Game Scoop! 837: The 2025 Daemie Awards

(upbeat music) - What's up everybody? We're going through a very special episode of I.J. and gave a scoop on my host Damon Hatfield and joining me this week are Jess and Davis. - Scoop, Nick Lemone. - I'm back baby. - And Sam Claiborne joins us as well. - Oh my, you've caught me in my study today, man. So good to see you, it's so good to be here. I wasn't expecting company. - It does look good. - It's up here. - It's very cozy. - Yes, let's see the glow of the fire. - Yeah, the thrill of the recent adventures. - Actually, I'm reporting live on the scene from outside Olathec Kansas, which will tie into this episode's theme. Please take it away Damon. - Olathec Kansas, a birthplace of kings, they say. That's what they say about Olathec Kansas. It's the most wonderful time of year. Everyone all year long, around the world waits for this moment. It's time for the Damier Awards. (dramatic music) - Everyone has just been waiting a bit to find out what was the kill gag of the year. People have to know, people have to know. So let's just get right into it. I'm gonna reveal my top five games of the year. Damon Hatfield's top five video games of the year, 2025. - It's the one time of year that Damon gets to take over the show. - Yep, I let you guys talk all year long, and then there's one episode that's just about, all the stuff that I like. Okay, here we go. My top five games of the year. Coming at number five is The Outer Worlds 2. Again, I'm just about to wrap up at 50 hours. - I know, you got that far in that game. - Yeah, that's great. - I'm past the point I'm no return. I'm on the last sort of like final stretch. This was a slow burn. It really grew on me. It's like Outer Worlds 1, but it's so much bigger. It feels epic. It's like 20 hours, it felt like it could have wrapped up, but then it just launches off in this whole other story arc. It's all good. I'll describe one of my favorite missions in the game. So if you don't want to know about a mission, that's about midway through the game. Feel free to skip ahead. But in this one, you have to get to this super computer to analyze this data that you have. But the super computer is in a facility that's guarded by enemies of the protectorate faction. And so you can call in another faction The Outer to help you clear out the base, but in the return, they want you to let them take control of the super computer when you're done with it. So I was like, whatever, that's fine. But then the super computer, when you get there, it sends you on this long quest all over this ice planet for stuff that it wants first. And you talk with the computer a lot. And by the end of the quest, I kind of liked the computer. It's an AI. And then it started asking me like, what should we do next? What should we work on in the future? How could we collaborate? So when I walked out and the order was there and they wanted to take control of the computer, I was like, actually, no, I think I'll keep the computer for myself. So I became their sworn enemy of the faction, and they all attacked me. I had to kill everyone that helped me clear out the facility. Oh my god. And now I'm an enemy to that faction. If they ever see me, they're just going to attack me on site. So it didn't even happen to the AI. Oh, he's my friend now. Yeah. Nice. No, he's a giant super computer, but I can go visit him. I know some other side quests I can do with him. The game even warns you. The game warns you when this happens. It says, you're an enemy of this faction now. They will attack you on site. You may want to reload a previous save or just enjoy the chaos. So I'm just enjoying the chaos. Nice. Wow. That's awesome. Also, I think the gunplay feels and sounds great. I don't play a lot of first person shooters, but to me, they really put a lot of work into that and it ships. It almost feels like a correction to Starfield. I mean, yeah, god, it's a much, much better game than Starfield. And how do you think it compared to a vow, which I loved? I liked a vow quite a bit. But I never finished-- something else came along. Probably a Assassin's Creed or something. And I bounced off a vow and never went back to it. But I did like-- I liked it now. What an endorsement. Made the top five Dabies. Crazy. Top five. Moving right along. Coming in at number four is Ghost of Yote. This is a game I was really, really hot on. I think I lost a little bit of steam on it right at the end. But it's probably tied with the Assassin's Creed shadows for the best-looking game of the year for me. I think combat in this game feels so good. I wish the side quests had more meaningful rewards. It's usually just-- oh, I got a different color hilt for my katana. It was a worse reward. Yeah, I don't care about that. But I think the bounty hunter missions are great. And it's some of the best stuff in the game. I could just spend a whole evening just doing bounty hunter missions. There's usually a bit of a puzzle in finding them. They all have their own dialogue. And your bounties have their back stories. That stuff is great. I like the receptive ones where they're trying to be somebody else or they're helping you for a while. Then you're like, you're the person I'm looking for, right? And they're like, yeah. Yep, yep, yep. There is also just really cool one-off story missions, or an unrelated story missions that I really dig. There's a whole horror, like Jay Horror, ancient ghost mission, like Kwydon, a very evocative of some really cool Japanese horror cinema. It's really fun stuff. Surprisingly, bears play a surprisingly big role in this game. Some missions, and also just roaming the countryside. You encounter a lot of bears. They're great at throwing you around. You know, I like the way the campaign is built. You have a kill list. And I like how you can basically take them in any order that you want to. But there is too much walking and talking, and that's a critique of PlayStation Studio games. In general, it's a big open-world game, a sandbox. I want to be free to just play the game. But every time you want to do a story mission, and the camera zooms in, and the letterbox comes in. It's like, oh, OK. Now all I can do is hold forward on the left stick for it. To tell you the story of my people, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. They need to figure out a different way to deliver information than taking agency away from the player. But go see your tape. Very good. S Hot Springs in a video game this year, better than Assassin's Creed Hot Springs. Yeah, I don't even remember the hot springs in the shadows. They were quite lovely. Look at good this game. It looks-- OK. My top three, coming at number three, is Shinobi Art of Vengeance. Cool. Wow. It's hot. Three. Here's an Inja game with no walking talks. It is the 13th Shinobi game, but it isn't-- it is not an unlucky number. It reimagines Shinobi from a straightforward arcade action game into a hand-drawn collection of mini Metroidvanias. So it's level-based, but each level is kind of a mini Metroidvania developer, lizard cube, did for Shinobi what they previously did for Streets of Rage 4. Adapts, an old sort of arcade, brawler, and completely blows it up, and adds a bunch of modern features. It's a beautiful game. All the hand-drawn artwork is really amazing to look at. Lots of-- each level kind of has its own set piece. That's really nice. To build for replayability, you can revisit levels. It'll tell you which secrets you haven't gotten yet. And as you proceed, you'll find new traversal techniques. So you can go back to the previous level. Access new areas you hadn't before. It also has Shinobi Executions, which is like-- I don't remember which Splinter Cell it was, I added the point where you can tag enemies, and then execute them like three at a time instantly. You can do that in Shinobi Artifensions as well. So it should have a walk-and-talk emphasis. It's a hop-and-chop. Hop-and-chop. I would much rather hop-and-chop than walk-and-talk. Coming in at number two is Donkey Kong, Bonanza. But very well. Very well. High school. That's how you have them. It was fun. Very, very close to the perfection that is Mario Odyssey. If Mario Odyssey is here, it's like Donkey Kong Bonanza. It's like right there. I like Donkey Kong's redesign a lot. I know some-- maybe some original Donkey Kong country fans weren't a fan of it, but I think it looks great. You know, it's all about destroying the environments and all that feels really good, super fun, satisfying. I like how you can just pick up the environment and maybe it's a means of traversal. Maybe it's a weapon now. Then the environment can be your weapon or your transportation. I also think this game has the best map of the year. The maps look really cool. It's gorgeous. Diarramus. I want like a 3D print of just the maps in this game. Oh, really good map game. It's, I mean, Nintendo, the Tokyo team, just keeps going from strength to strength. They're getting very better. This is a platformer that has best of breed platforming. And it's doing really, really interesting stuff from a trained defamation standpoint. But even just the puzzles-- the puzzles in this non-puzzle game are better than the puzzles in many puzzle games. It's just unbelievable what they accomplished. And I think it's-- Yes, that's the best part. And I think one of my favorite things about this game like Odyssey is the Schmovement. There's just this effortlessness that you don't need to master everything that Donkey Kong can do. But if you're a sickle like me, you can just really do insane things that get you to parts of the map that you shouldn't be able to access early. And the game does not punish you for it. Basically, it's like, great. Good job, dude. Here's a bunch of coins or gold. I do think-- I mean, I didn't make a top five games of the year if I did Donkey Kong would definitely be on it. It would probably be top three. I do think this game is incredibly ugly. And I don't think that on a technical level, I just-- just the art palette and just the level design. It's just as deeply unappealing to me. But I was able to get over it, as I said. I absolutely loved the experience overall. But even just watching back this footage, I'm just not vibing with it at all, just on a visual level. I wouldn't call it ugly, but I do know what you mean. It's maybe gaudy as a word I would use. It's just-- it's an interesting color palette. You're right. It is a game of the year candidate. You're right. I was explaining to somebody at work why this got nominated for Music Awards. It was amazing. Oh, the music's great. But it's like, oh, it's because of the transform music. That's what people were like. They're like, oh, I completely forgot about that. And a lot of the game has that type of a lot of games. Music deemed right. you know, there's like DJs in every level. And do you do that cute little Yucuza dance? Yeah, yep, yep. Things that's really good. And so I would call this genre a jig and dig. Jig and dig. I wish the game awards. I wish the I wish the song they played there would have been the Zebra song. Zebra. Zebra. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Yeah, it's like a it's a choice to make Pauline, uh, don't go on sidekick, but their relationship is really cute charming. Yeah. Fantastic ending timeline. Y'all. Yeah, we're never recovering from this one. One of the hypest endings, not quite Odyssey level ending, but very much up their bar for bar, I think. Yep. I agree. Okay. So everybody was saying that originally. And Oh, he first lost them again. He was about to unveil his undying love and passion for Donkey Kong, but I think so. I think he was going to say he was wrong all along. He's just like Scrooge. He's seen the error in his ways. I'm sorry. I'm, I think I'm I'm using the benefits of Starlink at this location. And I think it goes out every 15 minutes. Okay. What is the ending that you all love? There's a couple of different endings. So I don't, I'm not going to spoil it. We should. Well, so let's just say if we're going to talk about the ending for a moment, people if anyone wants to skip ahead, go ahead. I'm just curious because like there was a couple different ones. And I don't know which one people were going on to. I mean, are we talking? Are we talking about it? If we're talking about it, it's like the build up and eventual reveal of K-Rule is incredible. And then the execution of the box boss fight is like, although it is, it's like, you know, it's 10 times harder than anything else in the game. So yeah, that boss rush. It's also really cool like him seeing him take away. I forget. Is this new dog city? Yeah. And you go back to new dog city. Yeah. It's unbelievable. And all of it is like 10 out of 10 stuff. It's like the reverse King Kong where he goes instead of going to New York to be the bad guy. He's like, oh, he gets to save New York this time. And it's from King K rule with a very fun and really interesting set piece. And again, you know King K rule is going to be showing up at the end. By the time you get to this point in the game, you're like, I've been reading the lore. I've been reading these little, these little tombstone things. And I'm like, okay. All the, all the writing with cranky Kong works if he's talking about K rule or if he's talking about the, the misdirect, you know, boss. And then you pull like his big golden belly in the ground. Like all that stuff's great. And I'm not going to be, I'm going to be a little bit controversial here. I don't know that it should have cost DLC money, but Emerald Rush is so much fun to play. I don't know if it's, it was what, $9.99 or $9.99, but regardless, it's $9.99. Yeah, I think it's 20. It is such a fun way of like re approaching this game from a rogue light experience. And I think it's so clever. And I really hope that we see more stuff like that from like the next Mario. Maybe don't charge money for it, but man, I think it's the best part of the game. I think it's really worth to revisit if you, if you can spin those bucks. If you get a gift certificate for Nintendo points and want to spend it on something, it's great. And it's great answer. As a Donkey Kong Island is really, really cool. Hearing like that DK theme too. And when you're in the side scrolling levels, when you hear the Donkey Kong country theme like re-imagined in this game, oh, it's delightful. Grant Kirkkope, like they did him justice, I think. Donkey Kong, Vanessa. Great, great, incredible game. Okay. Time for my number one game of the year. It says anyone know what I'm going to say. A lot. Sure. That was not your ninja guide and rage bound. No, ninja guide and rage bound is going to win an award later on the show. My number one game of 2025 is Monster Train 2, which is so good. And it's a little frustrating to me that I don't think anyone else has played this game, even though like Justin likes Monster Train 1. And this is totally the type of game, but he refuses to play Monster Train 2. It's on Game Pass. Is it good news? I've been, I've been waiting for a sale on this bad boy. And it's finally 1999 on steam. So pop is about to eat real good. I don't know. It was a game pass game. Not that I mean, whatever. Like games are worthy of the 20, 30, 70 dollars that we pay for them. But you know, yeah, I'll check it out. This game is so good. It's a roguelite. It's a roguelite deck builder. It's actually roguelite deck builder perfection to me. The first game you're, you know, the denizens of hell and you have a train, a monster train, and you're battling the denizens of heaven. In this game, oh, they have to, they have to collaborate. Whatever, the story doesn't matter. They have to collaborate now because now there's these other titans that are even worse. So that's what's going on. So in this game, you go on runs in your train, you pick two classes and you pick a hero unit who has some special abilities. Each class has their own deck of cards. You mix the two decks together. And then at each stop along your way of run, you fight waves of enemies and a boss. Your cards are your characters, spells and equipment. Your train is three levels and you can, you pick where you play your characters and then during each wave, the characters just smash into each other and you know, I mean, each one has hit points. So hopefully you don't lose your characters. Hopefully you're killing the enemy characters. But it doesn't matter if your characters die. All you really need to do is keep the enemy from reaching your train's heart at the top of the train. So the fun comes from combining different classes and finding synergies between decks. Like any good roguelite, it is possible if you are smart with your card draws and luck is on your side. You can just become totally OP, maybe one out of every 20 runs. You're just totally OP smashed through the enemy's no problem. But like Balotro, you can't rely too much on one strategy. You have to have a contingency because Sam, you know, event like if you're playing a, let's say you're doing a streets run on Balotro, well then you're eventually going to hit the the boss line that's like, you can't play a hand more than once. Thanks for trying to relate to me on card games. So and also not only did they make an entire sequel here, a whole new game with new classes, new cards and bosses, they also put the entirety of monster train one in the game too. It's both games together. You can combine decks from both games. That's what I that's that's that I haven't played to yet. But that's what I know everybody like that's the sort of oh oh crap moment in monster train to is that it has this smash brothers ultimate sort of everyone is here thing of like, you know, they just from a game design and balance standpoint of just piling all the new stuff in with the old stuff. And you can remix it and combine it all in really interesting ways is this I've I've seen it getting a lot of praise from, you know, from Rogue Lights. It goes for that. Is this game more difficult than the first one because I found the first one to be a little too easy. I say it's on the part. However, like Bellotro, as you beat as you beat runs, you unlock higher difficulties. Okay. Okay. There are 10 difficulty T levels. I am on 10. I'm on the final difficulty tier. And when I eventually beat that, then I'll feel like I'll be done with monster train two. But I've been I've been playing level 10. I've been trying this for weeks now. I'm gonna buy this as soon as we're done. This looks great. You know, I the video game form is the best way to play is because I don't want to spend all that time setting up the board game. Man, I played I played to slay this fire board game. Very, very fun. But oh my gosh, it takes forever to set up. And then you had to put it away. It was like, well, we got to save our game and then put it away. Video games take all that out. This is great. I couldn't imagine having to play a train three floors of the train in a board game. Like, this is great. Do all the do all the like easy stuff like that. I don't want to do for me. Please. Yeah. It's great. So what do you think? Train and maim? Train and maim. Yeah, that works. That works. Monster train two, 11 out 10 off the charts. For me. That's mine. I want to hear your games of the year. I didn't know I was going to be asked for that. This is the day. Okay. Off the dome. Off the dome. Dude, this is how you know it's real. What? Okay, Nick. I'll start off. Number five. I'm going to go Donkey Kong, Bonanza number four ninja guide and rage bound number three. I'm going to go with. Well, let's do number one. Clear obscure expedition. 33 number two. Oh, shoot. What else came out this year? Name a video game. It could have been. It goes here. Or do the dark ages or all four. We'll throw so song it. Number three. And two will put doom the dark ages. Yeah. There you go. Did you like Hades? You know, I liked it a lot, but I liked it significantly less than the first one. Gosh, I can't. I cannot do what you just did. I very much fall into. Look, this is my primary hobby. It's the thing that I spend every single night doing and thinking about. But if the way that my brain works, if someone says just to name a video game, I just can't do it. My mind goes completely blank. If you do my way, I mean, it's got to summon it. It's got to be. I mean, Donkey Kong and Clarebs gear are the standouts for new releases this year. But I played and continue to play and enjoy a lot of kind of like old like I put a dozen hours into the vampire survivors DLC this year. I played a lot, a lot of like I put 100 hours in a modded factorial this year. So it's like, I'm very much a kind of like, you know, play what I want to play when I want to play it kind of guy. I played Kingdom Come Deliverance 1 and talked about it on games before this year. So those are like, those are the most memorable standout video game moments for me this calendar year. But in terms of new releases, Donkey Kong and Claire are the two that are the top of my pile. Sam, would it be Assassin's Creed shadows for you? - No, so one surpassed that. So, Prime 4 and I ended it up already before. I'm playing it still and I just tried 100% of it. And I think it's really fun. I like every element of it. It's not my favorite Metroid, it's not my favorite Metroid Prime and it's not even close, but it's still, you know, a Metroid Prime game is still pretty good no matter what. So, I love that one and then I have a tie for two. So, this is my two and three place is going to be Assassin's Creed and Yauté. I like both a lot for different reasons. I won't go into that, but I think they're both great. And then my number one is Death Stranding, too. - Oh yeah, yep, yep. - And I basically 100% of that game spent a lot of time in it. At the end, I just wanted to do more. I like everything about it. I love disconnecting the world and seeing other players use my stuff. And I got in there early and was making sure I was really helpful to meet you there. I had a great time with it. - Man, you just remind me, I played and loved the first six or eight hours of Death Stranding won. And then I was in London in Germany for like two weeks and then I came back and just couldn't, you know, like it's just that moment of just like, what, like where am I and what was I doing? - Yeah, it's really hard to come back sometimes. - And like, and so I do, you know, I don't know if I'm actually gonna be, I probably have to start over which like, then that's a whole pain, but like, man, I was loving it. So I am interested in maybe I'll just bite the bullet and watch a story recap and do too instead. - There were some smaller games that I did like, like I liked Blueprints and there was, you know, there's something that I'm missing that's just sitting on my steam deck which I wish I was shouting out right now. - But, I didn't know. - Ball pit. - Ball pit. - I've spent a lot of time with Ball pit. It's not, not in my top five, but I like Ball pit. - I'm looking at my, I'm looking at my steam stats now to be like, oh, what else did I play this time? - I'd like to swap a Doom the Dark Ages with Blueprints, there you go. Now my list is done. - That's great. - I think runs take a little too long in Ball pit and I like the in between, like the farming stuff. I'd rather do that a little bit more, have shorter runs and do the farming a little more I think. - The runs can be, I don't know what unlocks it or when, but I play everything on like double speed. Like there's a fast mode. - Is it just in the settings? I don't have to look. - No, it's an unlockable, I don't quite remember what triggers it, but like yeah, you don't have to play it on the normal speed very much. All right, now time for some more awards. Here we go. And we're still sticking with games here. So the, hey, this actually turned out pretty great award goes to a Vowed, which is like, I just had no hype that game before release and we've talked about, it didn't seem to have, it looks generic, didn't seem to have a personality. It really bugged me that no one had a British accent. But no, the game is really, really fun. It's right up there with, you know. You know, it's like a, it's like a Skyrim like, I think it's very close to Skyrim quality. - I don't know how Obsidian did, but they did this here. - I know. - I think that this is like, I think for me, better than Outer Worlds 1, which I cannot wait to see what a Vowed 2 is and hopefully that'll push it past Outer Worlds 2. You know, like just the baseline is a little stronger for me on this one. - Okay, I really like this when I played it for preview, but never got around to playing the final version award. It goes to Ninja Guide and Ragebound. But since it's in, since it's in Next Top 5, I guess I really got to make time for it. - Dude, I 100% of this game, it is so fun. The art is gorgeous. It's challenging and it's just a such a fun and good feeling game. Like it takes everything that you expect about how good Ninja Guide and feels in 3D and just like, yeah, we just did that in 2D. It's from the blasphemous folks, I believe. And just some really fun, hardcore platforming and action, cool stuff. Love the designs in this game. And I do love the opening boss fight spoilers for the opening, like tutorial boss. But the tutorial boss is Ryu and he's borderline impossible and it's so sick. - Are you sure? - I love those games, make you fight. You, I think you're supposed to lose, but I do think that there is an achievement for beating him. - Yeah, I love that, I love it. - I mean, even before that, the prologue is so cool because you play as Ryu's father in the moments that lead up to the opening cut scene from the original Ninja Guide and NES. - Nice, yeah. - It's so cool. - Beautiful game. - I'll play this and Nick, you play Shinobi if you haven't played that one yet. So that's like a good pitch for how to save Metroid is like, don't use Samus, don't make Samus silent. Use some like cool character that leads up to the point in which Samus like, you know, first starts a mission that's the end of your game. Like, come on. We got to fix, we got to fix Metroid everybody. - Samus has gone missing and her daughter is, is searching for her. - A hundred percent. - Miles McKenzie is back and he's there to rescue Samus. - Oh, okay, it's not a name I've heard in a long time. Let me tell you about her for two hours. - The most questionable cooperative game to play with the five year old award goes to split fiction. - Oh, yeah. - You know, great game, it's fun, it's not that bad, but there's some comical violence and some like swear words. I think they use the S word in their one time, but I don't think King O even noticed. He doesn't know that word. - I think there's a lot of S words in that game, if I remember eight. - Well, I did turn the language to Japanese. - It's really fun, it makes it really fun to play that. - That's really cool. - That's a clever worker, yeah, I like that, that's smart. - Yeah, okay, this is a hit in my house too. I really, just a really great game all around. - Split fiction, I see, this is why I can't do off the dump 'cause like, yeah, this is absolutely one of my top five games of the year. And in the IGN meetings where you're discussing our official awards, I was really advocating for split fiction. I am convinced a lot of people that don't rate it more highly didn't get finished. Didn't finish it because just that stuff that it's doing in the back quarter of that game are just absolutely incredible. - Yeah, the mechanics, the mechanics of game introduces in the last like two worlds. I was like, I would play an entire game of just these two like mechanics alone. And you could see the last levels like, oh, this is why this game was concepted. Like this is, this is why this game exists 'cause that last level is incredibly good. - That's exactly, that's exactly right. And I played it with my 11 year old and it was a good family bonding time. - Same, this came out early this year like February or something and Kingo still talks about it. He's like, Daddy, remember when we were hot dogs and then we were the pigs that farted? - Yeah. See, as he gets a little older, you can get him to play a way out with you and then you can play. - We tried that we started that but it didn't grab like this one at the end. - Yeah, I don't like the other games as much as this one. - Same. - Oh, I like the previous one way better. It takes two. I think it takes you as bar for bar better game. - No. - Yeah, I think it's only the last two levels and the last two worlds of this game that are good. The rest is kind of boring. But clever. - Did Sam, Sam gone? (laughing) - I'm feeling a little intimidated by this rage. - This is no longer a bug. This is a feature of the episode. - He's back. - We're living. - I'm so sorry, Sam, please. Okay, moving on. See, Justin, you can come up with the top five but then you can also just make up awards for any other game that you want to mention. The Densis foliage award. (laughing) Assassin's Creed shadows. - Yeah. - Oh my God, if you go off the path there, you're gonna end up in the bushes and the weeds and you just can't see anything in front of you. - It is very dense foliage. - Unlike Yotay, you can get to the top of the mountains in this game if you want to. - That's true. - Go like whatever direction you want, which I tremendously respected a video. - I've actually been thinking about going, I haven't played this since March, probably, but I've been thinking about maybe trying to pick this up again, but maybe I'll run into the same problem that Justin did and I'll just be like, okay, how do I do anything? How do I assassinate? - But you can turn it to winter and enjoy a completely different game. And how cool is that this game has every season in it? I mean, that is a remarkable feat of game. - Yes, we should also mention that it allows you to turn on instant kills assassinations, which is the way that I think the game should be anyway. I love that they just let you do that if you want to. It makes the game much more fun for me. - Smart. - Because if you sneak up behind someone and stab them in the neck, they're not gonna just lose half their health. - Yeah, right, right. - That's what happens to me though, so don't try it. - Okay, all right. - Okay, but this is all really weird, but I'm not mad about it at work. It goes to just trending too. - Yeah, that's just the box quote for that game basically. - Feel free for the director's cut, Kojima, feel free to use that box quote from me. - The most disappointing game that is still pretty great award goes to Mario Kart World. - Yeah, I agree with that. - Good assessment. - It's just, you know, as a follow up to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and as the first open world Mario Kart game where that was touted as a big feature, I think it's a failure on both of those levels. And yet, it's still Mario Kart, it's still great, it's still super fun to play. And I love the, whatever the battle royale that mode is called, I forget that one's fun. - Knockout. - Yeah, the knockout mode is super fun. - I think the game is foundationally there. It could be a great game. You could just add a bunch of open world shit that's so fun in this. They just didn't do it. - I mean, they might like look like Mario Kart 8 became, you know, Nintendo's first game as a surface, almost like they, you know, they updated it for years and years and years and added 50 plus new courses to it. So it's like, maybe world's gonna be, you know, around for the lifespan of the Switch 2, who knows, I mean, I know, they've been patching it. They didn't, they patch in a map for the open world yet where you can see where the peace switches are. - I don't think so, not that I've heard. - That, I talked about it when the game was new. So we don't, I don't necessarily need to relitigate the whole thing, but it just, I cannot fathom that they put 500 pieces in this game and know like this region this region has 18 and you've found 16 of them or put them on a map or let you buy a map like it completely kills it for me personally. I mean it completely killed it for our gang guides team it was one of the hardest games ever to cover like the open world map is just not it's just a drawing. And it's just impossible to get this game completed you know we did it eventually boy and like 1200 stickers. I'm I'm praying that this game has a cyberpunk 2.0 moment. Yeah 100% where they just like you know what we we injected a full story mode into the open world everybody have fun. I'm not holding my breath for it but man that'd be really nice I'd be really sick Nintendo. Oh no I'm sorry Sam. It's gonna be fun editing this episode there he's back. Okay the I really wish I didn't spend $40 on this award goes to everybody's golf hot shots. Yeah that was a big bummer I love video game golf I love hot shots golf I love Mario golf. It just feels like it feels like I mean it is $40 but it feels budget it feels really cheap it's ugly. It doesn't have any personality generic and has really annoying voiceovers in it too. Yeah and what would I miss like hot shots golf's whole thing is that you know it's personality and it's silly and it's over the top. And so if you remove all the elements that are over the top what are you left with just a mediocre golf game. Yeah that's what that is 40 bucks too. Yeah yeah. Okay the best Sega Genesis game released in 2025. What does everyone know what this is? I wish it was John. Oh is it Earth ion? Earthion? Earthion yeah I've been pronouncing it Earthion. This is a new Sega Genesis game a 16-bit Shmup runs on actual Genesis hardware but it looks like it shouldn't. It feels that impossible. The fact was crazy. This is gorgeous. And it's made by like the team that worked on Street to Rage and Shadow some of the sound like the Hedgehog games. O.G. Sega Genesis Sega developers. Amazing. You can also play it on PS5 or PC but everything you see happening here actually runs on a Sega Genesis. That's incredible. It's incredible. Yeah cool. The sprite works gorgeous. Oh my gosh. Sudo 3D effects, massive multi sprite bosses. The soundtrack is by Yuzo Koshiro who did some of the furniture agents like the Hedgehog games. And there's also that only the Genesis could do and it's really taking advantage of those versus like a game that has to be unsupertentive also. Yeah. It's so cool. There's also an audio filter to make it sound like if you're playing on your TV. You can make it sound like it's coming out of a TV in the 90s. Nice. So that's the idea. Does it add an audio filter where your mom's like shouting out you from downstairs? You got to turn that off. You got to be late for your band concert. You're like no mom. I've never made it this far before. I can't save in the middle. Genesis was a mono channel output too. So, you know, that's probably part of it is that they probably maybe released it. I don't know about like the monobax is how it's supposed to sound. Adding to the steam wish list now. It's a really good time. Okay. Those are my gaming awards. Let's give out some movie awards. The best time I had with my kids at the theater this year was for Dogman, which is a DreamWorks movie. This movie is fantastic, but my recommendation comes with a giant asterisk in that if you haven't read the books, you're going to be like what the hell is this? But if you read the books and you know the characters and the jokes, it's a really good time. If I'm not mistaken, isn't he a cop who was like killed in the line of duty and then he gets brought back to life as a dog? A bomb goes off and it's a dog's head put on to the cops. That's kind of dark. No, it's great. It's great. The doctor is like, "Oh no cop, your head is dying." Your head is dying. "Oh no dog, your body is dying." And the nurse is like, "I got an idea." They need to be tried for malpractice. That's horrific. My kids outgrew the books over the course of the last year or so, but they were very beloved when they were a couple of years younger. It's usually a pet peeve of mine when a movie is made for people who know the books, the source material and ignores people who haven't. But in this case, I know the source material, so it works okay for me. This was available on the flight I'm taking coming up. Should I watch it? I don't know that I would recommend you watch it, Sam, but I had a great time. There's a giant, the fish is a bad guy. The bad guy is a fish played by Ricky Jervais. At the very end, one of our main characters gets in a giant mech suit and has delivers the line. Get away from him, you fish, which I laughed. I laughed louder than anyone else in the theater. That's great. Okay. The best movie I don't think anyone else saw is Black Bag. I love Black Bag. You both saw that. Okay, that's great. It's not a movie that we talked about this year. It's a spy movie. It's kind of a subtle spy movie, yeah, with Michael Fesbender and who plays Gladriel? Kate Blanchett. Yes, Kate Blanchett. Yeah. It's like, it's like Tinkert Taylor's older spy, but not boring. That's a great way to put it. That's a great way. Kate Blanchett also seems like pretty ageless and remarkable in this role. Yes, she's very elf-like generally. Very elf-like, exactly. Okay. Best subverted call back line is on your left from Thunderbolts. Yeah. I got to kick out of that. That's pretty good. Yeah, you're right. That's a good call. This is an award that's, there's a lot of content for this board every year. Best Dream-like musical mash-up sequence. This year, it'll go to centers. Yeah, that part was sick. That was incredible. I'm going to go with these pretty fast, Joe, but we don't need to stop and talk about each one. But, seriously, maybe you should just make the Raid 3 award. It goes to Garrett Evans, so I think it's a super-talented director to the Raid 2. But then he's made two bad movies since then for Netflix. Havoc was this year. It's tried to be like a hard-boiled cop movie, but it sucks. And I don't even remember. Apostle, I think, was the other one kind of a horror movie for Netflix. Anyway, they're both bad. So, come on. Just make, get back to it. Get back to work. Let's do the Raid 3. Just make the Raid 3. I got, DC Comics got me because I did a free trial of DC Infinity where you can download comics. And then I didn't cancel the free trial. So now I've paid for a month of DC Infinity. And anyway, I've been reading a lot of DC Comics. And there's a Batman run that's basically the raid, but Batman. And he's like trapped in this building with a bunch of goons. What's it called? Do you know? Oh gosh. No. That's all right. You could slack me later. Because I've been loving Absolute Batman. Sorry. It's kind of like the Judge Dredd movie. That was really good. Yeah. It's exactly right. I forget Judge Dredd. I forget which came first. Judge Dredd or the Raid. But yeah, they've always been compared. I believe they released the same year. Okay. Well, crazy. It's the raid. Sam is also a double dragon like. Actually, my wife did not like it. And I couldn't even name it. Okay. The best movie that also might have killed the franchise. It was Ballerina, which is a totally fun movie. I don't know and saw this movie, but it's totally fun. It's kind of like Duck Young Bonanza Tomorrow Odyssey. Like John Wick is here. Ballerina is right there. It's almost as good. Yeah. I fell asleep during this. I'm sorry. Yeah. I had fun the whole way through. This movie also has the best killgags of the year. Norman Redis is in this movie. Oh, yeah. Look at this. Wow. That's kind of cool. That's cool. Maybe we're going to show. Maybe we're going to see the best killgag of the year. But there's one we're met. Norman Redis wraps this guy in a plastic tarp. That a clear plastic tarp. And then blast him with a shotgun blast at close range. And then the blood just splatters on the inside of the tarp. That's great. But then this is the best one. I think sorry for the listeners. We're actually watching the scene in the video here. But yeah, she's got this strap with grenades on it. Just around the neck. Pull the clip. And this is so good. How Nick can fall asleep in this movie. I'm not sure. It seems like I fell asleep before this stuff happened. If I'm being honest. Midway through. I looked up the batman. It's batman dark patterns, by the way. Okay. And it's a collection of. It's three. It's three. Okay. Okay. We need one of these guys for every 80s movie franchise award. Goes to Dan Tractenberg. Yeah. Not only has he done three great predator movies in a row, he released two this year. It's insane. Just find this guy for Terminator. Find this guy for Alien. Guy or girl. Yep. Okay. The. I was very dismissive at first. But oh my god, this movie is incredible award. Goes to K-pop Demon Hunters. Yeah. That's great. Great movie. Really important movie for my family now. Like we listen to the songs all the time. I use Apple Music as a music service and I have a playlist of just songs from the year and that I ranked by most played in my most songs this year are golden. Your idol and free I think all from this movie. Yeah, this movie would be very good. Interested to know what Sam thought of it Kpop demon hunters. Mm-hmm. I haven't seen it. I will all totally watch it So great first of all it's Sony and it's the like the studio that did the spiderverse movies the animation is incredible Yeah, that that's that's what stands out to me about it is like you know like it's a kids movie So but but the animation absolutely and we don't need to make this a one studio versus another but it does embarrassed that Pixar a little bit of like it's the same it's the same narrative that's been developing for a few years now with the spiderverse movies of like Driving the medium of animation forward and like movies that you know I know they are making a live action Kpop demon hunters But I think it could really only work as an animated picture like make such good use of that medium for sort of what it's trying to do from a Storytelling a gag standpoint like I loved it. Yeah, I have just added it to my holiday watchlist great animation It's it's even though it's a kids me. There's also like well-composed action scenes too like you know, I love action It's good. It's actually good stuff. It characters are super like oh, what are you gonna say Nick? It's a kids movie that isn't just for kids Like it's one of those things that treats you everyone who watches it like you know We trust you to interpret the story and get what we're going for from it, which I really appreciate It's very evocative of early Pixar. There's gonna be so many sequels to this. We're we're gonna die on like Kpop demon hundreds 90 Yep, yeah, I mean they announced a sequel for 2029 So it's a little bit of way off, but Netflix was totally caught by surprise did not know what they had there was no merchandise available when this movie came out It's on Halloween everyone was wearing bootleg Kpop demon hunters costumes. Yeah We keep we keep it in these good freeze frames though Finally two movies I wanted to call it that I didn't have dumb awards for one battle after another and weapons One battle after another. I'd probably say it's the best movie I saw this year and weapons is probably my favorite. That's all Well, wait a second Best in favor can be different, right? Okay. I just can you unpack that for me briefly? If I say like what is the movie? That's like you know the best made movie sure I Would say one battle after another but weapons, you know, so like they're both very tense movies one battle is more of like a thriller action And weapons is a little bit more spooky horror and I think that just I just lean a little bit more into that Weapons on my top watch went to watch list too. It's very good. You you will like weapons. Yeah, one battle is amazing It's it's streaming already. I think too. Correct. Is it now? Yeah, yeah, okay Okay, a few TV awards moving on to the TV shows from this year the holy crap that is actually terrifying award goes to episode seven of paradise Which is when they show the events of the day house That that that destroyed the world and sent a few thousand people to live in that bunker. I think about that way of a lot It's so that's talking about the way the reporter on top of the building. It's nighttime We lost them. I haven't seen it. I'm at I'm making my holiday watch list too. It's already quite it's already shockingly long But I'm adding paradise to it. Yeah Said James Marsden James Marsden plays the president. Oh man. I was already in now. I'm doubling. Yeah, he's great. He's great Yeah, so episode, you know, the premise is that there was well Do you know do you know the the hook of the show Justin? Yeah. Okay. Yeah You don't know until episode seven like what actually happened on that day and there's a scene with a reporter on a rooftop At night and when the tsunami shows up and it's like oh my god. It's harrowing. It's crazy Okay, so that was great. Also, I could he need some sort of award for the most surprising use of a Nintendo console as a plot device. Oh, yeah A big one. Yeah, big virtual boy saves a day No, it doesn't hurt your boy Not the virtual way. Uh, okay. The no scavengers and no scavengers rain season two consolation prize goes to common side effects Race another animated show from some of the same people that made scavengers rain. Oh, and it's fantastic Very similar animation. Did you want to find it? No, this is the mic judge one though, right? I don't think so. Yeah, he was involved. Yes, he was involved. He's a producer. Really? Yeah, I got to check this out. It's really good A guy finds these magic mushrooms that will cure literally anything And obviously the pharmaceutical companies are not too happy about that. So he's on the run and he wants to try and you know Figure out how to make more of it and they want to you know track him down and then he makes Friends with an old high school acquaintance. He little known to him. She works for one of the pharmaceutical companies And it was lots of great characters great writing. It's very funny. It's great That's on HBO The funniest show. I don't have a clever award for this. The funniest show I watched this year was the studio Yeah, Apple TV Plus so good Also, like it's a really it's a funny show that's also just incredibly well-made and there's an incredible long shot in every episode It's great and I think a little bit educational about Hollywood in a even though it's a parody. It tells you about it Yeah It makes working at a movie studio look really fun With your friends The right turn at Albuquerque award goes to Pluribus Fantastic which so I watched the most recent so episode eight so it's not over yet. They're they're like 10 episodes Do we know Sam? I think so there's 10. Yeah, okay Well, I was shocked to find out that some of our co-workers are not into this show what what yeah I won't name names, but to me this is just that's just another barrier from Vince Gilligan Oh my god, yeah, I mean I like you know my God, I'm gonna get crucified in the comments is I don't like breaking bad as much as like most people do I don't like it's I like it's a good show It feels a lot like other sort of like family crime drama shows to me, but Vince Gilligan like he did X files Like that's where he came from yep, and so the kind of marriage of like you know is breaking bad sensibilities with like as X files like You know sort of building up this deep lore and like unsettling kind of like sci-fi stuff Like it's just it's great to see like him back in that form again, I think He wants your story teller you're watching this Nick yeah, I'm I'm like only four episodes in I think I'm gonna wait till it's all done because I do think it to show that'll benefit for me watching all of it at once Because I just like I think he's an excellent storyteller and it just makes waiting for a little less painful when it's Conversely, I'd like to talk about it every week with stop. I know it's the show. I look forward to it every week I'd say I'm just I'm just I'm just in throw. It's such a cool premise Ray C. Horn is amazing. Yep. Yeah, I'd watch race. They were like in anything. She's fantastic. Yeah, so good This is also really well shot show lots of crazy incredible shots. He's using as little CGI as possible I think you'd be sick sick of boring ass Albuquerque by now, but no here we are back in Back in Albuquerque. I do have you know, it's sorry. It starts out Scary and then it's not scary. Yeah. Yeah There's I really want to see where it goes because It's just some What the others are doing Doesn't it actually doesn't make sense. I don't think so I don't if the whole idea is to become a hive mind and we're at you know Everyone is working in harmony. You would think they would have more reason and more common sense But they don't seem to so I don't know. Yeah, it's like becoming one mind gets like this encyclopedic I'm out of knowledge, but it doesn't get the reasoning right. Yeah, it just doesn't work that way I don't know so much of it is thought through to and they play off of it and everybody thinks of things before you do Like it's just that type of show where you're like these writers had so much fun making a world. Yeah, you just feel it Yeah, some people will say it's it's slow, but Vince Kelly is all about show. Don't tell you you watch care Just doing something and they don't explain what they're doing until eventually it's revealed That's that's how they that's how they work. Isn't everybody on their phone while watching TV now get over yourselves Yeah, this is what we call good storytelling folks Yep, and the final Jamie award of the year the the I cannot believe how good this is we do not deserve this award goes to andor Andor season two Yep also begins TV show the year Another one that started out a little slow, but then god at least the last four episodes are just incredible Yep, I kind of forgot that was this year. I guess what like early early in the year, right? I mean, it's been you're talking before like you know watching The Force Awakens last night like this show is it's it's a whole other level of Star Wars like And how it plugs into the movie, right? It makes Rogue One a better movie. Mm-hmm exactly Yeah, I may also re-contact why me we've I'm sure it's been said a billion times But re-contactually Star Wars as like oh no the Empire is committing like war crimes here Like it really does like oh yeah, they're like cartoon bad guys. No, they are very very bad Fascist bad guys Yeah, I mean we we talked about you know premise versus plot earlier and it's like there's there's um Just we there's never been a bigger mismatch between like they're making a television show out of him that guy Yeah, that guy's getting it's on Star Wars show, you know, and then it's like it's one of the greatest thing Not just one of the greatest Star Wars things, but just one of the greatest things, you know on television in like the last decade Yeah, yeah, that's true And Tony Gerroy the showiner is like not even the Star Wars like hardcore Star Wars guy. So maybe that's maybe that's the maybe there's something there I heard about this with the penguin where it's like these great show creators were very aware that five years ago they had to pitch a superhero or a Star Wars show to get a show that they wanted to make it. So if you wanted to make a show, an anti-fascist, crazy war documentary in space, you just had to pitch it to Star Wars. If you wanted to make a mob movie, you had to make it set in the Batman universe. And like, that's where we are at right now, you know? Yep. All right, those are the 2025 Jamie Awards. Thank you for humoring me, everyone, both on the show and out there in Scoop Nation. That brings us to video game 20 questions. And our suggestions here comes from Mav from Oregon, although I don't believe there's an antidote to go along with that. So, no, no. Let the questioning begin. I'm so, I've been adding things to my to watch list, guys. And I got bad news. I don't think I am going to get through, you know, episodes of television in the, in the break that we have available to us. I'm going to do my best. Okay. Did this game come out in the 70s, 80s or 90s? No, not a Oregon Trail, which would have been a good match. I think we have had Oregon Trail before. Yeah. Was this a a disc-based medium at launch? On a display? No, cartridge at launch, okay? Downloadies. Or download, yeah. Is this a downloadable game or I'm sorry, at the time of its release, was it a downloadable game? Okay. So, do you want to ask that question? Excusively a downloadable game at the time of its release? No. It's Castlevania Symphony of the Night. No, it's not a, it's not a disc-based game. Sorry. So, it's probably a switch game, a switch or Nintendo DS or 3DS. Did this game originally come out on the switch? Yes. A, the original switch and not on PS5 or Xbox. Nintendo developed this game. Nintendo was one of the developers on this game, and that's five. Could be, could be Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Yeah. Does this have characters from the Mushroom Kingdom in it? No. I just have, it could also be a Zelda game, because that's Nintendo and Monolithsoft. For the Echoes? Yeah, or, yeah. Is this game set in the Zelda universe? No. Sorry, yes. Maybe it's just Metroid Prime 4. Why not? That's Nintendo. The retro, there's Nintendo though. Aren't they? I just think it would be like Nintendo had retro developed it. That's how they seem to present themselves. Yeah, I guess that's true. Okay, okay. I mean, there's lots of code developed. I'm having trouble thinking of them because I'm rapidly slipping into vacation mode in real time. This podcast goes on. Does this game feature iconic Nintendo characters? I don't, I wouldn't see. Whoa. Okay, that's a good question. I like that one. Yeah, so I'm just trying to remit, like, so there's snipper clips. No, but like for real. Yeah, I'm trying to switch. Yeah, I'm trying to think of those games that, you know, they, they partner with third parties. You're saying you don't have the full 30 packaged Amiibo run of the snipper clips characters? I heard that I got so sad, but I found out Pear is not trying to collect every Amiibo anymore. Although I kind of don't believe him actually. He's like, I'm not. He's like, I'm out. You're going to, it's going to be some late night where he's going to order him. Yeah, there's all the Metroid Prime 4 ones that he let me scan. So maybe he's waiting to buy the tariff. Yep, yeah, I think so. Okay, uh, I don't know where to go from here. Was this game multiplayer focused in any way? No, not multiplayer. So it's not not Splatoon. Not snipper clips. Not arms. He's got some weirdo characters in it. Maybe it is arms. Is arms multiplayer focused? Yes, it is, yeah. What about the, uh, what about the, um, the wheelchair basketball game? Well, it's a switch one or two, though, right? We don't know. I mean, I did the same in my head. What else did they partner? You know, so that's like, like, second eight F zero, but that was obviously way before switch. And like, I'm just thinking about them farming out their franchise. They had, they had Namco make Star Fox. Was it, yeah. What was it you asked Sam? So it was a sports game. It is not a sports game. That's 10. Did this game review well at IGN? Yes. Did it, did we ask like when this came out? I'm curious if came out five years ago. What if it could be, because how's not Nintendo? So it could be Kirby. Yeah, airwriters. There's something. Yeah, airwriters. Well, except that's multiple. But that's iconic. Kirby is an iconic Nintendo character for sure. Not, doesn't star an iconic Nintendo character. But it's on the, it's on the switch. Is code like what I don't know. Tomodashi life. It's something. Yeah, I just think he means that's how the sports direction. Yeah. But not, but not multiplayer focus does eliminate a lot of the kind of like, you know, experimental stuff Nintendo's tried to get up to. Is this game when this game came out? Was it Nintendo switch one exclusive? Yes. Okay. So it's pre Nintendo switch two. Maybe it's like a more adult skewed game. The horror stuff. So we got like from 2016 to 2025. Not adult skewed like like half of my big games on sale on. Is it, is this game an RPG? Of a sort. Could be xenoblade, xenoblade chronicles. But those are just RPGs. Yeah, I would say those are just straight up because that's where I was going. Is it just advanced wars that, that's people or the, um, advanced ones to remake? That's pretty good. That's a pretty good question. Or even, even, even fire emblem, although that's made by that's made by Nintendo. So as I know, they're not co-developed. Oh, no, it does have a co-developer on it. Maybe they do. I mean, but intelligent systems is the lead developer. Is this a strategy game? Yes. So it's either fire emblem or advanced wars one and two boot camp remake or whatever it's called. Is this a, is this a remake or update of an older game? No, that's 15. Is this game set in an academy? Yes. Fire emblem, fire emblem, three houses. Uh, okay. Is the game fire emblem, three houses? Yes, it is. Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Found it out the year. Co-developed with Nintendo and Koei Tecmo. Oh, but I didn't remember that at all. I didn't know either. I did know that I was trying to come up with who was the co-developer. But yeah, that's, that's been a thing. It's interesting. I'm excited for the new one. Do you remember when this game came out and they sold millions and millions and millions of them and it took over and there was all the memes and jokes about Claude and the other characters and then they made a sequel and nobody cares. Wait, engage, which, oh, and yeah, I like to engage. I actually like to engage. I mean, I just, you didn't make a surprise, you read about that. If you had to say, or, you know, how there's always been, like, Martha and Roy. And so those are our iconic Nintendo characters because of Smash Brothers. And didn't I guess maybe the last game that iconic ones were, like, awakening because people knows those, those ones? What's up? Yeah. You know, yeah. I mean, if you had a dating simulator to your strategy game, I think that's, you know, that's a gold mine. They also didn't, I didn't play engage, but didn't engage, take all that stuff out. Correct. It's focused on combat. Just Nintendo, and look, I say this with love and as someone that loves Nintendo games. It's like, they're like, hey, the part that everybody loved about the last Fire Emblem game and made it a cultural phenomenon. Should we do that again? Nah. I mean, that's what I said about awakening. I was like, let my units have a kid and pass off their attributes. That's so sick. That's so fun. Oh, totally. That's my favorite part too. I really think like just general advice for young game developers out there. If you add anime dating to your game, no matter what it is, it's going to work just to just go for it. I'm not saying I want that. I'm just giving you advice as a young girl. You will, I mean, we're saying this. 40% is a goof, like 40% for real. Of like, you will attract a different audience to your game. Yeah. Yeah, you make it a dual purpose game. Yeah. And I could say a city simulator to your, you know, hold on now, hold on. What if he had a scrolling action platformer? Well, pit exclusively. Yeah. What if we had a scrolling action game where you had a real-time strategy element, a la act razor? Let's do that again. Now right now we're cooking with gas. I just, but like, you like the anime sexies. A Fire Emblem that's also like a city simulator just sounds dope. That's all I'm like. You get to build the battlefield that you fight on. Oh, yeah, yeah. Justin's throwing up in the corner. You get to, you get to date all the buildings. Yeah, that's great, Sam. Yeah. Well, nicely job. And thank you for the suggestion, mav from Oregon. It's almost wraps up our soups for the show. We're going to be taking the next week off. for the holiday. But then we will be back with more and more scoop of the year. We're going to record on Tuesday, December 30. So please be excited for that. But while we're off next week, everyone, let's share what you're sort of like Christmas gaming plans are. Sam, I know you're in Kansas. Yes, I'm playing a game for the show. Should I, should I mention that or is that a secret? We'll save that one for a little bit later. Okay. Okay. Then I'm going to finish the stuff, my task and Metroid Prime, and then I have a date with I believe, but now outer world is really shining through. I don't know how it runs on Steam Deck, but it's a very fun. Plenty to play though, especially after this show, you all reminded me of a bunch of games that I get back to or try out. Justin, have a few. I have a few things. One, I promised my kids that we're going to, I'm actually really looking forward to it. We're going to start a family Minecraft world. Okay. And then I'm going to, we're going to teach my wife to play to who, you know, she's not a gamer in the way I'm a gamer, but she does play, you know, she dabbles. And so this is someone who's being Skyrim multiple times, right? Yeah, that's my, that's my, that's my anecdote about my wife. She's a schoolteacher in every summer. She has a summer game. And so she does not play video games, doesn't follow video games, doesn't care about them. But like one summer, it's just like, it's the summer of Skyrim, and then it was Resident Evil, and it's been some different stuff over the years. So we're all going to, we're all going to play family Minecraft together. And then personally, I haven't started Metroid Prime yet. So I'm going to get into, you know, I'm looking forward to, you know, the, the, the criticism of like, oh, it's kind of old school. And it feels like a video game from 15 or 20 years ago. Like, look, that's a legitimate criticism. But that also appeals to certain people in a certain way of like, yeah, like I want to play just a little bit more old school feeling action adventure. And so I think that's going to be a perfect. Even if there's really like one of those situations where this is, it's not a bad start to the game, but it does get better. Like, it's not bad. I'm not saying like, get through the first four hours, but like the game becomes more of what you expect it to be later. So it's not surprising, but it's like, great. I mean, I totally, it's gorgeous. It is so awesome looking. Yeah, I totally get it. And I just, we don't, it's that feeling of like, you know, this type of game just goes away before you know it. Like, you know, a decade ago, everything was open-world action adventure RPGs. And now those are actually kind of not around that much anymore. You know, right? So, you know, the ground shifts under your feet. And I am excited to get into Metroid. Western BioWare style RPGs just went away. Yep. Nick, what are your plans? Yeah. I just finished act two of Baldur's Gate 3. I'm at 84 hours right now. So I'm hopefully going to try and roll credits on that game by the time. It's your first time going through it. So I only got to act one when I played the game at 1.0. Oh, bro. So, and I didn't, yeah, I know. So now I'm like, I'm all in. I'm, I got my forgotten realm's books behind me. I'm learning about the monster, a monster of the day. And apart from that, though, I'm going to try and roll credits on Metroid Prime 4 as well as the secret game that we're all playing. I don't have to do. After the show, tell me, I don't know what you're referring to. So it's, it's, it's not going to be that impressive. Nick, but the act three. Oh, man, I never even get that show greenlit. Send me, send me messages because I just, I can't like, well, first of all, act three is also another hundred hours. Oh, no. Like it's so, it's almost like it is kind of a criticism. Like it's too big. It's too big and too long. I love it. I don't want it to end, man. Yeah. I love it. So, I mean, you're, you're going to be, it's like every single house has, you know, a murder in the basement in a side quest. Like it's a giant city that takes no shortcuts and no, like it's unbelievable how big it is. And like that's why it broke. Everybody's, you know, that's why act three was broken for like a year and a half. Like I assume this is the city of its namesake Baldur's Gate. Well, yeah. Yes. Although, you know, I mean, yes. You get an airship and an act three and get to cruise around. That'd be sick. I will be home for the holidays here in LA and my wife's family is coming here. So, we'll have a full house. And I'm making the ham, which really just means warmly. Oh, yeah. And then, uh, Kingo is getting Mario Galaxy 1 and 2. Oh, and I, I'm actually looking forward to that because I've never played Galaxy 2. Hey, I just redid the guides for there. It's really nice now. Cool. And, and they have sortable tables for getting all of the, uh, the, the stars. And those are like, not straightforward in those games. So, recommend checking it. Introduce strategy. He is also getting, uh, the limited edition after about PS5 controller. He's going to be really stoked about that. Nice. And then every year, I like to spend at least one evening, uh, playing games that I got for Christmas as a kid. Oh, that's cute. I scroll up on the sofa with one of my, one of my retro gaming handhelds and play Super Mario Brothers 2 and a Kari Warriors and Festers Quest and bad dudes and, of course, Splatter House. Oh, no. But everyone out there in scoop nation. I hope you have a very happy holidays. Thanks for hanging out with us all year long. We're only taking one a week off next week. We'll be back the week after that. But everybody, uh, stay safe and have, play lots of really fun games over the holidays. That is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Joey. Working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is Ijane Gamescoop and we're out. Perfect timing, my man. I can, I can smell that book that Sam's holding on his hands 100%. The pipe actually tastes spicy from like ancient nicotine at it. I believe it was. That's cool. Justin, we're all playing the original bruh. Is it still fun today? Okay, I got it, got it, got it. Yeah, that's rad. That was really fun. Happy, uh, happy Christmas, everybody. Have a good time. Yeah, I'm Chris. I'm going to have a guard right now, Damon. Oh my gosh. Jealous. Yeah. See you guys better. Bye. Since yesterday it was the 10th anniversary of Force Awakens. I watched it with the kids. It's okay. Give me. I would not say that. It's fun. It's fundamentally flawed. It gets the whole trilogy off on the wrong foot because right from the get go, there's just another empire, just another rebellion and it's like, well, it's the remake stuff is so bad. Like, why are we just retreading all the stuff? It starts on a desert planet. Like, why did we do this? But it moves along at a great pace, especially that first hour. It's just like, you never get a chance to catch your breath in a good way. It's just bouncing from Kylo to Poe to Torrey to Finn and there are really great moments sprinkled throughout the movie. So I just got to like on Facebook memories like all the album draft house, marquee and shit show up for seeing that. Yeah. And we were all there. That was that might have been the last time. That might have been the last time Jamie hung out within the IGN people because it was all like we had kids and then it was like, I'm never going to see these people again. Do you so McCaffrey named dropped this game gate guard simulator? Did you watch that trailer yet? I can't wait. It sounds awesome. It's pretty funny. The trailer is pretty funny. So the gameplay seems like based off the trailer that it's like papers, please, where you are a gate guard of a medieval castle and then people are coming in and trying to get in the castle except it's like silly and like someone's trying to like smuggle, you know, someone there's a clip in the trailer. There were someone's trying to smuggle like rabbits in and then you can take the bribe or not take the bribe to like let them let the rabbits in the sun. I hope there's dialogue options like who goes there? What the heck? We're nights fist bumping back in the day. Yeah. It's like the poor gate guard at the village of Bree. Yeah. It's probably smashed by the gate. Yeah. When the hobbit started yelling at him, he's like, all right, little, sorry. I'm sorry, master hobbit. I like the second little door, the little hobbit door. That's such a Peter Jackson thing. Yeah. Yeah. So this game looks great. Yeah. No, no, get out of here. Duck. Oh my gosh. You've got a box. Any punches are in the face? Jesus, rabbits. No rabbits. No rabbits. Yeah. Kings said no rabbits. Yeah. I know. And like this trailer went totally viral on IG. A big hit. Yeah. I mean, maybe, but like it's a good, it's a good like I'll play it for one evening game. Yeah. This is one where like it really depends on if the people like wrote this that no English really well too. Oh, you guys want to know that the top five most popular IGN reviews of the year are I just put this together. This is a combination of O and O and YouTube numbers. The number five is Donkey Kong, Bonanza, number four is Assassin's Creed shadows, three is Doom the Dark Ages, two is Kingdom Come Deliverance and one is clear obscure. Yeah. Is this the show or are we doing? I was going to say, what happened to Joe? I did a 10 count and then we didn't hear from you. It's okay. You were enthralled with our small talk with our chit chat. This is our zips abs opt. This is how we this is how we get loose. Whibble, whibble, bible, bam. Okay. I'm going to start in character so you could either go to a wide or wait for me. but introduce me last. - Okay. (laughing)