The Best Games Ever Podcast VG247

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 later invited me to put throw my hat in to replace the brilliant Dorrani Williams as VG247's Video Person. We're definitely not the biggest gaming podcast in the world, or England, or Basingstoke, but we are as far as I'm concerned one of the best.
Onto business, then. 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 they will be added to your overall total for the series. If you want to know who came out on top, you'll have to wait for part two next week. But this here part one that you can watch or listen to below is, in and of itself, an extremely fun time that we hope you enjoy listening to as much as we enjoyed recording it. Prepare for bickering. Prepare for petty arguments and appeals to a non-existent rulebook. Prepare for Connor managing to score some points despite technically not even competing. Here's to another 100!
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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.
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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 character.
Of course, now these graphical effects are so commonplace that they scarcely raise an eyebrow. Aloy’s clothing dries off at varying rates, does it? Who cares. Seen it, mate. But given that, I thought it would be a challenge for our regular panel to come up with the best game ever where your character gets wet and stays wet for a bit. To find out how they got on, you’ll simply have to watch or listen to this week’s Best Games Ever podcast.
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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 shooting mechanics and a range of guns that you don't even get to use until many hours in. Perhaps making you wait until the final act before it grants you the right to bear arms (note: nothing to do with bears, see previous episode).

There’s always a very good narratively justified reason for this. Perhaps the game is set somewhere where firearms are naturally scarce, like The Past, or Shropshire. Perhaps the developers are making a clever point about the instant, maximum violence that automatic weapons afford vs the nuanced, patient art of having to stab or punch people instead. Whatever the reason, this week our esteemed panel of professional game enjoyers are tasked with deciding which is the best of these rare treats.

If you want to know what they came up with, there are handy ways to watch or listen to the show below. What a coincidence!

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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 professional.

If you want more of the Best Games Ever Podcast, we have an extended edition in which Jim picks a game and the rest of the team tells him how much of a terrible choice he's made. You can get this by becoming a paid member. Head to VG247.com and click on the "support us" section in the top right (in the menu on mobile) for all the details.
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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 it’s progress, sometimes it’s regression. But whatever the reason, it does lead to a lot of otherwise good games being cast into the shame cupboard of history. Games which would be a tough sell or borderline offensive now, but play great.

So what’s the best one of those, according to our esteemed panel? This week Tom and I are joined once again by Richie Morgan from I Hate Doctor Who and Owen O’Donnell from The Infinite Review, two people who also remember the past.
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