The Best Games Ever Podcast

Who won out of Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous, the crowdfunded space sim sensations pitched to us a decade ago by two of the genre's most celebrated game directors? Star Citizen being a spiritual follow up to Wing Commander and Privateer, and Elite Dangerous being a direct sequel to Elite, Frontier: Elite 2 and Frontier: First Encounters. Well, it depends how you define "win". Or, indeed, "exists". This is just one of the Enthusiastic Disagreements we have in this week's Best Games Ever Podcast, along with GTA vs Saints Row, Call of Duty vs Medal of Honor, and another one that we can't remember.

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If you were lucky enough to have lived through the 7th console generation as a young adult with enough disposable income to buy a couple of games per month, you ate damn well. You probably have countless fond memories of each big new watercooler game that the studios of the day were firing out with alarming regularity, and you had no idea what the hell "games as a service" meant. Bliss.

What wasn't blissful, though, was how unreliable the machines were. The Xbox 360 of course was blighted by the Red Ring of Death scandal, a vast and expensive tech design and consumer rights blunder that cost Microsoft billions to put right. The PS3 similarly had the Yellow Light of Death, which wasn't as bad or as widespread as Microsoft's issue, but still affected a lot of people and is pretty much a guaranteed certainty if you're still lucky enough to have a working PS3 Fat: clean that thing religiously and change the thermal paste. Honestly. Do it. It will die eventually whatever you do, but don't tempt fate.

Not that the 7th gen was the only era with widespread tech issues. Every generation of games machine has had some kind of common problem, usually caused or exacerbated by excessive heat, and therefore often associated with games that drive the hardware particularly hard. So which of these system-busting games is the best one? Well, that's what we're here to get to the bottom of in this panel show, featuring Jim Trinca as your host, Tom Orry and Sherif Saed as your regular panellists, and Ian Higton from Eurogamer as a Special Guest (he's my favourite, very handsome, doesn't smell usually).

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Inspired by the recent release of Star Wars Outlaws, this week's podcast is all about what makes Star Wars, something we're exploring via the unorthodox path of picking a bunch of things that aren't Star Wars and pointing out the ways they are like Star Wars. Confused? Don't be, it's just an excuse to have arguments.

Star Wars is a massive media franchise that's had so many ideas chucked into it by various writers, directors, showrunners, and every other type of creative over the years that it's hard to really pin down what its true essence is. Which is what makes the question "What's the best Star Wars game that isn't a Star Wars game?" such a fun topic: you can conceivably make an argument for anything. Yes, even Football Manager.

So what does our panel most associate with Star Wars: is it laser swords and space wizards, or a beleaguered resistance movement against a tyrannical empire? Is it the things that famously influenced the young George Lucas, such as Flash Gordon adventure serials, the films of Akira Kurosawa, and living through the Vietnam war?

Special guest Ian Dransfield from Games Media joins host Jim and regular panellists Connor and Mark. No Tom this week cos he was on holiday.

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Sometimes video games include the most random things, but who doesn't love that stuff? We all get excited when you can flush a toilet or turn on a tap, even though these are the most mundane actions possible in the 'real world'. Jim, in his wisdom(?), decided that these neat little features are pointless and made everyone pick the most useless of all found in the best video game. How did this go? Well, you'll find out when you listen to this week's episode of the Best Games Ever Podcast.

To help make these 30 minutes or so more tolerable we are this week joined by everyone's favourite dated video game journo d-lister, Steve Burns. If you know who he is, brilliant, if you don't, he's hard to explain so we won't bother.

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Video games are great, but sometimes you just have to admit that some of them are only available on consoles that, well, aren't great. Rubbish, even. You can guarantee an argument if you ask people to pick the worst games console, so that's what we did. But what is the best game on this worst console? Who showed their ineptitude and picked a game on a great console? Who picked something so perfect it could never be argued with? Did Jim say anything of interest or just stir things up?

Truth is, depending on your exposure to certain consoles you're likely to have different views on this to everyone else, but we had to make a definitive choice over the best game on the worst console. It absolutely won't annoy anyone!

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Video games are unparalleled in recreating real and fictional experiences. Only when both are channelled well, with love and passion, can a game transcend its place as merely a product and become art. For this reason being able to take a piss in-game is paramount to the merits of the medium. Where would we be without Norman Reedus widdling onto the grass in celebrated Art Game Death Stranding? Or that bit in Postal 2 where you can take a wizz on Gary Coleman, and he gets really cross with you? God rest him. Anyway.

Fact is, there are loads of games which, for some reason, include the act of doing a Big Wee as part of their suite of player interactions. But which of these games is the best? To find the answer, listen to the latest episode of The Best Games Ever show: a podcasted parlour game about arguing over metacritic scores.

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It's time for another episode of the Best Games Ever Podcast. This time we've got a great topic as Tom picked it. Join Jim, Tom, Connor, and Sherif as the gang ponders such a brilliant topic and attempts to come up with suitably amazing answers. Spoiler: Only Tom has a good answer.

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It seems like nothing will convince Biden to step down and let someone else run against Trump., but we don't care about any of that because we're a video game quiz show. Unless...

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You wait years and years for something to finally be over, and once that day comes, you’re left not with a sense of joy, but with a deep-set anxiety about what comes after. Bereft. Unable to enjoy the simple joy of being free, because you’ve been around the block a bit, and you know how these things go. Sigh.

But enough about finishing Morrowind. Recently the UK had an election and kicked out some of the worst people to ever be in charge of anything, replacing them with a default option that nobody actually likes that much. Which is rather like when you finish a video game. Except it isn’t. It’s nothing like that. It’s not remotely like that at all. Forgive the rubbish conceit, and please enjoy The Best Game You Were Glad To See The Back Of, a podcast episode which you can watch or listen to on this very web page and/or app!

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Most games age like milk in the hot sun. But some are so bold, so brilliant, that they transcend their contemporary era, remaining relevant and highly playable for years or even decades following their release. But which of these has most aged like a fine bottle of fermented grapes, mashed between someone's manky toes? To find out you'll simply have to knock back a tall glass of The Best Games Ever podcast episode 104: The Best Game that has aged like a Fine Wine via the methods handily listed below. Or not, it's up to you, I'm not your mum.

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