Giant Bombcast Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2015: Day Three (Premium)

It's hump day for Giant Bombs. Twenty fifteen Game of the Year awards were at the halfway point. Gentlemen, I was excited for a secondary. I thought you said it's Hope Day. I think we abandoned hope on Monday. Yeah, I thought would be Monday of two thousand and nine. Would deliberate here. That's the last time I have felt anything at all. You know what I'm feeling, Brad, what's that regret? Yes, I believe Jason, this is super quick. Feel bad for not fighting harder for best music in or I would a bunch more. Last night I actually watched a bit of a documentary on like in a how farnt of that? And Yeah, I live in wrong Jason, I look back? Yeah, I know it's no looking back. No, I think we should. I think we should reu Hold on, let me get plug in this iPad the Spotify page our Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze is not going to make it on this list. I know this is just some weird end around gambit for you guys to get that on here somehow. All right, I appreciate you for formally lodging her complaint. I figured you'd appreciate hanging Chad. Now this one's going all the way to the Supreme Court. You were you were fighting real hard and you were you were. Yeah, it's great. It's a great soundtrack. But that's all in the podcast where you listen to that soundtrack and talk about how rat it is you should be over here hanging out with squid teams. That's gross. All right, Well, that's all in the past. It's day three here and we've got a little raft of new categories to go through, so Chazz, Best Debut, Hottest mess, Best Multiplayer, and Best Moments or sequence. Uh, we're pretty much going to dive right in here. There maybe spoilers. There will be spoilers. That last category is nothing. The spoilers. Yeah, well we'll give you a heads up so like we'll you'll get a few seconds of warning or something. But if there's the games you're especially sensitive about, just leave the room. Got the Drew Scanlon Isolation Chambers, Yes, you're on the set. Yes, get some get some big ear muffs and put them on for that one, but that'll be later. For now, let's let's start with Best Debut, all right, Uh, for which the nominees currently are Undertail, Splatoon, Axiom Verge Until Dawn, Life is Strange, Grow Home. Do you guys say Galaxy or Galaxy Galax Galaxy you really emphasize I know, but I've always yes. Also, it's a really good subtitle. It is so I always feel weird when I go Galaxy, I know, I know U Rebel Galaxy, Super Mario, Maker, Dying Light, Soma, and Ronin. So, Brad you want to describe with this doing a terrible job of setting up the future of these categories. This might as well be called best New IP. What's an IP? IP stands for intellectual? Uh, Internet protical. Yes, it's uh, this is basically you know, I TV six wins again. Uh, those addresses are so weird, Like, no, I don't want to mess with that. My IP shouldn't have letters in it. Yeah, these is my IP. These are basically new games, you know, games that are not sequels, games that are potentially the start of a new franchise. And to be clear, it can it can use existing IP. It just means that that that series is new. Yes, yeah, it's not the game that they have already put out in various forms. Theoretically could have made a case for a game like Tom Clancy's Rainbow six Siege here, even though that is part of two existing franchise. But we're not going to make a case for Tom Clancy's Rainbows six Seed. How's that been going? It's that game. Seems like that they should have charged sixty dollars less for it than they are. Wow. It's got everything about it looks like a free to play game. Wow, but it feels like a free to play game. They have the micro transaction strategy of a free to play gamesters, it's got renowned boosters to booster renownced or no no, no cards. So you know they missed out on the hottest worstest trend. Wow, we're not doing worst trend, We're doing worst Okay, say that anyway. I also, I feel like when it comes to this stuff, I think we usually will tend to buy us in favor of things that are completely new, sure, as opposed to new offshoots of existing things. Yeah. I like seeing people take risks. Yeah, so you're saying we should just take Mario Maker right off? I mean yeah, probably. Like It's like I think that Super Mario Maker should win as many categories as it could possibly win sure, but this this is not this is not the place for I was actually kind of joking, but if you feel feeling way, I think that there's room for Maker to be a long lasting franchise from Nintendo, like a Metroid Maker. There's a lot of room for them to kind of revisit some of their older games in new ways, using like a Super Mario Maker as a blueprint. I'm kind of with its staying on here in that spirit, all right. I think I think we believe it. I think they did the tool set in a way that is novel A man, that's it's Some might call it the best game of twenty fifteen, so you are not allowed to call it that until day five. So let's let's hold off on that now. Yeah. So okay, I think yeah, looking at it as a Maker instead of Super Mario part, I think it's it's it's creative and novel. Yeah that's yeah, what counts. Oh, it's more than novels. This is it's actually a really strong list of nominee. Yeah. I'm sitting here looking at it trying to figure out where to start. I like all this stuff. Yeah, I I love Axim Verge. I just I don't know that it runs in this back. Yeah. I did feel the exact same way about Galaxy. I think, yeah, there's something about Galaxy that does not quite quite stick the landing near the end of that thing. Did they ever release episode five? They released a PC version that has like an arcade mode. Yeah, like mode which a lot of people wanted. That's what they focused. Yeah, that's that's cool that that's in there, that mode in the they patch that in the We're going to Okay, I don't know if it is there. It runs like butter on on PC. That's the back. Yeah. I really like Galaxy. Like I got way deeper into the combat than I thought I would like, there was way more depth there than expected, But like the way it ran on PS four was kind of a bummer. Yeah, speaking of PS four Hell Divers, I like Hell Divers a whole bunch. I have an active dislike for Hell Divers. Okay, uh that like the there's there's like I wish that game was better. I like it a lot, but I yeah, like there's a lot of things about it that I think are rad. Yeah, I just don't it's super like playing it as there's like some good enemy diversity, but not until deep, deep, deep into the combat difficulty. And that's like if I had gotten really hardcore about it with a group of friends who were similarly committed, and we had gone all the way with it, I could see I think that's if. That's maybe my issue with it is that it all but requires you to do exactly that to really get anything out of it. For the first like ten character levels that I went through were very seamy. Yeah, so I did play with a friend and it was really good for Yeah, yeah, you know that's yeah, but you should I think I think it could have been a little more accommodating. Yeah, I totally agree. I'm not certain it would actually make it onto this list, but in terms of cool new thing, her story is definitely in that vein because you know, on top of being a new thing, it is also kind of an interesting, weird experiment and how you know that kind of stuff is is done non linear story yeah stuff. Yeah, so I think I think there's there's possibly merit to that being on this list as well. Yeah, I'll type it down here. I think I also feel like her stories. I'll I'm never going to become a franchise, so you know, I think story I know I'm actually saying that's in favor of it. Oh yeah, Yeah, I think Soma does some really good storytelling, but I don't think there's anything necessarily that novel about what it's doing. Well, it's also training on a lot of the same stuff that Amnisia did in in certain respects, like in terms of the horror, well, the way in the atmosphere to well, it's the same basic design of there are monsters, you can engage in them, so you have to kind of run and hide and just move around the environment's trying to not get killed. Like, I don't think there's that much new about Soma, Like it's three D adventure. It's a three D kind of Yeah, it's a first person adventure that looks really nice. And again, I think the story is pretty good. The story is excellent. Like we'll definitely talk about that later, but yeah, I think I think it doesn't rank among some of these other ones. Did anyone spend a significant amount of time with Satellite Rain? I did. I did spend some time. What do you would you end up thinking that that game is really good and it's like a really great update to the to the nineteen nineties syndicate formula. Yeah, of I'm controlling these dudes and like a real time tactic sense, but it's also in an open world where like you're making progress over the course of like hacking these banks and upgrading your your dudes and stealing people from the streets because their genes are better and you can put your mind in their genes or in their body. It's great. Yeah, it was weird. Yeah, so I put like a little bit more time out for the quick looking through it, but I didn't I didn't super stick with it, Okay, so you don't know. It's okay, I don't think. The only other thing I want to say about Soma is the amount of like using computers in that world and upgrading firmware in that world and like watching progress bars on things and like running simulations and stuff is so fucking awesome. Like I love in world computer use, you know, like sitting down at a computer and being able to do things on it and control things in the world with that computer and stuff. And you do a lot of that in that game. Here for that hacknet her story, yeah saying it. Yeah, I will say the Soma stuff. I found it it suffers from the like, hey, we need to boot up this computer. Now do this weird puzzle where you're like twisting, like get get the beam of energy into this these three get a computer to boot up. Yeah, and that's how I have my machine at home. It's like, I know you're probably if you if you want to take a step back and be like, oh, well, you're doing it like a metaphor for some harder thing that you're doing. But like on the screen where you're turning mirrors trying to do like rearrange your data. Man, you got to do that to boot up. And then also put the magnetic coils in your doorframe so when the Feds raid you and take your hard drives out, they get wiped as they walk them out. So there's a puzzle in that game that is you need to run a simulation for something. Yeah, and you have a memory budget and you have to decide which modules you load in. But it's a it's a VR simulation for a synthetic brain to live in and think that it's in a real world. So you're deciding like well do I want the moon to be out or the sun to be out? Because they have a different memory footprint and you have to like decide which parts of this you want to turn on so it'll run with the dynamics rhys stuff. That is so cool. Yeah, I thought we could probably talk about that, and we'll talk about Yeah, it's alright fun. I think it just doesn't rank compared to some of these other ones, probably, right, Yeah, there are other places that game will get its props. Uh. I think Until Dawn is a really cool thing. Uh. And it definitely came out a whole hell of a lot better than any of us ever expected it too. Yeah, but it is pretty much doing the same thing that you know, David Cage Games and quantitream games have done. And I think what's what's novel about is that it does it better, Like it tells a more coherent story and you know, actually does the horror tropes stuff pretty well and the choice stuff, Like the story is way more malleable than it is in a quantity. That's true. I kind of want to give it. I kind of want to leave it on here for the way it's successfully navigated that stuff. Okay, Okay, we got to start choosing homebody explain that game. Home's awesome. Gro Home is awesome, but I don't know that it hangs. I think I have other stuff in this list. I'd rather God, I love it. It's really cool, fad, What the hell is that game? I still ever play it? Like, you know, grow up in this plant? Do they jump off it? It's a free pat it's a free platform. But the hook is that the two triggers each map to the robot's hands, so you climbing, so so when you when you pull a trigger, that is grasping for the hand and literally any surface in that game can be successfully grasped onto. So'st your friends kind of but like like you can get three D right, It's like Jack and the Beanstock, but with a robot. Yeah. It gives like a like a literally like an unprecedented degree of like climbing freedom, like and you can jump and there are things you can bounce off of and stuff too, like you develop other abilities of Jacks climbing up and just you you very regularly get upgrades to the ways to like glide and then straight up fly with the jet plat jet pack. I think it was a solid case for this one. Yeah. Yeah, And the thing is there's the game play. The game player revolves around pulling like crystals out of things, and like every single time you grab a hand onto a crystal and like use the stick to pull it out of the surface, it feels amazing. Yeah, and it's not a long game, but I actually I cooled on it probably about halfway through, really, like I just got kind of tired of the climb. It's every crystal on the game six hours to get. I had to get everything. I got to like the kind of there's a cave where there's a bunch of crystals on the ceiling and stuff like that, where you see it and you know exactly what you need to do to get it, but getting there takes so long. I'm just gonna come back for this one. But it's the one you know not at that point, and at that point you don't have it yet. I love the process of putting one hand in front of the other and across the ceiling. Yeah, like it's it feels good, but it's at some point it was like I already know the solution to what you're trying to ask me to do, and it's so slow going. I didn't I didn't want to do that right at that At that I don't know. The joy for me wasn't doing it. Like the feel of putting the hands on the surfaces and moving around was was it for me. I'm with you on the best debut because it's I think there's a lot of stuff happening under the hood that they do well that make you think about it, Like the like the way he moves, uh seems really hard when you think about it because you're only controlling the two hands and stuff like that, and the way he walks has a real procedural animation totally. It's a it's a it's a genre that's like very poorly represented these days, like three platformers kind of barely exists. It's also like the first three platform where I've really really liked in a long time. Yeah, so, I you know, let me tell you about Super Mario three D World. That game is pretty god damn good. Grohomes also something that I think can be translated to further games, right, Yeah, that's the thing. The mechanic for me was so fresh and innovative that like it seems like a jumping off point for a lot of cool stuff. Well, that was the idea behind that game. Originally, it was just like it was an experiment that they were running at, you know, at UBI, and they said, well, like, why don't you try fashioning this into even game. Even the way it came out like it came out of a company, like a stuffy You're like rigid traditional company, like you be soft, like it was a likely fell right, they do value in hearts and stuf like, yeah, I think it came out of like a game jam at Reflections or something like won the game jam and they said, this is so good, you should polish it up and put it out. It's amazing that I really liked the game from you'dis off this year and which the goal is to climb about power and the sense of progress. It's really cool too because the draw distance is so far, so that's sense of progress. As you're building a higher and higher it's so cool to stand on those higher things and look down and be likely and even all the way up here, even being able to steer the vines as they grow, so you're like literally shaping the shape of the world as it as it expands, like it does so many cool things. I think that's what I tired of the most when like you get to the next plateau, and it's like, now do eight of these? I was like, oh, man, I don't know eight more notes, like yeah, I just gotta climb to it, jump on it, cowboy that thing into the insert it into its lovely lava nest or whatever is. Did you ever teleport a sheep to the top of the world and throw it off? I think that with a mush. I don't know if I did at the top, but I definitely threw some sheep off some very high distances. I sup wish the leaf didn't like run out ever well sliding lea well, I mean you didn't finish it right now, okay, because you the progression is such that the leaves stopped mattering very quickly, because like you get the jet pack and stuff. You have a jet pack, okay, but I don't have a full booster on the jetpack. Okay. Anyway, Yeah, I definitely live it on here. We gotta cut something, yeah, Brad, Brad, what are you thinking about Dying light? Is that something we can cut? I know you enjoyed it, but man, I love the ship out of that game doesn't hold up with the rest of these. I don't it's different enough. I don't know that I'm gonna get the support here. I mean, what I'll say is, you know, it's definitely different enough from the Dead Island business that I think that it is well represented by being on this list. Yeah, it's actually a very different game. Yeah, they took out the one good thing from from Dead Island, but they put in multiple other good things in place. So but that said, you know, I think, yeah, I don't know if you're going to get the support. Yeah. Weirdly doesn't seem like anybody else here really started that. I didn't play that, played a bunch of it and ended up not really enjoying it. I played, came out at a point where there wasn't much else going on, play a bunch of this, and spent like a couple of days playing through most of that game. And then it came to the conclusion like, I don't I think it's cool. I want to pay. Yeah, it feels like they tightened the screws on a lot of stuff they've been working on for a while and like really just kind of like figured it out and tightened the mechanics. Okay, well, I know it's going to get ejected. But the two things it does are the park wore is fantastic, right. We talked about that already on these podcasts. The other thing is the nighttime stuff. Yeah, that's pretty cool. They made it, you know what that Let's come back to this later. I'll just take it off. I'll take it off. Any of you added Invisible Ink, which I'm mad at myself for not including here. I added for you one of my favorite games of the It's my favorite game this year probably, Uh. It is. It is the first time that I've seen the tactics game that focuses on something that isn't just combat. In fact, like combat is a solution in that game, but mostly it's like how do I outsmart these foes who are constantly getting smarter and getting more information than I have. It's a it's a game about managing hidden information and a game about like hacking shit and then like blasting your way out of a play when it goes wrong. And it is really good. Yeah, And I feel like it's slipped under the slipped through the cracks this year again, like graded, I'm gonna get the support here, but it is. It is a fantastic game that is like really tightly designed. Uh. And if you're listening and haven't played it, you should go play it, Dan, That's the game you locked yourself in that closet for a while, wasn't it? Sure did? Yeah? And what was the deal I could have just like you could have actually opened the door, just left the door wasn't actually locked? Yeah? Okay, yeah, I don't think we should added to the list or anything. And a quick shout out to Massive Chalice, which was the game that I had no expectations for whatsoever going in and I ended up finishing after many many hours playing. Yeah, can you finish it? Well? Finishing? So the ending to that game is you eventually start over really just like it's the it's it's a cyclical thing. Okay, but yes, I did get to the ending of that game. Okay, I didn't know what it had an ending. I thought it just kind of went and went until you died. There is there is a final fight, which is actually the probably the least good part of it. But uh, the rest of that game I thought was like surprisingly compelling and I had no idea played a bunch of them. Oh yeah, somebody sell me on acxilme verge in this category, I thought, I don't. Yeah, I don't know that it needs to. It's a it's a duck, But I don't know. Why do you think it doesn't hold up in this category because it's so derivative of Metrod? Yeah? I think there are just other games in here that will have stronger arguments for them, Like I really like ACXIM Verge, but I don't have a passion for it. Sure. Yeah, it's going to be very high on my top ten of the It'll be somewhere online. Uh. Yeah, it's just I think I do see the argument that it is so much uh, it's so inspired by Metroid that it doesn't feel as new as something like, you know, like a Splatoon or an under Taylor other things on this list basically, So, yeah, I love the game, but I can see it being taken off this We gotta we gotta get this. Do we want to lock something here? Is there something here that we all are putting? Platoon is my locke, That's that's that's yes. When I look at that list, that's it's like games that should stay that came out of nowhere. It was a great shoot this year from Nintendo, a great multiplayers and there were so many things they could have sucked up with it since they don't really do online and that all worked fine, and even the one thing about it that everyone was kind of iffy on when it first came out, the sort of thinness of it, like they didn't just correct, but like they kept they kept correcting regularly over time in such a way that like it actually was. I almost think it was like a weirdly genius move to kind of leave some of that stuff out early on because we got everyone used to the game, got everyone into it, and then within a week or so, like they were just they were backfilling that stuff for free. And they definitely lost some players on that who wanted all of an upfront. But my suspicion is my suspicion is that they kept more players who would have left when those other players got real good and like the other people could just couldn't hang. I mean, there were a couple of missteps with that stuff, like launching with the level cap of twenty seems crazy because people hit that in the first weekend. The level cap really doesn't matter that much in that game, especially when you consider the way they randomized the teams and all that stuff. I guess so, but even they seemed to disagree because they've immediately turned around. And I think the bigger misstep was the lack of friends stuff like that was the problem right out of the gate. I mean, other than that, I didn't have a lot of like major agreements that like that. That's a problem endemic to like all me into the online games, unfortunately, and they basically fixed that. So they wind up rolling that stuff out for free all the other mess. They have not sold any DLC for that game. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Yeah, totally Life is Strange. I really like Life is straight. I do too, But if you guys finished it, no, okay, sucks, Like I really wish that's one of the first two episodes because I keep seeing people talk about like the ending is so crazy or whatever. Well, so like the even the endings to some of the episodes that we have played have been fucking crazy. And so that game goes some places that I, even as knowing it is a story about teamed time travel, did not expect it to go as far as it does with some of that stuff. So I only played the first episode. But from what you've seen, is it all like localized time travel, because like in the first episode, it's very much like, oh, let's roll the walk back five minutes or an hour or whatever and like' and then like that's the mechanic, you know, seems you want to go there? Does it like do you end up in do you end up in the dark ages at some point? Is it like is it extreme time travel? At some point? But so here's here's the question. Do we really want to talk about this now or do we want to wait for the story discussion because I can well, I can give you details or I can just give it a yes or no answer. So I think you need to go into details if you want to sell this game as being on this category, because I look at it and go, like, man, that that seems like another adventure game that I don't want to play from even having played a chunk of it. Just like we're gonna get there this this episode because like today, because it's best when we're sequence and the end of episode three, So both the end of episode two and the episode end of episode three have variations on that time travel thing or on the time control stuff. At the end of episode two, you freeze time, uh and and like move further walk around in it. Yeah, and then and then go and do a thing that we'll talk about later and episode three. Yeah, so this is gonna be spoiler sets up so that you do end up doing kind of like a do you guys see Butterfly effect the movie? Yeah, it seems like that you end up doing that of like being able to travel to you look at like a photo from like ten years ago or something like that. Yeah, you're able to travel, try and travel back to that moment to change something and then come back forward. But obviously it has affected the entire world characters that super cool, very specific you know, character arcs, all that stuff has been redone. Does it resonate well? Does it like like, oh, it's a huge thing because the entire world has changed around your character. Now that that's where that episode leaves off. And that's as far as I have played, So that could be the gimmick for that episode and not play out that was actually I guess that's actually my question is whether that's just a gimmick or adictually like its services, like the storyline, the time travel stuff plays well with the narrative stuff in a way that's actually kind of interesting that I didn't even realize you could do until probably about episode two, which is you can like do something completely. There's a scene where like you have to break into like the principal's officers, like Dean Winnaker's office, right, and you make a pipe bomb and blow the door off, and then like the alarms go off, right, So then you walk inside the office and you always stay in the same spot when you rewind time, so then you rewind time too before the door is blown up, and then just open the door and see your buddy there and she's like, what the fuck are you doing? And like how do you get okay? And then like you walk inside. So there's they're puzzles like that, right, that are fun and cool. But then it's like the dialogue in the first episode and the interaction in the first episode are not great, I thought, ye, but they get better and the stakes just seem to be getting higher and higher. Like once they kind of get out of the need to sort of like represent how you know, how in touch with the teens, the game is like, and they start kind of just getting into the meat of the story, like the character stuff becomes a lots lots better and the interact between those characters like becomes really compelling over time, Like the friendship between Max and Chloe is actually a fairly nuanced and interesting relationship that the game you know, lets you kind of explore a little bit more than than you know, something that was like a little bit more of like a standard adventure game. So there are lots of really good supporting characters that you spend enough time with to care when those when the situation changes in a dramatic way, you know, like and they do some good stuff with the time travel, so it does it's a mix of this time travel adventure game and also like the Telltale, you kind of like, what choice are you gonna make, Like somebody's gonna remember this kind of thing? Uh, And you can use the time travel to oftentimes see both sides, but then you can also use it to go through a set of dialogue options and personally be like, fuck you, you didn't know anything about my mother, and then like that whole situation blows up, and then rewind time and then add that dialogue option to your thing to be like, hey man, you open it up. I'm sorry about your mom, and you know what, I saw some of that in the first episode, and I thought that was really neat. Yeah, so they that build on that. It's like you get a weird sense of like or a weird feeling of like telling them what they want to hear. Yeah, yeah, and like that's a that's a part. I think they write into the narrative pretty well, like are you manipulate manipulating people? Are you using these powers to kind of get what you want? Uh? There's good stuff. And are they a crutch for you? Do they become a crutch for you? And what do you do if you don't have that crutch? Like there's a lot of Donnie Darko in that game, but it's the parts of Donnie Darko that are actually interesting and not the parts that are just sort of cringey and unbearable, you know, years after watching that movie, and I think I think they they apply that stuff to you know, the you know, the the kids of this time in a good way. And I think that the writing is better than especially that first episode. And I will I won't go and say it's not without its faults. Some stuff is kind of cringe e uh, But I think as a fresh franchise, as as a debut, it's it's pretty good. It's pretty solid, and I think it's more than pretty solid. I think it's it's it's impressive what they actually do with some of that stuff and the places they go, yeah, or are willing to go. So dude, do you guys feel like it's top three? Then? I mean I personally do same. So so far, like, man, they could drop the ball real bad an episode, foar or fine, but so far I put a star next to it. The way they keep raising the stakes makes me feel like, man, they they're really just going for it. Like I'm kind of at the point now where it's like, even if the last two episodes don't deliver the way the last two did like the previous two did, I'm not going to be mad at it because I feel like they've done really cool, interesting things thus far and that's enough to sell me on it. Okay, we can pull Invisible Ink again, Like I just know I'm not gonna get it's not gonna hang it. It wins this for me. But yeah, pull hacknet like it's Hacket's so cool. It's so cool, it's so cool, and like it's a great little self contained thing, but it's building on other hacking games. But they embrace the like Hollywood stupidity of hacking in a way that's just Yeah. How about Rebel Galaxy, Yeah, I mean, just leave it on there a little longer. It's such an impressive thing for you know, the number of people that made it, and and just that the cohesiveness of that thing is is really cool. It's probably not gonna hang. Yeah, but is this a debut for these two guys that made this this badass game? Yeah? Sure, yeah, and they're contractors. But yeah, okay, yeah that sounds I think it's I think it's a killer thing. I think it's it's a really really well crafted game, especially for the number of people that made it. I would feel stronger about arguing for it if I'd stuck through it all the way through. I mean, I haven't finished it, but I've I played a lot more. I want to play more of it. But also I don't know if I'm gonna right. We can probably Paul Ronanvini and I are on that game. There's a really cool mechanic and that, but there's just not enough. That's probably the game here on that list that I want to see a sequel of them, Like the Strongest debut, that's like, because I think maybe it's flawed, Like I want to see Ronan to play that right now, we were dancing around Undertail, which for me is at all absolutely on this list. Again basically one person with some extra help made this game. Uh, and and actually going to some of the stuff we were just saying about life is strange where it's like, oh, we go back and change stuff with information we know. The thing that Undertailed does really well is it knows that you're doing that shit. It knows that you're loading your saves and trying to change stuff around, and by the end of that game, it's playing with it in a way that's really unexpected and really effective. There's a lot of under the hood stuff that is Yeah, even on subsequent playthrough, I went into that game not expecting to really like it at all, and especially in that those opening bits I did not. But man, you know, that thing wins you over in a way that you don't expect. And I think I think, like you said, that stuff under the hood that's going on in that game is really I just think everything about it is is exceptionally well crafted. Yeah, all right, I'm gonna take off Rebel galaxy, and if I'm the only one fighting for until down here, I could take the it off because I think there are stronger contentment. I think so too. I again, Until Donna is great, but it's just so I'm so. I enjoyed it more than I ever expected would for like, yeah, take those mechanics and make it work. Uh, it was just dumb fun. I think her story also love that game, but it's one of those things that like, he made some FMV in a novel way work, and that's really cool and enjoyable. If this category was best experiment, I would say that's that's the one, but kind kind of in a way. I do also want to say though, that like there's stuff in her story that has been in other games before. You look at the work of like Christine love Yea doing some of like the nonlinear like database diving, storytelling stuff. The stuff that her her story brought in was this FMV stuff, and it mostly lands on that, But there have been other nonlinear kind of interactive fiction projects before like this. Yeah, which I'm not taking away from her story. No one of my favorite games of the year, but yeah, I think I think we can we can let that go. What's the list, Brad, We're down to five. Okay. I feel like Mario Maker goes, like Jeff seemed not super wedded to it in this category particularly. I feel like, again, if we want to buyas in favor of things that are wholly new, like I don't have a problem letting this one go. I also think that game will get props. Sure, I just think it's very it's executing on the level construction stuff for the masses and the without that being without them doing something just finding that magic formula, we would never get the levels. Nobody would stick with it and like to do that. So well, Yeah, they nailed so many parts of this car. I really like that argument. Actually, I was really surprised by how well they executed that the level of design stuff, and that's like not easy because you've seen people try it before and so they're playing a bad level editors in video games. But I think, you know, like keep in mind that like this, A big part of why the level editing is into marow Maker works is because of the nature of the games you're making levels for, like they're tile based, and the mechanics of all of those objects are so warm into so many people to play video games. Yeah, that you just kind of inherently know how to build these levels. They also they also have the built in advantage of having a big touch screen to let you work with. Oh yeah, that's that that makes it work, Like if you want, like this is the fucking we sports of the WU. This is like, hey, here's something that actually makes this dumb fucking controller makes sense. But you know, like compared to games with Love of Editors where you have to use a dpad totally, totally, totally stuff. And on top of that, they just kind of they put that whole layer of Nintendom make it fun. Yeah, I mean they've applied the like the Mario paint technology to Matime liter Yeah, yeah, to making these levels. Like yeah, I think that, Yes, I think incredibly highly of Super Mario Maker. Uh. And for me, it just comes down to is it a debut uh? And and that's where I go, like, I mean, technically, yes, it's it's it's in on a technicality, uh. And that makes me feel a little weird about it. But you know, at the same time, like I would probably based on the arguments, I'd say this list is like Splatoon Life is trained Super Mario Maker. You know, like like if if that's if that's an argument that people feel okay about with super Mario Maker. Uh, otherwise I would probably say Undertail sounds like the stronger. I'd probably take Undertail over Maker. But for this, I like the Mario Maker. I like Maker as an as an argument. Yeah, I really do. Like I'm not, yeah, I'm not as high on Mario Maker or Life I mean as you are, but like you're definitely not totally, but I am so impressed they were able to man making creation tools that everybody's using. Is is something somebody people have been chasing for a while, and it's always the backbone of those games, right, like the Sack Boys stuff that the whole franchise and the uh what god was the cart Racer mod Nation Racers that come out that came out, that's coming out long that's coming out pretty soon. Yeah so yeah, like that's and then they fall apart because the stuff is tough to use. Uh yeah, and totally and this this goes back to like for me, it's why we just ran a video of load Runner, because like Loadrunner is another tile based editor where like every piece in it has very clear use and like Super Mario Maker is load runner in terms of just like providing those tools at the baseline in a way that is very easy for people to grasp and very easy for people to engage with. Its good on them for that, Like maybe it's a production part two of like you know, they make it look so easy, and it's like making the levels is dumb and easy, and it's like, no, these were all design decisions that had to get vetted and be like when we're making this game, it just pulled it. It's so amazing to me that they do it without any kind of real tutorial, Like you can go into the endgame manual and when you first start it shows you like, hey, shake this turtle and it'll turn red. But outside of that, like compare that to a little big planet where it's just so many videos you have to watch like okay, now go into this all of those and then came away from it like feeling no better at making also like more importantly like no desire to do it right. Yeah, whereas Mario Maker, you want to jump in and like my time with that game has been made. I will say there are some gaps in that editor where some more reference material would help, Like like I slapped wings on a turtle round a kopa, Yeah, because I wanted it to be one of the ones that that hovers up and right. You need to shake it first and then put the wings to see that, Like I never would have been intuitively figured that out, just kind of falling in the pit and I didn't know why just and then I just deleted it because it was drying to be crazy. Yeah, there are, yes, there are things like that that are trial that they're they're kind of counting on some trial and error or counting on some mystery of like wait, I shook this and what the fuck do we happened? But at least shake The red turtles are the ones that go up and down. Three ones are the ones that hop correct. Is that is that Mario Cannon? I believe so okay, So you have to shake it to make it red then put the wings on. And I loved experimenting with that stuff, like, yeah, it's a formula. It's like a recipe like system. It's like little God in Mario Maker level editing form Yeah, it's like if it had just ever told you, Hey, the red ones are the ones that can go up and down. Like one of the patches they added the ability to make the mushrooms work like they really work, Like this is a mushroom if you're small, and a fireflower if you're big, and to make it, you put a fireflower on top of a mushroom. But it stays a mushroom. It becomes a mushroom that has a tiny picture of a fire flower in the corner of it. But I love that with trial and not perfect, but I love that the trial and error parts of creating levels is so quick. So if you do want to, you know, throw wings on a turtle and see if it falls or whatever, you just hit that thing in the corner and it's like, oh, yep, it fell two seconds later, You've got to fix the iteration, not if you don't know what to do like this, I mean, but the trial and airr part, Like you know, you make that air and then you can fix it right away. Yeah, okay, yes, but I think I would. I think the stuff we have on me we have four games on here under tests with Tune Life is Changing and Grow Home. I don't want to throw a wrench in all of this. But there are two things I thought of that I feel like we should at least acknowledge and decide where they belong here or not. Okay, y oh god, yeah, I totally actually meant to put that on this list. Curbal Space Program. Oh wait a minute, hang on, does that so that's the question because that game was released in twenty it was when did it first go on sale? Like the late seventies actually still NASA still had funding. It is definitely a release for this year. Uh. Curbal Space Program is possibly the game to end all games. It is a hell of a thing. Last game you'll ever need. Yes, because you can find a planet where Mario makers being made on it, but curbans are making Mario levels. Why is Curbal Space Program so fucking impenetrable and unplayable? How come every time, every every time I play it, I make something and it falls apart, and not even in a cool way where I'm like, that's fun. I want to do it again. Like I've seen you have fun with Curbal Space Program now for over a decade. Every time I see you do it, I go, man, I'm gonna play some Curbal Space Program. And I get home and start fucking with it and it sucks so so every time I play with it, it's terrible. It's the anti Mario Maker. It is the where every time Mario Maker went left, Kurbel went right. Uh, it is get the manual watch eight hundred videos on YouTube. Kind of they did add a career mode that takes you a little step by step. They limit they kind of do what Mario Maker does and like, hey, you can't even touch the other stuff until you build a simple rocket with a booster and understand the fundamentals. Uh, Kurbal's great, but it is super heady, and I think that's what also makes it great, because it is when you do get there, you feel like you're actually understanding some astrophysics. You then elon Musk are gonna go off and have some Yeah, I mean it's it's Mario teaches astrophysics like it's it's that game is impenetrable time. I do not understand how any of that ship works. And I it's no matter how long I bang my head against that stuff, I just don't think I have the brain for it. But watching him play, watching him us this stuff out, watch him, you know, try and like experiment and figure out the ways to get stuff into orbit, how to get out of that orbit and get into another thing is fucking fascinating. It's crazy, it's it's a lot of fun, but it's a lot of work. It is because I keep approaching it thinking like I love banjo, KAZOOI, nuts and bolts. I want to slap some stuff together and let's fly some ship. And this is no, no, it is it much more like, hey, you need to understand what escape philosophy is. Mechanics they added in one of the versions. They added uh like more realistic atmospheric h dynamics, which changed the way your ship accelerates in atmosphere, which mound up being like, no, now you've got to worry a lot more about streamlining U the drag on your ship as you're that's yeah, if you watch any of the reasons stuff we did were a ship just starts swinging yep and starts sweeping the floor with his ship, and it's real fucked. Can you can you pick where on the planet you launch from? No? You can't. I don't think. So it's easier to achieve escape on from closer closer to the equator. I think. I think that's why I think that we're starting from Florida and Texas. I think that's where you start, but yeah, you gotta you have to know where you're apoapsis is. And they like where the height of your trajectory is, and wow, where you should start turning and what's going to be most fuel efficient and shock Brad hasn't played this game, like uh, and they also edited in a bunch of stuff that is uh, you can just load in ships to be like okay, like this is how you built this thing. But there's also crazy stuff of you know, you can make uh you know, uh orbiting bases and stuff like that or just insane and the you know, it's not just moon you go out like eight or nine plant's deep. It's it's really it's a kind of damn solar system there to explore if you can figure out how to do it. But it is intimidating us. So yeah, like I even like last time I played it, they had the pre made ships in it. Then I loaded one in and went like all right, cool, well I obviously can't build anything, but here we go. And then even flying that was just like what the fuck am I even doing it? Like it's not like the nature of the game is that I'll at odds with the like qt C look of the curbls or whatever. I think they work well together. But it is misleading. Yeah, it is not. That's yeah. I think they do that because you don't want to be blowing up a bunch of you know. Uh, they're all smiling. I'm happy, Yeah, but they're just happy to go to space. It doesn't matter if they survive or not. It's great that that game is out now, yeah, or is it? I don't know. So that's my only argument, keep working on it. That's my only argument against it being here is that that game has been around and fucked with for so long at this point. Yeah, but I mean this is it's this is as shot to be in these awards, like the year it comes out, as it's eligible. Yeah, I think it might be one of the greatest games of the year. But like as a debut, Uh, it's it's Une twenty eleven was the first Colic the wow really yeah, holy shit. But like you look at that game and that makes sense, Like you look at what's in that game, and like it's a game and has had people iterate on it constantly. Uh, it's great to talk about here. I'm not gonna keep harping on it for to be on this list, like I just wanted to get it. It's uh, it's acknowledgement and consideration here because you know that thing has been I don't know, I think like a big staple of our year. It's it's fun as hell once it once you kind of yeah, dude, this thing has like an order of magnitude more user reviews on Steam than I have ever seen. Twenty six thousand view it's been in early access, twenty fair and then before. But I think, yeah, before that, it was you go to the site and I think it's coming to PS four and we re fucking what like that? That seems like, like, is the the control that you use, like the way you play that game? Does that sound conducive at all to using a game pad? Weirdly, the we you actually sounds like, yeah, so I've been playing with the Steam controller, okay, and you can. Yes, they mapped one of their profiles to it, and you can do it. But the way to do that play that game, My ideal way to play that game is a throttle. It's a hotas is a throttle, and the thing and the keyboard and the controller because there are so many different things you're doing in that game. There's you build planes. Is there a moon rover? Do you need steering wheels? You could do a moon rover, you do in orbit, docking, you can do walking around as your curbal with a jet pack and something that. There's so much going on you need every controller to play the game Man and track r It's it's really it's phenomenal. Yeah, best best game nobody'll ever play. It just sounds scary, it's it's it is. Yes, it is relevantimidating, but you could just put a castle on a rocket launch it have fun. But I feel like that's what I was trying to do and then couldn't even get that to happen, Like it seemed like the ramp up to even get to just like, yeah, it sounds like they don't pretty. They'll just give it to you. I would say, if you're going to try and try the career motive, if you haven't, uh, they'll walk you through very like. One of the first things, it's like, build a thing that doesn't blow up on the launch pad. That was the first problem I had, So yeah, it'll walk you through and do the tutorials. They put those in as well. Uh so we don't we don't need to keep it, but it is okay in a world where this is my list that's gonna be on it. Sure, yeah, uh as far as ore goes. I mean, you know, we've talked about it, and it's various aesthetic pleasures. I'm just you know, I Brad, I feel like you, you and Jason are the are the ones that have the strongest feelings about that game. It's mean, it's interesting because it's the what Moon Studios. Yeah, and it's just like four dudes from like across the world. But I think they know more people than that. But you're you're right, Like the story of how this game was made is insane because it was entirely distributed. Like no two team members of the for the on this game lived in like even the same country. Yeah, the postals service of game time, they don't have a home office. Yeah, they had no they had no actual office. They were all in different countries. Uh. Like some of the team members in this game hadn't hadn't met each other until the game was almost out. I don't know. That's like especially I'm not saying it's super relevant here. It's just a really weird factor. Waid about that. Well, and it's interesting for a game well, you know, because you hear about a lot with like, you know, smaller indie games, but there is a scope to that game. That and and especially like with all the art stuff that is, you know that that's kind of a crazy thing that all that stuff kind of works in as much harmony as it does without people like communicating, you know, in person. Yeah, it's their first game, Like, that's a that's cool debut debut. Yeah, Like, but what's what's great about the game is all in the game. They leave it all on the screen. Yeah, but I mean this game game, you know, it's a it's a love letter to you know, platformers, and and you know, I don't think it's a it's just a really shining example of you know, that type of game. It just executes on every level. Like it looks amazing, it sounds amazing, It plays way better and more like is it innovative? I don't know what the word like, it just demands way more of you than you would have thought looking at it, looking at what it looks like, like you don't expect the amount of depthing. It defies some expectations. Challenge yeah, and challenge that are yeah, I like, I like some of these other titles on there better than or yeah for this category. The only other thing I would say about it worry like it's it's damn near a perfect game for what it sets out to do. Like like I would define a perfect game as like something that defines a goal and then either meets it or doesn't. Not to say that it's like the best game ever, but like it's more a question of like how well did they fulfill their intent? Right? But there, Yes, it is prime, but there there are two things about it. Uh, actually maybe there was just one. I'm trying to thick back now. I remember there being a couple of things at the time that's super bugged the shit out of me. Oh they they When you finish that game, it locks your save file out. You literally cannot go back into the world and keep exploring after you see the credits, Like the save file entry on the title screen just says complete and you can't access it anymore. Which is does it make sense narratively? Uh? Kind of like the state of the world is not so different that you couldn't like the player character is still alive like that. There's no reason they couldn't have let you because it is a game that you can percent and like that. There's a jeuge expectation in that genre, right that you can go back and like find the stuff you missed. They need to like have like a like a save point right before. Yeah, yeah, like yeah, Like I think they do give you a warning like, hey, you're about to enter the end game, like there's no turning back from here, but but they don't. But it doesn't explicitly say, hey, you'll never be able to go back, right. Usually that means, hey, you're locked into finishing the game until you finish it. I heard about that ahead of time, and it has a copy file or a copy functions, so I copied my save file so I'd be able to keep finding stuff. But there's also an area of that game that they once you're done with it, once you beat the boss there or whatever, you can never go back to. Can you miss stuff? Yeah? Yes, And I missed like two collectibles in that area, so I was like forever barred from finding everything in that game. And that fucking sucks. So I feel like if we're if we're cutting Axion Verge, we need to cut Ore. I think they're just like two sides of the same quick yet and I think like Axion Verge flips a bunch of tropes on their heads from an existing game, whereas this one, like is a little more like I didn't expect that kind of gameplay in the game like this, but but like, I see what you mean. Yeah, okay, well we gave them their generation that's always looking to do. Yeah, I'm really glad you brought up Kurball. I think it's it's phenomenal and is a fantastic debut, even though I do feel like I've been playing it for ten years. So for me, the three here are Undertail's Platoon in Life Is Strange. Fuck you. I would take off Life Is Strange and put it grow Home. For me, it's Undertail, Life is Strange, Grow Home, but only because I haven't put that much time into Splatoon. I think it's Splatoon grow Home, and I don't give a fuck about like those. Life Is Strange and Undertail are practically the same game. They occupy the exact same segment of an audience. At some point, maybe maybe totally. Maybe I'm that audience the exact same people like those games, and I think there's some can and like I am, I am subversively tweeting yeah yeah, oh man, Yeah, I think that's that's probably true, like people who like good stories. Yeah, people who mechanically Life is Strange is really interesting, And I wish that like they would just like fudge, if they fudged that rewind stuff into every Telltale game, I maybe would be a little more likely to have I probably would have played a little bit more of tell Tales output. Yeah, But at the same time, well, I guess like whatever. Personally, like, I would much rather play Life is Strange than Undertail now that I think about it, Like, yeah, like Life is Strange is just mechanically more interesting to me. I think they both suffer from a really big problem, which is Undertone Life of Strange both require you to get invested heavily before otherwise you just drop off. Like there's the bounce rate on those games. It takes like an hour and a half to be like Okay, I'm in, let's see where the stuff goes. Right, Like Undertail's it's probably even more glaring and unfortunate because the game just changes Undertail, it is hard for me to play. Yeah, I not in it like a challenging sense, like here, it's difficult. It's just I feel like practically every person I know who even who loves Undertail says like, yeah, the first couple hours kind of rough here. Yeah. The counter argument here is if, in the spirit of the best debut thing to Toby Fox designed Undertail, programmed it, made all of the music for it, and this was his first game, like this was a fucking big debut for someone who can who hopefully will get better at this ship going forward. Our Life Is Strange is the follow up to Remember Me, a flawed game in which they just removed the stuff that was flawed from it and focused in on the let's rewind time and change things. In these adventure game segments, I love adventure or I love Life is Strange. I like Remember Me also, But if it's between one of those two, I think I have to go Undertail. And I don't necessarily thing that it has to be in either ORR though, because I think those games are different enough, and you know they might, yes they might, they might run in similar circles, but like they're They're both doing fairly different things, and I think they're They're extremely impressive for different reasons. I see you I and Grow Home, you devious motherfucker it look, I think Grow Home is fantastic. I think that that was That was not a game I had any expectations for, and I was gleeful while playing it at times, but I don't know, like it just it didn't leave the same impression on me that the other games on this list did. All Right, well, well how about this. What if we cut Splatoon? Okay, then I'm going home. Yeah that's not You're Growing Home if that is the best debut of the year, agreed. I think I personally feel like either Undertail or Life Is Strange. I have to go. I could lose. Life is Strange again, kind of for the similar reasons that Austin mentioned. Like Undertail, I think is uh is a little more fresh out of the gate. Life Is Strange is a refinement on a and it is doing similar things too, you know, the tell tale style of adventure games, like I think they do things to make it their own too. It's not just a retreat of that stuff, but you know it is. It is working in an expected genre and doing some of the same tropes as that genre tends to to run in regularly. Yeah, I mean the stuff about you know what it keeps track of and and all that sort of stuff in Undertail like sound phenomenal crazy it is it is. Yeah, like like Undertail constantly surprised me more with that stuff. Life is strange more surprises me with where it's going narratively. Yes, and it's because it's butting up against things that are difficult to talk about, not necessarily because of time travel stuff like Butterfly effect. It is doing that movie, so like yeah, but it is bringing up stuff that's like you don't see this in games a lot, and like that's really interesting. So uh, like Life is strange maybe like in stories and moments is doing phenomenal stuff. Undertail it's just like, hey man, this is you're doing some crazy. Yeah. Two weeks from now we could be like fuck we finished. Life is Strange as the best and kicking ourselves else. But yeah, I'm ready to let it go. Yeah, I can live with it. I'm totally because grow Home it is strong enough to like, I'm totally cool with it being on here. It's a good three yep. And and we like Splatoon here. Yes, yeah, I think splaton is I'm with it best online shooter in years. That's that's not my choice, but it's obviously the consensus. And it's totally not the best online shooter in years. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not super into splatoons. It's cool. I appreciate it, and I understand why people like it a lot. It's a nice spin on like the existing mechanics of whatever. We'll talk about about that again. I'll go back to your comment about them putting out a Dreamcast game in twenty fifteen, Like, that's fucking awesome. Uh ro Home is a better game? Next category wins. Yes, it's hottest mess. This one's interesting this year hottest very different kinds of messes here. So so, Brad, we want to describe what this is. Yeah, did this category grow out of another category or is it all? I can't remember the genesis of this. You know, we've had, you know, the negative categories. I think it adapt to fit trends and stuff like that in some ways. But hottest mess is just like you know, look, sometimes games are fucking broken. Yeah, a lot of times games are fucking broken. Sometimes they get fixed. Sometimes they don't. It wouldn't it wouldn't have to just be a broken game. Sometimes the mess that leastionally, there are so many broken games that they tend to dominate this, right, yes, But sometimes the messes are with the way a game is sold or packaged, or or some kind of transaction, the way it's you know, like some kind of like the way that a publisher relates to its fan base or something like that. Yeah, where you just look at the thing and go like, man, what a fucking train wreck that ended up being? Right, Sometimes good games go bad. Yeah, and like, so this isn't worse game, No, it is not here, right, it is? It is here is a messy situation. There was adding something to this that I am nodding heavily a lot. I don't know about that. Well, we'll talk about it, although something similar to that. Uh yeah, that's that's part of that. I think that. I think it's all wrapped up in one big let's talk with two separate things for now, because yeah, let's talk about it, all right. I'll read what's on here, okay. Ravens, cry Afro, Samurai too, Batman, Arkham Knight on the PC, Tony Hawks pro Skater five Order Combat X on the PC. Uh. The Kojima Konami kur Fluffle okay kk Nope, I'm sorry. I mean they're also a hot mess. Yeah, jeez, I can't believe I said that. I'm sorry. Uh the uh the post release patch situation with Metic Yourself five, Uh, fallow Out four and just Cause three on consoles, so I actually followed four on consoles and just cut through. Those are very much the same issue, though. Yeah, I just tossed those on because I think those those are messes, certainly, but there are much hotter message it just Caused three. I mean, I don't think that belongs like like, yeah, it doesn't run as well as the PC version, but that's still a playable. That's still a good dame. It is borderline, it is, yeah, it is, but it is it is still on the other side of the border. And I think there's been like some benchmarks have come out in the last couple of days. I don't give a fuck what other benchmarks are saying, like having seen and played some of that game under under twenty frames a second in the worst situations, but it's like designed so that that doesn't mean you can't shoot dutes, but not dying because of that, our own reviewer deemed it to not be a bad enough problem to dock a star from it. So I'm gonna go with that. And and I think that that we're so close to that just coming out like that. They could fix that and do make good on that, and they should. It could work. There's some other stuff on here that is like, no, I'm not saying it, you're just saying, don't give them a pass on it. Oh no, it's got performance issues. Yeah, I'm so sorry. Takes some street fighters. Uh yeah. And and and you you've cut Fallout as well, which I think is fine. I think that you know that that's a game that has way more severe performance issues than than Just Cause does. But it's still it's not as many of some of the stuff on. It's not it's not going to run in this fuck pack, so so Afro Samurai to. It's just gone, not even a game anymore, gone it ever existed, So we can't have it on this list. It was a digital release, Yeah, they're they're looking to rEFInd it. I don't know if they actually put that plan in play, but for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC versus Evil said that, like, sorry, this game is complete failure. We're not going to make volumes two and three and here's here's all your money. They've done it on Steam and they're looking for ways to do it on console. Ya there was going to be a volume two. Yeah, So you if you own it on Steam, you no longer own it. Do you have it? You you have the download a copy? Can you play it? I don't know. I think you have the downloaded file still, but it's not in your Steam library. And like, can it launch or does it need to check anything to launch? I think they made it. What I read was it still tries to validate and you can't. It can't so you can't run the game. Game doesn't exist. You could crack it. So yes, So if you want to preserve this game for future generations, there are people out there that have done the work necessary to preserve it. What's doing that? This is the biggest So Dan has played that game. What is in that game? What are they hiding? What are they trying to get out of our It's not that there's one huge game breaking bug or anything like that. It's the fact that you can't go thirty or forty five seconds in that game without a billion just awful, terrible, sometimes game breaking sometimes you know, crash all the way out. Sometimes animation problems, things where you're just getting constant loops where enemies will be invincible all of a sudden. Uh, It's it is broken. It's broken in every way. It's it's probably the worst game I've played since I've worked in the industry. Wow, that's I'm trying to think why. I'm trying to think of a game that was more broken in every fucking way. I had gotten the impression from listening to people talk about it. It was just extremely not good. It is really not good. No, it's broken. It's it's just broken in so many ways that it's hard to even like say a concise interest. It was broken so badly that they said, we're fucking sorry, here's your money back, whether you've got I've got, like, hey, apply for a refund. It was like, no, no, here's versus evil. General manager Steve Escalante said the game was a failure. We could not do in Good Conscience volume two and volume three. Man, so across the board we're putting out an apology saying sorry about this and then saying, you can't run this game anymore. H yeah, I'll have check on my PlayStation four, I said, I played it on. But man, it's it's fucking terrible like it. It's gotta win this this category. I think, Well, I don't know. Well, well, I mean there's there's higher profile messes so well. And there's one thing I will say here, though, is this is a bigger mess. If this game is broken and bad like this and then they don't make it good, right, Like it's it's bad, this is shitty, but like they're saying, no, here's your fucking money. They found a way. I mean, I think that contributes to the mess in a way, but on some level, they are also cleaning up the mess. Right, it's a bigger mess. Like they went to fucking Aisle three with the broom and said, fuck, sorry, shit, man, oh my god, you don't have to pay for this thing. You dropped like bleach on a blood stain. I had moments in the game where I would be like fighting a boss and it would go to like a cut scene or quick time event or whatever. So I'd be watching this cut scene, but the audio would be from the gameplay boss fight that was happening somewhere behind it, and I would be taking damage and dying while cut scenes were happening visually. That's amazing, geez. Yeah, And it's like so that so that on its face is like maybe the worst game, but everything surrounding it makes makes it a mess. Yeah, Like it's worse than like Ride to Hell Retribution by several wows magnitude. Wow, we do have a quick click on the side. Yeah, yeah, yeah, saying a lot. Yeah, I don't think Tony Hawk belongs on this list. It sucks. It's disappointing. It's a fucking really bad game. Yeah, it's just a bad game. And the frame rate is bad that you know, there's a lot of control stuff that's but it's not it is not a hot mess. Ravens cry. I don't think makes this list. Oh I don't know, dude. It's a pretty big thing that just seems like it sucks. And they also re released it. U it was bad enough that they had to re release that game and say this is the real version. Then doesn't that one also suck in different ways? So supposedly it does. So like I think it's more on like these are bad games than like there's some fucking messes in here. Uh, I think. Also, so when they pulled down PT you could still play it if you had it. You have it, you can to this day. You can still put it up in last year, right they pulled yea. Also, like I actually just found out this is an aside, but I found out the other day if you, uh, one of the firmware updates rolled in the ability to instead of redownloading everything on a new console, you can kind of export the contents of your hard drive. Oh so now you can find there's a way to put some t on the other machines. Yes, if you if you export to an external drive and move it back to a News four, you keep that games Okay, so it won't be gone forever. Yes, Uh, let's talk about Batman like that for me. Yeah, this is a similar situation for Samurai, except that they attempted to fix it and put it back on sale. Uh. They took that game off, say yeah, for for months, for very long because of and and it's one of the ins. In's a situation where, like you know, when you think about kind of the conventional wisdom about game development This isn't the thing that happens where it's like, hey, there's this good looking, good running console game. It may happen with that for a Samurai, but not with rat Yeah, yes, couldn't. We couldn't figure out way to get any of this tech to work on a PC. Apparently, like they went so specialized for the console version that getting to run up PC was a chiel. That's that's just nuts. It's like like like, you know, bad PC ports from console games happen, but it's usually power is not the issue. It's usually like, oh, it's like right, like or you know, like the mouse and keyboard controls suck, or like oh the fave is set to console standards or something. You know. It's never like this is unplayable on the PC. Like the whole thing with with these new console architectures being X eighty six, we're supposed to be like okay, like there's a baseline thing here, we can basically start here, and we know that like the PC version is gonna be good, and then like a console versions could be weaker. This is the opposite of that. Nice don't I just don't, Yeah, I don't. And then they took it down, like you couldn't buy it on the PC, and then they they've opened up refunds for the rest of this year, I think, and then they launched it again. Yeah, and then Smoke on the Street was like it's not yes, they're like they've they've added more menus and like kind of said the system requirements are this, and the system requirements are things that like are higher than most other games of that class in a way that you're like, okay, well, what what's going on here? And and we still don't actually know. All the tests post re release, the benchmarks some stuff have shown that you still need like a four gigabyte graphics card to run it smoothly. So so it didn't run which okay, that like I've I've got fucking two Like that's not a people to like, that is not a wide spurt, Like you know, if you're in the high end of having a beefy PC, you probably have that, but most people don't. Yeah, I have the seven eighty or whatever or seven seventy, but it ran okay for me, like you know, I got slowdown and stuff, which almost makes the whole thing more confusing. Yeah, yeah, there was there was definitely like a lot of confusion around, like because yeah, I played it on the PC here and it ran pretty poorly. It ran okay at home. This was before they pulled it, or in the middle of them having pulled it, I guess. And then the update didn't necessarily satisfy anyone. Yeah, don't forget. When they put that update out, they also put out a message saying like, hey, we're looking forward to talking to the community about the issues that we will continue to fix and the issues that we can't. Like there was literally language saying there are issues with this game that we can't Here's like it was like apology of the Year and non apology of the Year rolled into one with some of the statements they made around that game. And not their fault, I don't think their fault. But when it came back out and everything got pushed into pre release reviews of the game, and that just might be a system thing on Steam of like, well didn't actually come out and James released state it or it just was weird. Yeah, it didn't help. It was a situation where like there were people who were running it fine beforehand, and then the updates they made ruined it for them. You know, it's just like across the board, there are a million different story worries about how this game impacted people. Yeah. Also, I I totally agree with Drew that, like the the profile of this game to start with is a huge aspect of this was one of the best fact this is this and the confusion around it. I mean, like this is the definition of a mess. Yeah, because I think this this game, and after Samurai, I think absolutely well and so and you look at it in general, WB their PC ports have not been horrific, you know, like Mortal Kombat was a mess. Yeah yeah, but in like you know, like Shadowed Mortar, like that is a totally you know, functional Mad Max was totally OK. But that all just comes down to the individual development at that point. But what I'm saying here is that, like you know, for there wasn't necessarily an expectation that they were going to fuck this up to begin with, Like it actually it came so far out of left field, and it was this fucked up. Not only that, but the two the previous two Batman PC games yeah better yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's and that's why I went to that platform first. Actually, right, Like okay, I know that they've been Those games were solid, same here and like real graphical our house right, oh god, yeah, I didn't even think about it. So there was a huge expectation that this would be the best version of it. Yeah yeah, and then like out of the box, like with everything turned on, it still didn't look as good, all that rain stuff, those shot, those comparison shots floating around of the PC having like fewer features turned on than the PS four or whatever. Yeah. But which is the thing where like the messaging was bad about like we're not just bad like they maybe they just didn't know, like why is it working for Vinny and not other people? And if they could at least get out there and say right away, why does it run bad if you have an SSD? Yeah, yeah, there's yeah, uh that that is on this list all the way. So I want to bring up something from earlier. Vinny, you asked when the PT stuff happened, and that actually was this year. It was January. Yeah, No, it was April April earlier. No. I pulled it up. They announced it would be pulled from PSN on April twenty ninth of this year. I think some of the stuff around PT began even earlier in the Yeah, it was released earlier, but the pulling happened in April, So I don't know if that makes it eligible because the game came out in twenty fourteen. Well, we have Knamie on this list, so we just list Kami as me. It's not so much just the MGS five post release patches. It's not just the PC situation. It is the whole scuttle butt around Konami and Kajima Project. I feel like there's actually been no mess around Konami. It's more that, like people are disappointed by Konami's very like calculated and direct route out of this business. I thought you were gonna say it's just that people are disappearing from I mean, they also had those articles they are they are disappearing with some people. Yeah, yeah, but like you know, like we'd have to then take all that at face value, which I but at the same time, like I think that's that's maybe a bridge too far for this type of situation. I think there's a bit of like Konami on fire or within games. I think it's it's it's Kami speak to what Jeff was saying. It's like the this is the stuff that they're doing with the post release patches and them just five reflects that they're on five and getting out of games. And that's why I don't want to untangle it. I think those two things are tightly tangled. The patches are a symptom of Konami being like, fuck, yah, I'm out, and I don't like any of it. Yeah, like I don't. I don't think getting out like what Konami is doing, but like I can at least respect it, like from a business standpoint of just like we don't give a fuck about video games anymore because the money's not there. We're gonna get into mobile and yoga. Pachinko is big. But but I think the mess also encompasses, you know, the various shutterings around the Kajima stuff, also like the news that broke about the working conditions that had been going on in that company. I mean, it was unceremonious the way that the Kajima situation ended up playing out or has continued to play out well, and and and throwing things in there like them saying Kajima is just on vacation at this point, while very clearly he had his fucking going away party, you know, it's just like the farm up state. Yeah, like we sent him up there to live. All of that shit combined is just like a weird whirlwind of absolute bullshit. And I think that that in and of itself is absolutely a hot mess, right, But I think there's a haze to that that, like we have to, like we have to take a lot of second and third hand reports as total fact to make that work. Whereas I think if you look at the concrete, real reality of Metal your Solid five post release, you can look at that and go, man, fuck that they are fucking up a great game every step of the way. They have taken one of the best games of the year and just started fucking stabbing it so right down, Like, well, I I feel like there have been enough individual reports, even if it is mostly scuttled, but about the state of Konami and the intent of Konami that like, collectively, it all kind of passes the sniff test, right, Yes, yes, things are not well there. Yeah, It's like it depends on who you are, Like, if you were invested in making console games, then yeah, Konami's not the company for you. The investors of Konami think things are very well because they are doing things to maximize their profits. Right, you know, the rank and file video game developers of Konami that want to continue to make video games, Like the message to them is like, hey, this is not you should work somewhere else. And you know the that's that's just a changing business condition at Konami. And could they have handled that a little more cleanly and and more respectfully for especially some of their higher profile staff. Yes, But like if you look at what they're doing, it just manifests in weird ways through the lens that we use to look at a company like Konami. You know, from the video games first angle that we're coming at it, you go like, oh, man, fucking god. But from from the other end of this, this is like a cold, calculated like no, yeah, this right, Like look at these numbers, Look at this bar chart, look at this arrow. It's pointing this way. It's the opposite of the way we needed to point. The pachinko arrow is pointing this way. We want more stuff pointing in the pachinko direction. I totally see what you're what you're saying, Like from the from the perspective of people who love like the rich history of Konami's old games, Like it sucks that they're not doing that stuff anymore. Yeah, but like I think it too. I agree. But but at the same time, they're not they're not making any bones about what their new intentions are. Yeah, they they've been pretty clear. Yeah, that interview in the Japan Times or the profile about them that we're like, you know, this is it. This is the thing we're doing. This is our direct Like they're not trying to cover anything up here, like they're that's the thing. Okay, Okay, somethings sure, But in terms of the direction of the company, like they're making the PR the PR messaging that has been focused on the video game thing, like trying to do the opposite of what the company has clearly stated at are its goals to try to get you know, and and all that was in service of like trying to get people to buy Metal Gear. Like the thing they didn't want is like people to go like, oh, we're out of games and we're not going to support this thing, like they didn't want like a revolt of being well, I'm not buying this game because you're treating this guy poorly. It just all happened to line up that this game was coming out at the time that they were like fucking shutting off the lights. But again, it's not for me. For me, it is absolutely not the direction the company is taking. Like I don't, I don't like on a personal level, I don't really give a fuck what Konami does in the long term. Like they want to get out of games games, No I don't, I don't. But they're taking metal Gear and Contra and in Castlevania and a bunch of other stuff with them. Yeah, they're not doing so well with all that I know, right, I look at those last few Castlevania, But I don't care what they've done in the past, I'm saying, so they're shutting off the possibility of anything happening with them in the future. You know what, I have those old games. I will cherish them deeply, and given the way that company has been directed in recent years, I would never trust them to actually do anything meaningful with that stuff ever again. But nobody else ever will be able to either. Contra has been a decade's long. Tire Fire thinks there's a case to be made for like, if they're out of video games and not looking to exploit those ips in a video game format. There's actually a possible scenario where they license those games out to someone who actually does care about them, or someone makes some They would probably never sell them, because who would sell like these ips? You know, as long as you're you're making money hand over fist and pachinko, you learn just want the ability to make your fucking their entrepreneur. They're already actively sl there's also assignable pachinko machines. So again my point is it's not the direction, it's it's a mixture of the unceremonious nature of the way that they have gone about this, and also just you know, again those those news reports about the way that company was run, the way that the PT stuff went down, just like the huge rift between Kajima and the company that you know for not actually going public still became this very weird, public, messy thing. And I think just the whole handling of everything they are doing is a fucking mess. They are maybe making the right decision for their company, but they are doing it in the most heavy handed and awful way, and that in and of itself is emblematic of the hot mess that is Konami in twenty fifteen. I feel like so much of that mess, though, can be attributed to the punditry around this stuff and the and the way people have approached to the Konami news and the way that that that stuff has gone. I don't know what the different approach is about, because there aren't a lot of ways to approach the things that are coming out about that stuff and and put like a brave face on it. I mean, you know, yeah, there's there's no way for I mean, you know, if you want complete transparency or something out of Konami, like, you're not gonna get it. You don't get it out of any company. Like the ideal I think would have been like, as this stuff happens, like you get a quote from someone at Konami that is basically a shrug and they go yeah yeah. But like you know, when other high profile developers, you know, leave companies or they are excised from companies, there's usually at least, you know, a brief moment where they say, you know, we wish them well on their future endeavors. You know, they kind of they actually cut the cord. They haven't even done that. Maybe everything we're talking about business in Japan, like you're talking about like cultural norms for how that stuff is conducted over there now though I actually talking about like Ken Levine and Irrational the way that ended, like yeah, leaving you know that kind of And but also you know, even even if they don't say anything, they usually don't try and say he's still on vacation. That is not but it's not a cultural norm. But I bet that is actually technically accurate because he was probably under contract until sometime this month and just was technically actually legally legitimately on vacation. Like I bet they'd never lied at any point in that process. It's fun not but like guess like business is fucked. But I would also say there's I just on an intellectual level, I cannot understand the end game like of even saying, oh, he's just on vacation, because you know what the end result of that is going to be. You either say nothing, they don't care. Yeah, it's an end result with a segment of the business they don't care about anymore. They just have to string these people long long enough to sell copies of metal gear. I guess, uh. And then at that point it's like, all right, well, yeah, okay, guess what he left the company after his long vacation. He decided not to come back, right. I could see Konami being And to be clear, we have changed this item to just say Konami with a lot of exclamation of question mark. Yes, I could see that being the third item on this list, but not the winner. No, not the winner. But I think I think that again. I think it's it is more than just the post release MG stuff like that is a very tangible thing that is fucked, but I think there is a much larger cloud of fucked around it. I don't want to go back to aversa right too really quick to clarify or like actually just complicate things more, which is I'm not I'm now not one percent sure that people who've downloaded the game can't still launch it. I went to steam Spy and one person played the game yesterday, and two people played in the comtat before that. But but who knows. All right, so we also have Mortal Kombat. Yeah, let's not. Let's not sweep that. I feel like with with the ones we're talking about, though, we this is not in the same consider probably not, But like the bullet points on that one are pretty fucking This falls in line with a number of bad PC ports. Well I think it goes beyond, but beyond that because like this was the game that Steam tried to debut. It's like, hey, play it before it's done, downloading system with and that come that was like complete. Was that Steam trying it or was that Warner going, We've already built this stuff for the console versions and we're gonna try it here. I thought that it was done in conjunction without because you need support for that on the Steam. So the way they did it was like like you had twelve access to twelve DLC packs that were like Mortal Kombats preload number one, number two, number three, number four, Like it seems like cobbled together in a way that it Valve would have done it better. Maybe, Well, regardless of what the origin of that stuff was, it completely not only did it failed work as intended, it stopped most people from playing in the game at all, of getting past the men stay. Yeah, there there was, yes, there were there was like a good and they take gig patches that were the entire game all over again, and like they had so then that was a whole separate thing. Was like a week or two later, like one of the updates that was supposed to fix a lot of this stuff actually wiped all the progress for a lot of people. They had multiple patches that were fucking and unfucking and refucking game, and they deleted that patch saying, Okay, well you've got to go back to the old version, so download another ten gigs in order to Vinny has just put something on It was finished with moral comma. I feel like I feel like Mortal Combat was a game that like had a rough launch, and then after a few weeks of that stuff happening on the PC, it was done. Oh well, what's the state of it on the PC? Now? I don't think anybody plays it like it's still fine, Like I still have installed there like they did they finally yeah, like I was leaned it up, had zero the net code is still like really not good. It's all. But wasn't MK nine better consoles pretty bad? In that? I was thinking, I think it was a pint on PC. Wasn't it think it's weird that had some weird issues. I feel like I remember that game long. M K nine had some stuff where like if you were running on a sixteen by ten monitor, or is it like your screen resolution was tied to players you would match with in multiplayers because because if you could see more of the screen because of your monitor resolution, you would only match against people that had similar monitor resolutions. It was fucking crazy. It was high voltage to do that port. Yes, it was like a crazy like it's one of the things you look at and go that must have been a last minute solution to a problem. No one into, no one into Yeah, everybody in the office or who was testing just had like sixteen by nine monitors or like you know, or they just you know, they were handed a console port and then or a console version supports through the PC and then started doing the work and then realize like, oh wait, you can get further away than you're supposed to be able to get away from people if you were running this resolution. That's weird. We could letterbox the whole game. They're like, no, that's that's pretty bad, but it probably doesn't rate. They probably should have box the whole game in the top three here. Yeah, when you look at the other stuff on this list, yeah, it's not up there. Vinnie just added paid mods. So the whole Steam stuff that that that happened this year, right, the whole Skyrim I don't think that even comes close to read it as I feel like that is one of the messaging messages of the okay, if in the context of how they rolled it out and when they rolled it out, and for which game they rolled it and then when they pulled it back and why they pulled it back, and the reactions of the people that were selling paid mods like count like start to finish, roll out to retraction. Okay, in the handling of this thing, sure, And I just want to put it on in the abstract though, like there are absolutely arguments to be made for I want to include people who said, like fuck people who want to get paid for mods. That's part of the mess best part of the mess yeah, okay, yeah, So, like the thing I wanted to talk about it and just bring it up here is like how this affected that whole thing, like of like can we do this? Is this something they'll go back to and see like is that well poisoned? Yeah? Like the like the yes, okay, it's it's I don't know, hot man. I just want to say that we've traditionally, Like the way I always look at this category is like which corporate entity made the biggest mess? So I hadn't even thought of it in from the perspective of like, oh, maybe the audience could also participate in creating a mess. I think Tianny's point, it's like it blew a chance at something that is a conversation we need to have. As mods get more and more important, as as you know, players start fixing games that come out on PC, as players continue to add value to games, like but as the games like filling in some of the cracks. I don't know, but because that should be paying those people. I was going to say, paid mods that fixed bugs is maybe a bridge too far if you want to go back to like talk about Fallout four and how much of a mess that is we could get into because they've already fixed the dialogue system. I point said, players are are doing things that add value to game. Yeah, yeah, and we should have had that conversation. This is the worst way to have had that conversation, and it blew a chance. Uh though though by the end of the year we can talk about City Skylines had people who are developing mods or that game and getting paid for it. So they kind of found their own way to make that happen. Maybe it's not. Maybe that conversation can happen again in the future, but this was a mess for me. It was a really interesting thing to happen this year in terms of the evolution of like how mods happened, Steam Workshop support happens, and like how you get paid for contributing to games, and how that's kind of been sourced out to a lot of people too, and when the tools get there, and how you can move through this industry without just making free stuff right, and just the kind of scandal not the right word for it, but the horrible, inelegant way that stuff all came out and then quickly disappeared, quickly disappeared. Was the part where it's like okay, just as like you're kind of wrapping your mind around and go, actually, you know, the people to create these things, it would be nice if there was a way for them to earn a living or earn some money for the time they're putting in. Like I get on some levels, like, man, these people should be doing it for the love. It's like okay, you know, it's like yeah, people who love games sometimes make mods. Like that's fine. It's not to say everyone needs to charge for mods. But at the same time, it's like, you know, it'd be great if something that was like so popular and so valuable to so many players of that game that there was a way for that those people too. Uh, you know, I would earn a living. I would earn something, you know, even even just a portion of a living. I would I would think their work. I would expand on that by saying, it's it's not just an opportunity for people to get paid some money for the work they're already doing. It would provide an opportunity for them to like vastly expand like the scope and quality of work that they're doing. Because like this is this is almost an argument against including this topic, but games like Doda have actually shown for several years now how this model should work and like what can come out of it. You know, no, I think they're that's a good reason. They're artists. They're artists who make a full time living off of making items for Doda, and like the work that comes out of that is fantastic, Like it is totally professional quality modeling and animation. That's that's being done for games like that. I think that's what makes it really interesting is that you just have this kind of present for that. It started with Doda coming out and be like, there's a market place for this. Uh. And like if it had started with everything being free in Doda and then one person started charging or two there probably would it probably would have gone hard, especially charging for something that was already available for free. They're like, oh, well, that's what I mean. I added new glow parts to this stick and now it's a dollar. And it seemed like neither Steam nor but has actually had answers for the begin the real questions had like how do I how do you know that the thing I'm buying is legit and not a copy of someone else's work. I'm gonna what are your safeguards? I'm gonna refine this and make it like the rollout of Skyrom's paid nods. Yeah that is yeah, okay, uh yeah, It's just it was a really it was a point in time this year as the industry changes in the way we interact with games and people do with with extra content, which is just becoming more and more of a thing, like in Doda, in every game that is selling DLC for what is essentially user created DLC sometimes and not being able to have a channel be compensated through it on specifically Steam. I think was there were some really crazy stuff happening around that, right, yes, yeah, everything about the roll out of that seemed like someone just said, I don't know, fuck it, let's put it out now and see what happens. We do. Bet it wasn't like that, but like it looked, yeah, that's a tragic that more thought yeah, if I, if I had to guess, the thought process was, Hey, we know we're launching fall Out for this fall, and we want to have the mods scene for that be a paid environment. That's what I kind of Let's let's hammer the process out now with the game that's already out. And then and then like kind of flipping the switch and being like okay, and then like phones ringing off the hook, being like it's all on fire, turn it off, turn it off? Which switch was it? Turned this off? Roll it back, and we'd roll back the servers. I don't know how to do this, and like like Bill in the office, just like I fucking told you guys, we can't do it like this. And then just said what happened and where are we? We're good, We're good. Everybody. Nobody will remember this. Yeah, yeah that I was a real and even there was any there was like next to no curation from what I could see when I was actually browsing through the mods that went up for money immediately, like there were I don't know if they were existing assets like literal models ripped out of other stuff, but there were immediately like Doda weapons for sale and Skyrom and stuff like that, like like a complete bottom of the barrel, just like, let's yanke everything from every other game. We can find a shift in here for fifty cents each. Yeah, that was. There was a fucking let's say it was one of the three hottest messes of twenty fifteen. I think it probably does. Okay, I don't know, man, that that Konami thing had so much legs throughout the year two. It really was the gift that kept on giving, Like every step of the way, there was something else when we were just like, man, yeah, wow, Konami, I get it, But fuck, I just I can't. I can scarcely remember a major game publisher having a year quite like Konami had Like maybe if you go back and look at Activision and it's or not active acclaim in its training years or something, you know, like that's the that fuck man I claims waiting years were just like a series of farts. It was just like which was how they got going in the first person a lot of ways, so it was really fitting. But where it's cannam I actually put out one of the best games of twenty Yeah, like if anything, Yeah, it's like, here's there's this amazing game going out on a high note that probably won't sell enough to justify it only underscoring our desire to get the fuck out, but also you can see the ways in which it could have been an even higher note had things not been so fucked between, you know, Kajima and the publisher. There's something there's something about the like the savagely unrepentant way that they went about all this, though that does not make it a mess for me, Like they were so clear about exactly how big their middle finger was just through all of this. Just because they don't think the house is on fire doesn't mean the house is not in fact on fire. But it's it's not the house. It's like two rooms in the house that they were planning to burn down anyway or remodel, and then everyone outside is going, ah, but they're like, don't worry, No, Yeah, this is what we're gonna do. Everything's fine, it's a control dentalists. Yeah, they forgot to put up the controlled burn sign. I still feel like it maybe exploded when they intended to implode. That's that's my feeld. But so I get Jeff's argument that it's a business thing and this is what they want to do, which kind of I could see it being taken off because more the point a mess to me is something that has gotten away from the people who caused it in the first place, whereas like everything about what Konami has done this year has been very clearly their intent. Alright. The only thing I gonna say, I think it went as intended. Yes, it's just the only thing. The only thing they did is, like you know, they had those multiple statements along the way as the Kojima stuff started heating up of like, oh no, no, we're looking forward to shipping metal Gear Solid five. Also, we're gonna make metal gear. We're gonna make another metal gear so and we're hiring leads for that team. Meanwhile Kajima still works here, Like okay, wait, those two things don't line up at all. Someone should have fred this statement like at least once. Uh So, Like yeah, like those statements, the statements out of like the video game arm of Konami trying to keep a lid on this thing while they were trying to ship a game that was a mess. But I feel like the rest of it is is maybe not fair enough. That's enough. I just wanted to say my piece on that one, because for me, that was kind of the story. It's it's it's an incredibly sad story and ongoing. Yeah, like like the their like ejection from this market and what that says about uh you know, large game development and what it says about game developers based hand, and you know, like you know, you look at the stuff, it's like, you know, Capcom's not necessarily that different. Yeah, they're just going about this stuff in a different way, right, Yeah. I mean they're still trying to stay to keep their head above water. Yeah, but you could you could very much see like two years from now Capcom following the same path. Yeah, or so just getting to a point where it's like, you know, hey, Sony's already paying us to make a street Fighter five like this, could you know this could be a model for us where it's like, hey, Nintendo, do you want us to make a Monster Hunter for you? Guys? Like pay up and we'll you know, we'll do it. We'll we'll we'll assist on it, we'll make some design decisions or whatever, but you guys figure it out like that if anything that looks like a model that I think like Knami could follow if they wanted to stay in video games, just to see how these these old big Japanese companies have tried to get through this this mess. We're like Knami's like fuck it, we're out. Capcom is doing this sort of like we'll do things for you and like say like like meanwhile, we still got our mobile thing and I'm gonna buy Western developers, just buy them up. War games. Those are Sega games now, right. Yeah. The difference between the street Fighter four announcement launch and like street Fighter five just like like street Fighter four crazy bull out of the gate like awesome, and street Fighter five just seemed like this thing that happened, like, uh, when's it coming out where's it going what platforms? Yeah? Okay, and and like you know, Sony was making those announcements. Yeah, because that's they're the one footing the bills. Weird away, and that's I guess we arguably they're most prolific or biggest franchise for Capcom. Street Fighter No number was just making money. But I feel like like worldwide visibility if we start looking at other territories, Like it's like we use a pretty recognizable character. Yeah, yeah, he he's a video game Hall of Fame character. The Cat from Monster Hunter is not going to show, but the Metrion anytime soon, Dragon from from Dragon's Doc, Yeah that will yes, and like three guys crawling on it in a really creepy way. He doesn't he doesn't have his own boner pill. No exactly. That's when he gets to the point of like inducting the Bushwhackers into the hall. Like, that's when I've reached that that point. Asked me about my yeshichi tattoo. All right, so we got our three here. Batman Yeah, I mean yeah, for a Samurai is way more fucked as far as a video game goes. But Batman was so much more high profile. That it affected so much more shock. Yeah, handled that nobody expected. Nobody expected that Sam right to be great, exactly everybody. The first one was not terrible, No, but not this god. But also it wasn't made the same delo. Yeah. Yeah, No, I think Batman. I think there's a case to be made for the Skyrim paid mods. I think you're I think you're right. But in terms of things that pissed people off way way more this year, I think Batman takes it much was really was real bad. If you want to go on ry Anger, I would say Sky the mod stuff wins. But but in terms of a like an outright betrayal of consumer trust, I think Arkham Knight is the one. The mod Anger was also just like completely outsized to Yes, what was actually a complex issue that was worth having a complex opinion right right where it's like, no, just fucking make a game that works, please please? Yeah, I wish I could buy a mod that would make this Batman thing went on for it, yeah, and it just dragged still ongoing in some way, So no one likes I need of the DLC for that game, Oh yeah, dude, totally not Like, Yeah, well the LC was a garden. We'll get back of that stuff in another category. But yeah, yeah, I have my votes in for Batman. All right, Batman, Arkham Night, you're our hottest Mess of twenty fifteen. The PC version specific version congratulations, a fir Samurai two and paid mods for Skyrim round out the category Best multiplayer. Uh yeah, one we haven't had in a while. Yes, I'm I'm do you guys want to take a break. I'll just say I think this will be for lunch or get through the day. I think this will get I sax one won't. Yeah, we we either break now or after this category. I think now the food's right there. All right, we're gonna take a break and we'll come back and finish out the last two categories. All right, guys, you'll have to go on without me. If the curry was too hot too, I think it was the right kind of hot, personally, cur of fire in my belly. That curry was the hottest miss. The hottest mess is what's going to come out of me. I'm just glad we could all do it together. We all ate the same fiery hot curry for lunch. We all enjoyed the podcast in the bathroom together. We competitively. We're only gonna be on this floor for a couple more days, so we might as well ruin as much of it as we can. Dan said he was gonna eat the hot curry, but then he ate the mild one instead. Just fuck us all over. That's that's a pretty Dan Riker. It's pretty hot from the from the Mario parties, I've seen that seems like a thing you would do. No, no, no, on team player. This is our is our last chance to leave a lasting mark on this floor. I think there's three toilets and nine thousand people on this floor. Now it's the mark of the beast. Oh man, speaking of Mario party, Yeah, all right, Well, now that we're all best multiplayer, Yeah, we're Now that we're all sweating profusely. I had to put my jacket on. That career gave me the chills, man wrapped all the way back around. Speaking of the chills, Uh yeah, let's talk about best multiplayer. Pretty chill. Yeah. There's a good number of games here, and maybe some more will emerge in the course of discussing games like It's Platoon, Rocket League, Duck Game. It's not the duck game game Affordable space Adventures, Lovers in a Dangerous Space time hashtag I darb Mortal Kombat X, keep talking and nobody explodes, Halo five, Guardians, Master Chief A Go Go, uh, Star Wars Battlefront any other games you guys want to We just talk about multiplayer games. Yeah, so Call of Duty, you you're not. No one's feeling particularly enthusiastic about that one, right, Okay? I like Hell Divers a lot, but I know it's yeah, and also I don't like it as much to to really fight for it here short Band, I mean no, because there are fewer ways to play that game multiplayer, and while the multiplayer is still good, it's the same damn multiplayer. You've been playing rock band all along. Okay. There wasn't more a party this year, wasn't there. I don't know. We haven't played it. Oh, yes there was. There wasn't playing in order. I haven't even played it yet. I haven't and no, I've been saving it. How do you feel about it? I wouldn't I know the answer this question. Animal Crossing The Stupid Board Game Animal Crossing Colin the Stupid Board Game is not one of the three best multiplayer games of twenty fifty boards wanted it set out loud. That's all. I love board games. I love Animal Crossing. No, no, no, it's barely a multiplayer game. All right, it's barely a game. It's barely a game. Uh. I put Lovers and Affordable Space Adventures on here because those are both kind of neat little co op experiences, and they're I want to I want to play Levers in a dangerous space time. It sounds it sounds yeah, I think, yeah, okay, I think I think Lovers is the better co op experience, whereas Affordable is just kind of neat and the co op stuff is like a nice bonus. But you, I think you kind of can play it on your own if I recall correctly. But that said, uh, those are both neat experiences. I don't think they beat some of the heavy hitters on this list. Yeah. I hate to cut a lot of discussions short, but there are two games on here that I feel like immediately make the cut. And it's the first two. Right. Actually, I was going to say what I was gonna say, Rocket League and keep talking and nobody explodes. Seemed like heavy favors here are great. Yeah, I so yeah, I like Splatoon Rocket League, and I think that the third slot. I don't know. For keep talking, I'm gonna keep talking, guy. Yeah, everybody really going to anybody going to bat for I darb like. I like it. It was neat, but I know it's it's cool and inventive, and it's just it's not that funn I definitely had fun with it, but the social at some point the chaos became too. Yeah. Yeah, it is a hard game to play well because it's so chaotic, but man, those social features are cool. Yeah, Halo's Halo. Yeah, it's good. It's pretty It's pretty good. I've heard from a few friends that it's like one of the best iterations of the multiplayer. Yeah, they added some stuff movement. The war Zone modeste really high on that war Zone. I'm pretty low on the war Zone mode. I am. I am still holding out hope for war Zone, but like so far, I'm kind of like, I want a lot arena too like that. Yeah, I just stuff. I want to like war Zone a lot more than I actually do. Yeah, I don't know. I just got the co op yep, you know. Yeah, I was a super like chomping at the bit to play more Halo five. I played a lot in pre release. I played a couple of hours today and that was it. Really, you're not feeling the multiplayer time. I mean, if I ever feel like Halo, that's the one I'll play, probably, you know, unless someone has eight xboxes set up original xboxes. We've got six of them over there. Yeah, but yeah, I can. I can take it off this all right. We had a good time with Duck game. It's good. I don't think it differentiates differentiates itself enough from you know, Tower Fall or Yeah, it's one of those games. I feel like that game, that game is kind of sadly a victim of like the saturation of that market. And I put it on there because I feel like it's the one of those games this year that was like kind of memorable. Yeah, yeah, for sure, it's very fine. Like if yeah, if if like eight other games just like it hadn't come out before, I think it would be amazing. Yeah. But but as it is, it's a neat thing, but it is. It is not one of the heavy hitters here. Mortal Combat's great, like it's it's it's a really good Mortal cap How has the net code been been net Code's been like pretty stable on consoles, really bad on PC in my experience, I haven't touched it in months. I was just about that. I just bought a copy of it last weekend. I was wondering if anybody's still playing it. Yeah, Like by the time these air, they will have started to announce like their next DLC characters. I think they just announced the They might have announced the first teasing it for tomorrow. Okay. I thought they're gonna do something at PlayStation Experience. That's at the awards show. Awards show. Okay, Oh, that's it's just gonna be deal s. The way it was being teased was like join us in ed boone tonight to hear about the future of Moral Kombat. It's like they're specific thing, I like, find out who's next. They're kind of going back to like that stuff. Weird. Is that more characters than they did for for nine? But yes, but it's the same number of characters they did for Injustice. I think by the time there, they'll they'll be done. They'll do it a second four gotcha? So is this all right? This is best multiplayer game or best multiplayer experience in a game? I mean, I think the two can kind of be intertwined. So could you could you make a case for Mario. Yeah, Like, at one point, at one point, I was halfway writing down I don't know Mario Maker, but I didn't. I didn't want to just write it into every category that is, making even edge cases. Even if you were to try to pass that off as a synchrotous multiplayer, that's that is that is way too much. I think if there were better curation tools right now, that stuff isn't out yet right then if that stuff was out now, if there was better if there was like better community tools, we could have that conversation or if you could play it. I'm like, news super Mario Brothers style with four people be cool. It's not. I don't. That doesn't even live up to like Chess by mail though, Like it's not directly interactive enough. But at that X com by by Email that came out that we would have called that multiplayer. This is in a way, uh that but no, I like, if I could like get into a group, we could be like in a giant bomb group where we all automatically saw like saw each other's levels and then could comment on that stuff. Like that. There's there's an infrastructure they could have built around that idea that would have made that make sense here, but they didn't. There's like, yes, for me, there's a multiple person playing experience. Yeah, that is fantastic on that Uh, that goes way beyond the what you can do if you were in a vacuum by yourself. It is the best time I've had interacting with games and other human beings here by an order of magnitude or more. But maybe it's a little bit. I think, yeah, it's not. It doesn't really fit the spirit of this category. I think they kind of require other people. You know, well, I guess it kind of doesn't. But I mean I agree, it's not it's not a multiplayer thing like it could be a couch experience as well. You know, it's like it the well whatever, Well, there's plenty more to talk about with that game. All right. So we've got we've got some fan favorites of Latoon Rocket League, and I think it's that, and it's I think it's Latoon Rocket League. Keep talking. I remember, yea, I completely agree with those three y yeah. Yeah. I liked Mortal Kombat but didn't really stick with it. Yeah, I don't think Battlefront belongs anywhere near this list. I threw it on here Bill. As I said yesterday, I like that game for reasons I still don't quite understand. Yeah, I really like Battlefront. You can't bring together like I go. Hearent argument for why it's some of the three best multiplayers. Well, no, that's tie Fighter at a curiosity. Yeah, yeah, I two words. Let's just say, just just as a side note to to these that are on here. I know that there has been you know, post release nonsense, but has the metal Gear online stuff been worth worthwhile? And I've never I've never been around the troning it. No, it's not Okay, it's not particularly good. Okay, it's better than I It is the best metal Gear multiplayer they have done, but it is not necessarily one of the best multiplayer experiences of the year. I thought it looked that trailer made it look really cool. Sure, yeah, I'm not. I'm just I was wondering if the execution actually like bared out on that. It depends on how much time you want to spend buying hats for real money. I don't like that that game like to not to go back into the hottest mess stuff. Yeah, but that that multiplayer mode seems like it is just there to convince people to spend real money. Okay, then I think we have our three honestly, Yeah, I guess so I'd lean towards Rocket League. Yeah, yeah, this is my personal choice. Rocket League took this off as by Storm, Yeah it did. And for my personal choice, I spend a lot more time playing Splatoon online and I want to I just want to stay for the right. I think that is again one of the best multiplayer shooters I have played in years, and it's certainly the one I've had the most fun with in years. But I also am accepting of Rocket League as the winner of this category because that is a much more universally loved thing here, I think, you know, yeah, if we were have we had a category that was just like multiplayer Shooter of the Year, like, I think Splatoon would win it, And I think actually that says more about the weakness of a lot of other shooters out there this year. Sure, in addition to Splatoon of being very good, it does. And I also think it's worth crediting the ways that Splatoon sort of subverts kind of some of the problems people like me have playing online shooters. It brings people in in a phenomenal way, it really does. But yes, I agree that Rocket League probably is the right choice here. Choice I think keep Talking is more interesting to me personally, but I cannot ignore it's what it did to this office. It is a wonderfully creative thing. Yeah, okay, that was I was like sitting here for a second, going like, is that is that really? Just start and finish. Well, there's more going to take up for it with the next category. But Rocket League is our best multiplayer game of the year. Let's just keep doing that for the rest of the categories. Rocket League, rocket League, and keep Talking, and then we'll just throw my maker and we're good. All rights are the other two games. As we move into our final category for the third day of our Game of the Year Awards, Best Moment or Sequence. Lord, this is a really impressed with I'm really impressed with this list though, because this is the thing that I always have the hardest time thinking of at the end of the year. Before we started the recording today, this was not a great list, and now now it is gigantic. All right, so let's do this. That's exciting. All right, I'll just start at the top and people will have to provide some context for a lot of these, because you know, yes, all right, Uh, life is strange, the end of episode two, Life is strange. The end of episode three? Uh, the which or three the bloody baron end of the Lebrikan. Are those two moments or is that part of Invisible Inks Final Mission? Uh? Anoter solid five? The moment after the first credits, I believe is what you're getting at here the first may credits? Yes? Is that? Is that? Is that what you're talking? Is that the Is that really the moment? I think that's what you mean? You talked? Dan put that on there. He's looking right at me. I don't know if you can hear me. You can't hear me at all. I can hear you, you can't hear me. I didn't know if I thought maybe you plugged in your headphones at your phone because you knew we were gonna talk in a table of you're six feet away and shout. I thought he had maybe music in his headphones. Dan. Dan's talking about the teaser that plays after the first set of credits in that game. Yes, the first ending, I say all right, yes, the stuff that happens after a mission three. Hey, let's we have to talk about this stuffs around this stuff, well, talking about what mission it is, like, okay, we can talk about what mission is where like he's not giving you just so you all understand. Yes, when when it's time to have the phone, Yeah, that's fine, that is fine. And like again I'll just insert here this is probably our most spoiler portion. Yes, podcast, we should reiterate this. This category is all about specific moments in games that stood out, so like every one of these is potentially a big spoiler. Yes, there's one more MGS here. Yeah, like yoursel On five, the the way that episode eleven starts. Yeah, I've seen that one, the accidental starts. That's that's the one that just kind of pucks up in the middle. Okay, yeah, well yeah we'll get back. Uh the Brotherhood arrives and fall Out four. Uh, StarCraft two, Legacy of the Void, Carrigan's apotheosis in Miami two's drug Trip sequence. It's at the entire game. It's the very end. Okay, didn't the first one also have one of those? It's a much more involving one. Getting counter hacked in hacknet Undertail, the Flowery Fight, getting caught out at night in Dying Light, the mirror scene in Soma, the ending of Rise of the Tomb Raider. Uh. Every time you score a goal in Rocket League, every time, fucking time every time? So never Yeah, hey, I was I wasn't happened. I was the second leading scorer on our team. Yes, I still have a score a goal. Really, yep, I think you will never know our joy. You'll get there, dude, the first time you do, like, you will be Yeah, you'll be on board everything they did. God, that's actually a really good contender in this category. The hash bombs in I darb uploading a stupid hard level successfully in Super Mario Maker. Yeah. Uh, World War One and Assassin Street Syndicate. You missed one that was intentional. Okay, thank you. When you get your mac Z, the Blade Chronicles Cross, when you get your Mecan Galaxy, the pause Oh god, you have the pause screen and galaxy. You can erase that right now. But that pause pause screen of the year. I had actually erased the when you get your mechan Galaxy because that was where I kind of fell off of the game. We'll come back to that like that was the part where I was like, I actually didn't don't like anything about the MEC in that game. We'll get we'll get there. Uh, Spot the Liar in Contradiction. No, no, the name of the game is Contradiction, Spot the Liar. Oh oh, it's get The bit is after that? What is the bit is? Does this mean anything to you? Throw devil horns? He's got his thumb out. Those are not the devil horns the love you look, he's got his thumb out in there, like that's the Beastie Boys. She's on it video Jimmy Snuk. Yeah, all right, you know you changed that every time? Does this mean anything to you? Jimmy Snuka, I'm not talking about Jimmy Snuff. That's not happening. Was Jimmy stuck the Murderer? This bit? I don't know that gameplay take place thirty years ago. I fucking looks like it did. Look at that guy's hat. All right, let's let's keep going. Okay, uh Vanquishing the Joker in Batman Arkham Knight, Alright, Kurbal Space Program getting into a stable orbit, the final co op hack in Hacknet Falling Deeper in and Larcroft go uh called it the Black Ops three. The mission that takes place in side that lady's mind I couldn't remember now, pretty memorable NBA two K sixteen. That time a ghost talks to you. We'll talk about that, not like you're solid five. First time the dog uses a knife. I would argue that when he is the eye patch anyway, Tormentum, when Alex sees a new piece of arts, what the hell are you talking about? I loved every time I went into a new screen and you're just like, what is happening here? This is all fucked Tormentum? Again, is the HR gear looking? Yeah? Just metal as fuck. I just wanted to mention that that's fair dude, totly. God, that's a lot of stuff, and kind I know we don't need anymore, but I kind of wanted to add but I don't know if this is story or not. For her story, when you like figure something out what's going on, anything is fair game here and anything that moment is really flexible that but but hang on ye For me, that ended up not being a moment because I just I typed in the right words right off the bat and realized five, and it's in like, Okay, this is the nature of this thing, right, So yeah, it's kind of all over the place. And I don't know where we give that one. It's due if it's in story, yeah, okay, okay, uh, maybe maybe the one for that one actually is when you know you are satisfied in her story, the moment you realize you are satisfied. Should we quickly go down the list and and very briefly summarize each one of these. I mean, let's just go one by one, and I think a lot of these we're gonna we're gonna get rid of pretty quickly after we describe them. Okay, well, let's uh well start the top just like Okay, we could do that, or we could uh eliminate them. I mean, I guess if if they don't deserve to be on this list, they wouldn't be here. But I don't know. I'm very com I really like the moment thought for where the brotherhood really shows up in force. It's it's awesome. It's awesome, is it? I haven't I haven't seen it, but so so, but it's it's a thing. And fall out four that, like you, is a level of scope you don't expect because it's like it's like all of a sudden, you fucking walk outside and like there's just a fucking blimp. Yah, all these fucking okay, they just come in and force by air and you look up and go, what the And then like Nick has some Shakespeare ship because he's like, yo, sounds pretty good. I did not have Nick at that point. Oh man, I will make sure to have for whatever reason, I've met the Brotherhood of Steel, and as soon as I did, I just like rolled my eyes and I was like, not these guys again for some reason, for some reason, I just didn't want to do. I think they end up being actually like like one of the weakest parts of that game. But that moment of like you looking up and just gonna like, man, there's a sudden verticality to this world that it did not have before. I was actually saying it to take it off because I didn't. I thought would be the only one who thought that was dope. Yeah, it is a dope looking moment. You're just like, holy shit, the first time they show up, no, no, but when when you first go to the police station. But it's like when when when the first time you see the airship. Yes, yes, I just saw the airship. I didn't see a ton of vertebers. Yeah, it's it's like like they it seems like they're showing up in force. Okay, Yeah, there was one guy and I only said was, hey, how's it going. We can we can? Okay, I have other things here though, I like, all that's that's fair hash bombs we can probably get rid of, right, Yeah, I mean that's a that's a funny, cool moment. Yeah, it's I think, well top three nosh bombs, No, probably some of those are pretty fucking good. I don't know, like there's there's a gleeful chaos to that game that only comes like if you're If there's one thing in Idarby, it's that. That's so I think there's a tough I don't think it'll make top three, but I think most of this stuff won't. So like not only is it the like the what shows up on scream, but like I don't know the realization of what is actually happening, like people affecting your game through Twitter, like yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a really cool idea. And again some of those are hysterical, but is it one of the top three, but it's got Dave lanks face in it, and then then take it off deleted. The first time do dog uses his knife, I just cracked up, especially when he uses the stunt knife and he just I never researched the knife. Oh really, he just he he goes around his back I researched, pulls a knife into his teeth, and then jumped on the guy and starts stabbing throat. It's so dumb. Yeah, dude, that's kind of amazing. First, I love that there are so many good moments in that game that's stunned. A glowy stun knife though in the dog's mouth when he's in a sneaking suit. I never found, like the electricite. I never even got the ability to get the stunt knife. Yeah, he wears a sneaking suit with little doggy feet. He's got dude, he's got a plexi glass like riot shield on his face. It's really dumb. Once I had a sniper lady that put everyone to sleep, the idea of taking a dog out there seems like fucking dumb. Oh no, but I'm with yeah. But then he finds the hostages and everything like when everyone's asleep, I can find my own hostage. Yeah, but she can't get everybody. She can draw them out, it's not a problem. And also she goes, I like doing my own Yeah, that's a good moment. You want to do some of that dog dirt anyway, I'll take it off of That is one of my favorite moments of game. Uh, let's talk about the ghost in NBA two Day sixteen because I want to describe this briefly before we take it off the list. So, the whole crux of that story mode is that your character has this asshole best friend who is, you know, sort of the weight upon you as you are becoming more successful. He's, you know, he grew up in your your hometown. He's a troublemaker and like the team owner and all these other people are trying to get you to sever ties with him. And then there's a moment later on where he reveals that he actually has some blackmail dirt on you because you accidentally killed a guy when you were teenagers, like some dude who was threatening you, and he cleaned up the mess for you. And he starts talking about how he's gonna, like, you know, if you cut him off. He's gonna maybe tell the press that you what you did, and before they get to any of that, that dude just dies like he's just in a car accident and dies and goes away. The dudeo's gonna rat on you just dies the second you get your new contract. Uh so that that that's a big sad moment. Everyone's crying, which then immediately cuts to you and your sister like joking around on the basketball quoting man. That sure was a crazy year, and you know, shame about and thinks his name is Vince or Vin or something. So you do that, you have a little dialogue, you walk away, and then the dude walks out in a white sweatsuit to indicate that he is dead, sits down on the bleachers and begins reading from this excruciatingly long monologue about what his life was, what he meant to you, what his you know, like you know what, the just it starts pontificating on just the most laborious bullshit you can imagine, and it goes on like that for a while, and it's just it is just this dude reading his life story to you, and then it ends. It ends with you buying your parents a vacation home in Jamaica. Right after that with the end of the story. The end of the story, it just cuts to that out okay, and then he's just playing basketball somewhere and then it just then you just by the way, now you have a basketball career. Have fun with that. It is the weirdest, Like, the whole thing is bizarre, The whole mode is bizarre, but that moment in particular, it's like Spike Lee just decided he was going to get super heavy on everyone, but like maybe didn't pull that off. Say he did it ineptly. Yes, you said he was reading the letter, and I thought you meant like he's like reading it to the screen. He literally has a letter in his hand. He's looking down at and reading from this real bad a polygonal man reading a polygonal letter. Yeah, because he probably most captured reading off that pay that is it is one of the most bizarre things I have seen in a video game in ages. Uh, And it is super memorable, but I would not call it one of the best moments or sequences of the year, like best in the biggest snare quotes you can find. He says at the very end he says. Uh. He says, uh, it's your boy, resting in power, Vic, Vic. That's what resting in power power Vick, the guy who was blackmailing you. Yes, you're now supposed to feel sorry for well, yeah, Also, is he guilting you? Like what he's guilting you? Because everyone he's like you, everyone will, everyone in your life is trying to get get him out of your life, and he is trying to push back against that the only way he knows how. We're cutting this, we're cutting it. I just wanted to tell that in detail because it's just so bizarre moment, and it is a moment we can cut Larcoff go falling deeper in. But that moment is really good. That was so good. Did you get to that part so well? Which part? I mean? So the part that I'm talking about is you complete one of the levels and at the end of that level you fall off of like the right the map screen that you understand right, like there's like, oh, here's the structure of the world. If it's the one I'm thinking about, it's between chapters like three and four, I think, so, yeah, Like it doesn't end in the clean way it should, like she Yeah, she doesn't get back to like the hub you end up in like kind of the underworld or like the underworld of these old ruins where there's like some lava stuff and it's just we're just really well lit. It's a really great moment that I didn't anticipate being on a mobile game this year. Yep, Yeah, that game does great things. But there are other just other things. But yeah, it's worth calling out though. For sure. If we're trying to find stuff we can get rid of, we can toss the Batman thing. But yeah, I think the Joker stuff. The Joker is definitely the most memorable to me in that game. Well not only that, but there are multiple things that I thought were tedious about, like, hey, it's super like lame and predictable that they brought the Joker back at all because he dead right, and like it very much just felt like, hey, we were afraid to try to sell a Batman game without the Joker in it, so here you go, even though he's all in your head in this game. I also fucking hate dream sequences in games like ever since Max Paine, I feel like I'm just scarred by awful dream sequences. I don't have a problem with that, But I see what you're saying about that them bringing him back when you would hope that they would maybe try and get away from that frighting right. I mean, they were even just like, oh, it's the last time Mark Cambell's gonna do the Joker void Like, they seemed like they just went out of their way, right. So all that said, they the end of the game is you like truly expunging the Joker and his influence on Batman's Psyche through a dream sequence. That's actually super well done, right, And I was like, like I said, I'm very biased against that kind of device, but they do a really good job with it. It's a shame because in reality, as dumb it as iss they brought him back, it actually ends up being that the Joker is still the best part of that game. I think, Yeah, I think story wise, I would agree with you. He's the best presence. Everything about the Arkham Knight is bad in that game. Yes, Like from the standpoint of did you finish it? No, but I watched, yeah, Like from the standpoint of somebody who doesn't know the comics, I didn't think it was great. And then when I found out it's apparently actually just like a rehash of an old comics storyline someone who does know the comics. I knew who that was the second he showed up the first name, So there was that. But then also I saw a lot of people saying is it the Red Hood. Yes, people were saying like, oh, this is just the Red Hood story with a different character plugged in, and they really telegraph it before then I figured, yeah, it's it's that stuff is not handled well. But the Joker stuff, like oddly totally was. But but it's not gonna stack up here. But that's fair, but it was well done. We could pull both when you get your Mac things. But those are both good moments for me more than Zeno Blade one. Seriously, Like that was a moment where thirty hours into a game, when you've gotten used to the scale of that world, suddenly that scale changes in a way that doesn't just affect combat the way it doesn't something like titan Fall, but like, in fact, it affects the way that you moved through these environments. Does it feel like an airship moment in a Final Fantasy game? Does feel like that? Yeah? And then there's later I haven't gotten there yet, but you get jet pack eventually just lets you fly, and I hope that feels like that. That's the second time, you know so, But it was a good moment, and you're right. It is a lot like getting a car and then the airship in a Final Fantasy game, and like, it's been a while since I had a moment like that click for me. And the other thing is like it just it hooks into the quests in a way that makes most of them more easily completable. Like that's what getting a superpowered robot should feel like. So good job. I don't want to actually add it to the list, but I just want to briefly say the one thing about Mad Max that stood out to me, and it was pretty memorable, was when you first start doing those convoy missions, because that's the first time that the car combat actually comes into play in a big way, and it's the only part of that game that actually captures the energy and sort of the spirit of what Fury Road was doing, where it's just dudes diving on your car. You're shooting flames out of your fucking thing, like taking out guard you know, guard cars, launching harpoons, and all this is just chaos, and you know, it gets repetitive after a point, which is why I'm saying don't put it on the list. But that is like, that is the one thing that game did super well and actually kind of hit the fury road note with I'll talk about the hack that stuff and then we can we can cut it down. But the getting counter hacked is pretty awesome. Yes, so you're you're hacking into a whole, but you're again a Hollywood hacker, hacking into making your way up the r You've joined You've joined a hacker group for taking on mercenary assignments from them, and the later one is called yea yeah, and then and then you join c SEC uh yeah, So you're you're kind of going through these hacks and like it's all very simple stuff, like you you just learned the the order in which you need to do things to gain access to a system, get what you need to get, and go and it's just sort of hasn't really gotten going yet, like you kind of you you know what you're doing, so like this moment is kind of like the by the way, there's more to this than you think moment and and there's going to it's going to get a little more difficult from here. Moment of like you have to go hack someone's machine and then he goes, what the fuck did you do? Like basically, well, they they set her up, but it's like some fool tried to steal data from this go onto his machine, delete the data where we want to go clean up this data whatever. Yeah, like they're trying to be white hat hackers. And then this rival hacker acts your machine and I guess you can put a stop to it, but he deletes a file, he deletes the graphical user interface of your home PC. Yeah, and then forces a reboot and then suddenly you are just rebooted from a terminal window or like a command lie and then you have to then you know, you can navigate. There's there's typing i'll call across the game, but basically you lose the entire interface and you have to like reconnect to some other system and basically steal their graphical You use your interface file, download it, and then reboot your machine back into But to figure that out, you also have to go back into your logs to figure out what the IP addresses are. But unless you memorize them, right, because you have to go into your logs figure out who connected to your machine. Don't lead you by the hand with any of the stuff. Dude, this sounds amazing. It's really cool. And then they'll like you have to connect and then copy stuff. You have to like you know, SCP stuff over and yeah. Yeah, it's like x dash server dot sis. Yeah, download one of those and then reboot with that really cool moment. And the reboot sequence is awesome because it also takes like a minute and a half as your computer trying to reboot and failing. And then depending on which like machine you connect to to download their file, you get a different user interface. Yeah, it's really it's silly and dumb. So I eventually, you know, after that, you know, I went back to the guys. I've traced back through a proxy to that guy, the guy who's hacking this machine. He had my file there. I stole it back and deleted his Yeah, and then fu Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fun. That guy fun. That is an awesome moment that I don't know, I'm quite right. Let go up. Yeah, okay, I'll talk about the other one that I think we can let go, which is again a really silly Hollywood hacking moment where you've got to take on this machine at the end. Uh, And the only way to do it is a buddy of yours has to start a co op hack with you. And there's a countdown and then this no no real real other hack but sorry yeah and NPC yes uh, And then this music starts, driving music starts, and there's your screen is slowly turning red as he's running out of time, and you've got to get in there and delete your logs uh and you can lose the game there uh and have to reload like you can quote unquote die there if you get it. And it's just this great, sweaty jamming on a keyboard moment of like put all your skills to the test in this Swordfish esque simulator. It's super fun that game. That game is really fun. I'm gonna take it off, though, I think we can take off how I Miami two. I just wanted to call this out because it's like the one of the few really genuinely cool moments in that game is towards the end when you are playing as the the Russian mob boss son and you are so high on your own supply that you go on a killing spree of your own dudes. But do you know that at the time. Yeah, I mean it's it's pretty obvious that you are shooting your own people. But what's going on there is just the visual effects they put on it for the drug trip stuff are are really neat, and then you start seeing weird hallucin arratory stuff like you shoot a guy, his guts are spilled out, but then he just starts like sliding along the floor like not crawling, like he is in a very uncanny and unnerving way, like like floating under this like conference table that like all these other people are seated at. And then it just straight up you're just fighting like these giant fucking dragon heads at the end of it. It is nuts, it is. And that's all happening from the top down perspective of the visual style. Yeah, it is. It is. It is the best use of that style in that game. Uh. And it is the only thing that I think they build toward that is actually like genuinely cool, but it is also probably not does not rank against him a lot a lot of this other stuff building off of something Vinnie was saying about the end being a thing where all of your skills get put to the test. The Invisible Ink final mission is for me, like one of the best endings to a rogue like ever, so for me, robie games have this problem with the end of the of what you do there, like you go in, you get the chalice, and you have to escape. You go down to the bottom, and then there's a boss and then it's just like you learn the boss's pattern and that's it invisibly because the game where you play as a spy agency that all these corporations are trying to eliminate and your one last best hope is this thing called Incognita, which is this supercomputer. Oh that was the original title of it was, yeah, totally. And the final mission of that game is that you need to go install Incognita on their supercomputer so that it can wipe their data logs of where you are so you can just start back up. And that final mission. First of all, it gives you two extra characters, which are Central you're the kind of control you know, your your kind of a lead operator, and Monster, who's the guy who sells you stuff in between missions, who is like a former agent. And the mission is those two have to get into the like the final central core of the big like Megacorp headquarters, and the process of getting them in there is a lot of like we gotta wait for this door to open. The rest of our agents have just become like completely like not redundant, but like it's time to let them die. It's time to like send my main dude, who I have all these upgrades on out to hold off the incoming forces for me, and and not just he can't just step out into the open and like take shots at them. I need to use the skills that I've learned to like mislead them, lead them down false haul hallways, lock them into other rooms, hack them and counter hack them. And it's it's like the only time I finished a rogue like and felt like, oh, like all of my skills were really put to the test. There wasn't something like FTL even. It was just like, all right, I got the pattern down, and once you get that, it's hard to get that pattern down. But once you get it, like, Okay, I can beat the final boss of FTL any time in the day, as long as I had the right run leading up to that. Uh, you know, even stuff like like binding biasing and of some other games like that. It's like, okay, once you get that pattern, it's good, but good procedural generation on the levels plus like good kind of increasing difficulty and increasing information changing where the enemy side has more and more information about where your units are, and it's paced really well. It's like, oh, this is at the end of a roguel should look like like from now on, this is the thing that I'm going to hold up the final level of the final boss of a rogue like too, so really good for me, really important. But again I'm the only one who played there, sure, but like honestly, like, I'm looking at this list and I don't know that there's anything in here that's like a lock either. That's because we haven't talked about the end of StarCraft two yet. Okay, let's let's talk about that right now, dude, all right, So what happens? I just I just read something that makes me ten times more excited. Okay, stupid the ending that's on? Oh man, Okay, all right. Uh So they've had this five year arc of building to this like galaxy spanning ultimate Evil that everybody's got a team up and fight, right, yes, but because this is the ProDOS expansion, they've apparently felt compelled to make you play as the Protos one hundred percent of the time, which has the consequence of making it feel like the other two factions aren't really doing anything in this fight, right, Like it feels like the ProDOS are handling all the heavy lifting themselves, right. But then you beat that guy, and then there's three more missions, like the campaign is over, and then they unlock what they call like an epilogue, which is a little three mission separate thing where they go, we beat him, but there's a weird signal coming from the void, and then you go investigate this and it's a portal to the void, which is apparently where evil is, and the bad guy is still hanging out in there is cow level it might as well be. And they're killed the taking king in our planet. Yes, yes, very much that, and it's like, oh, well, and it's it's it's Jimmy Rayner Kerrigan and nartanis the protost dude, and they're like, oh, we have to go in there and kill him for real this time. And they go in there and and it's three missions because they want to have you play as each faction one for one mission at the very end. Yeah, and you go in there and you meet the final zell Naga, like if you they're they're the ancient aliens that seeded all life blah blah blah. And for like no particular reason, he's hanging out in there, and he's like, you know, they're like God level. They have like the fine powers basically to create and destroy, and for no reason that he explains whatsoever, he can no longer continue to exist. But if he were to put all of his essence into Karagan, she could carry out his mission. What is his mission? I don't know, stop the bad guy and like save the universe. Wait, oh, so he's not He's not the bad guy. No, no, no, this is this is another zell Naga. So the bad guy is a zeal Naga. But this is another one that just happened. You've never met him throughout the entire game, but you've just relien. Dude just shows up. He's apparently he's apparently the last one because the bad guy killed all the others. Okay, but he, in a voltemore To esque twist, cannot live in his body. Apparently not. Ok So, he's got a hor crux that ship. Well he's not even like embodying Karagan. He's literally dying, but in the process turning Karagan into a god. Like Karagan becomes God at the end of this game in the most like, she's already been Zerg and so she in like the most adolescent, like over the top anime looking way like, becomes like a hundred feet tall with fiery angel wings and it's just like this being of pure light that you then go into the last mission and control as like the hero units. Really as you roll around just destroying everything, is it challenging at all? It is kind of I don't know whatever. Like at that point, the pacing was so weird. I felt like I had already beaten the game once and I was like, now I'm immediately doing it again, Like I kind of wanted to just be over. So she's super evil, No, no, she's so. That was part of the second the Zig expansion was they made her human again, but then she decided to become Zerg again, but this time she's a good Zurg. Right, it's super evil, the good one of the Precursor race gave her the power to stop the last guy who was the sec evil. Do they have like a Godzilla like fight? Uh no, because he's like kind of chained up because you beat him in the real world, so he's like gathering his strength and the void, but this is your chance to kill him and kind of thing, right, Yeah, so so uh so, Yeah, Karagan's like a hundred feet tall and like a fiery angel basically and just rolling around destroying everything. So at the you beat the guy and like it's all over with and then like Jimmy Nartanis are just standing there and like Rayner like totally did not want her to do this because he's got this like unrequited love for her or whatever. But she's like, oh, I have to or whatever. And then and then she flies off at the end of the game and he's just super bummed about it. As a one hundred foot tall light being well, she's God. Now, she's literally like she's literally the god. She literally looks like Phoenix from like The X Men. Did you did you look at it? Is really fucking dumb, right, Yeah, there's more. Oh so she she zooms out of there. She's like, oh, yeah, I got you know, I can't hang around here. Clearly I'm I'm fucking God now, and she's gone, and then they cut to like a montage of just still images of like, here's what happened, you know. It's like, oh, the New Terran Dominion like entered an unparalleled age of peace and like the ProDOS blah blah blah, rain graduated at college and started. It's really kind of that and everything is like peaceful and whatever. And then they cut back from those still images to like two more actual video of Rayner hanging out the same bar that the whole StarCraft two arcs started in by himself just drinking, like totally superbummed, and then Tony Starkwall and then there's like there's like a shot over his shoulder while he's drinking, and it's really out of focus so you can't quite see, but there's enough outline there to see what's going on, and it's human. Carrigan shows up and just says one thing about like like are you coming or whatever, and he literally says, hell, it's about time. It cuts and it says James Rayner was never heard from again. Wow, So it gets better. What I think I might have gotten that out of order. I think that might happen before the montage of still images, but there was one at the very end of that montage that I totally didn't pick up on until I just like randomly saw this on read it. I didn't put two and two together. After the like the prodost rebuilt, like the Terrence found peace, like the Zerg retreated to their homeworld, there's a lad There's a little aside at the end that's like sensors detected strange alien like new alien life forms appearing on worlds where no life had existed. And the interpretation I just read about that was Rayner and Carrigan were doing some divine space Bonan and Adam and eving up every planet that they could find. StarCraft three four factions, StarCraft three space. God fucking yes, the most amazingly stupid thing you could have possibly done at the end of this game, to the point that I think I actually love it that that that has so many layers to it. Yeah, yeah, we can't cut that yet, that's for sure. Now do you see what I'm getting out with my Ghosts of Mars? Yeah? Man, you really something I have sold me on playing? Well, I just kind of told you all the bout maybe just watch that thing. Yeah, I could watch the ending, although, like I said, John Delancy's really good in that game. Wow. All right, now let's talk about the real best moment of the year, which is the Devil Horns in contradiction. Yeah, this can probably go. It was one of funny, weird I mean, in a game of NonStop bizarre moments, from you know, vape lord, to the guy drinking by the lake to go to the other to the ran dude just fucking spitting everywhere as he's getting angry and all that's just the turning around seeing that tree and just having this this fucking stupid Devil Horns perfectly assume, almost with photoshop, and we assumed that it was like that team that we got yelled at by. Yeah. Sure, you wander up to this to the in the middle of the woods and there's a couple of like young adult teens who are there, and and you're like, hey, do you know anything about this in murder? And he gives you like the meanest lip. He's just like, get out of here. I'm gonna fuck you up, Like I'm gonna beat you up if you don't leave. Weird old man and you're like fine, walk away and to slow and over to the tree and like devil he shakes his head like judgmental. Yeah, and then that gets added to your inventory of of clues. So then you walk around town and everyone you sit down with in an FMV game, you say does this mean anything to you? And throw up the devil horns every character thistime. He does it every time, and he usually is it is it? Is it like the same clip every time or it is a different take with each interview where it is and it says it increasingly like does this mean anything? Like just emphasis over and over again. It's so you see it like seventeen times. Yeah, and then watch the reaction. It's really funny. It's a really funny moment, and there's a lot of good funny moments in that game. But also it's just something that struck us as ridiculous. It's pretty good. Yeah, that could probably, but we can cut it, okay. I mean, there aren't a lot of good comedy moments on here, and that's that's one of them. Sure, where'd you guys land on the getting counter hacks and hacknut? Now? Yeah, Jeff, Jeff really liked it. Okay, it's a really cool moment. We can talk about the other one I think I had on here. Oh you know what the life is strange stuff, let's say, because that's pretty deep. Yeah, there's a couple of different things to talk about there, see a kurbel. I think if you know, guys, don't mind keeping that on here, because like I said before, that game is pretty dense and it's daunting. When you wind up getting yourself into outer space. Uh, the music all of a sudden changes into this kind of like twinkly awesomeness. You you've detached, probably your last stage, which slowly separates from yours. You should keep some fuel in stages in reserve. But it feels like you beat the game, like when you're in a stable orbit and you will just circuit circle Curbon, which is their earth forever. You'll never lose or gain Or it doesn't seem like something you could just do accidentally by bolting enough engines on there. Right, No, because you have to You don't just go up. Yeah, you know, you have to go up and at an angle. And also, like Alex is now seeing this, you have to have enough fuel to not only go vertically, but then make sure that you have enough velocity going uh horizontally that you will not just crash back down into the Earth. And it takes a lot of fuel and get that amount of fuel off of Earth into space is very hard. It's a it's a lot of it's a great moment. I mean, even as someone who is not actually playing and it is just watching Vinnie do this, there is something I'm being gross here, but there's something almost just like post coital about it where it's just like it's just this incredibly satisfying. Just ah, you're watching this your orbit, this ring changed from an up and down back onto the Earth, spreading out slowly around the planet until it wraps around the planet. And as soon as the circle completes around the planet, it you let off the thrust and the music is just like this great like outer space atmospheres music, and there's no other sound and you're just watching your ship orbit around. It's it's it's the lightest cigarette moment or you know, light up your vaporig moment. I don't know whatever you prefer, but yeah, it's just it's just so satisfying. And then and then and then the great part is if you're like me, and you've been trying to get to that moment forever. You don't have any fuel left, right, so you are forever orbiting curban and we launch other like yeah, you then have like seventeen people that are just orbiting forever. Well, and then you that quick look ended get out of your ship or you get that. We took the curbl out of the ship and it was just there with it's a little you know, booster pack or whatever, and then we just pointed it at the sun and just set it go home. Could you launch another ship get it up there rescue those guys and you could theoretically, but I think you should all just go into the sun. Uh yeah, that sounds really awesome. It is. Well, the scariest thing that happened in the in the quick look was I got out of the ship orbiting you. So now you and the ship are in orbit. But as soon as you add any velocity to anything, you will your velocities will change. So that the ship I went out for a second and like let go and then hit my jet pack and the ship just went off and it's now in orbit and I'm in a separate orbit. And we had to try and catch up to the ship, which you run out of thrust on your backpack, and it was this harroling, like watching the fuel on your backpack as you're doing near missus, trying to grab onto your orbiting spacecraft, knowing that if you miss one more time, you will be alone in space forever. Maybe that's the moment, maybe the moment. It's like the moment you realize that things are about to go desperately raw, like you can maybe you can save it, which is always when you want to just turn around and catch it coming around on the next orbit. It's a pretty long time, don't forget. You're also going vertically. You know you're changing. And also it's traveling at a very high speed, or if you're traveling be the other way or waiting there, it's very fast. It's very cool. H it doesn't need to stay, but it's it's does it it's and I think maybe it does. It was a really confessing argument. It's I mean, it's a game that is all about that build up, and you know, if that moment didn't have that that sort of satisfactory feel, I feel like that game itself would not work. Also, I feel like it's it's the biggest foundation, at least for me right now in that game, because once you're in orbit, everything else takes less fuel to get to. I mean, you can launch off to the rest of I also feel like maybe if we had successfully landed something on the Moon or anywhere else, maybe that would be the moment. But I also I also think that the orbit thing is your first big ACCOMPLISHM. But that's not even the final goal. That is just the first goal. It is a goal. It's a goal. I mean, yeah, you could do it is your first primary But what I mean is there is a lot to do after that. Yes, so there are many things you can do. This then enables you to do that's yes, yeah, because then if you can do that, then you can try and start getting pieces up there to build your inner your space station up there, and and then you can launch you know, missions from there and we fuel up there. It's cool, It's very cool. Yeah, I wouldn't take it off yet. All right, should we dig into some of the really nitty gritty spoilers stuff. I think, if we're gonna do that, I gotta run in the bathroom. But but but yes, let me, let me let me give you the syndicate run down, because all right, so you're Miles klok Alright, So for as the segment I have here, this is a thing that sort of pops up randomly late in the game. There's just an icon that shows up on the map and it doesn't look like any of the other icons that are on there. You go up to it, and so it's doing the thing that Unity did, where you would go into these glitches and it would take you to different time periods in Paris where you're like climbing the Eiffel Tower during World War two and that kind of stuff. And in that game that was all detached from anything. It was just you were going to these segments because they wanted those landmarks in the game, and so that was the only way they could do it. With this, you're transported into World War one era London and you do so via Juno. Who is it? Yeah, so Juno shows up. Thought she was gone. So she wasn't gone. She was banished to the internet or whatever, you know, the computer? Right, Yeah, the no that look, that ship's all dumb. I'm not disagreeing with you, but so the whole point of what they're doing, and I guess what they've been sort of building toward but not very well up to this point is bringing Juno back, like she is gathering her strength and she is sort of biding her time, waiting to sort of reinsert herself into everything. So to clarify for listeners and also from myself, she's the lady from the end of Sassentury two, right, she is the evil precursor. She's not the good one. No, she's the she's the one that she's the malevel who is the one from the end of Maybe Yeah, Okay, I didn't even know those characters that fucking names. I didn't either, like I checked out, I didn't play three. So so the Juno stuff is kind of neither here nor there. It's interesting in the sense that it finally advances that plot a little bit and lets you know where they're going. But the cool part of it is that it insert it drops you into World War One. You were playing I think the granddaughter of one of the siblings from from the main game, and she like they immediately drop you into an actual series of missions around a more constrained version of the same city where you are doing missions trying to take out spies for Winston Churchill. Oh wow. And it's this whole other segment of the game that is it's it's neat, like they actually do something with it. There's actually some story to it. They actually do a little bit of building of that character. And you know, I mean it's it's a it's just some fun back and forth between her and Churchill and and you know, more spy killing missions or whatever. But they I like that they actually did something with it, and it wasn't just this bit of tourism they felt they had to throw in there. That sounds really well done. Yeah, And the fact that it just kind of comes out of nowhere and then and they did nothing to promote that for that game, like it was an actual secret was kind of cool. So that that's not too dissimilar from the Black Ops three Moments, right, uh, wherein you go inside a lady's mind. So something they show you very early on in the game as they're training you about your new cyber abilities, uh, is you know, like some of it's very tactical. It's like, oh, it'll draw a grenade over the head of a guy that's you know, got a grenade. It'll you know, it'll it'll draw you know, it'll it'll give you icons as to where people are. You can see people through walls, uh, you know show it draws lines on the ground saying like, hey, this might not be a great place to stand. Uh. You know, there's like a tactical layer to your cyber abilities. Then you gain hacking abilities on sort of like Syndicate the real the real Syndicate, the real not the real reboot of Syndicate. I guess where you are, you know, taking care of grenades. You're you're setting people on fire with you know, mind bugs, You're you're blowing up robots from a distance, that sort of shit. But then they kind of say, like, you know, like part of this is in service of you, you know, stopping terrorism, stopping crime. So part of this training moment that that you know, the early parts of the game, the training parts of the game all take place inside of a computer, inside of your mind, inside of all this other stuff. You're kind of just like trying to rework this like trained disaster very early on, and they use that as a as a framework to kind of walk you through your ability set. And one of the things they say is, like you you've tracked down this guy who knows what you need to know, and how are you going to get it from him? You know, you learn that he has a similar computer in his head, and they teach you basically, hey, you can basically vulcan mind meld this dude and get the information that you need out of it immediately. You don't need to torture him, you don't need to do us all this stuff. Oh, by the way, it fucking destroys his mind. And it is a real bad way to go. Like literally, they kind of say, it's a bad way to go. So two thirds the way through the campaign, you have to do that to a soldier that has been on your side that is seemingly gone rogue. So the whole crux of the game is you are new soldiers with these abilities tracking down the soldiers who taught you everything you know, who also have those abilities but have gone rogue. Yes, yes, ostensibly that that's yeah, yes, And there's even a nature of all of that that's a larger circle around it that is actually too ridiculous for me to even talk about here. But in this moment, the woman who told you it's a bad way to go, you have to get something from her brain. Oh it's that same lady. Yeah, so you fucking do it. But then all of a sudden you are inside her mind, like controlling the noka you are inside of like you you are all of a sudden in World War two with rocks floating in the air, like trees falling up and standing back up like like trippy world War two. Wow, like World War two tanks, world War two grenades. Yes, she studied World War Two and it was one of her favorite things growing up. Because you are killing her, and so they work zombies into the campaign at this point because you are inside a house that is suddenly being attacked by zombies and this woman whose brain you are destroying is standing there and she doesn't know what's going on because she's fucking dying. Uh, And it is like her basically you are inside the last dying gasps of her brain as as in fucking flickers out and it is all this World War two stuff. It is all this like crazy zombie attack stuff. And at the end of it, you're like, okay, and you need to shoot her and to get out. Oh so you have some player controling. Yeah, you are, you are playing this video game. You are shooting Nazis. You are watching American soldiers that are blown up dead run in reverse and stand back up, and the explosion unexplodes and they're having battles and you blow up a couple of tanks like you are. You are playing Call of Duty inside of this fucking insane thing, and it is like, it is the thing about that game. It is if there's one thing about that game, it's like it fucking goes places and they do some shit with that, and that's where it starts to make good on like the black Ops name of just like a kind of a weird mind fuck thing. Yeah, And it's a fascinating moment that doesn't it only gets foreshadowed in very small ways, so you kind of like by the time you get to that point, it's like, oh, oh fuck, okay, and it's a It is actually a pretty impressive moment in a game that I think is not super impressive in most other ways. Like they at least went for it there in a way that that they man if they had done that with the rest of the game, maybe we'd be having a different story. Well, it goes for it sounds like it ghoes for it in a way that even just like Call of Duty games typically do not, you know, I mean, it's talking about a moment in a Call of Duty game that isn't just like a really memorable firefight or an explosion, you know, it's kind of what those those campaigns tend to be. This is like a really bizarre thing. So let me pull it back for you a few layers further. And this actually, in some ways I think, undercuts this moment, but undercuts a lot of the game in my eyes. So in Black Ops one, there was a you know, there was twists and stuff like that about you know that is this character real or is the only existing in your mind? And all the other stuff. And there are things that you pluck out of, like the mission descriptions as they get redacted. It's just a visual effect they do when you go into a mission that if you kind of pluck that stuff out, it actually tells you more about the world than you thought. In Black Ops three, there's a huge scroll of very difficult to read gray text at the start of every mission, and the words that make up the mission name and the location and stuff get plucked out of that and you look at it and go it's a visual effect. Whatever. If you go and read all of that stuff, it turns out the character you are playing as the entire time is dying. The entire game is your your mind flickering out. Oh, and you going insane as you fucking die, because the very first mission of that game is you getting fucked up by robots. And then they go, well, we need to we need to put you in this super soldier program and strap the computer to your mind to save you. And then like the first thing is like a mission log from Christopher Maloney's character, sound like unfortunately the subject died. That's it. And then the rest of the game is just like you actually reliving one of Christopher Maloney's old missions because he was in your mind for the training stuff and you theoretically then died during training or something like that, so part of his memory gets injected into your thing, and you're reliving one of his missions, but with different characters in different places, and Christopher Maloney is the bad guy instead of you, and all it's like that's a like a you know, go look at YouTube videos and pause it out and kind of like infer some things. But like that's the deeper level shit going on in that game. And I actually think that's pretty fucking dumb and it's sort of nasty, like because the thing you described was like an actual, like kind of bizarre but intense moment and it's a great moment, and you know, like I didn't need to tell you about that other stuff. I just I think I had to get it out because it's so fucking nuts. Yeah, and I think it's a bit overkill. I think it actually it It is a well when you learned that and learned that what you just did, like that whole sequence you just described is not real quote real, right, it does? It does sort of it, Yes, it sort of gets in the way that game's got like a BioShock like quality to it where, uh like there is a line in that game imagine yourself in a frozen forest that has a would you kindly like thing to it. So like that game does some stuff along the way. And I think that's that's the one like purely positive thing I could say about it, is that they went for it in a way that those games don't. I just think that maybe they went a little too hard in that specific area. Yeah, but that actual moment of like you inside this woman's mind and and all that other stuff is is really cool. Wow that sounds good too. Yeah. Make sure we haven't even make you want to play that as well. Yeah. Yeah, And it's weird because like one of the multiplayer maps is set in that World War two. It's like, if you just go in and play multiplayer, you're gonna go, wait, why are there Okay, why I'm in a World War two? Are? Why are there cities? And also if I look out there, how come the world just stops and there are a bunch of floating rocks out It happens in the multiplayers. Yeah, they generated those assets they wanted to make good news of Yeah. Man, oh boy, Uh should we attack this life of strange stuff? Sure? Sure we can start that. This This one will probably take a while to kind of set up. Why why don't you take episode two? Okay? I think just to start though, do you guys know what the setup is? Like? It's a private school. Uh, your your student at the private school. Everybody's shitty in this private school, from the adults to the teenagers. Most of the characters are pretty shitty. There's another student who is I think she's actually Catholic, right, and she's Christian. I think she's actually Catholic, like very religious. Winds up going to this party. A video gets taken of her doing a lot of lude things, just making out with a lot of different people and just being sort of you know, I guess what would be considered promiscuous. She's you know, super conservative. Yeah, her family is extremely video goes viral and teenagers are doing as teenagers do, and they're they're posting it, they're commenting on it, they're destroying her on social media, writing insults like on her door and all this other everywhere around campus is graffiti about her. There's this really kind of abrasive but kind of dynamic security guy who works at the school who then like thinks that she is maybe promiscuous and has problems and it's kind of riding her and like being like this is your fault. Like she's getting a lot of shit. There's a teacher who basically blames the negative attention she's getting on her. Yeah, and so she's like, I don't remember what happened, like like somebody gave me a drink kind of thing, and like I wound up. This guy said, you know, don't worry, and then you know it went wrong, so she's kind of retreated. She's super depressed. You say you're gonna help her, and you make some choices along the way, like, hey, you should go to the cops. Don't go to the cops. They're not gonna believe you. Wait, I'm gonna try and find some evidence that we can bring to the cops, which are all like bad choices because you can see the end of them because you can rewind and try another choice. And it's like, if you're like, don't go to the cops, that we need to find evidence before you go to the cops that something happened here, she's like, what the fuck do you want me to do? So it's all of this plays out, and then you come in back to school at the end of episode two and she jumps off the top of the building. So you rewind time to stop her from jumping off the top of the building, but your powers start failing, like your nose starts leading and start failing, so you actually have to make it up to the top of the building and then have this she's ready to jump, and then you have this dialogue with her that suddenly takes into accounts all of the things that you've kind of done up to this point and know about her to try and talk her down or don't if you missed that stuff or had like read that, like she has a decent relationship with her dad. Right, So like all the kind of like flavor text you've found around around the world at the time, or the conversations you've had. It's really powerful and you don't have your power. That's the most important thing, because your power has essentially burned out at this point from trying to stop her from so like you do it like three times, like you stop her coming back, she jumps again, like you, and it's slowly creeping back like each time. It's really intense. What if you are okay with her doing that? Is that an option? Ye? Well, I mean so it's it never presents Max as being okay with it. But you and my understanding is you can fail that and she can jump off you. You as a player could let it. Mean yeah, I don't think you can stand at the bottom and say jump right, but like you can fail it, yeah you can. You cannot take into account enough of what is necessary to keep her alive from what we've found that, like we we actually wound up miraculously doing it. Yeah, but it was super tense, Like if I've been doing that on my own, I don't know if I would have remembered all the things I needed to in order to actually save her. The answers aren't just like your textbook like hey, we're all here for you. It's a lot more specific than that, and it like you kind of have to prove that you actually know who she is and like and just like display some friendship like qualities to her in order to One of the things is she's just like everybody fucking hates me. And then like there's a totally just random piece of information you find in her room that's a supportive letter from her dad and you're like, no, like your dad, and she's like, yeah, I guess my dad is you know, gonna be on my side. But if you said like her aunt, there's another piece of flavored texts, it's like, you know, like you're a fucking whore, like you know you're gonna be you're gonna go to hell, or like you could say your your brothers or something. It's like she doesn't have brothers, right, she just knows you're bullshitting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And at that point it's like one of the They do this a couple of times, but they take her power away. So all of a sudden, it really feels like I can't really mess this up because usually you can just rewind back to a point. It's it's a very strong moment. Yeah, that sounds really well to well, So now let's talk about the batshittery that is the end of episode three. So the main relationship in that game is between Max and her her erstwhile friend Chloe, who she sort of lost touch with after she moved to Seattle. She's been like, so where she is now is her hometown, and she's going to this academy kind of away from her family who have moved to Seattle. So you reconnect with Chloe, who is full rebellion mode. She's her dad died in a car accident and so she's and she has the security guy we mentioned before is her stepdad. And Chloe Chloe's friends with childhood friends with Max. Yeah, so she doesn't go to the school, but they reconnect. They're hanging out, they're doing stuff, they're getting into, you know, chicanery together and also Chloe's the only person she confides in about her powers, and so she there's a few moments where she demonstrates it, and there's all that. At the end of episode three, once you've kind of gone through like all the the investigative stuff you do in that episode, you're staring at a photo of the two of you from before her dad died. At this point, Chloe and Max have kind of like not split ways permanently. Yeahs have gone kind of wrong. Shit is bad in my life in a way that you don't understand because you fucking bounced Max. Yeah. And then and so she's staring at this photo, things start to get kind of hazy, and then all of a sudden, she's back in the time of that photo. Right, So you're playing as eight year old and that that photo was taken the day her dad got into the car accident, like literally minutes before he took off to go, you know, he was gonna go pick up her mom and got into an accident there. So you actually go through and you have to suss out what you have to do to prevent him from getting into the car and kill it and dying. You actually have to save her father, which is actually a kind of interesting of gameplay stuff because you're just you're trying all these different things, like oh, can I unplug the phone? You unplug the phone because it's basically the mom calling for a pickup because she has groceries, right yeah, and you unplug the phone and it goes it doesn't ring, and then it's like cell phone rings and you're like, oh shit, so you rub want time again, try to like take the keys. Like if it was a car accident. The nature of a car accident means that like the time it would take her to call the phone not getting answerer, and like that would be enough. See if you gotta suspend some there's a little bit here, but it's so in the way it actually plays out timing wise, like the succession of movements is you know, you essentially have to if you if you don't prevent the phone call, you have to hide the keys in such a way that he can't like his clicker can't find them. And if you successfully do all of that, uh, you eventually go back to your time. You're ped and your site because you're like, holy shit, I saved him, and you end up back on school grounds and all, like the kids that you have essentially have been the antagonist up to this point, suddenly your friends with them. It's weird because you're in three episodes deep and the entire thing is changed, Like the relationships you had with those characters are now wholly different, and you have do you have to save the father to progress the story? Like there's no moving forward without doing that. Yes, for a bit there, you know, I think we were all like, oh, the lesson here is gonna be you can't change history, but like, no, you do it. And then you jump forward and lift Tannon is the mayor, right, Biftannon is the mayor, and your best friends were like the mean girl in school. So you're freaking out about this. You get on the bus. Uh, there's a whole subplot about like this weird vortex thing that is maybe coming towards to say, like there's all these environmental things going on, like the whole city seems like it's about to go into complete chaos. So you go to Chloe's house to see, you know, did you did this all actually work? Chloe's dad answers the door. He's like, oh, it's great to see you. You know, we were hoping you would come by, you know it, let me, let me get Chloe for you. Chloe comes out. She is in a wheelchair, and she is paralyzed from the neck down. It shows in between all this that had shown, like so, I'm like, oh, here's some stuff that change. Here are the photos that like back to the future style, like BurnAWAY, and then here are some new ones. And one of them is like, oh, she gets a car from her dad on her seventeenth birthday. We gotta go back. We gotta go back, We gotta come back. So and and rext the car. Yeah and so and so. By changing history, you have saved you know, her relationship with her father and maybe saved her from you know, a lot of depression and torment. But also she is now irreparably disabled. What I will say for this is we have no idea where it shakes out from here because we haven't gotten Yeah. I mean, for all we know, they could undo this within an hour of the next episode, or it could you know, it could just be one episode of that and then back to normal, Like I don't really know, but it's it was the moment when we realize, just like how willing the writers are to sort of change the stakes of what you know is going on in that game and like how far they were going to go with like the bit yeah you know of like wow, you're really gonna let me play and do all this dialogue stuff as like these new assets of like you know, ten year old Chloe and old Max and the dad. Uh. It was really interesting And again I think it's a pretty you want to know what happens right, No, because I think this is the moment. Like I don't say I don't really care what happens after it, Like I don't think them changing it, like if they decide to go back on it, you know, part of the way through the next episode, I don't think that changes the impact that the way it lands, Okay, uh but yeah, Like personally, I think that the jumping off the top of the roof for me, like that that one I think is very strong, the wheelchair moment, but it did remind me a lot of the Butterfly effect of the movie. Yes, exactly when he comes back and it's like he can't get it right. I mean, I think that's the bigger holy shit moment. But if you want the actual like moment where the emotional relationships between the characters is like at its most you know, like most most significant. I think yeah, episode two is probably that moment because you do have the ability to to fuck that up if you aren't, if you don't play it like you are actually this girl's first. That sounds like a much stronger moment. Yeah, like the Steakes just get super hot. Yeah, from the outside looking in, not having played it, that sounds like the more powerful moment, yeah to me, because you know, in real life you can't go back and race the bad stuff right like you could. You can't. Man, we should talk later. Is it the first time they take your powers? I think they toy with it like one or two other times, and it was actually really fst significant does like the nose the light, like nose bleeding and like whoa, then I'm a little I'm a little dizzy. It might have been one other thing where somebody was it taking the gun or something like that. No, the thing that they do foreshadow a lot of is like you're goofing off with your powers that whole episode, like because Chloe is like, whoa, you have superpowers? She's like, let's go out to the junk gard and shoot shit, Like let's get a gun and go shoot shit. And one of the times you don't need superpowers to go well, well, well, she takes a ricochet in the stomach, Okay, all right, and you go back in time to save her and you're like, no, shot, shoot at that, shoot something else. So they do a good job of like for showing what fucking around with these powers can mean, and like, oh, yeah, you're using this in a way that's maybe irresponsible. Yeah. Yeah, And like so for a lot of stuff that game gets wrong, uh, it does get some stuff like the like going viral stuff. They sell really well of like how this social media stuff is like yeah, could just fuck you up. That's a that's a very relevant yes. And they do it in a way that doesn't feel like after school special, like you know, instructive. It's well, it feels like an organic, like this is really fucked up thing. Not in a heavy handed way. I mean, if it's a little heavy handed, but I think it's heavy handed in a way that feels right for that game and that story and those characters. Well, as you were telling that story, I expected that the resolution would be, oh she went back in time to the party, and like made sure she didn't take that drink and everything was fine. But like, using your powers to deal with the aftermath of a traumatic event is way more interesting than like in the other case of just using your powers to be like you raise the traumatic and then and there's a build up to it where you, like I said, you get some just really shitty choices of like yes, like if you go to the cops now and just say like I think I was drugged without evidence, like she's not going to be better for her and probably not until you kind of give her your trust that like I'm gonna find this out. And then like you come back at the end of episode just jumping off a roof and it's like, yeah, it was Toss. Yeah, so I Yeah, for me, I think episode two probably is the moment that stays on here if it's gonna be one of the time I agree with that. Uh three is is a hell of a thing. But yeah, it's always more emblematic of what I think is actually good about this series, Like when it hits yeah really really well, I'm sorry, I don't kind of want to do the metal gear. Yeah, Okay, we lost Austin, you said we lost in visibilink. Right, yeah, all right, it's great, It really really is. I think it's important for roguelis. But but yeah, can we want to talk Witcher real fast just before we get into MGS since it's like right here, I mean we've we talked a lot about you know that arc. Yeah, Buddy Baron on the on the last one. I can't imagine this without having this because this quest line is the is the thing in that game, and you know, I granted I haven't finished it, but I've seen enough like people saying, no, it really is the thing, and it's certainly the thing that stood out most in my play of that game. Absolutely for me, I can imagine this not being on the list because we have we recognize the Bloody Baron as a whole, as a character that to be clear, Like, I think that moment is good. I think that moment is a is a good like climax for that character and your feelings for him. But like without the best of that work around it, Like that's what I really yeah, I actually told me where you're coming from, Like that that moment in a vacuum is not as profound as the entirety of his not that any of these moments or moments back it's like it's not the argument. Well yeah, but but you kind of need it, Like you spend a lot of time around him, yeah, and doing errands for him and going back and talking to him and like sometimes he's sober, sometimes he's hammered. Like yeah, you get a lot of that character, and it takes all of it to really complete the arc. It does. I the thing I'll say about the Lubberkin stuff is that it's the first it's the first moment in that arc where I think they actually start to show their hand about what they're actually willing to do with that story and with that character, because before that it's just a it's a really fucked up tale of abuse and you know, people disappearing and you know, you're not even sure you really want to work for this guy and all that. But like the second the Lubrican stuff comes in, where you see him having to go through the ritual of you know, basically taking his own, uh miscarried child and make peace with it, which has now become demonic. Well, it either becomes demonic or become it starts to become demonic, and then and then once you finally get it to that point it becomes this you know, this sort of black spirit that's that sort of guides you. And but that everything that goes from from that starting point to to where that thing finally becomes the spirit that helps you you know, or doesn't, depending on what you do. I think all of that work is the stuff that establish is where that is going. And it's the first moment where you're like, oh fuck, like they're they're they are actually leaning into this and they're actually doing an amazing job with it. That's a big moment. I love the entire arc. It's a great art. That's saying something. I think, like, you know, if we're looking at like you know, just but best moment or sequence like the Bloody Barren arc altogether, it is a sequence, but it's a pretty long sequence. Yeah, I mean we've done we've done like quest line stuff before as best moment or sequence too. Right way, I'm not saying that we have to specify or not. I'm just saying it's it's not crazy for me, but are we just awarding it for the same thing that we awarded the character for at that point? Like is that a meaningful it is intertwined with other Yeah. Yeah, and I think the story telling in it, beyond just the writing for that character is also just really good. It is. You're absolutely right about that. I'm just not ready to get rid of it. I just wanted to talk about it real quick if we want to do MGS now. Well, so Drew, you're up to the start of episode eleven, so we just Yeah, that dude, holy shit, Like that was I'm trying to think, like the game it sort of tipped its hand in other ways that it was going to defy what you expected over and over and just be weird and and like structural structurally weird, right, not just typical metal gear weird of like oh that guy always shits his pants and like oh you can throw nudy mags on the floor like whatever that shit, Like like they get meta weird in this game in a way that was that I don't know at moment this So so that's what I was trying to build up to, because some of the weirdest stuff in this game is in the ways that it structures its missions and like how menus play into what you think is going to happen and stuff like that, Like it's this is the this is the chapter where or the episode where Quiet shows up where you have her first conflict, like where you're getting sniped by her. So you are on your way to do a sideop. Okay, yeah, like everybody knows about this stuff, like the yellow we're on your way to do it. What you think is a side up, and they very expertly put that side up on the other side of a choke point that you can't help the drive through, at which point just like wham, they smack you in the face with Oh it's episode eleven right now. Yeah, like this is actually a story, like a main story mission that we did not choose off the mission screen. Yeah. I was like, man, like the holy shit, like the gloves are off, this game could do anything now, Yeah, I super impressed with that moment. Yeah, Like it's an interesting it's it's a very metal gear fight, and you can leave it if you want to. I left it. You can leave it behind, you can like you can come back to it. Yeah, you can. You can cheosee it. You can kill her at the end of it if you want, which like a right, yeah, like you yeah, you can actually you can actually remove her from the entire rest of the kiow but but it's I don't think you can mail it her. I had a lot of trouble trying I would get that was actually that that that fight is kind of broken. Why why would you want to do that because I was Yeah, I thought shrank for that. I don't think I was able to like so when she first spawn and moved like her first time, it was in a spot where I was able to get up behind her, and she just stood there like I was like sat there broken yea, which is and I started throwing punches at her that just don't connect, like that fight is actually broken and you can't grab her. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't run, so I ended up just like pulling out my gun and shooting her in the head right there, and then she took off when somewhere else. You know, I did trank her at the end, because yeah, I stunned her, But it takes a lot of trink it does. That's a little mist pointing that you can't melee or hold her up or anything. Because when I first got there, reminded me of the fight with the End and Snake Eater, which is like easily one of the best boss fights, if not the best in the whole series. And with that, there is so many different weird things you can do. You can hold them up and stick up on them and stuff, whereas quiet kind of boils down to like, well, drop a thing on her head or shoot her. Yeah. I think for me it was just more of like middle gear. It was just counter to the most of the stuff that metal gear allows, like, oh, there's so many weird tricks to a lot of these fights. When I wound up getting up behind her and then was swinging at the air, felt very unmetal gear. Yes, I guess so. Yeah, the fight is what it is. It's fine. Yeah, to be clear, the moment here that I'm interested in is that they dupe you into starting a very important story mission without realizing you're going to do it. There's something about it that feels very personal, like like you, like, this happened to your every bright right. It takes you by surprise, and once you realize what's going on, it's it's kind of exhilarating, Like I would something. I would come into the offense and be like, did this happen to you? Right? Right? Uh? Yeah, that's cool. I think that's cool, and I also I think that is the metal Like the other moment on this list, I don't think rates. Okay, I know Brad and I were both kind of I'm not even sure if it's something that needs to be like super discussed, like talking about the sendrew out. But this, this other moment on this list, this post credits thing the teaser specifically. Yeah, I just like it's in retrospect, something that is undone by everything that happens after, So like, yes, yeah, I would, Yes, I would accept the argument that after you have seen the entire game through, it's no longer that cool if it delivered in a big way. Like actually, actually, once I had finished the whole game, that moment just came to embody everything that disappointed me about that game. But at the time, yeah, I at the time, I was I maybe have never been more excited about a thing in a video game in my life, Like because I was so into this game that thinking it was over and then seeing that and how much is in that It's so funny because I always had the exact opposite reaction through the control off, I was like, fuck you really, it's like like we just finished this and then it was like is this and then I saw it was like is this gonna be like is this deal? Sees this another game? Right, because there's so much in that video, So do we need to discuss this in more details? Should we send Drew out? Now? I don't even know that. It doesn't not like it spoils anything. It's well, well that's what That's what I'm saying is if we want to get into more of it, I think we should let let Drew. I hit that point like two days after release, and already knew that there was more game there, Like all it is is an early credit. So that's why I'm asking, like, well I just said everything that anything. Yeah, I actually don't think it's very spoiled. Like and in a game where every mission starts with a credit sequence, like hearing that there is more than one ending is like not, yeah, okay, a crazy thing, but that's that's it. Yes, that's it? Oh right, right, Like okay, you fight what very much seems like a boss fight, and it rolls credits, but then you get a teaser for like, hey there's more stuff, yeah if you want, and then you do more missions. Yeah, uh okay, the game they fool you into thinking of the game is over and then it's not. Okay, it's not. It's yeah, it got it, but uh yeah this this is not on this list, I guess not. But like at the time not wanting that game to be over and then realizing it was very much not over. Yeah, Brad, I remember you coming in and saying like, it's the most like surprised you've been my metal years since the right and Marvel Yeah, totally. But then then it is a cool moment. I'm not saying it's like garbage, but it's one of those things where it's like how that actually manifests and played out right. Once I actually played through the rest of the content that was there, I was like, oh wow, what a fucking letdown. Yeah, okay, let's go wait, okay, all right, there we go. Do you actually want to finish that games? Let's do it this week? Okay, sure, yea happen. Uh what haven't we talking? I'm talking about Entertail about Entertail? So this is like that game is just like made up of like a series of there are a lot of good moments. This is a point I got one of these games. Yeah, oh did you did you get to this fight? Uh, well, which one are we talking? We're talking about the Yeah, okay, so this one's gonna have a bit of set up. And I did like the Flowery reveal. That feels good. Yeah this is there's another reveal with Flowery, and it's a reveal about like the nature of this game too, or like just kind of betrays what the game is in a weird fucking way. Yeah. So so you meet this character very early on named Flowery who like presents as flower. It's a flower, I'm a flower, I'm Flowery, I'm very nice. I'm a tutorial guy. And then like, oh no, it's evil of course, like it's it's in this world. And then you fight. It's like the fans. He's got fangs, he's and he's mocking. And throughout the game there are like lots of little ominous things that you pick up here and there where someone says like, oh did you hear that? You could like hear things. You could leave a message and flower and then you can listen to it, and then you hear from a few characters who are like, oh I did this thing because I heard it was a good tip from a Flower and so it's like, uh, okay, like that, oh, like maybe Flower is out there sewing some seeds like and and at the end of the game. Uh. This is on what I guess we'd call like a neutral play through, which in this game means so yeah, this again, this is big spoilers stuff totally, where you're just playing as you would normally play a game. I mean, you can you can talk to things, and you can get out of fights, you can flee, and so I assume most people on their first play through are kind of doing a mix of those things based on who they're fighting and what they're saying, right, uh, and and throughout the game, the kind of arc of the game is that you're trying to you're a human boy stuck in this monster world and you want to get out. Girl. It's actually it's it's nontermined, nondetermined. Yeah. Uh, you're a human child in this monster world trying to get out, and you you learned throughout the course of the game that you're gonna have to go face like the King of the Monsters A score. Apparently it's a real nice guy. He's like a he's like a divorced dad. Like actually act literally that uh, and you face him and you don't want to have to fight him because like he seems like an all right dude, And you fight him and he's like, all right, it's time to time to leave. And then Flowery shows back up and it's like no, like no, like you did all this so that I could get the power of Asgore and all these other human souls. And then the fight turns into man, this like I don't even know how to describe that monster. So he turns into this like photo realistic, like yeah, Brady's boss looking thing that like it's the first time any textures are on the screen, rights super detailed and really and gross and like just like like clause tentacles, fangs, weird, like it looks like something from Soma. Honestly, like a green version of a monster from Soma. Yeah there was, and just like really fucking weird. And then that fight. The way that fight happens is that while you're fighting it, you're trying to like dodge a bunch of attacks and then get point like hit a thing in the in the environment. He's dropping nukes on you. Yeah, but like if you survive and dodge the bullet hell stuff. You can open him up for counterattack, but if you die, he's like to know, like, you don't get to die here, Like this is real fun for me. I'm gonna keep doing this, uh and loads you back to the beginning of the fight or shuts it the game crash, crash your game, and then you reboot it and if you have you have to actually launch the game again. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then as you're fighting him, he's making save states, and if you do damage to him, he loads an earlier saved state so that he can like, yeah, well and so that you' he rolls back the damage you've done to him, you know, as if he's like an assistant tool speeder on you. And that stuff is incredibly crazy and it ties into like the larger stuff about what that makes that game really cool? Uh, with regards to like it knows the stuff that you're doing there, there is a lot of fourth wall breaking stuff, not in terms of like turning and winking at the camera, but in terms of like any time that you load a save, it knows that you loaded that save, and anything that you go forward and change, it knows that you change that. Like if you kill someone and go back to not kill them. It knows that you did that. Yeah. Uh. And this this fight is like that boiled down and presented in like glorious, disturbing JPEG like music during it, like they're very fit, and it just it's it's the game intentionally breaks in just fantastic ways. And again it's full of weird stuff. It is the like the height of the what the fuck is going on in this game? I think like when you when you're in it, You're like, I have no idea, Like you can't. I couldn't dodge that stuff. Yeah, and I didn't know like if I die, it's like do I have to start over? Do I not see the ending of the game? If I die here? Do I've another shot of this? Can I die? Like it? Oh? Man? It was really cool. And and because the reason it's so cool is because it is so understated throughout the rest of that game, right, it's like, oh yeah, like this is an old school looking RPG. Fights are almost like jokes in most most cases, even some of the boss fat it's like there's a bit they're doing and like, yeah, this becomes something else. Uh, And it's really good. Yeah. My short description of that No, that's that's that's a that's a smelling mm hmm dying light. Hello. Getting caught out at night? Yeah, and I got pinned into a corner and the game kind of broke. That sucks. It doesn't happen in missions or only in some missions. What's that night? The day night day cycle is dynamic in that game. I will roll a mission and it will not roll. Maybe it's wonder I wonder if you know, I wonder if they suspend the certain story missions. Maybe that's the definitely when you're not on a mission, like the clock just rolls. Okay. They made they found a way to make the day night cycle in a game like that, to make the nighttime terrifying from an atmospheric standpoint and also from a mechanical standpoint, in a way that like I've never seen in a game that like to actually use nighttime as a game mechanic. Let me talk about darks. Donors can talk, but no continue. I remember when we did the cut up that, Yeah, that was pretty crazy. Uh. A big part of it is I think this is a super awesome choice that they made, Like they don't light the nighttime at all, like you know, like TV shows, movies do this all the time, like invariably, when you're shooting at night, you've got giantly blue giant floodlights lighting the scene, right, and games are the same way, but not this game, like it is pitch fucking black to the point that you can't see the buildings and the ground like ten feet in front of you. You know, there are ways around you you can you can get light sources, but the enemies can see them. Also there is a way way stronger, more of like ferocious and agile like class of zombie that only comes out at night in that game that is like visually terrifying. And also we'll just fuck you the fuck up, like like like some I AM legend shit like they they they will it mitigated a little later on by upgrades, but like they will kill you in like five seconds and which super fast. They can climb everything you can just as well as you can, and like they will kill you immediately, and they come out at night. They only come out at night most most like at night. Uh yeah, but between not being able to see anything and how quickly you can die, like like you haul ass when when you realize the sun's setting, like they make it very clear like hey, you should get inside, and like you do. Did they stick with that for the whole game or does it? And it's a bummer to me that they kind of subvert it by letting you like you can go to a safe house and just sleep until the next morning. But I guess like a Minecraft thing, right, I mean, it's probably a good thing that they give you an out if people that don't want to engage with that. But like I actually made a point of like, well, I mean, I you know, I would, I would go inside and sleep, you know, like when night was coming on. I mean, I think in a game where you're essentially playing to you know, player stress levels and trying to sort of you know, it freaked them out to that degree, I think you have to have that safe space otherwise, you know, like for me, I can't play games like that if it's just flat right, I guess forcing you to just sit in a safe house for like, you know, thirty minutes of game time and night ends. Yeah, they would come up with these super mechanics of things things to do while you're inside. Yeah, but you know, nobody's making you use the bed like to to advance time or whatever, like you could stay out and like get more experienced. So that's the thing. Yeah, Like the experience points are like doubled at night. There are certain crafting materials that you can only find at night. A couple of story missions, and quite a few of the side missions require you to go out to do things that they can only be done at night. So like even after they train you to be really afraid of being out in that environment, like you then have to go out and do some stuff in it. It's super effective. Like it's probably not gonna make the cut here, but yeah, I something how they how they tried to turn it into a stealth game and somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're very much like vision cones on the mini map at night and to avoid that stuff. But I think even so, I haven't played that much of the single player, but when we did it in the col up, there's just a great panic moment of when those things come around, like you've made noise and then mixed with that park core nature of it of like trying to run and follow Brad to get the hell out of there, just like a very cool cinema like once the chase is on, like you you literally can't turn around because like the time it takes you to spin around and they'll grab you and kill you. So right, it's like watching Brad in front of me just haul ass climbing buildings getting what is a super breakneck process of like I have to run, I'm just gonna climb and like park hour over everything in my way because I don't have time to even spin the camera around with its mixed with those controls. Yeah, and like the parkour stuff is very fluid. And then I guess the last thing I'll say about it is that there's an arc to it because not not only as you upgrade, but also just as you learn to navigate the environment and deal with those guys better, Like you feel more emboldened to be out at night more as the game wears on because you are you're better about knowing what they can and can't hear and stuff like that. Like it was a super immersive thing for me of having that thing that looming dread of like I don't want to be out when the sun goes down. I've got to get to a safe house. Like it was visually like in terms of atmosphere and also mechanically like I thought it was just a really cool I mean, other games have definitely done the zombies are more powerful at night thing, but it sounds like this does it, and I'm much more like actually terrifying. This is us, like, oh I need to hit him twice and more like get fucking go. Yeah. This isn't like Dead Dead Rising or anything. No, no, not at all. No, No, what is it? Is like you can't go toe to toe with these guys, right, you have to you gotta get some more safe Okay, I've fucking love that dynamic in the game. As say, the come up thing was awesome because it's panic. Yeah, it's like just sheer panic right at night. It's not like two of you can just gang up on those guys either, because like as soon as one of them start screaming, all the others start coming out. Yeah all right, what a great game. Man. We gotta start whittling this list down. Oh we still have Soma, we still have to talk about. We still Team Rader talk about, and then there's a couple of other smaller ones here. Uh let's talk Soma. Okay, uh yeah, tell me about the mirror scene and Soma because I didn't get it and Austin I actually just end up in the hotel room finished playing Soma. Uh okay. So Soma is a game where it's about the limits of human consciousness. Basically, to set up the scene, you are, you're a guy who in the real world, just normal guy. I think it's like twenty fifteen Toronto, modern day. Yeah, you have a horrible brain trauma, like you're blain is your you have a bleeding in your brain or something from it. There's an experimental treatment that you can get, which a guy is like, hey, we're we can take real deep imaging scans of your brain to make a map of your brain to figure out what your best treatment plan is. So you sit down in a chair, you do it, uh and flashes and all of a sudden you're in this for all intensive purposes. Looks like a deep space vessel. Right, you're actually underwater it so it doesn't make a big difference. It's literally like you, but it's sitting down in the chair for the scan, like hard cut the black, and like you wake up and you're in the different room and it's it's like twenty one or whatever it is. It's a hundred years later. Uh. And the you're walking around and you find uh, these like machines and robots that have human personalities, but they're all pathetic and broken in various ways, horrible hearts saying horrible things. They're plugged into walls, just saying like I'm so happy, I'm so and he's just unplugged them and scream at you and be like why. Uh So it turns out later on and I won't. Well, so it's a big spoiler you have to give. Yeah, so it's also a really early one, so I don't feel it. Yeah, and it's it's not like the only thing, the only thing the game does to show it, and like I wouldn't even I don't even know if I called a spoiler because the game is so obvious about it. I'm not hesitant about that. Like so the because you you, well, every most players are going to pick this up, Like, so you wind up being this uh you find this other uh computer AI who's actually okay, they've got it. They can talk to you. Well, and you're like, let's say that that that first robot you find, I feel like it's a ported to mention because you find a robot which is very much like a service robot, Like it looks like Carl is it like it might it might as well be a like a robot motor, like a robot forklist like it's it's not it's not humanoid. It's not like it very much looks like a robot made for work. Ye, but it thinks it's human. Yes, it has a name. It sounds like he sounds like he has like a tough talk in New York accent. He's like annoyed that you think he's a robot and he doesn't get it. He doesn't know that he's a robot. And literally, like at one point when you question it's like, dude, you're a robot and he like holds up his like robot loader mandible and goes like look at my hand like I'm flesh and blood. What the fuck are you talking about? And just go get me help. I'm like falling down. Yeah, find a doctor type stuff. And yes, eventually you end up shutting him down and he yeah, so yeah. So like they set up this world where like people become robots and don't know it. Yes, so yes, and then it turns out, hey, you're a robot right, like you're so then they yeah. They reveal that in a pretty cool way, which is like the you're in a place and like a dome and the dome breaks and water pours in, and then you wake up and like this is all on the sea floor. By the way, actually turns out you're actually on like an ocean floor, and like you look at your hands, it's a diving suit. And then you like you step outside how and you're like, oh, also, I have a I have a flashlight now and it's like a breathe underwater. And also the character well he doesn't say that, but he literally is going like how can I breathe under water? What's come on? Like that? But there's a really question to beyond that. So uh So this whole point, it's the first person you're running around and then at some point there's like one usable mirror in the game that you can walk up to and click on, and you fucking look in the mirror and it's like this just deformed Johnny five like things shoved into a body with like a hood on it with two red eyes beeping and a flashlight sticking out of its head. It's just this great like at and I are playing, like we know we're a robot, right, we've known for two three hours, well you intuitively know, but they never they never come out and say that at that point. I think the way you mean, Ktherine is like, you're like, yeah, but you're a robot, you're person. I guess you're right, but the character is, the player character is even when even as she's saying it, he's still like questioning it. He's like, well, maybe you're right, but how like that just doesn't like I don't believe you, or so by the time the mirror happens, he knows he's all right. It's still like and we all know he's a robot. I think it's I think it's actually like a cool build because he doesn't want to admit it to himself. He doesn't want to let go of this humanity because there was a there was a direct continuity from I went to the doctor to get my head scanned and then I woke up here and now I'm a robot. So I think when it happened, like Austin Merrison in the whole town and we know he's a robot, but he walked up and he walks up and it's like he comes out of the darkness into the mirror with these two red eyes. I think Austin and I are both like, oh shit, like just as he's coming in like whirly gig eyes of like fuck, and it's kind of backs away. It's really good. It's really good. And then does he just go He holds up his hands and he's like oh, man like and then put them down. There's actually a couple of different animations keep looking at me. There are a couple of where he's like, uh, comes into focus. It's not a tractive uh. And also, like the other robot lady you've met who's like cool with being a robot, you load her into your omni toool, you take her personality chip out and just stick it in your little like master key and walk around. She just talks to you out of that thing for the rest of the game. The only the only big bummer I have about this moment is that, like, if you don't happen to pan the radical over that mirror and notice that you can interact with it, like I missed it. I have no I went in that bathroom, but I just didn't. I think it makes it better, I guess, but like that would have you need that context. I think so the way the character behaves later later on you get some stuff. I don't think you've gotten to it yet where you will be able to examine that more closely. Okay, that process, you will not lose some of that, but at that time, uh, just seeing that it's a real just like, oh man, think you totally are this? Even us we're like, okay, well maybe it's just like a diving suit with gone and like it has a face like no, no, it's not even it's like even we wanted to believe he was. He was mostly like a human, like so he's super not. That's the thing, like I said, there's this protracted, uh process of acceptance on his part of like coming to terms with the fact that he's now a robot, but like having it like they should have funneled you toward that a little more directly, because having that in the middle of that process for him, like would have made it a little more seamless. I mean, I think that's the one thing so occasionally fumbles is that they sometimes have a hard time with their continuity of reveals, like sometimes that it feels like the character or at least the player knows a lot more than than the character is reacting to. Yeah, I would agree with that, but and sometimes that information is also just hidden in a place where there is like a shitty monster, and like I don't want to dig through files being chased by shitty Yeah, we'll talk about about that. I almost sometimes wish the shitty monster part of that game wasn't the thing. Yeah, that game would be better if it didn't have it does. But I think it's a cool moment. It's premiss and moments like that are not the problem with that game. Having having watched it on YouTube, I agree that it's a cool moment. Yeah, but I I wish you feel kind of I feel kind of birth that it's not a little more obvious. Uh okay, yeah, so I have not seen the end of tim Raider yet. Is it gonna make the top three? Maybe? But like that doesn't sound that doesn't sound too kind. I mean it's more that, like can I say if if I don't, if I don't talk about it, I'm totally talking about I'm not mad about you spoiling. Like I'll grant a dispensation if anybody wants to leave the room, because I know that the game is recent and a whole bunch of stuff came out. I'll do that. Okay, yeah, I don't think it's gonna I still want to play that game regardless. At the ending, it's a super obvious thing, like it's I mean, you feel free if you want to take off. I know you're playing it right now. No, I'm good, but it it. But it is literally obvious in the sense that, like, I guess what, she finds the ancient mcguffin she's looking for and beats the bad guys, Like, yeah, weird, it's not a spoiler. Wait, but it's good. It is. Actually it actually was like one of the most kind of like emotionally resonant, like oh wow, yeah, let's do it. Was done really well. Let's take in the moments that I saw, because she finds the Divine Source, becomes immortal and murders people with it or what sadly gets fiery wings grows. All right, I'm in She shows up in Nathan Drake's just at a bar. Actually very really, I'm still in Siberia. There's actually there's actually a sub spoiler wrapped up in this whatever. Oh it just just let it all. None of it all. None of it is is a It may probably propel me to finish it more. Yeah, because the stuff is done, like especially when I thought the writing was not amazing in the in the in the previous Team Rader, Like I think it's a big step up here, but those games are fun to play, So yeah, I would enjoy just it is totally worth still seeing the whole the whole time. The whole game, you're it after the Divine Source, which is an artifact that grants immortality. I think that your your father was your father was also after it, and you were after it alongside this weird cult called Trinity Trinity or the kind of the Knights Templar kind of equivalent stand in that are also looking for it. So the whole game, you're picking up collectibles and like I mentioned this in the review, like the collectible text in this game actually feeds into like the larger fiction that they're building around it in like some really clever ways. And one of them is that you're following like you're finding scrolls written by people who followed a profit from like a thousand years earlier. Like you've seen some of that stuff, right, Yeah, Like from the Byzantine Empire, right, uh, and like from like the second Collectible I picked up talking about the profit, you know, Like I was like, oh, well, we're talking about like a revered profit and an artifact that makes you immortal. Like there's no way you're not going to meet this guy at some point in this game, right, is it not the Holy Grail? Like no, okay, it's it's they literally call it the Divine Source, Okay, Like you never get a good look at it, so I don't needn't know what it is. But you meet a guy named Jacob who is like, you meet natives in this place, like it's it's like a it's like a geothermally warmed valley in Siberia, and these people have lived there indigenously for like a thousand years or something. And of course they speak perfect English American English and wear modern day clothes, so that stuff is really stupid. And they've been alive that long. You know, they could get a TV. I guess, I guess. But they they're very much like a gray Grayrian, like live off the land type, you know, dressing themselves in skins, in a lot of cases and stuff. Anyway, you hang out with their leader Jacob quite a bit. Yeah, he comes with you on some Mischieah you've hung out with that guy, right, Yeah, And at a certain point he gets super banged up in a cut scene like shot a few times or whatever. Hey, it's like crushed in a cave in Yeah, he does also get crush in a cave and I did see that and he doesn't die. Yeah, and then it's like, oh, you're him, Yeah, like you're the prophet. So I haven't even gotten to that part, but I already kind of knew that's where it was. It's very telegraphed. But at the same time, like he also has a modern day haircut and and saks modern English, you don't immediately the first time you meet him go like, oh, he must be the thousand year old. At the same time, he's just christy enough looking that you can kind of see that that's probably what they were angling towards in retrospect. He very much has a kind of Jesus Like, yeah, haircut and facial air configuration anyway, all that is just set up for the final like kind of one of the final moments in the game, when you like you've gone through this like hour long battle fighting like all the forces of Trinity and the ancient evil Immortal Army? Is it that you've been immortal all along and that's how you keep falling on spikes and being Okay, has Jacob been looting as a year old? Say? Files that you He's been making the same states the whole time, so he can roll you back. They also they're also there's also kind of a side about like how like, hey, more, immortality isn't all it's crack up to be? Like you actually, yeah, totally, it's like you like these people he made his army immortal like a thousand years ago, but it turned out like oh, they sacrifice their humanity for that, and like it's hey, you shouldn't do that. These people you fight, Yeah, you end up fighting what is his Holy Army because you destroy the immortals. So that there there's a whole sequence I mean, yes, but there's actually there's actually a whole sequence of logs from a guy from a thousand years ago who fought this army and like talks in great detail about what the process of killing these guys is and how they're actually reborn and like it just makes them matter basically, like it's actually really interesting. You climb to the top of the tower where the artifact is. Uh, you're chasing the leaders of Trinity their fuckers, Like it all kind of reaches a climax. You get into this chamber with like here comes the Evil Lady with and her brother with the army behind him artifacts in the middle of the room. Here comes Jacob, Like you run in. They shoot him, like he goes down. But at this point you're all trained to think like, oh whatever, he's immortal. And then the bad Lady gets the thing and immediately does the thing and then she's immortal too, okay, and they're like how fuck now what? And then he's like like they don't even exchange the words. He just sort of like Laura Carlt like looks at the dude and he just like nods to her. And then she just like takes aim and shoots the artifact to like stop the Evil Lady from taking over the world because she's now immortal. But at the same time, like just as you do that, it dawns on you like, oh shit, he's full of bullets right now. Like the second the second that she destroys this artifact without the artifact all the immortality goes away. Yeah, immediately realized just as she's about to do, like oh in the in right an effort to stop the world from being taken over by evil, Like this guy that you've been rolling with the whole game is going to die and there's no way to stop it. Like it's it's actually like a really powerful moment, like in a game that's like pretty, it's fine, but it's kind of cliche, you know. I mean it's like I said, the set up for that stuff is plainly obvious, right, you know, like they're trying to be sly about it, but it's the second that character shows up, and if you've paid attention to any of the logs, you've gotten to that point you kind of know where it's going. Yeah, it's not a surprise when that stuff happen. The only thing it was surprising was like how how well all that stuff came together and in that one moment of like, oh, this guy's just super cool and like, oh shit, now he has to die, and like like they actually do a decent job of building up that relationship with her even the early goings, Like you know, he's not the most charismatic character but like they make their sort of mutually beneficial relationship makes sense, which is nice. It's just it's just a really well done noble sacrifice that plays out without like, you know, beating her over the head with it. Yeah, but Alex said before, we're talking about tum Rater where they just put her in the worst situations constantly with Yes, for me, it was like in a game that I was was just consistently better than I expected it to be, Like that was a really nice way to cap off the whole experience with this like really well done emotional moment at the end that was just like, for a second there, I thought you said, we're going to describe the ending like it was the end of the Tumbriter movie where she just suddenly running up the side of a pyramid towards an artifact and then gets it and then like shakes off of the air. This fucking pretty good. Actually, maybe the worst climax in any action movie I've ever seen is that, like, let the last shot of the No Pyramid. It's Cloe close, but it's really disjointed, just like, oh you just want to wrap it up, Okay, that's real. So it does not come back with like Jacob with a bandage around his and like he's going like a wing, you know, like an arm in a sling. That's like, man, that was messed up. Huh, because you're not immortal anymore. I guess right. Yeah, it was like like I said, it was just it was a it was a noble sacrifice. Yeah, it's really really it sounds like a really good moment. I don't know if it's it's gonna be on here by the end of this. Yeah, Like I don't know that I feel like these these are all good moments, but I'm having a hard time picking out ones that rise above. Does anyone feel like that there's stuff that absolute needs to be on? This sounds awesome, Blackaps sounds awesome. I actually, now that I look over it again, that pause screen in Galaxy, it's real good. All right, second, let me just get at the moment I will. I will just mention that that's not the only place that that pause screen is nominated in these awards. Okay, alright, I went and yeah, I'm real mad that there isn't just like twelve hours of Galaxy pause screen. Yeah, on YouTube with that nice hum it is. It is the best Pause screen of the year by a mile. Yeah, and levels, because like it's the first one where you pull it up and it's like the distorted where it's just like resume control, map vibration, and then if you go into display settings, it's the blue screen. Yeah. Yep, I'm back and I heard ancient evil. So I hope that's not too much of a spoiler. Not really, Okay, I think that's that pause screen is rad. But I think that, yeah, that is like the coolest artistic choice of the year. Not so much for this strong choice of the year. Yea, again again there is there's another category for that, so yeah, we can get back to that. Uh, let's let's talk about these a couple that are on here that are I mean, these are cool moments. Let's just figure out how we're going to contextualize these. So Rocket League scoring goals, uh and super Mario Maker uploading a stupid heart level. Successfully Mario Maker might be too specific because I mean, it's not like everyone's trying to make yeah levels to antagonize people. Which one of those things that I think is is you know, like it's inherent to someone's specific experience. If I made a personal top ten of the year, Like that would probably be my number one moment. Is a couple of times that like I finally finished that. But if you were making like easier levels, it'd be like, that's me beating this level. Like and I've made more traditional levels and like when I beat those, it's like, yep, that's beating that level. So yeah, I think that might be too specific, but I mean it doesn't deminish, you know, how was for me that that felt awesome? Yeah. The one the one thing I would say about Rocket League over that is the like visually, the way they handle the goal scoring in that game. Yeah, so it slows like it goes into slow motion, and then as soon as the ball goes in the goal, like it explodes and everybody goes flying away from We have to we have to remove that from the list because they don't give you infinite turbo on goal scores, so you could just fucking boost around and shoot money everywhere. Yeah, Like every time I score a goal in the game, I'm actually really bummed out because I want just want to fly for a bit and you can't. Ye, Like it's it's bullshit. Yeah, score goal that is actually bullshit. As a joke, but it comes from a very real place. I feel good every time, absolutely, But imagine how much better you could feel if you could just fucking fly. I got boost pretty much all the time. They only give you a few seconds after Yeah, so I got I got plenty of it. No, it's it's never enough. I can think of at least three things on here that rank higher than Assassin screened Cynicate, so we can take that off that. That is a very cool moment in that game. But I don't think it beats a lot of these I don't like. I think the Metal Year thing is cool. I just don't know that I would leave it on here. I'm surprised this is the metal thing that made the cut for that. I'm kind of like, I love this moment, but I kind of agree with you. Do you have any other ideas, though, Like, I'm not that I liked I know that other people like some other moments in that game. I think what else I would even put on there? Though I did like that part that you're almost certainly referring to, But yeah, I know that's very polarizing, Like the part, the part that first first moment of the Year by far I don't I like it on paper anyway, I can't wait. I like I like some of the beginning stuff in the hospital. Yeah, I thought it went on. Yes, I think that intro could have been way tighter. Yeah, but did they do some interesting things, interesting things, but they drag it on too long. Like Yeah, if the like if the crawling around and waiting under hospital beds had been about a third as long as it was, that whole sequence would be way better. I thought it was great. Yeah. I would sooner see that than what we've got on here. Yeah. M I don't know. I'm not married to the quiet stuff like I could go. But I do think that was an incredible moment. Yeah, it sounds like it. I think maybe the s e mirassing goes. I mean, I think that that is a cool moment. Like you said, it is somewhat hindered by the fact that the game does not necessarily guide you toward it. Yeah, it's a very cool scene, and it's also very fresh in our minds obviously, Yeah, totally. But also it seems like, you know, with the point in which it's placed, is like you, the player of probably already come to the conclusion. Oh yeah, you know, by them. Oh yeah, but it's it's still like that. That's why I think it works for me, is like it's still even though you know well and I want to I want to contrast that to some other moments in that game. Not so I don't want to spoil them specifically, but there are other moment towards like oh yeah, we have a pretty good idea what's about to happen, and then they don't execute on it, so to see how well they could have, or like here's one where we knew what it was and then we saw it and still were like, oh shit, So they could have hit it those other things out of the park and didn't. I will say that, even though you know you're no longer human, you don't know what you are because you're not like any of the other robots in there, And even the other robots you meet comment on the fact that, like you're not like them, so you're you're still very curious about what the hell you actually are. Yeah, there's something just very like arresting about like looking into a mirror, right and then suddenly be like, oh no, not what's supposed to be. That's not what it's gonna be. Hard to fix. Yeah, totally, if there's no going back? Okay, yeah, did they ever did they ever lay out the true nature of what happened and why? Yes? Okay, very very much spelling all right. That that makes me want to play that game. You should play that game. It's cool. Yeah, you'll you'll sit there and you'll predict every single mom just like you know, do this mind fucky thing that at the end leaves a bunch of open like, no, I'd want to know the specifics of just like, okay, how did not only do you know the specifics, but they actually wrap up what happens in a way that I, at least I personally found satisfying. Cool. Uh there, I think there are some things in that game you would super appreciate. You're not going to that game thinking there's just gonna be a bunch of twists, like when you're gonna get that twists. They're not, but it does surprise you. They're less twists and more like just interesting intriguing ideas experiments. Yeah, totally, Like the way the way the way the venue put it was like like that. It continues to build the rules of how that world operates. Yeah, like as it as it continues to flush out what the rules are, but we could talk about that more in story stuff. Can we take tim rator off? I guess it sounds like it was. It was a really good ending. Yeah. Also like in a game that I was just like delighted by conces better than some of the stuff here. I guess like I'd like to go at this for the other angle for a sec, just so we get a sense of like what are we putting on here? Okay, like what are we putting on here? Uh? I really like that Life is Strange moment. Uh. Yeah. I think it's a good piece of video game storytelling and interactivity, like builds upon mechanics, player agency and storytelling in a way that like sounds like a bringing of paper, but really compliments what video games can do in storytelling. Like I think it's a good moment. And this is you know, this is one of my favorite categories because I feel like we expressed the things that really spoke to us in video games, even sometimes more than the actual game of the year stuff. And I think that's one where it's like, yeah, this is some good video gaming, Like this is some good interactive entertainment for me. I do life is strange undertail and then one of the like dumb but really cool things, either the Karragan stuff or the Call of Duty stuff. Both of those sound badass StarCraft things. Sounds kind of amazing. It sounds really amazing, Like I am using best in the sneeriest of sneer crafts here. But at the same time, just like that, like you said, you almost like and ironically just really love that. That sounds really great. The more like, as I told you guys that story, I was just like, it sounds yeah. That's actually how the black Me describing Black Ops went for me, is just like, here's this dumb joke. Oh wait, actually yeah, oh wait, actually yeah. I guess what it is about StarCraft is that, like, I think the way we are appreciating it is not at all in the way that the writers intended. I don't. Yeah. That was actually maybe maybe that was how I hoped Need for Speed would go. Yeah, but it doesn't. That also sounds like some good video games. That's how I wanted StarCraft to go. I wanted like this whole five year thing to conclude. Well, like, heck, when it's StarCraft one come out, I need nine. Yeah, However, many of the years that is year arc to end with like this crazy Bonker's ending like that perfect. Not only that, but like I, like I said more of obliquely on the regular podcast, like they ended like there's your two main characters in StarCraft, like literally never seen or heard from again like that. So that's over. Wake me if you need me. Karen went back to her home planet. Yeah. Uh so for me, the Witcher thing. In a category that's called best moment or sequence, I think that quest line absolutely was the most memorable sequence of anything I played this year. And I know that, like there there is maybe an urge to not put it on here because we are rewarding the bloody bearing character in particular, and we have yet to talk about story. Yeah, and I but I think in this case, like it is probably the moment of games storytelling that's stuck with me the most this year, And I think that there's there's absolutely merit in in calling that out here. M Yeah, I could. I could see it being on the list. This is the only dog that I have left in this fight. Yeah, I think it's a great moment. It is we can probably lose the hack Mack getting counter hacked. It's super cool. Cool. Okay, what do you what do you feel about kurbl I mean we have to you describe it, and you know, I watched you stream a bunch of it, like I felt that along with you. Oh yeah, me too. I think based such a good argument for that. It's such a good struggle and then it's such a just dope, like not dumb, it's just like such a great feel good like you know when you see the guys that NASA jump in the air when they could the orbit, like you kind of have a bit of that moment, but then you kind of realize you also have to do something else, like either come back to Earth or keep going. Like that was Yeah, that was like an amazing analogy for that actually, because yeah, like Land of the Mars Lander is like ten or fifteen years of somebody's life coming down to like a matter of seconds. And the Kurbell really, as impossible as that sounds like, really makes you feel like you had a fraction of that knowledge and power for a second too, like wow, we did it, guys, we got this dumb rocket into space. Uh. And that's that's amazing. I really like that. And like even if someone who hasn't played a lot of Kurball, I love, like I want to root for Kurball basically all the time. Yeah, yeah, so Life is Strange, Kurbal, But then what else do you do you cut here? I don't know, all right, we're down to the end of the episode two in Life is Strange, the Bloody bearon Lubrican and the Witch or three. I honestly, I think we can just say, I mean, if we want to call it a specific moment that the lubrican stuff is there. But I feel like we could just say the Bloody bearon quest line as a sequence, because it is a it is a Yes, it's a long sequence, I guess so, But like that's that's a lot of hours of game, man, I know, it's it's that whole thing about in terms of, like you know, in years past, like previous sequences, like what we have taken, like say the Dark Brotherhood quest line and applied it to this category or would that have felt like too much? Like I think I think that's something that could have played here. Yeah, I think maybe so. I don't think, Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with as long as we're still specifying a particular part of a game, you know, as long as it's a specific quest line, I don't think there's anything wrong with having it on here. So is it Life as Strange? Which are Kurbel? I think I would be okay with that, That's what it sounds like. Yeah, there's there's definitely some things on here. I feel bad about losing, but I feel really strongly about all three of those. Yeah, Space boning, Yeah, Space. Some of that just sounds like it's like Blizzard's worst storytelling, but like gleefully done. Yeah, you know, and I can appreciate that on some level, but I don't know. I mean, that's when Blizzards at their best, right when they know what they're doing is incredibly stupid. I think you're you're giving them a little too much credit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe I am, But I think you give you them a lot too much. For me, I'm not really I don't really care about their intent so much. It's just the way that I am relating to it, which is to have fun with it, because what else are you gonna do? Do you maybe want to go play that? Yeah? And I wasn't going to. Yeah, well you could just watch it on YouTube. Yeah, but like, I don't wink it's really funny. I don't really I don't want two yeah, m hmm, I just don't know if that knocks any of the other three off. Yeah, I want to watch it on YouTube. It does not necessarily make me want to play the game. Yeah, I'm really okay with those three. Yeah, yeah, okay, fine, you did a damn good job expect now you set it up. I mean, it's it's definitely right. It was a great argument for something in a StarCraft expansion I would have never paid attention to otherwise. All right, so what wins m I mean for me, it's Witcher for me, it's life is strange here, Kurbal sounds good. Curb it's pretty good. I could go satisfying, it's real satisfy. I think I could probably be happy with any of those three. But yeah, uh, Kurbal is the one here that feels the most unique too. And I hate saying the ship, but like it does feel unique to games in a way, right, which is like I've dumped tons of hours to become an expert at this set of things, and like this set of motions, and I understand what it meant what I need to do to build this thing, and then I understand what I have to do to get this thing up there, whereas like the end of the at the end of the Buddy Barren Quest, but like the Lubrican sequence specifically is like and now I'm swinging my swordid ghosts while this guy is walking and like that. It's an emotional scene, but like the mechanics of me playing that did not necessarily lign up with what I wanted to feel at that time. And I love that life is strange sequence. It is probably my personal favorite thing here, sure, but like yeah, and I think for me, like the curbal space stuff is getting into orbit, like they're gonna have be people with different experiences. Maybe some I got into the first try, but I think you can use it as shorthand for like being successful at the thing. You're achieving something that is incredibly difficult. Even in just the context of this videos game. I'm sure somebody who's listening is like, took me five minutes, wasn't a thing, But like there's something else for that person that has been jumping up. Yeah, it's it's landing on the moon or it's getting to one of those distant planets. You know, it's it's something like that. And theoretically there are lots of those moments right like once you you know, from what I understand from the people who love this game, it's like, all right, I got in the orbit. Now I'm gonna get to the moon. Now I'm gonna build a space station out in space. Now I'm gonna go deeper into into the outer orbit. Yeah, it's it's a really crazy freaking game. I think that's that's a completely worthwhile thing to reward bowled it. Yeah, given how well it's done, I'm good with that. Nice man, we got it up. Yeah, twenty five years in the making, good stuff. Neil Armstrong died so that this game may live. That's how it went right, too soon, tell me another story of the Shepherd. Oh man, let's talk about mass factory. Uh, what's not all right? So you want to do our winners about Let's talk about wrapping up the winners and kind of winners. There's one loser, Day three. We're all winners here. Yeah, uh Day three in the books, best debut is Splatoon. Let's grow Home and Undertail running up the hottest message Batman Arkham Knight on the PC, Afro Samurai two and Skyrim's paid mods fiasco also pretty messy. Best multiplayer is Rocket League Splatoon and Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes also in that category. Uh, And the best moment or sequence is getting into a stable orbit in Kurbel Space Program with the end of episode two in Life of Strange Inge and let's let's just go on with the blood Yeah, let's joke. Let me say the whole club. It sounded like we were gonna go to the whole question, That's what I thought we were doing. How about how about the Bloody bearon Arc of the Bloody bearon uh in the Witcher three. That's it Day three. Let's I'll go rest our Vocal Cords for a little bit and then we will reconvene tomorrow for another four categories. See you then,