The Besties - Shadow of the Colossus + Jet Set Radio = Solar Ash [The Resties]

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

Ahead of The Besties selecting the Best Game of the Year, Frush and Plante predicted the winners of The Game Awards. Who made the best predictions? You'll have to listen to find out. But first, the duo discusses Solar Ash, a delightful open-world game that blends Jet Set Radio and Shadow of the Colossus. 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!

uh hello everybody my name is christopher thomas plant and i'm russ frushtick welcome to the resties where we celebrate the best of the rest just in time for a chris mess no we're not doing it's like last week i did fest i know was terrible last week, and it's even worse this week. Even worse? We're not doing a rhyming with... I don't even... What are you trying to rhyme Christmas with? I don't know if you could hear it on the audio.

My chair literally just groaned at my own joke, and I don't know how a chair does that. It was awful. Yeah, that is an evoc does that. It was awful. Yeah, that is an evocative chair. I'm impressed. Okay, for 2022, this is kind of one of those, like, you know, New Year's goals. I'm going to have something great. Like a real burn burner.

Let's move away from the rhyming. I think rhyming is bad. It does seem a little easy. Well, not only, well, clearly not that easy. Okay, we spent way too much time worrying about this. I apologize to your listener. We do have an exciting episode for you today. We're going to be talking about Solar Ash.

And hey, I had not really heard of this game. I knew of the game, but I didn't recognize the title because I'm not in love with the title. Turns out, game, pretty good. And then we'll be talking about our competing predictions for the Game Awards. When you hear this episode, the Game Awards will have happened. When we record this episode

right now, they have not happened. So, Fresh and I are going to compete with predictions and by the time you get to listen to this you will know who of us is the winner yes i'm excited that's it as always we'll talk about you know other stuff that we've been playing or watching or anything with our recommendations of the week but first solar ash i am going to try to summarize this concisely it's a new game from heart machine uh the developer that did hyper light drifter which we've talked about on the besties before it's published by anna perna interactive and i mentioned the publisher

because this is the one that does a lot of the big indie games uh like outer wilds and kentucky route zero and what remains of edith finch they have a pretty good batting average yeah it feels like that it's them doing like maybe the more expensive indie lot and then you've got devolver sort of doing the smaller but also equally great indie titles yeah i i think that's right devolver to me feels like kind of like the new york indie film community and uh annapurna feels like the la indie game very you know like just in terms of their style sure i don't know yeah anyway so solar ash uh it is an open-ish world platforming game in which you enter a black hole to try to save your planet from annihilation.

That's the best I can tell about the story. We'll talk about that later. And I would say the gameplay itself is like Shadow of the Colossus meets kind of Dreamcast era Sonic the Hedgehog and Jet Set Radio with a little bit of Gravity Rush. I agree with that as well. Cool. Well, then let's take a quick break. Now that we've got all of that downloaded into people's brains. And we'll talk about Solar Ash just in a moment.

Okay. So, Solar Ash. I'm really curious what you think about this first, Rush. Because I mentioned the Sega Dreamcast games up top. I think my opinion will be pretty obvious but i don't really know where you'll fall on this sort of game yeah okay so um my initial reaction was positive because a i like the art style that they go with the game uses this like uh kind of low poly relatively simple but still gorgeous aesthetic like just the vibe of it is

it's very pretty to look at um but what really jumped out to me was just like moving around the world feels amazing you are a uh effectively like an astronaut but you've got it skates you've got like roller blades on at all times and if you hold down the left, you've got like rollerblades on at all times. And if you hold down the left trigger, you can just rollerblade wherever you want, which feels like really, really good. And I think for games like this, it's easy to diminish how hard it is

to make moving around the world feel fun, even if you're doing just boring stuff, like just going in a straight line or going over a simple jump. And this game does a very, very good job of making even the boring stuff feel fun and like you're in control. So my immediate reaction was awesome. Great. I did.

You kind of alluded to it in the intro. I did get a little bogged down in the narrative stuff because it got a little hard to follow. Bogged down in the narrative stuff because it got a little hard to follow. I think you boiled down all that is required from the basic story, which is you're in a black hole. It's going to suck up your planet. You got to save it. So I got that part. It does do a lot more than that, which is where it started losing me.

But I don't know if you felt differently on that on that side. Yeah. So I haven't finished the game so maybe it like kind of pulls it together in the final act which can happen with lots of games yeah i haven't i haven't finished it either yeah but i don't know what's i don't know what the point is or even i don't ever feel confident in what i'm like seeing or reading if that makes sense so like you the game is broken up into these um open world so it's not just one big open world it's like you know little chunks it's kind of like zelda like if like ocarina of time like zelda games in the way that they handle

open worlds because it's like hub and spoke yeah yeah sure or even like super mario 64 but bigger open world spaces um so when i write when i've gone to i guess i've completed three of them i will find other characters in these worlds and it seems like there's like remains of planets or societies that this black hole has already consumed that aren't the one that i am coming from that i'm trying to save yeah i think and that's a really cool premise i like this idea of you know you gradually seeing what how different people tried to solve for this problem and i like there's one society that i came across that it looked like they had like never even conceptualized weapons um so in a last-ditch effort they were having to

convert like their gardening tools and like cooking utensils into weapons in an effort to like fight for survival yeah and that stuff i like it's just so unclear i don't know a better way of putting it it's so fantastical almost that i i never felt like i could fully buy into it because i i quite literally didn't know if i was understanding what it was trying to communicate to me well Well, so there's a few things. You know, I think I was following the like survival, like the surviving civilization part pretty well. I do get lost when we're talking about like made up pronouns for like technology and stuff like that.

Whatever the objects are that are like the, I don't even remember one of the names of the things, but they, you know, in the way that star wars makes up names for stuff there's a lot of that in this and honestly it felt like i a part of me wanted it to be quieter in insofar as like i just love the the look and i understood the basic like goal that i was trying to accomplish and every time that like a bunch of dialogue or like even there's dialogue trees in the game a bunch of dialogue was like flashing in front of me i kind of wanted it to just like go away so i could go back to the core gameplay which i really

enjoyed um and you know i you're you're you're a little further than i am um I'll say this. I was loving the core gameplay. I did get the sense that it was a little one note. I'm curious if you found that as well. So, yeah, it is kind of repetitive, but I really enjoyed that. So the story for me is it's not even the weakest part. It's just the part that I didn't click with as much. I don't really want to say it's bad because I just think it's just the part that i didn't click with as much you know i can't i don't really want to say it's bad because i i just think it's just not my style the actual loop of of each stage the way it works is you enter a new big open world and they're they're truly fantastical they're like

dream like um you know rolling hills of kind of blue orbs that are the size of like small buildings almost you remember what dreams may come that robin williams movie yes it looks nothing like but i do remember it um yeah it it it has like a just a very, I don't know, there are cityscapes in it. There are pieces of what you would recognize as like a civilization. But there are also things that are just large pieces of geometry that you are skating about. And anyway, going through those places and finding these red gooey eyes that I have to poke with needles. That part is really fun, and doing that unlocks whatever the final boss fight is. So again, tour the open world, find a handful of these things,

pop them while fighting off filler you know filler enemies and then you get the boss fight and the boss right is clearly like the piece de resistance yeah of uh of this of the game and that's where the shadow of the colossus comparison kind of comes in yeah before we get to that i want to talk about the the needle thing real quick there just to like explain it because it's very hard to grok it kind of reminds me of like in tony hawk where you'd have like a quote a line where you'd follow the line to like i'm gonna do this trick and then this trick and then this trick and so you have like a limited amount of time to jump from one checkpoint if you will to another but they're scattered all over the

map so it'll be like okay you've gotten this one and now you have to grind over these two rails and jump over this gap to get to the next one in time and then you you know you're racing to the next one after that and that mechanic not only does that play into how you unlock the boss fights but is is clutch to the boss fights themselves which is kind of why i was saying it was felt a little one note i enjoyed that note it was cool uh and i felt really good when i was doing it but it did feel like i maybe needed a little more variety to like keep my interest long term yeah it doesn't at least for me it doesn't feel like the kind of nintendo model of teach you the thing and then keep layering onto it it feels like teach you the thing and that thing is really fun to do so we're going to keep giving

you opportunities to do variations of that thing yeah in different environments with like slightly different like the second boss that you face is a lot more interesting than the first one uh which is like a relatively straightforward path that you take. But yeah, we should delve into the boss fights themselves because that is, I think, certainly the most spectacular and it's where all the elements kind of come together. Yeah, so just to kind of go back to the needle thing one more time. Think of it also like almost slalom skiing. These needles, one appears, you chop it,

and then the next one appears you know 20 feet away and then you have to go and chop it the the one other thing to add here is you have a grappling hook that you can use on certain needles so some of these you have to run to them and then hack you can do it i think you can do it on all of them but there's a cool down on it i yeah maybe. I don't know. Whatever the case, in the boss fights, did you get to the flying boss fight? I think so. So one of them is like. It's like a snake, yeah. And it's covered in this like white, almost ceramic armor.

Yeah, I fought two bosses. The second boss that I fought, I mean, they were both kind of similar similar but the second boss was definitely more involved than the first yeah and and then the second one it's it is i mean it's humongous yeah um it is flying kind of through the city and you will um grapple hook onto it and once you you know swat that first needle effectively it sends you from tail to head uh you know breaking more and more needles and while this is happening the the the creature is like flipping so it's like back becomes its belly and its belly becomes its back um and it feels really cool it feels like uh something that would be in an Uncharted game would be kind of that pre-rendered, pre-planned,

it happens the same way every time cut sequence, when in reality, here it is just happening inside of the game as part of anything else. And I think that that mechanism of forcing you to go from point A to point B to point C to point D allows them to kind of script what is happening even though you actually have full control and at any point you know you could hop off the ride and the game wouldn't like break out of the cut right or something yeah i think it's very smart and it's visually just super stunning and you feel

very cool when when it all comes together uh which again hard thing to do especially during boss fights which are particularly difficult um but yeah i was incredibly satisfied whenever those sort of went the way i wanted them to yeah yeah i mean we've talked about this probably every episode since we've started with this idea of like what are weed games um but i think this definitely falls into that weed game camp of you it is the opposite of of basically all trends in video games right now the the predominant trend in video games is grinding up power and levels yeah and unlocks and that the longer you play, the more skills and abilities you have, yada, yada, yada. And this game is not that. It is, we have a really fun experience for you.

And we're just going to let you keep doing it for what seems like a healthy amount of time. Again, barring any last minute changes. I will say there's also collectible armor that you can get. And there is ways to kind of grind your health in this. That is the least interesting part of it for me yeah because the last thing i want to do um when playing a game where the fun is zipping around is stop uh and look for armor things and try to figure out you know what i'm missing that is not super fun. And it seems like a mistake that games like Sonic

and other, you know, speed-first games tend to make. Yeah, it seems like something that, there are these basically like pods that are scattered across the map, and the first pod you more or less run into, you know, without trying. And then as you get deeper into the game, they'll be like okay there are five

pods in this giant open area you have no like i won't tell you where they are good luck and i found one of them randomly i was proud of myself yeah some of them require like really elaborate um platforming things and that seems cool but then there was another one that i found that was just hiding behind a large building yeah it it seems like something that just didn't fit with the rest of it and it's funny you mentioned the the shield thing in in the context of like the power curve of video games these days because it seemed like every time you beat a boss they take your shield away like if you spent resources to like increase your shield above it above the first level which is like otherwise you're like a one hit dead situation so if you spend resources like oh i want more hits than that they'll just take those away so you'll just

sort of feel like you wasted the time getting those resources so i think it's only one shield per boss so they don't take everything away if you got more than that it's just like why would why even take anything away like what does that accomplish yeah it doesn't make any sense to me it definitely clashes with the rest of the vibe of the game for me yeah i i i agree with you i think like vibe wise and just like the minute to minute feels great super fun uh love the visuals i just there are a couple choices that i like don't totally agree with but that's cool i mean i you know everyone has different tastes it's fine um i dug it overall though um it doesn't feel like a game that is

going to be like keeping my attention for dozens of hours but that's fine like i i love five hour games that's great yeah yeah i and i think like what you mentioned if it has choices that i don't necessarily agree with something i like about heart machine with both this game and um and hyperlight drifter is they don't feel like audience tested within an inch of their life yeah like i i there i did not get into high play drifter just it did not click with me and in the opposite way of this this really really resonates with me but in both cases there are choices where they could have easily gone a slightly different direction and made a more um accessible and probably popular game but they committed to what they liked about what they were creating and i respect it i mean it's it's it's so unusual to

see that um it's hard not to respect it i i wanted to mention one thing in a review that i saw for this game from uh christian donlon who's just this brilliant critic over at Eurogamer. And he pointed out how you can kind of read this game as about being about a body and like sickness. And he starts with that, just the needles themselves, which do look like medical syringes. But that once you kind of pull away from that, it starts, the world itself starts to look like the inside of a body. That there are organs and cells and firing off synapses. And I don't know what it's trying to say, and maybe this is a thing that i will get at as i progress through the game but that like any great piece of criticism it it helped me enjoy the game more just to like have

something else to look for and to kind of like think about why i'm playing it um and i wanted to plant it in our listeners brains and also just go read that review like i said it's on euro gamer for solar ash um i think it's a great piece to to check out ahead of playing this game if you're thinking about giving it a try yeah it kind of makes me again to go back to something i mentioned earlier wish that they they spoke a little less in the game and i could fill in the blanks more yeah you know i actually think there were members of the journey team or at least one member of the journey team that worked on this i know uh definitely from pathless uh there was like some

crossover there and they're all similar games journey is one of my favorite games of all time journey in case you haven't played it um has no dialogue no text at all um it's really just like very simple visuals and a story of like a creature that's trying to get to the top of a mountain for some purpose and you kind of infer the purpose through you know oh that kind of looks like a gravestone or oh you know there's other souls around whatever but it never is very explicit as to what you're doing and there is a part of me that kind of wishes that this game would have gone a little more in that direction but again maybe maybe towards the end it all kind of justifies itself and comes together yeah i also just kind of have the feeling that there will be people who play

this game who feel the complete opposite of us in terms of the story you know sometimes i mean oftentimes you play a video game and uh the story is not for you and it just feels like the story is bad or weak or or just never came together and that's not quite the case here it's a weird it's just it's just a like like we said it really feels like they they made a choice with it yeah um so yeah i'm definitely i'm definitely gonna play it to the end i i'm very curious to see where it goes and like you said it's not that long and i love i love a short video game. Okay. The Game Awards. Are you ready for this?

Yes. Okay. So, the Game Awards have already happened. Do you already know that it takes two, one game of the year? Is that what's going to happen? I don't know. So I trimmed down a list of all of the award categories. And Fresh and I are going to make our predictions for what we think will win. We are not making our case for what we think should win.

Oh, we're not? I don't think so. And my reason for that is we're going to be doing the Besties Besties episode. That's true. Right. The next episode you hear after this episode of the resties will be part one of our game of the year besties spectacular. So I think this is more of like a kind of meta conversation of like, what was the general mood around video games this year using this as a kickoff point and thus we can compete by guessing where we think the industry you know at this level you know the people's choice awards type of award

yeah is going okay so we're going to start with best esports coach of the year right so i've cut a number of categories like that mobile games i cut anything where i was like we are not the people to talk about this the category has been cut uh also you know just for brevity there are like a trillion things nominated uh for different awards at this show um so i'm trying to keep it short i probably should have done this in opposite order i realize i started with the biggest awards yeah i'm just gonna start at the bottom and go up oh okay that sounds good let's do that um best community support no i'm kidding uh that is one of the categories though yes um okay first category kind of a silly one but it's cool i get it most anticipated gamegon doesn't even vote on this category.

Polygon is an official voting member of the Game Awards. We do not vote on this category because it is a marketing category. You know, people get excited. People get excited. Here are the nominees for most anticipated game. Elden Ring, God of War, Ragnarok,

Horizon Forbidden West, the sequel to The Legends of Zelda Breath of the Wild, because it doesn't have a name yet, and Starfield. In the sequel to Breath of the Wild, I think one last year. Did it? I'm pretty sure it did. Okay. I am going to say Elden Ring.

Interesting. I would say Breath of the Wild, but it's possible that it'll be Elden Ring. I can see Elden Ring winning. I think Breath of the Wild is the best shot. You know, Jeff might just, you know, somebody might slip and fall with their thumb on the scale.

They're not going to let it be Breath of the Wild too many times in a row. That's true. You know? And I would say like Elden Ring or God of War, but Elden Ring, it's, you know, it's available. It's the only game on this list

that is multi-platform. Yeah. Because Starfield is only Xbox. Yeah. And won't be out for another three years. Yeah, yeah. I mean, most of this. Yeah.

I will be pleased if we get to play two of these games next year. Okay. After this one, we have Best Debut Indie. And the nominees are The Artful Escape, which you liked. Yeah. I did like that game. The Forgotten City,

which we both liked. Yes. Kenna Bridge of Spirits, which we didn't really talk about on the show. It's kind of an indie, a very glossy indie platformer. We talked, I think, a little bit, we talked about it maybe with Kirk or someone.

I would hate to have to listen to that episode. Listen to a brilliant person talk about video games. Sable, which I think we've only briefly mentioned, is the exploratory open world game, and Valheim, which we talked about at the beginning of the year. I think we promised a briefly mentioned. It is the exploratory open world game in Valheim, which we talked about at the beginning of the year.

I think we promised a full episode on it that we never did. We never did it because the logistics of getting us all into a multiplayer game at the same time proved too difficult. And I feel like by the time we got around to it, the world had moved on and we had other games to talk about. So we've all played it but yeah um okay what do i i'll go first this time because you went first that time what do i think is gonna win debut indie i'm gonna say i'm gonna say probably valheim will win yeah i'm i am saying the exact same game. Yeah, I think just it's like the it was by far the biggest success story from a indie standpoint.

I do not necessarily personally think that it is the best debut indie. But if we're talking the nominees that are here. Yeah, I think it's going to be Val. Yeah, I think of the of the games listed here. I would also say I think it's the best option. Yeah, I think there's some great stuff here. I just think Valheim is kind of incredible. Valheim is very special.

It is really quite an amazing game. I think Forgotten City would be the other big case to be made. But Forgotten City, it's so tricky, right? Because it is a debut indie, but it is a remake of the studio's own other game it's like a very it's like an actual game the mod was pretty cobbled together i would say that's true that's true it it deserves to be here i'm not i'm not i'm not undercutting it okay next category best role playing wow my immediate thought my immediate thought when i look at this list of nominees is did we not have five role-playing games come out

this year because number one on the nominees list is good old cyberpunk 2077 i hmm okay we're not gonna i don't know we won't judge too hard we've done that a lot on cyberpunk it's not the most shocking nomination that we're going to talk about. Somehow. I truly do not know how, but somehow this is true. Wow. So, Cyberpunk 2077. Monster Hunter Rise. Wouldn't really call it a role-playing game, but that's fine.

Yeah. Scarlet Nexus. Shin Megami Tensei V. Yep. Tales of Arise. Well, I know you don't even need to speak, and I know what you would pick. So, because we've already spent like six episodes talking about Tales to Rise. But I'm actually confused.

How many people were able to play Shin Megami Tensei V before this voting period? They might have got it. Sometimes they do send out early to voting people. They send out early code. Yeah, this is a really tough category. I feel like they're only true. I could see Scarlet Nexus. You know what?

I could see Scarlet Nexus taking it. I think there's a lot of love for that game. I am going to say Monster Hunter Rise because Monster Hunter really went mainstream with the world. think there's a lot of love for that game i am going to say monster hunter rise because monster hunter really went mainstream with the world but monster hunter rise with switch switch being i love monster so you don't need to convince me i just don't think it's a role-playing game oh i agree but cyberpunk 2077 is on this list like since has since it's gone out the window. Yeah. I do think of what are, like, the best games on this list.

I don't know. I was going to say Shin Megami Tensei V and Tales of Arise feel like the kind of categorical winners, but Monster Hunter Rise is also just a fantastic game. There's really no bad games on this list outside of the first one. They're all bangers no that's true yeah i mean we we i don't think any of us were able to latch on to shin megami megami tensai 5 but like nothing i i totally acknowledge that it is a great game for the people that love that game in that series so also wild the the studio that put out Tales of Arise and Scarlet Nexus in the same year, that development group got both of those games out is just bonkers to me.

Yeah, that is a hell of a year. Okay, best action adventure. Not to be confused with best action game. Yeah. Genres are fun, y'all. Yeah. They do actually have, I'll this just to like peek behind the curtain a little bit when you're voting in this they do define all the genres to sort of help you

define like what this means that like difference between an action adventure versus an action game my general rule of thumb is usually it's like third person platformers are action adventure games or like even gears i think is an action adventure game and then um first person shooters are action games but we have resident evil village which you're wrong my friend the difference i believe for the game awards is does it have puzzles in it or is it platforming like platforming or puzzles i think it's what makes it action adventure so resident evil village because it has like returnal definitely has puzzles in it for for what it's worth that's an action game but we're not getting we're getting ahead of ourselves okay anyway the list for best action adventure marvel's guardians of the Galaxy, Metroid Dread, Psychonauts 2, Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart,

Resident Evil Village. Okay, a good category. A lot of great games in this category. I'm very, actually very impressed. I think, here's what I think. I think if Metroid Dread wins this category, it's more or less going to sweep any other categories that it's in. But I could say the same thing about another game, which I think is going to do better than people might think, and that is Psychonauts 2. A lot of people love Psychonauts 2,

especially like the older generation of gamers. Who might have the vote access. Who might have the vote,. Who might have the vote. Who might be more represented in vote. I don't know what the makeup of the Game Awards voting group is. It could be younger. But generally speaking, for all award shows, it's usually established people that have been working in the industry for a while.

And so, I'm'm gonna say winner of this category psychonauts 2 i i think that's an interesting choice i think that's some great great logic the only pickle is the same type of person who is an old person who votes would also vote for metroid dread that's an Village. There are some, and maybe Ratchet and Clank, there are some real oldie facing games here. I think Resident Evil

Village should win this category. Oh, we are now talking about what should win? I'm just saying, I think I shouldn't do that. That's fine for the genres. I think it, to me, it's just a fantastic game. That game has only grown on me

since we played it at the beginning of the year. I do think there is a bias against older stuff when these things happen because recency bias is real. And Metroid Dread came out at the exact perfect time for this vote yeah the perfect time for this vote so i am putting my name there okay

okay best action game this one's weird back for blood chivalry 2, Deathloop, Far Cry 6, Returnal. I'm just putting my name on Deathloop here. I don't think this category makes any sense. So I'm just getting it out of the way. I mean, these are like, I guess you fight a lot. That's the category of this game. It's a lot of shooting. That's what's here um i'm gonna

rule out some stuff i think far cry 6 not a chance um just like critically pretty well panned um back for blood i feel like had a moment and then didn't um returnal i love returnal but kind of like very divisive in terms of a game like a lot of people bounced off just because it was very hard I'm gonna say yeah I think it's Deathloop Chivalry 2

we have not talked about Chivalry 2 on the podcast much it's cool as hell yeah that's a dope game we should talk about it more at some point if you are curious about Chivalry 2 you should watch pat gill made a video for polygon's youtube channel about the joy of playing a multiplayer game where there's like no pressure basically because chivalry 2 is just what would you call it like a medieval chaos simulator yeah i mean you basically it's just like a pvp game but you just instead of

being like super strategic you just like wail at people with giant swords and hammers and shit and yell at them and yell at them um i'm sure there might be strategy and stuff but the most fun you can have is like not caring and just like running in and and just wreaking havoc on everything it's pretty wild fun it's also just a good video to stream um okay best indie here is the the my brain is melting yeah this was i saw it and i agree with you this was the most shocking inclusion in the bunch 12 minutes is the first domini 12 minutes is i think becoming all i don't know how to describe its reputation what how would you just just a quick refresher 12 minutes was the top down narrative game starring willem dafoe and what's his name professor xavier that guy and another actor yeah

and it was put out by anna perna and it was like you have to decide what to do in these 12 minutes and if you you don't it just like keeps looping back and you keep dying and and it's incredibly violent hat it hinges on like some domestic violence and some other very pretty disturbing not cool ending that it isn't really earned and yeah yeah so i don't know how this got here it does feel like a game that 10 years ago people in video games may have been like wow i mean it doesn't make any sense and it's heinous but it goes somewhere yeah it feels like an early david cage game is what it yeah yeah so Yeah. So anyway, no. I can't imagine this one. Although the rest of this category is pretty strong.

True. So after that is Death's Door, which is the kind of Dark Souls-ish isometric view where you're a crow and you fight stuff. Yep. It's great. It's great. Great game. If you have not listened to our episode on that, you should because i think we all love that game after that is canon bridges of spirits which we talked about then inscription which we really need to do a spoiler episode on maybe early 2022 yeah maybe

because i know people have strong feelings about uh where that game goes it rules and uh last but not least loop hero which we probably haven't talked about in since we did that episode yeah a long time ago which can you describe what that one was loop hero is like a card based oh god i don't it's really hard to summarize that game it's card based you've got like this big map in front of you you're placing cards on the map to sort of populate enemies that your little character fights as he loops around this 2d map and how you place the card sort of determines the enemies you fight and the power-ups you get and it's sort of like a power curve from there uh wild game really unlike any other game i've ever played super cool so what's what's your pick i

think inscription is going to win yeah i agree inscription feels like it just is having a moment i mean rightfully it is yeah pretty spectacular right it'll definitely have a big weight on our game of the year discussion yeah to everybody uh who has replied to our twitter about how much you've loved that game after we've mentioned it uh uh, I'm, I'm so glad. It has been really fun watching people, uh, decide that they love the game within the first couple hours, and then have a variety of feelings as the game goes forward. Uh, yeah, what, what a game. Um, okay, best ongoing game uh this is like games that just keep getting updated uh so apex legends final fantasy 14 online fortnite genshin impact call of duty war zone okay i think the only one it can't be would be my i think in terms of just pure quality is war zone

because i feel like war zone is only now getting its big update well but consider that fortnite which just got a big update a minute ago when people were voting for this would not have it would have been at the end although they have been doing this long drawn out cube battle thing for a while um if i had to i would narrow it down maybe it is fortnite genshin and that's tough category um and then there's final fantasy 14 which i know griffin loves i'm putting my chips behind final fantasy 14 yeah the only reason i'm thinking that maybe not is because that update hadn't it had been a while since that update you know the update just came out i think this week for that yeah so again the voting had already happened i'm gonna

say genshin that's what i'm gonna i'm gonna go with the engine impact i'm putting it behind final fantasy 14 even though it had not gotten the big update when people voted only because of that whole moment this year where people jumped off world of warcraft and hopped onto 14 yeah and i feel like a lot of people were discovering it for the first time even though the game itself had not gotten as significant updates this year um okay next up best score and music okay weird uh slightly weird category as well. Because when I think score, I usually think like actual like soundtrack of the, you know, the like composed original music. But Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is in this category, which has a great soundtrack. Don't get me wrong, but it's licensed music, which seems like cheating.

soundtrack don't get me wrong but it's licensed music which seems like cheating yeah well this is where all those categories that seem silly at the oscars like you know sound editing versus sound mixing versus sound moving i don't know what they're all called they start to actually make sense because if this was about how it's all blended together guardians would probably be the winner for me just in personal taste because it's it's an achievement of how it blends together the game's actual score with all that licensed music um but in terms of original creation i mean the near replicant score is perfect it's perfect artful escape also has an amazing soundtrack i just don't think it has the visibility to necessarily elevate itself um death loop i'm gonna say death loop takes this category i am gonna say that you have a good chance of being

right i'm gonna say guardians of the Galaxy because I think people will be like I don't know I like the rock music and that will probably win I do think the new replicant soundtrack is the best on here and I feel comfortable saying that because we're not going to talk about

soundtracks that much so fine moving along we only have three categories left we're getting into the biggies now here we go We're not going to talk about soundtracks. That is true. So fine. Okay. Moving along. We only have three categories left. We're getting into the biggies now. Here we go. Best narrative. Honestly, this is the most frustrating one for me.

Deathloop, which has an ending that I feel strongly about. It Takes Two, which has an ending I feel very strongly about. Life is Strange, True Colors, which is fantastic. Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, very well written. Great writing. Psychonauts 2, which, I mean, they know how to write some story there. Yeah. I think the winner here will be Psychonauts 2.

I will say this, and I've said this before. Psychonauts 2, narratively speaking, I think starts glacially slow and then gets very, very interesting about halfway through into the end of the game. It's great. But I think it's glacially slow as a start. Whereas guardians of the galaxy starts very, very strong, very early on and more or less maintains that. I think it has issues with its combat and gameplay, but the narrative is pretty peerless when it comes to like these sorts of

games. Um, so I think it's, it's a more, uh, flawless endeavor, not to say that anything is flawless, but I think they did a better job there. You know, neither of those games, I think, had the attention that games like Deathloop did.

And I know that there is this very dedicated following for It Takes Two, which I don't really get, but it's okay. I don't mind. for it takes two which i don't really get but it's okay i don't i've actually come to understand this because we do have a lot of people who who like this game who listen to the show and i really wanted to like understand what people like and what i i don't know if this is the case for everybody but people that i've talked to about it have given two uh scenarios that are nothing like what we experienced one it was a really popular streamer game and a lot of people liked watching it on streams and didn't even know that like what the story was yeah that makes a lot of sense fun is a reaction game which i think

that's like totally fair yeah and i think there's also a contingency of people who don't have many games to play on the couch with family or friends and this you know was like a glass of water on a hot day and it like met that need i i have not seen a lot of people who who just raved about the the story yeah um that said the creator of It Takes Two has had a very warm relationship with the Game Hordes in the past. And I would assume by proxy that means people have voted for his stuff. So I think it has a very good chance. I cannot bring myself to even put my name down by it as what I think will win. I just can't.

I don't want to live in that future. I think it's safe to say it is one of the worst stories about a divorce or pending divorce that I've ever experienced myself. It winning, which it probably will, will be like Crash winning at the Oscars for me. Crash Bandicoot? Crash Bandicoot, yeah. When Crash stormed the Oscars for me. Crash Bandicoot? Crash Bandicoot, yeah. When Crash stormed the stage and they were like, wait, what? I thought La La Land won.

Crash Bandicoot was like whatever Crash Bandicoot says. No, I'm going to put my name on Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. I think that the writing in that was just so surprisingly good compared to what people's expectations were. And the way that that team that had worked on Deus Ex blended in comedy and the lore. And they effectively made a more compelling Guardians of the Galaxy story than the films. I think that's it. Again, if we're talking about what do I think is the best thing on here, a game that we haven't talked about really on the show, Life is Strange True Colors is the game that I would say should win. And the game that I would say for listeners, if this is a category that really clicks with you, if you really like storytelling games, if you like games that don't require, like, knowing how to use every button all at once, you know a battlefield 2042 or three or whatever it is uh life is strange true colors is right up your alley um okay final two we got it we can make

it to the end best game direction what the fuck does that mean that's a great question i mean that this is the problem that happens with the Academy Awards, right? We're like, what's the difference between best director and best picture? Sure. Right? Yeah. If a director has full control over every decision that happens, why is there a best picture? It's because the producers should get an award too.

Yeah. For games, it's even murkier because there is just no way that you can have a single person making every single major decision on a game. Yeah, this category straight up doesn't make any sense. Unless it's like a one-person game like Stardew Valley. So actually, before I share this, I'm going to share the list of things that got the Game of the Year nomination. And then I'm going to share the Best Direction nominations. So Game of the Year is... I had a little burp there. I don't know if you can hear it.

You'll probably want to cut that from the video. I will cut it right out. Maybe. Okay, so Game of the Year is Deathloop, It Takes Two, Metroid Dread, Psychonauts 2, Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart, Resident Evil Village. Okay? Yeah. So that's a lot of stuff.

Best Game Direction is Deathloop It Takes Two, Returnal, Psychonauts 2, Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart. So the difference here is Direction does not have Metroid Dread or Resident Evil Village, but it does add Returnal. That's really weird. It makes no sense to me. And it makes even less sense because if you were going to say, oh, from the Game of the Year games, what are the ones that I would nominate for Best Direction? Metroid Dread and Resident Evil Village would be on the top of that list. Because those are the games where I feel like there's a real sense

of pace and I don't feel that with the other games. Can I galaxy brain this for a second? Yeah. I think there is an element to this and certainly you and I can speak to this of Japanese developers

not giving access for interviews and stuff like that. Like, the number of interviews that we did for Metroid or Resident Evil, basically very minimal, if any. Obviously, Metroid Dread was developed by a Spanish studio in Mercury Steam, based in Spain.

Slightly different, but still Nintendo is very controlling when it comes to access. It kind of feels like game direction is a little tilted towards places where we could actually really call out... I don't know. They put the game directors

more front and center? Yeah, they're out there actually talking about how the game got made. I mean, this does feel very close to a list of games that have auteurs behind them. Yes. With like Arcane, Joseph Ferris in It Takes Two, Returnal being a small studio. Tim Schafer for Psychonauts. Yeah. Yeah.

Woof. I mean. I mean, I would even just just i don't even know man uh i'm gonna say if we consider it as like an auteur game it's gonna be i'm gonna say psychonauts 2 psychonauts 2 okay i do have a second in mind so we'll see if that's your second i mean my second is i think it's it takes two yeah that was my i i i do think people just want joseph ferris on the stage probably because they think there's a chance he'll dump on activision while he's up there also this game made a fortune yeah like it did so well um that i i i like you said there's a lot of love out there for this game yeah um okay that brings us to the final category game of the year again death loop it takes two metroid dread

psychonauts 2 ratchet and clink ripped apart resident evil village what is the game that the Game Awards voting jury will award Game of the Year 2021? Okay. I think there's a few we can rule out. I think Resident Evil Village, no, because recency bias. I agree with you. I think... I think Ratchet and Clank for the same reason. Yeah, I was going to say Ratchet and Clank, same reason.

So that leaves us with death loop it takes two metro dread psychonauts the question on death loop is again when the voting would have happened i think was probably a month after death loop came out at which point a little bit the bloom was off the rose on death loop a little bit so i'm gonna rule that as well rule that out as well god there's no way that it takes two wins, the whole thing. There's no way. So I think it comes down to Metroid Dread and Psychonauts 2, and I said this earlier.

I said if one of these starts winning any of the subcategories, I think it goes all the way, and it's also, again, an old people voting award show, at least to some extent. But they're two old people games. I think Dread, because it's got the recency bias tilt, came out, as you said, right at the exact same time, at the right time for this game to come out.

See, I want to agree with you there. But I want to keep the spicy too you know like i want i want there to be some some heat on it i feel like us having the same game of the year nominee we can't allow that right like that you can pick something else i'm i i think you're probably remember moon baboon you could do that i'm moon baboon i forgot about moon the best part of it takes two outside of when you're you're too uh your husband and wife deliberately murder a toy that begs for its life in order to make their daughter cry on purpose what a wild game um i'm i'm gonna say that it's resident evil village and i agree there's no that it's Resident Evil Village. And I agree.

There's no way it's going to be this. There's no way. Here's what I'll say. The chance that it has is because it was on every platform. Yes. I think the only other game. It's great. Is it the only multi-platform game in this?

It takes two, I think. Was that on PlayStation? I think so. I think you're right. It does ring a bell. But yeah, I think. Was that on PlayStation? I think so. I think you're right. It does ring a bell. But yeah, I think that's right. I think you're right about Deathloop kind of souring a little by this point. I think if it's recent, people go Metroid Dread.

And then if it's not, I think people go Resident Evil Village. If it's older voting, they go Psychonauts 2. And if we have a moment of pure chaos it will be it takes two um i feel like it takes two winning would almost be i don't want to take anything away from because i think it could legitimately win but i think the people who are really suspect of the game awards would kind of have a grump session yeah because it does seem like jeff keely the host and the creative it takes to are like very buddy buddy down to the point where like a moment from a previous game awards is in it takes two um is it yeah yeah yeah it's not fitting yep um so i will say this though i actually like the

game awards as a product like no joke i think it's a very entertaining thing and it makes me happy to know that we have at least something to sort of bring everyone together on that front not to like i'm genuinely not a i'm a cynic about award shows in general but not about just the idea of like having an event that is you know it's been a couple years since like e3 has mattered so having everyone sort of kind of back together again is is nice to me i i agree also i i think jeff does a good job for what this thing is it's like it is an endeavor like people like dunking on jeff a lot and like nobody's perfect but i i don't know i've seen what like worst versions of this look like um and it could be so much worse and it really has gotten better year to year yeah like

the early video game awards were rough like really really rough and i i went to some of them in person and they were really uncomfortable and it does feel like each year we get a little closer to uh not i don't think it's ever going to be the oscars but towards i don't know the oscars are flawed too. So like, who cares? Yeah. Yeah. And, and Hey, uh, dear listeners, I'm going to the game warrants.

Uh, so I will bring back some stories of what, what it is like actually at the show. Love it. Yeah. Yeah. I get, I get to see,

um, uh, 90 seconds tomorrow. I don't know. Somebody, somebody is there. Imagine dragons. Yeah. They called 90 seconds to Mars, 30 seconds, 30 seconds to Mars? I don't know. Somebody is there. Imagine Dragons. Are they called

90 Seconds to Mars? 30 Seconds to Mars? 30 Seconds to Mars. Come on. Well, I figured it was going to go there and back and there again. The Joker. That's his band, right? We've really hit the hour mark. You can start to feel it, can't you? We can. We definitely can. Let's wrap it up.

Oh, wait. We've got, like, what else we're enjoying? I didn't do anything this week. I've a fucking baby what did you do you didn't do anything come on you you surely like listen to podcast maybe watch a little bit of tv i mean i listened to an episode of this american life where a woman cut the head off a chicken oh my gosh so that was something no i'm not gonna no, that is not recommended. I mean, I wasn't recommending it. You put my feet to the fire and that's what came up. Here's what I recommend.

Paul Verhoeven has a new movie out called Benedetta. And I went and saw it. You said you want to not bring snobby stuff. I guess Paul Verhoeven is sort of in the middle. Paul Verhoeven is not snobby. He made Robocop, Show showgirls and starship troopers that's true that's true but but they all have a depth to them no what you're saying is he made the movie i saw had subtitles and i said it with a actually a bad accent i think i missaid benedetta anyway it is a movie about nuns who uh commit sacrilegious sexual acts with each other.

Whoa. And it is wild. Jesus is in the movie. He's presented as a Paul Verhoeven action hero. If you are sensitive to these things, which would be very um because they could rightly go against your faith don't watch the movie please don't i don't think you'll like it um if you are somebody i like me who uh raised in a catholic household uh raised to question uh everything and look for uh i don't know not the literary aspects of faith. But to find interesting parallels.

This movie does some things with theology that I think are pretty neat. That's a simple way of saying it. They're neat. And I think you might like it. Also, if you like Paul Verhoeven movies. But wow. I don't know if it's living in orange county people are just more sensitive or if it's just that i keep choosing really difficult movies but once again

multiple people walked out of this movie while i was at it yeah this is like the third time in a row i feel like is not necessarily the you know people it doesn't scream to me as friendly to art house well no but there are art houses i just i we have to remember three of these movies have been this the the three hour movie about like the history of uh war and cinema in japan and then like i guess it was a while ago but uh possession which like i can't even even talk about without feeling like I've committed a crime. Yeah. So, it might be. Actually, it occurs to me, I do have a recommendation.

This is not coming from me, but from my son. Have you ever had a blanket hanging above your face that wiggles around left and right? Because, holy cow, wiggly blanket. Highly recommended, but only if you're a baby. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. So to recap what we've talked about, we talked about Solar Ash.

That was like the main game of the show. We also mentioned Hyper Light Drifter, the other game from developer Heart Machine. And then we talked about like every game nominated at the game awards list rather no we're not no i won't instead of doing that i will say that you should watch watch you should read a recap of the game awards which have already happened and you should let us know who won um i'm sure that if i win i will brag about it immediately and if i lose you won't see it mentioned anywhere uh and i'll leave that up to you and oh yeah and when and i recommended the movie benedetta and you recommended a wiggly blanket in front of your face oh we should tell people what's going on uh next episode what's going on next episode we are not

gonna have one for a little while oh yeah you're right because it we're taking the next uh episode off because the holidays yeah i am not entirely sure when the next resties will happen but it will be sometime in early january so yeah i think that's right so i mean we talked about like this being like a thing for this season and we weren't sure what we're gonna do and fresh night we think we're gonna try to do more but you should let us know like if you're enjoying this um because yeah that's that's that is why we do it i mean i also like talking to you that doesn't hurt oh you're you are you know what you are my wiggly blanket in front of my face love it that's that's what i strive for okay that's it uh that's it for the resties and this

is where i would say like our tagline welcome to the resties where we oh wait and that's it from the resties where we celebrate the best of the rest and i'm not gonna rhyme it i'm just saying that's it we celebrate the best of the rest i like that everything that you like i think i know just you're putting no just say best of the rest we celebrate the best of the rest i like that the facebook what anyway that's it we'll see you next time bye Facebook. What? Anyway, that's it. We'll see you next time. Bye!