The Best Games Ever Podcast
by VG247
Your favourite people at VG247.com chat about the best games ever - with a twist. This is a game show where our regular panellists have to pitch their pick for the best game in a very specific category, such as "the best game where you get to eat pie", or "the best game with the worst cars". Our host Jim Trinca then has to pick his favourite, and then has to spend the rest of the week having annoyed two of his colleagues. Usually Connor. It's good, you should listen to it.
Episodes
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Episode 118: The best game that lets YOU control the narrative
Interactivity is this medium's entire thing. It's a composite of many other art forms: everything from prose, to sculpture, to television. What it cribs from those things is often its weakest work, but what it does brilliantly and almost singularly is give the audience some control within the...
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Episode 117: The best game that is HATED by its publisher
Sometimes a game comes along that is, for reasons, a bit a of a black sheep as far as its parent company is concerned. It could be a passion project that doesn't tick any zeigeisty boxes, a legacy IP that the current owners have no clue what to do with, sometimes even a perfectly decent game that...
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Episode 116: Expansions that are better than the main game
Add-on content for video games is often worthless, but it can sometimes go very, very right: just look at the DLC catalogue for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It infamously introduced the gaming landscape to the concept of horse armour, or paid cosmetic items in single player titles, which was...
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Episode 114: Rings of Power?
Gaming is full of rings of power: from RPG trinkets that give your character a small but pivotal buff to a critical stat, warp rings that provide instantaneous transport for Sonic the Hedgehog, and beastly racing circuits. Not to mention, er, the actual rings of power from Lord of the Rings.…
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Episode 113: The best game that outlived its biggest competitor
Who won out of Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous, the crowdfunded space sim sensations pitched to us a decade ago by two of the genre's most celebrated game directors? Star Citizen being a spiritual follow up to Wing Commander and Privateer, and Elite Dangerous being a direct sequel to Elite,...
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Episode 112: The best games that BRICKED consoles
If you were lucky enough to have lived through the 7th console generation as a young adult with enough disposable income to buy a couple of games per month, you ate damn well. You probably have countless fond memories of each big new watercooler game that the studios of the day were firing out…
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Episode CXI: The best Star Wars game that isn't a Star Wars game?
Inspired by the recent release of Star Wars Outlaws, this week's podcast is all about what makes Star Wars, something we're exploring via the unorthodox path of picking a bunch of things that aren't Star Wars and pointing out the ways they are like Star Wars. Confused? Don't be, it's just an…
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Episode 110: Best game with the most pointless feature
Sometimes video games include the most random things, but who doesn't love that stuff? We all get excited when you can flush a toilet or turn on a tap, even though these are the most mundane actions possible in the 'real world'. Jim, in his wisdom(?), decided that these neat little features are...
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Episode 109: Best game on the worst console
Video games are great, but sometimes you just have to admit that some of them are only available on consoles that, well, aren't great. Rubbish, even. You can guarantee an argument if you ask people to pick the worst games console, so that's what we did. But what is the best game on this worst...
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Episode 108: What's the best game where you can do a wee wee
Video games are unparalleled in recreating real and fictional experiences. Only when both are channelled well, with love and passion, can a game transcend its place as merely a product and become art. For this reason being able to take a piss in-game is paramount to the merits of the medium.…
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Episode 107: Best game that should have been an email
It's time for another episode of the Best Games Ever Podcast. This time we've got a great topic as Tom picked it. Join Jim, Tom, Connor, and Sherif as the gang ponders such a brilliant topic and attempts to come up with suitably amazing answers. Spoiler: Only Tom has a good answer.
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Episode 106: Put Biden In Smash
It seems like nothing will convince Biden to step down and let someone else run against Trump., but we don't care about any of that because we're a video game quiz show. Unless...
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Episode 105: The best game you were glad to see the back of
You wait years and years for something to finally be over, and once that day comes, you’re left not with a sense of joy, but with a deep-set anxiety about what comes after. Bereft. Unable to enjoy the simple joy of being free, because you’ve been around the block a bit, and you know how these...
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Episode 104: The Best Game that has aged like a Fine Wine
Most games age like milk in the hot sun. But some are so bold, so brilliant, that they transcend their contemporary era, remaining relevant and highly playable for years or even decades following their release. But which of these has most aged like a fine bottle of fermented grapes, mashed…
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Episode 103: Ian Higton's Bum Guffs, or Best Rubbish Game with a Good Reveal Trailer
There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247.com paid subscriber - check out our Support Us page for more info. Doing so helps ensure that we can keep making the show! But don't worry if that's not for you, the main show will always be free. Still inspired…
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Episode 102: What’s the best game that had the worst reveal trailer?
Many great games have suffered from poor marketing. Sometimes they’re advertised to entirely the wrong demographic. Other times, they’re partnered with uncool or problematic brands. A lot of the time they’re just hard to explain, and need to be experienced to properly understand, so unless you…
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The Wonderful 101: Best game where everyone's mad at you but you did nothing wrong
It won't have escaped your notice, dear viewer or listener, that the last episode - our incredible two-part 100th episode special quickfire edition - featured six contestants instead of the usual three. It may have escaped your notice, however, that 50% of them were not actually VG247 staff. This...
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Episode 100: The Big Quickfire Special PART TWO
To recap: for the 100th episode we decided to come up with 100 episode topics and blow them all on one huge quiz round, with individual buzzers and everything. Inviting some favourite guests to return (Owen, Richie, and Burns) with the promise that, yes, however many points you score in this...
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Episode 100: The Big Quickfire Special PART ONE
One-hundred episodes. 100 weeks of The Best Games Ever podcast. I can scarcely believe it. On a personal note, it's been wonderful to host this stupid, daft, funny, sometimes even informative show about games past and present, with its mad politics and meta-games, running gags, plot twists…
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Podcast Audit 4: Sorry Kelsey
Ahead of our big 100th Episode Quickfire Special Featuring Steve Burns, which is going to irrevocably change the scoreboard forever, Tom and I decided to do another one of our Best Games Ever Podcast audits, where we review everyone's picks in the last few months, reveal who ranks best in overall...
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Episode 99: The best game with WET guys that DRY OFF
Realistic water and wetness were seen for years as a litmus test for photorealistic graphics, but by the PS3 generation, developers had it nailed: water shaders had become so sophisticated that Nathan Drake would emerge from a full dousing of seawater and slowly dry off, with his clothes soaked,...
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Episode 98: The best game with shooting where you don't get a gun for ages
Whatever your attitude to guns in real life (for the record, they’re awful and civilians shouldn’t have them), it’s hard not to become a sort of virtual gun nut when you’re a gaming enthusiast because, inevitably, our primary interaction with game worlds is shooting bullets into them. Even games...
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The best game in which you fight a bear
Hello and welcome to episode 97 of the Best Games Ever Podcast. As is traditional, let us give you some information about the show. This week we are looking for our contestants to think of the best game in which you fight a bear. Let's see if anyone decides to subvert the topic in ways that cause...
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The best game they wouldn't get away with these days!!!!
You can’t say anything these days! Is what silly people say, a lot. You can actually say whatever you like. You can say, for example, and with confidence, that there are certain things you could get away with in gaming thirty years ago that simply wouldn’t fly now. Like… racing games with only…
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The best game where your family DITCHES you
Inspired by the (frankly excellent) Fallout TV show, this week on VG247's Best Games Ever podcast I've tasked my colleagues with finding the best game where a family member ditches you. With the prerequisite understanding that none of them are allowed to pick Fallout 3, the quintessential "dad's...
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A free game we’d love to pay for – The Best Games Ever Podcast episode 94
Inspired by the recent free drop of current viral sensation Content Warning – a co-op survival “shooter” about making spooky FauxTube videos with three of your mates – this week’s Best Games Ever podcast is all about freebies that we’d happily pay for. It’s a happy coincidence that this topic...
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Episode 93: Best game everyone on social media says you should hate but is actually good
The Best Games Ever podcast is a game show where three totally normal and socially acceptable panellists have to find the best game in a peculiar category such as "Best game with a breakfast buffet", or "Best game with loads of vandalism". They have to pitch their pick to our host, Jim, who uses...
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Episode 92: The best Deep Impact to another game's Armageddon?
Big Western style open-world RPGs from beloved Japanese studios who tend to be known for other things (inhale) are like buses: there's none for ages, and then two come along at once! See also: Clinton-era disaster movies about Earth getting clobbered by an asteroid. See also: Clinton-era disaster...
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Episode 91: The best unofficial adaptation of a movie or TV show
It’s clear from Helldivers 2’s marketing that the game is directly inspired by Blair-era Dutch arthouse anti-war movie Starship Troopers. It’s also clear from playing it that Warhammer 40,000 and the future war bits of Terminator have made their mark on the project, and with its sprawling, player...
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Episode 90: The best game with a load of sand in it
It's been long and arduous road to something resembling a worthy adaptation of Frank "dirty" Herbert's sand-based epic Dune, but with the recent release of Denis Villeneuve's Dune 2, we can safely call that one done. I just hope we get enough sequels for the films to start covering such nonsense…
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Episode 89: The best live service game that you like despite itself
If you're anything like me, nothing makes you lose interest in a game quicker than the words "always online". Or "free-to-play". Or "connected experience", or whatever other marketing terms they've come up with for "live service grindfest that sucks". Sometimes they don't even tell you upfront…
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Episode 88: The best game that shipped on multiple discs
Physical game releases have been in danger of disappearing for a long time, what with Steam all but killing the PC optical drive, a cheaper discless PS5, and the rumoured incoming Xbox Series refresh which will do away with bluray even on the premium model. They're not likely to die off entirely:...
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Episode 87: Blackbeard's syphilitic pinger
The Best Games Ever podcast is a game show where three regular panellists have to find the best game in a weirdly specific category such as "Best game with a named horse", or "Best game with a terrible British accent". They have to pitch their pick to our host, Jim, who then decides the winner.…
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The best game you hate that everyone loves
Sometimes it's just really baffling why certain games are popular. And you wonder to yourself if it's just because you're broken in some way. What malfunction or defect from birth would lead someone to, say, think Horizon Zero Dawn is a load of cobblers? We're here to reassure you that it's fine,...
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Do NOT mention this game on the podcast
What's the best game that has no business being brought up on a podcast that's all about the Best Games Ever? If you can get your head around that, you're already way ahead of our regular panel. Some of the worst games ever made are also the most interesting. Take Night Trap, for example: it's...
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Episode 84: Best Game that you can't stop going back to despite having a huge pile of shame to work through
Honestly, we've got no idea what episode this is. Jim thinks this is Season 2, which is news to everyone else, but it's also sort of episode 84. This week we pick the games that we just can't stop going back to. The games that, despite knowing we have newer titles to work through, we play at…
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2023 games you FORGOT about
So much STUFF game out in 2023 - we had Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, a new Baldur's Gate, a Skyrim sequel which introduced such innovations to the series as: Guns and Boring. Starfield, I'm talking about. And you knew that, but I have to spell it out in the body text because a certain tech giant...
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The Best Games Ever Show Christmas Special 2023
Well, for the six of you who kept asking, Merry Christmas. For this festive episode on VG247’s Best Games Ever Show, Tom and Jim are reunited with friends and former colleagues Simon Miller and Steve Burns. Since they all parted ways from their infamous stint at VideoGamer.com, Simon has gone on…
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Podcast Audit #3: Tom reveals the guest he hates the most
We have a lot of guests on the VG247 podcast because we know a lot of Games Media Personalities and most of them are too polite and/or socially inept to say "no" when we ask them to be on our podcast. In the last year we've had such Talented Greats as Mike Channel from Outside Xbox And Things and...
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Episode 81: Best game that's a Spin-off into a completely different genre
The VG247 crew is back to decide on yet another Best Game Ever. In this week's show we're looking at games that are spin-off from a game in a totally different genre. So, things like how Mario Kart is a 'Mario' game but not a 2D platformer that the series became famous for. You get the idea. As...
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Episode 80: Shock Betrayals and Other Gaming Tropes
Tom's back by popular demand, but also to answer for his crimes against a previous guest: James Batchelor, author of The Best Non-Violent Video Games. For weeks following James' deserved win, Tom and Conner said some Very Mean things about him and his book, and even implied that virtuous host Jim...
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Episode 79: What’s the best game that we’d give a kicking?
Recently, our friend and long time VG247 contributor Sherif Saed gave Pinnochio-themed soulslike Lies of P a bit of a pasting in his review. Our two star score prompted a lot of backlash from some quarters, and also a bit of internal discussion about the nature of opinion pieces. How reviews can...
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Episode 78: The best game you can finish in one sitting
Hours of gameplay is a deceptive stat. We’re conditioned to think that a bigger number is better in all things when it comes to this hobby, and how long it takes to complete something is seen as part of its value proposition. If a full price game launches with a six hour campaign, for example,...
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Episode 77: The best game set in London
London shows up in a lot of games. It’s in a lot of Call of Dutys, which is the biggest shooter franchise in the world. It has the distinction of being the only non-US city ever depicted in GTA, which is the biggest crime franchise in the world after the royal family. Blimey, Ubisoft have done...
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Episode 76: The best game where the protagonist has a stupid pun for a name
From Alan Wake (he’s A. Wake, get it? Get it?) to Miles Prower, there are loads of video game protagonists whose names are rubbish puns. Well, actually there isn’t, but it’s happened just often enough that there’s sufficient material for this edition of VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast. Halloween...
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Episode 75: The Best New York Game
Gimme ham steak on rye with extra pickles and a dozen egg whites on the side. Hold the pickles. Who's uncle do I gotta bribe to get a parking space around here? Get outta here. And so on. Yes, this week we're asking our esteemed panel: what the best game set in New York (or a facsimile thereof)?...
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Episode 74: The Best Detective Game
Inspired by the recent-ish release of Detective Pikachu Returns, the topic of this week’s Best Games Ever show is: what’s the best Detective Game? And it’s a doozy of a topic, because there’s so many to choose from. Investigative gameplay crops up in so many things. Even the recent Assassin’s…
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Episode 73: The Best Ultraviolent Spectacle
Video games and excessive violence go together like cheese and crackers. Laurel and Hardy. Beer and nuts. Bacon and, er, rolls. Playstation exclusives and the concept of mediocrity. We love simulated violence here at VG247, but not the real stuff, so when it came to the task of deciding which...
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Episode 72: What's the best driving (not racing) game?
I don't have a driving licence. I can't drive a car. People assume I can because I like games with cars in them. I don't bother to correct people anymore, as I'm almost 41 years old and I simply can't be bothered. If you've ever imagined me driving a car because you assumed I could drive a car…
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Episode 71: What's the best Cyberpunk Game that isn't Cyberpunk 2077?
We all love a bit of Cyberpunk don't we? And did you know that there are loads of games that use that setting and aesthetic that aren't Cyberpunk 2077? Sure, CD Projekt Red's game has just received a massive update, making it better than ever alongside a brilliant expansion, but if you had to…
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About this show
Your favourite people at VG247.com chat about the best games ever - with a twist. This is a game show where our regular panellists have to pitch their pick for the best game in a very specific category, such as "the best game where you get to eat pie", or "the best game with the worst cars". Our host Jim Trinca then has to pick his favourite, and then has to spend the rest of the week having annoyed two of his colleagues. Usually Connor. It's good, you should listen to it.
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VG247
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