Just finished–what a joy to listen to…I kind of like that the IC podcast by design avoids discussion of current games so that all that magic can be bottled up and sprinkled generously onto us dirtiest of bags all at once!
Somehow this escaped me while listening in real time, but now that I am viewing the list in its totality I am very amused to discover that I have not, in fact, played any of the games that were ranked! Hilariously (embarassingly?) the closest would probably be the Mass Effect trilogy, which I devoured back in the day on or around their respective original 360 release dates. I fully realize that I am not as attuned to literary prose as Tim, but the scripts never struck me as especially terrible…not amazing, but serviceable at the very least. Unfortunately, I felt like there was an overall gradual decline in interestingness throughout the series (1 was a 7/10, whereas 2 and 3 were probably 9/10 and 8/10, respectively, to their detriment). Either way, I put in the work with ME3, even using that horrendous companion mobile app to help amass my fleet to combat the REAPERS (Hale’s recitation of that word is tattooed on my brain). I experienced the baffling ending to The Shepherd's story as it went down and I can only hope to some day hear the panelist(s) reaction(s). I probably will never play that Guardians of the Galaxy game, but the more I hear about it the more I’m convinced that that team could probably make a fun little (or big!!) ME game to reanimate that corpse, Lazarus Project style.
I will undoubtedly play SMTV, but I am so averse to spoiling anything about that game that I actually skipped through the discussion and was pleasantly surprised to discover the ranking only at the very end of the show. Unfortunately, I’m experiencing something of a Zeno’s Paradox with SMTV, where I keep inserting more games to play in between Nocturne and V (definitely going to finish IV first…really tempted to play Apocalypse/Final as well).
Nier, Moon, FIST, and Chicory were already firmly on my radar, though I’ve now added the FF pixel remasters, Fuga, and, bafflingly, Balan to my to-play list. As amusing as it is to see CoD on there, I’m not fooled…I played the MW campaign back on the 360 out of sheer curiosity and had such a dreadful time with the infinitely respawning shooting gallery and frankly pornographic fixation on firearms that I’m ok never going near that series again.
As for 2021 games I did play, I’m not that surprised that MH Rise and Metroid Dread didn’t make it onto the list. I had a good time with both of those games, but they packed their things and vacated my brain space pretty tidily. It was a little sad not seeing Inscryption or the Nocturne remaster on the list, however. The former was not perfect, but I had a heck of a time with it (did any of the panelists play it?). With the latter, I could understand it if an HD remaster were disqualified by default, but with all the IC shenanigans I’m sure someone could have shoehorned it on there…
Also Wandavision was trash. Loki was almost not trash but, sadly, is also trash. But it’s ok to like trash!