The Besties - Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and the Art of Jackfruit Lock-picking (feat. Jordan Morris)

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

This week, we're discussing two EXTREMELY different open-world adventures: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which features a lot of tall blue people, and Lil Gator Game, which features a lot of short green people. Which delighted us (and returning guest Jordan Morris) more? Find out inside! Also discussed: Taskmaster, Dragon Age Dreadwolf, Haunted Chocolatier, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Rise of the Golden Idol, Sanabi, Baldur's Gate 3, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Little Inferno, Mortal Kombat 1, Street Fighter 6 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!

We had this fucking funny run. We're recording. I'm just going to try to recapture it. What's the deal with the subtitle on this Avatar game? I can never remember it. Yeah. It is very generic. Avatar Seasons of Love is, I believe, what it is called.

Nope, this isn't it. Yeah, it was there, and now it's not. We lost it. Jordan, will you do one of your skits oh do something from your type 5 sure yeah yeah I can do this have you guys seen these dating apps

you're swiping and you're swiping and you're like all I want is a wife yeah and then there's an empty there's an emptiness yeah what i under from what i've heard there's an emptiness that happens right right so that works a little bit better in the context of my set that i'm yeah you know that your set is all about emptiness um right yeah it's all about silence just sitting in the silence i've been kind of wanting to turn this show into more of like a working it out with mike perviglia where

it's like you bring like half a joke, you know And more like help we like help you to like Mike Birbiglia could help us mine some comedy out of the subtitle of the Avatar game perhaps not even my first He's got a deft hand, but that is That would be a Christ like sort of Achievement there's nothing funny about avatar except everything you know yes like it's it's a humorless thing that is in and of itself hysterical it's like on the other side of a black hole it has gone through everything and once it

comes out it's finally funny but you really need to go through some darkness to get there and if you laugh at avatar from the outside i don't think you get it no go through some darkness to get there. And if you laugh at Avatar from the outside, I don't think you get it. No. The more into Avatar you get, the funnier Avatar is. I assure you guys, I have five discreet Avatar t-shirts. The more you get into it,

it is even funnier. Yeah, in my, I think the subtitle of this game, Avatar colon Frontiers of Pandora, in my brain, this game is Avatar colon Into the Great Mists of Pandora. I don't know. That's good. That sounds even cooler. Yeah.

And let's drop Avatar. That's confusing. Sure. Let's just call it. Are you saying what I think you're saying? Beyond Good and Evil 2, Into the Mists of Pandora? It's time. Skull and Bones, Into the Mists of Pandora. It's time. Skull and Bones

Into the Mists. And the secret of the ooze. Avatar, the secret of the ooze. The secret of the ooze. Finally. This game does not have a rap and it makes me so sad. That you didn't get deep enough.

There's a whole rapping tribe. They're great. You'll love them. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I played Avatar Into the Mist. My name is Russ Frosch, and I know the best game of the week. Get in there, Jordan. Hey, I'm Jordan Morris, and as the Na'vi say, I see you.

Oh, thanks, Jordan. So nice to be seen. Justin, I see you. Griffin, I see you oh thanks Jordan so nice to be seen welcome I see you Griffin as I always introduce a welcome funny man Jordan Morris to the besties you know Jordan

from his his work in graphic novels like Bubble or what's your new project called yes

I know because I read it but I want you to sure no thank you love it love a plug up top Youth Group is my new YA horror

comedy graphic novel with the great artist Bowen McGurdy yeah I can talk a little bit more about it later in the show but it is available for pre-order now it's great I do want to know I have a question I blurbed it not to brag but I blurbed it oh this man can blurb have you seen this man's blurbs

he's a blurber this one I do have a question though jordan hot blurbs on this guy not a reader where do you draw the line of like when does ya become a god you say the f word more than once right yeah yeah i get one i think it is like amount of f words and um and how you're using them in context like and how you're using them in context. Like what are you doing with that F word? Sure. Yeah. You can do one.

Every Animorphs book, they say fuck once in it. And do the characters have an extended conversation about Roth IRAs? Once you have one of those in your book, it is officially A. Yeah, that's a straight A right there. That's a straight A, yeah. That's a straight A right there. That's a straight A, yeah. I only use the YA label for our graphic novels when it precludes us from being compared to real books. You know, like, I think that's the benefit with YA.

It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Not like Prime Precious. You get it. Like, you know. It's funny. Yeah, it's the creator's great out. It's like, well, it's for kids. It's for kids.

Don't judge this too hard. If you judge this, you look like a total dick. Yeah, I know it's not as. It's like, well, it's for kids. It's for kids. Don't judge this too hard. If you judge this, you look like a total dick. Yeah, I know it's not as good as good books, but it's a book for kids. We are doing everything in our power to not talk about Avatar. That's incorrect. I'm dying. I think everyone is very excited. Yeah, I kind of am too.

Okay. I'm champing. I'm champing over here. He's champing. I'm champing over here. He's champing. I'm champing like the mighty Ekron champs on the bit. There is no... We never put a bit in an Ekron's mouth. That's profane.

I'll explain to Jordan why right after this. It's a spiritual bond anyway uh avatar frontiers of pandora is the latest open world game from ubisoft yes specifically it's from the developers uh it's massive entertainment who made the division people think that this is like a far cry like knockoff but it's actually a division knockoff well it is not not really a knockoff but it is the same developer as the division it is not it is uh it is a lot like far cry it is it is a lot like far cry that's a very easy pat way of talking about it but i think personally for me it's a little bit more interesting than that because he is our guest.

I like Jordan to – because I think it's important. What kind of Avatar baggage are you bringing to this product before you fired it up? Yeah, great question, and I think that that's a key foundation to lay down. So I'm glad we're doing this. I really like the Avatar movies, but i am not here to convince anyone who doesn't like them that they are good i cannot do that i think if you've seen avatar and you're like i'm out my my position is fair good for you great like like the things that people criticize about the avatar movies like um you know like they're full of cliches uh you know we're not in Kansas anymore broadly just say writing and like sure no see that's you're talking about dialogue dialogue

maybe but writing okay listen it's kind of like trying to sell people in those cold plunge tubs I bet you know what I mean like yeah no no no it is cold yeah yeah yeah for sure it's extremely cold yeah it hurts yeah absolutely but it's good I It's extremely cold. Yeah, it hurts. Yeah, absolutely. But it's good. I like it, but you may not like it. But it's also just like the first movie is Pocahontas, and the second movie is, I don't know, Pocahontas 2, I guess, with the raccoon talking. Right. The Pocahontas where she bonds with a whale. Yes. The dialogue is unfathomably boring, but I mean, I guess if you like the writing, I'd be curious to know what it is about this world and the writing that latches onto you, Justin or Jordan or whomever else. Yeah, I mean, I think that the visual splendor is hard to ignore. Sure, I'm all on board with the visual splendor.

You don't need to convince me of that. I think there is something, the reason I like them is I think there is a really fun slash kind of funny, just corny earnestness to them. In a world where blockbusters wink at you so much, right? And I like that stuff. It does have prequels energy to it. Yeah, oh, absolutely. And I've kind of come to appreciate the prequels kind of later in life and it does have it does have big george lucas energy yeah and you know that can manifest in like some on the nose dialogue and a morality that i would say is captain planet-esque um you

know nature good pollution bad um which i agree with, by the way. Oh, both stands. Big nature guy over here. I hate pollution. But yeah, I kind of like how earnest and down the middle they are and sappy and corny. And I'm willing to forgive a lot. Yeah. So that's my relationship. Honestly, the relationship is the only important thing because you really can't adjudicate them on like, they've already made a bajillion.

Like it's like, the battle of Avatar is ended. Right. So it's, it's, it's more about this game. I appreciate these in a very similar way to Jordan. I think there's a lot of aesthetic beauty.

I like the immersiveness of the, of the world. I, I, I mean, I'll be honest. Like I struggle with a lot of the hokiness too. They're not my, I mean, I'll be honest, like I struggle with a lot of the hokiness too.

They're not my favorite films to like watch for a witty chuckle or a knowing nod. But like it's – I think they're fun. I like getting lost in the world and trying to not be so me when I watch them. I don't know. It's a fun challenge. But Avatar, the thing that i think this game nails personally is that sense of and this is what i really like about avatar so i i appreciate this that sense of you're in a world that is different from your own and it has a cohesive logic and a real like beauty and um is all is is sort of filled with that that experience of just being lost in

somewhere that's completely unknown to you yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna mention that i mentioned this to justin a few days ago we've talked a lot about starfield and we've specifically talked a lot about that moment in starfield where you start in like you're in a cave and you're mining rocks or some shit and then you have that epic moment where you open the door and you're expecting to see this amazing vista and it's just like brown desert gross and this game nails that moment better than maybe any game i've ever seen because you spend the first let's say 40 minutes or so bumbling around in like a military facility, but eventually... That tutorial sucks. It is so bad.

I take umbrage with that, Russ, because I think that Tears of the Kingdom and... You can't say that's the best sort of review. I think it only works because the first set piece of this game is the most boring future tech facility ever.

The contrast works for them. Doom looks lush. Yeah. The contrast works for them so well in this case because it is really awful where you spend that first 40 minutes or whatever it is. So when you finally do make it to the lush world of Pandora, it is like manna from heaven. So I agree with you like those games are all much much better but uh they were very smart and kind of slowly easing you into the gorgeousness that is pandora i man your character is a it should be noted is a navi oh god do we need to like explain no no your character is a'vi that's been raised by humans, basically, as an experiment.

And then those humans broke bad. It's like a reverse spider. Yeah. And a Na'vi is a sexy blue cat. There you go. Yeah. So you're a Na'vi. You're not an Avatar.

There are, as far as, I don't think there's any Avatars in the game. The Avatar program has started because Alma. They make reference to Jake Sully. Yeah. Sully? Sully? Yeah, man. Yeah, man, Jake Sully.

He's the lead Avatar. But he's not anywhere near this. This is on a different region of Pandora. He's played by Sam Worthington, the world's most famous actor. Yes. Yes. Everybody loves all his movies. talk about he's played by uh sam worthington the world's most famous actor yes yes uh everybody loves all his movies yeah we can appreciate we could spend some time running down our favorite sam worthington quotes but that would that would detract from talking about the game i see you

um you the i'm jake sully okay go ahead i do appreciate how little it does sort of require you to have seen the Avatar movies. Because I haven't caught those ones. I've been meaning to. Have you really not seen any of them? No, I haven't seen any of the two of them. But they're the length of three. They're the length of nine

if you factor in how corny it all fucking seems. I do love the Pandora land in the animal kingdom of walt disney then you love pandora this is what kills me you you would yeah that's my body though when i go there when i go to pandora at disney world that's my body do you know what i mean and but when i watch the movie or think about watching the movie that's somebody else that's sam worthington's body.

Can I try to talk about this game real quick? I understand we all have very complex feelings about Avatar. You're tall. That's the first difference. Here's how it's different from Far Cry, okay? First of all, you're tall, and people are short. That's funny. I like that.

I don't like how all the doors in the game are made for humans. Because Na'vi don't really fuck with doors. So every time you get through a door, you gotta crouch that's fair it's immersive i like that it seems like there should have been an auto crouch just like an auto door feeling situation there's a there's a run and slide there's a if you crouch while you're running you can you know slide around under those doors makes you feel pretty cool it attempts to a lot of the bait like base action is pretty similar to what you'd see in a firecracker game right you got your uh your bow and arrow you got and then you have like human machines like guns shotguns and stuff human weapons basically the

split is usually if you use human weapons on the animals in in the area then you can't harvest them um so you tend to use like a bow and arrow on the animals and the other weapons on the humans i eventually got a bow that was like electric so i used those on the humans as well there's a lot like walking tanks uh and and regular human soldiers some turrets stuff like that uh you eventually not stuff like that that's it that's it actually i don't think i saw another enemy type it's just kind of those three air yeah so those are the the three human enemies and then there's a whole like ecology of harvesting parts from animals and using those to craft weapons and gear very that's very far cry there's an eating system where you're like harvesting food and fruit and you eat those for stat bonuses and also to let your health refill.

It is making an effort and I think this is probably the biggest difference. It's making an effort at like not one-to-one grafting the like mechanics of a game, especially when it comes to economy. They are making some efforts with economy to like decentralize money

and make it more about like doing favors for the tribes or helping the tribes and then they help you by giving you the things that you need so it's very common for you to find things lying around that you could just take because it's kind of like a different society from ours it's not a it's not a capitalist society so it's burning man 24 7 over there yeah uh what's interesting about this where this kind of falls flat for me personally though is that when you do things for a clan then you earn what's called clan favor and then you exchange clan favor for goods and that is money like that is that is still money like i do it is different and like the humans have like spare parts that they found metaphor about how far reaching capitalism is man you can't get away from it we can't get away from it

our brains can't it is interesting to see how how how much capitalism is tied in with the power fantasy of almost every RPG. Anyway, that is probably the – unless I'm missing something. You eventually do get an Ikron or a Banshee, depending on which culture you're sort of drawing from. It's a big bird. What are you talking – what culture you're drawing from? Well, the humans call them Banshee and the navi call them ikron so i prefer the navi name but you can call them banshee if you want big bird yeah big bird and you pair with one of these and it can fly around the world that is like y'all get the part where you have to name it yeah man uh okay so we've been talking

about how how the world of avatar is largely humorless. I agree. I think there is a really good joke in this where the names they give you, you can't name the Ikran anything you want to. It gives you a pre-picked set of names, and most of them are Navi-sounding. You have Timik. You have Tulsi. But one of the names on there is Carol. Yes. You can name your carol and every time of course i did yes and every time you it you know it comes to get you you're like

it's good to see you carol it just sounds like you're saying hi to your mom's friend you're plummeting to the ground off of a sky island just shouting carol there are there are it is fucking sick by the way you can jump off a banshee and fall and then call them and they'll scoop you back up midair so good uh you uh yeah i uh the the the banshee feels so necessary to the world like you really feel you really feel like the running around it's huge i mean it's massive i played for a very long time and did not see everything i would say the the the beauty like the aesthetic variety and that part of the open world thing is so cool the a lot of the activities

are i would say not particularly cool personally yeah, the mining thing you do a ton of times where you have to fight the base to rescue the area from the blight of humanity. They do seem to fill a lot of that stuff with the same activity over and over again. Yeah, I also was pretty tired of lockpicking jackfruit off of trees after the second time that I did it. You can turn that off if you don't like.

They do make it tricky. They make harvesting a minigame. You have to be very delicate with the fruit. Delicate, right. It's reinforcing that con. To the fruits. Get manhandled fruits. My simple human mind,

I see the jackfruit hanging from the tree. I shoot it with a gun. That's why you're... I don't know any better. No one's ever taught me any differently. this is the last thing i'll say about this because i would really love other people talk about this game uh they make some absolutely fucking bizarre uh decisions with mechanically that i cannot justify and i cannot understand for starters if you want to throw a grenade you press l1 and square together have you ever i've never i've never heard of something like that you have a scanner that you use to and by the way

maybe this is fixed but the game did not tell me how to do this in the very early stages they're like use your scanner to check this stuff out i'm like how the fuck do i get the scanner i don't what scanner i'm going through my item wheel i'm going through my inventory i have no scanner you have to press l1 and triangle together to make the scan why that's wild guys no one does that the grenade thing is what killed me the most there's also you can't see the main objective on your compass there's not like an indicator for the main objective so i ended up having every time to go put a waypoint where the quest objective was because those show up in the compass it's just weird so yeah i had specifically on the navigation thing even though the world is very pretty to look at

which it definitely is it's surprisingly difficult to like get around early i mean obviously when you get the chronic changes but like early on you're kind of stumbling because you're looking for like places to like grab on to but because the world of pandora is aesthetically so busy it's i got like a little bit overwhelmed trying to like just like get up a cliff face for example i don't know i and the waypoint thing doesn't help that. It kind of, I really felt disappointed in the sort of like lack of variety in like traversal options, which seems like it would have been the shit for this game.

If I'm pretty cool on this game, I feel like if I had been able to sort of, you know know accomplish more tarzan style vine surfing or whatever there are these little uh like bungee cord plants that can whip you up high into the sky and there's like mushrooms you can bounce down on and then there's some like spores you can inhale to to go faster but the amount of like traversal that you do in the game i feel like that stuff needed a whole lot more variety because as soon as you get the ikron i was like okay well i don't ever want to be just

running around again like a dummy um get that beautiful pony yet i did not get a beautiful pony no so i mean that's that happens that's pretty fun the pony is quite majestic powerful haunches on this pony i just don't if you take the maybe it's unfair to say if you take the avatar out but if you take the avatar out i'm not i haven't been like that motivated to keep going i this is not this is my this is one of my sort of genres that i have fallen off of the the hardest um because i don't i i feel like I have played every open world game in that like there's there's usually not a ton of variation that you know these these this genre brings to the mix and I think Ubisoft is kind of especially the the the rule there i feel like every assassin's creed game i've played lately has

just felt sort of like the same thing and this just felt like a like a like a not like a not great far cry to me like i did not feel compelled to really do any of the side missions and there are some there are some times that the game asks you to investigate a location in order to find a trail for where you're supposed to go next, which involves just kind of looking around with your eagle vision on for tiny little blips of color on the ground. Yeah, the eagle vision's bad.

Man, and it's in the effort of trying to keep it a UI-lite experience, which I can appreciate because it is a stunning game to look at and to hear. But it's just not a fun or engaging world to interact with. And all of those hooks that are kind of the fuel for, at least me personally, when I play an open-world game, just didn't hook me um i i'm i didn't i don't want to play this game speaking i mean i sort of in the same boat as griffin but

we don't need to kill the lily speaking to the the avatar boys in the house i mean you're are you compelled to keep going like do you think you'll continue playing it after we do this episode? Or have you more or less gotten it? Yeah, I mean, I think I feel about this game like I feel about the movies. I'm like, if you don't like it, if you tell me I don't like this game, I'm like, fair, great, you're correct. I'm not going to try and convince you. I'm not going to try and talk you off that position. But yeah, I i mean i think like the avatar movies these games like never met a cliche they don't like it's basically just

cobbled together from other open world games uh you know other other fps's um yeah there's a lot of horizon in this i feel like um yeah so i think, you know, it is a kind of a, you know, it's a step backwards for licensed games, right? Like, like if you're tired of Marvel stuff, I would say, you know, you could probably still play that Spider-Man game and have a lot of fun. That Spider-Man game is real, real good. I don't think that's the case here. I think that this is for, this is for stands only. Yeah, I'm having a lot of fun running around, but I do recognize that the game has a lot of shortcomings.

You know, I think I'm in it enough to where I probably want to roll credits on it. I think I will probably forego the other masterpieces from last year that I haven't got to yet. Baldur's Gate, Tears of the Kingdom, et cetera. Is that a mistake on my part? Yes, it is. But I do think I'm having a lot of fun. I'm loving my Avatar cliches. I'm loving their declarations that

they are going to burn the sky people and choke the skies with their ashes. That sort of stuff appeals to me. So yeah, I'm kind kind of in but i absolutely understand how someone would not be in i will say jordan going from this game to eventually playing tears of the kingdom will be like being cooped up in an underground facility for 40 minutes and then one day stumbling out into the beautiful the beautiful wild no i i don't i i'm being too mean to this game it's it's just no it deserves it it deserves It's not my favorite genre. It's an easy target. James is fine.

He's got a lot of cash. Yeah, I guess that's a good point. They're doing all right. It is a genre I don't care for anymore and a franchise I don't care for anymore and it falls prey to every issue that I have with both those things. You know what it is so close to

and no one ever talks about it anymore but Primal, Far Cry Primal. If you like Far Cry Primal you're going to love this. I personally, I don't know if I'm going to keep with it. It's not anything other than I'm not that invested in like the

overarching story or narrative and honestly the things that i have unlocked since i unlocked the the banshee like don't get me that excited i don't think any of the weapons are like you get a spear thrower and like a mine layer i'm never gonna do that guys like hey please i have a shotgun like let's let's all be grown-ups um i don't i don't think it's interesting enough to stick with i think of it a lot. Like, like I thought about the Spider-Man games for a while where it was like,

you know, I'll keep it around. And like every once in a while, just as a way to like, I really enjoy, I played this game different than I do a lot of games where like, I had no expectation of myself to try to do everything or to make progress or finish.

I really tried to just like vibe with it and if you're in that headspace where you just want to like a little bit of uh eco tourism want to experience a different like world and lose yourself in it i think it's cool for that as a game that you're trying to get through i think that that would harm my relationship with it uh pretty pretty immensely but that's not the only game in the world no see. Si Baco! Si Baco! We've got another open world game coming at you in the second half of the show. And this time you're the lizard. Whoa. We fucked this one up, didn't we?

Did we? What do you mean? The little gator game. Oh, yeah, we fucked up so bad fuck this one up and and apologies to the the community which i know people have been asking for us to play this game way longer title it's such a bad name it's kind of a rough title but it is definitely one of the best open world games i've ever played and i'm not joking it is spectacular i'd recommend it to

everyone i've had i have recommended to everyone people with young kids if you're looking for a game that they should be playing that isn't total trash holy shit little little gator game just crushes and i'm very excited to talk about jordan you dipped into this right just because you you were going to be on the show you checked it out yeah. Yeah, you know, I'll show my ass a little bit. I love the show. I listen every week. And when y'all talk something up, I usually check it out. And y'all have kind of been kind of vaguely talking about Lil Gator Game.

Lil, I think it's important to give that distinction. It's not little. It's Lil. Makes it a little easier to search for when you're looking for it. Yes, I wanted to check it out. Yes, so I downloaded it. I think a little sale on PS Plus. I was maybe expecting this to be one of those sneaky genre experiment indie games where it looks real cute, and then bam, it's really about survivor's guilt.

You know those? Yeah, yeah. I think Short Hike certainly had that element to it. bam it's really about survivor's guilt you know those yeah yeah yeah I think short hikes certainly had that element to it a subtext little gators experiencing generational trauma I thought that's where we were going one of his friends just died

right exactly I went full bridge to Terabithia the goose fell off the log the goose is dead little gator game is about depression, which is what all art should be about. All art. Yeah, so I was expecting that. I have not rolled credits on this.

I don't think that's where we're going. There is actually, let me just say, it's not to that extent, but there is a surprisingly deep subtext to the game that does kind of reveal itself relating to your relationship with your sister but it's not a surprise right like no it's not it's not twisting it on you it is about what it looks like it's about yeah it's just like yeah uh yeah so i i don't think that's gonna happen i do think that uh yes very cute very charming very funny I think it captures a cool moment in childhood and a little bit of a sad moment in childhood where you feel like everybody around you has grown up and you're still a kid.

off to college and all his friends are kind of like getting more concerned with grown-up things or big kid things and he still wants to play imagination and that's that's you know that that hit very hard i remember that time in my life um and i think that's a really like unique little pocket of childhood that they're messing around in and i think that's cool um yeah i i i think this is a cozy game and i just don't think i'm a cozy game guy i think i want my video games to give me a headache and stress me out this certainly doesn't do that no yeah i was just saying like um from like a core game perspective if you've not played it the closest i can explain it is it's basically breath of the wild without all the like really annoying aspects of breath of the wild so like so you don't have to worry about rain there's like minimal i don't

think there's any fall damage no there's actually no health you can't die in this game um you spend most of the time really just exploring this open world doing mini side quests for people about like oh no i got my raft caught on these rocks can you go like loose it for me and you kind of just like go about helping people and like building shit out of cardboard and each of these little vignettes that you find people pretending in different ways everyone is and this is like in contrast to uh avatar or I would say almost every open world, everyone feels like handcrafted to be a sweet little experience for you to just like. Like everyone is made by a person and is doing something that they want you to play. Like it's intentionally designed and there's a point to it.

And it really makes exploration feel worthwhile. Beyond being just like a surprisingly fun game to run around the world in, especially as you get a little better at navigating it, you can get to a point where you're chaining together your glider and then sliding down a hill and then doing another big jump, and you can get around really fast. You can actually get infinite stamina to climb around as much as you want jump off whatever and you get a skateboard you get a skateboard that's sick there's also the best skateboards i've experienced in a game in a while which i was not expecting

from little gator game it also doesn't do there's something i really love that it doesn't do a map per se it does a uh like basically if you see a high thing in the horizon, there's something there. So you use landmarks, basically. You look around like, where's that big tower? Where's that cell phone tower? Because I know this thing's over near the cell phone tower. Oh, there it is.

I'm going to truck it over there. And that's how you navigate around, which normally I don't like, but I found it a real joy in this game. There are mechanics in here that I think are better than how Breath of the Wild works. Like things that I wish Breath of the Wild did, where as you're unlocking certain pieces of gear,

they'll have like, I mean, I guess Tears of the Kingdom does this to some extent, but they'll have like surprising side effects. So like I got a, instead of a skateboard you can get like uh like a rolling cart like the ones you had in gym class uh one of them was like a bouncy ball on the bottom of it so i would like bounce my way down hills and just constantly being given exploration tools that aren't just like wrote like oh every skateboard is the same skateboard basically made me feel like a lot more ownership about what I was unlocking,

which felt great. Um, yeah, I, I, I don't want to leave Jordan out on a branch. I also am not as enamored with this game as, uh,

the other hosts. I did enjoy it. I will say considerably more than avatar. High praise indeed. Mostly because it is delightful to just kind of tool around this world. And even though there's not a lot of mechanical complexity at all to the game, it is just kind of a delight to be in it. It is just kind of a delight to be in it, but I feel like without that sort of complexity,

it didn't quite hook me. I was hoping to get into it with Henry, and that issue that I have is apparently insurmountable for him because he was not feeling it. He wanted more, you're saying. Yeah, I mean, he wanted there to be a bit more... Challenged. He wanted it to be a metaphor for generational trauma. Yeah, he's so big into that.

But I do think it is a great experience. I do want to mention one feature that I was really impressed by. You're right. I think Justin mentioned there's no map in this game, which is true. And I was playing through it and I finished the story and I was like really enamored by it,

but you can finish the story without like finding every side quest or whatever it was. But I was like still driven to keep going and find more stuff and unlock like a quote true ending. And the game is so smart about how it leads you to the things that you've missed it gives you uh when you finish the story it gives you like a megaphone and you'll shout in the megaphone and it'll give an on-screen indicator of like oh there's like a little person still here and that still needs help and it'll like lead you there

without like being like a literal point on a map, which is like such a smart way to do like 100%ing of content. Yeah, I 100%ed it because it was a joy to do it that way. Yeah, it's so smart. Which makes sense because they worked on the, they actually wanted you to find the things that they made.

You know what I mean? Like, unlike, oh, you found that base, huh? I forgot we made that base. Shit, yeah. And we'll shut down the pipes. Is that what? Okay't know you get it sure yeah like elden ring is like oh yeah you killed that dude too early so there's a whole quest of the game you're not gonna see it's like three and a half hours it's like such a short thing um i realize that like yeah if you're looking for a challenge or you're looking for like whatever but like this is the epitome of a vibes game for me like you're saying avatar was

i was like totally smitten by it um and just like chilled out in the experience of playing it it definitely unquestionably would have been in my top 10 for 2023 even though it technically came out in 2022 but it was a late 2022 so we probably would have nominated it uh so i'm sorry it didn't make the cut then but man uh such a great game and i think a lot of people who dig this sort of vibey exploration without like heavy intense themes will probably dig it is it would you say it's a cozy game am i am i using you say it's a cozy game? Am I using that correctly? Hell yeah, it's a cozy game.

Yeah, definitely. It is one of the cozier games I've experienced. And I think a lot of those cozy games kind of fall into the category of farming sims, and this is definitely not that. So it's nice to have an alternative. I just don't like being cozy. I hate blankets.

I hate hot chocolate. I hate crackling fire. I just don't like it. I could tell that about you. I need to be punished for being such a bad boy. That's true. Jordan, you actually make a good point. Cozy games are for good people.

And I know deep down in my heart that I don't deserve that. We're wicked men. We need Miyazaki to punish us with unbeatable bosses. Thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Daddy. As always. Thank you, Daddy Miyazaki, punish us with unbeatable bosses. Thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Daddy Miyazaki for hurting me. In closing,

I lied when I was a boy. I do not deserve to be cozy for I lied when I was a boy. So thank you. In closing, I guess my final statement on Little Gator Game is thank you, Daddy Miyazaki

for the punishment. For the pain we so richly deserve. I crave the cane closing our i guess my final statement on little gator game is thank you daddy miyazaki for the pain we so richly deserve i crave the cane please keep it up daddy um listen that mustn't spare the rod or this child will be spoiled don't use a soft hand daddy miyazaki i deserve the worst uh listen well last week we talked about the games we were most anticipating. We asked you, our friends and listeners, what you're most looking forward to. Jordan, I'm going to give you, while we're reading these emails, to think about it so I'm not springing it on you. Thank you. Here's one.

Shelby, my long shot guess is a complete fangirl moment, Dragon Age Dread Wolf. Is it because I need an excuse to play Inquisition again? Sure. But hot diggity shit i want it real bad uh do you guys want to hear my here's my hot take on uh dragon age dread wolf it was announced to make ea a better acquisition target they're like yeah we got a lot going on over here don't you doesn't somebody want to come by us we got a new dragon age woo mass effect oh we're making it just by us and you can see everything it is it is genuinely we do so many like retrospectives on this show like going back through like the biggest releases of 2007 the state of bioware and bethesda in 2024 is so is such a bum it has left such a huge vacuum that

i don't think anyone else has filled in yet uh and it it bums me out every time that i every time that i think about it um i mean i think baldur's gate does a pretty fucking good job of filling that vacuum mate yeah i mean yeah i mean it's a different genre i will say dragon age yeah i mean dragon age is in a crpg yeah i guess so um i haven't played i haven't played dragon age you've never played dragon no i haven't played really that's interesting oh that's weird it's weird um inquisition's pretty good you should check it out yeah uh i don't think that game's coming out this year but it is a i hope for your sake shelby that it does uh yeah here's hoping you never know we have another one uh this comes from ryan does anyone think concerned ape is

going to go ham and have haunted chocolatier released in 2024 what i wouldn't do to have that game in my life i don't think there's a chance in hell, mostly because Conservative Day has already announced a big update to Stardew Valley. Yeah, 1.6 is, from what I understand, put Haunted Chocolatier on the back burner, which is fine by me, man. Like, I'm sure that game is going to be great,

but I have been aching for a reason to get back into StarCraft. I think there are bigger chests in this update. The last progress update on Haunted Chocolatier came from December 25th. So, still some work going on. No, that was 2021.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah. We have another one. I guess i guess this uh this was your uh most anticipated but steven wrote in i'm shocked that griffin hasn't played thousand year door a game i subconsciously assumed had formed a significant amount of his vibe i am excited for him to play i also am excited for you to play i think think it's fucking great. Yeah, I have mixed feelings about Paper Mario sort of in general. And from what I understand, it is the best one of them.

It is. So I'm looking forward to it. Do you have an opinion of what your favorite is given that you haven't played that one, which of the Paper Marios you dig? And I would also include the Mario and Luigi games as those. Oh, I mean, if you include the Mario and Luigi games, gosh, I don't know.

I love Bowser's Inside Story a lot. I thought that that game was so clever and so funny. Partners in Time is also great. That whole era of Nintendo DS Mario and Luigi RPGs is pretty undeniable in my book. I think I reviewed Super Paper Mario for the Wii. Yeah, that was like a different thing though. That was like a platforming game.

Yeah, it was like a hybrid platformer RPG. It was okay. But yeah, I know so many people who swear by A Thousand Year Door. And so I'm excited to finally dip into it i don't think i realized this next one was coming out or it would have been on my list for sure did they announce for okay yeah this is for a letter from lou i am excited for rise of the golden idol i just played the second dlc a couple weeks ago totally missed it coming out and i can't wait to have a whole new game to get sucked into yeah this, this got announced at the TGA's

surprise announcement, I think, in the pre-show of all things. Yeah, oh, that's why I missed it. And yeah, it's a full-on sequel to Curse of the Golden Idol, which is super fucking exciting. They also, for what it's worth, announced a sequel to World of Goo, if you can believe it. Yeah, World of Two.

World of Two. So, yeah, I'm excited for both of those games a whole heck of a lot and lastly uh ryan says i'm not sure where to stick this prediction but here's my cold shot silk song will be a launch title slash timed exclusive for the switch to no way so i don't think it'll be a timed exclusive if only because i think it's coming to pc day and date and i think they've announced that but i had it hadn't occurred to me that this is a possibility until ryan wrote in to suggest it something about it and i think it would explain the like weird very long time frame in which this game has existed to the point where i could kind of see let let's say Silksong was like done and dusted more or less

sometime in the middle of last year, late last year. And they were like talking to Nintendo and Nintendo was like, hey, would you like to launch alongside our new console in November, whatever that's coming out? It's pretty fucking smart, honestly. Maybe a console exclusive? Like console exclusive to Switch?

Yeah, I think it would be a console exclusive alongside PC. And fucking like, of course you would wait to do that. That's like a huge opportunity. That would wait to do that that's like a huge opportunity that would be very that would be like that would be such a smart investment for nintendo because the amount of money that they would need to make that happen for the silk song developer is probably not a lot of cash to nintendo like it seems like it'd be a really good like investment i guess um but i don't yeah totally agree so that's a good one uh i think that brings us to jordan jordan what do you got uh yeah so i'm excited about more guys in street fighter 6 uh oh boy i like street

fighter 6 a lot is that your game of the last year yeah i think so uh i mean if we're talking hours logged absolutely um i i i thought no we can't do that because then mine slay the spire. Does that help? Actually, then mine is Marvel Snap still. So, but I really love Street Fighter 6. I knew someone was still playing it. I'm glad it's somebody I know. I'm doing the high evolutionary deck. It's a lot of fun.

I don't want to hear about it. I just. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I fucked up. I'll just delete my recording. I, yes, I love Street Fighter fighter 6 i'm excited for new guys there's a kind of a scruffy looking akuma coming can't wait for him

to get here um uh yeah elden ring dlc yeah um gimme gimme hurt me daddy um hades 2 yes we're all excited um isn't there a mario donkey kong coming out oh there is and i'm also excited for that oh i loved i loved those game boy games those were so much fun um that's a that's a fun nintendo format they haven't done in a while and and and yeah i would be excited to see it they're kind of like the old cool old school donkey kong gameplay but you know modern and more complicated and a little more puzzly. Yeah, I'm stoked for that. Cool. Is there anything else you've been playing a lot, Jordan? Any honorable mentions?

Ooh, honorable mentions. So, yes, Street Fighter VI and Mortal Kombat 1 was really fun. I rolled credits on their wacky, wacky story mode a couple weeks ago and really had a fun time. You know, Street Fighter is my main squeeze when it comes to fighting games, but Mortal Kombat's always been a lovely little side piece, and I thought that they did a great job with Mortal Kombat 1.

They really get what's fun about those games, and there is a downloadable Van Damme skin for Johnny Cage. All right. Who's my main. So you can play the whole game. So all of Johnny Cage's lines are re-recorded by Van Damme. Oh, shit. That's not a skin.

That's a whole relaunch of him as a human being. I love it. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I really think. Yeah, you could hear him counting the money in the background as he's saying the lines. Yeah, but it's a lot of fun. Yeah, nice little nod to the kind of cheesy martial arts history of Mortal Kombat. So, yeah, 2023, great year for fighting games.

My honorable mention, I want to call out Sanabi, which I did on, uh, Resties. Uh, but that game rules. It's a Steam, uh, pixelated, uh, 2D platformer with like hookshot gameplay and stuff like that. And I'm getting further and further into it and I'm constantly blown away by how gorgeous it is. And, and the combat is really fun and, and uh feels very original and zippy and and fast and uh they've done a really good job i'm i'm really excited that's actually it's not the

developer but the publisher of um lies of p neo is which seems to be doing some pretty amazing work uh lately and i'm excited to see what they're going to be up to in the next uh chunk of time but this uh is it more great stuff out of South Korea. Is this more fun than that other hookshot game you tried to pawn off on people? That was Rusted Moss, which I really liked. This is more action-y and more narrative than Rusted Moss. So if that's what you're looking for,

this is also not a Metroidvania. This is more of a linear action game. But if you're looking for something yeah a little uh zippier i guess sanabi would check the box but i love rusted moss go to hell justin okay that's wow that's quite an inner okay uh well mine real quick i finished balder's gate three oh shit here's the update it is in, the best game released in 2023. Yay! I had such a fucking delightful time with that game. I love that game.

It's one of my favorite games of all time. What a fucking triumph that thing is. Griffin, you spent so much time. Just play the epilogue. Do yourself a favor and feel like you ended on a good note. Yeah, I mean, for sure. I'll definitely do that. No, i will replay that game in in total in like two years i know but like now while while you kind of remember some of the characters and

some of the stuff you did like now is a good time to just oh i don't i don't fucking remember you remember um uh i've finished a book this week called We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which is – it's literature. I mean, you know, I'm one of those kinds of guys. It is by Karen Joy Fowler. It is a book about a woman who was raised from basically birth with a chimpanzee as a twin sister. And the book is about, and obviously there are a lot of repercussions of that. We meet her in adulthood and find out about the sister,

her chimp sister later, but it becomes a book about like what makes people people and what we think of as like uniquely human and what it means to be a person and how we see that sort of like reflected in people people and what like what we think of as like uniquely human and what it means to be a person and how we see that sort of like reflected in other people and it's really funny and warm-hearted and uh i really loved it it's called we are all completely beside ourselves um lastly i'm so this is exactly what i want to always be doing an honorable mention which is reaching back in the annals to pull something out. That world of goo trailer made me remember little Inferno.

And I was like, dang, my kids will love little Inferno. I haven't played little Inferno for 10 years, but it is on switch. You can get, did you guys ever play little Inferno? I played a little bit of it.

I do remember burning things. Yeah. So it's the same developer, the tomorrow corporation, right? Not the tomorrow people. Tomorrow people are the sci-fi teens that can teleport. Yeah.

But the same company. And it is basically, it's, it's so singular. It is a game that is in the same aesthetic vein as world of goo. And there are other games, 7 billion humans in those, but you basically are,

you have a fireplace. That is your screen is just this fireplace that you bought. You basically are, you have a fireplace. That is your screen, is just this fireplace that you bought. Your little inferno fireplace. And you buy things out of a catalog to put in your furnace and burn. And when you burn them, you get more money back than they cost to buy. So you buy other things. And then there are combos of things that if you burn them together will unlock secret stuff and then as you're going you're also getting like communique from people in other homes

about the situation that you find yourselves in and there's like a whole story going on in the world around you that's sort of just being drip fed to you through these little missives but like there is a narrative unfolding while you're sort of just burning stuff and seeing the funny way things uh burn like for example there's an

ear of corn you can buy when you throw it in it turns into like popcorn and it's all modeled so like the popcorn then burns and it's all it's it's a very fun chill thing especially with kids it's great on the switch because you just unplug the the joy cons and use those as pointers from anywhere in the room so it's just like you know hang out on the couch and burn stuff uh it's it's it's a great game i played it like i said 10 years ago but it's well worth uh checking out if you've never done it are you not worried that your kids are going to have something awakened in them oh it's that that ship done sailed. Okay. And that it's too late for them to love fire or? I don't see the point in agonizing over it. The ship has sailed.

You know what I mean? Maybe it's headed on a good band. The kids can create fire with their minds when they get angry. Yes. Right. That's called parenting. Okay. We're all doing our best.

I sold them to a lab. I don't know what the lab did to them but when they came back they could create fire and it's between me and them and the scientists that check up on them three times a day and of course the graduate students and like the other and the security the darpa head they're in there I've been playing something I can't talk about yet here he goes but I have been

watching Taskmaster again fell off that for a few seasons and have gotten back into it that is a great show that i have also it's really dependent on who's on it's really dependent on the cast it's not one you can just like churn through because there's some cast that i just like don't don't click with yeah and i you know that's i think uh you know that's that's just how comedy is. That's how comedy goes. Sometimes they, I think, gel better than others.

We just finished series 16 with Sue Perkins is probably the biggest name on that season. Susan Wacoma, Sam Campbell, Lucy Beaumont, Julian Clary. Just fucking hysterical. Just absolutely amazing probably the strongest single cast uh that i have i have ever seen on the show so if you if you like me have also fallen off i would suggest hopping back in on series 16 it's all on youtube they've been putting it all up on youtube it's not even like you have to there's such a treasure trove it is one of the great things that that emerged from the

pandemic is just like the wealth of taskmaster on youtube that everybody started watching that is yes there for you to enjoy if you've never if you've never watched it then like you have still me you have a wealth of have you not like no i haven't watched it not once nope why i i've got things going on. Bullshit. Okay. Bullshit. Don't tell that to your Steam friends, Russ. Do not try to tell your Steam friends about how short on time you are.

If you've never watched it, like the older season, I think Series 7 is the one with James Acaster and Phil Wang. That's an all-timer. All-timer. Series 5 has Bob Mortimer. Oh, God! There's the Noel Fielding season. Noel and Mel, two former and current hosts of Bake Off, are series 4.

But if you have watched those, series 16 is just fucking amazing. It's so, so, so, so funny. Please watch it, Russ. Will you please watch it this week? I will. I will. I'll watch it.

That's a lunchtime watch is what it sounds like. Yeah. It's a good lunchtime watch. Cool. I think we did it. Thank you so much, Jordan Morris, for joining us. Once again, I think it's a good opportunity to plug both Bubble, which is out,

and you can buy it right now. Yes. Bubble the Graphic Novel, two Eisner nominations. Whoa! Yeah. Yeah, that's a sci-fi comedy graphic novel based on the Max Fun Podcast of the same name, written by me and Sarah Morgan,

art by the great Tony Cliff, available wherever you get your books, for grown-ups. Lots of swears, lots of blood and guts. But you know what doesn't have those things? Is the upcoming YA horror comedy graphic novel, Youth Group, writing by me, art by Bowen McGurdy,

blurb by Justin McElroy. It's really good, especially if you have any background with, like, grown-up and youth groups or anything like I do. Woo! It's good. It's really good. Thanks. And very any background with like growing up in youth groups or anything like I do. Woo. It's good. It's really good. Thanks. And very good hearted and well observed and just overall still exciting.

Oh, man. It's a great it's a great read. Yeah, it's about a bunch of teenage exorcists in a kind of goofy Bible study that does, you know, song parodies and, you know, abstinence drills. I grew up in such a youth group um i i think just and griff did as well um yeah if you had any kind of uh you know a young person's uh religious uh uh school and growing up hopefully you'll recognize some of the stuff in this book fans of p holmes would love would love youth group there's some overlap there. I've been reading his book lately. Watching some of his stuff. Yeah.

But yeah, but hopefully it's just if you like, you know, if you don't have experience with this kind of stuff, I think if you like, you know, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you like a Shaun of the Dead, it's a funny horror thing. And yeah, you know know you got the power of friendship in there you got a little bit of romance some spooks is it out yet can people buy it now or buy it later what's the deal they can pre-order it now which as y'all know uh a weirdly important thing for books why don't know important yeah yeah uh yeah it is like it's like one of the more effective things you can do to support a work of art is to pre-order a book it doesn't need many to be considered success but they really rely on those pre-orders which is funny because i've taken a really hard line against

ever pre-ordering video games but with books especially if you see that morris or mcelroy on there or fresh dick go ahead and pre-order it. You know what I mean? Go ahead and treat yourself to a quick pre-order. It's a gift you get your future self. Hopefully you'll forget about it. And then the book will come and you'll be like, oh, I'm so sweet to me. It's the inverse of every Kickstarter I've ever done.

The fuck is this? This is a headband that's supposed to help me do lucid dreaming? What in the fuck? It's a fireproof blanket for my child's bed? Smart. Good thinking. So yeah, you could pre-order Youth Group, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, bookshop.org. Call your favorite local indie bookstore.

That's a great way to get it. It comes out July 16th, the same day as the new Adventure Zone book. Whoa. Fuck yeah. Get them both. Get them both. Bundle. Bundle.

What a day at the bookshop that will be. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks. What are we doing next week? Oh, next week? First, I wanted to thank the following people for writing reviews to the besties on Apple Podcasts. We have Andrew M. We have CSMore16.

We have Not Impressed in Nevada, which I'm pretty sure was not about the podcast, but instead about Nevada. Thank you for listening to and reviewing the show and talking about it and sharing the word. Next week, we have... The Word of God. What?

The Word of God. Sharing the Word of God. Thank? The word of God. Yeah. Sharing the word of God. Thank you for this. Tell your friends about besties and Jesus Christ. These are the ways to salvation. Uh, next week we have Prince of Persia, the lost crown, which is a 2.5 D Metroidvania Prince of Persia game. And let me just say, I'm very excited about it okay i went there

you did it it's toeing the line of that uh that nda uh thanks so much for listening the besties 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!