Deciding The Greatest Video Game Sequel of ALL TIME - Kinda Funny Gamescast

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If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go to Patreon.com slash kind of funny. yo what's up welcome to kind of funny games cast for wednesday march 11th 2026 i'm your host blessing addio jr joining me is the master of hype snow mike mike good morning big bless oh that's crazy well you know what i was gonna tell you you're killing it it's been a long week I'm feeling it just so you know I had a long day last night and so I wanted to check in with you halfway through GDC week how are we feeling feeling good um it was real tough yesterday yesterday I was feeling it because I went to the mix had two glasses of wine at the mix while socializing with everybody and then went to volleyball afterwards uh 9 9 15 game for volleyball okay did that yeah came back home collapsed came back home was just tired yesterday of course GDC's still going. We had events we were going to. Doesn't stop. I hit a point toward the end of the day, the end of the work day where I was like, I could stay out. I could keep hanging out with friends. Or I could go home and recharge and take back the night Wednesday night. Oh, bless. What'd you do? I went home. Last night I went home. Last night I went home and you know what I did? I streamed some of that Ghost of Yotei Legends. It's out. And it's hidden already. Already, we're still back. Gamescast plays tomorrow. You and Roger sitting down with it. I'm a little frustrated and mad that it wasn't committed to full four players. I definitely get that. It's like, hey, it's two players, and then we bring in four for the big ones. I do wish it was like, hey, one through four players, here we go. I agree with that. I think it does break up the pace a bit, because I can't just hang out with all these people, and now it's like, well, now we have to matchmake. It's a whole thing. Can you not matchmake with four? Or is it just like, no matter what, you're always two, and then you rando four? No, I'm pretty sure you can matchmake with four. Or you can invite four. But it's like you just can't do four for like the regular. But you can do survival. Oh, four players? I'm not sure. But I imagine so. Somebody check me on that. Some jabroni said, Mike, it's only Wednesday. Blessing God his rest day. Today's my rest day. Today's your rest day. So I've been going hard all weekend long, which has been great. It's only Wednesday. We did a six-hour live stream on Monday showing off a bunch of live demos. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. I had the late nights. Then bless. I had a nice late night on Tuesday. But then guess what? What's that? I came home. Yeah. Played more Overwatch. Yeah. Comp. Come on. Three or four. Plus, I'm dialed in right now. Yeah. I'm seeing. Well, I'm also watching One Piece on the second monitor, so I'm not all the way dialed in. You're playing Rainbow and watching One Piece? But I'm watching One Piece. They're in Longtown, bro. Home of the Marines, dude. It's pretty lit. It's pretty lit. Live action One Piece. It's pretty lit, bro. Yeah, yeah. Tonight is the night. I'm going crazy, though, just so you know. I love that. Tonight's the night. I'm taking back the night. I got to watch the One Piece live action. Plus, you're going to love it and appreciate it because you, you've been working on your fitness and your bod. This season, the team, all of the One Piece cast worked on their bods because they said, we're going to wear less clothing. And hot bods left and right, bro. They dialed in. And you know what else is dialed in? This show today. Yes. You really put together one killer bracket. You and the audience came together. You came up with a fun idea. I'll tell you what. I'm a little concerned. Feelings are going to get hurt today. I need everybody. This is what I need. Ah, cool. Live chat, YouTube comments, Spotify comments, Blue Sky. Not you, Twitter. You go crazy no matter what. We all need to come together. We got to hold hands and go, hey, we got to be mature about this. This is for fun. Absolutely not. We're having fun here. We're debating. No fun. We are. Feelings are going to get hurt. In fact, everybody's feelings are going to get hurt, except for one game. One game. And you know what's fun about this? Is that I don't know what game. I don't know what game is going to win this. I'm not talking too hard about it. I have some heavy, like, big dogs in the race. But, yeah, any game could win this. Any game could win this. And I'm going to poll the Twitch chat every single game. Then this is what. I will have a poll for the Twitch chat every time. We're going to explain this, right? Because, of course, if you're watching live, you can be a part of the show by super chatting in YouTube.com. It's kind of funny games. Shout out Patreon producers Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney the Psalm Twining. For now, let's begin with Topic of the Show. we are doing a march madness bracket i was looking forward to this i was like the month of march is coming up and i look forward to march you know why because theoretically i want to make a bracket happen it doesn't always happen but i wanted to make it happen i wanted to make it happen this year yes because last time me and you did a bracket i think it was a fantastic piece of i remember that i remember that i love doing brackets on the show you got to celebrate march madness you got to celebrate march madness of course if you're watching live you can celebrate march madness by super chatting in let us know what your picks are for this bracket as we make our way through it yeah i'll explain the bracket first and then we'll get into ground rules okay the bracket that we're doing we are deciding the best video game sequel that is the best game that is the number two in the series it's the second game in the series we'll get into it because i made i think i made only one exception there was a lot of conversations happening oh about what's eligible or not i brought up god of war ragnarok i brought up tears of the kingdom and then i decided those aren't going to make the bracket even though those are some of my favorite games ever but i think those games are very much possible because of everything that came before yes that's why i was like we can't do god of war ragnarok even though it's a sequel i can't do tears of the kingdom because there's been a billion zelda games we built up toward this right what's up barrett no bear say it but tears of the kingdom direct sequel to yeah breath of the wild but it's breath of the wild possible without all of the zelda games that came before it that's my thing is like i think number two in the series you know what i mean like i feel like that gives those games such a leg up i like that people are booing me in chat you can boo me you can boo me i try to make this as fair as possible you know what i mean because like i think those games have such a leg up because we had a billion games to get here that yeah like sure those games are sequels to the games that came before them, but we need to have some restriction or else everything is eligible. That's where I'm at. I love it. I love it, Bless. That's where I'm at. You're the commish, Bless. You're the commish, Bless. I made a couple of exceptions. Set the rules. Red Dead Redemption 2. Red Dead Redemption 2. I made an exception for that. We couldn't have got there without everything that came before it. Technically the third, but it's the second. I mean, okay, should I put Red Dead Redemption 1 on this list then? Because we all agree that that would be stupid, right? if I put Red Dead Redemption 1 on this list like Chad do you want me to do that for the best sequels no you don't so I made that call we're doing Red Dead Redemption 2 because nobody even knows what Red Dead Redemption 2 is anyway they don't remember that what was the other they're riding you for Metal Gear Solid 2 I mean do y'all think that's crazy I'll delete it from the list I don't think so at all I look at Solid as different from Metal Gear but like if we can have the conversation right now we can set the tone right now Chad Should we read out for people what's on there right now? Yes, let's read out for the people, especially the audio listeners who are listening right now. So we have 32 games here. Starting off, I'm going to read this by the way they're listed. I have four different brackets here. But starting off on the modern side, we have Red Dead Redemption 2, Nier Automata, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Dark Souls 2. I'll read the verses, actually, right? So Red Dead 2 is facing off against Nier Automata. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is facing off against Dark Souls 2 in the first round. the last was part two is facing off against titanfall two alan wick two is facing off against hades two right that's the first part of the bracket yeah moving down to the hd bracket mass effect two is facing off against saints road two assassin's creed two is facing off against batman arkham city portal two is facing off against dead space two infamous two is facing off against uncharted two moving up to the memory card part a memory card being i have like specific things here right so memory card is around 2001 to 2007 oh i thought you were just making up fun names no so these are based on era and so interesting you grouped them up on era i grouped them up based on era so modern is 2014 and after hd is oh wait to 2013 i try to like have these be generational a little bit but it's not super clean for reasons um and then the memory card era that's like ps2 gamecube right uh that's 2001 to 2007 and then i have the classics that's 2001 and before you will notice that it gets a little bit weird with those two we picked the games and then i divided them and so like the 2001 games get a bit split between both i was doing my best chat so moving on the memory card um bracket has half-life 2 versus nba street volume 2 soul caliber 2 versus smash melee god of war 2 versus slide 2 kingdom hearts 2 versus halo 2 and then moving down to the classics we got tony hawk pro skater 2 versus diablo 2 age of empires 2 versus street fighter 2 pokemon golden silver versus silent hill 2 and resident evil 2 versus metal gear solid 2 that's a lot of great twos a lot of great twos you might be asking how were these games chosen don't get mad at me get mad at yourselves oh don't get mad at me get bad get mad at yourselves because i put up a poll last week asking everybody i put it on socials i put it on patreon i think people reposted it onto reddit i asked hey i'm working on a games cast tell me what is the best video game sequels i pulled the most popular answers that's crazy you did it to him like that these were the most popular answers so chat when you want to cry about silksong being not being here that's on you that's on you marvel versus capcom 2 not being here that's on you that's crazy you did it to him like that that's on you and so um that's how i that's how we uh compiled most of the games we then had a few that was like kind of tiebreakers and so me and mike uh had to like choose the last few to make it onto the list just based off of our own tastes and then if you're wondering seating because these are seated uh placements here seating is based off of metacritic score so i made this as mathematical as possible all right pulled from you the audience i pulled from a quote-unquote objective source of metacritic to do the seating so what i'm saying is that don't get mad at me be mad at yourselves are there any questions as we as we're making our way through no i think you stated that very well bless very excited also bless i just want to let you know all my complaints before we're just ribbing you you know i don't i don't really care now it's just a fun we can have the conversation right now because mgs2 sounds like it's a controversial one do we replace i don't have any problem with it i don't have a problem with it either i love as many people know i love metal gear solid 2 yeah i love talking about it i love thinking about it i'll go i'll go to war for metal gear solid 2 since so will i so damn daddy but i just want to make sure i just want to make sure we're fair i just want to make sure because like it's one of those like i get it because there's metal gear right but like who who really went back and played those metal gear games are we gonna be are we gonna be i mean oldies you know i'm sure jeff gerstman played it i love jeff gerstman um but like i here's another thing i'll shout out right is when i put up the poll i said second in the franchise like even the second game in the franchise really what i meant to type out and for some reason i thought i deleted it and redid it but it it went up as franchise i meant to say second in a series yeah i wasn't trying to be that strict about it um tears of the kingdom and god of war ragnarok just felt like there's so much story that builds into like god of war 2018 you need those other god of war games to get to god of war 18 right so like i feel like ragnarok for me isn't it's a sequel but it's not for the what we're talking about here tears of the kingdom different but similar sort of thing metal gear solid 2 feels like such a direct sequel like it feels like such a, like, it feels like a different thing. It feels like almost like a different series than the original Metal Gear games is what I'm trying to say. But if we're mad about it, I can switch it, but it sounds like we're good. Plus, I think the people are good with it. You think the people are good? The people are here to have fun. Let me tell you a little secret about this. Yeah. It won't go far. Oh, shit. It won't go far. Okay. There's a lot of heat on this bracket, and I'm promising you, Metal Gear Solid 2's not going far. So, let's talk about it, Mike. Some ground rules I want to established. So it's me and you deciding the winners of each of these. However, if me and you disagree, we're going to put it up to the audience. And I'm going to poll them regardless every single time. Because I do want to hear from you. You're going to poll them regardless? Every time I will poll them on the Twitch chat exclusively. So if you're on YouTube, jump over to Twitch because I'm only doing one poll. But I do want to just hear their voices. We'll read their chat comments. You can super chat on YouTube to get involved in the conversation. But I want to see where they're vibing. I want to have a little feeling. If they tie, can I be the final vote? Yes. Okay. Yeah, so the live audience will break me and Mike's ties. If the audience ties, it'll go to Barrett. And I know y'all motherfuckers don't want it to go to Barrett. I know y'all don't want it to go to Barrett. And so make up your mind. Slide two all the way. A few more things, right? This is a ground rule I'm putting. I'm giving you, Mike. Ground rule. All right. Don't just have the audience pick it every time because I know you. No, no. I know you. Are you going to be like, I don't know. Let's just have the audience pick it and you're going to go the other way. Here's what I did. I need you to have an opinion. For my homework, I picked my favorite. Okay. So I didn't, I don't want to say I studied up on every single one. I went down each kind of like versus and I picked one. I was like, this is my game that I ride for. So I'm going to kind of bring the insights, the vibes for certain games on this list. Okay. And I'm going to ride for them. You know what's funny? I've not thought about this at all. I put together the racket. You're my dude. You don't, you look really good in that jacket today too. Thank you. I appreciate it. I got to stop looking over at that jacket. It's dope. I got a new necklace too. I've been trying to like up my style. You know what I mean? Your steez is up, bro. I appreciate it. Your steez is up. guy at that event yeah the event that's my guy your best friends with we're leaving the event we're at yesterday mike's like you say what's up to my guy and i look back and it's the security guard i'm like oh model influencer 100 000 on instagram no shot in a doja cat music video on a pilot for a tv show hoping to get picked up on amazon prime guys got game get this i go to follow him on instagram who's following him michael hyam and lisa wallett and he goes oh yeah i just met them in the morning session. I know those are my people. That's so funny. Shout out to Alonzo, man. That guy's going places. Damn, I didn't know all that. You should have told me that yesterday. I would have been laughing. I would have dapped him up. You would have been dying of laughter, man. Okay, last thing before we get into this. Yeah. What are you judging for? What's your criteria of what makes it best? I mean, there's just so much, Bless, right? Like, did you improve upon the first one? Did you leave a lasting impact in gaming culture, right? Like, was the game just better and more fun to play? Is it memorable, right? Was it a flop? Were people talking about it? Maybe they were mad that it wasn't as good as the first one, right? It's all going into my pot. And I guess, like, at the end of the day, I'm going for the best sequel to me was the one that left the most lasting impression on me going, that was so good as the second game of this series. That was the one. Yeah, I love that. That's what I'm looking for. I think I'm right there with you. Because there's a couple on here where you look at and you go, that's the one. For me, it really is, how well do you function as a sequel? How well do you continue the story of the last game? And when I say story, I mean narrative, but not just narrative, right? How well do you continue the legacy of the first game? How well do you up the legacy of that previous game? How well do you improve on the mechanics? How well do you push things forward from where we're at in the first game? For me, a video game sequel, the best video game sequels, are sequels that reinvent, not even reinvent, innovate the franchise. You know what I mean? I'm talking about like the Assassin's Creed 2s, where it's like, damn, I'll push this forward. That's what I'm looking for. Yeah, I like that, Bless. I think we all feel pretty good about this. Yeah, let's get into it. Now, where do you want to start? We got four brackets here. Modern, HD, memory card, and class. I mean, I feel like you always start on top left, right? Like you just kind of read the paper like that and you just go top left. So top left, we have our number one seed, Red Dead Redemption 2, versus our number eight seed, Nier Automata. And Mike, I'm going to tell you. Pull us out. That this is easy for me. Without question. Wow. Without question. Really? I'm going Nier Automata. What? Without question. Okay. Without question. I feel like you're wrong on that one because I'm going Red Dead Redemption 2, one of the greatest sandboxes of all time. One of the most fun and gripping narratives of all time. Riding along with the crew. Dutch's crew. Right? Have you talked to me about the Automata? You want to talk about gripping narratives? Well, that's what we're going to talk about. Let's talk about it. Riding the high off of Westworld, of course, Red Dead Redemption 1. We don't really talk about Red Dead Revolver unless you're a super old head on that. But like the idea of where Rockstar was, the GTA lineage building into Red Dead Redemption 2, the ultimate Western cowboy sandbox that you could play, do anything in, horse testicles. Feels like it's the ultimate sequel. Listen, I appreciate a horse testicle here and there. Yeah. But for me, horse testicles don't live up to what New York Automata was doing narratively as a video game. It is a story that only works as a video game. You know, we talk a lot about the different endings and, you know, you go back into the game and get to experience a different perspective by changing character perspectives and all that stuff. Like they tell a story that is so interesting, so moving. And, you know, I think so deep when it comes to what it wants to say about the human experience and what makes us human and what makes us what makes us feel our emotions. What like, you know, the different, I guess, different ways to present humanity. Like it is a very philosophical game. it is a game that i think it is an interesting mirror actually to red dead redemption 2 because i don't disagree with you on red redemption 2 i know how much people love the story there and i think red dead redemption 2 is such a good example of what you can do with like a cinematic almost like blockbuster western style story and i think that's so special that red dead redemption 2 does that and i think it's the perfect mirror to like when you then take that to a to a japanese action an RPG that is about androids beating the shit out of like robots and shit. But like they take it and they tell a story that is so serious and so grounded and so interesting and has so many layers to it. Nier Automata is a special game for that. And then we go further and talk about the gameplay. We talk about platinum games and how well they do hack and slash. But in Nier Automata, they mix that up with like shooting up style gameplay to make for a really interesting back and forth where you're hacking, you're slashing, but you're also doing third person shooting. But then if you're playing as 9S, you can then transform into like his little shoot-em-up mode to hack enemies and shit. It was doing Pragmata before Pragmata. Okay. I mean, that's a lot of positives going in there, Bless. But what about GTA as a cowboy? Shooting your revolver off horseback. The cinematic camera on your horseback. The bit to do anything in this giant Western world lifestyle. Sitting down and playing poker. Running off and trying to rob a railroad car while it's driving by you. You and your crew hunting, going back to camp, talking and getting involved with the crew and what's going off, getting ready for your next mission where maybe you're going to go down the countryside, roll up to one giant mansion, maybe light that thing on fire and ride off with your crew. I mean, nothing. I mean, Red Dead is the ultimate cowboy simulator. When I think of a Wild Wild West movie, what I want to do, it's everything, Bless. It has it all. But is it fun, Mike? Is it fun? Is it fun, though, Mike? Of course it's fun. I want to keep coming back. Of course, Bless. I don't know, man. It's an interesting one of, like, when you talk with people of Red Dead 2 and, like, truly when we put all the bracket BS, right? Like, how people vibe with Red Dead and, like, what they vibe with. Do they like it at all, right? And it's interesting being in these walls, it's not the highest, like, people vibing with that game, right? But, like, for me, I am a GTA kid through and through. I love the mechanics, the feel of GTA, the gameplay of GTA. So it's, like, putting that in the Wild West world, I'm already in sold, right? I have no problems playing that being involved that i know the mission structure how they build out the story the length of the game it's like for me it was the cities and the towns and how they built those out how good it looked right and being really immersed in this western world and like this was it i loved this one i love that i i we can go back and forth with this all day and we're gonna probably have more time to talk about at least one of these games um but one thing i want to shout out for red dead one thing i want to shout out to for near automata near automata one of the best soundtracks of all time that's a top five video game soundtrack maybe top three possibly top one if i think about it uh red dead redemption 2 i remember in the conversation about it uh during review time for that game where somebody mentioned that this red dead redemption 2 feels like the most expensive indie game ever made which i know sounds insane because it's the most triple a game one of the most triple a games ever made but they say that to say that it is so focused into what it presents as the cowboy fantasy that it it like circumvents triple a design in some ways to make sure that it gives you the most um not accurate but i guess like the most immersive cowboy experience possible like that is a cowboy video game you know fuck uh uh what do they call it like um play testing not play testing but you focus testing that's the word i'm looking for fuck focus testing fuck like the established triple a uh mechanics that games have figured out years over years over years we want to make the game that we want to make we're gonna make the game that we want to make and i think there's something that is special about that when i look at red dead or dm2 even though for me as i got halfway through that game i just felt myself being like i don't care yeah as much as i'd like to care about what's happening here well the chat disagrees with you bless because red dead uh two has been voted in there we go 115 to 85 so i do want to give a big there we go tip the hat To Nier, I was going to say, Nier really showed up. So there's an audience out there that believes in Nier. I mean, of course, you see. That's 42% of people that voted for Nier. Our audience in the live chat is very split of like a lot of people saying Red Dead Redemption 2. Boring. Too boring after X amount of hours. And I always found the Rockstar games of like, you make your own fun, right? Like you are in charge of having that. Grand Theft Auto, you summon in the tank or the helicopter, you get weird. Red Dead, I'm off on the horse. I go make my own adventure, right? And so, yeah, it's an interesting way of how people approach this one. yeah and i reject people because it's me in chat and i think most people will have the feeling of like oh that's your attention span or whatever right i fully reject that yeah you know i mean i think there is a lot of legitimate criticism for how you approach game design and how you make game design interesting for the player and create a gameplay loop that makes people want to keep coming back but also like i respect that i respect if you want to like take the fantasy the cowboy fantasy part and have that be more of the thing you focus on at the detriment of the other thing but I also have the freedom to be like, I don't like that. I think that's not great. Do we also add in Red Dead Online? Do you start to add in what that created with GTA Online now into Red Dead Online of making that third world where friends can go and meet up and live out that cowboy? Does Red Dead Online still run? Yeah, I believe so. Okay. I don't know why I thought they... Did they stop updating it? Is that what it was? I don't know. I think people still play that. I haven't heard people bring up Red Dead Online in a while. I think that's a very small audience compared to GTA. I think you have to be diehard, diehard to play Red Dead online for sure. But also, pretty wild that they did that. I mean, you knew they were going to, but still pretty sick. Let's move on to our second matchup. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 versus Dark Souls 2. And really quick, Mike. We should have put Nier over Red Dead just to get the chat to go crazy and the YouTube comments right off the rip. But I want us to be genuine because I knew you were going to go Red Dead there and I knew the audience was going to go Red Dead. Really quick with these polls, Mike, let's do two minutes for the poll length. You don't think we're going to talk about each one of these for about five minutes? Well, I don't want to get to like if every conversation, like if some conversations get to like two or three minutes. Okay. I don't want us to like have to wait on the two minutes because I don't think this one is going to be two minutes. What? Can you come to learn as two versus Dark Souls 2? Blessing. I'm on both sides of the fence for this one, and I got arguments for both. Give it to me. You tell me really quick while I write this up. What do you got? I mean, obviously, I've not played, well, and I say obviously, I've not played Dark Souls 2. I just finished Dark Souls 1 at the beginning of the year. I played a little bit of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. I know the reputation of Dark Souls 2. If I had to. The most hated Dark Souls game of the series. If I'm shooting from the hip, I'm actually going to say Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. I love that. And that's why I'm on both sides of the fence, because I'm going to make arguments for both. But, of course, I'll start with my favorite Souls game of the series, because Dark Souls 2 was my first. And usually you hold on to your first a little bit higher than the rest of them. But it is funny because Dark Souls 2 is the most hated out of the Soulsborne experience. But then when people try it and play it, they open up their heart and they start to believe. They start to see the highest Metacritic Souls-like game. 91 on Metacritic. I think that might have changed over time but still the highest one I believe at the time being Three DLCs memorable moments Majula and the Emerald Herald Majula best Dark Souls hub area The Emerald Herald, best maiden for sure. This was so much fun, Bless. I wish more people would open up their hearts and play Dark Souls 2. I have such fond memories for it. And the DLCs, three packed DLCs, big DLCs. And of course, everyone remembers the Ivory King, which is all about the frozen tundra. You, if you played it, you know it. And Bless, I want you to one day get to this. Oh, I will. Because it is frustrating. It is banging your head against the wall. Why, why, why? But it's also so much fun. And I think more people, if they gave that a try, they would love that. Here's the flip side. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is the ultimate RPG. It is so deep. It is so much fun. Hans and Henry's story all the way through, that is just so good. It's like 40 to 80 hours, make your own adventure, 100 plus hours. Awesome RPG. This was one, what, last year it came out and swept the world by storm. The first one, sleeper hit, people loved. Second one, this was like, put this name on the map. It's for real, right? And it's like so much fun. It's very in-depth. it is a make your own adventure live in this world, get lost in this world spend as much time as you want I describe it as like you crawl for so many hours in this game it's a snail's pace and you look up and you're like how am I still on this one mission and then you go it doesn't matter the world is so beautiful, the music is so great I'm so lost in this narrative in this story that I'm doing right now that I don't care where I am and what time it is, all I want to do is stay in this and it's so good, Bless what's your pick? kingdom come deliverance it's kingdom come deliverance too like you know obviously i'm more of a dark souls person than i am a kingdom come deliverance person but if we're talking about the best sequel i know the way people talk about dark souls 2 as a sequel versus the way people talk about kingdom come deliverance as a sequel right if this is the battle of the twos it has to be kingdom come deliverance too the battle of the twos all right give it take all shucks what does the audience say uh they said kingdom come deliverance too nice what was the the vote you have i'm deliverance too by a lot by a lot okay there you go 100 like 40. Wow our next matchup the last was part two versus titanfall two uh one made me hate myself and one made me hate ea that's good i like that thank you i like that one uh yeah i mean the last of us two all about dread just a gut-wrenching story right off the rip and one of those of like kind of hard to get through, but really, really good. Yeah. On the flip side, Titanfall two. Wow. What an all timer and a special game that was sorely missed back then because it was sandwiched between two gigantic video games and kind of got its lunch eaten. And unfortunately a lot of people didn't come back to it until late and kind of miss that moment of this is the launch. This is when it should be ultimately big, but it was just in between so many games. They buried one of the best modern shooters of our time. Of course, between Call of Duty and Battlefield, right in the middle of them. You couldn't breathe. There were so many games to play. And we talk about the three big shooters. We always kind of talk about like the fall and having all these shooters. That moment right there will go down in its history of like, that game was never going to come up and get an audience because it was just sandwiched between two massive, already well-known super titles coming hot off of an Xbox exclusivity with Titanfall 1. Yeah. Now adding a campaign that is a sleeper hit. Time distribution. Time... No. Dilation. Dilation. That's a future spoiler joke. Oh, they don't even know that reference yet. That's a future spoiler joke for a kind of funny show that you're going to die laughing at. That's so funny. This one is special. It's really, really good. The Titanfall 2 is one of the best first-person shooter campaigns I've ever played, right? The cause and effect, is that the name of the mission? Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah, the one where you're jumping between timelines. Super cool. So good. One of the coolest first-person shooter levels I've ever played. And, like, the ending and getting a certain weapon and, like, wall running and doing all this. Like, Titanfall 2 is one that I think people often look back at so fondly. And I think people always have those feelings when it comes up of, like, man, I fucked with Titanfall 2. Like, I think it's one of those. Yeah. However, I don't think it stands a chance against Last of Us 2. I think Last of Us 2 is such a clue. And I'm, like, I'm somebody who has my own critiques of Last of Us 2. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. but I think Last of Us 2 is just such a good game. It goes for more. It has a gameplay loop and gameplay mechanics that play together so well when we're talking about the combat and how we often compare it to Hotline Miami as far as how it flows and as far as how well animated you're in it for that combat. And then you want to talk about the story and how daring is the word I would say, how daring it is and how it'll work for some people might not work for other people, might make other people hate the video game. but I like games that make people hate it sometimes I like that bless this was our closest poll and I will say that my vote would go to Titanfall 2 I think the right vote is Last of Us 2 my vote of like what game I like more and what's my favorite sequel Titanfall 2 especially as a follow up to the first Titanfall which is like an Xbox exclusive just multiplayer and then like them totally like pivoting and like making something so memorable now here's the deal the audience Titanfall 2 48% with 109 votes. Last of Us Part 2 118 votes with 52%. That's crazy. That's our closest poll. There was a good length of time where Titanfall 2 was leading. That's crazy. Good for Titanfall 2. But Last of Us 2 is also just a controversial one where not everybody's going to agree on that game. But it's a really good game. But that's art. You know what I mean? A really good game. Next matchup. Oh shit. Alan Wake 2 versus Hades 2. I mean I'm a Hades 2 guy I'm a Hades 2 guy Oh fuck both of you I'm a Hades 2 guy Here's what I'll say about Alan Wake 2 I love Alan Wake 2 I love Alan Wake 2 It insists upon itself though Barrett Like those are real Those are real What do you mean It insists upon itself Expand by that What the fuck do you mean by that It insists upon itself It insists upon itself You know it is what it is You watch the Family Guy episode Whatever he said I mean You know I think it's cool I didn't love Alan Wake 2 As much as the world loved Alan Wake 2 And I don't even have like a legitimate like This is why I think it just didn't vibe with me like that You're like going into the mind palace? No. Like I thought it was cool. Everything about Alan Wake 2 for me is more conceptually cool than it is executionally cool. Yeah. Which is a word I made up. But you get what I mean, right? Like playing Alan Wake 2, I was kind of like, all right, cool. It's like a weird Resident Evil style thing. And like they're trying to go for more narratively. And I think a lot of it is interesting. And the way they're pulling in like the first game with Control and then Quantum Break. Like Alan Wake 2 is doing this whole like universe shit. And the way they present it all is like so fucking rad. Yeah, but I think Control presents it. Control presents it in a cooler way. I love Control way more than I love Alan Wake, too. I know that's a hot take. I know that's a hot take. And I don't mean to be hot take-ish. It's just my genuine opinion. Hades 2, though. Hades 2. What does that do as a Seeds game ever? That's my question. I think it improves on Hades 1 exponentially. Like, if you remember, Hades 1 was a game that I also really liked, but wasn't like, that wasn't my game of the year. That was a game that I was like, oh, yeah, this is a damn good game. But I didn't feel like I was on the level of everybody else with how much they loved it. Hades 2 got me there. hades 2 added the the second route that like i think it goes crazy like both visually in terms of music and audio but then you want to talk about the weapons and like the different abilities and how they improved upon systems like the cast system which i did not like in the first game but in the second game like once i locked in on actually pressing the circle button let me tell you the hex in this game pretty good once you got dialed in once you got it dialed in you know Pretty good. I might have underrated at first. Yeah, no, Hades 2 just had me way more locked in. I think the gameplay is just way better in that game. We're both saying Hades 2 officially. Yeah. Okay. The chat's riding for Alan Wake 2 with Barrett over there. Yeah, that's what I expected. Yeah? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's really good. Alan Wake 2 is such a beloved game. Very good. Yeah. I like Hades 2. I like Hades 2. I like Hades 2. This is our... We're the deciders here. I like Hades 2. You come after us. You are the decider. You are the very first round of deciders here, and it's unfortunate that sometimes you guys are going to get it wrong. That's how it works. That's how it goes. I should have shouted out the seeding, by the way, because, of course, going back a few rounds, Dark Souls 2 was our fourth seed. Kingdom Come was our fifth seed. Lastest Part 2 was our third seed. Titanfall 2 was our sixth seed. And then Hades 2, our second seed, when we're talking about Metacritic Wars, and Alan Waite 2 was our seventh seed. And those are our picks for the first round of the Modern Bracket. Now, do you want to stick on the left side or do you want to hop over to the more retro side? A lot of fun ones over here. Let's go over to memory card. All right. We're going to go memory card again. These are games that released from about 01 to I want to say like 08-ish, 07, 07. And again, this isn't perfect. Some of the 01 games had to come down to the classics, but the most recent 01 game still made it into the memory card stuff. So starting off with our first matchup here, we have Half-Life 2 versus NBA Street Volume 2. Mike. Shut it down, Bless. You know what to say. You know, I mean, you know it. You and I both know what we're going to say. Am I going to say it or are you going to say it? NBA Street Volume 2. It's NBA Street Volume 2, baby. Sorry about that. Iconic soundtrack. Come on. Memorable characters. The Game Breaker. Fantastic basketball arenas. The Game Breaker, of course. You know that. Be a legend. Going on recruiting. and getting new players. Oh, my God. Three different Michael Jordans. Three different Michael Jordans. From three different eras. Three different eras of Michael Jordan. You put on all three Michael Jordans on the one team. Yeah. You can't do that in any other video game. You can't do that in Half-Life 2. He didn't even appear in half the video games that were being made at the time. How did they get him? And you can say that because you also played Half-Life 2. I played Half-Life 2, and I'm actually a Half-Life 1 over Half-Life 2 guy. Oh, really? I know that's a crazy take, but I actually enjoyed my time with Half-Life 1 more than Half-Life 2. But Half-Life 2, a very good video game. I'm really waiting for it to get that NVIDIA remix. Remember we did a fun stream with it? They have a demo out about it, but I can't wait to see them kind of remaster, remix that with all the NVIDIA bells and whistles. It will look really good and play well. But Half-Life 2, very good. Oh my god. Continuing Gordon Freeman's story onto that, where we're going, what they're doing with that. I can't wait to play Alex and see that. I want to play Alex 2. Roger keeps telling me that Half-Life 3 is real, and I don't believe him. But one day, crazy music in Half-Life as well. But I'm talking about NBA Street having some good music. Half-Life 2 and Half-Life have some insane music. I don't know who thought of the music in this game, but you'll just pause and be like, what is going on here? It's just banging in my ears. I got mad respect for Half-Life because I like the Valve games. I'm more of a portal person. I've tried both. I've streamed quite a bit of Black Mesa, actually. I've tried Half-Life 1 back in the day. Didn't get through it. I tried Half-Life 2 back in the day. didn't get all the way through it played a bit of black mesa did a full a few hours stream on it and like i think i have more respect for those games than i have like the actual again enjoyment factor one day i want to get through them all because i know they're those are video game history i know the impact of half-life 2 when you want to talk about the source engine and what that brought as far as like the physics systems that are really cool and like the gravity gun and what that does i got all the respect in the world for half-life 2 i'll never shade half-life 2 yeah However, I'm going to shade it so hard. I'm going to say this right now. No. If you don't vote for NBA Street Volume 2, you don't know ball. Okay? I agree. Okay? Here's the deal. 68% of the voters don't know ball. Here's the deal. NBA Street Volume 2 might be one of the greatest games of all time. Probably. It might be. It is. It's the GOAT. It's the GOAT, man. Game Breaker. Do you remember Game Breaker? You'd build up the bar off of doing six. This was at the moment that the world of basketball and just people in general were riding the high off of NBR and one basketball. We're talking young LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, big diesel. Everybody wanted to go out, grab a basketball and do the hot sauce. Okay. We wanted to do skip to my Lou. I wanted to go half amazing. I'm throwing basketballs off my father's forehead. I'm pretty sure I got detention one time for the off the heezy. throwing a basketball off my father's forehead you can't do that to people mb because of nba street volume 2 the amount of times during pe where i'm like doing the thing where i am throwing the ball off the backboard hopping and trying to score off of that like oh come on they got the culturally important game what who's the dj who's the mc that's always talking dj dj cucumber slice bobito garcia talking over the game yeah your ankle breaking building up the game breaker bar doing all these awesome moves. You're comboing them into alley-oops where one of your players would go off the, go do a backdoor cut, go up from the air, you'd throw an alley-oop to them. I'm about to shed tears right now, Mike. And then you fill up the Game Breaker bar. And it's like, oh, what does the Game Breaker bar do? Gives you an extra point and takes points from your opponents. So when you need it the most, you know you got it. Yeah. Somebody in chat says, I missed Tim. Tim would agree with us, by the way, just so you know. Yeah, Tim would 100%. Tim would be voting Red Bee Street. You think Tim is going to vote Half-Life 2? You think Tim is going to say Half-Life 2? Come on, guys. let's move on we're going to talk about masonry volume two more later let's move on to our next matchup soul caliber two versus smash melee bless this is one of the ones that i'll uh stay out of but i do vote for smash melee i don't know honestly i'm not a soul i really i should say half-life 2 was our number one seed nba street uh two was our number eight seed um smash melee number four soul caliber two number five seed i don't know if i now if i'm going off of personal what i played more what it is soul caliber two so i think i'm gonna lean soul caliber two i smash melee if you remember i talked about this before i didn't grow up with a gamecube i went n64 and then went to ps2 and then came back to nintendo with the nintendo we yes but smash 64 is like one of my favorite it's like that's that was a pivotal experience for me smash 64 is what got me into fighting games i know people will say it's a platform fighter whatever right funny enough still caliber 2 is the game that got me more into traditional fighting games so they're like two sides of a very similar coin to me i think soul caliber 2 might be a better game but i don't even know if i can say that smash melee man smash melee is like that's the holy grail for smash players that's the one that people are always trying to chase as far as like no this is the one I don't think Soul Calibur 2 has been surpassed in the Soul Calibur franchise I know a lot of people argue the same for Smash Melee but I think in other ways Smash Melee has been surpassed when you want to talk about the amount of content, the amount of modes Smash Ultimate of course Smash Ultimate goes crazy but I lean Soul Calibur 2 Okay well guess what the audience doesn't lean with you, they lean with me I'm not mad at either of these honestly The audience goes crazy with Smash Melee 128 to 42 okay well that's insane well i mean like that spread we don't have the biggest fighting game audience here yeah you know what that's fair they don't and also like so calbert 2 that's a long time ago melee still like like you said that's true it's in this world people still think about melee that's a good point still talk about it you still watch melee our next matchup god of war 2 versus sly 2 god of war being our number three seed sly 2 being our number six seed but we don't have roger here to ride for sly should we call him surprisingly goes crazy for sly it's god of war too yeah you know i would say god of war too that i just don't have that much of a god of war trilogy coming back out is gonna be a real special piece that's a special time in history god of war games with early kratos the blades of chaos and those whipping out on your screen and pulling people towards you going towards them spinning in circles that was like some crazy gaming back in 2000. And this one you had like the big sword as well. This is also the one where you go to the fates and you have to fight the fates to go back in time and screw over Zeus and all that. Like it was such a fucking great lead into God of War 3. Which I don't know if I would put down as like an official bullet point of why it's a good sequel but it's such a great follow up to the first one and expanding more on this character. Alright so God of War 2 makes it through. our next matchup, our final matchup with the memory card bracket. Kingdom Hearts 2 versus Halo 2. I see what you did there. You're trying to hurt me. Mike, take it. Hey, that's not me. You're trying to hurt me here. That was our number two seed. You're trying to hurt me here. This is the way the seeding lands. I didn't do this. This hurts me. Mike, take it away. Okay, well, I mean, I ride for Halo 2. Halo 2 is my favorite game of all time. Halo 2 is a better sequel than the first, right? Improving upon the narrative and driving that story forward with Master Chief and Cortana. Of course, the Covenant, the Flood, what's going on in the world, right? And then on top of that, multiplayer, really improved, right? Riding the back off of early internet days, Xbox Live, the first generation of like, oh, we're really plugging in. We are on microphones. We're making Xbox Live accounts. We are playing as like an online community. It started with Halo 2. And that is like a big freaking deal. In all honesty, a lot of great sequels here. Halo 2, when you add up the things and the culture of gaming that kind of happened here, might be the greatest sequel of all time. Because it was right at the moment of the world of video game is going to change forever. We are going to change everything. But man, Kingdom Hearts 2. But man, Kingdom Hearts 2. But man, Kingdom Hearts 2 really changed my life. Come on, you got Roxas. You got the ice cream. You got Mickey Mouse doing flips and shit. He was doing flips and shit. Goofy took a boulder to the forehead. You had to pick him up, him and Donald. You know what I mean? The introduction of Organization XIII in a big way. You had to remember all their crazy names like Dioxus and, you know, Nefertiti. It was crazy. Ain't no shot that was a Nefertiti. I don't even know if Dioxus is that kid. That sounds like a Pokemon. I mean, it's Halo 2 for me. Yeah. Kingdom Hearts 2. where isn't there a chain of memories in the middle of this i don't know no you know i mean where do we stand on well i guess you're right i didn't think about that but i guess that's a weird one right like i feel like you'll still have to say kingdom hearts 2 as the sequel i like i i would still not even consider chain of memories i think most people writing in didn't even think of chain of memories either way i think i'm gonna say halo station 13 tron world returning back to a lot of old worlds and catching up with them like Aladdin, Little Mermaid you went back to, Beauty and the Beast you were there with. Is this the first one with pirates as well? Halloween Town, pirates was added to this. That's a big deal, especially in 2000s, pirates took over the world. Is the gummy ship in this one? The gummy ship is in this one. You build your own gummy ship in between worlds. Yeah, then I'm going Halo 2. You don't like the gummy ships? No, I don't mind it. I love Kingdom Hearts 1. I played Kingdom Hearts 2. I played a portion of Kingdom Hearts 2 as an adult, and I just couldn't, it wasn't vibing with me. I think I lost my childlike sense of whimsy and wonder. This game has the whimsy and the wonder. This game also has killer music. Oh, of course it does. Sanctuary? Yeah, no, I listen to King of Hearts music even though I'm not like. But not as good as Simple and Clean. No, nothing's good as Simple and Clean. And I'm going to go on wax and say that. Oh, yeah, no. I'm not afraid to say that. That's the correct, wait until, yeah. I think people like Sanctuary a lot. I mean, all the music's great. I know, that's the problem. Simple and Clean is like, as a kid i heard that in a commercial and i was like this is the best song of all time i didn't i haven't even played the game yet but you know what who else has good music halo 2 you know that you know what you want to say halo 2 has lockout too and i'll 1v1 any person in the chat any day of the week one-on-one in lockout shoddy snipes it's over are you saying halo 2 yeah i'm going he's going halo 2 i'm also going to go halo 2 i don't have like the biggest horse in this race for either. But culturally, as far as the impact of Halo 2, it's something that you feel no matter what. I remember going over to my friend's house and him having Halo 2 and him whooping my ass in Halo 2 and being like, damn, dude, this is different. I had a PS2, he had an Xbox or whatever and I was like, damn, this is crazy. And to see well, I was going to say, to see where Halo's at now not necessarily the best place, but to see that it is a franchise that still means so much to people, right? I don't know. I think Halo 2 is for sure the the pick here and that is it for our memory card first round part of the bracket before we move on let me tell you about patreon.com slash kind of funny and youtube.com slash kind of funny games where you can go and 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 this episode is brought to you by shopify when we started kind of funny in 2015 boy let me tell you i had a harsh lesson in what it takes to run your own business. We were the hosts, writers, producers, art department, tech support, garbage men, and so much more. We needed help. And that's exactly what Shopify does for millions of businesses right now. 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Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond beyond start your business today with the industry's best business partner shopify and start hearing sign up for your one dollar per month trial today at shopify.com slash kind of funny go to shopify.com slash kind of funny that's shopify.com slash kind of funny and we're back i want to blaze through some of these super chats that are coming in because let me tell you people have a lot to say uh i want to start off with science dog official who says important reminder that these are their opinions lol and you know i like that i like that you know reset the tone reset the room remember this is snow bike mike talking to you okay is my vote we're all friends we're all friends in a basement talking video games right now yeah i might disagree but we'll come back together and still have fun uh jacob young writes and says i agree with the other super chat little big planet 2 should be here uh of course the super chat right before that skull king that says a little bit big planet 2 is the only right answer but remember look back at yourself look back at yourselves because we put out the poll and we said you yep vote you picked this what game was i pissed off there was a game you know what i'm pissed off about actually miss pac-man i feel like miss pac-man should have been should have made no borderlands 2 yeah like some people wrote in with it it was like in the final list but like yeah i wasn't wasn't able to make it um brand mats says top of each bracket for me hades 2 ac 2 i see that thing that's assassin's creed soul caliber 2 diablo 2 diablo 2 is my number one of all time i i'm gonna talk about it uh shoot you in chat i don't like that name says no team fortress 2 should be illegal look back at yourself point the finger and say i did this yep uh mario writes in and says hey y'all had a heart attack two weeks ago and just wanted to say thank you for keeping me company while I was stuck in the hospital for five days. Love you guys. Also, the correct answer is Mass Effect 2. Mara, it's already here. I hope you're doing better. And thank you for listening and watching. Yeah, but thinking about you take care of yourself. Mason Graves says, on a 15-minute work break, so I won't be able to watch live, but Halo 2 is the clear winner here. ScienceDogOfficial says, motion to do worst sequels bracket 2. Devil May Cry 2 takes top spot. I like that idea. Okay. Jamison Peters writes in and says, AW2, oh, Alan Wake 2, won't win, but man, what a game. Rock on, old gods of Asgard. Memo, or Memo, writes in and says, love you, Mike, bless and Barrett. Been having the worst weeks of my life, so thank you for all for making me feel normal while watching. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you're... Yeah, thanks for watching, homie. Not Calvin Perez writes in and says, Miss Pac-Man is my personal pick. Its development is one of the craziest stories in gaming. A sequel's so good, most people think of its gameplay as what Pac-Man always was. And then lastly, JBC writes in and says, even my mom knows the correct answer is Street Fighter 2. Oscar wrote in, because mike is still mad about that demix no that's not his name demix is d-e-m-y-x say it again bless demix daryl now it feels like dynamax or something like that what you never forget bro because he'd be yelling water at you and he just throws water balls most frustrating fighting video games kingdom hearts actually i'm not gonna say anything okay don't say it don't say it don't hurt him don't hurt him it's like taylor swift we're like i don't know and i say that i like taylor swift music actually sometimes but sometimes i don't but i get scared to say it dance water dance is what he says yes you will remember dance water dance for the rest of your life if you play that game and i'm sure as a child if it broke you you never went back but if you if you triumphed you'll never forget it it took me about 36 hours to beat that guy jeez the dark souls boss mike do you want to go hd or do you want to go classic take me back to the left let's go back to the left all right first matchup mass effect 2 versus saints row 2 we can save time here i love saints or two as much i love saints row as much as the next guy they had to get the saints back they disbanded they had to bring them back they had to take over still water mike we save time here I know It Mass Effect 2 Mass Effect 2 is the GOAT Shout out Saints Row 2 though Shout out to Saints Row 2. Somebody wrote in the chat, who even played the Saints Row games? Sir, I played every Saints Row game. I played Saints Row 3 and 4. Loved Saints Row. Saints Row 1, back in the day, I still ride hard for. See, I don't know anybody that played the first one. Oh, bless. It was so good. And it was just one of those of, like, Saints Row was the over-the-top, little brother that GTA wasn't, right? GTA was all about being like the mean streets. This is what we're doing. This one was like, here's a dildo bat. Go do something dumb. And you're like, I love all of this, right? True crime. I was playing a lot of true crime. I love true crime. Any crackdown, any open world GTA like your boy Snowmike Mike was playing all of them. Yeah. It's the best. All right, we move on to Assassin's Creed 2 versus Batman Arkham City. Oh. This, actually, no. I was going to say this one's a tough one for me, but it actually isn't. Although I might have the wrong answer. My answer is Batman Arkham City. But I think the cultural answer would be Assassin's Creed, but I got to go. I like Batman Arkham City more. Why do you say the cultural answer is Assassin's Creed? I think. Because to me personally, who loves both of these series, I think both of these games have roughly the same weight. Really? I think Assassin's Creed 2, like the impact of Assassin's Creed 2 feels bigger. I think that's how we get the popularization of the Ubisoft game. It was the moment. It was the moment, right? Open world games got to have a tower. We got to synchronize on every single tall tower there is. Yeah. Open up more of the map. I think this changed the trajectory of Ubisoft. And what it did with stealth games mixed with parkour, where you still felt like you were agile and nimble and you were everywhere and you were also doing the fun fighting combats, but the moment that you were jumping down from the top of a building and stealth killing somebody on top of them was like very, very cool, right? Like I still think about Assassin's Creed all the time, and I might lean Batman here, but Assassin's Creed 2 and that moment for Ubisoft and what that franchise did and became was really special back then. It was a big jump, and I would say like I think what we think of when it comes to the open world Ubisoft games, I don't think personally I don't think they get there until Brotherhood, but two was a step in that right direction of like kind of fixing things up from one but i think batman arkham city and what that does as a sequel like taking a left turn from small metroidvania to like kind of this not big open world but like kind of this like uh bigger map that feels a bit linked to the past with like a dungeon uh design and uh world design along with just like blowing up how many characters do you get because arkham asylum felt so constrained and then they just go all out with arkham city which i i think was fantastic yeah so we're all going batman here i'm putting the poll out just for fun but yeah i am yes as barrett said batman 2 is a better game is right yeah like the sequel and what they built upon and how they expanded it is so much better and it is so good i'm sure it'll be a conversation later down the road i just like batman i just like that world more. I like the gameplay more. It feels a bit more smooth. It goes down smoother for me. Batman Arkham City is just such a fun world to exist in. Weirdly enough, I like Asylum more, which might come into play later on in the bracket. We'll see. You know what? I'm taking my vote back. I'm going to Assassin's Creed 2. I'm going to let the chat vote because I have to ride for Assassin's Creed 2. I have to let the chat. I knew he was going to do this. The Assassin's Creed game is just so good and the moment that it changed, nobody was doing parkour like that. Nobody was doing movement like that. Nobody was doing the gameplay like that like ubisoft had it it was so much fun and i think like batman arkham city was the one is the game that i think everybody thinks of now when it comes to that iconic combat that free flow combat yeah that we think of that isn't just press y and parry and automatically kill which when you go back to ac2 you're like oh man this uh combat is not nearly as engaging you think about the amount of games that come after batman arkham that are like a shadow of mordor and where that gives us combat system. The amount of combat systems that are like, all right, do those combos, hit that Y to... Even like a Spider-Man. I know Spider-Man picks so much from Spider-Man 2 from back in the day. You know, I'm not saying that Batman Arkham like invented everything, but I do think that Insomniac Spider-Man is a better game because Batman Arkham existed. And you know why I did this, right, Bless? Why? Because I went to the chat and I already knew what they voted for. They voted for Batman. Okay, I was about to say, I was about to be pissed off at you. Battle Mikey, just so you know, I did that because I knew the challenge was for Batman anyway. I will say, he's so annoying. Spoilers for both of these games that have been out for 15 years plus, right? Like, 82 ending with who is Desmond, right? Like, who is Desmond with Ezio and like all this stuff. Great moment. Yeah. Batman Arkham City killed the fucking Joker. And that ending of that game was still like, I think about the first time playing it and still having like my jaw on the floor of like the bold direction that they went i like that all right our next match up here portal 2 versus dead space 2 for me this is the one where we can save time oh we can save a lot of time portal 2 is our number three seed dead space 2 being our number six seed love you dead space love uh yeah love you dead space is portal 2 ports who might port to the heavy heavy favorite here portal 2 is like for me the only thing that can go up against mass effect 2 in this bracket yeah uh-huh uh-huh and so we can save time there shout out dead space 2 you know but come on uh next matchup infamous 2 versus uncharted 2 i'm excited to hear what you think i'm uncharted 2 i'm uncharted 2 yeah uh infamous being our number seven slot uncharted 2 being our number two slot uncharted 2 i mean my ranking of uncharted probably gets weird because i would go the modern uncharted before i go like the original trilogy but out of the original trilogy uncharted 2 just had the sauce bro uncharted the train scene the train scene alone in uncharted 2 is enough for me we also got chloe like come on it's a good game it's a good video game love of my life the video game love of my life i love uncharted to death it is some of my favorite games it's it's the best yeah infamous you although also great game i love the infamous series of games um but i think i was a prototype guy you know on xbox at the time so i was playing prototype yeah that's what that's what we got that's what we got those are good right no okay all right let's work our way over to the classics with our first matchup tony hawk 2 versus diablo 2 i mean there's a clear and correct answer tony hawk 2 being the number one seed diablo being the number eight seed yeah tony hawk 2 is the clear the correct answer is diablo 2 here diablo 2 is make the play game here i'm gonna make just make the poll. I'm going to make the poll. Just make the poll. Don't piss me off, Mike. Give me your reason on Tony Hawk 2. Don't say it like that. Oh, fuck you, Mike. Don't say it like that. No, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 is a fucking classic. Tony Hawk Pro Skater the series, one of the best arcade series of video games, one of the best extreme sports series. The best extreme sports game series. What's better than Tony Hawk? You're going to put Tricky down like that? Yes. I love Tricky. You're going to put Skate down like that? Yes. SSX is a strong number two. You're going to put Tony Hawk over Skate. Yes. Skate, strong number three. Over Tricky. Yes. Oh, yeah. Tony Hawk is a classic. Tony Hawk paved the way for both of those things. And funny enough, very different ways when you think about it, right? When you want to talk about bringing arcade extreme sports to the mix and how Tony Hawk really innovated with how they turned those tricks into this point system and the combo system and how it established all that and how important that is and how much SSX took from that, Then you want to talk about skate culture and how much Tony Hawk Pro Skater brought to skate culture and popularizing that to gamers and having that on a broader stage. Right. And even how it brought in the music and the culture and like all these things, it was able to condense it all into a CD with Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Like that's how we get skate later. Right. Skate wouldn't be skate. Neither of these games would be what they're what they are without Tony Hawk Pro Skater. And Pro Skater 2 was a step up for the franchise. It's crazy how much I ride for Tony Hawk. And then I become literally the Toy Story meme where I have Woody in my hand. That's Tony Hawk. I don't want to play with you anymore. And then they hand me skates and I just drop Tony Hawk forever and never. No respect, no love for what Woody and Tony Hawk gave me back in the day. I only think about Buzz. But then I look at Diablo 2. And I think about the deep, rich action RPG that is the icon of Blizzard. Diablo 1, fantastic game. Diablo 2 improves on every single thing that Diablo 1 did and went even further, okay? I'm talking about iconic characters that you can choose from. Up to six, I believe. Killer expansion pack as well with Lord of the Destruction. But this is the action RPG. There's a reason why they brought back Diablo 2 Resurrected. Because there's millions of people that play this game. They put Rahul Kohli in the game like last week. They put Rahul Kohli in the game. beginning of online infrastructure once again wow diablo halo kind of at the forefront of that for me of like these are the games that you're going to share memories with your friends with right but going all the way through hell and back to defeat diablo every at the end of every act having one major boss the gear and loot system right you think of the resident evil slot backpack but diablo is where the slot backpack really is at right and then on top of that all of the min maxing every single stat being something that you have to Fran Marabella the third get into a deep spreadsheet and start to think about then you start slotting in different gems to increase all of those weapons and do even more damage and abilities this is the ultimate sequel Diablo 2 I respect it like honestly as I was going off about Tony Hawk I forgot we were talking about Diablo I forgot what it was even going up against because you got me fired up when you brought in SSX and Skate Comics, but I do want to acknowledge that, yeah, of course Diablo is Diablo. Right? That is the action RPG. It's crazy because here's the deal. We might be split, but the audience goes 123 to 73. What did I say? For Diablo 2. And I look at Diablo 2 and this lineup less, and I think you better get a hold of it because Diablo 2 might run away with this. Diablo 2 better not lay a finger on Street Fighter 2. Diablo 2 better not lay a finger Knowing our audience Knowing our audience, a lot of y'all are old heads So y'all should know what Street Fighter 2 does Oh good, because let's start the conversation Age of Empires 2? Age of Empires 2 versus Street Fighter 2 The ultimate RTS? The ultimate world civilization battle arena here? We need to back up and consider the fact that Street Fighter 2, with what that game did Could win this entire bracket Fighting games are fighting games because of Street Fighter 2, guys. Street Fighter 2 changed the game. Local multiplayer, what it did for that. The Super Nintendo. People playing multiplayer on the Super Nintendo. Street Fighter. Well, you're going Age of Empires. Oh, of course I am. Put the poll up. It's the ultimate RTS. This is my favorite game. This is one of my favorite games of all time. I love this. This is rich, deep history, right? Mixed with now, you can build out your civilization. You will go to war against other civilizations. Your goal is to build the ultimate town, resource management, unit management. This is the RTS. This is like StarCraft, WarCraft, Age of Empires has stood this test of time. Actually, you know what? This is so fun because this is the same exact argument for Street Fighter 2. Of course, right? This is the fighting game, right? Mortal Kombat, Tekken, like any fighting game that you can list off of. Comes from that? Owes Street Fighter 2 everything. Street Fighter 2 put fighting games on the map in such a bigger and better way. This is a wild one, bless. I'm curious. I agree with you. My prediction, I'm not even looking at it. I haven't had the polls up. I imagine people might go Age of Empires 2 with the audience. They still playing Street Fighter 2? Well, here's the catch. We're talking about best sequels. It doesn't matter if you're still playing that right now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, they play the Street Fighter. That's the thing is they do play older Street Fighter games. Okay. But I think they go back to third stretch. Because people are still playing Age of Empires 2. in a big way. They're still ride or die for Age of Empires 2. I think the problem is Street Fighter continues to advance and now you're playing the newest one. We're playing Street Fighter 6. We've got to rewind. We've got to remember, this is the best sequel. Did it improve upon the first? Did it leave a lasting impact? Was it more fun to play? What are all the criteria they bring into a sequel? Is there a way we can bring up gameplay as Street Fighter 1? If you want to talk about what it did to improve on the first, Street Fighter 1, you wouldn't even recognize Street Fighter 1. You'd be like, what is that game? Street Fighter 2 is where Street Fighter really starts. It's a tight vote. It's a tight vote. It's a tight vote. Is it over yet? It is over. 60% of the audience did vote Street Fighter 2. This is the most voted on one. There's hope here. 155 to 104. So the old heads are here in both categories. You had me worried, Mike. I do love that. This is what Street Fighter 1 looks like. And then look at Street Fighter 2. Street Fighter 2, you're going to look at that and go, Oh, that's Street Fighter. That's what I know Street Fighter as. This is probably the biggest part of the bracket where you look back and you go, man, video games are special. And these are two incredibly special secrets. These are two games that left a huge lasting impact, not only on their own franchise, but the video game world combined. Man, this brings me back to, I mean, I know I say his name every single podcast, but this brings me back to being at Addison's house. Addison. because Addison was the one with the Super Nintendo and I remember him busting out Street Fighter 2 and being like, let's play some of this and me being like, whoa, holy cow, this is cool. Man, I'm excited to keep going. This is such a fantastic matchup. This is a great matchup. This is very much just fighting games versus RTS. I know, right? The two small communities had to fight each other. Next matchup, Pokemon Gold and Silver versus Silent Hill 2. Oh, damn. Okay, well, I didn't get into Silent Hill 2 until the remake, so unfortunately, you don't have my vote here. on that one because i'm a pokemon kid through and through i mean should we just say pokemon move on because yeah pokemon i have such more of a reference for pokemon silver and like silent hill 2 i know even more from the i i didn't have any silent hill people in my life was the problem okay and so yeah i just don't have like the strong frame of reference yeah for silent hill 2 i know what it did i know how much people love it but i feel like pokemon is also a safer pick just in general more pokemon added new world new world the ending the ending and where they go The reveal? The reveal? People love that. You played through Pokemon. Me and Nick, yeah, we played through that one. We got to the first. Was that the first time? Yeah, that was our first time. Interesting. We got to the reveal. Okay. So he now knows what's next. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We broke it into two parts for Nick because we knew we'd kill him if we kept going. Are we both going Pokemon? Yeah, of course. All right, Pokemon. I mean, look at where Pokemon is today. I mean, yeah, it's the biggest entertainment IP of all time. You know what I mean? And that's built off the back of a solid sequel that people wanted to continue with. Yeah. They fuck up the sequel. Maybe Pokemon's in a different place. That's a really good point, actually. When you think about it. When you think about it, that's a really good point. If Pokemon Gen 2 fucks up, we live in a different world. Now, is this technically a sequel or Pokemon Yellow? No. Where did we put Pokemon Yellow? I mean, it's a weird thing. Did Pokemon Yellow release before or after this? Before this. Yeah, because I remember Yellow. But we get in a weird place because really the first two Pokemon games were Pokemon Green and Red. So, like, then you had to talk about Pokemon Blue being a scene. It's a remake. I look at it as the definitive version. Game of the Year edition. Pokemon Yellow is the Game of the Year edition. It's the Game of the Year version right there. It's Game of the Year. Next matchup we got. In our last round one matchup, Resident Evil 2 versus Metal Gear Solid 2. I mean, people already know my vote. Metal Gear Solid 2. Oh, then we can make this easy. I like, well, Resident Evil 2. I mean, shout out Resident Evil 2. The sucky thing is that, like, my Resident Evil 2 is the modern Resident Evil 2. Which, like, if we're comparing those, I'm still going Metal Gear Solid 2. Yeah. It's like that, Mike. Oh. Yeah. It's like that. If I got to go with the modern one, maybe I'd feel a little bit different. No, you don't. You think so? It's so good. Talk through it. I mean, I just love the puzzles. I love, I say it time and time again, Capcom is masters at level design and the ultimate escape room horror maze. And it is so much fun to go to different areas on the map or RPD in particular for two and find new unlockable areas, find pieces that then unlock other areas that you're going to eventually walk back to. And having that mystery solved, it's so good. And then the horror, the tension, right? getting introduced to Leon on his first day. Claire Redfield, right, looking for her brother. They both show up, and it's like, oh, now we're going to share two stories, but the same story, but both have different things going on, but they're also going to use the same kind of mazes at the same time. I like it. I like it a lot, Bless. I mean, I'm right there with you. RE2, I think, is a legendary game. RE2, the remake especially, it's tough for me with this round because RE2, I didn't really care. I didn't care about Resident Evil until the remake of RE2 Is the way I'll put it And so yeah when I played that in 2019 That was like a Like oh shit this is a fucking game right here Like that was one of my games of the year The year that it came out for all the reasons That you laid out But yeah RE2 classic I just wasn't That wasn't me I wasn't playing that The chat's going crazy for RE2 but it is tight On the flip side Metal Gear Solid 2 The big ultimate swerve You're back with Kojima The ultimate intro of that video game is Snake jumping off that rainy bridge. Remember, Baird? Lightning crackles down, and he's on the side of the ship. And he's fucking, he's growing all around. He gets up on the ship, and everything goes down. Oh, my God, who's this old lady? She's pregnant. Oh, shit, she got shot. And you're like, uh-oh, what's happening? And then you wake up, you ain't stink no more. that was crazy bless it was crazy that was crazy i also think about the vampire fight and how much i hated that fight yeah i really like the poorly that boss uh fight was designed i think about a lot of those moments but mgs2 also does have a lot of the uh the fun shit as well i mean mgs2 also just has like really cool shit that it talks about in its narrative that i think is cool that weirdly age pretty well we want to talk about when it gets to the ending and it talks about essentially like the in the information and how dangerous the freedom of information can be when you get into like fake information and how you can deceive people and the game running out in this way where it's like riding as the character riding you kind of have to be like what's real when you loop that in into how prophetic it is in terms of like a lot of the main issues we still face today especially with ai becoming before before ai became a bigger topic that was already prophetic when you're talking about fake news and information now with ai motor solid 2 has somehow become even better of a video game. I will say a lot of other science fiction writing was doing a lot of similar stuff at the time. But like video games. I feel like MJS 2 as far as the kind of story being told in a video game, in an action game, in a cinematic action game. I like the crew. Fat Man on the Rollerblades. What was the girl's name? I loved her. Fortune. What a cool name. Yeah, they had a cool crew. And then Liquid Snake with the giant fucking Doc Ops shoulders and stuff. That was crazy. Metal Gear Ray? Do you have a decision? Oh, you reminded me of the Metal Gear Ray fight. Fucking hated that fight. Sabir did not like playing MGS. That's why it was such a breath of fresh air to play 3. You'd be like, oh my god, they designed so much for Axis. I'm a Metal Gear Solid 2. Everyone knows it goes 2 for me. Yeah, you love two is the top one. I ride for two. Just because you watched it. I watched it, and I was so in. I can't wait for my turn to play these games one day. I had to leave Port Bear behind. I had to play five. You didn't. We had an agreement that we were going to take a break and then come back, and then you said, fuck you. You don't take a hand in the Kojima joint and not continue. You know what I mean? At the time, we did not know who we were dealing with. You can't put down one puff. So good. I go with MJS2, obviously. but and that's not even like i'm i try my hardest to talk about re2 with respect because i know it's it's people's favorite game of all time but like i i can't speak to something that i just didn't experience in the way i know chas heard my feelings oh yeah somebody said it's because you're young and i'm like motherfucker i can't control my age i'm sorry though my parents had me in 1994 and he's playing old games you gotta get blessed you gotta get blessed him Final Fantasy X? I try. You know what it is. But yeah, where are you going? Metal Gear's how to. Come on. We already knew. It's my favorite. It's my favorite game. That's our last round. Or that's our last face-off of the first round, I should say. While we're here, I want to shout out, because we, of course, have Super Chats coming in. Mike is still, you've read this one already, actually. Mike is still mad about that Demix boss fight in KH2. And then ScienceDog says, my biggest video game hot take is that I don't like Arkham City and didn't think it was that special. Arkham City? That is a hot take. That's crazy. That's crazy. Remember where you could play as Catwoman in the open world? That was cool. That was cool. All right. Really good game. We're on to the second round. Let's go back to the top left. Now we kind of tear it up. Now we get a little bit deeper. Let's start with Red Dead Redemption 2 versus Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. I'm excited to see where you win because you went with Nier on this one. between these two I would go Red Dead 2 I would go Red Dead 2 as well I really like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 I think that RPG and that world that they created is really something special I think it is a world that you can live in and enjoy but for me Red Dead Redemption 2 from 1 to that is a bigger jump than 2 from 1 to 2 in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 I agree this is funny because I think this is an easier conversation in the first round because red dead 2 and kingdom come deliverance 2 are more comparable games right their games are doing very similar things as far as being almost like these simulate simulated worlds right we want to immerse you all the way and so like we're gonna have mechanics and systems that are both deep and might not even be the most player friendly but we're doing that because we want you to be fully in on this experience we're doing something unique here right both these games are doing that i just think from what i played of both and of course i played way more Red Dead Redemption 2 than I did Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 but even for what I played in Red Dead 2 it's like damn like Red Dead 2 I think does it better for the parts that I played but I can't say definitively obviously but don't forget what happened in Samin don't forget what? shit happened in Samin oh yeah that's Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 okay really fucked up damn yeah tell me about that later next one the last was 2 versus Hades 2 this is a hard one for me actually believe it or not The Last of Us 2. Hades 2 is just more of the same Hades 1, which is a fantastic, incredible video game. The Last of Us 2 does feel like it takes a little more leaps and bounds in the sequel category to me. Yeah, as a sequel, I think what Last of Us 2 does as a sequel specifically, again, way more daring, feels like way more of a jump. I think you're right in that regard. Granted, I can make the argument that for Hades 2, or for Hades 1 even, How much are you going to do to that game visually to make it feel like a jump? There's only so much you can do to Hades. And I think they did everything they could. I think they did everything they could to Hades to make it feel like the jump that it already is. But I think Last of Us had way more room. You had a different console generation. You're talking about something that released end of PS3 versus end of PS4. You're talking about something that has more time to work with as far as making it an even longer story to like try and do all the different things you want to do there. It feels evolved, but also it didn't rest on its laurels. It feels evolved, but still like we want to say something and we want to like put off people what we're doing. It works. Yeah. Last of Us 2. Yeah, I think I'm going to Last of Us 2. It's a tough one for me though. We then work our way. Let's work our way down to Let's go straight down. Yeah, let's go straight down. Mass Effect 2 versus Batman Arkham. Oh, shit. Mass Effect 2 is a better sequel Yeah I'm gonna see Mass Effect 2 They're very close It's like Bear brought up with like Asylum to City And then Jumped at it Made right And everything that's going on Very similar to Mass Effect 1 into 2 Of what was being proved upon What was reworked What was tweaked What they did But like Mass Effect 2 Might go down as the goat of all sequels here I could see that So yeah Next up Portal 2 versus Uncharted 2 21st, thanks to what do you remember? Those are since Berington in rotation out of breath had gotten two or two years away Well they got so well in here how And like I over started a long time on How does this make you have a I love Uncharted 2 The pregnant pause scared me for a second boys I really had to think about it Really Now I getting a little bit more of dropping the mic loves this game into like, okay, what is the better sequel? Did it improve upon the first ones, right? What was Uncharted 1 to Uncharted 2 like with that jump? What was Portal 1 to Portal 2 like on that jump, right? And you start thinking a little bit more about like, what was the level design? What did they improve upon? What were the things that I didn't like in the first one that I needed them to do? What were the standout moments? What was the impact? Unfortunately, Uncharted 2, you're going up against Portal 2. Yeah. Really hard to argue against Portal 2. I know plenty. I'm curious on what the audience will say. I know audience is still on The Last of Us 2. Like, audience voted. 68% voted for The Last of Us 2. If we put in a poll there, I think audience might go Uncharted 2, but also PlayStation audience. You know what I mean? Like, a lot of our fans come from beyond. But like Portal, I think, is just way more interesting of a sequel. It's more, I mean, obviously, like when Portal 1 is so contained, you have much more room to expand. And they expanded in such smart ways, right? They still made, they still carried the spirit of Portal in Portal 2 and like made better the things that mattered. Hey, this is a funnier game. We have a bit more dialogue between GLaDOS and some characters that they introduced surrounding that. We have moments that are unexpected. We have better puzzles, a few more mechanics that are actually pretty fun and engaging when you want to talk about the goo. Different settings that you're able to explore a little bit. Did they add co-op in this one? Yeah, this was the co-op. Co-op is a big deal. Yeah, the more we talk through it, Portal 2. I think Portal 2 still to this day might be one of the few games I would call a perfect game. And I think every aspect that it does to follow up Portal 1 I think is a masterpiece in how to follow up an already incredible game. I'm happy to say that the audience has followed suit. They are full. Oh, that surprised me. 93 to 34. They're running away with that. Shout out, J.K. Simmons. Next up, NBA Street Volume 2 versus Smash Melee. Now we get, here's these next two, these next three. Okay, all of this is going to be a big conversation. Man, if I lived in a different timeline where I had a GameCube growing up, I think I probably would ride for Smash Melee, which makes me want to pick Smash Melee. but like I just NBA Street Vol. 2 NBA Street Vol. 2 bless I'm not worried about it at all I know where I stand it's NBA Street Vol. 2 now this is me now I'm going back to Mike loves this game as opposed to what's a better sequel it's NBA Street Vol. 2 but like think about what they added bless hold on hold on I might have to revert man okay take a moment I'm somebody who loves Smash as a franchise and if you ever ask me like my top 10 top let's say top 20 video games Smash is on the list with a bullet and I could choose three different Smashes. I could put Smash 64 on there. I could put Smash Brawl on there. I could put Smash Ultimate on there, my top 20 video games of all time. People say Melee is the best one, Mike. I gotta go Melee. I can't disrespect Melee. I like that you go on Melee. It's only because I didn't spend that much time with Melee. I'm talking about the best sequel. What did they improve upon, right? Pickup games, just straight up, three-on-three NBA hoops, right? NBA Challenge. the mode where you get assigned a team and then you battle against other teams and unlock NBA characters and new arenas. Yeah. Okay? You love that. Be a legend where you created a character, went on tour with Stretch and the crew. Man, I love that. Spider. I'll never forget that. I still remember his name, Spider to this day. Yeah. Adding points up, getting your rep up. Bless. It's full stuff. But, like, they put Mewtwo in it. You know what I mean? They put Mewtwo in Smash Melee. You're right. Put the poll up. I ride for it. The chat went overwhelmingly Melee. Good for them. Yeah. I had to think about it for a second. Because I just love, I love Smash so much. And like, I wish, if there was a thing I could revert about my childhood, I would have had Melee in my life. Because I remember Melee being a legend to me, right? Again, I played so much 64. And then the GameCube comes out. And I start hearing Melee. I start hearing people talk about Melee. And being like, man, if I could play one game, I would want that one. but I just never had the chance to as a kid. All that stuff from N64 that you loved was just improved upon in Legend and in the GameCube. In Legend, yeah. All of the Mario games. Just think of Mario Kart as well. I hold Double Dash pretty high. It's a special game to me. And it's one of those where it's like, oh, fuck. It's so cool. I wish I was over there. Yeah. Let's move on to our next matchup. God of War 2 versus Halo 2. Yeah, I mean, this is easy. This is easy. Halo 2. i'm gonna say halo 2 yeah yeah we might have a good conversation on this next one but like halo 2 is a pretty good front runner to be in that final four for sure yeah obviously i played through god of war 2 halo 2 i only played at like friends houses and stuff but i think yeah for me it's an i think the when you talk about the cultural conversation and like impact halo yeah it's just it's halo 2 it's hard for me to make the god of war argument this one you're gonna have to put to the poll right away oh Diablo 2 versus Street Fighter 2 yeah just make the poll put the poll up it's Diablo 2 for the action RPG for me yeah it's Street Fighter 2 for the fighting game for me I mean it's unbelievable it's crazy because yeah Street Fighter like you said everything that mattered to the fighting genre where it was at the time it's probably very probably bigger than Diablo 2 but Diablo 2 on the PC is going to be pretty special here yeah I mean Street Fighter 2 I think is just one of the most important video games of all time when you want to talk about when you trace the the history of video games like Street Fighter 2 is in the conversation with the Marios and the like the Dooms right like the the Pac-Mans the Pongs like Street Fighter 2 is there in that conversation right I think it ascends beyond what we're talking about as far as like what makes it almost isn't fair this game to be on this list because it's a c it's a fantastic sequel of course and it does everything to like push the the franchise forward but it also legitimizes and crystallizes a genre in the process that's a problem because you can say all that for diablo like that's the craziest yeah i mean you could quite literally say that all for diablo i can't because you're right yeah they're the same game creating a lock down the genre right and add all these new characters classes abilities it added so many acts to it it had an insane online presence as well like still to this day now has been remastered and still played by millions like it's crazy and i you know i lost the chat people in chat were going crazy there's one person that said in a bigger genre and i would argue that like i think y'all underrate fighting games and how big of a genre fighting games are i think fighting games is a huge genre yeah yeah but i'm talking specifically to like chat in the audience right where it's like no we were not we because I'm of course younger right but like folks went to arcades actually fuck it we went to arcades I wasn't there for Street Fighter I was there for Soul Calibur but people went to arcades and played fighting games together right like when you think about that experience of like oh my group of friends like we're gonna casually like go into the arcade at the mall or whatever right like you were playing fighting games you're playing Street Fighter and shit like that it's this close this close this close plus what is it 88 to 98 for diablo 2 damn there's a pc audience out there there's some pc gamers out there y'all don't know ball but it's okay you don't know ball but it's okay well now the question is okay do we know ball pokemon gen 2 versus metal gear solid 2 pokemon gen 2 pokemon gen 2 pokemon gen 2 all right yep now we're down to the top eight let's go back to red dead two versus the last of us two this might be a poll maker right here we might just have to automatically make the ball i'm going i'm going last was two but i don't i don't think it's a i think this is a tough one i'm going red dead two yeah off of the when we talk sequel right and i look at both of the ones before it and then look at sequel last of us 2 did so much and improved so much but man you think about red dead 1 to red dead 2 that jump a lot of time difference of course but like we're going red dead 2 I can see this going either way honestly I'm not mad if red dead 2 wins running away with it 78 to 48 right now for red dead 2 alright and we're halfway through the poll right there so I think that's going to climb We'll see if there's any crazy change. I think this is where Last of Us kind of gets penalized for being a bit controversial. And not just like in like the ways, because I think it's controversial in like ways that are unfair to it, but also in ways that are fair to it. Like, I don't love everything, everything about Last of Us. I think narratively, it's like it, it's, it's telling the story about the cycles of violence and it really goes for it in certain ways, but certain ways I'm kind of just like, I do it a bit too much. It's the same way that I say All In The Way consists upon itself. I think this game also insists upon itself. Fuck you, guys. In fact, this game probably... You're never allowed to say that phrase ever again. Last of Us 2... Ever again. I love that you pulled that out of your back. I think Last of Us 2 insists upon itself more than any other video game. Wow. And I think Last of Us 2 is a bit pretentious, is what I'll say. Yeah. I mean, I've said more than this on a video essay that a lot of people loved last year. It's a fucking mess of a game. Yeah. But I still love it. Like, I still really dig Last of Us 2. And then also, I don't really have a horse because I also think Red Dead 2 is, like, way too long and just very overbearing and like oh my god just fucking end the story please yes we get it please we get it killing each other's oh my god there's an epilogue that's another 10 hours oh god there's more violence oh we're gonna fight some more oh all the blood oh we're gonna make it extra violence so you really feel the fact that revenge is bad revenge i love the game though this one put the poll up i mean it's portal 2 versus mass effect 2 i'm going portal 2 it's portal 2 for me but i do want to that surprises me i thought you're gonna go mass effect oh i love portal 2 i i love everything that portal 2 did with portal 1 mass effect 2 to mass effect 1 to mass effect 2 better sequel man that's a tough you understand that the audience is going to hate us for going portal 2 over mass effect 2 i bet the audience votes portal 2 i don't know i'm curious to see the poll i promise you they're gonna vote because i think mass effect 2 is like for most not most people but like i think if we were to put it all to a vote i think mass effect two would get the most votes as far as what wins this entire bracket okay you know what i mean this might be one of the closer ones we'll see but are you guys both locking in portal yeah well i am i assume mike is i'm like i'm so mixed this is probably the hardest one for me because both are so good both are the definitive sequels yeah yeah but like when i look at the list i'm like those are the two that i circle and i go okay we're gonna talk a lot about these two for me it's what barrett says where i think portal 2 is just a perfect video game i think mass effect 2 is a is such a jump from mass effect 1 and obviously jump mass effect 2 resonates with people so strongly i think mass effect 2 is um a prime example of what rpgs can do when you think about characters story uh the lore decision making right like that is the prototypical rpg and it's like the most beautiful example of it where people ride from aspect 2 and he has his n7 sticker on his car right like that's but here's what i'll say is that people have aperture laboratories merch as well like in it like you want to talk about a game that you know uh crosses over into just pop culture and like you know has a thing there that people just identify with as far as story tone writing it sounds like i'm talking about side two at the same time but i am talking about portal 2 like portal 2 has such funny writing people will quote the lemons bit off of they love cave johnson they love glados wheatley like ah it's just such an entertaining and well made video game what does audience say the audience did vote 130 to 87 on mass effect 2 yeah but mike's vote is portal 2 our vote is portal 2 we vote portal 2 but audience you were right bless they were going to vote mass effect 2 yeah i think mass effect 2 would be the winner of this bracket if we if we put everything up to audience vote i think mass effect 2 wins this bracket. Okay. Okay. But we have to have some balls, Mike, me and you. I mean, I got some balls on this one. I have to go up against you. Smash Melee versus Halo 2. Halo 2. I'm going to go Halo 2. I love you. You're the best. I can't argue against it. It's Halo 2. Split screen co-op. Yeah. Online co-op. You and your friend could jump into all the online matches together. You didn't even need an Xbox Live account. You were just blessing out of OEA Junior 1, right? And we all could play all the same matches. Nothing changed that didn't hold us back from anything that you don't do that now. We can't do that in 2026 which is crazy to say. Yeah. Crazy that we went so far away from something that was just so welcoming and like able to just accommodate anything that you had going on in your living room. You got four friends. All four of you are playing. You got two friends. Two of you are playing. You're all by yourself. You're playing. You can't do that with like 80% of the games that we currently play in 2026. Yeah. I love the impact. just so strong for halo 2 you know like it for me it's another street fighter conversation speaking of diablo 2 oh wait i forgot street fighter got knocked out but diablo 2 versus pokemon gen 2 i was ready to read oh my god i mean put me down for pokemon gen 2 no it's diablo 2 for me you have to put this to put it put it to the poll what did pokemon gen 2 really add they already had the battle system okay so we're adding we're adding new pokemon new Pokemon new region yeah color but see the bringing it back you know we talk about Shadow Moses and going back to Shadow Moses going back to Kanto are you fucking kidding me but like arguably people I would Pokemon Gold is probably the best generation I would imagine if you're like ask Pokemon fans what is the best Pokemon games actually you might say HeartGold SoulSilver but that would still be GoldSilver you know I think there's something about this specific generation and how uniquely it served what it did as a sequel to the originals, right? Like, Pokemon doesn't hit like that now. Hit like the way Pokemon Gold and Silver did. When you talk about going back to Kanto, when you talk about looping back around to this thing. But what is the ultimate sequel? What bettered the franchise? Pokemon was already great. Yeah. Pokemon was good. Yeah. It didn't make a massive jump. I would say Diablo 2 made a massive leap and forward jump from Diablo 1. But the audience says no, Snowbike Mike. Really? It's Pokemon Gold and Silver. No way. 128 to 84. So there's still a large group that is like, hey, we see Diablo 2. We understand. I think. No joke. I thought the audience would have said Diablo. I thought they might have been with me on this one just because I'm going off for the sequel here. Right. And it's like, I think there's just so much that goes into the systems and what they built with Diablo 2 off of Diablo 1, right? When I think of Pokemon and that jump, I don't see a big leap like that one. Yeah, but I feel like that's then, we're penalizing Pokemon for starting off great. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like in order to have that kind of leap, the first one has to kind of miss a little bit. Great, but not perfect. You know, there's still a lot of things that felt like missteps, especially like how old that game feels compared to even going up to Gen 2 and all of the balancing. Chad's also talking about shinies and all of this stuff. Yeah. And just having a really fun new generation of Pokemon. I wouldn't count that out as a bullet point there. I mean, these are all tough ones, right? We voted for these to keep moving forward because they're so good. And now we get down to the final four. On the left side, we have Red Dead Redemption 2 from the modern category, facing off against Portal 2 from the HD category. And then on the right side, we have Halo 2 from the memory card category, facing off against Pokemon Gen 2 from the classics. Red Dead 2 versus Portal 2, Mike. Portal 2. Come on, it's easy. It's easy. Portal 2, I rode for Red Dead this whole entire time, and it was deserved. It's a fantastic sequel. It's an awesome game. No matter how you feel about it, it is a great sequel. But Portal 2 is the best sequel out of the two of them. So then let's talk about Halo 2 versus Pokemon Gen 2. Halo 2. we putting it up think about it bless yeah I think I gotta say Halo 2 I unfortunately have to say Halo 2 I just know I know what Halo 2 brought to the culture yeah I just can't argue against it however the finals Portal 2 versus Halo 2 and I will argue against it Portal 2 was my pick I go with Halo 2 so we'll have a fun conversation and we will let the chat decide just like we let you decide the whole entire poll you picked all of these games with a couple added in from me and bless but we wanted to see what was the best sequel was the best sequel i'm putting up a poll for two minutes here our 2026 march madness bracket in the video game world what was the best sequel 36 games yeah 32 games 32 games little down the two yes portal 2 versus hades 2 tell me your portal 2 portal 2 versus halo 2 you can't this guy doesn't even know his own game come on guys come on that's my argument right there now portal 2 i mean for the criteria that we set forth with what makes a good sequel what makes the best sequel i think everything you talk about diablo i totally understand i know i kind of went against it when i talk about like well are we penalizing because the first game wasn't amazing or whatever portal 1 had an amazing video game everything that made portal 1 special it was this unique mechanic that people immediately got people loved writing that was awesome and fun and quick. A weird kind of vibe of like, what's going on in this world? The cake is alive. The memeability of it. And GLaDOS being such a great villain. You take that formula, you transition it into Portal 2, and somehow they made every single one of those things better. They made the puzzle solving better, right? They kept the core mechanic. They didn't really change the way portals work. I was going to say, I mean, that's a conversation. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they were like, we have something here. Let's continue to expand upon it and make the things around it even better. And so you have the traditional portal game in that first half, but then you add in things like the different color goo to make you go fast or make you hop high and do all these different things. We add an additional setting so you can go even deeper into Aperture Laboratories, learn the history of what's going on here, introduce Cave Johnson as the voice of God that's speaking to you, right? Have Wheatley as an additional thing, an additional villain that is really fun. I forget the voice of him, but the voice is really funny. um portal 2 just found every single way to make a a you know fan favorite game even heightened in all of its different elements to the point where again i talk about aperture laboratories and how that is a wearable brand now tell me about halo 2 blessing halo 2 is a better sequel than portal 2 it improves upon so much and i'll start off with, of course, the story where Mr. Master Chief had to hand the Covenant their bomb back. That was a special moment. That opening. On the flip side, Bless, you think of Halo, you think of the iconic Halo pistol. But you know what you think about more? The battle rifle. The BR. The ultimate BR. And that's where it began. Right there. The idea of online matchmaking and multiplayer at its core. Everything that it added with the dual SMGs. All of the maps have totally been improved and are so much better than the first ones. Like, this is the ultimate sequel. Halo 2, from multiplayer to single player, is better than the first one. It just has too much going on for it. The time, 2004, whatever, 2003 to 2005, with the online infrastructure now being built, everybody direct connecting with Eternets, then playing online, building out the Xbox Live infrastructure, and then being on that. Voice chat, you talking with others, ranked gameplay and ranked modes where you'd be leveling up and going down. It's the best. I can't argue anything against what Mike brings up. The only thing I can think about. Energy sword. The end of Halo 2 was like a lot left to be desired, right? You had to wait until it was a frustrating kind of cliffhanger. And let me tell you about the ending of Portal 2. Spoilers, you go to the motherfucking moon. Oh man, space. I will never forget that moment. Yep. chat brings up eSports. The Ogre 2 twins, right? Our guy out there, Washi's in there. I mean, well, she, I mean, it's just. Well, neither of you have to filibuster anymore. Yeah, because the chat decided. Oh, God, I'm scared. Chat, tell me. What'd they say? It was Halo 2. All right. I expected this. Of course, I want to shake your hand. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, we did it. I mean, this was fun together, Black. This was fun. And it was very difficult because when we made the fun, dumb idea, I knew there was some good ones. I didn't know there was 32 good ones and there's more that we could have when I started thinking through sequels, I was like, damn, like there are so many great sequels. And that's honestly one of the, one of the reasons why, like I wanted to keep it to sequels that are the second in the series. Like I didn't want to bring in the tears. I didn't want to bring in a God of War. Cause I think there is something special about the conversations we had. There only, there's only one game in this series. How do you level up on that one game? How did he push forward? And only, only the course of one video game. And I think this is really special. when you look at the journey that we took across this track. I think there's some great polls that you brought up. Street Fighter 2 and appreciating that was a really fun conversation, right? Yeah. I bring up Diablo 2 and Age of Empires 2. Yeah. That was fun to look back on that one, right? Like, we're missing out on the Resident Evil 2 talk from maybe like a Tim or a Brittany, but like, that was a fun one to look back on and remember. We didn't really talk about Dead Space 2 because Portal 2 ran away from that, but like, that series, that franchise, number two there, Titanfall 2 was great. to look back on that game just so quickly forgotten that was unfortunate i want to shout out some of the picks that were like the outside looking ins that didn't make it the final thing but had to be a more of a discussion between mike uh me and mike baldur's gate 2 was a contender there uh bayonetta 2 was a contender but i don't think either of us have played bayonetta 2 that much too yep um but i know that that one's for sure a contender for people dishonored 2 uh didn't make it on our list yeah we're talking about oh wait that was like yeah that was almost there it didn't fully make it divinity original sin 2 was another one fable 2 as well gears of war 2 um knack 2 was on there as well we left out a lot there was a lot there was a lot of games paper mario the thousand year door i had on the short list i had rocket league you had to talk me down for rocket league i did talk him down from rocket league yeah i almost had rocket league on there because of super battle cars whatever the thing was called but like i think one of either you or greg was like well is it a sequel really or is it just a follow-up kind of thing i had sonic the hedgehog 2 um on there as well but i didn't i didn't force it on there i was thinking about it but i was like i'm not gonna do that been fun um close out with a couple of super chats here chris dover writes it and says wait is this list wait wait is this a list of greg's least favorite games that's fucked up you shouldn't do that that's really fun that's a man with great taste loyal freak says last was two puts belt to rdr two's ass red dead redemption 2 is overrated I feel like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Last of Us 2 get like a lot of hate from two very different crowds of people and you know it's okay we all have different opinions it's okay to have opinions on video games that's what we do for a job what if I dislike both then like you know you just have the best video game taste of all time well you said two very different people I'm literally one person blessing am I two different people and then we have one from Matt Caladonna who says Diablo 2 is one of the deepest, most complicated and replayable sequels. What other game had an update 20 years later? It's crazy. It's a special one. I mean, there was nothing but special games on that list. Yeah. And it'll be fun to see the comments. Comments are going to go crazy on this one. I don't know if I can read them. I'm going to read them and I'm excited to see. I mean, we already see it live in the chat right now. What people love and how mad they are. Oh, they're so mad. But tell me the funniest ones. Read them and tell me the funniest ones. Okay, well, well, well. This brings us to the end of this episode of Kind of Funny Gamescast. Mike, thank you so much for joining me on this episode. Of course, thank you. Bless another fun one. GDC week, full and in effect. Yep. Which Wednesday, we got some great content throughout the rest of the week. Tomorrow, you host a big games cast with special guests. Yeah. A fully packed desk. If I remember correctly, it would be me, Imran, Paris, and Stella. Yep. And I don't know. What are we talking about? Game of the year so far, I think. Okay. Okay. Nice. That's the latest idea I've had. I like that. Because I'm scared. Greg was like, oh, let's do a hot takes episode. Yeah. I'll be honest, I was kind of scared of the idea of letting them go crazy with hot takes. Really? Honestly, not even them. I just feel like we've been doing a lot of hot takes. You've been doing a lot of hot takes. But, like, the hot takes work. I like the hot takes after the presentations. I think they work well, right? Like, hey, you get involved with the conversation. Tell us what you like. But it would be interesting to hear three other people that we don't get to spend a lot of time with hear their thoughts as well. It would be fun. I mean, Chad, let me know. Holler at me if you want to hear them do the hot takes. We can do the hot takes. Because I feel like we do give very thoughtful hot takes. We don't go all the way hot. like even on our hot take episode i think we're all very much like no these are just my thought out opinions exactly i had to avoid it because i was like i don't have any hot takes plus me and you they call me lukewarm mike me and you no hot takes never had any hot takes hope you guys enjoyed the episode until next time it's been our pleasure to serve you