There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>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, special guests, and so on.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>There's now a premium, extended version of this podcast that you can get as a VG247 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.
]]>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.
]]>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 his power to decide the winner. But there's a lot of office politics, backstabbing, and meta-gaming going on which makes this mild-mannered panel game fraught with real danger.
]]>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 movies about America getting clobbered by volcanoes. See also: those ones about the White House (former home of Bill Clinton) getting clobbered by some guys with guns. I dunno. You don't read this anyway.
]]>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 as half-worm emperors and chair dogs.
]]>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 that it's a GAAS title, leaving it up to the prospective audience to divine this information from visual cues in gameplay trailers like... three distinct types of in-game currency, numbers popping out of enemies heads, and the whole thing having that unmistakable whiff of a project that no involved creative could ever muster real enthusiasm for. The core of a good idea spoiled by shareholder demands. Etc.
]]>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. But there's a lot of office politics, backstabbing, and meta-gaming going on which makes this mild-mannered panel game fraught with real danger.
]]>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. But there's a lot of office politics, backstabbing, and meta-gaming going on which makes this mild-mannered panel game fraught with real danger.
]]>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?
]]>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.
]]>By our counting, this is episode 84 of the Best Games Ever Podcast. That's a lot, and probably isn't accurate. We hope you like listening as much as we like making the show. And with that little bit of friendly chat, it's time to announce that in a few weeks we're going to launch an extended version of the show that you'll have to pay for. "Oh, no," you say. "Not them too!" you add, as you clutch your wallet and let out a single sob. One tear slowly wipes its way down your cheek.
]]>So much STUFF game out in 2023 - we had The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, a new Baldur's Gate 3, a Skyrim sequel which introduced such innovations to the series as Guns and Boring. I'm talking about Starfield. And you knew that, but I have to spell it out in the body text because a certain tech giant has taken wordplay, nuance, and creativity out onto the back porch and shot them all in the head as a sacrifice to the god of Endless Growth. Which doesn't exist. The god, or the concept. Heh! We even got a sequel to Dead Island (it was called Dead Island 2).
]]>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.
]]>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 James Batchelor who has written some books.
]]>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 always, our host Jim Trinca makes a complete mess of picking the correct winner, but you can be the judge of that without me, a simple person writing these description, influencing you.
]]>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 Trinca (who is fair and kind) would let anyone win if they were on to plug some coffee table book that you can already read as tweets.
]]>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 sometimes be a flashpoint of controversy, and how scores don’t reflect any of the nuance that led the author to their conclusion. Personally, I’m always a bit baffled by the phenomenon of people who haven’t played a game kicking off online about the views of someone who has. As a wise man once said: “it’s only game, why you have to be mad?”
]]>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, there’s hell to pay. Doesn’t matter how good those six hours are.
]]>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 London four times, they can’t get enough of it. It even pops up at the end of Mass Effect 3.
]]>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 aren’t, but it’s happened just often enough that there’s sufficient material for this edition of VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast.
]]>Gimme ham steak on rye with extra pickles and a half dozen egg whites on the side. Hold the pickles. Who's uncle do I gotta bribe to get a sandwich around here?
]]>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 Creed games could arguably qualify, if you’re happy to define “detective work” as “pressing a special button to highlight environmental clues”.
]]>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 notably ultraviolent game is the best one of all we decided to solve our differences via the medium of a weekly panel show format that goes out on all the major podcast platforms and YouTube. Conveniently, we already had one, which is this show: The Best Games Ever Podcast, which you're probably listening to now if you're reading this.
]]>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 and this revelation has shaken you to your core, changing your worldview and altering your very existence on this earth, I'm sorry. To be clear, I have been in cars, just not driven them. I mostly walk places.
]]>Whether it’s Patrick Stewart in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Sean Bean in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, or Terrence Stamp in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, there are numerous examples of big name hollywood actors showing up in video games, and it’s always an exciting little surprise to hear a familiar voice that isn’t Troy Baker. But sometimes, there are cameos or guest starring roles that aren’t even particularly well advertised. Did you know, for example, that Lynda Carter of Wonder Woman fame played every female Nord and Orc NPC in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?
]]>If you didn't listen to last week's show you might be confused as to why we're doing a an Easter episode in September. Well, Jim was goaded into it (like he was with the Christmas episode), so we're doing it. We also reserve the right to do another one when it's actually Easter (we're smart like that).
]]>If you didn't listen to last week's show you might be confused as to why we're doing a Christmas episode in September. Well, Jim was goaded into it, so we're doing it. We also reserve the right to do another one when it's actually Christmas.
]]>Germany isn't especially known for its game development, but there's a huge amount of stuff that gets made there. You've got Astragon, which you might not have heard of, but you’ve definitely heard of the range of simulators it publishes. You've got Piranha Bytes, who’ve been making incredibly 6/10 RPGs since before most of the VG247 crew were on solids, and you got you've got Egosoft constantly squirrelling away on the X series, which is nothing to do with Elon Musk, but is essentially Starfield but for poindexters. If this all sounds like Germany is Europe's largest purveyor of slightly janky games that have really niche audiences then yeah, uh, actually, that's about the size of it.
]]>With the imminent release of Starfield, people the world over are about to fill their boots once again with Bethesda’s signature style of go anywhere, do anything game. Unless they don’t have an Xbox or a decent PC, that is. But Bethesda aren’t the only studio who have had a crack at that particular style of vast open-world RPG: indeed, they’ve inspired plenty of copycats and homages over the years, and are often namechecked by other developers when talking about open world game design.
]]>Video games and murder are like cheese and crackers. Vic and Bob. The Edinburgh Fringe and disgruntled locals. A classic partnership, but hardly inseparable: though our chief interaction with these virtual worlds is to deal death to their residents, it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, there are thousands of video games out there where you aren't compelled to kill anyone. Or stab them. Or even lightly maim them. Farming simulators, for example, where the only thing resembling violence is the application of combine harvester to corn. Relationship simulators, where the only conflict to be found is that between heart and head. Or Assassin's Creed 3, where you tend to just kill British colonisers, which most people agree is fair game.
]]>Welcome to the Best Games Ever show Episode 64: The best game you love despite itself.
]]>Baldur's Gate 3 is finally upon us if you're a PC gamer, in which case, this episode is especially for you, because it's all about social inadequacy.
]]>As a medium, video games are often a vast fabric of inspiration-taking, borrowed ideas, and of course shameless rip offs. Some of the biggest and best games in decades have been the result of a lot of hard work coupled with the healthy practice of nabbing what's popular during development. A tad dishonest? Maybe - but it's how some of the biggest game developers in the business got to where they are today. This week we're asking: What's the best game that's a shameless rip-off of another game?
]]>Welcome to The Best Games Ever Show episode 61: The best management sim.
]]>Welcome to The Best Games Ever Show episode 60: The best game with a reptile.
]]>Welcome to The Best Games Ever Show episode 59: The best game with the worst gimmick.
]]>Welcome to The Best Games Ever Show episode 58: The best use of a mega popular license.
]]>Welcome to The Best Games Ever Show episode 57: The best game where you play a dead guy.
]]>Welcome to The Best Games Ever Show episode 56: the best globetrotting travel game.
]]>Welcome to The Best Games Ever Show episode 55: The best game with horse armour (but you can't have Oblivion)
]]>Welcome to the Best Games Ever show Episode 54: the best game that's a sequel to a bad game.
]]>Welcome to the Best Games Ever show Episode 53: the best game with a terrible name.
]]>Welcome to the Best Games Ever show Episode 52: the best game with a ginger protagonist.
]]>Almost every action adventure game with RPG elements and dungeons, that's set in an open or semi-open world, can trace its roots – a link to the past, if you will – back to the original Legend of Zelda game on the NES. And this is surprising, because that game is 37 years old. That’s roughly as old as I am, which in human terms is “should probably start thinking about life insurance” levels of decrepit. In the context of a medium driven by technological advancement, it might as well be an eternity.
]]>Welcome to the Best Games Ever Show episode 50: The best game that is uncomfortably pro-monarchy.
]]>Welcome to the Best Games Ever Show episode 49: The Best Game with the Worst Difficulty Spike.
]]>As most of us are residents of a horrible island, we at VG247 have raised a suspicious eyebrow at Dead Island 2 for being not set on an island or, frankly, horrible enough for our liking. Which has led us to ask the question: what is the best game set on a horrible island? There are so many to choose from, as islands are a popular setting in video games: their size is naturally limited, so it's much easier to proportion them realistically without surrounding the map with invisible walls. Everything from Morrowind to GTA V could potentially fit the bill. But none of our panellists picked those.
]]>Winning this podcast is easy: you just have to convince me, Jim Trinca, that your submission for the topic du jour is better than anyone else's. The tricky part is that I'm fickle and unknowable, and also, Donaldson knows everything, so he's usually uncovered an angle that you haven't thought of. The fact that it's almost always about 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is immaterial.
]]>For all of its faults, the one thing you can say about Crime Boss: Rockay City is that Vanilla Ice is in it. Which reminded us of a thing that happened a while back: it was called "the nineties", and it had loads of good stuff, like the Amiga, Fido Dido, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 44: The best game where you'd swap places with the main character.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 44: The best game where you'd swap places with the main character.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 43 - The best game that takes ten or more hours to get good.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 42 - The best game you could complete as your real self.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 41 - The best game that you can't forgive.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 40 - The best game with the most juvenile feature.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 39 - The best game that completely flopped.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 38 - The best game you'd never believe was from that developer.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 37 - The best game with followers you would never hang out with IRL.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 36 - The best game that really needs a remake.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 35 - The best game that shouldn't be made into a TV show.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 34 - the best game that suffers from bloating
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 32 - the best game of 2023
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 31 - the best game that made reminds you of Christmas.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 30 - the best game that made you uninstall.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 29 - the best game where you don't do much.
]]>Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 28 - the best game to play while you wait for Starfield.
]]>The VG247 Best Games Ever Podcast has been going for six months! Can you believe it? The show that was spawned out of a random Slack message has gone from mild strength to ever-so-slightly-less-mild strength. To celebrate this milestone I sat down with host Jim Trinca to berate him about the choices he's made so far.
]]>I've given up writing brilliant intros to these, now. If you want them to return, simply leave a bag containing £100k in unmarked bank notes on the hill at the top of the road near the church, behind the bin. Thanks. Alternatively, write a comment saying how much you miss the wonderful intros. You have exactly one week.
]]>Michael Sheen is good, isn't he?
]]>I played the Discworld video game, remarkably, before I'd read a single Terry Pratchett book. I don't know if that speaks more to the cultural cache of video games, or to my own literary ignorance growing up, but getting to the age of 11 in the United Kingdom of the late twentieth century without having read a Terry Pratchett book is quite an astonishing un-achievement. One that I quickly remedied, of course.
]]>“Look, it’s very simple”, said Jim. “Review scores aren’t a flat scale, they’re all sort of, rubbery and compartmentalised.”
]]>I don't believe in any god. I don't think that's a particularly unusual point of view in 2022, at least in some parts of the world, but if I did there are certainly some moments that stick with me as things I'd have potentially given a deity credit for.
]]>The PlayStation 3 was a strange thing. The console, arriving late to the party that the Xbox 360 kicked off quite brilliantly, was a big deal. Certainly, in Sony-owned countries like the UK, it seemed everyone was waiting for it. It didn't really matter that the launch line-up was a bit naff, that the console itself looked hideous, or that it was ridiculously expensive. The follow-up to perhaps the greatest console of all time, the PS2, was a huge deal.
]]>Do you ever think about the time before mobile phones? The era of calling your the landline in your mate's house, only for their mum to answer.
]]>It’s Barking, 1978. We’re playing an away match against the Under 9 Tigers, and I’m in goal, being the team’s only goalkeeper, and despite my repeated request for new kneepads being consistently denied. “Ain’t got the funds, lad” was the constant refrain from the manager, Keith, ever clad in his suede coat, gold chains, and cashmere polo neck: the standard uniform at the time of people who had large status in small towns.
]]>Having kids is wonderful when it's not the most tiring, life-changing thing you can do to yourself – and even then you only remember the wonderful bits. When your child smiles at you for the first time and it isn't a build up of gas... wonderful. When your child says "dada" not as part of a string of completely random sounds... wonderful. When your child laughs at you for doing something only they would laugh at... wonderful.
]]>It's not common knowledge, but international mega star, Beyoncé, is a huge Assassin's Creed fan. I'm quite surprised more hasn't been made about this, given her influence, but now you know. Her 2006 stratospheric chart topper, Irreplaceable, was at one point all about Assassin's Creed - a game she played an early build of and loved so much she simply had to pen a song about it, even before it hit stores.
]]>
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