no one noticed when it started to go wrong the 1990s were loud familiar and dangerously comfortable while the world watched headlines scroll across tv screens other crimes slipped through the cracks cases never meant to be remembered stories that faded before the truth could surface this podcast brings them back i'm simone taylor and this is 90s crime time all right we're back we're here for day two of giant bombs game of the year deliberations 2016 the entire crew is here i'm ready to fight no i'm ready to fight collaborate fist up i'm not you want to stop collaborating your fist may not invest no or maybe it's in the best yeah a man with nothing to lose that's true has everything the game has a lot of start with battle damage yeah just flip over the skin just try it yeah somebody's gonna check there underneath yeah oh no okay just say yes it's not missing i know where it is i know there's blood involved initially in the studio game of the year is here's business yes exactly yes go out go listen to yesterday's video see how nasty it got let's watch the injuries be sustained in real time uh speaking of yesterday uh we should probably just very quickly address that let it die came out between uh our day one deliberations and day two and so i spent a good long time thinking about whether we needed to reopen best style on kind of that game that game has some style but i will say i don't think it beats any of the three that we have what is that game style suit 51 oh it's a suit again yes it is the suit style fucking just aggro weirdness drive 128 and uncle death on a skateboard and i saw people saying it's like punk rock dark souls sure it's not too far off huh huh it's free too yeah it's weird i think that game might be pretty good that game seems pretty good it's got some ideas i also don't think it beats the three we have in that category but it does deserve to at least be mentioned in the breath of the other games we talked about yeah it might have made number four on that list just to think that would have been better uh yes okay yeah that's not a category they might qualify for yeah we'll see in fact even some of the ones we talked about today i mean it's you know it's always awkward the necessity of getting this stuff produced in time to run the end of the year means we're at the beginning of december right now recording it yeah at the time that you know yes guardian and dead rising four are not even out at the time this recording uh but we've had both those games for a little bit well yeah i feel like the only things are still happening i guess yeah let's die drop this kind of surprise and i feel like the last thing that we know about that is shipping is super mario run right that's the that will probably miss that game for these but well it happens we'll be okay let's not see it for today uh yeah so with all that said day two commences now with the following four categories best new character best vr experience most disappointing game and scrolling way down the document best looking game those are four categories for today there's some heavy haters uh yeah there are a lot of entries on each of these lists uh as usual there may very well be spoilers for anything and everything we talk about so beware if there's anything you haven't played yet and are dying to play should be that before you listen to this yeah this one probably in particular too with some character stuff maybe not as bad as some days but yeah some story related stuff will get discussed here uh all right well with that said let's dive right into this new character shall we yeah let's with uh these entries and then whatever we come up with in the course of talking about it helmet krueger from hitman uh chief beef planet coaster chief beef i don't think that's real chief chief beef uncle death let it die pretty cool dude uh vladimir von everick yep is that right i think they say vladimir uh vladimir from the hearts of stone dlc for the wish of 3 triko from the last guardian the narrator of darkest dungeon barry goodman from tokyo mirage sessions henry from firewatch delilah from firewatch uh john donovan from mafia 3 beth wilder from quantum break samuel hayden from doom bt 7274 sitefall 2 ethan ethan ethan ethan with a three uh from call duty warfare earl from headlander tracer core from the lab handy bot from rec room uh project c from 100 foot robot golf rave adler from uncharted 4 a thief's end and frank west from the driving 4 hey the newest character of them all i've not played in rising 4 uh who is frank west he's a wartime photographer okay uh new character he's covered wars all right let's make very clear new character in this introductory sequence of this brand new character brad why is frank west on here uh it's kind of a joke but they so they not only recast a voice actor for frank west but he's written like completely differently like he's still a dope he's all no that's the thing he's almost unrecognizable as frank west is he like a real action hero guy no he's like a retired i spent my years fighting the government zombie cover-up he's like he's like an asshole alcoholic type yeah he's not like funny or that's the thing he had like the characterization works it's just a different characterization so it could be the frank west just after it is that's where this kind of breaks down because this is very much a sequel to the previous games like they reference all the stuff that happened for you yeah it's mostly okay i'm curious about what they did with this character though we could just put hank east on here yeah he has to go into hiding for a while and he takes on the name hank east which is really pretty good yeah that's the thing he's actually like a pretty entertaining character in this new incarnation he's just so different but marcus phoenix got older he didn't change no yeah uh we're just we're cutting we're cutting frank west okay uh we're cutting handybox that's a person in a sense that should win uh if somebody used vr to create something like so fucking crazy unique and startling yeah all right if you guys feel i think he should not be disqualified all right okay well we'll leave on here i have some misgivings about the handybot character and all that handybot character offensive yeah a little bit i don't think it should be on there yeah i don't think it's gonna make our final three i just wanted to acknowledge that moment that we had here yeah uh yes um but no out of the two robots uh from bt and ethan i argue that bt's got a little more personality this is a big year for robots there's no rule that we can only have a robot on this list i think we did have to pick one of them i think bt wins and i don't think they're both making it on there um tell me about chief beef chief beef runs concessions over my planet coaster park what's he a chief of beef oh yeah he's in charge of all the beef he's a giant uh hamburger patty that's a friendly hamburger patty that walks around and asks you to knock on your friends right before you go on the roller coasters how much of that is in the game and how much of it is your headcanon for chief beef 75 percent of his headcanon did you name him chief beef that is the name oh that is the name okay all right okay he looks like that and that is his name beyond that everything else is invented i made a giant chief beef statue and he's shooting out of his eye yeah and it makes the floor explode underneath my amusement park ride that was pretty great chief beef looks pretty serious he's got a mustache and a hat all right so he does work at what do you have to pay him he does work okay do you have to pay him you pay the teenagers who wear the chief beef outfit to walk around wait what they make friends with chief beef uh-huh at the start of every shift and once you've made friends with chief beef then you have to go around the park and you know chief beef's all right that's chief beef he's all right okay okay i'm down with chief beef skip mark i don't know how i feel about helmet krueger on here because he is one of the most meaningful characters of the year but his actual character is kind of whatever i kind of like his actual character his phone conversations like all there is to his character is those two phone calls he makes while you're murdering him uh that's not true like a catwalk there's a giant picture of helmet krueger and people are very excited that's true look at that security guards are extremely excited to see helmet krueger it's true if i had a jaw like helmet krueger doors would open up for me that's fair that's a fair point all right i think how many doors opened up for you i can see it in that sense i feel like i could leave helmet krueger on this list as one of our three like there are funnier they're definitely better written than the funnier characters in hitman but yeah no i agree but but i think based on all the experiences we had with helmet krueger this year yeah i think there's something very funny about agent 47 looking just a lot it's the one guy that could probably pass asher how many times did we throw him in a river this year i probably threw i murdered helmet krueger like three dozen times at least as someone who still has a lot of that game to play i look forward to throwing helmet krueger in the river for years to come uh honestly so i i feel pretty good about helmet on this list um i think i don't know much about um uh sorry the i lost him john donovan so john donovan i've heard the name a lot so john donovan is your cia helper uh in mafia 3 he's i think you've served with him during the vietnam war and he's gone on to work as a you know government spy uh and he's out of his fucking mind is the main thing is that he's a very somewhat he's the wacky comic relief of that game if there is such a thing in that game is like the guy in the bond movies felix is he basically felix he's more akin to the uh the joe john baker character from the more recent bond movies from like the pierce brons and stuff he's like he's kind of a fuck up but like he's useful yeah the main reason he's on here uh and this is going to be a spoiler though it's not it's just a really dumb thing but i'm just gonna put it out there that's why we're here so the end of it so the whole game is framed with the documentary stuff and a big chunk of that documentary is john donovan being grilled by uh senate oversight committee about what happened in uh new bordeaux with lincoln and all his his revenge uh and the very end of it is like during the credits donovan interrupts the senator in like mid off the record conversations just like hey senator hey fucking senator and basically accuses him of setting up the john f kennedy assassination alongside the mafia is there any basis for that or is he just a crazy dude there is some basis based on some stuff that happened and the end of that game is him pulling out a gun shooting the senator and then walking out in the chambers yes it's a private chamber so there aren't like a ton of people watching or anything i don't know but he just straight up fucking smokes a senator in the middle of the credits and then fucking up that is i haven't played mafia 3 yet is that relevant to the main plot absolutely is not at best maybe it's set up for some sort of dlc thing down the road but in the game they barely talk about kennedy or any of that stuff that's a real odd thing yeah it's just this out of left field thing and people like his character i think he's a little annoying but he's definitely one of the weirder characters in that game everyone else is pretty straightforward um what does he wear uh he wears like a tan suit okay all right so i'm saying like john yeah this is more like you know almost like corduroy like tan suit uh i don't know i think there's a case to be made for him i'm not sure he hangs as a top three but i want to say my piece on him all right uh one i can say we never know this project c i like the joke of the five courties that's not a giant robot but that's not really there's not much of a character there it's just hey those courties are adorable and they golf in a giant robot uh so we can take that one off okay all right congratulations to project c yes um the narrator from darkest dungeon can also go i really like that character i really like the narration he gives uh his backstory of being this you know old money fucking deranged pleasure seeker that accidentally opens up the gates of hell is pretty great oops but uh really most of the game is just him commenting on what you do and there's not like a whole lot of backstory like your uncle or something yeah he's like your uncle or your grandfather or something like he's part of your family uh he's like the patriarch of your family before he fucking descended into decadence and hell so take him off yeah i think we take him off okay uh does anyone feel really strongly about the characters of firewatch i know that's kind of like that whole game they're really well written but i don't know either of them i think the arc for henry is really good i mean it is somewhat malleable in the way those games are and you know your decisions can kind of affect it a little bit but for the most part like i think he's really well sketched i think the you know the the backstory of like what his grief is and how he sort of deals with that over the course of the game is really good i think the live is a little less detailed and would be the one of those two have cut off sooner but i think actually both of them can probably go because they're good characters and they're what that story you know right what it's around but um a large part of what makes henry interesting is that backstory stuff that's like established at the very beginning right that plays out very effective oh yeah it's just some text on the screen that's such a great way to do and voice performers for both are really really good they do a great job of selling that but i don't know they necessarily hang on this list yeah i think i'm probably with you all right uh what's up with beth wilder she's the only good character in that game yep she's one of the few good things about that entire game and the unfortunate thing is they really fuck up uh her conclusion at the end i think in service of maybe trying to set something up for a sequel that will probably never happen what's she do what's her story is it the beth wilder so did you want to it's a blur at this point you're probably better describing it than i am so the gist of it is that she is uh sort of an inside agent working uh against the corporation while also working as a security agent for them yeah and then things happen uh-huh and she is sent into the far-flung future where everything has fucked up okay and she right she's like being on the shatter yeah so her her and little finger are the only two people who are alive in that that area that future where people are just frozen in time who's that he's the the the boss the boss of the the bad guy um so they end up it's not his name no he's a game of thrums um and so basically when they're there uh there's all these like weird time demons floating around and they're the only people who can sort of move within time and they're essentially stuck in this post-apocalypse where everyone is frozen in time and they're being hunted by these awful time creatures do they show all this she's basically uh it's some of it yeah like bits and pieces enough to let you know that it's a bad scene but it's more like she comes back from that fucking changed yeah it fucks her up real bad and people yes okay so like kyle from the terminer yeah uh she's basically that character yeah they do like they they they sketch all that stuff out really well with her and she's the only character i found myself caring about all in that game from the beginning yeah scar like robot hands no but like once she comes back and has aged right yeah she's just fried she just looks like she's like a light shot of hair come on visually how she's got a ponytail from these pictures i'm looking at it i think she's wearing a knit cap at one point yeah okay but anyway i like her i think that i wish they did more with her at the end and didn't just sort of take her out of the story to maybe set up stuff for the future right she's a strong character i think so yeah she is all over that game and is and like i said is maybe the one thing i would say about that game that i ended the game still sort of positive they want totally you want the dlc with her in the future fighting demons i think that she would have been a more interesting protagonist and and with the way that she was written and stuff like that i don't know whatever there's a good game hidden within quantum break and they buried it under 90 gigs of television and all this other crap yeah and just like all right that's a good case um i could see i could see her we should not eliminate that wilder yet but i'm not convinced that she makes hot 3 but also maybe uh see that's hayden say hey samuel hayden sam hayden sam hayden just say it say it say it yep he's all right i think that's what they're going with or research it's extremely obvious what they're going for yes hayden boy it's backwards it's Dracula that guy's all right at the end of the game after directing you through the entire game during which you have been like extremely disobedient it toward him, but he doesn't care. He's all just like, I'm doing this for the greater good. The mankind must survive. At the end of the game, he imprisons you in hell spaces while he walks away and becomes a robot Satan.
But for the betterment of humankind. We're also trying to empower their cell phones. You know what they say? The road to hell is paved with argent energy.
I think that Sam Hayden is the whole story in that game. He's the most prominent character that you see. Sam Hayden moves that story along. The other characters that you encounter along the way, I feel like, are just kind of busting the road.
I mean, there's really only him and Mike Harrison. Well, and there's the Doom Slayer. Sadly, I've shot it down before this started that he's not a new character, technically. What I'm saying is that if not for Sam Hayden, you wouldn't really uncover a lot of his personality.
We wouldn't have nice things to say about the story of this game at all if it wasn't for Sam Hayden. I wouldn't go that far. He's like an 8-foot-tall role. All the dossier text shit in that game is so much better than it has any right to be.
If you read about his backstory, it's insane. He was like the Earth's most brilliant scientist. He's actually 200 years old because he's a brain in a 7-foot robot body. Because he basically cracked the secrets of time and space and when he was done with that, he realized he was going to die, so he had 6 months to design a brain-to-computer neural interface so he could save himself, which he did.
He's a brilliant scientist. And then stuck the brain in a giant 7-foot robot. If I could do that, I probably would. It's so ridiculous.
I mean, there are plenty of other examples of this in Doom, but he's a great example of it's all ridiculous in a really hilarious and awesome way. But they play it totally straight. Yes, they play it straight while they obviously know how stupid it is. All the Doom Slayer codecs.
And it all works so well. He's all right. I wonder if they know. I think they do.
Demonic invasion in progress. Fist bumping. 95% of the writing in that game is way too good to not be self-aware. All right.
All right. Earl from Headlander. He's your... Yeah, I think Earl's going to go.
But Earl is basically the friendly voice that sort of guides you to that game. The amiable Texan that is telling you where to go and what to do. As opposed to the... To Methuselah, yes.
Earl is... Spoiler. Earl is eventually revealed to be an AI. It's not actually a surprise at all when it happens.
But yeah. And Earl is basically just trying to save everyone from Methuselah's terrible rule. And he's a fun personality. He's enjoyable throughout the game.
But I wouldn't say he's one of the three strongest characters of the year. Okay. I like Tracer Core, but that's just like... That's a good vessel for some pretty good writing.
And I don't know that I would leave Tracer Core on the list as much as I do like Tracer Core. Tracer Core is pretty one note. Sure. Yeah.
It's a very good note. It's a really good note. But that's like... Sort of like previous popular personality spheres.
You just kind of want to listen to the audio and go... Yeah. This is really funny. Okay.
At least Tracer Core, when you fling Tracer Core, he does have a purpose. Yeah. I mean, all the cores have that. Yeah.
I mean, it's... That whole section of the lab is just like listening to all those cores. And Tracer Core is just the most forceful of the group. But yeah.
I think we probably... Probably cut Tracer Core. I was just going to say, more so than Rafe Adler, I think I was more affection for the Lady Mercenary in Uncharted 4 than I did Rafe. What's her name?
Yeah, look at that. She's in the DLC that's coming. It's also been a while since I've played that game. I can't remember people's names.
She was the leader of storyline. That would be PMC Mercenaries. Nadine Ross. Yeah, Nadine.
That scene where you get into the fight with her in the library is so... Is that her introduction? It's the first time you see her get the fuck shit up. And the fact that she beats Nathan Drake so handy.
It's the first time you see her as Nathan Drake. No, did you see her in the... She's in the cocktail party. But this fight is during the auction chapter, right?
She throws you out the window. That was a really good moment in that game. I just think she's a more interesting character. They didn't do much with her later in the game, though.
She really faded into the background. She comes back at the end in a good way. She's like, you boys are fucked. And then walks away.
Oh, that's right. I forgot how to pull her guys out. And then Rafe plays her. And then Rafe plays her.
And then Rafe plays her in the very last chapter in the grotto. I really appreciate her. And then I was like, you guys are crazy. She's like, fuck you, I got paid.
I'm out of here. Not even that. She's like, you guys are insane. Rafe is an effective villain in that you absolutely want to see him die the worst possible death.
Just this money, like, fucking bourgeois asshole, you know, like, fucking Jerry Sparrow. From the time he shows up at the auction, you know, and he's just like, oh, this guy's a fucking billionaire asshole. He's just shitting on people because he can. The voice is great.
He's good. I just got a fucking dick. He's Rafe. I think that's sad because Rafe should be a cool kick-ass name.
That guy just fucking sucks. It's good for that guy. He looks like a Rafe. Yeah, I don't know.
I kind of went the other way with it in that, like, Rafe's character was just kind of one of the other things that made me want to stop playing. I was like, oh, you know, I'm sure he gets his at the end. I wanted to get there, though. Like, he was so bad that I wanted to get there and put a sword fight or whatever.
Yeah, that boss fight is so bad. But that doesn't, that's that character flaw, you know, that's a set piece that didn't work out that well. If this was a worst boss fight character, I mean, let's be frank. But, you know, when that boss fight being shitty gets in the way of you seeing his art play out or seeing, like, getting to take revenge on him, like, it does kind of lessen the impact of it.
Doesn't he smash, like, Sully's drink or whatever? Yeah, he slaps it out of his hand. Yeah, someone's kind of joking around when Rafe's taking it super serious and causes this kind of scene. Who does that?
Like, hey, everything's fine. Even Nadine is cool with Sully. I think they shot each other. Like, that's an asshole.
Rafe's an asshole. Real talk, though, I don't know that necessarily either of those characters makes sense. Yeah, I don't know. I just, I had more affection for Nadine than I did Rafe as a character.
You guys said Ethan can go? Call of Duty? I think Ethan's a really good character. If we were doing a robot of the year category, Ethan would stay on this list.
But, yeah. Okay. There are good moments with the Ethan character. Like, there's good stuff along the way where the head of the Marines is super not into having a robot with him.
But over the course of the game, he's like, actually, this robot's pretty fucking awesome. This guy's all right. Is the robot going first person, crawling away from a nuke or something? Like, the end of that game is fucking grim.
In a way that Call of Duty doesn't pull off ever. Like, even if they've had characters die in the past. Did you, like, blow up people's memories? Like, last time?
No. No, no. This is a little less weird. And more, we've got to stop this evil force.
They never fully explained why they're that evil or whatever. But they're terrorists. We've got to stop them. And then, like, over the credits, you listen to all the, this letter is only to be sent home in case I don't make it.
Like, the whole end of the game is that with, like, the entire cast of the game you've been with the whole time. And you're just like, fuck. Does the robot have a letter? The robot, yes, I think, really?
There is something with the robot where he says, like, it's been an honor to serve. There is something. So are they presumed missing in action? Or are they actually dead?
No, they're fucking dead. So it's not like they'll show up in DLC, like, we're in a lost universe. They will not show up in a map pack. It's like, we're over here.
We can take Chief Beef off of here. Chief Beef's pretty great. I already know Chief Beef, but I kind of like him. You know Chief Beef.
I thought Chief Beef's last mixtape was, like, not what I was looking for. Chief Beef here? Yeah. No, it's just, you know, I expect more fire out of Chief Beef.
Chief Beef is more of an in-game asset than a character, if we're being honest. I want Chief Beef to go in every time. Chief Beef is a character you can paint with your own mind. There's not really a lot there to, you know.
Chief Beef will walk around that park and do what Chief Beef does on his own. Just violate your civil rights in a major way. Nope, only your rights are poultry, I guess. Yeah, no poultry in Chief Beef's park.
Fuck your port. Seafood, get the fuck out of here. Seafood, eat food. That's Chief Beef's motto.
How about the Witcher? Yeah, that's pretty good. That's what I'm with the Witcher. The Witcher guy, oh, fucking make me describe it.
So, okay, Witcher obviously came out in 2015 as a DLC for the Witcher, but it's a pretty good piece of story and character. Vladimir Von Everett is the deceased brother of one of the main... All right, so you're the Witcher. Yes, mm-hmm.
You wind up, long story short, you wind up in a Faustian bargain with the devil, right? As happens. As happens. And the devil has to deal with another Faustian bargain with this guy, and he wants you to help him fulfill the requirements to get his soul, right?
So he conscripts you, and it's like, okay, listen, you work for me. I've got, I fucked up this bargain. I need you to help me get this guy's soul, right? And one of the things is, you have to fulfill his wishes, and one of the wishes for the other guy who sold the devil wants is you have to entertain my brother.
Show him a good sign. But his brother's been dead for 20 years, whatever, 10 years. So you have to raise the brother's soul, and this is Vladimir, and the soul inhabits you, so he possesses the Witcher, and then he basically takes him to a party, and the brother's this, like, real, like, hunter-batch. He's just a swarthy prick.
So you get to roleplay as him in the Witcher's body throughout this whole party, trying to hit on your, kind of, best friend, who you also might have a thing with, but it's super awkward, but now he's hitting on her the whole time, and it gets really weird. And there's some good back-and-forth where it occasionally, like, resurface, and just be like, oh god, this is so much. I'm sorry, right? And she's like, yeah, right?
And so it gets really awkward and weird, because there was a thing, and the other Witcher games between them, and it winds up being a good time. He's a good character. He does not have the Heart of Stone. Okay.
Does the Witcher? No. The other guy did. Okay.
Which is a good story beat, too. So he winds up making the deal with the devil to him for immortality, but in the course of it, winds up with the Heart of Stone, or, like, winds up, not being able to feel a lot, winds up, he loves this girl, and she goes crazy, because he can't love her back now. It's real dark, actually. And then she winds up in the house and kills herself, and, like, he wants to be released from this, and that part gets actually super dark.
But the Vladimir stuff, like, it's just wacky hijinks with Geralt doing personality things that that character is not capable of doing. Yeah, it's a fun bit. Yeah, I personally could see him on here, but, like... He stuck out to me, even though that shit came out super early in the year.
I don't have too many other characters on here that I know, except for Helmut Kruger. I like Uncle Death a lot. I'm not sure anyone here has actually experienced a great deal of Uncle Death at this point. I'm not sure that there actually is, like, too much in the way.
Like, Uncle Death is kind of a tutorial character. He's deaf on a skateboard, wearing, like, glasses that are kind of like wrenches in Watch Dogs 2, except just weirder shit instead of just emojis or whatever. Yeah, he doesn't change them, actually, physically. If it's not the same voice actor, at least whoever's doing it sounds like they're doing the Garcia Hotspur voice from Shadows of the Damned a little bit.
Yeah, and he kind of pops up more towards the beginning of the game, but then also his voice comes out of your controller speaker any time you do, like, a murder, like a gore kill or whatever. So it's just, and he appears on the screen, so it's like you fucking torture rack a guy and blow him up. And then Uncle Death appears and goes, ha-ha, nice! And that's pretty great.
He's not really a narrator. No, he's not. So the whole game takes place. It's a game of the game, and you're playing this game where you're climbing a tower kind of like a roguelike, you know, permadeath sort of thing.
But then that is all taking place on an arcade machine, and you would stop playing the arcade machine, and then you're in an arcade, and this guy playing a fighting game over in the corner, you can ask for tips. Uncle Death is sitting across from you. There's a girl you get quests from. And then when you go back into the arcade machine, the death drive 128, then Uncle Death talks again.
And that's the arcade machine? So is he watching you play the game? Yeah, yeah. Intently.
And, yeah, so Uncle Death is really front-loaded unless he shows up super late game. But he makes a pretty powerful impact. I like Uncle Death a lot. I want to be friends with Uncle Death.
Uncle Death seems all right. You related to Death Junior? He's a grown-up Death Junior. He's a character you'd like to party with?
Yeah, I would like to party with Uncle Death. He's Death's large adult fail son. It's right. But it is front-loaded.
It is like quips, in a sense. There's no arc. And he's definitely on a skateboard, which is fun. Yeah, no, it is definitely on a skateboard.
And it's very fourth wall breaking at the beginning, where he's like, oh, let me show you the title. You know how these games do it. And then the title of the game is written on the bottom of a skateboard. Yeah.
Oh, nice. Does he like Matt Hazard? No. No, not in any way.
I hear quickly fourth wall breaking. I think Matt Hazard, please don't. Okay, all right. So I like Uncle Death.
I do, too. I hope he sticks around through the game. It seems like he's pretty tightly interwoven. I don't know if he's the architect to this whole world or what, but I think he's pretty awesome.
Yeah. How about Trico? Is there enough there? My furry little dinosaur.
So Trico's an interesting one, in that Trico is not, in and of itself, a super personable character in the way that we normally define this category. Like, there's not a lot of dialogue or anything coming out of it. The main thing with Trico is it's about the relationship you develop with that character over the course of the game. It's about sort of learning how to train it and command it and being able to, you know, sort of help each other throughout the thing.
Like, Trico's a very expressive character. Like, Trico, the way that it behaves and it moves and the way you sometimes have to cajole it to do what you want, but also, like, the way it will swoop in and kind of rescue you when shit's going real bad. Like, the interplay there is really great, and I think that they have done a pretty magical job of rendering how a wild but, you know, sort of trainable animal behaves. You know, as fantastical as that creature is, it just feels like a giant cat that you're hanging out with.
Does it have a personality? I think so, yeah. It's, you know, it's a very different definition of it compared to what we normally put in this category, but I think that, like, without that interplay and without the way that that relationship develops that game would not work at all. And I think that they pull that shit off pretty well.
You talk about training the character. Is that actually like a mechanic? Is there anything to do with it? So you don't think it would come out differently for the player?
No, absolutely not. No, it's not that. It's not a Mollinue game. The thing is, it's not Black and White 2 free.
No, it's a fully linear game, and when you're going to get the more commands to work with is a set point in the game. But the way that they sort of build that up over time with the way they set up the puzzles early on to, you know, mechanics of those versus when you have those commands, like, I think it all kind of fits together very nicely. How about Barry Goodman? So Barry Goodman's a fun one.
So I've not finished that game, so I've not seen the whole of his arc. It was pretty long. Yes, it is. I'm nowhere near finishing that game.
But I will say that Barry is probably the most immediately noticeable personality in that game that I encounter. Barry is a former death metal band guy that moved to Japan to be a pop idol because he is basically a giant anime dork. And by this point in the game, when you meet him, he's like middle-aged. He's an idol trainer.
He's a handler or something? Yeah, more or less. He's like a labeled dude, but in the real world of this where he's sort of helping to train new pop stars within this universe. And he's, again, he's American, but he's Japan-obsessed.
And this is not a detail I would have picked up on had I not read on it, but basically the way he talks in the game is way more formal than anyone else because obviously he learned Japanese as a second language. So there's little details like that kind of sprinkled in. And he's also just a really weird, wacky personality that's fun in that game. And I think at some point they call back to the death metal band he used to be in and stuff like that.
And unfortunately, I wish I could speak more enthusiastically because, again, I have not gotten super tuned in that game. Does he become a character in your party? He becomes a support character in that game. BT's all right.
BT's okay. He's okay. You care enough to feel bad when bad things happen to him. BT seems very competent and I'm not sure why BT needs to have you inside of him.
He can throw you very well. Sometimes he has to throw you. He can't get up to the top of the thing. You turn out to be a pretty good pilot.
You are a very good new pilot. You impressed the robot, man. I impressed myself. You're not even a pilot, right?
Well, not actually. You meet up with the commander lady and she's like, all right, it's time to get this robot a real pilot. I think it's you then, but I don't know if that game is over. Yeah, okay, fine, you're a pilot.
You're a robot for tests. But it gets to establish that you are pilot sensitive. I think that BT is a cool character. BT is actually kind of funny in spots.
Some of that depends on which things you select in those conversation points. That's my only complaint here is that I wish they'd gone further in the buddy cop direction than they did. I agree. I feel like they were getting there and they don't quite go all the way.
I think that could have easily drifted though into like, oh, I'm a stoic robot saying crazy things. It didn't need to be a wisecracker or super tongue-in-cheek or self-aware or whatever. That would have been too far what you're describing would have definitely been too far, but I feel like they didn't go far enough. They get to a point by the end of the game where the pilot and BT have kind of joined in a way that BT is a little less formal about addressing you and all that sort of stuff.
You kind of become friends. I think they're really good at conveying that in BT's dialogue. He's not going to be on BT's reaction. He's not a comic character.
He's not a comic character. I guess if anything, I could have used more interactions between them. I agree. There's a lot of silence in that game.
I was bummed that most of the dialogue is those choices that you make. Which you also can very easily miss. I did a couple of times when I was in the old fight or whatever. Yeah, while running, you're not going to be bad.
Yeah, silence is a good way to put it. I wish they could have filled more of that time with some more dialogue. He should have filled BT with Tracer Corps. He does have a great voice.
Optimus Prime. When that stuff happens to him, I was like, fuck no. Fuck that. BT's awesome.
He'll do that. Yeah, when they carry him off early on in that game in the factory level or whatever, you're trying to find me. He's like, hey, can you find me? This sucks.
Please help. There's that and the part where you get the personality core of BT, basically. And they just drop a fucking empty robot. And you're like, alright, let's put this thing in here.
And then they even have the... Because when you look at a Titan in that game, it has a destination that pops up the same way allies in Call of Duty have. And seeing it change from whatever the fuck they drop it, it's BT again. And you're like, alright, cool.
And then that's kind of the final push. You're like, alright, I got my friend BT here. We're going to go fuck all these people up. I think that's really good.
That moment was awesome, but then they don't really get on it because it lasts five more minutes or something. That's like five minutes from the end of the game. They don't do much with his new body. That's a nice dramatic moment that doesn't really fully play out.
Doesn't he keep the spark pistol in his face or something? Yeah, that's an amazing moment in that game. And yeah, I don't know. I like BT a lot.
I agree that they could have done a lot more. Or a little more. But they didn't quite get where they were going. I'm tempted to say, oh, we should cut it.
But then I look at the rest of this list and go, actually, no. I probably feel better about BT than most of this list. But there are characters that I'm not familiar with. So we're getting to that territory where everyone only knows a couple of characters and we need to figure out a way to proceed.
I like Helmut Kruger. I think Helmut Kruger stays on this list. Yeah, I think Helmut Kruger. Of the ones that are on here that I feel like I'm confident in letting go of, I think we can let John Donovan go.
He's a fun goof, but he's not my favorite character in that game. He's just the one that people talk about the most. And I think the other characters in that game are all well-written, but they aren't standouts the way that some of these other ones are. Quiet confidence.
Yes. I think in some ways Donovan is actually the least welcome personality in that game in a lot of ways. And I think with no one else really having played Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Barry Goodman is going to be a hard one to go bad for, especially since I finished that game and seen his whole arc. I wanted to make sure there was a call-out to that, because there are some really good characters in that game.
I can see Beth Wilder staying on this list, honestly. You guys made a pretty good case for her, I think. Yeah, I mean, I think. Somebody let's sit out and just really submit to the...
It's hard, because I mean, just compared to all the other characters in that game, she's just so much better drawn and ever more. Yeah, totally. It's strange. I feel like she came from a much better game.
But she time-traveled back from a game where I want to break that was way more interesting into a game full of very flat characters. So here's my hard push for Trico, which is that at times when I was playing that game, I have caught myself actually trying to talk to the TV like it was an animal. And I don't normally do that. Are you sure?
Yes. I'm definitely losing my mind. That's another here or there. What I'm saying is that the way that they sketch that stuff out and the way that they sort of portray that relationship, the behavior of Trico is believable enough to where at times I've caught myself talking to it like I talk to my own pets.
I believe it. I mean, we recorded a quick look for that. I totally buy that. And you can pet it.
There's a pet Trico button. They model that thing really well. The movement and the way it looks in there. The way it subtly winds when you get too far away and sort of the more triumphant moments that happen where you're kind of rescuing each other, all that stuff is really well done.
There's also some stuff I saw when you jump and miss it. He just watches you fly into a pit. That's what a cat would do. So I could see it on there, too.
I think Uncle Death is the big link on this list. I like Uncle Death a lot, but none of us have a great deal of experience with that. I love Uncle Death. And we can take Vladimir off.
You sure? Yeah. I really did like that character. Yeah, it's a fun scene, but we can take him off, too.
Okay. All right, so we're down to five. It'd be honestly in the Blood and Wine and Hearts of Sons are so many good characters. Yeah.
Well, it sounds like B.T.'s probably going to be a tough sell for this list. I like him on the list. He's the character I know from this list. I know Helmut Kroger, Sam, old Sam Hayden, and B.T.
I don't know Beth Wilder or Trico. It's probably the one that most of us like the most. B.T.? Yeah, but best new character?
Like, B.T. to me just seems really competent. I wish there was more B.T. I feel like there was not enough.
I agree with Brad that, like, they took a light touch, and I understand why you would do that in a shooter. Like, you want to take a light touch with your story because people are there all the time, but I could use more B.T. It sounds like Beth Wilder has an actual arc. Yeah.
Yeah, sounds interesting. That's cool. And again, they fumble the ending with her, as they do with just about everything at the end of that game. They fumble so much in that game.
But she's what makes the middle section of that game interesting, which no other part of that game is. Yeah, okay, yeah. Sure. That's how I felt about it.
Yeah, I can buy that. So we like Beth? We don't like Beth. I like Beth on this list.
I do. She's actually pretty cool. I kind of like that top three. I do, too.
How much do you feel about Beth? That's my feeling. So the only thing I have with Samuel Hayden is basically I like him as the foil for the Doom Slayer. Yeah.
Like, I also think he's very competent, and I sometimes agree with what that man's saying. Like, okay, you've got some good points, but the Doom Slayer doesn't care. He doesn't give a fuck. I kind of doesn't give a fuck.
He doesn't really want to hear about it. I think that's what makes Samuel Hayden's reaction to that so good. Right, it's the super archetypal, just hard-ass villain who is suddenly in the face of someone who could not give less of a shit about the Doom Slayer. It's like he is pure logic, and Doom Slayer is pure chaos.
He is very appropriately pure id. He wants to destroy everything in front of him, even when the guy on the radio is telling you, that thing is crucial to humanity's survival. Like, you have to... Oh, god damn it.
It's just like, oh, well. Yes, yes, yes. It's like, well, I'm not in position to stop him, so what will you from here? Yeah, exactly.
Those reactions every time the dude guy totally disabays what he's asking him to do are priceless. Like, very non-emotional, very kind of stiff-ass in the face of... It's what makes all of that stuff, I think, so great. It's like, nobody ever really, I feel like, is like, the fuck is Sam doing that?
Like, everybody's kind of just like, all right, okay, show this guy. All right. And then the fact that at the very end of the game, when you come back from beating the last boss, he quotes the ending text from Doom 2 as part of his monologue at the end. Oh, okay.
Like, as the elevators or whatever are shutting? Yeah. Like, that last person cut scene when he grabs the artifact and walks away. He's like, Doom Saber.
He's basically, like, sort of paraphrased, but he's basically, like, reading from the ending of actual Doom 2. I'm not sure if I picked up on that. Yeah, it was pretty subtle. I feel like they jumped ahead too much.
Like, Doom 2 is a separate game. They should have saved that. But maybe that's the setup for the next one, yeah. So, yeah, I think in combination with Doom Slayer, but I'm not sure if he'll stand on his own in here.
Well, his interactions with other characters are... I mean, in any case, that's largely what defines a character. Yeah. I guess, right, Trico's the same thing.
Like, the interaction with the player. Except for Helmut Kruger. These guys don't shit. Helmut Kruger probably wins this category.
He needs to make calls and get business done. My favorite part about Helmut Kruger is that if you don't kill Helmut Kruger, he comes back on the map and will walk around as Helmut Kruger as you are just as Helmut Kruger. Do you like, re-apply makeup? Yeah, I think he keeps his makeup.
Oh, yeah, yeah. What does he wear? I think he's... Maybe it happened to me when I was doing it for extra life, and I was like, what the fuck?
I like how famous he is just in that world. Like, even the Hikaiyo map. Yeah, totally. Does he show up in another map?
There's a character in the last map, the hospital, who is one of those fucking weirdos who gets plastic surgery and tries to look like famous people. He's there to get a facelift to try to look like Helmut Kruger. And then he sees you and gets super mad because he thinks that you took his idea and got the surgery first. Can you become that guy?
Yeah, I think so. I haven't tried. There's some really good bits in that. I really hope, like, season two has you just killed Helmut Kruger.
No, no, no. Yes. I mean, you can't do that over and over. No, but I'm saying, like, he needs to get the turn.
No. What if season two had Helmut Kruger partnering with you as a... Or that, or that. Let me meet someone who looks like 47 and you have to get a real gun to kill someone, yeah.
Oh, yeah, you have to get a real gun to Helmut Kruger. One of the other actors is the thing. Yep, yep. Well, okay, we just wrote that scene.
All right, there you go. Season two, episode four. All right, so should we take BT off? Yeah, I just don't think BT is going to stay.
I think BT is really good, but I think we all would agree that there was a little more that could have been done. Yeah, like, my only complaint is that I wish there was more of him because what's there is really good. And then Beth, or Sam, from what you guys say about Beth, I go with Beth. I mean, is Treyko a lot here?
I don't know what I feel about Treyko. I like where you're coming from conceptually, but the idea of a Beth character that doesn't even speak. I'm not saying it should be disqualifying necessarily, but it's the whole thing that game spins on and they hit it. Like, if that relationship doesn't work, that game doesn't work.
That character doesn't need dialogue to be. Yeah, I mean. And if the behavior was off, if I was reading it as AI on a regular basis, that game would also still not work. But the behaviors are just subtle enough to where it feels like, even when it's a little frustrating, it doesn't feel like, oh, this AI is broken.
It just feels like, well, no, this is an animal that has its attention on something else. Yeah, I do feel like that's a needle that's hard to thread. That still sounds like something super frustrating that I would not want to ever see. Well, it can be.
It can be frustrating at times, but I would say that more often than not, it works, and I like the way that it works. I feel like Treyko has to be in the top three. That's something I did not come into this trip thinking I was going to go to Bat 4, but it really does work. No, you know.
As much as I like Beth Wilder, the Sam Hayden case I think is really strong, too. I can live with Sam Hayden over Beth. Think we'll see more Sam Hayden? I hope so.
I hope they need another one of those games. Think I'll play with Sam Hayden? No. Beth Wilder, that actress, that character, would have been a better game.
All right, so Beth comes off. I think so. Elizabeth Wilder? I will say, for the record, I think the Doom guy is the best character in Doom, but he's not a new character technically, so he didn't break here.
Well, and as we mentioned, the interaction with Sam Hayden is what? I feel like I've done Treyko for 10 years. And honestly, not to make non-arguments for non-entrance in this, but I think actually I was really frustrated in cases where Doom guy just did stuff on his own, and I was like, wait, that's totally not what I want to do. Okay, oh, you're just gonna smash this.
Okay, all right, well, that's funny, but actually super frustrating. But at the same time, the way the writing is in that game left room for me to go, actually, yeah, no, that's... I would rather harness the hell energy and see how it goes. But I thought that was a good thing.
It was funny. It was absurd, like, just ratcheting up how fucking insane that game is. I think I came away from that game not necessarily painting Sam Hayden as the pure beggar. Oh, he wasn't.
He's not, yeah. I mean, what's the other lady's name? I forgot Lydia's something. She's the actual villain.
And like, you're teaming up with Sam Hayden to try and figure out a way forward, right? But he is the classic villain, like the real-world villain, in that he thinks what he's doing is right. I think what he was doing was like kind of... I mean, he leads a corporation that's fracking hell, you know?
I mean, Earth can't sustain itself. It's got no energy. I mean, I have very little sympathy for hell and its inhabitants. I don't mean that.
I'm just saying, if you're trying to buy things off of hell's Amazon wish list, I might say stop. No, no, I mean, like, he's willing to do what he thinks needs to be done regardless of how much, like, death and destruction he needs to be. That guy's pretty smart. Yeah, he is.
If anybody can, like, take argent energy and make it useful, I mean, whatever. That's why he's so great. And she messed it up, right? Didn't she open the portal?
Yeah. Well, yeah, she's the one that blows it all up. She's the one that thinks, like, you know, opening the portal to hell and all that is part of some sort of, like, greater religious, you know, sort of, like, she goes all cultist with the demons. Like, Sam Haynes, the man who's like, he's a talent, he's an opportunist.
Yeah, he's a pure pragmatist. That's why I agree with you. He's not, like, a pure villain. Like, he is a villain.
He just can't see the goodness. The dude guy's just like, hell monsters, that's bad. I've been doing this for a while. Hell monsters, no good.
Trust me on this one. I'm not going to stop to tell you why. That's kind of what makes it great. You read the stone tablets, right?
Because I feel like the whole time Doom Slayer's just like, I can't fucking believe this. You did this again? Or it's a hell monster. That's a good, like, inner monologue mode.
No, I'm an idiot. God damn it, I swear. Okay, no respect. Yeah, I know.
Sam Haynes, oh, right. As a foil for the Doom Net. It would actually be great if two guys sounded like Robin Dangerfield in reality. All right, so we have a list of Helmet, Kruger, Trico, and Samuel Hayden.
Yep. That's a great trio. Yeah, that seems pretty unanimous here, the Helmet Kruger. Yeah, I mean, I think, for me personally, Trico is the winner here, but I understand the argument for Helmet, and I'm okay with it.
I had a lot of fun with Helmet Kruger. Yeah, Helmet Kruger is a really great idea for a character in that universe. Like I said, I think there are probably funnier characters than him in some of the other maps, but like, as the embodiment of what we've done in Hitman over the rest of the year, like he is the guy. You probably said his name more than anyone else.
I like to know more about Helmet Kruger than man. I like to wear his clothes. I like to be Helmet Kruger. I want to spend more time going to do some ladders and stuff.
Be right back. All right, well, it's time for the second category that they know, which is best VR experience. Experience! Emphasis on experience.
Experience. Experience. Like, I think we're going to, you know, because of the nature of VR, I think we have to kind of widen this category compared to a lot of the other ones and consider early access because all of Virtuette and virtual reality is in early access. I like Virtuette.
Virtuette. It's like a little vignette in virtual reality. Would you like a moist Virtuette? Okay, sure.
If that makes the experience better. the virtual reality is better. You've got to put the headset into the moisture and then sit in there for a while. Those headsets get damp.
Boy, do they. I feel like Alex and I are closer people. That's why I like that the PSVR is all rubber, because it's easy to wipe off, versus the foam on the other ones gets kind of damp. Yeah, you should get tested when we get back to New York.
I don't know if the damp, moist fuzz on the VR headset is my best VR experience. Cloth. But, what are some of the other ones that might be found? All right, I'll read this list.
In the particular order, Headmaster, Loading Human Chapter 1, The Unspoken, Rip Coil, I Expect You to Die, Space Pirate Trainer, The Lab, Eve Valkyrie, Google Earth VR, Tilt Brush, Oculus Medium, Rec Room, Superhot VR, Rez Infinite, Job Simulator, Drunken Bar Fight, and Broad Data. So, again, these are, could be early access, could be, I don't want to say that, like, at least half of these are probably early access. Did it keep talking and no one explodes not come out this year? I mean, it did on Headset.
It's a great game, but it's not really VR required. What is Oculus Medium? Oculus Medium is the sculpting tool, sort of like Tilt Brush in a sense, but it's like, you know, you're kind of like making spheres, smoothing them, cutting them, you know, you get kind of Photoshop style tools to kind of shape objects. I made a kick-ass snowman.
Nice. And I made a pretty good cup. Oculus Medium is really cool. It's a really good, relaxing thing.
And I think that's actually something I didn't necessarily expect out of VR that we got. I think Tilt Brush does it. These easy creation tools, Tilt Brush and Medium are both really powerful for that. And it's actually a really good relaxation technique in a way.
I was like, I'm just going to fucking sculpt, man. You know, from the little bit I tried on the Google Earth VR, there were parts where I thought, like, I could just sit here and hang out on this thing for a while and, like, relax. In an odd way. I'm sure watching it on a TV would not be the same.
But, like, when I was in it, like, sitting on a water tower or whatever, let's say, felt, like, ugly. And just the weird, like, nostalgia you can get from that, like, just flying around your childhood neighborhoods and stuff. Like, it's just weird, kind of like, Jeffy said, it was almost like a profound feeling. Yeah, it was really, yes, yeah.
But in a way that, like, it also blended reality with, was it in Proteus or whatever? Sure. You know, like, oh, yeah. Or, like, what are these, like, polygonal blocks?
Oh, right. Interpolation that it does? Oh, that's great. Whenever there's a tree in front of my house, it's eating my house.
Oh, yeah. Google Earth VR is an amazing, amazing thing. You know, it's in its rough state, yeah. You know, I didn't see it was Soundstage.
Yeah, Soundstage. I like Soundstage a lot. I didn't, I ended up not putting it on this list because I just, it's very simple. Like, Soundstage will probably be something that we would reconsider for this category next year.
But, like, right now in its current state, it's just, it's a little too simple. I want too much. I want more out of it. Okay.
That it just doesn't do. And also, when you start adding more and more to it, it seems like it kind of breaks. Okay. Yeah, I can see that.
Yeah, I've had that experience. Like, okay, I want, like, more samples. I want more of this. I want this big speaker.
Like, all of a sudden, all the audio isn't working. So, a little glitchy. A little work. But, like, that thing is awesome.
And I suspect it will get to a really amazing place as they continue to work on it. But right now, I just think it's a little too rough. I probably wouldn't consider it over these other things. What's, I Expect You to Die?
I Expect You to Die is a, it's sort of like a job simulator or it's sort of like the elevator game whose name escapes me now. Elevator Puzzles. Yeah. So, it's, or like, or Please Don't Touch Anything.
Right. Where it's like, here's this room full of interactions and things will happen as you interact with stuff. So, you're a spy. Okay, so it's like a bunch.
Yeah, so there's like a bit of, like, martini swagger to this game. So, the first situation they put you into is, like, you're in a car that's in the back of a plane. Gotcha. And you need to get the plane, you need to get the car out.