Deciding The Greatest Video Game Sequel of ALL TIME - Kinda Funny Gamescast

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1:00Marvel Television's Wonder Mad. An eight episode series. Now streaming on Disney Plus. A superhero remake. Not exactly what we'd expect from an Oscar-winning director. Action. Simon Williams. Audition for Wonder Mad. I'm going to need you to sign this. Assuming you don't have superpowers. I'll never work at Kenneth if anyone found out. My lips are sealed. Marvel Television's Wonder Mad. All eight episodes now streaming only on Disney Plus. I'll see you in the next one. What's up? Welcome to kind of funny games cast for Wednesday, March 11th, 20th, 26th.

2:01I'm on your host, Blessing. Adioli, A. Junior. Joining me is the Master of Hype. I'm Mike Mike. Good morning, big bless. How's it going? Oh, that's crazy. Well, you know what, bless? I was going to tell you you're killing it. It's been a long week. I'm feeling it. Just so you know, I had a long day last night. And so I wanted to check in with you halfway through GDC week. How are we feeling? Feeling good. It was real tough yesterday. Okay. Yesterday I was feeling it because I went to the mix, had two glasses of wine at the mix while socializing with everybody and then went to volleyball afterwards, 915 game for volleyball. Okay. Did that? Yeah. Came back home collapsed. Came back home was just tired. Yesterday, of course, GDC is still going. We had events where we're going to stop. I had a point toward the end of the day, at the end of the work day, where I was like, I could stay out. I could keep hanging out with friends or I could go home and recharge and take back the night Wednesday night. Oh, bless. What did you do? I went home. Last night I went home. Last night, I went home and you know what I did. I streamed some of that go-so-yote legends. Ooh.

3:02It was out. And it's hidden already. Already. We're still back. Gamescast plays tomorrow. You and Rodgers sitting down with it. I'm very, I'm a little frustrated mad that it wasn't committed to full four players. Yeah. I definitely get that. It's two players and then we bring in four for the big ones. Yeah. I do wish it was like, hey, one through four players, here we go. I agree with that. I think it does break up the pace a bit because like, I can't just hang out with all these people. And now it's like, well, now we have to match make. It's a whole thing. But can you not match make with four or is it just like, no matter what, you're always two and then you're rando four. No, I'm pretty sure you can match make with four or you can invite four, but it's like you just can't do four for like a regular, but you can do survival. It's a rival player. I'm not sure. Okay. So somebody checked, somebody checked me on that. So I'm sure Bernie said, Mike, it's only Wednesday. Blessing got his rest day. Today's my rest day. Today's your rest. So I've been going hard all weekend long, which has been great. It's only Wednesday. We did a six hour live stream on Monday. Sure. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Yeah. I had the late nights.

4:02Then bless. I had a nice late night on Tuesday. But then guess what? Came home. Played more Overwatch. Yeah. Comp. Come on. Three or four plus. I'm dialed in right now. I'm seeing. Well, I'm also watching one piece on the second monitor. So I'm not all the way down. You're playing right by watching one. But I'm watching. Yeah. They're in long town, bro. Home of the home of the Marines, dude. It's pretty lit. It's pretty lit. Live action one. It's pretty lit, bro. Yeah. Yeah. Tonight is the night. I'm going crazy though. Just so you know. I love that. Tonight's the night. I'm going to take back the night. I got to watch the one piece live action. Bless. You're going to love it and appreciate it because you've been working on your fitness and your body. This season. I'm going to get the first cast. Worked on their bodies. Yeah. Because they said we're going to wear less clothing and hot bod, less than right, bro. They dialed in. Yeah. And you know what else is dialed in this show today. Yes. You really put together one killer bracket. You in the audience came together. You came up with a fun idea. I'll tell you what. Uh huh. I'm a little concerned.

5:03Feelings are going to get hurt today. I need everybody. This is what I need at cool live chat. Spotify comments, Blue Sky, not you, Twitter, you go crazy no matter what. We all need to come together. We got to hold hands and go, hey, we got to be mature about this. This is for fun. Absolutely not. We're having fun here. We're debating. No fun. We are, feelings are going to get hurt. In fact, everybody's feelings are going to get hurt, except for one game. Well, game. And the new one's fun about this is that I don't know what game. I don't know what game is going to win this. I'm not a lot of too hard about it. I have some heavy like big dogs in the race, but yeah, any game could win this. Any game could win this. And I'm going to pull the Twitch chat every single game. Then this is what I will have a whole of the Twitch chat every time. We're going to explain this, right? Because of course, if you're watching live, you can be a part of the show by super chatting in YouTube.com. It's kind of funny games. Shout out Patreon producers Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Laney the song, Twining. For now, let's begin with Top Gear the show. We are doing a March Madness bracket.

6:09I was looking forward to this. I was like, the month of March is coming up, but I look forward to March. You know why? Because theoretically, I want to make a bracket happen. It doesn't always happen, but I wanted it to make it happen. I wanted it to make it happen this year. Yes. Because last time me and you did a bracket, I think it was a fantastic piece of content. I remember that. I remember that. I loved doing brackets on the show. You got to celebrate March Madness. You got to celebrate March Madness. Of course, if you're watching live, you can celebrate March Madness by super chatting in. Let us know what your picks are for this bracket as we make our way through it. I'll explain the bracket first, and then we'll get into ground rules. The bracket that we're doing, we are deciding the best video game sequel. That is the best game. That is the number two in the series. It's the second game in the series. We'll get into it. I think I made only one exception. There was a lot of conversations happening about what's eligible or not. I brought up God of War Ragnarok. I brought up tears of the kingdom. Then I decided those aren't going to make the bracket, even though those are some of my favorite games ever. But I think those games are very much possible because of everything

7:10that came before it. That's why I was like, we can't do God of War Ragnarok, even though it's a sequel. I can't do tears of the kingdom because there's been a billion Zelda games. We built up towards this, right? What's up, bear? Oh, bear is it? But tears of the kingdom directs sequel to breath of the wild. But it's breath of the wild possible without all of the Zelda games that came before it. That's my thing is like, I think number two in the series. You know what I mean? I feel like that gives those games such a leg up. I like that. People aren't booing me in chat. You can boo me. You can boo me. I try to make this as fair as possible. You know what I mean? Because I think those games have such a leg up because we had a billion games to get here. Yeah, like sure. Those games are sequels to the games that came before them. But we need to have some restriction or else everything is eligible. That's where I'm at. I love it. I love it. Bless. That's where I'm at. You're the commissioner. I'm the commissioner. I made a couple of exceptions. Set the rules. Red Dead Redemption 2. I mean, we couldn't have got there with everything that

8:12came without everything that came before the third, but it's the second. I mean, okay, should I put red Dead Redemption 1 on this list then? Because we all agree that that would be stupid, right? If I put red Dead Redemption 1 on this list, like, Chad, do you want me to do that for the best sequels? No, you don't. So I made that call. We're doing red Dead Redemption 2 because nobody even knows what red Dead Redo Oliver is anyway. They don't remember that. What was the other? There was a model. They ride you from Metal Gear Solid 2. I mean, do you all think that's crazy? I'll delete it from the list. I don't think so at all. I look at Solid is different from Metal Gear, but like, if we could have the conversation right now, we could set the tone right now. Should we read out for people what's on there right now? Yes. Let's read off for the people, especially audio listeners who are listening right now. So we have 32 games here. Starting the starting off, I'm going to read this by the way, they're listed. I have four different brackets here, but starting off on the modern side, we have red Dead Redemption 2 near Automata, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Dark Souls 2. I'll read the verses actually, right? So red Dead 2 is facing off against near Automata. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2

9:13is facing off against Dark Souls 2 in the first round. The last was part 2 is facing off against Titanfall 2. Alan Wake 2 is facing off against Hades 2, right? That's the first part of the bracket. Yeah. Moving down to the HD bracket. Mass Effect 2 is facing off against Saints Road 2. Assassin's Creed 2 is facing off against Batman Arkham City. Portal 2 is facing off against Dead Space 2. Infamous 2 is facing off against Uncharted 2, moving up to the memory card part. A memory card being, I have like specific things here, right? So memory card is around 2001 to 2002. Oh, I thought you were just making up fun names. No, so these are based on era. And so interesting. You grouped them up on era. I grouped them up based on era. So modern is 2014 and after HD is 08 to 2013. I try to like have these be generation over a bit, but it's not super clean for reasons. And then the memory card era, that's like PSU GameCube, right? That's 2001 to 2007. And then I have the classics. That's 2001 and before. You will notice that it gets a

10:13little bit weird with those two. We picked the games and then I divided them. And so like the 2001 games get a bit split between both. I was doing my best chat. So moving on, the memory card bracket has Half-Life 2 versus NBA Street Volume 2, Soul Calibre 2 versus Smash Malay, God of War 2 versus Slide 2, Kingdom Hearts 2 versus Halo 2. And then moving down to the classics, we got Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 versus Diablo 2, Age of Empires 2 versus Street Fighter 2, Pokemon Golden Silver versus Silent Hill 2 and Resident Evil 2 versus Metal Gear Solid 2. That's a lot of great twos. A lot of great twos. You might be asking, how are these games chosen? Don't get mad at me, get mad at yourselves. Oh, don't get mad at me. Get mad at yourselves because I put up a poll last week asking everybody. I put it on socials. I put it on Patreon. I think people reposted it on to Reddit. I asked, hey, I'm working on a gamescast. Tommy, what is the best video game sequels?

11:17I pulled the most popular answers. That's crazy. You do it too. I'm like that. These were the most popular answers. So, Chad, when you want to cry about silk song being not being here, that's on you. That's on you. Marvel versus Capcom 2, not being here. That's on you. That's crazy. You did it to him like that. That's on you. And so that's how we compiled most of the games. We then had a few that was like kind of tie breakers. And so me and Mike had to like choose the last view to make it onto the list is based off of our own tastes. And then if you're wondering seeding because these are seeded placements here, seeding is based off of Metacritic score. So I made this as mathematical as possible. All right. I pulled from you. The audience. I pulled from a quote unquote objective source of Metacritic to do the seeding. So what I'm saying is that don't get mad at me. Be mad at yourselves. Are there any questions as we're making our way through? No, I think you stated that very well, bless. Very excited. Also, bless. I just want to let you know all my complaints before just ribbing you. You know,

12:20I don't really care. No, it's just a fun. We can have the conversation right now because MGS 2 sounds like it's a controversial one. Do we have any problem with it? I don't have a problem with it either. I love as many people know. I love Metal Gear Solid 2. Yeah. I love talking about it. I love thinking about it. I'll go to war. Metal Gear Solid 2. This is so alive. So I'm a damn daddy. But I just want to make sure I just want to make sure we're fair. I just want to make sure because like it's one of those like I get it because there's Metal Gear, right? But like who really went back and played those Metal Gear games? Are we going to be over? Are we going to be older? I mean, I'm sure Jeff Gertzman played it. I love Jeff Gertzman. But like, here's another thing I'll shout out, right? Is when I put up the poll, I said second in the franchise, like even the second game of the franchise, really what I meant to type out. And for some reason, I thought I deleted it and re-did it, but it went up his franchise. I'm going to say second in a series. I wasn't trying to be that strict about it.

13:21Here's the kingdom and God of War Ragnarok just felt like there's so much story that builds into, like God of War 2018, you need those other God of War games to get to God of War 18, right? So like I feel like Ragnarok for me isn't, it's a sequel, but it's not for the what we're talking about here. Here's the kingdom, different but similar sort of thing. Metal Gear Solid 2 feels like such a direct sequel, like it feels like such a, like, it feels like a different thing. It feels like almost like a different series than the original Metal Gear games is what I'm trying to say. But if we're mad about it, I can switch it, but it sounds like we're good. Plus, I think the people are good with it. You think the people are good? Here's the people over here to help. Let me tell you a little secret about this. Yeah. It won't go far. Oh, shit. We'll go far. Okay. There's a lot of heat on this bracket and I'm promising you Metal Gear Solid 2 is not going far. So let's talk about it, Mike. Some ground rules I want to establish. All right. So it's me and you, deciding the winners of each of these. However, if me and you disagree, we're going to put it up to the audience. And I'm going to pull them regardless

14:23of every single time because I do want to hear. You're going to pull them regardless. Every time I will pull them on the Twitch chat exclusively. So if you're on YouTube, jump over to Twitch because I'm only doing one poll. Okay. But I do want to just hear their voices, right? We'll read their chat comments. You can super chat on YouTube to get involved in the conversation. But I want to see where they're vibing. I'm a little feeling if they tie. Can I be the final? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So the live audience will break me in Mike's ties. If the audience ties, it'll go to bear it. And I know y'all motherfuckers don't want to do it to bear. No, y'all don't want it to go to bear it. And so make up your mind to all the way. A few more things, right? This is a ground wound putting. I'm giving you Mike. I don't know. All right. Don't just have the audience pick it every time because I know you. No, no. I know you are. You're going to be like, I don't know. I want you to have the audience pick it and you're going to go the other way. Here's what I did. I need you to have an opinion. For my homework, I picked my favorites. So I didn't. I don't want to say I stayed up on every single one. I went down each kind of like versus and I picked one. I was like, this is my game that I ride for. So I'm going to kind of bring the insights, the vibes for certain games on this list.

15:28Okay. And I'm going to ride for them. You know what's funny? I've not thought about this at all. I put together the racket. You're right, dude. You know, you look really good in that jacket today too. Thank you. I gotta stop looking over at that. I gotta dope. I got a new necklace to you. I've been trying to like up my style. You know, just teases up. Well, I appreciate it. You mean the guy, the door guy at that event? Yeah, the event. That's my guy. You're best friends with that's my guy. We're leaving the event where I yesterday, Mike's like, you say what stuff's for my guy? And I look back at his security guard. I'm like, oh, model influencer, 100,000 on Instagram. No, we're shot in a Doja cat music video on a pilot for a TV show hoping to get picked up. My name is on prime. Guys got game. Get this. I go to follow him on Instagram. Who's following him? Michael Hyam and Lisa Wallet. And he goes, oh, yeah, I just met them in the morning session. I go, those are my people. That's so shout out to a lot of some man. That guy's going places. Damn, I didn't know all that. You should have told me that yesterday. I would have been like, I would adapt him up. You wouldn't have died of laughter, man. Um, okay, last thing before we get

16:31into this. Yeah. What are you judging for? What's your criteria of what makes it so much blast, right? Like, did you improve upon the first one? Did you leave a lasting impact in gaming culture? Right? Like, was the game just better and more fun to play? Is it memorable, right? Was it a flop? Was it the, were people talking about it? Maybe they were mad that it wasn't as good as the first one, right? It's all going into my pot. And I guess like at the end of the day, I'm going for the best equal to me was the one that last left the, the most lasting impression on me going. That was so good as the second game of this series. That was the one. Yeah. I love that. I'm looking for. I think I'm right there with you. Because there's a couple on here where you look at and you go, that's the one. I, for me, it really is how well do you function as a sequel? How well do you continue the story of the last game? And when I say story, I, I mean narrative, but not just narrative, right? How well do you continue the legacy of the first game? How well do you up the legacy of that previous game? How well do you improve on the mechanics? How well do you push things forward from where we're at in

17:34the first game? For me, a video game sequel, the best video game sequels are sequels that reinvent. I'm not even reinvent, innovate the franchise. You know what I mean? I'm talking about like the Assassin's Creed 2's where it's like, damn, I'll push this forward. So that's what I'm looking for. Yeah. I like that, bless. I think we all feel pretty good about this. Yeah. Let's get into it. Now, where do you want to start? We got four brackets here, modern HD memory card in class. I mean, I feel like you always start or start on top left, right? Like you just kind of read the paper like that and you just go top left. So top left, we have our number one seed, red dead redemption two versus our number eight seed near automata. And Mike, I'm going to tell you pullers out that this is easy for me without question. Wow. Without question. Really? I'm going near automata. What? Without question. Okay. Without question. I feel like you're wrong on that one because I'm going red dead redemption to one of the greatest sandboxes of all time.

18:34One of the most fun and gripping narratives of all time riding along with the crew. Dutch is crew, right? And like, have you talked to me right on the automata? What is about? Well, that's what we're going to talk about. It's like, let's talk about it. Riding the high off of rest world, of course, red dead redemption. One, we don't really talk about red dead revolver unless you're a super old head on that. But like the idea of where rock star was, the GTA line of Jeep building into red dead redemption to the ultimate Western cowboy sandbox. Yeah. That you could play do anything in horse testicles. Mm hmm. Feels like it's the ultimate sequel. Listen, I appreciate a horse testicle here and there. Yeah. But I know from your horse testicles don't live up to what near automata was doing narratively as a video game. Okay. It is a story that only works as a video game. You know, we talk a lot about the different endings and you know, you go back into the game and get to experience the different perspective by changing character perspectives and all that stuff. Like they tell a story that is so interesting, so moving. And you know, I think so deep when it comes to what it

19:39wants to say about the human experience and what makes this human and what makes us what makes us feel our emotions. What like, you know, the different, I guess, different ways to present humanity. Like it is a very philosophical game. It is a game that I think it is an interesting mirror actually to Red Dead Redemption 2. Because I don't disagree with you. I know how much you will love the story there. And I think Red Dead Redemption 2 is such a good example of what you can do with like a cinematic almost like blockbuster western style story. And I think that's so special that Red Dead Redemption 2 does that. And I think it's the perfect mirror to like when you then take that to a to a Japanese action RPG that is about Android's beating the shit out of like robots and shit. But like they take it and they tell a story that is so serious and so grounded is so interesting and has so many layers to it. Near Tom, it is a special game for that. And then we go further and talk about the gameplay. Talk about how we talk about platinum games and how well they do hack and slash. But in near Tom, they mixed that up with like shoot them up style gameplay to make for a really interesting back and forth where you're hacking, you're

20:42slashing, but you're also doing third person shooting. But then if you're playing as 9s, you can then transform into like his little shoot them up mode to hack enemies and shit. It was doing pragmatic before pragmatic. Okay. I mean, that's a lot of positives going in there. But what about GTA as a cowboy shooting your revolver off the off horseback, the cinematic camera on your horseback, the bit to do anything in this giant western world lifestyle sitting down and playing poker, running off and trying to rob a railroad car while it's driving by you and your crew hunting, going back to camp, talking and getting involved with the crew and what's going off, getting ready for your next mission where maybe you're going to go down the countryside rope to one giant mansion, maybe light that thing on fire and ride off with your crew. I mean, yeah, nothing. The red dead is the ultimate cowboy simulator. But I think of a wild, wild west movie, what I want to do, it's everything blessed. It has it all. But is it fun, Mike? Is it fun, though, Mike? Of course, it's fun. I want to keep coming back. Of course, bless. Oh, no, man.

21:44It's an interesting one of like, when you talk with people of red dead too, and like, truly, when we put all the bracket BS or like how people vibe with red dead and like what they vibe with, do they like it at all, right? And it's interesting. Being in these walls, it's not the highest like people vibing with that game, right? But like for me, I am a GTA kid through and through. I love the mechanics, the feel of GTA, the gameplay of GTA. So it's like putting that in the wild west world. I'm already in sold, right? I have no problems playing that being involved now. I know the mission structure, how they build out the story, the length of the game. It's like for me, it was the cities and the towns and how they built those on how good it looked, right? And being really immersed in this western world. And like, this was it. I love to this one. I love that. I we can go back and forth all day. And we're going to probably have more time to talk about at least one of these games. But one thing I want to shout out were for red dead. One thing I want to shout out to for near Tom, near Tom, near one of the best sound jacks of all time. That's a top five video game soundtrack, maybe top three, possibly top one if I think about it. Red Dead Redemption 2, I remember in the conversation about it during review time for that game,

22:49where somebody mentioned that this red Dead Redemption 2 feels like the most expensive indie game ever made, which I know sounds insane, because it's the most AAA game, one of the most AAA games are remade. But they say that to say that it is so focused into what it presents as the cowboy fantasy that it like circumvents AAA design in some ways to make sure that it gives you the most, not accurate, but I guess like the most immersive cowboy experience possible. Like that is a cowboy video game. You know, fuck, what do they call it? Like, play testing, not play testing, but you focus testing. That's the word I'm looking for. Fuck focused testing. Fuck like the established AAA mechanics that games I figured out years over years over years. We want to make the game that we want to make. We're going to make the game that we want to make. And I think there's something that is special about that when I look at Red Dead Redemption 2, even though for me, as I got halfway through that game, I just felt myself being like, I don't care as much as I'd

23:49like to care about what's happening here. Well, the chat disagrees with you, bless, because Red Dead 2 has been voted in by the chat. 115 to 85. So I do want to give a big tip to house. To near, I was going to say near really showed up. So there's an audience out there that believes in there. I mean, of course, you two percent of people that voted for near our audience in the live chat. It's very split of like a lot of people saying Red Dead Redemption 2, boring, two boring after accident hours. And I always found the rock star games of like, you make your own fun, right? Like you are in charge of having that. Grand Theft Auto, you summon in the tank or the helicopter, you get weird. Yeah. Red Dead, I'm off on the horse. I go make my own adventure, right? And so yeah, it's an interesting way of how people approach this one. Yeah, and I reject people because it's made me and chat. And I think most people will have the feeling of like, oh, that's your attention span or whatever, right? I fully reject that. Yeah. You know, I mean, I think there is a lot of legitimate criticism for how you approach game design and how you make game design interesting for the player and create a gameplay loop that makes people want to keep coming back. But also like I respected that. I respect if you want to like take the fantasy,

24:53the cowboy fantasy part and have that be more of the thing you focus on at the detriment of the other thing. But I also have the freedom to be like, I don't like that. I think that's not great. Do we also add in Red Dead Online? Do you start to add in like what that created with GT Online now into Red Dead Online of like making that third world where friends can go and meet up and live out that. This is a red Dead Online still run. Oh yeah, Lisa. Okay. I don't know why I thought they did they stopped updating it. Is that what it was? I don't know. I don't think I haven't heard you'll play that. I haven't heard people bring up attention or I bring up Red Dead Online. I think that's a very small audience compared to GTA. I think like you have to be die hard, die hard to play Red Dead Online for sure. But like I mean, also pretty wild that they did that. Yeah, I mean, kind of you knew they were gonna, but still pretty sick. Let's move on to our second matchup. Kingdom come deliverance to versus Dark Souls 2. And really quick. Oh, we should have put near over Red Dead just to get the chat to go crazy in the YouTube comments right off the rip. Thomas, but I want us to be genuine because I knew you're going to go Red Dead there and I knew

25:56that this is going to go Red Dead. So really quick with these polls. Mike, let's do two minutes for for the poll length. You don't think we're going to talk about these 20s for about five minutes? Well, I don't want to get to like if every conversation like if some conversations get to like two or three minutes. Okay. I don't want us to like have to wait on the two minutes because I don't think this one is going to be two minutes. What? Can you kind of learn to do versus Dark Souls 2? Blessing. I'm on both sides of the fence of this one. And I got arguments for both. Give it to me. You tell me really quick while I write this up. What do you got? I mean, obviously, I've not played, well, nicely, obviously. I've not played Dark Souls 2. I just finished Dark Souls 1 at the beginning of the year. I play a little bit of Kingdom of Deliverance 2. I know the reputation of Dark Souls 2. If I had to the most hated Dark Souls game of the series. If I'm shooting from the hit, I'm actually going to say Kingdom of Deliverance 2. I love that. And that's why I'm on both sides of fence because I'm going to make arguments for both. But of course, I'll start with my favorite Souls game of the series because Dark Souls 2 was my first. And usually you hold onto your first a little bit higher than the rest of them. But

27:00it is funny because Dark Souls 2 is the most hated out of the Souls born experience. But then when people try and play it, they open up their heart and start to believe. They start to see the highest metacritic, uh, Souls like game 91 on metacritic. I think that might have changed over time. But still the highest one I believe at the time being 3 DLCs, memorable moments, Majula and the Emerald Harold, Majula, best Dark Souls hub area, the Emerald Harold best maiden for sure. Okay. This was so much fun, bless. I wish more people would open up their hearts and play Dark Souls 2. I have such fun memories for it. And the DLCs, three packed DLCs, big DLCs. And of course, everyone remembers the ivory frozen are the ivory king, uh, which is all about the frozen tundra. You you if you played it, you know, and bless. I want you to one day get to this. Oh, I will because it is frustrating. It is bang your head against the wall. Why? Why? Why? But

28:03it's also so much fun. And I think more people if they give that a try, they would love that. All right. Here's the flip side kingdom come deliverance to is the ultimate RPG. Yeah. It is so deep. It is so much fun. Hans and Henry story all the way through, um, that is just so good. It's like 40 to 80 hours. Make your own adventure 100 plus hours. Awesome RPG. This was one what last year it came out and swept the world by storm. The first one sleeper hit people loved second one. This was like put this name on the map. It's for real, right? And it's like so much fun. It's very in depth. It is a make your own adventure. Live in this world. Get lost in this world. Spend as much time as you want. I I described it as like you crawl for so many hours of this game. It's a snail's pace. And you look up and you're like, how am I still on this one mission? And then you go, it doesn't matter. The world is so beautiful. The music is so great. I'm so lost in this narrative and the story that I'm doing right now that I don't care where I am at what time it is.

29:07All I want to do is stay in this. Yeah. It's so good. Bless. What's your pick? Change of condolverance. It's it's kingdom condolverance to like, you know, obviously I'm more of a Dark Souls person than I am a kingdom condolverance person, but we're talking about the best sequel. I know the way people talk about Dark Souls too. As a sequel versus the way people talk about kingdom condolverance as a sequel, right? This is the battle of the twos. It has to be kingdom condolverance too. Battle of the two. The battle of the twos. All right, you take all shucks. What did the audience say? They said kingdom condolverance too. Nice. What was the vote you have? Kingdom condolverance too by a lot. By a lot. Okay, there you go. Hundred like 40. Wow. Our next matchup. The last is part two versus Titanfall two. One made me hate myself. And one made me hate EA. That's good. I like that. Thank you. I like that. Yeah. I mean, the last of us two all about dread just a gut-wrenching story right off the rip. And one of those of like kind of hard to get through, but really, really good. Yeah.

30:11On the flip side, Titanfall two. Wow. What an all-timer and a special game that was sorely missed back then because it was sandwiched between two gigantic video games and kind of got it's luncheaten. And unfortunately, a lot of people didn't come back to it until late and kind of missed that moment of this is the launch. This is when it should be ultimately big, but it was just in between so many games at the time. They buried one of the best modern shooters of our time. Of course, between call duty and battlefield right in the middle of them. We you couldn't breathe. There were so many games to play. And it was talking about the three big shooters. We always kind of talk about like the fall and having all these shooters. That moment right there will go down in this history of like that game was never going to come up and get an audience because it was just sandwiched between two massive already well-known super titles coming hot off of an Xbox exclusivity with Titanfall one. Yeah. Now adding a campaign that is a sleeper hit

31:12time distillation time. No, dilation. Well, that's a that's a future. Oh, they don't even know that reference yet. That's a future spoiler joke for a kind of funny show that you're going to die laughing at. That's so funny. This one is special. It's really, really good. The Titanfall 2 is one of the best first person shooter campaigns ever played, right? The cause and effect. Is that the name of the mission? Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah. The one where you're jumping between timelines. Super cool. So good. One of the coolest first person shooter levels I've ever played and like the ending and getting a certain weapon and like while running and doing all Titanfall 2 is one that I think people often look back at so fondly and I think people will always have those feelings when it comes up with like me and I fuck with Titanfall 2. Like I think it's one of those. Yeah. However, I don't think it stands a chance against last was two. I think last was two is such a clue. And I'm like, I'm somebody who has my own critiques of last was two. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. But I think last was two is just, it's just such a good game. Like it, it goes for more. It has a gameplay loop and game, game, game, game mechanics that play together

32:15so well when we're talking about the combat and how, you know, we often compare to hotline Miami. It's how as far as how it flows and as far as how like well animated and what like you're in it for that combat. And then you want to talk about the story and how daring is the word I'll say, how daring it is and how it like it'll work for some people might not work for other people, might make other people hate the video game. Yeah. But I like games that make people hate it sometimes. You know, this is our closest poll. And I will say that which is what's your choice? My vote would go to Titanfall 2. Okay. My vote like the last I think the right vote is last of us two. Yeah. My vote of like what game I like more and what's my favorite sequel. Yeah. Titanfall 2. And especially as a follow up to the first Titanfall, which is like an Xbox exclusive, just multiplayer and then like them totally like pivoting and like making something so memorable. Now here's the deal. The audience Titanfall 2, 48% with 109 votes. Last of us part two, 118 votes with 52%. That's crazy. There was a good length of time where Titanfall 2 was

33:16was leading that's right. Well, good for Titanfall 2. There's a lot to do is also just a controversial one. And not everybody's going to agree on that game. But it's really good. But that's art. You know, good game. Next match up. Oh shit. Alan Wake 2 versus the Hades 2. I mean, I'm a Hades 2 guy. I'm a Hades 2 guy. Oh, fuck both of you. I'm a Hades 2. Here's what I'll say about Alan Wake 2. I love Alan Wake 2. I love Alan Wake 2. It insists upon itself. Don't bear it. It insists upon itself. Expand by that. What the fuck do you mean by that? It insists upon itself. You know, it is what it is. You watch the family guy episode or whatever he said. I mean, you know, I think it's cool. I didn't love Alan Wake 2 as much as the world loved Alan Wake 2. And I don't even have like a legitimate like, this is why I think it just didn't vibe with me like that. You're not going into the mind palace. No. I thought it was cool. Everything about Alan Wake 2 for me is more conceptually cool than it is executionally cool. Yeah, which is the word I made up. But you get what I mean, right? Like playing Alan Wake 2. I was kind of like, all right, cool. It's like a weird resident evil style thing and like they're trying to go for more narratively. And I think a lot of it is interesting.

34:20Pulling in like the first game with control and then quantum break like Alan Wake 2 is doing this whole like universe shit. And the way they presented all is like so fucking rad. And I think control presented control presents it in the cooler way. I love control way more that the way too. Okay. Okay. I know it's a hot. All right. I know that's a hot. And I like, I don't mean to be hot. Take it. It's just my genuine opinion. Um, Hades 2 though. Hades 2. How does that do is a game. That's my question. I think it improves on Hades 1 exponentially. Like if you remember, Hades 1 was a game that I also really liked but wasn't like, and that wasn't my game of the year. That was a game that I was like, oh, yeah, this is a damn good game. But I didn't feel like I was on the level of everybody else with how much they loved it. Hades 2 got me there. Hades 2 added the second route that like I think goes crazy like both visually in terms of music and audio. But then you want to talk about the weapons and like the different abilities and how they improved upon systems like the cast system, which I did not like in the first game. But in the second game, like once I locked in on actually pressing the circle button, let me tell you the hex in this game. Pretty good. Once you got dialed in. Once you got it dialed in,

35:24you know, pretty good. I'm out of underrated at first. Um, yeah. No, Hades 2 just had me way more locked in. I think the game plays is way better than that game. We're both saying Hades 2 officially. Yeah. Okay. The chats riding foul and wake too with with our barred over there. Yeah, that's what I expected. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think I think they're really good. I only too. Such a blow. Very good. Yeah. I like Hades 2. I like Hades 2. I like we were the side here. Dude, you come out here. You are the decide. You are the very first round of deciders here. And it's just it's unfortunate that you know, like sometimes you guys are going to get it wrong. You know, and this is how that's how it's going to go sometimes. That's how it goes. I should have shouted out the um, seating, by the way, because of course going back a few rounds. Dark Souls 2 was our fourth seed. Kingdom Come was our fifth seed. Last is part two was our third seed. Titanfall 2 was our sixth seed. And then Hades 2, our second seed. We're talking about metacritic towards. I only wait two was our seventh seed. And those are picks for the first round of the modern bracket. Now do you want to stick on the left side or do you want to hop over

36:27to the more retro side? A lot of fun ones over here. Let's go over to memory card. All right, we're going to go memory card again. These are games that release from about oh one to I want to say like oh eight ish oh seven oh seven. And again, this isn't perfect. Some of the oh one games had to come down to the classics, but the most recent oh one game still made it into the memory card stuff. So starting off with our first match up here, we have half life two versus NBA three volume two. Mike shut it down, bless. You know what to say. You know, I mean, you know it. You and I both know what we're going to say. Am I going to say or are you going to say it? NBA street volume. I'm sorry about that. Yeah, iconic sounds like memorable characters. The game breaker. Fantastic basketball arenas. The game breaker. Of course, you know that. Be a legend going on recruiting. My guy's French players. Oh my god. Three different Michael Jordan's three different Michael Jordan. Three different eras. Three different eras of Michael Jordan. You put on all three

37:29Michael Jordan's onto one team. Yeah, you can't do that in any other video game. You can't do that in half life, too. He appeared half the video games that would be made at the time. How did they get him? And you can say that because you also played half life. I played half life two and I'm actually a half life one over half life two guys. Oh really? I know that's a crazy take. Yeah, but I actually enjoyed my time with half life one more than half life two, but half life two in very good video game. I'm really waiting for it to get that in video remix. Remember, we did a one stream with it. They have a demo out about it, but I can't wait to see them like kind of remaster remix that with all the Nvidia bells and whistles. It will look really good and play well, but half life two very good, right? Like, oh my god, continuing Gordon Freeman's story onto that right and like where we're going, what they're doing with that. I can't wait to play Alex and see that. I want to play Hux too. Roger keeps telling me that half life three's real and I like to believe him, but like one day, you know, crazy music in half life as well. Yeah, but I'm talking about NBA Street, having some good music, half life two and half life have

38:30some insane music. I don't know who thought of the music in this game, but you'll just pause me like what is going on here? Yeah, it's just bad. I got a mad respect for half life because I am somebody I like the Valve games. I'm more a more of a portal person. I've tried both. I've streamed quite a bit of black Mesa actually. I've tried half life one back in the day. Didn't get through it. Tried half life two back in the day. Didn't get all the way through it. Played a bit of black Mesa. I did a full few are stream on it. And like, I think I have more respect for those games than I have like the actual again, enjoyment factor. One day, I want to get through them all because I know there are those are video game history. I know the impact of half life two when you want to talk about the source engine and what that brought as far as like the physics systems that are really cool and like the gravity gun and what that does. At all the respect in the world for half life two, I'll never shade half life two. Yeah, however, I'm going to shade it so hard. I'm going to say this right now. No, if you don't vote for NBA Street volume two, you don't know ball. Okay. I agree. Okay. It's a deal. 16% of the votes don't look like two. Here's the deal. NBA Street volume two might be one of the greatest games of all time. How do you might be? It is.

39:31It's the goat. It's the goat man. Game breaker. Do you remember game breaker? You build up the bar off of doing six. This was at the moment that the world of basketball and just people in general were riding the high off of NBA are and one basketball. We're talking young LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, big diesel. Everybody wanted to go out grab a basketball and do the hot sauce. Okay. We wanted to do skip to my Lou. Yeah. I wanted to go half of me off the off the off the off the off the I'm throwing basketball off my father's. I'm sure I got detention one time for the off the he's throwing a basketball off my father's forehead. You can't do that to people. Because of NBA Street volume two, the amount of times during PE where I'm like doing the thing it where I am throwing the ball off the backboard, hopping and trying to score off of that. Like, oh, come on. That's the important game. Who's the DJ? Who's the MC? That's always talking. DJ. DJ. You cover slides. Bobby Garcia. Talking over the game. Yeah. Your ankle break and building up the game breaker bar, doing all these awesome moves. You're comboing them into alley-oops.

40:35We're one of your players who go off the go do a backdoor cut. Go up in the air. You throw an alley. I'm about to sit here. And then you fill up the game breaker bar and it's like, oh, what does the game breaker bar do gives you an extra point and takes points from your opponents. So when you need it, the most you know you got it. Yeah. Somebody in chat says I missed him. Tim would agree with us, by the way, just so you know, yeah, Tim would 100%. Tim would be voting for him. He's going to have to come on, guys. Let's move on. We're going to talk about our next match up. So caliber two versus smash melee. Let's just one of the ones that I'll stay out of, but I do vote for smash melee. I don't know, honestly. I'm not so. I really, I should say half-life two was our number one seed NBA Street two was our number eight seed. Smash melee number four, so caliber two, number five seed. I don't know if I know if I'm going off of personal, would I played more or what it is so caliber two. So I think I'm going to lean so caliber two. I smash melee if you remember,

41:41I talked about this before. I didn't grow up with a game cube. I went N64 and then went to PS2 and then came back to Nintendo with Nintendo Wii. Yes. But smash 64 is like one of my favorite. It's like that's that was a pivotal experience for me. Smash 64 is what got me into fighting games. I know people will say it's a platform fighter, whatever, right? Putting enough so caliber two is the game that got me more into traditional fighting games. So they're like two sides of a very similar coin to me. I think so caliber two might be a better game, but I don't even know if I can say that. Smash melee. Smash melee is like that's the holy grail for smash. That's the one that people are always trying to chase as far as like no, this is the one. I don't think so caliber two has been surpassed in the so caliber franchise. Okay. I know a lot of people argue the same for smash melee, but I think in other ways, smash melee has been surpassed when you want to talk about like the amount of content, amount of codes, the amount of like smash ultimate goes crazy. Every character down the man. Yeah. Yeah, but I lean, I lean so caliber two. Okay. Well, guess what? The audience doesn't lean with you. They lean with me. All right. I'm not mad at either of these

42:43honestly. The audience goes crazy with smash melee 128 to 42. Okay. Well, that's insane. Well, I mean, like that's red. We don't have the biggest fighting game audience here. Yeah. You know what? That's fair. They don't. And also like so caliber two. That's a long time ago. melee is still like like you said, that's true. It's in this world. People still think about melee. That's a good point. Talk about it. You still watch melee. Our next matchup. God of war two versus slide two. God of war being a number three seed slide two being our number six seed. But we don't have Roger here to ride for slide to be surprised. He goes crazy for a slide. It's God of war two. Yeah, you know, I would say God of war two. That I just don't have that much of a. This God of war trilogy coming back out is going to be a real special piece as a special time in history. God of war games with early crados, the blades of chaos and those whipping out on your screen and pulling people towards you going towards them spinning in circles. That was like some crazy gaming back in 2000.

43:44And this one, you had like the big sword as well. Yeah. This is also the one where you go to the fates. And you have to fight the fates to go back in time and screw over Zeus and all that. Like it was such a fucking great lead into God of War three, which I don't know if I would put down as like an official bullet point of why it's a good sequel. But it's such a great follow-up to the first one and expanding more on this character. All right. So God of war two makes it through our next matchup our follow matchup with the memory card bracket. Kingdom Hearts two versus Hey, what you did that you tried to hurt me. Mike take it. Hey, that's not me. I was trying to hurt me here. That was their number two. He tried to hurt me here. This is the way the seating, the seating lens. This is crazy. I didn't do this. It hurts me. Mike take it away. Okay. Well, I mean, I ride for Halo two. Halo two is my favorite game of all time. Halo two is a better sequel than the first, right? Improving upon the narrative and driving that story forward with Master Chief of Cortana. Of course, the covenant, the flood, what's going on in the world, right? And then

44:45on top of that, multiplayer really improved, right? Riding the back off of early internet days, Xbox live, the first generation of like, oh, we're really plugging in. We are on microphones. We're making Xbox live accounts. We are playing as like an online community. It started with Halo two. Yeah. And that is like a big freaking deal. This, on all honesty, a lot of great sequels here. Halo two, when you add up like the things and the culture of gaming that kind of happened here, might be the greatest sequel of all time, because it was right at the moment of like, the world of video game is going to change forever. Yeah. We are going to change everything. But man came to hearts too. Yeah. But man came to hearts too. Really changed my life. I'm like, you got Roxas. You got the ice cream. You got Mickey Mouse doing flips and shit. He was doing flips and shit. Goofy took a boulder to the forehead. Yeah. Yeah. To pick him up him and Donald, you know what I mean? The introduction of organization 13 in a big way. You have to remember

45:45all their crazy names like diocese and, you know, nefertiti. It was crazy. No shot. It was a nefertiti. I don't even know diocese. That sounds like a Pokemon. I mean, it's Halo two for me. Yeah. Kingdom Hearts two. Where isn't there a chain of memories in the middle of this? I don't know. Oh, you know, I mean, where do we say it on? Well, I guess you're right. I didn't think about that. But I guess that's a weird one, right? Like, I feel you will still have to say Kingdom Hearts two as the sequel. I like I would still not even consider chain of memories. I think most people writing in didn't even think of chain of memories. Either way, I think I'm going to say Halo 13, Tron World returning back to a lot of old worlds and catching up with them, like Aladdin, Little Mermaid, you went back to Beauty and the Beast you were there with. Is this the first one with pirates? How are we in town? Pirate was added to this. That's a big deal, especially in 2000's pirates took over the world. The gummy ship in this one. The gummy ship is in

46:48this one. You build your own gummy ship in between worlds. Yeah, then I'm going Halo two. You know, I'm the gummy ship. No, I don't mind it. I love Kingdom Hearts one. I played Kingdom Hearts two. I played a portion of Kingdom Hearts two as an adult. And I just couldn't. It was in vibing with me. I think I lost my child like sense of whimsy and wonder. This game has the whimsy and the wonder. This game also has killer music. Oh, of course it does. Sanctuary. Sanctuary? Yeah. No, I listened to Kingdom Hearts music, even though I didn't even though I'm not like. But not as good as simple as clean. No, nothing. I'm going to go on wax and say that. Oh, yeah. No, I'm afraid to say that. That's the correct. Yeah. Wait until. Yeah. I think people like sanctuary a lot. I mean, all the music's great. Simple and clean is like, I was a kid. I heard that in the commercial. And I was like, this is the best song of all time. I didn't even played the game yet. You know, who else has good music? Halo two. You know, that you know what you want to say. Halo two has lockout too. And I'll one V1, any person in the chat any day of the week, one on one in lockout, shotty snipes. It's over. Are you saying Halo two?

47:51Yeah, I'm going to. He's going to Halo two. I'm also going to go Halo two. I don't have like the biggest horse in the race within this race for either. But culturally, as far as like the impact of Halo two is something that you feel no matter what. You know, I remember going over to my friends house and like him having Halo two and him whoop my ass in Halo two and being like, damn, dude, this is different. Like I had a PSU. He had an Xbox or whatever. And I was like, damn, this is crazy. And to see, while he was going to say to see where Halo's at now, not necessarily the best place. But to see that is it is a franchise that still means so much to people, right? Like, I think Halo two is for sure the the pick here. And that is it for our memory, hard first round part of the bracket. Before we move on, let me tell you about patreon.com, slash kind of funny and youtube.com, slash kind of funny games where you can go and get the kind of funny membership, which allows you to get shows ad free and speaking of ads. Let us tell you about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. When we started kind of funny in 2015, boy, let me tell you, I had a harsh lesson in what it takes to run your own business. We were

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52:03super chats that are coming in because let me tell you, people have a lot to say. I want to start off with science dog official who says, important reminder that these are their opinions, LOL. And you know, I like that. I like that. You know, reset the tone. We reset the room. The tone number. This is Snowbike Mike talking to you. Okay. It's my voting. We're all friends. We're all friends in a basement talking video games right now. Yeah. I might disagree, but we'll come back together and still have fun. Jacob Young writes and says, I agree with the other super chat. Little big planet, too, should be here. Of course, the super chat right before that school king that says a little bit big planet, too, is the only right answer. But remember, look back at yourself. Look back at yourselves because we put out the poll and we said, you yep, vote. You picked this looking was I pissed off those again. You know what I'm pissed off about actually miss Pac-Man. I feel like miss Pac-Man should have been should have been no borderlands too. Yeah, like some people wrote in with it. It was like in the final list, but like, yeah, was able to make it. Um, brand mats says top of each bracket for me. Hades to AC to I see nothing. This is hasn't screen. So caliber two Diablo two Diablo two is my number one of all time. I'm going to talk about it. Shoot you in shadow like that name says no team fortress

53:07two should be illegal. Look back at yourself. Point to finger and say I did this. Yep. Mara writes and it says, Hey, y'all had a heart attack two weeks ago and just wanted to say thank you for kicking me company while I was stuck in the hospital for five days. Love you guys also the correct answers. Mass Effect to you. Mara's already here. I hope you're doing better. And thank you for listening and watching. Yep, we're thinking about your covers yourself. Mason Graves says on a 15 minute work breaks, I won't be able to watch live, but Halo two is the clear winner here. Science dog official says motion to do worse sequels bracket two. Dove May cry two takes top spot. I like that idea. Okay. Uh, James Jameson Peters writes and it says AW2. Oh, I don't like to won't win. But man, what a game. Rock on old gods of Asgard. Uh, Mimo or memo writes and it says, love you, Mike, bless and bear it. I've been having the worst weeks of my life. So thank you for all for making me feel normal while watching. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you're. Thanks for watching, homie. Not Calvin Perez writes and it says, Miss Pac-Man is my personal pick. It's development is one of the crazy stories and gaming. A sequel so good. Most people think of it as think of its gameplay as what Pac-Man always was.

54:12And then lastly, JVC writes and it says, even my mom knows the correct answer is Street Fighter two. Oscar wrote in because Mike is still mad about that. Demix. No, that's not his name. Emix is D E M Y X. Say it again, boss. Emix. Darryl. Now it feels like Dynamax or something like that. Bro, because he'd be yelling water at you and he just throws waterballs at you. Most frustrating fighting video games. Keenan Hartson. Actually, I'm not going to say it. Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't hurt him. Don't hurt him. It's like Taylor Swift. We're like, and I say that. I like Taylor Swift music, actually. Sometimes, but sometimes I don't, but I get scared to say it. Dance water dance. Yes, you will remember dance water dance for the rest of your life. You play that game. And I'm sure as a child, if it broke you, you never went back. But if you if you triumphed, you'll never forget it. It took me about 36 hours to beat that guy. We're Darryl's boss. Mike, do you want to go HD or do you want to go classic?

55:14Take me back to the left. Let's go back to the left. All right. First match up, Mass Effect 2 versus Saints Row 2. We can save time here. I love Saints Row 2 as much or I love Saints Row as much as the next guy. They had to get the Saints back. It's back to his band. They had to bring him back. They had to take over. Still water. Mike, we can save time here. I know. It's Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 2 is to go. Shout out, Saints Row 2, though. Shout out to Saints Row 2. Somebody was like somebody wrote in the chat. Who even played the Saints Row games? Sir, I played every Saints Row game. I love Saints Row 3 and 4. Loved Saints Row 1. Back in the day, I still ride hard for it. See, I don't know anybody that played the first one. Oh, it's blessed. It was so good. And it was just one of those of like, Saints Row was the over-the-top little brother that GTA wasn't, right? GTA was all about being like the mean streets. Yeah. This is what we're doing. This one was like, here's a dildo bat. You don't do something dumb and you're like, and I was swinging this. I love all of this, right? That true crime. I was playing a lot of true crime. I love true crime. Any crackdown, any open world GTA like your boy, Snow Mike Mike was playing all of them. Yeah. It's the best.

56:14All right, we move on to Assassin's Creed 2 versus Batman Arkham City. Oh, this... Actually, no, I was going to say this one's tough for one for me, but it actually isn't. Although I might have the wrong answer. My answer is Batman Arkham City. But I think... I think the cultural answer would be Assassin's Creed, but I got to go... I like Batman Arkham City more. Why do you say the cultural enters Assassin's Creed? I think because I both... To me personally, who loves both of these series, I think both of these games have, like, roughly the same weight. Really? I think Assassin's Creed 2, like the impact of Assassin's Creed 2 feels bigger. I think that's how we get the popularization of like the Ubisoft game, you know... It was the moment, yeah. It was the moment, right? Open-row games got to have a tower. Open-row. We got to synchronize on every single tall tower there is. Yeah. Open up more of the map. Like, I think this changed the trajectory of Ubisoft. And what it did with like stealth games mixed with parkour where you still felt like you were agile and nimble and you were everywhere. And you were also doing the fun fighting combat. But the moment that you were like jumping down

57:15from the top of a building and stealth killing somebody on top of them was like very, very cool, right? Like, I still think about Assassin's Creed all the time. And I might lean Batman here, but Assassin's Creed 2 and that moment for Ubisoft and what that franchise did and became was really special back then. It was a big jump. And I would say like, I think what we think of when it comes to the Open-World Ubisoft games, I don't, personally, I don't think they get there until Brotherhood, but two was a step in that right direction of like kind of fixing things up from one. But I think Batman Arkham City and what that does as a sequel, like taking a left turn from small Metroidvania to like kind of this not big open world, but like kind of this like a bigger map that feels a bit linked to the past with like a dungeon design and world design, along with just like blowing up how many characters do you get? Cause Arkham Asylum felt so constrained. And then they just go all out with Arkham City, which I think was fantastic.

58:16Yeah. So we're all going Batman here? I'm putting the pullout just for fun, but yeah, I am. Yes, as Barrett said, Batman 2 is a better game is right. Like the sequel and what they built upon and how they expanded it is so much better and it is so good. I'm sure it'll be a conversation later on the road. I just like Batman. I just like that world more like the gameplay more. It feels a bit more smooth. You know, it goes down smoother for me. Batman Arkham City is just like such a fun world to exist in. Weirdly enough, I like Asylum more, which might come into play later on in the bracket. We'll see, but like, you know what? I'm taking my vote back. I'm going to Assassin's Creed. Whoa, I'm going to let the chat vote. Cause I have to ride for Assassin's Creed too. I have to let the chat. I knew he was going to do this. The Assassin's Creed game is just so good. And the moment that it changed, nobody was doing parkour like that. Nobody was doing movement like that. I was doing the gameplay like that. Like you be soft at it. It was so much fun. And I think like Batman Arkham City was the one, is the game that I think everybody thinks of now

59:17when it comes to that iconic combat, that free flow combat that we think of, that isn't just press Y and Perry and automatically kill. What's when you go back to AC2, you're like, oh man, this combat is not nearly as engaging. You think about the amount of games that come after Batman Arkham that are like a shadow of Mordor and where that comes from. Oh my god. The amount of combat systems that are like, all right, do those combos, hit that Y to even like a spider, I know a Spider-Man takes so much from Spider-Man too from back in the day. You know, I'm not saying that that Batman Arkham like invented everything, but I do think that in Sonic Spider-Man is a better game because Batman Arkham existed. And now you know why I did this right, bless? Why? Cause I went to the chat and I already do what they voted for. They voted for Batman. Okay, I was like, I was going to piss off of you. And last night I battled Mike, you just say, you know, I did that because I knew the challenge vote for Batman anyway. You thought of that. You know what I'm saying? He's so annoying. Spoilers for both of these games that have been out for 15 years plus, right? Like AC2 ending with who is Desmond, right?

1:00:18Like who is Desmond with Ezio and like all this up? Great moment. Yeah. Batman Arkham City killed the fucking Joker. And that ending of that game was still like, I think about the first time playing it and still having like my jaw on the floor of so good, the bold direction that they went. I like that. All right, our next match up here. Portal 2 versus Dead Space 2. For me, this is the one we're gonna save time. I will save a lot of time. Portal 2 is our number three C Dead Space 2 being our number six C. Lovey Dead Space. Yeah, Lovey Dead Space is Portal 2. Portal 2, my Portal 2 is the heavy favorite here. Portal 2 is like for me the only thing that can go up against Mass Effect 2 in this bracket. Yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh. Is it what we can save time there? Shout out Dead Space 2, you know? But come on. Uh, next match up, infamous to you versus Uncharted 2. I'm excited to hear what you think. I'm Uncharted 2. I'm Uncharted 2. Yeah, uh, infamous being our number seven slot. Uncharted 2 being our number two slot. Uncharted 2, I mean, my ranking of Uncharted

1:01:19is probably gets weird because I would go with the modern Uncharted before I go like the original trilogy. But out of the original trilogy, Uncharted 2 just had the sauce move. Uncharted, the train scene, the train scene alone in Uncharted 2 is enough for me. We also got Chloe. Like, come on. It's a good game. It's a good game. The video game, love of my life. The video game, love of my life. Oh, I love Uncharted to death. It is some of my favorite games. It's, it's the best. Yeah. In this year, though, also great game. I love the infamous series of games. Um, but I think I was a prototype guy. You know, it was the next box. I was playing prototype. Yeah, that's what we got. That's what we got. Those are good, right? No, okay, they okay. All right, let's work our way over to the classics with our first matchup, Tony Hawk 2 versus Diablo 2. I mean, there's a clear and correct answer. Tony Hawk 2 being the number one seed, Diablo being the number eight seed. Yeah, Tony Hawk 2 is the clear answer. The correct answer is Diablo 2 here. Diablo 2 is D game here. I'm going to make this make this make the poll. I'm going to make this make the poll. Give me your don't piss me off, Mike.

1:02:19Give me your reason. Tony Hawk 2. No, everyone, don't say it like that. Oh, fuck you, Mike. Don't say it like that. No, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 is a fucking classic. Tony Hawk Pro Skater, the series, one of the best arcade series of video games, one of the best extreme sports series, the best extreme, extreme, extreme sports game series. What's better than Tony Hawk? You're going to put tricky down like that? Yes. I'm going to put skate down like that. Yes. SSX is a strong number two. You will put Tony Hawk over skate. Yes. Skate strong number three. Over tricky. Yes. Oh, yeah. Tony Hawk is a classic. Tony Hawk, Tony Hawk paved the way for both of these things, both of those things. And funny enough, very different ways when you think about it, right? When you want to talk about bringing arcade extreme sports to the mix and like how Tony Hawk really, you know, innovated with how they turned those tricks into this point system and the combo system and how established all that and how important that is and how much SSX took from that. Then you want to talk about skate culture and how much Tony Hawk Pro Skater brought to skate culture

1:03:21and popularizing that to gamers and having that on a broader stage, right? And even how it brought in the music and the culture and like all these things, it was able to condense it all into a CD with Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Like, that's how we get skate later, right? Skate wouldn't be skated. Neither of these games would be what they are without Tony Hawk Pro Skater. And Pro Skater 2 was a step up for the franchise. It's crazy how much I ride for Tony Hawk and then I become literally the toy story meme where I have, but I have what do you in my hand that's Tony Hawk? And then they hand me skates and I just dropped Tony Hawk forever. It never, no respect, no love for what Woody and Tony Hawk gave me back in the day. I only think about Buzz. But then I look at Diablo 2. And I think about the deep, rich action RPG that is the icon of Blizzard. Diablo 1, fantastic game. Diablo 2 improves on every single thing that Diablo 1 did and went even further. Okay, I'm talking about iconic characters

1:04:22that you can choose from up to six, I believe. Killer expansion pack as well with Lord of Destruction. But this is the action RPG. That's a reason why they brought back Diablo 2 resurrected. Yeah, because there's millions of people that play this game. They put Rahul Kohli in the game like last time. They put Rahul Kohli in the game. Beginning of online infrastructure once again. Wow Diablo Halo, kind of at the forefront of that for me. Of like these are the games that you're going to share memories with your friends with, right? But going all the way through, Helen back to defeat Diablo every, at the end of every act having one major boss, the gear and loot system, right? You think of the resident evil slot backpack, but Diablo is where the slot backpack really is at, right? And then on top of that, all of the min maxing every single stat being something that you have to Fran Meribella III get into a deep spreadsheet and start to think about, then you start slotting in different gems to increase all of those weapons and do even more damage and abilities.

1:05:24This is the ultimate sequel to Diablo 2. I respect it. Honestly, as I was going off about Tony Hawk, I forgot where you were talking about Diablo. I forgot what it was even going up against, because you got me fired up when you brought into SSX and skate in the mix. But I do what acknowledged that, yeah, of course Diablo is Diablo, right? Like that is the action RPG. It's crazy because here's the deal. We might be split, but the audience goes 123 to 73. What did I say? For Diablo 2. Wow. And I look at Diablo 2 and this line up less, and I think you better get a hold of it, because Diablo 2 might run away with this. Diablo 2 better not lay a finger on Street Fighter 2. I just don't know. Diablo 2 better not lay a finger knowing our audience. Knowing our audience, a lot of our old heads, so y'all should know what Street Fighter 2 does. Oh, for the colds, let's start the conversation. Age of Empires 2. Age of Empires 2 versus the Ultimate RTS. Guys, the Ultimate World Civilization Battle Arena here. We need to back up and consider the fact

1:06:25that Street Fighter 2, with what that game did, could win this entire bracket. Fighting games are fighting games because of Street Fighter 2, guys. Street Fighter 2 changed the game. What the whole player, what it did for that, the Super Nintendo, or people play a multiplayer on the Super Nintendo. Well, you're going to use vampires. Oh, of course, I put the pull up with the pull up. See Ultimate RTS, this is my favorite game. Who's one of my favorite games of all time? I love this. This is rich, deep history, right? Mixed with now, you can build out your civilization. You will go to war against other civilizations. Your goal is to build the ultimate town, resource management, unit management. This is the RTS. This is like Starcraft, Warcraft, Age of Empires. I mean, it stood this test. Actually, you know what? This is so fun because this is the same exact argument for Street Fighter 2. Of course, right? This is the fighting game, right? Mortal Kombat, Tekken, like any fighting game that you can list off of comes from there.

1:07:26Oh, Street Fighter 2 everything. Street Fighter 2 put fighting games on the map in such a bigger and better way. This is a wild one, bless. This is all, this is all I'm hearing. I agree with you. My prediction, I'm not even looking at it. I don't, I haven't had the pull up. I imagine people might go, Age of Empires, here's my thought back. They still playing Street Fighter 2. Well, here's the catch. We're talking about best equals. It doesn't matter if you're still playing that right now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say like they play the Street Fighter. That's the thing is they do play older Street Fighter games. Okay. Well, like, I think they go back to Third Strike. Because people still playing the Age of Empires 2. It's good arguing in a big way. It's a good argument. There's still rider die for Age of Empires 2. I think problem is, it's like Street Fighter continues to advance and now you're playing the newest ones. And that's the way we're playing Street Fighter 6. We got to rewind, we got to remember. This is the best sequel. Did it improve upon the first? Did it leave a lasting impact? Was it more fun to play? What are all the criteria they bring into a sequel? Is there a way we can bring up gameplay of Street Fighter 1? And you want to talk about what it did to improve on the first Street Fighter 1.

1:08:27You wouldn't even recognize Street Fighter 1. You'd be like, what is that game? Street Fighter 2 is where Street Fighter really starts. It's a tight vote. Yeah. It's a tight vote. It's a tight vote? Is it over yet? It is over. 60% of the audience did vote Street Fighter 1. This is the most voted on one. There's 155 to 104. So the old guys are here in both categories. You had me worried, Mike. I do love that. This is what Street Fighter 1 looks like. And then look at Street Fighter 2. Now look. Street Fighter 2, you're going to look at that and go, oh, that's Street Fighter. That's what I know Street Fighter at. This is probably the biggest part of the bracket where you look back and you go, man, video games are special. Yeah. And like these are two incredibly special seats. These are two games that left a huge lasting impact, not only on their own franchise, but the video game world combined, you know? Man, this brings me back to, I mean, I say the name every single podcast, but this brings me back to being at Addison's house. Addison? Because Addison was the one with the Super Nintendo. And I remember him busing out Street Fighter 2, me and Langlund, let's play some of this. And me being like, whoa, holy cow, this is cool.

1:09:31Man, I'm excited to keep going. This is such a fantastic matchup for this. It's a great matchup. This is very much just fighting games versus RTS. I know you're up to two small communities. Have to fight each other. Next matchup, Pokemon Gold and Silver versus Silent Hill 2. Oh, damn. Okay, well, I didn't get into Silent Hill 2 until the remakes. So unfortunately, you don't have my vote here on that one because I'm a Pokemon kid through and through. I mean, should we just say Pokemon because yeah, Pokemon, I have such more reverence for Pokemon Silver and like Silent Hill 2, I know even more from the, I didn't have any Silent Hill people in my life was the problem. Okay. And so yeah, I just don't have like the strong frame of reference for Silent Hill 2. I know what it did. I know how much people love it. But I feel like Pokemon is also a safer pick just in general. More Pokemon added, new world, new world, the ending, the ending and where they go, the reveal, the reveal. Did you love that? You played through Pokemon. Me and Nick, yeah, we played through that one. We got to the first. Was that the first time? Yeah, that was our first time.

1:10:32Interesting. And you, we got to the reveal. Okay. He now knows what's next. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. We, we've broken into two parts for Nick because we knew, we'd kill him if we kept going. Sorry, are we both going Pokemon? Yeah, of course. All right, Pokemon. I mean, look at what Pokemon is today. I mean, yeah, it's the biggest entertainment I people have had. Yeah, I mean, and that's built off the back of a solid sequel that people wanted to continue with. Yeah, they fuck up the sequel. Maybe Pokemon's in a different place. It's a really good point actually. You know, when you think about it and you think about it, that's a really good point. If Pokemon Gen 2 fucks up, we live in a different world. Now, is this technically a sequel or Pokemon yellow? No, we're going to put Pokemon yellow. I mean, it's a weird thing because then we get it released before after this before this. Yeah, because I remember yellow, but we had no weird place because really the first two Pokemon games are Pokemon green and red. So like, then you had to talk about Pokemon blue because it's a remake. As somebody says, I look at it as the definitive version.

1:11:33The game of the year edition. That's good. Pokemon yellow, the game of the year. The game of the year version. Yeah, this game of the year. Next matchup we got in our last round one matchup, Resident Evil 2 versus Metal Gear Solid 2. I mean, people already know my vote. Metal Gear Solid 2. Oh, then we just make this easy. I like, well, Resident Evil 2. I mean, shout out Resident Evil 2. The sucky thing is that like my, my Resident Evil 2 is the modern. Resident Evil 2, which is like if we're comparing those, I'm still going Metal Gear Solid 2. Yeah, it's like that, Mike. Oh, yeah, it's like if I got to go with the modern one, maybe I feel a little bit different. No, you don't. Do you think so? It's so good. I'll talk to you it. I mean, I just love the puzzles. I love, I say it time and time again. Capcom's, Capcom is masters at level design and the ultimate escape room horror maze. And it is so much fun to go to different areas on the map or RPD in particular for two and find new unlockable areas,

1:12:35find pieces that then unlock other areas that you're going to eventually walk back to and having that mystery solved. It's so good. And then the horror, the tension, right? Getting introduced to Leon on his first day, Claire Redfield, right? Looking for her brother, they both show up and it's like, Oh, now we're going to share two stories, but the same story, but both have different things going on, but they're also going to use the same kind of mazes at the same time. I like it. I like it a lot, bless. I mean, I'm right there with you. RE2, I think it's a legendary game. RE2, the remake, especially. Yeah. It's tough for me with this round because I, RE2, I didn't really care about Resident Evil until the remake of RE2 is the way I'll put it. Yeah. And so, yeah, when I played that in 2019, that was like a, like, Oh, shit, this is a fucking game right here. Like they, that was one of my games of the year, the year that I came out for all the reasons that you laid out. But yeah, RE2 classic, I just wasn't, that wasn't me. I was playing that.

1:13:36The chat's going crazy far too, but it is tight on the flip side mental gear style too. Yeah. The big ultimate swerve, right? You're back with Kajima, the ultimate entry, the ultimate intro of that video game is snake jumping off that rainy bridge. Remember, Baird lightning crackles down and he's on the side of the ship. Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, and he's fucking he's growing all around. He gets up on the ship and everything goes down. Oh my God, who's this old lady? She's breaking it. Oh, shit, she got shots, and you know, what's happening? And then you wake up, you ate steak no more. That was crazy, bless. It was crazy. That was crazy. I also think about the vampire fight and how much I hated that fight. Yeah, Baird really hold my TV fight. That boss fight was designed. I think about a lot of those moments, but MGS2 also does have a lot of the fun shit as well. I mean, MGS2 also just has like, really cool shit that it talks about. It is narrative that I think it's cool. That weirdly age pretty well when you want to talk about

1:14:36when it gets to the ending and it talks about it. Essentially, like the information and how dangerous the freedom of information can be when you get into like fake information and how you can deceive people and the game rounding out in this way where it's like riding as the character ride and you kind of have to be like, what's real? When you loop that in into how prophetic it is in terms of like a lot of the main issues we still face today, especially with AI becoming, before AI became a bigger topic, that was already prophetic when you're talking about fake news and information. Now with AI, MGS2 has some of them become even better of a video game. I will say a lot of other science fiction writing was doing a lot of similar times. But like video games, you know what I mean? Like I feel like MGS2 as far as what the kind of story being told in a video game in an action game in a cinematic action game. I like the crew, Fat Man on the Rollerblades. Bam. What was the girl's name? I loved her. Which one? With the big fortune on fortune, what a cool name. Yeah, they had a cool crew and then liquid snake

1:15:36with a giant fucking dock op shoulders and stuff. Yeah, that was crazy. You were cool. Metal Gear Ray. I mean, it's on you. Do you have a decision? Oh, you reminded me of the Metal Gear Ray fight. Yeah, fucking hate it, that's it. It's a bear did not like playing MGS. I mean, it's time you just why I was such a breath of fresh air to play three. You'd be like, oh my God, they designed to like so much for action. That sounds dumb. Thank you. I'm a Metal Gear sound to everyone knows it goes two for me. Yeah, you love to use it. I've ride for two. Cause you watched it. I watched it and I was so in. I can't wait for my turn to play these games one day. I had to leave poor bear me out. I had to play five. You didn't play. We had an agreement that we were going to take a break and then come back and then you said, fuck you. You don't take any of the conjima joints and not continue. You know what I mean? You can't at the time we did not know who we were dealing with. You're sure? Put down one puff. So good. So I go with them. I'm just too obviously. But and that's not even like I'm. I try my hardest to talk about RE2 with respect. Cause I know it's it's people's favorite game of all time.

1:16:39Uh-huh. But like I can't speak to something that I just didn't experience. I get it. I know chess heard my feelings. I mean, yes. Yes. I said it's because of your young and I'm like motherfucker. I can control my age. I'm sorry though. I parents had me in 1994 and he's playing old games. You got a good bless. You got a good bless. I'm trying to find fans. He's 10. I try. You know what it is. But yeah. What are you going? Metal gives out too. Come on. We already know. It's my favorite. It's my favorite game. Um. That's our last round. Yeah. Or that's our last, um, face off of the first round. I should say while we're here, I want to shout out cause we have of course have super chats coming in. Mike is still. You read this one already. Mike is still mad about that DMX boss fight in K H2 and then science dog says my biggest video game hot take is that I don't like Arkham city and and didn't think it was that special. That was a city. That is a hot take. Oh, it's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. We can play as Catwoman in the open world. That was cool. That was cool. All right. Really good game. We're on.

1:17:39To the second round. Let's go back to the top left. Now we kind of tear it up. Now we get a little bit deeper. Let's start with Red Dead Redemption 2 versus keen to come deliverance to. I'm excited to see where you went because you went with near on this one. I mean, between these two, yeah, I would go red dead too. I would go red dead too as well. I really like kingdom come deliverance to. I think that RPG in that world that they created is really something special. I think it is a world that you can live in and enjoy. But for me, like Red Dead Redemption 2 from one to that is a bigger jump than two from one to two and kingdom come deliverance to. Yeah. I agree. I think this is funny because I think this is an easier conversation in the first round because Red Dead 2 and kingdom come deliverance to you are more comparable games, right? Their games are doing very similar things as far as being almost like these simulated worlds, right? We want to immerse you all the way. So we're going to have mechanics and systems that are both deep and might not even be the most player friendly, but we're doing that because we want you to be fully in on this

1:18:42experience. We're doing something unique here, right? Both these games are doing that. I just think from what I played of both, and of course, I played way more Red Dead Redemption 2 than I did to keen and come deliverance to. But even for what I played of Red Dead 2, it's like, damn, like Red Dead 2, I think does it better for the parts that I played. But I can't say that it defends me obviously, but don't forget what happened in Samine. Don't forget what? What happened in Samine? Oh, yeah. That's kingdom come deliverance, too. Okay. Really fucked up. Damn. Yeah, tell me about that later. Next one. The last one is two versus Hades, too. This is a hard one for me, actually. Believe it or not. The last of us two, Hades 2 is just more of the same Hades 1, which is a fantastic, incredible video game. The last of us two does feel like it takes a little more leaps and bounds in the sequel category to me. Yeah. As a sequel, I think what last is two does as a sequel specifically, again, way more daring, way more like way more of a jump, I think you're right in that regard, granted, I could

1:19:45make the argument that like for Hades 2 or for Hades 1, even like how, how much are you going to do to that game visually to like make it feel like a jump? There's only so much you can do to Hades. And I think they did everything they could. I think they did everything they could to Hades 2 to make it feel like the jump that it already is. I think last was had way more room. You know, you had different, different console generation. You're talking about something that released end of PS3 versus end of PS4. You're talking about something that like has more time to work with as far as like, you know, making it even longer story to like try and do all the different things you want to do there. It feels evolved, but also it doesn't, it didn't rest on its laurels. It feels evolved, but still like we want to say something and we want to like put off it, put off people what we're doing. It works. Yeah. A glass of us too. Yeah. I think it was out. There's a tough one for me though. We then work our way. Let's work our way down to go straight down. Yeah. Let's go straight down it up at this point. Mass Effect 2 versus Batman Arkham. Oh shit.

1:20:45Mass Effect 2 is a better sequel. Yeah. I'm going to see Mass Effect 2. They're very close. It's like bear brought up with like asylum to city and then jumped at it made, right? And everything that's going on, very similar to Mass Effect 1 into 2 of what was being proved upon, what was reworked, what was tweaked, what what they did. But like Mass Effect 2 might go down as the goat of all sequels here. I can see that. So yeah. Next up portal 2 versus uncharted 2. Portal 2. Portal 2. Come on. I love uncharted 2. But pregnant pause scared me for a second, boys. They, I mean, I really had to think about it. I really, because now, now I'm kind of getting into it. Now I'm getting a little bit more of like dropping the mic loves this game into like, okay, what is the better sequel? Did it improve upon the first ones, right? What was uncharted 1 to uncharted 2 like with that jump? What was portal 1 to portal 2 like on that jump, right? And you start thinking a little bit more about like, what was the level design? What did they improve upon?

1:21:46What were the things that I didn't like in the first one that I need them to do? What were the standout moments? What was the impact? Unfortunately uncharted 2, you're going up against portal 2. Yeah. Really hard to get. Are you against portal 2? I know plenty. I'm curious on what the audience will say. I know audience is still on the last was to like a lot of audience voted 68% voted for last was to. And we put in a poll there. I think audience might go uncharted 2, but also PlayStation audience, you know what I mean? Like a lot of our, a lot of our fans, I think they go portal come from beyond, but like portal, I think it's just way more interesting of a sequel. I mean, obviously like when portal 1 is so contained, you have much more room to expand and they expanded in such smart ways, right? They still made, they still carried the spirit of portal in portal 2 and like, made better the things that mattered. Hey, this is a funnier game. We have a bit more dialogue between, uh, glados and some characters that they introduced around and that. We have moments that are unexpected. We have better puzzles, a few more mechanics that are actually pretty fun and engaging

1:22:48when you want to talk about the goo, different settings that you're able to explore a little bit like. Did they had co up in this one? Yeah. This was the co up co opposite. Yeah. Yeah. The boy talked through it portal 2. I think portal 2 still to this day might be one of the few games I would call a perfect game. And I think every aspect that it does to follow up portal 1, I think is a masterpiece and how to follow up a already incredible game. Well, I'm happy to say that the audience has followed suit. They are full. Yeah. Yeah. That's surprising. 93 to 34 running away with that. Shut up. Yeah. JK Simmons. Next up, NBA street volume 2 versus smash melee now we get here's these next two, these next three. Okay. All of this is going to be a big conversation. Man, if I lived in a different timeline where I had a game crew growing up, I think I probably would ride for smash melee makes, which makes me want to pick smash melee, but like, I just NBA street volume 2, you don't see volume 2, bless. Is it me street volume 2? I'm not worried about it at all.

1:23:48I know where I stand. It's NBA street volume 2. Now this is me. Now I'm going back to Mike loves this game as well, let's better see, yeah, is NBA street volume 2. But like, think about what they are. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I might have to revert, man. Okay. Take a moment. Take a moment. I'm somebody who loves smash is a franchise. Yeah. And if you're asked me like my top 10 top, let's say top 20 video games, okay, smash is on the list with a bullet and I could choose three different smashes. Okay. I could put smash is before on there. Yeah. I could put smash brawl on there. I could put smash ultimate on there by my top 20 video games of all time. People say melee is the best one, Mike. I got to go melee. Okay. I can't disrespect me. I like that you go melee. It's only because I didn't spend that. I'm talking about the best sequel. Yeah. What do they improve upon? Right? Pick up games. Just straight up. Three on three NBA hoops, right? Yeah. NBA challenge. The mode where you get assigned a team and then you battle against other teams. Unlock NBA characters and new arenas. Yeah. Okay.

1:24:48You love that. Be a legend where you create a character. Win on tour with stretch and the crew. I was spider. I'll never forget that. I would still remember his name, spider to this day. Yeah. And points up, getting your rep up. Bless. It's full stuff. It's like they put Mewtwo in it. You know what I mean? They put Mewtwo and smash it. You're right. Put the pole up. I read the chat went overwhelmingly, Melee. Good for them. Yeah. I had to think about for a second, because I just love I love smash so much. And like, I wish there was a thing I could river about my childhood. I would have had Melee in my life because I remember Melee being a legend to me, right? Again, I played so much 64 and then the game cube comes out and I start hearing Melee. I start hearing people talk about Melee and being like me and if I could play one game, I would want that one. But I just never had the chance to as a kid. All that stuff in N64 that you loved was just like improved upon a legend in the game cube. In legend. All of the Mario games. Like you just think of like Mario Kart as well. Yeah.

1:25:49I hold double dash pretty high. It's a special game to me. And it's like one of those puts like, oh, fuck. So cool. I wish I was over there. Yeah. Let's move on to our next matchup. God of War 2 versus Halo 2. Yeah. I mean, this is easy. This is easy. Taylor, it's him. I'm going to say Halo 2. Yeah. Yeah. We might have a good conversation on this next one. But like Halo 2 is a pretty good front runner to be in that final four for sure. Yeah. Obviously, I played through God of War 2. Halo 2. I only played it like friends houses and stuff. But I think. Yeah. I for me, it's I think they'll when you talk about the cultural conversation and like impact. Halo 2. Yeah. It's Halo 2. It's hard to make the God of War argument. This one you have to put to the poll right away. Oh, Diablo 2 versus Street Fighter 2. Yeah. Just make the poll. Just make the poll. Yeah. So you guys know what we're saying? It's Diablo 2 for the action RPG for me. Yeah. And everything that's the fighting game for me. Yeah. I mean, it's unbelievable. It's. It's crazy because yeah, Street Fighter, like you said, blessed, like everything that

1:26:51it mattered to the fighting genre where it was at the time. It's probably very, it's probably bigger than Diablo 2. But Diablo 2 on the PC is going to be pretty special here. Yeah. I mean, Street Fighter 2, I think it's just one of the most important video games of all time. Let's talk about when you trace the history of video games, like Street Fighter 2 is in the conversation with the Mario's and the like the Dooms, right? Like the Pac-Man's, the Pongs, like Street Fighter 2 is there in that conversation, right? I think it ascends beyond what we're talking about as far as like what makes it almost isn't fair. This game to be on this list because it's a fantastic sequel, of course. It does everything to like push the franchise forward. But it also legitimizes and crystallizes a genre in the process. That's a problem because you can say all of that for Diablo. Like that's the craziest. Yeah. I mean, you could quite say that all for Diablo, which is great because you're right. Yeah. They're the same game creating it locked down the genre, right?

1:27:53It added all these new characters, classes, abilities. It added so many acts to it. It had an insane online presence as well, like still to this day. That was been remastered and still played by millions. I mean, it's crazy. You know, I lost the chat. People in chat were going crazy. There was one person that said it in a bigger genre. And I would argue that like I think y'all underrate fighting games and how big of a genre fighting games are. I think fighting games are a huge genre, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I'm talking specifically to like chat in the audience, right? Where it's like, no, we won't, not we because I'm, of course, younger, right? But like, folks went to our Cades. Actually, fuck it. We went to our Cades. I wasn't there for Street Fighter. I was there for Soul Collar. But people went to our Cades and played fighting games together, right? Like when you think about that experience of like, oh, my group of friends, like, we're going to casually like go into the arcade at the mall or whatever, right? Like you were playing fighting games or you were playing Street Fighter and shit like that. Is this close? This close? This close, bless. What is it? 88 to 98 for Diablo II. Damn. There's a PC audience out there. There's some PC gamers out there.

1:28:54Damn. Y'all don't know ball. It's okay. You don't know ball. But it's okay. Well, the other question is, okay. Do we know ball? I'm Gen 2 versus Metal Gear Solid 2. Pokemon Gen 2. Pokemon Gen 2. Pokemon Gen 2. All right. Now we're down to the top eight. Let's go back to Red Dead 2 versus the Last List 2. This might be a poll maker right here. We might just add a lot to automatically make the ball. I'm going, fuck. I'm going to Last List 2. But I don't think it's a, I think this is a tough one. I'm going Red Dead 2. Yeah. When we talk sequel, right? And I look at both of the ones before it, and then I look at sequel, Last List 2 did so much and it proves so much. But man, you think about Red Dead 1 to Red Dead 2, that jump, a lot of time difference, of course. But like, we're going to Red Dead 2. Yeah. I see this point.

1:29:55Either way, honestly, I'm not mad if Red Dead 2 wins. We're on it away with it. Red Dead 2 is running away with it. The 48 right now for Red Dead 2. All right. And we're halfway through the poll right there. So I think that's going to climb. We'll see if there's any crazy change. I think this is where Last List was kind of gets penalized for being a bit controversial. And not just like in like the ways, because I think it's controversial in like ways that are unfair to it, but also in ways that are fair to it. It's interesting. Like I don't love everything about Black Lives, too. I think narratively, it's like it's telling the story about the cycles of violence and it really goes for it in certain ways, but certain ways I'm kind of just like, I didn't do it a bit too much. It's the same way that I say, Alan Bacon's just upon itself. I think it's a game also in Cis upon itself. Oh, fucking hell. See, back to Cis, you're never allowed to say that phrase ever again. And last but not least, I love being able to say your bad. I think Last List you insist upon itself more than any other video game. Wow. And I think Last List you is a bit pretentious. It is what I'll say. And I mean, I've said more than this on a video essay that a lot of people loved last year. It's a fucking mess of a game. Yeah.

1:30:55But I still love it. Like I still really dig Last List, too. And then also I don't really have a horse because I also think Red Dead 2 is like way too long and just very overbearing. And like, oh my God, just fucking end the story, please. Yes. We get it. Please, we get it killing each other. Oh my God, there's an epilogue that's another 10 hours. There's more violence. Oh, we're going to fight some more. Oh, the blood. Oh, we're going to make it extra violent. So you really feel the fact that revenge is bad. We're avenged. I love the game, though. This one put the pole up. I mean, it's portal two versus Mass Effect 2. I'm going portal two. It's portal two for me, but I do want it. That surprises me. I thought you were going to go Mass Effect. Oh, I love portal two. I love everything that portal two did with portal one. Mass Effect 2 to Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2. Better sequel. Man, that's a tough one. You understand that the audience is going to hate us for going portal two over Mass Effect 2. I want to see the audience vote portal two. I don't know. I'm curious to see the whole. I promise you they're going to vote portal two. Because I think Mass Effect 2 is like for most, not most people,

1:31:57but like I think if we were to put it all to a vote, I think Mass Effect 2 would get the most votes as far as what wins this entire bracket. Okay. What do I mean? This might be one of the closer ones. But are you guys both locking in portal? Yeah. Well, I am. I assume Mike is. I'm like, I'm so mixed. This is probably the hardest one for me. Because both are so good. Both are the definitive sequels. Yeah. I look at the list. I'm like, those are the two that I circle and I go, okay, we're going to talk a lot about these two. For me, it's what Barrett says where I think portal two is just a perfect video game. I think Mass Effect 2 is a is such a jump from Mass Effect 1 and obviously Mass Effect 2 resonates with people so strongly. I think Mass Effect 2 is a prime example of what RPGs can do when you think about characters, story, the lore, decision making, right? Like that is the prototypical RPG. And it's like the most beautiful example of it where people ride from Mass Effect 2. Andy has his N7 sticker on his car, right? Like, that's, but here's what I'll say is that people

1:33:00have aperture laboratories, merch as well. They do. Like, you want to talk about a game that crosses over into just pop culture and like, you know, has a thing there that people just identify with as far as story, tone, writing. It sounds like I was talking about Mass Effect 2 at the same time, but I am talking about portal two. Like portal two has such funny writing. People will quote the lemons bit of that. They love cave Johnson. They love glatos. Wheatley, like, ah, such is just such an entertaining and well made video game. What does audience say? The audience did vote 130 to 87 on Mass Effect 2. Yeah. But Mike's photo is portal two. Our vote is portal two. We vote portal two. But audience, you were right, bless they were going to vote Mass Effect 2. Yeah, I think Mass Effect 2 would be the winner of this bracket. If we put everything up to audience vote, I think Mass Effect 2 wins this bracket. Okay. Okay. But we have to have some balls, Mike, me and you. I mean, I got some balls on this one. I have to go up against you. Smash melee versus Halo two. Halo two. I'm gonna go Halo two. I love you.

1:34:01Yeah. Yeah. I can't argue against it. It's Halo two. But screen co-op. Yeah. Online co-op, you and your friend could jump into all the online matches together. You didn't even need an Xbox live account. You were just blessing out of your junior one, right? And we all could play and all the same matches, nothing changed and didn't hold us back from anything. That you don't do that now. We can't do that in 2026, which is crazy to say. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy that we went so far away from something that was just so welcoming and like able to just accommodate anything that you had going on in your living room. You got four friends, all four of you have played. You got two friends, two of you have played. You're all by yourself, you're playing. You can't do that with like 80% of the games that we currently play in 2026. Yeah. This is the impact is so strong for Halo 2, you know, like it's for me, it's another street fighter conversation. Speaking of Diablo 2. Oh, wait, I forgot street fighter got knocked out, but Diablo 2 versus Pokemon Gen 2. I was ready to read speed fighter. Oh my God.

1:35:01I mean, put me down for Pokemon Gen 2. No, it's Diablo 2 for me. You have to put this to put it to the pole. What did Pokemon Gen 2 really add? They already had the battle. Celebrity. Okay. Where are you going? Where are you going? Pokemon, Newt, new Pokemon, new region. Yeah. Color. But see the bringing it back, you know, we talk about Shadow Moses and going back to Shadow Moses. Going back to canto. Are you fucking kidding me? But like arguably people, Pokemon Gold is probably the best generation out imagine. If you're to like ask Pokemon fans, what is the best Pokemon games? Actually, you might say heart gold, so it's over, but that would still be gold. Yeah, of course. So I think there's something about this specific generation and how uniquely it served what it did as a sequel to the originals, right? Like Pokemon doesn't hit like that, like the way Pokemon Gold and Silver did. When you talk about going back to canto, when you talk about looping it back around to this thing. But what is the ultimate sequel?

1:36:03What bettered the franchise? Pokemon was already great. Yeah, Pokemon was good. Yeah, it didn't make a massive jump. I even say Diablo 2 made a massive leap and forward jump from Diablo 1. But the audience says, no, Snowbike Mike. Really? It's Pokemon Gold and Silver. No way. 128 to 84. So there's still a large group that is like, hey, we see Diablo 2 and we understand it. I think no joke. I thought the audience would have said Diablo. I thought they might have been with me on this one just because I'm going off of the sequel here, right? And it's like, I think there's just so much that goes into the systems and what they built with Diablo 2 off of Diablo 1, right? When I think of Pokemon and that jump, I don't see a big leap like that one. Yeah, but I feel like that's then you're we're penalizing Pokemon for starting off great. You know what I mean? Like I feel like to have that kind of first one has to kind of miss a great, but not perfect. You know, there's still a lot of things that felt like missteps, especially like how old that game feels compared to even going up to Gen 2 and all of the balancing.

1:37:05The chance also talking about shinies and all this stuff. Yeah. And just having like a really fun new generation of Pokemon, I wouldn't count that out as a bullet point there. I mean, these are all tough once, right? We voted for these to keep moving forward because they're so good. And now we get down to the final four. On the left side, we have Red Dead Redemption 2 from the modern category facing off against portal 2 from the HD category. And then on the right side, we have Halo 2 from the memory card category facing off against Pokemon Gen 2 from the classics. Red Dead 2 versus portal 2, Mike portal 2. Oh, it's easy, it's easy. Portal 2, I wrote for Red Dead this whole entire time. And it was deserved. It's a fantastic sequel. It's an awesome game. No matter how you feel about it, it is a great sequel. But portal 2 is the best sequel out of the two of them. So then let's talk about Halo 2 versus Pokemon Gen 2. Halo 2. We put it up. Think about it, bless. Yeah, I think I got to say Halo 2.

1:38:06Halo 2. Unfortunately, I have to say Halo 2. Yeah, I just know, I just, I know what Halo 2 brought to the culture. Yeah. Yeah, I just can't argue against it. However, the finals portal 2 versus Halo 2. And I will argue against it. Portal 2 was my pick. I go with Halo 2, but we'll have a fun conversation. Yes. And we will let the chat decide just like we let you decide the whole entire poll you picked all of these games with a couple added in for me and bless. But we wanted to see what was the best sequel was the best sequel for two minutes here for our 2026 March madness bracket in the video game world. What was the best sequel portal 36 games, yeah, 32 games. We'll down the two. Yes, portal 2 versus Hades 2. Tell me your portal to portal 2 versus Halo 2. You can't this guy does you know his own game? Come on guys. Come on. That's my argument right there. Now portal 2, I mean, for the criteria that we set forth with what makes a good sequel?

1:39:06What makes the best sequel? I think everything you talk about Diablo, I totally understand. I know what kind of way against it when I talk about like, well, are we penalizing because the first game wasn't amazing or whatever portal one had an amazing video game. Everything that made portal one special, it was this unique mechanic that people immediately got loved writing. That was that was awesome and fun and quick. A weird kind of vibe of like what's going on in this world? The cake is alive. The mean ability of it and glad I was being such a great villain. You take that formula, you transition it into portal 2 and somehow they made every single one of those things better. They made the puzzle solve him better, right? They kept the core mechanic. They didn't really change the way portals were. I was gonna say, I mean, that's a conversation, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they were like, we have something here. Let's continue to expand upon it and create the things or make the things around it even better. And so you have the traditional portal game in that first half, but then you add in things like the different color good. It'll make you go fast or make you hop high and do all these different things. We add an additional setting so you can go even deeper into aperture laboratories, learn the history of what's going on here. Introduce Cave Johnson as the voice of God that's speaking to you,

1:40:10right? Have Wheatley as an additional thing and additional villain that is really fun and void. I forget the voice of him, but the voice is really funny. Portal 2 just found every single way to make a fan favorite game even heightened in all of its different elements. To the point where again, I talk about aperture laboratories and how that is a wearable brand now. Talking about Halo 2. Blessing, Halo 2 is a better sequel than Portal 2. It improves upon so much. And I'll start off with, of course, the story where Mr. Master Chief had to hand the covenant their bomb back. That was a special moment on the flip side, bless. You think of Halo, you think of the iconic Halo pistol, but you know what you think about more? The battle rifle, the BR, the ultimate BR, and that's where it began right there. The idea of online matchmaking and multiplayer at its core, everything that it added with the dual SMGs, all of the maps have totally been improved

1:41:10and are so much better than the first ones. Like this is the ultimate sequel. Halo 2 from multiplayer to single player is better than the first one. It just has too much going on for it. The time 2004, whatever 2003 to 2005 with the online infrastructure now being built everybody direct connecting with ethernet's then playing online, building out the Xbox Live infrastructure and then being on that voice chat, you talking with others, ranked gameplay and ranked modes where you'd be leveling up and going down. It's the best. I can't argue anything against what Mike brings up. The only thing I can think of. Energy sword. The end of Halo 2 was like a lot left to be desired, right? You had to wait until it was a frustrating kind of cliffhanger. Let me tell you about the ending of Portal 2. Spoilers, you go to the motherfuckin moon. Oh man, space. I will never forget that moment. Yeah, chat brings up esports. The Ogre 2 twins, right?

1:42:11Our guy out there, washes in there. I mean, well, she, I mean, just I think either of you have to fill a bus for anymore. Yeah, the chat decided. Oh god, I'm scared. Chat, tell me what they say. It was Halo 2. All right. I expected this. Of course, I want to shake your hand. Oh, yeah, yeah. Come on, we did it. I mean, this was fun. This was fun. And it was very difficult because when we made the fun dumb idea, I knew there was some good ones. I didn't know there was 32 good ones. And there's more that we could have lived right on a ring. When I started thinking through sequels, I was like, damn. Like, there are so many great sequels. And that's honestly one of the reasons why like, I wanted to keep it to sequels that are the second in the series. Like, I didn't want to bring in the tears. I didn't want to bring in the God of War Act. Because I think there is something special about the conversations we had. There's only one game in this series. How do you level up on that one game? How did he push forward? And only the only the course of one video game. And I think this is really special. When you look at, when you look at the journey that we took. Oh, across the track. I think this is a great pose that you brought up. Street Fighter II and appreciating that

1:43:13was a really fun conversation, right? Yeah. I bring up Diablo II and Age of Empires II. Yeah. That was fun to look back on. Yeah. Like, we're missing out on the Resident Evil 2 talk from maybe like a Tim or Brittany. But like, that was a fun one to look back on and remember. We didn't really talk about Dead Space II because Portal II ran away from that. But like, that series, that franchise, number two there. Titanfall II was great to look back on. That game just so quickly forgotten. That was unfortunate. I want to shout out some of the picks that were like the outside looking ins that didn't make it the final thing. But it had to be a more discussion between Mike. Me and Mike, Baldur's Gate II was a contender there. Bayonetta II was a contender. But I don't think either of us played Bayonetta II that much. But I know that one's for sure a contender for people. Dishonored to, didn't make it. We had that on our list. Yeah, we were talking about it. Divinity. Oh, wait, that was like... Yeah, that was almost there. It didn't fully make it. Divinity original Sin II was another one. Fable II as well. Gears of War II, NAC II was on there as well. We left out a lot.

1:44:14There was a lot of games. Hey, from all you, the thousand year door I had on the show list. I had Rocket League. You had to talk me down for Rocket League. I did talk me down for Rocket League. Yeah, I almost had Rocket League on there because of the Super Battle cars, whatever the thing was called. But like, I mean, whether your Greg was like, well, isn't a sequel really or is it just a follow-up kind of thing? I had Sonic the Hedgehog too on there as well, but I didn't, I didn't force it on there. I was thinking about it, but I was like, I'm not going to do that. It's been fun. Close out with a couple of Super Chats here. Chris Dolphrey writes it and says, wait, is this a list of Greg's least favorite games? That's fucked up. You shouldn't do that. That's a man with great taste. Loyal Freak says, last was two puts belt to RDR2's ass. Red Dead Redemption 2 is overrated in the game. I feel like Red Dead Redemption 2 and last was two get like a lot of hate from two very different crowds of people. And you know, it's okay. We all have our different opinions. It's okay to have opinions on video games. That's what we do for a job. What if I just like both? Then like, you know, you just have the best video game taste of all time.

1:45:17Well, you said two very different people. I'm literally one person blessing. Am I two different people? And then we have one from Matt Caledana who says Diablo 2 is one of the deepest most complicated and replayable sequels. What other game had an update 20 years later? Crazy. It's a special one. I mean, there was nothing but special games on that list. Yeah, Mike. And I'll be fine to see the comments. Comments are going to go crazy on this one. I don't know if I can read them. I'm going to read them and I'm excited to see. I mean, we already see it live in the chat right now. What people love and how mad they are. Oh, they're so mad, but tell me the funniest ones. Read them and tell me the fun. Okay, well, well, well. This brings us to the end of this episode of kind of funny games cast. Mike, thank you so much for joining me on this episode. Of course, thank you, bless another fun one. GDC week, full and in effect. Yep, which Wednesday, we got some great content throughout the rest of the week. Tomorrow, you host a big games cast with special guests. Yeah, I'll be only packed desk. If I remember correctly, will be me, Imran, Paris and Stella. Yeah, and I don't know what we're talking about game of the year so far, I think.

1:46:19Okay, okay, nice. I that's the latest idea I've had. I like that. Because I'm scared. Greg was like, oh, let's do a hot takes episode. Yeah, I'll be honest. I was kind of scared of the idea of letting them go crazy with hot takes. Really? Honestly, not even them. I just feel like we've been doing a lot of hot takes. You've been doing a lot of hot takes, but like the hot takes work. I like the hot takes after the presentations. I think they work well, right? Yeah. Hey, you get involved with the conversation. Tell us what you'd like, but it would be interesting to hear three other people that we don't get to spend a lot of time with here. Their thoughts as well. It would be fun. I mean, Chad, let me know, like, Holler, I mean, if you want to hear them do the hot takes, we can do hot takes. Yeah. Cause I feel like we do give, we do give very thoughtful hot takes. We don't go all the way hot, like even on our hot take episode, I think we're all very much like, no, these are just my thought out opinions. Exactly. I had to avoid it because I was like, I don't have any hot takes, plus. Me and you. They call me lukewarm, Mike. Me and you know hot takes. Never had any hot takes. Hope you guys enjoyed the episode. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you. Monster Energy.

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