The Get Played 2023 Games of This Year Awards

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It's the greatest night in video game podcasting, the Get Played 2023 Games of This Year award, the Goatsees.

And all our stars in gaming are out on the red carpet.

Wow.

That's right.

All the stars are here tonight.

All the biggest gaming stars.

Coming out of his limo is from the 2023 August 18th release.

It's Leatherface.

Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre game.

You know, one of the biggest hits, one of the biggest titles of the year.

Everybody's talking about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre game.

And there's Leatherface.

He's waving.

He's having a good time.

He's got a Leatherface.

Hey, well, Leatherface might want to look out because in Hot Pursuit is America's favorite survival horror himbo, Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil 4 Remake.

And look at that.

He's with his date, Ashley Biden.

Can't get enough president's daughters.

Look out, Leatherface.

Wow,

it's a big night here in video games.

Of course, there's Pac-Man, there's Alan Wake walking hand in hand.

Maybe we're going to hear a romance announcement from the two of them, Pac-Man and Alan Wake.

It's been hinted at, it's been questioned, but is Alan Wake fucking Pac-Man?

Is that what's happening here?

Is he fucking Pac-Man?

We know that Josh Gadd already fucked Q-Bert, so there is a precedent for this sort of relationship.

That's right.

Tough news for Mizpac Man, though.

Uh-oh, gosh, I cannot believe what I'm seeing right now.

Gollum has just fallen down the stairs.

Gollum has taken a tumble down some stairs.

Oh, boy.

From the video game Gollum.

Tough year for Gollum.

Yeah.

He also just looks like shit.

Yeah, he looks fucking horrible.

And Gollum, if you can hear me, get it to fuckinggether, dude.

Everybody else here is hot as shit.

Get it together.

You look dead, dude.

You look like dead, and you look like you're from two console generations ago.

Yeah.

Oh, oh, no.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Kirby just sucked up Gollum.

Oh, and now Kirby looks like shit.

Kirby looks like shit.

Kirby's one of our most beloved characters.

Why did he do that?

Oh my god.

Oh no.

Oh poor Kirby.

Oof, rough.

Oh, this is a cute.

Look at this little guy.

Even though it was closed this year, right there on the red carpet is the Nintendo eShop for the 3DS and Wii U.

Aww.

What a cute little

shopping bag waving, saying hi.

We miss you.

eShop for the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U.

Oh, wait, it looks like Alan Wake has abandoned Pac-Man and is going over and trying to romance the e-shop.

Oh, this is really awkward.

Super awkward.

Yeah.

Apparently he has some romantic affections for the sentient manifestation of an online shopping platform.

Oh, look at him.

Here we go.

Here's a big breakout star holding up the line because he's holding up a sign from Tears of the Kingdom.

It's President Hudson Simp Addison.

There is Addison supporting the president as he always does.

Wow.

Hey, good job.

I love Addison.

And finally, on the red carpet, the biggest star of all.

You, the player.

We wrap up 2023 with our annual Games of this Year awards this week on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time

to get

played.

I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with our fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaka.

Hello, everyone.

It's gaming's big night.

That's right.

Can we say that?

It's gaming's big night.

We can say that.

It's gaming's big night, the biggest night of the year when all the stars come out, all the hosts are here, and the most incredible outfits are walking down that red, pixelated carpet.

It's the game of the year.

What is what do we call this?

It's the 2023 Get Played Games of This Year Awards, aka the Goatsees.

It's the Goatsies.

So, like, we're sending that.

We're sending that to a composer and like a composer is going to compose that.

So like this, this won't be in the show.

No, what you hear will be like that composer is going to do.

It's, we've actually got it like a Count Basie AI that's going to do a like a big band scoring of that.

Yeah.

So that's what you'll hear.

And it's going to be good and it's definitely.

That wasn't the final version.

That wasn't the final version.

What you heard was the final version.

But what we did in studio live, that was just us like, you know, riffing it out.

I'm, I'm really impressed with the um

sort of budget of this year's production and just the overall, like, visual architecture.

And I know that you guys are at home and you're listening to this as a podcast, but this is a real event.

So, I want you to close your eyes and imagine that Matt Opodaka is in a really fresh-looking tuxedo.

I'm in this like tuxedo jacket with a, with a skirt bottom, like a half-dressed, half tuxedo and nick is in tidy whities with a hundred bow ties around his neck it is the night to remember and there are lights i mean over there is there's kevin costner he's on the carpet uh hi hi kevin nice to see you and we also have oh there's neil druckman costner thought he was at the emmys actually that's the issue he thought he was there to get like you know an award for yellowstone um he showed up to the wrong ceremony he's kicking

off he's he's fucking throwing glasses i overheard him saying, I could kick all of your asses to like everybody.

He's kind of, is he a big guy?

He said that to Duke Nukem.

Yeah.

I was like, man, take it easy.

And Duke got shy.

That was the kind of thing.

He was like, oh, he's all bark, no bite.

He's all blustering.

This dude is all bite.

He's all bite.

Kevin Costner is all bite.

100% all bite.

100%.

He's 6'1.

What?

He's 6'1?

He's a big guy.

He's big enough to be a pitcher in the major leagues, which is why he makes so many movies about baseball.

6'1 is really tall for an actor.

Yeah, it's like.

Like, isn't like De Niro 5'1?

Like, he's a foot taller than De Niro, I think.

There are a lot of short kings who have succeeded in

the film world.

De Niro's 5'10, but he looks small.

Oh, wait, what?

Wait,

the little guy is

Pacino?

Oh, fuck.

What's his name?

No, it's not Al.

No, it's not Pacino.

It's not Al anymore.

It's dunk.

Yeah.

That was the longest setup.

No, that was great.

Guys, I'm really happy to be here.

I know I've missed a couple episodes,

but we're recording these things out of order.

So right now I feel great.

I'm, you know, in the middle of my treatment, and I feel fucking great.

It's been a great December.

And I know, I'm really, this is wonderful.

I love these award events.

It's a big, it's a big night for everyone.

What do you call gaming's Hollywood?

Hmm.

Hollyweird.

Hollyweird's a good pitch.

Voxelwood?

Yeah, because there isn't like a

geographically clustered in the way that like Hollywood or the Silicon Valley is.

Like studios are kind of worldwide, you know.

It's Meta's gaming.

The biggest night of the metaverse.

I don't know.

Pixelville, something like that.

Pixelville.

Yeah.

It's Pixelville's biggest night.

That sounds good.

That does sound good.

I will roll with that.

Hey, can we, speaking of Pixels and speaking of the last time you were here, Heather,

so here's the, here's the thing.

I was very anxious about our Super Mario Bros.

3 episode.

I think we overall did a pretty good job.

We did, but it's a daunting task to try to be comprehensive about a game of that import.

There were a couple of things I was looking back at, I was like, I think there are a couple of things that we just didn't mention that I just wanted to get out there just as like, I think they're just like important notes.

The first is Kuribo's shoe, a.k.a.

Goomba's shoe, which we didn't talk about at all on that episode, but it's one of the best video game levels of all time.

It's the one where there's a Goomba in a shoe, and you can, if you hit him from below, you can pop him out of the shoe, and then Mario himself can, or Luigi, can hop into the shoe and use the shoe as this one-level only power-up.

And it's just just like the central mechanic, and it's never returned to.

You don't see the shoe again anywhere else in Super Mario Bros.

3, but it's just such an awesome, awesome design.

And also for a level that I think you can skip as well.

So just like every aspect of it, just they were like, let's go, let's fully commit.

Let's make an all-new mechanic that's for one set of one level, and then it's completely disposable.

The other thing is,

I like that for the listener, it's been weeks.

And so, and like, it's as if Nick, it's as if Nick

is like, I gotta, I gotta talk about the shoe.

I gotta, as soon as we can, I gotta talk about the shoe.

Uh, so I'm glad you brought it up because I, I, you know, I'm frustrated that you didn't talk about the shoe, although you did talk about the shoe on a different episode.

On a different episode, which is what maybe why I felt like it was accounted for, but I was like, I feel like we should, we should have given it highlighted a little bit in the context of talked about the game itself.

The other thing is, I don't think we talked about this, that the whole game is presented as a stage play, which is a big part of what's fun about it is that you got the curtains rising.

You kind of go offstage at the end of each level, and that also just like a lot of like the architecture appears to be stuff that's like, you know, bolted to the back wall or that are flats.

You know, it's, it's that the whole game itself is like a work of fiction within a work of fiction.

And it's not directly referenced.

It's just like sort of like presented for you.

If I recall, that was like lightly mentioned, but not like, we didn't really expand on that.

Yeah.

Why is Mario so afraid of showing us his true self?

Because like, Super Mario USA is a dream.

Super Mario 3 is a play.

It's not actually happening.

Right.

Super Mario, like, Paper Mario constantly breaks the fourth wall.

Like, they know they're in a video game.

So what is the core actual Mario?

Is it Mario World?

Is that like the core world?

Is that actually happening?

I think maybe that's like the closest that we've seen to his reality, like a Super Mario World or a Super Mario Bros.

1.

Yeah.

You know, but, but yeah, a lot of it.

I mean, I guess I guess Mario RPG Mario RPG breaks the fourth wall a lot, too.

But and I think I brought this up on the show too, speaking of

Mario not showing his true self, which is the real Mario?

Is Mario, when he's little, the real Mario?

Chris Pat's the real Mario.

He's the real Mario.

But because, you know,

if you're little, if you're base Mario without a mushroom power-up and you get hit by a Goomba, you die.

Yeah.

But if you get the mushroom, you become bigger.

Yeah, if you get him biggined.

And then you go back down to small.

Right.

So it's small Mario.

D Mario.

But small Mario is disproportionate to the other humanoid creatures within the Mario universe.

I think that big Mario is default Mario, and my evidence for that is 3D Mario.

The way he's presented is more of a Big Mario, and that he's kind of like in a, you know, like a

reduced state when

he's a small guy.

I think that, okay, that's fair.

But what's confusing about that, though, is that

that's how he starts off when you're playing any of the 2D Marios.

He starts off little.

So that's confusing.

I would like them to do a whole game where he's little.

That'd be fun.

A baby Mario game.

Yeah.

My favorite part of award shows is when the hosts just pontificate

whether or not one of the characters is real.

Like, that's my favorite.

Well, here's the thing.

You know, I've written for a number of award shows, and this was actually what I prepped as the the monologue for the MTV Movie Awards a couple years ago.

Aubrey Plaza was going to go up and just talk about Super Mario Bros.

3 for 10 minutes, but it got vetoed.

This is our version of in a real award show when

some liberal actor gets on their soapbox.

Yes, exactly.

And doesn't stick to the movies.

Yes.

That's what we were doing right now.

No, pollution is a serious issue.

Shut up.

Shut up, Leo.

God, I'm so sick of hearing about pollution from actors.

Me too.

Me too.

It's too fucking much.

Just admit that the world's going to end.

Yeah.

And like, that's it.

We're done.

We're past the point of no return.

Shut up.

Like,

let me throw a Pepsi can directly into a river.

That's what I want to do.

That's my ideal life is to drink Pepsis and throw the cans into the river.

Yeah.

I'd go Coke probably in that case, but yeah.

Pepsi's fun too.

Yeah, Pepsi's, I mean, if it's the option, I'll drink it, but I'd rather it be Coke.

Does burning a Pepsi can make it more toxic?

Because if so, I'm going to throw it through a fire into the river.

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So we're not here to get into any sort of activism.

We're just fully embraced nihilism.

And as we all, you know, hurdle towards oblivion, let's distract ourselves with some entertainment.

Let's talk about some video games we've been playing.

It's time for what are you playing?

What are you playing?

Hey, it's gaming's biggest night.

And I'm here because I want to tell you guys,

i'm i'm really proud of you wow resident evil merchant that's that's high praise coming from you oh it is it is i don't dole out compliments nilly nilly you really i don't i really don't you know i'm more of a merchant like i deal in compliments but you got to pay me for them and i just want to say it's been a tough year and get played and i am so proud of you guys wow

i want my job back

okay here we here it is there it is what I knew it was all lip service.

You know, it's always something

with the merchant.

And it's actually not the time to be doing this right now.

We're in the middle of a very important broadcast.

I stole my tuxedo from Jaquille O'Neal.

And I'm here.

You're swimming in it.

You look ridiculous.

Yeah, you look ridiculous.

No, you look great.

Actually, I look sharp.

You look sharp.

You look great.

I want my job back.

And I don't know.

I figured today, you know, all the merriment of the holidays is behind us.

There's peace in the Middle East.

And

I just want my job back.

What are you talking about?

When do you think that's coming out?

Do you read the news?

Do you pay attention to what's going on?

I guess you live in a different reality.

So maybe things are happening different in the residential.

I guess everything else seems trivial when Laplaga is running rampant

in the world.

I know.

I know that,

I know that this podcast is recorded out of sequence.

Oh, so you're, you're, you're going, you're extrapolating into the future.

You're assuming everything is going to be all wrapped up.

I think then what holidays are behind us?

Because this is certainly coming out before Christmas.

Halloween 2028.

Oh, so you think this is, we're holding on to this for a long time?

I haven't had a job in a long time.

Yeah, no, I'm assuming this is years in the future.

Look,

I'm just going to make an offer here.

Residual Merchant, I think you've been a huge part of the show

over the years.

Here's what I'm offering.

What are you offering?

I think in the new year, the door is open if you want to make a comeback.

If you want, if you want your job back, you know,

that possibility is going to exist for you in 2024.

If the door is open, so is my coat.

What are you playing?

Wow.

He's back.

Had nothing on under that coat.

Yeah, yeah.

I found a needle on the beach and I injected myself with it without looking what was inside.

I feel great.

You look great.

This is sometimes I don't necessarily condone that, but it could pay off sometimes.

I mean, if you look closely, you are, you're bleeding from your eyeballs.

But other than that,

that's typical.

Hey, got it.

Nick.

Yes.

Nick Weiger.

What are you playing?

I'll be brief.

I'm back and playing Baldur's Gate 3, but here's what I did.

I rolled a new character.

Because enough time had passed since I had my paladin stranded in Act 1, and I was like, you know what?

I've forgotten a lot of the decisions I've made.

And I'm like, try to piece together, you know, what I've done through these, you know, whatever, 15, 20 hours of play time.

I just would rather relive it, re-experience it.

So I went through and I rolled a bard, and I'm playing a bard now.

I'm back in Act 1.

And the game's, it's just fucking terrific.

And it's an absolute delight.

So that's my very, very brief, what are you playing?

After the holidays in the new year, we'll hopefully have some more extensive experience with Baldur's Gate 3.

And I'll talk about that playthrough.

Because I want to finish this bad boy.

Nice.

Nick, I've been thinking about doing the exact same thing, but I've played for 106 hours.

I like

it.

I don't think that I can.

Yeah, that's the thing.

Are you an act three or are you an act two?

I am at the end of act two.

I'm getting my ass handed to me at this point.

God,

I think, I think, like, power through to the end with that character, but I definitely have that feeling all the time playing RPGs, especially when you create a character all the time.

I'm like, I'm just, I'm just, should just abandon this and do a whole new game.

Yeah.

I think I got to just get back into the rhythm of it, but I would like to pick that back up.

So maybe I'll have an update about that as well.

Wow.

I just noticed your shoes, Nick.

They look really comfortable.

Oh, thanks.

Yeah.

Are we still doing awards apparel or are we back in reality?

We can do awards apparel for just a second here.

They got

this is a Converse All-Star, but it looks like it's one of the ones that has like a nice padded

base, it looks like.

It looks good.

Okay, so we are in reality.

We are in our reality.

Oh, no, no, this is.

Oh, yeah.

So, right, I'm not wearing a.

What the fuck are we?

What is happening?

I'm just saying we've established that I'm wearing tidy whiteies and 100 bow ties.

But yeah, we didn't talk about your shoes.

That's right.

We didn't talk about my shoes, which are in both realities, Converse All-Stars, but they have a...

Yeah, they're like platform shoes.

These are, these are, they're super comfortable because they're

the Converse All-Star form factor, but then they've got like this tread on the bottom and a lot more padding than typical all-stars.

So I fucking love them for walking around.

I don't know if you needed the extra height, but they look pretty good.

Say something to the rest of us.

I'm truly hulking now.

Yeah.

With

this extra inch and a half of height.

You got Costner level height over here.

The tallest guy we can think of, Costner.

I'll say briefly, too, what I'm playing.

I rolled credits on the first Alan Wake.

It's been a couple of weeks since I talked about it, but I rolled credits on Alan Wake, and I've come around.

It's good.

My experience playing that game, I was sort of not sure if I was enjoying it.

By the time I got to the end of it, I can confidently say I did enjoy it quite a bit.

You've been wake-pilled.

I've been wake-pilled, as it were.

It was weird.

It was a weird experience, but I did enjoy it, and

I liked having my flashlight and gun combo.

I loved dropping flash grenades at big, scary ghost things.

And

I liked where the story ended up.

And I will be continuing my Allen Wake journey into Alan Wake 2.

But I also, I might make a pit stop in control.

I might give control a spin as well, but that's it for me.

Hey, that's a, hey, blaze through Alan Wake in a fortnight.

That's pretty good.

Pretty nice.

Heather, what are you playing?

Well,

I, so as I've mentioned previously, I'm swinging my baseball bat again at Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

And I've put in a ton of hours in it.

But I guess the most remarkable thing is I finally set up the analog pocket dock

for my for my I've been waiting because I bought the dock and the DAC because they promised at analog, they promised dock to DAC compatibility.

And they still say it's coming in a future update.

My ideal world was that I would be playing on the pocket and then I could snap it into the dock, turn on my CRT, my old Sony PVM, and play it on like a glowing television screen.

I'm so, I finally got so frustrated with my inability to do that that I set up the dock on my flat screen.

This game does not look good very big.

It is ugly when you blow,

even when you're using like the sort of Game Boy filters or whatever.

It's ugly on a flat screen.

And so I'm pretty disappointed because I, look, I have the, what is it?

The GameCube with the Game Boy Advance adapter, and I can technically play it on the TV, but it is, it's a frustrating experience to take out the save, take out the cartridge, put it into the thing.

Right.

Use, I have some kind of special fucking

disc for the GameCube that allows you to bypass the Game Boy player's default resolution and actually screen it at the right.

So you have to go through a menu and you have to like toggle stuff and then you finally get to the game and then you're playing it and it looks beautiful on a CRT.

I just want the simplicity of pocket dock television.

I'm done playing on the television.

Pick it up.

Take it out of the dock.

Go into another room.

Right.

It's not happening.

And it looks like shit on a big screen.

It looks ridiculous.

You know what it looks like?

It reminds me of when a child puts on adults clothing.

It's all wrong.

Yeah.

Like when they're flopping around in an adult suit and it's like, you don't belong in that suit.

You look ridiculous.

That's, I mean, you're cute.

Stupid little kid.

But you look ridiculous.

That's what it feels like to me.

So I've been playing Tactics Advance, but I'm frustrated with analog's inability to update the dock to be compatible with the DAC, which is still a visible option on their website as a coming soon.

It's 2023.

Come on.

It's 2023.

It's the end of it.

Soon will be 2020.

But it is 2023.

Yeah, I mean, it shit just takes forever.

I think I've said this on the show before, and maybe this was a Kickstarter at some point, but I just, I feel like there's enough, you know, niche demand, enthusiast demand for someone to make like a new CRT in the same way that they started just making new turntables, you know, whatever the turntable, the vinyl fad started up again.

It feels like, okay, maybe the manufacturing costs are just too much.

Maybe you just can't, you know, you can't get it to the right scale, but I don't know.

So, some

like, so you don't have to fucking scour eBay for an old, like, you know, reference monitor that was used in a TV station 20 years ago, or like, you know, someone's like, just, just, just, just a new modern CRT with modern inputs

that's gamer friendly.

I don't know.

People would want that shit.

There are.

There are plenty of people.

If you go to Google and you just search CRT for sale, there's tons of CRTs for sale.

You know, you can even get off of like Etsy a $1,300 Sony PVM.

Like there, there's plenty of them.

Even the base models are still available.

It's like 60 bucks with, you know, a little bit of burn-in, burn-in, but you can play these old systems.

I just, it's shocking to me that like on Alibaba or something, that there isn't just like a CRT secondary market.

You're totally right, Nick.

I don't have anything to add other than yes.

Do you have a dream CRT?

Do you have a dream CRT?

Is that something you ever think about or is that?

Boy, I used to have a Sony Trinitron back in the day and like basically everything, it was like a 27-inch, so it was like big, but not not like too big.

It was like just big enough, but like once you started to CRTs, started to get like more like 30 inches plus.

They were so fucking heavy, you just couldn't move them.

This one was like just on the cusp of that.

It was still pretty heavy and pretty front-loaded, but it was manageable for moving from apartment to apartment.

And yeah, games just looked great on it.

You know, PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2 games, that era of gaming,

I played most of my GameCube games on that TV.

So yeah, I don't know.

I think like a, like,

you wanted to have component ends.

You wanted to have S-video ins.

I don't know if there's any utility to having like an HDMI in on a CRT, which is a thing that never existed.

I don't even know if it could, if it could outport put a source that

a CRT could interpret.

The technical side of that is above my pay grade, but like.

Just just get just okay, like the analog pocket dock like you were talking about, something that would accept all of the inputs from a modern piece of hardware like that, but that also had like the tube quality of like, you know, one of those old Sony Wegas or whatever.

I just shared a link.

You know, I have, I already have my dream CRT in that Sony PVM.

And boy, oh boy, if you tuned into this episode, excited about these game awards, we sure are in the trenches of some technical talk.

But

the Sony Trinitron 9-inch

KV9P

T50 is my second dream CRT.

It is a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little TV.

It's only 9 inches.

And it is so cute.

It's white and has a little stand.

And

I love this CRT so much.

That's my secondary dream CRT.

Yeah, it's a cute little guy.

It's a cute little guy.

That is a perfect way to describe it.

It is actually a very cute little TV.

Yeah.

But it is the kind of thing, like, you think about playing

60-hour JRPG on a screen that size, you know, not that it would, it would, it's,

I don't know, it's, it's just a, like,

I think that's, that's like an awesome, like super specific thing, but I feel like if we're talking dream CRT for me, I'd want one that's, that's got a little bit more heft to it.

Well, we're different people, Nick.

Yeah, I know.

I'm just saying we were saying.

Yeah, Nick, your dreams aren't exactly like Heather's, okay?

Heather's are different than yours.

There was some CRT that I was reading about the other day.

Again, the stars are here.

We're about to get to them.

We're really excited.

But there was a CRT that I was reading about the other day that was $40,000 upon release and was like 750 pounds.

And, like, that's a pretty good machine right there.

That's a

nice CRT.

What a day.

What a, what?

The stars are out.

The stars are out.

And I think it's time we should probably go to the stage.

There's a few, you know,

surprises right around the corner.

And we will begin this year's goatsies

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All right, we're back.

Was somebody going to do a commercial?

Wait, what?

Was that like an actual?

I thought that was an actual toss.

Was that to do a bit?

Me?

Yeah.

Well, yeah, television shows have commercials.

Got it.

So that's probably where we'll just put in our podcast ads, but we'll also keep in this confused resumption here.

Yeah.

I was just confused because we've never done that.

We don't throw the brakes of the show.

So, but that makes it made sense to do.

All right, let's get into the goat sees.

Hey, I got one.

First category: biggest game we completely ignored.

Biggest game we completely ignored.

And the nominees are Dead Space Remake,

Lies of P,

Mortal Kombat 1,

Octopath Traveler 2,

and Pikmin 4.

And the goatsy goes to

Starfield.

That's right, Bethesda Starfield.

We have just not talked about for one second on this podcast.

Yeah, no.

Accepting the award on behalf of Starfield is

Starfield Guy.

Very thrilled on behalf of Starfield.

As you know, I have been fighting for my planet Starfield against the evil Starfield Emperor.

We must uphold the Starfield prophecy as the ancient aliens have foretold.

I'm sure that's that's the, you know, that's, it's something like that, right?

It's something like that.

Anyway, uh, anyone, everyone plays Starfield on Game Pass.

Wow,

that's a big win for Starfield.

Congrats to Starfield.

That's huge.

Absolute games that we absolutely ignored.

I feel like that might be a bit of a running theme of tonight's show because

this has been an incredible year in games.

One of the best ever, it could be argued.

When you can't look at game of the year and not make an argument for three out of five of those titles, like that's a that's a big year, year, you know?

That's a big fucking year.

It's a big honking year, and I think there were, there were addition to the AAA excellence, there were some indie gems, which we'll get to.

But go on, Heather.

Similarly to this first category, I'm here to present Best Game I Will Never Finish.

Best Game I Will Never Finish.

And the nominees are for Best Game I'll Never Finish, Tears of the Kingdom,

Starfield,

Baldur's Gate 3.

Octopath Traveler 2.

Street Fighter 6.

Star Wars game from the Spring.

Super Mario Wonder.

Armored Corps.

And the winner is

Hogwarts Legacy.

This is Hogwarts Legacy's first win in this category.

Accepting the award for Hogwarts Legacy is a very ashamed Harry Potter.

Hello.

So,

I understand why there is a segment of the population who is never, ever going to start or finish Hogwarts Legacy.

And I just want to say it's your fault that Voldemort won because you didn't defeat him in Hogwarts Legacy.

I also want to give a shout out to every gender, every expression of sexuality.

You're all valid.

I know it's not enough because I was created by somebody who denies reality, science, and existence itself.

But, you know,

it's an accurate game.

You can go to the bathroom in Hogwarts Legacy and it looks just like the movies.

Thank you very much.

Wow.

Wow.

And passionate Harry Potter.

Yeah.

It's good that Harry Potter got out there and said, said all that.

It's good.

It's

a real shame about that game because,

hey, it looks fancy.

It looks fancy in a game truly a few years ago would have been very interested in playing.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

Have no interest in it now.

I know some people who played it

conflicted feelings, but as an experience, I think it

gives what you're looking for.

Yeah.

I am more likely to play and finish Starfield than I am to start Hogwarts Legacy.

Wow.

You know, if I'm already paying for PlayStation Plus and they drop it in one of the free month games, maybe I'll give it a spin.

It's time for the next category.

And the next category is games that aren't Baldur's Gate 3.

Wow.

And the nominees are Marvel Spider-Man 2,

Star Wars, Jedi Survivor.

Also known as Star Wars from the Spring.

The Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, and the Resident Evil 4 remake.

And the winner is

Baldur's Gate 3.

Wow.

A big upset.

This is shocking.

This is a shocking upset because the category, as stated previously, was: these are games that are not Baldur's Gate 3, but in fact, the winner of this category is Baldur's Gate 3 and accepting the award

on Baldur's Gate 3's behalf.

It's Joel Miller from the Last of Us series.

Oh, wow!

Hey, I think this is one of them video games that Ellie likes to play.

Thanks so much for

believing in me.

And

remember, if I were to lose you,

I'd probably lose myself.

Anyway, I gotta go.

I'm gonna go

play a of round of golf with the uh

with some of my buddies with uh with Tommy and uh and the rest.

And so I'll see, I'll see y'all later.

And uh, y'all remember to endure and survive.

All right, I gotta go.

Wow, Joel Miller, Joel Miller, big year for him coming up because they're gonna be filming the second season of The Last of Us for HBO, and they're also releasing The Last of Us Part 2 remastered in 2024 as a $10 upgrade, and and it's going to have a new

combat, like, roguelike horde mode.

And there's nothing that is more likely to get me back into The Last of Us ecosystem than endless enemies and combat.

Do you think Kevin Costner was like, that could have been Joel?

Probably.

I think if The Last of Us had come out in the 90s, there is...

A 100% chance it would have been Costner.

Yeah.

There's just no way.

Or like Mel Gibson.

Why does Joel have a baseball glove now?

I want to say.

This motherfucker loves baseball.

Just because Costner is here, I think they added another category, which is most surprising music in a Super NES game, and they gave it to Waterworld and then gave him an award and asked him to leave.

Yeah.

Okay, here's your award.

You can go now.

He was very happy to get out of here.

Oh, yeah.

Hey, well, that was a, that was truly what the, perhaps the most baffling category so far tonight.

Both in terms of do you mean?

Both in terms of the parameters, the winner, and who accepted the award.

But you know what?

That's what the goat sees are all about.

The goat sees are full of surprises.

You'll always be surprised at the goat sees.

You'll always be back on your heels.

And hey, that might be the case with this next category.

The next one is

Thing Weiger won't shut up about.

Thing Weiger won't shut up about.

The nominees are, guys, you gotta play Dave the Diver.

It's so good.

Guys, Drill Suit Mario is so cool.

Guys, it's serious.

Metroid Prime Remastered holds up so well.

Like, it feels like a moddered AAA game.

You really should be able to romance those French twins in Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty.

That's insane.

It's not an option.

And the goat seat goes to

beating Sekiro.

Wow.

That's right.

I beat Sekiro.

And accepting the award for Weiger not shutting up about Weiger beating Sekiro is me.

I beat Sekiro.

Just wanted to remind everyone that I beat Sekiro.

Wow.

A year late after he said he'd do it, he did do it.

But I did it.

And I'm not shutting up about it.

How is it possible that he's saying Sekiro the right way, but also it sounds like he's saying it the wrong way when he says Sekiro?

Yeah.

It's just the

the Weiger experience, baby.

Exactly, that's all it is.

And I, you know what?

I'm very proud of you, Nick.

Thanks, man.

I'm glad that you, you beat Sekiro.

It did, it did, it did encourage me to purchase it when it was on sale and I've yet to start it.

Great game.

I'd love to give it a swing sometime.

Similarly to Weiger's category, our next category is a game I finished and don't remember from 2023.

the nominee and winner is Final Fantasy 16.

Wow.

Final Fantasy 16

accepting the award.

Heather Ann Campbell.

Hi.

Hi.

So, yeah, I finished Final Fantasy 16.

I came really close to platinuming it, to be honest.

I do not remember the name of almost any of the characters.

I don't really remember who the bad guy was.

I think it was Ultima or Ultimos or Ultros.

I don't know.

I know there was a dog.

I know that I pre-ordered the dog as a stuffed animal before the game came out because I was so excited about the game.

That dog has not yet arrived at my house, and when it does, I will be confused about its existence.

I'll be like, what is this dog?

You've forgotten all about Torgle?

The dog?

Torgle.

Torgle is his name.

Torgle.

I don't

remember the name of the locations.

I don't.

And I know that, you know, I've been in a treatment that is aggressive about

changing your memory, giving you a little brain fog.

But the truth is, I fucking, I don't remember.

There was a dude who turned into Bahamut.

Do you remember his name, either of you?

Matt's the one who finished the game.

I bounced off of it.

Do you remember the name of the dude who turned into Bahamut?

We didn't come here to quiz me, okay?

We came here to present the awards on gaming's biggest night.

Expect one of us to retain information from a game we spent dozens of hours in?

Come on.

Off the top of my head, we've got Squall, Quistus,

we've got Cypher, we've got Ultimacia, we've got, like, I can name all those Final Fantasy VIII characters.

Oh, you're thinking of the main main character?

You're thinking of Clive Rosenfeld?

No, not Clive.

I'm talking about the guy who turned into Bahamut.

A major fucking character.

Can't remember his name.

I can remember what?

Zidane or Zidane?

Vivi.

I can remember, of course, Cloud and Barrett and Tifa and Aerith and like all those characters.

I can remember Sid Highwind.

What was the name of the dude who turned into Bahamut?

Don't know.

A game I finished and don't remember.

Thank you very much.

I'm accepting this award.

Wow.

Congratulations.

Huge win for Heather and for Final Fantasy 16.

The only thing I remember for Final Fantasy 16 is

fuck.

Yeah.

You're thinking of,

perhaps you're thinking of Dion Lesage.

It's me, Dion Lesage.

You probably had to Google that and then also scroll a bunch.

Yeah.

Okay, so you saw me do this.

Well, you guys, you know,

it wouldn't be gaming's biggest night if

we didn't take a second to stop down and just peel back the curtain a little bit.

You know, we came up, these categories

are obviously, they're all locked in and they're all

things that we've we feel honored to be presenting tonight.

But as the proceedings have gone on,

I've noticed that some of mine are pretty similar to some of the other ones that have come up before.

And I've had to come up with some new categories.

So this next category.

This is how a lot of award shows work.

Sometimes.

They're going through with their Grammys like, oh, fuck.

They already handed out a best, you know, best jazz fusion album.

Exactly.

I get that was my category.

I had to come up with something else.

They'll do

RB.

They'll do best actor, and they'll be like, oh, shit, we didn't even do girls.

Yeah.

Let's put girls in it too.

Do best actress.

Yeah.

Right.

So this next, this next category is games Matt liked, but Nick and Heather did not.

Wow.

Wow.

And the winner is Final Fantasy 16.

This is the second win for Final Fantasy 16 tonight.

So far, the most awarded game of the ceremony.

Wow.

Perhaps cementing it as game of the year.

We shall see.

And accepting this award is me, Matt Apodaka, and I will gladly accept this award.

This game that I remember almost nothing about, that I, while playing it for 50 hours, loved every second of.

And came to

zone.

Came here on this show and said, guys, this is a game of the year contender.

Don't remember a single thing about it.

All right, we're getting to the big ones here.

We're getting our way towards the finish line here, some of the major categories.

This one is a staple of the goatsies.

It's time for best Hog.

The nominees for Best Hog in a video game are

Penis 1 from Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty.

Penis B from Baldur's Gate 3.

Boar from Fortnite.

Penis 2 from Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty.

And finally, Hogwarts Legacy.

And the Goatsy goes to

Penis D from Baldur's Gate 3.

Wow, a surprise win.

Wow.

Accepting the award on behalf of Penis D is

Starfield Guy.

It's me, Starfield Guy.

My people have suffered under the Starfield Empire for too long.

We must liberate my planet of Starfield so we can finally get on the fabled Starfield Ark or fucking whatever.

Like, it's like, it's that kind of thing, right?

Yeah.

You fuck, you get it.

It's a treasure and prophecy, some shit like that.

You get it.

Anyway, thank you.

Play Starfield in Game Pass.

Wow, huge win.

Huge win for Penis.

Huge

win.

Our next category is a controversial one,

but it must be covered

on a goatsies as big as this one.

And this is Best Fortnite Skin released in the year 2023.

Wow.

This could be a lot of things.

Nominees include Michael Myers, Jack Skellington, Alan Wake, Invincible, Omni Man.

And the award for best skin released in 2023 in the game Fortnite is M ⁇ M with spaghetti backpack.

Wow.

In the year 2022,

that's the thing about it that's huge.

In this year of 2023.

We're still doing what we're doing.

Children everywhere have been clamoring for Eminem and the

back black bling of Mom's Spaghetti.

And Eminem beat out Jack Skellington, Alan Wake, Michael Myers, the Invincible Crew.

Adam Eve wasn't even nominated.

And Eminem unfortunately could not make it

to the show tonight.

So,

accepting the award on his behalf is one of the other nominees, Jack Skellington.

There are few who deny, and what I do, I am the best when I'm wearing an outfit from LeBron James.

My gun is Naruto, and my hat is me.

But nothing compares to my backpack bling of mom's spaghetti.

Jack Skellington, Christmas out.

Wow, that was beautiful.

Christmas out, yeah.

Always love to hear that around the holidays.

Yeah.

You guys, I'm really excited to present this next category.

This category is names that are the same kind of.

Names that are the same kind of.

Names that are the same kind of.

And instead of reading the list of nominees, I'm going to just jump straight to the winner.

And it is a tie between the names Torgle, the dog from Final Fantasy 16, and Turgle, the frog guy from Star Wars Jedi Survivor.

Torgle and Turgle.

Wow.

Turgle and Torgle.

This is a huge award for both of them.

What a big win.

And accepting,

they're actually both here.

Oh, they're both here.

They're both here.

Oh, so we're going to hear from both of them.

We're going to hear from both of them.

This is very exciting.

I'm going to go ahead and hand the microphone to Turgle.

Thanks, everybody.

It's me, Turgle.

I'm just a weird little frog man.

And this is my best friend, Torgle.

We're holding hands.

Do you think that when Star Wars came out that the Final Fantasy devs were like, fuck!

Oh no!

Oh shit!

Yeah, we lost in 12 four years ago.

Jesus Christ.

It's just kind of crazy to think about because the names are so similar.

This happened last year as well, actually, with

God of War Ragnarok and Elden Ring.

There was a quest that was basically the same thing.

It was a jellyfish, course.

It was the two jellyfish quests.

Yeah.

You have to reunite a jellyfish with another jellyfish in both games.

Fuck!

Ah, fuck, no!

Oh, God!

Yeah,

kind of crazy that, you know, it's two very different development teams coming to, you know, very similar conclusions.

But that was the category.

Names that are the same kind of.

Wow.

Wow.

Well, hey, we've handed out a lot of statuettes so far here at this year's Goatsies, but award shows aren't just about rewarding the past.

They're also about acknowledging the past.

And it's time to take a few moments to recognize those we've lost this year in video games in our in memoriam.

In the arms of the angel,

far away.

El Gigante in Resident Evil 4 remake.

Distracted by a dog, then blasted by a shotgun a bunch.

Carlak, Gail,

Shadowheart, and my tav from Baldur's Gate 3 before I save scummed.

Oh my god.

Bowser Jr.

and Super Mario Wonder.

Stomped to death by Elephant Mario.

My Xbox Game Pass subscription.

There was a layer of dust on my Xbox, and I realized I'm still paying for that.

Wife in Dredge.

Killed by dead wife video game premise.

Final Fantasy, The First Soldier.

That doesn't seem like it was this year, but it was.

Wow.

An entire town of tieflings in Baldur's Gate 3.

Killed by Heather's character in a remorseless genocidal rampage.

E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

It just didn't happen this year, and everybody was kind of like, I guess it's dead.

Kind of unceremonial.

Yeah.

Divorced Ken in Street Fighter VI,

self-inflicted Shor Yukin.

Wow.

Really, really

sad there, but you know.

Yeah.

I think it's important that those were acknowledged.

Wow.

You know, we're almost at the end of our show.

And I think this next category is a really exciting one because it's the most look-forward to games of the future.

The nominees include Star Wars Outlaws,

Final Fantasy Rebirth, Grand Theft Auto VI.

But the winner from Get Played is Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth.

Wow.

Probably the game we are all going to play more than any of those other three.

Wow.

Yeah, Heather will probably play Final Fantasy Rebirth, but let's be honest.

Like a Dragon, the Yakuza games got their fucking hooks into us.

We had a great time playing them, and there's a new one coming out, so I'm pretty sure we're all looking forward to a little bit more time with Kiryu.

Here's the thing about Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth is it's coming out in January, so we don't have a lot of time to get to it.

I really do want to play it, but then also there were two, you know, Like a Dragon

side story spin-off games that came out this year that I still haven't gotten to.

So it's it's kind of a daunting franchise to re-engage in.

But I do think there's, yeah, I do think I maybe I'll just hop in with both feet and play some like a dragon infinite wealth.

Why wouldn't you?

Because there's too much fucking shit to play.

Because the conveyor belt of content never stops.

But

I think that's a good winner there.

I actually think that is a game that we're all going to dig in on.

Yeah, I do.

I think it.

I think it's real.

I mean, I like the idea of infinite wealth.

You had me at infinite wealth.

I'm listening.

I could use some of that.

Wow,

that's a huge win in that category.

Do we have any other categories before we get to our game of the year?

I was not going to read this one, but I'll read it.

Okay.

Favorite stupid thing I bought this year.

The nominees are a PlayStation Vita to hack.

A 2DS to hack.

And finally, the PlayStation Portal.

And the winner.

Guys, the winner's the 2DS, the flat 2DS.

Yeah, that's a nice piece of hardware.

But yeah, it's crazy that you bought one of those.

It's so funny.

I love looking at it and I love holding it.

And it's got some great games on it.

And

I highly recommend getting a 2DS.

Are you, do you find yourself here in the end of 2023 using the portal that much?

Yeah, I've been using the portal every single night since I got it, actually.

Holy shit.

I played it.

I played Alan Wake almost exclusively on it, and

I started a new game on it pretty recently as well that I haven't mentioned yet.

I sometimes think about gaming as a hobby and just how expensive it is.

And I'm just like, I kind of wish I was like into something else because there's just so much money that you can fucking spend on shit.

And sometimes it's like a game you don't get around to playing or like, you know,

a peripheral or a system that you actually don't end up getting your money's worth out of.

But then you look at a different hobby like you know, like watches, like people who are really into watches, and it's like, oh, you can spend thousands of dollars on an individual watch.

Like, there are watches that cost people six figures.

And if you're like a watch person,

you're just like, that's that's a hobby that could bankrupt you.

So I'm so glad I'm into gaming over something like that.

Even books is an expensive hobby.

Sure, yeah.

Like,

if you're an avid reader, right?

So, like, if you're an avid gamer, you get a, you get a game for $69, $59, somewhere like that.

And if it's a game that is a robust game, it's probably a 60-hour game, right?

60 hours is going to take you two or three weeks if you have like a career or anything going on in your life.

By comparison, you buy a book and a book's like 20 bucks.

And if you're an avid reader, you're probably reading that every night, just like you're playing a video game every night.

You're through that book in a week.

So your average price point is almost identical if not a little bit more expensive if you're into books as a hobby like gaming per hourage like especially especially if you think of a game like fortnite that is free to play sure which is crazy you're like making money playing that it's crazy that fortnite is free to play um

then like i don't know it there's no that you can go to the library and essentially fortnite your way through books because the library is free like there are ways to game and there are ways to read without spending money.

But generally speaking, skateboard decks are expensive.

If you're a car person, cars are certainly expensive.

Like,

there's so many.

It's pretty cheap, unfortunately.

I agree with you, Nick.

I am grateful to be in a privileged place where I can play video games.

That is an awesome, lucky spawn point for me in this simulation we call reality.

Any other categories?

I have one.

Best boyfriend or girlfriend in a video game.

The nominees are Asterion from Baldur's Gate 3, Chun Lee from Street Fighter VI, Zelda from Tears of the Kingdom, P

from Lies of P

and the winner for best boyfriend or girlfriend in a video game is

C4-621 from Armored Core.

Accepting the award is C4621 from Armored Core.

Wow.

Can you really romance a mech or a mech pilot in that game?

Are you now interested?

Hey, I love romance options.

I don't know if that category was actually romanceable options or if they were just characters or machines that one could fall in love with.

Oh, I got it.

I got it.

Got it.

Now I understand.

All right.

Shall we get to Game of the Year?

All right.

It's time to give out our Game of the Year award.

I think everyone should get to throw in some nominees here.

I'm going to toss out my five favorites, but I want anyone else to fill in anything that they played that they feel like should be acknowledged in this category.

And I also want to acknowledge two big games that came out that I have not yet got around around to playing, but from hearing people with similar tastes and their

fondness for these games, I bet they are games that I would have loved.

Chance of Senar is one of them, and the other one is Cocoon.

Those are both very, very Weiger-appealing puzzle games that I think I probably will really like when I get around to playing them over the break.

But my nominees are Baldur's Gate 3, Dave the Diver, Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, Sea of Stars, and Super Mario Wonder.

Those are excellent, excellent nominees.

My nominees include, of course, Fortnite, Baldur's Gate 3, Super Mario Wonder, which has already been nominated.

Those are my nominees.

And my nominees, this is tough, because I'm going off of games that I finished.

And I did, which I finished as of this recording, 14 games this year.

Low numbers for me.

But games that released this year that I finished.

Resident Evil 4, the legend of zelda tears of the kingdom jedi survivor spider-man 2 and cyberpunk 2077 the phantom liberty i thought about throwing cyberpunk in there i did really like that but if i was going to get it down to five i think that's my i'm my last cut my

honorable mention there is

metroid prime remastered so another remaster

yeah good year for remasters yeah

I think, look, we're all at different stages of this game.

We've all played it very differently.

I think it's, and as much as I personally would want to be a little shit and say Dave the Diver is the game of the year,

I do think that it is in the same way that last year was Elden Rings year.

I think it's Baldur's Gate 3's year.

I think it's just like this is, that's the game that represents like, hey,

this is an extremely ambitious game that made an impact on the industry, that everyone is going to be taking inspiration from.

And that also just like, you know, does things, has a AAA level of presentation and polish.

It's, you know, a little buggy, but still like just in terms of how much content it has and how well it's presented.

And then, and also like you just, just is doing things different.

Like it doesn't feel like a, like a, it doesn't feel like a fucking Starfield.

It feels like something

that is

a new, a new, a new approach to this formula.

I, I have to agree, and I also have to agree because

Baldur's Gate 3 inspired more than one person I know to get a PlayStation 5.

Wow.

Like, it's been a long time since there is a game that you could argue was a full-blown system seller.

And this was a system seller.

This was a game that this game got Mary to buy a PlayStation 5.

Wow.

She played Baldur's Gate 3, like,

multiple times.

She created multiple characters.

And this isn't a game that, like, I would say is in Mary's wheelhouse.

you know like she's not like on the edge of her seat waiting for a huge robust RPG in order to uh in order to play uh

a video game so yeah I can't I can't uh I can't imagine a I can't imagine a more

honest game to choose for

for game of the year

Yeah, I mean, it's, I haven't finished it.

I know that, yeah, we're all in different spots in it.

It's, it is, It is, by and large, the game of the year.

That's what I kind of think.

And it's like, there's a,

I'm sorry, finish your thoughts.

No,

it's the game that, like, if you ask people, like,

you, you could pull so many people and be like, what's a game you've heard of this year?

And people would probably be like, top of mind, Baldur's Gate 3.

Like, it's just like a game that, like, everybody knows about.

And, like, it just, it took over the conversation.

It took over the conversation away from Tears of the Kingdom, which in any other year would have been the game of the year, maybe game of the decade, and then Baldur's Gate 3 comes out fucking swinging.

Well, and I think a big part of that, and obviously, you know, Larien's made other games and they have their formula, but

this is like presented in a very different way than like, you know, Divinity Original Sin 2.

It's like has, again, that level of polish, all of the different that every line is voiced, that every

cinematic is presented like, you know, we're not seeing things from isometric just with dialogue.

We have a, you know,

it's blocked out and shot like cutscenes.

And

just that level of detail that goes into this game.

And also just like the look, like what people, a big part of what people loved about Tears of the Kingdom is that all the ways you can fuck around.

But man, you can really fuck around in Baldur's Gate 3.

You can fuck around and you can find out as well.

You can get into some really big trouble into Baldur's Gate 3.

Oh, man.

I'm probably going to start all over again because I really did not want to kill as many people.

I don't even know.

I don't know if the game is like finishable in a form that makes sense anymore.

Yeah.

Because like I've killed so many,

I've killed people that were supposed to be in your party.

Right.

I think.

Yeah.

No, you're not.

Because they, because they saw me and on site were like, what have you done?

And then executed.

Like, people have left my party.

They're like i can't be part i this i can't do this and it's all because i just wanted to look inside of boxes and doors that shouldn't be i mean i guess that's how dungeons and dragons works is that it's just like this domino effect from like a simple decision and then suddenly you're like oh my god i i'm i'm killing children and i just wanted to see what was inside of a treasure chest but it's um yeah it's an incredible game um i on that note i think that that's a big part of of it is just like all the

consequences of various actions that you can't possibly anticipate.

But then also just like, that's also a way in which the game can be very funny in a way that, you know,

in a very distinct way.

I was watching this, I watched this YouTube video.

It was just like a, it was a critical stealth failure.

It was someone rolling a one on a stealth check.

And the animation that played was the player character was like sneaking up behind somebody to kill them.

And then they just fell over.

Just like tripped.

Like their armor just like fucking rattled on like the floor and everyone just was like what the fuck it's like it was just such a funny moment um that i think you know this this sort of uh the way this game is constructed and the systems that all inner work uh allows for things like that so yeah all right bg3

the get played game of the year how about that i'm sure one of many accolades it will be receiving

and they're gonna put it on the um on the box they'll put it on the box yeah with like uh for the collector's

when they're like over 100 Game of the Year awards, that will like will be one of them.

Yeah, it's gonna be on it.

Um, accepting the award on behalf of Baldur's Gate 3 is

Kevin Costner.

Resident Evil Virginia.

Oh my god, it's a Resident Evil Virtue.

Get him off the stage.

I'm probably gonna use it.

You fucking tackle Kevin Costner.

Fuck off the mindset.

They hired me back.

I'm gonna come.

Oh my god.

Stop.

Stop.

You're killing him.

He's so

get the fuck away from me.

Get off me.

I'll escort you out.

Wow, that was

rough.

We're going to have to add one more video game star to the montage, Kevin Costner.

In the eyes

of the angel.

Rest in power, the Mariner from Water World for Super Nintendo.

Do you think he hates?

Do you think that I feel like because Waterworld is not far away from when he's mentioned?

Like, obviously, probably it's Yellowstone now, I think he gets the most.

But for a time, people were like,

because he was good.

He was in a lot of great things, a lot of great movies.

But then Waterworld really stunk up his reputation.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know how he feels about it.

I haven't read an interview with him about or from him about it.

And we all agree it's a good idea, is the thing.

I'm a Water World apologist.

I have the Director's Cut extended edition on Blu-ray.

I, of course, have the Virtual Boy game and the Super NES game.

I think Water World is a great IP.

It was not incredibly well executed, but I think that the movie's score is the biggest problem with the film.

And there's a lot of problems with the film, but I think that if the music had been better, that it would not seem as goofy as it did.

Because like if you get like a Pirates of the Caribbean Caribbean-style score underneath Water World, then it's a fucking, it's a, it's a blast.

Yeah, I, I think the, I think the, the aesthetic, like, I really like the, the world, I like the open, the open ocean and the idea of like a flooded earth and what that would be like.

Like, all that's that those details are great.

I think a lot of like some of the stuff in the world building does come across a little goofy, like bad guys being called smokers or like the deacon.

Some of that stuff is just a little bit silly.

Um, but I think Water World's ultimate legacy is the stunt show.

And the stunt show is a lot of fun.

Everyone loves the fucking stunt show.

And it's like the Bumba Gum Shrimp Company of just like there are people now who go see the Water World stunt show tourists or younger people who have no idea that it's connected to a movie.

Right.

I wonder, because he's, you know, I know that he just passed away on our, on our stage,

beaten to death by the Resident Evil merchant who wanted to accept an award.

It's like a heightened slap, what just happened.

And it's just because the slap happened.

We allowed the slider.

It was a slippery slope until the Resident Evil merchant is going to murder Kevin Costner at the Goatsees.

Yeah.

I

am.

I love Westerns, and I can't believe that Kevin Costner has a two-part Western coming out in 2024.

That's fucking crazy.

It's not.

It's going to be like six hours worth of Western.

Why not, I say?

Yeah, why not?

Hey, a great year in gaming.

A great year in gaming, a great edition of the Goat Seas.

And, you know, we thought we'd want to hear some of your thoughts on this past year in video gaming.

It's your review crew, Games of this Year edition, the Ryu Crew.

Hello, Gun!

Ryu Friend.

Riyu Friend.

All right, so would you be surprised to learn so many people wrote Baldur's Gate 3.

I love it.

Lots of evil wrote Baldur's Gate 3.

You know, Snoofman wrote Baldur's Gate 3.

Chad Money Printer wrote Baldur's Gate 3.

Arctur wrote Baldur's Gate 3.

Lots of Baldur's Gate 3 in the chat.

We love to see it.

Jet Rights, game of the year, as it is every year, is Disco Elysium.

I love that.

I bought that coat, that Disco Elysium coat.

And because of the way way my fall has turned out, I have not yet been able to wear it out of the house.

Oh, sure.

Oh, man.

Fucking, I love that coat and I love that game.

And god damn, I can't wait to like walk around in that disco Elysium coat.

That's gonna be so sad.

I don't, there are, you know, because I, and look, I, people, people love the Larian style combat.

I do like tactical combat.

You really do get super in the weeds, I feel like, with each, with each turn in this game.

And the difficulty level, even on, on, you know, uh explorer or whatever the easiest one that i'm playing on as you've experienced matt does does scale up balder's gate 3 has some things that it's taken i think from disco elysium you know like certainly the dice rolls being visible which i love i think that's fucking awesome and um i i love those skill checks just being like presented in front of the player i i there are times when i'm like i kind of wish that i could play this game just without combat I kind of wish I could play this Disco Elysium style where I'm just kind of going through and role-playing it and just, you know, have to spend a little bit less time bashing my head against a wall trying to figure out how to get through this goblin camp or whatever.

Yeah.

This next one's from Hired Goons, and Hired Goons writes: a lot of big ones I haven't played, but it's between the Resident Evil 4 remake and the remake of Super Mario RPG.

I might just be a nostalgic basic bitch.

But I do like these new glossy remakes that really honor the original game.

Yeah.

Like playing Resident Evil 4 remake

feels like what playing Resident Evil 4 felt like in 2005 or whenever it originally released and I haven't played the Super Mario RPG remake but my understanding is that it is it very much honors the gameplay of the original and just has like a you know a glossy coat of paint on it I like I like that

uh DVA with the handgun writes Alan Wake 2 all day every

Alan Wake 2 all day every day that game blew my mind in every way or tears of the kingdom because I've never felt more free in a game than when I played that also it's amazing on a technical level and the story is beautiful i that's the the thing that's so and i think because it's a direct sequel tears of the kingdom kind of getting buried in the conversation but this is a staggering achievement yeah you're playing this game it's like holy shit this is fucking amazing what they've done it's it's it's it's pretty crazy to think about because like yeah i said this earlier but like in any other year it would have been an absolute landslide yeah

That's a fun, that's an interesting exercise to go back through previous years.

What years would it have been the clear game of the year?

Yeah.

Elden Ring last year, right?

Like, that would have been tough.

It's like the

2017, I think, Cleveland Cavaliers who had, you know, one of the best offenses in NBA history.

But they were just up against the Golden State Warriors with Kevin Durant and Steph Curry, and they just didn't have a chance.

But in a lot of other years, they would have just won the championship.

I love this mental exercise.

I love the idea of of looking at the game, the best games of a year, and then looking at the game.

Like you could do it as like almost an infinite,

an infinite tier.

You know, put all the games against each other and like find out what the best game of all time actually is

and then like kind of work backwards.

So like if you figured out who the best game was of all time, then you would also have your final four so that you would, you could

actually,

I think, I mean, this is nothing I want to do with my life or my time, but somebody could do it.

Oh, hey, that could, hey, we just, we just hit an episode format.

No, no, fucking that would die.

No, no, no, no, we'll do it.

Um, this next one's from Doom Spec.

Doom spec writes, Phantom Liberty and Cyberpunk 2.0 really is like the new game compared to,

really is like a new game compared to release cyberpunk.

I also say it's game of the year material.

I, you know,

love Phantom Liberty.

We're big huge Phantom Liberty fans here.

And,

the changes that they made to the base game are really fantastic as well.

It is still pretty buggy.

Yes.

But

there is some stuff in the base game that still feels a little bit clunky, but I think it is a really impressive overhaul.

And I think Phantom Liberty is a self-contained experience is really awesome.

My favorite experiences of the year.

This next one.

is from Lieb, and this one straight to my heart right here.

While it was definitely flawed, I'm sticking with Final Fantasy 16.

Wow.

The boss fights were spectacles on a level I've never seen before and made lasting impression on me.

Sid was also the British father I've always wanted.

Sid was good in the game.

I don't know where Sid would rank among the Final Fantasy Sids for me, but I don't think he'd...

I guess, I guess, within, I guess, whatever.

I didn't finish the game.

I'm not kidding.

I go down this road too much.

I just feel like there are other Sids I like more.

I'm going to be honest, I confused in thinking back about Final Fantasy 16, I thought Sid was the engineer girl who works in the basement.

And then I was like, no, no, no, you're confusing her with the mechanic from Final Fantasy XV.

That's Sid.

Totally forgot that Sid, that you are Sid for a portion of the game.

Then you are Sid, yeah, for a little bit.

So fucking, I don't know, man.

Woof.

John, yes, it's starting to sound like Torgle over there.

John B in Space writes, Spider-Man 2 for sure.

Great gameplay, amazing story, not too bloated open world.

Give me more.

Yeah, that's the thing.

You're playing in three of the five boroughs of New York, of course, and

it doesn't feel like there's too much going on.

There's just enough.

It's a

great game.

Well, that's a big part, though, of what also makes Phantom Liberty work, just to go back to that, is that it's one neighborhood of Night City.

And so they were able to make that feel really dense and lived in.

I didn't, because of when my diagnosis came, I didn't get to play Phantom Liberty.

And I'm looking forward to dropping in at some point in the future.

I think you'd like it.

Just don't expect you to be able to romance those sexy French twins, unfortunately.

We just did not include that in the game.

God damn it.

For some reason.

Stop.

No, I don't want to hear it.

No.

You should also check out Dave the Diver.

It's a great game.

And finally, from It's Patrick.

Shouts to Hi-Fi Rush.

It was gorgeous, fun to play.

A rhythm game with action.

Come on.

I love that.

I I love pointing that one out.

That one came out on the front end of the year.

Matt, I think you're the one who spent some time with Hi-Fi Rush, but that was a game that everyone was like super hype on in like February or March or whatever.

And then, yeah, it just kind of falls off of the radar.

A surprise drop.

Too many fucking games.

Too many fucking games.

Too many games.

Too many games.

But, guys, thanks so much for writing in with your

reviews and your input for Game of the Year.

And that's going to conclude this week's Get Played.

And the Goatsies

are now a thing in the past,

as they are every year, of course.

Until next year.

That's right.

When we'll talk about the games that are coming out all throughout 2024.

So that'll wrap up Get Played for the year.

We are going to be taking a couple of weeks off for the holidays.

You'll still get episodes in the feed on Monday.

One will be an unlocked episode from our archives.

One will be an unlocked Get Animate episode.

We'll still be releasing new GetAnimade over at patreon.com slash get played.

So check that out if you're looking looking for content.

But, yeah, we're going to be dark for the next couple of weeks, and then we'll be back in early 2024.

Oh, and also, shout out to Rochelle Chen, our producer who's joined us over at Headgum.

Yard underscore underscore sard on social.

You want to follow Rochelle?

Yeah, and

guys, what a year it's been.

I'm looking forward to getting back in the studio in 2024 and talking about games with you guys.

And I think it's safe to say that the year 2023 got played.

Hmm.

That's fucking right.

That was a hit gum podcast.

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What's up, everybody?

I'm Kyle Mooney.

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we got something to tell you.

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