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 e...
Mar 05, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 89
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: there will always be holdouts in the die-hard enthusiast sector, there are still people releasing Mega Drive carts now in 2024. But there will come a time when, for all intents and purposes, the era of ...
Feb 27, 2024•51 min•Season 1Ep. 88
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. This week, inspired by the recent release (finally) of Skul...
Feb 20, 2024•45 min•Season 1Ep. 87
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, actually, to just not get Mass Effect. To look on in bewilderment as your colleagues all obsess over Death Stranding or Mass Effect. To be left cold by everyone's incessant overtures about Breath of the...
Feb 12, 2024•44 min•Season 1Ep. 86
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 arguably one of the most important games in the history of the medium. Questions were asked about it in congressional hearings: it was, despite narrative overtures to the contrary, a peeping-tom simulator ...
Jan 29, 2024•40 min•Season 1Ep. 85
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 every opportunity. Do you have one? Oh, and we introduce a new segment: Jim's Pick. Get it free for now, but in the near future we're going to be launching a subscriber's edition of the show that features th...
Jan 19, 2024•42 min•Season 2Ep. 2
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 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 go...
Jan 15, 2024•38 min•Season 2Ep. 1
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 to become a professional wrestler, in-demand presenter, and all-round online personality with seemingly endless energy for building his brand. He recently made his IMPACT! Wrestling debut and we’ve got n...
Dec 22, 2023•38 min•Season 1Ep. 83
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. But which guest is Tom's favourite? And who can he stand the least? And is forty minutes of one-on-one with Tom Orry enough to shut up all the Tom Orry fans i...
Dec 18, 2023•43 min•Season 1Ep. 82
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. Learn more about y...
Dec 08, 2023•56 min•Season 1Ep. 81
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. Did Tom back down, or double down? And how did Connor manage to esc...
Dec 01, 2023•41 min•Season 1Ep. 80
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 have...
Nov 24, 2023•45 min•Season 1Ep. 79
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. But video games aren’t inherently a long form medium. Some of the best games of all time are 25 minutes long (if you’re good, or cheating)....
Nov 17, 2023•43 min•Season 1Ep. 78
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. But very few London-based video games are made by London-based teams, such is the nature of a global industry su...
Nov 10, 2023•43 min•Season 1Ep. 77
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 fell between the gaps of our posting schedule, so we couldn’t really justify doing a Best Spooky Game That You Couldn’t Finish episode, and Guy Fawkes night also doesn’t occur for another couple of days,...
Nov 04, 2023•36 min
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)? There are an absurd number of games to choose from. The Big Apple is probably the most depicted city in the medium, and it's not hard to understand why: beyond the fact that it's an enormously influentia...
Oct 27, 2023•46 min•Season 1Ep. 75
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”. We’ll just get it out of the way right now: nobody picked Disc...
Oct 20, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 74
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, ...
Oct 13, 2023•39 min•Season 1Ep. 73
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 pla...
Oct 06, 2023•39 min•Season 1Ep. 72
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 pick a Cyberpunk game that isn't that, what would you choose? That's exactly what we're doing here in this week's Best Games Ever Podcast. As ever, Jim has to pick a winner, with Tom, Alex, and Connor doing...
Sep 29, 2023•39 min•Season 1Ep. 71
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 Woma...
Sep 22, 2023•40 min•Season 1Ep. 70
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). What constitutes an "Easter Game" is even more wooly a concept than an "Easter Movie", because examples of entire games themed around Easter are few and far between. This is probably because game ...
Sep 15, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 69
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. What constitutes a "Christmas Game" is even more wooly a concept than a "Christmas Movie", because examples of entire games themed around Christmas are few and far between. This is probably because game development takes longer, is harder, and is less likely...
Sep 08, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 68
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 Starfiel...
Sep 01, 2023•40 min•Season 1Ep. 67
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. So Bethe...
Aug 25, 2023•35 min•Season 1Ep. 66
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...
Aug 18, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 65
Welcome to the Best Games Ever show Episode 64: The best game you love despite itself. Some games make it hard to love them. My beloved Assassin's Creed, for example, is often hard to recommend to people, because so many of the games get bogged down in icon janitor nonsense, obscuring the feelgood sense of motion at the heart of the gameplay, and the epic meta-narrative that's essentially an olympian love story set across time, space, death, and reality. But the tailing missions are annoying, so...
Aug 11, 2023•56 min•Season 1Ep. 64
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 good games that you wouldn't dare bring up in polite company. Or impolite company. Gaming, despite its mainstream acceptance in recent years, is still an extremely nerdy hobby, full of very niche stuff that rarely makes headlines beyond the enthusiast press. Yes, that's right, I'm sorry to break it to you, but if you're reading this that's what you are: an enthusiast...
Aug 04, 2023•36 min•Season 1Ep. 63
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? Y...
Jul 28, 2023•46 min•Season 1Ep. 62
Welcome to The Best Games Ever Show episode 61: The best management sim. Video games are a treasure trove if you like managing things. People. Buildings. Civilisations. Transport networks. Space programs (as in NASA, not as in Star Trek). Whatever organisational or logistic problem you can imagine, there's probably some kind of video game that attempts to let you solve it. And of those there must surely be a Best One. So what, according to our esteemed panel, is the best management sim? And how ...
Jul 21, 2023•41 min•Season 1Ep. 61
