The Most Influential Games of All Time - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Summary of "The Most Influential Games of All Time" - Kinda Funny Gamescast
Release Date: April 10, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, titled "The Most Influential Games of All Time," hosts Blessing Adeoye Jr., Tim Gettys, Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, and Andy Cortez delve into a comprehensive analysis of a BAFTA-published list celebrating the most influential video games ever created. The discussion is rich with debates, personal insights, and critical evaluations of the games featured on the list.

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Recap of Previous Episode

Blessing and Tim begin by reflecting on their recent episode featuring a video game music quiz. They reminisced about the challenge posed by the quiz, especially the difficult final 20 songs they couldn't complete due to a collaborative stream with Giant Bomb playing Monaco 2.

Tim Gettys [00:49]: "We ran out of time because we had a big collab stream with Giant Bomb playing Monaco 2. That was a blast."

Despite the struggle, they are pleased with their performance, having correctly identified 34 out of 100 songs.

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Housekeeping and Announcements

The hosts provide updates on their ongoing projects and encourage listeners to support them through memberships on platforms like Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. They announce the launch of an Elder Scrolls Online limited series, featuring in-depth discussions with industry experts.

Blessing Adeoye Jr. [02:08]: "We never get this level of depth from developers, so don't miss it."

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Main Topic: Analyzing BAFTA’s Most Influential Games List

Introduction to the List

The core of the episode revolves around a BAFTA list titled "The Most Influential Video Games of All Time." The list sparks debate among the hosts regarding its selections and rankings.

Tim Gettys [12:14]: "Most influential. That means that these games need to influence video games in a major way."

Discussion and Debates

1. Grand Theft Auto Series

   • GTA 1 and GTA 3 are examined, with Tim expressing skepticism about GTA 1’s placement.
   • Blessing counters: Recognizes GTA 3's significant impact on open-world gaming.

   Blessing Adeoye Jr. [32:05]: "GTA isn't the first game to let you play the bad guy, but it popularized the idea of video games letting you indulge in transgressive acts across a realistic urban sandbox."

2. Skyrim and Baldur's Gate 3

   • The placement of Skyrim at number 20 is debated, with Tim acknowledging its influence but feeling the ranking might not reflect its true impact.
   • Baldur's Gate 3 is discussed as a modern influence, though its recent release makes its long-term impact uncertain.

   Blessing Adeoye Jr. [39:41]: "Baldur's Gate 3 is going to influence how AAA developers design RPGs moving forward."

3. Final Fantasy VII

   • Tim questions its influence, while Barrett highlights its role in popularizing JRPGs in the West.

   Barrett Courtney [19:37]: "Final Fantasy 7 influenced mainstream awareness of JRPGs in America, specifically."

4. Shenmue

   • Shenmue is controversially placed at number 1, surprising the hosts.
   • Blessing praises the game’s innovation, drawing parallels to open-world mechanics seen in later titles like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley.

   Blessing Adeoye Jr. [60:26]: "Shenmue was so open, allowing players to truly inhabit its detailed urban space, paving the way for immersive sandbox games."

5. Tomb Raider

   • Positioned at number 12, Tomb Raider is defended for its role in introducing strong female protagonists and influencing character-driven narratives.

   Tim Gettys [42:13]: "Tomb Raider made it clear that video game characters could transcend the medium, much like Mario or Pikachu."

6. Other Notable Mentions

   • Half-Life 1 & 2: Praised for their storytelling and technological advancements.
   • Super Mario 64: Celebrated for revolutionizing 3D platforming.
   • The Sims & Minecraft: Acknowledged for expanding gaming demographics and fostering creativity.
   • Final Thoughts on Influential vs. Impactful: The hosts differentiate between a game's immediate influence on the industry and its lasting impact on culture and subsequent game design.

   Tim Gettys [50:25]: "Half-Life 2 was a demonstrable step up that inspired a generation of game developers."

Points of Contention

• Kingdom Come: Deliverance was notably included despite being only two months old, raising questions about its long-term influence.

• Fortnite and Candy Crush were debated for their inclusion, with Blessing pointing out that while they are popular, their influence might be more superficial compared to foundational titles.

  Barrett Courtney [57:13]: "Fortnite's battle royale mode redefined multiplayer gaming, influencing countless other titles."

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Conclusion and Final Opinions

The hosts conclude with mixed feelings about the list. While they appreciate many of the inclusions for their genuine influence, they express disappointment over certain omissions and questionable rankings.

Blessing Adeoye Jr. [64:51]: "While the majority of the list is solid, the missteps like including Kingdom Come: Deliverance so high diminish its overall credibility."

Both Blessing and Tim acknowledge that while the list has merit, it falls short in representing the true breadth of influential gaming history comprehensively.

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Closing Remarks

The episode wraps up with a playful acknowledgment of their critical stance on the list and a nod to ongoing discussions among the gaming community.

Tim Gettys [65:04]: "It's been our pleasure to serve you. Until next time, keep gaming!"

Listeners are reminded to support the podcast through memberships and stay tuned for future episodes exploring more significant topics in the gaming world.

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Notable Quotes from the Episode

• Tim Gettys [12:14]: "Most influential. That means that these games need to influence video games in a major way."
• Blessing Adeoye Jr. [32:05]: "GTA isn't the first game to let you play the bad guy, but it popularized the idea of video games letting you indulge in transgressive acts across a realistic urban sandbox."
• Blessing Adeoye Jr. [60:26]: "Shenmue was so open, allowing players to truly inhabit its detailed urban space, paving the way for immersive sandbox games."
• Barrett Courtney [19:37]: "Final Fantasy 7 influenced mainstream awareness of JRPGs in America, specifically."
• Tim Gettys [42:13]: "Tomb Raider made it clear that video game characters could transcend the medium, much like Mario or Pikachu."

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This episode offers a critical exploration of what constitutes influence in the gaming industry, balancing nostalgia with contemporary perspectives. Whether you agree with the hosts or not, their passionate debates provide valuable insights into the evolving landscape of video games.

Transcript

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. It's tax season and we're all a bit tired of numbers, but here's one you need to $16.5 billion. That's how much the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud last year. Now here's a good number. 100 million. That's how many data points Lifelock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed. Save up to 40% your first [e-mail] podcast terms apply. Yo, what's up? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games cast for Thursday, April 10, 2025. I'm one of your hosts, Blessing Adioa Jr. Joining me is Little Croy, Poppy, Tim, Ma Buggin, Yetis.

[Tim Gettys]

Here's the thing. Bless. Yesterday, me and you did an amazing episode of the Kind of Funny Games Cast where we found a video game music quiz where every 10 seconds a different video game song would play a hundred different songs ranging from very easy to very hard. We ran out of time because we had a big collab stream with giant bomb playing Monaco 2. That was a blast. You could check out the video on YouTube now. But because of that, we didn't get to do the very hard, the final 20 video game songs. So before we get into today's topic, after you get through the housekeeping and all that stuff, I think we got to do a quick lightning round just to see what we had left.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

See, I'm scared because I think for yesterday's episode, not to spoil it for people, we started off very strong, obviously, because it goes from very easy to very hard. By the time we got into the latter half of that episode.

[Tim Gettys]

Hit a wall.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It was a struggle bus.

[Tim Gettys]

We hit a wall.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We started struggling by normal.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So my fear is that we're very hard. We might not even get any.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, as long as we get one, I will chalk it up as a win. I like that because, like, yeah, we ended up getting 31 correct. But then once it got post easy and normal, we only got one right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

God.

[Tim Gettys]

So we have 20 left.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wait, did we get one more? I thought I got like two back to back.

[Tim Gettys]

I got. I wrote down one and a half. Well, I think that that like one of those was still in the. The easy or normal area.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh.

[Tim Gettys]

It's like once we got to hard, we're in a bad place. But anyways, we'll get to that in a sec.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Remember, this is Kind of Funny Games Cast. Each and every weekday we run. We do don't run you through the nerdy news because we did on the last show we got together talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics video games live on YouTube, Twitch and all podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Excuse me. To get all of our shows ad free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show for a chance to be a part of the show. Some of your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Housekeeping for you. Friday we kick off the Elder Scrolls Online podcast, a Kind of Funny Games Cast Limited series. You can join Greg, Mike, Zenmax Online Studios Director Matt Fyror and the Elder Scrolls Online game director Rich Lambert as they start an unflinching four part show about the highs, lows, successes and failures of the 10 year old game. Greg calls it the deepest dive of his career and it all kicks off Friday tomorrow as your normal games cast as well as the elder Scrolls Online YouTube. We never get this level of depth from developers, so don't miss it. If you want to know how games really get made and keep going going. Remember we're in 11 person business all about live talk shows. You got KFCD right before this, which was more of that Nintendo Switch 2 news. Then after this episode of Gamescast you're getting the stream which is Mike and Kevin playing blueprints on kfc. I started to hint toward the idea of we might switch it up. I got the confirmation that we're not playing that game today, but we might be playing it later on.

[Tim Gettys]

The blueprint stream should be good though. Kevin and Mike playing a puzzle game. Oh, nothing can go wrong and it's.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

One of the best games of the year and so you're definitely, definitely going to want to check that out. And I can't wait to see Mike. Mike playing blueprints is like the most.

[Tim Gettys]

Like with Kevin backseat gaming with Kevin.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Backseat Gaming especially because it's way more of a Kevin game I think than a mic game. But I am fascinated to see how Mike tackles it. You're going to want to check that out right after this episode. If you're a kind of funny member, you can get today's Greg Way from Mike. Thank you to our Patreon producers Anatoli Ost Delaney, Twining, Carl Jacobs and Omega Buster. Today are brought to you by Better Help, but we'll tell you about that later. From now let's start with topic of the show. So before we get to the shit.

[Tim Gettys]

List, we gotta Close it out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We might the bed.

[Tim Gettys]

We might. The bed. We gotta try to get one of these. Everyone. We're gonna lightning through it. We're not gonna pause?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, we're not pausing. No pausing.

[Tim Gettys]

We're going straight through this thing. The final 20. We both walked in.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

At zero. No armor core. Oh, no way. I up on Mirror's Edge. I would have not got this. I should have known if it was the vocal trap. Mario Sunshine.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, hell yeah, dude. Boy Advance Cult Classic.

[Barrett Courtney]

Oh.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Bastard.

[Tim Gettys]

I said it yesterday.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You did? I don't know.

[Barrett Courtney]

The Final Fantasy 15 demo where you're in the bedroom.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Little nightmares. Yeah, I would never have gotten this. I love the word etude. Oh, I mean Red Dead Redemption. Severed. Oh, with Severed too. I don't remember this.

[Tim Gettys]

This is so hard. Metroid Dread.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I was also thinking Metroid Dread.

[Tim Gettys]

Yep.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Come on, let's go. We got one. We got. Oh, is this Doki? No, this isn't Doki. Doki, is it? I mean, I'm gonna say Doki. Doki Literature Club now. I was way off. I've not heard of this.

[Tim Gettys]

This is the first game I haven't heard of. That looks kind of cool, though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Attacking the Power of Ju.

[Barrett Courtney]

Ah, fuck yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Jacket two. Jack two.

[Tim Gettys]

Can you imagine if it was attacking the Power? Goddamn, dude.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So close.

[Barrett Courtney]

Just recently played Jak 2 and I.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Could not clock that. This is some winter music. This is winter level Gex.

[Tim Gettys]

I think it's like a festival.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What is Valkyria Chronicles? This has such winter vibes. It's like a racing game. I mean, it's not zero Ride. It's so not Diddy Kong Racing. But that's. I'll say. Fever. See, this is where I would have said Shadow Colossus. I'm going to say Ori.

[Tim Gettys]

It has to be there eventually.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Eventually.

[Tim Gettys]

No. Damn it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Frost. Punk.

[Tim Gettys]

No.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Broken H. Oh. You know, I've always wanted to play Bushido Blade. I was looking at some clips the other day. I was like, this game looks dope.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

A Capcom fighting game. Enter the Gungeon. Yeah, this is.

[Tim Gettys]

Resident Evil.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Near Replicant.

[Tim Gettys]

Shenmue.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wow.

[Tim Gettys]

Thought it was the save room in Resident Evil.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

DK64.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's not Radiant Historia.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, that was on the tip of my tongue.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

How could I forget? Game of Thrones Telltale. That's not a bad guess.

[Tim Gettys]

Let's hide, though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh. Chance of Sennaar.

[Tim Gettys]

Wow.

[Barrett Courtney]

Man.

[Tim Gettys]

That is impossibly difficult.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The last story on the Wii. It's gotta be There eventually.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, shit. Crow country.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Crow country.

[Tim Gettys]

What? What? Putting that on the video game music thing is insane work.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't have anything really interesting.

[Tim Gettys]

Bless.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I would not have placed it sound like. Yeah, I mean, that sounds like last was, but it's not. Right. I will say lastless. What. What is that? I can't read it. I can't read it.

[Barrett Courtney]

It won't let me with a J. Let's see if I can hide Jotun. Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

Interesting. Okay, we got one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We got one. That's all.

[Tim Gettys]

One.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was impossibly hard.

[Tim Gettys]

That was impossibly hard. The thing is, I. And you know, it's always that value talking about this yesterday, doing game showdown. It's hard to, like, get ones that are reasonable for people to guess, but still exciting and like, challenging. So it's not just like the most obvious shit.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

But like, I want. I feel like we need to find something with some type of parameters of like, all right, it. Here are just a bunch of classic Nintendo games and we need to say, like, what. What is the song? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's from this level. I don't know. There has to be something that, like, we. We. There needs to be a level of understanding if we know these things.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's almost like the categories are more so Ubisoft, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, as opposed to easy to heart. Because, like, what's hard to these guys or what's normal to these people? Apparently making this thing not normal to me.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because goddamn.

[Tim Gettys]

I think we did pretty good overall, though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Because what you said. How many we ended up getting about.

[Tim Gettys]

About 34.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

34 out of 100.

[Barrett Courtney]

It was like half of what I predicted.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Because I predicted 80.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, I thought America was gonna be hard for. I was saying we should go for 25, so, you know, we're overachieving, according to me.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, congratulations to us.

[Tim Gettys]

Congratulations.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We should do this again.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

If. Chat. If. If people come across, like, other versions of these that are. Yeah. Let us know.

[Tim Gettys]

Please send them to us.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Blue sky to them or tweet them at us or whatever. And like. Yeah, because I was going to do this again.

[Tim Gettys]

I love that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. All right, Tim. It's topic of the show today is a shit list. Of course. Shit list is where I go online, I find a top 10 list, and I bring it back to you and Barrett and we judge it for the audience amusement. Here's the thing. This is one that I didn't go out and seek. This is one that sought Us. The streets were calling out our names. We're saying, bless, Tim. Bless. What'd you say, Juve?

[Tim Gettys]

It's the main character in Animusha too.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're funny.

[Tim Gettys]

One of my only memories of that game, like, is the. Because the mom, his mom is like a ghost and she just keeps me like, Juve. Juve.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

See, my version would be Heavy Rain where somebody had a bug online. Have you seen this video? Somebody had a bug where they had to. They kept pressing the button and they kept calling Jason for way longer. Hilarious. But yes, this list sought us. It is actually. I don't even know. I don't even have the full title here. If I click into the article, it's not going to spoil the thing, right?

[Barrett Courtney]

No, it shouldn't.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Perfect. It's from. It's from bafta.

[Tim Gettys]

So it's from bafta.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No way.

[Tim Gettys]

This is a big deal. This is official. Official. These people know what they're talking about.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's a list of the most influential video games of all time.

[Tim Gettys]

The most influential video games of all time. I feel like often we need to define the list before we get into it of. What's that even mean? Right. Are we talking best? Are we talking top? Are we talking favorite? When it comes to these top 10 lists, yes. Most influential. That means that these games, every game on this list, all 10 of them, need to influence video games in a major way. In a top way.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Some would say in a top way.

[Barrett Courtney]

Do you want to know how many games are actually on the list?

[Tim Gettys]

Yes. Yes.

[Barrett Courtney]

21.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, okay.

[Tim Gettys]

21 on a top 10 list.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Are they ranked?

[Tim Gettys]

That's my type of list.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yes, they are.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, they're rigged.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, that's where the spice begins, everybody.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, this would be a fun one.

[Barrett Courtney]

I've only looked at the 21st spot after that because I wanted to check ahead just to make sure what the vibe was.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Gotcha.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, this is 21 ranked. I didn't realize there's a ranked. All 21 ranked or just the top 10 ranked in a bunch of honorable mentions?

[Barrett Courtney]

No, it start. The ranking starts at 21.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

All right.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, let's throw the games out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Would it be fair to say that this is an easy list to make?

[Tim Gettys]

Yes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

In my head, this is an easy list to make.

[Tim Gettys]

I think so, too. I think that this is an easy list to make with what 21 is. 60 plus percent accuracy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Right. Like, I feel like there might be some things we don't get, or there might be a different version of a thing that we say, but Like, I do think that there is a canon.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

21 is such a specific extent. It's such a specific number.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I feel like if you're making a list of 21, everything there has to be like, okay, like, this fits.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, we made a list of games and whittled down to what matters most. And then that was the number was the 21 mark. So, yeah, let's just start naming things Super Mario Brothers. See, this is where we get tricky. How many Mario games can you fit with Mario?

[Tim Gettys]

Let's start with Mario.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Mario 64.

[Tim Gettys]

Mario 64.

[Barrett Courtney]

I also reading this first blurb. It does say, to reflect the medium's universal impact ahead of the 21st BAFTA Game Awards, we asked the public a provocative question. What is the most influential video game of all time?

[Tim Gettys]

Fucker. The public.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, well, that does change things. So to read. I'm going to read the whole first blurb. Right. Words. By Chris. Chris Schilling. Video games influence on popular culture has never been more prevalent. Their effect is visible and audible in today's music, across the world of TV and cinema, and on the catwalk. On the catwalk, on the catwalk. Even your favorite language learning and fitness apps feature progression systems and rewards popularized by games. Okay, I see. I see where they're going to reflect the medium's universal impact ahead of the 21st BAFTA Game Awards. Oh, that's how they get the 21. The 21st BAFTA Game Awards. I take back what I said earlier. We asked the public a provocative question. What is the most influential video game of all time? So then I wonder if it's not ranked. I wonder if it's like they asked 21 people. Oh, let me read on. As more than one responder said, it's unfair to have to just choose to have to choose just one. Do you pick the pioneers that shaped the early days of the medium? The innovators that were ahead of their time? The ones that proved formative to your own creative journey, or. Or simply the ones that made you most emotional. As might be expected, among the extraordinary number of responses received was a staggering variety of games, ranging from titles that launched the industry to contemporary giants released mere months ago. The top 10 alone spans multiple genres, from platformers to shooters, sandbox adventures to simulations. So without further ado, here are the public's top 21. Each of which, it's fair to say, has had a seismic impact on games and those who play them.

[Barrett Courtney]

I don't think it's 21 people. I think there's probably like a poll.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, they just pulled and then.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay. So Mario Wise, Mario 1, Mario 64, I think that's it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I agree.

[Barrett Courtney]

I think we only see 64.

[Tim Gettys]

That would be an insane thing to do.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean if you want to keep it a one per franchise, I would say 64.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean Mario, Super Mario Brothers one.

[Barrett Courtney]

I, I, I know, yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

But like, like this is an example. If they don't have both this list.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't think you get both.

[Tim Gettys]

That's, but they're so different. Like actually.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, I think you do, I think.

[Tim Gettys]

I think you're right. Entirely different. And like legitimately are the most influential games of like those genres and time periods.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I think Mario saved the industry.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The argument I would make would be if you were to do one for franchise, which I think for this you shouldn't, but if you were to, I think maybe you keep Super Mario Brothers and then Instead of Mario 64 you do like Zelda Ocarina or something.

[Tim Gettys]

The Z targeting. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Something else that had like a, yeah. Big impact on 3D.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

GTA 3.

[Tim Gettys]

GTA 3.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Ryan. That.

[Tim Gettys]

Sure. Tetris. Pong.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. I mean Pong. Pong needs to be on this list. Pong might be number one on this list. Pong, Tetris. Yes. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

GTA 3 is a great pole.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Pac Man.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes. Or Ms. Pac man just because of the modding and stuff like that. That might be the.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

But one of the two I'm writing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Down, Ms. Pac Man. Halo.

[Tim Gettys]

Halo's complicated because I think Doom, right. For Doomer, Wolfenstein for first person shooters.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I was also going to throw a goldeneye in there too.

[Barrett Courtney]

But I think Halo also like the story Gary always says where like he wasn't sold on like first person shooters on a console and like he played it and he was like, oh shit, I understand it. Like, I think that sticks in a lot of people's head. So I, I would be surprised if Halo 1 was not on here.

[Tim Gettys]

Well, so Halo 1 is interesting because it like to what Barrett saying, like it kind of defined console twin stick shooting. Like dual stick shooting, not twin stick. And then Halo 2 have having online.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. You know, I mean you can encapsulate so much by just saying Halo 2. But like also this is fan voted. That's, you got to keep that in mind of like what would people say? I guess if you ask somebody because I think the question they ask people are what is the most influential video game of all time? Which I think does paint this a bit different. Right.

[Tim Gettys]

Street Fighter 2.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. See, now we're cooking. Now we're cooking. They said from. They said up to games from just a few months ago.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, Portal.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I can see it. Yeah. Portal or Half Life. Something in that family. I would. I would.

[Barrett Courtney]

I would say half life, probably more likely.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But, like, if you ask, did they say people on the street. No, they said. What did they say? They're. Who did they say they're asking? We asked. They just said they asked the public.

[Tim Gettys]

Yep. Dark Souls. Not Demon Souls. Dark Souls.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Dark Souls. That's good.

[Barrett Courtney]

Final Fantasy 7.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Metal Gear Solid. Metal Gear Solid should be solid.

[Tim Gettys]

You're solid. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, Final Fantasy 7, it's a tough one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Final Fantasy 7, I think, does. I mean, it has a strong chance. In fact, I'm gonna say yes. This is a public poll.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes, but what did it influence?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

People's shouted.

[Tim Gettys]

No, but really, though, you know, like, that. That, to me is like the. I feel like Metal Gear Solid is a better example of what we would be saying. Final Fantasy 7 influenced.

[Barrett Courtney]

I think Final Fantasy 7 in particular influenced mainstream awareness of JRPGs in America, specifically.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

Like, that was, like, a huge kind.

[Tim Gettys]

Of moment, for sure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm gonna write it down. I think Final Fantasy 7, just based off of popularity alone. Yeah, I think that's more of a contender.

[Barrett Courtney]

Someone in chat also pops up.

[Tim Gettys]

Pokemon?

[Barrett Courtney]

I don't think so. For some reason.

[Tim Gettys]

It's a rough one because, again, like, what. What are we talking about? I'm, like, influential. But I do think that. I mean, Pokemon, everything you just said About Final Fantasy 7, I think you could apply.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, you could apply to Pokemon. And then also when you're talking about a public poll, like, what are the answers that, like, pulled people, that people are filling out a poll are gonna say. Yeah, right. Like, when it's. When this is a public thing, when it's a vote thing, I think Pokemon just has the popularity and it did.

[Tim Gettys]

Influence a lot in terms of mechanics and the. The training and community and all that stuff.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And even, like, if you want to take it into, like, even just how you franchise a video game and like, yeah, spin that into different products and make it a thing that's bigger than just the system. You want me over Fortnite? Minecraft. Fortnite and Minecraft both have to be there.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm just trying to think of genres now, right. Because it's that cool fighting game, street.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

World of Warcraft.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay. Yeah. World of Warcraft. For sure. For sure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So far, we have A pretty good list.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because we've written down. Let me count how much we've written. Rogue.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wait, what'd you say, Barrett? Rogue. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

I mean, that might be two in the weeds. Like, nerdy. Because I don't know if, like, for a public poll again, Public poll. Like, do people know that, like, Roguelike and Rogue Light are specifically based off a game called Rogue?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. I mean, I wonder if then you get Hades as an answer or Rogue Legacy.

[Barrett Courtney]

Rogue Legacy, definitely.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, Rogue Legacy would be such a banger. But I think for the popularity thing of it, for people that are filling out a poll, when you think of the last five years of Roguelites and like, how roguelites have accelerated, I think a lot of people would. Would attribute that to something like Hades.

[Barrett Courtney]

That's fair.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. This one is a little weird too, but I think Limbo, like being breakout hit.

[Barrett Courtney]

See, over that. I would say Journey.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

See, I would have said Super Meat Boy. Yeah, I think one of those three. Yeah, I'm gonna say Limbo.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, if we're gonna do that, it might as well be Cave Story. Cave Story, Biggest first indie game, really.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I put Limbo slash Journey slash Meat Boy slash Cave Story as a one entry Sims. Is that influential or is that just impactful?

[Tim Gettys]

That's. Yeah, I think that's a good distinction there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, man. It starts getting tough because, yeah, I.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, I like the genre thing of, you know, games. Is there like an influential sports game? There's a lot of them. I feel like a lot of choices. There was that. What was the football game? It was like, not Madden. It was like NFL 2K 2K5. 2K5.

[Tim Gettys]

That's. That was the big one because that also online and all of that stuff like that could be there, but it depends on, like, how what we're talking about. Like, again, what is the influence? Like, what is the thing that they're introdu or not introducing but, like emblematic of.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Did we say Last of Us?

[Tim Gettys]

No.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, I could see Last of Us on there.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

But I. I don't know. Like, I feel like that would be a. A poor choice when it's like, well, the answer is Uncharted, then like Influence. It's like, yeah, Last of Us exist because of Uncharted in a direct way of style of game.

[Barrett Courtney]

It's similar in the conversation of Rogue and Hades. Right? Like, yes, Last of Us exists because of Uncharted, but then the kind of tone and depth of the Last of Us, I think really Skyrocketed this focus in on cinematic storytelling in video games past the summer blockbuster popcorn flick that Uncharted was to spoil a little bit of my Naughty Dog video. And so I do think in terms of storytelling in video games, I think Last of Us is probably on there more likely than Uncharted.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because I don't think. I don't think you get a modern God of war without Last list. Right. Like, you don't get that from Uncharted. I don't think you get like a lot of modern Sony, I think comes more from Last was than Uncharted. Even though you get Last was because of Uncharted in the same. And also I would even like put in. I mean, we didn't say Resident Evil 4.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, definitely.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But like, Resident Evil 4, I think almost equally influences a last list.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

As much as an Uncharted does. I mean, we got. If I, If. If I write Resident Evil 4 and last list, that brings us to 20. So we just need one more game. Sonic the hedgehog 3.

[Tim Gettys]

What? What's a game that's like emblematic of Open world?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, GTA 3.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. But like, that's Sandbox. You know what I mean? I feel like we, like, we talked about Assassin's Creed.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

And there was like. There was a shift to Open World where it, like, really changed.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

See, the real answer probably is Assassin's Creed 2, but Skyrim. Skyrim might actually be the public answer.

[Tim Gettys]

That's actually a really good answer.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, that's a good call.

[Tim Gettys]

Super Metroid.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, yeah. I mean, in Castlevania.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. But Super Metroid is like. That's where Metroidvania comes from. Because, like, Metroid 1. Sure. But like Metro.

[Barrett Courtney]

What do you people think of first? Super Metroid or Symphony of the Night?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Super metroid. Really? Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

70 of the night, I think is a. Oh, that's almost like considered fairly niche.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. That's more of a nerdy pick. Okay. I mean, that's 22. I feel good about that. I mean, I'm sure other. Are there any major things we're missing before we hop into this? Because right now for. To read it through what I have written down, I have Super Mario Brothers, Mario 64, GTA 3. Do we even say Zelda Ocarina at one point said it, but I. I said it, but I didn't write it down. I'm going to write down Zelda Ocarina.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, it should be.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So Mario Brothers or Super Mario Brothers, Mario 64, Zelda Ocarina, GTA 3. Pong, Tetris, Ms. Pac Man, Street Fighter 2, Half Life, Dark Souls, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7, Pokemon, Fortnite, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, Hades, Limbo slash Journey slash Meat Boy slash Cave Story. One of those. NFL 2K5, Resident Evil 4, Last of Us, Skyrim, Super Metroid.

[Tim Gettys]

We're missing mobile games.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sure. Which one? Angry Birds.

[Barrett Courtney]

Candy Crush.

[Tim Gettys]

Angry Birds or Candy Crush? I think both are great answers, and I feel like that's there.

[Barrett Courtney]

The Match three still has such a chokehold on so many people, you know?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, yeah, Candy, let's go. Candy Crush. That, I think, is the right move.

[Barrett Courtney]

I'll never forget having to do guides for Candy Crush at IGN for like a month. I really questioned my career decisions.

[Tim Gettys]

For that I had to do. Where's the water?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Also, I do want to shout out pubg.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, pubg. Dude.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

You put Fortnite. I actually think it's pubg.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, I think both of them.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, nowadays, pubg had influence on, like, accelerating the Battle Royale genre, but Fortnite, I think, is beyond that. Right. Like, Fortnite is. It's Battle Royale, but also it's like, monetizations and all that stuff.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Top all. I'll add pubg under Fortnite only because.

[Barrett Courtney]

The opening thing says Contemporary Giants release mere months ago. I'm trying to think of, like, what came out.

[Tim Gettys]

Astrobot, that's not influential.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know, like, what else last year could it be? Metaphor.

[Tim Gettys]

What's it influence?

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah. And then I think, like, games that are coming out mere months ago, it's, like, too early to say that they're influential because we don't know what the impact on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, I think that's where that. That's where the comes in.

[Barrett Courtney]

Oh, God.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I mean, technically, what, like, there's nothing that would have came out a few months ago that would be influential by now. Also, did we say Baldur's Gate 3? No, I think you get Boulders Gate 3 on that list.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, have we seen that influence anything?

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, if we're going that rabbit hole, that it's like Kotor, you know, like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, but like, they're saying the spans, everything. Like, I borders Gate three. I can see being influential. You know what I mean? Like, I think it will in the long run.

[Tim Gettys]

I wonder. I mean, I. Like, that'd be cool, but I don't know, man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Just. And I'm only putting that because they say, like, this is, like, spanning up until even a few months ago. So like there has to be something. If I'm picking one game for the last couple years, it'll be BG3 or Elden Ring.

[Tim Gettys]

Elden Ring, yes. Likely influential is a weird one.

[Barrett Courtney]

But it just for recent games, you know.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, if there had to be a reason game, I think Elden Ring. But I also struggle to think about like what that actually means.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. All right.

[Tim Gettys]

Because if every list is just popular games, then it doesn't matter. You know what I mean? But anyway, let's get into it before.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, before we move on. Somebody said Balatro. Would that be it?

[Tim Gettys]

I don't know. I mean again, I feel like these recent games, it's impossible to talk about influence because we don't know what it's going to influence or how it's going to.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Unless time travel. Think about it. Think about it during this ad break, of course. Patreon.com kind of funny YouTube.com kind of funny games, Spotify and Apple podcasts where you can go to get the Kind of Funny membership which allows you to get shows ad free. And speaking of ads, let us tell you about our sponsors.

[Tim Gettys]

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. We all know that therapy can feel like a lofty investment, but we also know that there's nothing better to invest in than yourself. The state of your mind is just as important as your physical health. Let's talk numbers. Traditional in person therapy can cost anywhere from 100 to 250 per session, which adds up fast. But with BetterHelp online therapy, you can save on average up to 50% per session. Therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury. With BetterHelp you pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, saving you big on cost and on time. Some of my best friends use BetterHelp and love how helpful it can be for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself. And it isn't just for those who've experienced major trauma. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Your well being is worth it. Visit betterhelp.com kinda funny to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp. H E L p.com kindafunny betterhelp.com kindafunny.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And we're back. I want to shout out the chat that says we forgot to mention Breath of the Wild.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, that's.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's a good one on our part. Yeah. Yeah, that's. That's nuts on our part. But, yeah, I would put that in there. If we're talking about recent stuff.

[Barrett Courtney]

Climbing.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. I mean, honestly.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Conversation. Yeah, that's. Here's the thing. Talking about influence, there are multiple Breath of the Wild likes. We see games and we're like, oh, it looks like Breath of the Wild all the freaking time.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Whether that's visual style or gliding or climbing, it might not have been the first to do it, but it's the one that did it that way.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Kebabs in chat says, I disagree with Breath of the Wild. It didn't influence anything. Kebabs, I'm tired of your anti Breath of the Wild fucking campaign.

[Barrett Courtney]

Also, aren't you a fan of Immortals Phoenix Rising? The game that is just a lesser breath of Wild? No, no, no, no.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They made that in a. They made that in a silo. They didn't play Breath of the Wild. No, they made that out of their own brains. People at Ubisoft were sitting there, they're like, yo, what if we made a game that was open world, it had puzzles and looked exactly like this other game? We haven't seen this other game, though. You know what I mean? Where Ubisoft, like, no, Kebabs.

[Tim Gettys]

I had a dream that I quit this job, Quit jobs in general, and all I did was go on a quest. Once the Switch 2 comes out to 100% breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, that's all I did with my life.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Good for you.

[Tim Gettys]

It's a good dream.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Good for you. I had a dream last night that they announced Joker for smash. And then I woke up and I was like, oh, Joker's already in smash. That's how good SMASH ultimate is. I was so hyped.

[Barrett Courtney]

I dream about a memory.

[Tim Gettys]

Hell, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Let's hop into this list. Of course. This is coming from bafta.org all right, let's do it.

[Tim Gettys]

Let's do it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Number 21. Interesting. Grand theft Auto.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay, I disagree with this. Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

In 1997, Dundee's DMA Design produced one of the greatest great success stories of the British video game industry. GTA wasn't the first game to let you play the bad guy, but it was the one that popularized the idea of video games, letting you indulge in transgressive acts across a realistic urban sandbox.

[Tim Gettys]

No, this is a bad pick.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's a bizarre pick, but I'm not mad at it yet.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm mad at it because think about it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You don't get GTA 3 without GTA.

[Tim Gettys]

See that? That's taking this whole thing too far. That's. That's going too far.

[Barrett Courtney]

We're getting Rogue on this list.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, we might get respect.

[Barrett Courtney]

I don't know if I respect Grand Theft Auto 1.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

If we are going to, like. Like, not only are we looking at the, like, you know, the bottom of the. Of the tree, we're digging underneath and looking at the roots to see where everything truly comes from. I don't know. I could. This is a weird pick, but also, yeah, if we get Rogue, if we're talking about Pong, if we're talking about the roots of everything, that's not influenced, though.

[Tim Gettys]

That's not the thing that influenced.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm not mad yet. I'm not mad yet.

[Tim Gettys]

Reverse Nepo shit.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Nepo Queen, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Nepo Queen. At number 20. Skyrim.

[Tim Gettys]

Yep.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So far. I mean, GTA is weird, but I'm not mad at Sky.

[Tim Gettys]

Pissed off about the first one because everybody was like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Everybody was making it seem like entry by entry, this shit was going to be a trash fire.

[Tim Gettys]

No, man. Skyrim was. Is one of the very few games that any games media person that was at that E3, when they showed this has a memory of how it took everything over.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Like, this game was different.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Remember 11. 11, 11.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We're never gonna get that again.

[Tim Gettys]

No, that's how time works.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like. Oh, never mind. That doesn't work. I was gonna say, like, we get like a 22. 22. 22.

[Tim Gettys]

Nope. We're gonna get that again. The one and only.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. That's crazy.

[Barrett Courtney]

Watchmen.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They were.

[Barrett Courtney]

They were 369. Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Remember that?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Did we never. Did we not get a 12? 12. 12 people didn't want to release on December 12th.

[Tim Gettys]

Wasn't that the End of the World by the Mayans?

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, it was sometime in December.

[Tim Gettys]

That was the Mayan apocalypse.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Which didn't happen. Also, like, what happened to Coney, Remember?

[Tim Gettys]

Why you say that as if it's a looming threat?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It could be. I didn't get an update on him. Is he around still? Like, should we be doing something about. All right. Holy. At number 19, we got Grand Theft Auto 3. That's awesome. GTA 3 is number 19. Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

And GTA 1 is number 21. Why would you even put them this close together? This is so. That's bizarre. That's bizarre. I mean, I'm happy it's here.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

The way the votes came down, even with.

[Tim Gettys]

With the Way one was talked about, like, no, I don't. I don't stand by that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

See, here's the thing that I'm curious about. You asked the public was.

[Tim Gettys]

You're so caught up in this public thing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, no, because, like, it's. Do you know what it is? It's because I do all the kind of feudal. And I sift through the.

[Tim Gettys]

I get it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And so often when people write into polls, they don't know how to write in for accuracy. And so I did my thing. Unplug. Okay. And so I will have to assume when they write in, like, Final Fantasy sometimes, depending on the question, I'm like, oh, they mean Final Fantasy 7. Like, I just got to assume that they actually mean this other thing.

[Barrett Courtney]

And as someone who does the game of the year, like, all that stuff, it's just like, sometimes the math just fucking maths. And it's weird.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. So I'm like, with this poll, did you guys see a bunch of people ride in with Grand Theft Auto? Then he went, all right, Grand Theft Auto 1 is the one when you know in your head that they actually meant Grand Theft Auto 3.

[Tim Gettys]

They have to. They're.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They're more responsible, I'm just saying, than that. Unless they're using AI to compile this shit.

[Tim Gettys]

Shit.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm just saying it's happening more and more. At number 18, we got dark Souls.

[Tim Gettys]

Makes sense.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Makes sense.

[Tim Gettys]

Absolutely.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So far, numbers 20, 19, and 18.

[Tim Gettys]

It's a good top 20.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'll say that it's a good top 20 so far. Even though GTA 3 should be in top 5. We didn't talk about that. Should be in, like. That should be at least top 10, yo, for sure, that should be higher than Dark Souls. Yeah, even though Dark Souls should also be higher, I think. But. All right, that's number 18. At number 17, Final Fantasy 7.

[Tim Gettys]

Interesting. Can you read it?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Arguably, no game has more completely justified Sony's decision to take console gaming from cartridges to CDs with the original PlayStation. That additional storage didn't just allow Final Fantasy to move from 2D sprites to 3D polygons. It afforded Square Enix the opportunity to tell an emotive tale via expansive cutscenes. That it has required more than two games to remake speaks volumes to the legacy of its story, which, more than a quarter century on, features one of the medium's most famous and heartbreaking deaths.

[Tim Gettys]

I don't know that I stand with this for influence, man. Like, even with what they just say about influence. What's any of that. What did this influence?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, I guess it's, I think it is that line between influence and impact. Because I think this is probably one of the most, In Final Fantasy 7, one of the most impactful games of all time. And I think that's almost like what they're talking about here a bit more because I understand what they're driving at as far as like what you can do with CDs and what Final Fantasy 7 was able to do with the CD. Right. And then also when we have the game being remade over the course of a decade right now.

[Tim Gettys]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like that is a franchise or that is a, a game entry.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And that has, yeah. Become a franchise. Right. It has stayed, it has permeated.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, but just thinking about like, what games did it influence and what, what did the game itself influence? I don't know that I literally like look at things and go, oh man, Final Fantasy 7. It's Final Fantasy. Sure. As a franchise. Like, I don't know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, part of me also wants to say, like, could Final Fantasy 7 just also be the Final Fantasy pick? Talking about even just the JRPG pick, talking about how big JRPGs are in the gaming space. But if that's the case, in the way that you have GTA and GTA 3, it's like, are you just going to put Final Fantasy 1 there then? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Dragon Quest 1, Persona 1 at number 16. We got Baldur's Gate 3.

[Barrett Courtney]

I think this is too early to say it's influenced anything.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, me too.

[Barrett Courtney]

I think it's the best iteration of this type of crpg.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But Dungeons and Dragons influence on games is incalculable. Larian Studios Multi Award Winner the latest and perhaps greatest of all DND inspired adventures is the new standard by which all tabletop inspired RPGs will be judged. Beating out Nintendo's astonishing Tears of the Kingdom to multiple Game of the Year prizes is the least of its accomplishments. Actor Neil Nubin, who plays the unforgettable Hysterian, rightly points out that its depth of interaction, romances and also friendships, storytelling and freedom have helped legitimize games as an art form. Okay, well, I disagree with that last part. I don't think Balers Heat three is the reason why games are an art form.

[Tim Gettys]

No, I don't agree with this.

[Barrett Courtney]

That's a, that's a quote.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I, I, I'm, I'm with you guys, that it's way too early. I do think, like, if you had to pick something for the last few years that is going to end up being one of those ones that we talk about. Yeah. Balers Gate 3. I think Balers Gate 3 is right next to Elden Ring in like Breath of Wild for that stuff.

[Tim Gettys]

I would hope. I just think that that's the type of easier said than done type thing. If we're talking about what's going to be the downline influence of Baldur's Gate and you're telling me that it's going to be incredibly well realized characters and story and stuff, it's like, all right, that's a lofty ass thing to. To be inspired to do. Yeah, I'm saying, like. But I think it's be in the pudding on that one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think it's more so like depth of writing and how you tackle characters and like, how you like, tackle RPG interaction. Like, Baldur's Gate 3 is one of the rare RPGs where legitimately I'm like, oh, this is an RPG. This is a game where I feel like I'm actually role playing these characters. And I'm actually like, I feel like I am a character in. In this story. A lot of other video game RPGs almost feel like they're role playing as tabletop RPGs, if you know what I mean. Where it's like, all right, cool, I got choices, but I know how limited this is.

[Tim Gettys]

I just. My only stance on this is I think Baldur's Gate is too good and too unique of a unicorn in this situation that like, I just don't see that happening.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Interesting.

[Tim Gettys]

I can see people trying, but like Super Metroid is and Symphony Tonight are impactful because. Or influential because they've influenced other games that like, are able to like, match that energy, like do things. We'll see. I just think that that's like, it might be too good. It might be too much of a. A new standard that no one else is gonna be able to hit.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think there's not going to be a. Another. I'm not gonna say there's not gonna be another. I think more aaa and more RPGs in general going forward. Are going to have to look at Baldur's Gate 3 in like, their design and like, in like. All right, how do we make a. How do we make an rpg, a triple A RPG that's going to actually live up to the standards that people have now because of Baldur's Gate 3? Yeah, I, I legitimately think that going forward, like any AAA developer making one of these games is. Has to look at this, but we'll see. Again, like, this is a weird one because it is so early that it. It's hard to argue that it belongs on this list, but since they're trying to span up until modern times, I'm not as mad at it. At number 15, we got World of Warcraft. Yep, makes sense.

[Tim Gettys]

Makes total sense. Here's the thing. It's like when these pop up and it's like, oh, I don't even need the explanation.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, we know, we know. At number 14 we got metal Gear Solid.

[Tim Gettys]

Mm.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

People were acting like this is a crazy list, man.

[Tim Gettys]

What's that mean for the. That's. Oh man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And number.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, because Metal Gear Solid.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Metal Gear Solid makes so much sense.

[Tim Gettys]

Totally.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. At number 13 we got Pong.

[Tim Gettys]

Mm.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, makes sense. At number 12 we got Tomb Raider. Interesting.

[Tim Gettys]

Very interesting. Can you read the blurb on this one? Because I immediately don't agree.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Only a handful of characters transcend video games. The likes of Sonic, Mario and Pikachu are almost universally recognized. And Lara Croft belongs on that short list. The intrepid archaeologist was born out of necessity. Designer Toby Gard wanted to make an Indiana Jones like game, but it would have been too costly to create two playable characters. Guard stuck with his preferred choice and the result was a new gaming icon. As actor Jane Perry explains, quote, lara opened the door for strong female characters in games. She's a positive role model for everyone and a true hero. End quote.

[Tim Gettys]

This seems like a bit of a stretch. Like again, what did that say about what this list is actually about? Not much. I do think an argument could be made. I don't agree with it for this, but like could be made of. Tomb Raider does have a, if not unique, rare ability to transcend being more than just a game. Like everybody knows who Tomb Raider. Yeah, right. In a way that is only can be said about things like Mario or Pikachu. Yeah, that's very impressive for the type of game that it is and all of that stuff. And like the Angelina Jolie movies were like real huge, huge deals outside of video games and like. But there was also an interest because of what it was. So I don't know, maybe that influence is like, oh, video games cannot be just video games and like characters can be more. But like I don't know, I see.

[Barrett Courtney]

It, I respect it being on the list. I think seeing it above some of the other things we've seen so far is a bit questionable.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, that's my thing is I'm starting to feel like this isn't ranked like, even if they say it is, like, we're just. When we're talking about things like influence, it's hard to rank influence, right? Because we're not just talking about, like, the quality of the game or all that. It's like literally, like, rank on the list. I almost just feel like this list shouldn't have been ranked.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I feel.

[Tim Gettys]

But we'll see.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm with you as far as. If I was making this list, I probably wouldn't have rank ranked it just for the nature of it to what you're saying. I look at this as in the same vein as Final Fantasy 7, where I think this is more impact than influence.

[Tim Gettys]

Snowbike Mike in the chat says Tomb Raider has to be on this list 100%. Mike, if you have an argument, I'd love for you to come in here and explain it.

[Barrett Courtney]

He really loves the second movie because.

[Tim Gettys]

I should call Cradle of Filth.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Cradle Away is Cradle of Filth. But yeah, I think this is. I think Tomb Raider is impactful as hell.

[Tim Gettys]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It goes back to the Final Fantasy 7 thing. It goes back to the thing we're saying of like, everybody knows what Tomb Raider is. Everybody knows who Lara Croft is. Right. We want to talk about. Yeah. Opening doors for more female characters to be in. In video games. I think maybe you can make that argument.

[Tim Gettys]

Right?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, I think there are things you can say regarding how big of a franchise Tomb Raider is even. But like. And maybe it's like, it checks enough of those boxes where it makes it the best case scenario for one game representing multiple of those things. Because, like, even for, like, the translation through to other mediums, I feel like it could make the argument for like a Mario or a Sonic or a. I mean, Pikachu would be. Pokemon would be the number one for me to pick of like, oh, a transcendent franchise. But yeah, I'm not. I'm not mad at it. On this list based on it being most influential, I'd move it. Like, I think this could have been number 21. But I'm not. I'm not necessarily blown away by it being on this list. Number 12 is kind of high. But, yeah, I'm all. I'm with you of like, maybe this shouldn't be a ranked list. At number 11, we got Tetris. Oh, yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, yeah. One.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I forgot to mention Mortal Kombat. That should be here.

[Tim Gettys]

You know, I was thinking about that. I think Street Fighter 2 is probably the. If we're going to just have like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

A fighting game representative yeah, see, I was thinking more esrb.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like the. The when I mean, and again, back into the conversation of Tomb Raider and all that.

[Tim Gettys]

Right?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like transcendent franchise. Everybody knows Mortal Kombat. But then also. Yeah, then actually influence. That's.

[Tim Gettys]

That's actually. Yeah, that is the definition of influence there. I'll take that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. A number. And also shout out to Tetris. But actually, no, I was gonna. I was gonna answer my own question. I was gonna be like, what has Tetris influenced? But there are so many Tetris. Like video games. And then also if it influenced the success of the Game Boy. And so can't look past that. And also just video games maturing as a medium as well. At number 10, we got the Sims.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, you called it out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Here we go.

[Tim Gettys]

Interesting. Can you read this one?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Having simulated a city will write and Maxis decided to zoom in and let you take control of its inhabitants. The result was effectively a virtual dolls house that let you set your own goals for your characters. Would you give them a better life or turn their world into a waking nightmare? The Sims expanded the medium's audience, attracting more casual and female players and later providing a safe space for LGBTQ+ players to express themselves as voter. Anna Higgs explains it. It was a, quote, a God game that became a social phenomenon. It brought joy and made us all feel a bit more in control of our lives, even if the baby was on fire on the kitchen floor. End quote.

[Tim Gettys]

You know what? Like, I feel like we should have had more conviction with the Simpson. We talked about it earlier because. Yeah, definitely, like when you look at even just things like Animal Crossing and all the, like the cozy Sim games and all that stuff, like, I feel like there's multiple forks in the road that to some extent can easily be traced back to Sims and the people that like Sims like all of these new types of games.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sims before. Was that before GTA 3? It was. Right.

[Tim Gettys]

It must have been very similar timing. Right. Because I feel 90s.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes. Because. Well, the first Sims was on PC. But was it like on Super Nintendo or. No, I'm thinking of Sim.

[Tim Gettys]

No. You think SimCity. Yeah. Which was a Nintendo published game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wow.

[Barrett Courtney]

The Sims was 2000 and from whatever. GTA 3 was 2001.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, well around same time. Because I was going to say, like, I think the sandbox elements of what makes Sims special. Right. Like that is also part of why we revere a game like GTA 3. And like what. How that permeates. I think the Sandboxiness of like I'm going to trap this person in a pool, watch them drown. Like bl game letting you do that.

[Tim Gettys]

It'S crazy for sure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

At number nine, we got Half Life 2 again. I don't understand why people were so mad at this list. And I don't want to. I know I'm saying that too early. There's still a lot of game. There's still a lot of game left on the board.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, there's eight left. Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But I'm not mad at this. So what are we missing?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, let's go back to our list. What are Mario.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, there's no Mario, there's no Zelda. Have we gotten GTA 3 on this list?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes. We got. It was number 19. I mean we got Pong, we got Tetris, we've not seen Pac man, but like cool Street Fighter 2. Let's see, did we get Dark Souls? Yeah, Dark Souls was on here, Dark Souls on there. We got Metal Gear. Yeah, we got Metal Gear solid. We got FF7. We've not seen Pokemon yet. We've not seen Fortnite. We've not seen pubg Minecraft. We saw. Did we see World of Warcraft?

[Tim Gettys]

Yes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No. Hades Limbo Journey, Meat Boy, Cave Story. We've not seen any of those. No sports games yet. No RE4, Last of Us. We've seen Skyrim. No. Super Metroid. No Candy Crush. We've seen Baldur's Gate 3. And no Breath of the Wild. Okay. Yeah. I mean, so there's a lot left.

[Tim Gettys]

There is a lot left that they.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Can leave out, but depending on what they choose to leave out here, I could see this landing.

[Tim Gettys]

Well, so what's interesting About Half Life 2 here is like, okay, cool. What's the influence of it? I feel like it would be here for kind of the story based first person shooter campaign. But then there's also the kind of like the physics side of it. Right. Like, I think that Half Life 2 is influential because it is kind of where gaming meets tech and like pushing tech forward and yeah, I feel like you can really kind of like draw lines between a lot of very successful games that came after two. Half Life 2, you can say Half Life 1 as well. But I do think Half Life 2 was a demonstrable step up in a way that actually mattered. It felt like a big technological leap for what gaming can be. And I think that it Half Life 2 and like the orange box in general kind of, I think imagine very much inspired a generation of game developers to.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, for games. Good call. At number eight, we have Super Mario 64.

[Tim Gettys]

Love seeing my guy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We cooking. We cooking. And yeah, eight. I mean, that's. That's good. I. I think it could be higher, but I think this is good as well. Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

Not seeing top five definitely feels weird, but yeah. Yeah, I don't think. I don't think we see Super Mario Brothers one on here.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, simply crazy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, we'll see.

[Tim Gettys]

I think that's nuts.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

If Mario 64, number eight, makes me think that maybe you got Mario Brothers. Super Mario Brothers at one or two.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, Mario Brothers is number one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

If this is a ranked list, like, I think just surely by definition of what we're talking about.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, we'll see. At number seven, we got what? Kingdom Come Deliverance too.

[Barrett Courtney]

No shot.

[Tim Gettys]

I need you to read each and every one. No.

[Barrett Courtney]

Okay, now I get why the.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, what the.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yo, what influence has this had?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Tim? Kind of funny. It's up. We didn't play this game. I saw the Reddits, I saw the comments. I saw everybody.

[Barrett Courtney]

We didn't play the first true masterpiece of 2025 yet.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We should have played this video game.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

What the. What?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They put it right above Mario 64.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, my God.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, wait.

[Barrett Courtney]

I need you to read it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Bless.

[Barrett Courtney]

I need you to read it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Not even two months old, the most recent entry in our list has clearly attracted a vocal and supportive fan base.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Offering. Offering. A handsomely rendered and wonderfully open ended sandbox. Where you're free to shape every man. Where you're free to shape every man. Apprentice Henry as you please. Deliverance to his commitment. Excuse me. To authenticity. Found favor among voters. The word immersive showed up in more responses than for any other game. If its future impact has yet to be determined, this historical RPG has already left a mark on its players. As one put it quote, it gives me hope for the future of gaming.

[Barrett Courtney]

Oh, great.

[Tim Gettys]

There's no chance that this game is on most influential game list in five years.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You don't think so?

[Tim Gettys]

Zero chance.

[Barrett Courtney]

I think it, like, it definitely has an audience. People who've played it, like, really love it. But in terms of like being influential, I feel like what this game does. There's been so many games before that have done that. What is this game doing differently and new that's going to inspire a next generation of video games? That's like a big question, right?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm going to play.

[Barrett Courtney]

Especially it being too much two months old. It's very much like, okay, yes. A bunch of to me, I want.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

To take devil's advocate here. Think of all the games that have been influenced by Kingdom, Kingdom Come, Deliverance too. You know, like, think about. That's hilarious.

[Barrett Courtney]

This definitely feels like a. Like they knew about this poll and like the entire fan base came in because they're upset that, you know, us and other outlets haven't covered it every single day of every single hour. So they're like, we need it to be on this list and voted the for it, you know.

[Tim Gettys]

All right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Damn, that's. That's tough, man. Because I was, I was honestly, I was gonna defend the out of this list even though it has. It's had some slip ups. I was going to go to Batman. This is one of those ones where one entry, a singular entry can just ruin an entire list.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I'm not going that far because I still think this is a good list. I'm taking out the ranked aspect of it in my mind because I think that that is. It's silly and like easily. No one will ever agree about that stuff. GTA 1. No kingdom come, deliverance? No. Baldur's Gate 3. I'm on a wait and see. I get it. But we'll see.

[Barrett Courtney]

Again, it's too early.

[Tim Gettys]

Besides that, I think this list is kind of our list. But hey, we have six more to go.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So let's see, let's see. And number six, Minecraft.

[Tim Gettys]

Yep.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Which is great. I'm laughing because you sandwiched Kingdom Come deliverance to between Mario 64 Minecraft.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes. This makes sense. Shout out Minecraft. And number five, the Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time. This list is so funny because it's so good.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean they're fucking nailing it and then they're just weird ass choices.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, it's like you have like, it's like you have a friend that's in your close friend circle where you're like, you've known him for years. You're like, oh man, I rock with this guy. And they just say something racist against the most random group of people. And you're like, wait, what did this happen? When did you not. When did you start liking those folks? Why would you say those words?

[Tim Gettys]

Hey, Derek, can you do me a favor? I have a conspiracy theory. Can you go back to the beginning of the list and I want to see how they spell out Grand Theft Auto. Okay, there's Grand Theft Auto. Can you go down to 19 grand theft auto 3? Okay, my theory was going to be one of them said GTA wants To grab the thought, I'm like, there's going to be some fucking SEO shit. Kingdom come, deliverance, everyone's searching for it.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, yeah, let's put it there.

[Tim Gettys]

But no, that theory has been debunked.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Spuma case has been there, blessed. I'm glad that's resonating with you chat. All right.

[Tim Gettys]

All right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was number five. At number four, Half Life one.

[Tim Gettys]

Cool.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

All right. Double dipping. Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

Not mad at it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, I'm a little mad just for like, I guess, you know what?

[Tim Gettys]

But again, I was saying Half Life one in terms of the single player story campaign, like that. They fucking did it to the tech. Pushing the tech forward, man, that changed things. That opened game design.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

See, I feel like we could have consolidated here a little bit. We could have, but I'll let a slide. I think you gave such a good argument for Half Life two that I'm. I'm not as mad as I would have been.

[Tim Gettys]

And. And earlier we were saying, or I was saying that we have Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man. It's like the modding scene. Like Half Life created Counter Strike. You know what I mean? Portal. Like all these things came from this game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So we're down to top three. There's three spots left on the list. Are there things that we need to see in this top three? Super Mario Brothers. If you're having GTA 3 and if you're having half, like one and two. Yeah, dude, you gotta have Super Mario Brothers.

[Tim Gettys]

Super Mario Brothers.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What are the two other games, do you think?

[Tim Gettys]

I feel like they've got all the ones that I'm like, if they don't fucking have this, I'm going to punch somebody besides Mario.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Resident Evil 4. You got to have Resident Evil 4.

[Tim Gettys]

Honestly, you need Street Fighter 2. If you don't have Street Fighter 2, that's insane.

[Barrett Courtney]

I don't think we see Street Fighter 2.

[Tim Gettys]

Think about arcades. Think about what it did for multiplayer. Think about just character select screens, health bars. Like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

Fortnite. We still haven't seen.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, we've not seen Fortnite.

[Barrett Courtney]

No. Fortnite's number one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Fortnite's number one.

[Tim Gettys]

There's no battle royale. You're right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Fortnite number one. Super Mario Brothers, number two combos.

[Tim Gettys]

Dude, Street Fighter 2 better fucking be there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm going to say my prediction, I'm going to say resident evil 4 instead of last was I'm going to say, in fact, I'm going to reorder my thing because I actually have a little Bit of trust in them. So I'm going to say number one is going to be Super Mario Brothers. I think number two is going to be Fortnite, and number three is going to be Resident Evil 4. Oh, we didn't even get Call of Duty.

[Barrett Courtney]

Do we think Black Myth Wukong shows up on this?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, no, no.

[Tim Gettys]

I get where your head's out there, Barrett. Call of Duty, actually. You're fucking right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Modern Warfare. That. That should be on the list. Really should be on the list. All right, let's get to number three.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

All right. And number three, we got Super Mario Brothers. All right.

[Tim Gettys]

I can't hate this list.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

I can't hate it. They did good. I didn't do the perfect job.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're speaking. You're speaking soon here.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm a little early.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Two more spots left. There's two. There is two more spots left.

[Tim Gettys]

There is.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But, hey, like, I. They're checking all the boxes.

[Tim Gettys]

They're checking them, man.

[Barrett Courtney]

They're checking them.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

At number two, we got Doom.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay, okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm not mad at that.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm not mad.

[Tim Gettys]

So I feel like with the last couple choices that we just saw, it's like, all right, it sucks that we're not also going to get Breath of the Wild or this or that or whatever, the Halos and all that, but it's like, I can see what they're trying to do. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, at least we got Kingdom Come Deliverance.

[Tim Gettys]

Again, not every choice has been perfect, but overall, I think it hit where it needed to hit.

[Barrett Courtney]

And, like, if you're not going to have a halo on here, which, again, to me is a little crazy, like Doom, if you want to take it all the way back. Right. Like we were saying at the. The top of the show here, Doom fits that mold in terms of.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

First person shooter.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

One Number one. We got. No, Shut the up. Shut the up.

[Barrett Courtney]

No shot.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We got Shenmue.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay. What?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Shenmue.

[Tim Gettys]

No. Okay, first off, I want to say SCHENRO at number one is wild work. This is. This is insane behavior. Like, somebody needs to get checked hard. Having said that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Having said that.

[Tim Gettys]

Y'all don't know. Y'all don't know. Shenmue was incredible influential. This game deserves to be on this type of list. This game was so open. You go out there talking to people, getting stories and all this stuff, like, so ahead of its time. And I definitely. We've heard so many different developers legitimately cite Shenmue as why they make their game design choices and all that stuff. Yes. I think Shenmue deserves a spot on this list. Number one? Hell no. Number 20. Sure. That's where I'm at.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know, that's where I'm at.

[Tim Gettys]

Qts.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know what? Fair.

[Tim Gettys]

Like there's a lot for Shenmue, like game design. When you look at it like playing Shenmue one nowadays, you're like, whoa, they were doing games like this back then. There's. There's so much here. What do they say about it though?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They said a surprise. Number one in some respects. So yeah, this is definitely ranked. And yet Yu Suzuki's 1999 opus increasingly feels like the original blueprint for the dynamic, detailed settings that we have since become since settings that have since become the expected norm at gaming's bleeding edge settings used in such industry titans like Grand Theft Auto and Assassin's Creed franchises. The phrase living breathing world might be a marketing marketing cliche today, but when Shenmue arrived, it accurately described the game's astonishingly vivid rendition of Yokosuka, where taciturn hero Ryo Hazuki searches for his father's killer.

[Tim Gettys]

And more than anything, this influenced Mega64 to make one of my favorite Mega64 sketches of all time. Rocco rocking around the streets looking for the man that killed his father. You don't get better than that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That straightforward but absorbing revenge plot paid SEC played second fiddle to simple pleasures of inhabiting such a convicting urban space with its own timetable. Non player characters were granted lives of their own and so Rio would have would have to fit into their into their routines and rituals. In both its embrace of a slower paced lifestyle and its use of an in game clock to dictate the player's activities, it could be seen as a precursor to Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley. The quieter moments and otherwise noisy blockbusters such as Uncharted 4, the Last of Us Part 2 and God of War surely took their cues from Suzuki's game. And its spirit lives on through the increasingly popular Yakuza Like a Dragon series, which similarly encourages you to slow down every now and again. Shenmue may have struggled commercially on release, but if it felt out of step with its peers, that's only because it marched to its own leisurely rhythm. And as we all know, the genius of the true pioneers is often only appreciated after the fact. Its unique appeal is summed up by voter Jesse Strife quote, I played this game when it initially launched, and even now I've yet to encounter another game quite like it. Shenmue holds a special place in my Heart. End quote.

[Tim Gettys]

The Lou in the chat says Shenmue started QTES confirming what I thought, but wasn't sure about it. Yeah, great write up. I actually think that that's awesome. And yeah, them bringing up all the animal crossing and all, just like the side quests and side. Yes. Like Shenmue at that time was such a thing of like, it's a game you can just live in and like actually just live in it. Number one is insane. Like, and more than that, like, I don't even think I can stand by an argument of top 10.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Here's the thing. That write up moved me.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I started tearing up a little bit. I was like, damn, I gotta play Shenmue. This shit sounds fucking innovative.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh my God, that sounds so freaking funny.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Bear, you had something to say?

[Barrett Courtney]

No, I was just saying it's insane. Yeah, I was just backing up what Tim was saying.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Listen, I. With that write up so hard that I might almost. I, I. You might almost get a thumbs up from me, but not quite. It's. There are too many mistakes on this list. Too many missteps. I won't even say mistakes because all this stuff is purposeful. These aren't mistakes, these are missteps.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I'm with you. I'm still giving it a thumb up, not two thumbs up. I'm not enthusiastic about it. We always say we like when lists have something to say. Yeah. And you can't tell me this list didn't have something to say with Shenmue at number one. And they tried backing it up. They showed their homework.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I, I just feel like the, the omissions here. Right.

[Tim Gettys]

Like Street Fighter 2 to me is the, the biggest omission and a, a battle royale.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. No, no, Fortnite feels incredibly off. And again, this is a fan poll thing. Like, this ain't. This ain't on the baftas necessarily. But like, I think no Fortnite is. Is kind of wild. BG3 here over a Breath of the Wild. If you want to talk about more recent type games. I know Breath of all is 2017 now, but even still, like, that feels a bit off. No, Resident Evil 4 feels a bit off. Like, that's wild. There's too many omissions. Plus weird inclusions like Kingdom Come Deliverance too. That makes me have to give the thumbs down.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, I have to give the thumbs down as well. Like I. Again, it's like almost there to being a thumbs up. But yeah, like Kingdom Come Deliverance to being above. What was it, Mario 64?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. No super Metroid either feels odd.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh yeah, man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, Just a lot of weird omissions here. Even though a lot of the inclusions I do think are good. Like, this had way more good inclusions than I would have thought based on how people were talking about it. And it has like, I mean, 95 of the inclusions are actually pretty good here.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know, I'm not mad.

[Tim Gettys]

And we called them.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And we called them. Yeah, like, you know, Mario 64, Half Life, Sims, like Ted, like this is a good even Tomb Raider. I'm like, you know what? I'm not mad at that. There's so many good. There's so much good here. But it's. It's the bad that's supposed a bunch for me.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, hey, that happens.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Tim. This has been another episode of the Kind of Funny Games cast. This has been another episode of the Shit List. And let me tell you, the Shit list always delivers. Not a bad episode of the shit.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

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