Game Scoop! 835: You Picked the Games of the Century - Did You Choose Poorly or Wisely?

18:50Justin Davis:So those were the runners up. Did not quite make the top 25. But continuing on with our list in the number 20 spot, it's a little bit of a controversial pick, but the fact that it's here just shows it does have its supporters, and that is The Last of Us Part 2. Why is that controversial? So, for instance, I don't like that game. Really? Did you finish or no? Yeah. I don't ever want to play that game again. I actually like it better. Do you want to watch a show about it? I like it better than the first one because I felt like in the first one that sort of the gameplay aspects were underdeveloped.

19:24The story and everything and the look and feel were all really cool. But it was sort of a bad news, bad things constantly happen to you and you can't do anything about it. That's true also. And then the second one, you can sneak, man. And it's like, you're like Solid Snake. You can sneak through the grass and take down people. You've got moments of repose where you're exploring, you know, overgrown Seattle, all of that. I thought it was really cool. And then there is inexplicably another chapter when I thought the game was over and it sort of dragged it out like taffy and stretched it, which I didn't like.

19:57But I thought everything else was so cool. Freaky-ass, like, forest scene. You're talking about just the island ending you didn't like? Yeah, I didn't like the whole, was it Santa Monica in the end? or where did you go in the very... But that's going to be the fifth season of the show. Yeah. Were they Peter Jackson it? Well, I mean, it clearly departed from the game. But I really liked this one and I like The Last of Us and I came into it thinking, ooh, I hope it's not as drab and sort of underdeveloped from the gameplay perspective. I really liked it. I mean obviously lots of people obviously you're not alone no no it's the children who are wrong and then the thing that always gets me with The Last of Us and like I encounter this all the time like you play something like Ghost of Yote and you're like okay now the character's gonna do something and it fades to black and it doesn't show it The Last of Us every little thing is animated every little stupid thing the characters do perfect animation with cloth and like you know touching and everything it's amazing I do agree with that.

21:03You should try Prince of Persia. It was like that in 1988. Oh, yeah.

21:07Peer Schneider:It's like what gamers are amazed by is like a character looking out over a vista and they can see this like landscape. And what other developers are amazed by is like you watch a character pick up a guitar and put it on their back. And you're like, that's impossible that they just did that. Constantly, yeah. I like this game. I had fun playing it. I have no problem with it.

21:24Justin Davis:Technical marvel for sure. Okay. So coming in, that's number 20. Coming in, number 19, another game I have never played, but I know that people who played this at the time have a very special fondness for this game and that's Final Fantasy X. Okay, I like Final Fantasy X too. I remember there was a lot of controversy because people hated the voice acting. T-O-O or T-W-O? X? Yeah, I mean, Waka. I've never played it, so I don't know. They gave him an accent and surfer boy attitude and people really hated that when it first came out. I really like that game. I think it's one of my favorite Final Fantasy games.

22:04My top favorites are the Super NES games. I played all of them in Japanese, so 4, 5, 6, I think, are still my favorites. I know lots of people would pick 7. And then it's 10 for me. It had such a cool story about, like, really sort of sad story about doomed characters, a really cool ensemble of heroes. I did not like I did not like the side activities like freaking playing ball in the swimming pool and all that but like everything else was so cool and then the music is fantastic yeah

22:41Justin Davis:I know there's a remaster I can play that's an easy way for me to play this one

22:44Peer Schneider:it's really good you're going to play Final Fantasy X, Damon?

22:49Justin Davis:I said I should play these games on this list that I haven't played in between WoW hold up, is it because you don't think I should? You think it's bad or you don't think I like it?

22:58Peer Schneider:Well, I don't. I'm not going to. I don't. My mom taught me if I don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So I'm not going to comment on Final Fantasy X. Wow. You don't like it? I'm not. I'm just surprised Damon's going to play it.

23:11Justin Davis:Well, I'm not promising to like play it to completion. You all heard it. You all heard it.

23:16Peer Schneider:Damon's going to 100 % it. Yeah. Okay. So I played the remakes of Seven recently. Like we all did. And I can, you know, it's a little bit of a slog to get into those games. And it looks like X starts that way. That's what worries me about X. X has the same beginning where you feel like you're on a linear path and it just tutorials you to death without any sort of choice. Like it really started. But how many dozens of hours is that tutorial path? It's not. It's actually in the end, it's not that long. It's just, it's a really cool story and a really good mix of characters. with different abilities, a good battle system.

23:59Wasn't it 10.2 that we, like IGN in the review said that the first 80 hours weren't great, but you have to play it. Was it? I think it was. I'm not a fan of 10.2. 10.2 is not an exploration-based game the same way that this one is.

24:13Peer Schneider:This is, though. I mean, that's good. Damon, I'm so excited to go through the Deadmines with you. We're going to go through the Deadmines. We're going to go through Razorfin Downs. We're going to hit them all. We're going to go to Shadowfang Keep for sure. Wow.

24:26Justin Davis:Okay, I can usually play games about 9 p.m. Pacific time. The kids are asleep. Hopefully that works for you. Is that character somebody from Kingdom Hearts in this game? What do you mean? What do you mean? Oh, you mean he looks... This guy. That's not the Kingdom Hearts guy?

24:46Peer Schneider:That's Tidus. Tidus? Oh, okay. Did you get him mixed up with the Kingdom Hearts protagonist? Yeah, he just looks like one because he has goofy shoes. He has two giant buttons. Big difference. Yeah, but he has goofy shoes. And he also doesn't have a stupid key. Oh, no. I said something bad about Kingdom Hearts. I'm really sorry. You have to come out. Fans, please. I do not. Remember, the top five games include all Kingdom Hearts in this list. And Sonic the Hedgehog.

25:11Justin Davis:That's right. I like Sonic, too.

25:17Justin Davis:No Sonic games on the list so far. They must all be the top two. Do you like Sonic 2 or T-O-O? Two. Good music. Okay, that was 19. Coming at number 18 is another PlayStation exclusive that I will introduce with a sound cue. Yeah. Probably my favorite PlayStation. Do you know which one? This must be two. It is two. Uncharted 2 is the game where... Yep, the best one. Yep. Yeah, I think that's... I don't think anybody... I think most people probably agree that's the best one, right? I think so, yeah. I like three the best. You like three the best? And I like four better than two. I actually do like the exploration by car and the little mini hubs you can explore in the other games.

26:01But 2 just has the best set pieces. Man, that chase with the tank. The train is amazing. The train stage is cool. The weird thing is, can you go back to it? Because so many games have done that stuff. And so many movies have done this stuff now. Indiana Jones perfected it, I think. Right? Yeah. The game.

26:22Peer Schneider:It is absolutely unbelievable. unbelievable to me that this game came out 16 years ago yeah it's 2009 2009 from a from just a you know motion capture and set piece and just like you know uh animation and um voice acting like there's acting acting yeah like there have been games that have done it better but like in 2009 this was on like a completely other level like there was nothing no one else was even close Like the games out at the time, whenever characters had something to say to each other, it would either cut to a pre-rendered cut scene or the game would grind to a halt and characters would stand and talk to each other.

27:05In this game, they're just talking while you're walking. They're just like making quips and chatting.

27:09Peer Schneider:And that it let you play those moments of, you know, like you said, the tank chase and just all that stuff was actually playable in-game. And even though, like, you know, it opened up this kind of cheesiness of, like, you know, Drake would die if you veered slightly off the path that Naughty Dog wanted you to be on. But, like, that was the trade-off to be able to, you know, to let you play those moments instead of them being a cutscene. Yeah. And then, you know, a rare sort of multi-game series that sticks the landing with a truly, like, really cool emotional moment in the end. So, really good.

27:39I think they should just stop making them Well you're in Luxem Well they did What's up with this list? What do you mean? Everything just has this like punctuation mark on it

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30:45Justin Davis:Halo. Halo. Halo 3? No, this is Halo Combat. The original Halo. 2001. The game's so nice they remade it thrice. Yep. Well, yeah. coming next year. Yeah, so we mentioned that Halo 2 was a runner-up, but yeah, the original Halo made the list. Do you guys like Halo? Didn't Sam just replay Halo recently? Yeah, I just replayed the first remake of this. It was great. I loved it. Halo 2 was even better. This was an era where jumping into vehicles in a single-player game was still new and fresh. This game did it so well. you could fly around you could drive around um it's just uh you know how bewildering this universe and this story is when you play this the first time nothing makes sense yeah everyone yeah you have to go to wikipedia and be like what is happening and i i like that i i in hindsight like at the start of it i was like this is stupid i'm not in on this and then when it's it became in on it i'm like that's storytelling right there like i think it feels good mass effect on the balance right like they have the huge universe that they don't explain but then they start explaining and you get it by the end of the game by the end of halo you're like what is a pillar of autumn what are they saying what are those words arbiter yeah 100 true like everyone gave

32:05Peer Schneider:343 so much crap for its storytelling in halo you know four and five of like the didact and all this stuff that made no sense and it's like no these games have always been that from the beginning from halo one none of this makes any sense no i mean i what i loved about it is that it's systems it's actually the exact opposite of uncharted which is very scripted and controlled yeah whereas halo was just physics and like just let you it put you in that combat sandbox right and and still nothing has done it better to this day you know except for subsequent halo game just jumping on a banshee and then you know abandoning it and having a crash into a horde yeah um it's It's so cool.

32:44Peer Schneider:Those emergent moments, just the confidence and faith of like, we're going to construct these game systems. Here's the sandbox, the weapons. We're going to put the enemies in it and the vehicles in it and the weapons in it. We're going to trust the player to go forth and figure it out. And that actually working is just unbelievable from a game design standpoint. And then it was at the time, it was also a showcase of the Xbox hardware. I remember just being baffled at the texture resolution, like just staring at tree and dirt textures going like, why? How can it be this sharp? Because nothing else on the competing consoles looked like this at the time.

33:15I think it's one of the few games of the century that has this music really stuck with everybody. Everybody knows what it is. Just in terms of top 10 soundtracks of all time. Unfortunately, when you have a really good soundtrack for a game, you tend to just reuse it in all the sequels. I think that's a problem, but that's why you still hear the Halo songs.

33:38Justin Davis:That's Halo at number 17. Then coming in at number 16 is a game you may have heard of. It's the most profitable entertainment thing ever released. It's GTA V. I was going to say, is this Minecraft?

33:52Peer Schneider:Yeah, Fortnite. Go back to Conker.

33:54Justin Davis:I mean, maybe it's changed, but at least as of a few years ago, GTA V made more money than any other entertainment thing. That we know of. That we can track. Well, but my point is that Conker sold probably, what, 600 ,000 cartridges? But each cartridge was about$400 in money at the time. Yeah, that's true.

34:14Justin Davis:what do you mean do you not like it what are we gonna say about this i played it at the time i have no desire to ever play it again i thought it was awesome yeah like i know that i keep saying everything is awesome here um but i what struck me about this game was a lot of games like this when you have a big open world you're stuck in one corner of the world and you're sort of like the missions i have to do is like i have to go to this this place and talk to this dude and it's like I already know what to expect this game you go like nope I'm gonna just be Trevor and freaking wreak havoc and like you get you get to switch characters and sort of like get this variety of the different story threads whenever you're bored with one but you can also just go nuts and like the Trevor characters just so brilliantly invites you to play bad which is something that I usually struggle with when you have a game like you can be a good or bad you can be a Jedi or you can be a sith and you decide i'm like i'm always good i always save everybody i'm always nice in this game it's like when you play as travor you just gotta be a scumbag and i the the acting the voice acting some of the set pieces like the way they're set up it's just awesome and then i do stupid stuff like use a submarine and uh try to explore the harbor for hours knowing even though that there's nothing there to find it's just fun to mess with all the different chili industry yep DMA slash Rockstar has always been great at creating toy boxes where you just want to try out all the different vehicles.

35:39You want to fly around and climb to the highest skyscraper and see what happens.

35:45Justin Davis:Obviously, I'm in the minority on this one. You are definitely. That's DJ5 and number 16. Coming in at number 15 is Half-Life 2.

35:55Peer Schneider:Yeah, man. Well, I mean, I feel like we just talked about it on the show when we were doing our, you know, Staff Top 25. So I don't know how much I want to rehash all of that discussion. But we talked about it with the portal section of just real-time storytelling that never, ever rests control away from the player, I think ever, over the running time of the entire game. So that's a feat from game design and object loading and unloading and narrating. It deserves so much praise for all of that. And then the physics, right? That was the other big thing that we talked about last month or whenever we talked about this game.

36:36Peer Schneider:It feels less special now, but back then, if you broke the supports that were supporting this bridge, the bridge would collapse. Stuff like that had never been seen before in a video game. We've had a few games on this list now that have truly amazing ending sequences. This game has its Matrix Neo moment, where you just become so powerful that it's just fun to mess around with the physics and your ability. Also a very creepy game. I mean, there's some really scary parts to it. So it mixes that exploration with shooting and some horror elements too, which I really dug.

37:20Justin Davis:Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned The Matrix because Half-Life 2 came out five years later after the first one. They could have been influenced by The Matrix. Maybe.

37:27Peer Schneider:Yeah, totally. I thought you were going to say it's interesting because the next game is Enter the Matrix. Oh, that I don't think is on any list. That wood detail they're showing here. Look, that's more frames per second than any game released so far this year. Dude, the gravity gun is so fun. Like, if you had that many frames, you would be so rich.

37:48Justin Davis:I don't know why there are so many razor blades, saw blades lying around, but I'm glad they were. I know. Yeah, it's a saw blade. A lot of construction happening. And what's the gun? You shoot these pipes that you can stick guys into the walls with. I don't know what the name of the gun is.

38:03Peer Schneider:What the nail gun or whatever, the rail gun or something like that. You can stick them in the wall, yeah.

38:07Justin Davis:That's really cool. It's been a while. Okay, coming in at number 14 is the first Nintendo game on this list. And it's very relevant to this show and this particular date because it's Metroid Prime. Yep. Good. Still the best. I think someone here gave the remaster a 10. I know. I don't know why you didn't give it an 11 out of 10. You regret it? Really? I said I don't regret it. Oh, you don't regret it. Okay, sorry. It's such a wonderful game and it's my comfort food game and I can play it over and over again. I'm playing Metroid Prime 2 and 4 at the same time right now. That's like on two monitors?

38:48Yeah, one's on a Wii U. Imagine dragging those things out. Oh god. Yeah, it was weird.

38:54Justin Davis:I mean, at the time... yeah you know the best looking nintendo game ever i i kind of thought it was maybe the best looking console game ever released at the time yeah so it's fine now maybe metroid prime 4 is the best looking nintendo game ever released really daring prime games i and like you know what we're all playing metroid prime 4 right now like you you can draw a contrast for why this game works better than its subsequent games and it's like at this time it didn't matter that samus didn't talk now it feels a little weird yeah at this time it didn't matter that you know you're on an alien planet with like a civilization it's like you need to discover the secrets of this planet now it kind of feels repeated right so it's like you know the first time the first go-round for this really did make a big difference and it's never been as creative ever since which is not to say i'm not enjoying metroid prime 4 which i am some really daring stuff they did in this oh god no that's uh that's not it that's not it don't show that one that's the wrong one that's that other m that's other m no there's not a character from kingdom hearts yes that's the one with the giant buttons no there's there's a there's an entire section of the map that is slanted in this game which is just freaking it's hard to do um for any developer to have the the ground be slanted and everything work perfectly and it's like they do it so well it just looks like this decrepit do you remember shooting up or looking up and seeing that there's birds in the sky i'm like oh that's funny a little bird and then you can shoot them and you're like what you know like there's just so much crazy crazy detail in it and this game like really did not lead you to the secrets either it it it you get to the end of the game with like a really annoying 235 missile count even though you played the game 10 times you're like oh my gosh yeah how did i miss anything in it you know and it's just so well so well constructed and great and fun to backtrack in metric prime 2 is not fun to backtrack in no pain in the butt to backtrack exactly if you go to these water areas and they suck and you have to go to the dark areas and they suck and it's like this game everywhere you go you it gets easier to backtrack and i love that and that gets that way and then metro prime too because they give you the um what's it called the spin in the air thing but this game uh yeah the ways that you backtrack become like you don't even realize it but you could just double jump everywhere right and like everything else until then until you get that it makes it really difficult for you to get around it's so cool great remaster another iconic soundtrack too yeah i was gonna say actually i had a sound cue that i forgot so that's metroid prime 4 at number 14

41:27then coming in number 13 i won metroid prime 1 not 4 oh i'm sorry metro prime at number 14 number 13 is bioshock nice very important 2007 game i have i have not replayed it since it was

41:45Justin Davis:originally released though there's a lot of ps3 xbox 360 nostalgia on this list i like that yeah i mean a lot of people i think i get a sense that people think that was like that was like the last great generation before before everything was like overly monetized before everything was shipping unfinished and day one patches and dlc and all that stuff i think it's a very compelling

42:07Peer Schneider:argument to be made of like and there's also an element of like because you know there was a lot of crap in the 360 ps3 generation too but there's an element of like you don't know the good times or like you that you're in them until they're like in the rear view mirror and then you're like oh man yeah do you remember when the crap had to come out on cartridge or disc so it was shovelware that was an interesting period yeah you couldn't you couldn't spam us on our phones like this is it yeah yeah just put it on disc this is the era this is the era where storytelling got just so more so much more sophisticated right like this game starts like the tv show lost right and so they were borrowing this this stuff from from linear entertainment and just getting much much better at everything including voice acting the you know the the way they render characters and show emotions on the faces of the characters but then also sort of the slow-paced way to get yourself into a world and like this game perfects that moment like you're on the water and you you go what the hell is that in the middle of the ocean and then you just uncover this like jules verne-esque world that then turns into a nightmare and then ends with a a fantastic twist um i really love this game really love it the jules verne thing is really important because it has the art deco you know everything right and like i would say like at this time there was a lot more experimentation with getting your game to look like nothing else and i would say that halo falls in that category too it looked like nothing else it was its own design from scratch and this was like its own design from a from a design manual they like they put out a manual of of like what you know 1930s america looked like and then put it underwater and like that was their their guiding light i think that's so cool i um i think i've told this story before maybe not on your show but We used to be owned by Fox, by News Corp.

43:58And we'd get periodically, we'd get phone calls asking about video games. Because video games were this mystical juju that only we understood. And I got a phone call from Peter Chernin, who's a big-time Fox producer. And he said, Bioshock, tell me a little bit about it. And I said, oh, Underwater World, Art Deco, zombies, super special magic powers. He's like, okay, stop you right there. I can't make it. I'm like, why? He's like, it would cost so much money. we can't like the risk is too high we don't know if gamers would show up in theaters we can't make it it's way too expensive and now we're gonna get it we're gonna get a tv show eventually i guess now you can make all this stuff yeah yeah yeah which is to me this always looked like this would be perfect as a movie world or a tv show world because it's just so unique so cool yeah at one

44:44Justin Davis:point the guy that did the ring in the pirates of the caribbean was gonna do bioshock i can't Gorbinski. Yeah, Gorbinski. Gorbinski was under Bioshock. Nope, never happened. John Woo was going to do Metroid. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, I mean, I don't know about that. I do. Yeah, you like that one? Bioshock means nothing. It's such a funny, like, because they made System Shock title. Yeah, exactly. Like, it's just so funny that that's like, like, obviously, this would have trouble in theaters. It was a show, maybe not. but like fallout explains what the damn game is yeah you know it's just such a weird at least a

45:22Peer Schneider:double entendre if not there might be a third layer there that i would have to think about um yeah bioshock was also ahead of its time for being sort of a capitalism bad question mark game like that message is very prominent now was maybe not quite as much in the zeitgeist when this initially came out yeah the big daddy little sister thing is freaking awesome like you had But Resident Evil games introduced these super strong characters as well that follow you around and that you just don't want anything to do with. And encountering a big daddy in the beginning was just super creepy and scary. Super creepy.

46:00Peer Schneider:And then it was a big deal at the time that it was optional to fight them. It's like, you can just leave. You don't need to. They won't fight you first. You can rescue the little sisters. That was a big deal. Feeling a little bit more trite now, but a big deal at the time. Another one, audio logs. I don't know if this is literally the first game to do it. Like such a trope that's overdone to death now. But like, you know, that environmental storytelling and exploring a creepy apartment, then you hear an audio log about the people that live there. Like that was much more satisfying. Was this the game or is it too limited away and walk around though?

46:35Because the best innovation ever made. I think you could in this one. Maybe not. There's still games you can't do that. That's a Ten Commandments thing. What are we doing? you have to sit there and listen to an audio log like what is happening or read yeah just yeah i never read a book in an elder scrolls game like i'm always like meh okay keep playing in this i just explored while listening to wonderful stories okay yeah fantastic game

47:02Justin Davis:i should revisit that one okay number 12 halo 3 so obviously you know finish the fight i love it It was a big deal. Is anyone surprised though that Halo 3 is the most beloved of that original trilogy? I'm just surprised that 2 isn't on the list. I mean, I think it makes sense.

47:17Peer Schneider:I mean, I feel vindicated. Like 3 is my favorite, but I thought 2 was the one that the community generally chose to rally behind.

47:23Justin Davis:Yeah, but I find generally about 20 years ago was where people's nostalgia is hitting the hardest. And it'll be 20 years in just a couple years, right? 2007 is when I think Halo 3 came out. So maybe that's why. Yeah. Great guy. I think this rounded it out. Adding the brute faction rounded out Halo. This is what it worked. The weapons were kind of crappy and the enemies were kind of like... It just... It added this fun, stupid balance to Halo, which I think makes sense.

47:53Peer Schneider:Yeah. This was the first game. This is a very esoteric memory. It's the first game that I can remember where your stats from what you played in the game, like I played like 6 ,000 matches of multiplayer or whatever it was, was they were really accessible and visible on the web. Like you could go to the Bungie website and see like your win loss record and like review, like you played 25 matches last night and here's all your stats from those matches. And like that kind of like the information, not just living in the game, but accessible outside of the game was, you know, Halo 2 and but especially Halo 3 is the first time I can remember kind of like me caring about meta gaming aspects like that.

48:33Peer Schneider:And wanting wanting to rank up, wanting to climb the ladder was important to me.

48:39Justin Davis:really really fun game Halo 3 is number 12 and number 11 is God of War 2018 a big refresh of God of War incredible game loved it there's definitely a theme here these are all games with really sophisticated storytelling this one obviously has the amazing dynamic between the two lead characters in the story sort of unfolding in real time as you explore but like the thing that I love about God of War and I played the originals before that too like I was not as into them I always liked the more puzzly elements of the original God of War games more than the sort of combat brawler style stuff our co-workers loved those games it was big in Nijid off yeah yeah it's like the Ninja Gaiden sort of approach right like that's what those games felt like this one the throwing and recall of the axe just feels perfect right It's what you see Thor do in the movies, and you do it yourself in this game, and every time it goes back into your hand, it just feels so right.

49:43I love it, yeah. Just the idea of mashing up the Greek pantheon with the Norse pantheon was so smart. That one idea. This game did nothing else. It's like, let's take this, and how they connect those, and when you get your other weapons and stuff. It's just smart. That's really, really clever stuff. Love it.

50:04Justin Davis:Really made Kratos a much more well-rounded character, much more sympathetic character. Yep. No cut scene in the whole game, no camera cut in the whole game. One shot. That's right. So cool. Love that too. Another really smart, just great, that was executed perfectly. Yeah. And never-ending boss fights. Like they just couldn't see the escalation of like beating somebody to a pulp. Even that first, you know, there's an opening tutorial section and then you have that fight with is it boulder oh my it's it's incredible i know it's so good sometimes i just want to watch that on youtube it's like a dragon ball fight you know it's like now they're fighting on tops of mountains and it's like yeah so good is it thor that's like such a slob in this and so different and drew and i think consciously drew a contrast with the marvel character which was like the biggest thing in the world at the time right yeah he's like this came out right in the middle of marvel being huge and then like this this norse story is so different.

51:00I like that. They knew totally what they were doing.

51:05Justin Davis:That brings us to the top 10. This is the top 10 games of the century so far as decided by Scoop Nation. Number 10 is Baldur's Gate 3. Yeah.

51:17Peer Schneider:Probably the best video game story of all time. Certainly one of the best. Best Western RPG ever? Well, I would say Baldur's 2 probably but but three is up there um no i mean you know i again i feel like we just talked about this a couple weeks ago so you know it's it's a little bit of a hard game to sort of like sing its praises in snippet form on a podcast because a lot of what makes this game really special is like reading a really really special novel where you just put it down at the end and after a hundred hours of this game you just like you feel like you've gone through the ringer like You've been through it with this game and with these characters.

52:01Peer Schneider:And then it's made all the more special by you're choosing which ones you're in a relationship with if you choose to be. And those all feel really well drawn and kind of earned sort of character development moments. So, you know, I sometimes get this urge to replay the game, but it's like, man, I don't know. I don't know if I'm ready to sort of commit another hundred hours again. but I'll go through it. Maybe it's a good maybe like a winter break would be a good time. I mean it's daunting, right? But what makes Baldur's Gate so good is that the story feels like it was yours. You know, like you really, it is Dungeons and Dragons and you shape your character and your story and like you can do things in this game that you wouldn't think would work in a video game and you're constantly surprised that they accommodated for that system or for that solution and like it would be a really fun game to replay.

52:56Peer Schneider:yeah yeah it is it is up there man i'm already forgetting the game we talked about earlier that's like that but just the reactive nature of this game that just says yes to everything that you want to try absolutely insane stuff that like really frankly shouldn't work that the game's just like yeah sure like we thought of that or even if we didn't think of that like the systems allow it like the you know the game's not going to crash and the storyline's not going to break If you kill this character that's supposed to be impossible to kill, it has a contingency for how it's going to handle that.

53:28Peer Schneider:So the amount of freedom and power that that allows you to feel where it's respecting your choices is... I mean, no game has ever done that better than Baldur's Gate 3.

53:41Justin Davis:And every character and enemy in the game is just set. So in a castle, you can kill everyone in the castle and then the castle is just empty. No one is ever going to respawn. The castle is yours now. It's great. Big fan of that. Yep. All right. Number 10, Baldur's Gate 3. Coming in at number nine is Skyrim, Elder Scrolls V, which is available on everything, every system available since then. I know. It's 20 years old. It's 17 years old. It's 10 years old, 7 years old, and 1 year old. I never played it in VR.

54:14Peer Schneider:I would go play it in VR. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I really lost myself in that world. I don't even know what my final hours were on it. But this was the game where I started playing one way and I got really sneaky and would lockpick and steal stuff and get really rich just sneaking into everything and stealing everything. And then I'm like, meh, now I'm going to just go slug in some monsters and build up my character differently. I just really, really, really liked exploring this world. Imagine putting out this game and selling all the copies of it and having it be this cultural force and being like, you know what we should do next, though, is a game in space that sucks.

54:51Is that how they planned it? They had a meeting to come together?

54:55Peer Schneider:Should we make another Elder Scrolls game? I think so. I think it was like, sure, yes, fine, sure. That's the game you want to make? You're the boss. You made this so negative. No, not for it. We'll do it in 20 years. We'll make another one. I had really high hopes for Starfield, and I wanted it to be Skyrim in outer space. I think one other person over at Bethesda did, too. I mean, we do like the Bethesda deserves a lot of credit for its embrace of the modding community as part of why this game has sort of had the lifespan that it's had. And then, of course, you know, there's the dark side of that, too, with paid mods and sort of the creator economy that they've developed.

55:31Peer Schneider:But, you know, like you can still go into YouTube and if you were to type, you know, Skyrim Mod Guide 2025, 2026, it's like they can make that game look like a next gen game still to this day. that's so cool i completely agree that's a big deal and fallout 4 is like that also yep yep um and then you know same as you were saying pair like i've replayed it a couple of times and every single time i'm like this time is going to be different and then i turn into a stealth archer every time it's just inevitable i do too that's exactly my go-to um the also half-life gets that that fan treatment all the time too that's another with them on too like every time i see them like man that looks better than i remember like no no that's just somebody that turned on all the damn mods the the bandit's friend just got shot in the face with an arrow what was that must have been the wind that's right coming in at number eight is

56:32it's mario odyssey sounds like our booth at e3 oh god our booth is right next to the nintendo booth

56:39Justin Davis:oh yeah that was so loud that would have been 2017 that's a good game damon it is a very good game i might i might say i'd argue it's the best 3d platformer ever made yeah uh switch to uh upgrade is unbelievable yeah it looks so good i mean it already looks good so yeah yeah but you know it's we our tvs got bigger in those eight years of switch right and like things started smudging and it really did help on the switch too i really appreciated that you sort of got But, you know, if you're a Mario fan, you sort of get a feel for the worlds that are included in a Mario game, right? Like there's, you know, there's variation between them.

57:19But generally you get this sort of, you know what a Mario level is. Even Sunshine is sort of, you know, becomes familiar. And then there's like a ghost house again. Like this game, every new world you go to, you're sort of like, I'm not sure what this is and why. And like, why am I in the Mexican desert now? right like it's there's a true sense of discovery where it feels really really fresh and every world surprises you then there's like a mini world with a freaking dragon then you go 2d and then it culminates in this really great showdown that is a throwback to like everything uh mario and how mario got started in the first place yeah yeah nintendo has gotten so good and it's this team

58:00Peer Schneider:because they went on they went on to do it with uh with donkey kong too they've gotten so good at like paying homage to Nintendo's roots and to Mario's roots. And like, we're going to show you something brand new you've never seen before, but we're also going to sort of reference ourselves and our past with a wink and a nod in small ways, like those little 2D sections, but also big ways like New Donk City and Pauline and all of, right? Like Nintendo has really hit its stride, you know, unlike the kind of GameCube era, these dark timeframes in Nintendo's history where they didn't quite know who they were, what they stood for of like these Mario games really, really did crack that code.

58:40Peer Schneider:I think. Also, I like, I would have wanted to be in that meeting where they decided that Mario can change his costume because like Nintendo was always known to be, they were such sticklers for the character looking exactly the way he's supposed to look. And like, you're literally, you're literally watching naked Mario running around here now, right? Like for them to take that step and make it all about different hats, different outfits and stuff. It's pretty notable. You saw his nipples. Well, that would have happened in that meeting, right? They would have been like, but sir, what do we do about the nipples?

59:13Let them be seen. But to be completely contradicting Perra's point, all of the costumes are references to old Nintendo products and like a little Nintendo calendar that you would have never seen because it was just in Nintendo Power was the Western gunfighter costume. Okay, explain Samurai Mario then. Yeah, no, no. I mean, I think it wasn't something. That's hilarious. There's plenty that were, but to put those all in a game is doing the two things we were just talking about. It's revering the past with deep cuts and riffing on it like freaking jazz. Yeah. Like it's unbelievable.

59:56Peer Schneider:And it's so clearly, and not to take anything away from Miyamoto and all the experts at Nintendo, but this younger generation, this younger generation that sort of come up and that nintendo tokyo team that made you know donkey kong jungle beat and is you know going on to make these games it's like they just get it right they so understand how to be fresh and then still you know still sort of give you something familiar at the same time um to to measure progression by the amount of stickers that you have on your balloon yeah it's so great too right that was really cute it's all about travel this game right and so they started with the idea that your suitcase gets more and more stickers on it basically

1:00:33Justin Davis:yep very very cool so good a perfect video game then coming at number seven is something i know a lot of people might say the same thing about this game red dead redemption 2 yeah all-time favorite yeah yeah definitely sam loves it in particular i love it so much i you know like if you're gonna it's funny because it's the it's the most recent big rockstar game right so it's got like this and GTA 5 kind of have to like you know hold the line until GTA 6 comes out and I think combined they just show you like how lucky we are to have a new Rockstar game coming out it's gonna be amazing yeah do you remember when this came out there was a lot of online chatter and comments forums and stuff about how this game is boring and like I could not 100 % I could not follow that line of thought like it was I know like was the boring part like walking up the mountain in the snow and like it's the beginning right it's like you're doing so much walking and talking it's a walking simulator for a lot of it because it's trying to establish the story and and then for some people for a lot of people i think you know driving a hot car around la and blowing up things with a rocket launcher is like the level their brain is at like like you know like doing a stagecoach like heist of a train is just not not gonna do it for people it just doesn't work for everybody for me it was just fascinating and i grew up as a kid you know i was born in the 70s and like i grew up watching westerns with my dad um you know late on on saturday evenings in germany there was always at 10 o 'clock there was always like a western movie on and like got to stay up watch those so i loved westerns this felt like stepping into that world and living in it and then like doing things at your own pace but like you could do crazy stuff in this game as well i mean you just saw the train sequence you could literally like that's the first thing I saw when a train was going by, I'm like, can I climb on top?

1:02:27Of course you can. You can do all that. Oh, realistic horse poop. There you go. I like how this game, if you don't know anything about Westerns, it's a pretty good introduction to Western tropes and funny because it retells every story from Western. That's what Rockstar does. That's what EA does with BioWare and Mass Effect. They take all of these things that already exist and work them into their game. That's a little bit risky right because you're using a lot of other people's ideas but the way they do it in that kind of a you know what you call it college a post-modern pastiche is like exactly what's happening here i think it's so cool and as somebody who never watches westerns and never watched them i really appreciate this anyway because it's really fun to experience them that way

1:03:11Justin Davis:i did not think it was boring i thought it was a little clunky i think it's an absolutely gorgeous game and one of the all-time best stories told in a video game but just the moment-to-moment feel of the game is a little bit clunky like it you know another open world game uh ghost of yote feels amazing every step of the way whereas they were trying i think they leaned a little bit too into a little bit too much into the simulation of a west of life on the for sure you can make

1:03:37Peer Schneider:me personally you can slowly make coffee make your coffee put your put your saddle on your horse i don't need to do that i guess i like that in yote they're like you can you can fry the fish you're like okay I'll do that once yeah once yeah I'll do that once then skip yeah I'm skipping it every time making fire really slowly and it looks delicious and it's really funny and then the option arises again okay

1:04:01Justin Davis:The top five. The top five games of the century. Red Dead did not make the top five. But coming in at number five is The Last of Us Part 1. Okay, interesting. Geez, that's unusual. Yeah. You think that's surprising? Yeah. No, I mean, in hindsight, it's because it has Joel in it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the second one has Joel in it too. Yeah. Last of Us definitely is a more compact and well-told story, and it has a killer ending. Really, really cool. It's got giraffes. Which apparently lots of people misunderstood. Yeah, that's true. The reason why I like the first one so much more is that it has, you know, it's more of an, it's hard to say that it's enjoyable because it is very depressing.

1:04:48Justin Davis:It is not. You go on this adventure, you like these characters and then there's this impossible choice at the end that you were forced to play through. And I think it should have just ended there. don't make any more last of us leave leave the last of us part one instead they revisited it and nothing that happens is satisfying to me personally the second one makes you play as a character you want to hate and pull the coolest magic trick i've seen in a video game where i'm like i start to understand her and actually like her like that whole sequence with her being afraid of of heights and stuff like they did so much through interaction to humanize these these characters i i thought that was fascinating but like obviously this is a this is a great game and a better story in the end yeah yeah i agree with that one thing that i like i'm seeing in this list and this really evokes is for me is that this and then the halo games uh are kind of from the height of i think people's um partisanship and and love for playstation and xbox and i don't think those first parties are living up to that as much anymore yes we had god of war whatever two or six years ago right like there's some moments but like boy like that this time this was the biggest thing in the world like this is the biggest like we would do votes on ign and this was everybody's favorite game when it came out yep right and so was halo 3 and it was just like it was like there was a there was a moment for this i i think nintendo is still going strong but i'm a little worried about first parties from these companies like this year what did sony have yote amazing game.

1:06:19It's not like it's everywhere in the world though.

1:06:22Justin Davis:Yeah, but meanwhile, Xbox has had like five or six really great releases this year. As a publisher, Xbox is doing pretty okay right now. But they're not cultural moments. I know what you mean though. Ghost of Yote, Ghost of Yote, even Assassin's Creed, all these games don't hit the same right now, right? They don't hit the same. That's exactly right. You're right. Speaking of hitting. Okay. Jesus, I know. Last of Us, number five. Coming in, number four is The Witcher 3. Oh, man. What a game. Are you guys Witcher people? You know who Sam is? Oh, okay. That's probably my favorite game on this list so far.

1:07:02Yeah. Justin and I were talking... It's a little... Oh, go ahead. No, Justin and I were talking earlier about side stories before the show, and like, or maybe it was with you, like how Yotei has some of the bounties. Yeah, some of the bounties are really good. interesting than the main story right like the witcher is all about that like you do side quests you're like the the most satisfying little wrapped up little side story nuggets are to be found in the side stories the monsters it's the monster it's the witching and then which makes the game and then the bounties right yeah exactly fine like like tracking down these these creepy animals and in some cases they're not animals and like they have sad background stories so it becomes this sort of gothic horror like Frankenstein and like, oh, it's so crazy good.

1:07:51And you always demand the money. Because I confused you with Justin though.

1:07:55Justin Davis:Because you guys, I missed number six and no one said anything. I skipped number six. I thought earlier that you skipped number 21 too, but like I think I was wrong. No, I don't think I meant that. Well, yeah, I just didn't think there were any more Last of Us games. Okay. I like, I give Witcher, sorry, go ahead. No, say what you want to say about Witcher, then I have to go, and then I have to backtrack. we're done we're done with Witcher let's go back

1:08:17Peer Schneider:just very quick like I like that it you know I'll skip all the stuff about the open world being amazing and the storytelling and you know the choice that you have like I like the game for being for a big mass market mainstream game it's kind of hard like it's not easy at all like you will die in a couple of hits and so what I like about that is it forces you to engage with its systems of like there are many video games from like I can put oil on my sword I'm never going to do that i'm never gonna bother with that but like like you said sam it forces you to engage with the witching of like i'm gonna make a potion i'm gonna put the oil on my sword the game is like hard enough that i need like every single advantage that i can get so i can make it out of these fights alive and that they kind of feel like brawls um and like you know you expect that from like an elden ring but i don't expect that from like a game that is gonna go on to sell you know 50 million bajillion copies like the witcher 3 has so that's a really good point that means all the loot matters too because you really like factor in like why was this hidden and so difficult to get i i must need it and you know you really think about that stuff yeah so which are three

1:09:23Justin Davis:number four and i apologize to our surely frustrated viewers and listeners so to backtrack 10 was balder's gate 3 9 was skyrim 8 was mario odyssey 7 was red dead redemption 2 and number six was tears of the kingdom oh you skipped a little entry apologies apologies yes six was Tears of the Kingdom, which, yes, that's a game. Okay.

1:09:46Peer Schneider:I mean, I'm mad it's not higher. Yeah. This is my number one. Yeah, it feels weird. Yeah, I think it's my number one as well. That's because Breath of the Wild is now having a resurgence of love. Yeah. Yeah, I know. And I know that as the dust has settled on these two games, the conventional wisdom is that Breath of the Wild seems to be kind of coming out on top as number one. That's because of memories. Yeah, but especially on the Switch 2, right? The Switch 1, this game is legitimately, you know, can be hard to play at times. But on the Switch 2, it's just, it leaves me speechless, as I'm saying here.

1:10:20Peer Schneider:I cannot believe what they accomplished. Just the audacity to take what they did with Breath of the Wild and then do it again, but then layer on more. You can make and customize your own weapons. It's like a whole, like the example that I always use is like one of the main marquee powers in Breath of the Wild is just like, it's just something you can do by like putting something on your sword in the sequel. It's just almost like an afterthought, right? Which is the ability to like freeze things and make these ice platforms. Like just the, the, everything having physics in it. You know, I think, I think everything is better.

1:10:57Peer Schneider:I think the story is better. um you know and and i think one of the complaints of like i just don't like ultra hand i don't like building it's like when i replayed this game i was sort of struck by like it's not really that much of it you know it's five or ten you don't you don't have to do it it's such an option yeah and and it's an option there that if you if you want to make a mech you can but if you just want to play the game like breath of the wild you can and that's extremely viable um just a yeah perfect game i think the the thing that hits different and and i agree tears of the kingdom is the better of the two games um it's the world doesn't hit you the same way right like breath of the wild you stepped into the world and like from the plateau on you discovered what this new hyrule was like and it was it reminded you a little bit of ocarina of time but it was so different and going on a mountain and and experiencing that cold in this game mattered but a flaming sword could cancel that out like all of those systems that was really unique and like tears of the kingdom could not bring those moments back now it had new stuff like you fall into a hole in the earth and fall down and down and down you hear the freaking orc battle horn and you're like what the hell is this and that was a cool moment in its own right but like breath of the wild had the more sort of like introduce you to the world that would be continued by tears of the kingdom and so like those moments and those memories of of experiencing the world in the systems for the first time I think Tears of the Kingdom couldn't replicate fully.

1:12:24And that's why I think a lot of people go back to Breath of the Wild and say those moments were the most special of any other game, even if maybe Tears of the Kingdom has the better systems in the end.

1:12:36Peer Schneider:There's the one thing that I don't like about this game, which might be my favorite game of all time if I really reflected on it. But it is strange from a storytelling perspective that it's sort of a sequel and sort of a remake. half the characters remember you and they're like oh link you're back and then half the characters have never seen you before and don't know who you are and like it's just strange it's very strange and weird choice that they made and and you know i wouldn't even really give it a second thought except every single other aspect of the game is so well considered and so well thought out and the the feel of like this the flying part and falling um is on an eight-year-old handheld yeah yep the fact that it runs that was a surprise is this thing like the first i remember when they didn't reveal this in the events leading up to it and we're like really is it just the same world again with some stuff in the sky and then like i know when we got the final build and somebody in the office like do you want to know it's like yeah like there is an entire world

1:13:39Justin Davis:underneath the world it's so good so cool yeah i love mapping out the depths yep so fun so creepy So Tears of the Kingdom was six, then The Last of Us was five, Witcher 3 was four.

1:13:55Justin Davis:So number three is Breath of the Wild. Ah, there we go. We already talked about it. Which we just covered. Yep. Totally reinvented.

1:14:05Peer Schneider:Yeah, I mean.

1:14:06Justin Davis:Zelda. I want to go back and play it again.

1:14:08Peer Schneider:It's a perspective that I've shared before, and I'll go, the Tears of the Kingdom is my favorite. I respect people that like Breath of the Wild more because it feels more immersive. if it's more ground level, right? Like you can't build this crazy flying machine to just fly over the entire world and dominate it. Like you feel more, you're being subjective to this world and you kind of have to survive it and get through it and sort of scale the mountain. Like it felt like an event, like, oh, I got to get from here to there. Whereas Tears of the Kingdom, because it's a sequel, I think it's the right call, but it lets you kind of like dominate the world a little bit more.

1:14:45Peer Schneider:and so it does create a really different feel and someone that's like just sort of the surprise and wonder of discovering a grove of apple trees or whatever you're not getting as much of that from Tears of the Kingdom and so I can respect people that like that vibe of Breath of the Wild It just also introduced you to the enemies in this sort of world for the first time the Lionel is such a cool moment that there is a beast that if you approach it with your weapon sheathed It just does a question mark and looks at you and goes, whatever. But if you've got your sword out, that thing goes, I hate you and you must die.

1:15:21And like that, that's sort of like exploring, like stumbling upon these very, very different creatures and figuring them out for the first time will forever be special for me with this game. But you're right. The cool thing is you had to work really, really hard to get into a dungeon and out of a dungeon and on top of a mountain. And then Tears of the Kingdom goes, you did all that. So just morph through the ceiling and get out, right? Like it's a very cool progression. And I feel like you'd kind of want to play them in that order. You want to play Breath of the Wild first. And I want to talk to somebody who played them the other way around.

1:15:56Yeah, that's interesting. I forgot to play the music. David looked really, really sad the whole time.

1:16:04Justin Davis:That's why. It's so good. Okay. number two is Mass Effect 2 wow okay I wouldn't have predicted that everybody was talking about their favorite RPGs and this is my favorite western RPG I love this game yeah same definitely my favorite of that trilogy one of my favorite movies of all time is The Seven Samurai and that movie you know the villagers hire the samurai to defend their village and they don't have a lot of money and so then you see like this benevolent samurai leader who has to basically assemble the band right it's blues brothers you got to get the band together and so then it becomes going after each character and assembling this this thing and every time they get somebody it's like you know number two number three number four this game like replicated that moment in a sci-fi setting where you got to get everybody together for the grand finale.

1:17:07And that is one of my favorite gameplay loops in any RPG is assembling the game. Love this game. It's Live Alive in 3D. Yeah, well, Live Alive makes you play different. You read seven books and then they combine into one, right? I mean, it is funny.

1:17:28Peer Schneider:It's one of those things, in hindsight, this feels very video gamey of like you go on the recruitment mission and you go on the loyalty mission and the recruitment mission and the loyalty mission but it didn't it didn't feel like that when this was new yeah yeah felt organic and then it had its own style right like the the the clothes the art the way the spaceships look and the the fonts and everything they're so uniquely mass effect they didn't look like blade runner they didn't look like you know space odyssey they didn't look like Star Wars. It looked like its own universe. And I think this game did that better than the first game, and then I was a little tired in the third game.

1:18:05So it did really good. This is the perfect game for that peak. The design, it peaked in this one.

1:18:10Peer Schneider:Well, yeah, just the weapons made sense in universe. All the sci-fi gobbledygook. I mean, even the Mass Effect relays themselves, right? Like all of it was sort of grounded in this fake reality, but its own internally consistent logic and reality. It's one of the only games, speaking of not reading the books, in Skyrim. This is one of the only books I did read all of the Codex entries and lore entries as they were unlocked because it was just that interesting. Also, they're read, they're voiced

1:18:35Justin Davis:by a voice actor who is in Knights of the Old Republic and just has a great voice that I just love listening to. Plus the music. Yeah, good pick Scoop Nation. Number two. I mean, this has, Starfield really tried to do a lot of stuff that this does in terms of just like factions and universe building and how people get around and how greedy. And it just didn't accomplish it. You know, and I want more games like this. I know they're possible. Yep. And that means that Scoop Nation's game of the century so far is I should know. I'm not sure. Bionic Commando Rearmed. It's Elden Ring. Oh, it's Elden Ring.

1:19:20What a surprise. Yeah.

1:19:21Justin Davis:Okay. Yeah. Figured. yeah I think that I think I would this would probably top my list as well I thought they were going to throw us for a loop here but surely you would think the elder ring would be somewhere in the top 25 so if we hadn't mentioned it yet yeah that's true that's true yeah I don't know what else needs to be said about this game on uh an adventure like no other like I really felt like Justin feels you're saying one of these games you felt like you were through the ringer at the end of it I don't know if it was Baldur's Gate 3 or whatever but like that's how I felt at the end to this like i just felt like i really went somewhere with this game and then with urtree i did the whole thing with my son and we like how he still asked he like we taught he like brings it up really we played it like two years ago now we have like good memories of playing this game together so yeah this is an incredible game the likes of which i don't know when we'll ever see again a game that's this big and open and you have this much agency and are able to be this creative and and has so many ways that you can would you like a multiplayer version yeah No thanks.

1:20:21Well, they got to work on Bloodborne first, but maybe you'll get another one.

1:20:25Peer Schneider:This is a very good, like, look, Elden Ring is not one of my favorite games, but I'll definitely give it credit for just this sense of kind of exploration and mystery of, like, you truly, like, this is a kind of a stereotypical quote, but, like, in this game, you really genuinely didn't know what was going to be around each corner. Right? That feeling of, like, I played it long enough to descend down that long, long, long elevator, like comically long. And then there's like an entire world down there. Right. That like, of course, the game knows every player is going to find that elevator. But you feel like you're finding something, the sense of wonder that like no one else has seen this.

1:21:04Peer Schneider:Where am I? What's going on? And like, you know, secrets layered on top of secrets and like more hidden areas that are inside of other hidden areas. And like, I really I really give the game a lot of credit for. yeah just the world feeling mysterious and you just never knew like you never knew what you were going to be fighting where you were going to be next and that sense of wonder it's definitely one of the best games to ever do it I think that's this game's single biggest flaw

1:21:36Justin Davis:which one is? that it doesn't you never know what's going to be around the corner and it's always unfair and so the way that that the game balances that is it makes you grind. And don't tell me, anybody out there, that you're just so good at this game. That's nonsense. Y 'all will use that warp point. You went to that field, and you killed those little ninja guys over and over again. And then you explored like a normal person. That's what Zelda lets you do without the grinding. I think it's such nonsense. But I had a really good time playing it. I just think the game is so flawed. I just can't believe that this game is so beloved with having that kind of stuff.

1:22:13Now, what they could do is they could put it out and it's like, here's some DLC where there's like a completely different character that plays completely differently. And then I might be more inclined to do it, but just the sword and board rolling and, you know, the other nerfed ass like classes, like nothing feels right to me in this game.

1:22:29Peer Schneider:I mean, controversial opinion on my part, but this is not my favorite game because when I play video games, I like to have a good time. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Don't come after me. I also don't I've never liked the the juggling of like you gotta heal this then heal this then heal this then heal this like I hate that this game feels like crap it's just it's so bad like what is what's good about it is all of the the world building and mystery and everything like that's what's good about it and what's good about it is the challenge that's what's good about it but it's also leads to a bunch of dead ends for me I love I love what Damon says is like my favorite game and I played it with my son.

1:23:10We have so many great memories. Somebody pulls Sam's string and Sam goes... We didn't need to say it, right? That's how people play this game. You want to invest this time to make it a really interesting, playable game? You're going to have to invest the time in it. I just don't want to.

1:23:30Peer Schneider:I like another nice thing that I'll say about Elden Ring. It's a feature shared amongst many games on this list. It's the confidence amongst the development staff to kind of let you... Bellatro is a game that you can break. You can build your character, build in a certain way and just win. It's a win button. You figure it out and it rewards you by just being like, you figured it out. We're going to let you win. We're not going to stop you from doing that. And Elden Ring and Halo and Bellatro and many games on this list, just the feat of game design to there are many, many, many viable builds in Elden Ring.

1:24:06Peer Schneider:Dozens. right and they all work and they all let you win and then obviously there's you know an endless combination of unviable builds too but it rewards you for like you know your forethought and you know your cleverness and i want to play this way or i want to play that way in the game it's very much like a yes and game you know although it will obviously smack you in the face plenty as well

1:24:28Justin Davis:yeah i i hear everything that sam says and yet i ended up loving i i i started out like knowing I was going to hate this game thinking I hated it but just over time it just I came to meet it on its own terms and I broke it when I could and cheated when I could and I loved all of it it was great what I liked about that is that then Damon had me play it that way and that's the only time it took with me right like I was I was unable to even move an inch and then I started from scratch with Damon saying like this is what you should do do this like this and then And I totally get it based on that stuff.

1:25:03That's why I can accept this game at any number one list. I would never think it shouldn't be at the top of any list of the century. I think it totally belongs there. I just hate it. Okay.

1:25:14Justin Davis:All right. Well, that's the list. That's Scoop Nation's top 25 games of the century so far. And all of our lists, our individual lists, would be a little different. But I think there's nothing on here where I'm going to say, I can't believe it's even on the list. I think it's a good list. totally i think final fantasy 10 was a surprise for me i wouldn't have expected that it's like no they're like i love the game but like i i hear a lot of hate towards it online well which kingdom hearts would you put on the list instead of none of them everybody's like i think it's tina amini's favorite game of all time i think a lot of people feel that way it's good it's the last it's the

1:25:52Peer Schneider:last of kind of the traditional final fantasies like they all got weird after that like i love 15 Like I love many of them to come after, but like, you know, normal kind of like prototypical. This is what, you know, Final Fantasy is going to be with turn-based combat and everything. It was like the big last hurrah for that. I'd agree with that.

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1:29:07Justin Davis:All right, we are running long. We have to make a decision. We have no time for anything. We should talk about Metroid. Let's talk about Metroid next week. Because you've only played a few hours of it, right? And I haven't played any yet. So let's talk about Metroid next week. Oh, okay. Okay. We'll talk about Metroid next week. And then let's hold on your show and tell until after video game 20 questions in case Justin needs to leave or something. Let's try to do a 20 questions lightning round. I have to do a lightning round. Okay. Let's do it. It comes from Andy from Indiana. Andy Anna. and then they say I just wanted to write in saying thanks for the weekly game scoops game scoops my favorite podcast of the week makes sense it's the only gaming podcast all

1:29:46Peer Schneider:right let the questioning begin okay did it come out in the 70s 80s or 90s no could it have been on our top 25 list of this uh century was was it a good game

1:30:00Justin Davis:yes you kind of asked two different questions there yeah yeah could it have been but yes is the answer to both of those. Yeah. So, wow. It could rank that highly. Wait, wait, wait. Could it have been on the list was one question. Yes. Was it a good game? Yes. Okay. You got a twofer there. I should have made you pick one.

1:30:24Justin Davis:Awesome. Does your character wear a hat? It's possible to wear a hat. Oh, it's possible to wear a hat. Optional. Okay.

1:30:31Peer Schneider:Is this a role-playing game? No.

1:30:37was this made in Japan? no that's 5 wow this is a lightning round

1:30:47Peer Schneider:is this a survival crafting game? no I'm really hung up on it's possible to wear a hat like that's actually a very telling answer because that means you can put on and wear different clothes it's not a Mario or a Link who you associate with a hat but you could put on a hat what about this? does this game have a character creator? yes oh okay that's very different so it could be a first person shooter it could be a fighting game yeah it could be like Call of Duty right? does that have a character creator? sure Call of Duty has a character creator? well I mean you can definitely buy hats okay I'm failing at making this a speedrun.

1:31:35Peer Schneider:Was it made in Japan? I already forgot the answer.

1:31:37Justin Davis:The answer was no. Yeah, it was not.

1:31:39Peer Schneider:Was this game made in the United States?

1:31:41Justin Davis:Yes.

1:31:45Is this game a violent game? No. But your definition of, we talked about Last Samurai Standing and Quentin Tarantino earlier. What's your definition of violence? It's like, it doesn't have blood? That sort of, is that? Fishing. Fishing's my definition of violence. I think Damon loves violence. That's what I'm saying. Fake violence. Let's be clear.

1:32:11Peer Schneider:Is this a cozy game?

1:32:12Justin Davis:It's not a cozy game, no. That's 10. Okay.

1:32:16Peer Schneider:Not Stardew Valley.

1:32:20Peer Schneider:Made in America, not violent, not a survival crafting game. Is this an indie game? Not an RPG.

1:32:26Justin Davis:Not an indie game.

1:32:30Does this game have... What if it's like FIFA? Yeah, I don't... Why he said it was not violent. You can design your characters. You can't wear a hat in soccer. No hats in soccer. No, you can only have long hair.

1:32:43Peer Schneider:What kind of flag do you get for wearing a hat? The rarely seen orange flag. Does this game have hand-to-hand combat in it? No. It's not violent. Why would it have combat at all? But it's not a cozy game either. Yeah, you could slap people with your hands. I guess you could jump on enemies heads if it had swords it'd be violent if it had guns it'd be violent right

1:33:14Peer Schneider:what is going on what game has a character creator but it's non-violent and not cozy see that's why I was going down the route of like wrestling or something you know yeah but maybe what about Sims is Sims cozy yeah Sims is cozy and evil okay

1:33:36is this a sim or a sports game yes is it a sports game yes wow you wasted one on that one no we didn't it's a sports game where you can wear a hat though which is very rare i feel like i've been getting at this for a long time y 'all yeah you're right well and so now we

1:34:00Peer Schneider:gave you a hard time about the hand-to-hand question but that proved accurate because now we know it's not wrestling or boxing. Yeah. Exactly. I like thinking of wrestling as hand-to-hand combat. It is. Sports game. And boxing. Yeah, that's right. Wearing a hat and boxing would be really funny. But you wear helmets sometimes. Yeah. I think it's helmet-based. I think it's a Madden. Yeah. I think so too. See, I don't think Damon would pick Madden because then you would have to guess which year and like that's that's what makes it fun that's impossible there's no way in 2012 no it's it's it's gonna be more if he picked it it's gonna be more sort of a standalone yeah well are there like you know fantasy sports games it could be mutant league football yeah like it or it'd be like tech mobile or something classic like that is this oh well it can't be it's not in the 70s 80s is this based on like an actual existing league league like league no that's 15 could be nfl blitz that didn't have official teams in it could it be could it be now he's gonna make us nervous could it could it be uh would you consider a car soccer game to be sports justin yeah would car soccer be sports okay but can your car wear a hat in that stupid game i think so i think it can oh boy yeah i think it might be nfl blitz because it doesn't have official it's a it's it's not officially licensed it doesn't have a league in it what do you mean except the nfl there's something weren't the teams not real or there's something like that it is funny that daemon just told us that it's not based on a real league but it could be rocket league that's funny yeah that's why i went to rocket league because he hesitated for league is this a car soccer game no what about stuff like golf story like the rpgs and things uh well there's obviously mario tennis those are indies there's there's mario tennis where you could pick a character as a hat.

1:36:13But it doesn't have a character. It doesn't have a character creator. Right? Well, what are some sports games that aren't... FIFA, NBA... Hot Shots Golf. Hot Shots Golf, or whatever it's called now. Yeah, but those are all Japanese.

1:36:31Peer Schneider:Is this sport... Do you have an inflatable ball in this sport? Does the ball have air in it? No. Okay, so not FIFA. That was such a stupid question. Yeah, now you got golf hockey. Do we say racing was out, right? How many questions do we have? You have two questions and a guess. I mean, golf hockey or it's not a ball-based sport. I got one. What about a team sport? Should we ask that? Sure. Does that help at all? Is this a team sport game?

1:37:10Justin Davis:No. Wow. Okay, then it has to be golf.

1:37:16Peer Schneider:Or it's not a ball-based sport. Yeah, horse-based. Yeah. Unless your horse counts as a team. It can still be a racing game. But characters wear helmets, not hats in those games. I think it might be Hot Shots Golf.

1:37:36Justin Davis:Here's your hint. when it comes to sports genres you guys are extremely off base

1:37:42Peer Schneider:i don't know yeah well i mean it could be we know he's giving us a baseball he's extreme no he's saying extreme so it could be skating or uh yeah it's tony hawk it's not um the problem is that it's not a ball-based sport at all i see i i thought base was a baseball hint but you're saying extreme sports is what it is so it's tony hawk's pro skater i think it's tony or snowboarding and we're never gonna get sean white snowboarding or uh whatever kelly waveboarding wakeboard are you are just just get the skateboard game then we have to like spin the dice are you are you on something that has wheels rolling around in this game yes and that's not snowboarding now you have to guess.

1:38:32Peer Schneider:Which Tony Hawk do we want to guess? It's either the latest one or it's what was the recent collection was one and two? The recent one was three and four. Three and four was the recent one. We should just guess the original because I got to go. No, no, that's not the century. Why? Oh, that's right. So it could be skate. You sure it wasn't 2000? Let's do skate. I think it was the 90s for the original. Tony Hawk Pro Skater? That was definitely in the 90s. Yeah, it was 90s, you're right. Let's just skate and bounce.

1:39:06Justin Davis:Okay, was it skate? No, it was not skate. It was Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. Whoa! I said that! In 2005. Oh, it was Tony Hawk's Underground. Yeah, yeah.

1:39:20Peer Schneider:Yeah. Oh, American Wasteland, not Thug. Okay. This is the RPG, right? They made Thug, then they made Thug 2, and Venomare. Did I play this? I may not have played this. I never played this one. Yeah. I don't think I played it. I think American Wasteland was the last kind of like normal Tony Hawk game before they did Ride and then the franchise kind of ended. This was like its last hurrah. This one has like a story mode

1:39:41Justin Davis:where you're new in town and you have to like make friends with a local skate game. And you make your own character? Well. Or do you play as someone? I was assuming you can make your own character because it's a Tony Hawk game and you can in the previous one. Okay. Really? Especially because I was like

1:39:57Peer Schneider:I thought you just played as like Bam Margera.

1:40:01Justin Davis:Yeah, you can also create your own character. Okay. Okay. Damon, if you lied, we want a refund. Yeah, if I was wrong about that, you definitely would have gotten it. No, that totally led us astray. Then we would have said Wasteland for sure. I'm glad Damon finally owes us.

1:40:16Peer Schneider:Yeah, if he's wrong, we're going to do 2 ,000 episodes of our WoW show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:40:21Justin Davis:Well, nicely attempt. Thank you for the suggestion, Andiana. And viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for a video game, 20 questions, email them to me at the email address, gamescoop at IGN.com. Right now, I think we're going to say goodbye to Justin, but then Sam is going to do a show and tell. All right. I'm sad about the show and tell. Okay. Well, bye. I'll watch the show and tell with the viewers. Okay. Goodbye, Justin. Bye, Justin.

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1:43:07Justin Davis:this episode of Game Soup was produced by Myself, Damon Hatfield, and Jobert Odienza. Technical direction is handled by Jobert Odienza. Technical production is by Mariah Franzen and Amir Akib. Audio engineering is by Amir Akib, and post-production editing is by, yours truly, Damon Hatfield. Graphic design is by Nicole Kagempen. GameScoop is an IGN production and part of the Geek Media Network.

1:43:48did you win 100 questions yes they did they did oh it was okay okay okay and we crushed it i was very impressed like i was telling damon vector man and typing of the dead that was insane all right you guys were so lucky that you asked about control method because then it got weird because it's an arcade game but it doesn't use a steering wheel for vector man no for typing of the typing of the dead oh typing that's good that's good i would have never been able to guess that that was insane yeah it was a good we covered each other's blind spots for video games i would say yeah i got i think i i got shadow of the colossus on two questions i don't know why really i was like oh that's shadow that's so cool that's so cool i was i wasn't on the show though i was in a car you can't reason with the sun trust us we've tried

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