots screen. Let's see, it's gona work this
stuf. I've not tried this. How do you do I have to do
anything? Like I have to buy them from the store. Just go to
the customers, go to the customization option in the settings and you'll get it
there, still not going to do it? Never mind, it was great,
it's shy. Well I just I started up before we started talking about
this, and now it's like, you don't want me to play that stupid
thing again? Do you just your name? So yeah, okay, if
I get it to work, i'll show it off. Is it like just
an animation or a video or animation instead of like steam Deck When you started
like that little thing, they replace it with a different video. Okay,
it's a character throwing the lightning bolt from hades, and I think it is
Yeah, yeah, I think so. It might be Zach so something like
that. And I've seen the Blessings porn Hub one, which is pretty yes,
exactly. Yeah, that's a customer that Blessing made for himself. Yeah
he needed that problems all right. Best new hardware we got winning the steam
Deck o lad runners up, the Metaquest three and the Razor Kitsune. I
really want to play with the throw out there. All right, I'll bring
it again. Okay, all right, I think we got to take another
quick bricky break, but we'll be back with the last category today today of
today, today, today, we got seven more in our pocket. And
a couple more in our back pocket, for it would be really really suspicious
if we did all of them today and then had a live show next week.
Yeah, all right, we'll be back after a quick break, and
we are back with the last category of today, which is I thought someone
was revving their engine real quick. Uh, best game mechanic, Mike Manatti.
If you're watching the video right now, he's ready to celebrate. Game
he's got he's got a glass of sham. He's right there. You got
this great picture setup too. Oh okay, you're shoot back, never fight.
Oh my god, we did that break for you, Mike timing impeccable
steam deck. Imagine that? All right? Do you dis agree? No?
No, he just likes being a stinker. Okay, sh he's our
own little stinker, alright. Final category of day one of Giant Bombs.
Game of the Year the Real Game Awards. The Real Game of the Year
Awards is Ultrahand from Tiers of the Kingdom, Lightning Dash, Spider Man two,
as well as Flying Online Multiplayer and Super Mario Brothers Wonder the Wonderflower,
Boosting Your Flashlight and the Mind Place in Alan Wake two, Ochi and Pickman
four drive system in Street Fighter six, Quick Save, Shadow Gambit, Hitman,
Freelancer stuff. I'm assuming a Hitman solving crimes, Shadow of the Doubt,
knife pairing from Resident Evil for a remake Mike's pick. By the way
I put that there, Kiss, I wasn't here. I can go and
delete that beating. It's not your pick anymore, Biorese, you didn't know.
I don't feel good about saying this, but beating to the beat in
Hi Fi Rush, that's all genre. Flying, we don't okay, flying,
arches of humans in humanity, rolling die, Balder's Gate, three worlds
within worlds, cocoon climbing and Jussant canceling enemy attacks, see of Stars,
hefty category folks. Good. I think we can. I think, dude,
your delivery on that tam is just like I knew it was coming in.
It was still very good, very good, good job point. I
think I think we can cut the mind place. I think that was something
that showed a lot of promise. I thought that was a really cool idea
At the beginning. I was like, oh, I can't wait to be
like kind of solving mysteries in this way and like kind of you know,
piecing together the story like you know, physically like in the game. Uh,
and then I think it just wound up being just kind of like a
glorified checklist or journal question. That, yeah, is a payoff. I
agree with you Dan in some ways that I wish it was gameplay more important.
It does pay off towards the end of the game in Roule does.
And I would even spoil what do you referring to I play back on top
of that, Well, don't know. I know here, Well, here's
the thing, until Mike spoils it, I will not. I will say
what I think, I think it fits in perfectly before he spoils this is
that the mind place is also this amazing like refresher from a from a narrative
perspective where you're just like, yeah, going over the cliff notes to this
game, because no one plays this game front to back, and it was
like, well I understood everything, of course not if you did your line,
you looked, you read something right, You're like a verbal skill issue.
Sure, Yeah, It's like I watched Inception and and understood it front
to back. Like no I watched Tenant you talk about hang it, hang
on hanging, so you didn't understand inception exception. We do not have example,
we're doing no one tenant was the better one that was No, no,
no, no no no no no no, no no no. We're
not doing this. We are not doing this. Okay, we're not doing
this. Mike, go spoil the mind cultures Vulture. It actually is better.
My Place pays off when Saga has a kind of breakdown and is stuck
in there and then you are actually kind of you're like surrounded by all these
negative thoughts and you can only break through when you find the positive ones.
That kind of like those negative thoughts wrong. Yeah, like that now I
might like, at least gameplay wise, Allen Wake's writing remmore just because there
is actually a mechanic there where you switch the scene in the world does change,
right, Whereas with Saga's stuff, I did realize eventually I don't actually
have to do that stuff that it really is a hint system. There's a
few times where it is mandatory to progress things one, but a lot of
times yeah, yeah, agree, like rewrite reality is way cooler than totally.
Yeah, I don't think that completely like disregards I feel like the mind
Place is really cool and execution like, I think there's other things on here
that are like much less interesting than the mind place, even as a reinforcement
tool, I think yeah. And also it does have like a like the
idea of you have a conversation, it brings up all this thing and then
you like you are kind of cementing that knowledge by putting it the right category
of the times where you're like, wait, which category does fit into?
Because it could be this way, it could be that. So it's not
like as easy as buttoning through it, or you do have to move around
and think about it a little bit. I feel like it's it's it's a
really interesting I've never seen anything like very the story, Yeah, very fresh,
and you think I think there's there's parts of it too, right,
Like it also like execution wise, it's not one hundred percent right, because
you do find yourself at least I found myself with situations where I just got
like a stack of papers or I'm just like, oh fuck, I didn't
I didn't shuffle or categorize any of this stuff, and then you just like
dump out like seventeen pages all at once, and you're like, oh wow,
okay. So I think like if there was a better uh you know,
spinning of that plate and the more forcing you to do it more frequently.
They also make it a little more worthwhile by like elaborating on things that
you experience in the real example. Yeah, like you get a little audio
clip of like Alan breakdown and then you go in there to listen to the
extended version understood was really cool. Yes, yes, and I understood the
story way better because of that. The Mind Place helped me understand the story
of Alan Wake too, in a way that no game has like really sat
me down and said, look, Jeff, this is what happened, you
know, and I appreciate that. Well. I want to let all of
y'all know you occupy a space in my mind place. You all have fun
shares. Where's that mind place? Because it kind of looks like you're in
one now. It's all just bright light. So before I forget not moving
away from Alanwake, but Stein mcauson said, Active Time Law from Final Fantasy
sixteen. That's actually ye. I don't have edit access, Otherwise I would
have put on a game with a lot of proper nouns. That was a
big help. Yes, yeah, Final Fantasy six is it there? It
is yeah, can we remove yeah, yeah, boost your flash lights kind
of mid I don't like. I think actually like the flash mechanics and Allen
Wake one more than the weird kind of boosting you do in this one always
because like you boost and it's for a period of time and you're like,
okay, well I didn't quite break the shadow armor that time, so I
could use a whole another boost. I wish they weren't modules. Second.
Yeah, I wish one thing, yeah, strain. I don't know why
it was. I wish they were flashed like pellets. You're right, Mike,
can you boost your mic a little bit? Okay? Jan, don't
get used to the hearing that a lot? Okay? Just is that better?
Jan? Beautiful? Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, Michael Camera, that's
perfect. That's perfect, Thank you, the best volume for you things.
All right, I'm gonna remove boosting. Yes, d do you have any
love for boosting your flash light? It feels pretty good. Good. I
enjoy like the sound and everything and the kind of the recoil and all that.
It's good, but it's not. It's not. You know, there's
probably seven better on this list. Speed boost flying arches of humans actually I
started playing this because Lucy mentioned like she's like, oh, this is what
you should go back to, so I did. And the feeling of getting
all of these parades of human beings to behave the way that they're supposed to
in this three D space and having like one do like this like long jump
down here, and have the other one to a long jump with slow motion
and a boost so it jumps over that other one. And just seeing all
of that massive humanity actually moving in that way is super satisfying. Is Lemmings
without the you know, the limit the limits unlimited Lemings? Yeah? I
love it. Okay, So I think we can cut the climbing from Juice
on it because I agree. I had a decent amount of difficulty with the
climbing and just like the general detection of what is climbable sometimes same and when
that is the main gimmick of the game kind of hampers your enjoyment. That
being said, go and finish Dussant. Though I feel like the climbing is
I didn't have any issues, I feel like the climbing does become a bit
like tiring and monotonous. I feel like the more interesting mechanic is the ability
to like create these latching points as you're climbing up something else, so you
can like yeah, yeah, And and also like the stamina regain system,
which is like, you know, you can be very strategic and with the
jumps that you make because it drains like your perma stamina a bit more,
and like I feel like that's the more interesting part of Juant. So but
even then, I don't think those things hang on on this list. I
get you just hang in Jussant though, yeah you do. Yeah, we
didn't put the chance of SNAr puzzles on here, by the way, someone
did. I not. I mean to put learning languages and chances the whole
thing we have just like boosting and armored course six. By the way,
we don't have anything armor corse six. Hmmm. Boosting I don't know,
or like the lock on the lock on, it's fine, but I don't
know. The boosting is what I think of, like the L three boosting
or the like square boosting. Well, they're both good. So if we
say boosting, it's like encountering boosting. Okay, it's like adding in something
not booster from super Ma RPG boosting from whe He is one of those things
of the year for sure. If if we're talking about stuff for the list,
do you think rolling die in boulders Gate is as good as shoving?
Shoving so good every part of the reason I can't get into that game.
I added this. I added this because every time a dice roll comes up,
I get so excited. It's so fun. I got taken out immediately,
Like, why are we doing dice here? We got video games.
We have better ways to do this than I'm talking ice. Yeah, video
games, just video games. Just do dice in the background. Don't show
it to me. You know the D and D aspect of the courts of
it, right, like you have the Dungeon Masters. It's just fun here.
It's a fun way to visualize it. Do you like eating at like
a Hibachi place? Absolutely, that's showing you. That's showing you the die.
Yeah, made bested once again that analogy works. I don't want to
be reminded that Dungeons and Dragons is involved, because D n D is confusing
and weird, and I that will take me out of the game right away,
like subjectively any of the but like if I see d D, I'm
just like, I don't want to have that one. That's fine. I
get it. I get it. I do agree that shoving is more more
fun. Okay, it's very effective to you. You can't loot though,
Okay, you disagree. But then I spending a major I did that the
dungeon where like there's the three leaders, and I got the l She was
like, we were kind of fucked as a party because I didn't long rest
before. I got in a lot of these altercations and she stood right in
front of chasm and I shoved her and she just died and it ruled.
It was very awesome. You do lose a very important item. I think
if you do that, you know you know what though, But I think
that's cool too, Like the fact that I'm going to miss out on something
because I made a decision to shove instead of actually do it the hard way.
Yeah, I shoved a boss in that portion into like an area below
where a bunch of spiders just came out like down here, I'm just like,
And then I went down there and made those spiders of my friends and
let them kill everyone. I was often the one getting shoved, and I
still even like that. It's like I got to restart this fight now.
But funny, I know better now, all right, I think shoving stays
on the list. Then shoving is essential to my playthrough because shoving or putting
oil on the ground and then shoving them into it. Yeah, that's an
ad. That's like a sub bullet of shoving. Right, there's just another
point in shoving favor. Okay, Okay, we need to start cutting stuff
instead of adding stuff. I was about to say, Lucy James, you
read my mind. I'm just gonna cut it. Yeah, exacting decisions.
The gliding flying thing is the better thing. In Spider Man two, we
can cut Och. Yeah, ochis I like he makes pickment for easier.
I don't know if he makes it more exciting or flashy. I mean it's
fun when they can all hop on his back and get you. Yeah.
And it's also fun when it's just like one thing that it's like, Okay,
I don't need to waste any picking on that, like Och. You
get that especially later when you can just like just take the whole thing down
and then go back to the ship. You know, it's a plus of
the experience. And I want something like an in the next piment for sure.
Amen, we got them both all right, I think I think we
can let one. I will go and go ultra from even even the best
thing from the ultrahand is more useful in more situations. I love send,
but again, moving anything around and sticking to ship, that's the building thing.
The building magnets so much fun. I mean one and too, I
think, I mean, I'm okay up with both of them as well.
Altr hand is like you get to express yourself and play this game however you
want, and that's it works really well. So yeah, uh is fun.
Yeah, send those I mean is certainly like easier to get a grasp
on. But yet it's bizarre how useful it can be. I love when
you have those weird bosses where you have to like ascend on their little backpacks
or something to get up at them. Yeah, there's like that one whole
dungeon, like the fire dungeon right where they have all these mine cards and
once you know, it's like you could build a mine cart with a motors,
or you can kind of just use a scend and a lot of people
apparently played that that way. I played it that way where I'm just kind
of like, oh, I don't think I'm supposed to be here, but
I could still do it because it's Yelda and that's how it works. Now,
all right, what about beating to the beat? Jan, I'm asking
watch your pmvs. You disgusting weirdo. Someone call up, someone call up
Blessing. I like it a lot. It's good. It does feel like
it's gonna have a hard time in this list now, yeah, because there's
a lot that I like on this list. Sorry, we can keep it.
I just wanted to. It is the whole, the whole gimmick of
STA winning, right, It's essential to it. Yeah. Can someone explain
to me why the quick save and shadow gambit is good? Played it?
I just saved that last night and I think it's that's one of the coolest
things where it's like quick save is map to uh whatever you call it on
the Steam deck, the select, it's like and then start. You can
so easily access all of your recent quick saves, and they straight up tell
you, like, hey, use this. This is part of the game.
You were supposed to be experimenting with things because it's you know, stealth
based and you're sneaking up and everything, so you're going to fail a lot
and so one button quick save that you are encouraged to go back to and
use frequently is pretty Also it's also a narrative like so that like one of
the things is like you're being guided around by a sentient ship who has like
this spirit energy. And what happens is like, as you're sneaking around these
encounters, the ship will come up and be like this like ethereal bell tolls
and it's the ship is like there's about to be some ship hare you should
use this function and it basically captures the moment in like an orb So yeah,
and then and then what happens is like if you lose, the ship
is effectively breaking that orb open to like reinstate that reality around you. So
it's letting you experiment with stealth without breaking the you know how you traditionally and
like some like Disher, you're like, all right, I'm gonna try this,
but first one the quick save, I'm gonna go into this menu and
then you fails and you're like, I'm going to reload. They like eliminate
the kind of element of doing that that takes you out of the game and
makes you feel like you're scumming it and just builds it into the game,
so it's like one button like save and then reload, and it's like it
allows you to experiment and and like be way more creative with how you approach
things. And I feel like it's it's a really really cool feature shadow game.
It's the Pirate, the Pirate stealth game. It rips so hard.
Man, It's just the biggest shame of the year because it seems like people
really like this game and the studios go about it, and then the studio
closed and they make good games made. This is like one of the best
game. It was one of my favorite games of the year. And I
think we lock it. I think we lock it. I'm a I'm a
quick save it like it. Okay, this this this is going to be
a blood bath. I'm looking at this listen. I love the studio shut
down. Yeah, it was really sad story. And the annoying thing is
like I think there's more content for that game on there is it's coming out
of the when I loaded it up and you shut down because it's just like
burnout and health reasons, you know, it was an embracery thing or anything.
Yeah. Yeah, I highlighted Hitman freelancer stuff. Yeah listen, Okay,
god, what an amazing thing. Cool. They took what was already
a game that you could play a lot, because they it's like the secret
best live service game, at least the secret best like single player live service
game of like, oh, there's always new things to do, and yeah,
we took that map and we put an elusive target in that and and
you could there's gonna be those regularly and all that stuff's been great. But
they're like, we're gonna go a step further and we're gonna put a rogue
light mode in there and really let you enable you to play this game for
forever. And they pulled it off and it's really really well done. But
it is it a mechanic or is it it's a sweet of mechanics. It's
a mode, and and I do I think we can cut it, even
though I do really doing. I wish to all that out. Is like,
if you haven't played a Hitman since they introduced that, you should check
that out. The rogue Light mode of the Year. There's another one that's
a Rogue Light of the Year for sure. Further cements that Hitman is like,
just because if we didn't have all these games this year, I would
have been happy just playing that move. Yeah. Yeah, that's really great
on the Steam deck. That's going to be a Christmas game, damn it.
Yep. Okay, well we could we could drop solving crimes from Shadow
of Doubt Shadows of again early access. But you know, I spoke about
a little bit already. But it's amazing that they could just like procedurally generate
these crimes and they're actually interesting to be like, Okay, I'm at the
crime scene. I'm gonna use my fingerprint scanner. Now I know what the
fingerprint looks like. If I'm in a place where I'm like, okay,
I found a receipt that the person bought, you know, they went to
go buy a gun this day. Okay, We'm gonna go to that store
where they bought a gun, and I'm gonnak around and see if I could
find this fingerprint there. And all this interlocking stuff in this procedurally generated world
actually functioning properly is incredible. But it's retally access, and I you know,
I've only played like the first two missions in the game, so I'm
ready to be like, let's cut it. Maybe we can come back and
talk about this game next year. All right, thank you, Shadows of
Doubt. Yeah, we could probably get rid of the canceling enemy attacks things
from See the Stars. I do like how this works. Basically, when
enemies are casting spells, they have a bunch of icons above their head,
and if you sort of counter those icons by you know, like oh hit
use them with a physical attack, or hit them with fire magic. And
if you hit all those if you hit some of them, you'll weaken the
attack. Hit all of them, you just straight up cancel their attack.
And that's really the big rhythm of the game. It's really key in later
boss fights. It's finding ways to use your abilities to make your turns go
longer, to knock off as many of those boxes as you possibly can.
Because you can do things like team up attacks, or you can time your
attacks so you do extra hits. You can get you know, two or
three of those knocked off at once. It is what makes that combat in
that game really interesting. It is basically an extension to systems that we have
seen from from other games. But I think it is really well done here.
All right, all right, canceling it, oh cut. I I
feel like we can get rid of rolling dice and keep shoving. Mm hmm
okay, yeah, I'll take that trade. I'll take that trade. Okay.
It has a similar like risk reward factor as well, that's satisfaction.
Is it gonna work? Is it gonna work? But shoving has the same
thing like is this gonna is this gonna shoving like knocks people to the ground,
And that's really our chat is popping off because we don't we don't have
the viewfinder mechanic, which is like that's the whole reason that game is cool
with the Yeah, you put her on the list. Wait, one in,
one in, one out, Uh, okay, let's uh, let's
actually get rid of of boosting an armored CORESE six. What's so good it
is? It's really good, but it's also just like a new concept.
You're right, it's just boosting. It's just the best boosting ye boosting of
the year. Yes, I know we added it, but like, I
also love this feature. But active time law is great. Yeah, I
agree, but I also like it's up against things that meaningful, meaningfully change
the gameplay. I think I don't know it's so good because it's contextual.
Well, I would have won to cut if you want to like, save
that one for now, okay, Wonder Wonder Yeah. I think that they
are consistently very good, but not un necessarily like peaked to like oh this,
and other than the music ones, which is like, oh that one
of the top down ones we're selling. Uh yeah, but yeah, I'm
glad that's the gammick of the game. I think they did a really good
job with it. The game is full of ideas, but Wonderflowers. The
Wonderflower is not the reason I love that game. Yeah. I think they
were a fun surprise in every level than they are like a core mechanic Yeah,
all right, goodbye Wonderflower. I think you can take off drive System
as well as far as like core fighting game mechanics school, especially for street
fight and Drive System has been one of the ones recently, but it's also
got a fair share of issues. I do like it a lot. You
know, fightings are always trying to find a way to have make some kind
of other meter matter other than your super meter, and I like how this
one has a good mix of defensive and offensive options. It feels very satisfying
to use. I like the aesthetics of it. I do like it a
lot, but there's yeah, it's going up against a lot. Okay,
okay, okay, okay. Is Worlds within World's going to be a top
tier contender here. I think that's a big one. But I don't know.
I like it is so cool. In any game he's building on it,
it gets more complex, but not in an overwhelming way. It's why
the puzzles in that game work really related and unrelated. I wound up rewatching
the original Men in Black because of Cocoon and like Marble Worlds and everything.
Yeah, right, it's about and all that. Yeah, I think I
think Acon can stay for now, that's no problem. I think learning languages
and Chance of Sinar it's another. It's similar to You Finder, where that's
the whole game. But I really like it in Chance of Sinar, I
adore this. I think it's I think this might be a lock. I
think it's a lock. Are we comfortable locking it? I am very comforting
you? Oh yeah, yeah, I love it. It makes you feel
like a genius. Yes, yeah, yeah. It feels like it's like,
oh, the game is happening inside your head, and a game that
can do that is impressive every time where It's like, we're not going to
just keep all the mechanics all over here to ourselves and spoon feed it to
you. We're gonna let you fully engage and feel empowered in this world.
Yeah, they nail it. You know. We spoke about this, like
very briefly when we brought it back up on the BombCast. But it helps
me get rid of like the initial like hump or hesitation of trying to learn
a new language, or even just being in a place where I'm unfamiliar and
I don't know like the langue the way exact same. Yeah, it replicates
that kind of satisfaction and joy of when you start learning your language on Deo
Lingo and the first time you're like, I don't know what this word means,
and then the second time it shows up, you're like, oh,
I know that word means, and it goes to and you're like, oh,
yeah, I know that, Mike. I just want to hear about
knife pairing. Pairying is so good. That's the mechanic of resonu befour for
me, and it is. It's a pary system, sure, but having
that in more of a third person shooter itself is interesting. The way that
it parries almost anything. It wys that almost seemed comical, but you're like
parrying a chainsaw with it, and the way that it gets really up in
there, it looks incredible. It's so satisfying when you pay a melee attack
then you immediately go down your sites with the shotgun or the pistol or if
you're even pairying ranged attacks. Right, it's like that little super satisfying.
I just that is why it's good. But also it's very non essential,
like you don't need to ever do that stuff. It's uh, I guess
because I played through this game like five times and was like doing a hard
and hard difficulties, right, so at some point like yeah, you've got
to get good with that really, and I mean just boss fights that are
pretty heavily crowds that you need to you need it. I feel like they
reverse engineered that mechanic by improving the crowds of boss fight exactly, and like
the for me, like and I'm in a different like spot with the pairing,
Like I feel like the window of it is so forgiving that it makes
it like it's not even like yeah, I'm just like it's not fun.
I'm just like cake. I had to stop doing it because it's making everything
too easy. H interesting. Uh, I'm I'm not eving gonna bother putting
it on to remove it. But the Legion arm from Lives of p good
mechanic, good build on, like from the second Row tool arm and all
that jazz. But I besides using the firearm because that's what carried me through
the game, I wish the puppet string was more useful. Yeah, can
we can we do a thing? There's could everyone like say they're three if
they end in the perfect world, if you got your three, because I
mine would be flying in Spider Man two, it would be let's see what
was learning languages and chances of sinar and then online multiplayer in Super Mario Wonder.
Mine would be the top two the tiers of the Kingdom ones and then
probably online multiplayer and Mario Mine would be we didn't mind place or rewriting reality.
You can kind of call them one thing that Yeah, so I mean
rewriting reality. Uh, learning languages and shoving the story changed reality. I
had to rewrite it, and you've scene a piece. I'm basing all this
stuff on like my wow moments, that's what I'm us doing. Yeah,
they have all specifically so for me, my wow moments are Ascend also kind
of gross, Like I don't think we're talking enough about how gross ascend is,
Like it is disgusting. I mean, is mining gross like going down
into rock and stuff? Yeah, no, you missed my point. You
missed my point. D And when links half of his fucking torso is still
like inside Earth or inside like one through deep snow, and it's just sort
of like it's the noises too. It's kind of squishy and weird. It's
like anyway, it's gross, but it's also one of the best moments of
the year and game mechanics of the year. Rather, it's disgusting. You
can ascend the rock, dudes, it's so gross. He just like grimming
up. He's swimming up like anyway, Ascend mind place, rewriting reality and
a big wow moment for me. Absolutely maybe not the best game overall,
but mechanically speaking, Viewfinder mm hmm okay, I would probably do Ascend from
Tears of the Kingdom, the Knife Carrying from the Resident Evil for and Worlds
within Worlds from Cocoon. Look, I'm getting a sense like, hey,
no one else is quite excited about knife parrying, and it is basically a
parry system. I like it, Mike, I like it, But I
do do the thing in my head where I'm like, Heysecro, it's real
good. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's okay, Tam, you're three.
I think mine would be probably learning languages, uh quick save and ultrahand
probably. He's good, Man, he's good. So it sounds like we
can cut active time lore. Yeah, fantastic way to remember the story.
That's the one thing I like about Amazon Amazon Prime Video. Yeah, and
it's fantastic range of programming. You're in here with us. Hey, the
summers are pretty is really fun? All right? Flying arches of humans?
Oh yeah, it's good humanity. Everybody please tell about this game Beating to
the beat. Can't when we're done fighting to the beat. I'm not saying
it. It's like, I mean, you do that in a lot of
games, so like timing for combos and stuff. So it's really good in
this one, but this one we can cut it. O car get beating
off be We talked about the online multiplayer Mario wondering, Yeah, why is
that so good? Me and Dan both put it in our three. Yes,
it is incredible. So it is. It's it's like from Software's online
stuff, but the fact that they apply it so effortlessly to a Mario platform
and experience where they even have like these like seek and find levels and if
you play those online, you suddenly are working together with all these other people,
and a lot of times it's the people you never met met before,
and you can build these quick bonds, and then on top of that,
you can then switch over to play with your friends, and then the game
becomes competitive and you can have all these races, and it's just so seamless
and well done that it takes a great game and makes it even better in
every way. It also it like it was always fun doing four player like
New superr Brothers We or You or whatever, but like this takes out the
like too much chaos elements of that where it's like it is still chaotic,
it's a it's a platform and everything where you're not bound compy to other's heads
and throwing each other into pits and things like that. There are moments where
you're beating levels together, like if I'm playing online with Randos and there's like
that auto scrolling level with lava and stuff. It's like, okay, well
there's these three ghost here. I know they're playing it right now. I
don't know who these people are, but as long as one of them is
alive, they can help me out. And you start helping each other out
and like people you don't even know when you're live, like dam take you
think, you think, you think, you think exactly. The standy is
are really cool to you to you know, thank each other with that,
and you know, oh, there's a secret invisible block here. It's I
I did not know how much I wanted that or would appreciate it, like
bringing the going to the school playground and talking about a game into the game,
and for a game like this, it was It's that's magical. I
I really, it's like my favorite online experience of the year for sure.
Yep. So it sounds like we can cut flying from Spider Man two.
Yeah, I think I'm the only person that's said that. I like it
too, But it's really good disclining, it's a very good. It's yeah,
I think throw four headed. Yeah, getting like zooped into like the
winds and the way that that feels. It's how I like when I dream
about flying. That's how it feels. I think that they cap flying.
None costumes actually capable of flying. All right, we're gonna really nice.
We're gonna all right, folks, it's getting for girn. I'm gonna Viewfinder.
You can get rid of the knife Parry. I get. I mean,
I think if you find yeah, of course the knife Parry, it's
time to order the entrees. Buddy, listen, I'm being nice about now.
You just wait. Look, I love I think I'm probably second in
line behind you with our four but still uh, yeah, I mean look,
I think I think view Finder, we uh, the four of us
who did that stream like collectively like lost our fucking minds over that. Yeah,
and I think that it's got to count for something of the year,
right, Jim, why did you make that face? Did it happen?
If you look at the doc for audio listeners, someone edited Okay, Jeff
Grubb edited you find her to make it say more like you Finder, We're
not speaking to the to the quality of the game beyond its one trick.
But like and even that, I agree, the narrative stuff was very toss
away and like uninteresting. But is it your number one? No? Then
we got cutting it. Okay, that was easy knife pairing. Thank you,
Mike, m hmm, okay, welcome, Okay, I feel I
mean right, ultrahand versus a send it can be only one. Yeah,
I'm not gonna. I'm not, I'm not gonna allowed to worry. I
mean like I would I would like, I would like to posit that in
those in those three now it's like Wolf now in those in those three,
I feel like Ultra Hand and Ascend are more meaningful than Mario Wonda's online play.
Yeah, I would like parrying like you don't have to do the night
pairying that online modes, not even on by default. Yeah, I feel
like that's are you coming from? Hold on? Hold on, it's been
done, if it has been done in other games, and to this degree,
it also is based on a online infrastructure that is world class. Ship
doesn't with it. I I personally like there's more, there's more to be
had with an on Ultra Hand than online more. And I'm not I'm not
ready to cut on multiplayer, but I will. I agree we can cut
at least one of these is elder ones. Let's cut. I think I
think we need a vote for I agree with Mike for one, I think
just because incredible mechanics agree, I don't think they both can list isn't big
enough both of them not? I just don't like these other ones just as
if not more, and you're not going to get both. Just okay.
As a thought experiment, let's just vote. Let's see, uh okay,
raise your hands and then uh uh ship Jan sinceerir charge, you'll read off
who would vote for ultrahand stay or go to Stay as the number one?
As you're between the two, you're voting for your favorite between these two.
Yeah, between ultrahand oh Ship Okay, so that's wow, okay, Jeff,
Lucy, Tam and Jance, a lot of late ultrahands right there,
just me and Backlar for team Uh well no, I was also I was
going to raise my hand for that. Okay, but you guys is Dan
just let you've gotta let him run past you look Ultra hand one. It
doesn't matter what Dan does per usual. I just think, okay, okay,
okay, man, let's let's go back around Mike Bati here think.
I just think the send is like more wow factor for me, like I
can picture it up and in gloom together like the first time. It's not
the first time that's ever happened. I put my fucking I put Link's face
through like you know, a like a rock act was forgetting I had it,
and then be like, Oh, that's how I get out of this
hole that I've been trying to climb out it for the last fifteen minutes.
Boy, I'm a dumb piece of ships off man. All right, all
right, I think we got to get back on track here, folks.
We got to enter in our mind place and really think about whether or not
we want to keep the mind place we don't know. I think, well,
I think we should listen to Dan because he's usually correct, and I
want to thank you opinion this flip flop, nothing done does matter. Thinking
out of context, that's not exactly what Mike is often right. I found
I don't like this. I feel like a mother and the two kids who
hate each other have started to work together and immediately suspicious Mike. I like
I've said it many times, Yeah, he gave me a juicy lucy.
That's should we have everyone given now just their favorite No, No, let's
we can continue making odd cutting decisions based off of no real logic. Do
we feel strong enough about the mind place slash rewriting reality. I think it's
a more fresh, new and interesting mechanic than at least two or three of
these. Okay, for me, it's just I would I would swap quick
say for mind polosts. Oh hey, track. Shoving is just shoving.
No, but the implications of it are like, Okay, I know it's
that satisfying to do either. I listen, my my build is built around
shoving, and it's my whole build is Patches from like a bully character,
and just like I am, I am playing as I am playing as Patches
from dock Souls. So I like push people off stuff and use treasure to
loure them and and have the dark passenger ship going on. It's like great,
fantastic. I love Cocoon. I would feel okay cutting Cocoon, You're
gonna get rid of this mechanic where you go into other worlds and then the
world's your ball because you can push a person. I'm not saying that shoving
is gonna stay, Mike, That's exactly what we're saying, Mike. I'm
just shoving Cocoon down, shoving off. Yeah, Okay, if you're watching
live and you're watching the video here, I'm shoving it. Am I the
only person to feel strongly about with the worlds, And that's fine. I'm
knowing when it feel strongly, it's cool. Cool, Okay, I mean
all right, it's no essend, but yeah, okay, we have how
many is this six? Now we need to cut three from here? Damn
do we revisit the quick save. I'd swap it for a mind place.
I think I'm okay making that wager. Yeah, yeah, with that all
right, goodbye quick save? Yeah, mind space really making that fable three
mechanic finally work? All right, So it's okay. I think it's between
shoving online multiplayer and ultrahand so okay. So here's my number one. The
one that I really want to see on there is learning language is by chance
of Sinnar fantastic. The song is what it sounded like. But so I'm
okay with cutting all my multiplayer if it means keeping learning languages. And then,
because it feels like at this point not even all of us are going
to get our favorites on here, so yeah, I'm okay with cutting all
my multiplayer. Okay, some of us may be getting none of theirs.
But that's okay. I mean it was ultrahand not the knife thing is your
favorite thing. I feel like if I say yes, you're gonna say something
meat. I mean, it's not on the list, So no worry about
it. You know, the knife thing, the cocoo. Next week,
you'll tell me next week, right, Yeah, that's right. Uh okay.
Look if if learning languages in my place are staying once again, we
are not going to replace ultrahand this ability where you could make a god zoo.
Do you see that you can make a god sea with the ability to
push a person? Yeah, I mean I don't. I've always agreed with
Mike Manatti get rid of shoving. I mean, this is my number one
hold on. Yeah, I am willing. I am willing. I am
willing to swap uh ultring shopping. All right, we're getting rid of that
you knew you were walking into about. I mean, he's gonna give up
my place and that would be great, okaying, all right, we got
rid of shoving. And somehow, without saying anything, because I never repeated
the three that I wanted, I got my three on the list here and
pulling the strings the whole time. I think learning languages wins this. Yes,
yeah, yeah, I think so too. Beautiful beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful didn't even have to argue that cat. I mean, if anyone wants
to, they can, But there I didn't play that game, So like
my NFE thing is God. So sure you guys could like learn how to
speak another language, like you're watching Fuzzy or whatever that commercial was over here?
Yeah, yeah, I'll be over here, Perry Chainsaws. You have
fun though, maybe I dude, you are Maybe I was the actual ultra
hand here and just pulling the strings, folks. I think that's it for
day one. We recap. Let's recap baby, Let's recap. Hey,
there's seven of us. Let's recap all seven categories. Let's take a turn.
Jeff Grub You take the first category, please, yeah? For for
cheesecake factories. Ben Star presents Best Debut, which includes character studios, IP
et cetera. Our runners up are Turgle from Star Wars, Jedi Survivor,
Jacco and Ilmo from Alan Wake two, and the Talking Flower was our winner
from Super Mario Brothers Wonder. Mike Manatti take the next category. Jeff Backlar's
Best Running Around Award for the award an Excellence in the Spirit of Moving.
The winner is Marvel spider Man two, with super Mario Wonder and Armored Course
six as the runner ups. Dan REIKERD. Can you please take the next
best twenty twenty two game we didn't talk about? The runners up are Midnight
Suns and Chained Echoes. The winners, inexplicably is Power Slave Zoom get one.
I have to get one, You got one. Jeff Backlar, Please
name the next category. The best Alan Wade character. Runners up are the
coll Sculla's is that how you say it? The Brothers Rose Rose, and
of course the winner Atti the Janitor Lucy j Next category please. Next category
is the best game you bounced off of the up lives of p Dead Island
two and the winner Star Wars Jedi Survivor to More Hussein. Please do the
last one because I'll do this one. Best new Hardware, Oh Steam deck
O lad winning the runners up being Medaquest three in the Razor Kitsune Best Game
Mechanic runners up AH the Mind Place Slash Rewriting Reality from Alan Wake two,
Ultrahan from the Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom and the winner is learning
languages from chants of Sinar and folks. That does it for day one of
Giant Bomb's Game of the Year twenty twenty three. We will resume deliberations for
your Ears and Eyes and your Heart this coming Tuesday, and then the rest
of the Game of the Year will continue with the Game Awards popping off next
week. So Tuesday on the BombCast feed, it won't be live, it
will be all pre recorded. You'll hear Day two with seven more categories.
Wednesday, Giant Bomb and Night and then Thursday we will be talking over the
Game Awards, but we will also in the morning begin the whittling process.
Day three begins. We get to the top twenty that's when the actual knife
peris come out four or whittling knife. Yes, thank you, Mike,
I needed that. Thank you. Thank you. Uh. Friday, I
don't think anything is popping off on Friday, right, we are you gonna
take a quick breaking process, secret work. That's my birthday. Yeah,
movie and we do. That's why we're doing nothing. That's fair. And
then Saturday is the live in person finale at the Terogram Ballroom. Only two
babies handfuls of tickets are left. So if you been, I think it's
one baby, a little baby. Wait wait, wait, are you saying
it's one baby's handful of so two handfuls of that one baby? Or is
it one handful of No? One like picture a baby tickets left? Everybody,
it's more fun to describe quantities by measuring it through babies. It's okay,
a baby's whisper of tickets left, all right? It means nothing,
I mean shoot uh. And then we will crown the Game of the year
giant bombs Game of the Year next Saturday. We'll hope to see you.
It'll also be live on Twitch. Fingis crossed. I've been Jaanned, he's
been Jeff, he's been Cheff. He's been Dan, he's been Mike.
She's been Lucy, he's been Tam and you at home have been fucking gorgeous
today. We'll see you this coming Tuesday for day two. Game of the
Year. I love you. Bye. I guess let's have babies. Diap
has filled. Oh no, it might be much less than that. Don't
hesitate to buy tickets. He probably won't be available at the door, Noby,
bring your baby. I guess if you want, no, don't bring
you. I don't know enough cool. The baby wear sunglasses. Yeah,
there you go, all right fire by