Podcasting Day: Best Game of the Best Games, with Dan Hsu 🌭

For decades, dorks and nerds have been trying to figure out the best video game ever. And it hasn't worked, until now. Brockway and I are joined by former editor-in-chief of Electronic Gaming Monthly and Going Analog creator, Dan "Shoe" Hsu, to decide the Official Greatest Game of All Time. How? Simple: I tricked them. Me, Seanbaby, the person who does this kind of thing with Donkey Kong Stickers:

Art historians, what I did with that Donkey Kong sticker was take an unclear, subjective message and make it more explicit. There's no longer some ethereal "IT" that's better with Donkey Kong-- it's that gorilla dick. Everyone sees it coming but you, Mario. And it's this philosophy that led me to create this objectively perfect video game rating system. What I did was use amateur, untested brain science along with natural canniness to hack the minds of my good friends into generating Best submissions in five categories of game. I'll explain on the podcast, but here's something important you need to know now: it only works with the help of YOU, the listener!

So before you listen to the podcast here, or wherever you do that, you need to lock in one pick right now from each of these categories:

For this one, picture video game magazines still existing. Imagine seeing a cover feature on The Top Whatever Games of All Time. Imagine caring. Now, think of every game you would see at the number one spot that would make you say, "Well, yeah." Pick your favorite of those. It's an uninteresting, safe choice, but the best uninteresting, safe choice.

Okay, you have a time amulet and your younger self has just caught you time-murdering your grade school bully. The two of you get to talking and he or she asks, "Besides slaying our enemies, do we still play video games when we're old?" And you say, "Oh, fuck yes. They are amazing. Wait until you play BLANK." Also, hurry up. You've damaged the timeline a lot already and the two yous are leaving twice as much of your DNA as a normal murderer.

This is the time for your unique tastes to shine. Boldly pick a video game no one else would be smart or cool enough to consider. Much like telling someone, "My favorite film is Grape Stomping Newscaster Lady Arfs Like a Sea Lion Pulling Out Anal Beads After She Falls," this choice is more about expressing your personality and taste than art criticism.

Think of a game you love that could be considered the greatest of all time if you were allowed to add a qualifier. It can be as vague or specific as you want. For instance, you could do Best Game to Seduce "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan or Best Game to Cheer Up "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan's Wife, but those are zany joke examples which are obviously both Shrek: Swamp Kart Speedway for the Game Boy Advance.

This one is simple, raw data analysis. You're allowed to disqualify any game for hijacking your dopamine center instead of being good, but don't make it complicated-- just name the one you've spent the most time playing. Numbers don't lie, except for Five because this is actually Category Four. I'm serious; you need to switch four and five. Brain hacked.

If you have your answers locked in, hit play on the podcast... now.

Between myself, Brockway, and Shoe, none of us picked the same game for any of the five categories. Which means if you hear us mention one from your list, it will be our rigorously collected data's only correlation. And that means, scientifically, you found the best game! That's how science and opinions work, and anyone telling you otherwise is a stupid dumbass with provably wrong opinions.

Oh, and here is the Shoe comic I mention on the show. It's from 2014, a couple days after the launch of Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. And if you want to get a sense of what it's like being in my life, I immediately made Photoshopping this my top priority and emailed it to Shoe and at least fifty of our mutual friends:

Remember to like and subscribe to the podcast, leave us a review, and Bonk us on Zork.

Hey, are you guys Corey? It’s cool. It’s cool if you’re not.

It’d just be a lot cooler if you were.

Hey for all you Coreys out there: Water, right? Haha, yeah.

Just a little inside Corey humor. You’d get it, if you had the shirt.