The Best Games of 2025 + SG Game Awards

Greg (00:00.334)
Jerry, you look a mess. You look like a ragamuffin, my boy.

Hey man, fuck off!

You look like a street merchant.

Like a

Jerry, you look like a streeeel.

Aaron (00:14.23)
What the fuck is that?

Something new for you, bet.

It's very new fee. And it's as a deep as a deep cut deeper. That's a wound. That's

very

How many?

Greg (00:26.978)
Does Jerry look a skeet right now? I know that's a thing.

yes.

no, he looks more like he's like a streel cuz he's going around without his- with his hat on, right? so it's like you're going out and you got your hat on and you didn't probably wash your hair, you're going out looking like a streel

That's me sometimes,

I did wash my hair this morning, but I didn't get a second shower today.

Aaron (00:46.67)
You don't need a second shower. That's not good for your skin.

Does it cut deep because how many times you had to hear it from your mother or your grandmother?

Yes.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Fuck you, grandma.

Gerry (01:11.054)
It's game of the year 2025. And this is our first one with Aaron. So this is, this is going to be a cool one. If you haven't checked out our game of the years before, I'll give you a little breakdown. We take a bunch of really silly named categories that are serious categories and we nominate games to go into them. Now in previous years, it's just kind of been wild west. Like, yeah, we nominate a bunch of stuff and then we try to figure out like who wins gold, silver and bronze.

This year though, we're gonna switch it up a little bit. Now that we have a fourth, the game changes a little bit. So first we're gonna get into some of our Super Ghost categories and each person that has picked this category, they will judge and we will need to nominate and defend why we think our nomination should win that category. And then we will be blessed with gifts.

at the end of it. I'm sure there's hundreds upon hundreds of dollars of gifts just waiting for us for these competitions. Then we're going to get into our top five games of 2025. ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first. Greg has five games.

Fuck yeah, Greg.

that he's played that are in 2025.

Greg (02:37.144)
They came out this year.

A mere

I that you had to specify that. came out this year.

past year, technically.

So then after that, after we do our top five games, then we get into the nitty gritty. Then we get into whittling it down to find out what the Super Ghost top 10 looks like of the pool of games and then to crown the game of the year. I think I have a feeling that this might be turbulent, but we'll see. We'll see. It's going to be fun.

Greg (03:17.23)
One of them's gonna be fun.

True. there's folks, if you want to go back a couple of years and you want to Beth have a panic attack, I don't think we were recording. You want to hear her have a damn near panic attack live? We captured that when Greg and I fought mercilessly against you. I mean, you probably could call it bullying.

It was I'm glad we didn't have a camera because I was pacing. I was red-faced. I was like light-headed. I was gonna pass

Wasn't that the waifu war?

That was the waifu award and it was because you guys were had the gall To say that the lady Lady D was more worthy of being a waifu than Krah-hati- yeah Which is insane still Krah-hati-

Aaron (04:04.366)
Then who?

Gerry (04:09.836)
Lady, yeah. Lady,

She can cut off my hand any day. As long as I can do one of these.

Gerry (04:25.916)
With that, welcome to Game of the Year 2026. Let's get it cooking. So first award. It comes back every year and it's from me. You know it's from me. I'm the horror guy of this show. Well, I mean, Aaron likes horror too. I'll die on the hill that I like it more than you. I play even the bad horror.

That's true.

I play the bad ones. I'm like, you know, wasn't that bad. So the shit pant award. This is for the scariest moment or game. it could be, be, it doesn't even have to be from a horror game in general. It's, it could just be like, I mean, I think Greg, one year you even nominated like, think it was the moment in space. That was last year, Space Marine, when the lights go down. That was, yeah. Cause it wasn't like a,

I did Space Marine last year.

Gerry (05:18.944)
I'm scared. was just like anxiety inducing and we were like, yeah, it was like the definition of shitting your pants.

So it wasn't not scary.

Yeah, no, it wasn't not scary.

Sometimes those moments in non-horror games are just the worst because you're not expecting them.

Yeah, so with that, I will give you the nominees for the shit pant award care of my co-hosts. we have Aaron's nomination is fucking anything from look outside. And Beth is nominating the first encounter from Silent Hill F and Greg is nominating the game Eclipseum. So I will judge you now mercilessly.

Gerry (06:09.398)
and tell me why these are supposed to win this category. Greg, tell me about shit. Hang on. Okay. Hang on. As the judge, let me speak. Yeah. Greg, tell me about Eclipsium. I don't know much about it other than you sent me to the Steam store page and I went, wow, this looks fucked up. I think I'm going to add it to my wish list. And I did.

Jerry.

Greg (06:30.816)
So Eclipseum, it's an indie horror game and the whole aesthetic, it's it's first person. And what you see most of the time is your hand. And. They like it's it's like. They took like short video of a hand of like natural of like someone's actual hand, and then they just pixelated like put like a pixel filter over it almost. So you can tell it's a real hand, but it has like that filter over it. The game from start to finish is is fucked up.

Like.

I think the first thing you do in the game is like cut out your own tongue.

Whoa.

I don't, I, and because I was watching like some, some, some YouTubers I follow play it and like I was like, I was doing something else and then like, I hear them going like, what the fuck? And I looked over and this guy's cutting his tongue out.

Aaron (07:19.606)
Damn.

see it, you just see that the hand that's been like the pixelated hand just go up to like the face and like pull out a tongue, which means the tongue would have been fucking massive. then the cut, but he still does it. That's not the shit pants award though. I almost hesitate to say what it is because not knowing it was coming was, was crazy. All I'll say is it involved the giant girl.

And if you know, you know.

giant girl

But know what? can't judge it based on that.

Beth (07:56.737)
Yeah, it's hard.

I'm immediately going to Resident Evil 8. Sorry, not sorry.

It's not like, it's not... She's more giant.

Cheap board.

You know, does show, I mean, on the Steam page, on the Steam store, the trailer that plays on the Steam page shows a giant woman that you like go in, like, looks like you're like walking into her eye.

Greg (08:18.542)
Well, she's probably just looking up close to you. But anyway, she's like a giant S and but when you like you first see her, you enter her room and then her like her head just kind of looks at you. And then her like big eye is just like because her other eye is being like covered by her hair. Oh, her like visible eye is just tracking you the whole time. And she's doing almost nothing. And then she starts like slowly reach for you.

No.

Gerry (08:40.621)
Ugh.

Greg (08:47.374)
And you don't want her to get you because that's game over but she's just like slowly reaching for you the whole time and you have to like Get around like her room without her, you know Getting her hand on you when I saw it. I was I was messaging you as I was watching it I don't know if it's something about the way that the encounter plays out or whatever, but it was without exaggeration one of the most upsetting things

that's what yeah, because you said you you messaged me and you were like I need you to get this game and I need you to play it because I just seen one of the most upsetting things I've ever seen in a game. I was like, I'm in.

Let me see if I can find.

This game to me.

No, I gifted you the Drifter, which I've heard is an amazing game.

Aaron (09:35.598)
I almost had just bought a car-

Yeah

Yeah, the drifter. Oh, yeah, I have heard that's like a point.

Sorry, Beth, go ahead.

No, I just was gonna say that it kind of gives me similar vibes of some of the scariest moments from the first two little nightmare games.

Aaron (09:51.308)
yeah!

You the snake neck lady? Yeah, that's-

This is specifically what I was thinking about.

You watched, was it you watching me play that? Right? I think you, I think you were.

I maybe I did but I know I watched an online as well like the whole game

Greg (10:09.206)
What I said was, said, look into a game called Eclipseum. I just saw one of the most unsettling things I've seen in the game. It was so simple in its execution and I hated it.

You

I must have fucking bought the game then because it's in my library. Or like maybe somebody else got it for me? I don't know.

fantastic. Came out in September, so someone got you a came in at least September.

Yeah, I I'll play for you sometime. I'll stream it right here Riverside for us sometime.

Gerry (10:42.205)
Okay, okay. Aaron, you were about to jump out of the gate there with your nomination for fucking anything from Look Outside. Tell me about that. me. Yeah, have played it. We both played the game. And I have seen some shit in that game that... I gotta tell you, they managed to make me feel very uncomfortable with 16 bits.

You've played the game.

Gerry (11:10.862)
in a way I wasn't expecting. I found faith, the unholy trinity, I found that to be fairly spooky, kind of eerie, not like, I don't know, there's so many things in Look Outside that just make you go, my god. You're just looking at it you're like, no, god no. like, games, my god, the tooth.

rough dude. my god that tooth kid. You know you go ahead talk about

So there's that point pretty early on in the game you go to this other apartment and there's this kid who's like entire face is just teeth and I think even before that you go talk to like his sister or somebody and they're like rooted to the ground like There's like roots coming out of their body and like into the ground and that's already disgusting

playing with something, like in the middle of the room and they're supposed to be playing.

I so. think so. Yep, this is younger sister. And then, besides the fucking tooth kid, there's just all sorts of shit. There's one section of the apartment, not the apartment, but there's another floor to the apartment building where it's a big ol' maze. And as you're just walking through, trying to figure out which rooms are unlocked, which ones are locked, there's this like...

Gerry (12:15.768)
The sip.

Aaron (12:43.246)
this like big, like dark, I guess like unidentified, like just this big black like mass that's like chasing you as you're walking through. And like at first you don't see it until it gets really close to you. And it's like, like, oh, fuck, oh, fuck. And then you finally find a room that's unlocked and you go in and it's like, oh, God. And then there's just like a bajillion different types of monsters that are like, I feel like we're specifically designed

to give me nightmares and or diarrhea. Like there's the fucking, there's the rat king. If you just go to steam and like, it's terrifying.

do the

Is the Rat King as in like the actual like what a Rat King is?

No, it's not a homeless guy. Yeah, go to the Steam page and look at it. There's a screenshot of him there. I'm pretty sure. And then there's just like fucking any monster like or even just like right at the beginning when you go look out your fucking window and your face melts off. That was like, holy shit. Like, what did I get myself into?

Gerry (13:38.885)
is there on the screen?

Gerry (13:50.926)
over immediately. Like as soon as you start the game, it's just like, I should look outside and then you do. And then your face like, but it like it melts off and then it gets like sucked out of the window as if it was. Yeah, it's.

And fucking even before that you go talk to your fucking neighbor through that hole in the wall all you see is they're like yeah and they blink like so fucking slowly it's like

And then they're just like talking to you through the wall. I thought you saved. Yeah.

It's how you save your game. You go talk to your neighbor and tell them about and like, yeah, I mean, I'm just kind of piggybacking on the game itself, but I find it distressing as well. Like the fact that the longer you stay out of your apartment, the more dangerous it is and the more you level up from it. Like you'll level up more the longer you stay out, but the longer you stay out, the more fucked up things get. It's such a good game.

Greg (14:53.358)
I said this feels like pandering.

I was thinking looking at the look outside and knowing that you both had played it and that I also went with something from Silent Hill F which Jerry, I watched Jerry play I was like, guys have a very bad disadvantage.

Not necessarily, not necessarily. makes us, like, this is the thing. He's made a strong case for that game.

Beth, do you want to make a case for the first encounter in Silent Hill F? Because I know what it was like.

Absolutely. I also, if you guys, I can switch it up to something that I don't think any of you have played.

Aaron (15:38.228)
You can go Silent Hill after, that's fine.

Okay, Greg, how do you feel?

Go for it.

Perfect. All right. Yeah, no, I'm done the first encounter in Silent Hill F. It was so stressful, so scary because you got to like understand the context of everything leading up to that because, you you start the game starts itself and it's pretty slow. You know, there's nothing crazy happening quite yet. You're walking down a hill. You're dealing with

like drama, like family drama with the main character and her parents. And you go down outside this general store and you meet up with your friends and you're kind of discussing like what's going on, like what you're doing, a little bit of, there seems to be like teen drama happening, but it's nothing like too crazy. And then shit hits the fan. And then there is an incredibly intense chase scene that goes on.

Beth (16:42.446)
And so like the tension is building and this chase is happening with this like thing, this monster in the fog and you know, it seems like anything it touches like spider lily sprout out from it. So it's, you know, you're building that tension and then that breaks because you know, the chase scene ends, there's a cut scene that happens and then immediately you're put in front of

one of the kind of like main enemies that's like this kind of creepy creaking like mannequin like creature. And if I'm if I'm remembering correctly for that first one, you don't have a weapon, right? Like, you know, you have it takes like one or two to for her to like, you know, pick up something. So you're you're just like in this tiny little alley after having been just running for your life in this little tiny

place that's walled in, you're back, you have nowhere to run, you have to get past this thing if you want to progress. And just like all of that built up. just, you're like, you having agency makes it like you're like, I'm gonna throw up and die. It was really, really startling. I hated it. It was super fucking scary. think that, you know, that opening sequence plus that moment and then like, you know, a little bit after it is

great at building up that tension and probably in my opinion one of the best parts of the game. It goes on, it definitely gets crazy. Like it definitely gets crazy. There's some stuff that I would say arguably might be more like what the fuck fucked up, but that part was like scary.

Yeah

Gerry (18:27.822)
Yeah, think I do distinctly remember when I could see it and then it jumped up on top of like the building like out of nowhere just like Like launched itself into the air and then you hear just like junk like land on top of one of the buildings and you're like, where is it?

Yeah, you hear like the tin. It just is nauseating for that whole part. It's so nauseating.

Okay, so...

Here's the thing.

These are all very strong. Very, very strong. Because I know what the feeling that Greg is describing with Eclipseum with this thing watching you and then suddenly moving. I know that feeling. I've felt that in games before. As a matter of fact, think in Silent Hill 3, something similar happens.

Gerry (19:28.59)
in silent and maybe was not Silent Hill 3, maybe it was 4. I can't remember. But I've felt that feeling before where you're like, is that thing gonna move? I don't know if it's gonna move. I don't think it's gonna move. And then when it does move, you're like, oh, fuck. it just, it's like a heart sinking moment.

I want to say to, I guess give a little bit of to Greg on this. It's that feeling of I think there's something so primal about that feeling that go like in our heads as like it goes back to humans like, you know, before we like because it it gets that your hair stands up and you feel that feeling along the back of your neck like, you know, there's a threat and you you've it moves and then like you it's spine chilling. You know, there's something

I feel like you need to sympathize with Greg. He will cut your throat during fantasy.

It's it's it's it's it is that a bit of of the like that way Beth just described but there's also like the the accomplishment of like even though it's a video game and none of it is real you still have the feeling of like she's watching me you know

Same thing goes with Look Outside, man. There were so many battles. In fact, one of the battles that killed me and kind of like turned me off of the game for a little bit was... So, I went into this fucking bathroom in one of the apartments... or in one of the rooms in the apartment... or sorry, in one of the apartments I went into a bathroom. Jesus Christ. I was in a bathroom. Thank you, thank you. So yeah, I'm in this bathroom.

Beth (20:58.816)
You got there!

You nailed it.

Aaron (21:04.776)
And there's this fucking creature that is literally just all eyeballs and then bam, it like runs at you, battle starts. And after like every turn, you see this little text box come up like the creature, like the creature is just pulsating or what the fuck was it exactly? The creature pulsates with. man, I don't remember the exact wordage, but it was just fucking unnerving and unsettling. And then after two rounds of it just like.

fucking standing there and like quivering, then it starts like coming closer to you and you see that text box come up, the creature slowly moves toward you and you're like, like fuck I

That's another thing too with that is that when things like that happen, because the battle system is like Dragon Quest. It's like first person where you got your box that you select your options in, and then you're just looking at the monster in front of you. So there's layers, and it'll come closer and closer and closer. And I think that might play a part later on, Aaron. I just haven't gotten.

as far I don't think I'm as far as you.

Was far but I fucking died I got really far I fucking died to the because I got stuck in that corner but this fucking eyeball creature dude it was just Like it just gets closer and closer. Okay, so Yes

Gerry (22:28.27)
Here's the thing. I gotta start chipping away here.

Gerry (22:37.484)
Okay, Aaron, I'm sorry. As much as I love Look Outside, and I'm going to keep playing it, we are going to keep playing it. And it is extremely unsettling. And for the listener viewer, go play this game. Don't sleep on this game. This game is amazing. It's really fucked up, and it's a cool RPG.

So sorry.

Gerry (23:06.072)
But I just, don't think it hangs with these other two. Damn. feeling that, the feeling that I get from these other two situations, I don't know, they bring out a different kind of fear that I feel like might deserve the shit pan award a little more. So unfortunately, Aaron, I had to cut you. I had to cut your nomination. Sorry, buddy.

understood.

Aaron (23:33.644)
and so for those reasons I'm out.

So, okay. This is tough because I haven't played Eclipseum yet, but I do know, like I understand, and Beth framed it very well for Greg. I know that feeling, and that feeling is actually, it's funny.

I think one way that I could easily make this decision is because when, when I asked, you know, what we should do for these categories and stuff, part of the reason was like, when I think of the shit pant award, there's, there's a couple of games from 2025 that instantly come to mind that are like, yup, that's like the model for this. None of you mentioned the ones that are in my head because a, maybe you haven't even seen

these games in action or B, you might not even heard of them. But the one that represents closest to the feeling from those games that I created this award for, I gotta be honest, I think it's Greg's game. I think it's Eclipseum. And I'm not just throwing Greg a bone because he was the underdog here that picked the one game that wasn't pandering to me. So this is a punishment to Beth and Aaron for picking games that...

I actually play, mean, Beth and I played Silent Hill F together, which by the way, want to give, I want to give Silent Hill F its flowers. It's, it is very, very scary on the onset. Eventually it turns into a fucking character action game, but like on the onset, that game, dude, the doors, the fucking door. I don't mean like, I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about like,

Beth (25:28.504)
True.

Gerry (25:31.81)
The doors that open in the game are the scariest thing in the game. Like for a good long time. Yeah.

could like every time Jerry opened a door for like the first half of the game, like when you're spending more time in the quote unquote real world, not the other world. I could hear Jerry's like, butthole clench. Like it was crazy. He so afraid. Yeah. And I mean, for the record, I didn't choose this because I was thought like, because this was something you played at first, it was the only thing I could think about. While Aaron was talking about

look outside. I remembered another game that I could have put in here and I like... No, I'm not a human.

What was that?

Gerry (26:17.42)
I've heard of that.

And I was like, there were parts of that that I definitely could have. I would watched. Yeah. I watched it.

I was gonna

Side note, I'll watch you play it again. Like I will like if you want to anytime it is so good. I want to buy it like play through my own playthrough. It's really good. It's really

Watch you play it too, man. Fucking stream it to the riverside and we'll all fucking watch you play it. Same with Cooking Companions. I almost put that in here, but I was like, nobody but me has fucking heard of that game, so like there's no point. And I don't want to spoil it.

Gerry (26:55.255)
Beth's nomination for the first encounter in Silent Hill F definitely has legs.

It's sort of those puppets, know what saying?

Ha!

She did a great job of making it feel like anxiety inducing. It was a very good description, Beth.

Gerry (27:12.43)
Thank you. And it is. for me to speak on how I felt playing that, it was extremely tense. I mean, I can't remember if Beth mentioned this, but like the setting too is like very like old Japan. Like in like the, I shouldn't say very old Japan.

Very old chipm-

Yeah, the 60s.

Yeah, it's a very old Japan ward. Yeah. And it's just like you're in this very tight space and there's like a there's like a stream in the middle and it's all like raised up and it's all rickety like wood like walkways and stuff and like this back alleyway. It's just in the I mean, of course, the fog, the fog, just the atmosphere. It's just dripping an atmosphere.

Very old.

Aaron (28:04.888)
Okay.

It's a kind of

Yeah, every time like any time like you aggro an enemy, it plays like the traditional like Japanese instrument that goes like

Thanks.

Beth (28:17.358)
Yeah, like not kidding. It is incredibly unsettling so claustrophobic in that moment it you forget Yeah, it's actually perfect

You

Wild f-

It gave me anxiety just hearing him do it.

just sort of hit that kind of note.

Beth (28:31.894)
It was, yeah, Greg, killed that.

Hey man, nothing can stop me.

I will say though, Beth, you could have chosen if it were me. I think one of the scariest parts of that game for me is the rice field.

I don't think, so I thought the rice field, when you were like, what do you want to put down? I knew, well at the time the only thing I could think of was Silent Hill F, because we kind of were talking about it a little bit. And I was thinking the rice field, that was my first instinct. But I really think that like opening, I just think that lead up the anxiety build up to that moment, to that place is so much like makes that part.

way more scary because you're just like, like I said, gives you, I think that feeling of nausea that you get in moments of fear is way more effective.

Gerry (29:28.758)
It is a very, very effective opening.

Yeah, so that's why I went with that over the rice fields because the rice fields is terrifying but

It was, yeah. But unfortunately, you can't hang with the feeling that Greg has described by way of Beth for Eclipseum. But no, all things considered, Greg did a good job describing.

I'll put on a happy face.

Thank you,

Beth (29:59.342)
wouldn't do so good at describing it, I wouldn't have been able to feel that emotion. Like, you know, come up with that idea.

winner of the shit pant award 2026 or 2025 sorry Eclipse you just want yourself all you can eat tacos the next time I come

I will

Gerry (30:33.875)
This is your category.

This is the Mad Catz Award.

I'll hand it over to you. Yeah. Take it away.

So like when you fucking when you go to play with your little brother and you're like, oh you can be player two and you give him the fucking mad cats controller That's got like got gum in the Y button because it keeps sticking. I don't know. That's a me story for another time So the mad cats award best multiplayer game

Nominated by Jerry, we've got Peek. From Beth, we've got Marvel Rivals. And from Greg, we've got Monster Hunter Wilds. And I wanna... I wanna open this up to Beth, cause... Yeah, Marvel Rivals... Holy shit, Marvel Rivals rules. I still play that almost every single day. Beth? State your case.

Gerry (31:23.662)
Great.

I think that Marvel Rivals deserves to win this category for the following reasons. Reason number one, it captured all of us. It is a game that not only did we all play at one point in time, we all enjoyed. You know, there's, I think it was something that while we would get home, it had happened in a long time where, you know, you get home from work.

And we'd be like messaging in our group chat being like, you know, rivals tonight. Can we play some rivals? Even Jerry had the rivals itch. And that is saying something.

section.

Sustained.

Gerry (32:09.006)
Leading this is leading

I overruled.

Overruled exactly. We also.

We'll play with Jerry's friend, I forget his name, like Skeeter or something.

Jerry created for the record. On the record. You know, Jerry created a discord server to let and abandoned it, but he created a discord server so that we could bring in people so that there would be enough people at one time to. Yeah. But like the point being is that Jerry would all. I Jerry did.

Gerry (32:22.686)
I want it on!

Gerry (32:32.994)
BED

Gerry (32:41.806)
Many people know I got out.

Like, create it.

Maybe you did. Jerry invited more people than either of us, so I thought it was his. Because Jerry invited everybody he knew.

I'm sorry, I created it.

Gerry (32:56.846)
I am quite a good person

You invited Skeeter,

You know what, Miles is really good. He carried our team a few times.

Skiing around a mile.

Aaron (33:06.73)
I don't remember who it was that invited me. must have been one of you guys that invited me And then I invited like fucking eight more people and then you guys stop basically

We had like a family reunion in the fucking discord server

Yeah, so but point being is that it was it was something that we were all just like incredibly rabid over for a period of time and to Yajur you were you asked us to play which is shocking.

You could still, Moon Knight is even better and there's a lot more characters.

And remember who else.

Aaron (33:41.902)
Moon night.

And what I'll say was that was just for the, you know, our experience of like, you know, taking it out of the game. The game itself is really fun. It's fun. There's a bunch of different, like all the different heroes to feel like they play differently enough. I ended up not knowing how much I was going to like love Invisible Woman. Invis is amazing. I love her. Best Healer, her two, okay, as a note, similar to Greg.

Uh, wanting to jump back in just for a bit so he could get, um, lady Loki. I want to get, uh, I want to jump back in for a minute just to get in visits, like disco. She's in the new season. She's like this like disco outfit. And I really want that. I might have to, I might have to, and I personally, personally ended up having to buy a new PC so that I could have.

I could play Marvel Rivals and have it downloaded at the same time I could have Final Fantasy XIV downloaded.

What did you do with your other PC?

Beth (34:52.396)
I gave it to my friend. I gave it my cousin Jack.

Was he able to fix it?

Yeah, easily.

Gerry (35:03.214)
So for those who don't know the the legendary saga of Beth's PC Beth had a minor inconvenience on her PC and then she said this thing's broken and went and bought a whole new PC which was quite a bit better than the one I had and I was very very

Her old PC was just like, please renew your MacAfee subscription. And she was like, no, threw it away.

Greg and I were like both being like, I bet I

Yeah, and I couldn't... it would turn on and I didn't know why.

I I I take the blame for this because I could have very easily like taken an uber to Beth Fixed her computer and said have a good night

Beth (35:55.416)
to when you guys were like, we could- it's easily fixable, I wrote in the chat, I will not be doing this, I'm just gonna get a new one, but if one of you wanna do it, you can't. And then neither of you- well, Jerry would have to fly here. But like, of you stepped up to the plate, none of you said-

Beth (36:16.262)
No one did and I couldn't get it to turn on so I just bought a new one and then I gave it my old one to Jack and then a day and a half later he had a functioning working perfectly fine piece.

It all worked out for Jack. Everything's coming up Jack. It did.

It worked out for Jack and it also is a strong indicator that I was like, cannot deal with this. I need to be playing Marvel Rivals right now.

Paint me like one of your French girls,

And

Beth (36:41.918)
I let it rest.

And like Jack, know, Jack isn't the step PC owner. He's the PC owner who stepped up.

Aaron (36:53.772)
You know what, Greg? That was so eloquently spoken. want you to state your case about my fuck monster hunter. Riles go.

Monster in the Wilds? Did you say Rildes?

I almost did, I almost did Monster Hunter Rivals and I was like, dude, I just am so fucking sleep deprived, Jesus Christ.

Now that's a game I'd play, Monster Hunter Rivals? I don't know what it would be.

Hero shooter storing monsters from Monster Hunter? That'd be cool.

Greg (37:22.4)
Anyway, monster or wilds. mean, what can I say about monster hunter wilds that isn't already applicable to other monster games? True. Like the difference with this one is like, you will have like,

Greg (37:40.674)
This is a late game edition. I don't want to say something that I'm just going to be repeating things that are true of like other Monster Hunter games, but.

It's alright.

Beth (37:50.126)
That's fine.

I will say like one of my favorite things about playing Monster Hunter with friends Well Playing with friends over playing with randos or playing solo is that like yeah? feel like a fucking team like a well-oiled fucking machine You know like you have one friend who is just goofing around they've just learned the fucking heavy bow gun or whatever It's called and you've got one friend that's over here

healing up they boys, topping them off with a hunting horn, then he got your guy up front who's doing the big boy damage with the gunlance or something. And then you get your best group of buds together and you're like, let's go fucking speed run the, what was the big purple thing from Rise again, the Mahologo? Magnamalo, yeah, you're like, let's just go fucking speed run the Magnamalo and then.

Follow

Aaron (38:47.576)
Two minutes later it's dead. It's... Yeah, it's a good fucking monster. Holy shit, it's a good multiplayer game for sure, Monster Hunter.

I'll say this, if they fixed the multiplayer in Wilds because Ryze had good multiplayer. Ryze also had garbage multiplayer.

Okay, so hold on. point. I'm gonna start really quick. So there was a modder, like devs are just higher modders because there's a modder who found out one of the big issues with Monster Hunter Wilds. So he was testing it on like a low grade PC, like 3070 Ti and an i7, I forget which one. But he was testing it on that. I mean, you say oh great, I'm running on a 3060. Pray for me.

He discovered that in the background of Monster Hunter Wilds, it's constantly checking if the DLC is unlocked.

Beth (39:47.051)
what the fuck?

What? said some kind of like back end thing that I guess like no, no one ever caught. and so like he, he did a thing where he, like he made a mod that basically like, it doesn't unlock the DLC, but it makes the game think that the DLC is unlocked. Stopped checking and he like, like no shit in the hub world. He was at like 25 to 30 FPS. He got it up to like,

And stop checking.

Greg (40:17.646)
55 to 60, just with that mod.

Holy

Crazy.

on his 30, on his 3070. Anyway, edit point over.

Did they fix the monster hunter?

Greg (40:31.042)
That's this February. It's by end of it. They've been releasing PC performance. What's that?

Spin and drop out. Drop in, drop out like you could in Rise. Rise had the best multiplayer. It was so easy.

you it.

Aaron (40:45.782)
Rises.

It should be very much that, but I I haven't had like too many friends playing to test it, so I couldn't say for sure.

I'll get it when it goes on sale. Like when it's in a little bit of a deeper discount, I'll get it. Don't you worry, I'll get it. I'm always a late adopter to these games anyway.

Here's one of my favorite things about right or wilds that I forgot to fucking mention You're like so it in rise You know you can ride your dog to go chase after monsters or get to this area a lot faster in wilds when you're riding your mount to go to places you can just set it to autopilot so you can just fucking sharpen your blade or slam like a six pack of potions or Fucking just I don't know throw shit in that direction. You just set your mount

to autopilot and just go to there, like wherever the fuck you wanted to go and then sit back and enjoy the ride, fucking look at TikTok on your phone or something. It's cool.

Greg (41:47.114)
And you can pick up resources as you're writing. You don't have to dismount. Anyway, it's just a ton of fun to beat Monster's asses. Aaron, you made all of my points for me, for yourself.

So...

I feel like I'm gonna end up making all the points for each of these games because I really like each each and every one of these like peak Jerry you don't need to say a goddamn word because like we've lived that shit We we were talking we have that one video like the very first video that we made with peak and it was just We went the wrong way. We climbed a mountain. We were like dude. We're making such good time We were annihilating this mountain and then we turn around here's

The reason why I picked peak is because I don't know if I've laughed as hard at a game ever than when I've played peak. It's like I have, I have had to stop what I'm doing and just full cry laugh. Like just can't control myself laughing. And luckily for us, we caught one of those moments on camera.

There's something truly hilarious about proximity audio.

Gerry (43:00.718)
Oh my God, hearing like being like Aaron, how you doing over there? And you're just like, Oh, I feel like, oh, and then you're like, is Aaron okay? And then you don't hear anything. And then it's just like a ghost will pop up and he's just like, yeah, I fucking died.

Something about playing that game with friends makes you scream as if you are going to die.

Yup.

Yeah, it's weird, right? Like you actually like get so into it. And I mean, Greg, you're pretty good at peak, but like you had a couple of blunders a few times that were like pretty funny. You know, it was just like even just like fiddling with the controls. I like, okay, I gotta take my backpack off. I gotta do this. And then like take the hook shot that we just found out is like super like it's.

it's going to help us get up this one ridge. And then all of sudden I'm like throwing the hook shot off the mountain by.

Aaron (43:57.972)
Or you fucking drop your backpack and it rolls off a fucking cliff.

And I was like, no.

There was something that happened. I was playing with some other friends and I was going to ignite a flare and then put it in my bag so I had a flare trail on me. And then something happened when I put down my... I put the flare in the bag and then I set it down and something happened with the geometry of the world. So I set it down and then my bag rocketed off the side of the mountain with a smoke trail behind it. And it was so...

Goddamnit.

all my stuff and it flew away like a rocket

Gerry (44:37.422)
So that's, I mean, that is why I picked Peak is because as far as a multiplayer game goes, like, yeah, I had fun playing Rivals, but like I had a disgusting amount of fun with Peak. And I really wish that Beth hopped on with us because it would have been so god

I'm gonna hop on with you guys. I didn't have fun. I didn't like Pete.

I know, but I wish you would continue hopping on and I wish you would learn to love.

I wish you would- I wish you just wouldn't like it. my god.

You should just get off your high horse.

Beth (45:14.286)
don't you just fucking like it? I just, I don't know, I think, I don't know, maybe, I feel like, no offense, because this is gonna be about, this is gonna be about you guys.

Go for it. Just go pull the trigger.

She doesn't

I never peek.

Look at

Beth (45:38.446)
Greg is too serious and Jerry you're too the so far in the opposite direction. So I don't I like I like directional chaos and I feel like Greg is just direction and Jerry's just chaos. And so I just I find it a little too. I just

The stupidest man on earth, Jake, I'm talking to you, buddy. Don't fuck.

Jesus Christ. That's That's all.

commute is way out of a fucking paper bag

I just didn't have, I didn't think there was enough there. Like I think it is like a who you're playing with type of game. Cause more than anything and I just don't, for Peak specifically, I just don't think that we align in what I enjoy.

Gerry (46:29.87)
This is Aaron's category and Aaron yeah, and Aaron

I liked it.

Right, and that's like, you know, that's none of what I personally set your factor into.

Are you done with- Don't worry about it.

Do you have any other points to make for Wilde?

Greg (46:50.936)
You know, I think Aaron made all my points for me.

I really did. This is the hardest.

Love it. mean, make all my points for me at some point. That would be terrific.

I tried to but you started talking over me like I was going and then you started going but

No one's gonna let Jerry not talk.

Aaron (47:10.85)
This is the hardest decision I've ever had to make in my entire life and I want to die. So drunk. It's okay. No, I'm just... I'm just kidding. I'm just being regular stupid Aaron, don't worry.

well we can stop but this is just this isn't real

Gerry (47:30.52)
You got to cut something right now. What's deal? What's getting cut, man?

I think... Okay, okay, I think I'm cutting Monster Hunter Wilds unfortunately because I just I didn't I wasn't as hooked on Wilds as I was with Rise. This this pains me. This pains me so fucking much. It's hurting my heart and my soul. I'm cutting peak. Marvel Rivals wins.

Yeah

And I'll tell you why so I play Marvel rivals like fucking Almost on a daily basis almost on a nightly basis with my bro-in-law and a bunch of our friends and fucking nothing like nothing beats like a well like I Just like a well stacked well put together team of six boys or and or girls or whatever on a team in Marvel rivals, man, it's

Nothing beats that feeling. Just like you're right in front of the enemy spawn. They've got like 10 seconds left to do fucking something, anything. Timer runs out. You're still in front of their spawn because you're just too good. And then it's just like, easy.

Beth (48:40.28)
Dude.

Conversely, nothing hurts like the opposite of that.

Exactly.

Yeah, but also Did my arguments sway you at all or were you prepared? This is before because I do think if Jerry's argument was stronger than mine Then you should go with P

No, here's my thought process. Peak is fun, but the one thing that keeps me coming back to Rivals as opposed to Peak, Peak is just the same thing every single time. You're just little kids climbing a mountain and that's just kind of it. Peak is generated that and it's funny as shit.

Gerry (49:14.796)
He's really gentle.

Literally the definition of not the same.

Every time.

You know what I mean, but like...

The experience that you're having, like the gameplay of it or the, you know, the expected outcome or whatever.

Aaron (49:28.086)
Which I mean, I guess is the same with rivals, but like, hold on. just like with rivals. Yeah, I love picking new characters and trying different characters out all the time. And I love it when like I play with my brother-in-law more than anybody in that game and he'll try out new characters and we'll try to find characters that work really well together. And then.

Jerry, this is Aaron's turn.

Aaron (49:52.718)
The fucking zombies mode was really cool. I don't know more Marvel rivals just wins man.

Yeah, Aaron supports the CCP.

my god.

Okay. To either of you, they know what it means, right?

the CCP?

Greg (50:13.206)
I'm I'm choking! Chinese Communist Party.

for

yeah that was like it's fun because it's funded like it's a chinese studio and they get all the studios get money from china like itself so greg's just making a dig

Those knuckleheads.

Aaron (50:24.59)
Gerry (50:45.154)
Moving on I'm gonna give this over to Greg Greg. I'm so glad that you brought this back again, buddy. I'll never

Jerry hit the thieves

Aaron (51:00.622)
Or you don't have to. I'll put it in post.

has happened live. Sure, hit the theme.

Gerry (51:09.358)
That's not there anymore!

Sherry, the fuck? Sherry, what the fuck? How could you have lost that?

Cheerio!

Aaron (51:15.47)
Sing it in your head Greg, sing it in your head real quick.

In my head!

Yeah.

No, sing it in your head so nobody can hear.

WHAAAAT

Beth (51:26.446)
I was gonna say, you need to say it out loud so Jerry can make a song about it again if he's truly lost it.

I think it's in the Google Drive. It's on our Drive. So we just need to upload it.

Yeah, it's in the- I don't know why it's-

shocking.

Gregory, please continue.

Greg (51:42.326)
My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

Well then, guess I'm not getting my pick here.

All right, well, Jerry, we'll go down the list. Start with you. Tell me why Princess Peach on a motorcycle is a waifu.

you

discuss.

Greg (52:02.264)
Just cuz. Interesting. Sounds like a fan who's not aiming to win.

interesting.

Gerry (52:09.994)
I look Princess Peach has never looked better than in Mario Kart world. And she has even even just the very little that you actually hear Princess Peach interact with other players or like anything in any Mario game world. I don't know. There's something about her personality that they

Like, because they made more of the characters like have like more, I don't know how they did it. They made them have like a little bit more personality in Mario Kart World, but I don't know. I don't know what it is. I just, when you get pitch pitch on that motorcycle, with that motor.

it's not at all about personality is it

I think it's about the suit being tight.

It's...

Gerry (53:08.426)
It's at least a little bit about the personality. But it's a lot to do with the motorcycle. And the fact that she's a motorcycle and she does all these little flippy dips. She has lots of flippy dips. She has good hair. She's got good hair.

Let me look her up.

She has beautiful eyes and her hair smells like cinnamons

I going off of like, I know what Princess Peach looks like, but let me look her up.

I

Aaron (53:38.734)
You gotta look up specifically that. Princess Peach on a motorcycle.

She does look great.

I'm telling you.

Okay, let's move on.

Damn, he's just unimpressed.

Gerry (53:54.476)
You know, I'll go ahead and I'll just cut mine out already.

Not so fast, because Beth, you got a lot of work to do.

Beth (54:05.006)
Here's to- It's okay. It's okay. I can say why I love Corbeau and that doesn't-

Get her.

Gerry (54:12.652)
animal

from Pokemon.

This is from Pokemon. as soon as you downloaded this,

It's a person in Pokemon.

Yeah, it's a person in Pokemon. There are people in Pokemon, I think you know this.

Gerry (54:25.058)
name is really, sounds like a plant.

I don't know what the C-O-R is going to be like what that is but beau is like the French word for beauty. No, it's it's like the it's beauty it's beautiful.

BOSULE

Greg (54:41.822)
Maybe the COR is like a shortened version of like Corvid, so he's beautiful crow.

the big

Now I love him even

blimey!

What I, so the things that I like about Corbo are for sure, definitely his style, great style, love his hair, love that it's like the poison, like the little poison drips, they really remind me of like Pheasantipity, their design from the DLC from Skirtland Violet, great detail. I always love when the clothes is like a little bit inspired by a Pokemon and

Beth (55:22.99)
Poison is my favorite typing and this is probably the first time in a really long time that a Poison user has had a good design and an actual role in the story because they're usually just kind of the bad guy and Corvo is definitely a part of a syndicate. But what I like about his character is that he is sort of like...

rough character on the outside. You learn like he was an orphan growing up on the streets. He was taken in and given a lot of kind of coaching and stuff by Lysander, who which was the villain of X and Y originally. So I like that they had like some lore to it and everything, but I

And then he like, yeah, he created like a syndicate and it definitely is implied that they do do terrible things. But he also very much cares about the well being of the people of Lumiose. Like that's his city, he cares about it. So he does get involved in like wellness initiatives and projects and stuff like that for the city, which I think is like shows dimension to his character.

If you play the DLC, he has like a little bit more of a role in it as well. So like you get more conversations with him. And I'd say overall something that I liked about ZA is like you did get a lot more kind of with the characters being kind of not great people all the time with like the side characters and

He's definitely a really big example of that. Yeah, I really like him. am not, you don't have to.

Gerry (57:15.532)
You asked her to put the work in and god damn it she did.

I just think he's got he's got a really good backstory really builds up to a good kind of like characterization for him in that city and how it makes sense for a character and the character of Lumios. And then I think he's great, looks great. And then personally, I like that he's a poison type user, because that's my favorite type. So that's why all of those things go into creating why I love Corbo.

Very good. Erin, why should I select Selene?

I want you to Google Celine Hades to all you play the game, you know, she's the personification of the moon. Yeah, so she's I Don't know. She's just beautiful as shit man. Look at that picture She's got like a big old headdress on and she's got moons everywhere. She's got that She's riding that fucking white horse that also has jewels and moons everywhere She's got that like that cape on her back. That looks like mist I don't know if that's what it's supposed to look like but it looks really cool looks like mist

And yeah, Celine's cool, but she she helps you out a lot. Her fucking hexes are really, really helpful. I think like the one where it just shoots down a fucking moonbeam to annihilate your enemies. That's cool. That's Celine.

Greg (58:33.779)
Okay, okay.

I'm glad you all found waifus who, who meant something to you and we're good. you cut that one, Jerry. I am not like there, there are people online who are like, Daisy, I want to eat her socks. yeah. If you ever, if you ever, if you ever go, if you ever go to, like the, channel for like

you

Daisy's a bitch.

Greg (59:05.942)
like saved you a click gaming like that. There was that, that just summarizes headlines and what the article is about for like gaming news. That account used to be 50 % that if you present this guy who loved Daisy and the eating Daisy socks thing was like from his bio. Anyway, yeah, I'm not that guy.

That is crazy

Gerry (59:27.854)
I mean,

I'm thankful for that.

Corbo, I liked how passionate you got about him and how you felt about his style. Unfortunately, I feel the exact opposite about everything to do with his style. So he's getting cut.

yeah, Sel- Selene is, not my favorite at all. I found her. nope, cut her. What?

I win right?

Aaron (59:57.55)
bullshit

is gonna be what is the winner in damage

the winner of waifu watch is my own pick nemesis t

Let him have it. I like where this is going.

whatever you wanted for your own category. Greg, Greg, if you had to go off of our

Greg (01:00:22.012)
It would be would be Selene if I had to go off of those

Fuck, so close but so far.

Yeah. off of the arguments. No, I'm going off with just my preference.

of our argument.

Beth (01:00:33.278)
I I know, but I'm saying that if you were going off of the argument...

Here's your eye

You say, here's what I will say. I like that all of your waifus were very important and very personal to you and meant something to each of you all. That's the definition of what makes a waifu.

It's a very personal decision.

That's a non- that's a non-answer

Aaron (01:00:54.488)
I don't think the explanations or like, feel like that really would have made a difference because he just, he feels the exact opposite about Corbo as you. So no matter how much you explain it, it wouldn't have made a dent in Greg's unwavering resolve.

I appreciate your passion and understand it. If I was given an award for passion about a character, you would win. Because everyone else is like, because everyone else is like, well, I guess Princess Peach or, or like, yeah, Selena, you see her, but I, so you win on the grounds of passion. Okay.

Or no.

Beth (01:01:32.942)
Because the thing is that we're supposed to be... You're supposed to be... Okay. I think the integrity of this... I like that you put nemesis, I think. As was stated, we can do whatever we want with our own categories. I think the intent, of this is that we should be going off of the person who has the best argument.

No, we're going off of who I think wins.

No, I know, I know what I'm saying as a whole. I'm not talking about this specifically. Brought in your, you're focusing in on life. I'm saying.

It's the waifu watch!

my god, you're not listening to me!

Gerry (01:02:06.542)
Thank

no.

It's the waifu watch! We're trying to say, it's not who's the best character.

hearing me

Beth (01:02:15.15)
I'm not talking everything is a whole

Maybe we should go to the next one.

Roll them up. pretty soon, soon, Grahati is

By their nature, a wife was skin deep.

That's not what I'm talking about! No, I'm not talking about you!

Aaron (01:02:33.962)
scroll through, scroll

What award are you trying to win?

I told you one based on fashion

I'm not talking about wards! I'm not talking about-

You want me to say that Corvo is a good character?

Beth (01:02:46.946)
STUPID META GRAG I'M NOT EVEN DARKENING WITH THAT ANYMORE

What are we talking about? Alright, alright, stop, alright, everyone stop. Beth, say it again. I'll give you the floor.

No more, no more!

Beth (01:02:57.41)
Hidden gems is my category.

Beth (01:03:03.958)
Exactly. This is my floor.

I was thinking the to get across what you were saying. want to understand what you were saying.

And I think me explaining this might help you.

All right.

Okay? Everybody listen up. Hidden gem in my category. I will be choosing which one wins based off the merit of your arguments, nothing else. What I thought that the categories were coming into it. I thought that we were judging all of the things based off the merit of the argument, nothing to do with personal opinions.

Aaron (01:03:25.39)
SH-

Aaron (01:03:32.942)
can't do that

Beth (01:03:48.596)
So that's what I had. And I'm saying that I understood very early on when this started that we weren't going off of that. But I was making my point when we were talking. I said, great that you picked Namas. I love what you did with it. Cause I think that's great. I just had a different understanding of how you were judging things.

I will say your arguments had the most merit for sure.

So I was saying that I'm not okay. I'm not saying I'm upset with the waifu thing or any way that things went. I just was saying that I was confused about what we were basing things on because I thought it was merit based of the art.

Do you understand?

Yeah, for sure. That's a consideration.

Beth (01:04:35.96)
I'm not talking

So hidden gems, right?

yeah, my god

again ladies and gentlemen

Ha ha ha!

Beth (01:04:51.891)
I feel like Ragnar just keeps playing this game right back in just to watch Beth like unravel.

Aaron (01:05:07.519)
Beth, Beth, Give me a Goosefraba. Goosefraba. Goosefraba.

Beth (01:05:23.711)
We'll just go in order. I would love to hear about the Ultimate Sheep raccoon game, Erin, and what makes it a hidden gem.

You got it.

Gerry (01:05:36.462)
We'll list off the nominees. Great.

Good idea. My brain is for right-

We never, we haven't done that one time.

I did it.

We listened to Domineze. definitely, I definitely didn't do that. So, all right, continue listening Domineze.

Beth (01:05:53.74)
So okay, okay, the three that you guys have chosen to speak on was Aaron decided on Ultimate Sheep Raccoon, Cherry did Routine, and Greg is gonna talk about Star Wars Outlaws. And I said that we should just do it in order for ease. So Aaron, tell me about Ultimate Sheep Raccoon. And then what specifically makes it a hidden gem?

Okay, so where do I begin? Have any of you ever played Ultimate Chicken Horse before?

Yes.

Okay. Well, ultimate chicken horse is like, it's a multiplayer, like precision platformer, I guess, where you and your friends, you're all trying to get from the start to the goal. And then after each round, you'll pick some like a little contraption or death trap or like a block to, keep your friends from getting to the goal because you want to be the one to get to the goal. Cause you know, every time you get, every time you get to the goal, you get a point, whatever. So yeah.

It's basically just like you're blocking the path for your friends to get there. But Ultimate Sheep Raccoon just came out, I think, late November or in December. And I feel like I totally flew under the radar because, I came out late as shit. Ultimate Sheep Raccoon completely changes the fucking formula because number one, you're on bikes. It's not about precision platformers anymore. You're on bikes and it's a race you have to get from start to finish.

Aaron (01:07:29.678)
And you'll go in places of, you know, first, second, third, fourth, with first place getting the most points, second less than that, so on and so forth. And it's not so much about keeping, keeping your friends or whoever you're playing with. You're not trying to keep them from getting to the goal. You're trying to make it so that each of you can get to the goal just as easily as possible. Just speed run that shit. You can place like rails you can grind on to get to the end. You can place like a fucking.

boost pad so can speed through this area and get over there. You're making it as easy as possible so you can all get there and get as many points as possible and then whoever has the most wins. You're essentially working together with your buddies to speed run every single stage you can come across and just having fun along the way because you can do cool tricks while you're fucking grinding on rails and then blasting along on like a dockyard. There's like a

Like a forklift that's going up and down. You can jump off of that, hit a wall, bank off of it, fall down and die. It's awesome. It's hilarious. And yeah, it's the ultimate, ultimate bro game for when you go over to your fucking brother-in-law's house at like two in the afternoon and you're like, hey, let's just play this for two hours straight and just fucking not do anything else. And then four hours later, boom, ultimate chicken or ultimate sheep raccoon.

Okay, okay, perfect. Then, Jerry, I want you to start off by saying and talking about routine and what makes it a hidden gem.

thought you were going say, want you to start off and say something nice about Aaron.

Aaron (01:09:06.316)
I would like that, go ahead.

You know what? Now you have to.

Beth (01:09:12.814)
So, so, so personalized.

So I like, okay, the reason I picked routine is because it's a game pass game. I feel like a lot of shit gets added to game pass. And I've talked to a lot of people that have game pass that do the thing that I was doing where you're just like, that game. And then you add it and you never play it. So I feel like

Ultimate Sheep

Gerry (01:09:46.079)
A lot of times when a game like Routine, which I'll be honest with you, I forgot this game existed. I remember seeing this game years ago. I mean, like, I think this got announced in like 2017 or something. Like it got announced a long ass time ago. And when I see it and I was like, holy shit, this looks crazy. And then I forgot about it. And I feel like a lot of people did. And I don't feel like I've

seen a lot of people talking about it. I don't know about you guys, but like I haven't really seen a lot of people talking about this game. When I realized what game this was, like when I was like routine routine, why does that sound so familiar? And I was like, oh my God, yes, perfect. This is the game I've had on my radar for a very long time. But it's one thing for a game to be on your radar for a really long time, Metroid, and actually pull through and

Hmm.

give you something that's like, this actually blows my expectations out of the water for what this could have been. As an example, I mean, Aaron, I'm not gonna try to get you to gas my shit up, but I was just playing this before the pod and Aaron was watching me play it. And this game has an aesthetic. I think I talk, I talk.

I talked about it at some point. don't know if it was on this on the last podcast or when, but it has like that 19 late seventies, early eighties future sci fi look that's in like alien. It has that exact aesthetic. All the terminals that you go up to are like super like CRT was just like letters and like it's like DOS kind of thing. Right. But for a game that is

Gerry (01:11:42.218)
an indie game like this is, it is shocking how insane the sound design is. It goes way harder than it needs to. I'm talking like this game for me personally, this might be a hot take, but like this is on par with the first Dead Space for me because it is constantly making you be like,

Is that what the fuck is that noise? Is that like just the space station like moaning and groaning or like, is that something? I don't know what that is. Even Aaron, as he was watching me play, was like, dude, what the fuck is that noise? And I was like, I don't know, but it's freaking me out, dude. Like, I don't know what that is. And like, you do have, you have like a gun, I guess, but it's, it's part defense mechanism, but it's also like, it ties into puzzle solving.

And even the gun itself is a kind of a puzzle. You can press a button and you look at the gun and there's all these buttons and like all these slots that open up and you're just like, what the fuck is all this for? Like if you ever have to like change out modules and shit to your gun in the middle of like some hectic shit, it doesn't pause. It's like you're looking at your gun trying to figure out like, how do I change this setting? but yeah, it's just, it's, it's a fantastic horror game.

And it's not just a walking simulator. The aesthetics are like so good. Sound design is unbelievable. And I feel like this is such a good horror game that I literally have not really heard anybody talking about. I mean, I've seen a couple of things, like this should be way on people's radars right now. It's so good.

absolutely should be on people's radars, but it's not. So get out there and play it. It's on game.

Beth (01:13:44.43)
Okay. So then Greg, you go.

You go. You go.

New goal.

you

Well why don't you just FUCK OFF THEN!

Gerry (01:14:05.25)
can she slap me, sir? How can she slap me?

How could she's lying, mister, how could she's li- Okay, anyway.

You go.

Greg (01:14:18.392)
How can you snap?

Greg (01:14:23.7)
How can this happen? So Star Wars Outlaws came out early in the year and was buried almost before it came out because of the lowest common denominator of gamer. Basically the main character wasn't, they would say conventionally attractive enough or whatever or hot enough which is

It was already a woman and then she wasn't even a hard enough woman.

So it was already a woman. It was a woman of color.

god.

It was- it was- and- and she- and she didn't have big ol' bazooms and-

Gerry (01:15:08.166)
Ted snow ass no good for me

No, no, no, no, no dump truck or I guess in Star Wars, no cargo freighter.

No noticeable makeup.

No makeup, no nothing. bet if I went to Star Wars Outlaws Nexus mods, I would find mods that like turn her into just a fucking ghoul.

yeah she'd have like the big fake like space engines no she'd have like charity

Aaron (01:15:32.75)
space

They're not gonna give her nails, they're gonna give her tits.

Yeah, like, but plus, but

Yeah.

plus.

Aaron (01:15:43.125)
Space Snooki, man. Come on.

So a bunch of this game got and like, all that, it's also a Ubisoft game. And that was something that probably made normal people not look into it. What I will say is like, I haven't finished it, but I've been playing it quite a bit the last couple of days. If you are an enjoyer of stealth games, it is one of the most competent stealth games I've ever played.

Okay, so far. There are multiple ways. The game is so dynamic, like stuff is happening all the time. Like, I go on this mission, I find information. And in the game, there's there's you're playing like, like an outlaw, quote unquote, and there's three criminal organizations that you can, you can work with, and you have reputation with all of them. And when one goes up, one will go down, or vice versa, whatever the case may be. But so

As you do things, like for example, like I was doing a mission, I found some Intel on this mission and it was like, I had the option like after the mission to turn over the Intel I found to one organization or withhold it so I could go somewhere else and give it to the other organization. And that would affect my reputation. And then different reputations give you different rewards and they kind of all have their perks and play styles and things like that. Anyway.

It's, so dynamic and there's so much choice in the game and different ways things can go out. Cause there's not just one way to complete any mission. There's always like different approaches and things like that. So it's so cool. like you'll. Most of the missions I've played so far are usually centered around either infiltrate a place and steal something and then get out without being seen or get into a place, sabotage something. Et cetera. And so when you do this.

Aaron (01:17:23.565)
cool.

Greg (01:17:43.342)
You go to the area, you get your binoculars and you literally scope out the location and you can find routes and you basically make a game plan. then the game plan group is just actioning your game plan to the best of your ability. And it's fantastic. And if you fuck up, it's a bit hard. It's kind of, it's very much like a hitman situation.

I was actually even thinking of like the... I was thinking Tom Clancy... the wild... what's the wild? Wildlands.

I was thinking Dishonored,

Greg (01:18:14.504)
Wildlands. Yeah, there's some wildlands in there for sure. Yeah. There's some DNA there for sure. But it's just it's so well done in the Star Wars universe. And it it's the best kind of Star Wars because it it involves the world, like the setting of Star Wars. And it's not focused around like the Jedi, which is my has become like my least interesting branch of Star Wars. And yes, I prefer Star Wars. That's like about the world.

And it's so interesting and so well done and everything makes sense. you're, you're picking up allies and just picking up more and more intense jobs. And it's just, you see this growth and it's so dynamic. And to add to all of that, you've got this like axolotl cat lizard. Who's your pal? His name is Nix or its name is Nix. I don't know what's gender and you can dress it up.

What?

Yeah, you can dress it up. You get outfits for yourself, but you also get...

Rejection, your honor, pandering.

Beth (01:19:14.478)
You

You also get outfits for the Axe of Waddle. I can get him like a little bag to wear. That's new! Or like a little sash or something.

Stop it! Stop it!

Make your choice. on, Beth.

actually.

Gerry (01:19:29.56)
getting cut first.

Before I make any decisions, does anyone want to undercut anybody else by saying that how their game is more special or more of a gem than the other two?

I will.

Ultimate Sheep Raccoon has multiple different animals you can choose from. There's a sheep, there's a raccoon, a horse.

Does that make your game any better?

Beth (01:19:51.31)
You gotta uncut the other

I'm trying to talk about all the cute shit because Beth loves cute shit. You can put little knee pads on them. You can unlock cool helmets for them.

14 is like alien.

How does that undercut everybody?

When you hear an undercut, I'll give you an example, undercut.

Beth (01:20:07.542)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen to Greg undercut and then you.

No bikes in Star Wars Outlaws. There's no bikes in routine checkmate bitches. No. I hate bikes.

I do write a bike and you can write a bike in outlaws. You get the first thing you get. I've heard of routine. And the fact that I've heard of it.

boy. Want a war? Here we go. Here's the-

It's that hidden.

Beth (01:20:30.732)
Right, but everyone's heard of Star Wars Outlander.

Yeah, for sure, but the crux of Jerry's argument is that nobody's talking about it. Somebody's talking about it if I heard about it.

Okay, okay, yeah, you're undercutting his argument. Okay, yeah.

And that's how you want to cut.

Greg's game is a triple A game.

Beth (01:20:49.032)
Right, but his argument isn't that it's not being talked about. His argument is that it was.

It didn't get a fair shake.

So you gotta talk about how come yours is better than his.

But Jerry's is more hidden though.

I feel like routine is just one of those games that gets thrown on game pass and then just gets buried. That's my argument.

Greg (01:21:13.056)
saying I've I don't seek out horror games but I've heard of it

Gerry (01:21:21.326)
I haven't really heard a lot about

Yeah, like I didn't know about routine until Jerry said he was playing it in the last the last recording

Yeah, and I think here's here's here's where I'm at Here's what I'm at. I think ultimately I think I like if I had to pick I'm sorry Aaron you yours gotta go Two reasons two reasons you didn't do a good enough job of explaining what makes your game a hidden gem You sort of just talked about the gameplay And why that's a good game and that's totally fair

but you didn't kind of talk about what it kind of, you know, you missed the category of it.

What do mean? I said it came out like toward the end of the year and I explained why it's good and more people probably haven't played it because it came out at end

Beth (01:22:11.758)
you spend more time talking about- yeah, you spend- i'm just saying you spend a lot more time just talking about the gameplay, like from moment to moment

What else am I supposed to say though? Like, here's what? I'm con-

Yeah, and then when I and I think it's a good thing. It's I think it's a good quality to have You when then given the chance to undercut the other two games You just kind of said more things that were in your game I think that sort of Fundamentally and I think that's as great like I said your instinct isn't to say mean things about other things, which is a beautiful quality

He's got a scumbag like me.

Exactly, exactly, and that's a good thing, Aaron. I just think that...

Aaron (01:22:57.336)
How could I have explained how it's a hidden gem? That part I'm still stuck on. don't... What was I supposed to say?

For example, I think Jerry did an excellent job when he said that something about routine that makes it a hidden gem is the fact that a lot of shit comes to game pass and then disappears. Whereas this is something that, you know, while it can get buried in this thing, he still found it, played it, and therefore in the context of game pass, it's a hidden gem. It's my favorite argument out of why it is a hidden gem. On the other hand, you got to get rid of ultimate

On the other hand, once again, when I said undercut, if you want it to undercut, just don't think Jerry then followed through with the theming of that. Whereas I think Greg understands what it means to undercut something in a- Absolutely.

Delicious!

Listen, all I'm gonna say is you guys are not winning, big brother.

Beth (01:23:56.864)
No, thank you for understanding that this is a competition reality TV show moment. but I do think that-

Aaron was getting up to leave.

My cat keeps calling his wife

You're really like, fuck finish

Shit, I-

Beth (01:24:15.53)
I am!

I quit the pod, it's done.

Aaron's first and last. Super ghost goatee.

But I don't I don't think Craig I don't think Greg's initial argument was as strong as Jerry's I do get the it's kind of being Waylaid and put to the side and everything like that because of what's going on but You know, I Think ultimately I think Jerry had the best arguments. So I'm gonna I'm gonna go with routine

Gerry (01:24:57.77)
Yes.

Mm.

Yes.

Wait

I only thought of them. I only thought of the fact that you guys needed to kind of try and undercut each other because Aaron was backing you up too much and I was like I need to see something bad of every team I need you guys to be against each other. Okay, it's still

Aaron (01:25:18.081)
I

Aaron (01:25:23.224)
don't know enough about outlaws to say anything about it, but I also... The only thing bad I have against routine is that I didn't know about it until Jerry talked about it.

Which is exactly this category.

Hey, Greg, you know what? I think you really started getting me a little bit when you started talking about how, like, in context, it could be like a hidden gem in the stealth genre, but you never said those words, and ultimately I was like, okay, that just...

So turns out Beth is the hardest judge.

Yeah, cause I'm-

Gerry (01:25:59.342)
you

Because I'm here for the argument. You gotta argue why it's true, you're the most true. Because I think, you know, to each individual person, all these things are true for us, right?

true. Yeah. Now that brings us to our top five personal lists. So to recap, let's just go back up through this for a second. So we had the shit pant award, which was given to Greg with Eclipseum. We have the Mad Cat's award for the best multiplayer game that went to Marvel rivals, best pick.

And then we had- what? Give that one to Aaron.

No, it's your thing.

Greg (01:26:49.55)
I flew in the face of the system.

was our things. They said that we could do whatever we with our categories.

So waifu

no much like the American president I gave myself an award

The fucking wife in trouble.

Beth (01:27:13.579)
No

No, this is the Greg Waifu watch award. I put my name on it.

So then we got hidden gyms, which are the hidden gems of this year. And I got that one with routine. And yeah, now we're onto our top five lists. Yeah. So before we do this, let's take a quick commercial break.

Gerry (01:27:47.918)
All right, are we back? We're back? We're back. Okay, so the top five personalists, I guess, will go in the order that they are on the dock, I guess.

Makes sense.

Okay.

So this will be sort of short and sweet. We'll run down through our top five and then kind of give our flowers to each one of the nominees and then kind of gush about our personal pick of the year. And then we're gonna get into the hard one. We're gonna get into the game of the year. Okay, so I'll start off. My top picks. Number five, Absalom. Holy shit.

They managed to make a beat-em-up roguelike and they perfected it. It's one of the best roguelikes I've ever played, hands down. I haven't finished it yet. It's pretty difficult and there's a lot of content there, but it's really good. I absolutely encourage everybody to at least try this game or just get it. go get it. It's usually on sale. Number four.

Gerry (01:29:09.022)
I finally got my family to play video games together this year with Mario Kart World. We played the shit out of Knockout Tour. It became a staple. Every... It was becoming like a school night event. Like we'd be up late playing Knockout Tour. We couldn't put it down. was like every opportunity we had, we were hopping in a Knockout Tour. And then it evolved into

doing two player knockout tour online, which I won at one point, which was insane. I can't believe that I actually won a knockout tour online, because it is difficult. yeah, Mario Kart World. And look, say what you want. I kind of liked just getting fucking baked and riding around that fucking open world and being like, oh, look at that. What's that piece which doing up there in that little cloud up there? How do I get up

Like, I know, something about just roasting around Mario Kart in the open world was fun. Plus, Paris is Peach on that motorcycle. Number three, Chronos the New Dawn. Motherfucker, this game was so fucking good. If it wasn't for the fact that there was two other behemoth games, you probably already know what they are, that came out this year, this probably would have been my game of the year. I'm not even kidding.

fucking loved Chronos the New Dawn. It very much felt like a marrying up of Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 of like, was pretty fucking scary. As I said earlier with my category for the shit pan award, the two games that I had in mind when I was thinking about that were Chronos the New Dawn and Routine. Chronos the New Dawn scares the shit out of you a lot.

Like it's, it's nerve wracking. two.

Gerry (01:31:14.168)
Claire Obscura Expedition 33.

What can I say? This was, I I, I laughed, I cried, I came. No, I'm just kidding. But I mean, it was pretty fucking good. It, like, it just taught me that I need more traditional styled RPGs with a little bit of extra au jus to it, where like, I thought that taking a turn based RPG, but then adding in like,

perfect parries and timed hits, which I'm a sucker for. Like it just checked every single goddamn box that I had. like having an open, like not an open, sorry, having like a world map that was, you know, actually interesting to kind of poke around in instead of just being like this big open world. It was fantastic. I, I thought that the storytelling was amazing. Beth, I thought the storytelling was

Amazing

everyone's allowed their own personal opinions.

Gerry (01:32:21.278)
And I just, I loved every second of that game. I just, yeah, it was amazing. But it wasn't until my number one came along, because I thought, Clare Obscure's got this in the bag for me. Like, there's no way, there's no possible way that I could have Clare Obscure be.

way.

Be

And then last month Metroid Prime 4 came out.

Well, dude, I was so close to making specifically for Metroid Prime 4, making the category of biggest disappointment. I don't know if I've ever been more disappointed by a game since I've been playing video games. And that's I'm being real about that. I feel like that game was an insult to people that were fans of the franchise. That's all I'm going to say. Don't fucking buy that game. Don't do not give Nintendo the.

Gerry (01:33:14.21)
money for that game. I'll pirate that game. don't give a fuck. You put out and clip that. My number one is Hollow Knight Silksong. It came out and I went, yeah, I mean, okay, finally came out. It became it was one of those things where it was like it was a meme because it was taking so long out. And then when it did come out, I was like, yeah, I'll get to it eventually, I think.

I'll deal with.

Gerry (01:33:44.844)
then I was like, hold on. Hollow Knight was incredibly good. And I was trying to kind of like tell myself like, yeah, it was good, but like, there's no way that Silk Song can live up to this hype. God damn it, it did. It did live up to that hype. And let me tell you something. If you only got to act two, you're a bitch and you need to finish it. Because it does not end at act two.

It goes to act three into one of the most insane final boss fights I've ever played. Where I sent you guys a video of my hand after finishing this and it was like, I was trembling. couldn't, I was having like, I was going through the motions, I, the way that I like was crying by the end of

you

Gerry (01:34:43.8)
Claire obscure. I was almost crying at the end of fucking silk song, not because it was like, you know, moving me, even though the story was really cool. You're paying attention. It was just like, I've never ever felt that way before. Even like this, like again, I know souls games, but like they, they bring out a certain emotion from me when I play it from soft game or like a souls, like when they're really, really intense, like

But this boss was like, I can't barely put into words how insane it was to get to this boss in the first place. And then it just be, you had to be perfect. It had to be perfect. There was no room for error and you had to get fucking perfect. And just locking in on that final run,

And this was a theme that carried throughout the game with damn near everything that you encounter. mean, the second boss, or maybe it was the first, first or second boss in the game got nerfed because people were just like, nope, not playing this fucking game. This is out of control. this is the second boss. Why is, like, this is insane. This is impossible. And that's how I felt going into every single encounter in this game was like, this is fucking insane. This is impossible.

then you would just, would, something would click and you'd fucking figure it out. And the world itself too was just so goddamn nice, so good, so well constructed. The way it flips on its head towards the end is like, this game to me is deserving of a 10 out of 10.

And in a year where I thought there's no way after Claire obscure came out, there's no way that this can get dethroned. And it seemed like every game that was kind of coming out was like, yeah, no, still not as good as Claire obscure. Nope, still not as good as Claire obscure. And then that came around and it was, just, completely floored me. could, like, I have very little words to like, to describe how good this game is other than unfortunately throwing a number on it. And that number is a perfect 10 out of 10.

Gerry (01:37:10.028)
And that's why it's my game of the year. Hollow Knight Silksong. It's an incredible game.

Hell yeah.

I'll second that, hell yeah.

Gerry (01:37:24.608)
Anyways, on to the next. I'll hand the mic to you, Aaron. Go ahead.

Okay. Alright, mine, I did not write down in any order. I'm just gonna put it all together in my head. we're gonna start with, we're gonna start with Shinobi Art of Vengeance. Fucking awesome game. I've never played a Shinobi game before, but this one was just like a ninja Metroidvania with pretty fucking big open areas, lots of collectibles.

This cat's clawing his way in here again. Yeah, lots of collectibles. The bosses were fucking intense. Most of them were. Some were a little bit too easy. I don't know, maybe because I just unlocked so much fucking shit. And the different moves do you unlock? I don't know. The game was just really fun. The combat was really slick and bloody and fun. The next one is cooking companions. I can't...

Fucking, I know nobody else knows what this game is besides me and maybe Jerry and you guys, because I guess I've talked about it a couple times now, but...

I still don't know what it is.

Aaron (01:38:40.536)
Basically, it's like Doki Doki Literature Club, except like you're in a cabin with friends and you're cooking food for them because it starts off, know, you're staying in a cabin and then like dark shit happens that I'm not going to spoil fucking ever because I want people to go buy it and play for themselves. And it left it left such like a feeling in my stomach every time something happened, every time something gruesome happened in the story. I had to like.

Take a minute to process what happened and get up and maybe take a break and be like, God fucking damn, man. You left a mark on me. It's just good. That's cooking companions. Number three, I think I'm going to give to Hades 2. Because I really love the first game and Hades 2 took everything that made the first game fucking amazing and they cranked it up to double, if not triple.

They made the cast actually fucking useful. They had weapons that were way more inventive and more creative than they were in the first game. They added so much more cool shit to the game. Even like the characters and everything. It's a great game. Hades 2. Number 2. This is... This is really fucking tough for me, but I think number 2 is gonna go to Kirby Air Riders. The first...

Damn.

Yeah, the first Kirby Air Ride was like a GameCube favorite of mine growing up. I played the shit out of that game. I unlocked almost everything because there was a lot of shit that was just goddamn impossible to unlock. I got like every vehicle unlocked, almost every character unlocked. That game was just awesome. And Kirby Air Riders took, again, took everything that made the first game really good and fucking just tripled that, like quadrupled it even because the city trial is way

Aaron (01:40:38.19)
Way better. You can play it with friends. You can play it online with randos and beat the shit out of them because they don't know what they're doing. They have never played a Kirby air ride game before. This is the first one. Yeah, you can just come up right fucking behind them with the the wagon star with the fucking sword equipment just pop pop pop pop pop and they're dead and they lose all their power ups and you get them all and then you win the fucking target race at the end like, haha, bitch. My voice came out at the end of that.

losers

Aaron (01:41:05.55)
Yeah, Kirby Air Riders just rules and my number one is Mario Kart World because like so whoa. Yeah, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was like already one of if not my favorite kart racer. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe just has everything. It has awesome characters. It has like every track from probably fucking every single Mario Kart game known to mankind in that game. And it just looks good. It runs great.

And then you get to Mario Kart World. they've just made it. mean, sure, it's got less tracks, maybe. But the characters are actually like way cooler because like then fucking eight, have like gold Mario, pink gold peach, fucking metal Mario. You've got the Koopalings and all these characters. There's like 16 fucking different baby characters. Get out of here with that. Give me the garbage like the cow and the fish bones guy and fucking.

the fucking the mole dude with the the thing on his head and Like driving around the world like the open map. It just feels good Like it's not like burnout paradise or fucking need for speed like people wanted but it doesn't need to be because it's Mario Kart It's this big interconnected world that still feels interconnected when you're playing like Grand Prix or knockout tour because you'll drive for one race

Go down the road and follow that road down to the next track. Then do the sprint and repeat. And then the fucking knockout tour, dude. It's it's just a battle royale mode, but with cars and it just like Jerry and I play the shit out of these for a good what month or two. And then I I even started my own fucking Mario Kart World server with a bunch of people from a bunch of different servers because knockout tour was just so addictive.

And yeah, Mario Kart World just like it took just like I've said the past fucking five games took everything that we knew and love about like the game that came before it and it fucking choked it to death. And then it made something brand spanking new. Mario Kart World is just it's great.

Gerry (01:43:30.862)
Beth?

Okay. Okay. So, for my top five at five, I went with the wandering village, just a fun little like, city builder slash survival game. then ball pit ball pit was great. Very fun to play. Very addicting. had that one more run energy to it. And I kind of picked it up and was playing it.

at a time where I was kind of getting bored with a lot of stuff that I was, you know, trying out. So it was definitely a revitalized things in a good way. then I'm going to go with the hundred line last defense Academy. That was really good. yeah, yeah. So sit on gun ramp guys. And so, you know, the story is going to be that shit insane with a bunch of like twists and turns and

Long and rampagazer.

Beth (01:44:31.138)
This definitely was it. It was it was my only thing is is there's so much content. There's so much stuff to do in it. I still haven't done all the routes. There's like there's a hundred endings and each of those endings. There's like five or six main routes that you have to go through to get those endings. And so it's just kind of just a little bit.

too much to feasibly deal with at once. but the I'll say like the main scenario is really interesting. And you can kind of skip through a lot of stuff when you go through the main scenario second time to get kind of like another really good ending. And the combat is tower defense. And I think it's good. It's not. I like a good tower defense every now and again. So that was great for that.

Um, then I went with Hades too for my number two. Similar to what Erin said. I also feel like I loved Hades and then this was just Hades but better in almost every way. I, you know, better weapons or I liked the weapons more. I liked the casts. I liked the way that the, like the hub environment. liked more. I enjoyed more of the characters.

Also as a like Greek mythology nerd, seeing some more of these characters and how they decide to do them, especially since one of my favorites is Rakhne and seeing her and getting a bit of her story in their interpretation of it. Phenomenal, no notes. But my number one that I'm going to go with is, controversially, is Pokemon ZA is my

never won a in the year. okay. Get it, girl. Hell yeah, ZA was good. It almost made my top five.

Beth (01:46:39.374)
I'll say the things with ZA that really elevated it for me or got it to this number one position is that it is the most fun I've had playing, the most fun I had playing a game this year and the most fun Pokemon game that I played in a really long time. I haven't had this much fun playing a Pokemon game since maybe Sun and Moon, which I really adored. So like,

I think what they did with the going in, okay, for context, I'm definitely one of those people who with Pokemon games love the turn-based system and don't want it to go away necessarily. So when going into this game and knowing that they were kind of really changing up the combat so it was more real time, I was one of the people who were like, don't really know if I want this change or need this change. Like I love the turn-based, but.

I got so into it. think it's super fun the way that they interpreted certain Pokemon moves and then translated it into a real time battle. like if something had a higher miss chance, in the, like a lower accuracy in the turn based game, it made it so that there was like, it took longer for it to go off in the real time one so that people could, so you could run your Pokemon out of there. So it,

was a higher or like a less accuracy move. So the way they translated a lot of these turn-based things into real-time felt incredibly intuitive and natural. I think that in all of the ways that, I loved the, I loved the raid battles with the Megas. thought a lot of them felt, they felt really big. They felt great. You had to do like,

you memorize like certain patterns and stuff and there were like truly scary moments when like you this move would go off and then it was like kind of chasing behind you pounding down and you had to like just try and turn your like put your Pokemon back in the ball and just fucking run because it was like it's gonna get you so it I and I like that kind of flow the second you kind of got used to doing the the

Beth (01:49:02.026)
Z.A. Royale stuff at night against the trainers, then it was time to go into these rogue fights, which really changed up the pacing of how things were going. to me, it kept things like fresh and it didn't. So you just you wanted to keep going and getting to the next thing. And. I think the story was really it was interesting. I think that's kind of the only weak.

part is that I think it should have had voice acting because I think that would have done a better job at getting across a lot of the work that they put into giving each of these characters real personalities because that is also something I felt they did really good in this was each character was distinct. did feel like they had their own motivation and personality that wasn't just tied to the main character.

or what your journey was, it was actually you coming into their story in a lot of ways. Yeah, just over-end what it did with expanding upon a lot of the lore for X and Y, phenomenal. I think that what the Legend games should be doing is expanding on the lore that is touched on in these base games. So it did a good job there. I think in every way the game did

set out to do what it had wanted to do and what it intended to do. And then I just, I know that you have people who are still going to talk about like the graphics and then the way that the world was generally, you know, the saminess of things, genuinely at no point while I was playing this game, did the fact that the walls looked the same in a lot of places affect how much I had fun?

doing everything in it. Like it really is a non, like it's a non factor. And so I don't know. I, I, I truly, truly, truly love that game. And, the way that even the expansion, when they added a lot more to it, you get a bunch of new characters. One of my favorite characters. my gosh. One of my, characters, one of my favorite Pokemon from sword and shield.

Beth (01:51:19.278)
is in got added in the DLC and I caught it and then I threw it out of its ball so that I could see how it looked modeled in the ZA. And it looks so cute. I like, I love you. I love Grafaii. It looks so good. I okay, another slide.

Scarlet Violet not Sword and Shield

sorry, my bad. Yeah, Scarlet Violet. Another... I know that guy. I guess one kind of last thing about it, I guess slightly two more things. One, sort of what I was saying with Corbeau, I like that a lot of the people that you work with, like your characters gets involved with are either villains, former villains.

I know that guy. guys got that guy's awesome.

Beth (01:52:09.624)
characters that are morally gray. Like there's a lot of conversation, a lot of stuff that happens with characters and no one is squeaky clean good guy in this. So it does kind of explore those themes a little bit, which I really appreciate and I really liked. And then this is like a technical thing. For the past few generations, I feel like they've really desaturated the colors, especially of the Pokemon themselves.

And this one, those colors are back like Dragonair is orange again and. No, Knight, Dragon is orange and like, but mean, the colors are and Charizard looks. Like Charizard again, Charizard looks like Charizard again.

Dragonair is orange?

Greg (01:52:58.286)
That's something I notice every time I look at scarlet and violet footage. It's how washed out all the colors are.

Yeah, and it's for the Pokemon itself, it's been like that since they put them into like 3D. So X and technically since X and Y, they've been washed out. And now with the ZA game, which is like, you know, the companion piece to X and Y, they finally gave the Pokemon their color back. And I'm so appreciative and I'm very happy. And it just. I love it. I think it's I love ZA. I get why people

want to be upset about it and you know, everyone has a right to feel however they want about what they like. Let them be upset. I just I just think that it's like people who are upset about it either haven't played the game, don't even are not even Pokemon fans, but are just trying to dunk on it because it's, know, such a large franchise or, know, never discount people who actually played it and it's just not for them.

Thanks.

Beth (01:54:03.34)
Like, you know, not every game is for everybody, like not every experience is...

Yeah, like it's not like Metroid Prime 4 where it's just a solid don't fucking play that game.

Yes. just, I just, I really love it.

It was really fun. I want to just a real like real fast thing I want to add to is like I got so like I went down a rabbit hole for a little bit with like the lore and the story of Legends ZA that I went and bought Pokemon X or Y. I which one I went and bought one of those games because I was like what the fuck because there's that point where you're like in the basement of whatever and you're looking at that rock and they're like this rock could do super cool things. I forget exactly. And then

A lot of other shit happens and I was like, what the fuck? And I went on the X and Y wiki and I was like, okay, guess it's time for me to play X.

Beth (01:54:55.918)
No, no, like, no spoilers. I cried after the, after the, the end credits scene, um, for- What? What made me cry? I was really upset.

man made you cry

Aaron (01:55:07.712)
The whole ending sequence is a lot like it's without spoiling anything because It's very it's anime as fuck. It's it's nuts

it's so good, it's so fun, anyways, it's really good, i feel like, know- that's kind of been my honestly, genuinely my only real criticism

But no voice acting.

Beth (01:55:32.078)
Yeah, it is, right? Like that's why I was like, so much. I do think that it should, it not having voice acting was such like a miss. Such an

Yeah.

At this point, I feel like they're just digging their heels.

Yeah.

For what though?

Greg (01:55:50.519)
No one knows why, but it's just that this is the hill they've chosen to die on.

Which is such a stupid hill.

It is.

Speaking of hills to die on I I forgot to give an honorable shout out. during my my thing to baby steps. Cuz you'll die on that

You'll die on that hill.

Gerry (01:56:09.134)
all the way back down to the beginning of the hill.

Yeah.

I've got a ZA question. it's obviously Zygarde's the guy in that game. Are Xerneas and Evaltel in the game? they play a role or are they just there?

Not

No, they don't play any role really. After you see end credits, you can do a side quest that gives you little bit more information about some of the characters and then a bit more information about Xerneas and Zygarde and then they show up and you can catch them.

Gerry (01:56:46.158)
Peace,

names. well. I mean like Xerenaeus is gonna be no it's it's it's ZA it doesn't matter never mind.

Yeah. By the way, Jerry Zygarde supposed to be a play on zygote? Because he's supposed to be like, uh, his zero form is like an embryo or whatever, like a zygote, or not an embryo, I guess it's an embryo and a zygote around the

Single cell organism. But with that, I am done and time for Greg.

time for Greg to hit us up

Greg (01:57:20.72)
My first Greg, my f- It was a banner year.

Yes, tell us.

In a year where I would, we touched on the beginning and most years I play three, maybe four games that came out in the year. My friends, I played 10.

Way to

Yeah, this doesn't happen. So I'm not going to go through all 10. I will go through the top five. Number five, for all the reasons already mentioned, 80s 2.

Gerry (01:57:55.47)
Hell yeah.

Just like Hades 1, but better. Yes. In most ways. The biggest way that it's better is actually with the redesign of Chaos.

Phenomenal.

I truly think that that game would have been somewhere on my list had I played. I only played a little bit of it so far, so I can't.

I love number four. Number four. Claire obscure expedition 33. Beautiful soundtrack. Fully like I love being able to make a build and run with it. A story that had me gripped. It was all around a good time. If. If Act three had more direction, it might be higher.

Greg (01:58:48.696)
But otherwise, it's good. It's good. liked it. Number three, Monster Hunter Wilds. Rock solid Monster Hunter game. The open world is unnecessary, but it's still fucking good as hell. And if the PC performance were better, it might even be number one. But unfortunately, it's not. Yes.

You

But what's interesting is that the big PC performance patch is coming out next month, exactly one year from release. And historically, Monster Hunter games release on PC exactly one year from the console release. we're keeping true to the tradition. My number two surprise game out of nowhere, because I didn't play the two previous titles in the series, is Doom the Dark Ages.

The

Aaron (01:59:47.553)
Hell yeah.

Holy sh-

This game, this game fucking ripped and tore ass. was. It was so fucking good. It was nonstop action. The gameplay with the addition of the shield. When I first saw the shield, I was like, a shield? That's not very fun. But then when you when you get the shield and you're like running around at doom speed through the level and like landing parries and throwing that fucker and and like.

So.

Aaron (02:00:05.88)
That's not

Greg (02:00:18.85)
blasting shit with a shotgun while the music is going insane. And it's just, it's nonstop. is like the definition of a power fantasy in a way that isn't cringe. Like it's

Yeah

Beth (02:00:33.572)
Mm-hmm.

It's adrenaline. It's pure adrenaline.

It's so good. like, it's exactly, it's a power fantasy. like, I was never overly challenged too hard in the game. I could have up the difficulty, but I was just having a good time. But everything I did was as fun and as cool and as interesting as the last thing I did. It was absolutely just a blast start to finish. And I finished it and I was like, that was a good ass game.

I still cannot believe that you haven't gone back and tried either 2016 or

You know what's interesting? I haven't I haven't tried to turn about 2016. It hasn't been able to hold its hooks into me. This fucking game did. And I think what lots to do with it is like the medieval setting like that medieval setting. I think having like it's the medieval sci fi combination turns out is like my favorite thing. It worked so well, it worked so well for this great Spanish. Yeah, maybe. My number one game. For the year of our Lord, 2025.

Gerry (02:01:38.222)
you

Gerry (02:01:43.598)
I know exactly what the fuck.

So I have got a lot of games played on my PC. My longest played game is Final Fantasy 14, surprise to no one. This game broke into the top three, dethroned Baldur's Gate 3. I have played this game three and a half hours more than Baldur's Gate 3. It's only behind Elden Ring at 212 hours.

I know what this is.

at 186 hours played, my game of the year 2025 is.

Uma Musume Pretty Derby.

Aaron (02:02:24.174)
man, I knew it.

This game, Jerry, you can hide your face. Let me tell you something. This game is fucking good and it doesn't cost a cent. is so. I got it. It is so goddamn good. It is better than it. Like they didn't have to even have to make a good game because fucking Peter Weaves are going to spend all their money to get their like their all the white people come out all the time. But they went and made a goddamn good game behind it. And so.

do it one night with you, I'll wash it.

Greg (02:02:56.832)
I don't know if I've ever talked fully at depth about what the game is with any real clarity, but you just go through it and you go through one of your horse girls. This is the horse girl game if people are unaware, but you go through the game and you take your horse girl through her entire schooling and her schooling in this case is learning to be a better racehorse.

crazy

But basically you, you, it's, get, two trainings per month and it lasts three years in game. and so the, and the three years is basically a one part of the game. And so you take your character and you choose how you want to train them throughout each month. and then you run races to get skill points and you choose the skills they, they earn skills and you choose skills by doing that and you build up their stats. And that's the main loop of the game.

But the reason why you do that main loop of the game is that you can enter them into races online. And it's not like a live multiplayer thing, but basically you set up a lineup of your team and then your team will be put against another player's team. And then the results are tabulated based on stats and skills that are selected and the way you've decided to train them. And it is so engaging.

to try to build up your horse girl in the most perfect way possible. It is so fucking good. And then they introduced these things, which are like the tournaments, and then that's where you do these races for actual stakes. And then the way they do it is if you're not playing on whale mode, you can play on normal person mode, they give you a...

Greg (02:04:52.75)
a stat point cut off. the it's I think it's at a B ranking, which is works out to boot like a stat number. It's it's it's it's numbered, but it's a stat number of like 1200. But that's the thing with that is is that when you're making your you're raising your horse girls, you don't ever see what that number is.

so it's like a hidden style?

It's a hidden stat to get that, that, that letter grade. so when you're going through like that, that gaming loop of doing the training, you, you have to kind of almost do it by feeling and be like, know this, if I choose these stats, that's they're pretty heavy, heavily weighted. So it's going to push me into B plus or higher. And I will be that, that course girls are eligible for the tournament. Or if I don't take enough step of these skills or train enough of this.

albeit like B minus or lower, and then I'm no longer competitive. So you have to do it in a way that threads the needle. And there's something so satisfying about getting like within like 10 points of B. Because you do see the hidden stat at the very end of your run, but you don't see it during your run. Yeah. And so doing all that and like playing the game, it's endlessly rewarding.

just like.

Greg (02:06:10.028)
And because the game has existed in Japan for a long ass time, there is new content all the goddamn time. they're doing like, they're doing an accelerated release schedule to get to kind of get up to parody with Japan. So every month is a new event or, there's a new, there's new like trainees coming up all the time. it's fucking awesome. Awesome. Yeah.

Hell yeah, dude.

Hell yeah.

Fuck.

I recommend it to everybody. I realize that nobody's going to play it, but just trust me. It's a good ass game.

Aaron (02:06:45.198)
These are some good top fives. like that there was a lot of fucking, I mean there was some overlap, but there's a lot of variety.

There's a lot of variety here now. We will get in to the big boy. The Super Ghost game of the year. We're here. We're almost there.

Now, do me a favor. Add my two that, My three, sorry, that were not on...

oooo

Sumi, anyway. Disrespecting my game.

Gerry (02:07:17.546)
the fifth

Beth (02:07:23.448)
Very disrespectful Jerry.

How interesting.

know man the other room the dark ages and what else did we have here for the

Doom the Dark Age.

you

Greg (02:07:35.263)
Monster Hunter Wilds.

Monster is not there.

Alright. Edit point. Can you fix Hollow Knight?

Hello

Leave it in there. Leave in my stupidity.

Aaron (02:07:51.47)
was that space.

hollow space night. Capital N.

Always.

I don't care about the capital, I just want space.

Bass Night, now we're talking.

Beth (02:08:05.92)
Isn't it? it's Space Night!

Did I miss anything? Because you had higher obscure and was the other one?

Hades too. Okay. Yeah, that's so bad.

We have it there.

All right. So.

Gerry (02:08:25.87)
The way that we do this, we are going to now whittle this down to a top 10. Then we will decide what that looks like if we want to lock it in and what the number one looks like. I usually suggest trying to find ones that someone may say they want to sacrifice to say like, hey, let's just get this out of the way now. I don't know if this hangs with the top 10.

We can go through those now to kind of get them out of the way. Because I mean, just looking at this list, this is just me. We know Hollow Knight Silksong, Clare Obscure, probably...

used to.

E

Yes, Hades 2, maybe Mario Kart World. These are going to be in that list. know that.

Beth (02:09:25.611)
I'll jump in and say get rid of ball pit, hundred line, and the wandering village.

I played ball pit. I liked ball pit a whole lot. It was just shy. was just shy of number five.

more than a few...

Okay, well then get rid of 100 line and the wandering village. I'm not fighting for those.

Yeah, get rid of cooking companions.

Gerry (02:09:47.928)
Yeah, okay.

Get rid of Doom the Dark Ages and Monster Hunter Wilds.

Really? You don't want Doom the Dark Ages in the top 10?

No one else here played it. you played it, but no one else had it on list.

Doesn't matter. I'll still vouch for it. I can still back it. I like the game. It just wasn't in my top five.

Aaron (02:10:11.415)
It's fr-

It doesn't have to be like, you know, because like no one else had Pokemon, but I'm going to fight for Pokemon for a while until I

Yeah.

You said the cut

Yeah, caught it.

Greg (02:10:25.038)
Alright then don't cut any of my, actually no, cut Monster Hunter Wilds. Yeah? Yeah, maybe next year when it gets the PC pack.

I hear

Jerry's gotta cut some of his. He's gotta cut...

You gotta get me some cuts.

Beth (02:10:45.742)
Get rid of Kronos or Absalom.

You know, think Absalom needs to go over Chrono. I'm not willing to give up Chrono.

definitely deserves to be in at least a top

I'm fighting over...axing either...S...Shinobi? Or...Kirby?

Well, we only have to ask one more. think one, two, three.

Greg (02:11:16.322)
think it would, if it were me, like...

I would probably do Shinobi. Good though it was.

Did you play it too, Greg?

I know.

No. Yeah.

Gerry (02:11:35.446)
I have it. I bought it. I just haven't played it yet.

Shinobi, but Axe.

I feel like Kirby means more to you than Shinobi does.

But what was a better game though, Was it Kirby?

Definitely Kirby. I could pump way more hours into Kirby than I could Shinobi.

Gerry (02:11:53.358)
So we have our 10, but they're not in the right order yet. don't, definitely not. But we have our 10. So we have Hollow Knight Silksong, Clare Obscura Expedition 33, Chronos the New Dawn, Mario Kart World, Hades 2, Kirby Air Riders, Pokemon ZA, Ball Pit, Uma Masumei,

know what it was if you spelled it correctly.

I'm gonna with Musume. Doom the Dark Ages. That's our 10.

I would... What do we think should go last? Like each of us picks something we think will go last.

I'll do it. I'll do the honors. I'll put Kronos on the bottom here. I don't know if anybody else feels like it deserves to be higher than number 10. I really, really like this game. would put this above Doom the Dark Ages, but I understand that not everybody liked this game.

Beth (02:12:56.632)
I think the level of passion you have for Kronos outweighs any level of passion I have for ball pit. Like I like ball pit a lot, but like I don't think, you know, like

I like bulk it a lot, I'm not passionate about it.

Jerry, Jerry!

Greg's like taking his clothes off me like, fuck, it's time.

I just think that like... Ball pit is like really fun and...

Greg (02:13:22.286)
It's just a good video game.

It is,

And it is, but like, I don't know, there's something about like, the way that Jerry has described Kronos the New Dawn to me, regardless of whether or not I want to play it, I'm like, I get why is like Jerry really thinks this is just like a good game.

Now, counterpoint. This is how Jerry describes every game he likes.

It's real.

Greg (02:13:46.584)
with the passion of a thousand burning suns. Jerry's a man of extremes. There's no middle ground. either the best game he's ever played or the worst game he's ever played.

True, true, true. Well, then I'll have to... Where would you put ball pit? The people who played it, where would you put it?

I'd put

I haven't played it yet.

Yeah.

Greg (02:14:07.036)
That's fine, Aten.

Would you be mad if Kronos the New Dawn was above ball?

No, not at all.

That's what I mean, like you seem like you would want to Like put it at 9. Like put Kronos at 9. Last-

You know what? I would even say put Kirby... Noooo

Greg (02:14:43.854)
Doom the Dark Ages is fine at seven, I think.

I mean, I don't disagree with that, but I also think that for me personally, I thought that Chronos the New Dawn was better than Doom the Dark Ages. I know that they're totally different games, but for me personally playing that game, I thought that that Chronos was the better game, but like, I don't know. I do want to get.

Kirby air riders, but that's on my list. I want to get this game I don't want to pay fucking $100 for it, but I want I do want to game and I think the thing that I I do see as One of Kirby air riders is strong points is just how much goddamn content there is Like there's it seems like there is a lot and I feel like it's one of those things that you you will continue in you will continue to go back to this and

Yeah.

Gerry (02:15:44.77)
you'll continue to play it. don't know because I've never played any of those Kirby Air Rider games. I threw on the GameCube one for a second.

back you up. There's four game modes and then there's just shit tons of unlockables across every single mode on top of being able to customize every single vehicle with decals and all sorts of other shit.

fucking RPG cooked into this thing?

Yeah, kind of an RPG. Yeah, like a single-player mode like with like a gigantic huge final boss that unlocks even more shit at the end When you beat the final boss at the end of the the road trip mode and Kirby air riders it unlocks a brand spanking new Legendary vehicle. It's huge. It's Stupid how big this fucking thing is it's not see that's so

So flip Doom and Kirby then.

Gerry (02:16:38.774)
How would you feel about Chronos being above?

I wouldn't feel good about it.

You

So you wouldn't entertain the idea of Chronos being eight and Doom being nine?

Anybody else?

Aaron (02:16:55.982)
I haven't played it.

I don't have a strong, yeah, I know.

Okay, okay. I was pushing my luck to get into this list and then I got it to nine. I should just leave it alone. I leave it. I'm gonna leave it.

I think Claire Obscure we could probably... Should be six. Yeah, because the other ones, the other remaining five are like our top ones.

Not a chance. Not let.

Beth (02:17:21.899)
No way. Absolutely. 100%.

this happen.

I'm not putting Mario Kart World below fucking Clare Obscure.

What?

Now that I'm looking at this list above the six it's getting

Greg (02:17:39.15)
I would say, would for some, here's the thing with with Claire Obscure. I had a great time. I beat it. I don't see a world where I ever play it again.

And the thing is, like to what Aaron said, the rest of these are like our number ones and then like Hades two and Hades two was on basically all of ours except for yours, Jerry. Like I am 100 % willing to even just put Pokemon Z at five. I just want it to be in the top five. But I think ultimately that leaves clear obscure as the odd one out.

Gerry (02:18:20.674)
I think Claire Obscure absolutely should be above Mario Kart World.

Well, it's three to one.

I would say one of them should be at number 6.

Because I don't care for Mario Kart World. Not that I've ever played it, but I don't have a strong feeling about Mario Kart World. One of them should be six.

happened to me?

Beth (02:18:44.684)
Mario Kart World was Aaron's number one, right? As much as like Jerry loves Claire Obscure and Greg's like, wow, that was really good and I don't want to, like, you know, not gonna play it again. It was like a one and done thing. And that, you know, Aaron, I know that you feel pretty good about it. I hate that game.

Yeah.

Aaron (02:19:06.206)
I hate do I? You hate racing games in general?

No!

Not until the very end, think Act 3 as a whole is incredibly poorly

oh i thought you were about mario kart, i'm sorry, talking about clare obscure

Mario Kart's Act 3 when the Toadkid-

Beth (02:19:22.198)
I think it was good. I think that the type of story and the thing that it wanted to get across really hinged on how it was gonna like land. it, to me, it fucking fell apart so fast. It was like it did, it was like a gymnast and it was running and it vaulted off of that, like, you the vault horse and it did a bunch of twirls and then it hit, landed faced.

first so hard it broke some bones and somehow hurt an audience member. Like it was so piss poor.

time to recreate this again.

I could go on for a long time, obviously, but I just think that ultimately- It was a bad- no, both of them are bad endings. No, it isn't, Jerry! They're both bad endings! The way that it character assassinates both Mael and Verso in that last bit is so stupid, and it completely sidelines most of the characters.

What was the bad ending?

Beth (02:20:21.026)
The whole game it talks about for those who come after, which means nothing by the end of the game. So fuck saying any of that. Like it really fucking falls apart. It's so bad at that ending. And that's the strongly.

in

It might.

And I get-

Little bit better than Mark.

Aaron (02:20:41.254)
I know about that man. Like I liked I liked Claire Obscure and I think I got to the part after you beat all the the fucking Titans or whatever the big things the like there's Yeah, yeah There was like the the sewing lady. Whatever I beat those two and then I fell off pretty hard because I just The story wasn't going in the direction I wanted because I thought I was gonna go into like a Final Fantasy No, I

axion.

Beth (02:21:10.594)
He didn't

See? It's not that good. thought I was gonna go- Listen, I thought I was gonna go in like a Final Fantasy X type direction. And then I a lot of people that- Yeah.

All right.

A lot of people see it's not just me. Also, I had a friend who actually still likes the game and stuff and then messaged me and was like, I get why you hate this game though. Like the third act is so bad.

Beth (02:21:40.576)
Now you can put, you can put Pokemon ZF5 and I'm done. I'm done.

Alright, Pokemon ZA, number five. Yep.

Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, I don't have a strong argument for anything past Pokemon ZA now. at this point, I mean, I think Hades 2 should probably be number 2. That's just my gut feeling. I don't mind seeing a Hades 2 at 2 and Mario Kart World at 3.

so we know what number one is.

think I'm with Jerry on number one.

Greg (02:22:21.9)
Number one is, Umemusume, pretty derby. Not so fast guys, no not so fast.

Look,

Gerry (02:22:36.984)
So we want, are we okay with this?

I think,

swap these two.

Go for it. Go ahead Beth.

You in the air?

Greg (02:22:52.552)
No, I would put Hades 2 Game of the Year. Yeah, I would.

Really? Okay, well, how about, okay, then I'll say, Greg and Erin talk out whether Uma Musume or Mario Kart World should be at.

No, number three put Mario Kart World. I don't goddamn agree, but...

No, flip them. You can flip them. You can flip them. Mario Kart World.

Jerry you also had Mario Kart World.

Gerry (02:23:26.754)
Well... I...

Gerry (02:23:33.602)
Like I really do love Mario Kart World. I do. I have not played it in a while.

Would you think she'd be on 3rd 4th

Gerry (02:23:44.45)
I think it should be a three.

Gerry (02:23:49.762)
How's everybody feel about that?

I'm feeling it.

You're all gonna do what you're gonna do. So whatever.

Greg (02:24:00.846)
Hello, and at Hayes.

Are we calling it?

You- No! Greg thinks Haiti should be number one.

It's already in that order Hollow Knight. No, no,

Yeah, number two is Hollow Knight. Number one is Hades, is what I say.

Beth (02:24:18.286)
That's what he said.

I think there's enough overlap for Hades to be number one.

Okay, who here has played Hollow Knight? Raise your hand. Okay, who here has played Hades 2? Raise your hand. I can't raise my hand, so I'm gonna shake my head.

Yeah, shake your head.

Throwing a wrench in this. I played Hades too but I Hollow Knight should be number one.

Aaron (02:24:45.614)
Well...

I think that...

What's the story of Hollow Knight Silksong?

really like the story of Polonite Silksong actually. is definitely, it does have a more actually direct story than the first one. That is for sure. I Hornet is a much better characterized person, like a full-fledged character. You get a lot of personality. She has lot more, she has dialogue because she's not a hollow husk. she

Not more started than you think, yeah.

Beth (02:25:20.226)
definitely has agency that she pushes through the world and through the story. There is story there, but that's not actually why I think that it should be. The story is pretty good, but it's not anything crazy or special. What I think is really in Hollow Knight's favor is that it is an incredibly thought out

and well-designed map as well. Everything feels so curated and intentional in that game. to the point where when you're going through... So I didn't play, I watched someone play it and it was breathtaking at times. the world design is gorgeous. It's so, like I said, everything feels really thought out.

when you're going through that world. There are incredible moments, like there was a moment, I didn't even play it, but watching someone do the, there's a moment where you're coming up from after you had gone kind of like down. And then the lava starts rising and the music swells. And then you're like having to do all these like quick platforming things because the lava is rising up.

That was insane.

Beth (02:26:47.848)
and it like you're you're holding your I'm not like you say I'm not playing I'm holding my I can't breathe I'm

I have to call 911 fucking let me that

Let me ask you, is there a world where you will play it?

I tried. I bought, played, I had seen, I watched someone play it. I was so enamored with the game itself. I did try and play it. I got my ass kicked so much that I couldn't get through it. But I don't think that, that is like, that's, that is the game to be fair. Like that's, is the game play style of it. It's meant to be hard as nails. I would love it if it wasn't, cause then I would be able to play it. But I,

think that it just because of that doesn't mean it doesn't deserve to be talked about as game of the year.

Greg (02:27:38.995)
Why didn't it make your list?

Because I didn't finish it. And I don't put anything I didn't finish on my game. Yeah, because I think that it deserves to be number one game of the year. That doesn't mean that's my, my personal list are games that I played finished and then we'll put there. If Jerry had let me, I would have even put games that weren't from this year on that. But those were the parameters.

But it gets to be number one.

Beth (02:28:05.762)
And then the parameters of this one is just what should be game of the year. And I think that Hollow Knight Silksong is more deserving or not more deserving. Both of them are deserving. But I think that Hollow Knight ekes it out because of how well it was done and how well it was crafted. I also just want to say that like, this is a game that came out with so many delays, a lot of like silence, and it lives up to every person's expectation who

wanted this game and that is such a rare thing that happens that you know

I don't think it did though. For a lot of people, but there are, would say a good number of people that were put off by the difficulty who loved. the amount of people I saw who who were like, like Hollow Knight is like my wife's favorite game. And like, she's not playing silks on anymore. She's really upset by it. I saw, I saw a lot of talk like that.

It did for a lot of

Beth (02:29:04.236)
Yeah, I guess, I got also like alternatively

Yeah, yeah, cuz a lot of like there was the difficulty that turned off a lot of people

But alternatively, if we're gonna just use anecdotal evidence, my cousin was like the biggest fan of Hollow Knight that I've ever experienced. And Hollow Knight not only met his expectations, but surpassed them.

So like we can anecdotally go along like person to person and how they felt about it. I just think that like crafted like it's just so meticulously crafted and so good.

I think the same could go for Hades too as well though.

Greg (02:29:42.574)
Hey, you also had a long wait for it as well.

It also had years in open beta where people could comment on it and argue whether or not things should or shouldn't exist.

and the game is better for it.

But I'm saying that like, there's not the same scenario.

I mean, it doesn't matter. The end result is a good game.

Beth (02:30:05.004)
Yeah, and so is Silksong.

I'm not saying it's not, I'm saying it's not, I'm just saying.

I think.

So what's the pitch for Hades 2?

I I would just say it's the Super Ghost game of the year. Hades 2 was on three or four lists in high positions. It's a good ass game. We all enjoyed it. We all played it.

Aaron (02:30:29.006)
Here's my pitch for it. So like, so you have Hades in already 10 out of 10 game. I feel like Hades to. Kind of just like, guess, how the fuck do I explain it? up the ante or like. Raise the bar. Yeah, elevated it. It really up to the bar for what we could even try to expect from the next Hades game, which I mean, I guess Hollow Knight Silksong did the same thing. Hollow Knight was already

probably out of 10 game for a lot of people and still song to the same thing that Hades 2 did. But Hades 2. Like we've all like the three of us said earlier, took everything from the first game, cranked it up just to a million, made the game way more like way better. There's more weapons, there's more things you can do to customize Malinoui. And I think Malinoui is a much, much more interesting character than Zagreus in lot of ways, because Zagreus was just like

Me need escape, go see mama. But Malinui is like, I'm like, she's on this quest to rescue her family who is right now dead, but she has to figure out a way to go back in time. Spoilers. What?

Greg doesn't like Milena way more than he Agrius.

God, Well, I'm too. Well, there's two different routes you can go, you know, the surface and the underworld and even just in those two worlds, there's just way more to the game. I just feel like there's just there's a shit ton of game to Hades to. And I mean, a lot of the argument I feel like I could make for Hades to you could also make for Silksong. But at the end of the day, like. I liked the first Hollow Knight, but I just.

Aaron (02:32:15.438)
I don't know, I just don't really give a shit about Silk Song. anything, I... Hades 2 would be my pick for number 1 in this, so I think we're just gonna need to leave it up to a fucking coin toss or something.

The day Hades 2 came out of Early Access, I purchased it. Silksong has been available to me without the cost of money because I already pay for game pass for months and months and I have yet to feel a desire to download it. And I played Hollow Knight. I liked Hollow Knight, but I don't feel a draw to play Silksong. Nothing against it. just don't, I don't feel the the need, like the urgent need that I felt with Hades.

soon.

Greg (02:32:56.866)
And that hate is like immediately

I almost put off silk song. was I mean if you go back with this is what's crazy about this and this is why the heel turn is happening is

Who's turning?

like, well, I did like on this game, if you guys don't remember on record, I was like, I don't get what the big fucking deal about this game is like, like, okay, it's, it's, it's the follow up to Hollow Knight, like, okay, whatever, like, it's, there's too much hype around it, whatever, I was kind of trash talking it. And I remember saying for like, four episodes in a row,

I remember this.

Aaron (02:33:34.604)
Team Cherry, an apology.

I'm sorry, Team Cherry. I owe you a massive apology for being like, I don't get what the fuck is the big deal about this game. And I was so close to just not playing it because I was like, I was like you. I was like, yeah, I remember liking Hollow Knight. It was a good game. like, wasn't, it's not like one of the best games I've ever played. It's not even one of the best Metroidvanias I've ever played. So I was like, yeah, okay.

was oh, silk song is probably going to be pretty good. And I just kind of didn't really think about it until in my group chat with two of my buddies. I like I missed a like a night's worth of conversation and it was like 142 messages and I was like, what the fuck are we talking about here? And I'm like reading through and they both bought silk song and started playing it.

You squ-

Gerry (02:34:30.742)
And we're both like, holy shit. Did you fucking see this thing? Did you do this? And I was like, is the game good? And they were like, dude, you got to fucking play this game. And I was like, God damn it. All right. I'll fucking buy it. And I was, I'll never forget this. I was actually in Calgary for work. I was in a hotel room and I had my switch to with me and I just went, fuck it. I'm going to buy this right now. And I bought it. And I, I swear to God, I was so close to just being like,

Whoa, whoa.

Gerry (02:34:59.618)
Yeah, I guess I'm not working tomorrow. I'm going to stay in this hotel and just play silk song until I have to leave. Because like I couldn't even get to sleep. I bought it at like seven o'clock at night and it was like 1230 and I was like, fuck, I got to go to sleep, man. I couldn't put it down. Could not put it down. And I was like going through the motions of my head like, but I, but I said so much about this game. I've said so much that

I didn't understand. didn't care. didn't, I didn't like, I'm tired of people hyping this fucking thing up. And then after I played it, I fucking got it, dude. Like I, I understood why people were freaking out about this game. So that's the heel turn I'm talking about is the fact that I was so in your camp earlier this year before it came out. And before I actually threw it on, I was like, okay, now, now I get it.

I get it now. And the more I played it, I was like, wow, this is like completely blowing my expectations out of the water. Like it went so much harder than the first one and just kind of in the same way that you say, talk about Hades too.

first one and just made it fucking a million times better.

So here's the problem.

Aaron (02:36:21.74)
Yeah, both. argument we could make for either game is going to apply right to the other one. feel like we're in.

The problem is that this year there's four of us. And so we have now entered the territory of a true stalemate. So what I foresee, I'd say there are two options presented to us. Number one, we all hold hands and we have a co-game of the year. Option two is we leave it up to the listeners to break the tie.

can I say like one more thing? We can- Absolutely. I'll say, Aaron, have you- You played 80s 2. Have you watched a playthrough of Hollow Knight?

To them.

Aaron (02:37:10.69)
Like the, you're talking about silk song, right? Just to make sure I understand. Yeah. I mean, I haven't watched the full, I've watched a little bit of it. I've seen lots of, I've read lots of blogs about it. yeah.

So no. Then Jerry, have you, you played Silksong? Have you watched a playthrough of Hades 2? Sir, no.

I've played Hades too. I'm playing Hades. Have I watched, like a full-

Okay, then Greg, I'm assuming you haven't. I have not. Okay, I will say just as someone who has played Hades 2 all the way through, did all of it, got the true ending, and then also watched Hollow Knight Silksong all the way through, including the true ending, I think there's something more special about Silksong than there is about Hades 2.

And so what I'm saying is that if someone has experienced both completely, I think Silksong is better. Or there's something about it that's just a bit more special. There's something about it that just makes it a little bit more shiny or whatever than Katie's too.

Greg (02:38:20.566)
But I think there's something to be said about the way you digest games. And there's nothing wrong with it. But the way a game is to physically play also has to be a factor as well.

maybe but like we also like that

That's how we also grade all these other games. Like a lot of these games were on those because of the way they play as well, right? So.

than not for not necessarily for me.

Everybody digest games differently, but I'm saying when it's coming to a group decision, it can't not factor for anything.

Beth (02:38:52.47)
Maybe, like I feel like I think of the year that like Elden Ring won and then a lot of things you're using to discount Silksong with my opinion is things that you use to put Elden Ring at first.

Well, those were years where we had three of us. We're trying to break a stalemate at this point.

Right, and I'm just making one last final opinion push for Silk Song.

Okay, here's what I'll say. Aaron, your pick, your final pick is Hades 2 for Game of the Year, yes?

It is, but for the sake of getting this over with, mean, I see-

Aaron (02:39:32.654)
My pick is Hades 2, Over Silk Song.

Okay, Greg, yours is Hades too as well. Okay. So here's what I suggest we do a first.

Gerry (02:39:52.162)
we say we can't fucking figure our shit out. So Hades 2 and Silksong both win Game of the Year in a way that until the listeners and viewers have spoken, then we'll revisit it. And then we'll collect everything that everybody's kind of, we'll let them basically be the jury.

hold him.

Aaron (02:40:20.622)
Because otherwise we're going to be here all night.

We won't get out of here. listeners, gotta let you be the jury on this one. And don't worry, we'll revisit it. This will get revisited. But for now, we gotta wrap this up and it's just, yeah, Greg's right. Now that there's four, we have a true stalemate.

We need to get a fifth. No, I'm kidding.

So the way this list looks right now, I do like it. Hades 2 and Hollow Knight Silksong at the very top. And we got Mario Kart World, Uma Musume, Pokemon ZA, Claire Obscure, Kirby Air Riders, Doom the Dark Ages, Chronos the New Dawn, and Ball Pit.

Find lists.

Aaron (02:41:18.336)
It is a fine list. It's a damn good

And you know what, if Hades and Hollow Knight share number one, means Umamu-Same jumped to number three. In a change no one saw coming.

Bye.

Gerry (02:41:35.118)
I'll go with Hades too to prevent that.

no

We've done it. We it.

All of this was for nothing.

All I see is Gumbu Musume is on the third line.

Gerry (02:41:51.894)
All right.

No no, suddenly Hades 2 is looking good.

Holy shit. Yeah. Yeah, you know what? Hades too wins Game of the

Done. Easy.

You almost had a bronze medal.

Gerry (02:42:13.902)
time to put those horses out the pasture and bury them under some tree or something. Anyways, there you go. There's our, there's our lists. you guys are awesome. Aaron, I'm glad that you're now part of this family or we're part of your family. more of us. We adopted.

Amen.

Aaron (02:42:21.622)
So

Aaron (02:42:32.046)
I want you guys to know that even though we got into some heated arguments, greatly value everything that you guys say and I wasn't... yeah, I'm glad to be part of this whole thing.

Listen, I'm not heated, we're just engaging in debate.

I'm impassioned, but it's hard not to be when I talk about things that I feel strongly about, but...

That's the way we roll, man. It's true. We, every year, aim to try to give Beth a breakdown over the waifu watch award. That's the end goal. That's like, this is just-

It's the rest the rest is gravy

Gerry (02:43:12.238)
And then after 10 years of doing this, then we'll go back and we'll do the top 10 best breakdowns.

Yeah, no, but I genuinely like I obviously were the point. It's a duelist is to get impassioned about it. But this is video games. There's way more serious things going on like

Yeah, yeah, but

We don't talk about those.

No, not

Gerry (02:43:35.838)
To the end, and everybody else appreciates it. Thanks for coming out to this. We will resume Anti-Game of the Year at some other point when schedules are able to line up. Might not be the same, but hopefully this was a good kind of substitution for that. And yeah, I think.

You know?

I think we got a good list here. I Kronos the new Don at number nine. You fucking suckers.

I'm just happy Claire obscures out of the top five. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, let's get out of here, guys. there's lots to play in 2026. let's get at it. All right. Let's get the fuck out of here. Close it up. Close up shop. Bye. Bye.

Aaron (02:44:20.526)
this.