Digital travel is a big part of a game's appeal, but what's the best game for globetrotting?

Welcome to Episode 56 of The Best Games Ever Show: The Best Games Ever Travel the World.

This week we welcome our first guest panelist, the ever lovely Bertie Purchasese from Eurogamer! If you’ve been to EGX, you probably know Bertie as the eccentric host of Eurogamer Pub Quiz, and if you’re interested in game writing in general, you’ve seen him work tirelessly as Deputy Editor at Eurogamer, where he covers news, Ideate features, record podcasts and manage their supporter programs. He loves role-playing games, which often feature incredible globe-trotting (though not necessarily our Earth), so we asked him to bring that expertise to today’s topic. And he actually appeared!

Video games are an excellent medium for virtual travel. They not only show you new places, but also let you interact with them. live in them. Breathe their air. Talk to people who live there. I mean, sure, usually the main form of your interaction with the game world is violence, but that’s not always the case. And, as well as inviting us to take risks in fantasy realms, video games have also gotten pretty good at portraying real life. Modern locations like modern New York, Tokyo, and London are perfect for video game locations. Free from the constraints of linear time, historical action-adventure games like the Assassin’s Creed series and Ghost of Tsushima give us a glimpse into the world’s past, not just the present, for any pair of pasts.

But what is the best game for digital tourism? According to our esteemed panelists, which game really makes you feel like a globe-trotting citizen of the world? Well, to find out, here’s one of the handy ways you’ll have to watch or listen.

Watch the video version here:

If you’re the kind of person who skips to the last page of a book (wrong people, fallen people, bad seeds), you can also simply read the summary below.

tom

tom picks football manager This seems like a logical choice, since you can lead a soccer team to an international league and play against teams from all over the world. However, Tom doesn’t make that argument, he just points out that he once played it on his phone at the airport.

Bertie Buyer

Bertie and Alpha Protocol

, a classic Obsidian spy RPG that brought us Mass Effect-style spy TV shows like ALIAS, is also a cork. Unfortunately, it was overshadowed enormously by Mass Effect itself, and never really found the massive audience it deserved. But those of us who played it back then enjoyed the thrill of being an international super spy in exotic locations like Rome, Taipei, Saudi Arabia, and Moscow.

Donaldson

Microsoft Flight Simulator is the ultimate jet plane game. literally. With its stunningly detailed world map (regularly updated with higher quality assets) and realistic flight mechanics, no matter how simple or complex you want them to be, 2020’s revamp of the classic sim series comes at a time when people are stuck in their houses And eager to travel again, so it’s perhaps no surprise that it’s so popular with sim-heads and casual players alike. With an upcoming sequel due in 2024 adding the much-anticipated job system to the proceedings, the future of the franchise looks very bright indeed.

“What’s the best game of all time?” you ask? Well, it’s essentially a 30-minute panel show where people (Jim Trinca and co) decide the best game in a particular category. That’s it. very good. listen to this.

Check back in a week for another exciting episode of the Best Games Ever Show.