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 experience. All art is interactive on some level, in that the relationship between a creative work, its author, and its enjoyer is always a conversation of sorts. We project our own world view onto motionle...
Nov 02, 2024•34 min•Season 2Ep. 2
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 the court of public opinion has turned sour on and therefore must be canned. Video games are big, unwieldy projects that only ever release in a working state through a combination of talent, grit, and e...
Oct 22, 2024•40 min•Season 2Ep. 1
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 widely condemned as a cynical cash-grab (even so, the concept ended up being so lucrative that it survives to this day). But it also gave us Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles, establishing a familia...
Oct 07, 2024•47 min•Season 1Ep. 116
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. Season 2 of Amazon Prime's Rings of Power inspired this topic, obviously. Well I like it anyway. That makes one of us. So, which is the best game that features a ring of power, or Powerful Ring? To find out,...
Sep 29, 2024•45 min•Season 1Ep. 114
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, Frontier: Elite 2 and Frontier: First Encounters. Well, it depends how you define "win". Or, indeed, "exists". This is just one of the Enthusiastic Disagreements we have in this week's Best Games Ever Podcas...
Sep 21, 2024•38 min•Season 1Ep. 113
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 with alarming regularity, and you had no idea what the hell "games as a service" meant. Bliss. What wasn't blissful, though, was how unreliable the machines were. The Xbox 360 of course was blighted by the...
Sep 14, 2024•47 min
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 excuse to have arguments. Star Wars is a massive media franchise that's had so many ideas chucked into it by various writers, directors, showrunners, and every other type of creative over the years that it's...
Aug 30, 2024•42 min•Season 1Ep. 111
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 pointless and made everyone pick the most useless of all found in the best video game. How did this go? Well, you'll find out when you listen to this week's episode of the Best Games Ever Podcast. To help...
Aug 23, 2024•35 min•Season 1Ep. 110
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 console? Who showed their ineptitude and picked a game on a great console? Who picked something so perfect it could never be argued with? Did Jim say anything of interest or just stir things up? Truth is, d...
Aug 14, 2024•41 min•Season 1Ep. 109
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. Where would we be without Norman Reedus widdling onto the grass in celebrated Art Game Death Stranding? Or that bit in Postal 2 where you can take a wizz on Gary Coleman, and he gets really cross with you? G...
Aug 06, 2024•32 min•Season 1Ep. 108
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 25, 2024•38 min•Ep. 107
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... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 16, 2024•39 min•Ep. 106
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 things go. Sigh. But enough about finishing Morrowind. Recently the UK had an election and kicked out some of the worst people to ever be in charge of anything, replacing them with a default option that nob...
Jul 09, 2024•47 min•Season 1Ep. 105
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 between someone's manky toes? To find out you'll simply have to knock back a tall glass of The Best Games Ever podcast episode 104: The Best Game that has aged like a Fine Wine via the methods handily listed b...
Jul 02, 2024•32 min•Season 1Ep. 104
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 by last week's topic, we thought we'd flip it on its head an ask perhaps an even more pertinent question in an age of decade-long marketing campaigns: what's the best rubbish game that had a great reveal ...
Jun 25, 2024•41 min•Season 1Ep. 103
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 can get a significant number of people to try a demo you’re going to struggle. This, incidentally, is why our much maligned profession still has value for consumers in the age of YouTube. At least that’s w...
Jun 18, 2024•44 min•Season 1Ep. 102
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 has caused certain ripples at VG247 Towers. Realising I may have triggered a full-on staff revolt, with its ire pointed squarely in my direction, I felt it wise last week to pretend to be ill and get To...
Jun 11, 2024•28 min•Season 1Ep. 101
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 mammoth episode will be added to your overall total for the series. This has caused some friction at VG247 Towers, which you'll get to enjoy the fallout from in Episode 101: The best game for losers. Learn m...
Jun 04, 2024•40 min•Season 1Ep. 100
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. Tom asked me to host it on a freelance basis at first, and it was working with the brilliant VG247 team on this ad-hoc basis that convinced me to snap up the opportunity when he lat...
May 29, 2024•53 min•Season 1Ep. 100
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 wins and win percentages, and maybe... just maybe... Tom will successfully lobby to get the scores changed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 21, 2024•42 min
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, and skin glistening. It was a mesmerising effect: it’s difficult to describe to younger people how incredible it was to see this mundane environmental phenomenon happening, in real time, to a video game ...
May 14, 2024•35 min•Season 1Ep. 99
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 which emphatically are not shooters often feature guns as a tool or special attack. And sometimes – not hugely often, but more regularly than you might think – we get games which have fully developed sho...
May 07, 2024•35 min•Season 1Ep. 97
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 mutiny within the ranks. As ever, host Jim Trinca must decide who has picked the best game by judging on an unknown list of criteria he most likely makes up as he sees fit on the day. A true professiona...
Apr 30, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 97
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 one track. Platformers with a length of 20mins if you’re good at them. Games with terrible representation of anyone who isn’t a straight white male. Attitudes and expectations change with time – sometimes ...
Apr 23, 2024•36 min
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 buggered off" simulator. As it turns out, being forsaken by a family member is a fairly common scenario in video games, especially if you widen the concept of family out to any sort of fraternity or gang...
Apr 16, 2024•30 min•Season 1Ep. 95
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 coincides with the launch of our extended podcast: a paid version of the show which includes an extra segment where you get to heart the host’s pick, and its subsequent demolishing by the rest of the panel....
Apr 09, 2024•30 min
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. These days the overwhelmin...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 93
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 anywa...
Mar 26, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 92
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 led, strictly PVE campaign engendering a keen sense of community among players, it’s rather like a wholesome war-themed social club for 90s teenagers. As a Nearly 40 it feels laser-targeted at my exact ...
Mar 19, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 91
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. Aside from the various video game adaptations of Dune - from classic RTS games to modern upcoming survival games - there have been plenty of games that effectively u...
Mar 12, 2024•57 min•Season 1Ep. 90
