VG247's The Best Games Ever Podcast – Ep.8: Best game that journos love but most people think is a bit naff
Look, we know this is pushing the term "most," but just go with it.
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It was February, 1996. A coke-filled, overweight 13-year-old me was reading about CES in issue 148 of CVG and salivating over the ultra-positive review of Sonic 3. CVG gave out some high scores, but a 94 was pretty exciting for a SEGA boy like me. What a life I’d have as a games journalist, I thought to myself. Not high on drugs, just full of the hope only a child can possess. I would make this dream a reality and live like a king, never having to buy a video game again.
And then, screaming out of the tinny speaker in my Philips radio alarm clock, came a song that was, unknown to me at the time, foretelling my future. Ironic, by Alanis Morissette.
A traffic jam when you're already late
A "No Smoking" sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It’s being a games journo yeah, and then turning on them in a radio show
And isn't it ironic, don't you think?
A little too ironic, and yeah I really do think
18 years later, and here we are. The prophecy has been fulfilled in the quest for hits. It’s the VG247 Best Games Ever Podcast, episode 8: Best game that journos love but most people think is a bit naff.
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Please do let us know what you think of the show – and if this is your first time listening, do go back to listen to the previous episodes. You can listen to them in any order you like as there’s no rhyme or reason to the topics. If you’ve got suggestions for topics, we’d love to hear them – but please keep in mind that I’ll have to write some award-winning-worthy fiction for each one.
“What is VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast?” you ask, hoping it’s not going to trigger another ill-conceived nostalgic segway. Well, imagine you are watching a TV panel show from the early 200s. One of the good ones. But the TV is broken so there’s only audio, and all the famous panelists were off ill so they had to bring some randos down from the audience. The TV network also started to care about video games, so dedicated a whole show to it, rather than just having one person reference Mario as if he’s to be talked about with the same disdain as Fred West. It’s also only about 30 minutes long, so if you don’t like it you’ll be over it in no time at all (side note: this episode is 40 minutes because Sherif went off on one about time loops).
We’ve got some details on the show’s content below (if you want to get a refresher before heading to the comments to make a wonderful, considered post or don’t want to listen but do want to know what games we picked), so if you want to avoid spoilers, don’t scroll past this fan-made creation of what Chris Bratt would look like as a rat in The Sims 4 (Support friends of VG247, People Make Games, on Patreon).
The Best Game that journos love but most people think is a bit naff
This is the topic of Episode eight of VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast. Here’s a rundown of who picked what.
Tom – Yakuza 6 (or just any Yakuza game)
Right, listen before you start having a go. I am here to get people talking, to be the contrarian jester of the group. So I picked a game from a franchise that I full-well know people love, but Yakuza is a game series that journos adore, yet I don’t really get. OK? It’s on me, but I’m projecting onto others.
Alex – Quantum Break
Hello, I’m Alex, definitely not Tom writing words for me as I’m not working today. I apologise for choosing excellent 8/10 sci-fi action banger, Quantum Break, as my game for this week. I have come to understand, since this podcast was recorded, that Quantum Break is a wonderful game that most people love. It’s destined to go down in history as one of the greats of the genre.
Sherif - Deathloop
Everyone in games media has been raving about Deathloop since it came out. When I finally sat down to play it towards the end of last year, I realised that I just don’t see what everyone is enamoured by! Deathloop has always been pitched, and advertised, as a time loop game. This is what I went in expecting. I was left in disbelief yet again when I started playing and found that it’s not a god damn time loop game!
Let us know what game you’d pick and if you think the treatment of Tom is now getting out of hand? If you like the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review saying how wonderful it is, and tell all your friends. Do a tweet about it, post on Facebook, call into local radio shows and say nothing but the podcast page URL.
Come back in a week for another episode of VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast.
If you want more podcasts, you could do worse than checking out our friends at Rock Paper Shotgun who have the Electronic Wireless Show. Eurogamer has two shows (greedy!), Digital Foundry has DF Direct, Dicebreaker covers the world of tabletop gaming, and the Outside Xbox lot has Oxventure - A Dungeons & Dragons Podcast.