The Besties - Gone Fishin' with Blade in Marvel's Midnight Suns

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

Marvel's Midnight Suns is a tactics game from XCOM developer Firaxis, only instead of shooting aliens a hundred times from behind cover, you play cards to beat ass with your best friend, Blade. This is, objectively, a very good idea, but how well does the rest of the game hold up? Also, what's on our backlog as we approach the GOTY proceedings? Also discussed: Dave the Diver, Pentiment, What the Bat, Binding of Isaac, Andor, Soccer Story, Peglin, Tiny Rogues 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!

So I got a text message from Griffin the other day. Here's what he wrote. Are you putting me on blast right now? I'm putting you on blast. Here's what he wrote me. And it took me so long to figure out what the hell he was saying. He wrote me, What's the mixer juice got you using?

What's the mixer juice got you using? What's the mixer juice got you using? I had to read it. That sounds like a Bruno Mars refrain, right? Like you feel that Mark Ronson beat underneath. What's the mixer juice got you using? What's the mixer juice got you using? It's a short poem that I shared with my friend Russ,

and I thought it would be a private art for him to enjoy, but I didn't know that it would be here public on the show. Hey, Griffin's faded a lot guys listen Griffin's faded all the time I'm pretty fucked up yeah right now even I feel pretty

I feel pretty zooted and I also feel betrayed and those are not two good feelings to have at the same time hey guys real quick is there a new weed person because i feel like i i keep talking about cheech and chong and the kids don't know who cheech and chong are who's the new weed person could be the new weed person that could be your thing i don't know that i want that to be my thing though is the only thing there's a lot of money

in it i'm sure sure. And I love that. Both Sheesh and Chong doing great. They're both doing equally great and have been for the span of their careers. But I feel like

I have a lot. You guys got to understand how gun shy I am about having any one defining brand, any one

defining characteristic because it can become pretty reductive pretty fast. I've got a lot going on. You probably just avoid bananas in total at this point. I genuinely don't eat them anymore. Yeah, there was a whole mouth period for Griffin that has just moved on.

A lot of sort of mouth stuff. And I guess I'm announcing this here. I did a lot of dental damage in there. And I got yelled at by a dentist and I had to move. I had to move away from Austin just because I couldn't break things off

with my disappointed dentist. But what's the mixer juice got you using? What is the mixer juice got you using? What is the mixer juice got you using? I mean, it's a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, What is the mixer juice got you using? What is the mixer juice got you using? I mean, it's a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, but... Oh, it was a sound mixer. I thought it was like a Ninja... That's what I thought, too.

I thought it was a juice mixer. You were making juices. Yeah. It took me so long. Hey, listen. You guys got to get yourself a Blendtec. My child got one for me three years ago. It's the best thing I ever got.

Baby mixer never juiced. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy and I am Doctor Strange's best friend. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and Marble Mania!

My... That was the end. My name is Russ Frustic and I know the best game of the week. Did I throw you off? Did I throw you off by doing kind of your thing? You did. It didn't really follow the cadence. I kind of stole your shtick. Yeah, I'm sorry. That's okay. Well, hey. Suns out, funs out.

Midnight Suns! From Marvel's Midnight Suns brought to you by Firaxis and 2K. It is, I have no idea, Chris, what is it? Yeah, I can tell you what it is. The kind folks at Firaxis who made XCOM, they're back, but this time with a kind of like edgy GameStop. Not GameSpot. Oh, my God. Are we all stoned right now? It feels like we're all stoned. I'm not either, but it feels like such a weird energy. I don't know.

It's a good energy, but I like it. Just tighten it up. Okay. Midnight Suns, Fire Axis, XCOM-like, but this time you're brawling. I don't think it's Fire Axis. That would be sweet, though. That sounds cool as hell. Fur Axis.

This time they're back, and they didn't even bring Sig Meyers along this time. Nope, they brought along the old Wolverine. It's a fucking Marvel strategy game. Marvel strategy game. Go to ads. Marvel strategy game. And they're wearing black Go to ads. Marvel's strategy game. And they're wearing black.

Will Wright and American McGee have teamed up for this. Jesus Christ. Let's take a break. I'm going to say something. And I think you guys who have played the game, they don't make them like this anymore. They have not made them. This is the weirdest game that has come out in 2022. And one of the weirder licensed games that I think I've played.

It is something we bemoan the lack of a lot on this show. And this is just my perspective. But it's a B game. It's a solid B game yeah but but go ahead quality quality aside i think it is not quality i'm not talking about quality i'm talking about like stick no i mean more like it's not trying to be everything to everyone right like it's not trying to be a lot of things yeah but it's not trying it is appealing to a specific demographic normally when you have these superhero based games it has to be character action right it's like this feels like a smaller carved out swing at how do you make a

superhero game that isn't that sure but let me take a step back because i think everybody when they heard about this game marvel midnight suns was like oh for axis making it they made x-com they are just going to make an x-com game throw wolverine in there make him basically the same as like the melee guy from x-com and that's the game and everything else i understand that is that is what they started trying to do okay yeah i did i don't know the like background design stuff yeah i from what I understand, that is what they started trying to do. Okay, yeah. I don't know the background design stuff. Yeah.

From what I understand, that was the approach at first. And then they kind of realized the key of those sort of tactical shooters is cover. And heroes don't take cover. No. Superheroes. Captain Marvel's not cowering behind a shipping crate. Hawkeye takes cover. Okay, Russ.

We can fiddle about all day if you want to have some fun. He's just a guy. Pain with a broader crate. Hawkeye takes cover. Okay, Russ, we can fiddle about all day if you want to have some fun. He's just a guy. Pain with a broader bush. Can I try to do mechanically? Yeah, give it a shot, because it is complicated. It is. Think of a tactic game. I mean, I hearken back to Freedom Force, but like...

I was also thinking about Freedom Force a lot playing this game. It is a tactical action game where instead of the randomness and of like percentage to hit right like i'm gonna hit this guy maybe or maybe not because he's behind cover um what you get is the randomness of card draws so your available abilities are based on the cards that you draw for each hero. And these cards have a heroic cost. So basically, you have to do some lower level attacks to build up your heroic meter before you can do your really devastating attacks.

But it's not about cover and it's not about percentages, whether or not you're going to hit something or not. cover and it's not about percentages whether or not you're going to hit something or not it's much more about how do you make how do you one take advantage of the environment for your attacks and two how do you make these attacks like synergize in a way that is uh satisfying as as a result i think the biggest thing that has worked i've not played a ton of this game and i will say that the early hours are not from what i can tell and what i've heard where it shines a lot of the like cool complexity of how these cards and heroes and stuff interact uh like i am only i feel like just now starting to get to the point where i can put together like cool positional strategies but the but what is great from the beginning is that the combat, the fights are short.

You only control three heroes. And unlike XCOM, which battles can be pretty drawn out, but with all of the missing that you're going to do all the time. In this one, it moves at a breakneck pace, and that is something I enjoy in my strategy games. Yeah, I mean, it removes the, like, in XCOM, there's that traditional, like, the first five turns are like, I'm going to slowly and carefully get my people into position, and that is, like, completely removed from this. Everyone's ready to fucking rock

and roll in this game in this game when you put when you have to think about positioning it is i'm gonna put wolverine on this side of the bad guy so that i can hit him into this exploding barrel yeah there's a lot of like combo hits like that and that's great for me there's some cool ones that work together too like i've seen seen Ghost Rider has an ability to basically like open up a hole to hell. And this is one where there's percentages. If you have an ability that has knockback. So like Ghost Rider hits, you know, makes one of these holes. And then Blade uses a kick that has knockback in it and knocks them into the hole.

And there's a percentage whether or not they're going to fall or not. You don't know for 100% if they're going to fall in the hole. And there's a fun little animation of them like, whoa, whoa, whoa. They're going to beef it or not. But that kind of thing where it's like somebody makes an opening for someone else. And some of the animations

for the attacks are like fucking cool, man. Like you mentioned Ghost rider ghost rider summons like a fucking demon car and just like cruises through a pack of guys and that's all animated it it is kind of you know what it reminds me of is like if you were to i guess 3d visualize a card game like hearthstone or slay the spire and like fully animate it it kind of has that vibe yeah i think the slay the spire comparison is is is pretty apt yeah there's a lot that if you could layer on sort of uh some light x-com positional stuff and other sort of like uh

you know strategic considerations like you know i i'm gonna apply this bleed debuff and and all that you would be getting close to what this game is and the positional stuff is much less of a resource drain than you would think of in this game where like moving takes up like time or energy or whatever you kind of get like a free move yeah to put them where it's most helpful to to use the powers yo i i have i have questions for you. Because I'll be honest with you, got a little confused with our schedule. Played a lot of Darktide this past week. So I am still trying to understand this game.

My number one question is, what type of Marvel Universe is this? Because every time I look at it, I feel more and more confused. Is it like MCU but grimdark? Is it like hot topic-y? Is it actually like very like Three Kingdoms? It's not, to be clear, this is not like fucking Robert Downey Jr. popping around and dropping cards.

It is not mcu it is marvel quote marvel is the universe but it's set in a uh sort of alternate whatever where this character named lilith who's like a demon is basically going to ruin the world so they're it like tonally it is i guess darker to some extent than at the mcu you know what it feels like to me? It feels like, and this is in touchdown there, but you can appreciate it. It feels like 90s comics. Yeah. Like a little grittier, I guess.

But funny. Like gritty, but not taking itself super seriously. You know what I mean? Yeah. That sounds like the early X-Men movies. No, it's darker than that. It's more fantastical than that. No, it's darker than that. More fantastical than that.

And also, there is a whole, like, half the game that we haven't really talked about yet. Yeah. You go back to the Abbey, which is sort of your base of operations. You play, this is important, you play, you don't play, you have a character in the game named Hunter. The Hunter is like – The Hunter. The Hunter has been resurrected and has been like dormant for 300 years or whatever and is trying to stop Lilith with the help of these other superheroes who have like loosely formed into a group called the Midnight Suns that are trying to stop this prophecy that Lilith is enacting. Sorry, just to be clear,

this is not Kraven the Hunter. This is like a separate... This is a totally made-up... You designed this character in a very Dragon Age fashion. I will say that a lot of the dialogue and a lot of the sort of

scenes that you get with the marvel characters are pretty great pretty charming uh from time to time your character is the equivalent of like the the greendale human being from community just a sort of like a vacuum of of uh a person you are there as a talking being for iron man to make jokes at okay so this abby thing i said three kingdoms earlier i obviously meant three houses is it yes it is exactly exactly yes for sure for sure definitely yeah okay well so the dialogue i just want to touch to give an example like i had a scene today like you can um there's downtime in between missions too much downtime

for my preference just because I enjoy the tactics so much that like I was just kind of like wanting to get back to that part because I find it

a lot more fun but the scene you can like choose you can choose superheroes to hang out with and you can choose like I want to there was one moment

where I was like hey hang out with somebody and there on a couch is Blade and Doctor Strange and I'm like I'll hang out with somebody and they're on a couch is blade and dr strange and i'm like um yeah i'll hang out blade what's up blade and blades like hey what do you want to do and you have the choice of read books by the fire or go fishing and it's like well fuck it yeah i'm gonna go fishing with blade so there's this scene where I'm fishing with Blade and Blade's like, I got to admit something to you. I don't like vampire movies.

And he's like, they're always trying to make vampires seem like nice and cool. And then your character's like, do you think it's a vampire plot? Blade's like, yeah, I looked into that for a couple months. But I think it's just Hollywood throwing whatever at the wall and seeing what sticks. I did like the, uh, what was the one that Nico said? The sparkle vampire movies.

And she's like, yeah. And he's like, I actually, I did like those. That's to me, that's fiction. But I gotta be honest.

I did, I did root for the werewolves. It's like, what is this? What is happening? I'm sold. This sounds great. Now it's hilarious. It's some, some, you mentioned Nico. There's some like, uh, What is happening? What am I fishing with Blade? I'm sold. This sounds great now.

It's hilarious. You mentioned Nico. There's some not super famous characters that you recruit along the way. Yeah, you got Nico from The Runaways. Nico from The Runaways is fantastic. I think a lot of people, especially like today, I think the review embargo dropped and the response I have seen from people is like,

wait, really? It's good? I think it's a pretty good, I think it's a pretty good game. I think the pacing is a little bit off for me, but there's a lot about this game that I am really enjoying. I think if they streamlined the house, the Abbey stuff,

I'd be more on board with it because Justin's right. Like, I think the combat is stellar. Yeah. And the Abbey stuff is just like, the problem is there's like a limit to what you can really do with these characters because, you know, they have their archetypes. So they all have like, it's funny to see Blade fishing or like Tony Stark birdwatching.

But realistically speaking, there's not a lot you can really do with those characters. Sure. What do you mean in terms of what? Just because I think there are expectations about what a Doctor Strange is or what a Tony Stark is that limits what you can. I will, I agree with that but i don't

think we've seen a superhero game certainly not a marvel one that has this level of like interpersonal that's true where people are just sitting around and like you can just talk to yeah the avengers so the the avengers uh whatever it was game yeah service game that came out kind of had uh some some of, not to this degree. I would also add, I think the Guardians of the Galaxy game, which came out last year,

was an excellent representation of this because there were moments where you could just bop around the ship and talk to people. But, you know, it was as much

as you wanted to do. There wasn't really a gameplay benefit to it, but it was really well written. So there was an encouragement to do it. I think the writing here is like, fine. It's not bad. There's a lot of it. But there's a encouragement to do it i think the writing here is like fine

it's not bad there's a lot of it but there's a lot of it i i think what justin it sounds like you're getting at is the shawarma effect from the mcu where it's like you're everybody's right about avengers and uh and guardians of the galaxy but all that stuff still served the plot it was like moving things forward this is literally wow we're these are just normal people doing very normal benign things well there is some mechanical hooks to it like by hanging out with people you build your and this is kind of stuff like i don't love and i don't and where again this is again like a streamlining thing it when you uh spend time with people you build your friendship level with them you can also build that by like saying things that they like in conversation better friendship level means more abilities you know and it's got tons of crud that's the one

thing i just like kind of fresh especially with the abby stuff there's a lot of cruft to get through like a bunch of chests and like just resources scattered around the grounds in a way that's like not fun. Like it doesn't make it more fun if I have to pick up trash while I'm doing, you know, this open exploration thing. And a lot of systems that seem unnecessary for like upgrading your cards and a lot of that stuff seems like overly complex. So instead of a deck, each hero has sort of their own mini deck of like eight abilities that they can take in. When you get cards, you get card rewards in missions. You can use those cards to fill out your deck. Or if you have multiples, you can combine them into like a stronger version of that card. And a lot of that stuff feels a little too,

I'm still picking up a lot of resources. Like today I finished this like little side quest where I met Agatha Harkness. And afterwards I like picked up some mushrooms and they're like, you picked up a mushroom reagent. And I'm like, I don't, why would I, what am I going to do with mushrooms? Like what on earth?

There's a lot of cruft like that. I feel like with the combat and this like you know x-com yugioh fusion that they've discovered here like i think they could apply that to anything like i i think that phyraxis could do the next x-com game like this or like a totally new thing, or even another Marvel game. I feel like this formula that they have worked up for this game is bigger than the game itself.

And it's like, man, if I had, you know, iPhone, iPad version of this game that was just the combat, like that would be killer. Another cool, smart thing that i wanted to touch on real quick in the in the battles there are two different kinds of enemies there are like grunts and real bad guys and the grunts uh which is my terminology not theirs uh don't have a health bar any hit knocks them out so like it sets up this it really makes you feel that power

dynamic when like you can just chuck grab a whip somebody into another guy and because they're both grunts it kills both of them like without even using a and and there's a lot of cards that are labeled as quick where if you ko somebody with them it doesn't count against your total so it really is like it gives this fun sense of like i'm gonna wipe out a bunch of these guys uh all at once so you don't really feel like underpowered it's still weird when like some idiot five feet away from captain marvel is like hey i'm gonna kill you and country was like okay i guess uh and then shoots captain marvel and knocks her out it's a little wild but but you got to have stakes. I think Griffin probably made a great prediction.

Not the XCOM part. I can't imagine them doing that to that brand. But this being on mobile, 2K more so than almost any publisher is good about making mobile versions of their games. Yeah, that's true. I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, it's a good idea. I would like to see it.

This game sounds great. I'm going to make sure that I play a fair amount of it before our Game of the Year discussion. I mean, I don't know if it's a winner. Oh, one more thing. I will say the story itself is unintelligible. I have no. It is nonsensical. I mean, borderline nonsensical.

Yeah. I think the one other note would be, I think it shows its hand too late, which is no pun intended, which is to say like you start and you have very, you know, you play a card or two or three in her hand. But I think later on, as you get more cards, you can set up combos where you're playing like six and seven in a hand

and like really doing complex things like that but it takes a while to like build those card rosters and stuff like that so yeah it's an it's interesting it's it is not what i expected they easily could have just sort of farted out a uh copy paste of x-com with marvel characters and they did not do that um we've got more games to talk about don't even worry you don't need to panic we've got more just just hang on. Don't even worry. You don't need to panic. We've got more. Just hang on. Just hang on. We'll be right back.

We are sort of in that phase of the year where there's not a lot of new games coming out, but there are a lot that we've sort of been circling back on and trying to wrap up, et cetera, et cetera. So we just want to check in on a few of those. Plant, I heard that you've been touching quite a few games with your hands. I did. I have played Soccer Story, which is a lot like previous sports games story. So confusing. Golf Story.

There is a sports story coming out. Correct. This is not from the same developer. It is not from the Golf developer it is not from the golf story or sports story developer and it shows a fair amount if you look at the reviews on metacritic they're not super great i i enjoyed this game for a few hours here's the big problem about it because it's a it's a soccer rpg kind of in the mode of um the mar RPGs, you know, where you're like Mario Golf, classic Mario Golf. And all that's fun.

You get to, you know, dribble around. You're using your magical soccer ball to accomplish little minor tasks. Then you go into a soccer match, and the AI is both difficult and nonsensical um where like the the technique that i eventually got to winning matches was just always fire off shots no matter where i had the ball because it'll wear down the goalie so i'm like firing shots off from the opposite end of the field yeah and that's like how i win and it i honestly i didn't mind because i was enjoying the open world rpg stuff for a while but as the game relied more on you know like actually playing soccer it became a kind of a

problem that the soccer in a game called soccer story wasn't especially good yeah that's so interesting it just makes me really curious about sports story which comes out very soon so so the sports story was made by the people who made golf story obviously and the idea that you can make these i guess of basically mini games that support an rpg it's so difficult to make one that feels really good let alone a bunch and so i'm curious i mean in this case it sounds like they struggled to make the one yeah well the difference though is sports story has been in development forever. Yeah, but that doesn't mean fun.

I mean, I would, I hopefully, hopefully they've had some time. Yeah, I have high hopes for it. It did kind of hit home for me of like, I'd be okay with these games not actually having like long sports matches, but just using sports as like a theme. You know, like, oh, you you know you kick the ball around to solve tasks but you're not spending a large chunk of your time playing literally like a ted lasso if you will sure it's sports adjacent um but yeah it was a charmer i justin i know that you played one of my favorite surprises of this year dave the diver yeah it's really fun it's a it's a cute little thing.

If you didn't hear about it on Resties, which I believe you guys discussed over there, right? Yeah. The basic premise is you are a scuba diver that is navigating through dangerous waters that are very mysterious in the sort of like life

forms that they draw to it. What do they call it? The hole or the blue or something like that. It's a big, big ocean for you to sort of explore that has all sorts of wild creatures in it. You are using a melee attack of some sort, and then you can get weapons like a harpoon gun or a regular gun, a shotgun. I mean, whatever, all kinds of different equipment that you can unlock. And, you know, typical things with this, you know,

you can increase your O2 that you take down with you and your speed and things like that. But a lot of the upgrades are conducted by once you harvest a bunch of fish while you're in the ocean section, you take it back at night to a sushi restaurant that you are also employed at. Uh, and you are selling the fish that you're catching in different sushi dishes. Um, you're the, the waiter who is serving up the sushi chefs, uh, preparations, taking orders. It's very much like that mode. It's two very distinct modes. That mode's much more of like a time management sort of taking the order. Kind of like Cook, Serve, Delicious, that kind of thing.

Yeah, I compared it to Tapper on restaurants. Yeah, great. Some wasabi and you got to take the orders and make sure nobody waits too long. Collect the tips. Fill their tea just the right amount, their green tea. Again, it's not like world changing but it is like it's just really solid it's just really solid i do as somebody who's uh navigating the earth in a bigger body i don't i don't love how this game seems to really uh hate fat people like it seems like

pretty down on them like dave gets a lot of flat for being bigger for a scuba dive where he's kind of a kind of a chode and uh uh then the other there's like a couple other characters where like them being overweight designer is a code for like he's a nerd like the secret code of him being bigger is like you know it's being played for laughs uh which feels a little out of touch for me um but uh that that that bumped a bit but other than that i i found it pretty enjoyable yeah i this is made um by a studio that looks like it's an indie studio and this is a correction from the last time we talked about it but it's actually nexon um but they frame it it's an internal nexon studio yeah they frame it as like if you if you look at the steam page it's like mint rocket and

then you click on mint rocket and it takes you to nexon's page um which kind of gets to the other game that i played this week more of is pen to mint which it kind of feels like an indie game but is made by obsidian, Bethesda, Microsoft. I'm trying to think of the order, the pecking order. It's all owned by Bezos. Yeah, somebody owns it. But I finished Pinch Me. Obsidian is not part of Bethesda.

It was acquired by Microsoft. Oh, yeah. Well, now they're all part of the same swell. Yeah, but wouldn't you make those dorks all share an office if you owned both of them? I mean, they had a pretty famous falling out from what I understand. Yeah, but too bad. You don't exist anymore. Microsoft

owns all of you. I don't want them using the same bathrooms as some of the sexy people in the office division. I want them over in their own little building. I finished Pentament. It's probably my favorite game of the year. I did not expect it to win the best games of the year by any stretch of the imagination.

But it is next. It is, of all the games that I have still on my list, it is like my Q. Have you played it, Griffin? Yeah, man. It's neat. It's incredible. I'm going to play more of it.

Yes. No, it's a wild thing. I'm in no play more of it. Yes. No, it's a wild thing. I'm in no way, again, no way disparaging pentiment for how books level boring it is. I know that's the point, is that it's not fun, and then it makes you appreciate other games more. I get it completely. I will say this. It changes a couple times throughout, and I think each change is more exciting than the last. Also, in some ways, it might be a christmas game maybe yeah yeah so maybe that'll get you to play a little bit more um maybe probably not um uh fresh what have you been playing else that you

want to talk about i played what the bat which comes from the creators of What the Golf, which was kind of a smash surprise indie hit from a couple years ago where you played mini golf in like ridiculous ways. And What the Bat is a VR game. It is VR exclusive. I played it on a Quest 2. And the premise is pretty simple. You are a person who has bats for arms that's pretty much it you have bats for arms and with those bats for arms you have to accomplish various tasks using your bats for arms and tonally it matches what the golf almost exactly uh you know the sorts of challenges start out very simple where you just like hit a ball off a tee and into like a trophy and it ends that level and then they'll like throw in twists where like you go to swing the bat and the bat instead of the ball flying the bat flies and then the bat hits the thing so it's like jokes like that but then they start doing weird shit where it's like you flash back to you as a baby with bats for arms and you're in like a giant bathtub because you're a baby and you have to use your bat arms to turn the water to raise the water level in the bath to hit a certain level to complete that level.

And so you're kind of like seeing like a day in the life of a person with bats for arms. That's fine. It is pretty fun. it's very simple i like you know i was expecting something on the level of um what is it uh the works work simulator was that game called job simulator simulator yeah yeah something on the level of that i don't think it has that level of like polish to it but if you're looking for something that's like no one's ever played a vr game before i think this is like a really good starting vr game because you know there's only so much you can do with bats for arms but it's satisfying to like figure

out the little puzzle and you know have a chuckle for yourself i definitely laughed a few times while playing it which is weird to do when you you're in VR because there are other people around and they think you're being like a weirdo if you're just like chuckling to yourself. But yeah, it was fun. You know, lighthearted and approachable, I would say. I think a lot of people are getting Quest 2s for the holidays maybe. And that seems like a good...

Got Quest 2, we got Quest 2. When did it come out? You do, Griffin. It came out like two or three years ago. It's pretty old at this point. What's the new joint? Well, there's like a Quest Pro. Yeah, you don't want that.

That's the one that doesn't have battery life and costs like a jillion dollars. Yeah, there's the new Quest. There's a Quest 3. Don't you love that us, a video gaming resource, is like, how much does it cost? I don't know, gajillions. It's really expensive, guys.

I don't know. I mean, it is dramatically more expensive than the Quest 2, which is great. Also, the Pro is not for anyone playing video games. Yeah, for your office, right? You can have a conference with your best friends. Apparently, there is a new Quest coming out next year. So if you're worried about having

the new hotness i guess that's coming next year but there's also a sale going on right now on quest 2 and it comes with resident evil 4 so that'll save meta that's gonna do it oh yeah they'll be okay now this strategy is definitely paying off big bucks maybe um should we open the reader mailbag i would love to okay this one is from mr bubbles are there game studios that you think people should start following watching in 2023 not necessarily knowing what's uh slated for the new year who is making the kinds of games that are worth looking out for there's a game there's a studio i don't think anyone's ever heard of them they're called team cherry and i think they're working on a small game called hollow knight silk song where the fuck is it team

cherry uh i don't know when that game is coming out but it's gone past the point it's weird like it's weird that we haven't heard anything right well we here's what here's what i would say not to derail this question because it is a good question we'll approach it but they have so big publishers like microsoft and playstation have recently started tweeting things like hey such and such is coming to game in this case uh silksong is coming to game pass or silksong will be on ps4 and ps5 the fact that they're tweeting that stuff now is a little encouraging i I'm not saying it guarantees anything, but at least we know, you know, the game still exists, I would say. So I think it will happen, probably, maybe.

A lesser known developer, Adrian DeJong, who I think everybody here will know from Hidden Folks, the kind of like years Waldo black and white game. But the other stuff that he's made is just wildly imaginative and inventive he made a game called fingal and bounden bounden was a dancing game his games like usually encourage you to do physical activities together and he has a new game coming out called secret shuffle um that is like a secret disco where, you know, everybody puts on headphones and they're hearing music.

But your, like, group is hearing different songs. So the game is built around that activity. So music starts playing and two people are hearing the same song and those two people need to, like, find each other by how they're dancing. That's cool. And, yeah, there's lots of other games that are based off of everyone listening to either the same or different music.

He has been working on it for a long time. Definitely feels like a passion project. And yeah, I mean, just in general, I think he is exactly the person that a question like this is made for because I don't think anybody's ever going to, you know, he doesn't have a marketing budget um but his games are consistently really interesting um any any other dev studios that y'all can think of i'm there's games i'm very excited for next year but like i

don't know that i could say like oh this dev is gonna fucking smash it i will say this this is not the developer but the publisher generally speaking i trust a lot of the taste of what devolver green lights as stuff like i think they have a very good selection process so you know if you're looking for like indies you've never heard of you know keep an eye on devolver because i feel like they have very good taste yeah i'm still looking for ufo 50 oh yeah sure that's literally what i was about to say i agree completely i think about ufo 50 like once a month can you explain what explain what that is does that ever come out then i go to steam it's like nope it's not out like okay tell everybody what it is well yeah it's 50 ufo 50 is put together by Mossmouth, but they have a bunch of different...

Makers of Sponky. Yeah, thank you. A bunch of different devs working together to make... There's a fiction of this is like an old 8-bit console that nobody heard about, and there's 50 different single-player, multiplayer games on it. And it's one of those things that it was announced... I mean, what, plant-like? Oh my gosh.

I don't know, six years ago? It was in a press thing, I mean, a hundred years. It was so long ago. I don't even know if it's still possible. At least 2017 is the earliest spot I can find on Reddit right now. Okay. So, yeah. Yeah, announced back in 2017 2017 like spelunky 2 has come

out since this i mean maybe it maybe it's never coming out i don't know like derrick you tweeted about it in 2019 saying like you know you can wish list it but how do you even like plan this out like what happens if like number 37 is total dog shit do they still release it yes yes that's so weird to me um but i don't know i he said as of like 2020 it's still active but that's like the best maybe that's the issue do you think like just lower the number number 37 just isn't coming together so the whole project is stalled lower the number derek it's lower than number seven um okay i got another question for us uh this one's from sterling which game from this year would you recommend for someone just getting into video

games as a hobby that's such a wild question it's interesting i mean it's weird to me that someone just getting into video games wouldn't tap into the decades of like the best games literally of all time before what you know before doing new games you want to feel you want to feel like you're part in the know you want to be in the zeitgeist i I get it. Man, I mean, if you're just now getting into games as a hobby, there is only one game that you should turn to. Marvel Snap? Yeah, I was going to say Marvel Snap. Marvel Snap is very good, and everyone who plays it loves it.

That's not the option I'm looking for, though. I'm looking for Fortnite, baby. It's the funnest game. Yeah, I kind of agree. Yeah, but if you are just getting into games, that feels really complicated. I would say like Kirby. Yeah, Kirby. Imagine you're like,

I'm going to get into games as a hobby. And then flash forward to like 8.30pm, you're sitting on the couch by yourself and you're like, what am I doing? Like, I'm an adult. I'm just pushing this little marshmallow around. This is actually a dumb hobby. But if you get into Fortnite and you're like...

You're also pushing marshmallow around on the battlefield. I humped my Indiana Jones. This game is actually sick. Wordle. Squirtle. You can get it to Wordle. Okay, last question question this one is from uh

this one's from ben what games that are set to come out in 2023 do you expect to get delayed to 2024 or later oh good question um uh it's tough because because Tears of the Kingdom I don't think it's going to get delayed I mean it might get delayed to later in the year but I think it will come out it's the sequel to Zelda so lots of people know what it is oh you gotta see Zelda first then Starfield

Starfield's going to come out but probably in the fall Suicide Squad will come out because they've moved on I could see Suicide Squad what do you mean they moved on. I could see Suicide Squad. What do you mean they've moved on? I could see that getting the two leads of Rocksteady moved on because they said the game was like basically done. Oh, I didn't know that.

What about the Harry Potter Hogwarts? That's coming out. It's coming out. Yeah, it's pretty basically I think anything that's like Q1 right now announced for like Q1 or even q2 i think it will come out next year like that indicates to me some of the silent hills might be scheduled for next year that seems like totally impossible um stalker 2 for obvious reasons in europe that

seems like it might not come out next year probably star citizen i don't think it's gonna come out next year you don't say yeah um yeah i mean it's system shock another like you know it's been in development so long that i will believe it the day i actually does that even have a date i mean they just keep saying like soon yeah i mean it. It's difficult because a lot of these games don't have dates yet. The games that do have dates for 2023, they'll say, again, either March or April or something like that. I'm going to take the smart money and just say Skull & Bones will get deleted.

Oh. I think they actually have to release that because of financials or something. I think there's some some weird like tax need where they like have to ship that game um who knows uh yeah i think that's right to go the opposite direction that had to have been like how many years ago i mean i know long i know how long it's been since griffin's been to an e3 it's been at least three years right i mean four do we have any honorable mentions?

I see one on here from you, Russ, that I would love to hear about because this is one that I was very into, but it wasn't quite to a point where it felt like it was rewarding my repeated play. Yeah, I don't think it's quite there yet either. The game is

Peglin, which is a game that Justin brought many moons ago. It's on Steam. which is a game that justin brought many moons ago uh it's on steam it is a peggle roguelike uh where you shoot a little ball and it bounces around on pegs and you do damage to enemies um i hadn't played it uh for a while i played it initially when justin recommended it and then not for a while it's definitely in a more polished state they just had a big update recently it's still like a very uh and i don't want to say this to diminish it but it's like a very light game which is to say like it doesn't have a ton of like production value necessarily like it's a

like a i don't again don't want to diminish it because it's a fun game but it's it's kind of a little bit bare bones there's not a lot of hooks it's fun in the moment and then once you're done with a run there's not really that urge to like fire it back up and take another run it's yes sort of it's a little bit slight still it is still a little bit slight and it's still kind of in that state i don't know maybe that's just because like i'm starting with a relatively new save maybe more stuff unlocks but kind of similar to that i've been playing a game called tiny rogues which uh similar idea insofar as it's also like a very quote light roguelike approach it's an action roguelike but uh the graphics are like very simple and uh you know

almost one bit level graphics but there's like a ton of like unlockable characters and and uh weapons to unlock and combos and stuff like that it kind of feels like if you were doing like a low a lower fi simplified version of binding of isaac that's tiny rogues um so i don't know it's it's two interesting approaches to the kind of action or uh alternate roguelike genre uh that i've been digging and i would add that i think both of them are like pitch perfect on steam deck which again has just been something that i've been looking for games as like oh this would be good on steam deck i'll try it out um so yeah no they've been really good on that front uh y'all i finally started watching uh and or and uh it turns out that you were all right.

It's a good show. We're not going to spoil it. I'm not going to spoil it. I haven't watched the whole thing. Because it's Chris Plant we're talking about. I haven't watched the whole thing. That is old me. When is the last time I spoiled anything for you?

Chris Plant loves to be in the know and ruin everyone's day. I don't spoil anymore. I'm post-spoiler. I've grown. I've changed. It is very good, though. I bounced off, not bounced, but the first three episodes were good, and I kind of faded, and now I'm back, and you know what? Great. It's

really, really good. It turns out Tony Gilroy knows what he's doing. How many episodes in are you? I'm on episode eight. Okay, yeah yeah so i just finished episode six which for what it's worth was the best star wars thing i've seen in recent memory probably the last decade is extremely extremely good yeah i uh i agree and you haven't even gotten to the best part of the series it's about to get so good for you i'm very excited this is good um also i haven't even started playing it yet,

but I just wanted to point out for everybody, there's a new Need for Speed game out. Yeah. By Criterion. Is it out, out? It came out today? You can play it today. It's Friday. Yeah, and I'm very excited to play it.

It looks neat. It looks great. The early impressions of people who have been playing it on Twitter.com, people seem to really like it. It looks like Midnight Club. Yeah. I don't understand why there's like zero marketing around this game. Is this the one that has been in development?

Because they skipped a year, right? Like this has been development for a little while, right? I think so. And again, it's made by the people who know how to make good racing games. I keep getting emails telling me that ASAP Rocky is in it. And that's really all I know about it. Oh. So, yeah.

Griffin, Justin, anything y'all been playing? Nope. Nope. Just more Binding of Isaac. I got to stop playing Binding of Isaac. Stop playing it. So I can play other games. That's a good idea.

It's a really good game, though. It's really fun. You do have to do that because we're going to be talking about the game of the year very soon, and there are some games that you need to play. I'm going to do Sleeper Citizen. Citizen Sleeper.

Yeah, that explains why I'm having trouble finding it. We should do a plug real quick because we're going to be posting our, I guess, 12 selections for Game of the Year. And then we're going to be facilitating some reader votes for the remaining four. Correct, Blant? Right. That's spot on.

And that's going to be happening on? Soon. The Twitter. Oh, yeah, sure. You really at the besties pod on Twitter. Oh, yeah, sure. You really, at the besties pod on Twitter. Yeah. If you were not already aware and you want to participate, you can do it there very soon.

What about next week? What are we doing next week? Next week. Okay, so I know we said this week we were going to talk about Darktide, The Warhammer, Left 4 Dead alike. Yeah, we did, didn't we? We did say that last week. We did, but then they shut down the servers.

They shut down the servers when I went to go play it, so that was a bit of a problem. So we're going to be talking about it next week. Looks like with a special guest, because Justin will be out, so we'll be replacing Justin forever with this special guest. Oh, I'm ascending! I'm free!

Wait, I want to thank the following people for writing reviews for the besties on Apple Podcasts. It is JJS84, I guess we're going to pronounce it. George S. Maddie 19191919. And Digimon Stan. And here are the games that we talked about. Midnight Suns. Dave the Diver.

Pentament. Soccer Story. What the Bat. Peglin. Tiny Rogues, Hey, There's a New Need for Speed Out, and Andor. Yay! We did it!

Well, I'm looking forward to all that. Make sure you join us again next week for the besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!