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Was 2023 The Best Year In Video Game History?
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Transcript
Introduction & Upcoming Episodes
00:00:13
Speaker
what's up everybody welcome to the log on games podcast for friday december the 22nd the next to last episode of 2023
00:00:28
Speaker
So housekeeping this episode, we've talked about it throughout the year and we said we'd bring it back here at the end. We're just going to be talking about, is 2023 the best year in gaming history? Or at least comparing it to other of the most giant years that we can find and see where it lay. Because it's been a pretty epic year. Next Friday. Play where it lies.
00:00:53
Speaker
Play where it lies. Next Friday, we will be doing our log on games game of the year.
00:01:01
Speaker
Episode so we'll be giving Whoever's on that episode will be giving their game thought top five games of the year We will accumulate everybody in the log on games crew same as we did last year You know, I don't remember if we did top three or top. I guess we did top five last year I think 25 obviously like if it's the number one on someone's list it was like five points if it's number two it's four points and so
00:01:27
Speaker
Until and that's how we we do our game of the year last year was Elden rings first ever Year that we gave out a game of the year So we will do that again and that will be next week's and then the following week the first episode of 2024 which will land on January the 5th we will be doing our
00:01:55
Speaker
Predictions for the year, as well as looking back at our predictions from 2023 and seeing who did the best, who did the worst. Yep. Who did just right. That's right. All right.
Guest Introduction & Personal Updates
00:02:18
Speaker
With me today on this episode, you can find them.
00:02:24
Speaker
at red rocks, you can find them in New York city, wherever sleep token may be. You can find them there. We have Bram berserker, Andrew with us on the podcast today. Worship. What's going on? Worship. What's going on? Yeah, man. Just, uh, chilling in the, in the cold weather here up north, loving it Christmas lights. And, uh, just listening to a lot of sleep token. How cold is it?
00:02:54
Speaker
I mean, the nights I've seen flurries like two days in a row. That was like a couple of weeks back. But since then, I haven't seen anything. So needs to be more snow, man. Yeah, dude. Santa Claus ain't coming. If there ain't no snow over there, you know, you got to make sure there's so he never visits the South then ever. No, that's grandpappy coming down the chimney off drunk off moonshine.
00:03:18
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Emily and I were in Orlando last week and it was cold as it got during like the day before the sun went down. It was like 67. It was like a day that was like a high of 67. But all the other days were like 75 to 82. It was awesome.
00:03:36
Speaker
We're at the theme parks. It was 82 degrees. We're like, man, we can do water rides. You know, I wish I could feel that way, but like I get, okay. So on a vacation standpoint, awesome. But I don't want it to be that temperature around Christmas time. Personally, I needed to be cold man. Yeah. It's part of the fields. I need a reason for the fireplace. Yeah.
00:04:00
Speaker
I had a fireplace going year-round. You just come on over, bud. That's true. That's true. You do? Also with us on the podcast, you can find a Matt Roffel on MeWaffles. We have Carlos on the podcast. What's cracking? You know, man, just getting Christmas shopping done, you know, it's that time of the year. Wait, on the 21st?
00:04:29
Speaker
No, no, not today. I'm just saying like on the last episode, you know, what's going on. Yeah, Christmas shopping stuff, you know, work things. I've accepted and my wife has also assured me that I will not be able to finish Baldur's Gate this year just because of where I am in the game. I am an act three and I'm at Baldur's Gate, but apparently it's like
00:04:56
Speaker
really, really, really big. And apparently I'm only a third of the way through the city and it's the smallest part of the city. So, and I've got two other bosses, three bosses, which I forgot. So you're telling me in 10 days, if you devoted three hours per day in the next 10 days, you couldn't be Baldur's gate. Yeah. But the thing is, bro, I, I'm a busy guy. Yeah. I can't, I can't call Christmas and did nothing but play Baldur's gate.
00:05:27
Speaker
As a Christmas present, yeah, you get the whole thing. My mom would be so mad. She's coming with the visit. That's all I could. She hasn't played Baldur's Gate. Yo, Andrew just solved it. She can play with you. She would not like that game. I have one more Christmas gift to get, so I get it. But I'll call Jeff Bezos. He'll get a T in three days.
00:05:57
Speaker
Some this is the first place I've ever lived where if you order something early in the day, you'll get it same day. Oh, yeah, same. Yeah. Which is pretty crazy. One time Emily ordered energy drinks at like eight o'clock at night and they showed up at three a.m. and dropped it on the front door. I was like wild dude.
00:06:15
Speaker
A delivery at 3 a.m.? Yeah. It'll say, like, deliver between, like, you know, 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. or something. It's like a little window. But, like, yeah, when you're sleeping, Santa Claus just drops it off in your front door. I was like, I saw the car lights come in and I saw them pull up. And I was like, am I going to have to, like, am I going to have to fight somebody? You know that? Somebody about to come in here. I was like, looking at our ring camera. I was like, what's happening?
00:06:45
Speaker
Last but not least on podcast today, you can find him in the sunny state of Idaho. Idaho. At X User 8X, we have Matthew with us on podcast. None of those words were true. Not even part of me. Not sunny. Not Idaho. It's not cold and sunny in Boston.
00:07:14
Speaker
No, on Monday, it was raining all day with wind from 25 to 35 miles per hour with gusts up to 60. It was cool. Your boy was working in it. Yeah, but it brought warm weather with it, so it was like low 60s. It's always sunny in Philadelphia. If you go there, it's sunny year round. That's what I've heard. I've heard. I've never been to Philly. I want to go.
00:07:39
Speaker
Philly's cool. Also, the Velocico Street Universal, the Velocico Street Universal goes up to 70 miles an hour. I want to ride that. So I was I was technically, you know, like around that same thing. What is the fastest roller coaster like in the US?
00:07:56
Speaker
It used to be the, uh, roads roadster, whatever it's called at, um, it's Cedar point. It's like a really short ride. They just tore it down. I wrote it. There's only like, there's only like a 17 second long ride and it went a hundred and I want to say a hundred and 19, 120 miles an hour or something like that.
00:08:15
Speaker
Imagine waiting two hours to ride seven. Yeah, the dragster is what it's called. I did it. No, that's the cool part about it because it's such a short ride. The line flies because they're all right. All right. I found it. I found it, boys. I found it. Kingda Ka. Yeah. Kingda Ka is the fastest roller coaster in the US up to 128 miles an hour. 128 miles an hour? Six flags. I'm just trying to figure out which one. I want to say the dragster I went on is 120 even, I think, is what they listed as.
00:08:46
Speaker
I've rode the bullet train in Japan. That's pretty fast. I'll say that's that would be you can't feel it though. You can't. I will say riding the dragster. Yeah. And hitting like that 120 mile an hour speed. Like I've been on a lot of roller coasters that go like 60 to 80, maybe even 90. It was like a mega one. It's like you get to that roller coaster speed and you go to like make a sound, but you keep going faster and your body's like, I can't make a sound. Like, I don't know what you want. It's the six flags in New Jersey.
00:09:15
Speaker
Oh, it is a girl. Yeah. I'm dog. You got to go there. Go. Got to go there. 128 miles an hour is insanity. That's crazy. They tore the dragster down because I guess if you're going that fast, you need a lot of power. So a metal piece flew off of it. Hit some lady. That's all right. That's pretty metal. So what happens when you tempt fate? Just saying, um,
00:09:43
Speaker
The Velocicoaster, you know how some rides or some roller coasters have like a launch? You know? Yes. Like it won't, it doesn't go to the top and drop it like it launches you up. Aerosmith, the Hulk. Yeah. Yeah. The Velocicoaster has a launch and you're already going top speed and then there's another launch while you're going top speed. Like it's like halfway through the coaster.
00:10:05
Speaker
It's like, you're already going like rollercoaster speed, and then all of a sudden, you hit a second level. It's like, let's launch them even though they're already going plenty fast enough. It's a fun time. Crazy.
Content & Sponsorship
00:10:18
Speaker
We want to welcome everybody to the Log On Games Podcast. This is a weekly show in which our hosts discuss a variety of gaming news topics from new games, big announcements, events, and more. New episodes upload every Friday on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you want to listen to your podcast at.
00:10:33
Speaker
You can also watch us at youtube.com slash at log on games. Uh, please go over there and subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you have not watched us over there, we have reactions to all sorts of things. Uh, we did the reactions to the game boards recently. Um, it's in its entirety and it's 22 gigabyte entirety is up on our YouTube channel. Uh, so you can go over there and watch that.
00:11:03
Speaker
And the next three to four weeks are usually our spiciest and our most viewed videos. So. All right. Buckle up. Explain our YouTube channel. I was going to ask the same question. We get spicy. We get spicy. As it explains, spicy. Spicy is like we do our unique predictions and someone's like.
00:11:28
Speaker
Uh, destiny to the final shape will get canceled, you know, this year, like that'd be, that'd be spicy and be spicy to take. I can live with that stuff. Nerd spice. Yeah. Like, like, uh, like, uh, hot Cheetos. Yeah. Anybody out there looking to start up a gaming podcast? I think nerd spice is a good name. She's nerd out about all the spice girls.
00:12:01
Speaker
This episode is brought to you by zencaster.com. You can go to zencaster.com backslashpricing and use our code logongames to get 30% off your first month of any Zencaster paid plan. This is where we record all of our podcasts at. You can do audio, you can do video, you can do everything from 480p to 4k. It's browser-based. I use Google Chrome. You just kind of open it on there. You can send out invites.
00:12:16
Speaker
That's it.
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Speaker
It makes life way easier. You don't want to download any softwares or anything like that. All the recording is done locally. So after you're recording, you get each guest local recording. So if there's any internet drop off or anything like that, it just kind of smoothly works. So yeah, if you're looking to make your life easier, if you're wanting to start a podcast that is code, log on games, no spaces all over cased at sinkester.com backslash pricing.
00:13:00
Speaker
Okay, boys. Let's do this in 2023 for a little bit longer.
Is 2023 the Best Year in Gaming?
00:13:08
Speaker
There's been a lot of games to have come out. A lot of conversations, not just on this podcast, but throughout the gaming community as a whole, another podcast and other YouTube channels and such. On is 2023 the best year in gaming as far as the games that have come out?
00:13:31
Speaker
in the quality of games, so we've gotten in 2023. So there's a lot of different articles you can look at. Y'all can look at things if I don't have it written down in our outline, if you want to. The main one that I came to was Den of Geek, which has what they would rank the 20th best year in gaming history. And this was in 2022. So 2023 hadn't happened yet. So I thought this might be a good one to look at.
00:13:59
Speaker
And then I also kind of cross reference that with other people that do the same things and kind of try to pick the years that are in the top five the most often. If there's other games that we don't mention these years, we're sorry. We're not freaking. We don't know every video game from every year that's ever existed in life.
00:14:17
Speaker
So if someone's gonna be like, oh, actually in 2004, you forgot the best game. It was on the Nintendo DS and it came out only in Japan. Okay, we don't care. We don't care. We're just looking at, exactly. So I'm gonna kind of try and go in order.
00:14:34
Speaker
The years that I have the most, that I've saw the most were 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2017, and then we will get to this year in 2023. So I have all the metacritic brought up. That doesn't mean like just because a game has a high metacritic score that it's the best. So I'm going to try and like skate to the other pages because some on like page three, there's like, uh,
00:15:01
Speaker
like Destiny 2 for example is one of these years but they're like they got like a 83 or whatever like that but what they should be 2017 I think yeah so there's gonna be some games with lower scores on other pages but like they were bigger than what their scores were kind of thing but for the most part
00:15:21
Speaker
This is the top games. I'm just going to kind of kind of try and name them so we can get a list in our heads of what might stand out as the best year in gaming when we get to the end of this podcast. So 1998. I was seven. Andrew was probably what, 21, 22. That 98, I think I was in ninth grade, so I don't know how old that was.
00:15:52
Speaker
It depends on you. Were you super smart? So you were like, one of these people are like seven years old. I did graduate at 17. 19. What year were you born? Do that math. You graduated in 19, you graduated in 1917. All right. So we have the legend of Zelda, Ocarina of time. Best Metacritic score game ever. I think said a 99 best Zelda game ever, in my opinion.
00:16:22
Speaker
Tekken 3, Half-Life, first Half-Life, first Gran Turismo, first Metal Gear Solid, Gran Fandango, Banjo Kazooie, the first Baldur's Gate, Carlos. The first Baldur's Gate in 1998. That's pretty crazy. Starcraft. Starcraft. Myth. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six.
00:16:52
Speaker
F0 Resident Evil 2 10. Yeah, follow dude re2 is uh, so good Xenogears came out that year. Yeah starcraft. I don't know if you mentioned it by mr. We said metal gear, right? Yeah, there's a lot of at least in the us on gameboy In 98 I mean, I mean that's a powerful year for sure. It's a big boy
00:17:20
Speaker
I think the thing that would get highlights. I think the thing that would make the argument for a year like this is these are all like the first games, you know, like there's no sequels really on this list. Yes. And let's talk arena of time, but it's just like Half-Life Gran Turismo Metal Gear Solid Baldur's Gate Star. Right. But also at that time, you didn't know this is the first Gran Turismo out of a bunch at that time. It was just like we've never played a game like this.
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, this is what I'm saying. So like it, looking back on it, it's like it's important because they were the first, but at that time it was more so like crazy innovation. We're like, we've not played something like this. So my approach to this is to make a list of the most impactful games in my life per year. And then I can determine from that point, what was the best ones? So like impactful, like looking back on how impactful it was or like how you felt then.
00:18:19
Speaker
Okay, so this is what I have down right now for 98 is RE2, Ocarina, Xenogears and Metal Gear. Those are all staples in my personal favorite list of all time. Those are my highlights of that year for me personally.
00:18:37
Speaker
Okay. It's the old, uh, it's the old Marvel debate of what Marvel movie is the best one. And a lot of people will say the first Iron Man, cause you know, it got everything and there's no end game without the first Iron Man. That's what they sound like. Well, it could have been the best Marvel movie when it came out and then it's okay. Yeah. All right. Is there anything else on this or we want to go onto the next year?
00:19:05
Speaker
Um, so what, what, uh, this would have been Nintendo 64 and PS one. Yeah. Is that what we're looking at here? Yeah. I believe so. Yeah. Also, also 98 was the, uh, North American debut of Pokemon.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, we said that. Oh, missed it. My bad. Also, Pokemon came out that year in North America. Which one? We didn't have green, though. We didn't have green. All right. The next year I have 2001. So this is going to be the PlayStation 2 original Xbox Game Boy Advance.
00:19:54
Speaker
Gamecube era man, there are some good still a little dreamcast there a lot of little dreamcast there That's what I was playing 2001 We have three games that sit at a 97 this year Tony ox pro skater three grand theft auto three halo combat evolved big boys Metal Gear Solid 2 came out this year Gran Turismo 3. That's a big one
00:20:23
Speaker
Madden NFL 2022 back when, you know, they tried. They were trying to make, you know, good sports games back in. Was that the Madden that you had on GameCube when you first got the GameCube? Was that that one? I have no idea. I think it was. I could be wrong.
00:20:44
Speaker
Paper Mario SSX tricky advanced wars super smash brothers in the GameCube final fantasy 10 Twisted metal golden Sun Jason Montgomery somewhere and it just percocet up a little bit. Let's twist the middle black, by the way. Yeah Jack and Daxter dude Pikmin fantasy star online
00:21:11
Speaker
NBA Street game of the year that year, in my opinion, you know, I see Max Payne on here. I haven't played much Max Payne, but I do know that like this game is really very beloved for its time. Baldur's Gate to Carlos. Oh, the first two years, you know, we got we got we got them both. All right. I've got also Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, whatever that was. Also Super Monkey Ball. Just saying it.
00:21:41
Speaker
Super monkey balls on here. I am scrolling Tropico and a lot of people like weird stuff like that. The Sims hot date. How about Red Faction? Red Faction. That was a good one, dude. Oh, my God. I love that. That and a Klonoa to play the absolute balls out of. Crazy taxi to.
00:22:07
Speaker
I'm just kind of scrolling through the pages now just to see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. From missing anything. Any Pokemon games, you know? Oh, the first zone of the enders. So I bought that game for a really good year. I bought that game because it came with the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo straight up. Oh, really? Did you ever actually get the game?
00:22:30
Speaker
Yeah, it was one of those things where you paid it. It was one of those ones where I always bring up because it's like I paid $50 and the campaign was only four hours long. Boom. Yes, I did beat it. How are we feeling? This year or 98, which one are you picking? Oh, OK. Over over over 98. Um.
00:22:57
Speaker
It was also more prime gaming years for me too. So maybe that has something to do with it. I don't like what we're being asked.
00:23:08
Speaker
My biggest deal in this one is that I'm like on the meta score stuff, like looking through like best games of the year, I get a page like three and I'm still like, Oh, I love that game. Yeah. So it was like NBA street was on like three or four. And I was like, Oh, what a game that was. I mean, there's a lot of sports games in the high eighties, high nineties on this list, which is just not the case anymore. Well, there's some things like, so Gran Turismo three still my favorite Gran Turismo game. Right. Um,
00:23:34
Speaker
Final Fantasy 10, my favorite Final Fantasy game. That's on my list. Yeah. And so there's just like a lot of stuff that, that really spoke, golden sun, some of my favorite RPG golden seven really good. Uh-huh. Uh, fantasy star fantasy star is a top three favorite game of mine at all time. Like I have it on my PC right now. It's people that fans are still playing. Yep. Right. I love it. I know people that play.
00:24:00
Speaker
Well, now you know me and I play. The GameCube Smash Brothers, which some would even say is the best Smash Brothers still to this day. Exactly. A lot of tournaments still only use melee because it's better than even the newest one that came out. So this is a really tough one just because like even just like the impact we have life had a significant impact.
00:24:23
Speaker
I mean, Ocarina Time, for the N64 and the graphics, the technology they had for its time was like, oh my God, this is like SOAP 3D in open world. And I still replay through that game on this. Absolutely. It's amazing. Absolutely.
00:24:44
Speaker
So a couple of debuts
Highlighting Past Gaming Years
00:24:46
Speaker
on that one. I mean, star craft. I'm going to say it's better than 98. I don't know. I personally think so. I personally, I'm with you on that. If we're just comparing the two, it's better than 98 for me. It's hard to say. You have grand theft auto three, which like I remember when that first came out, like.
00:25:03
Speaker
Amazing. I mean, it's so open. Halo, we know what Halo would do for the Xbox. Yeah, like Gran Turismo 3, I agree, was like for its time still today, just like mind blowing. I love Devil May Cry 2 a lot. That was a really good game.
00:25:23
Speaker
Why don't we do this? Why don't we like, as we go through these, write down like your top three as we're going through them and then we get to the end. We can like compare those and then pick a winner based off of like those combinations. That's what I've been doing since the first page.
00:25:39
Speaker
Well, we've only done two so far, so we can't do a top three. Let's go to, let's go to 2004. There may be a year that we're like, oh yeah, this is so far the best year. There's no question. Yeah, yeah, right. Also, 2001 flight simulator. All right, 2004. This one so far is not that great for me, to be honest. Half-Life 2, Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas, Halo 2,
00:26:08
Speaker
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Oh. Unreal Tournament. World of Warcraft. Oh, Unreal Tournament, man. Unreal Tournament. So good at the time. I mean, just having Halo 2. Yeah, World of Warcraft. Unreal Tournament. I mean, and World of War. Yeah. You have Half-Life 2, Halo 2, World of Warcraft. Yeah, Unreal. Like. Yeah. This is.
00:26:34
Speaker
Then we're still in there. Let's just this should be we should just go ahead and name this the best year of gaming of all time and here's why.
00:26:42
Speaker
We have two separate companies. I mean, two separate NFL games. Both have a 91 and a 92 on Metacritic. That will never happen again, I promise. Never in the history of the world will that happen again. I know, right? I'm going to read a part of the article that you linked to us, the Den of Geek one, which by the way, I've been loving some Den of Geek recently. They don't know us. They don't know us, but they do make a lot of like best, best this of all times or whatever.
00:27:10
Speaker
And for somebody like me, who is going through, um, I meet you many plus and playing a lot of retro games, you can do like best. I don't know. Neo geo pocket games of all time and they have a list for it. And it's like, cool. I know where to start next week's episode next next week. But let me read you this, right? They did the notable game in 2004. This was their number one, by the way.
00:27:29
Speaker
It says, if I told you that counter-strike source, kill zone, ratchet and clank up your arsenal, EverQuest 2, the Legend of Zelda, the Minish Cap, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Jak 3, Need for Speed Underground 2, Metroid Prime 2, Vampire, The Masquerade, Bloodline, Spider-Man 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, and World of Warcraft were all released in the same year. You'd probably agree that was one of the best years of gaming, right? Well, what if I told you they were all released in November of 2004?
00:27:57
Speaker
I didn't realize a source came out in 2004. That was all in a month. That isn't it. Okay. You can at least say best month of all time. Like you can't get away from that. Right. That is actually, actually that's next week. I mean, that's next week. We're doing the best year of all times in the best months in the best week and the best day and the best hours. I'm here for the hour.
00:28:25
Speaker
That'll never happen again because people would move their games. I'm not coming out the same month. All this stuff is coming out. We'll do it. We'll delay this puppy. I'm not I'm not in I've never really played a Grand Theft Auto game. I've never bought it and played one myself. Maybe other people's here and they're watching other people, whatever. So I'm not up to date on like what Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is to the Grand Theft Auto community. Like it's that right.
00:28:54
Speaker
a top tier one or what? I mean, it's a 95 on Metacritic. So I'm not saying that's bad by any means. I just don't know. Compare them comparatively where we're at. But yeah. I mean, Halo 3 is my favorite Halo game, but Halo 2 was when
00:29:10
Speaker
It launched it to another strategy fair with Xbox live and all that. It really with Xbox live, just like the people that I've met like through that game. It's like the Halo parties that I had with my friends and yet like five, six TVs, 12 dudes in a house is just like Xbox is everywhere.
00:29:33
Speaker
Dude, good times. Sounds like a sitcom, 12 guys in the house. Also, my opinion, NFL 2K5 possibly the best football game ever. Might be definitely probably my favorite. If you've never played it or never, like if you ever get the opportunity to play, just one like, I don't know.
00:29:55
Speaker
some way, somehow, you got an old retro console or something. It's got the first-person mode where you can play first-person, like VR before VR is a thing, right? It's really, really fun. I mean, how many games... We have World of Warcraft on here. How many games are we going to see on these lists that 15 to 20 years later, people are still playing it, like it's day one, you know? Yeah, I was actually going to say, you can make a strong argument that that's the most influential game of all time.
00:30:25
Speaker
I, you know, and I'd be okay with that answer. Like it's one of the few that has that argument. Yeah, especially for how long the game has span. It continues to keep going. That engine is just.
00:30:40
Speaker
going, man. And I think it's going to get a massive boost again, because it's going to it's going to be on game pass soon. It's going to be a game pass. If that happens. Wow. Classic. This is the this is the spiking audio. This is coming from a person who does not play well. I gave well a try and it just wasn't for me, but I respect it for the beast that it is.
00:31:07
Speaker
Put it on Xbox Phil. I'm not going to ask and I'm in. I'm not trying to complicate things, but I'm doing my own side research. You're allowed to. Ninety nine has some nasty games. Just saying. OK, we can look at ninety nine. I'm making my own ninety nine list because there's a lot of favorites for me on here. Oh, you're making a list of games for that year. I thought we're just ranking years. Yeah, you listen to the year.
00:31:33
Speaker
Well, we're skipping ninety nine. We're only we're only doing like, yeah, we're not going into every year. I just out of curiosity looked and I was like, OK, cool. There's some good ones. I mean, I know. Soul Caliber Gran Turismo 2 Homeworld System Shock 2, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.
00:31:55
Speaker
Final Fantasy 8, the first Mario party, Silent Hill, like boy, boy. My favorite MMO of all time, probably Everquest. Dude, Sonic Empire, Crash Team Racing, Soul Calibur.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, here are the dogs. They're alive. Jeez. Yeah, there's a lot in 99. I think that there is some really good top end in 99. I just think it peters out where a lot of the other years have like strong, you know, number. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is just like personal impact for sure. Yeah. There's some, there's some good strong ones there. All right. All right.
00:32:37
Speaker
They are, I think Emily's home. I hope so. It could be somebody else. Let's go to 2000. I want to go to 2000, but I also want to be here for that conversation. So I'll be right back. Give me three seconds to beat these dogs up. No, I'm just kidding. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I've already counted to three and it has not been taken care of. Interesting. When you look back at your childhood,
00:33:02
Speaker
or even even as childhoods analysis, we're talking about like some of the most influential games. Like would you have like what games come to your head as the top couple? Like this is the most influential games in my video game that that impacted your life personally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hila to elders three Morrowind and Super Mario World top three. Okay.
00:33:24
Speaker
Destiny is coming in very close at probably a five four I think you did you would probably say that like in 10 years if you asked you to go Oh destiny because you know it's gonna fit fit that mold for you sure It's funny. It's funny to hear Carlos say that like destiny is coming up in the list back because I I've told like everybody
00:33:48
Speaker
The impact of that game is probably larger than any other game I've ever played. For you? Yeah, like the social aspect. I did do the LAN parties and Halo and Gears of War and all that stuff, but my first time befriending people online, my first raids, the experiences Destiny has provided me in the last eight years is untouched.
00:34:13
Speaker
Like, I don't know. All right. Did y'all talk 20 or 2007? No, no, no. We're talking like, what's the most... Because they were just talking about some of the games he's writing down that were influential in his life. We were saying, like, what's the most... What would be the top couple, like, most influential games in your life? In your life. Oh, we'll see. Yeah, we'll get there. Well, we talked about... One of mine was Phantasy Star Online, which we just came across. Yeah, yeah. That's one of the ones I played. Which I totally get, too, especially, like, the community aspect when you're playing an MMO. And, like, like, Andrew was saying... Never did.
00:34:42
Speaker
Really? Playing online now on servers, the first time I've played with other people, we played the crap out of that game just offline because we lived in the middle of the woods in a log cabin with dial-up internet. That's just kind of what we played. I want to live in a log cabin. You know what? I loved it. 2007. Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii.
00:35:08
Speaker
Bioshock. So yeah, this is Wii 360. Super Mario Galaxy. Bioshock. The Orange Box. The Orange Box, dude. Insane. Call of Duty 4. Halo 3. God of War 2. Rock Band. Team Fortress 2. Final Fantasy 6 on the Game Boy Advance. Crisis. Crisis. Hey, bro, can you please see you're on Crisis? We're lower to Crisis.
00:35:38
Speaker
World of War cap cap craft the burning crusade mass effect portal portal Legend of Zelda Wind Waker. Yeah, I was like which one? Half-life. I guess some of these games are probably like Half-Life 2 episode 2. That's what yeah Metroid Prime 3 forces much for to Final Fantasy Tactics. I was on here. Yeah, that's the one charted one tactics is charted Drake's fortune.
00:36:09
Speaker
Mm-hmm. This is a good year guys. This is a pretty good year Wow, there's shivering. I'll persona for one. I'm not more one for oblivion, which is surprising that that was a really good expansion for that game
00:36:23
Speaker
I remember playing Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 at the church on the chart. We would break into that church and just put down the screen and we would hook up the 360 and four player Ghost Recon 2. That was a really good looking game too.
00:36:45
Speaker
Guitar Hero 3. It was not that good looking when you blew it up to that big of a size though. Fair. Fair. But it was good looking on a normal sized TV. Guitar Hero 3 personally is my favorite. Like virtual murder and confession in the same space. It's great.
00:37:00
Speaker
I'm not saying it's one of the best, but honestly, I think for me and Andrew, both, if you say most influential games in our life, I think you would have to put the rock band in there. I don't know if you put that one or just like the series that we played the heck. I still have my rock band guitar downstairs. I played every night. I played it today. It's a second.
00:37:21
Speaker
OK, I'm better than you. They put the summoning by sleep token on there and I was like, well, I guess I'm playing rock band today. Oh, wait, what? I'm telling you, they keep up the day, guys. Are you serious? So you're in their life. Take a look at that. Take a look at that. Take a look at that. I'm on the base. Hold on. What do you want? What do you want? Every week still on on PC. Please, please. I guess on PlayStation X. Bro, they play on console.
00:37:47
Speaker
Master. Well, but still like like is it like an older PlayStation like console and they're still. Yes, for PS5. Yeah, whatever. No, you can play it on PS. I played on PS5. Oh, wow. So if you own it, then you can play it on like all the other older generation consoles or do you just buy it again recently? It was it was a PS4 game. And yeah, right. Oh, OK. No, it's one more time. And then, yeah, when they when PS5 came out, it's just they made it. So every now and again, we'll play online. Me and Andrew both, we have our own.
00:38:15
Speaker
know, whatever they call the online things. It wasn't mad cats. And somebody else announced, I think it's the same people that made that one, Laura Lynn, announced that they're making a new guitar for
00:38:30
Speaker
Fortnite, but it's you can use it for rock band too, but it has been a long time I heard they're working on implementing all of those all the problems to work with the the fortnight thing fortnight festival or whatever in that mode or whatever they have a rhythm game Yeah, like it's a rock band guitars now sell for a bonkers amount of money online because they don't make them anymore So the ones that work if someone sells them
00:38:53
Speaker
It's like, like I've wanted a new guitar for forever, but I'm not going to spend $300 to get a new one. You need to go to like Goodwill or something. Yep. That's what I did for the last one I did. There's a lot of guitar hero ones and a lot of them do work, but it's not the same as the Rockman. What's your, uh, what's your favorite guitar hero controller? Rockman. Yes.
00:39:17
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I'll bring it out. What's the game that used real guitars? What was I called? Rock Smith. Oh, concept idea. Not super accessible, I don't think. This is still this is still my favorite one right here.
00:39:34
Speaker
There you go. I had the same one. And this is the original one I've had forever. It's nasty. This is the best one. And I will tell you why. Covered in Cheetos. I know Cheetos, just old stickers like that. That's the classic guitar here. I wonder, it's like, guess what? Colored buttons were all right here. But this one's like just clean, crispy.
00:39:55
Speaker
That's when you became a man when it doesn't have the colors on it. It has the colors on the top so you can see. Personally, I don't like the feel of the strum on the rock band. I don't like the feeling of it. It's very soft. It's soft because when you were in a group playing with people,
00:40:16
Speaker
Especially when the drums, you know, unless you had a freaking blast and it was just Oh my god, shut up So they're like, you know, let's do let's do without and I don't know your TV is not loud enough. I agree and I would typically agree that the clickities are better because they break less but I like this can this I've had this guitar since the game came out and
00:40:44
Speaker
I think I'm going to have to play when we get off of this now. I think that's what I want to. And all the buttons still work, and the strum still works, and the thing's been played for hours and hours. And it's been duct taped and thrown around. It's done it all.
00:40:57
Speaker
We play at that same log cabin in the woods when dad would be gone, where we could, you know, blow people's eardrums out and no one was there to stop us. Basically. Uh, we had two full like stage speakers in our bedroom hooked up to a, a small, like 16 channel soundboard. And that's what we played rock band through. We played it. So we were, I mean, we were loud. We were loud. It was a blast.
00:41:27
Speaker
Man, all right, we need to blow through some of these years. And then we both ended up in bands and I think that had something to do with it. I'm trying to, I'm kind of putting an X beside the air on my notes of if one tops another year for me. So I'm trying to decide between. Yeah, you got to write down your top three and I'm not sure which one I want to put for my, I don't know if this is going to number one for me or not.
00:41:54
Speaker
It's a really good year for me. Yeah, it's good. It is a really good year. I mean, it's some of my favorites.
00:42:04
Speaker
Bioshock, the first Bioshock is like a top 10 favorite game for me of all time. I've mentioned it before that has the single greatest moment in a video game in my life that I can think of. Actually, maybe have been topped. It's right there with a major moment in The Last of Us 2 in terms of like just most impactful scenes in a game, right?
00:42:26
Speaker
After we do the week and the day and the hour and the minute and the second podcast, we're going to do the best moments of the year. I will go back through and then we'll do the best moments of the week of the month and the week. And then we'll have a bunch of episodes at that point so we can go back to our podcast and do the best moments of the podcast of the month of the year. That's a good. It's a really good year.
00:42:55
Speaker
All right, 2013 and 13. I only have one game down. I'm sorry. Wait, no, 2000, 2013. Sorry. I had my only half's all messed up. 2013. The last of us. Bioshock infinite super Mario 3d world fire emblem, which one is as an awakening. Ray man legends.
00:43:17
Speaker
As Wind Waker that went on the Wii U, Pokemon X and Y, Animal Crossing, New Leaf. That's a meme of all time, you know? That's a meme of all time. Pinball effects too. Can't skip around. There's Rock Smith. Watch out.
00:43:38
Speaker
Gone home Saints Row for fun fun game for lance to or that's just a That was the tiny Tina's Expansion Tina 2013. Oh my god. That was so long ago. It feels like the wolf among this game doesn't feel like that long ago, but
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this is a good year, but definitely it does not. Yeah, it's weaker. I mean, if it wasn't for the last of us or most other couple of games here in the front. Yeah, I mean, for me personally, it's like the last of us, but the rest of them is whatever for me. Yeah. The next year might be my favorite. Anybody else have any other games on this year or we can move on from this?
00:44:29
Speaker
What was this on their list? You're compared to the others. Five. Yeah, this is five for me. It was five on their list, I think, too. What year was this? Yeah. Yeah. 2013. This was Denny Geeks. Denny Geeks. It's the last place for me right now. GTA5 is not on the Metacritic list. Yeah, it was 2013, wasn't it? Yeah, it was 2013.
00:44:59
Speaker
I don't know what it was Metacritic as. I don't know what kind of score it would have gotten. Did they have like a rocky launch? I don't know. With like the online servers? I don't know. The online stuff didn't really kick in until later. I don't think. Yeah, I want to say it didn't even come with online at first.
00:45:18
Speaker
Okay, I remember like GTA 5 and The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, Final Fantasy 14, A Realm Reborn, Far Cry 3, Assassin's Creed 4. So I mean, GTA 5 and Last of Us, two of the best selling and most awarded games ever. But not enough to carry it for me, I don't think. 20.
00:45:47
Speaker
17 2017 the let this is the year the switch came out
00:45:55
Speaker
I think that should help too. Like that should count for things. I'm going through and looking right now is like a year in game looking at 2001. Well, the GameCube and Xbox came out in 2001. Like that counts towards how good of that year was in gaming in my opinion. Yeah, but then we could do that where it's like it counts when the PS3 came out and that was a terrible launch. But then by the end of it, we got like uncharted in all these great games. Last of us, all these great games.
00:46:22
Speaker
But it wasn't a $600 beefcake version that no one cared about. The terrible cell processor and everything. It wasn't a terrible launch in terms of like, no one wanted it. It was a terrible launch in terms of they didn't do a good job with how they launched it, right? It wasn't like, if someone showed up at your house with a PS3, you weren't going, I'm good. Thanks. Nobody, nobody wanted it. Nobody could afford it.
00:46:49
Speaker
That was the biggest issue. There were no good games for it. Disagree with that part at the launch. I don't know. That wasn't a launch game. I'm sure it was a launch game for PS3. The first time charted was. Two thousand and seventeen. We have the Legend of Zelda. Breath of the Wild. Whoppers. Super Mario Odyssey. Divinity original said to persona five. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
00:47:19
Speaker
Horizon Zero Dawn. What remains of Edith Finch? Near Automata. 2017. Final Fantasy 14. Stormblood. Holo Knight. Neo. And Justice 2. Holo Knight. Zero Escape actually. Destiny 2. Destiny. Resident Evil 7. So that would have been VR. Play that game in VR that year. That was a good one. Cuphead. Sonic Mania.
00:47:50
Speaker
Sonic Mania is phenomenal. It's a fun time. I love it. Skyrim on the switch. I liked it. I was on the fridge. That was my favorite release. Uncharted the Lost Legacy. I'm looking. You said Persona 5? Yes. Yeah. Horizon Zero. Splatoon 2. That was a fun time.
00:48:17
Speaker
Danganronpa bundle. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for the Switch. Dark Souls 3. For me personally, this one suffers from a really solid group of games up top and just not as much depth as some of the other years. Hellblade. Is this here? It's a good one.
00:48:46
Speaker
I mean, it's definitely better than 2013 for me, for sure. I mean, Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, Persona 5. Even Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, I played the absolute piss out of it. It was a Wii U game at first. It deserves to be on the list, but that's fair. Well, no one owned a Wii U. So this is really the first time it came out. Gotcha. But I mean, we're talking.
00:49:14
Speaker
similar to last to 2013 with two big giant heavy hitters, but then a lot more bigger games to this year. 2017 has the biggest list of favorites for me out of all of them. Oh, well, so far. Yep. And destiny, too. I mean. Yeah, for me, because I didn't play it at lunch, it doesn't. It's got such a large impact for you.
00:49:41
Speaker
Dude, I mean Andrew knows the one man like we have messing the year destiny like this year 2017 when destiny 2 came out you could argue wasn't the greatest The launch was a year for destiny. There's no reason for two. This was all Activision bull crap
00:50:01
Speaker
Um, but what it became to be, what it came to be, I should say. Like my wife had to step in and tell me that, look, you can't be eating dinner at 11 PM each night. You have to eat dinner with me. You need to stop. Do I have to? I never had a game. Just like consume my life. No joke as much as I am whenever, when I launched, I was on it a lot. It was bad.
00:50:31
Speaker
What's on D1 a lot too? Apparently it's still my most played game this year and I don't know how. I feel like this is the least that I've played. Destiny? Yeah. It's like 66% of my playtime this year of all my games is from Destiny. Jeez.
00:50:48
Speaker
So what's up? Wow. I mean, it just happened to you. I mean, we, we complained about lightfall and stuff like that, but you know, the campaign's like that. Everything else is great. So basically, basically all of Carlos's gameplay in the first two weeks was enough to where no other game, the rest of the year can even compete. Cause we went, we go hard when those, those launches.
00:51:12
Speaker
Oh, God. And I was like, dang, like Baldur's Gate only had like 17 percent. I'm like, really? Like I'm like pushing like 140, 150 hours in that game. There's no way I played that much destiny, but I guess so. What does Den of Geek say? Do they have twenty seventeen? I was playing today during the hours. Oh, it's number 11 for them. And play it's just a dungeon.
00:51:43
Speaker
PUBG. Yep. Came out this year as well. What year? This is 2017. 2017. Yeah. Good old PUBG. It started the better way out, I would say. Yeah. Definitely. But was it like, was it out before that and then was officially out then? Cause they were like early access forever. Might've been, yeah. Could've been. Um, okay.
00:52:10
Speaker
2023 boys, this is the year that just happened. Let's compare it. Let's get it. Let's give it the whole one, two. So here's my problem with this year is because I know the games that came out were substantial, but I didn't play any of them. So it's hard to, for me to determine like,
00:52:32
Speaker
I guess I shouldn't have looked at all of these lists from a personal perspective and I should have looked at them from a... Impactful overall. Impactful from the gaming industry. Yeah, that's how I've been trying to look at it. Even if you're looking at it from like just objectively non-biased, like what's the best year of gaming, you're still going to have different people's opinions. Yeah, I'll make a list for this year. Whatever. Just because.
00:53:00
Speaker
Alright, so this year Baldur's Gate 3 obviously won all the awards that a game can win. Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. We had the Metroid Prime remaster, a late bloomer in Asgard's Wrath 2 which we talked about on last week's episode podcast, a VR game.
00:53:20
Speaker
with an open world action RPG VR game with a 93 Metacritic score and a game that's over a hundred hours long is pretty absurd. A lot of war was this year, right? December. Was that last year? That was, was 20, oh yeah, it was last year, got a war ragged and wrong last year. It was last year? 2022, yeah. Okay. Resident Evil 4 remake. Super Mario Brothers Wonder, which I haven't played, but everybody loves. Street Fighter 6.
00:53:52
Speaker
Marvel Spider-Man 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Phantom Liberty, Alan Wake 2. Wait, what year did Spider-Man the first one come out? Did we skip that year? 2018. 2018 was Spider-Man and God of War. Oh, okay. See, so we missed a massive year. Another massive year. Final Fantasy XVI, Sea of Stars.
00:54:21
Speaker
Pikmin 4, Hi-Fi Rush, Diablo 4. Oh yeah, Diablo. Armored Core 4. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, Diablo. Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. I'm not sorry, Star Wars Jedi Survivor. It's a lot of good games. Autopatters, Traveler 2, Force and Motorsport, Lightfall. There were some good games. Get out of here.
00:54:49
Speaker
What expansion came out 27 starfield? I think the sheer. I think the argument for 2023 is the sheer number of great of good to great games, monsters. Yeah, like Metacritic score, 83 and higher.
00:55:10
Speaker
I we would have to do a lot more research, but I don't think there would be as many. New games that had a 83 or higher. I don't think so. Then 22 like Mortal Kombat one got 83. Advanced Wars one to 80. You have 16 games in 2023 with a meta score rating of 90 or higher. 60s. Mm hmm. My yeah, I guess the argument against that would be that
00:55:40
Speaker
Um, I think that there's a little bit of bias in terms of the last couple of years and reviews of games because of the 2020. Like drought because of COVID and 20, like early 21, like, you know, there's just a lot of games. We didn't get a lot of games for a while because studios were working on stuff. And I think that now that we're getting a lot of those games, it got pushed plus ones that were being worked on. I think, I think it's some games this year that are ranked higher than or like metascored higher than I would.
00:56:10
Speaker
Are you a remnant to which which we have to check next week to see where it lands on my game of the year, but I think and a lot of like if you know, we had more people and more people that are going to do this podcast, it is going to be like there's one, possibly two or three different types of games for everyone this year that were like really, really good.
00:56:36
Speaker
Like if you're an RPG person, you had Baldur's Gate 3, one of the best RPGs possibly ever. Legend of Zelda, if you're a Zelda fan, you had one of the best Zelda games, sitting in 96 right now. If you're a VR person, you had what might be the best VR game ever.
00:56:58
Speaker
For people that like to play older games, you had Metroid Prime remastered, Resident Evil 4 remastered. Yeah, good amount of remasters. Fear fighting stream person, you had Mortal Mortal Kombat 1, Street Fighter 6 is at a 92 metacritic. Yeah, Street Fighter 6 is one of the better fighting games in a while. Dead Space remake, you know, if you want the new hotness, you know, we saw Alan Wake 2 won a bunch of games, Cyberpunk 2077 made a comeback.
00:57:27
Speaker
I refuse to count that. Ongoing game of the year,
Personal Gaming Milestones
00:57:29
Speaker
guys. I was about to say, I refuse to count that as a 2023 game. That being said, why it was up for awards for this year? Yes, that I get. It's weird, but I do plan on frickin' playing that expansion. Oh, absolutely. I think that's why. I have a family member, Dee. Don't laugh. Right after Baldur's Gate. No, I've got a cue going. Look, I'm going to get through that game.
00:57:57
Speaker
I'm legitimately enjoying the game that is when I play the thing is when I play Baldur's Gate, I look at every little thing. I open every little container. I look at every bookshelf like I will spend. He's never going to beat it. That's how I play games. I'm getting there.
00:58:13
Speaker
See, like, I think the reason Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty is rightfully so for awards in a game that came out this year is because the Phantom Liberty DLC is about the same length as like Alan Wake 2 was.
00:58:31
Speaker
It's 13 hours, and if you want to do everything, it's 30 and a half hours. That's a full game. And that's why you're allowed to win ongoing game things for me, but you're not allowed to win game of the year type things. This is the best this kind of game for this year because it's not this year.
00:58:48
Speaker
Yeah, but like it's the same thing like if destiny Like destiny to have had their big expansion. Obviously, it wasn't that great this year like it ends up being like the best thing ever and be like Destiny to the final shape that as a whole can win game of the area for sure I don't think it should be allowed to I get so it doesn't matter That's true. Thanks a lot. Yes yet
00:59:14
Speaker
We'll get there. We're going to overtake Jeff Keeley one day. We're going to do whatever we want. So I have my top three and one of my top three is a year that we have not discussed. So yeah, my question about that is we covered seven years. Do we want to, cause I ranked all seven as we were going, I'm like moving things around. Do we want to try to see where those go and then insert the years that you had an impact for you into that list? You can do whatever you want to do. How about that?
00:59:43
Speaker
Yeah. Like I just made a list of 2020 games and it's, it's monstrous. It's just like 20, 20, 20, 20 was good. 2017, 20, 23, and 20, 20 for me have like the most like impactful games. I know the last of us part two came out in 2020. Hades animal crossing, final fantasy seven remake, last of us part two, like 2020. Persona five, Royale.
01:00:08
Speaker
which is the same game, but let me tell you. Five hours of DLC. Just like Persona 4 to Persona 4 Golden, it's like they made a really good burger. Like you went to Five Guys, and you're like, man, this is a great, this is a solid Five Guys burger. I could eat this every day. And then they're like, all right, we're gonna make another burger the same way, but Gordon Ramsay's gonna make another. We're gonna pee on it. It's still a burger.
01:00:36
Speaker
but it's a different level. It's got egg and cheese. Yeah. I think 2020 just suffers from like, it's the COVID thing where like the whole second half of the year, not a lot of stuff came out. Um, where if everything would have come out that, you know, didn't get delayed would come out. I think 2020 would be one of those years you talk about as top three.
01:00:57
Speaker
Uh, so do you want to start from the top?
Debating the Best Year in Gaming
01:01:02
Speaker
Who's got, what's, or do you want to start from the, okay. I'll start. So my number one I put.
01:01:08
Speaker
Is this of the seven that we covered today? The industry impact or your impact? So it's a little bit of both, but I very much tried to focus on industry as well. Same. 2004, 2007, 2001, 2023, 1998, 2017, and then 2013. I think that's fair. I'm similar in a lot of that.
01:01:39
Speaker
I'm not. I only did. I only did. I only did top three. And what was you? What was your number one again? My number one is 2004.
01:01:47
Speaker
See, I didn't have 2004, but my next two are the same age. I went 07 for my number one, 2001 for my number two. And then a year we did not discuss. I actually put 2016 as my number three. So technically persona five came out in 2016. So that kind of looking at now, if you just Google release dates, September of 2016, here's 2016 games. And there's a lot of this is me and a lot of this is just good games, right?
01:02:14
Speaker
Uncharted 4. Still, I love that game. It's still the best Uncharted game. Overwatch. Firewatch, which I super love. Stardew Valley, which is still going and still kicking. Love that. Persona 5. Civ VI, which is a door to that game. I didn't play Dishonored, but Dishonored 2 was that year. I know people love that game.
01:02:36
Speaker
Which which people that played that game will say it's the best first-person shooter story in fall 2 is The witness which was a 10 out of 10 game and for me it's my favorite puzzle game I've ever played and then for me what put this on the list as like like all those are good games what puts us on this was Pokemon go I mean just like from a perspective of
01:03:01
Speaker
a year that's good for gaming. There's been very few things as good for gaming as Pokemon Go was. Like that was everywhere. Impact, especially because you think you would go driving around and you see people at like a Target or some sort of store and they're all parked in the parking lot. People just got together and you have to meet people. Yeah, it was everywhere. That was like Fox News, CNN News. Like it didn't like everywhere you turned and looked, it was Pokemon Go to the polls. You know, I like that. Right.
01:03:30
Speaker
So for me, you had Stardew Valley, Persona 5, Dishonored 2, Civ 6, The Witness. Those are all games that I would say are objectively just people love those games and they're good in the industry. And for me personally, you had Uncharted 4, Overwatch, and Firewatch, which are top 25 games for me. You forgot Rock Band Rivals.
01:03:53
Speaker
That was the Rockman 4 expansion that was like if the writers for Deadpool wrote a story for Rockman, that's what it was. It was fun. It was really, really funny. It was actually pretty entertaining and stuff. Fire Emblem Fates was that year. That's really good too. Game of the Year Planet Coaster.
01:04:16
Speaker
Hey, first game, first game I bought on PS5 Planet Coaster. So where did you what were your like top two again?
01:04:24
Speaker
Okay. My list is a mess because halfway through it, it started shifting from industry impact to what was my personal interest. The only thing that I've determined is you have your years like 98 and 2007 that were impactful because of Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear, and in 2007, you have Halo 3 Portal Mass Effect.
01:04:52
Speaker
But then I look at 2017, 2020, and 2023, and not thinking of it the way Matthew does about where everything stands in the year, but just how
01:05:07
Speaker
how many bangers they released in that year. And it's kind of just mind blowing for me to see how many insane games they've released. Not even going off, like you were saying the Metacritic, like 80 and up and all that jazz.
01:05:25
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I don't really have this in an order, but like I said, for me personally, I'd say like 98, 2007 were like the two most impactful for me personally. But then looking at 2017, 2020, 2023, I have like five plus games in each of those years that are just like, holy crap. Stand out.
01:05:49
Speaker
So for me, I, that's a great sign to just know that like, I just, we're, we're at the top of our game of, of making just rock solid games now. And it's a good time to be alive. So I don't really have a numbered list. I just have, um,
01:06:09
Speaker
What I think, I have 2004 as what I think objectively is the best year out of all the ones we talked about. I'm with Carlos on that one. That's Half Life, Grand Theft Auto, Halo 2, World of Warcraft, Unreal Tournament year. All the good sports games here. Metroid Prime 2, phenomenal.
01:06:34
Speaker
But my personal best favorite one, I think, is 2007. So I had my personal best. That is mainly because of Halo 3 and Rock Band and Uncharted. You know, it's funny. Clancy's Ghost Recon, like those type of games that we did nothing with my life, but play. Am I the only Mass Effect guy in here?
01:07:01
Speaker
It's interesting because it's almost like, especially for people like around our age that grew up and playing these games as they came out in 2007, you can ask people like, where were you? What were you doing when Halo 3 launch? How were you celebrating your Halo 3 launch? Where were you guys? I was at the mall.
01:07:22
Speaker
I was, I was at the mall waiting in line, picked it up, got the game, the gamer fuel, which is back out, by the way, they re-released it. It's true. Yeah. You know, you got, you got your, your three other buddies, you're up till however late playing it. Did you guys do any like midnight release or? So, Oh yeah. We still lived in the mountains when Halo three came out. So I couldn't play online. I'd still at this point, not played an online game. And I was really, you guys, I was, I was, uh,
01:07:51
Speaker
I was, yeah, I was a sophomore in high school at this point. So it was like Call of Duty had a better campaign than I thought at the time, than Halo did. So it was like, Halo was overrated to me. And then at rainy day, one day I was like, you know, there's nothing, I ended up getting Halo 3 playing the campaign. I was like, this is fun, this is a fun time.
01:08:11
Speaker
And then I got invited my junior year of high school to a person's birthday party that I went to school with. And he was like, Halo 3 land party for my birthday. We're playing all night. I was like, I'm there. I played the campaign. I'm good. Andrew's like, I'm there. What's the land? Oh, no, but he hasn't played with people. I got annihilated. It was like it was it was like I was three years old playing against a grown man.
01:08:36
Speaker
I was just like, I don't think I got to kill the entire night. It was just absolutely destruction from people that have been playing since Halo 2 days. But from that, spawned me doing nothing with my life but playing Halo 3 for years and years. And so many LAN parties. Oh my gosh, so many parties, LAN nights that we had. It used to be like, come home, get out of school. And this was for not just my junior. This was pretty much through graduation and beyond.
01:09:05
Speaker
get out of school, go to our cousin Ron's apartment, whoever else wants to, we're playing Halo all night. And that's what we're going to do for the rest of our lives until one of us dies. And we have to stop. Yeah, man. There's a good time. I missed those days. It was probably a year after that or so that we moved to civilization and then got USB to the internet. And then it was on at that point. It was on. Jeez.
01:09:29
Speaker
Um, but I will say I we won't know this until probably You know, if we look back on this two three four five years from now, we can probably have a better idea of 2023 but i'm not going to argue against 2023 if someone's like it's the best year of gaming. Oh, it's gross because of the sheer number. Yeah, it's gross Of games that women like when diablo four came out. We're like it's game of the year
01:10:03
Speaker
And I think you could argue at top five, but I wouldn't go higher than that. Personally, I would not agree with people that say I can see it like it's like, is there another year that has
01:10:22
Speaker
However many of these are 90 or above. Almost a full page. That's just 90 and above. It's just ridiculous. So I'm not going to argue against 2023, but my pick would be 2004, like Carlos.
01:10:39
Speaker
High five for us. High five. Any other final thoughts before we end this thing out? No, it's a fun combo. I think Carlos should beat his backlog games.
01:10:57
Speaker
I'm fighting with every fiber of being in me to not waste $500 on a VR headset, play Asgard's Wrath II, but the struggle is real. Mike, listen, I just need to play Final Fantasy XVI and just beat it. Look, listen, look. Worry about everything else after. I'm gonna tell you a quick story, because I was messaging Carlos when this went down. I was two weeks behind on Diablo IV, because everyone else had Diablo. And I was like, I refuse to touch that game until I beat Zelda.
01:11:26
Speaker
What was the other game? And didn't you guys go on a trip to or? I can't remember. I was playing two games at the time, but I have this personal rule where, like, I will not buy a game unless I beat a game. And you just got it. You just got it. You just got to stick it, man. You've got to say the same exact time we talked about on the podcast. I still hadn't finished God of War. So I played. I was like, I want to play Final Fantasy 16. It came out in May and I didn't buy it until Black Friday.
01:11:55
Speaker
So you want to like something, go ahead, the finishers, I'll tell you, I'll tell you. I played, I beat God of War, and I was like, all right, I got to do Hogwarts next. And it's Hogwarts. That's the other one. I forgot about that game. I forgot about that. It was Hogwarts and Zelda before I could touch Diablo. That's true. It was those two. And I beat both of them before I bought Diablo. Dang. Yeah. And then it was Diablo came out. And then Remnant 2 came out, and I was like, oh, buddy. And then there's something, Spider-Man came out after that. Aren't you playing Resident Evil 8? Resident Evil 4 was in there too.
01:12:25
Speaker
And I had, and then Spider-Man 2, it was just like, bap, bap, bap. And it's all games this year. And then I'll finally get... There's too many, dude. I'm telling you, there's too many games. So the crazy thing is my wife has, I think like over 200 something steam games. She has completed every game on her list.
01:12:42
Speaker
That's a gamer right there. That's a gamer right there. It's made a shame. So I don't know her, but I respect her more than I respect anybody that says I've beaten all my steam game. Yeah.
01:13:03
Speaker
Steam should make her a custom steam deck People are selling the day before steam keys now that it's off steam on my eBay and stuff for like hundreds of dollars Are you serious? Over again, but way worse
01:13:19
Speaker
Um, selling units, weren't they? They weren't they selling PlayStations with PT on it? Like, yeah. Cause that's the only way you can play.
Closing Remarks & Holiday Wishes
01:13:33
Speaker
All right, we want to thank everybody for listening. Again, next week, next Friday will be our Log on Games Game of the Year podcast to loop back around and get ready for that as we find out what our lists are ourselves and then our Log on Games total. Game of the Year for 2023.
01:13:55
Speaker
Hope everybody has a great Christmas or Kwanzaa or Hanukkah, whatever it is you do. Maybe you do nothing. Happy holidays. I've always felt like these people that don't celebrate anything, like they come from other countries or whatever, they don't care. Like Christmas must be like the best time because they get to go to their work and get paid like 30 times more than they do any other day. And they're like, this is the best thing ever.
01:14:21
Speaker
They're like, yeah, I made $40,000 on Christmas Day because no one else wanted to work. So now I don't have to work the rest of the year. There are those people that go for the grind. Respect. Yeah. But we're going to thank everybody for listening. We will be with you again next Friday.