The Besties - Happy birthday to Mario Kart! [The Resties]

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

Super Mario Kart sped onto the SNES in August 1992. Thirty years, eight entries, and a mobile game later, Mario Kart is one of the most successful and beloved active franchises. The Resties celebrate the series by unpacking what makes the game so timeless. We share our favorite tracks and racers, then crown our favorite entry.  Discussed in this episode: Mario Kart, Fortnite, Fall Guys, Halo Infinite, Harley Quinn on HBO Max, Xenoblade Chronicles 3. 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!

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant. My name is Russ Froschig. Welcome to The Resties, where the rest of the best discuss the best of the rest. This week, we're talking about the 30th anniversary of Mario Kart, which is a topic that I think you're excited about. And that's why I'm going to cut it off at the knees. And we're going to talk about Xenoblade Chronicles 3 for just a minute. Literally just a minute.

Just a minute. No, no, no, no. So I talked about it on Besties on Friday, right? With Justin. And Justin, to his credit, very patient. But do you ever like, you know when like a date date is going bad you haven't been dating for a while neither have i but you know that feeling right sure yes you're talking to somebody and you know like they either don't care about what i'm saying or like i am speaking a language that

they are unfamiliar with yes and they're being so nice but they're kind of wanting this to end. That's kind of how it felt. And now I'm doing it all over again with you. But I thought maybe you have some questions. Like, maybe your heart has changed, and you're ready to welcome Xenoblade Chronicles 3 into it. So, where'd you grow up again well the interesting thing about xeno uh series is it started out yeah no yeah no i get it oh wow yeah uh-huh and then and then after that they so it actually changed publishers yeah okay the first xeno was actually uh originally final fantasy 7 um and then it was going to be a Chrono Trigger sequel.

Wow, yeah. Just like both your parents, huh? Wow, that's wild. So what I'm saying is you're going to be hearing this for, I don't know, the next year. Because this game is 100 hours long. So I can't wait. Here's what I'm going to say, joking aside. I played the second one i think i've heard

it's horrible it was it soured me pretty hardcore on the entire thing and we all know and i don't need to relive it how i feel about jrpgs yes and it was extremely that and uh yeah so i'm sure it's lovely but you just can't you you will really unlike justin who is very polite i cannot summon the enthusiasm to counter your enthusiasm so we'll just sort of sit and stare in silence unless we talk about something else in which case we are which is mario kart i think i think that's fair and just for the listeners who actually do want to hear about xenoblade here's what you can do and let's do a different podcast even though the ironically triple click with jason schreier on it our friend jrpg fan he is not a huge fan of the series so sorry uh there's into the ether and then at the end of

the year i am going to prepare effectively a one-act play one person show uh defending this game so okay i mean if it makes you feel any better you're not gonna beat it so no oh no i mean i don't beat any game except okay you're right let's talk about mario kart i've suspended this podcast for long enough okay fresh it is the 30th anniversary of mario kart this year that's crazy it i guess it makes sense because it came the mario kart the original mario kart which is just called mario kart right or super mario kart uh came out on the snes at the very very early in his life cycle i want to say it was like one of the earliest games that ever came out on the nes yeah wow and here we are 2022 yeah it happened it it's weird and it really uh hits home how large of a gap it's been between new mario kart games since mario kart 8 i guess if you count the

mobile game maybe it's not as yeah well are we counting when you say mario kart 8 are we counting the switch port of mario kart 8 are we counting the original release of it that's the thing they've really milked this one because it originally comes out on the wii u then we get the switch port then we get the mobile game that's separate and now we're getting the massive expansion to this game over the next two three years i think it's the end of 2023 is when the expansion ends yeah that makes sense tons of levels um the install the number of people that have bought the game on switch uh is astronomical i mean it is consistently one of if not the best selling games on every system it's on i think it's like hard to appreciate that it's the mario kart series let me see this i believe it is number one well i

will say i will say for for the switch on copies sold mario kart 8 deluxe as of june 30th 2022 so it's even higher than this is 46 million copies 46.82 million copies the next highest game world dominating phenomenon that it was animal crossing at 39 million copies so even though mario kart 8 i don't think had the like cultural splash yeah everyone that buys a switch effectively is buying mario kart and this is the only mario kart game that's on there so everyone is buying this game and uh yeah it's just like chugging away yeah well i mean i i said 150 they've sold over 166 million total units of mario games. Which is incredible. And I have to imagine that maybe digital sales

are not being factored in here or various things because Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64, I would bet that they've sold additional copies since their original launch. They would get those numbers higher. What? How would they sell original copies well because mario kart 64 gets released on the wii right like you get re-releases did it come out on the way oh just as like a buy game you can buy like maybe i guess the

wii virtual console wasn't like that that yeah i don't know that it was moving numbers anyway just a gajillion gajillion people like it of this game yeah uh immensely popular uh has changed i think a fair bit over the years i i i think this series doesn't get enough credit for like how much it each entry is different than the other would you yeah it doesn't it's not like a progressive change where like each entry is like obviously better than the previous one which is kind of the norm for video games it's more that each entry tries something new and different and so we have individual entries that are like that you know the one that jumps to my mind is mario kart double dash where you have two characters on the same kart, and that changes how things play out.

And it feels like, for the most part, they've tried different things with each entry. Yeah, there's Mario Kart Wii, which has the motion control that it really emphasized. I mean, it's weird to say Mario Kart Super Circuit went back to kind of the Super Nintendo format. Mario Kart 64 is the first 3D one. I think probably the closest we have to consistency across these games would be like Mario Kart DS, Mario Kart 7, which is a 3DS game, Mario Kart 8 run. And then like Mario Kart Wii is like in the middle there and mixed feelings about that one but for me like this series really finds itself with mario kart ds which i know later in the show we're going to talk about mario kart 64 quite a bit with some

questions i have for you did you not play mario kart ds i know that you're a big kart 64 fan i played it and i played seven and i played eight i've played all of them um and we'll we'll get into why i like mario kart 64 a bit later um i remember ds being very good i don't remember it being as close to where we are now as mario kart 7 was which basically introduced the idea of like transforming your via your kart depending on the track so you would go underwater or go in the air i feel like that wasn't in the ds1 the ds1 felt like much closer to the traditional mario kart style yeah the ds1 is like to me what mario 64 aspired to be like Like if Mario 64 is the rough draft, the DS version is the real thing in that it's, well, one, I believe it's fully 3D. Mario Kart 64 does that kind of weird thing where it's using flat images and textures overlaid on a 3D world.

It was 3D. So the world is 3D, but I don't think the characters are always 3D. I think they're actually images. No but I don't think the characters are always 3D. I think they're actually images. No, I don't think so. Let's correct it. Because there's no way Donkey Kong in Mario Kart 64 was just a JPEG of Donkey Kong. I could be dead wrong, actually. Yeah, no, I'm wrong.

Yeah, I'm wrong. Okay, good. Good work, Nintendo, for fooling me, though. Because in my memory, he was like a full-on you know what it is the box art really sells the 3d-ness of it and i guess i got tricked and the only place where you really figure it out is on the replays where when the camera goes around the character and they have to switch between like the four images of the character yeah yeah and it looks like a jam um yeah mario kart d DS is the one where I just feel like they're doing more interesting things with the courses.

I mean, one of my favorite courses, I'll just talk about it now, is Waluigi Pinball, which do you remember this one? I don't. So the good news is it just got added to the Mario 8 DLC. So you can play like a flashy version of it right now. 8 DLC. So you can play like a flashy version of it right now. But it's basically you get dropped into a giant pinball machine

that is 1950s Las Vegas aesthetic. Sure. As if Waluigi owned his own casino and then for some reason he was having you gamble on pinball which historically correct. Pinball was seen as gambling in New York and was illegal for that reason.

But yeah, you going i love any sort of video game thing where you are small thing put in a hyper large version of a real world object you know like toy commander yeah sure i don't know why that always appeals and there uh you also have like giant pinballs rolling around it's just very very very clever um and that's that's from the ds version and i mean it's just impressive to me because to this day i still think that is one of the more inventive mario kart courses despite it being on a handheld a long time yeah i also like the you know in looking at it now because it has been a while like the idea that they were even though they were doing 3D, obviously there was a limit to what the DS could do. So it ends up looking like a low poly version of the Mario characters, which actually works pretty well. It looks like all the characters, like how they looked in Mario 64, for example.

I think it feels right to me. so i understand your your passion for it so which courses like what are your three courses if you well i'm gonna okay so people careful listeners of the besties and the resties will maybe remember i'm not like a huge mario kart person i under like the my passion for mario Kart is entirely social and not the actual game of it, because getting people around to play the game is fun and genuinely like one of the few games that pretty much anyone can pick up and play. But like if I'm playing alone, I don't get a lot of enjoyment out of Mario Kart. And that's not a knock on the game. It's just kind of enjoyment out of Mario Kart and that's not a knock on the game it's just kind of the nature of the game so that is sort of a caveat to say even though I have enjoyed myself playing

some of these Mario Kart games I'm not like super passionate the only time that I remember like getting super into it was Mario Kart 64 and that's not to say it's the best game but i do think it introduced some elements that have now become the standard uh i want to say that the like drift boost mechanic was really basic like really defined in mario kart 64 and it has not dramatically changed since then i'm sure there are tweaks but the core of it feels pretty similar. And I don't know. It just has stuck with me. And to that end, I'm going to list off a bunch of the like Mario Kart 64 levels that I enjoyed. I'm sure there are better ones.

I don't even know how many of these. I assume all of them have appeared in Deluxe. I'd have to go back and check because it has been a little while. I believe variations of it. Yeah. So number one for me is Toad's Turnpike. For those that don't remember, this is the set on a highway, like a normal adult human highway.

But all the Mario Kart characters are like driving around on the highway with like giant trucks. And you basically have to like dodge trucks as you're going on the highway with like giant trucks and you basically have to like dodge trucks as you're going down the highway and unlike the carts uh in this case the the cars that you're dodging the trucks and stuff were fully 3d like and coming right at you and add the level of like cinematicness to mario kart which i think generally can be a little bit quiet, at least early on. Just didn't have that level of panache. Whereas I think Toad's Turn Bike sort of like dialed it up a bit.

And I do know this is one that has been remade and it ages really well because all they have to do is like make the cars more realistic. And the contrast between the cars and the the carts uh the mario carts is very funny to me so i yeah i'm what i find interesting about these levels that you have listed here and totes turnpike is a perfect example of it is how different than they were from other racing games at that time. Which I think people who were not alive when the Nintendo 64 was available might not understand. Most racing games, this is like some real old man stuff, most racing games were just a simple track.

It was just a shape, a squiggly line that you went around. And that doesn't mean they were good or bad. It was just that simple. There wasn't a lot, there was nothing dynamic or kinetic about the tracks that you were playing on. And that was really the case with the original Mario Kart. It was just like flat tracks. Yeah, yeah.

And what was wild about Mario 64 at the time was not just that you had active courses like Toad's Turnpike with other cars on there that you had active courses like toad's turnpike with other cars on there that were you weren't racing against but that almost every course had its own kinetic tweak so yeah i mean we should just go to moomoo farm because i know that's also on your list yeah that's one that has um gophers i believe like jumping out the gophers from uh super mario world are in it also there's adorable like cows that aren't really interactable they're just flat cows mostly i put it on this list just because i like vibing to mumu farm like it's i think there's a uh difference between

the like super intensity of uh you know rainbow road or toadstern pike versus like the tracks that are just like chill out have a good time cruise around this course mumu farmer is like a perfect like time trial kind of track because you just have to mostly for the most part just worry about you know the track itself and and a few little obstacles but it doesn't feel that intense i think that's also because like you and I can see the matrix from having played these games for so long. So, I mean, there is, I think it's like either the, maybe the beginning or the end or both of this course where those gophers jump out and you can effectively use that as a shortcut. You can drive over those holes and it's, you know, feels like a gamble of will they jump out and hit you but if

you've been playing it for long enough you have that kind of sense of the sixth sense of when they are going to pop out and where and you just naturally go over that patch every single time yeah you sort of just develop that muscle memory yeah and it's like that is a thing that i love about revisiting old games and i will never have again with modern games is you, as a kid, play these games so much that you can enter a flow state with them that most people will never enter again after they turn, I don't know, like 30.

It's pretty cool. I also mentioned DK's Jungle Parkway. It was another 64 track that I really enjoyed. Just, again, similar to Toadstern Pike, just there's a cinematic aspect to it with rolling rocks, and it just felt like the closest that technology could approximate like an Indiana Jones-style race at that point. You go into a cave in that one, right?

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that gets to my list. mentioned waluigi pinball the other one i have here that is also from mario 64 uh bowser's castle and that this goes across bowser's castle in every game i believe there's one in every single entry but what i love about this one and why i remember so well is just that sense of scale of like being at the starting line and seeing this huge castle and then racing through it, which again, at the time just felt wild. Like it felt wild that you were in a building and it actually felt like a building and not just like more of the same map with a kind of, you know, cardboard cutout of a building in front of it. more of the same map with a kind of you know cardboard cutout of a building in front of it yeah i always hated the bowser's castle tracks just because they're vicious i don't the thwomps and there's like a i felt like a lot of randomness to them i didn't i'd never found them fun to race

also they're very right angley which always bothered me even though i understand why from a like a architecture standpoint. From pros. And you want to just hold down that gas and go for a ride. Precisely right. So my last one is kind of that, Rainbow Road, but specifically the Mario Kart 8 version, which I think is the friendliest of all of them. Rainbow Road, always the final stage of Mario Kart games. There's a variety of them rainbow road always the final stage of mario kart games um there's a variety

of them mario kart 8's rainbow road is in space and you see earth below you which at the time felt kind of weird but i guess makes more sense now that mario odyssey is out and mario kind of hangs out in places that look like earth um but mario kart 8 its gimmick the thinnest gimmick is that you have anti-gravity yeah which really is just a visual gimmick because it's not like it feels like anything different it's just that the tracks that go upside down or go sideways uh or whatever and your wheels change but this isn't like a thing that you have to control or anything correct um i guess the the kind of grip on the ground is a little different uh but yeah you't like a thing that you have to control or anything correct um i guess the the kind of grip on the ground is a little different uh but yeah you're like flying between uh space

stations and the track and there's like a hint of f0 to it which is the nintendo racing series that has not gotten the mario kart treatment that has been kind of lost to time um but yeah i i i like i don't know i i like a game that has that that gimmick of like the one place you revisit over and over again through the years but it's different yakuza does that with is it kamurocho the the name i can't remember the name of the town but the main place that you visit is consistently the same between the games. And it's just cool to have the opportunity to see how one like design trends change, but graphics change. And I don't know. Yeah, I feel like I also feel like that Rainbow Road track in Mario Kart 8 is the epitome of them being like.

We are going to make a visual feast like more so than anything like more so than the gameplay experience it's just going to be like a stunning visual thing like the equivalent of like a res level or something like that where you're just like taking it all in or even like tetris effects that has something similar to it yeah and i think that level in particular and i wish it was more frequent mario kart games just kind of epitomizes that like holy cow this is remarkable i'm flying over earth on a rainbow road with fucking koopa trooper chasing me yeah it's uh it's very good i do actually like that i like when games do that too of just giving you a reward at the end. You know, like, hey, this is beautiful,

and we're actually not going to make it super difficult. You know, you've made it this far. You've done the hard part. Here's something awesome. Yeah. I wish more games did that. I much prefer that too. And now the greatest challenge of all,

and you're going to bash your head against the video game for the final two hours, which is not my speed are you are you a baby park person i like it conceptually i've never i don't think i've ever done it in multiplayer do you want to describe it oh yeah so baby park is just like the tiniest of ovals like imagine an oval track and as small as you can make that oval while still being like an actual track is how small it is. And you just go around that super quickly. And correct me if I'm wrong, you do get faster and faster as it goes. Is that true? I don't know if that's true on every version of Baby Park.

Okay, I might be misremembering, but i know it's like just a very simple oval yes yes yeah um yeah i i i like it it's i i like the nerve of putting a track in a game that is effectively the equivalent of like i don't know i guess it's like great sushi or like what's uh what's another thing where you're just like you you know, like the $500 piece of fruit that you can get in Japan. Oh, yeah. It's just this, but we have so much confidence in it. It's just a circle, but it's the best circle you're ever going to drive. Yeah, but it's not that it's just a circle.

It's also because there are other circle maps. It's also because it's so small. Yeah, yeah, yeah. they're circle maps it's also because it's so small yeah yeah it ends up being like a total like gridlock of all the cars constantly being on top of each other so the combat is like very fierce probably there's more knockouts and item attacks in baby park than any other track in the game because it's so tiny well i mean speaking of are you a battle mode person no no yeah same it's bad i did you like try to make it work when yeah yeah i've tried i've tried and that's something that i've tried in multiplayer i just don't find it fun to really i can't think of a single car combat game that i've enjoyed and

that includes twisted metal you know it's just not a genre for me i don't think cars in their nature of like the reverse and the turn and oh no, I drove too far and I have to like do a quick J turn to spin around to aim this rocket, whatever. It's not fun. I don't think that's fun. No, Rocket League is like the best case scenario

and that's not combat, but of using Rocket League, of like using a car for something that is not what cars are used for. But yes, most of the time it feels awful. Yeah, the Rocket League physics don't approximate a car, in my opinion. Yeah, that's true. Something else.

So there are, I will say this, there are a couple battle mode modes in Mario Kart games, and I can't think of any off the top of my head, where it's like tag or something like that. And in those circumstances, it's a little better, but I still think that it's like, nah, not for me. Yeah, yeah. I played a ton of Mario Kart 64 battle mode as a kid.

Yeah. And I don't think anybody enjoyed it at the time no it's just very mean-spirited yeah it never felt good it was a thing that you played after people got really upset playing goldeneye in smash yeah um and then you would be like okay we'll play something simple and then somehow battle mode would get put on and then moods would deteriorate even further and everybody would go home yeah um yeah it's awful um uh very quick your favorite racers who do you always go to oh sure um i usually pick and this is just purely aesthetically i don't think these are the best racers shy guy koopa troopa lucky two are my like go-to's i just like the little guys that like the fact that they're just like generic

enemies i guess lucky two is a little bit more of a generic enemy but i just like that they're neck and neck with like all the big heavy hitters. Yeah. It's their time to shine. And also Shy Guy, in my opinion, is the best aesthetic Mario character out of all of them. Why? I don't know what it is, but there's something about Shy Guy's design that I think is so pure and perfect that it cannot be improved upon.

I mean, that makes it, I mean, it's kind of like a a smiley face right like it's so simple yeah but there's a lot it's more than just the face that you've got the robe and the belt and the boot and the like little shoes i don't know what it is but shy guy really clicks with me i mean i get it um mine Mine are Yoshi for my light character. Yeah. Wario if I want somebody a little heavier to kind of knock around the course.

And then just Dry Bones, which I could swear that you could play Mario Kart DS with a friend on another DS without having to buy the game on the second one. Yeah, that brings a bell. And then Dry Bones was like the free racer. Oh, interesting. I think you could only use Dry Bones if you were playing. But I remember this, and I looked it up before we recorded, and for the life of me, I couldn't find it. I feel like it should be Boo is the only racer you can use

because the other person's a ghost because they didn't buy the game. Well, that might be confused with like Ghost Racing. Oh. You know Ghost Racing. Oh. You know? Boo. Boo. Any other thoughts on Mario Kart before we wrap? No, I mean, I'm happy that people get so much enjoyment out of it.

And I understand the draw from it as like a purely, you know, looking at it as a game and why it's so successful and stuff like that again it's not the sort of game that i would immediately turn to to have a good time if i'm playing alone but if there's people around damn mario kart can't be beat it's very good favorite one is mario kart 64 yeah yeah okay my favorite is mario kart 8 by kind of default because it's like the ultimate you know thing of it has almost everything yeah the switch version though right yeah yeah but uh i if i you know personal favorite ds as long as you are not racing as people who know how to snake which was a little trick that ruined the game um snaking is bullshit snaking is bullshit

you can google snaking if you snaking is bullshit you can google snaking if you really want well maybe don't google snake yeah i don't know what that's gonna pull up um uh let's take a break and then afterwards you are doing something to yourself that i find disgusting and we're going to talk about it shortly. Okay, welcome back, everybody. Froschik is trying to... I have a... Well, before you say it, I have a term for what I'm trying to do. Oh, good snaking.

It's called the trifecta. Okay. Do you want to say what the trifecta is? Sure. The trifecta is completing three concurrent battle passes at the same time okay okay which is to say if there are you you know we all know living games these days have battle passes you level them up you get all the stuff by leveling them up and then at the end of the season if you didn't level them all up you don't get anything that you didn't unlock.

I am trying to do three of those at once, and it will probably be the only time I ever do this in my entire life, and there's a reason why that is, which I'll go into, but... The three games are Fortnite. Yes. I'm just guessing Fortnite.

You know what? I don't know after that really no other guesses fortnight fall guys yep that's number two and i and i genuinely do not know the third one the third one is halo infinite what yes uh and i guess i'll go like how i sort of came to this moment because it's not a quest that I attempted to undertake intentionally. It just sort of happened. Uh-huh. And I'm going to take them sort of one at a time.

Cause they're all a little bit weird and why I'm able to do this has a lot to do. Cause I have a life and a baby and like ordinarily normal circumstances, I would not have the time or the inclination to actually grind these out. And you did cheat. normal circumstances i would not have the time or the inclination to actually grind these out and you did cheat uh i was creative in using the game's mechanics to get myself to the place that i needed to be okay okay okay okay so game one fortnight uh i've talked a little bit about this in the past but basically there's a mode called save the world which is how fortnight launched and i have a whole setup in save the world where I basically set it to, you know, start a match.

And I have like a whole array of very complicated traps and things. And the zombies march in and all the traps just sort of do their own thing. And I come back two hours later, 600,000 XP richer. And I sort of rinse and repeat that over the course of like a month. And the entire battle pass is leveled. I can never get over the electrical bill part of this. That's the part that kills me. It can't be that expensive.

Most people just leave their Xboxes ines in what whatever sleep mode i'm playing it on an xbox and so for two hours in a day it's like doing its thing i guess it's like playing a video game for two hours a day yeah effectively it's not terrible i've watched my power it's not insane and it's good it's your xbox if it was your gaming pc that would be well i wouldn't have done it just because i wouldn't want to listen to my gaming pc like the fan whirring yeah non-stop the xbox is silent it just sits in the corner doing its thing you know it's basically like a silent bitcoin miner but it's mining vbox oh no i i get it what what what were you doing this for like what was the end goal what was the final prize

uh what do you mean i wanted skins and stuff yeah but what was like okay you could have stopped at any time but there's something at the there's not really a reason to stop is it so for those that don't know in fortnite if you level the battle pass you get enough currency to buy the next battle pass right right but say okay so at the end of the battle pass right yeah from what i remember there's like oh you get like special edition freddy krueger or whatever yeah darth vader in this season sure it's darth vader so that's the thing that you were like it was all building towards but not just but but every season has like a cool final skin that

of course of course i always want to know what you were working towards i just wanted to like yeah that's the answer can't be to keep doing it no you're right that's not you're right the the here's what here's what i'm working towards is i like fortnite as a game like the minute to minute of the game but the there i was getting anxiety from like oh i'm not completing all the daily quests in the battle royale mode so i'm getting behind and am i gonna level and i'm using like xp calculators to figure out whether i'm on track to hit level 200 at the end of a season so i can get all the skins yeah and i was like no there is a better way and there was it was doing this ridiculous save the world afk mode that to my credit like it's not a hack and it took me a while to actually set up and now that it's set up it's tremendously satisfying to just like let it do its thing so i don't regret it one bit

but i mean i would be more critical of it if i weren't jealous that i can't do this on multiverses because i am so close to getting the cake the dogs or the cake the cat skin which is like the final reward and uh not sure if i'm gonna be able to get it on time i'm not sure when does it when does the season well so it's supposed to end like now but they've delayed the next season indefinitely oh no so i don't because the uh hbo max discovery drama i don't think so i think it's just bad timing yeah um because they're adding rick from rick and morty and oh sure and you know you got to get that right if you're gonna do that and i think they maybe need some more time with rick

in the oven um well okay so i've yeah so i've short-circuited that anxiety to the point where it is now i hit max level in the current season of fortnight like two months before the season ended okay okay okay so it was great okay so that's fortnight fall guys fall guys before okay from the top what are you working towards with fall guys i actually i'm gonna do for a halo first okay what are you working towards in halo uh okay so i in the halo case google it no no no i didn't in halo's case all the cosmetics at least though so far have been kind of crappy like not from like whatever badass skin of halo like the art i mean yeah right halo cosmetics not why you play it some of them are okay like some of the armor whatever it's fine none of that is a draw for me however i really like the gameplay of halo infinite i wish

that there was more content more maps they have been very slow to add stuff but the minute to minute of halo multiplayer is actually quite fun so the getting to max level in that happened by accident, mostly because they are still figuring out how to actually properly balance the battle paths to the point where everyone isn't hitting max level just by accident. So, you know, this season is six months long. I think I hit max level like two months in something like that. That is. level like two months in something like that that is and that was just by playing the game and not even playing that much like maybe three matches a week four matches a week like very little like maybe an hour a week and it's a lot of this is just again they've like totally screwed up the balancing and then they went i think too far in the other direction where it's way too generous

for leveling and so it's way too generous for leveling. And so it's just sort of happened by accident. So I'm not working towards anything. It's just like fun to play the game every once in a while. And wow, look at that. I just gained 10 levels without even trying. Okay. So that's two. So there wasn't really anything that you were working towards there.

You just, for the love of the game. For the love of the game. I enjoy the minute to minute. And that's the case with all these i enjoy playing a little bit of tale of two stories here you know like no what do you mean one of these you jerry rigged an xbox to play for you out of nursing some anxiety that you have and the other one you didn't even try for the thing to happen you were just having a nice time but i wasn't going i wouldn't have gone through the process with fortnite if i didn't enjoy the core gameplay of fortnite so much of course of course you you like both the games you like all

three of these games yes that is true but the story of how you got to completing a battle pass could not be more different that is true yeah they are all three of them i think are are very different okay the final one the final one which is fall guys i assume this is because do they have the near costume back on and you know you know how i feel about near okay so what what were you playing for um i think this is another version of the just for the love of the game but unlike, I actually think they've balanced the leveling of the battle pass quite well here. And so I would just like once a week, like play a little bit and complete like weekly challenges and daily challenges. And it just sort of happened like kind of at a normal pace. And that kind of makes sense if you think about it like Fortnite, I'm not really playing, right?

Halo is happening just by nature of like me barely even thinking about it because the balancing is so off. So this is really the only one that I would consider to be a normal battle pass in terms of my leveling pace. And it feels pretty good. I level like 10 levels a week or so and uh have just been making steady progress over that time and because i enjoy the game and really enjoy the skins in the game it's been very rewarding and i enjoy myself so in in or are there any skins that you've gotten where you're like hot dang um let. I like, there's like a donut backpack that I really enjoy. Oh, that's cute.

I got an inner tube. I think that was probably because I have an Amazon Prime subscription. So I got an inner tube out of that. Games are so weird. Let's see. Godzilla. Oh, okay. That's what I'm actually interested in.

I'm less interested in that. I got one of the Among Us characters. Okay. I mean, again, like I like the aesthetics, but it is not the like unlocking stuff is not necessarily the draw for me. I just like playing. It's like a good chill out game. This all sounds great.

It sounds like you found a healthy rhythm. What I like about this, when you first said that you were going to talk about this on the show. Yeah. I thought you did this all in one month. And I was horrified. I mean, most, you should know, unlike multiverses, most battle passes do not last just one month. No, I understood. I don't know why i thought that

i felt like i needed to call your wife and volunteer help yeah like i was i was just worried but now i'm relieved because this feels very natural and i do know i from what i remember of having a kid who was like i got like between like one and two you're getting some of your time back a little bit it's inconsistent yeah and like having you know 10 or 15 minutes here and there very common and not much else so like this would be for me the worst time to play xenoblade chronicles 3 which we'll talk about more in a second exactly because you you just could not like you wouldn't make it through half a cutscene and you would not feel rewarded for the time that you're putting in um we're like me where i'm at in parenting it's like well i there's no free time anymore except for when he sleeps but he sleeps well yeah so once he is asleep it's like great i need an hour in a different world and i can do that on the on the planet of

pandora or whatever it is that's gonna play this set um yeah whereas for me all of these games cap out at 15 or 20 minutes yeah yeah i need to get you playing multiverses with me. It's so fun. It's so fun. And it's like a perfect game for this. I played a little bit with, I mentioned Into the Aether earlier with Brendan Bigley from that show. We did a session last Friday and it was just like a great hang,

like such a good chill out game. And because at least so far, the community has not gotten full Smash, it really does feel like just playing Smash Bros. in a basement with just a whole bunch of strangers who happen to be coming through with you because it's not that competitive yet. Only like once or twice do they play with people where I was like, oh, you have studied the blade. You don't think that's just like matchmaking? mean it could be that too right but even in with a game like this where it doesn't

have a history of like matchmaking from previous games i'm kind of impressed if they just have matchmaking done that well already that's pretty. But yeah, it's just a delight. LeBron James, so good. He's really good in it. I'm glad. Mosey gets so mad at me when I'm playing as LeBron James. We have a little bit of game time each night

where he will play something on Switch next to me while I play on Steam Deck for like 10 or 15 minutes, whatever, like a session, right? And we do this and it's our little ritual. And now he's really interested in multiverses, but he really wants me to play as Bugs Bunny. So every time he sees me playing,

he's like, oh, Dada, first you play as LeBron James, but then you play as Bugs Bunny. And I'm like, okay, sure, yeah. By that time I'll be turning the game off. What a joy uh any any any other updates from this uh this i guess tour of living games um no i mean all those games are fun that's what i would say and they're all free to play now which is cool um but remind yourself like if you're feeling anxious about trying to level battle pass who gives a shit really like if you don't have the banana skin it's not that big of a deal i mean it kind of is but it's okay you'll be fine

um what else what else have you been enjoying uh i've been watching the third season of harley quinn which is definitely my favorite cartoon right now animated series i should say i don't want to diminish it um but it's great like excellent, great characterizations. Friend of the show, Ron Funchess, is a great king shark in it. Oh my gosh, yeah. And it's just great to see DC so willing to really let almost anything go in terms of their very storied properties, and allow pretty much anything. The only thing that I think there was some drama about was I think DC wouldn't allow them to feature Batman and Catwoman,

Batman giving oral sex to Catwoman. That was the one stipulation, which is A, very funny, and B, to be honest, kind of in character for Batman, who is a very funny and b to be honest kind of in character for batman who is a very selfish individual yes yeah yeah that reminds me of do you remember batman's ding dong in the black label that was i can't that was like a nonsense sentence batman's penis is shown in a comic book. It was like DC did a black label comic. And I believe it even got printed. And then they were like, no.

That's not going to fly. Even in this label, we are taking that off the market. There are limits. Yeah, there are limits. I mean, I think there was like a question of, I'm Goog batman penis black label and this is maybe don't throw off my results uh yeah well you know what maybe i'm wrong from polygon.com reports of batman's penis have been greatly overhyped oh oh yeah it was in some versions and it got removed well yeah they have boundaries you you know?

Yes. That's unfortunate. But Harley Quinn, to bring it back, is a great show, and I would highly, highly recommend it. It's on HBO Max. For now. I'm sorry. I looked at the image,

and the image of Batman's weenie in the shadows is just next to the word bullshit, which is some great framing. Okay, I know this is going to be the last time I get to talk about Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Thank you for humoring me, Frush. I'm going to keep this quick. But I do want to answer some questions for people who might be curious about it. I'll go very quickly. One, do you have to play any of the other Xeno games? Absolutely not.

In fact, going off of Freshdick's feelings about Chronicles 2, I would actively avoid doing that. Two, is there a lot of fan service in this game, which I think was a problem with Xenoblade Chronicles 2? So far, none. Like, if if any very little so that's a relief three is the voice acting bad no the voice acting is like quite chill and like calming um is the music good yeah the music's great uh and they do this great thing which i

think we i don't know if we talked about Jaws last week, but where you have this incredible score and then you don't use it during your dramatic moments. You have the guts to be like, you know what? Actually, silence. That's the best music. Yeah, it's very good. So those are just just the basic questions, you know, I just want to have another basic question for you. How's the writing? I like the writing quite a bit i find it very charming i find it kind of romantic there's a lot of like very good relationships i'll spare you the details because i i literally sounded high

talking to hoops about this on friday sure but the long short is there are two kind of groups that are in the constant state of war i don't want of groups that are in a constant state of war. I don't want to know the plot. No, no, no. They're in a constant state of war. And then you play as six people, three from each side, who come together and they're kind of united. And like how those relationships, there's a little bit of Romeo and Juliet stuff going there. It's interesting.

It's very sweet. Will they? Won't they? Ross? Ross? Rachel? You know. We should end this show, shouldn't we? We should.

Okay. Well, we did it. The games that we talked about this week, we talked about basically every Mario Kart game, especially Mario Kart 64. We talked about Fortnite, Fall Guys fall guys halo infinite and all of their battle passes we talked about harley quinn specifically season three on hbo max uh go watch it before hbo max explodes whatever's happening to it uh and all that drama and we

talked two more times about xenoblade chronicles 3 and we'll probably not talk about it again until either i finish the game or the end of the year episode so the end of the year episode um because i doubt i'll finish the game anytime before then yeah that's it next week do we know what we're talking about next week no well, two weeks, but no, probably not. Okay, I'm sure. But there are actually some actual games that are starting to come out, which is a nice change of pace. I'm actually pretty excited about the next month or so.

Yeah, I mean, the rest of the year. I know that like, I mean, like an offhand commenter. I was like, it's going to be a slow year. People got very mad. Yes, the rest of the year has a lot of video games. There's got to be more. There's so much good stuff. I can't wait for it. And that's where we're going to end this show.

So that I can go play some more multiverses because I know that it's life and, well, it's existence in my life is going to fade very quickly when other things come out because that's just how I am with video games. That's it. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant. You are...

That's it for the resties, where the rest of the best discussed the best of the rest. Resties! Did you say discussed? Yeah, it was past tense. Disgust.

Resties! Resties.