The Besties - Astrobot is the New GOTY Frontrunner

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Everybody on the crew agrees that Astrobot is a top contender for Game of the Year. But one member believes that the Sony exclusive is the best platformer of all time. Yes, even better than every Mario game. In this episode, The Besties discuss Sony’s humongous win of the week and its inexplicable own goal — the PS5 Pro. 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!

Russ, I was watching Furiosa on the plane. Furiosa. Furiosa. Exactly, wait, is the bit that you watched an IMAX movie on like a two and a half inch screen. That is kind of funny. It was, here's what I was saying. United has some nice screens.

Do they? Yes, it was a nice screen. The sitting distance was fine, but I was thinking about how, when he was asking Furiosa, Chris Evans was asking Furiosa. Chris Evans was asking Furiosa. Chris Hemsworth. Chris Hemsworth.

When Chris Pine asked Furiosa if she had what it takes to make it epic, I was thinking how cool it would be if you were in the Wasteland. Like what would be sort of like your role in the Wasteland? This is assuming you didn't die, right? Sure. Like obviously you would die.

Yeah, no, I think that's pretty clear. But like, assuming you somehow found a way to thrive in the wastelands, like Mad Max's wastelands, like what would be, how do you think you would be cutting? Yeah, valid question. I think I would probably be selling baubles, if I had to guess. The bauble man!

I would be the bauble guy. So if you had like half a goggles or if you had like, No, hold on. Now, okay, this is two different things. The bobble man is a mysterious shadowy figure that wanders the fields collecting bobbles. A bobbles guy is like, yeah, I got a bobbles guy. You know, Russ, he's my bobbles guy.

That's me. I'd keep them all in my coat. I'd open them up and I'd offer, what bobbles are you looking for? Do you need like half a jaw? Do you need a tire that's been flat for about 10 years? I've got them. I've got my baubles.

What do you want in exchange? What do you take in exchange? Do you barter all things? Or you just want gasoline? Gasoline's pretty good, but I'll take- Gasoline! I'll take candy, man. You got like a watch him call it, I'm all over it.

If someone rolled up on you in the blasted lands and they're like, here him a call it. I'm all over it Blasted lands and they're like I know you just ate your son You want to say no fucking chuckles in this house you bring a chuckle and you're out. That's it. I'm sending you out Anything and one of the coolest universes in the world and you chose an NPC vendor from resident evil Not even a good one one that you'd kill the cp-hattie thing better Yeah, I would not be selling guns and gun upgrades. No, no, you wouldn't. Yeah, he's got a point.

Like, it has to be sad enough that you'd feel guilty murdering him for his goods. I would be trying to upsell, like, empty cereal boxes. That's my number one job. Sure, yeah. Relics of a different age. Yes. Well, that's depressing. My name is Justin Bachar and I'm the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I genuinely know the best game of the week.

My name is Ross Froschek and I'm the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It is a video game club and just by listening my friend, you have become a member. Welcome aboard. This week, we are talking about Astro Bot, a follow-up to a free thing that is actually a game now. Chris Plant, it seems like I summed it up perfectly, but you have to add- It's all up to like three free things.

This is not the first Astro Bot. For decades, Sony has tried to make a Mask App platformer in an Astro Bot, they have finally done it. A platformer that can live alongside old Super Mario is here, and we'll talk about it after the break. He said Mario. I was so, you guys were so excited for this one. I was so ready to have my curmudgeon pants on I keep them in the closet. I was really hoping to be the dissenting bully for this episode because you guys are so worked up.

But gosh darn it. This little guy. I can't I can't even work up a fake fake thing I'm gonna start this segment with a bold stance and then I'm gonna try to back it up throughout. Okay This is the best platforming video game I have ever played in my entire life Justin has run away from the camera. It's just so exciting. I don't agree or disagree I just I think it's so it's like it is a like here's what I think just so exciting. I don't agree or disagree. I just I think it's so exciting. It is a... Here's what I think is so exciting about that. There's so many qualifiers that aren't in that sentence that you could put. Modern.

3D. PlayStation 5. I did not qualify it. 2024. The best platforming video game I have ever played. This is fascinating for me. To get a chance to be on a podcast with someone doing the me bit. I know.

It's so rare that I tried out the superlatives, a la Plant, whose favorite game of the week is the game we're playing that week. It's always that the game of the year is the one we're playing that week. You've done it. Because he's present and joyful in his life. You wanna harangue him.

I mean, that's terrible. Yeah, can you believe that? Can you believe that? Well, it's my turn to har done it. Okay. Because he's present and joyful in his life. No, it's good. You wanna harangue him. I mean, that's terrible. Yeah, can you believe that? Can you believe that? Well, it's my turn to harangue about this wonderful game that I can't really come at you after. This is, okay, I don't know how to frame this discussion

in a way that is helpful. So I'd like to let you, Russ, start with the big, big thing. Well, I wanna start with a little bit of history. A little bit of history, last time. Okay, sure, please do. Where Astrob Bot came from. Okay. So Astro Bot's first appearance was Astro's playroom.

Wait, let me just make sure I'm getting this right. Cause there's a few Astro Bot. It's also pronounced Astro Bot. You're pretty, here's what I would say, Russ, cause this is in. You were pretty sassy with me about the chronology of Astrobot when I was trying to intro the show

for you not to have it really dead to me. No, I know. Okay, I'll gist it, because I don't have it on hand. Okay. On one of the consoles, I think it was the PS4, the thing launched, and as a way to demonstrate the power of the PS4, they had these cute little robot guys, and you play this little demo game, and it was fine.

You'd, like, shake the controller around, and the fucking robots would bounce around. You'd hear them having a good time in your controller. And everyone was like, oh, that's kind of cute. And then, and then a few years later, for PS4, a game called Astrobot Rescue Mission came out, which basically no one played because it was on the PlayStation VR. I know there was a lot of them that got sold.

I feel like a lot of people didn't play this game. I played it in the polygon offices one night, because I was like, I guess I got to play it. People seemed to be into it. And I was fucking blown away by how good it was, but it required the PlayStation VR controller and headset and all that nonsense. So a lot of people didn't play it. Flash forward again to the launch of the PS5.

PS5 launches, there is one game that is arguably a pack-in game, it's downloadable, but still, which was Astro Bot Rescue, oh wait no, Astro, what the fuck was it? Astro's Playroom was the PS5 game. And that was as close to this as it gets, which is to say that was a third-person platformer that not only celebrated the history of PlayStation, was also a really fucking good platformer. This game builds off of the groundwork that was there, where they basically gave the team the keys

to make an entirely full retail game. And if you go back and listen to that year, when the PS5 came out, you listened to me talking, I guarantee that at one point I said, please fucking give the keys to this team to make a full game, because it would be incredible. And here we are, it is, it's fucking incredible. What's so great about it?

Oh, man. So, there's so much to talk about. Can I try one? Cause you, I'll let you. Yeah, I just went off on a rant. So please. This is not normally my type of game. And I didn't like the last one that much.

I appreciated it, but it didn't like, hook me. This game is really fun to play. Yeah. And what I mean is it's fun all the time to do everything. And it's fun in a way that isn't tied to microtransactions and skins and leveling. It's just fun because it's fun.

It's fun because they'll throw a hundred apples on the screen and you'll do a hundred apples on the screen and you'll do a spin move through the apples for no reason other than I wanna, it'd be so cool to see all these apples go flying. Like every moment is like that. It's fun the whole time. And that is why when I,

to go back to my earlier support, why it's the greatest platforming game of all time, you're talking about micro transactions, things like that. I totally agree. Like there's a lot of games that are great, but are hindered by those things. I'm not're talking about micro transactions, things like that, I totally agree. Like there's a lot of games that are great, but are hindered by those things. I'm not even talking about micro transactions, I'm talking about fun for fun's sake.

And that's what I'm talking about. I'm not bitching about micro transactions. When people talk about fun for fun's sake, the games that they think about are obviously Nintendo games. I'll bring, you know, Super Mario Odyssey is obviously the closest comparison to this game in modern memory. And I love Super Mario Odyssey.

Don't get me wrong. I love it. It's a shame that Griffin is not here because I know that he hugely loves it as well. A lot of people love it. But that game has, for lack of a better word, fat to it where there are levels and chunks and powers that are like, okay, they're okay.

But can feel like a little bit of a chore sometimes to run through the desert and like get all the gold stars or whatever the fuck you're doing. There's, and that applies to all Mario games. All Mario games have those moments. They're a little bit of a chore. They're not as much fun as the like core first time you run through a level kind of thing.

This game granted probably shorter than Sumerio Odyssey from a completion standpoint. I think it probably takes like 15 hours to finish this, but it is all bangers all the time. Every single level is fucking fun as shit. And the way every single level feels like, oh, you're gonna let me do this for a whole level? Like the whole level's like this? Like the one where you're,

I don't know, there's a section where you have this, you get sort of like one-off abilities in a lot of the stages and there's one where you're able to change your size so you're like one one hundredth basically, you're like mouse scale. And it's like, you could do that at any place in the level. And it basically is another level entirely dependent on your scale that

you can move about freely in the larger scale, jump up in the air, makes be small and then be in a different level really, because your scale is so different and that's the whole level and it's wild. But the difference between this and every other game that has done an idea like this is quite literally you would go to another level in a different game. You would say you can scale down to the size of the mouse and you would go up to like a pot with a plant in it

and there would be a prompt to like scale down and you would like load into a new level. That yeah, minute cap is a game that does this. Exactly. In, in this game, you just shrink within the world. And then what you realize is, Oh, peppered across the world are all these spaces that be that look kind of like the environment, but are actually

interactive as long as I'm really tiny. And by that, I mean hopping on a plant and literally jumping up the leaves, or their bubbles floating around and you can hop on it. One of my favorites was there's a, you walk into like a bedroom and there's like a blanket, and it just looks like a blanket, but then you see like, oh, part of the blanket

is like ruffled a little bit. So you shrink down, you go under the blanket through like the tiny little ruffle and then Like increased your size again and the blanket goes flying and there's like all sorts of surprises underneath this is the first time I think since Jack and Daxter and Spider-man Miles Morales the first time where I really felt the sense of like Miles Morales, the first time where I really felt the sense of like, this is, this is a next generation.

Like this is an experience that could not have been done. Which makes it a wild game to come out on the same like week as the PlayStation five pro announced. That is our B segment. So do not. Okay. I won't spoil it. We can, we can, we can, yes. Thank you. We won't get into it. In terms of stuff that's good, I want to talk about just a few levels to give people an idea of what else is there.

We talked about the getting small. For me, my moment was just before that where I had the, oh wow, they are using the power of the video game console to do things that feel different that couldn't have been done before rather than just like raw visuals. And that was kind of a like boss-ish fight level where you're going up against effectively King Kong. And as you are going through this stage, this giant going the opposite direction of scale this giant King Kong is hurling steel pylons at you that are like crashing into the environment and you're jumping closer and closer and closer to the enemy and again I think it almost benefits I mean doesn't almost does benefit the the level

that comes shortly after where you're shrinking down to a mouse. When you go from a level where you're like, I have not experienced something this grand in the game before where it is in action. And I guess when I say in a game in a platform or like this before, and then to go from that all the way down to, okay, and now I'm the size of a bug, it really made the universe feel huge. Yeah, I think the boss fights are obviously the big standout moments. You have these gobsmackingly incredible moments within the boss fights, but they're backed up by all the gameplay that's been supported throughout the other levels,

which are also incredible and fun. The boss fight, you mentioned the gorilla one, the one that's after that, and I don't want to get too far deep into the game because obviously spoilers or whatever, but you do a fight against an octopus. And this fight starts as a pretty standard, like giant octopus in front of you,

you're knocking projectiles back, etc., etc. And then halfway through, you're on an island, halfway through, the octopus swims away from you and the water level drops like a hundred feet. And you've got like a chasm in front of you. And to get to the octopus, you've got to do this insane swinging platforming challenge. While waves are like flowing through you and you've got this like gap of water like in Ten Commandments that you're trying to get through. And it's just like the ambition of this every single time there's a boss fight is like the final boss fight of a Mario game. The ambition of this is so gobsmacking that they kind of went for it at all times that I like it's it's staggering. I'm so excited. I'm so excited for this team because this game was made

with 60 people over the course of three years. You compare that to these games that take seven, eight years to make with 200 people, 300 people and external resource, whatever it is. This shows you that a team with amazing art direction and amazing gameplay sense can really like stand above the rest in a great way. Could we talk, I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts a little bit about difficulty in this game, because I thought it was a little all over the place, and I don't mean that necessarily in a bad way,

but I did think it was interesting. Playing it, I really, I don't think my kids maybe would be able to really get too deep into it. There's some parts that are like, would be pretty challenging and frustrating. There's a lot of like, you know, it doesn't make things terribly hard. It's pretty fair. But the way it approaches difficulty is really

you make one mistake and you gotta try again, right? There's not a, but that's like, it's almost instant, right? So it's like, I know kids would get frustrated by that, like pretty easily, especially like younger kids. I'm sure there's like other settings in there. But I thought that that was really kind of varied where sometimes I felt like, wow, this is incredibly easy. This isn't even, I'm not even challenged at all.

And then sometimes it's like, God, this level is really rough to get through. And I don't know if there's like an indicator of that, that I'm missing, but. Sorry, just to clarify one thing. When you die in this game, you don't replay the whole level. Die in real life. You do not die in real life.

You restart kind of pretty close by. There is a time. Maybe 10 or 15 seconds earlier to where you were previously. Yes, but I agree with you about- For some, there's some like one-offs that you do- Right, so that's what I was gonna address, that you were looking for indicators. And I would sort of agree

that the game is not explicit about this. I think they kind of hoped that people would get the idea. But from a design standpoint, they basically said anything that's like a mainline level. So a larger, it's pretty clear which are like main, big levels versus not, anything like that should be relatively easy, doable for, I would say, a kid that's like,

probably six and up, I would say. Anything that's like a side, you don't think so? No. No, man. Seven? No, man, six would, like, 3D manipulation is not a given. I mean, like, it takes a lot of kids.

You know, I will tell you this. I would say that the kids who play Roblox will probably be able to hang with it. Like, if you play Roblox and you're used to that, like, dual stick manipulation, I think you could probably swing this. I just think from a difficulty perspective, I know if my kid tried to do a jump three times

and they couldn't do it, they would quit. There is a, that you mentioned accessibility, there is a setting that basically removes the need to manipulate the camera with the right analog stick. It basically handles all the camera controls for you. I think it assigns it to a button to like push the camera behind you, but most of the camera work is just done. Uh, you'll probably end up missing some stuff because a lot of the, like extras

on the side do require camera controls, but, uh, that's there. The other setting that I wanted to call out, and this actually was the one thing that was keeping me from lauding plaudits as extreme on this game. I strongly recommend everyone listening, unless you like love them for some ungodly reason, go into the settings and turn off motion controls. I found the game way more fun when I was not juggling with the motion controls, which are, there are a lot of them. Like when you're flying into levels, you have to like steer the ship around

and you know, some of the powers use the motion controls. It's fine. It's like gimmicky, but if you turn them off, it just plays like a straight up platformer. And I found that to be way more. And you're not talking about turning off the special rumble PlayStation. Yeah, no, I think those are fine. Like there's adaptive triggers, which like makes the tension on the triggers able PlayStation. Yeah, no, I think those are fine.

Like there's adaptive triggers, which like makes the tension on the triggers a little harder. I think those are fine. And then the haptics forget about it. This game crushes haptics, the rumble that you feel in your controller and like the little speaker sounds feels so good. They kind of set the standard with Astro's play, play room previously and just elevated that to an incredible degree with this game.

I don't know that this game could ever run on any other platform that doesn't have as good haptics as this does because it feels so much better and adds so much to it. I mean, it could run, but it wouldn't be... It could run. I just mean like, I don't think it'll ever get ported necessarily. Yeah, it was okay. It did pretty I played some of this on the portal. Oh god Yeah, and a lot of that was it was fine. It worked fine. The haptics were good that has haptics That has the same hap yes, it's Too loud. I cut you know I played with the sounds at all last night when I was putting my kid down, because even the very lowest volume setting

on that thing is blaring. It's a crappy device. Can you talk about the connection to history and the sort of PlayStation and Sony lore? I wanna hear that from Plant, because he's a history boy. I am a history boy, and also I have kind of mixed feelings about all this.

Well, okay, so earlier Hoops,ops mentioned that the game doesn't do incentives like a lot of modern games do. I think this game does a nice job by using your love of PlayStation and video games as kind of the core incentive to play through the game and to explore every corner of it. So throughout each mission, unlike stars in a Mario game, your goal is to rescue various other astrobots. And all the- Immediately more compelling than the stars. Immediately because they actually have character. It's a bold idea.

And some of them are just kind of usual astrobots who are just hanging around. And I think for the record, for the record, I think those are just bots. Astrobot is the named protagonist of this game. Okay. You are saving. So let's be really clear, bots.

Thank you so much. That was terrifying and embarrassing. Some of them are effectively cosplaying as your favorite Sony characters, and not your favorite, and ones you've never even heard of and ones that Sony didn't even make there are so many of these characters you want like a Kratos type don't worry They've got you covered you want a gravity rush type. Don't worry. They've got you covered you want a

Vidribin type don't worry, they have got you covered. You want Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil. Sure. Your boy Kiryu is in there. Yes. What is the Resident, like I was getting confused at that point. When Resident Evil showed up, I was like,

okay, is Arrow the Acrobat next? Like how far does this extend? So I think the rubric was not only, obviously first party Sony games, but also any major games that had a real moment on a PlayStation console. So Resident Evil, Big One, obviously, retro games. I think Capcom in general has a very strong relationship

with Sony and has for many years. So you see a lot of Street Fighter stuff there. Tomb Raider is another, there's a Tomb Raider bot that runs around being chased by a Raptor. Tomb Raider obviously was like, had its first console moment on the PlayStation 1. So I think that was- And these are explicit?

I should say like, none of these actually say like, Resident Evil or whatever. No, I kind of wonder. It's like, I don't know if they're actually like, they're kind of toeing the line between what they have to pay for this. I was wondering that because obviously they wouldn't want to like, spoil a relationship with a company, but also like what company is going to fucking complain that Sony is putting like a parody.

I don't think there's a world in which it was not approved because they largely partnered with Japanese publishers Sure, who are going to I mean? We we've worked with some of these publishers on other projects that everything is gonna be in paper Yeah, I bet like also who cares that's like the least interesting part of the game I mean, I was actually interested in the licensing agreements, but yeah, I mean of course because we are sickos actually interested in the licensing agreements. But yeah, I mean, of course, because we're, we are sickos.

Um, uh, sicko weeb dorks. So here's the question. And it, I, it's not good or bad. It just is that I had as I was playing this game. This is the best act of marketing ever. And you are paying 50 or $60 or whatever for what is an ad for Sony. And let me, it's not just the characters in it.

If I could just say, that was gonna be, that's why I was so disappointed that I didn't get to be a mean bully, because that was gonna be, my opener was gonna be not since Cool Spot on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Like that was gonna be how it has been, an act of marketing been so compelling.

But yeah. I don't think it's bad necessarily. The way you're saying it is like, this is a new thing, but every fucking Mario game, like since the first one, has like, oh, there's your buddy. No, no, no, no, no, no, let let's come on. I understand. There's an extreme. That's not even just, it's so completely off base because Mario is sure it has characters in it. This is a game that the entire goal of the game is to build a PlayStation 5. Okay, that's true.

And to go collect. This is what I'm saying, yes, right. You are worshiping at a monolith. You are worshiping a monolith. And then you are going and getting a GPU. That's the reward for one level. You are getting a RAM set from another level. It is a game fundamentally about the power of PlayStation.

Yeah, and you know what's really funny? Everyone playing it already fucking bought one. So it's not even marketing to new people, it's marketing to people that are already like people. That's marketing. That's an equally important kind of marketing. No, sure. Like indoctrinating people more in is like...

It is building the church. Right. Again, I'm not necessarily saying it's bad. I'm just saying it is a weird kind of blemish on the game for me, in that it would be the best platformer of the year, maybe of all time in your case, without you building a PlayStation. With Astro Bot just being like Mario,

a character who lives in a world where it's not all about how wonderful Sony is, it would still be fantastic. I like that stuff. I think that charging people to be fans of a thing is classic video games. I think that that does not bother me. I think the only thing that,

I think the reason for me personally that I was like a little bit whatever, I want, if you're gonna do something like this, the winky cameos are neat, but I want it to be some sort of history or some sort of thing that you're learning to be a bit more grounded. And I think when you can have that history aspect of like,

here's when this was released, you know, when you, you know what I mean? I like that. Get excited. Yeah. I am already. Have I got the game for you? Is it Astro Bot?

It's called Astro's Playroom. It's free to play on the PlayStation 5. No, no, no, I know, but I like that stuff. And that stuff was it. To be honest, while I was playing this, I kind of wished that they brought the museum into this game as well. Cause I really liked that of the last game too.

So I agree with you 100%. I agree with all the nods. It is weird because when I played Astro's Playroom, it was the first time ever that I ever felt any affinity for PlayStation as a brand. Because it had never been brought together in such a cohesive way. And this is really just like kind of building off of that.

I agree with you, it's marketing. I agree with you, it feels a little dystopian. But I think if it was just a platforming game, even though it'd be a fucking amazing platforming game and probably like from a gameplay standpoint, my favorite platforming game ever, I think the added charm of like seeing characters you know, collecting the little figurines,

running over to them and punching them so they do their little action on the crash landing thing all that stuff like You know further enhance the experience. I agree with all of that. It really is the building the church of The planet of PlayStation where I think it's kind of like, okay, okay But don't you prefer That it be so blatant though? I mean, wouldn't it be more... I prefer if it's like, hooray PlayStation, rather than try to cloak it at all.

Because you can't even pretend when you're building a giant PlayStation. The only reason that I disagree with that is I don't think it would be cloaking it. I think it is voiding an opportunity to build a universe for these characters and considering how great the developer has done with everything else, I would love to know about like a universe where the bots, MasterBot come from. Tell me more.

And you're like, and Justin's like, no. Nah man, that's not where they live in a big PS5 and fly around on a controller. That sounds good. That guy looks like Ryu. Like it's good. This is good. I guess I just imagined like-

It's really the only franchise outside of like the Fortnites of the world that is so wide ranging in terms of IP. And successful at it, like a Fortnites. And really successful at it. Yeah. I think... Which one of you guys wasn't...

Were like... This just feels like if Sackboy didn't look like trash. Yeah! Like... I forget who said it, like... Astro Bot was like... And also if you could jump... Everyone would have loved it if the Sackboys hadn't looked like trash, and they looked

like these fun little robots that everybody loved. Those games are, I think we can say, all respect to that team because they do some amazing stuff, but those are not fun platformers to play. The LittleBigPlanet games are true misery from a platformer standpoint. I mean, in the sense of what it is for the brand. Like, I don't mean playing it.

I mean, like, what it represents, right? Because there was definitely a time where the LittleBigPlanet guys were the sort of like, you see it, they were it represents, right? Because there was definitely a time where the little big planet guys were the sort of like, you see it, they were like minions, right? They'd pop up in all the different costumes and you'd see like. They were doing a very similar thing that this game is doing.

It was like, there was a lot of marketing. They look like trash. I mean, that is. These guys look awesome. Yes, that's the grand achievement of Astrobot Games is they made a Funko that people like, you know? They made the thing that is the base piece of plastic that you can decorate in any way,

and it looks adorable and you wanna own each one no matter what you dress it up as. And that is a wildly difficult thing. You don't have to put these guys in a landfill when your kids go to college because they're digital. At least for now, I have a feeling that we will be getting plenty of plastic. Oh, I think you're probably right Plastic on the way. Don't you worry? We're gonna we're gonna flood the oceans with microplastics soon enough Fuck I hope this game does really fucking well. It's gonna. It's gonna do great, right? Like I I mean

They're just isn't competent like one was the last great right like I I mean they're just as incompetent like when was the last this like what five PS5 exclusive games in total also the movie has to be in development already right with how aggressive Sony is with getting it stuff I hope there's no movie really yeah I hope there's no movie I can't imagine for the same reason I hope there's no legends of Zelda movie I don't know that there's a good way to do this movie We'll see they did the Mario movie Okay, once again, I'm gonna I'm gonna I think we're we're probably closing in unless anyone has any closing thoughts

I'm gonna end this segment with a reiteration of what I said earlier the best platforming video game I've ever played in my entire life. Yeah, put that on the fucking box. I don't know if it's true for me, but I'm happy for you. I like that you would. Are you including like, okay, do you include Spelunky in that list? Yes. I'm not saying versus Spelunky, I'm saying like. Yeah.

Heck yeah. I mean, just as like, I don't think- Hold on, hold on. I was standing up to walk out of the room and then I saw Plant's face and then I sat back down at the table. I mean, I don't think Spelunky is purely a platformer, which gets a little messy, but I mean, this is a Sponky is a better rogue like than this is, which is, you know what I mean?

But as a platforming game, yeah, I think this feels better and looks better than Sponky. And obviously I'm taking, you know, I'm not factoring history into it. Like Astrobot didn't invent the fucking jump, but of all the games of platforming games that have come before this, the Celeste, the Super Mario threes, you name it, this is the best platformer video game I've ever played. This is an audio medium and people didn't see it, but at the beginning of the episode, Froschick did lick that pile of mushrooms. And his eyes have been just giant. Look, have you guys mentioned a single platform game

that's better than this? I guess. No, okay, can I ask you a question, Russ? Sure. Because I'm actually not arguing with this because I don't have a horse in this race, but I wanna understand it. When you say best platformer though,

some of the games that we've talked about in that same context, you just mentioned Celeste, right? Sure. And you've mentioned, like, I don't know, Super Meat Boy or things like that, where there's this whole fidelity of control and there is a precision that when I think platformers, a lot of times, like that's what I'm,

that's kind of part of what I'm thinking about right now. And that this game doesn't have, I love this game. Yeah, this game doesn't have like. Its controls are not the hook for it. What is it when you say best platformer, what is that encompassing for you? Yeah, I would say the core of it is, the core gameplay loop is like,

platform to platform exploration. Like Super Mario Brothers, Celeste is definitely one of them. Uh, I mean, I don't know. I think people know what a platformer is versus like, for example, Ori has platforming elements, but it's a Metroidvania. It's a search action game. I should say, um, so like I think as a pure platforming game, I don't think there's anything better.

I think, you know, Jack and Dax, they're Banjo-Kazooie as a platforming game. Is your overall list a concrete enough thing that you know where this slots in for you? Yeah, it slots in at number one. No, I mean, of all games. Oh, of all games? No, I couldn't say that.'s flunky about this in all games

Probably. Okay. I love that's it's so twisted, dude. I love the way your mind works Yeah, yeah, I'm getting out of the labyrinth. It's yeah. God. Okay Well, let's take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about other stuff Now I know we were all loving Astro Bot in the first segment there, but don't you wish you could play it at 8K and 140 frames per second after paying $700? Well, now you can. Absolutely. PlayStation announced through the power and magic of Mark Cerny,

the PlayStation 5 Pro Yeah It's here. It's here. It's everything you guys have been waiting for I completely missed this fill me and give me the reader Okay, it's got it's got some black stripes on the side of it It doesn't come with the disk drive But every time you remember, you know when you're playing games and they're like, do you want fidelity or performance?

And you're like, I am not doing fidelity because the game runs like dog shit in comparison to performance and I don't care if it doesn't have ray tracing? Well now you won't have to choose. Well, maybe. It's a little unclear from it. It seems like you can kind of have both sometimes. Yeah, I think that is probably the easiest way to grok it is like you'll get relatively the higher performance in addition to having framerate. I think that's like might not be a hundred percent of the case, but that's certainly how they're marketing it.

No one here has used it. For $700 more, the game will look a bit better. And this is really where what it comes down to for me is, and I've talked about this a lot, $700 more, the game will look a bit better. And this is really what it comes down to for me, and I've talked about this a lot. I cannot even side by side tell ray tracing like ever. A lot of this trailer promoting the PS5 Pro was like showing side by side clips

of like how much better one looks versus the other. And I was with a microscope trying to versus the other and I was with a Microscope trying to understand the difference and I couldn't do it It I did not expect it to look so much like a digital foundry video. Yeah where they're like Screenshots yeah, I I'm absolutely baffled by the decision to release Hardware that on one hand does have slightly better visuals but then is missing basic features that you would expect from probably a base level console but certainly from a premium console.

Doesn't have a desk drive. Doesn't have a stand. Couldn't throw in the extra, you know, what? 250 in plastic. I feel like if your top-of-the-line product Does not have an inbuilt disk drive, then you should just say We're not doing that anymore. I mean, I kind of think that's what anymore. I kind of think that's what this is I mean PS6 well no, but they're selling but but it can't it better Not be that because they're still selling the drive You know to me, but I think they're selling it in the context of dorks like Chris plant who buy 4k blu-rays

Like I don't think they're intending for people to buy discs to play games in it Well, I mean it I think that's the bigger thing is they don't want people buying games right anymore They want physical only want buying. they don't want people buying games anymore. They want physical. Well, they want buying Yeah, they want people buying digital code. Yeah, and that's what they're trying to accomplish. Yes, you know, they're trying to Fully kill the resale market. Here's here's the best Most generous pitch so I can give the ps5 7. I did not know any of this by the way. We've been traveling Seven? I did not know any of this, by the way. We've been traveling.

Seven hundred dollars? Here's the best argument that I can make for it. And this is not in the trailer. This is me, like, extrapolating. Because in the trailer, all they're saying is like, hey, I know how much you love playing Last of Us 2, but don't you wish you could play it in 4K at 60 frames a second with all the bells and whistles turned on?

That's their pitch right now. The best pitch I can come up with is a year or two from now when Grand Theft Auto 6 comes out, you'll be able to play it in 60 frames per second, whereas on a base PS5, it'll probably be 30. That's the only thing that can come up with, and what that does is it kind of puts pressure on Microsoft to be like, if you don't put out your updated hardware on all Xbox consoles, GTA 6 is going to run at 30 frames a second, but Sony's got the ability to run it at 60, so long as you are willing to pay $700 for this thing. Yeah, I also don't think, I don't think Microsoft is going to worry about that, because it's called a PC. You know, I guess maybe Grand Theft Auto 6 is like,

it doesn't launch on PC again, but the idea of, hey, it could run better is so the norm right now. The idea that you would force the hand of Microsoft... Yeah. ...I think is just like, we're not even going to be making hardware by then. Microsoft knows if they're going to make an updated Xbox or not. This is not going to literally force them into it. I'm just saying it'll be a marketing differentiator. Yeah. It's I just I mean we kind of hinted at this in the previous section but it is it's something

to release Astro Bot which is the best exclusive original game released on the PlayStation 5. The like of all the PS5 exclusives, it is I think the best one, right? Yeah, maybe PlayStation writ large. Yeah, and also there just aren't that many after these years. And you release this game, Masterbot,

and it looks and plays as well as you could possibly hope for. Yeah. And then you're saying, what if you spent $700 for, I don't know, maybe the reflections look a little different on Astrobot's little cute face? I don't know. The car's side mirror reflects the car accurately, whereas previously it was just a mesh, it huge map.

This is what I'm saying. Like, okay, let's think of I think about like potential consumers for this, right? Yeah. Okay, I'll buy anything. I'll buy anything, right? Whatever. I'm in this field. Like I do this as part of my job.

Like, I like to have the newest stuff I'll buy anything in my head. I'm like, well, I would like the best graphics available, but I also would like to, I don't want to not be able to have a disk drive. Like there's other, like I have disks for this and the previous generation of consoles, like I'd like to watch a DVD or whatever, like you can buy an add-on for however much. And this is what I'm saying. It's an, I don't want.

But if I bought it, I even if I bought it, I can't get rid of I my old PlayStation 5, because it is not it is not as functional as that is. It's inferior. I mean, if you bought the add-on disk drive nonsense, it'd be as I know. And if a frog had wings, it wouldn't bump its ass when it hops. There are two forces that can drive you to buy something like this. There's your brain, where you're like, hey, I just need a video game console.

And then there is your... And Justin's pointing at his heart. Justin's pointing at his heart right now. There's your heart, where you just have so much passion for it, you can't really help yourself, right? You know you don't need the new PS5, but it has all of these new features that you're excited about. And what is bonkers about this is it takes the heart out of the equation. It costs too much. There are very few novel gimmicks. It's not coming with anything special, and it's actually losing features. So that odds you'd be like, I can't help myself.

Got to click buy is gone. I'm a Mark man. I've driven to Arby's to try something new. Like you don't, you know what I mean? Life, I got to be honest. I, and it's like, I can't get, I can't latch any of my systems onto it. I can't attach either of those. Like I can't latch any of my systems onto it. I can't attach either of those. Like I can't get excited about it. The other issue that they have

is when the PS4 Pro launched, which was only three years after the PS4, I thought it was longer than that, but it was only three years, games were already starting to run pretty badly on the original hardware. You had games, new releases like God of War, the original God of War,

that was like kind of struggling a little bit to maintain a steady frame rate on the original hardware, so you kind of Understood it and not to say that I'm like I'm thrilled the fact that like new releases are performing well on a base PS5 now That's great But it doesn't make for a good selling point and a lot of the issue is this entire generation has been so cross selling point and a lot of the issue is this entire generation has been so cross generational where all these games are running on ps4 and ps5 so of course they're going to run great on ps5 because it also has to run on ps4 so they're just kind of the timing of this tells me they were like this is the only time to do it we want to launch a ps6 in three years and we can't launch

this thing a year before the PS6 comes out so we kind of have to do it now and it'll run GTA better but that's the like it just that's all I can piece together. I'll also say I would say more than half of the time I spent playing Astro Bot was spent on either my Steam Deck or the PlayStation Portal. How do you stream to the Steam Deck as well through Chiachi or whatever it's called? Yeah. Yeah. There's a Chiaki. There's a new version, Chiaki NG, that works really well. But either way,

and I'm definitely not going to notice those like upgrades, those pro upgrades when I'm playing like in a remote setting, which is how I play a lot of the time like so even if you're like a Bigger consumer of it and like bigger into it like that's even less reason to buy in I Mean the thing is they're gonna be fine. No matter what they don't need I you know our prettier questioning here and that Sony is crushing Microsoft they are the clear winner Of this and probably the future of video game consoles that are not you know Nintendo making a device It plays all of its best toys. I say that as a compliment

but the I look at things like this and the handheld and The I look at things like this and the handheld and it's countless accessories and I do wonder like what's the big idea that they have moving grand vision for the future of video game. Ray tracing is not a plan. Like building around ray tracing as the future of gaming is not a plan. Well, and building around power as an idea is not the plan because power is now widely available and you get new, you know, upgrades every year effectively. But if you if you move over to PC so if you

want to get into the power race you've made a mistake people are getting used to being on PCs and they offer way more power and way more variability than this well and their games are cheaper here's the thing if Sony this week, instead of announcing the PS5 Pro, announced Vita 2, and it ran every PS4 game at 720p, I would have canceled the podcast because all I'd be doing is refreshing the pre-buy auction. This is, I think that is the future. I think that for me, and it's something I was thinking about a lot

with like the travel I've done recently and playing games on the like for me the graphics future like we're it's it's kind of a very diminishing returns there. What I want is the convenience and convergence future where it is easier for me to go between these different devices and not have to spend 20 minutes syncing and making sure files are working and making sure my controller is where it needs to be. And it just all works seamlessly together. And I think that like the amount of time I spend switching between devices and making sure this file is here and downloading this game that I didn't download here and that so I could play it over here like, especially between the Steam Deck and the PC, I feel like that's

where these things could actually evolve, to actually make it more convenient to just be in the ecosystem. Also talk about Dream and we're in fantasy realm here, but if they had announced a Vita 2 the same week as Astrobot and it had an Astrobot collection that came with it of like 10 classic Sony games. You're getting into like fan fiction now, right? I know. And it had an Astro Bot collection that came with it of like 10 Fanfiction now right and then Kaz Harai kicks open the door and he's like I'm back Comes in and is like yeah

Is like I'm also joining the team We all roll with Astro Bot now We have a partnership with Pizza Hut. Okay. I think we did it. We have one quick reader mail. This one comes from Rex. After hearing only the highest praise for Double Fine, the Psych Odyssey from Besties and Triple Click,

which is great. It's on YouTube as a documentary about making Psychonauts 2. I put it on my to watch list and snatched up Psychonauts 2 at the first good sale I saw but I haven't started either I guess the first or the second game yet I question is I think the game or the blu-ray or not blu-ray dive the YouTube video. I understand. I Yeah, but I haven't started either the game or the documentary yet. So my question is if I'm planning consuming both of them Both of these for sure and what order should I partake? or the documentary yet. So my question is, if I'm planning consuming both of them, both of these for sure, in what order should I partake?

Should I play the game first and watch the documentary second, or do a simultaneous experience, thank you. My advice would be to play the game first, because simultaneously does not work, because that's not how game development works. Like they're designing the last level first and shit like that.

What's really cool after you play the game, you can, throughout the entire experience, know what they're referencing and what they're building and stuff that never actually made it to the final version while you're watching it. So definitely play the game first. I'm on the opposite side. I am pro watch the documentary first

and see how a game comes together and then play the game Because you will have so much more appreciation for it. I mean this game came out I was like mixed on it and it gets better. I will also say that I think when we recorded the episode The game has maybe like yeah for the game I was maybe like five or six hours in which was not enough and the game does get better but playing this game and revisiting it after the documentary is something else because you have this rich appreciation for even the tiniest details that are happening in the game. And this is a game about details. Speaking of platformers, hey, if you are excited about Astrobot, but you don't have an opportunity to play it because you either have a PC or an Xbox, Psychonauts 2, a very solid platformer.

Not Astro Bot level, but pretty damn good. Yeah, pretty good. Can you guys play anything else? Oh wow, Frush, you watched a movie, I see on our list. I watched a movie. Tell people about this great film. I watched a movie called Blowout. It came out in 1981, and probably has one of the more interesting and original premises.

It is directed by Brian De Palma. It came out just before Scarface came out. And it stars John Travolta, who is an audio engineer for movies. He's basically like, what are they called? A Foley artist. Foley artist. Kind of.

He goes around and like captures audio to then inject into movies. So if you need a scream or like tire screeching, whatever it is, he'll like go out into nature. Which I don't know that they necessarily do a ton, but I know that it still happens now. Anyway, he does this and basically witnesses a murder or a accident or whatever happens. And it kind of turns into like this thriller.

It's shot in like kind of like a Hitchhawk movie a little bit. Willow Zygmunt is the cinematographer who has done like a ton of amazing things. Also, Brian DePalma made it, so... Also, Brian DePalma, so like... That's all Alfred Hitchcock, yeah. Yeah, it's very insane. Um, I don't know that I would say it's a great film. What? I don't know, I don't know, man.

The like, last 45 minutes of that movie are like... This is a wild take. ...fucking wild. Yeah, I think it's wild. I also, I think the, yeah, his co-star, I thought was pretty weak in this movie. But if you want like, I don't know, just like a look into time, I think I was entertained for a while.

If you're wanting a Hitchcock movie, but you don't wanna go all the way back and you want something from the 80s, something a little more modern. And you want something, I think this is definitely schlockier than Hitchcock movie, but you don't want to go all the way back and you want something from the 80s, something a little more modern. And you want something, I think this is definitely schlockier than Hitchcock. Like this is not as like refined as a Hitchcock movie. Yes, Brian De Palma makes the subtext text. So everything that you're like, hey, I think this might be about sex.

Brian De Palma is like, don't worry, we got you covered. I'm so glad you watched that. I watched a movie this week called Yi Yi, which is just this absolutely wonderful full family story set in Taiwan from the year 2000. And if you like sprawling family novel-like epics with a really good sense of humor and the sort of film that makes you feel good about life. This is it. It's just waiting for you. One word of warning because I feel like a cliche.

It is three hours long. Oh boy. So you should make time for it. But I think if you watch this film, you will fall in love with all of the films of Edward Yang. And I think there might be a new print out I saw at a theater. It was a gorgeous, gorgeous restoration. So I don't know if that's new or old, but definitely worth checking out if you have the opportunity to see it. We lost Hoops. The internet did fire Hoops into the sun and or he left to go play more Astrobot. I'm not sure, but I'll just say that like his recommendation the week is Sewer Shark and he shoot the tubes. Have a great time if you can on Sega CD

Anything else before we wrap do we do it? No, Justin stupid. He's he's a big dummy and we don't like him I think that's basically it. Do you want to recap the games we talked about today? Yeah, let's do it We talked about Astro Bot we talked about the PlayStation 5 Pro, we talked about Double Fine Psych Odyssey and Psychonauts 2, you watched Blowout, a Brian DePalma masterpiece, I watched Yi Yi, and Justin, or the spirit of him, channeled me into shouting out sewer shark Sega CD a disaster piece and that is it my friends I want to thank don't wrap it up

because I want to thank some people some people that are very near and dear to my heart yeah special thanks to the new joiners of the patreon we have Greg we have Charlie we have Iris and we have backs well thank you so much for joining the fun at patreon.com slash the besties. We have the bracket battles episode, which is already live. We also have a brand new episode of the resties. We talked about that game, Pads of Mysteria, which is fucking dope. If you like Stardew Valley, that's the game for you. Even if you don't like Stardew Valley, and you're like, I think I would but it didn't quite click Have I got the game for you? This will do it

Next week. We're still figuring it out Probably a little UFO 50 and something else, but we're not sure something else. We're not sure yeah figuring out We don't want it. There's a lot to cover. It's a busy time of year. So we'll have something fun and exciting for you. Stay tuned I think that's gonna do it for us here at the besties. That is it. We have done another episode of the besties We've come a long way since Pac-Man cuz shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!