“What is VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast?” you ask, presumably because you’ve not read one of these pages before, as if you had you’d know already. Anyway, if you still need to be told, here’s the lowdown: Each week three of us must present our choice for the best game ever that fits the title of the show (this week it must be a game that we reckon is actually very good, has a pub in it – or a bar/drinking establishment of some sort). Then our host/judge, Jim Trinca, will use his biased views to declare a winner and leave two of us with the hump. Each episode of the Best Games Ever Podcast will be about 30 minutes long. Enough that you can eat a whole Share Size bag of chocs without having to pace yourself too much, but not so long that you then have to reach for the Doritos. Hopefully you can find room in your podcast-listening schedule for 30 minutes. If not, just cut one of the boring ones. Do you really need 15 true crime shows, one about the lives of dog walkers, and the rantings of one man who only dines at all-you-can-eat restaurants? Fair enough, I’d listen to that final one. That is it. Check out VG247’s The Best Games Ever Podcast on Apple Podcasts and subscribe. Or listen on Spotify. It’s even on YouTube if that’s your thing. Please do let us know what you think of the show – and if this is your first time listening, do go back to listen to the previous episodes. They’re not topical in the least, so go wild. We’ve got some details on the show’s content below (if you want to get a refresher before heading to the comments to make a wonderful, considered post), so if you want to avoid spoilers, don’t scroll past this posing man (Support friends of VG247, People Make Games, on Patreon).
Best game with a pub
This is the topic of Episode four of VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast. Here’s a rundown of who picked what.
Tom – Prey 2006
Prey, the 2006 game not the entirely different an altogether more po-faced Arkane reboot, is very much of its time – all big guns, mega violence, and ghastly human/machine hybrids, but It was a really fun shooter that had a superb portal mechanic – way before the likes of Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart did something similar (and better). It also had a brilliant pub, complete with bar fight and Fear the Reaper playing on the jukebox. It’s a proper classic of the era.
Alex – The Secret of Monkey Island
When I think of pubs in games, most of the games that immediately come to mind do so because their pubs are awful caricature, or entirely unrealistic. While I’ve never actually been to a real-life pirate bar, I have to imagine that the Scumm Bar wouldn’t elicit that reaction even if I had - it just feels like a real, legitimate location that absolutely fits within its world. Mainly, it’s all about the atmosphere - with a limited color palette, a single screen and a music track, it sells itself as a believable location. It has that in common with much of the game from where it hails, the excellent The Secret of Monkey Island. I could listen the bar’s jaunty music all day.
Connor – Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
The first game that came to mind when I had to think of a game with a pub was Everyone’s Gone to the Rapture, a cool little walkabout game that won plenty of awards back when it first came out back in 2015. Not only is it pretty interesting narratively, as well as genuinely quite lovely to look at, it’s got multiple British country pubs that you can go inside and take a look at! We’re talking tiled roofs, white outside paint job, wooden interior, and proper tap handles built into the bar. You’ve even got the sketchy bottles of red and gin out of reach. For me, it perfectly captures the actual look and feel of British pubs better than any other game! Let us know what game you’d pick and if you agree that Jim must be stopped. If you like the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review saying how wonderful it is, and tell all your friends. Do a tweet about it if you fancy, or a post on Facebook – we’ll take whatever exposure we can get.
Come back in a week for another Best Game Ever. If you want more podcasts, you could do worse than checking out our friends at Rock Paper Shotgun who have the Electronic Wireless Show. Eurogamer has two shows (greedy!), Digital Foundry has DF Direct, Dicebreaker covers the world of tabletop gaming, and the Outside Xbox lot has Oxventure - A Dungeons & Dragons Podcast.
