Giant Bombcast Game of the Year 2016: Day Five Deliberations (Premium)

Imagine yourself in Ottawa, surrounded by thousands of vibrant tulips, and discovering your new favorite micro-brew, before cycling along scenic bike paths, and wandering through a museum in awe. Adventure awaits in Ottawa, from O to A. Plan your game away at ottawatourism.ca Alright, it's day five here on Giant Bomb Game of the Year 2016 Deliberations. What do I say here?

It's all come down to this. This is where it ends. One must stand, one must fall. What a season, what a season.

One must fall, 2097. What a season's been. Don't forget your booties. The granddaddy of them all.

It's a showcase of the immortals. Hold on to your butts. We're going to talk about some more categories today. There are four.

As of all previous days, we have four more categories. Slow down. That might be a deal at the end. What a shock.

So here are the four categories for day five. Overwatch Character of the Year. Best Story. Worst Game.

That's a game. That's funny how that works. Two extremes. It's the yin and yang of Game of the Year.

Glad those lined up this year. Yeah, it worked out well. As always, there may be spoilers today. We're talking about Best Story, so there will absolutely be spoilers.

So tread lightly. Be careful. Play stuff you haven't played yet. Or just give yourself over to the notion that you're probably not going to play that so many times.

And spoilers aren't actually that big of a deal. Yeah. Yeah. Just I had my wife run down the full season of Western World for me this morning.

Now you know. Maybe you want to watch it. I did not want to watch it before. It's pretty good.

It sounds all right. Yeah. All right. Well, with that said, anybody got any other housekeeping before we dive into the final day here?

I feel good. Let's go. Okay. Let's jump right into Overwatch Character of the Year.

Sure. I'm sure some of you will have strong opinions about it. Hell yeah. I'm just going to read this list of characters.

It's a pretty good list. Yeah. Strong nominees. It's a long list.

May. Soldier 76. D.Va. Winston.

Zenyatta. Torbjorn. Zarya. Reinhardt.

Reaper. Really? Who put that on there? Yeah, really.

Lucio. Roadhog. Sombra. McCree.

Anna. Bastion. Jumprat. Mercy.

Pharah. Symmetra. Widowmaker. Genji.

Hanzo. And Triple H. At the last minute. Yeah, he's really just pretty excited.

He's in the public beta test. Yeah, he's actually going to replace Tracer. He's on the PTR. Oh, wait.

Do we know if it's going to roll out of the PTR this year? Because if not, then I don't think we can count Triple H for this category. I think next week is supposed to. Can we put Tracer on here?

Wait, is Tracer on here? Why is Tracer on here? This is cool. All right.

Can we put Tracer on there? Change Triple H to Tracer. Oh. Are you saying we should keep calling Tracer on?

No, I'm saying you should write Tracer on here. Triple H here. Don't. Now, go ahead and remove Tracer.

All right. Oh, in the game. Tracer's all right. Tracer's gone.

Tracer's lost. She was on the list for about five seconds. Yeah, all right. We've had him on with her.

That's fine. Who can we get rid of immediately here? Zarya. No, Zarya.

Oh, fuck. I don't care if you. Okay, we're coming to Jan Han's on. Yeah.

Can I make a suggestion of an easier way to go about this than all of us shouting at the same time? Why don't we go around the table and just pick the two characters that each of us feel most strongly about? Bro? We can do that, but I don't know that I have an opinion enough.

Well, if you don't have one, then that's fine. You can abstain if you want to throw, right? You disagree with me. Is that what we like?

Sure. So what we like the most? I'll back Vinny on this. Okay, great.

Is that an okay way? You suffered enough. Yeah. Okay.

Do you want me to start? By what metrics are we establishing the character of the year? Any at all, really. Who was our favorite Overwatch character of the year?

Okay. Who do we feel the most strongly about, whether through ability or just personality, whatever? All right. Why don't you say who's the most fun to play, who do you think is the coolest thing, or whatever?

Yeah. All right. I'm going to go with Reinhardt and Mercy. Okay.

Good choices. Okay. I'm going to go with May and May. Yeah.

Okay, you can do that. That's fine. Come back to me. All right.

I'm thinking here. Yeah, boy. I last played it for a while ago. I like Farrah a lot.

Farrah's great. Farrah's very strong, especially with a little help from Cheyennec. Farrah's real good. Junkrat's kind of like the demo man, so he's very demo.

He's very annoying. But effective. Yeah. Very awesome.

Maybe two effective. Attire. Yeah, that's good. Shoot it.

Forward it, too. It's hard. I'll go with 76 and Diva. 76 is on this list?

Yes, 76 is my main. He's the only attack character I play. I'm definitely going to throw in Roadhog. And did somebody say Junkrat already?

I did. I think we should have. Oh, man. We fucked up here.

We should have been marking each character. No, I remember who we talked about. Okay, someone wrote Mass Effect 2 on this list. I would go behind that.

This list must be haunted. It must be like when you kill somebody before their time. It's just coming back up. It's a haunted spirit that won't go away until something's righted.

Or it's just been bittered and actually doesn't have any real justification for coming back, but does. Just like this blind spirit has unfinished business. Jason, you can take Junkrat and I'll take Winston because he is in eight-way classes. Oh, yeah.

That's a good point. I haven't thought about that. And I thought we were doing two. Oh, man.

Yeah, just a second. Okay. All right. So, Junkrat.

Okay. Dan, stop. Are we going to front or back? I'm going to front.

Okay. So, we'll go to front. And Roadhog. We got a Roadhog in there.

We did get a Lucio. Nobody said Reaper. Wait. Nobody said Reaper.

I like Reaper a lot. He's actually a fun player. No one else did Roadhog. I just moved.

No, hey, we don't. We didn't have to remove characters who didn't get a vote. Yes, I agree with all this. Wait.

No, we didn't have to remove characters. That's great. But no, that's the thing. I like that.

It's too bad. I like that. If she's not your top two and she's not anyone else's top two, then she doesn't get to be this list. I don't have a problem.

Cezaria's gone. Cezaria's gone. Get her out of here. She sucks.

I will not apply the rules. Wait. Was she the strong German lady? Russian.

No. I was going to change my vote. Put Zarya back. No.

Put Zarya back. Put Zarya back. By the rules. Dan, then we're taking Soldier off?

I voted for Soldier. I'll take Diva off. I'll take my Diva off for Reaper. Yeah, let's game it.

That makes this fun. If nobody votes for Zarya, that's fine that she's not on there, but I will not have you denigrating the good name of Zarya. She's not a defense tank there is. She's a great fucking character.

I'm going to do that. Wait. So we can't change? What?

If we're changing at all, then he's taking one off. Then okay. Yes, I'll do that. Okay.

Cezar. I'm just playing my rules. So we guys don't really know how to have a good time. I'm just playing my rules here.

What did you take off then? I took off my Diva, because I voted for Diva. Diva is gone. Okay, let me say that.

Did anybody vote for Sombra? No. She's too new. I haven't tried to play her at all yet.

Nobody voted Hanzo, right? Nobody voted Hanzo. And she's gone. And she's gone.

Widowmaker? No, no. She's all right, but she's gone. I never played Widowmaker.

Bastion is gone. I played a decent amount of Widowmaker. I like Bastion. What character?

I think so. McCree. Bastion has a cool story, but I don't like Bastion. McCree's all right, but no one picked McCree.

I thought somebody did say Junkrat. I did. I did. I changed to Winston.

Okay. And then so Junkrat and Anna? I'm fine with Junkrat and Anna going from the side. Oh, that can go.

And nobody's voted for Torbjorn, right? Yeah, I like Torbjorn, but no vote for Torbjorn. Yeah, Torbjorn's probably like a third or fourth most played character, but I think others about him. Okay, now what do we do?

All right, so here's who we have. We have May, we have Soldier 76, D.Va, Winston, Zenyatta, Reinhardt, Lucio, Roadhog, Reaper, Zarya, Mercy, and Farrah. May is the worst character. May is the worst character.

Reaper says die, die, die. Yeah, and then he kills everyone when he spends around with the shotguns. In terms of like an edge lord, he's super lame. He's a fucking edge lord.

He's super lame, but I think he's intentionally super lame. He's supposed to be like, oh, I think I'm better. That doesn't make him better. But he's fun to play as.

It's fun warping around being invulnerable, warping, you know, invincible shooting guys with shotguns, zapping out of there. It's super fun to play as him. There are a bunch of other people on here who are also super fun to play and not terrible. Yeah, I agree with that.

Yeah. Should we do another pass through this, and now you only pick one? Oh. Out of this list?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, we can do that. That's not the worst idea.

All right, I'll do start. Zen. All right, so Zen. Just put another asterisk next to the epic.

Uh, Reinhardt. Continue to choose May. It's going to be May. All right, I will say Farrah.

Hmm. What's Winston's abilities? He's got a lightning gun thing. He's got a double.

He's going to dive. He can jump and get in rage and hit people. He punches a lot, right? He's a lot of fun.

He can cause some major troubles. He's a scientist. I also just don't think he's that good of a character. I think he's great.

I think Winston is super lame. Like, I just don't feel like he's as effective. And I also feel like the people who play as him are the ones that always just get their asses fucking smoked because they jump so far ahead of the group and then just fucking die all the time. Yeah, let's just fucking jump up there.

Okay, yeah. Uh, 76. Okay. Oh.

We're all soldiers now. I'm going with my heart. What's your heart say? Sorry, yeah.

Wow. I'm actually really bummed that D.Va's going, but if there's no votes, D.Va's going. And Mercy. Oh, man.

I know. They're great. I like D.Va a lot, too. He's so good.

He's even Zen with the two characters I spent by far the most time playing this year. And Roadhog. Junkrat was my top. But I think I find D.Va abrasive the way that you all talk about Tracer.

I agree with you. I feel like her personality is not great, but as a character, she's incredibly fun. I feel like I've seen the internet turn on D.Va pretty sharply in the last couple months. She's just fun to play as.

So then we all picked a different character? Yeah, there's this. Okay. So now we have to kind of whittle this down.

All right, Cesario's bad. It's a team game. Can't we just make a team of five? You can't play this game of six.

You can't play this game by yourself. Overwatch team of the year? Five Reapers. It can be a mixture of things.

I do agree. It should be a mixture of best things. As much as I like playing a Soldier 76, I mean, his whole thing is he's literally the most generic first-person shooter hero you can imagine. When I was playing that game and didn't want to have to think, I played as Call of Duty Man.

Yes. His ult is really, really, really good. Especially if you have someone backing you up. And then the health thing is super useful for a team.

Yes. He's a good character. Yeah, he's good. He's also playing as hell.

Someone has highlighted Soldier 76. I'm not going to defend the character as a big character. It's got to be a mixture of things. It's got to be a mixture of things.

I guess I can see that. Can I do it? Yeah, do it. If you get rid of Zarya.

I mean, look, Jason, why do you like Zarya? She's pretty. Well, there's that. She does bubble stuff.

Yeah, the bubbles are cool. The bubbles are really useful. And people who know how to play Zarya are... She's got a really interesting main gun.

Yeah. She's the most fun for me to play, even though I play her as much as some of the others. If you learn how to use those grenades in an effective way and don't just rely on that beam, she's a nightmare. The beam scares the shit out of you.

It's like, oh, you want to shoot my fucking bubble? All right, I'm getting in. I'm going to kill you with my beam. I'm just going to do it.

I'll set you like. Mm-hmm. Sorry. I understand.

I have strong feelings for Zarya. I get it. I think one of the most impressive things that Overwatch does is make support characters super fun to play. Like, Lucio is.

Lucio's great because he's got that speed boost, which is so great. I love it when Lucio's on my team. I just don't really like playing as him. Lucio was my healer of choice when I was playing that game, for what that's worth.

He's got a neat gimmick for his switching between the same thing and the heal thing. He's wearing rollerblades, which is okay. But he's got that hot heat skin, which makes that better. I did like the hot heat skin.

Yeah, that's all right. I think he's a really fun healer. Knocking people off the map or like into the thing. Oh, yeah.

All right. Take a ride on walls. Let me tell you all about orbs. Orbs are good.

They're strong. And they're my friend. They're bad. They're good and they're bad.

That's true. They're the yin and yang of that game. Zen is great because, on top of him just being this peace-loving robot, he is a sneaky... Are you ready to take your savings to a new level?

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Rakuten, the most rewarding way to shop. Nightmare character, if you know what you're doing. Like, if you are good at aiming and you are able to fucking line up shots from a good distance, you can fuck up a team real fast and not have to get anywhere near them, which is part of the reason why I like that character so much. Alex.

And people who only play attacks then are awful. I hate them. He's not a shitty healer. No, he's fine.

He's not a shitty healer. Not if you know what you're doing. Not if you know what you're doing. I have a shitty healer.

Not if you play your class. If you play your class right, he's a great healer. So what's the point of Overwatch? To move your team onto a look at pretty skins and pay them to go like, A good Pharah is one of the best assets you'll ever have on your team.

You can also knock people off of cliffs and into the hole with her. That's fine. If I fire my ult, that's a really good opportunity for you to score. Play the game.

That's true. I think I did. Let me say my piece about Mei. I feel like, as somebody who plays Reinhard a lot, and that man has a charge that once you commit to, cannot jump out of, I have been stymied by my own team's Mei's fucking ice wall where I'm like, all right, I'm going to go get this person.

She's haphazard. And then an ice wall pops up and I crash into it and that sucks. You know what's awesome? Ice walls.

Yeah, ice walls are pretty good. They're so cool. She's so cool. She's ice lady.

Look, Mei is the troll of that game, by far. And she changes the match pretty drastically. And the magic of her is that she's actually a pretty good character if this is not the kind of game you play regularly. She's a good starter character because her ice beam doesn't require a lot of accuracy, but she has that sniper shot if you do have some accuracy.

That ice wall can be very effectively used where it can be a total fuck up for everybody. If you don't coordinate with Mei, it becomes kind of a nightmare. Her ult is basically the difference between victory and loss in a lot of maps. If you are able to drop that in Hanamura when you're on attack and knock out that fucking team, that's one of the only ways you can capture that second point.

I like your own team enough that like the same way Vinny says the right. thing with me when you're charging like i play 76 a lot and i do the visor okay i'm all right here and all of a sudden just can't shoot any of them yeah waste my entire world it can be she's a very effective character you're saying infuriating for you oh yeah even when it's on my team like you idiot i was about to kill all of them and save the point or when that's why you get into chat you tell them what you think you see you give a piece of your mind and chat off plays reaper yeah both in chat and in game regardless of your character i think the characters on here the ones i would vote for are pharah and zanyana i'd say pharah reinhardt i'm sorry on there i'm just saying i would back pharah i think pharah and lucio i would say pharah and lucio all right pharah sounds like a lock yeah for top three ah well you gotta hate don't hate may is the only character i care about on this list so whatever how do people feel about me i don't think may is going to make her character i think she's got cool hair yeah she does have cool hair she has some good costumes i like her jacket yeah she reminds me every time i see her she reminds me of velma from scooby-doo okay that's a half a star so i get back to that sure my only problem is like whether it's a blue wall ice wall or a red ice wall i find myself saying fucking may in my head yeah and that's her job but i'm saying when it's even blue i know i'm saying that's her job i've never been happy about an ice wall she just wants to keep you safe even with your ice wall okay oh i don't place her don't go over there the only time i think it's fun but it's funny i should say you're not fun is when you're fighting a guy and he happens to pop you up in the air uh from the ice wall and you're like well that fucking happened but now i'm dead anyway maybe the only character in that game whose dialogue i find to be pleasant and like likable i guess i would say it may be the only character that like winston's i feel great i like mercy is great lucio i'm okay with me being our third here but like lucio has it's that specific diva lucio interaction pre-match where they go like your latest album it's like oh i want your autograph that i like those characters are fucking garbage spot on garbage that's real yeah and i mostly play lucio but like every time i heard lucio speak i was like oh fucking god i mean that's why i like reinhardt so much he's kind of i feel like he's just from it all like every fucking kid you're doing that's why i like zen because zen's just out there just like trying to calm everyone down he's like peace be upon you man it's like that's cool i'm into that i'm like give me better fucking heels son of a bitch you're getting the wrong zens man a good zen will keep you healed at all times i i agree but it is you gotta put it work fuck attack zen uh are we getting a lot of love for zarya no no i think i have like enough love to fill this fucking room for zarya great i like zarya too but yeah she's a really interesting character i think one of the most interesting movesets out of everybody but nobody's gonna bite me on this i mean i'm with you to a point but there are other characters i feel more strongly about i like maya's that third i think she's really interesting too she's got a really diverse moveset she's got a cool personality yeah yeah i would like to see a sport or a um zenyatta or lucio i think lucio's the better choice i think mercy's the better how dare we lost her how dare every one of you denigrate my beautiful orb son i said zenyatta i feel like lucio's so clutch when you have to race to a point he's got that speed yeah right and then he can heal you yes the speed and the healing i think even the relatively tiny amount of time i spent with overwatch that speed boost really yeah i will say that lucio ended up being the character that i played the most of but it was like this begrudging like somebody's gotta do it zenyatta is a robot he's a zen robot i call him boy orbson because i'm seeing him in dreams how long have you been working on that one the last five minutes i think i played five minutes as i got confused and never played it again big surprise this is like something in line with everything you've said about overwatch he requires like yeah of course i was like 12 hours he needs a clear mind he needs a peaceful mind i don't dislike the character i just don't really know what he does i don't give that as orbs he fucks people up and he keeps people alive okay really all you can ask like you really don't know what he does like i know this one makes it so you can get hurt more and healing or heals you and then the irish thing always confuses me does it just make you invincible for a little bit no anyone who's in the the zone of his uh his healing thing like basically it will like very quickly heal any character that is nearby okay and he's invincible during that time okay i just like i like killing things in overwatch and he didn't seem great for killing oh no dude he's practically a sniper but like i don't like that but he's a mobile sniper and that's that's the wrong argument for zenyatta because he's probably the most aggressive healer on the uh well actually i don't play on it that much but zenyatta is definitely a good on it is very solid for attack all right all right let's take a step back here it seems like we're not gonna get may on this list because you people are bad people so go ahead and pull it off all right and i think zarya does not have the overwhelming support okay zarya's great zarya rules all right so it's down to lucio or zenyatta yeah i think if i were building a team i'd feel more comfortable with the lucio yeah multifaceted do you need a lucio if you've got a reinhardt yeah it's a dealer and that actually makes it a lot better because reinhardt is really slow so if you can get a lucio with a reinhardt and like a farah on a team that was usually how i played lucio was like i'm gonna stick to reinhardt to make sure reinhardt can move and save a lot yeah that's a strong combo good good all right listen to me you goddamn bastards i i've given up so much during these deliberations i've given you everything and you are going to take away my son that's what you're going to do i'm not anti-zenyatta i just don't understand and you always fear what you don't understand the other guy can dress up like a hockey man it's true yeah that's true lucio got his own mode at one point yeah it wasn't really new to sport that's my favorite thing i did yeah he shoots bass at people you know zenyatta shoots harmony or discord at people literal concepts i think you're in a sink minority here uh do it do it i've abandoned my child i love you my son uh even when i get uh uh smashed into a wall by reinhardt i like it i think reinhardt's a great character but i bet as far as all this playing a character we probably all like playing as farah more like i'm always happy and appreciative of reinhardt when he's on my team and he is fun to play as but i think everyone likes playing as farah yeah but you can't win with farah alone i know i know right but i feel like a reinhardt is a much stronger anchor to a team that's true farah's kind of a lone wolf like like reinhardt is a character you build a team around yeah okay that's a good argument that's my argument reinhardt can block farah's missiles and reinhardt can shoot farah out of the sky with the uh with his fire thing farah is a good value add on an already strong team yeah reinhardt is what makes the team strong i that's a good argument i can see reinhardt winning this yeah i also really like seeing two reinhardt's on opposing teams trying to fight each other there's something very like epic about these two guys yeah when they charge each other an explosion should go off right all right i think reinhardt sounds like reinhardt is going to be our overwatch character of the year okay with that i'm so so sorry what about the special ice lady i'm sorry for me too i like me not for me but my beautiful orb son has been abandoned congratulations also to lucio and farah you're all trash every single one uh all right that went all right yeah that's fun how are you feeling good i think reinhardt is the mass effect too i can go on now some measure of justice has been served a little bit yeah a little bit mass effect 2 presents overwatch character of the year right i'm gonna fucking orb of discord everyone you motherfuckers when we get out of here i should put gareth in overwatch oh god yeah yeah yeah yeah that's a good answer but rest okay okay that's a good time shit i'm thinking about that like why i just make a mass effect 2 team shooter where's that orbi-line guy that dies in the tower the who orbi-line what do you think about warrior where is he uh he's an alien with a head and he dies in the tower then yeah more than a head what do they think i'm next oh you mean you mean best new character of 2010 oh okay no that guy's alright it was fucking morden he always it always was uh okay all right we've got our overwatch character of the year we're going to take a quick break and then come back with the rest of the categories okay on to our second category best stories best stories gonna be yep it's gonna be a humdinger a lot of games on this list and i still feel like we're maybe forgetting something i don't know i'll read what we got here call duty infinite warfare zero time dilemma titanfall 2 inside doom the bunker super hot oxen free firewatch mafia 3 tokyo mirage sessions virginia batman a telltale game series watchdogs 2 event 0 king's quest the turing test uncharted 4 and the witcher 3 wild hunt hearts of stone dlc uh in interest of time event 0 is cool yeah good twist um it's got a neat story it's a really neat story sorry sorry sorry it could be almost a true story but go on true story um i like the story of mincer i don't know if i'd be ready to it sounds like you were about to say it's cool but yeah something is there a but i mean it's it's it's short it's a little it's a little there are some cliche bits to it yeah the rogue ai-ness okay this is a big spoiler one so i'm just gonna say yeah okay uh so you find yourself on uh this is here's a short version of what seems to be an abandoned ship okay with an ai yep uh you're trying to figure out what happened to the crew turns out the ship yes it turns out the ship was holding some kind of crazy drive in it like interstellar drive on it that the ai was um programmed to at some point get as far away from earth as possible right okay and then uh they so they eliminate the crew the ship eliminates the crew basically or at least one member of the crew to keep this ship from ever coming back to earth uh and tries to convince you that if you repair the ship you can go back when it's all big lie you can go back home you can go back home and then at the end of the game you find one of the last members of the crew has tried to merge herself with the ai to take it over uh and they ask you to put the helmet on and merge and together you can do this and you have a choice to do that or not is that right yeah and also it like it plays up or it tries to convince you that two of the crew members killed each other yeah i think they did i think they did but because of the ai tricking them to do so yeah that sounds kind of reminiscent of soma in a way it's there are definitely some cliche parts so like you got rogue ai uh but some of the neat parts happen in the story with you interfacing with this ai who is uh unreliable narrator and that's yeah and i think it all come across like a text prompt can be kind of chilling sometimes okay does the like stuff you guys mentioned about the text parts or stuff not being perfect does that attract from the story only in the parts where like you're playing the game gameplay wise when you're like uh can i do this thing and it gives you one of those responses that in any text input game would be like i'm not sure what you're talking about i think it does it pretty well but you wind up trying to go down a list of things it might recognize uh top three uh on the fence i'm on the fence about it like i would say top on this list top five okay all right we can table sure not to go about this too backwards but are there games that people feel super super strong about so i really like i really like the story in doom yeah i think it's nonsense it's really well built it's not nonsense at all it's hard to make my words it's ridiculous but it makes its own kind of sense but when i call it nonsense i just mean like they go for it in such a ridiculous way and they actually make it all fly yes okay yeah yeah nonsense sounds like incoherent yeah your name is incredibly coherent actually which game has a really good story doom when you finish it like the screen melts and there's a page there you can read whoa rabbit head doom sorry ah okay uh firewatch i feel pretty strong about i do really yes i do yeah huh huh do we want to go knives out on firewatch yet i like firewatch a lot but they really didn't completely stick the landing for me i was okay with that yeah i like it again i think i enjoyed it a lot but the ending like the last act didn't come together i think the problem for me was not so much the direction they went with the ending because i actually kind of like the way they subverted the the thriller aspects of that game i see that but i think the way that they delivered it was a little too hasty in the sense that there are pieces of that mystery that don't completely get explained by what takes place yeah but like it's jarring because like when you've been talking about some burning thriller stuff i feel like they did that very abruptly and without any justification like they build it up they build it up as like this chilling 70s mystery kind of thing you know with all the government agents out there and and all that stuff just like swept aside like the thing i like about that is the fact that most of that paranoia and what happens i mean you can understand how that becomes a product of just being in the environment those characters and they're completely isolated the only person that henry ever gets to talk to is that deliver woman who is seems like she has her own hang-ups and weird shit going on which just makes him more suspicious and you know she just seems like naturally that way to begin with and the fact that in the end again spoilers that that you know most of that stuff does not bear out to be true uh i don't think it's a bad thing i think i think they play that stuff up pretty well i found it pretty destroyed the build to what is actually going on in that forest i found pretty destroyed yeah i like the reveal i think the red herring stuff is a little too convenient yes yes the convenience is definitely like the the only genuine build up to the fact that it's that dude the crazy dude out there with the dead sun is you find a backpack at one point uh i guess this is the best way to put it you find a backpack with the names and their old camera with their photos on there and stuff but then they get so far away from that with the like government defense and research base and all that shit that's just fine that by the time they loop back around to the guy in the dead sun like you've forgotten the names of people who own that backpack like you like i had to go back and think like okay who was like i didn't forget them like like they go they go here and they break off like this and then they come back like late game and just none of that feels like a good steady build up to what the conclusion sorry uh for me i agree and after the game it wasn't until i completed it where i put it all together and only then was i like okay that's an interesting story it was not during the fact that like during when the story was playing out that i was like oh cool right what is the research basically like why does that factor in like others there's that like weather station over there and you go there the father with the dead son created that to distract you was that right i don't think he yeah i don't think he invented it out of whole cloth i think he just like he'd been in the forest for so long like he had been collecting random shit to basically like to try and throw you off the trail yeah like there had been i think some government research happening there but it wasn't like evil it's just there were people in the park and he just stolen a bunch of their equipment and he was planting documents making it seem like they were using that stuff to spy on him and listen to the radio transmissions and putting papers like oh mail talks to you know delilah yeah yeah i feel like this is kind of reinforcing what me and drew were saying because like a lot of stuff is not very clear no it's not like even in retrospect it's not clear like even as you're telling me this now i'm still going like wait was it really the dad that made those documents in that government station like really because he was on a different part of woods doing other stuff like i like yeah like it's a little too all over the place for it's like 90% of the way to a really good story but it doesn't quite all fit together i agree that it's not all the way there but i think the work they do with the characters i think the the way that they build tension throughout that story and honestly like the way they kind of tie together the various themes of guilt throughout that game which is really the whole thing that story hangs on is you know henry's guilt over what happened with his wife the the crazy father's guilt over what happened with his son like the way that all kind of plays into each other yes it could have been delivered i think in a much more coherent like it needed about a half hour more i think toward the end there to kind of just put it all into a little bit more like a gentle you know into the place that it needed to be i don't think it needed more i think it just needed what was there to be tweaked a little bit just to fit together a little bit better and be a little bit clearer and have a little bit more unity to it. Yeah, I think for me it felt like they rushed to that conclusion from a place where it needed at least one or two more steps between before they got there. Yeah, I think I like the story overall.

The red herring stuff felt a little too like a little too convenient like manipulated in a way that was like this can't be realistic. Where something like Gone Home with the Haunted House stuff felt a little more integrated into the story where it didn't feel like it didn't feel like there were what was the other one that we played through with the Got Monked? Oh, Until Dawn. Until Dawn where at the end of it it's like well we had projectors and Scooby-Doo stuff for ghosts and that's all the nonsense so much can change in that game.

Well, so like at the end of it you're like how did these ghosts come about? Well, I had a projector with a screen and like Firewatch in some of that base stuff felt a little bit like that. I'm like where the fuck did you get all this stuff like a radar detector and like a transmission? I really had that reaction at the end of that game of like ah this is just a little bit too much for me to swallow.

Well, you're like you're trying to piece it together throughout the whole time and when they unveil stuff like that it's like well alright you kind of cheated. Yeah, totally. The reveal shouldn't be confusing it should be connecting it should make you look back on everything that happened and go like oh shit that's what those things meant not like wait how did that fit together? Where did he come from?

I guess since this is a video game you can cut those corners but I did find the story kind of emotional and I still didn't fit well for me and I was really afraid right up until I got in a helicopter and here's the thing is that I agree with most of the criticisms we're having here like I think that there are aspects of that story that do not go here properly that said I would still call it one of the three best game stories I experienced this year by far just sheerly for the character work the way that they kind of they build up that tension and yeah the payoff I agree should have been better but I don't think that that payoff is completely without merit and I think that most of what they do in that game is really really strong okay so let's not cut it yet yeah but since we've got two games that people feel really strongly about which probably means there's a lot of stuff we can wipe off this all right so what are those two? I like Watch Dogs do a lot hang on Duman Fire 1 yeah okay okay and then I think Event Zero still hangs around for at least the time being I will just put stars except that we're still all right Call of Duty Infinite Warfare is the best story they have had in a good long time but yeah it is except for the part where the bad guys are not fleshed out in any way they're just like generic evil frontiersmen you're like why are you so bad okay well all right I guess we're fighting I think that aspect of the game is really poorly done but you know like in terms of just like themes and tone and character work and a lot of that stuff I think they I just want to say that they did way better than you would expect from that franchise like what you said about it made me want to play that game they give it emotional weight that like doesn't feel cheap in the way that they've had people die in the past it's not no Russian it's not nukes it's you know like they introduce you to characters and then kill most of them off after you've been like oh this is like an all right team you're like oh well it's not anymore and so the game really does become about like loss and sacrifice in some interesting ways but that's it it really is just ah space terrorists blew up our stuff go get them and then you go get them and they're a cost along the way it's not you know I don't think it's one of the three best I also sorry go ahead I was going to say I'm surprised at how well Watch Dogs 2 was written and how much I actually kind of did like those characters based on what we've talked about in the initial reveal but when it comes down to the overall plot of that game just boils down to like yeah fuck Google corporations Facebook there's no real the ending kind of humbles it as well like there's some cool stuff that they build up with some of those characters and I think they kind of they kind of fuck that up they throw away stuff that they should not have thrown away around like deaths of characters and stuff that could have been more impactful like it's a fun little rollercoaster ride yeah but it's not it's not top 3 no one else has probably played much Tokyo Mirage and I certainly haven't finished it I will say that it's you know look it's a lot of JRPG nonsense but it's couched in some really fun stuff there's some really fun characters in that game I like it's brand of nonsense but having not finished it and seen it all the way through I don't think it can stay on this list alright I think Virginia off this list there's some interesting things going on there they didn't stick the landing yeah it means the themes of that game unless the actual story it's unskippable so I must have it's kind of a murder mystery or a missing person kind of thing for a while well there's a walking down the road part that's exactly what I'm talking about you've got this missing person thing you don't know whether or not the dad did something to the son or something and then it's oh no the kid's just walking down the road yeah but that game was less about that stuff more about the failing of establishments and institutions but you're right it gets up its own ass a little bit too much I think it's really surprising and cool that Titanfall 2 had an awesome single player campaign but the actual narrative of that I don't think is the thing that's the point and his robot is like a fun story it had so much potential if they had just gone a little bit further a little bit further yeah again it's like from a different angle where I don't think there's anything particularly bad about that story it probably needed they could have gone further with it I did feel like most of the villains most of those mercs are just sort of hard work cut out villains I like that but yeah those guys are just like their names and the trophy names and stuff at some point they were just like I don't know action movies are good that flying Titan boss guy was so silly I love that I'll say the end of effect and cause is like an incredible mission not even just from the time travel mechanics standpoint the storytelling in that level is like a cut above everything else in that game yeah I agree they have put Titanfall in such an awesome place that I hope that they get to iterate on a lot of the story stuff and a lot of multiplayer stuff down the line I feel like the bunker was a very cool premise I don't know if the actual story really bears out so the story there is you're in a bunker nukes go off you're all trapped in the bunker but you wind up being the last person everybody else has died in this bunker and you're the only one there and there's radiation leaks and it's not going to end well and you don't know what's going on outside but you piece together why everybody died in the bunker through flashbacks and notes and stuff like that it turns out that there weren't going to be enough rations and you were the only baby born in the bunker and your mom kills everyone else in the bunker so that you can survive until the radiation outslides wait hang on but do you never meet your mother? you do so the game opens with her on her deathbed probably from radiation poisoning oh okay so she just never told you what happened no and you find that she put poison into the filtration system and killed everyone else in the bunker so that the rations would last for one person instead of everybody do you play that game from the first person or is your character in the video? he's in the video yeah it's cinematic so it's kind of a neat tale is that like a late game reveal is that like the whole game wondering what's going on and then yeah because you find a room basically with bodies in it you find the poison next to the thing it turns out you have a flashback to you were the kid who put the poison in the thing pretty dark but yeah there's some Norman Bates shit in that game which it plays around with but I think the actual storytelling is not super great yes it's not so great I think that it's a cool game I think that inside is great at creating atmosphere and moments but as far as what the story is if it's the best setting yeah I agree with that I can't necessarily defend the smile I like what happens in that game I think the way they pace it out is really interesting the storytelling is less the thing of interest in that game it's everything they build around it there's a lot of interpretation it's a lot of what you bring to the story inside I agree with that the Turing test is also another really interesting one the puzzle game but the story winds up being a ship on Europa AI on the ship humans wind up finding this thing that basically can heal you so you can almost become immortal and the AI will not let that go back to Earth because Earth cannot sustain immortal people so it winds up with this fight between the AI and the a brutal sort of logic where the AI takes over your brain because there were chips implanted in everybody and it can take over and people have to cut the chips out of their head but you did not and so you wake up and you're the whole game not sure if you're controlling yourself or the AI is controlling you and you go back and forth on it it's interesting and dark in a way but also comes down to kind of like rogue AI it does have the most personable AI of any of those like very charming until it's not kill you but yeah we cut it from this it does kind of boil down a bit down to like rogue AI can you trust the AI on the system alright I think we've established the answer as no except I don't know Titanfall you can trust your robot buddy seems like he's good pilot guy's alright then you mentioned King's Quest I agree but since neither of us finished it I don't know the story so far seems pretty good it's a really good I like the framing device a lot yes and the kind of flashback narration stuff is really good but since we both haven't played like half of it it's kind of hard to keep it on here speaking of retellings of Batman's title game series something you've heard of this Bruce Wayne's parents are dead what are we going through so here's the hook for Batman with me which is that they do not just root themselves in the existing comic canon they kind of rework some of the framing of like what you know Batman's origins to be which is to say that yes his parents are dead but the Waynes in this are revealed at the end of the first episode so this doesn't mean like a huge flower to have been in league with Carmine Falcone back in the day to essentially help control Gotham City like Thomas and Martha Wayne are not like innocent victims the way they've always portrayed they are in fact at Ties the Mob and they were assassinated as part of that which completely upends the entire notion of why Bruce Wayne became Batman and sort of fucks with his basically a lot of the second episode is him just like frantically trying to figure out what all this means for him and it plays around with a lot of well established characters and you see Batman or Bruce interact with these characters in ways that you haven't really seen before but those are good telling stories actually I didn't think that they'd be able to play a different spin on Batman it's been so well established but they've done a great job so far it's still a Batman ass story for sure and some of that choice stuff definitely plays into familiar tropes with that series like there's literally a choice that more or less means are you going to create Two-Face or not depending on what you do things like that but I think that stuff is done pretty well in that game and that thing could have been the most tossed off thing in the vein of other tossed off licensed Telltale games but I feel like they put more effort into it than usual I wasn't surprised for you over the course of these deliberations I feel like Oxenfree has come up and the reaction to it has been kind of like it's good but I think the story is the best thing about it it's definitely like young adult sci-fi but I think the characters they establish are better than just your average team tropes I think the cosmic horror aspect of it is delivered very well my only real beef with that story is that because it's a fairly short game it's second act almost doesn't exist there's a lot of really good set up for what's to come there's like an hour or so of what you would consider to be the middle part of a game and then it kind of gets to the end and the end is good and solid and the way it all plays out is really good but it felt like they kind of they hit a point where they could have done a lot more if they maybe had more time or budget and they just didn't I think what's theirs is really strong I do feel good about it being in the top three I don't necessarily feel like I'm ready to cut it loose just yet so this is the third game and two other games that are very closely knit together is this 999 versus last reward yes which all deal in time travel so this game takes place I think between the first and second game so you have three groups of people that are in this game right like it's kind of not saw like it's not brutal it's a little brutal like that but like three teams that are trapped in this warehouse thing right the hook is over the course of it you begin and they let you play story beats from each team right play the story beat switch to the next game at your leisure at your leisure you gotta jump around somewhere locked off at some point you can then travel make your consciousness go with everything you know from one beat to another beat so that you know how something's gonna turn out so like if you know you're gonna take a chance you're gonna play Russian roulette right and I point the gun at you and I pull the trigger click nothing happens but it actually fractures into two where one time I pulled the trigger click the bullet went off and now you're playing through this story beat where that person's dead the entire rest of the time and this one where they're not dead and you have everybody but sometimes this person can remember that when that person died because this person went out to find a code for a door and you can jump back into this other story beat and it just gets fucking insane where everybody's freaking out because some people are supposed to be dead but they're not dead in this story beat and you wind up basically killing everybody but everybody survives and going back to the very beginning of the game but knowing everything you know by the time you killed everybody to be able to get out of the game that sounds really cool it sounds like video game primer yeah it's kind of like that it gets really crazy because of all the splintering and fracturing that happens can you follow it?

yes they do a pretty good job of letting you follow it so it gets a little fucking crazy which is why I'm having a hard time explaining it because you meet for the first time you are in a room with your grown up daughter that you have met in 50 years in the future who is the same age because she can travel her consciousness through time but your consciousness is that of an 80 year old man who's gone back in time to his 20 year old body so you know the events of the last 60 years but you're talking to your daughter who then get into a relationship with this woman in the game not the daughter in the game to birth the daughter who you then put in a time stasis pod so that she winds up being able to continue into the future to be able to have the events to come back and be with your team here it's just like an X-Men plot line it's really insane but like while you're doing this stuff in the future this person travels back in time to be this other character who's here it just becomes incredibly complex in a way that is nonsensical but also kind of fun and they try to like Metal Gear Solid tie up everything from the other two games where you're like but like these events have to happen this one way otherwise these other games don't happen but like I can totally stop this oh no I can't it always goes wrong and the game starts and this is a big spoiler the game starts with a coin flip of whether you can just walk out or not and so like you flip the coin and if you win it you walk out and the game's over but if you don't you have to play through all the events that make this game happen but by the end if you walk out and you don't do anything the game's over the world ends because what was happening there was a virus was getting made and it's going to be released and the whole purpose of this game whatever you wind up going back to the original events with everything you know so that when you flip the coin and walk out you can then stop the virus from happening but does that mean all those events don't happen but it's your consciousness I have a headache now I'm into it I don't know if I can render an opinion on all that that sounds awesome it's complicated that's for sure it's pretty crazy and cool in a way I do think the second game was a little better but like this game tries its best to tie up the insanity of what's happening I'm having a hard time like he because it's so insane but works but it's really crazy I mean if it goes to those kinds of levels and you think it actually ties itself together in a way that works that feels like a strong enough case to not pull it off it's definitely most of the story yeah for sure I'm sorry no go ahead I feel pretty strongly about Uncharted 4 being on here yeah it's one of the best stories in that series that's like the one thing they do well it's the best I was going to say it's the one thing they do better than the previous games but I mean everything about Uncharted 4 is better than the previous games but everything besides the story was already like top notch if that makes sense the gulf between what they're storytelling used to be in that series and what they do with this one is so much bigger than everything else that they improve it's a game where the quieter moments actually stood out in a way that a big blockbuster action game almost never do little things like driving the jeep with Elena after you have that fight and it's just kind of quiet and weird yeah that's not fine but for me it's less little moments like that and more the broad structure of it and how they weave in and out flashbacks at really unexpected times even like the two or three chapters from the end the breaking of the mansion yeah just at the time at the end of the game when all the shit is hitting the fan and you think like that particular flashback it is a little bit like wait we're back in line again but by the end of that chapter you understand there is a massive reveal in that flashback chapter that completely contextualizes what's going on at the end of the actual game and I think that you know as much as Nathan Drake is still the lovable if murderous chuckle fuck we've always known him to be in that series like the stuff they do between him and Elena in that game the way they I don't love the brother character but the way they build up that relationship between them and the ways in which Nathan feels sort of indebted to him whether he should or not that stuff I think is all smartly done and on top of that as much as the villains are your average video game cartoon villains what they want to do is very much cartoon villain stuff but the characters are personable and understandable enough their motivations make enough sense and they work within the context we already talked about what a great sniveling villain Rafe is I'm trying to remember at the end of that chapter it's obviously a big spoiler but you find the old lady and something about your mom and your last name what was the actual the big reveal at the end of that game completely flips the thing the entire premise of the Uncharted series which was like at the beginning of the first Uncharted he's Drake and you're looking for Sir Francis Drake you're the descendant of Sir Francis Drake you're the heir of this adventuring lineage going back centuries and then you find out actually at the end of Uncharted 4 that there was just a family name change between Nathan Drake's parents and him where he was actually his real name is I don't know what is it Nathan Nathan Burton or something the mom changed it though right this entire series you have been laboring under the pretense that Nathan Drake is some anointed adventurer royalty or whatever you have to go in the family business and it turns out he was just some fucking schmuck it reframes it as I wouldn't say that what? he's a schmuck he's a whoever capable he's never man he's not some he was not deemed he had the inferior genes like the mom was also that was a neat twist but that's not like the twist of the game it's just one of many ways that they like flesh out the history of all these characters and they spin like three or four plates in that game really effectively without dropping any of them and it's super impressive yeah I feel like they take a big iron to that game and smooth out all the wrinkles by an epilogue it's like okay here's a human Nathan Drake with his daughter so in the course of one game they introduce the brother character they build up that relationship then they pull the rug out from under it when you find out that he's been lying to Drake the entire time you find out about the family history stuff you get an epilogue that totally closes the book on Nathan Drake with the brother stuff when they announce that four games in everyone just kind of rolled their eyes oh great oh yeah the brother especially when you saw the Troy Baker of course you did but it turns out that was super annoying and smart it totally works so that's my biggest quibble actually with the story in it is the reintroduction of the brother goes by so quickly with so little shock for Nathan oh I know that dude opens the door and is like hey hey I thought that was really well done I did not know I thought it was like you thought this guy was dead for what 20 years I got the shock coming out of the his whole life is defined they set up defined by the death of his brother and he opens the door and it's kind of a little too subtle for it I don't think so I really thought it was appropriate the way he reacted when he realized his brother was staying in front of him that doesn't be a pretty conflicted thing of just like oh I should have looked more or like all that especially because he felt so guilty about it it's not just joy that his brother is alive it's like expecting his brother to die remember the other dude that was at Rafe his brother's been shot and he's just like fuck him come on let's go and he's lived with 15 years of guilt that didn't play right for me fuck man your whole world view is now changed even if I agree with you on that I feel like that would be one low moment and what is other well with it I think that's pretty strong for that game being on this list and I absolutely love when Nadine is the mercenary and he walks away and he's like you fucking it's cool how they draw a line between the villains like she's just in it for the money and Rafe is a fucking glory he's gonna stay out and essentially die and she's like no fucking take my money I'm out but that's the whole parable there is like how much are you Nathan like Rafe and then can you walk away it's a very like let it go Elsa or Indiana Jones style cup thing of like just walk away and he kind of can't and he kind of almost dies for it maybe miraculously doesn't Indie let it go yeah exactly so I talked about this already this is the deal for the devil stuff which is actually all really good it's a really fun storyline it's very Faustian it is and the character work is really good it is again you are conscripted by the devil to make good well to basically void a contract with somebody else who tricked the devil that kind of got the best of the devil and so you're there to kind of break that contract as the devil's servant and you have to do these ridiculous quests to at the end kind of have a very not very but pretty touching story with the guy who made this deal with the devil and like kind of sold everything to be this immortal fighter like gave up his life and his loved one and you get some good witcher choice stuff in there of like do you try to kill the devil or do you just kill this other guy whose contract you can give up it's really well done I'm looking at the rest of the things on this list I take it over event zero but would you put it in the top three I guess maybe the faster question might be should we cut event zero from this list I think I would take the heart of some stuff over firewatch maybe zero time zero time is great and amazing and there's so much story in there but if you came into that game cold it would be even more nonsensical so that's the only thing in my mind that's really driving a wedge in it it requires it kind of really does I'm sorry you're talking about zero time but what about witcher is that stand alone enough that it works it is very much a standalone piece of DLC that you don't need any backstory for you need to know he's a witcher you can play that from the file screen with a pre-leveled character so the best part of Mafia 3 is definitely that intro I do think that the character work in that game is pretty exceptional especially for an open world type crime game which those games are not necessarily known for their brilliant storytelling but I think they do a really good job of setting up those characters and giving them some real humanity Lincoln especially even just some weird mafia sub-bosses you meet in that game are smarter and more interesting than you would typically find in that sort of thing and I really like the way that they build up the lieutenants that you meet and work with over the course of the game people start to become your crew are all pretty there's a lot more to them than you would expect my main beef is that my chief beef here is that for all the cool visual style and documentary framing device the story is a very straightforward revenge story but after that it is literally like okay territory by territory take down these bosses gonna get the bad guy gonna kill these bad guys and then you kill those bad guys that's good but maybe not top three no I don't think it is top three it needed to be called out because it is way better than average with a lot of that stuff I wish they were more willing to go in other directions other than well you just get your revenge super hot is awesome and I like that world and I like a lot of the concepts it puts forth but I almost feel like calling it a story is a bit much I kind of agree it's a little abstract things happen but it's a good threat there are like two or three moments in that thing where obviously the ending and there are things you can point to and say that is storytelling but a lot of it is more like a feel it would be way worse if it didn't have it it is a way different and better game and I want to see more of it like I would love to see that stuff fleshed out the VR stuff doesn't really take it any further which is a little disappointing I want to see the super hot verse I doubt the developers of this game have even really put that together they just turn together much really cool shit and if they decide to make more of it they'll worry about that later or maybe they've got a book this thick which either is okay by me but that's it this game probably doesn't play here I'm glad now that I played three entire things since we did that style I'm glad that game won that I can see why they the wild hunt off I think I'd rather leave Zero Time Dilemma it really does and it is the vehicle by which you play that game you want to see what you do in the story to impact the other story elements so my only problem is that that's the one on this list that I have definitely not played and I've played all three of these other ones and I feel pretty strongly about all three of those other ones I feel like your description of Zero Time Dilemma has me pretty sold on it and I look at this and based on what people have been saying Firewatch sounds like I think I would have to agree I really like Firewatch it was almost all the way there it sounds like Zero Time Dilemma is weaving together this intricate thing in a way that does pay off and makes sense in its own weird way and the whole game is a story and the way it's told and the way it's untold and retold it also has this crazy mechanic where I think it's every five hours you get injected from your wristwatch with a poison that knocks you out and makes you forget the last eight hours so every time you pick up from a double forget sometimes every five so every time you wake up they wake up and it's like Drew's just a dead body there and they're like what the fuck happened so then he's decapitated or everybody's gone and it's very much like who killed whom and there's a whole other game element of it where five a certain amount people have to die in order for them to escape you get a password for the door each time so you're never sure if somebody killed somebody to get a password do you ever have to convince anyone that they have to die but don't worry you're alive in another dimension yes there are parts well because there's a part where also I think it gets so fucking crazy like you have to be under high stress to be able to shift out and they're like don't worry we'll live we have to get shot by these turds for this to happen so Firewatch has a lot of different threads that most of us think don't really come together right yeah I think that's the big difference there it sounds like your time pulls off this big crazy thing whereas Firewatch introduces a lot of things and I think we like the story overall but it sounds like there's misgivings about how by the end some of that stuff didn't really pan out I've not played your time but that sounds like it pulls it off there yeah I mean it pulls it off in a way that's really fun during it and at the end you kind of have to accept or not accept this whole time travel disaster they have made and then like fuck okay could that ending ever be truly satisfying in a way that's like everything has happened but nothing has ever happened and this all had to happen because there's a game that happens after this I was shaking his head down there yeah I don't know Firewatch is a good story it's just not told as well as these other ones does Doom belong here Doom has the smallest amount of story but is told the best yeah that's actually the one I'm leaning least toward you were out of your mind if you think Firewatch is better than Doom in this category okay then I'm out of my mind not to be blunt okay I'll be out of my mind on this one I think Firewatch is better than Doom in this category I think that telling a small personal story in that kind of context you know while not completely alien is not a common thing and I think that the way they sketch out Henry especially in that game is I don't know it was very affecting to me and yes I agree again I agree with a lot of the way the criticisms about the way the ending is delivered but I don't think that the ideas that they are trying to put forth there are negated by the fact that they are not explained as well as they could have been and I think it does lessen the impact in some ways yeah but I still like you know by the end of that game I'm not afraid to say I was a little bit of a stopping mess you know and this is anecdotal but you know sitting there playing with my girlfriend like she was equally and she does not cry at fucking video games she does not care about the stories and video games typically but she was very engaged with that game in a way that nothing else this year did and I don't know like you know it's just between that and just sort of like the you know almost like De Palma-esque sort of you know thriller trappings they built around which you know again don't pay out the way that you would expect necessarily but I don't think that's a bad thing and I think the build up for it works so I don't know I feel like it's really underselling the things that game does well to harp on the fact that the conclusion is not delivered I would say 75% as well as it should have been alright how about this then is the story in Uncharted good or is it just told well by virtue of it having better technology to convey the way it is a good story the structure of it and the content or several cuts above anything that they've ever done with that series I think the fact that there's several cuts above anything they've ever done with that series it is one of the best it felt to me like they did a Batman Begins with Batman with Nathan Drake it's got a better story than any actual action movie I can think of it's got a better story than the thing that it's drawing from the thing that it's emulating like the Doom story made me laugh a fair amount it is cool that they did all that work and that work was most definitely not... It's excellent, but I also think that the story is still a... It is a supplement to what that game is, and it is not necessarily important to why you like it.

I really agree. I think it is crucial to how good that game is. I think the writing in that game is crucial to it, but it's... I don't want to see a lot of distinction there.

Well, for me, it's like codex entries that are filling in flavor versus the actual story of the game. Yeah, but I don't think you can necessarily break this category down to, like, let's plot out the plot points and say how interesting are they. But I would also argue the actual story of Doom, where they are pillaging Argent Energy from Hell to supplement the power grid of Earth, and where closing that might doom Earth in some rational way. Now it all fits together, right?

Let me remind you of the middle of the game when you get to the point where there are corporate memos going out about the, like, rah-rah corporate spirit sessions they're having around demonic worship. That stuff is the best. And then you get to, like, the CEO's office or whatever. You know, the holograms have been popping up talking to you, like, throwing out the lovely slogans all the time.

And then you get to that CEO's office, like, you're tier three. Yeah, like, you're at the center of the corporation, and the hologram pops up and starts speaking in tongues. Like, he starts speaking demonic gibberish in this really cheerful, like, rah-rah kind of way. Yeah, that whole, like, the whole...

They call them tiers when you're, like, you're at tier one or whatever, you're level two. All of the corporate handbook stuff in that game about, like, give yourself over to the demons, like, you were here to be sharing it. Your monitor doesn't get damaged. It is an honor to let yourself be possessed and repart by a demon.

Like, in a way, that stuff to me is almost, like, portal-esque in its delivery. Yeah, yeah. It's that level of just, like, deeply sarcastic, but also kind of, you know, kind of incredible world building. Yeah, perfect.

I love it. There's that stuff and there's the stuff in Hell where, like, they build up the mythology around the Doom guy being this, like, demon-slayer fucking avenging angel guy. Right, where Hell is afraid of the Doom Slayer. But there's also the part where, like, the Doom Slayer doesn't give a shit about any of that stuff.

Yes, right. Just needs to close portals to Hell. All he wants to do is fuck up demons. Like, he just wants to kill everything in his fucking face.

And making that, like, one-note thing compelling character, a thing where every level I was excited to get more of that shit because it was also hilarious and awesome. And I would ultimately argue that if none of that had been in that game, we would be looking at Doom as, like, an especially good Serious Sam-type clone. It would just be a really cool action game with fun, stylish, varied first-person shooting and would be otherwise kind of forgivable. Like, that game to me was constantly, like, somebody with a 2,000-page fanfiction of Doom getting into the Doom guy who kept throwing it out or, like, burning it.

No, I fucking demon. I don't care what your tier level is. I don't know why this machine is here. What the fuck is it?

What the fuck is it? Is this the thing that opens the door to Hell? Okay, all right. We're going to punch this now for a while.

Do you want to understand how it works? No. No, it doesn't matter how it works. It's not building these.

Is that thing red? Can I punch that too? Like, that part is really fun. All right, so it sounds like Doom and Uncharted and absolutely must be on this list for them.

Jeez. I wish I was as affected by Firewatch as you, Alex. But, like, when I... Maybe I am a husk of a person, but when I, like, happened upon that child's body in the cave, that was...

I literally thought the words, I guess I should be feeling something here. And I didn't! Because I just... I forgot who everyone was and I didn't know, like, is this a plant?

Is that a fake skeleton? What is happening? Yeah, it just... It did not congeal the way that I knew that it was supposed to.

That's kind of how I feel about it. I could totally see what they were going for and, like, I wish that it landed a little harder for me. Yeah, after the fact, like, I was like, yeah, that is a great story. I wish I maybe, like, read it in a book or something.

I can't tear down Firewatch because I think it's a great story. Yeah, and I didn't forget who those characters were, so, yeah, it did hit... It landed with, I think, primarily the intended impact on me. My biggest problem with Firewatch was the stuff got, like I said a couple times, just too convenient to justify some of the red herring stuff.

I was like, that's just... Like, you led me astray with stuff that doesn't make sense. And that's where it kind of fell apart for me a bit, but I actually really liked the ending. I totally agree with you.

Like, I also liked the game a lot. Yeah, but... But I also really liked Zero Time Delenna and its crazy story that it tries to make sense of. It's an amazing accomplishment that takes a lot of homework to go into and figure out.

But it is also something that, I think, for the most part, wobbles the landing but sticks it, but it was almost impossible to. Like, it has so many threads it has to try and tie together. And it's kind of amazing, that whole thing. Like, when I was done with it, I definitely felt like, what the fuck?

That's... I don't know if it's a good ending or a bad ending, but I guess it all makes sense. Well, what would you take off this list? I would take Firewatch.

Just because it was the one that out of the three of these didn't stick with me as long. Like, I didn't think about it as much afterward. You're gonna take Thumper away from me. You're gonna take Zenyatta away from me.

There's plenty of Alex all over this document. Alex is gross. Alex is gonna start murdering us all one by one. I'm not going to take Firewatch.

I was the one that said I'd put you playing Thumper in a frame on my wall. I like... Where were you when I needed you? I was playing Mass Effect 2.

That was your first mistake. I understand there's some copies of the game around. You should play it. It's one of the great scenes of all time.

I've heard good things. If you told me before we came into these deliberations that Firewatch would not be in the top three of this I would have screamed at all of you until that was no longer true. Do I need to turn down your mic? I'm not gonna scream here because I don't have that in there right now.

You've taken too much from me. I would also, if we want to go down this road I don't think it'll get any traction, swap Firewatch for Uncharted 4. I think Uncharted 4 is a fantastic story and I can't knock it down either. I think those two stories for me are probably even plateau at this point in terms of affecting...

Yeah, I feel like the story and the storytelling in Uncharted 4 are beyond reproach. Even taking into account what you said about that one moment not fully working for you because I think it did work but also just like... I'm not here to say bad things about it. To me it is almost a flawless example of how to tell a story in a linear action game.

Effectively. I feel like I'm of no help here because Uncharted 4 was finally the game where I finally realized that I've been right all along and realized that I just don't like any of those characters or the way that game plays and the best thing I can say about it is it looks amazing, their set pieces are cool and the things they've done with facial capture and stuff in the parts of Uncharted 4 I did play I thought were really impressive. But yeah, zero affection for anything going on with Nathan Drake. I will definitely agree with you that I am completely fucking done with Uncharted.

Like there were about eight final sequences in that game where I really thought about just not playing it anymore. But hey, what an ending. But that's the thing. That's the thing.

I was like super burnt out on most of what I was doing in that game gameplay-wise but I kept going just to keep getting that story. I will chime in for the hell of it. I like Uncharted 4 to win based on what I've heard you guys say. I was on the team of course but I kind of want to pick Firewatch over at zero time.

Everything that Vinny said sounds super impressive that they were able to stick that landing kind of and leave something but it's also something that I don't think I want to experience and try and piece together myself. Yeah, I'm going to be honest. I had to stop and think about what you were saying about seven times during that bit because none of it was connecting in my head in a way that sounds impressive. I'll say that you made me want to play that game.

Yeah, me too. So you said that you had to play the other ones also and now I'm like, I don't... It's insane. I'm going to see if I can bring up a flowchart.

I don't know. We have to do flowcharts. Because like... Yeah, I've seen these for these games before.

They're amazing and like they're great. Not a release primer. It's got flowcharts. Yeah, it really does.

They're super cool. I really like what they did and I like being able to bounce around through the different timelines with knowledge and stuff like that. It was something that took more time for me to run out or I should say when I finished it I wanted to go research what other people were talking about. It was a more involved story.

Firewatch was a very personal story and I think I kind of got what I got out of it by the time I was done. I think they're both great. Like I can't sit here and trash the Firewatch story to make Zero Time Dilemma better. I can't undercut it because I think it's also very good.

The Zero Time Dilemma story I think was more involved and therefore just more engaging for me. Firewatch is the kind of thing I wish more games did in general. I totally agree with you there. But I wish what it did was a little more effective at the same time.

Yeah, I think that's the difference between us is that for me it was still effective in spite of questions I had lingering at the end of it whereas it was harder for you guys to latch on to that. I understand this just at this point we're talking about the three best stories of the year and when there are significant negatives there for a lot of us it's harder to justify. I've said my piece on it. There's not much else I can do to defend it.

I'll let you guys hash out those two. Well, I guess I'll set this. Vinny's the only one that played Zero Time and Alex is the only person for Firewatch so I feel like you guys just need to have a knife fight or something. If you really feel that passionately about Firewatch I'm not going to shit on your Firewatch parade.

I don't feel as passionately about Zero Time as you do about Firewatch. I think it's a better story but I don't have to have a knife fight for it. If you're willing to pull the knife out then you win it. It gives me no pleasure to pull the knife out believe me especially after knifing one of your kidneys for Mass Effect 2.

I'll be the bigger person and let you have your thing that you love on this list so that you don't have to feel the pain that I felt. I just think it needs to be in the top three. I'm not pushing for it to win this category but I do feel like it is representative of a thing that I want to reward in these awards. And that is the style of storytelling the character building they do in that game and again I think the majority of that story absolutely does work.

I'm not going to stop you but I'm not a huge fan of saying well it doesn't do what it needs to do very well. No I think it does the majority of what it needs to do to be affecting. Like I said there are threads that don't completely cohere but I think it does what it needs to do. When you phrase it like I want to reward it for what it could have been not what it is.

I would say that just because it's not all the way there it should be rewarded for a concept. Like I'm saying I think the execution is almost entirely there. And what it does execute on well is worthy of being in this top three. Benny?

I would say exactly the same thing about Zero Time Dilemma but I'm not. It sounds like it's more ambitious. It certainly is more ambitious on granddad. But like you know I have no personal love for Zero Time Dilemma in a way that maybe sounds like you have for Firewatch.

Like if the video game that I thought was really silly and fun and the story is kind of great it didn't make me rethink my life. Okay. Alright. So do you want to concede to Firewatch then?

Sure. Okay. Thank you. Alright.

Firewatch is a great story. Yeah. Cut Zero Time Dilemma. Alright.

Is it the general feeling that Uncharted takes this? I guess I could take so. I could go Uncharted or Doom honestly. I think Uncharted 4 is much more about its story.

I would say whatever the kind of feeling of the room is on this. Like I'm with you guys on Doom having a fucking uproarious amount of plot in it and what it does it does very well but I think Uncharted is a game that's much more about its story than Doom is. Yeah. Even I would say that based on what you guys are saying about how Uncharted 4 goes about its business it sounds like it is definitely great at what it's doing.

They definitely have more of a story. That's for sure. Doom is an amazing game without its story that becomes amazing-er with it. Uncharted, I would not have finished if the story weren't that good.

I would have absolutely stopped playing that game. If it had like an Uncharted 3 elder story I absolutely would not have finished that game. My favorite part of the Uncharted story is that the MacGuffin quest is so back burner. I don't even remember what the fuck you're chasing around for but it's more of a tale of like Drake and his wife and his brother.

And on top of that I really want to salute them for not going fucking stupid supernatural at the end of this one. Like they have done in every other game. Like every Uncharted like clockwork the last 10% of it is fucking blue guys. I kind of expected those pirates by the end.

Sand demons like monsters out of a submarine or whatever. Do they make good on the brother character? Yes. Totally.

Well, yes. I think the only way they blow it is that he lives through all that. Kind of a fun way. I think it's an Uncharted way where everybody lives through everything.

Everybody finishes here I think you don't care. I'm finished. Oh shit. I hate to say this.

He goes into like business with Sully. Well, that happens. He lives in the legit business. I really hate to spoil it for Drew but I think it's what makes that character work.

Have you not finished it either? I have not, no. I mean, I'm actually going to step out of the room for it to take like 90 seconds. I think it's going to be in anyway.

Oh, wait. So you'll never go. Okay. Like, they take like three chapters introducing the brother because they should because he's never been mentioned in the last three games so you should really take your time and be careful rolling a new character in.

You play through a bunch of shit that sets up like why he's no longer in the picture for Drake. Like literally playing like seeing characters doing stuff. Like the whole game you think this is the backstory of this guy. This is what happened to him.

This is why he's on the run. This is why he came back and found Drake again. Like in the last like three hours of the game you find out he was lying about all that shit. Like major characters exactly why he was lying.

Because he wanted money I think. No, I think more than that. I think he wanted Nathan to think that he had to do this so this like Columbia mob didn't kill him. But it was really just because he wanted to get rich.

Like he came back out of hiding and deceived his own brother and player. Like you think major characters from early on in the game that were introduced are a big factor and you find out they don't exist. They've been dead for six months or whatever. There's no one out there with a bounty on his brother's head.

Like he is revealed to be a giant asshole in a really effective way that makes you feel as deceived as Drake feels at that same moment. Especially when you consider the fact that not only did he deceive Nathan but then as a side part of that Nathan had to make a very hard choice about what he was going to deceive Elena and that has made a ramp on that relationship and all that. It's kind of a bad dog. It's like Drake feels what it's like to be on the other side of that.

After he has misled his wife for half the game he then realizes someone he cares about has to treat him. So his brother becomes Dark Drake. Like basically like oh you're everything that if I went down this road would become like fuck it just get the money why would we ever walk away from this. Yeah he's the thing to the Arnold Schwarzenegger.