The Besties - A Look Back at 2023 with the TGAs (and the GTAs)

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Join us for a look back at this year's biggest games through the lens of the annual The Game Awards show, and as we make some pretty out-there predictions about the announcements we'll see therein. Also, there's a new Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer! That's pretty wild, isn't it?Also discussed: Lunacid, Teardown, Baldur's Gate 3, The Steam Deck OLED, PlayStation Portal, Bottoms, Lil Gator Game Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

Griffin, I know you weren't here last week, but I had a little surprise and I wanted to share it with you. I have a new member of my family. Don't you freaking dare. Griffin, you were spared. You were spared a look at, and I can't believe we're talking about it again, a look at Russ's earwax that he treated us to with no warning. Oh, yeah, I don't want that. I don't, I don't. You don't want it.

Nobody wants it. But he's like bringing it up here. oh yeah i don't want that i don't i don't you don't want it nobody wants it but okay now it's funny you should say nobody wants it because i actually know precisely how many people want it versus not 1700 people voted in the poll in our newsletter over whether it should be shared in the newsletter versus not 60 of them wanted it shared. So I need to acknowledge it. Yeah. Because that's a lot of people voting. If that many people voted in every election. Nasty fucking freaks.

Now, I do want to say this. We're not going to go specific because I know it grosses everyone out. It grosses me out to some extent. And the image, when it gets shared, because I think we need to because the people have spoken. And the image, when it gets shared, because I think we need to because the people have spoken, but when it gets shared in the newsletter, it will be heavily hidden such that you won't just, it's not just going to like assault you the second you open your email. There will be like a click-through requirement. And if you can withstand the urge to not have that ruin your entire life, which to some extent it will, that's fine. Don't worry about it.

We will not force that upon you. Can we set up like a captcha? Like a captcha? Like, make people really go on a quest. Prove you are a total scumbum? Yeah. Yeah, we'll do what we can, but it will be well hidden, so don't worry about that. You know, I saw announced, like, there was a news story going around that

Kiss, rather than continue to tour live they played their last live show at madison square garden rest i'm sure you were there uh and they instead of touring live anymore they're gonna put out like hologram cg versions of themselves that you can uh go to see a concert of what oh you can go watch like yeah like yeah like tupac performed yeah sure i would rather sit through that yeah 100 000 million times i would rather watch that as i felt the sun die behind me 100 000 million times then look at that earwax picture one more time well now i you know what sucks juice i know man i know man i know listen no listen i didn't

want to see it before but but now you've opened the door just to crack and that's all the daylight rust needs to i'm here i'm over here i'm over here on slack which is furiously f5 and waiting waiting for that jpeg to show i'm it's gonna happen now i had it primed and then i deleted it after griffin said that he didn't want to see it, and now give me. That is so unlike you, man. I know. No, I'm all about consent.

It's very important to me. You've got the green light, baby. Give me Waxy. Holy fucking shit, dog. Why has it got so much hair on it? Oh, God. Okay, we are are never ever talking about this again this is the last time it will be discussed i apologize it's still it's gone well it won't be it's gonna be on the internet forever My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best year of the year. My name is Griffin McElroy, and Happy New Year!

My name is Russ Rushing, and I know the best year of the week! Hello, welcome to the best years, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It is a video game club, and just by listening, you, my friends, have become a member of said club. So we're so happy to have you here with us. Do you guys hear that? What? Nothing. It's the calm before the storm. Of what?

The game of the year celebration that's right brief a brief inhale we get uh before we we have to spring into our uh game of the year battle so we want to take a moment for reflection right we want to take a second to look at 2023 and say hey this is a year of video games we're gonna look at the Game Awards to talk about some of their nominees. And then we'll have some more ephemera for you. We got to clear our desks before the end of the year. And we are going to do all of that for you right after this brief commercial message. Chris planted in here. Sorry, I should have said that.

So a few things that are, I think, to remember uh before we get into this thing a we're recording this before the tgas happen the tgas happen on thursday we're recording it just before so um i think we will be making some predictions about potential winners and the cool thing about that is you will be able to in real time know how wrong we were because it already will have happened which is kind of exciting for you it's a little stressful for me but yeah um but overall i think we should talk before we get into that we should talk about 23 as a year which is in my mind the best year for video games that has happened since i started uh covering video games like 20 that's wild that's wild i

don't know about that that's okay that's a big big swing man um just like release wise there are so many bangers this year you're starting with okay what year are you starting with like what what year are you saying you got into games uh Well, like working in games, like 2005. It's your statement, so whatever. 2005, okay. Yeah, I don't know, man. There's a lot of really good stuff in the mix. Don't get me wrong.

One of the better years, I would say, that we have had. I don't know that I feel the same way. The competition most recently was probably 2017 when the switch launched and we have breath of the wild and mario odyssey certainly a big big big year yeah but holy fuck man i like this is these are some heavy hitters this year yeah i mean it's very very good um i i for me the the big question mark here is whether or not I am saying that I started in 2007 or earlier. Because I started writing about video games when I was in high school. So I can't go all the way to back there.

2007 is very strong, though. Very good. We did this already, right? Didn't we talk about what the best year in games was yes i feel like where did we settle on i think we said 2017 i don't remember people will remind us in the comments i'm sure but i think we said 2017 i mean i would already there's there is a case for this year being the best video game year ever there is a case for that um so for me this is pointless to

talk about but i will say that 2007 was uh portal call of duty 4 modern warfare halo 3 world of warcraft burning crusade rock band super mario galaxy bioshock we already established that halo 3 is no longer fun i think think we nailed that one down. Sorry. Also, the very first Bioshock Assassin's Creed Uncharted Crisis Mass Effect. It's hard to beat that, man. That's wild. That's a good year.

That's so many franchises that are still fucking rocking. That's wild. Now, the other one that I would put up there is 98, which is Half-Life, uh, Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, uh, Starcraft, Resident Evil 2. Yeah. I mean, it's really a question of like formative versus. North American defeated Pokemon. Yeah.

That's all 98. Formative versus, uh, fun games that you could actually play now and have a good time with. Yeah. If you're asking me if video games are better now than they were 20 years ago, duh, they make all old games look bad because they're all sick now and you can buy more stuff. A lot of these games,

people forget that once you bought them, you were done and there was no other way to like engage with them monetarily. Yeah. And that sucked ass. And now it's like the game, there's all kinds of ways you can give your money to it which is beautiful i think uh well yeah hats special special horses yeah we didn't have those back in my day 30 horses what a day we live in uh that's fair yeah no i i i'm i'm happy about

this year uh i think next year will probably not be the, like, mad dash of releases that we've seen this year. There's still going to be good stuff. We might still see the Switch 2 next year. Who knows? We're going to have a whole episode on predictions for 2024 in January. But I think it is worth appreciating, and we will certainly be doing more of that

as we go through the game of the year and the TGA stuff over the next few episodes talking about just what a special year this was. I've just realized that the game awards are on my 10th wedding anniversary where I do have plans. And so those will need to be canceled. Are your plans watching the TGAs?

Right. With Rachel, yeah, just hand in hand. That's how we started. You know what I mean? Jeff was there when we started. Yeah, that was your world premiere. That was the premiere of our love. Guys, I got to get into it.

I'm sorry. I've got this burning desire to know. And Griffin, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I am going to make you pick. Potter, Zonic, Gunba, Hom, or XTQZ? I don't know what that means. So this is your favorite esports coach in the GTAs. I just wanna know where you're at.

Are you leaning towards XTQZ? Yeah, not the GTAs. We're gonna get into GTAs later. This is the TGAs. TGAs. Which is different. Yeah. It's all the same.

As the esports coach, I meanAs. Which is different. Yeah. It's all the same. As the esports coach, I mean, Zonic is hard to beat. Yeah, it's a great one. I do love what X to Kizu brings to the table

in terms of inspiration. Yeah. There's lots of, listen, esports is a thing that I've learned in my now defunct video game journalism career to just not make fun of because there's

lots of people who actually do have very strong feelings there's lots of gumba heads out there who are like how fucking dare you gumba puts his heart and soul into this work every day and gumba is from team florida mayhem which i think is probably my favorite like something i don't want to fuck around with. Yeah, I agree. You could sort of just say Florida and check that box. I mean, let's talk about the Goaty list. Oh, yeah, let's talk about the list.

Let's not talk about Game of the Year. I think we should skip that category. We can either come back to it at the end or not. I think it's worth noting what six games they have on this list. Yes, I absolutely do. I just don't want to start there. Is that okay and i also i also want to say we are not going to be discussing the merits of what our picks are i think this is more of a game theory sequence because we obviously will be doing a

game of the year series of episodes uh two specifically where we're actually doing that this is more what we think will take the cake at the, uh, the Keelys, uh, at the Keelys. Um, can I just go through, can I hit you guys with some that I think are interesting and you give me your thoughts.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, I want to talk about best independent game. Cause that has been the most contentious category this year. Oh yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Uh, in the, in the running, we, uh, Russ, have you ever been a voting member of this body?

Have you ever? Yeah, it's more. I wanted to give people a little bit of idea of who is making these polls. Yeah, so it's more publication-based, is my understanding, and not individual-based, but I have assisted in filling out our ballot for Polygon. So I am familiar with this.

In Best Independent Game, we have Cocoon, we have Daveon uh we have dave the diver dredge sea of stars viewfinder all of which i'd say i've gotten i guess we didn't really do cocoon did we did you guys do it on rusty yeah we did it on rusty how is it it was good yeah it's a fun game it's not really my kind of game but it is i have for I think a lot of people dig that like logic puzzle-y kind of game. Dave the Diver has been controversial. Yes. Because it is pushing the limit of what an independent, it is called into question what this means.

Because it is paid for by Nexon. Not only paid for, let's be clear. It's not like Nexon published it they are the studio that made dave the diver is just an internal studio at nexon yeah so like it's just like they found however many people 40 people to work on this game and uh shoved a lot of money at it and made the game this is not to say i don't like dave the diver great game excellent like certainly in the way that like what was that yarny game that ea put out with yarn unravel unravel it'd be like saying unravel is an indie game even though ea like

published and produced it sure so like it's definitely yeah this is only really interesting for like the the it's a semantic discussion right but it does when you start to like uh section things off into these categories it does start to feel really arbitrary, right? It does, but here's what I'm going to say. I think there's a difference if only because I think independent game ideally would be shining a light on games with small teams, small studios that wouldn't necessarily get the shine that a game awards would provide and i do think when you have a multi-billion i don't know how much nexon makes but a lot of money when you have a huge studio behind you it kind of takes some of that away a little bit um it's my little disappointing that chance chance of sonar is not on here i would say

that's probably yeah i a winner of this category. Valve actually made Chance of Cinar, so I don't know. Oh, wow, that's crazy. For me, I would say Sea of Stars is my pick for this one. In terms of what best exemplifies an indie game, I think that I would probably lean towards Sea of Stars. That feels like, and it's also because the scope of it does not feel constrained in the way that like,

I feel like Day of the Diver feels more like what we thought an indie game was 10 years ago, right? Where it's like this self-contained, smaller experience. And I feel like Sea of Stars is like reaching beyond its sort of limitations in that sense but i think dredge or cocoon will take it i'm leaning towards cocoon mostly because it's a very focused experience that shows its hand very early and i think a lot of people were able to play it because of that and that stuff does actually heavily influence what ends up kind of

i think the struggle for sea of stars is going to be that just anecdotally i've had probably four people that i know in my personal life that i've had to bully yeah into continuing to play it and it always hits but it's like it's a struggle and if you're a game critic who's voting in these and you have a lot of other things to play i wonder if that'll scare some people off i didn't actually realize this but there is another category which is best debut indie game which i guess kind of is more along the lines of what we were talking about earlier um it's the same except well except for pizza tower which i know a lot of people love yeah yeah and venba which is a game that i actually didn't play but i heard that come out this quite good venba no to pizza tower i thought that actually didn't play, but I heard was quite good. Did that come out this year? Venba? No, Pizza Tower.

I thought that came out last year. Oh. No, it was this year. Okay. Very early this year. It's been a long year. This year's been longer than other years. Have you guys noticed that?

It has been a long year. Can we talk about best game direction? Okay. Because that always feels like a strange category to me. Let's see if we can find the unifying characteristic of all these games and what makes you think oh that's a good direction game for me the list is uh tears of the kingdom super mario wonder uh spider-man 2 baldur's gate 3 alan wake 2 it's wild because one of those i feel like the director is like in it i mean literally in it is literally in it yeah no

that's that's what i'm like this is such a strange one because it's not like the director of tears of the kingdom shows up in tears but in alan wake 2 the director's there and is in it and so for me it feels like if anything other than alan Wake 2 – don't get me wrong. I think all of these games are expertly directed. I think that Baldur's Gate 3 is probably a Herculean effort in game direction trying to keep all of those many, many, many, many plates spinning in unison in the way that they do. But Alan Wake 2 has the director fucking in it, in the game. Yeah, the director is in Alan Wake 2, and that is really hard to contradict, Griffin. That is a great point.

I've always wondered this about movies, too. This has been something I think about a lot. If the best movie, how is the best movie not the best directed movie? Right? This has always been my thing. I think if I had to guess, what they have here is a list of games that are about scope and coherence, right? They are big, but also there is a consistency to them,

which I would argue is as much of a victory of the production teams and the production managers that keep everybody in sync and on task and best produced game. Yeah, it's like a logistics award. Yeah, right? But I don't know. That is my interpretation as well.

And if it's that, I think it's Baldur's Gate 3 by a fucking mile. Yeah. I think Baldur's Gate 3 is a very strong choice here for like the scope and coherence. I feel the same about Best Narrative, which is the next category. Alan Wake 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077,

Phantom Liberty, Final Fantasy 16, and Spider-Man 2. I think Baldur's Gate 3 does stuff in the narrative department that no game has ever done before. Yeah, and that's a more focused – I think that's a much clearer category because you know exactly what you're judging against where it's just the narrative. know exactly what you're judging against yeah it's just the narrative you know well and i also think that if you if you look at like a narrative that is endemic to video games the a kind of story that only video games could do um baldur's gate is so much more interactive and flexible and reactive to what you're doing in the environment i mean i love spider-man too but like that is absolute like they're everybody's gonna get the same narrative there. I mean. And even if you look at Cyberpunk, which does have branching aspects to it, there's like, let's say in the DLC, like four or five moments where you're kind of making like big, big choices. Like there's like 60,000 of them in Stalker's Gate.

Yeah. And it's all kind of caught. I don't know. Phantom Liberty feels more like a little bit more like, well, you chose that, do you want to take the vent to the other room, or do you want to take the door that's locked, or do you want to take, either way, you're going to the room. You know, like, do you want to hack the computer that unlocks the door that gets you in the room? Do you want to knock the door down? I don't think that's the narrative that is being awarded here though right yeah i i think this this cyberpunk fulfills a really interesting space in this year for me because of its proximity to starfield and and the number of times i i was playing cyber Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty and was just absolutely knocked on my ass,

floored by the quality of the writing and acting and animation, it was more times than I could count. And I think that is just because of how much, I don't know how how surprising it was how fucking good all of that stuff is in this game that i kind of had written off you know a few years ago uh i i that game i think would have won it any other year that didn't have balder's gate 3 in it i'd like to talk about a category that i think is kind of interesting this year uh best mobile game. Oh boy. It's interesting because I have not played a single second of any of the best mobile games, according to the game awards. And I,

and I want, and I'm wondering why that is right. Cause I play a lot of games on my phone and I'm always looking for new games to play. And to me, the games that have been chosen for this, none of them that, so they are final fantasy 7 ever crisis

hello kitty island adventure honkai star rail monster hunter now terra nil none of these feel like the kind of phone experiences that like i like to have yeah the fact that i haven't played any of them i thought was kind of interesting but do you think that maybe it's because you are i don't know a nice way to say this a dinosaur when it comes to mobile gaming because like hankai star rail is hugely fucking gigantic yeah no yes okay so yes a hundred one hundred percent yeah i also though think it's indicative of the fact that at least like looking at younger people who are maybe playing more phone and tablet games, it's just like,

it's the same three things, right? It's Roblox Minecraft, you know, like that is where the mobile gaming space is. It kind of like got, at least for like younger people, it kind of like took a,

a, a branching path off there and just kind of hung out and didn't continue to advance. Well, but these games are pretty far off from those like Minecraft. Like Honkai Star Real is like a JRPG Is that mobile only?

Yes. Yeah, it's mobile only. I mean, I don't know. It's just a really I think mobile game that space is really wild. Okay, Monster Hunter Now. What is that? That's Pokemon Go. Yeah, the Niantic. No, it's Monster Hunter Now. What is that? That's Pokemon Go. Yeah, the Niantic. No, it's Monster Hunter Now, is what it's called.

I've played, I think, actually all these except Terra Nil. Monster Hunter Now, I love Monster Hunter. I love Pokemon Go. I did not like Monster Hunter Now very much. Hello Kitty Island Adventure, a lot of people were like, Griffin, you like Animal Crossing. You gotta check this one out. But it didn't scratch that itch. That's the issue for me, I think, with a lot of people were like griffin you like animal crossing gotta check this one out but it didn't scratch that itch that's that's the issue for me i think with a lot of

these is like it's stuff that should scratch an itch for me that just didn't end up doing that like final fantasy 7 one of my favorite games of all time uh ever crisis is like a uh almost expansion of that story sort of like going into, what was Sephiroth doing during the events of this? But I just didn't really like the playing of it. I would say Honkai Star Rail is probably the winner with a bullet, I would say, on this one, in that it is like a turn-based RPG version

of Genshin Impact and is pretty fucking solid. Definitely not a Justin game. Not a Justin game. I am realizing part of my bias here is, to me, you cannot be a great mobile game if I have to sit for more than five seconds before I'm actually playing the game. I can't deal with loading screens and any of that.

If it's a phone game, I need to be able to turn you on while something is loading on another device for 30 seconds um any other categories yeah i have one category i'm gonna call out because i know that one of the nominees for the 2024 tgas already and that is the best vr and ar game category And one of the nominees for the 2024 TGAs, again, we're not even a year away from that. It's a full year away, will be Resident Evil 4 VR.

And there might be three other VR games coming out in the next year. I'm skeptical of that. I'm disappointed that one of my favorite games that griffin introduced me to uh which is dungeon infinity dungeon is that what it's called dungeons of eternity yeah dungeons of eternity fucking kicks ass and i played a lot of it and it got thoroughly snubbed yeah great game um but yeah no it's that's uh kind of a weird category uh do we want to do performance and maybe wrap this up and then we'll get into the section?

Best performance, we got Ben Stars, Clive Rossfield. Oh, sorry, I thought it was like, how does it run? That's very boring to talk about. I want to know that, Justin.

What game ran the best for you this year? Look at your fan on the PS5 really cranking. This is actually, I mean, this is kind of a stacked category, guys. It really is. Ben Starr as Clive Rothfield, Final Fantasy XVI.

Cameron Monaghan as Cal Kestis from Star Wars Jedi Survivor. Idris Elba as Solomon Reed from Cyberpunk. That's unfair, I feel like. Melanie Liebert as Saga Anderson, Alan Wake 2. Neil Newbon as Asterion from Baldur's Gate 3. And Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker from Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Now, I will say that I would have been fully comfortable with this entire category being Baldur's Gate 3 people.

Because, fuck, people just like crush left and right. Yeah, 100%. They picked one. He is the legal. the legal they have to have like the fix had to be in a little bit right a little bit yeah for it not to be just a runaway yeah yeah um but the even that being said i think that this category still has some fucking heavy heavy oh sure in it but it really is you know obviously this goes hand in hand with the narrative category because so much of this is like you know great amazing writing and yeah uh storytelling that

helps support these fantastic uh voice actors it is not my it is not my pick though for the winner uh neil newman who did asterion is very very good and then driselba is driselba he's fantastic for me yuri lowenthal as a video game voice actor right he has so much to do in terms of like that performance there are so many and none of it is uh not the majority of it right if you look at a script for this game is not going to be scenes that he's doing with somebody else. It is him talking to himself and doing infinity barks and infinity reactions to different things. And as somebody who has done that in a vacuum like that, it is really, really hard. And to have the consistency that he has and he's bringing it with every single line that he does and like bringing that energy to it that actually makes it feel real and tactile i think he's doing a really

heroic thing in in in spider-man 2 he also has like a ton of range in this game specifically just because he's having to do that transition into like the venomy uh character so he has like a lot of places that he can go, whereas obviously previously in The Last Spider-Man, like, you know, he's more or less Spider-Man, like pretty consistent. For whatever it's worth, I think Najee Jeter, who did Miles Morales,

is just as good. I mean, I think he's turning into an absolutely great performance. I would maybe even put him above Uri Lowenthal, even though they're both fantastic. I just think that there are i can think of a handful of just line deliveries that neil newman did as a starian like if you if you're playing with a starian in your party there's like a scene where a circus is looking for a volunteer and you can volunteer asterion for it and he's like oh great great fun

i'm going to fucking kill you uh i i can i can think of just a few of those off the top of my head i think that's different material though right like if you wrote really funny scenes for spider-man in the movie spider-man like i i feel like i feel like asterion is getting to do like actual scenes that humans do in real life right Right. Like with a funny script and everything. And I feel like Yuri Lowenthal is putting the game on his back and is like, here, let me try. And also I have different grunting noises for when I'm putting the game on

my back. And I say my dialogue different. Um, that's fun. That's good. Yeah. So game. And I'll,

by the way, the winner will be Idris Elba. That's not a question. Jeff Keighley would fucking sell his left nut to get yourself to to skype in to that show so guaranteed it will win in a walk uh that is i think a good segue actually because there's something else that i know jeff keely would have sold his right nut for and that would have been wait are we not going to talk about the game of the year uh nominees i think we're going to save it right we're going to save it okay not going to talk about the game of the year? Nominees? Yeah, I think we're going to save it, right? We're going to save it.

Okay, no, let's talk about who we think will win. Can we do that? Who we think will win. And then we'll talk about Jeff Keighley's Right Nut. Okay, I think Alan... So the nominees are Alan Wake 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Spider-Man 2, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom.

First off, let me say where is the originality these are all sequels i have a bad case of sequelitis come on are they really turning out another alan wake 2 it's been like um it's been like 13 years guys how about that's actually interesting we have to frame it like what do we think is going to win i'm not in any way talking about my own personal preferences okay i think it is down to two games and i think it's down to balder's gate 3 and zelda i don't think there's any question in my mind 100 it will be one of those my feeling is because of recency and mostly recency but i also think like some people certainly think it's a better game but i think balder's gate 3 will win because it's it's the game that people are still playing

right now because the game takes so fucking long to finish whereas tears of the kingdom came up in what april and everyone was more or less done with it by like june july i played it yesterday by the way absolutely 100 still trying to beat it. Yeah, I actually would lean towards Zelda here just because I feel like the love for Zelda will be wider than Baldur's Gate is deep. I know it was a surprise crossover hit, but I can't imagine it's in the ballpark in terms of just like eyeballs that Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom has. in terms of just like eyeballs that legend of zelda tears of the kingdom has i i find it much harder to envision a game critic voter who hasn't played zelda than hat but has played balder's gate three i think that'll be much rarer to find and i will add the breadth to support your point

in polygon's top 50 number one zelda number two balder's gate so that's a that is a good argument that it has more reach i think there is a decent chance of a dark horse super mario brothers wonder just because it's such a broad it's such because it's got okay so it's got the the polish but it's also got the recency that you know what i mean like it's actually more recent much more than either of those that's it i don't think that's a very strong likelihood but i could see a world where if those two split things and you know mario sneaks in their possibility that's i kind of wish that vegas took odds on this stuff because it's very interesting but i don't think there's a chance in hell wonder will be uh up there now what is going to be

announced at the game awards that's what everybody wants to know i'm saying fucking hollow knight silk song out now out are you giving the out now out now i think no matter what the next time silk song shows up it will be an out now situation i think that is fair to say yes and that's tomorrow december 7th my 10th wedding anniversary team cherry's gonna come in with a fucking over the top rope fucking moonsault from with assist from their boy jeff keely we got you happy anniversary it's out now uh yeah that would be a bummer for rachel but happy for us and i think that would with the release of soaks on guarantee that 2023 was the strongest year in video game history uh that would lock it down pretty well but yeah i'm not expecting it because my heart has been broken so many times

the only thing that i really really want is elden ring dlc trailer yeah. Wasn't that announced at the last? It has been announced. No, no, no. I mean, at the last game awards, I think. Isn't that when they sort of teased Shadow of the Earth tree? I think it was absent during the last game awards. And then they announced it really with just like a screenshot of fucking Mikula riding a horse.

And I was like instantly, hell yeah. That's all I need. But yeah, I'm hoping need but uh yeah i'm hoping for that but i'm sure there'll be some you know probably some death stranding 2 stuff uh i mean everyone listening to this already knows the answer to these questions so we'll see how right i think we will get a okay uh this is my wild prediction i think gameplay trailer for suicide squad kind of trying to reset the conversation on that game and try to make it get people excited

about it again I mean they have been already I know you might have missed it but they've been releasing like quote dev diaries they're like 20 minutes long showing why the gameplay isn't terrible yeah I don't know I'm gonna play that game I hope it's good but I'm

a little worried about it what about F we'll have to talk about it. What about Fable? You think we'll hear from Fable? Oh, yeah. I don't think so. I think Fable's showing up. Yeah. I don't think so.

I think Keanu's going to show up. I don't see why Keanu would show up, unless he just came to just hang out. Maybe he's the new Witcher. He's the new Witcher, guys. I would love... Can you imagine Keanu's like an old Witcher? That'd be sick. Or Witcher as was a baby but it's keanu got his face on there what with the cg and all

what is this episode of the besties everyone is wondering how has it gone on so long without us like coming to anything useful any other okay any other pie in the sky predictions where you want to be like looking smart when it pops up on the show? There's got to be something that you pull and somebody gets it right and everybody's like, wow, you're so smart. So smart. Half-life 3, bam.

There's no way. I know, but how smart would I look? Oh, so you're saying shoot some big shots. Shooting every moon out of the sky in the attempt to to really impress everyone world of warcraft 2 oh my god i i do think you'll see something like that not world of warcraft 2 i do think activision blizzard will have to do something wild and desperate soon i don't think it's wild too they don't need to do anything they're they're on papa microsoft's dime now yeah that's true that's a really good point man they're good starcraft goes um okay

um what else is there that has it what is the vapor what is the new uh what is the new do starcraft forever yeah yeah what's the new duke nukem forever starfield goes fucking hollow knight silk song it is but a game that like real people are excited about like you know what i mean like i know that's a for us the real answer your question is star citizen because it's a total scam in the way that duke nukem forever was a total scam so i just assume people are playing games anymore if i don't hear about something i feel like it's like oh they must people must be quietly playing that happily for the past decade and i just it's got its own ecosystem and i just have no idea i mean there is a version you can play of star citizen but it's still in quote early access and has been for i don't know 15 years or something yeah yeah yeah uh let's take

a quick break and then when we come back um even more great great stuff i mean great stuff especially if you love stealing cars okay we finally get to the portion of the show where we discuss what jeff keely would have sold his right nut for and that was the gta6 trailer which i'm sorry to say to him uh released a few days before the tgs yes i'm sure he wanted it i'm sure he made the pitch to dan and the crew at rockstar but uh it didn't happen for him but that's okay it happened for all of us uh after a leak it it launched like 12 hours early do you think they'll still show it like he's just gonna like be on stage and just like pull out his phone and be like you guys gotta check this shit out this is the grand theft auto six trailer zoom in zoom in real close on this dave whoa um it's uh i mean it's very good

it's it looks very good it looks a lot like grand theft auto 5 but in florida and i like that that's fun i think that's and that's what you come to for us that's right it's like i mean it's like 96 seconds long and none of it is gameplay as far as we can tell but this is i mean it's sure it's in engine so it's like stuff you would see walking around right yes um i mean this is just how they do it though this is how they do it they they release okay our difference being helpful so i will help it is it is uh in vice city and leonidas the state that vice city is is in wait wait wait really i actually didn't know this leonidas i thought it was like florida don't they call it Florida in Vice City?

I think it's Leonida State. I thought it was the county. Anyway. I thought they retconned it. Maybe they retconned it. Anyway. Google Leonida. I'm sure you're right.

Yeah. Thank you. So it's in Leonida, which is basically Florida. The protagonist, at least as near as we can tell, is either just a woman or a woman and a man. i think it's both i think like okay they were definitely more focused on the the female like half of that lucia um she's in prison and she gets out and she's in you know vice city which is basically a miami uh stand-in and as far as like narrative stuff she's clearly like putting together some sort of gang it feels less like high stakes heisty and more like a little closer to san andreas in that regard with like more of a focus it feels like bonnie and clyde to me that was my read of it um rockstar

has also said that it is going to be set in vice city but also in the sprawl surrounding vice city similar to how grand theft auto 5 had um oh shit what was the name of the city in gta 5 oh wow not gonna not gonna remember los santos los santos yeah but also like you know uh an area 20 times the size of los santos to to explore and goof around in yeah i think it'll probably if i had to guess just for the size of Los Santos to explore and goof around in. Yeah, I think it'll probably, if I had to guess, just for the sake of elevation, because Florida is very flat, they will probably like futz with the geography a bit and have like Georgia, the equivalent of Georgia on the north side. So you could have like a little bit of mountains maybe would be my guess. I'm of kind of two minds about it. I guess. I'm of kind of two minds about it.

On the one hand, I think they almost had to have a female protagonist, like, just to have some new ground to tread. And I am excited if they have brought, like, people who have that lived experience in the room. Like, I don't know what that looks like, but I would be interested to see that sort of story from a different perspective and what that – how that colors it. I will say on the negative side, it seemed like a lot of the gags in this trailer such as they are are very much about like look at these maniacs in Florida and look at – like they're directly referencing a lady that stood outside in a in a moo moo with two hammers or whatever they're like pulling direct stuff from direct life and i i will be a little bit bummed if the the the big like thrust of gta6 is like let's make fun of all these like low-income people in florida and all these you know stupid hillbillies rather than like pointing towards some of the actual forces in the country that are worthy of mockery which it has always been pretty good about you know like uh until it got to a point where it was such a big game that it almost seemed started to feel a little crass like criticizing commercialism when you're making

the biggest game on the fucking planet yeah exactly but yeah i i take your point because like gta5 has obviously like a pretty wide range of characters but predominantly like you're dealing with like whatever michael and his like bourgeois like miserable rich life yes and also like everyone in holly scam artists that are like, yeah, financially like ruining everything. I do think at its core, my prediction would be that you will see more of the like politics engine of Florida being like an antagonistic part of this. That would be cool. Then you will like gang members, for example. Yeah. then you will like gang members, for example.

Yeah. And I think that's kind of the flow of like all of the GTA games start like, oh, you're doing whatever crimes for like the small local group, but then eventually you realize fucking Donald Trump equivalent is actually running the show behind everything. Yeah.

So I think the larger, I was talking to a friend of the show, Kirk Hamilton about this. And his point, which I found the larger, I was talking to a friend of the show, Kirk Hamilton, about this. And his point, which I found very interesting, was he had actually lived in Florida for quite some time. And he is more worried about the idea that, like, spending this much time in Florida would not necessarily be the most fun because it is such a kind of somewhat soul-sucking environment for certain people other people have a very good happy life but for him he was so miserable there that the idea of like spending another 60 hours like traversing these streets with people that he doesn't particularly like didn't feel super appetizing to him which i sort of get because

it's like if florida's not for you this is going to be a whole lot of Florida. A whole bunch of Florida, yeah. I am excited to go back to Vice City. I really, really enjoy that setting. I have a lot of very fond, I got pretty into Grand Theft Auto 3 when it came out, but Vice City was the first one

that I like really, really sank my teeth into. And there was so much about the sort of like aesthetic of that, like yeah really really sank my teeth into and there was so much about the sort of like aesthetic of that like the neon tinted you know uh flock of seagulls sort of vibe that vice city had uh that obviously like it's a different it's a different time in grand theft auto 6 so a lot of the the sort of like 80s vibes will not be present but um i'm i am more curious about sort of the existence of an online like version of this which they have not so much discussed right but you have to assume guaranteed

right guaranteed i mean but well guaranteed except like at that point you are fracturing the player base of what is now just called grand theft auto online right and and so like if grand theft auto online was launched off the back of grand theft auto 5 like does does that get changed does that get scrapped or iterated on when grand theft auto 6 comes out like i don't know they i don't know the answer to that so So I talked with a friend of mine who, my friend Jason, who spins, is deep in the GTA online scene. And I said, like, GTA 6, what are you hoping for? Basically, the sense that I got there is that a lot of what works about that game has been sort of glued on. Yeah.

Where, like, the experience was not built from the ground up. He talked about how, like, heists are way too loose. It's way too hard to find people to play with. You don't have that. The menus are totally a mess. Every time I've tried to jump in, it's so clumsily put together. So they have this player base,

but it's weird if you think about it, where GTA Online seems more niche than it probably should be right like doesn't it feel weird that well that has seems that has seemed to i think i think what i'm what i'm getting at is uh the i feel like they could make an experience the risk of bifurcation is there but i also think if they do it really well seeing the potential there they could make something that reaches a lot more people it is the same story i feel like for gta online as it is for red dead redemption to online i don't and i don't actually i have not even kept up enough with that to know if that is split off that's like done

separate thing but yeah that's that's the thing is that the launch of both of those things was It's not done. It's so bad. That I feel like they lost the opportunity to be, you know, a huge, huge smash hit thing that, like, more people had played. Because GTA Online, like, it is a, I would say, a niche thing. But the people who are in that niche are fucking into it. And so there is an opportunity here for, you know, the launch of gta6 to have a new thing they would just need to um you know for the first time really stick the landing of the launch of that mode yeah the idea that you could like be playing the campaign of gta and be like at a second in a second you could be like switch on the servers and be playing your online character and not have to like load in a new map and wait for loading

whatever lobbies to happen and and like partner up with people very easily like there's so much they could streamline about it the hardest part in theory the hardest part is making like this entire huge world that they obviously are making regardless and then making sure that that jives well with an online system but like yeah i would really hope that a lot of what they've learned and a lot of the money that they've earned through selling monetization for GTA Online over the last 10 years will go into making this something that like not just a niche audience can get into. Well, we'll see. You know, it's 2025. well we'll see you know it's 2025 so i would also like to see a sort of return to that like rags to riches arc that i feel like was not really so much a big focus in in gta5 but like vice city was all about going from a nobody to you know living in a being a owner of multiple small

businesses living in a penthouse apartment. Yeah, it does seem like it is leaning in that direction because you have the main character just coming out of prison and literally starting from zero, and then you have to have somewhere to go. But you're right, there wasn't... Really breaking the mold for that start of the story. You know, I was also thinking that someone mentioned 2025, which was the date appended to this trailer i i think that uh that online thing that discussion probably

looks a lot different if you consider the fact that we're probably talking about 18 months from now right like within reasonably speaking we're probably talking about spring or summer 2025 yeah or winter when it gets bumped yeah i think that's the sort of forward-looking thing that a lot of these like big games are not doing right they're not saying we're going to start winding this down so we can move on to something bigger after this i feel like everybody is just trying to cling to whatever scraps they can they can get you know what i mean at the at the and isolating a lot of people like not trying to bring in new people so i think that it's gonna look pretty smart maybe in in 18 months where it's like okay a bunch of other people have fallen off of this let's like

transition on to the next thing i mean i i feel like if destiny pulled it off gta can certainly do it certainly pissed off a lot of people at the launch of destiny but it yeah ended up making that turning that corner as as it were. Yeah. I would kind of want to know, like, if you spent... And I think if you're a dirty dog, they'll keep it running for you, no problem. I'm sure they will. If you're a dirty dog, don't want to move.

If you had spent 300 hours, I guess your buddy would know this, but if you had spent 300 hours playing GTA Online, and God knows how much money you've spent, and you've got, like, a fucking submarine and whatever else. Are you going to be cool with starting from scratch? It's actually interesting. He mentioned this specifically that he hoped the next one had a better sense of like developing a character

that you are attached to. He feels nothing for his like, this is a guy who still checks in on his EverQuest character. You know what I mean? Like he'll boot it up and see how things are going. Feels nothing for this GTA character. Cause it's just not, it's not designed that way. So maybe the transition wouldn't be as big of a deal.

You know, maybe it's not as big of a problem. Yeah. Okay. Well stay tuned for more on that in, I don't know, a year and a half or something. I bet. I bet. Yeah. Summer. And then there'll be a delay. Yeah. For sure. Okay. tuned for more on that in i don't know a year and a half or something i bet i bet yeah summer and then there'll be a delay yeah for sure okay so honorable mentions anything people want to call out um yeah so i i was traveling uh last week for a little uh two night getaway for our uh anniversary

and i brought my steam deck and i played a lot of Teardown, and, um, man, that shit's real good, I am, I, I picked up the Steam Deck OLED, against my better judgment, uh, and I'm actually pretty happy with the, uh, with the upgrade there, uh, I was not expecting to find it as, uh, impressive as I do, but it looks so much better and the battery life upgrade truly is significant. But yeah, I feel silly for having gone this long without playing Teardown yet because it's really a very, very clever game and I'm sure we've talked it to death.

What unlocked it for you? Because I've banged my head against it twice now and I can't get it. I don't get it. For me, I mean, so the loop of Teardown is you go into a level, there's a series of objectives, and you have to figure out a way to sort of string them together into a perfect 60-second run. And that involves smashing down every wall between objective A and B, or building a ramp, or figuring out some way to

move the objectives closer to each other so you don't have to waste a bunch of time running all around the map because you only have one minute once the heist part of the level starts. For me, where it started to take off is some of the tools that you will unlock allow for a lot more sort of lateral thinking. So there's like planks that you can get and you can use them to build like these insane long ramps that connect parts of the level that probably shouldn't be connected. You get cables that are used to attach items to cars. So now you can just like, you know, attach all of your objectives to one truck and then start the timer and just drive that truck right on to glory and finish with, you know, 50 seconds still on the clock. Once you start to get into that, once you start to get into

more of the engineering part of the game and less into the like, you know, just sort of route planning, that is where it starts to take off. For me, there's a mission, I think, that made it all click, where you have to get a bunch of safes and dump them into the ocean. But once the safes touch any moisture, it sets off the 60 second alarm. And also it is raining. And so it's all about figuring out how to get the safes into the ocean without letting them touch the rain outside, which involved me taking a shipping container and attaching it to the back of a dump truck with cables and then just putting a safe inside of it and planking and boarding it down to the shipping container so they don't rattle around. And then I just got them all in one shipping container, drove it right into the ocean and finished the level in like five seconds and it was so satisfying and it took me like an hour to get that to to all work together but seeing how like this is a stupid idea i had but this game is actually allowing it to happen just impressed the hell out of me so

yeah i was there was my moment was there was like a house on stilts and yeah if you rip the item that you're trying to steal off the wall the alarm starts but if you move the entire house yeah it doesn't so i basically like knocked all the stilts down the house fell i attached the house via cables to a dump truck and pulled the entire house towards the exit such that the timer wouldn't start yet and that was fucking amazing it's really really uh but i think it's a brain chemistry thing i do think like certain people are going to be like oh i find the like this preparation really fun and some of them will just be like this is dull or whatever um i so i finished the first act of the, which is I think what was there at launch.

And it was great. The second act starts to mess with the formula in ways I didn't really enjoy. Like taking you to an island and basically taking away all your tools, which I fucking hate. Because you can also go around looking for valuables to pick up that give you money that you can use to upgrade your tools. And then just to have that all taken away kind of sucks. And I started playing the Time Campers DLC, which is very fun. It's Back to the Future 3. And so it takes you the heist action to a Wild West town with tons of, like, dynamite and powder kegs.

And everything explodes all the time. And it's very, very fun and cool. I also want to give a shout out to Loon Acid, which Russ recommended to me. And I finished it yesterday. I finished it as well. That's a dope-ass game. That's a dope-ass game.

It was not what I was expecting. I never really played Kingsfield or any of those older FromSoft titles, but it was a very cool game to just sort of like run around and explore. I feel like I did maybe 50% of the game before I kind of like found the critical path and just finished it. But I i really really liked that one a lot um i would like to mention that i got a playstation portal oh how is it is is oh man i'm really split on it i think that it's so i use my steam deck to i did a little tricky stuff you can do to make your Steam Deck with the PlayStation portable, with the PlayStation remote play. And I will say, so I'm comparing it to that.

It works better than the Steam Deck solution, which is kind of hinky. Yeah, exactly. It's a little bit tricky. You're not getting, like the picture always looks great. The screen looks great. Assuming you have the right connection setup. Of course, I'm saying my personal experience. not getting like the picture always looks great the screen looks great um assuming assuming you

have the right connection setup of course i'm saying my personal experience yeah the screen looks great the uh the weird stuff is that like there's weird little things with the hardware that i'm unimpressed by like it doesn't get quiet enough i know that sounds weird but if you're playing in a room with other people like my wife will be on her phone or whatever in the same room as me and i'm playing a game that has like shooting in it for example even on the lowest volume it's super loud which is we it's a weird complaint but it's like i play next to like my kids room sometimes i don't want like gunshots um so that is a headphone jack what there's a headphone jack yeah if i wanted to go get headphones i'd go upstairs you know what i mean like there is the narrowest sliver of usability

for this thing and it's like they're ruling out any like yes i could go get headphones i could also not play video games read a book like yes correct uh the the head the plug is weirdly hidden in the back it's not like super it's like you gotta get like a weird angle to get the plug is weirdly hidden in the back it's not like super it's like you got to get like a weird angle to get the plug in um and none of these are like big game like big deal breakers but like when the usability is limited it just doesn't make sense for me to grab this when i could have the steam deck with me yeah like so many times like like, I'm thinking, I'm going to leave the house. You can't leave the house with the thing. So it's like, it has to be perfect for what it does.

If you are in the very narrow use case where, you know, this would be, you don't always have your TV that you play games on available to you and you would like to have like a portable solution it's pretty good the screen's great it's it's the battery life seems pretty good for what it is um i haven't had problems with with lag so much um some things feel a little shakier than others but i don't know man but let me just say there's two alternatives that I can suggest. Option A, and we've talked about the... Backbone. What's the name of that fucking controller? Backbone. Option A, you can use the Backbone controller,

which attaches to your phone. I think it supports Android and iOS. And you could basically play PS Remote Play using that. You can also play other remote plays using that. Option B, which costs essentially $0, because you already own a ps5 linking your um dual sense controller to a laptop and you can also play remote play that one computer i mean any yeah any any device and you can play remote play that way and and i

would definitely recommend doing that stuff regardless of whether you decide to buy this thing because you really want to test your home setup to make sure that the experience is going to be good. Great point. Because if it's not going to be good, there's nothing you can do about that. Yeah, I think it's a really weird device. I think it's really wild. Okay, so real quick, other things.

I watched a movie called Bottoms, and I think it's probably the funniest movie I saw this year. It is a movie about two women in high school. Ayo edabiri is is one of them griff and then the other one oh man her name is escaping rachel's and senor senor no that you're thinking of chances rachel senat is who we're thinking of it is about two young women that are trying to uh basically it is like two young women who are trying to trying to hook up with girls and they want to meet girls. So what they do is they start a fight club to meet women there.

And that is the plot of the movie is that these two who have no fighting experience at all start a fight club to meet to meet people. And it is so that idea if it was about two guys would be pretty uh boring i think and it would seem like kind of a weird thing to make a movie about uh but this is a movie that is very much like uh about gender and about like what how that formula being inverted looks um and it's also sort of irreverent in a way that I feel like women haven't been allowed to be in movies a lot. It's very sort of silly and fun.

And Marshawn Lynch is in it as their teacher. Oh, man. I'm sold. He's fucking outrageous. He's hilarious. He's so funny. The whole movie. funny the whole movie aota berry is going to be the biggest star in the world i'm so happy to see her in anything um it is great i also wanted a real quick little gator game you guys are so right it's one of the best games of the year

what uh it's fucking great it's like great i don't know what this is i still haven't played it griffin russ guys three or four hours and you got the whole thing. I collected all the – okay, Griff, it is not unlike – what was the game that you all were comparing it to? A Short Hike. A Short Hike. You're a little gator that has grown up playing this fantasy adventure with his sister. His sister decides that she's too old for the game but she's still at the park with you but you decide that you and your friends are going to make such a kick-ass game that your sister will

feel like she has to play it so you're basically your friends are creating like a paper craft zelda game around you that you have to play to show your sister how fun it is and you are it is the game there is no map so the game is about like how high can you climb to see the landmarks around you to know to like get to the landmarks that you're trying to get to there's tons of mobility stuff with like a glider and you can the shield is only used for sliding you have a shield that is only good for that that's good you have weapons that you unlock um that are completely cosmetic uh all the bad guys are um uh cardboard and can't hurt you you just kill them to get the crafting out of them and it's also like this sweet funny game about growing up and priorities and responsibilities and and all

this stuff it is i i'm so happy i was flipping about it last week because i didn't i didn't i was being ignorant um it's kind of a character i play on the internet but uh it is everyone loves that character everyone fucking loves this guy uh no but it is it is supremely great. Griffin, you will adore it. Are you playing it with the girls? Is it like a good game? Oh, yeah. I got Charlie into it after I finished it. I got Charlie playing it.

And I played some of it with Cooper on my first playthrough. Charlie can totally, like, it's not difficult. There's not really much of a quote unquote challenge um it's very much about the vibes of just like running around this place and and meeting friends and playing in this world and uh the joy of like just traversal is really fun um it's great it's great it's great cool sick uh real quick i'm playing balder's Gate 3 in the hopes of maybe beating it before we record our game of the year. I'm in the middle of Act 3. I'm just like awash in waypoints.

There's so many markers on the screen right now. Act 3 is intimidating. I have been going back and forth with this exact problem of like, do i want to try to push through just to get to some kind of ending it's been months on months and months or and should i just accept that i'm going to end my time with this or do i want to just keep savoring it and not worry so much about it we'll see where i shake out but yeah but fuck man i'm just like so uh impressed by it uh i also have been using the steam deck oled uh and it's great i uh removed it's funny because i i'd mentioned this previously but i had like a grip on my previous uh steam deck and had

been using it for a while and and took it off when i gave my old steam deck to my wife who's now using that to play balder's gate so i'm using the oled and uh i think the difference in weight is like way more dramatic now because i took the grip off so it feels way lighter even though it really is only like 10 percent lighter and it's noticeable i will say that i noticeable i balked at it when we first talked about that it is it is noticeable um i've uh i think that's evidenced by the fact that I played it for literally like hours on a flight and my poor, fragile, porcelain wrists were feeling okay at the end of that. And I would say, like you mentioned the battery life, like I'm actually flying to the TGAs

and ordinarily on the original Steam Deck, I would not consider bringing the original Steam Deck because the battery life would last, whatever, 90 minutes. And then I'd be sunk on the rest of the flight. And I actually think I will bring this and it won't last the entire flight, depending on what I play. Obviously, that'll differ. But it just feels a little slightly, slightly more portable to the point where it doesn't seem like the total craziest thing I could do. And, yeah, I'm pretty happy with it.

The weight is something I should have touched on with the portable, to be honest. If I was sitting down for like a long session, I would definitely use the portable. It's- The portal. The portal, sorry, is so much lighter. It is dramatically lighter, yeah.

That is a big improvement. Yeah. But yeah. Okay, I think we did it. I wanted to thank the following people for writing reviews to the besties on Apple podcasts. We have Bray liner. We have Jill Lloyd Flanagan and Tana Rossi.

Thank you for writing reviews for the besties on Apple podcasts. Thank you to everyone else who is subscribed to the newsletter. Sincere apologies. The image will be posted, but again, it will be heavily, heavily redacted for those who are not interested. I think people should have to play an ARG to solve a series of clues or something.

Yeah, well. I want them to take a look at the amount of effort they're putting into seeing your nasty earwax and then take a look inside, like an inner look at themselves. Well, I already looked inside. It was awful. Yeah. That, I think, is going to do it. We're going to kick off our game of the year we're gonna do two parts of game of the year uh starting next week which is very exciting we're also gonna do a rest these episode uh next week which is our final required

reading list episode so if you want to find out the 25 games you absolutely need to play from the last fucking we did what 30 years something like that uh we've finally narrowed it down it took a while but we did it um but yeah stay tuned for that in the game of the year episode next week thank you so much for enjoying this podcast and be sure to join us again next time for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!