Noclip's Games of 2025 - Episode 2: The Category Awards (1/2) | Noclip Crewcast

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Hello friends and welcome to episode 262 and episode 2 of our game of the year podcast spectacular.

If you are listening to this and you have not listened to yesterday's podcast press pause, go back if you want to know what the top 10 are, because I'm about to spoil them in a second.

Um, but we're back.

The whole crew is here.

We got a full crew and to talk about the games that we want to give, I guess.

It's not even the games we want to give category awards to.

It's the category awards that we want to fill with games.

Jeremy Jane, how are you doing today?

After five hours of podcasting yesterday, how do you feel about doing a few more today?

I'm doing great.

I slept a lot.

I don't know if it's because of the five hours of continuous talking or the amount of video games I've been playing recently, but I'm fueled up and ready.

Yeah, weirdly, I also slept a lot last night and was like quite sleepy this morning.

Frank Haley, how many hours of sleep do you usually get every night?

If we are not recording a podcast, I always get eight hours.

If we're recording a podcast, I'll get like four hours and then wake up.

Record the podcast.

And then I go back to bed for the rest of the day.

Is this because we, we usually record it like 10.

Cause like you also did, you were like, can we do 11 tomorrow guys?

And it was like, Oh, Frank wants to sleep in a bit.

Five hours today.

All right.

Yeah.

I'm on, I'm always on Japan time.

Cause all my favorite streamers don't start till 3 AM and I have to be in every chat, being the number one OG son, and you know, posting emotes all this stuff.

But, but, um, yeah, no, but, but I will say, uh, starting an hour later today was super helpful. um so yeah so thank you guys so i'm i'm a much better mood today so i appreciate it excellent thanks man i i just love the idea that you're just on japan time just because that's your soul your soul is on japan time because like all the wrestling shows start in the middle of the night you don't want to wake up to spoilers so it's like anytime like every weekend there's new shows so it's just like it's it's you know that that's just that i'm sure it's the same for you tracking international sports and everything so it's i don't know it it's like yeah it's just it's uh You don't want to be asleep when all the exciting stuff is happening.

I don't care about anything that's happening in America, but all the cool Japan stuff is like hell yeah.

Frank, don't turn the news on if you wake up accidentally at 5 o'clock.

Don't turn the news on.

Well, can I say I'm the happiest I've ever been, because at my gym I used to go in the main room with all the ellipticals.

There was like Fox News and every person inside was wearing like a Charlie Kirk shirt and all these Trump shirts.

Oh, really?

Oh, man.

Always.

And I'm wearing my anime shirts and watching women's wrestling on my iPhone.

I found out there's a separate room in the gym.

And there's no TVs, there's no people, but there's like eight elliptical machines.

And so I go there every day and it's this quiet room and there's windows that you can see trees outside and no one goes in there because people like going into the Fox newsrooms and staring at the TVs and wearing their pro ice shirts.

It's like- oh my god, it's orange county, california.

Um, so now i i go into my little like like this matrix pot, like this, this insane, like empty room.

It feels like neo in the matrix when he's picking his guns, but like it's, it's a completely empty.

And now i just ride my elliptical.

I come home, i watch wrestling, i play video games and i'm like oh, this is great everything's.

You know, i don't know.

So i'm happy, i'm glad you are.

That's the bubble.

That uh, the bubble we all aspire to living in.

Eventually, The I like the idea.

Do you think that the the the right wing shitheels in in the other gym room are getting like more exercise done because it's pumping up their rage, or less?

They sit on like a bicycle and they have like, I don't know.

I don't know.

It's.

God, I don't know, man.

It's a weird culture.

But I'm just so happy to not be in a room without TVs blasting.

So now it's like – I don't know because I was learning about the liberal crime wave.

I'm contributing to the liberal crime wave.

So now – so I do miss seeing the fun.

I do miss seeing the insane – i don't know, we call it the chiron or whatever the breaking news thing.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah, i do.

So i do kind of miss seeing those, but it's like at the same time like oh, it's kind of cool, just unplugging from it.

I do swap over sometimes on on my tv over here, to the left of actually speaking of live sports, there will be a Carabao Cup game on today that maybe I'll glance over at every once in a while.

My team Arsenal, are playing Chelsea in the first leg.

But I do swap over to Fox sometimes when like, something real heinous happened, just to see the fucking deranged alternative universe that these people have are living in.

And it's like, it's funny when you check if like, if something bad happens to trump and you check, they're like uh, today a dog was found outside in a pool.

Okay, you guys, you saw what happened right, all right yeah, and then i'll turn on like cnn or something and i'll be, you know having, you know, just a really maybe even more annoying perspective on what's happening and being like just almost getting there, but not quite.

Anyway, such is the world we live in.

We search out the news that makes us feel good, I guess.

Or in Frank's case, you run away from it and find the neo-anime room.

I like it.

Jesse Gratia, is there many people wearing pro-Charlie Kirk shirts in Canada at the moment?

You would be shocked how many people are wearing pro-Charlie Kirk shirts in Canada right now.

It is a disgusting number of them for a country of people who have nothing to do with that.

Just a reminder to Canadians, you're not American.

Yeah, I'm not even joking.

There is a large contingent of Trump supporters in Canada, despite the fact he – well, maybe because he desperately wants Canada to be an American state.

Hey, man, you got a lot of oil up there, you know?

Yeah, oil.

You got a lot of maple syrup.

Isn't it, I think?

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

You got the right oil, too.

I learned a lot about oil after the Venezuela thing.

And you could see people were also learning about the different types of oil, all that sort of stuff.

All I knew about oil before that was from watching There Will Be No Country for All Men.

So that was it.

There will be blood.

You were right the first time.

Jesus Christ.

They came out in the cinema at the same time.

When Javier Bardem killed a bunch of people for oil.

When Javier Bardem negotiated for all that oil.

What's the most you've ever lost in an oil well?

I want to take over the Exxon Valdez.

Remember the end when Chigurh said to that guy about his milkshake?

Yeah, that's my favorite.

That's the part everyone loves.

Anyway, there's your political minute sponsored by Tide.

Finished.

No, we're not sponsored by Tide.

We're sponsored by our incredible patrons over at patreoncom slash noclip and the incredible folks over at patreoncom slash noclip2 who are helping us do some goddamn video game coverage of a lot of games that don't usually get them and they're amazing and we're going to be giving a bunch of them awards today.

Special shout out there to our Battle Pass holders, not our paddle bass holders, although that sounds great.

Paddled ass holders.

Oh, paddled ass holders.

That's even better.

I like the idea of giving you know, giving.

Maybe if somebody reaches like five years of battle, pass we get a paddle.

Like a fraternity.

With a picture of a bass on it.

And we have to be smacked by it.

And they have to sleep overnight in the snow.

If they want to.

If they can elect to not be paddled as well.

They just won't make it into the club.

That's true.

They want to be a part of it.

You want to be in the club, don't you?

Exactly.

Those folks are Little Toast Lovepreet, Yutt Dwayne, the Rock Lobster, Anthony Thomas, Nico Basseteri, It's-a-me Ferrario.

Senator Armstrong Redredge, Harry Flanagan, Joosh Arno, Matt Pearson, Mark Ross Quote, Tucker Morgan, David McGarry, Goddison.

Thank you, Jesse.

Thank you all so much for your incredible support.

2026.

Let's grab its dicks.

Okay, on to the category.

That's our, yeah.

See, the McElroys, it takes them an entire podcast to name the year.

I just spread it and say it first time.

There you go.

That's our year slogan.

The category war.

Special shout out to Jeremy Jane, who last night posted a bunch of categories in our staff chat that were much better and funner than the ones that I had come up with yesterday, having lost the original category list that I had written about six weeks ago.

I think Jesse's the only person who has seen that.

Have you seen that?

Had you seen that?

Maybe.

I don't know what happened to it.

I probably posted in the staff chat.

I bet if I scroll up high enough, whatever, it's gone anyway.

We have some categories today.

I'm going to list through some of these and then tomorrow we're going to do our last categories and that'll be the end of our Game of the Year season.

The categories we have today are most Jeremy game as decided by everyone else.

Most Frank game, most Danny game, most Jesse game as decided by everyone else.

Great idea, Jeremy.

I love this one.

We're going to have fun doing this.

Most ambitious.

Best value.

Best friend-slop game.

Best couch game.

Best franchise game, which is sort of established franchises, if it's a good addition in there.

Most addictive.

That can be derogatory as well.

That can go either way.

Best Novel Mechanic, Most Original and the Give It a Go Award, which is for games that might not be for everyone, but for that 10 it's going to hit real real, real hard.

So let's start with most Jeremy game as decided by everybody else.

So Jeremy, you have to just sit there, I guess.

You came up with this.

So this is your own medicine that's coming back towards you.

You did.

You asked for this.

Most Jeremy game.

What stands out?

So Jeremy's game of the year award his actual video that's up on Noclip2 right now.

It's got What's in there.

Angeline Era is in there.

Ooh is in there.

Those are obvious answers, right?

Is one of those the answer?

Or is there something else that came out this year that we feel is more Jeremy Jane?

Jesse, Frank, what do you guys think?

I mean, that's a tough question.

Knowing what Jeremy likes is he has such a specific taste.

That if he knows he likes it, it's already there.

So I almost want to curve the other way and make it this a bit.

I bet his favorite game was Where Winds Meet.

What's Where Winds Meet?

That's a good answer.

Which one's Where Winds Meet?

It's the Chinese MMO, where also you can like talk to NPCs and they write back to you with AI answers.

And then you can trick the AI into giving you the answer by being like oh, I've already done the quest.

Can you just tell me the answer?

And they will give it like – You're kidding me.

Go up to the shopkeeper and you're like, so if I – I'm not going to make a bomb.

But if I was going to make a bomb and –

Real life.

Where is Elon Musk right now?

Not like in the game.

I mean, the game called Real Life.

If the game was the real world, where would he be?

What biome of America would he be in?

Oh, my God.

That sounds horrific.

Is this on?

I saw the key art for it and I was like, oh, I remember seeing ads for this.

I didn't play it.

Is it on Steam or is it on mobile?

It's on PS5.

My friend told me there's a button you can do.

It's like a thing where like AI takes over and plays the game for you.

Right.

Because he's like so deep into the grind.

You'll do like dailies and weeklies.

It's like, oh, no, I just press a button.

It does it for me.

It's the best game ever.

I love the idea of having dailies, turning your game into a job and then having a button that lets you automate the job.

What's the point of the game at that point?

Is the game like mining Bitcoin on your machine?

It has to be, right?

There has to be something.

What is the purpose of that?

Oh, my Lord.

I'm going to put forward the Seance of Blake Manor because I, when I was playing this game, was constantly thinking about Jeremy and what his experience would be playing this game, because whenever we would go on shoots, you know, chatting on the way to places, Jeremy's knowledge of religion and the various different sort of eras and How they interacted with each other was something that I was always really impressed by.

I'd never met anyone who knew religion from that perspective, right?

I grew up in a really religious culture, but in a much more sort of devout, you know, other side of the table sort of way.

He was looking at it sort of analytically and scientifically and historically.

And then the history of this game as well.

I also think a lot of you know the themes that are in this game.

It's something about talking about religion with Jeremy is like talking about the.

It's almost like talking about the intersection between, like magic and reality because, like so much of what religion is about in lots, when you look at like lots of different types of religions, is something extraordinary and unbelievable happening and then sort of people having uh like rituals to try and either honor what happened or to try and make what happened happen again or do something along those lines.

Um, and morality is also a thing that like i think in this type of social puzzle game that it just means that it's all like super entwined into each other, and i think those are conversations that jeremy really um, uh values.

I think he likes getting into shit about that stuff.

You know kind of discussing that type of stuff because it is interesting and often there's no right answer.

It's just like more about gaining more perspective and knowledge and understanding of why people believe what they do, rather than sort of saying what they believe is incorrect for x reason.

Yeah, this rules.

I feel like i'm at my own funeral right now and people are saying nice things.

This is awesome.

Your seance as a yeah yeah um, frank.

You have anything that you think would work for for jeremy?

I don't know.

Like like jeremy's like hyper intelligent they, they.

I was like, i was like not that we're discussing, but i'm like i'm like trying to think what would fit that jeremy hasn't already like played or talked about.

Um, because it's almost like a good idea of like giving a recommendation for something that maybe they haven't tried.

I'm trying to think if there's like a game i like that maybe like maybe jeremy would like.

But i'm trying to think like Cause also like Jeremy's a game designer, so he likes building things.

And like.

So I was like Oh, is it a?

So like, not that, this is it, but it's like.

In games like skate you can construct stuff.

So it's like Oh, what are, what are?

I'm trying to think if there's another game where you might like skate period.

Yeah.

Skate period.

Yeah.

I was like is there another game where you can like make challenges, a game that you can design things within?

There's like Fortnite, creative mode and stuff like that.

I'm trying to think if there's anything else, like, I don't know.

It's weird.

Like yeah, I'm like scrolling through our, our like master list of when we dumped all these games in a while ago.

And I'm sure I think there's anything that scratched it.

I don't know.

Maybe, maybe Jeremy's really good at DDR, but that's not a 2025 game.

Um, Yeah, I was like, I'm still scrolling, but I don't have any Lego party.

What is it?

I was going to say there's a free one.

I think I recommended this a couple of months ago.

I haven't been able to finish it, but just from like the 20 minutes that I played, this felt very Jeremy to me.

It's called E.N.A.

Dream Barbecue.

I played a little bit of it.

This is an.

I'm surprised this didn't come up, but I guess it's for the reason that I didn't bring it up, which is I didn't finish it.

It has the mixed media art style.

You see a little bit of gameplay of this and it's clearly it looks like something Jeremy would make if someone would give him like one hundred thousand dollars and leave him alone for six months.

There's so many different art styles.

Everything's voiced like it's so all over the place and yet seems to have some cohesion in both its writing and its willingness to be weird in order to deliver the kind of story it's trying to tell.

And it's it's free, too.

So that's pretty that's pretty economically viable there.

See, that feels very Jeremy Jane to me.

Hey, are you saying I'm broke?

I'm saying you enjoy economic viability, brother.

What's the name of it again?

It's ENA Dream BBQ.

Okay, I'm going to just write it down for a second.

It is on Steam.

I actually started it on the last flight I was on, but I wanted to play with mouse and keyboard.

I started it on my Steam deck.

I'm going to add Frank.

Good idea.

I'm going to just add, because this this, these opening four, sort of like a, you know, warm up for the categories to a certain extent.

So let's let's play with a little bit more.

I'm going to add, in sort of the subtitle of something we all think they should play that maybe they haven't.

So I'm not sure if that one works just because he has played it a bit.

So that's that's it.

That's a good idea.

I guess the most Jeremy game that came out this year for me is probably Ooh.

Like I think, especially where he is in his life at the moment, where he's working on his game so much and this feels like a game designer's game.

You know what I mean?

Because it's like just the As we talked about yesterday, the design is so uh, like it's no fat on it, it keeps moving.

Um, it almost feels like a like a tutorial for a bigger game or something you know.

It's like it's like this is how you do this, all this stuff, and i think, as a designer, he probably really appreciates that when he's working on his own stuff.

For sure yeah, i agree, 100.

I think that's a.

It's a very jeremy game.

What do you think?

Frank, you want to co-sign this?

Yeah, and i think we mentioned it before, but like with ooh, the uh internal, like uh game inspiration list within the credits is such a like smart, smart spark and like i don't know, it's very cute.

I also love hearing jeremy gush about ooh yesterday, about like just how i forget.

Like, jeremy had a great quote that was like the developer iterated every single idea and there was like nothing more to add and nothing to take away, and it was like oh, that's such a perfect, like little, little little quote.

So yeah, Yeah.

OK.

Nice one.

Thank you.

OK, let's do the what they should play.

And then maybe it's what they should play, what they should play more of, because I have a feeling that the nature of our work means that a lot of us have touched on a lot of games.

A little bit maybe.

So what do we think for this?

Do you still think barbecue?

Yeah, I mean, yeah.

Slash more of if we're putting that in the same category, I'd say that's probably the one.

Just from everything I've heard about it and how I felt on it for that first 30 minutes.

ENA Dream BBQ.

And what is it about it you think? would resonate with Jeremy.

I mean, just go look at like two seconds of gameplay on YouTube.

The art style the way that there's a million different art styles all mashed together.

The writing, the voice, acting.

It's all very like, Oh yeah.

Okay.

There you go.

Right.

Yeah.

This is a big budget Jeremy game.

It reminded me of, um, anthology of the killer, like not, not in depth of writing or anything.

I don't know if it's on that same wavelength necessarily.

I haven't seen it the first episode through to the end, but uh, Just how it's set up was very similar in a lot of ways, at least to me.

Nice.

All right.

There's our first two.

Ooh.

And I have some other ones that he should play more, but he's going to do it anyway.

Like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is probably the one I would say.

Resident Evil Village.

Oh, my gosh.

Well, funny he came out this year.

All right.

We move on to Frank Howley.

Frank Howley's game as decided by everyone else.

So we can't pick Dance Dance Revolution.

Was there a 2025 version that has to have been?

I think we can.

I think we have to.

There's no reason to pick anything else.

So there's that or there's the other one that he that he talked about, which was the Beatmania.

What is it?

No, the the update.

Yeah, the updated version of Beatmania.

They brought there's a patch that came out this year, which I guess technically we can say.

What is it?

IDXX3 Cosmic Sprinkle?

Sparkle Shower.

The last one was Kinky Crush.

Sparkle Shower sounds like some water play or whatever.

What do you call it?

Oh, yeah.

I'm going to get my Nuru massage in my Sparkle Shower.

Yeah, I think DDR, did we say DDR writ large or Dance Dance Revolution World 2024?

I think just as a concept, Frank will play any DDR machine anywhere.

It doesn't matter what game's on it.

It could be a, a taiwanese ripoff ddr that like no one's ever played before, with a bunch of a bunch of like ripoff maroon 5 songs.

And you play it.

I will, i will say so.

I interviewed a friend and she talked about getting that as like a present as a kid.

So i had to track down like a bootleg ddr nintendo rom rip.

So i got.

So i have footage of that in the in this thing i'm working.

I didn't know.

Yeah, so like literally what jesse describes like that exists, like there is a bootleg cheap.

Uh, what do you call it like ddr knockoff?

So i'm in his brain.

I know What's the name of the place he goes again.

What's the name of the... Round 1.

Round 1.

Yeah, Round 1, yeah.

Maybe Round 1 is his Game of the Year.

Which is that restaurant where people throw peanuts on the ground.

Round 1 could be his Game of the Year.

That's good.

That's where he goes.

He's got the membership.

It's that or Xbox Game Pass.

That's like his platform of the year.

Yeah, exactly.

You're right, you're right.

Yeah, move over, Xbox.

Console of the Year is the arcade.

Yeah, yeah.

Xbox Game Pass should come with a stipend that you get to spend at round one every month.

That's true.

Exactly.

If this was China, you'd be getting social points for going to round one.

So you'd be king of all of us at the moment.

Okay, that's the slam dunk DDR.

So game, Frank, we think should play more of.

Hmm.

Let me check the list really quick.

Sorry, I just sneezed.

I had to unlike myself.

Frank's played a lot of, like, games that I wouldn't have thought he would play this year.

Like, rematch was really surprising to me that he got really into that.

Like, that's because he's not a sports guy, you know?

I think I watched Frank stream a little bit of Birdcage.

I feel like Birdcage might be a good shot for this because I saw you.

I saw some raw skill in the first, like the first, you know, 30 minutes of you playing the game was a very stark contrast to my own beginning 30 minutes of playing this game, which was much more embarrassing.

I think you have what it takes.

I would if you completed this game on normal, I would be proud of you.

And I think you would be proud of yourself.

I would suggest also maybe Sword of the Sea.

Have you played that at all, Frank?

No, that's the cool, like, surfing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Journey surfing game.

I think it's on PS and PS Plus.

It is PlayStation Plus, yeah.

Do you have that?

Yes.

So he loves that.

He loves that, you know, what was it?

Economically viable gaming.

Viable gaming.

Maybe we should have a best Game Pass game, best PSN game in here.

Brought to you by the Microsoft Corporation.

Brought to you by IDF.

Benjamin Netanyahu's game of the year.

Welcome to the no-clip crew.

It's this war of mine, but he plays it the other way around.

Oh, my God.

This land of mine, he calls it.

Oh, man.

Jesus Christ.

I think another good suggestion might be Consume Me.

I think Consume Me is sort of.

It is a.

In a weird way it's sort of a cousin of.

Uh, was it needy streamer, overload that game.

Yeah.

I couldn't remember if that was the exact title.

It kind of.

It's a very different game tonally in terms of its mechanics, but in terms of its like presentation and the fact that it's sort of these micro screens with like a lot of uh, bombastic art and, over the top, sort of like interactivity and stuff, I think you would really like it.

Um, and I think it uh, It goes to some really sincere places that I think are a lot of like things about, about mental health and self-care and stuff that I've heard you talk about very insightfully.

I think you would really appreciate it.

Yeah, I co-author that or I co-sign that one.

Yeah, that's for.

Yeah, exactly.

I think the Japanese element of it is probably super interesting as well.

And yeah, the type of, like you know, self-care betterment angle is something i definitely associate with you, so yeah, i'll get on with that.

I just want to recommend rhythm doctor as well, frank.

I mean, you've been so into rhythm games.

This went this window.

What was it?

10 at the end of the year?

It's one button.

It's a rhythm game you have to play on your computer.

Unfortunately, i don't know if there's achievements, but i do think This shit goes hard.

It's crazy.

It's, it's surprisingly challenging for a one button rhythm game.

It's very, very good.

Rhythm doctor.

So this was in early access for a while, was it?

For a very long time.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, that's not a bad shout.

Yeah.

Consume me definitely feels like a Frank game for sure.

Okay.

All right.

Rhythm doctor mentioned honorably and DDR winning the most Frank game.

What they should play more is consume me.

So go check that out.

And I'm up next, I guess.

So most Danny game is decided by everyone else.

What do we think?

My heart says Seance of Blake Manor.

Yeah, I feel like it's too obvious, but that's exactly what I was going to say.

Yeah, but my nuts say Ark Raiders.

It's very well put.

My nuts also say those and my heart also says those things.

Let me, i'm just i gotta skim the list every time and make sure i'm not missing anything obvious.

Yeah, i feel like those are the two um which you know.

I mean it's it's a tough thing to to like some to not just say the thing that the person says, because the the thing that they pick is the thing that's the most them, but it's like in this case it's just a natural fit.

I feel like yeah, it's the incredibly irish video game versus the one that brings out his irishness perhaps the most.

Does that mean I'm kind and I don't shoot people?

Unless they fucking cross me.

That's exactly right.

And then they got no kneecaps anymore.

Jesus Christ.

Danny, why'd you put the trigger nade in the car outside of the pub in Ark Raiders?

Hey, look, they did just debuff the trigger nade because people were using it too much in PvP.

So there you go.

Yeah, fair enough.

When I, when I was writing this up, I was like it's going to be very difficult for them to look past the Seance of Blake Manor and they probably shouldn't.

So, yeah, that's fair enough.

And then I guess what game I should play more slash more of this year.

Megabonk.

Is that that?

That's a friend slop game, isn't it?

No, no.

Single player.

But it was that was like the 3D vampire survivors.

Almost like a World of Warcraft art style that I played until my eyes were soared.

As long as it was killed, Frank.

I bought this and never played it.

I think I got it thinking it was going to be Game of the Year, Josh, but that never was.

Okay.

There you go.

Problem solved.

Megabonk.

Any other suggestions?

Oh, it's not the answer?

Okay.

That was me doing a bit.

I was curious if you did get a chance to play a rematch, or spend how much if you got to play at all, since I know you do like football, and how to compare to like other football games.

I played a bunch of it in the they had a stress test or something.

You remember like at one stage I played a good bit of it, like maybe three or four hours of it then.

And then post launch, I played a bit more, maybe a couple of hours of it spread out.

I'd play like two or three games and then bounce out again.

So I played a decent chunk of it.

Yeah.

I think I I really like it.

I think it's like really well put together.

I think there sometimes when I play football games, like if I was playing EFC or something which I don't really play anymore, or like even Rocket League, I really liked how simple the amount of things that I have to worry about are.

And then I would just do them well.

And I found, Like when I was playing because I grew up playing five-a-side football, which is very much what that kind of feel is

You know, last man back on goal.

You know, who's going to press, who's going to go down the wings.

There's going to be a cross, but there's only going to be one person for it.

And I take it like super seriously.

Like I'm really competitive at it because I've played it my whole life.

So I found rematch to be like stressful, because I felt like I wasn't, as ever, as good as I would like to be, or I couldn't quite do what I wanted to do.

I think it's great, I think it's really, really good, but for whatever reason it was.

You know, when you play games online and you play some games and you want them to be kind of chill a little bit, and this one was just like my, it was riling up my irishness or something, and so in a way that i was like, so i i, so i did play a bunch of it, but like i think, when it got into like the better games and better players, i was kind of like, oh no i, i don't think i can play at this level.

And i same thing happened with the finals i i, just i played a bunch of it.

I really liked the core mechanics of it, but the complexity of that game and how competitive people are at it Um, I think it ultimately is what happened to me with Counter-Strike as well over the years is like, at a certain point, the game everyone else is playing is kind of too good, and I'm not, I'm not willing to try and do that.

You know what I mean?

So yeah, it's really good.

Great game.

I wish this was an opportunity to force you to play a game, because then we can just find the most anime video game.

Maybe this is like a, we, we, we play this game for like a patron video this month.

Oh, that'd be fun, actually.

Yeah.

That'd be really cool.

On Noclip, too, because that's where we do our sort of Let's Play stuff.

That's fun.

Yeah, we could do that.

What do we have selected so far?

Consume Me for Frank and ENA Dream BBQ for Jeremy.

Yeah, they'd be cool.

Yeah, do you want to settle in to do that?

Do you want to say we'll play like an hour of each?

Yeah, let's lock in.

I like that.

Make some videos for later in the year.

All right, a game that Danny should play is Digimon Story Time Stranger.

Oh, Jesus Christ, venus vacation, lock them both in.

He's got to play both.

No, what?

What would danny?

What does danny need to play that he hasn't played already?

Yeah, how can we?

How can we expand his horizons, angelina is, i actually think that's a good answer, because i think that uh, Like we were talking about yesterday, I think you would resonate a lot with a lot of the sort of like cultural texture that it draws upon.

Yeah, the religious content, the Irish stuff going on in there, the general like love for classic video games and the nostalgia that's not just looking back and navel gazing.

It's like actually exploring what that era of games was about and restructuring it into something new and a new take on that idea.

I think you'd really love that. yeah i think that's a solid answer it's also it's also just like it's also just like a fun like it's not this is not like a homework assignment you would fire it up and like just be like this is delightful this is like a fun little game yeah you'll get the gun and like jump for joy there's a gun yeah there is a gun and it only shoots up like you can only like go you gotta find out oh yeah everybody on the ground you can only run into a bank and order everyone to get down i was thinking more in the there's a movie where somebody like expresses that they're like angry and they fire in the sky i don't know what what that is oh point break it's when he lies down thank you thank you it's point break yeah yeah exactly where he doesn't shoot him great thanks frank um thank yeah okay guys that's good yeah actually there that's that seems interesting i've not touched it i honestly probably wouldn't have had you not said that and but I am but it is a game that I think like I'd be curious about it's just there's so many fucking games it's just so hard to go back and play there was games I was thinking of for game of the year this year and I was like that came out last year and I still haven't played it you know what I mean stuff like that yeah it's hard okay most Jesse game as decided by everyone else This is tricky because he's not submitted his Game of the Year video yet, so I don't know.

I haven't yet.

I can't cheat sheet this one.

It's done.

I was going to upload it, but we're starting recording.

I don't want to mess with it.

Yeah.

I mean, in the top 10 ones that he really liked, well, Absalom was one, of course.

Blueprints was another.

But neither of these ended up getting into the actual top 10.

Yeah.

I kind of feel like blueprints might be where my gut is going as well.

Yeah.

Jesse's tastes are sort of like super, positioned between the the most brainy games ever and things that are like so technical and mechanically driven.

Um, and I feel like blueprints kind of taps into both of those worlds.

It's.

It is one of the brainiest games I've ever played, to an extent that it like even alienated me where I was.

Like Holy shit, I can't do another dartboard math puzzle.

Like I'm fucking dying here.

Um, And but it's also just like it has that atmosphere.

It has that mystery.

It has a lot of the sauce that Blake Manor has, but transposed onto this like bizarro fucking.

You know those puzzles where you have to slide all the tiles.

And if you slide the tiles right, you have to undo all the tiles.

It's like that.

But it takes you 400 hours in a notebook.

Yeah, I wasn't at all surprised that he liked this game.

And I was delighted to hear you liked it so much.

Similar to Lorelei, I guess, last year, it was kind of like a.

This is a this is now I feel bad.

That's not even in the top 10 either.

You've got Jeremy.

Jesse was like this podcast getting too long.

I got to produce this thing later.

Shut up.

I'm not fighting for this anymore.

Let it go.

Yeah, I think.

Yeah.

Unless Frank has any other suggestions, I think, you know, blueprints feels right to me as well.

Can I ask a question about the top 10 to you, Jesse?

Yeah.

Would you have.

If it was between White Knuckle and Blueprints, for you personally would you have put Blueprints in there instead of White Knuckle.

For me personally, I probably would have still left White Knuckle in there over Blueprints.

Interesting.

OK, I still prefer Blueprints quite a bit.

I feel like it appeals to a lot more of my personal tastes and what I like out of playing video games.

But White Knuckle is just like I was playing it at PAX East, the demo on my own.

No one like approached me and told me to check it out.

I just picked it up because I thought it looked cool.

I played it for 10 minutes and I turned around and there was a group of people standing behind me saying bro, that's the sickest thing I've ever seen in my life.

That's awesome.

And like that moment alone makes me want to put it up there in the top 10 over blueprints, even though I enjoyed playing blueprints quite a bit more.

So nice.

That makes sense.

I was just curious, because I know that there was a lot of like OK well, like two people like this one, but like one person likes this one.

So I was just curious where you fell on those two.

Yeah. game they should play more of or or some of all of game they should play slash more of this tricky because i'll play plays fucking everything yeah so this is like whatever you want up i'm curious because like i want jesse eventually get to death stranding too because i know like you guys are talking about the mechanic like like jesse getting super deep in the mechanics and i feel like death stranding has like puzzle elements the correct thing but like your loadout and what you pick for missions is such a like brainy that like like i again i had to ask so many of my friends for help playing death stranding but i feel like jesse could get into such a rich flow state if they got to death stranding 2 have you touched death stranding 1 because that's on pc i never played he's not played a kojima game no i oh i was gonna play death stranding 1 i started it up and then the cut scenes were too long and i was like i'll come back another day and it's been a year so And again, that's like why Death Stranding 2 is like, the cut scenes are so much more, like so much more is happening.

But I feel like the like, Because even like there's mountain climbing, elements of like which makes me think of like White Knuckle, but it's like I think you would get into a flow state with Death Stranding regardless of one or two.

The more I see it or hear you talking about it.

You especially because like, I know that you don't get down with that shit.

You're like if there's cut scenes or you got to think too hard about, you're like no no no no no no no, no no.

I could just be kicking a ball in rematch.

So if you're telling me this is good, I know it's.

I genuinely trust so deeply all of your picks, but especially that one for me, so i appreciate that.

Having that on there though, would require me to play about 300 hours of video games before playing death stranding 2.

Yeah yeah, let's try something else, i think.

I think i think 2026 the year jesse's gotta get into kojima games.

Try mgs1, try snake eater remaster, try death.

I own them all.

I own the metal gear solid collection on ps3.

I have every single game.

I don't know why.

I think i've been waiting for this day, maybe.

Yeah, it's weird because i, i would well, i think death stranding 2 is the perfect one to also suggest, but i would kind of hate to um, not spoil death stranding 1, but like you know it's, it is a.

It's a weird spot to get someone to starsh, i think, just because i mean it's, and then technically, going back right, like the game, i'm sure death stranding 2 feels a lot better compared to this running one.

Yeah, probably the combat especially.

Yeah um, i'd put it to this.

I i, i think it's a good idea, though.

I mean, we should just say he should play metal gear solid one.

I'll do it, i'll do it um, just in lieu of of uh, like akajima game could be the answer.

Yeah yeah, playing snatcher.

Play the demo for mgs2, you know yeah, get get hooked.

Does revenge count?

I'll play that again.

I would actually love to see you just start metal gear solid 2.

I think that would be really cool.

Actually, skip straight to 2.

Yeah.

I actually, I started it too.

I still haven't completed one ever, and I've played two and three and they're some of my favorite games ever.

One is my favorite MGS.

Frank, what about yours?

It's man.

Cause I, I just finished three again.

Like 2 was my favorite for the longest time, and then, like two or three years ago, I replayed MGS1 on PlayStation.

I was like, oh, that's the perfect video game.

Maybe because it's, like, six hours, but, like, it really is, like, it's so lean and perfect.

Like, it's such a good game.

And, like, I love how ridiculous the other Metal Gears get.

I like that 2 subverts so much of what 1 is setting up.

But like 1 on its own is like a masterpiece.

It really is, like, one of the best games of all time.

Yeah, it's something special.

Um okay, is there any other stuff on here that we think?

First of all, that jesse hasn't played?

I guess he could have you played big face.

No, i don't think so.

No, you're just hunting for the one i haven't played, just to recommend that you're like why does this guy not play?

That's the real struggle is.

I've played most things, at least through demos.

Did you play?

No, i'm not a human.

I did play.

No, i'm not human.

Okay cool, i thought so.

I just i bought it for the thing.

It's yeah, it's great.

Did you play formula star?

No, I did not.

Oh, there you go.

That's such a Jesse game.

And it's it's you can beat it in like an hour or two.

It's I think that you could have the entire experience and come talk about it.

And I think you would be like, this was delightful.

Perfect.

All right.

That's a good shout.

OK, so those games are for the first our warm up rounds there.

Most Jeremy game was ooh.

What game they should play is Ina Dream Barbecue.

Most Frank game was DDR, of course.

And what they're going to play is consume me.

Most Danny game was a seance of Blake Manor.

And what I'm going to play is Angeline era.

And most Jesse game was blueprints.

And what he's going to play more is formless. are so those are some interesting games so yes expect videos on noclip too uh later in the month maybe next week or the week after we'll uh we'll get some of those up um where each of us play an hour of the game that we uh or an hour or so of the game that we we uh we got that would be funny if we got if we if we put like birdcage in here and somebody had to play an hour straight of birdcage or like no sectory would be actually probably a bit more like an hour of that would be like oh fucking hell this is good but It's the same thing over and over again, and my eyes are bleeding.

Learn how to have fun, dude.

It's great.

No, no, no.

You know what I mean?

It's like the pacing.

I'm just thinking about the video production, that's all.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So onward we move into some more categories.

Let's go with a big one first.

Most ambitious.

There's.

No, you know there's, there's.

We can interpret these as a lot of these are open to interpretation.

This is one jeremy came up with as well.

Um, i think that ambition could come in many, many forms.

So kind of go for the gut on this one.

Um, i'll open it up first of all.

Does anyone have anyone that stands out uh, to them as an ambitious game?

I got a couple in the pocket.

Um, if we don't want to go exclusively off the goatee list that we already have, I would put the hundred line last defense Academy up there.

I played it a little bit throughout the year and I started picking it up more seriously recently.

Um, that game is nuts.

It's it's, there's so much to it.

There's a hundred endings to the game, which is not like a fail state kind of thing of like.

Oh, if you go here and go into the box, you get a secret ending.

It's like 30 hours to get to the end of what most people would consider the prologue of the game.

OK, I think it's like 600 hours or something, if you want to actually finish it, or just some crazy number of hours.

And it's all good.

I haven't like found it to be boring yet, which is wild because I wasn't big on Danganronpa.

I won't lie.

And this is just really pulled me in.

I think it's fantastic.

It reminds me a lot of like 13 Sentinels, Aegis Rim, and it's willingness to get weird.

Why does this not get into your top game of the year discussion?

Finish it, that's.

I mean that's it.

It doesn't get a pass because the ending takes 600 hours or whatever, just even to get to the end of the prologue, which i haven't quite reached yet, but just to get there.

I want to see what that is first before i figure this is great.

Another part of it is like it's a team thing.

There's games that i would like put up, but It's the team top 10.

I'm not going to argue for something that literally only I would ever play.

Similarly, this is probably not a like a hard suggest for the winner of this, but I think it is worth mentioning in this. position because it won't come up elsewhere is uh delta rune chapter three and four came out this year and i fucking love undertale i fucking love delta rune uh this game is fantastic i think delta rune is ambitious for a very specific reason which is that uh toby fox leveraged the success of undertale to build like a sort of rotating team of creative people and artists and writers and all these people to contribute to this ongoing project that is like I mean, when did Delta rune chapter one come out?

Um, it was free when it came out and it's just this like ongoing, like now, Delta rune feels like it's this fixture in games that people just look forward to periodically.

Um and and it delivers on this.

Like this huge project that's going to be eight chapters, but each individual chapter feels like its own cool standalone indie RPG with a Um it.

It kind of feels like it's like it's, it's almost like this.

This feels derogatory, but I mean it as the highest praise.

It's almost like a, it's like prestige television or something, where it's like each episode is like like a movie comes out and then, but all the movies are connected or something.

It's like an HBO show of indie games.

Lord of the Rings, you know, every few years we get one and that's what happens next.

I didn't know that.

I thought Delta and Ruin was like another Undertale kind of thing.

Well no no, it is, but it's done like episodically.

No okay, all right sorry yeah, and each episode is basically the length of undertale right, like they're.

Oh, i think they're a little shorter.

They vary in, like chapter three was a little bit shorter from my recollection um, but uh, but yeah anyway, i i'm not gonna like shoehorn this in.

The reason i didn't mention it more in game of the year stuff is because, in order to have a conversation a, it's kind of like a granted thing, that like it's just good and it's just there, and b, i think it doesn't yield good conversation because it's kind of like has everyone played undertale?

All right, now go play delta rune, chapter one and two, and then you can begin playing this game right um, but i just want to mention it here because i do think it is really cool and ambitious to leverage that success into doing something of this magnitude.

Is it the kind of thing that it would be okay to play, or should I just wait until it's all done?

No, no.

Have you played Undertale?

Oh yeah, I loved Undertale.

Okay, have you loved Undertale?

Have you never played any of Deltarune?

I played Chapter 1 of Deltarune.

I thought that was like a demo, but I didn't.

It was sort of like a teaser for the remainder of it, but I would play.

If you've played Deltarune Chapter 1, just start at Chapter 2 and just keep going.

Okay.

Yeah, it's great.

I would suggest and I don't know if it wins, but I would also I would suggest Adam Fall for this one as well.

Adam Fall is a first person game set in Northern England wherever the wind scale nuclear disaster happened, which is sort of the biggest nuclear disaster that happened in British land.

It's like an alternative history.

It takes place in like this sort of It feels like the island, a bit like this sort of like weird post-disaster world where there are druids living in the woods and robots roaming around.

And the actual nuclear.

The zone that you're in.

It's a zone game like Stalker is sort of like frozen in time.

Like everyone who's in there is like stuck in there, they can't get out of the the zone.

So it's just like a little pocket community that sort of lives underneath this.

Uh, whatever happened during the disaster?

Um and yeah it's it does it's it's, it's a it.

To me it was sort of it's from a smaller studio and sort of pitched as like a, what we would call a like a, like a, a like a, not a triple a game like a, you know, triple b game or whatever you know, But the actual execution on it is fantastic.

It is so well put together.

There's so many different mechanics.

There's multiple endings that are, you know from you interacting or not interacting with various factions within the world?

Like it's very Fallout.

New Vegas, I think, is the closest game I'd probably connected to um, the shooting's great, the voice works great, the script's great, the enemies are engaging and fun.

It's sort of im simmy in terms of uh, getting around and the combat like it's.

It feels like a.

It's like if um, if you know the way like bethesda makes these games and they just keep getting bigger and bigger.

And like bigger is not necessarily like better, like this game feels restrained in the ways that make sense, but then they put the effort in and the ways in the parts that are sort of deserve that extra bit of depth.

There's a weird amount of depth for a game that is sort of simplistic in some ways.

So yeah, I'm going to give it a shout out.

I really like Adam Fall.

It's very, very good.

It's one of the best first-person games of the year for sure.

So I wanted to give it a shout.

Anything else that feels... Consume Me feels like it should be in here as well.

For a small team, it's a very.

It's doing a lot.

It's trying to explain the first.

You know 20 something years of your life in a game and every, every ui is new and every mechanic is.

You know what i mean.

It's like a million games in one.

In a way, i was thinking that's below tay.

For a similar reason, i it feels like it's a boring answer, but kingdom come deliverance 2 is also just ridiculously huge uh, and ambitious and giant.

Um, I don't know.

I feel like it's like the game has gotten enough success and praise that I feel no obligation to give it an award for.

I don't mention winning anything at the Achilles, so.

That's true.

Is it really that good?

Um, that is, i wonder why.

Actually, because it was like no one plays it, because it's too long, because it's that i guess i know people who are on that awards panel and i know people on bafta award panels and they get like hundreds of games to play and i, i hundred percent bet that, like kingdom come to is just too much of a It's like too big a download, too much of a commitment, whereas they can boot up you know whatever Bellatro or Bollocks Pit in like two seconds and get it.

You know what I mean?

I've never realized this until this moment, but it sounded like you said Bollocks Pit.

Bollocks Pit.

Yeah, which is a game that I'm now going to make as a parody of Bollocks Pit.

Just testicles instead.

Oh, man.

Yeah, that's it.

Do we, do we think?

I've not played a hundred line last defense Academy so I can't speak to it at all, but it feels like it's.

I did hear when it came out that it was the people were saying like there's a ridiculous amount of game in here.

Yeah.

It's, it's pretty nuts for just for my understanding.

Again, I can't vouch for whether or not it works, uh all the way to the end, but just even the first what is supposed to be the prologue is has been good.

And knowing that it gets weirder is a very exciting prospect to me.

So that's cool.

But I think uh, that's an ambition in like scale.

But despilote and consume me are like you know.

They're doing the sort of stuff that is so specific and it's like it's especially despilote to go there.

Like knowing about the development of that game, that they actually went there and like 3d scanned areas and the the level of threat they went through to get those scans.

Like they were worried about people stealing their equipment and, And them being harassed.

They are from there, right?

They have family there.

It's not... Yeah, yeah.

But when they return, like when there was... Isn't that part of the game?

Isn't there like lines of them mentioning that?

How they needed security in the area?

Like just stuff like that.

It's not just a situation of like, yeah, I don't know.

We just went on Google Maps.

Yeah, it's funny because ambition in my mind immediately I go to sort of like we're going to make the biggest game in the biggest world and the most reactive and the most systems.

But Despilote is ambitious in a very specific way, which is that it is it's aiming very loftily towards um like it's it's artistic goal is ambitious not in terms of scope, but in terms of like.

We're going to capture a time and a place and do a game that is sort of like you know um.

I think if i was making a game like despilote, my fear would be are people going to be interested in this hyper specific thing?

Are people going to be interested in like, interacting with this world?

That is more just about a sense of place and these people in this time.

So it is ambitious in a way that I had not really thought about when we when I like pitched this award name.

What I would.

What I would say to that is that Desperate is ambitious in its narrative, but in terms of its mechanics and gameplay, it's very, very simple.

How many first person soccer games are there, Danny?

Come on.

FIFA's had it for years.

Yeah, who cares?

It's not a real game.

What was the other one?

Yeah, that's fair.

I guess the kicking is pretty great in this.

But if we were to do apples to apples with that and Consumi, I think it probably falls behind Consumi, just because Consumi has both the mechanical ambition, the storytelling ambition and I think it's a two-person team, I think.

It's definitely less.

It's a few at the most.

Isn't it also basically two?

I think it's four.

Well, I think it was one.

I think both of them are NYU games, actually.

So both of them, I think, originally had a designer.

So yeah, it's fair.

They're probably similar enough.

Regardless, the real answer is Death Stranding 2 on the beach.

Jesus.

What other game has those real actors in it?

Come on.

I know.

It's so weird to talk about ambitious too, because things like Kingdom Come, Deliverance 2 and Death Stranding 2 are like.

They are so huge and ambitious.

But the resources that those people have to pull upon are also so different than.

You know what I mean?

Like it's it's it is very hard to compare.

I think consume me is a great answer.

And I personally I loved despilote consume me, I think, like spoke to me more.

And that might just be like personal experience or whatever.

But I thought it was. the one thing i'll say about consuming as i was shocked that like you could know it seemed like no shortcuts were taken like the way the ui moves around and animate like there's so much stuff you just could have not bothered to do or like mini games or stuff like it's so i play consume me and i get like a headache thinking about how you would make this game like it's just it seems like it's doing a lot um yeah i'm happy to go consume me the only one i was thinking of A second ago that popped into my head, which I've now, I think I lost was, Oh no, it was schedule one.

I thought for another single dev, one person, to make a game that is an online game as well as a management game as well as a 3d world, like schedule one is for for a single, very young developer is like outrageously ambitious.

Yeah.

But we think consume me.

We think that's Pilate.

I personally lean towards consume me, but a lot of this will just come down to sort of like the experience that we as individuals had with these games and our personal sort of feeling about like what ambition is important and relevant.

Yeah.

I mean, if we go a democracy mode, I think that makes the most sense to go with Frank.

You got to vote here, buddy.

Well, I like the idea of consuming, getting it.

Cause then like, I can look forward to playing a game that won the most ambitious of Wow, there we go.

He's voting with his wallet on that one.

I like it.

Consumi, let's go then, I guess.

Let's go with that.

We're going democracy mode.

Consumi wins most ambitious.

Okay, here's an interesting one.

We were trying to figure I think me and Jesse talked about like best game under 10 bucks or best you know, best short game or whatever.

Let's keep it.

Jeremy came out with Best Value, which actually definitely covers off those.

It also opens the window to the world of Game Pass as well in an interesting way.

So we might have a lot of different ones being pitched for this one.

So Best Value, guys, what's speaking to you when you think about what you value in a game?

No, that's not it.

We're talking – what is it?

Economic – Economic Viability.

The Economic Viability Award is kicking off right now.

I will say even though it kind of sucks, Skate is free, and I did put over like 35 hours.

There you go.

There's the challenge here is we are arguing that.

I love this.

Free games work.

I love this.

Genshin Impact.

You could play for like a million hours, but would they be hours well spent?

Yeah, are you talking shit on my?

I got good pulls, all right.

I'm sorry you can't, i'm sorry you have bad luck, but all my time i spent it.

I just i didn't get the right waifus.

Yeah, you didn't get the five star pull.

Because you're not good enough, i'll put a cape hideous in here.

It's uh yes, six dollar game.

Very uh.

I mean it might come up in some other game in terms of, you know, unique style or something like that in a different category but uh, six bucks game.

I mean it's not very long.

So you know it's also a 2024 game.

Oh, is it really?

Oh, it's out, then it's out, then it doesn't make it.

But you and i both played it for the first time in 2025.

So like, how do we give hideous an award?

I know cape hideous is most hideous game.

How do we do that?

It's so good.

It's real hideous and it's real.

It's real good, it's a good time.

I'm glad to mention it, if nothing else.

For sure.

I will invent a category to give to Cave Kitties if we have to.

Do it.

2024 is the best game in 2025.

What else?

What else do we think here?

I'm looking at prices.

I can't remember how much all these games cost.

Exactly.

Cap and Mortem might be one for you.

That game was only $12.

Or Karimara.

That game was $5, right?

Aramara.

Aramara is actually a good shout as well.

We don't spend money on them.

We get keys.

You don't get keys.

Sometimes.

I get keys all the time.

You get keys.

Everyone else has their monthly expenses that get paid for by our patrons.

Especially game of the year.

Danny won't pay for my game.

See, you put all the money into Digimon for me.

That was it.

That was my expense for the year.

Well, you keep putting Digimon on the expense list.

Well, I do it every month.

I just want to make sure that you don't want to buy a copy every month.

What's Kaput?

How do you spell it again?

C-A-P-U-T, and that should get you there.

No, not Kaput Mortum, the other one.

Oh, Karamara?

C-A-R-I-M-A-R-A.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I think Karamara's in for a shout because that's five bucks and that is one of the best games I've played this year, probably.

I think it might be in my top ten.

I really liked it.

It was really good.

Yeah, Karamara's not that shit.

It's cheap too, yeah.

Yeah, it's a tenner, right?

How much was Look Outside?

Because that's... This is what I love.

This is capitalism coming in.

Look Outside is $9.99.

That has to be the fucking value of the year.

That game is enormous.

It has multiple endings.

The developer kept adding.

I think it's like a 2.0 release now that has more endings and more fucking people.

I played this game and I was like I've got a companion who was like I'm going to nominate for best character of the year.

Best original character of the year.

Well, that's a spoiler.

That's one category we've talked about.

I looked up to see how far i was into this game uh, and i just looked up like a no commentary walkthrough and skipped you know like an hour or two in to see like all right, this will be definitely behind where i am, because i've played way more than that.

I had no idea what they fucking were doing.

I had no idea they were hanging out with people i'd never seen.

They had companions i hadn't even met yet.

Um, this game is so like open-ended and weird.

You can replay it a ton.

It's 990 fucking nine.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

I think Skate and Karamara are their sort of value to goodness ratio feels really good because Skate is a game that is like it's free and I definitely had fun with it.

But also ultimately you know that game is limited in the fun you can have with it sadly, unless you're playing with like your mates and stuff.

Karamara is really good.

It's only five bucks.

It's very, very, very cheap, but it is a short enough game.

I can see Karamar winning this, but I think look outside, probably just because of how much game is in there and how good it is.

It sounds about right to me.

Yeah, Karamara is fantastic.

I don't mean to sell it short, and it is unbelievably cheap, and everyone should buy it and play it.

100%, everyone should get it.

It's great.

But for the two to three hours you will spend exhausting it.

I mean you could spend dozens and dozens and dozens of hours and multiple playthroughs of Look Outside and the fact that the developer released it had this massive success, and then, off the back of that, I mean this developer is it Frankie Pixel?

I don't want to misname this person.

Francis Coulomb, who I believe goes by Frankie Pixel, released this game.

This was they were working on another huge game.

And then this was like I think it was a game jam game that had a buzz around it.

And they were like, I'll make this into a full thing because people really like it.

And, instead of releasing it, having a hit game, taking that money and being like, all right, fuck it.

I'm off to work on my main project.

They they took that success and they were like, I'm going to add a shit ton of this so that people get even more success. of this game because people love it so i think that that is like if that's not value what is value all right look outside wins notable mentions karamara and skate they feel like they should be in there for notable so i'll stick them in best friend slop game so this is a game that you Maybe it's not the best game, but it's a real good game.

You know when you're playing with your buddies.

These games are usually the sort of you know four person co-op experience.

That is sort of maybe not the most mechanically deep thing.

Maybe it is.

You kind of know a friend slop game when you see it.

I'll put forward Peak for this one.

Peak came out this year.

I played a bunch of Peak at QuakeCon with my friends and had a really great time.

It's a game that's clearly hit, you know, people are interested in it.

And I will say I do find it to be more mechanically interesting than a lot of friend sloppy games.

A lot of them are sort of like a bit meme-y, you know sort of by design.

Some of them, or like, rely on horror quite a lot.

Peak is doing something sort of novel in terms of its mechanics in some way.

I mean, there are games like, you know, grow up or egg, or is it go up with that ubisoft?

Yeah, grow up, i think, isn't it also?

Grow home yeah, and grow home yeah, which do the climbing thing?

Obviously, you know, grow up and grow home brother, grow up yeah exactly, grow up yourself.

I can't believe they're bringing it back.

And then we've talked a lot about there's been a bunch of games like they're indie climbing games.

A bunch of them we've been talking about this year as well.

But but I think what the way it handles it is really interesting and like how much you can bring up and what items you should bring and working with friends and grabbing onto friends.

And yeah, I thought it was for a friend slop game.

It was it was pretty, you know, feature rich.

And it's certainly the best of the friend slop.

I hate I hate that phrase.

I hate that it works so well.

It's great.

But like, it just sounds derogatory.

But I mean, it is derogatory because you could say like best co-op game.

Yeah, you could.

But when you say friend slop, you know.

No one's calling Split Fiction Friend Slop.

I want to nominate Ark Raiders just to piss everyone off.

That's good.

Anti-Shill Zone, I like that pick.

I want to nominate Night Rain because I think it's funny.

Actually, Ark Raiders is Stranger Slop.

That is not Friend Slop.

That's true.

I think Ark Raiders doesn't, the only reason it doesn't work is that if you play in duos or trios you don't have enough time to slop you're just gonna get killed like it's not it's not friend slop i just thought it was funny unfortunately it's not it does night rain feel nightish it does not because night rain is is if you play it like a friend slop game you're just like let's focus what's over here dude it's over for your pockets you know what i mean look at that crazy dog dude can you pet it can you and you're dead yeah if you're playing night raid like that you're fucked my friends and i were arguing over uh like if like over muppets versus puppets and like doing a boss fight and we died like oh my god yeah on that topic of muppets and puppets the ultimate friend slop this game year the game this year jesus has a stroke um is repo oh yeah this year that was february of this year well that's crazy did it really yep wow so i've not played enough i've not played any of this but it's it's clearly i mean it's the sloppiest of the friends it's got 116 000 positive that's how you know overwhelmingly positive reviews wow that is wild what what do you do in this game uh nothing i don't know it's it's like a lethal company yeah okay so it's like it's a lethal company like which came out last year right and so did content warning did it yes yeah yeah we played last year yeah well you were gone we were doing some content creation i think peak is is oh i know i was in that video was i no we were talking about how we wished you were in the video oh that's what it was okay uh personally for me i think peak takes it because i think it is more original in its mechanics and presentation and tone and atmosphere uh It's innovating within the genre of Frenslop.

Peak is definitely the best Frenslop.

I think Repo is the most Frenslop.

Yeah, that's true.

I guess that's an important distinction.

Peak is almost too good to be called Frenslop.

It's dangerously close to being not allowable.

Okay.

Peak, we think?

Yeah.

I think it's Peak.

For Frenslop to the couch for best couch game.

This can be couch co-op, this can be just best game to fucking hang out on the couch and just like play it for hours and hours and hours.

Um, anyone stand out?

I'll start one.

Uh, that lego party game is fantastic.

We play a lot of it here in the house.

Um, i also got it for my brother's birthday.

I got him that.

And ghost of yo toy for uh, for yo tay, whatever it is for.

Um, whatever it is culture, fuck it.

Whatever it is.

Fucking who gives a shit?

I'll say it the way we say in america um, i call it tamra.

Uh tamriel, not tamriel.

Fuck those.

You assimilated back to american life so fast.

I did good for you.

I gotta, i gotta, i gotta be careful.

You know, i got that.

I don't have a green card anymore.

I'm all right, although who knows, who knows, they're picking up citizens.

I guess, denaturalize you for mispronouncing ghost of yote, exactly.

Yeah, Lego Party.

It's really well done.

It's Mario Party.

It's better than Mario Party.

It's not as It's not as, I hate Mario Party because of just how ridiculous the stars are at the end.

This game can get that way, but it does it, I think, more fair with the big golden bricks you get and stuff like that.

Animation's great.

It feels like the Lego movie games.

There's multiple stages that are different lengths, which is handy, especially if you're like we're playing with our kid.

We don't want to do the super long one.

The mini games are varied and interesting and fun, which I really like.

So yeah, Lego Party's pretty solid.

I'd put it forward for a contender at the very least.

You got any other ones?

I mean, I already brought it up, but Split Fiction would probably be a good one for me.

I think it is the best game to play with somebody, especially if they also think the story is bad or the writing is bad.

Because it's both fun to play and enjoy your time, and then it's also fun to laugh at how ridiculous any of the writing is.

So the key is that you either have two people who like the writing or two people who hate the writing.

If you sort of, if you can find two people who like the writing.

That's so mean.

I'm sorry.

That's so mean.

Wow.

Okay.

It's like the room.

It's like watching.

Yeah.

It's like you're throwing popcorn at the screen.

You're like, yay.

Great.

Love it.

You're on television.

You're just throwing forks at it.

Great.

Any other games pop up for folks?

I don't know if this strictly fits the category, but Chelsea and I played the entirety of Silent Hill F on vacation together, just like chilling on the couch and like handing the controller back and forth and just kind of like dissecting.

I think like a good couch game is not just like it's fun to play on the couch, but also you like put the controller down and you're eating like a loaf of bread and talking about the story and like dissecting it and being like what do you think like?

What do you think this means?

What do you think this character is going to do?

What do you think is going to happen here?

It yields interesting discussion and it's just a fun game to kind of like bounce the controller back and forth and play the entire thing in a couple of nights.

Yeah, in a previous year I would have put forward something like ghost of Tsushima for this.

For a similar reason region, region reason, because like it's just a game to have on a big screen and be surrounded by and sort of sit into and spend time in that world.

Um, and, but I wouldn't for, for Yotei.

I think it's, uh, it's, I don't know.

It's for whatever reason, it's just too similar, I guess, to what came before.

But Assault on Tel Aviv sounds like it's doing something similar that way.

There's something about the like.

When I originally read the category of couch game, I was like oh, it's couch co-op or something like that.

But now that I'm sort of recontextualizing it with my own experience, because I've not done a lot of couch co-op this year, the couch game to me is sort of like the.

It's like a movie theater, movie.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Death Stranding probably fits in here too, you know?

Yeah.

Because of that.

Yeah.

It's like an experiential thing, right? yeah you play it on a big tv you're not like sitting at your i wouldn't play silent hill f at my computer it wouldn't have the same impact right yeah me like red dead redemption that's why i never played it on pc for instance because you know just i need to sit down and relax so what do we think we got lego party split fiction silent hill f some different interpretations of best couch game there um does anyone feel particularly strong about any of them um lego party is a game that i think is impossible to play anywhere else but a couch with some other people yeah that's probably true so it's probably that's that's where i'd say they're split fiction though sounds like it's it's got the chops you get one thing i'll say about lego party hard to play with two people you kind of need to have at least three you know they filled in ai people you know just npcs but like it's not as fun which is too good thing it's not best love seat game or that would be out you know what i mean right yes a little bit of an awkward seating situation yeah someone has to sit on the floor i'm curious what frank thinks about this because i feel like there's a few that uh didn't make it to the top 10 of yours that might fit this like wwe 2k25 feels like a couch game to me it feels like it's like a hangout game that your friends are over you're making like a big fat guy wrestler who's like you know what i mean i mean like my experience does all through like with Twitch and all my friends hanging out on discord and we're laughing, but it's like, I had those experiences as a kid, like doing that.

So like, like the, the thing that is closest to me would be like mega bonk, as like I didn't play on the couch, but that was the game.

I'd get on my steam deck and then just lie in bed.

Like like, and there's always every year.

There's always like what I call like the best steam deck game, which in in in years past.

I would like lie down on the couch and just zone out.

It was like vampire survivors, Hades to this year's.

That was like mega bonk, even if for just like a week where it was just like oh, just pick up the steam deck, lie down and just zone out with that, and that could be on the couch, it could be wherever.

But yeah, i didn't have any like.

I play all my games by myself in this chair.

I don't have like a like it like um yeah, so i, i can just take myself this category.

I don't have a, an anecdote no, that's.

I think that's a good interpretation, though it's like the.

The couch is in the same way that, like the movie, theater movie is a separate experience than like the couch co-op thing.

I think that the couch game can be like best game to kind of fucking veg out and play too.

Yeah, we entered the couch is more of a.

It's more of a way of way of thinking.

You know, it's a philosophical sort of space.

Yeah, metaphorical couch i was gonna say marvel cosmic invasion for you frank, would be a good one, because you were, you were big on that.

That's like a yeah yeah that yeah yeah yeah, i get yeah i uh yeah, i just didn't have a co-op experience.

Oh yeah yeah yeah, good point.

Yeah yeah um, All right, so which one stands out to you for this one?

We've got three different interpreters.

Does anyone feel particularly strong about them?

Like I said, I put my sort of thing forward for Lego Party.

I think you've made a good point with Lego Party, in that it's like it seems like you kind of can't really play that any other way.

Sort of like Mario Party, like you can play it online, but you know, it's not the same.

Unless you have the Nintendo Switch 2 camera.

What I think is good about Lego Party, exactly.

What I think about Lego Party, which none of us have.

What I think about Lego Party is good about it is as well, is that it is a multi-generational game.

Like, it feels good in the living room.

Like, we played it here, but I've also played it at my brother's place with his kids.

And you know it's like my seven-year-old's playing, there's an 11-year-old playing, there's me playing, there's.

You know there's people who don't play games playing that.

That it's a.

You're able to do that thing with it.

Um, and it is really good.

I think it's like, it's never a game that's going to win any game of the year awards.

Cause it, it sort of is what you see as well.

Like Mario party is also not going to win a game of the year awards.

They're kind of like stunt games or something.

They're like a weird sub, you know sub genre of.

They're like weirdly utilitarian.

These types of games are like board games.

You know, I was going to say they're like, yeah, that's literally what I was just about to say.

So so it's yeah.

So we don't consider them as grand and interactive in the way that maybe we do other games as a result of that.

But it's really well made.

You've convinced me on Lego Party.

I feel like in addition to it being like the couch is a gathering space for people to come together.

It's like you have like a family party or a holiday party.

Everyone is like just fire up, throw Lego Party on and people are coming and going.

And also I feel like playing Lego Party alone on your PC is like eating sushi with a fork.

Like it's like.

It's like fucking.

That's disgusting.

It's like what went wrong, man?

Yeah, what's what went wrong in your life for you to end up?

They give you chopsticks.

Brother, what happened?

Yeah, they're in the bag.

Man, why'd you go to the fucking silverware drawer?

Yeah, open this up a drawer and it's just full of 50 soy, soy packets.

So a bunch of unused chopsticks like.

I'm saving this for one day.

One day it'll be worth it.

I gotta fill a bottle with it.

Um, Do we feel all right with Lego Party then?

Yeah.

That's all right?

All right.

That's cool.

I'm glad to give that game some flowers.

It is very well.

Me and Frank played it at Summer Games Fest.

And it was the game that we were like, somebody's like, oh, it's an established IP.

We got previews for it.

We were like, oh, what's it going to be?

They didn't say what it was.

And then after the Summer Games Fest, they were like, emailed us and said, oh, it's Lego Party.

I was like, fuck.

It's like Lego party.

What the fuck is Lego party?

And then we went and played it and it was like, oh, this is really well good.

This is like legit really good.

So yeah, that was cool um, similar.

I guess in some ways lego party could apply to this.

Maybe in some way i'm not quite sure, i'm not sure best franchise game.

So these are games that are.

You know, you can interpret this in lots of different ways.

I wouldn't say this is sequels, this is more games built around a franchise, like fifa slash yeah, you know.

Yeah um fc wwe, things like that like uh, i guess sequels could also count, but like, but maybe not the first game.

Like a franchise usually has a few games, like Katamari works, right?

Because there's like a bunch of these games that are out there.

So yeah, there's a bit of subjective interpretation on this one too in terms of what a franchise is.

But I thought this would be a good opportunity to give some flowers to games that again, are doing well within their franchise.

You know, maybe Pirates, Yakuza, and Hawaii is also one to stick in here.

What do you guys think?

Donkey Kong.

I haven't even played it.

Donkey Kong.

It is definitely the best Donkey Kong game outside of the Country series, which isn't really that many games.

Yeah, it is.

My favorite is Donkey Kong Country 2, which is what, like 94?

Let me double check.

Is that Diddy's Con Quest?

So it's the best Donkey Kong game in 30 years.

I truly stand by that.

They're really going to rename Diddy now.

That's why Diddy wasn't in Bonanza.

They had him in there and they were like, I don't know guys.

The optics on this are dog shit.

They should have renamed that 50 cent documentary to Diddy's Con Quest.

Diddy's Con Quest.

That's crazy.

Wow.

Oh, yeah.

Nintendo were probably the most mad of anyone other than the victims of that.

They go to the same like the copyright or trademark support group as Corona the beer does.

Oh, yeah.

Just in terms of fucking world events destroying your, you would think, by the way, that covid would have put the sales for corona down 100.

They went up, at least where i was, i think.

Well, i think beer sales around the world yeah, that's a good point, i know in my, but like you could drink anything, i don't know.

Whatever, I think they just had a lobbying group that made everyone call it COVID-19.

That's what I think happened because we don't call it the coronavirus anymore.

They paid Trump a lot to call it the China virus just to get them off their back.

That's what it was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

Anyway.

Is Donkey Kong Bonanza getting this?

What do we think?

Any other ones?

WWE 2K25?

I think Frank says it's like Frank's the one pushing Donkey Kong over WWE.

You don't even have a conversation.

It is such a good point because it's like I really like Pirates Yakuza and it's awesome just because it's like it's definitely the Yakuza game of the year.

But like Infinite Wealth raised the bar so high and Pirates Yakuza is just more of that, etc.

Like WWE is good.

It's like I think this most recent one, which is some of the toggles they change, is really good.

But yeah, it's.

If you think of donkey like even just nintendo, like for me nintendo games are all kind of one big franchise because everything bleeds into, like mario kart or smash brothers, it's all the same crap.

But yeah, now that we think about it's like yeah, donkey kong bonanza really is the best donkey kong game in 30 years.

Like yeah, it truly is.

Like oh crap, and but it also feels like a sequel to mario odyssey, like it is a continuation of that gameplay design.

So it's like yeah, damn it.

Like it's hard to have anything even get close to Donkey Kong Bonanza, just in terms of like carrying forward.

I hate carrying forward, establishing IP.

We're going to talk to, you know, whatever, but really it is like your tie and suit on, you know?

Yeah.

But it's, and it also coincided with the launch of like uh the the Donkey Kong uh thing in Osaka.

And then I think universal studios Florida, which now I'm like shit, I don't want to.

I want to go see that.

Um, and so, um, yeah, damn it's, it's, uh, yeah i don't know that wasn't even in my like head when we were when we me too i actually hadn't thought about it either but yeah it's hard to disagree with it and it deserves it it's it's not like oh no it it technically qualifies and it's good and it's in our top 10.

So we have to put it in.

It is actually like, as you guys said, I think what's important for best franchise game is that it's not just a good game, but it is a good game within the franchise.

It is standing.

And I think this, this might clear the bar more than any of the other games.

I thought frank was gonna put up battlefield 6, to be fair, oh yeah, also the first good battlefield in 30 years, so i thought that would have.

Uh, i thought that would have worked for you, but i'm glad to hear that donkey kong wins it.

Yeah, and i'm also thinking for like, how frustrating donkey kong 64 is.

This gets rid of all that for like, i like the most insane thing with donkey kong 64 is, in order to pick certain collectibles, you have to be like that character.

So, like, Trixie Kong can only get, like, mangoes.

I don't know, whatever.

Is Trixie Kong a sex worker?

That's Candy Kong.

Candy Kong is the... Wow.

I don't know if she's canonically a sex worker.

I didn't read the manual.

Look at the fan art.

No, no, sorry.

She may be coded as such.

Trixie is like a... Only in the Japanese version.

Yeah.

Sounds like a stripper name or something.

I don't know.

Is her name Trixie in Japanese?

I'm going to look this up.

Oh, Candy Kong.

Oh, Lord.

Okay.

I saw the official picture, and I thought that was fun.

Is there a Trixie Kong?

That's the girl Kong.

Trixie Kong is the little girl.

That's Dixie Kong, isn't it?

Oh, there's Tiny Kong.

Tiny Kong.

Hold on.

We need a little sidebar here.

I did not call Dixie Kong a sex worker.

I promise.

That's not what I meant.

Oh, OK, so I'm not the only one.

There's like a Reddit thread from five years ago.

Are you guys getting Mandela affected?

No.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a generation of people who call Tiny Kong Trixie Kong.

I always thought it was Trixie Kong.

Her name is Tiny Kong.

Well, there was like a comic book where they said it wrong or something.

Right.

Was it in that bad Canadian animated show?

Maybe.

I think with the cast of Donkey Kong, we've a convicted sex offender in there, like a like a lifelong rap industry character bad boy, and we have, like that you pivoted out of what you were calling to be like, just to be clear, he also and also and also a great artist, new york finance.

Here exactly, jeffrey epstein I was going to say, if you think about the original Super Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong is the villain.

And now for, what, 40 years later, now he's, you know, like Mario's not even in this thing.

Yeah, he's rehabilitated.

He's completely taken over the Mario Brothers franchise.

This is the best Mario game.

He's like, I was here before you were, Mario.

You were just Jumpman before, you know.

I made you and i don't.

I still haven't beaten donkey kong bonanza but, like i know, odyssey had such an insane finale, like it was a musical, that i'm like, oh crap, what does bonanza do at the?

I've heard good things but i don't know.

So now i'm like, oh shit, i like the idea of frank giving extra points to donkey kong for a hypothetical ending that he's looking forward to enjoying.

That's uh that's, that's good this this is.

This has no bearing on the award we're giving right now, but i need you guys to see this.

I looked up a family tree of the kong family and their uncle.

I clicked on uncle kong because i've never heard of uncle kong.

I need everyone to go to staff chat and just take a look at.

Holy shit, what's this?

Oh yeah, where did you send this?

On the discord, on the discord staff chat.

Yeah okay, that's uncle kong.

He's got a john waters mustache.

Yeah, he's literally.

He's john waters kong.

That's awesome.

Oh my god, you're right.

Look at this guy.

He appears only in the Japanese strategy guide for Super Donkey Kong 2, Dixie and Diddy's Koryaku guidebook, Kansenhan.

He looks like he's going to sell me a tincture that smells mysteriously of piss. oil salesman.

His actual thing is he's a banana seller from Osaka.

There you go.

Dude, he's got the Kansai dialect.

It's Oji-san Kong.

Wow.

He looks like he's coming to my town to build a monorail.

Or sell you a monorail.

That's what I meant.

He put North Haverbrook on the map.

Yeah, that's wild.

Alright, best franchise game, Donkey Kong Bonanza.

Makes a lot of sense.

Most Addictive.

So what's the game that you couldn't put down even if you wanted to?

I mean for me it's probably Ark Raiders, just in terms of pure hours at this stage.

I i am definitely addicted to the loop of it, and addicted could also be in derogatory as well.

This we can interpret addicted here.

It can be good or bad.

Bollocks pit, for instance, is another one that comes to mind here, pretty high there.

Yeah sorry, ball pit.

I gotta stop saying x no, say no, because i think you have to say the x.

Say it.

It's bollocks pit is really funny now that jeremy pointed out that it might sound like you're saying you fucking gonna go you in a bollocks pit.

I love that a lot.

It's really good.

Oh man, i love that.

I love the idea this guy has.

This cockney guy has a has a pit of people's testicles in his backyard.

Yeah yeah, i would have some follow-up questions about the bollocks pit.

For sure it's gross.

No thanks um yeah, what do you guys think?

What what, what makes sense on this one?

Most addictive For me it's White Knuckle.

White Knuckle was a poltergeist in my brain.

I couldn't stop thinking about it.

I couldn't stop playing it.

Very rarely I will have a game that I just need to complete to get on with my life.

Um and white knuckle was that for me uh, and it wasn't in a way where it was like oh, i need to like get rid of this.

It was like i i, i knew i could do it, even though it felt so unattainable, and i was like i need to prove to myself that i can do it.

And it was just like this peak experience getting there um, it was insane.

Hell yeah okay jesse, you also mentioned yesterday that the ending, the like last level in this or whatever um was, was a particular rush.

Do you think that it's an addictive?

Uh, do you think it falls into this one?

Well, i think um, it definitely has that compulsive design to it, not like dark patterning, but like it's just that kind of thing where you're like oh dude no, i know i could get further now and once you get back into it, you're like oh, this jump that i did, that I used to be scared of, is now just one move.

Like I remember multiple moments in white knuckle where something used to be, I would do every handhold.

I was very scared.

And then two or three runs, I was just like, Nope, turn around, double hand, jump all the way over.

Feels really good.

I don't know if I would personally put it up as addictive, mostly because sectorial also came out last year.

That's my sector with a bullet.

Like that is oh my goodness i could have played i did play that game for like eight hours straight i don't do that anymore like that was that was great yeah sectari is a good shout what i would say about sectari is is i think a large amount of it for me was about the music pulling me back in like so much of that game is about wanting to be in that flow state you know like it's kind of there are times where i play victoria and i get burned out and i'm like okay i've played 50 minutes of this i am i need to step away for a little while um and then there's this constant tension between that feeling growing and the feeling of wanting more of wanting to jump in again um uh to to to be and yeah it was all about just being in that space and being in that flow state and i felt like i felt like i was getting better the longer i played it as well because like you're just like thinking about less and focusing on what was happening um what i i wanted i i'm not going to nominate it for a win but i do want to circle back around to our creators for a second only because when we went out myself frank and ole to uh stockholm uh to spend time with them and play it then and i subsequently went out again or i was in the area and went and met them again um the i like that you're saying that white knuckle doesn't have that dark pattern stuff and i think sectory also doesn't whereas there are plenty of games we've played and talked about over the years um what's the one-armed bandit one again called oh clover pit clover pit for instance bollocks pit bollocks pit that's what i'm gonna call every fucking gambling game from now on is bollocks pit clover x pit um those games obviously are in that you know a bit like yeah those are in that world and balatro to a certain extent as well um maybe at a certain amount of play hours that game sort of falls into that as well um our creators to me uh a lot of those trials and things that you do the quests for me were just like i was happy to have something else to do it was more of a pacing thing yeah um the trial all the trials and stuff that they added in and all of the um expeditions and and the candleberry stuff like none of this was in the game when we went out a year earlier so i was just really impressed by the fact that they managed to get some of these systems in and working in a way that are interesting i think probably because i had seen what the game looked like earlier and it was like it just they were really struggling with like trying to get people to care about loot which is when you play that game now is insane because that's like the whole game is about the loot just Um, so yeah, I wanted to, to, to mention that.

Yeah, it's, it keeps pulling me back in my, the trials is the thing that I love and going up the leaderboards and that's what keeps me coming back in a bunch.

Um, but yeah, white knuckle or Sektori seems to be the, the conversation here.

I do have to float one more.

Uh, okay.

Night rain is the game that I played the most of this year.

And it is, it is not dark patterned in the sense that it doesn't instantly cue you back.

It bounces you back to a hub world where there's, like you know, you can customize your load out a little bit and there's sort of like very light touch narrative stuff you can do for each of the characters.

Um, I found it like unbearably more ish.

I just, it was, it's so fun.

It's so easy to just like hop in another one and, uh, It's just like a very satisfying, fun loop.

I do feel like a lot of this category just comes down to what clicks with your individual brain.

White Knuckle and Night Rain just happened to be the two games that sort of like grabbed me the most this year.

I think... was it last year?

I got, I don't even know now.

I think it was last year.

Deadlock probably would have been my suggestion for most addictive.

Uh, it doesn't even necessarily mean that I loved, loved it the most or anything.

And that's also the case with white knuckle and night rain, or that you played it the most.

You know what I mean.

The game that you play the most might be less addictive, but just have more stuff in it.

You want to explore or something.

Um, between these two, what would you, what would you say between night and white knuckle?

Which one feels more addictive to you?

White knuckle definitely.

Oh man, i think it was white knuckle.

White knuckle was like.

The word i would use is i.

I don't know if this i actually do.

I have ocd.

I don't know if this is related to that, but there are games that like become compulsive to me where it's like uh, it's like i, it's the, the natasha dao shul, i think, is her name, wrote about the, the machine zone.

When she wrote about like gambling machines and the machine zone is like it's, it's this guilty pleasure space you get into, she writes about it as a an overtly negative thing.

I think it can be sort of like a fun, indulgent thing to to jump into a little bit, to dip your toes into, if you're not losing money maybe right yeah, that's the, that's the key thing there.

But the machine zone is like it's this this like naughty, like i know i should stop, but i'm gonna do more and i know i shouldn't, but i want to, and it's kind of like yeah, it's kind of a self-aware indulgence overindulgence yeah um, and i think white knuckle for me was like i don't need to do this right now, but like i need to do this right now and i it's definitely not the game i played the most of.

I think i played like definitely under 15 hours, but that was a, that was in like a day, all right uh, it's between you guys, i think on this one yeah, i mean, if i'm gonna argue for it, sectory i think i agree on everything you're saying jeremy, about white knuckle.

Um, and I feel a similar way about sectory, about like that compulsion to keep playing it.

Um, I guess, if I were to make a point about the concept of the addictiveness, white knuckle for me was addictive in the way that, like I wanted to keep going.

I wanted to get further.

Um, not just in like a score way.

Like I think if we're going to take the addictive angle of it and maybe twist that a little harder, like sectory has score attack.

It has um leaderboards like that aren't just based on your distance and like how quickly you get through it.

It's like, how can you maximize your score?

It has flashy lights, jingly keys.

It's got good music and sound effects and everything.

And like white knuckle was more like, again, I'm with you.

It was more of a compulsion thing where Sektori uh, as much as I like geometry wars, I think taps even further into it.

Feels like zoomer geometry wars.

Like it's designed for you to not look away.

You can't, I love that game.

It hurts my eyeballs at times when you get all of the letters, like when you spell out sectory.

It has that feature and it goes bright rainbow colors.

I feel like I'm playing cocoa melon, which is both an insult and a compliment.

It is so, so good.

It like fries my brain in a way that White Knuckle despite the fact that I also couldn't put it down until I was done didn't have the same level of an effect on me.

Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, no, I think Sektori feels like a good pick for this one.

Cool.

Thanks.

Yeah, I played both games and Sektori was the one that grabbed me.

Uh, that much more so, like a nice fresh cigarette.

That's right.

Yes yeah, totally yes.

It does feel like when you're playing it you need to be like, you need to like walk outside, and suddenly you're in like the smoking area in a danish club.

It has that sort of feel to it, or probably my wife tries to talk to me, it's all muffled and it's just like yeah, i don't know 100.

Yeah, you didn't realize your ears were fucked until you went outside, kind of thing.

Yeah, here's an interesting one.

Um, so i think i had i forget which one i had down jeremy, or maybe you had them both and i had one.

We had most best novel mechanic and most original.

So these, i think are, are they?

There is daylight between the two of these, but i want you to be sort of aware of the two of them, because i think this might end up being like a sort of a a conversation that bounces into both.

Maybe

So we're looking at best novel mechanic and just to have your eyes on best or most original.

Best original and most original is also uh, coming down the pipe, as it were.

Um, so what, what?

What stands out?

Um to you guys when it comes to, when it comes to this?

I mean, we've had, you know, so many different genre mashups over the years.

We have established ones, but then there's also art, styles and visions and ideas that feel fresh and new.

I mean I'd like to start with mechanic, if we can, because I think that's the.

Or maybe we should start with most original, because it'll start the conversation.

I don't know.

What's standing out for you guys?

It's tough.

There wasn't.

I didn't really personally feel like there was a ton of like really unique mechanics this year.

Like there's the stuff in motion rec which i thought was pretty cool, like the uh, the way that you record your movements to solve puzzles, that was pretty.

Oh yeah yeah, that was cool actually.

Yeah, that is pretty.

Yeah, motion rec is a tough one for me because, as much as i thought that mechanic was brilliant, i i think it was like more novel looking at it on the surface than like ooze bomb mechanic, which feels more like oh, it's kind of like a bomber man puzzle platformer, like it feels very grounded in video game tradition.

Yeah, but i feel like, having played both of them, motion rec feels like it hits a wall with its mechanic a bit more, where it's like less intuitive, it feels like it feels like they were scraping the barrel a little more to yield a full game worth of puzzles out of that mechanic.

Um, in terms of novelty though, the bomb gameplay and ooh, is that's just bomb chicken?

Like it's in the, it's in the inspiration, because that's what I'm saying is like I I wouldn't nominate ooh for this category, the bomb, but I.

It is interesting to compare it to motion rec, because motion rec is very original, but like the mileage that they get out of that I feel like is totally agree.

Totally agree.

How do we feel about, um, the alters Jesse for any of these?

Um, I don't think the alters, uh, that's tough.

It doesn't really have a novel mechanic.

It just kind of has a novel idea um, which is only novel.

If you don't read sci-fi novels, no pun intended.

Um it's, it's.

I guess in a game, the idea of having a bunch of clones is interesting, but it's basically just a resource management crafting game.

There's really not much about it.

That's like particularly unique in that way.

What about novel mechanic?

I feel like There might not be one of them, but I do feel like Skin Deep is a game that is just full of novel mechanics.

Skin Deep is definitely the pick.

The sneezing is the funniest thing to have in a video game.

And I've never seen anything else do sneezing.

It's very Kojima.

I found that very like, you know, putting the porno mag on the ground kind of silly, you know, this.

Yeah, Skin Deep is something that I feel like deserves to be mentioned in our Game of the Year chats.

I think it was one of the best games of this year.

I ran out of steam on it a little bit, but not because it wasn't a great game.

Again, this is just down to personal taste.

But I played probably at least 80% of it.

I got pretty close to the end.

And yeah, I think it's just like that's the best mechanic is the cat.

I love that game.

By the way, i finished it it's.

It's my favorite blendo game, which is big, because i mean i thought quadrilateral cowboy was fucking amazing.

Yeah, it's a someone described earlier who, i think it was frank, described it as like a game designer's game.

I think skin deep is similarly like.

Yes, if you're a game designer, game journalists game.

Yes, if you like immersive sims, we've got your back.

Yeah, yeah it uh.

Yeah, i'm trying to think like, because that most original might catch that, but best novel mechanic we would have to pick.

I think skin deep has a lot of overlapping systems so it's hard to isolate one.

Well, if i added an s to to the mechanic, i think it might because, i'll be honest, i think it's not.

I think it's hard to give it most original because it is very mcmi, but i do think the way it approaches immersive sims in its mechanics is the thing that sets it apart.

I know it's like it's real splitting hairs over, which feels better there.

But i don't know if i'd say most original because it is a game where you're just like it's a base game right, it's like.

Yeah, like an invasion system shock right, like it's it's.

There's a lot of lines i could draw from at least originality.

Anyway, i do like the idea of doing of best novel mechanic as an award that goes to a specific mechanic, i think, because i think that's interesting to give it to like the this mechanic from this game, as opposed to a game getting the award.

Is there anything in skin deep that crosses that line?

Because i'm with you, i think a lot of it is.

It's the culmination in how they interact with each other that feels novel, not necessarily one of them the water arrow mechanic stuff, and skin deep is really smart.

The head stuff is very fun.

I think you have to get rid of it.

So the problem you're solving isn't just dispatching the enemies.

It's figuring out how to permanently do that.

If that's your goal.

Uh, I think that uh, seance of Blake Banner's like mystery solving thing I don't know, I don't know if it's like the most novel, because I think that the Golden Idol sort of does a similar thing, but I wanted to at least make mention of it.

I think the timing stuff of the like of what you do, having every action have an actual like time component attached to it, I think is I've never played a game that's a detective style game that's done that before.

Yeah, me neither.

I struggle to think of any game I've played that has a tied time to that in particular.

Yeah, white knuckle also, i think, is a yeah, the climbing.

The climbing is is so unique and so visceral um, similar to the.

The reason we shouted out typecast uh, i think last year or the year before, was that it transforms your keyboard and mouse into like a controller that controls in a way that you do not use a keyboard and mouse typically.

Uh, i think white knuckle was like this alternating left right, like i felt like my forearm was getting fucking jacked playing white knuckle.

So here's the thing.

In the same regard, i would swap the limbs and say baby steps yeah yeah, the walking and baby steps is.

Yeah, Baby steps definitely deserves.

Uh is a strong contender for this.

Um, the walking was like cause.

Sometimes you get into that flow and you're like left right, left right left, right.

And then sometimes you get into like a little cat, a little crevice or something, where if you fall you're fucked.

Uh, and you're just like one step at a time.

You've got the camera staring down the barrel, like at your individual feet moving at your toes.

Yeah.

Like I'm looking at where my, my, my big toe is sometimes going like, is there enough balance?

Like what's going on there?

Yeah.

Baby steps might take it, man.

I played more baby steps last night just because I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Yeah.

The walking is really good.

The walking.

Yeah.

And it's kind of the mechanic.

Like it's the opposite problem of something like skin deep, you know, where that's true.

Like there's not, you're not doing it.

Nelson baby steps.

You know what I mean?

Like odd time grabbing something.

Maybe, you know, that's a good point.

That's a really good point.

I feel like, specifically for the best novel mechanic.

That's what differentiates, it is the focus, the refinement of that one mechanic in isolation, in a vacuum.

Yeah.

Is it baby steps then?

It does seem.

I think baby steps kind of clears everything else we were talking about.

All right.

But let's keep an eye on these ones, because I feel like there's some other places we can sort them out.

To that end, then, most original.

Like, what is the most original of the games that we have played in 2025?

That's the real.

Blake Manor is actually, like, not a bad show for this.

It's pretty original.

Yeah.

It's fairly original.

It's not opening.

Murder mysteries have been done before.

It's a whodunit.

There's a lot of games like that.

It is a whodunit.

You're right.

It's good.

It's very good.

It's more the mechanics, I think, are original.

You're right.

When I think about the game more broadly, it's not that.

I think Consume Me is a decent fit for this.

It's very like its own thing.

It doesn't really remind me of anything.

It kind of like evokes young adult fiction, but in a way that is more like mature.

Like it's not for young adults.

It just kind of evokes that feeling of like, You're young and like, oh, isn't like school stressful?

But in a way that is more for adults looking back on that decades ago or something.

Yeah, it's got some WarioWare flash vibes to it as well, but not in a way where it's like clearly doing WarioWare.

It's like little pockets of it where you're like, oh, I see where this is pulling from.

It's worth mentioning that I hate games that I perceive as a bunch of minigames strung together.

It is something that I just despise as a genre.

And I loved this.

So I think, I don't know, kind of like Birdcage, I wasn't into shmups.

And then I was like, no, I should play more shmups.

This was like maybe I don't hate minigames, talk to him, i best novel mechanic.

This might have actually been part of the conversation.

Um, the combat in demon school oh yeah, that's a really good point.

Yeah, but also demon school i guess overly novel it's not.

It's not that original.

I guess in terms of it is sort of like based off of sort of saturn aesthetics and mechanics and stuff like that.

But i do want to give a shout out to demon school because i do think the combat in demon school um, just the way it resolves, is very yeah, yeah the.

The fact that you can sort of like plan everyone and then hit the button and all that, like i think all that stuff was and change it.

You know, i mean you get to see how it plays out and then you can rewind and i thought that was pretty cool.

Yeah, and also i'd add sol sesto to this because i think you know it has a roguelike structure but almost everything else about it is just this weird esoteric, freak dream.

Like the graphics obviously are part of that, but also just the, like, what are you doing?

You're like, you're like it's like a combat grid game with all these, like you know, they're like the weird marginalia from.

They're like they're like terrifying demon marginalia from Pentamon's like going licking their tongues around and shit.

Um, i thought that was that was pretty good for that.

And then there was one other one.

Skate story was another one that comes to mind for original.

You know, it's like skateboarding ass game, but it's in this crazy fractal kickflips, fucking.

Yeah, i wish i played more of it because i was away when it came out on steam.

So i've not, i've not played past the demo.

Um, Did you guys ever give it a go?

What was the reaction like when it came out?

Frank thought it was the worst game ever made and wanted to go back and make a new one.

No, no.

Sorry, Frank.

I don't want to just do it.

No, no.

I like started playing.

I was like, oh, I like skate better.

Oh, I like like I like I. Yeah, I don't know.

I bounced off it so fast.

But like, because again I'd like you have to like relearn how to skate and the mechanic of how you land and attack bosses is cool.

But it was also.

I think it's my gripe with like most games that first hour is so linear.

And I'm like, let me just, let me just skate around.

And I know it does open up and get better.

So I just have to like, just make time and try to learn it.

But my my initial play, like stylistically all looks incredible, but like yeah I I, I didn't like how linear.

As soon as Socrates came on the screen, Frank was like, fuck this.

Who cares?

They got Socrates in that game.

Yeah.

How about, how about speaking from Socrates to soccer?

How about Desperate?

Okay.

I do like it.

It's very original.

No one has ever made anything like that before.

That's for sure.

Yeah, this is going to be a tough category because I got another suggestion on top of Desperate, which is Formless Star.

Formless Star is like like breathlessly original, it's so its own thing.

It's like drawing upon, uh like classic rpgs and classic anime in sort in sort of it's like a tone and presentation and the way it feels to be in this world.

But the thing you're doing in formless star is going around a world that is procedurally generated over and over and over, that has like distinct biomes, that has uh, creatures that are like tied to biomes, that have unique behaviors.

You're tracking down these creatures and then the progression is just like finding them and interacting with them and they all just do like.

They'll do like a little song and dance or they'll do like a weird little animation or like.

And then the characters you're interacting with there's only sort of like four core characters, four or five.

Um, and each one of them is so memorable.

Like I will never forget any of them.

Uh, I just think it's like, uh, splendid lands games are, are so their own.

Um, and I think that what they're doing, they're kind of in a, in a lane of their own.

It.

I, it seems like it's tone and what it's doing is more of an inversion of an existing uh thing than its own thing, if that makes sense, like an inversion of jrpg kind of jrpgs yeah, then something in totally original um which isn't a knock against the game or anything but just in the category.

I wonder if uh, if we have something else.

That's, how do you guys feel when you look at these?

What's the one that like got good sense or does frank have any?

I like despot lote because, like i do, it feels so much like i have to play, consume me, because it sounds pretty similar, but like yeah, they like that, like time travel documentary as a game and like i don't know i i yeah i, i thought it was, i'm so happy to play more games like that, like that's so cool, like i thought that was really really cool and special.

Yeah, i agree yeah, i agree yeah, all right i, i let's go with it.

I think yeah the, The setting, the format of the game, how it progresses.

And then it is a first person game, which isn't the most novel thing.

But as a first person game it does not feel at all like any other, like just even even like field of vision or something like.

It just feels very different.

You feel like a child, like that's.

What's cool about it, i think, is that like you feel little you know, like running around and fucking adults the way they react to you.

And yeah dude, when you leave the classroom for the first time and you're walking down the stairs to go out and play soccer with your friends, like i think i said it in the last pod, but like when you enter a classroom again and you remember how, like you see how small it really was from how you remember it.

That whole game is the world.

Look how small, look how big the world is and how small you are.

Yeah.

The scale, the height and the field of view are sort of like masterfully capturing that feel.

Yeah.

I think Desperate is a natural fit for this.

It is.

It's incredibly original.

We've only got two more to give away today.

Um best micro game, which I just added from the other list because it was a little bit too much on it.

And um, give it a go.

Award um, which is probably going to be tricky because that might be one that people have played and want to recommend, or people think no one will play it, but it's worth the recommends.

We'll get to that best micro game.

So this is the games we're talking about, that are complete them in an hour.

You know what i mean.

Like that's in and out, explore the world, have an experience, leave um ones we've talked about before that could be in here.

I guess cape hideous is obviously one of them.

Um without, are you laughing because you think this is me just trying to give no, certainly not.

Um, without a dawn is uh, is another one which um, i think is, is was very.

I absolutely did.

I adore it.

I don't know.

I found it very impactful.

It's probably a better way of a better way of saying it.

Um, any anything else that comes in here like stuff you've played on itch.

Um, pull up my you.

It doesn't have to be an hour.

You know what I mean.

But like a game that feels like a sort of one-and-done experience kind of thing, more than I feel like.

Ooo and Formula Star are both about two hours, but both are kind of the ones from this list that fit.

I don't know how micro we're talking here.

Yeah, we're talking micro.

Okay.

So I don't... Yeah, I guess, I guess, yeah.

It's weird.

Ooo, does feel.

Ooo, feels like yeah, i guess who probably could work for it.

But but then, what about?

What's the other?

What's that other game we're talking about?

Oh, and roger as well is another.

Yeah, how long is that?

How long is like two and a half?

Is this hour and a half?

One and a half an hour and a half, something like that?

I mean, let me pull up the steam data took me in the spirit of the awards, minutes.

Okay well, i think.

Yeah, let me see my one.

Um, in the spirit of the awards.

We've already given it some stuff, have we?

Yeah yeah yeah, for sure.

I just wanted to throw it.

I was just trying to range, find what micro was.

That's fair.

Yeah, it's weird how yeah, who is, i don't know.

It feels, it feels it is my.

It is a micro game.

There's no getting away from the idea that it is a very small game, but it just feels bigger.

Yeah, i don't know if you do all the secret stuff, it is probably more like four or five hours too, but it is optional right, still.

And roger, i did it in 52 minutes without a dawn.

Um, i did in 29 minutes.

And cape hideous, that felt that was small right, that felt.

Oh yeah, under an hour for sure.

Yeah, 29 minutes as well, out of these three.

Then, what do people, what do people think of these?

They're all great little games.

Was i doing a play on one?

Who played without a dawn?

I don't know.

Yeah jeremy, you played it right, i played it.

I played it.

I really, really disliked it.

But okay i, i don't want to debate about it because i'm not trying to like convince anyone or anything.

I just i'm i.

Yeah, it's not, was not for me at all.

I did complete it, though i i cannot 100 see that this is a marmite marmite game, especially with the ending.

I think you mileage is going to really fucking vary on that one For sure.

And, like, you know, I say this all the time, but good art is, like, it should alienate some people.

So I'm okay with like, if I experience a piece of art that's so not for me and other people like it, then I can at least respect that.

Cape Hideous, how do you feel about that?

I mean, it's been a long while since I played it.

I think it's fucking brilliant.

The art style is obviously really evocative.

But also just the know when, like you play a kojima game and you're just trying to like, especially with death stranding.

You're just jesse shrugging, you're just, you're just he's like nope um.

You're just kind of like fast, or like i found this with the denny villeneuve uh dune movie or something, where you're just so interested in the world, like what is this world?

What the fuck is going on?

Like what are the social norms?

What you know, cape hideous gives you so much of that with so little.

There's no lore dump.

It's just a bunch of you doing these quests and talking to these people and just trying to figure out the social dynamics and what they're doing on this boat.

Yeah, it's really special.

I've used this phrase before specifically talking about Cape Hideous, but it's been long enough that I feel like it's worth reiterating that there was a.

I think it might be.

Is it the war of art?

There's some book about writing that I've read before that describes like true reading the work of a truly confident writer as a swimming in holy water, that there's this feeling of like all encompassing this, that when you're experiencing a piece of fiction written by someone who truly understands the, the internal logic and rules and the hierarchy of their own world, that it's like, you don't you don't doubt the vision of it you're just inside of it and you're like holy shit it feels like you're in a real place with real people um it's like Mulholland Drive the way uh Robert talks about it in the disco doc where you're like you might not even understand the logic of what's going on but the fact that the author does what makes you believe you know yeah for sure settle into that world yeah David Lynch is a great example of this of like a almost like um like a mystical level of confidence in their work.

It feels like, it's a Like when you have a dream, when you're in the dream you're not like.

This doesn't make sense.

You're just like, yeah, of course I'm on a plane with David Duchovny.

I feel like Cape Hideous to me, feels like it achieves a Lynchian level of self-realization as a work that is accomplished with so little in such a short duration.

It's a really special game.

It also feels like like outsider art to some extent, which I feel like is kind of unfair, because Jake Clover has done other games and is like established as a developer, but there's something about it that is so weird and different and like MS painty, but like beautiful in a beautiful way.

It's like, yeah, I don't know.

I, I almost suggested this for most original, but it is tough because it's a 2024 game.

Oh yeah.

I keep forgetting.

It's a 2024 game.

Damn.

Um, best micro game from 2024 we've given we've given kpds, i guess, a lot of love here.

So that's that's.

Yeah, it'd be silly if not at this point.

If it's not oh, is that what you're thinking?

I was thinking oh, at least we've talked it up a bunch, so that's pretty good.

Oh yeah, i mean, if you want to stick to the rules yeah, i mean you can go and rogers.

Well, i feel like i don't want to break the rule for me.

You know what i mean.

I feel like there were other games, that's true but, like frank had a bunch of 2024 stuff on here that we didn't end up.

No, you know, it's in 2003.

Stuff we didn't put up.

No, not that.

Yeah um, the k piteous award we just love k piteous.

Go play k piteous.

If you're listening to this, go fucking play k piteous.

All right, k piteous is fucking great.

Um, we're gonna i'll give it a shout out on our socials in a separate way and say we were trying to give this game an award but it came out in 2024, so we'll give, we'll give them some love there.

I think we should just do best 2024 game that we played in 2025, or something.

Would that be Cape Hideous?

That's the problem.

They were opening a can of worms.

I got to go back and be like, oh, shit, I didn't play fucking.

What was the best game that came out last year?

Infinite Wealth.

What did you say?

Infinite Wealth.

When did Final Fantasy 16 come out?

Was that 2023?

Um, no, I, I would think, uh, also I I'm down with Ann Roger.

If you want to go for the micro game, um, time flies was also pretty cool.

Oh yeah.

That was great.

And that is definitely micro.

It is very, yes.

In more ways than one.

Um, if I had to choose between the two of those, I would say Roger.

Yeah.

So I mean, it'd be great to give on Roger something because it is, did it not end up in the top 10?

Did it?

I don't want to check it.

We might have to relocate at the end.

We'll see.

Ark Raiders could lose that.

I love the idea of getting rid of Ark Raiders for Androger.

The only problem is if you get rid of Ark Raiders, we have to get rid of another one.

Oh, you're right.

It's the Shield Zone 11th.

Shit.

I managed to create a world in which it's impossible to get Ark Raiders out of the top 10.

You're so smart.

Are you paid by the Bark Club version?

I think that's how, like i i did that by accident, but i think that's how like, politicians work, like that they're able to see that shit.

They're able to see the like, the social strategy.

I'm gonna pass a law that makes it.

Yeah, it's like a rider on the bill.

It's like well, i mean, are you against health care?

Are you gonna pass this thing that also legalizes tobacco for children, because they're one in the same?

So it'll be fine.

They'll get great health care when they get, you know, throat cancer and you know they all have emphysema at 15 exactly, With all these tuberculosis hospitals just lying around.

Okay, that's our second last one.

Our last one is the Give It A Go Award, which does not necessarily say 2025 on it.

I'll just say that.

All right.

Oh.

Let's give it a go.

So this is one for where we think, hey, you should just give this thing a go.

[Noclip Game of the Year Awards: Part Two – Category Champions and Hidden Gems]-[Noclip's Games of 2025 - Episode 2: The Category Awards (1/2)]

📋 Summary

Navigating the Noclip Game of the Year Awards: Part Two

The "Most [Host] Game" Awards

Ambition, Value, and "Friend-Slop"

Couch Games and Franchise Excellence

Addictive Loops and Novel Mechanics

Final Thoughts and The "Give It A Go" Spirit

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[Noclip Game of the Year Awards: Part Two – Category Champions and Hidden Gems]-[Noclip's Games of 2025 - Episode 2: The Category Awards (1/2)]

📋 Summary

Navigating the Noclip Game of the Year Awards: Part Two

The "Most [Host] Game" Awards

Ambition, Value, and "Friend-Slop"

Couch Games and Franchise Excellence

Addictive Loops and Novel Mechanics

Final Thoughts and The "Give It A Go" Spirit

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🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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