Afleveringen
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Inspired by the (frankly excellent) Fallout TV show, this week on VG247's Best Games Ever podcast I've tasked my colleagues with finding the best game where a family member ditches you. With the prerequisite understanding that none of them are allowed to pick Fallout 3, the quintessential "dad's buggered off" simulator.
As it turns out, being forsaken by a family member is a fairly common scenario in video games, especially if you widen the concept of family out to any sort of fraternity or gang. Which didn't stop racer-obsessed Mark trying to crowbar in a racing game, of all things. Or Tom from bringing up the usual guff. To find out which specific guff, you'll have to listen to this, which is presumably what you're doing here in the first place, which means I've essentially wasted the last five minutes of my life typing this out. Thanks for that. Thanks. I could have spent that doing something nice, like cradling my laughing child, or eating crisps, or any number of things that we do while the reaper waits.
Anyway, watch Fallout, it's good.
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Inspired by the recent free drop of current viral sensation Content Warning – a co-op survival “shooter” about making spooky FauxTube videos with three of your mates – this week’s Best Games Ever podcast is all about freebies that we’d happily pay for.
It’s a happy coincidence that this topic coincides with the launch of our extended podcast: a paid version of the show which includes an extra segment where you get to heart the host’s pick, and its subsequent demolishing by the rest of the panel. To paraphrase one recent YouTube commenter, “so this is the idiot whose opinions you plan to monetise?”. Well, yes, but the point is that they get kicked around like a sheep’s bladder, so I’m actually nobly offering myself up as the waste organ in question. For more information on how to become a paid VG247 subscriber, which comes with other benefits such as silky-smooth ad-free browsing, check out our Support Us page: https://www.vg247.com/subscribe/standard
Anyway, some rules for this episode are: we’re talking about actual free games. Not free-to-play games that aren’t actually free once you factor in the entire economic model. So free as in beer, not free as in The NHS. Also, stealing doesn’t count, Connor.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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The Best Games Ever podcast is a game show where three totally normal and socially acceptable panellists have to find the best game in a peculiar category such as "Best game with a breakfast buffet", or "Best game with loads of vandalism". They have to pitch their pick to our host, Jim, who uses his power to decide the winner. But there's a lot of office politics, backstabbing, and meta-gaming going on which makes this mild-mannered panel game fraught with real danger.
These days the overwhelming consensus about a game can act as this great opinion hammer, used by the masses to beat down the oddballs, wildcards, and those with loud voices and poor taste. With review scores aggregated together into one gleaming numerical figure, games can be effectively ranked with a superscore that'll be chiselled into its tombstone forever. A positive score may be a gleaming eulogy, whereas a negative one traps a game in an eternal cycle of being bashed on.
But there are misses! Games that weren't loved, or perhaps still aren't loved, but are really good! You probably have one or two personal faves that fall into this category. A lot of this stuff is personal taste after all, what may work for you may not work for thousands of other perfectly sane gamers out there. The result, a pantheon of underdogs. Games that may not have the gleam of all-time classics in the eyes of the many, but are gems in the hands of the few.
What, then, is the best game that is actually good despite loads of people hating on it? Does it sounds a little bit like Garfield? To find out, watch or listen to our esteemed panel argue about it for like an hour - we're still giving away our extended section, although be warned that this is going behind the paywall soon.
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Big Western style open-world RPGs from beloved Japanese studios who tend to be known for other things (inhale) are like buses: there's none for ages, and then two come along at once! See also: Clinton-era disaster movies about Earth getting clobbered by an asteroid. See also: Clinton-era disaster movies about America getting clobbered by volcanoes. See also: those ones about the White House (former home of Bill Clinton) getting clobbered by some guys with guns. I dunno. You don't read this anyway.
The gist is this: there are two games with superficial similarities that have come out at the same time, and so I'm asking our regular panel to come up with previous games that have followed this pattern, and to add a further layer of meta grief, asking them to specifically pitch me on the Deep Impact equivalent of the pair. As in, the less good one. The less well known one. The one that didn't have an associated Aerosmith song, if you will.
Listen. It's just an excuse for everyone to shout at me. Listen at your own inconvenience here.
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It’s clear from Helldivers 2’s marketing that the game is directly inspired by Blair-era Dutch arthouse anti-war movie Starship Troopers. It’s also clear from playing it that Warhammer 40,000 and the future war bits of Terminator have made their mark on the project, and with its sprawling, player led, strictly PVE campaign engendering a keen sense of community among players, it’s rather like a wholesome war-themed social club for 90s teenagers. As a Nearly 40 it feels laser-targeted at my exact levels of pop culture cutoff, shooting skill, and associated decrepitness.
It takes a lot of willpower after a play session to not immediately open Netscape Navigator and e-commerce that poster of the grey alien that says “take me to your dealer” and also one of Gillian Anderson doing a pout. But my wife wouldn’t let me put them up anywhere, so it would be a waste of £18.98 plus shipping. I would advise current teenagers to never grow up and move out: that freedom is an illusion. Stay at home where it’s cheaper and nobody bats an eyelid if you cover your bedroom walls with folk off the telly in sultry poses. What the actual fuck was I talking about.
Oh, yeah, podcast. So which other games are Secret and/or Unofficial Adaptations of films or TV shows? And of them, which are the best? In order to find out what our expert panel thinks, you should watch or listen to this week’s Best Games Ever podcast. Methods for doing so are handily listed below, so you don’t have any excuses.
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It's been long and arduous road to something resembling a worthy adaptation of Frank "dirty" Herbert's sand-based epic Dune, but with the recent release of Denis Villeneuve's Dune 2, we can safely call that one done. I just hope we get enough sequels for the films to start covering such nonsense as half-worm emperors and chair dogs.
Aside from the various video game adaptations of Dune - from classic RTS games to modern upcoming survival games - there have been plenty of games that effectively use the desolation and devastation of desert sand. Who can forget the arresting third act of Uncharted 3, or the Tatooine section of KOTOR, or the grand majesty of Assassin's Creed Origins, with its ambitious recreation of sun-drenched North Africa?
But which sandy game is the best one, according to our lovely panel? If Alex Donaldson was in this episode, he'd have picked Fifty Cent: Blood on the Sand, but he isn't. To find out what was actually pitched, listen to The Best Games Ever Podcast!
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If you're anything like me, nothing makes you lose interest in a game quicker than the words "always online". Or "free-to-play". Or "connected experience", or whatever other marketing terms they've come up with for "live service grindfest that sucks". Sometimes they don't even tell you upfront that it's a GAAS title, leaving it up to the prospective audience to divine this information from visual cues in gameplay trailers like... three distinct types of in-game currency, numbers popping out of enemies heads, and the whole thing having that unmistakable whiff of a project that no involved creative could ever muster real enthusiasm for. The core of a good idea spoiled by shareholder demands. Etc.
It wouldn't be so bad if every single effing game didn't seem to ship with live service elements nowadays. But still, sometimes a s**t sandwich comes with sprinkles, and people can enjoy any old muck if they have to. Which brings us to the topic of today's Best Games Ever Podcast: what's the best live service game you begrudgingly like? Could it be Destiny 2, the series that many hold responsible for this genre? Could it be Genshin Impact, the poster-child for F2P games that are Good Actually? Or could it be Diablo 4, which leverages a beloved ARPG brand to lure people into its miasma of micro (and macro) transactions?
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Physical game releases have been in danger of disappearing for a long time, what with Steam all but killing the PC optical drive, a cheaper discless PS5, and the rumoured incoming Xbox Series refresh which will do away with bluray even on the premium model. They're not likely to die off entirely: there will always be holdouts in the die-hard enthusiast sector, there are still people releasing Mega Drive carts now in 2024. But there will come a time when, for all intents and purposes, the era of major game releases on disc will come to an end. It makes sense for publishers. It makes sense for the environment. It makes sense for people trying to live in a small flat (hello). But it will be a shame when it finally succumbs to the inevitable, because there's nothing quite like the tactile appeal of holding a new game box. Reading the manual on the bus home. Slipping it in amongst its new shelf siblings in the correct alphabetical order, its colourful spine adding to the cacophony of Cool Logos that adorn your living space. Digital libraries try to simulate this, but they just don't scratch that particular itch.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the physical game that will be lost is the thrill of a multi-disc release. The promise of a grand old time, an endless adventure too big to be contained on but one measly piece of landfill fodder. Two discs? Cor, what a treat. THREE discs? Man, this has gotta be good! EIGHT DISCS? What could POSSIBLY... oh, about an hour of crappy FMV. Still, you can't put a price on that initial excitement.
What, then, is the best multi-disc game of all time? And does it have Final Fantasy in the title? To find out, listen to our esteemed panel argue about it for approximately forty of your earth minutes in this here program.
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The Best Games Ever podcast is a game show where three regular panellists have to find the best game in a weirdly specific category such as "Best game with a named horse", or "Best game with a terrible British accent". They have to pitch their pick to our host, Jim, who then decides the winner. But there's a lot of office politics, backstabbing, and meta-gaming going on which makes this mild-mannered panel game fraught with real danger.
This week, inspired by the recent release (finally) of Skull & Bones, we're asking: what's the best Pirate Game that isn't Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag? We're asking like that because of two things:
1) Black Flag is arguably the best pirate game of all time. Well, it's either Black Flag or Sid Meier's Pirates!, and the latter isn't connected to a recent game launch, so.
2) It definitely isn't Skull & Bones, because that game frankly deserves to walk the plank.
And how do you define a pirate game? Does it have to involve flintlock pistols, cutlasses, and sailing the actual caribbean? Or can it be something that features acts of piracy in an entirely different setting? Well, figuring that out is part of the game, so watch this.
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Sometimes it's just really baffling why certain games are popular. And you wonder to yourself if it's just because you're broken in some way. What malfunction or defect from birth would lead someone to, say, think Horizon Zero Dawn is a load of cobblers?
We're here to reassure you that it's fine, actually, to just not get Mass Effect. To look on in bewilderment as your colleagues all obsess over Death Stranding or Mass Effect. To be left cold by everyone's incessant overtures about Breath of the Wild. Some things just aren't for you! And that's ok! The healthy way to deal with it is to accept that you're just, in some small way, better or smarter or more discerning than everyone else.
But which of our distinguished panel has picked the best game that everyone except them loves? To find out, watch this. Watch this!
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What's the best game that has no business being brought up on a podcast that's all about the Best Games Ever? If you can get your head around that, you're already way ahead of our regular panel.
Some of the worst games ever made are also the most interesting. Take Night Trap, for example: it's arguably one of the most important games in the history of the medium. Questions were asked about it in congressional hearings: it was, despite narrative overtures to the contrary, a peeping-tom simulator where you, the player, spied on a house full of teenage girls having a sleepover via a bank of (extremely rubbish quality) video feeds. Your objective was ostensibly to save the girls from vampires, or something, but it doesn't matter, because few people actually played Night Trap and even fewer would admit it.
What's interesting about it is that it caused such a moral panic in the US that it led directly to video games having their own age ratings systems, which is an important thing in the evolution of the medium, because now it's an accepted fact that the video game audience isn't solely comprised of impressionable children. Which means we get mature, grown-up games like The Last of Us, which is about headshotting zombies and chucking bricks.
The point is that a game doesn't have to be good to be interesting. So what heaps of absolute rubbish have our regular panellists Tom, Alex, and Billcliffe brought to the table today? Find out by watching or listening to The Best Games Ever podcast via these handy methods, and enjoy our extended SUBSCRIBERS ONLY podcast for FREE until February:
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Honestly, we've got no idea what episode this is. Jim thinks this is Season 2, which is news to everyone else, but it's also sort of episode 84. This week we pick the games that we just can't stop going back to. The games that, despite knowing we have newer titles to work through, we play at every opportunity. Do you have one? Oh, and we introduce a new segment: Jim's Pick. Get it free for now, but in the near future we're going to be launching a subscriber's edition of the show that features this extra content. It won't cost much.
On the show you can hear the choices of Tom Orry, Rebecca Jones, and Mark Warren. And, as it turns out, Jim Trinca.
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So much STUFF game out in 2023 - we had Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, a new Baldur's Gate, a Skyrim sequel which introduced such innovations to the series as: Guns and Boring. Starfield, I'm talking about. And you knew that, but I have to spell it out in the body text because a certain tech giant has taken wordplay, nuance, and creativity out onto the back porch and shot them all in the head as a sacrifice to the god of Endless Growth. Which doesn't exist. The god, or the concept. Heh! We even got a sequel to Dead Island (it was called Dead Island 2).
Some of the very best games frankly of all time came out last year. Outrageously, though, many of them came and went with minimal fanfare, because within DAYS of their release, the news and hype cycle was onto the next thing. Whether that was yet another huge, record-breaking franchise entry or a team getting laid off after having made one. Yes, for the games industry, last year ruled and sucked in equal measure. It truly was the best of times and the worst of times.
Anyway, the point is, there were so many amazing games coming out last year that you've forgotten most of them. And of those games you forgot, which is the best? Let's find out by asking our panel, Rebecca Jones, Connor Makar, and Alex Donaldson. They're experts, they like video games for a living.
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Well, for the six of you who kept asking, Merry Christmas. For this festive episode on VG247’s Best Games Ever Show, Tom and Jim are reunited with friends and former colleagues Simon Miller and Steve Burns.
Since they all parted ways from their infamous stint at VideoGamer.com, Simon has gone on to become a professional wrestler, in-demand presenter, and all-round online personality with seemingly endless energy for building his brand. He recently made his IMPACT! Wrestling debut and we’ve got no doubt that he’ll just keep getting bigger.
Burns sits around in a big house eating pizza and playing PES. He also co-directs a production company and regularly kicks off on Twitter about the state of Man Utd.
But listen. We’re not here to reminisce. We’re here to throw down in the toughest dojo in town: the Best Games Ever podcast. Who’s pitch will convince Jim to grant them a coveted BGEP Win? Will Tom be robbed once again? And how will Miller crowbar Gears of War into this? Does Burns really keep a copy of Atlus Shrugged on his bedside table or is he just doing a bit?
Find out the answers to most of these question by listening to this... exciting installment of The Best Games Ever show.
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We have a lot of guests on the VG247 podcast because we know a lot of Games Media Personalities and most of them are too polite and/or socially inept to say "no" when we ask them to be on our podcast. In the last year we've had such Talented Greats as Mike Channel from Outside Xbox And Things and James Batchelor who has written some books.
But which guest is Tom's favourite? And who can he stand the least? And is forty minutes of one-on-one with Tom Orry enough to shut up all the Tom Orry fans in the comments who keep moaning that he's never on? Find out in this week's inflammatory installment of VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast : the show that panders to its horrid audience. Or just that one guy in Wales who really likes Tom, for some reason.
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The VG247 crew is back to decide on yet another Best Game Ever. In this week's show we're looking at games that are spin-off from a game in a totally different genre. So, things like how Mario Kart is a 'Mario' game but not a 2D platformer that the series became famous for. You get the idea. As always, our host Jim Trinca makes a complete mess of picking the correct winner, but you can be the judge of that without me, a simple person writing these description, influencing you.
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Tom's back by popular demand, but also to answer for his crimes against a previous guest: James Batchelor, author of The Best Non-Violent Video Games. For weeks following James' deserved win, Tom and Conner said some Very Mean things about him and his book, and even implied that virtuous host Jim Trinca (who is fair and kind) would let anyone win if they were on to plug some coffee table book that you can already read as tweets.
Did Tom back down, or double down? And how did Connor manage to escape justice? Find out in this week's delectable installment of The Best Games Ever Podcast, the least embarassing podcast to blare out on the bus when your headphone jack gets ripped out. Of your "MP3 player". In 2006.
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Recently, our friend and long time VG247 contributor Sherif Saed gave Pinnochio-themed soulslike Lies of P a bit of a pasting in his review. Our two star score prompted a lot of backlash from some quarters, and also a bit of internal discussion about the nature of opinion pieces. How reviews can sometimes be a flashpoint of controversy, and how scores don’t reflect any of the nuance that led the author to their conclusion. Personally, I’m always a bit baffled by the phenomenon of people who haven’t played a game kicking off online about the views of someone who has. As a wise man once said: “it’s only game, why you have to be mad?”
Anyway, I thought it would be funny to do an entire podcast episode on the question of other highly acclaimed games that Sherif would give two stars to. What sacred cow would he slayeth, given the task? To find out, you’ll have to watch or listen to this podcast here
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Hours of gameplay is a deceptive stat. We’re conditioned to think that a bigger number is better in all things when it comes to this hobby, and how long it takes to complete something is seen as part of its value proposition. If a full price game launches with a six hour campaign, for example, there’s hell to pay. Doesn’t matter how good those six hours are.
But video games aren’t inherently a long form medium. Some of the best games of all time are 25 minutes long (if you’re good, or cheating). Many more can be completed in one sitting. Within reason. Technically you could play World of Warcraft for 600 hours straight in one “sitting”. Don’t split hairs.
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London shows up in a lot of games. It’s in a lot of Call of Dutys, which is the biggest shooter franchise in the world. It has the distinction of being the only non-US city ever depicted in GTA, which is the biggest crime franchise in the world after the royal family. Blimey, Ubisoft have done London four times, they can’t get enough of it. It even pops up at the end of Mass Effect 3.
But very few London-based video games are made by London-based teams, such is the nature of a global industry such as ours, and so many of London’s virtual facsimiles often don’t quite hit the mark. We’re not talking about botched geography here: it’s one of the biggest and densest cities in the world, so we can certainly forgive a bit of artistic license when it comes to shrinking it down to manageable proportions for a game map.
No, we’re talking about the cultural details and foibles that most of a global audience wouldn’t notice. Watch Dogs Legion, for example, is an incredibly accurate recreation of Central London in terms of its geography, probably the best that’s ever been conceived. But there are some story contrivances and missed memos that betray the game’s Not London origins. The tuna puns that adorn every fish and chip shop. The fact that all the national railway terminals are closed off completely, virtually abandoned, accessible only in some story missions. When in reality, spaces like Waterloo and Liverpool Street are enormously important in London life. They are bustling hubs that serve as vital transport connections, but they’re also grand cathedrals of the city’s vast lunch n’ breakfast based economy. Most of Britain’s wealth is shuffled around by people in those big glass towers, you see, and they don’t have time to make a packed lunch.
London isn’t really a Driving City, but Watch Dogs Legion is a Driving Game set in a location where traffic rarely gets above 20mph and the vast majority of UK drivers I know actively avoid going into it. It’s a Train City, but in Legion, there are no trains. The tube is relegated to set dressing for the fast travel system. Essentially a set of loading screens. It’s not London, it’s a London-esque reskin of a North American city.
I’m keen to see what the Fallout: London people come up with, because that project looks like it really understands how to leverage London as a location. And it has a lot of real-world history that could easily be folded into Fallout lore. Hey, you like underground bunkers? Mate, London’s got loads of ‘em. There used to be one in the back of every garden.
Anyway, to find out which London-based game is the best ever, you’ll need to watch or listen to this here podcast here. Handily, we’ve provided several ways to do so.
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