Triple Click Picks: The Games You Should Play (2026 Edition)

The Triple Click gang convenes for a long-awaited update on the Triple Click Picks — our list of games we highly recommend — with some surprising new additions and removals.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Every so often, the hosts of TripleClick get together to decide which 10 games are the greatest of them all. Which games get to be a TripleClick pick? Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the picks to you. This week, after three long years, we're finally updating TripleClick picks, and we have got a lot of games to consider adding to the list. Which games will make the cut and which games will go? Stick around to find out.

• 0:32Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:34Jason Schreier?

  And I'm Jason Schreier. Hello.

• 0:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Hello.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Hello. Hello, hello, hello.

• 0:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Hello, my friends.

• 0:40Jason Schreier?

  Did I tell you guys that I'm going to Japan in like three weeks?

• 0:45Speaker 01

  You didn't.

• 0:45Kirk Hamilton?

  I guess you did, because we've been scheduling around it. And I think I knew you were, I think I knew you were traveling, and I think maybe I knew you were going to Japan. But anyways, that's very exciting, and listeners didn't know that.

• 0:56Jason Schreier?

  It is very exciting, because the reason I bring it up is because I've never actually been to Japan, which is kind of crazy, because I've been covering the video game industry for many, many years, and have written and have loved Japanese games for many years. But I've never had an excuse to go to Japan. And so now I'm going.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  What's the excuse?

• 1:13Jason Schreier?

  It's a few things, various projects, secret projects, and Tokyo Game Show is that week.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 1:21Jason Schreier?

  And yeah, that'll be fun. But if anyone out there wants to send me some tips of places I should go, I'm going to be staying in Shibuya in Tokyo. And if anyone gives me, want to give me tips, wants to give me tips for navigating Tokyo, or for what to do and see and eat there, please, please do let me know.

• 1:41Kirk Hamilton?

  I think because you play Persona 5, you should be fine on the metro, you should be fine getting around.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  And you should be fine on like, schedule orientation, and just how long it's going to take you to do each activity.

• 1:51Kirk Hamilton?

  You'll know all the best places, right? Where to get a burger.

• 1:54Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 1:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Where to do some batting at the batting cages.

• 1:57Jason Schreier?

  Shibuya Crossing is in Persona 5. That's like the, kind of like the Times Square of Tokyo. And it's pretty, it plays a pretty prevalent role in Persona 5. So you see it a lot.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  So we've kind of all been there.

• 2:10Kirk Hamilton?

  As being in The World Ends With You, because that game is primarily set in Shibuya, like on the square, right? You kind of walk around there a lot in that game.

• 2:18Jason Schreier?

  Sounds about right. I'm going to be killing demons on the bottom screen while I'm walking around Shibuya.

• 2:25Kirk Hamilton?

  You have to split your brain in two. Well, we are a listener-supported show, and that means that our listeners make it possible for us to occasionally take trips around the world for cool projects. And if you want to support our show, you can become a Maximum Fun member at maximumfun.org/join. And we super appreciate everybody who supports our show and supports the creation of TripleClick. It's the only way we make any money on this show that we spend so much time making and are having such a good time creating. And yeah, if you sign up, you get a bunch of bonus episodes. We've made so many bonus episodes over the years. There's a huge treasure trove. I've actually enjoyed seeing a few different people on the TripleClick Discord mention that they finally became

• 3:10Kirk Hamilton?

  a member. One person, I think, was gifted a membership, and another person just signed up, I think, after a long period of taking, taking a break. And they have been just binging all of the bonus episodes and having a good time. And that is very cool to see. And also a nice reminder that you could buy a membership as a gift for somebody if you wanted, even if you're already a member, if you want to support the show a little bit more, and you know somebody who might like all the bonus episodes, you can buy them a membership as a gift. And then they can listen to us talk about all kinds of things, like Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, and a spoiler cast on Resident Evil Requiem. And starting last fall, The Sopranos, we've been talking about the TV show The Sopranos. We have super-sized

• 3:54Kirk Hamilton?

  episodes about that television show, which we have been rewatching. And we will be releasing the third one of those, which is going to cover seasons four and five, I think, in a couple of weeks, right at the end of August. That'll be our next bonus episode. And then in the fall, we've got all kinds of fun stuff planned as well. So lots of bonus stuff, and you can support our show at maximumfun.org/join. All right. So we have been answering a lot of questions, listener questions on the show lately. We've been doing a lot of mailbags. And one question that we have not answered, but one that has come in many times is, when the heck are you going to update TripleClick picks? Because we haven't updated the TripleClick picks in a while. Now, in fact, it's been so long that I think

• 4:39Kirk Hamilton?

  I should probably explain what TripleClick picks are, because there may be people who started listening to this show and aren't even aware that TripleClick picks exists.

• 4:47Jason Schreier?

  There may be, maybe some people since September of 2023.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, we may as well say just how long it's been. It's been three years.

• 4:56Kirk Hamilton?

  It has essentially been like, half the length of this show's existence, since we updated TripleClick picks. So when we started the show, we had this idea of, wouldn't it be cool if there was just a list of 10 games that were the games that we unequivocally recommend? 10 games that the three of us all love, that we would just be your go-to? If you just are getting into video games, or you just are looking for something new to play, look at that list. Anything on there is going to be good. And if you kind of like this show, and you feel like you kind of understand our tastes, you're going to get a game that all three of us like. And also, those 10 games kind of represent TripleClick in a way. Like, they're a good frame of reference for listening to our show, because we talk about them a lot, because they're all games that we really like. We have updated

• 5:37Kirk Hamilton?

  the list a few times, and each time we add a game, we have to remove a game. And there is a helpful sort of paste bin that a listener has maintained that has the whole change log. And I should say, up top, if you hear these 10 games that we're about to list and think, oh, but I want more, you could actually play any of the games in any version of TripleClick picks, and you'll be getting good games. So we'll link to that, that complete sort of update history of the TripleClick picks in the show notes, so you can follow along. But today, we are going to make an update to the list of TripleClick picks, to the list of 10 games that we think you should play. And there are a lot of contenders, because it has been three years since we updated the TripleClick picks list. So I am looking

• 6:20Kirk Hamilton?

  at the list. We've all got it right here. Jason Schreier, how about you read the current list of TripleClick picks?

• 6:27Jason Schreier?

  Sure. The current list, in order of name length, Kirk Hamilton specialty.

• 6:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Very important order. Yes.

• 6:37Jason Schreier?

  Number one, Elden Ring. Number two, Outer Wilds. Number three, Disco Elysium. Number four, Hollow Knight. Number five, Metroid Dread. Number six, Baldur's Gate 3. Number seven, Marvel's Midnight Suns. Number eight, Return of the Oberdin. Number nine, The Case of the Golden Idol. Number 10, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

• 7:06Kirk Hamilton?

  What a list. That's a...

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Strong list. Can we just say, this list is so great, that I feel like we can understand, perhaps, why we wouldn't have updated it in a while. I mean, I know we're going to make some changes today.

• 7:17Jason Schreier?

  I thought you were going to say, this list is so great that we shouldn't change it.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  I honestly, there was a part of me that read this list and was like, I really like all these games still. I really like these. We're going to change it, though.

• 7:30Kirk Hamilton?

  It is possible that we'll discuss and debate, and we'll wind up not changing that list.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  I don't think it's very likely. I just wanted to compliment our past selves. We got great taste. It's a banger list. Banger after banger.

• 7:43Jason Schreier?

  For people who aren't familiar with the process, Kirk, do you want to walk everybody through kind of how, how we handle this?

• 7:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, we're going to go through a list of contenders, and we're going to then sort of look at the list. And it's basically a balancing act between what stays and what goes. And I think generally, you know, each of us thinks of the list differently. But I would say that generally, we try to think of the list holistically, and not get too caught up on, okay, this for that. Even though we do kind of tend to make trades, like one immersive sim for another immersive sim, one side-scrolling game for another. And like, we do kind of do one-to-one trades. We don't always. Sometimes it's just like, you know, the list with this game on it would just sort of feel better than the list with this game on it. So it's a little bit of an arcane process.

• 8:27Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I do think that we try to have a variety of genres here, because I think part of the idea is that if you are not a big fan of, I don't know, big meaty role-playing games, you should still be able to find other games that you would, would appeal to you on here.

• 8:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. I think that's the holistic view of the list. We don't want to just have a big list of, yeah, big, long role-playing games, or a big list of, you know, puzzle games. It's going to be, it's going to have some variety. And we try to maintain that variety with the switches that we make. So now, let's get into contenders. So the first list of contenders is a list of tested contenders, according to science, or at least, I'm saying this is somewhat scientific, in that most of the games on this list were on at least two of our top 10 lists for the year that they came out, our top 10 individual favorite games of the year lists. There's a couple there that we decided to just talk about. Like, I think Cyberpunk may have actually only been on my list. So, you know, there's a couple there that don't qualify for that. But pretty much, these are like games that

• 9:26Kirk Hamilton?

  at least two of us picked as favorite games of the year. So Matty, how about you run down this list of tested contenders? This is the first list of contenders.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Okay, so these are Cyberpunk 2077, Octopath Traveler 2, Blue Prince, Hollow Knight: Silk Song, Metaphory Fantazio, Balatro, Animal Well, Rise of the Golden Idol, Alan Wake 2, Super Mario Wonder, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth are both on here.

• 9:57Kirk Hamilton?

  And/or.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  And/or. Well, I think we'll have to decide. And Astro Bot is the final entry on this list of contenders.

• 10:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Lot of contenders.

• 10:08Kirk Hamilton?

  So then, there is also a list of 2026 games, games from this year, that we should at least mention. I think we tend to avoid games that just came out and kind of put a pin in them. That's one reason that we're bringing up Cyberpunk 2077 now, because the last time that we talked about this, you know, the Phantom Liberty expansion had just come out, that game had just hit 2.0, which is kind of 1.0, you know, it had hit its kind of finished state. And so it was a fantastic game, especially, I think, in my opinion. But it was so fresh that, you know, we were updating it at the same time that was coming out. So some of these 2026 games might not make the list, but we might as well mention them. Jason, how about you run down this list of 2026 games that we should at least mention?

• 10:50Jason Schreier?

  007 First Light, Pokemon Pokopia, Fields of Mysteria, Mina the Hollower, Titanium Court, Esoteric Ab, Mugenix, Resident Evil Requiem, and Dispatch is not a 2026 game.

• 11:06Kirk Hamilton?

  It is not.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Well, I put it on. I'll add it to the other bonus category of slightly older games that still came out since 2023.

• 11:15Jason Schreier?

  Matty's, there's a list here that just says Matty's bonus list.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, now it has Dispatch on it.

• 11:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, you want to just tell us what these are, Maddie?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Sure. These are just other games that don't fit in any of the previous categories. And they are Dispatch, 100 Line Last Defense Academy, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Control, I know it's old, but I just put it on here anyway, Tactical Breach Wizards, An Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, which I would argue is a game. I know it's a DLC, but it's a game.

• 11:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, let's, let's clear this up to start with, with Shadow of the Erdtree. I think that Shadow of the Erdtree is just included under the banner of, under the aegis of Elden Ring.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  I am totally fine with that.

• 11:59Kirk Hamilton?

  The same as Phantom Liberty is just a part of Cyberpunk 2077. I think we can just

• 12:03Speaker 01

  That makes it way easier?

• 12:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Great. One, one decision made, done.

• 12:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, so I guess because Maddie, you got to do a little bonus list, I will just say, there are two games that I would argue to put on the list, but that neither of you has played, and that I just don't think will make it, that I want to acknowledge. One of them is Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which just really is like, I'm still playing that game. I'm playing it right now. It's such a great game. And I really do think it deserves a spot. And the other is Cairn, which I've mentioned before, is my favorite game of the year, a really amazing accomplishment, and something that is just amazing and would fit really well on our list, but neither of you have played it. So I want to mention those two games, and we'll maybe come back to them in six years when we update this.

• 12:47Jason Schreier?

  I've played some Kingdom Come 2, for what it's worth.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 12:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, but you played like the beginning hour or something. It's like a

• 12:55Jason Schreier?

  Played a few hours.

• 12:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Eh, okay, but I mean it's

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Maybe not enough to make a firm argument for it to be on the list, though.

• 13:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I just can't imagine us having a substantive argue, or discussion about the game, because like, I've played 100 hours of that game, and I have probably 100 left. Like, it's just a different experience when you've played that much. And I am okay with us not, not submitting it.

• 13:14Jason Schreier?

  Okay, so should we make some pitches? Because I have a couple of pitches that I can make for like, this for that. That's how we've done it in the past.

• 13:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, you want to just do a this for that swap?

• 13:22Jason Schreier?

  Straight up swaps.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  You don't want to try and get rid of stuff?

• 13:24Jason Schreier?

  Because remember, this, this, when we started doing this, it was kind of like in the lineage of the best that we would do, the best list that we do at Kotaku. And the process was always like, my pitch is this replaces that. And then we look at how that list would kind of, the shape of it, and we decide, okay, yeah, that's a good swap. That feels right.

• 13:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think that'll be a better, like, more time, just more efficient than trying to knock games off the contenders list. It'll just, that'll take a lot longer. So go for it. What have you got?

• 13:50Jason Schreier?

  So my first swap is, my first proposal is going to be Blue Prince. And I think Blue Prince, I think there are a couple that we could do away with on this list that maybe like in, maybe, I don't know, have, have kind of like, have, have run their purpose, run, run their course on this list. My proposal is going to be Blue Prince, replacing Disco Elysium.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:15Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm gonna write that down.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  It's not what I would have expected you to say it replaces.

• 14:20Kirk Hamilton?

  So Maddie, what would you have expected, or what do you think that Blue Prince could replace? Because I agree, Jason, that Blue Prince should probably be on this list.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  I agree. I think all three of us

• 14:28Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, I think Blue Prince, I would argue, it's the best game of the decade. Like, it's one of my favorite games of all time. It's the best game of the decade. Like, it's an incredible, and I've been like, re-experiencing it, both through having my wife play it and watching her, and also having Russ Frechek play, played and talk to me about his progress every single day. And I'm just constantly reminded about how incredible an experience it is.

• 14:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's not really even a debate. I think it has to be on our list. Like, all three of us are obsessed with it, yeah.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  It has to be on the list. I agree. And heading into this, I thought that was one of the most obvious choices, other than perhaps Silk Song, but we'll get to that later. For now, we're talking about Blue Prince. I think that, unfortunately, much as I love this game, Marvel's Midnight Suns has run its course. And I realize that I'm proposing a swap of a completely different genre of game here, by suggesting Blue Prince replace it. But

• 15:23Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I'm fine with that. I think that's a weak entry, too, at this point.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  I think it's one of the weakest links of the list, much as I, it may be a great game.

• 15:31Jason Schreier?

  I also think we might have other ones that could swap in there, too. I was just proposing Disco, because that, to me, feels like it's maybe run its course on this list. I think, the thing about Disco is, I think, a bunch of other games like it have come out, and I think in some ways, not to diminish the quality of that game, but have kind of made it feel less essential. Because these days, if someone was like, should I play Disco Elysium? I would be like, I don't know, this game just came out called Esoteric Ev, that's really cool. And I'm not arguing that Esoteric Ev should be a triple-click pick necessarily. It's just that Disco feels less like a singular experience that everyone must play these days.

• 16:09Kirk Hamilton?

  So let's just say, for now, that we know Blue Prince is going on, and we can talk about what it replaces in a little bit. And I, for what it's worth, agree with you about, I agree with both of you about Midnight Suns and Disco Elysium. They're both great games. I do just feel like, especially with Disco, yeah, there have been other games like it. And actually, let's talk about Esoteric Ev. Does Esoteric Ev deserve a spot on our list? Is it, is it a one-for-one swap for Disco?

• 16:38Speaker 01

  I don't know that it's a one-for-one swap. I, I liked it very much, but I'm not sure it's essential enough to merit a placement on the picks. I don't know if it gets the crown.

• 16:50Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I am with you there. I don't think it's essential. Actually, I have another proposal that's a little bit more left field in terms of genre, but I think Balatro has to be on here. And to me, Balatro and Blue Prince for Disco and Marvel's Midnight Suns feels like, feels, feels like good moves.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 17:07Kirk Hamilton?

  I don't know. Yeah, Balatro, Balatro, that's a tricky one. It, it's, it's really great. I've played it a million, I've played a million hours. We always wind up playing it on stream. We're all obsessed with it. It's also just kind of a game about, like, the math number going up. I mean, it's an amazing game, but I'm not totally sure if it's a triple-click pick. I, I could be convinced, it's

• 17:27Jason Schreier?

  Okay, you don't think it's got enough depth to it?

• 17:31Kirk Hamilton?

  It's not that. It's like, I'm ambivalent. It's not that I think it shouldn't be on there. It's, it's great, obviously. Like, I really, like, am still obsessed with it and still play it pretty regularly. So it's a contender. I'll put it under the going-on contender. I'm just a little less convinced. Maddie, what's your take on Balatro?

• 17:48Speaker 01

  No, I, I really know what you mean. And I, I almost am, for lack of a better comparison, it's kind of like putting a cheeseburger on a list of really fine foods, where it's like, well, yeah, a cheeseburger is wonderful, but it's got a kind of quality to it that just doesn't quite fit the rest of the list. And I'm like, well, am I being biased against Balatro just because it has a sort of light, light sensation of like, just, it's not a deep game. It's not a really long story game. I'd be hard-pressed to write any essay about its symbolism, or what it means to society, whereas I might easily do that with any of these other games.

• 18:26Jason Schreier?

  Balatro is more of a time-waster game than any of the others on our list.

• 18:31Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's just what a time-waster game. It's like, you know, not a cheeseburger, but it's a bag of jalapeno kettle chips, which is just

• 18:38Jason Schreier?

  Which you're obsessed with.

• 18:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, exactly. Just like Balatro. And I'll open the bag.

• 18:43Jason Schreier?

  But you wouldn't put it on your top 10 list of foods.

• 18:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. I would open the bag, and every time, I will just eat the entire bag if you don't take it away from me. And, and I can't even

• 18:52Speaker 01

  And maybe feel a little sick.

• 18:53Kirk Hamilton?

  And like, I wouldn't fault the artistry. Like, it is an exceptional combination of flavors that the people at Kettle Chips have come up with. Just like, Lozal Song has come up with an exceptional combination of elements.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Chips is a perfect analogy for, for what Balatro is bringing to the table. And I, I too love chips very much, but also, very similarly, have been known to eat an entire bag and feel a little ill, and also have been known to play a little too much Balatro, and feel a little bit like, maybe I wished I had spent that time doing something different, playing something else.

• 19:23Kirk Hamilton?

  All right, I put a little question mark by it. Let's move on. So I guess one game to throw out there is Cyberpunk 2077, since we said we were going to revisit it. There is no, you know, The Witcher 3 isn't on our list. I don't think it ever was, which is kind of interesting.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  It used, I thought it was of, one of our very first

• 19:42Kirk Hamilton?

  No, I'm looking at our

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Is this a false memory on my part? Maybe we just talked about it extensively.

• 19:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I'm looking at the, the pay spin history, and it's not on there.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  I believe you.

• 19:50Kirk Hamilton?

  And that's, I think partly because, you know, Jason, you've played some of it. But really, I mean, I'm the only Witcher sicko here. And all of us played Baldur's Gate 3, which is a similarly dense role-playing game, even if it's a very different game mechanically in a lot of ways. And I guess to throw Cyberpunk out there, or to finally put it to bed, I would be happy putting it on this list. I think that it's really good. It's a tricky one to recommend, like, as a replacement for Baldur's Gate 3. I would never suggest that. They're very different games, though. I mean, Cyberpunk is not an immersive sim, but it is a first-person sort of open-world city game. It's just like wildly different from Baldur's Gate. And also, CD Projekt's approach to storytelling and

• 20:32Kirk Hamilton?

  like branching narrative is very different from Larian's approach in Baldur's Gate 3. I think it's great, and Phantom Liberty is just like, truly great. It's, it's similar to some of those Witcher DLCs. It's just some of the best interactive storytelling going. It's such a great story. But I guess, what do the two of you think? Because I can't even, I can't remember if either of you finished Phantom Liberty, or have really engaged with this game that deeply.

• 20:56Jason Schreier?

  No, this is a tough one for me, because I haven't played that much of it. It just never got its, its hooks into me, for whatever reason. I enjoy what I play, but like, I don't know, something about it just didn't grab me.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, it's tough. I, I feel like this is one of those classic things where intellectually, I have a lot of respect for what it's doing. I enjoy a lot of it, but I would never put it on my list of favorites, even though I think post-Fantom Liberty, it's a way stronger game. And if I were talking to somebody who liked a sci-fi epic of that kind, I would absolutely recommend it to them. But for the triple-click picks, it's like, I don't know. It's it's an edge case, though. I I was really considering it heading into this conversation because I do think it's a way, way stronger game now than it was the last time we had this conversation. And I also think it's a much stronger contender than some of the other games on this very long contenders

• 21:53Speaker 01

  list that maybe we won't even bother saying the names of again as we go through this conversation. It's it's definitely up there.

• 22:00Jason Schreier?

  The question I would ask yourself, okay, Matty, ask yourself this question as kind of a thought exercise. If someone, just a random person, whether it's like a family member or like someone at a bar who you just met was like, oh, you're a games expert, what are some games you would recommend? Would Cyberpunk be in your top 10 of games that you would recommend to just this complete stranger out of the blue?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  I mean, probably not, especially if we're gonna make it more specific and say, I love RPGs. I love story. I would be more likely to still say Baldur's Gate 3 for somebody like that. I think Baldur's Gate 3 has a very comfortable position on this list still.

• 22:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Cool.

• 22:40Jason Schreier?

  And I think, yeah, I think with that kind of game, especially with a game that's a 100-hour role-playing game that's all based on story and branching decisions and choices you make and yada, yada, yada, cutscenes. It feels like 2 on here makes it a little too heavy, makes a little too much of that. I don't know. I don't necessarily.

• 23:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that's fine. I think the thing that decides it for me is just that the two of you never really dug into it. And this list has got to represent all three of us. So like, it's, you know, that kind of does it right there.

• 23:11Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, like, okay, yes. I mean, that's it's kind of to you what Octopath Traveler 2 is to me, where I would say that's one of the finest JRPGs ever made, and I would totally see it on the list. But neither of you really played much of it. So it's hard to argue it's a triple-click.

• 23:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. And it's similar in that I loved what I played and was like, dang, I could see this being a great game, and then just didn't make time for it. And it's kind of similar.

• 23:32Jason Schreier?

  Yep.

• 23:32Kirk Hamilton?

  All right. Well, let's get into another another pretty strong contender and one that raises some interesting questions, which is Hollow Knight: Silk Song. I think it's pretty likely that this goes on. And the first question I want to throw out is, what do we do about this? Because Hollow Knight is currently on the list. How do we want to think about this?

• 23:50Jason Schreier?

  God, I mean, honestly, I would tell people, play both of those. And in fact, I would say maybe Silk Song replaces Metroid Dread, and maybe we keep both of them on there.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't think that's actually a wild argument. And I came into this thinking that Metroid Dread would probably come off of this list, in part because Silk Song exists, and I already think it's pretty flattering to Dread that both Hollow Knight and Metroid Dread are on here. Like, even in its original iteration, I think some of that was some recency bias with Metroid Dread. But I also think in terms of the triple-click canon, when I evaluate this list, and what do we refer to a lot? I see that as part of the value of the list, in addition to, what do you recommend to a new friend who's asking you for advice on what to play?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  And I would probably recommend Metroid Dread to that person. But when I overlap that with, what is the triple-click canon, and what do we actually talk about a lot? It's gonna be Hollow Knight and Hollow Knight: Silk Song. Having both of them on there, I personally prefer Silk Song. I've made no secret of that. So to me, that swap is totally fair to make. I think it's a stronger game. But I also can see the argument for keeping both.

• 25:06Jason Schreier?

  I gotta say, after I finished Silk Song earlier last, or in September of last year, I immediately jumped into replaying all of Hollow Knight. And my goodness, I mean, it's still astounding. It's still phenomenal. And and the two of them almost, they complement each other really well, because they feel so different to play that you never really get sick of the formula, no matter how much you're playing both of them. So.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Okay, but here's another counterpoint. We have Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on here, and I would say that game and Breath of the Wild have a similar relationship. And we don't have both on here.

• 25:41Jason Schreier?

  Well, actually, one of the arguments we made, I remember making this argument and having this conversation, was that Tears of the Kingdom, because of all the travel, all the extra ways it added to get around the world and also to fight enemies, to me, it kind of, it superseded Breath of the Wild, because it felt much better to play. And it was hard to imagine going back to Breath of the Wild, once you had gotten all those powers, like Ascend and Fuse and Ultra Hand.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I still really enjoyed going back to Breath of the Wild regardless. So even though I understand the argument, I also still think Breath of the Wild has its charms. And Hollow Knight, similarly to me, feels slower, not always a bad thing, doesn't have all the characterization that Hornet has. She's such a beloved character to me now, that that's really weighting Silk Song in its favor to me. And so to me, they have kind of like a similar comparison point. But yeah, I mean, I remember when we made that argument. What do you think, Kirk?

• 26:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I have a few different thoughts, I guess. One big difference is that Hollow Knight is quite a bit easier than Silk Song. And Silk Song is very, very difficult. And that's always my hesitation with recommending it to people, is that that game is hard as nails, and it gets particularly difficult in the back half. Where Hollow Knight has its moments of difficulty, but it is baby town frolics compared to Silk Song. Like, going back and playing Hollow Knight after playing Silk Song, it's just a much, much more straightforward game, and the encounters just are not as difficult. It's just not even close. So that's kind of an interesting one with the recommendation, because I would definitely recommend people play Hollow Knight first if they're, you know, thinking, oh, I'm starting to get into these games, or I know I have a lot

• 27:20Kirk Hamilton?

  of friends whose kids are getting old enough to play these kind of more difficult games, and they want to get into some of these, you know, more advanced side-scrollers. They always start with Hollow Knight. I say, start with Hollow Knight. You know, that's always my advice. And yet, Silk Song, I agree, is, I mean, it's more game than Hollow Knight, and it is just, if not an improvement, it's just like an elaboration upon Hollow Knight in so many different respects. The world, the story, the design, the, you know, crafting your build, and just the way that it feels to play it. It's such a masterpiece and an incredible accomplishment, that it does feel like it should be on our list. So I'm really a little bit torn. My only other thought is also, I think having Hollow Knight and Silk Song on this list is kind of a lot. That's 20% of the

• 28:05Kirk Hamilton?

  list, then, is these very difficult side-scrolling Metroidvanias made by like the same two people.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  I know. I don't feel that great about.

• 28:14Jason Schreier?

  Team cherry dominance.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Having two of them. I also, I'm I'm fine with us taking Metroid Dread off, but I think part of why it made sense to have it on there, despite it also being a somewhat difficult side-scroller, is that it does have a really different feel from Hollow Knight, or Silk Song for that matter. It just feels different to play and has different mechanics, and obviously is made by a different team. So it felt like it had enough variation, whereas just literally having two Hollow Knight games on the list. It would also be the first time we've done that, right? Like, we have never had two games in the same franchise.

• 28:47Kirk Hamilton?

  All right, here, I have a proposal. I have a proposal. I think this is clean. I think we can take Hollow Knight off and put Silk Song on. I think that anybody who's coming to this list, like totally Babe in the Woods fresh, can look at the history and understand that, like, Hollow Knight was the first one, that it's still really good, and it was on this list for six years.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's like, it's an emeritus. Like, it doesn't, it didn't lose its pick status.

• 29:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Right.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  It's still the pick, in a way.

• 29:11Kirk Hamilton?

  And Silk Song is a masterpiece, and it's the newest one. And it's, you know, like, I think that should be on there. So I think maybe we could just do a one-for-one swap, actually.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  What are you thinking, Jason?

• 29:20Jason Schreier?

  Okay. Yeah, that's fine with me. I think for balance, I think for balance's sake, which, again, looking at this holistically. So yeah, I mean, let's look at some other contenders. Do you guys want to make some other proposals of, like, games you think should be on there? I have a couple more suggestions, but I'll let you guys go.

• 29:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I'd love to hear whatever you got. Go for it.

• 29:42Jason Schreier?

  Okay. I mean, I was gonna say, I would love to talk about Animal Well. That's a game that I think all of us thought was pretty special. I could totally see that fitting on here. I think the only downside of that game is that, like, a lot of the end game stuff is kind of, you need, like, a group of people to be working together to do it. It's kind of, some of it is kind of irrelevant today. But there's so much of the kind of first two phases, the first sage getting the first credits, and then collecting the eggs, they could just kind of call it after that, after getting all 64 eggs and still have a tremendous time. And yeah, I mean, that game is pretty special. I don't know. What do you guys think?

• 30:24Kirk Hamilton?

  What do you think, Matty?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I liked Animal Well a lot. And I do like the idea of having a game that is a side-scroller and sort of pays homage to games of that ilk, and the specific pixel art style that it has. We don't really have another game that has that flavor. And I, and so I like including it artistically.

• 30:46Jason Schreier?

  Oh, I didn't, I didn't propose a swap, but maybe that's what takes Metroid Dread's spot?

• 30:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think also spiritually, there's, there's something to that that makes sense to me.

• 30:55Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a little Metroid.

• 30:56Jason Schreier?

  Something Metroid. Yeah, you get your items. The items allow you to pass things. And you know what I think is really clever? It kind of, it really evolves the the Metroid formula in a way that I haven't really seen before, in the sense that every item in the game has multiple functions, some of them hidden, and some of them really clever, in a way that most Metroidvanias don't do. In most Metroidvania games, your item is your item. In this, it's like, while you're frisbee, you can use it to fling it at things, or you could friggin' ride on it if you learn that. And the feeling of learning that you could ride on it is pretty, pretty cool.

• 31:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not opposed to putting Animal Well on the list. That's an unexpected one, but it does kind of fit. We're looking at, I'm just gonna add it here. And I do feel like Metroid Dread, that's a great game, like really, a really great game. But also, I haven't thought about it in a long time. And when I see it on the list, it's a little like Marvel's Midnight Suns. Actually, I think about Marvel's Midnight Suns a lot.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually do still think about it a lot.

• 31:54Kirk Hamilton?

  With that Star Wars game coming out, I've been thinking like, man, I loved Midnight Suns. It was like the best game of that year. And I can't wait for the Star Wars one. But at the same time, with, with Metroid Dread, it is a little like, okay, that's a great game. But it isn't like Hollow Knight, where I still think about Hollow Knight every day. A few times, just, just ambiently, it's just kind of always on my mind.

• 32:16Jason Schreier?

  Thinking about Hornet. It's like Kirk in, is like that meme in bed where it's like his wife lying next to him saying, what do you think he's thinking about other women? And he's just got Hornet in his thought bubble.

• 32:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Uh, yeah, the thing is, I will say that like, I don't think about Animal Well all the time either. That's not like top of mind for me.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  That's the thing about a Metroidvania.

• 32:36Jason Schreier?

  Hold on, this list isn't 10 games we think about all the time. It's 10 games that we would holistically recommend to people.

• 32:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I know. I mean, using that as just one rubric of just sort of like, is, did this game make a big enough impression on me? That it's like still something I think about and reference? And it kind of isn't.

• 32:51Jason Schreier?

  Well, what is another game that you think about? Let's talk about a couple of more like serious contenders and then we can figure out exactly what this is.

• 32:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, a few more contenders. All right. So one thing that comes to mind is actually Dispatch. Should we think about Dispatch?

• 33:04Jason Schreier?

  Let's talk about it. Let's talk it through.

• 33:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Dispatch was really cool. It was really good. I like loved it. And it made my games of the, game of the year list. I think, Jason, it made yours as well.

• 33:15Jason Schreier?

  Yep, definitely.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it didn't make mine, and yet I am the person who brought it to the table today. Which I think is part of why I brought it was because I was like, well, I know this wasn't on my list, but this is actually a game I've thought about a lot since I played it. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna amend my game of the year list. That's not how game of the year lists work. But I think that it did something really interesting. And I, yeah, I don't think about it every day like I do Hornet. But I have thought about it a lot since playing it. And I think that it was, it was good. I think it's a good game. I don't know. I don't have anything else deep to say that doesn't spoil the story of the game that I think is actually really worth experiencing.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  And that's part of why I, that's part of the value that I think it offers is like, feeling like a TV show where your choices actually impact how the TV show plays out. And that, that experience is pretty special.

• 34:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Hmm. Jason, what do you think about Dispatch?

• 34:15Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I don't know. I'm of two minds. Yes, it was one of my favorite games of last year. Yes, it's a fantastic game. But I think if I were recommending it to someone, there would be a little bit of a caveat, which is that like the, the management, the actual gameplay of it can be a little bit of a drag. And you can get to moments where you're just like, I wish this was over so I could just see more story. At least for me, that's how I felt playing it. And the hacking mini games are kind of like, whatever. So that, that makes it a little bit tougher of a sell. I also, yeah, I don't know. There are, they also, I, I remember we talked a little bit about this,

• 34:54Jason Schreier?

  but like I wasn't 100% thrilled with like choices leading into certain, like outcomes of choices in some ways. I don't know. I feel like when there's a sequel to Dispatch, I feel like they're gonna knock it out of the park. And that feels like when the game will get on this list.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I kind of feel that way too. I'm like, I, I feel like the sequel is gonna be so great because they just, they figured out how to do it and what was special about it. And I'm really excited to see where they take those characters and what they do next. So maybe this is something we revisit at a future time.

• 35:25Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I'm not super sold on it.

• 35:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think that the, as much as I think of the three of us, I liked the Dispatching gameplay the most and found it to be pretty characterful and fun. Yeah, I agree. I really like it as a contender for the list just because it's so different. And it really fits in this cool place where you put it on the TV and you play with a group of people. And it's like watching a really good show. But also considering what it's up against, you know, if we're not putting Cyberpunk on there or Octopath Traveler 2.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  No, I know, I know. Cyberpunk could make a, could make a late game play for the list. I mean, we'll see what happens, but.

• 36:02Jason Schreier?

  Okay, can I just say, okay, two things I would say. One is I think Big Walk will make this list. I think it might be too soon, but I think.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  I thought about Big Walk heading into this, honestly.

• 36:11Kirk Hamilton?

  We still gotta unlock the monorail.

• 36:13Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, we got, we gotta play more.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Once we get the monorail, it's gonna be over. It's gonna be over for all these games. It'll just be one pick.

• 36:19Jason Schreier?

  Can I make another pitch? Can I make another pitch?

• 36:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, go.

• 36:22Jason Schreier?

  Mina the Hollower.

• 36:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, what would, uh, maybe. I'm, I'm open to it, even though I like go back and forth and I found the difficulty to be a little off putting. And even after modifying.

• 36:36Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, okay. So I guess the thing that would be my biggest roadblock is that you have to warn people, just like with, with some of these other games I've been mentioning, when, when you can't just unreservedly, like you can't just be like this without reservations, no hesitations. You gotta play this. With Mina, it's kind of like you have to be willing to get through a really difficult first couple of hours. That said, the game is so special and meticulously designed and feels so good to play and looks so good and sounds so good. It's hard to argue that it's not a complete package. But yeah, that difficulty spike at the beginning does make it a tough sell for me too.

• 37:13Kirk Hamilton?

  What do you think, Maddie?

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I, I feel like the way that they organize the accessibility settings is itself so overwhelming for some people that it can be a downside. It is not how I felt. But I've heard that enough from friends who've played the game that they thought parts of it were hard and they wanted to figure out how to make it more playable. But because there are so many things in Mina that you can change, it actually ends up being difficult to tell how to make it fun for you. Even though I actually believe that there are ways to make Mina fun for maybe not every person in the world, but a, but a lot of people because of all of those settings.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  I just also think it can be really hard to figure out how to make those settings work for you. And that that is also a design challenge that they've described facing in making the game and in designing all the, the items and on top of all the, those accessibility settings.

• 38:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think I kind of don't think it quite makes it. Just because it's a little bit more of a niche game, like the art style as well. And I know a lot of people don't like how it looks. And I'll admit that it's not like my chosen art style. Like I came around on it, like I really warmed to how it looks. But it is a little bit flat and sort of, I don't know, like that, that particular style of video game. Just like it didn't really grab me. And it wasn't until I played it a bit that I really came around on it. And it is pretty hard. And yeah, while I like the difficulty options and really found a way to play the game that I really like, I, I had also seen that feedback, Maddie, that actually all of the options are like overwhelming

• 38:58Kirk Hamilton?

  and people just wind up in their head about like, do I have the game set right? Am I playing it the best way? Am I having fun? Is this too hard? Is it too easy? And that that winds up kind of throwing people off. And like, it's really great, but I don't know for the, you know, for the like show wide pick for one of the 10 games you must play, I think it's maybe a little bit too particular.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 39:18Jason Schreier?

  Any other contenders for you guys? Otherwise, we can kind of go through what we've got here and.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  So I'm curious. We've got The Case of the Golden Idol on this list. Do we want to sub in Rise of the Golden Idol as just a swapperoo?

• 39:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, Jason, you're the most familiar with these. What do you think?

• 39:37Jason Schreier?

  No, I don't think so. I think Case is where I would recommend people start. And I think Case is stronger as a whole. Uh, I think Rise, I think is fantastic. I love that game too. But Case, I think is, is better.

• 39:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Okay, asked and answered. I don't even, I don't even entirely disagree. I was, I was kind of torn on it, but I think you said it well.

• 39:59Kirk Hamilton?

  That's true. Thinking it through, they're all doing the same thing. And so you might as well start at the beginning. It isn't really like a Hollow Knight to Silk Song thing where the sequel expands and explodes like so many of the ideas and moves in all these new directions. It really is almost like one huge game. You could just play Case and then Rise. And if you play Case and like it, presumably you'll just be like, oh, sick, there's a whole other one. With a bunch more puzzles I can play.

• 40:21Jason Schreier?

  Exactly, with references to the first and so on and so forth.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  By the same token, Oberdin still on here. We don't really have another game like it to replace it. But like Disco Elysium, this is maybe, this is an older game. I mean, it's one of the older, oldest games? I don't know. Oldest game on the list?

• 40:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I don't know though. I mean.

• 40:41Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, but I, I don't think, unlike Disco Elysium, I mean, it's not about.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, nobody, come on people, make a better game than this.

• 40:47Jason Schreier?

  No, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. No, that's not what I was saying. I mean, I know I said that Disco didn't feel singular anymore. In fact, I would say Oberdin did get other games like it. There are a lot of games that are like Oberdin, but Oberdin still feels singular. And it still feels like the game that I would say you must, you absolutely must play this game. I would say Golden Idol is kind of an iteration of the Oberdin formula. And there are a bunch of others. I just played another detective game that was kind of like followed similar. There are a lot of games that involve just kind of like doing a logic puzzle and fill, figuring out who did something that are just kind of in that mold. So I would say the games have come out like it. It's just that nothing has lived up to it in any way.

• 41:26Kirk Hamilton?

  I feel the same way about Outer Wilds for what it's worth. I just, there's, I can never.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, I have no interest in removing Outer Wilds.

• 41:33Kirk Hamilton?

  I can't imagine taking it off. It's still the maybe best video game I've ever played.

• 41:37Jason Schreier?

  Singular experience, yeah.

• 41:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's truly singular. And I mean, Echoes of the Eye has come out at some point, the expansion. And again, like, like with these other games, I consider that part of it. And Echoes of the Eye is amazing. We did a whole Beanscast about it. But you know, it's just like, that game, that game will be on the list maybe forever. And that's just, that's fine. I actually look forward to the day a game comes out that's so good, it makes me actually think, maybe I would want to put this on instead of Outer Wilds because it hasn't happened yet.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:05Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm gonna throw one more thing to the two of you that I, that I feel we should at least mention because it is a development since 2023. And that is, I think we have become a little more enamored in general of Resident Evil. And it kind of started with the Resident Evil 2 remake.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  I almost put Resident Evil 2 Remake on my list to bring.

• 42:24Kirk Hamilton?

  And then there's been the Resident Evil 4 remake, and there's been Resident Evil Requiem. And like, all of these games are fantastic. I've really fallen in love with them. But I feel like as a show also, we've really gotten into them. And thinking about all of them, I would say, would we want to consider Resident Evil 2 Remake as one of these 10 games?

• 42:45Speaker 01

  I mean, I think there's a strong argument for that. I think it's, I think it's a very influential game and that that has been part of why we've talked about it so much. It's a really good example of remaking a game and making it both completely different in terms of how it actually plays out and improving on it while also making it totally standalone. You don't need to have played any other Resident Evils to enjoy it. I, I really like it. It's scary in the right ways. So yeah, I'm, I'm very open to including this. I, I certainly think of the, of our going on maybes. I'd sooner put that on than Balatro, for example.

• 43:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Jason?

• 43:26Jason Schreier?

  I'm not really convinced, just because I think that Resident Evil 2, two big weaknesses that, that game has. One is that if you want to see the whole story, you have to play from both sides and it's so repetitive to play both sides because you're, whichever side you didn't do, you're doing a lot of the same stuff you already did. Two is that I think that game loses a lot of steam after you leave the police station and becomes a little bit more grindy and just kind of following this more linear path and just was way less interesting to me. If there was a Resident Evil game that was all the equivalent of the police station stuff in RE2, then I would be totally on board for it. But to me, I, I don't know if any of those Resident

• 44:08Jason Schreier?

  Evil games I played, I feel like I would just kind of unreservedly recommend to people.

• 44:13Kirk Hamilton?

  That would be the volley I would send back to you, which is that I don't disagree with any of that. And in our discussions of Requiem, we did say many times, you know, this is a lot like Resident Evil 2, but it doesn't make the same mistake specifically with the like replaying and you kind of just play it one time, but you still get the variety and stuff. Um, I don't know, Requiem?

• 44:33Jason Schreier?

  But it also has some weaker parts, like when Leon in Raccoon City gets a little repetitive, gets a little monotonous, I would say. I don't know. It doesn't feel to me like, like the same caliber as these other games.

• 44:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that's fine. I'm throwing it out there because I think I, we've become more and more Resident Evil-pilled over the years and-

• 44:55Jason Schreier?

  Maybe Code Veronica will nail it.

• 44:57Kirk Hamilton?

  They just haven't quite released the right one yet, but at some point, right.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  It might. I could see that happening.

• 45:01Kirk Hamilton?

  I could see a Resident Evil game being the one that makes it onto this list, only because those games I think do kind of like check all the boxes for all three of us.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Well, okay. This is another way for me to bring up Control again, which also an old game, hasn't been on the list before, Resident Evil-inspired, just incredible aesthetic in this game. And since it came out, it has accessibility, easy mode stuff in it that wasn't there at launch. And I know that was something about the game that, at least for me, made it harder to recommend. And now I'm far more likely to recommend Control to people in my life who want something that's like a really interesting science fiction shooter experience. So I hereby present it to the panel.

• 45:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's an interesting one. Like, I don't, I'm not sure that I wouldn't put Control on the list, maybe over Animal Well. I don't know. It's, it's different, but it's kind of a Metroid-type game.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  It is, yeah.

• 45:58Kirk Hamilton?

  It's cool. It's just that it's like getting a sequel right now. That's kind of neither here nor there, but it's about to have a sequel.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  And it's like, why not Alan Wake 2, you know, like I-

• 46:07Kirk Hamilton?

  I think I would recommend Control over Alan Wake 2. As much as I absolutely love Alan Wake 2, that's a more particular experience. The survival horror part of it, the action isn't quite as fluid, where Control is really fun. By the time you're flying around and like destroying the levels and just like fighting huge rooms of dudes and the world, like the story, the setting, it's just so, um, kind of evocative and addictive. I found myself, I just kept wanting to play that game just because I loved each new weird area that I'd find and each new thing I learned. So I think Control over Alan Wake 2, that's an easier one for me to make as a recommendation. But I don't know. Jason, what do you think about Control?

• 46:44Jason Schreier?

  I loved Control. I don't remember enough of it to be like, I would recommend this wholeheartedly at this point. It's seven years old. Um, a sequel's about to come out, which I do think is here or there. I do think that's an important part of this because we could be playing that a month later and be like, holy crap, this is so good. This should be on the list. Um, I don't know. Is there a statute of limitations on this? Did we ever decide if there's like a cutoff date?

• 47:09Kirk Hamilton?

  We could put Ocarina of Time on right now.

• 47:11Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I feel like we definitely wanted it to be more modern games than classic. Um, I don't know. To me, it feels a little weird to be like, we're just gonna randomly add this seven-year-old game. Like, why not other games from 2019? Why not, I don't know, Persona 5? Why not like Mario Odyssey? Like, I, I just don't know. It doesn't-

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I know. I mean, I, I think part of it is like, well, what, what are the games that we talk about a lot? And I do feel like we talk about Remedy games a lot, but that doesn't necessarily justify this.

• 47:43Kirk Hamilton?

  There's a little bit of a feeling of writing a wrong. Like Persona 5, to your example, Jason, has been on the list. Like, we had Persona 5 real on the list and then it got replaced.

• 47:51Jason Schreier?

  Did we debate Control in 2020 when we first made the list?

• 47:54Speaker 01

  I probably did. I think I probably argued for it back then and I'm just bringing it back and I've forgotten that I already did this and the listeners are yelling in their-

• 48:03Kirk Hamilton?

  It was quite a long time ago, so I think that's understandable. Well, all right. So currently we've got a kind of four for four going. We have Blueprints, Balatro, Hollow Knight, Silk Song, and Animal Well going on. Hollow Knight, Marvel's Midnight Suns, Disco Elysium, and Metroid Dread coming off.

• 48:20Jason Schreier?

  But, but we don't feel strongly about Balatro. I, I'm the only one who is really pushing for it. You guys kind of disagree, so maybe something else should go in that spot.

• 48:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, here's the question.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Well, we haven't brought up Tactical Breach Wizards yet. That was one of my other wildcards.

• 48:35Kirk Hamilton?

  I mean, I would wholeheartedly argue for that to be on the list because that's like one of the best games I've played in the last few years. I absolutely adore it.

• 48:42Jason Schreier?

  Manny, I mean, are you fighting for it also?

• 48:44Speaker 01

  I think it has a similar energy to like a Disco Elysium, which is coming off, where it like is doing interesting things with narrative. I know it's a different genre.

• 48:55Kirk Hamilton?

  I would say, I mean, it's not really like, I would say mechanically, it's much more Midnight Suns in that it's a turn-based, isometric strategy game.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  True, yeah, which is also coming off.

• 49:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, which is coming off. I think that would be like a clean, a clean swap and I love that game. Narratively, it's, it's not like Disco Elysium though. Like, it's, you know, it's, it's really funny and very well-written, but it's not like this incredibly elaborate narrative experience where you're choosing, making all these choices and building a character the way you are in that game. And, um, I don't know. It's tricky because taking Disco Elysium off definitely removes like a huge serving of narrative from the list.

• 49:33Jason Schreier?

  Well, hold, hold on. Let's, let's put a pin in Tactical Breach Wizards, because Manny, you suggested it, but, well, actually, let's not put a pin in it yet. Manny, you suggested the name, but you didn't say like you're fighting for, are you fighting for it as hard as Kirk is? Or you just brought it up just to discuss?

• 49:46Speaker 01

  I, I would sooner put Tactical Breach Wizards on than Balatro. I, I-

• 49:51Jason Schreier?

  Okay, well, so, okay.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  That's personally where I would put it.

• 49:54Jason Schreier?

  To, to respond to that specifically, let's put a pin in Tactical Breach Wizards. We don't have to add Balatro. What we could do is add Blueprints, Hollow Knight, Silk Song, Animal Well, and then keep one of the ones we suggested. Like, we could keep Disco Elysium if we, if you guys feel like, uh, yeah, we don't have to get rid of that. Um, I was just making it as a suggestion. Like, that's still a phenomenal game. I was making it as a suggestion to remove just because it doesn't feel as singular as it once did. Could still very well be on there. Could, could, we could talk about, uh, keeping on Midnight Suns or Hollow Knight or Metroid. Like, any of those could stay on. If your argument is just that like Tactical Breach Wizards, you'd rather put that than Balatro, I don't think that's a strong enough argument. Then again, Kirk is very much pro Tactical

• 50:38Jason Schreier?

  Breach Wizards. If you also feel the same way, then that's another conversation entirely.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  I don't think anyone likes Tactical Breach Wizards as much as Kirk Hamilton does, maybe including like the people that made it. So I, I can't compete with him there. I, I do love it quite a bit. And I, I think it has a strong case, but it, it also has that case where I'm like, I haven't thought about it since I played it. It's not really in the triple-click canon in the sense that I don't know that we talk about it a lot. I'm not sure I'd recommend it in a conversation with somebody that I just met. It's unusual. It's sort of iterating upon ideas in games. I don't know. It's in, it's in a weird category in my mind, but I lo, I do love the game.

• 51:25Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I definitely wouldn't like wholeheartedly recommend it to, to anyone. As much as I enjoyed that game, to me, it's too niche of a genre and too specific and you really need to have kind of tactics brain to be able to really enjoy it, um, especially later on, once more things open up and you really have to make smarter decisions. Um, rather than the kind of, I feel like the, the earlier stages of that game, it's a little more puzzly where there's like a clear solution that you can just kind of follow through, but then it gets more tactical. Um, yeah, I mean, I, I don't think that's, uh, I don't think it makes sense.

• 52:00Kirk Hamilton?

  That's, that tells me that it does not go on, which is fine. Um, I will just continue to love it in private.

• 52:05Jason Schreier?

  So can I, I'm gonna make a proposal. Um, so how, how would this list look? I'm gonna, I would just want to read this and just picture this in your brains. Elden Ring, Outer Wilds, Blueprints, Animal Well, Disco Elysium, Baldur's Gate 3, Hollow Knight, Silk Song, Return of the Oberden, The Case of the Golden Idol, Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. So basically, we would add Animal Well, Blueprints, and Silk Song, and we would remove Hollow Knight, Midnight Suns, Metroid Dread. So we would keep Disco Elysium. How does that feel to you guys?

• 52:39Kirk Hamilton?

  That works for me. I think the one pick that we're adding that I, is like a game that it just has, doesn't inspire great passions in me is Animal Well, but I totally acknowledge that game's brilliance. It's really amazing and think it's a nice swap for Metroid Dread in some ways. Like, I really, I, I find that very, very tidy, actually.

• 53:00Jason Schreier?

  Can I throw something out there? What if instead of Animal Well, we keep Hollow Knight?

• 53:05Speaker 01

  I knew you were gonna say- Say that, and I almost said it at the same time as you. I

• 53:09Kirk Hamilton?

  I think the list is stronger with Animal Well instead of Hollow Knight.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  I think I'd rather have Animal Well there.

• 53:13Kirk Hamilton?

  And it's a little bit meta gaming, but I think that just having Hollow Knight and Silk Song on there is basically just sacrificing one slot on the list because I think like taking Hollow Knight off, like this gives us the opportunity to recommend one more worthy game. So I would rather have Animal Well.

• 53:27Jason Schreier?

  Okay. So then the other question is, if you guys look at like, or think about other contenders, is there anything you think should go on here, whether in replacement of Animal Well or replacement of something else? Or are you happy with this current state of this list?

• 53:41Kirk Hamilton?

  All right. So Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  No, I'll, I'll do, I'll do one last one here. I don't, I don't know that I'm going to win this argument, but I will say, instead of recommending Metroid Dread to people or a Hollow Knight game, what I actually tend to recommend is Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, just as a Metroidvania game that includes so many things that make that genre easier for people to parse. It is not as creative as Animal Well in terms of its item selection, but it is just a joy to play. It's so polished. It's accessible, not according to what people mean when they use the word to describe settings, but what people, what I mean when I'm talking

• 54:29Speaker 01

  about people who don't play that many games and are like, I just want to try a Metroidvania and see if I like it. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown comes up a lot for me in terms of just, everyone will like this kind of a game. I think it's very strong as just a Metroidvania recommendation. And it's, it's one that I return to a lot in my personal life recommending games to people.

• 54:53Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 54:54Speaker 03

  That art style.

• 54:55Kirk Hamilton?

  It's not even the art style.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Hey, I, I'm, I think it's hard to compare it to Animal Well. This is part of why I'm like, I don't think this is gonna win.

• 55:03Kirk Hamilton?

  I think it's good. It's, I think that's like, it's a really solid recommendation in exactly the way you're describing, because it's, it really is like, it's not just well made, it's exceptionally well made. It's just that there are two Metroid-style 2D games on here, and they're both really special, Silk Song and Animal Well. Like, or they're special in a different way.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're each special in their own way.

• 55:24Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, the exceptional Ubisoft down the middle game, I just think like, doesn't quite make it, given that we're already celebrating the kind of, the slightly more special and unique games. So I think Animal Well and Silk Song are stronger.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  This is making me feel pretty confident about our Animal Well pick, actually. I feel like it's really stood up to scrutiny in a lot of ways.

• 55:44Jason Schreier?

  I have another out of fields, out of left field contender pitch.

• 55:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Go.

• 55:50Jason Schreier?

  Instead of Animal Well,

• 55:53Jason Schreier?

  the Final Fantasy Tactics Remaster.

• 55:57Kirk Hamilton?

  This would be between the two of you, because I liked that.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  I don't know if I can go with you down this, Jason. It, it's so fiddly by the end. I was doing so much fiddling.

• 56:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Actually thinking about, even listening to the two of you talk about it, it's so wildly complex and sort of unforgiving.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  And like, I loved doing that, but there were a lot of times where like, my wife was watching something on TV and I was just messing with my guys for hours. And I just don't think that many people have the brain chemistry to want to do that. You and I do, but it's just, it's not a wholehearted recommendation. You know what I'm saying?

• 56:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Fair enough. All right. Well, that's a pretty good list here then, I think. I think that we've maybe kind of done it.

• 56:42Jason Schreier?

  I mean, are you two feeling good about Animal? Because I, I pitched it. I'm very happy with Animal Well. But I just want to make sure there are no reservations here. Okay.

• 56:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. No, yeah, I'm not speaking abstractly here. I think it's a good list. I think it's, it works for me.

• 56:54Jason Schreier?

  You want to read it before we, before we break?

• 56:56Kirk Hamilton?

  I will. Before I read it, I will say that, you know, we mentioned a bunch of contenders at the beginning. We didn't get into all of them. I think some of them, we just kind of didn't, because it didn't really seem like there was an argument. Those were all great games, but the ones that we wound up really putting forward are the three, are the ones that we three feel.

• 57:12Jason Schreier?

  There's a couple that I think down the road. Like, I think if Metaphor: Refontazio gets like a Royal Edition, like its equivalent, and it's got a bunch of new stuff and like the pacing and some things change about it, or it's like streamlined, and I think that could be a strong contender. But right now, I don't know if I would fight for it that hard.

• 57:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's possible, and I, I wouldn't fight for it. And also, I think that this Fire Emblem, Fortune's Weave, is going to wind up being the game that I kind of wished Metaphor: Refontazio had been, or at least I'm hopeful. And then we might wind up just arguing for that instead, but we'll see.

• 57:44Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I also, I, I think, man, Mugenix, I think is a special game, but like, the aesthetic and the potty humor makes it that I absolutely cannot, like, unreservedly recommend.

• 57:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. And I think, I think we could kind of go through all of them and make kind of similar.

• 57:59Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I won't, I won't keep going. Yeah, okay.

• 58:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, right. But yeah, that's just to kind of mention those, since we did mention them at the beginning. Yeah, let me read the list. Here is the new, as of September 2026, list of the 10 triple-click picks, the 10 games we think you should play in name-length order. Number one, Elden Ring. Number two, Outer Wilds. Number three, Blueprints. Number four, Animal Well. Number five, Disco Elysium. Number six, Baldur's Gate 3. Number seven, Hollow Knight: Silk Song. Number eight, Return of the Oberdin. Number nine, The Case of the Golden Idol. And number 10, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Congratulations to all of the new entrants.

• 58:44Jason Schreier?

  Strong list. Notable that none of these have one word. No, no games with one word titles in this list.

• 58:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I'm waiting for the two of you to play Cairn, just saying. Play that game. It's really, really good.

• 58:56Jason Schreier?

  Before the end of the year, I will do my best to play it.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Hey, I mean, Dispatch, we talked about it for a minute. Could have been Dispatch, but didn't make it.

• 59:03Kirk Hamilton?

  It had a shot. All right. Well, that was a great, a great debate, and I think we made some great picks. Let's take a break, and then we will be back for one more thing.

• 59:14Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Justin McElroy, and I host Sawbones with my wife Sydney. I'm here with Max Fun, Member of the Month, Amanda Adams. Thank you so much for being a supporter, and thank you for being our Member of the Month.

• 59:26Speaker 04

  Woohoo, you're so welcome.

• 59:28Speaker 03

  How long have you been listening to Sawbones, Amanda?

• 59:31Speaker 04

  It's been probably a good 10 years. I very much enjoy Dr. Sydney and everything she does, and it's wonderful to be able to support it.

• 59:39Speaker 03

  Let me ask you about the most important moment in your life, when you decided to become a Max Fun supporter.

• 59:44Speaker 04

  Honestly, I am just proud I can support the people who make me hours and hours of content every week. I feel honored to do it.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  Amanda Adams, thank you so much. I really appreciate your support. Congratulations on your whole month.

• 59:58Speaker 04

  Thank you so much. It has been a good month already.

• 1:00:01Speaker 05

  Support the shows you love, including this one. Check the show notes for a link or go to maximumfun.org/join.

• 1:00:12Speaker 06

  Hi, everybody. It's Ellen Weatherford.

• 1:00:14Speaker 07

  And Christian Weatherford.

• 1:00:15Speaker 06

  People say not to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.

• 1:00:19Speaker 07

  But we can judge a snake by its ability to fly, or a spider by its ability to dive.

• 1:00:24Speaker 06

  Or a dung beetle by its ability to navigate with the starlight of the Milky Way Galaxy.

• 1:00:30Speaker 07

  On Just the Zoo of Us, we rate our favorite animals out of 10 in the categories of physical effectiveness, behavioral ingenuity, and of course, aesthetics.

• 1:00:37Speaker 06

  Guest experts like biologists, ecologists, musicians, comedians, and more join us to share their unique insights into the animal kingdom.

• 1:00:45Speaker 07

  Listen with the whole family on maximumfun.org, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:00:54Kirk Hamilton?

  And we're back for one more thing. Maddy Myers, take us away.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  Sure. So we still have our seven-day free trial of BritBox, and we have been taking advantage of it, people. We are watching all the BBC shows we can.

• 1:01:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Getting as much out of the box as you can.

• 1:01:10Jason Schreier?

  I just, I want to say for the record, we're recording this episode a little bit early, in case you're wondering about the time.

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  How does seven days possibly work for Maddie? Well, I would have still recommended this anyway. I just would have, I wouldn't, I would have used past tense. I would have been like, our trial expired. But this is another television show that the BBC created that we adored, very, very different vibe than the other Bennett sister, which I talked about last week. This show's called Ludwig. It's a diff- it is a comedy, but it is a murder mystery series that stars David Mitchell, who's a British comedian that I know from the famous sketch in which he plays a Nazi who says, "Are we the baddies?" Which is-

• 1:01:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, he's "Are we the baddies?"

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  He says, "Are we the baddies?" And that is the main thing that I know him from. I believe that that is a sketch from The Mitchell and Weblick, which is like the name of a comedy series that I haven't seen every episode of. Anyway, he's very funny. And on this show, Ludwig, he plays twins, twin brothers, except one of the twin brothers has been missing for several days. And that missing brother is a police detective. And the twin that David Mitchell plays, who is not a police detective, is a very reclusive, socially awkward, introverted puzzle designer. So he and his brother have very similar skill

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  sets, except that one of them is extremely introverted. And so the wife of the missing brother gets in touch with him and is like, "I think there's a conspiracy involved in my husband's disappearance, and I need you to pretend to be him for a day and just go to the office and get some files so that we can try to look into what happened to him." And because this is also a comedy show, as soon as he gets the office, he gets roped in to going along and solving a mystery. And his unique puzzle capabilities lead to him being extremely masterful and very funny at solving this murder mystery in the first episode. And as unrealistic as that sounds, you just kind of have to go with it. He just

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  gets swept up into the police station and has to start solving all of these murder mysteries and does so in his own unique puzzle master way that is extremely satisfying and funny to watch, but also needs to try to keep up appearances of being his brother, who is a very different person than he is. And just, I, we found this so charming. We love a murder mystery and we love puzzles. And this show really blends both of those things and also just really takes advantage of David Mitchell's ability to be like awkward humor guy. I feel like that's kind of what he's been cutting his teeth on for his entire career. And he's excellent at it. And there are some fun mysteries. So yeah, I recommend

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  it. It's called Ludwig. There's only six episodes because this is a BBC show, so it's really short. And in theory, you could watch it, all six of them, while waiting out a seven day free trial of Ritz Box, which is of course precisely what we've done. So yeah.

• 1:04:17Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  That's my rec.

• 1:04:19Kirk Hamilton?

  It sounds good. When I hear David Mitchell, I think of the author, the author of Cloud Atlas.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Oh, sure. Yeah.

• 1:04:24Kirk Hamilton?

  This is a different one. I guess a fairly common name.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, two kind of common names.

• 1:04:27Jason Schreier?

  Two first names.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, true.

• 1:04:30Kirk Hamilton?

  That, uh, sounds like a fun show. Jason, tell us your one more thing.

• 1:04:33Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I read a book called Time to Burn by Ellery Lloyd. And this book has a phenomenal premise, which is that a tech company has figured out how to make a time machine and send people back in time. And of course, because it's a tech company, there may or may not be nefarious things going on there. But what happened was, and the premise of this book is that, um, so this, this company figured out how to do it, but it's very heavily regulated because the only way that the government was going to allow this to happen was to say, okay, you have to follow by this, this, and this. This is a fictional world where the government actually functions and can issue regulations and keep tech companies

• 1:05:14Jason Schreier?

  under control. And so they can only do specific things with this time machine. And they can only send people back to a very specific time and a very specific place. It's all set in London. And what they can do is send people back to World War II era London bombing to watch the city get bombed by the Nazis. And then they go back in, into the present after that. And they're not allowed to change anything and so on and so forth, because changing things could, of course, have repercussions. As for the story of this book, well, we open up in that during, on one of these tours where some rich people have got paid to go back in time to World War II. And then they go back, but one of them stays behind and

• 1:05:59Jason Schreier?

  is stuck in the past. And as time goes on, we learn why this person got stuck in the past, whether or not it was intentional, and a whole lot more. And so our main character is this documentarian who has been brought in by the tech company to kind of witness and make a documentary about the Wonderkid founder and all the great things he's doing with his, with his, uh, with his time travel technology. And she happens to start this on the day that this massive crazy incident happens, that they lost someone back in time. And so she starts filming and, and they allow her to keep filming and keep working with

• 1:06:42Jason Schreier?

  them. And she watches the story unravel. And the story just goes from there. The kind of, the inciting incident is that she realizes that the person who's been stuck in time, who's like stuck in time, stuck in, in the past, is someone that she knows and also someone who is not who she says she is. And then it goes into, it gets into some interesting mysteries and twists and turns along the way. I really enjoyed this book, mostly for the premise, uh, which is very fun to explore, but it's got some fun stuff in it. Also, a little bit of ridiculous stuff. And I don't mean ridiculous in terms of the actual plot, but ridiculous in terms of just how things are kind of contrived by the end of it. But

• 1:07:26Jason Schreier?

  still, I really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed that the way it all comes together, the way that characters' backstories fit together, and the way that it sends up tech executives, because tech executives need to be sent up these days. Once again, it's called Time to Burn by Ellery Lloyd. Really enjoyed it. I recommend it. Cool book.

• 1:07:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. I'll check it out. That does, that does sound good. I love a time travel story.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too. Even ridiculous ones.

• 1:07:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. Uh, well, my one more thing is a movie that I watched, uh, last week with my friend Sam, my movie buddy Sam, who, uh, we also do the thing where we roll the dice and pick a year and, and, uh, whatever the D100 picks, we watch the, the Best Picture nominees from that year. So we've watched a lot of movies together and, uh, we decided to watch a movie called Mean Streets, the Martin Scorsese movie from 1973. Part of that is because on the Blank Check Movie Podcast, they are beginning a much ballyhooed Martin Scorsese mini-series, which is very exciting for that podcast. That is a great movie podcast. And also they focus on directors. And they kind of wait sometimes with some

• 1:08:38Kirk Hamilton?

  of the really big ones, like they've done Spielberg, but it's a huge commitment, right? And also, it's just gonna be a lot to do someone like Martin Scorsese, but they're finally doing Scorsese, which is exciting. I have not listened to their episode yet, but their Mean Streets episode is actually, I think it's out this week. And I am looking forward to listening to it. I'll probably listen to it, uh, sometime this week. And I figured the two of you would also be excited to hear about this movie because of course we have watched Scorsese movies. We did a Beanscast on Casino, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Goodfellas. And so, and I think the two of you have not seen Mean Streets. That, is that right?

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  I haven't, actually.

• 1:09:16Jason Schreier?

  No, I have not.

• 1:09:17Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. I hope that you'll both watch it. It's great.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:09:19Kirk Hamilton?

  Uh, I, I really recommend it. Um, it's a very cool movie. This is a very early period in Martin Scorsese's, uh, career. He had made a couple of features, but I, and I haven't seen them, like Boxcar Bertha, and there's one other, I'm forgetting the name. I think they're okay, but that he's, he was kind of still figuring out his thing. And Mean Streets is fascinating because you can tell this is a young, you know, visionary, but it is remarkably fleshed out. It really feels a lot like Goodfellas. It feels like a first run at a lot of the ideas that he then fleshed out in Goodfellas and then kind of flipped on their heads and sort of re, you know, reimagined in Casino and then kind

• 1:10:00Kirk Hamilton?

  of just keeps flipping around and turning over and, and playing with. So this is a movie starring Harvey Keitel is the, the main character, though it, uh, also features a young Robert De Niro as the kind of antagonist, like the, the secondary character who winds up, um, sort of, uh, dominating the whole film, a character named Johnny Boy. And the plot is basically Harvey Keitel is a young man who is connected and kind of works in organized crime in New York City. His uncle is like a very established Italian mobster who kind of goes back to the earlier era. You know, this is kind of the early 1970s in New York. And his father is Italian and kind of goes back to the older, whatever,

• 1:10:44Kirk Hamilton?

  version of organized crime. And then Harvey Keitel's character has like a group of other men who are around his age, like late twenties, early thirties, all of whom are these basically like aimless, low level, just troublemakers. They all just seem to kind of be around trying to take advantage of people, scamming tourists, just trying to get money. But none of them are running like a really elaborate racket or are super involved in organized crime. One of their friends is a loan shark. Like that's about as high up as any of them get. But because Harvey Keitel's character has this uncle, who is like a big kind of made guy, you know, is kind of connected, he has like a sort of a status that's a little above or outside of everybody else because of that.

• 1:11:27Jason Schreier?

  So all the other people are kind of like, uh, Matthew Bevelacqua, uh, whereas he's more like Christopher Moltisanti.

• 1:11:34Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a little, it's interesting. Yeah. And yet he is not- Like Christopher in that he is a kind of a more upright guy. He's Catholic and was raised Catholic and is like dealing with the guilt of what he knows he does and sort of his Catholic upbringing, obviously another big Scorsese theme. And that's in the background a lot, but you, you can tell in his character that he wants to be an upright guy. And Keitel is great in this, actually. I haven't seen Keitel as a leading man. He looks so young in this. He's like 30 or something. He looks like a little baby. And I picture him as Winston Wolfe from Pulp Fiction.

• 1:12:05Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:12:06Kirk Hamilton?

  The first time I ever saw him.

• 1:12:07Jason Schreier?

  But even that was 30 years ago. So nowadays, is he alive? Is he still alive?

• 1:12:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Uh, I think so, yeah. And that was 20 years after this. So, you know, he was more like 50 in that movie. He was a middle aged kind of weathered guy, where in this he's much younger.

• 1:12:20Jason Schreier?

  He is still alive and he is 87. Wow.

• 1:12:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Good for Harvey Keitel. So he's great and De Niro is remarkable. Like he is, he looks like almost a different person at times. He's so young and yet you can see the De Niro that we got to know, even in later Scorsese films like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, just like a few years later.

• 1:12:40Jason Schreier?

  Taxi Driver is after Mean Streets?

• 1:12:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes. Uh, I think six, yeah, those are like five or six years after.

• 1:12:46Jason Schreier?

  Okay.

• 1:12:46Kirk Hamilton?

  And that's when Scorsese had kind of found, I'm forgetting the name of the cinematographer, but he'd found a few more of his regular collaborators. And De Niro had had more time to kind of grow, to become physically larger and, and just kind of to discover his like physical self on screen.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  It's pretty scary in Taxi Driver, yeah.

• 1:13:03Kirk Hamilton?

  This version of De Niro is this, he's this very skinny, like kind of like almost punk. He has a sort of a punk energy. Um, and he's Johnny Boy, the character is this like absolute like crate, like wild troublemaker who's just, he has debts all over town and he's like the doomed friend of Harvey Keitel. Where like everyone is kind of always telling him, dude, you gotta cut this guy loose. He owes money to all these people. He's gonna put you in a position where you're vouching for him and he screws you over. He's drunk all the time. He's reckless. Like he is gonna get himself hurt or killed. And yet he's also so charismatic in the way that De Niro plays him. He's this undeniable guy that you kind of like keep him around. And so that's the kind of central relationship in the movie. Though it explores a lot of other things as well.

• 1:13:48Kirk Hamilton?

  And you can see Scorsese and his cinematography. Who is the cinematographer on this film? Kent Wakeford, who I'm not super familiar with. But this is that kind of early, like young Hollywood. Like there's this kind of new Hollywood style of filmmaking that's taking over. And this film was like one of the kind of the landmark films in that school. And there are these scenes, it's so fun. They get in this fight in a pool hall at one point and the camera is just running around behind one guy as he's fighting. You get a lot of those big, long, exciting sequences that Scorsese likes to set up where there's no cut and the camera is like moving through all this choreography with everyone in the room.

• 1:14:29Kirk Hamilton?

  There's a lot of really ambitious stuff. There's a car chase that's incredibly scary and intense. And they're working with a budget. It's not a crazy budget, but a budget, but also just a lot of ingenuity and creativity. And if you're at all into filmmaking, this movie will just totally like light you up. Like it was just so fun. Sam and I were just sitting there being like, look at this. Ah, look at that. Look at this, the whole movie. And then the performances are so much fun. It has this, you know, stagey kind of old fashioned quality to it, but it's also very naturalistic and it's shot in New York. And it's just, you're just looking at these vistas of just kind of trashy 1973 New York. It's so distinct looking, you know, the 7-Up branding that is everywhere. Cause like there was just 7-Up stuff around the city.

• 1:15:13Kirk Hamilton?

  All of the stuff they shot was just on the streets of the city. And so you really get that feel for that like gritty 70s New York that is a very particular period in time. So this is a cool movie. I really recommend it. I, Sam recommended it and I'm, or he, it was his idea to watch it. And I'm really glad because I wouldn't have thought to watch it. I would have, I don't know, there are plenty of other Scorsese movies I haven't seen that I would go to first. But actually going back to the beginning is really, really cool. And I think the two of you would love it. And at some point, we'll have to talk about it in the context of The Sopranos too. Because I think that, well, for starters, it, it features a young David Prival, the actor who played Richie April. He came on screen and I was like, wait, I know that guy. And he's just so much younger, but it's, it's Richie April, which is just fun.

• 1:15:55Kirk Hamilton?

  But also like thematically, we've talked about this some when we talk about The Sopranos. I think that Scorsese is in an interesting place where if you go back to The Godfather, as the characters on The Sopranos so often do, The Godfather is that Coppola type of filmmaking is so much more the 1950s, the earlier generation of, you know, of mafia, of gangster guy. And then Goodfellas is so the movie about the generational divide and how it all fell apart when the new generation took over. And this movie is also kind of about that because he has this uncle who seems like very much this more refined, old fashioned gangster. But he and his friends are just a disaster. And I guess it's also interesting, just thinking of it as a movie that was made

• 1:16:39Kirk Hamilton?

  and is set during the Vietnam War, when so many men, young men, these guys' age, were overseas in Vietnam fighting. And these guys are in America, not fighting and just like absolutely going to seed and ruining the community for everyone around them, which is something that I just thought was interesting, like considering the time period for the movie. Anyways, there's a million thoughts from me about Mean Streets, a very cool movie that I hope some people go out and watch and that I hope the two of you go and watch because you would both, I think, really get a lot out of it.

• 1:17:06Jason Schreier?

  Cool.

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I would. I, I think Taxi Driver was one more thing for me a while back, if I'm remembering right. And it was, it was very cool. I really like going back and watching these movies that I missed because I either wasn't alive or didn't come up for me in film class in college or whatever it may be. They can be really illustrative.

• 1:17:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think you'd, I think you'd really like it a lot. And yeah, that's, uh, that's our episode. We did it. We updated TripleClick Picks. Everyone can stop emailing us for a little while.

• 1:17:34Jason Schreier?

  You're welcome.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe we'll do it in less than three years.

• 1:17:38Kirk Hamilton?

  We should try to do it like every September or something.

• 1:17:40Jason Schreier?

  No promises.

• 1:17:42Kirk Hamilton?

  No, definitely no. We would never make a promise. We know better than to make promises, but we can try. We can promise to try. How about that?

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  That's a good one. Yeah.

• 1:17:52Kirk Hamilton?

  All right. Well, I will see the two of you next week.

• 1:17:55Jason Schreier?

  See you next week.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 1:18:00Kirk Hamilton?

  TripleClick is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. TripleClick is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join. Email us at [email protected] and find links to our merch store and our Discord server in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:18:58Jason Schreier?

  Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.