The Besties - The best (and worst) video game controller [The Resties]

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

Is the Gamecube controller brilliant or busted? The Resties rank the past 35 years of video game controllers in this fever dream of an episode. Then, the duo talks about NORCO, a new point-and-click adventure game set in a distant future Louisiana. Also, Speed Racer! 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 ross frushtick and welcome to the resties where the rest of the best discuss the best of the rest i flipped it this time yeah someone suggested that in on twitter i think it's more accurate yeah i i it would imply that i've thought about it more than a half a second Yeah, someone suggested that on Twitter. I think it's more accurate. Yeah, it would imply that I've thought about it more than a half a second to say which one is more accurate. So I will take Twitter's word for it because I'm sure they've thought about it longer than I have. There has been a great deal of feedback. Here, I actually have a thing that I want to get into today because we're going to talk about two things today. So the listener knows right off the top.

that I want to get into today, because we're going to talk about two things today, so the listener knows right off the top. We're going to talk about a new game called Norco, which we'll talk about in the back half of the show, and it has kind of Kentucky Route Zero vibes, but I think a very different game. I think it's going to be very popular. But in the first half, we're going to talk about the perfect, the perfect, the definitive video game controller tier list we're going to rank them s through a b c and d we're going to tell you

the best controller and just the normie we're not going to be doing the power glove just the normie controllers i mean some of these controllers i don't know if normies i'd say these are normies but sure these are controllers that you know you control the video game with a joystick. The sort of controller you would get if you just bought a console, it would come with this controller. Right, right. Not my Sega activator that I control with kicks and punches. Exactly right. Got it.

So that's the bulk of the show. But first, I have a question for you. You know those scenarios where there's like a baby and then like a sword hanging above it, and then it's like, oh, you have to cut the baby in half. Okay. It sounds like you're mixing the sword of Damocles with Solomon a little bit. Right. Okay.

So which one are we going with? Is it Solomon? I think it sounds like Solomon. Let me give you the problem. Okay. There are two movies. There's Mortal Kombat. Yes.

And there is Street Fighter the movie. Yes. And you can only allow one to exist in our shared reality. By making this choice, the other one will not only can you never watch it again we will basically forget it it'll be erased from our public conscience all of our memories associated with it they are gone so it almost doesn't matter because we won't even know the decision was made i mean it doesn't but we right now in this moment have the power of choosing uh what are the more precious not only what is the better movie

but what is the culture around everything. Yeah. You know what I'm thinking about? What? I don't think that the Sword of Damocles or King Solomon is right. Yeah, no, because King Solomon's about like, well, the only way to do is pick both.

Yeah, this is kind of Sophie's choice. Yeah, this is Sophie's choice which is kind of sophie's choice yeah this is sophie's choice which is definitely the analogy we want to make um and uh well it's okay so you've laid out there have been several street fighter movies there have been several mortal kombat movies i assume you're talking in both cases about the mid-90s installments jean-claude van damme v whoever was in the mortal kombat movie yes and in the mortal kombat movie that has the song where they yell mortal kombat sure of course um i mean i have an immediate answer but we could like draw it out if you want no no i mean if you have an immediate answer you

have an immediate answer yeah and the immediate answer is the mortal kombat movie 100 i don't well i'm gonna give you a few reasons one okay it'd be nice if Raul Julia's last movie wasn't the Street Fighter movie so that's a good start to the song you mentioned the song the song's great it's one of the best techno songs ever made

it's great three Goro's in that fucking movie and he is exactly as you'd expect them to be he's got so many arms and he's just crushing it excellent um i mean street fighter on the other hand is campy and goofy but i i feel like i shot myself in the foot here because the second i looped in the broader culture that that kind of put street fighter i mean we can remove the broader culture and just take the movies yeah just talk about the movies see then i think street fighter wins because street fighter yes it is ral julia's final performance but that's one more ral julia

performance that we wouldn't have otherwise seen and it's a performance that he wanted to do for his kids so it was like a meaningful yeah but did he really know what wanted to do for his kids. So it was like a meaningful performance. Yeah, but did he really know what he was doing for his kids? Did he know what the output was going to be? I mean, who's to say? I'm just saying I think if Ghost of Raul Julia showed up and could like wipe away the slate that was that movie and have something like classy

or like another Addams Family movie as his last movie he probably would have done that that's possible also john claude van damme is great in it kylie minogue is good in it here you know the reason the other reason i would lean towards mortal combat is because i think it has more fan servicey moments which i think these movies live and die based on fan service we've seen with sonic the hedgehog we've seen with the most recent mortal kombat movie if there aren't like multiple scenes that are entirely dedicated on do you remember this character well we're gonna do this whole scene about this character now there are those scenes in the street fighter movie i know that

i know there's a blanca scene i remember but I think there are more of them and they're more satisfying in the Mortal Kombat movie. You know what? I think if you are wanting to watch a movie that is a great video game movie, you're not going to find much better than Mortal Kombat. Yes, agreed. If you want a great B-movie matinee where you could literally just take Street Fighter

right off the box, yes. The Street Fighter movie is excellent i think the street fighter movie would be more beloved if it wasn't called the street fighter movie if it was just some absolutely bizarre action movie that had been released people would look back on that movie with great fondness yeah i don't know that it ever would have been made or if it was made it would have been a direct-to-dvd extra or i guess vhs at that time but yeah um i agree it is cheesy and and goofy it sounds like we're erasing street fighter yeah street fighter's gone congrats to raw julia this is what he always wanted okay well let's talk about controllers on the other side of this break okay do you want to you want to host this sure i feel like this is something that you you have a passion for i do well yeah that's true i um i've used a lot of controllers over the years

i have and it's very clear to me when one works and one doesn't work like comfort wise and utility wise and all sorts of other things and um yeah I thought we'd go down the list now I kind of wanted to start this in the era that both of us are at least quasi familiar with although it's possible that I might age you out a little bit at the beginning. Um, so we're not going to be doing like the fucking Atari joystick, which I might've used when I was two years old, but have no real recollection of, uh, we're going to start with the,

uh, NES controller and, and we're going to give these tier ratings, um, starting with S being the best, of course, classic tier style. And we'll go down to,

I guess D. Yeah. Seems pretty bad. Um, Starting with S being the best, of course, classic tier style. D being the worst. I guess D, yeah, seems pretty bad. And so we're going to start with the NES controller. I'll take a stab at it as a lifelong Nintendo person, a fan of their work. I would give the NES controller a, probably a C ranking. Wow. We're going to start harsh. And let me just say, we're going to remove nostalgia out of this. All I'm thinking in this case

is, do I want to be using this controller right now today in the year 2022? Oh. Okay. Doesn't matter if it invented anything. Do I want to be using this controller? Okay.

I think that's good. That, that, that flattens everything in a way that I think this will be much more fair. Yes. Okay. Cause like, yeah, the NES controller was formative and very important. And, but it's also like a nightmare to hold. It does not follow the shape of hands and, uh, yeah, I don't like it. Good D-pad. It does not follow the shape of hands. And, yeah, I don't like it. Good D-pad.

It does have a good D-pad. But other than that, I don't particularly like it. Okay, while we are out here killing our darlings, by that logic, I think I need to put the Sega Genesis controller. See, I think it's better than the NES controller. I agree with you but i don't think it's that much better you know i agree with you maybe it's maybe it's might come back to this and feel like i need to move these things around i'm gonna put it in b that's a low b i think it's a low b we're getting the bottom end of the b tier here yeah so the sega genesis controller here's why it

this is gonna be the weirdest episode people are either gonna really love this episode or think that this is the most esoteric thing that we've ever done you know like yes i agree with you so the sega genesis controller uh there were two versions of it one had three buttons because you know you had to have one more to outdo the NES. That was the future. But then there was a fighting version of it that had six. Yeah, I don't know that

that was even a fighting one as much as it was you could program them to be turbo buttons. I did include that, but maybe we should just remove it. Yeah, I'm going to keep that. That's too much down yeah uh but the thing that like comes out the reason i was tempted to put it lower is because at the exact same time nintendo puts out the snes controller okay but we haven't gotten there yet we haven't no well we i mean you're talking about the genesis controller so i think don't don't rate them based in reference the other controllers

rate them based on that control it's hard not to you know because we will fix it we will adjust okay okay okay okay okay okay okay so what so then what's next the sega genesis controller is a low b a low b um okay so next up is indeed the snes controller i would rank the snes The Sega Genesis controller is a solid low B. A low B. Okay. So next up is indeed the SNES controller. I would rank the SNES controller at an A. Okay. I think that's right. I think the SNES controller.

So again, we have the D-pad. We have start select. We have four buttons, which, hey, that's even one more than the Sega Genesis. And most crucially, we have two shoulder buttons. Yes. So actually, we're adding six buttons right there. And that shoulder is crucial. Being able to run in Super Mario World by...

Wait, did I hold the shoulder button on that game? No. It's been a long time. When you're running in Super Mario World, you don't hold the shoulder button. That's true, but I don't. You're right. I hold a different button. You use the triggers to do the spinny jump um yes i okay so yeah i i would think it is probably my favorite retro game controller i think that's probably true

i can't think of another one that i would prefer yeah if i want to play a retro game on my PC, I have a Bluetooth 8-bit Duo SNES controller. Yeah. And I'll play it on that. Yeah, it holds up. It's great. Okay, so after that, what we have on this list is the PlayStation 1 controller.

Yes. Now, do you mean... I have it below. Later. I don't know how i feel about this so there are two place just one controllers and they are maybe the most different you could make a controller for the same system one is it looks well it doesn't look like the snes controller but it basically is the snes controller four buttons four buttons yeah and then four shoulder buttons instead of two yeah well i'll make it easier on people if you've never seen the playstation one controller it's just like imagine like a ps4 controller but no analog sticks that's how it

launched no analog sticks there's just a d-pad four face buttons triggers but otherwise like the overall form function looked basically the same and in like just crummy plastic and yeah shitty gray i mean for me this is like this is the d like i understand that it's iconic do i dislike it more than the nes controller just from a usability standpoint no it's higher for me because it would be has more buttons i think no no no it's the ergonomics entirely you can hold the playstation 1 controller and not be miserable whereas the nes controller is like just not a fun control i'm gonna put it in the c tier then i think it's above the nes controller well i mean it's a high c and the nes controller is a low c okay right i'm gonna

add that there's still c's we don't need you don't need no i'm gonna do it in c plus oh my gosh you're doing no this those are high c low c so this is not how tier lists work we're we're not telling the people that i'm writing c plus c minus the people don't know okay help yourself so we have a playstation 1 controller at a high c much like the drink high c yeah. Should we jump ahead and do... Yet another reference from this episode that most of the audience won't get. Should we jump ahead and do the DualShock since we're talking about it?

Okay, so then yeah. If we're including the DualShock, the DualShock is PlayStation 1 controller. Now we've added joysticks to it. Yes. That's probably a lowsticks to it. Yes. Right? That's probably a low A for me. God, no.

You think higher than that? This is why you have to think about other things, right? Yeah, I guess so. Because there are all these new DualShock controllers, which are going to come in way higher than this. Yeah. Low A, though. That gives high A and S. There's plenty of room above it.

You keep thinking that there are multiple A... No. There's B, A, and S. But it's going to be a... Let's put it in B right now. Okay, you're going to put it in B. Is it better or worse than the Sega Genesis controller? Yeah, it's better.

I agree. It's better. Okay. So you put down the virtual boy controller here do you think anybody remembers how this controller i've never held one oh you never played a virtual boy no i've never played i don't remember maybe at like the museum of the moving image or something but it is not clear in my mind i've seen pictures of them so the virtual controller is no it's a solid d it is it's ugly it is it's like holding imagine you have two weemotes kind of yeah almost or like two i don't

know like yeah i i guess like we want it's a very long protrusion from the game controller that is where your hand goes. They kind of look like VR Vive controllers if they were glued together in the center. Yes, awkwardly stuck together by a cube. Yes. Of plastic. Yeah. And it's two D-pads. Oh, yeah, two B-pads,ads right i forgot about the two nothing about it

weird choice is good so if i am looking for a very clear bottom tier controller i think i think this helps us kind of set a baseline okay bad that's fine poor poor red virtual boy so up next we have back-to-back controversial controllers. Oh, boy. As controversial as it can get in the world of video game controllers, which is pretty heated. Agreed. The Nintendo 64 controller, which is D-pad,

you have the stick in the middle, away from all the buttons. Yep. And then if you want to press the buttons they're you know elsewhere you can you can carry you can hold the controller one of two yeah we're we're gonna get letters oh because of where we're gonna put it yeah well and yes then beneath that is the 3d pad which is the sega saturn controller which is i'm trying like basically imagine imagine the Sega Genesis controller, that one that we talked about that's bad. Except for what I remember being an amazing D-pad, even though I think that some people didn't like it. Because it was like a circle.

It's a big pad. It's like a jelly donut. Yes, yes. A jelly donut with a D-pad in the goop. And then an analog stick. And the controller itself is one big circle, like a UFO, with just two little stub wings coming out of it. It's weird. It's weird.

I adore this controller, except for it is a little not great in the hands. Oh, boy. I like the aesthetic of it. We haven't done Nintendo 64 yet. controller except for it is a little not great in the hands oh boy okay like we have not uh we haven't done n64 yet n64 so let's place n64 in the original bed n64 i would put at a d and you have to be the one to decide whether it's worse better or worse than the virtual boy controller oh yeah it's much better it is is better it is it is the healthy evolution of the virtual boy controller would i ever want to use it again no but so when you held it when you played like golden eye with it right yeah you were you know aiming i guess it was even that whenever you use the z button which was on the very back of the

trigger the middle thing it felt like firing a gun yeah which was neat like that was neat and that feels to me a little cooler than you know using shoulder buttons even though shoulder buttons have also kind of evolved and there were shoulder buttons on the n64 there were for sure but shoulder buttons what i'm saying is they've evolved to like even look like triggers because i think subconsciously people know that that feels good where it feels like you're firing a weapon there's like a connection between what you're seeing on screen what you're feeling in your hand yeah um and i think that they got that right really early on unfortunately the rest of the controller is a mess you had to like control looking around in 3d worlds and control your camera in mini games with the yellow pad the c-pad the c-pad which was just i mean it was just like an extra d-pad on the on

the right side of the controller the weird thing is almost all the games you held the middle and barely ever used the left entire left side of the controller also really bizarre after like six months the middle analog stick would lose any sort of tension and just like flop over and not be useful it from a durability standpoint there is no worse controller on this list. This thing breaks so easily. It's got that like crazy large hollow bar part where you're supposed to put in like the rumble pack or the memory card, whatever. That's weird. I played a lot of N64 games. I loved N64 games,

but, and I, and again, I realized like 3d games are still pretty new at that point, but going back now and having to play with an N64 controller sucks. Not fun. I, I realize like 3D games are still pretty new at that point. But going back now and having to play with an N64 controller sucks. Not fun. I agree. Okay, so then 3D Pad, the Sega Saturn one.

Yeah. I'm going to say that that is low B tier. Basically right, just slightly better than the Sega Genesis. Oh, wow. Because it is the Sega Genesis controller. Just dumb looking. Well, it looks cool. It doesn't feel quite as good in the hand,

but the D-pad and the joystick are like a delight. I have just fond memories of them. Yeah, I've never used them. I mean, Nights into Dreams, that's what you would play on it. Yeah. Are you ready for our first S-tier controller? Yeah. I'm going to do it.

I know you are. The Dreamcast controller is S-tier. This, to me, is the controller that sets the world on fire. You know? People can't wait to get this controller. you know people can't wait to get this controller the the controller it is the most important thing about it is it has a hole in the middle of the controller where you can put a thing called the vmu inside of it are we including the vmu in this rating yeah i mean the vmu is a part of the controller sort of in the same way that i would say rumble is part of like the nintendo

64 controller right so the vmu was your memory card back in the day when you had to carry around memory cards um and on the memory card is a screen and on that screen that's effectively like the second screen that all these other modern companies try to do with like iPads, except for it's built into your controller. So say that you're playing NFL 2K, and you don't want someone to see the plays that you're picking, you can see it on your controller screen, which rules, you could also then remove the memory card, take it with you wherever you wanted, because it had it had its own controller on it. And you can play little mini games that connected to the games that you were playing on your Dreamcast. So this is like the very early ideas of play anywhere, anytime, whatever you want. Sonic Adventures, for example, came with a Tamagotchi-style Chaos.

Yeah, they weren't fun games. Let's be clear. The Tamagotchi thing was pretty cute. But were the rest good? No, they weren't. But it was a great idea and the controller had great, great triggers on the side.

The shape is very unusual, but it felt great in the hand. It does feel good. It feels great. Yeah, it feels good. I agree with you. S seems a little high to me. I would probably put it in A, but I won't fight it.

How about we keep it there, and if we need to move it, we can. Okay. Okay. See, now we're running into the problem that I saw coming, that I foretold, The DualShock 2 controller. We're just going to do this for every DualShock 3, DualShock 4. Yeah, DualShock 2 has no real difference. It's just, it's, yes, basically the same.

Basically the same. So that's also in B. Okay. You're right. That is fair. I almost don't even want to include it. But there will be differences coming up with some of the dual shocks that are worth okay okay um gamecube control are you one of these people i really like game good the gamecube control really like it a lot actually

i i don't feel like i'm like a good person to to vote on this i'm gonna i'm gonna trust you to put it where you want because i don't know the gamecube never clicked with me and people who care about it i think well yeah we're not talking about the games because i agree like there were some great games but there weren't a lot of them no i i know but what i'm saying is you're you would have had lots of experience with the controller because you enjoyed the system right we're like yes me i what the dreamcast is for me is what i think gamecube is for most people yeah it is probably s for me the gamecube controller did a few things that i really liked one um the button configuration which some people don't care

for but you could basically without looking down you'd know exactly what button you were hitting because all of the buttons, all the face buttons were a different shape and size. So the A button was this giant circular A button. The B button was a little off to the left and down and like smaller. And then the X and Y buttons were like kidney bean shaped. So you could like by just by thumb feel know exactly what button you were hitting. I wish more controllers did did this this is great especially these days when when you jump from platform to platform and a isn't always the same location like a on xbox versus uh nintendo is a different spot so this would solve that problem you want more bean-shaped buttons more bean-shaped buttons

please and thank you uh it also did this cool thing with the triggers uh you know this technology has advanced since then but the triggers you could click in but you could keep going and then there was a final click when you like fully pulled them in which kind of gave it like an extra level of control especially for like driving games stuff like that uh and it's purple nothing wrong with that i loved it true uh okay okay so we have another s the original xbox controller aka the duke which inspired by the sega saturn 3d pad i would say and that is very big very big and very round yeah i don't like it no it's not comfortable i would put it at all pretty low probably deep deep yeah i think it's a strong d i i you know nostalgia is one thing but beyond that no yeah i'm not for it

um here's again where we're going to get into the repetitive side. These new Xbox controllers. Well, some of them. So the Xbox controller S was like, oops, we fucked up with the Duke. Let's get it a little better. And it came closer, but still was not quite there. I would put the controller S at B tier. Just below Sega Genesis, if I had to.

And we will read these out at the end, just so you know where we're putting everything for posterity. It's very important. This was like a smaller, more svelte Xbox controller. I didn't like the buttons. The buttons were like weirdly raised. And, you know, the rest of the ergonomics were fine, but I just never really dug it a ton

okay so it controller s goes at b is what yeah i think that's a b a low b so that's a low b yeah and then the xbox 360 controller which is one of the most iconic controllers of all time. I think it's S. I think it's A, because we have to leave room for the most recent controller. Yeah, the better version of that. You're right. Which is whatever these Xbox Series

controllers are. Yeah, well, yeah, I more or less didn't... We'll get to it. Okay. So now the PlayStation controllers finally change. It's happened at Sony HQ. They're ready to do something interesting with their controller. When they first announced it, I think they showed it publicly, right? The boomerang for the PlayStation 3, right?

Well, they showed it, but that was not the controller that it ended up being. Right, right, right. But clearly they were ready for change. They were like, you know, we've used the same controller for the PlayStation 1 and the PlayStation 2. Now we're going to give people a giant boomerang. And because

we're, you know, more mature, we're an adult video game company. We've got the Spider-Man font font and we need a boomerang yes and we want something that's going to like look good in your room if you exclusively shop at sharper image yes that was kind of the aesthetic of sony at this point kind of still if you've got a massage chair you're covered with the boomerang but they went against it and they decided no we're basically going to remake the dual shock 3 again but with motion controls but they managed to fuck it up this is dramatically worse in my opinion than the previous dual shock

controllers which we put a beat here high b this i would put just above the n64 controller so probably like a high d or a low c yeah i think i think a c is good and i'm gonna say why we're very shallow in c so i think yeah that's fine i'm gonna say why real quick the six axis controller which is what launched with the playstation 3 had motion controls that sucked they weren't fun they weren't accurate not fun but it the worst part of it was the analog sticks they made the decision for some ungodly reason to make the analog sticks convex instead of concave which is to say they popped out instead of popping in and so if you tried to use them with your thumb your thumb would just slide off and it sucked and they didn't fix it for the entire life cycle of the PlayStation 3.

And I hated it. So, boo. I mean, I agree with you. Definitely one of my least favorite. Okay. The Wii Remote in Nunchuck. So, this one's tricky. Yeah, it's a tricky one.

On one hand, I want to give it some top honors because, you know, revolutionary controller changed the way people play video games invited uh so many more people to the table extremely approachable right yeah also only good for like three games yeah not and not like a fun it didn't feel fun to like hold it you know it was good with with wii sports i grant you but the second you're playing an action game like twilight princess or anything like that just felt like clumsy and awkward and not fun so yeah i might i think i'm gonna put it in the c i would put it in the c that's right but because yeah as a controller not great yeah um okay so so now you're getting your wish. Sony hears you, they're like, we get it, we did wrong. First, you didn't want

the boomerang, now you don't want this controller without rumble. What can we do to make you happy? Well, they added rumble, but they didn't fix the analog sticks, so the new version of the DualShock 3, it was called, is still bad. Where do we put the six axes at C?

It's like slightly higher than that. You know what? I think we just put them together. Yeah, put them together. I mean, it is higher than the six axes because it has rumble, which I like. But yeah, not by much. Yeah. Boo that control.

So another complicated one, the Wii U gamepad. The Wii U gamepad is effectively a Nintendo Switch that you hold to play a video game that is on your television. But not comfortable to hold. In no way. Bad triggers, bad buttons. Cheap plastic. The screen on it looks like somebody was on an airplane. And after everybody left the plane, they're're like you know what i could do i

could cut off the top of this chair and take this tv home with me and then they did that and they got home and like wait wait why did i do that these are the worst tvs on the planet yeah well i might as well use it to play a video game yeah and that's it i it didn't didn't work in any way imaginable. I think it's the bottom of our list. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Because I see I want to I want to give it some credit here because it had a lot of good ideas.

Yeah. No, but but, you know, this isn't about having good ideas. It's about execution. I agree with you and speaking of execution dualshock 4 which is the playstation 4's controller basically addressed all the concerns that people had on the playstation 3 controllers and it's a dynamite controller i definitely put it at a maybe higher but certainly a high end yeah it's got to be a because you have to leave room for what's coming next yeah um uh xbox wireless controller this is xbox one and xbox series we're just gonna keep yeah let's mash them together because they're

yeah almost identical i think that's like solid solid s tier yes um here's what i'll say about the the latest uh xbox actually this has been the case since the 360 but especially true of the latest installment the core xbox controllers the normal standard whatever you call it are like durable as hell these things do not drift you could drop them down a flight of stairs they're fine they're great contrarily and we're not going to include this because it is a side controller what i've heard about the elite controllers is they do not have that durability and they break and fail a lot so if you're looking for to buy a controller and you just want to like a workhorse that's going to be with you for a while just get a normal xbox controller they're great i i can say when the car drove through the suv drove in my office. One of the Xbox Series controllers worked fine after it.

My Xbox Elite controller was gone. Now, a lot of factors in that. You know when a car drives through a person's entire house, you don't know which of those controllers took the brunt of the impact. Sure. You don't know which of those controllers took the brunt of the impact. Sure. But I can tell you for a fact, the Elite did not take it well. Yeah.

It was bad news for it. Okay. Steam, we're nearing the end. The Steam controller, you dared to include on here, which is really gutsy. I mean, I don't even, this feels like an act of cruelty. It mean, I don't even... This feels like an act of cruelty. It does. I don't think we...

Well, the only reason I included it is, weirdly, Steam still uses the Steam controller to show that games on Steam have controller support. Like, anyone even knows what the Steam controller looks like. That is true. That's like whenever you save a video game and it shows a floppy disk. Yeah. And it's like, you save a video game and it shows a floppy disk yeah and it's like who who is this for like how many people look at that and like oh squares mean saving yeah um yeah so yeah it's deteriorate it was it was whoopsie okay okay um joy cons i mean they suck they're they

yeah they're not d tier good control you don't know that they're gonna work they suck. They're not D tier. Good controllers. You don't know that they're going to work. Yeah, no, they're bad. They're D tier. They're above some of these, but we won't get too picky. It's a shame. They should be more interesting because they have the power to, you know, like motion control. They have that 3D rumble. Good in theory.

Yeah. And they allow for the concept of the Switch to even happen. Like without that design, the Switch doesn't really work. Ooh, yeah, that's a good point. Maybe we should bump that up to C, at least. Yeah. Because you can turn the Switch into a two-player system. Well, and also, just, like, the portability of it. Like, if it was, like, full-on

actual controllers, the Switch would not be as portable as it is. Sure, like the Steam Deck. Yes. Okay, so the Switch Pro Controller. i would not include this because it was it's an added sales thing you don't oh as you don't get a controller console yeah i wouldn't it wouldn't include it that's fair so right because everything else came with one okay so then that leaves dual sense dual sense which is the playstation 5 controller that you are... I'm quite fond of. I think it is better than the Xbox series

just from a... as using it, but... And I haven't had this issue myself, but I have heard durability issues pretty significant with this one as well. The battery runs out very quickly. I've heard drift problems. So, definitely below the Xbox, but I think it's still...

I think it's still S think it's still last year it's that's a great controller great time to be a fan of video game controllers uh one because two of the best controllers ever are available to you right now and two because you just got the 30 minute tier ranking okay i'm gonna do a micro machines i'm gonna do a micro machines read through so people know where we have everything. And within the tiers, we're not going to order them because we've got shit to do. When you say Micro Machines,

like the end of a Micro Machines commercial, it's not actually fun to play with Micro Machines. No, no, we're the guy who talks fast. Okay, S tier. Dreamcast controller, GameCube controller, Xbox Series controller, DualSense. A tier, Xbox 360 controller, DualShock 4. Also A tier, SNES controller. B tier, DualShock controller, DualSense. A tier, Xbox 360 controller, DualShock 4. Also A tier, SNES controller.

B tier, DualShock controller, DualShock... Wait, there's two DualShocks here. I think one has maybe rumble and one doesn't. I'm not sure. Also B tier, the 3D pad from Saturn, the Sega Genesis controller, the Xbox controller S, and now we're getting into C tier,

the original PlayStation 1 controller, the NES controller, the DualShock 3 with Rumble, the 6-axis controller, also on PlayStation 3, the Wiimote Nunchuck, and the Joy-Cons, and then getting into D tier, the N64 controller, the Virtual Boy controller, the original Xbox controller, quote, the Duke, and the Wii U gamepad, and then bringing up the rear, the old Steam controller quote the Duke and the Wii U gamepad and then bringing up the rear

the old Steam controller bless your heart Steam controller it's really not awful I feel like it it had some great ideas and the Steam Deck wouldn't be possible it probably wouldn't be D

I think D is a little harsh I would put it at probably low C okay let me read the order again then oh my god that's wrong okay uh yeah i think that i think that is the definitive tear-wracking please uh write how angry you are uh we will post a tear image on uh on our on our twitter at the besties pod once this episode is is live, so that you can see this all. Because, you know what?

Sometimes you need a visual medium for this sort of thing. Yeah. And that's why we chose to do it on a podcast. Hey, let's take a break really quick, and then when we are back, we will talk about Norco. Okay. Welcome back. Are you ready to talk about a sad game always i don't think it's as sad as we might look just so long as it doesn't start with a death in the family and you're going back to your hometown to uh sort of pick up the pieces oh no-oh. Oh, no. So, yes, Norco is a point-and-click adventure game

set in basically the Norco area, which is just a little bit north of New Orleans. And Norco, from what I understand, it is a census-designated place, I think is the phrase for it, formed after some... Listen listen the whole game is about the many many atrocities uh uh committed in the greater new orleans area throughout the history of america that is the backdrop of the game i i actually have a full quote here i'm not

gonna read because it's very long and so i'm gonna send you to go read it yourself at games hub uh they did a review of norco that i really enjoyed that starts by just over the course of five or six paragraphs laying out the history of this area um in the things that have happened to it uh and how it kind of led to a company like Shell, a big oil company, having so much control over both the actual land and the economy and ultimately because of that, the people. So that all sounds quite gloomy because it's real life and it is. It's very, very, very sad. The game is interesting because, because again the game takes place in the future and it is cyberpunk ish in the in the true sense of cyberpunk not in the you know oh it looks like blade runner sort of way but in oh we live in a somewhat dystopian future where

companies have effectively replaced our understanding of governments. And as a result, the world is just very, very strange and both recognizable, but like a perversion of the world we live in today. Yeah, it is familiar, but very shitty. And an evolution of, I think, where things are today, basically. Yeah, like very early in the game, you need to go get a fuse and you can go buy it from the gas station. But to do that, just to get into the gas station, you'll have to like barter with this asshole who's just like looming out front and pestering you.

And then when you finally get in, the thing that you meet is not a person it's just like an ai yeah it speaks in you know effectively company jargon and trying to get what you want from that is a real pain and eventually you realize oh this is self-checkout because it's the future so i can just grab a fuse and just like check out myself and that's how I get out the door it's all very clever it's a little purple

prose-y in the first half and that's the part that I'm curious I've never heard that terminology before purple prose? yeah I've never heard that purple prose is when you like kind of overwrite and it's like very flowery. Yeah, it's a very, very flowery language. I think it's intentional though.

I think you're right. I'm going to give the example that I took. I wrote it down because it was like the epitome of sort of the language that they use. It is, again, as Plant said, very overwritten. So early on, you start in your house there is an ac unit in the house it like any point and click adventure game if you click various things it'll give you like a little description of that thing so when you click on the ac unit it says the heat of spring will soon arrive and the mildewed air of the window

unit will fill the room versus likeus like it's an AC unit. That's sort of, and so that sort of writing permeates throughout the whole thing. It's interesting though, because the dialogue in the game and the various interactions you have with different characters is in a much more straightforward tone. And it's here that I think the Kentucky kentucky right zero similarities apart from the actual like theme of the game uh they're there they're definitely there i think what the fuck

what oh my god that was the most what is going on spotify just opened up on its own and started playing a Bill Burr podcast and it scared the shit out of me okay sorry what the fuck why god okay fine

where was I Bill Burr no you're talking about uh comparing it to kentucky route zero yeah so i i think the comparison to cook so i think the comparison to kentucky route zero makes sense because you have that same dichotomy where you have dialogue that's like more straightforward and then the sort of descriptor prose um gets a little more flowery i think kentucky rod zero is a little bit smarter about this because when you start norco like you are just bombarded with waves and waves of like scene setting like poetic language and it's introducing like all sorts of kind of foreign concepts because the world is

like very different from the one you know um on top of the layers of like you know that purple prose is as point put it and it's a lot whereas i actually went back and watched the beginning of kentucky red zero just as like a point of comparison and that starts actually very simply you're just like at the gas station and you talk to the guy and there's a dog with a hat and there's like it's like very basic and then i think slowly it feeds in the like trippier more like flowery prose as a way to like introduce the weirdness of the world but here in norco you are just like deep and thrown um yeah and for me it was it was a kind of a turnoff because it was just like i wasn't feeling it you kind of have to earn

that level of attention to the world um and it didn't really feel earned to me so here's what turned me around on it because i say purple prose but that's probably too harsh and not actually what I mean. When I first played it, I had that feeling. And I agree. I was like, if Kentucky Route Zero is like a Lynch film, like a David Lynch film, which it does start off in somewhere, you know, it can be simple and seem normal. And then it gets more and more unusual. And also, I just find both of them, like, very poetic artists, right? Like, when I say poetic, I don't mean, like, oh, they're being very flowery.

I mean, they can actually be quite sparse. Sure. Or they're playing with language or visual language in really interesting ways. Norco, it really clicked for me once I started taking it as a noir. it really clicked for me once i started taking it as a noir and once i was like you know like when you go into like a hard-boiled noir you have this detective who is like very rough but when you get his internal monologue or her internal monologue it is like very poetic yeah very flowery and very you know evocative no i, I think you're right. Yeah.

And that's, that really helped me get more in the headspace with it. Right. I think even though I could tell it wasn't doing the Kentucky zero thing or in very much as doing its own thing, I wasn't finding the genre right away. And that's not to say that it stays in noir the entire time, but the, the tropes that are there of you know you are a character who is

she's returning home after her mother has passed away her mother was um a scientist who had like you know gone a little too far with her research and started looking where quote she shouldn't and now your um brother is missing so there is this like very noir mystery sure and one of the first places that you go and actually see is a detective's office um which again in hindsight it's like kind of putting it all together for me yeah um the game gets weird though like that's why i would recommend it to people who are curious about it like pretty early like very early you meet your artificial intelligence like robot friend yeah who is i think taking care of your mom and now is just your kind of like buddy on on this this adventure um and yeah it's it is just deeply strange you also stare at a

monkey and then they join your party and you can fight with them yes that's true yeah you have to get in staring contests with it yeah um it's bizarre yeah it's just all very weird and i i i do think it's gonna find i think the people that this I do think it's going to find... I think the people that this game clicks with, it's going to really click with. Like, to the point that the comparison I would make is Undertale, I don't think it's going to find the same audience. I don't even know if those two audiences overlap that much.

But the same way that people really care about this game, people are going to really, really care about Norco. And in the same way that I really care about this game people are going to really really care about norco and in the same way that i like kentucky road zero because i feel like it is a game that is very personal and about like the political worldview of the people who made it i think the same thing is happening here and i think what might really resonate with this game for people is I think it's a lot harsher and a lot more cynical and, you know, less optimistic. Oh, my God. Kentucky Route Zero is pretty dark. It's dark, but, like, at the end, I haven't finished Norco.

Yeah, but, like, to me, Kentucky Route Zero is about, like, hey, America has largely failed, you know, large, the majority of its population. But it is through community that we can, you know, kind of find solace. Where I don't know, like, I don't know if that's where Norco is going. we are stuck in this loop in which no matter how hard we fight to break it, the second we think we've kind of made progress, this system just collapses back on top of us. Hey, Chris Plant. Yeah. It's Chinatown, baby.

It is. Oh, my gosh. I should have listened to him. I should have listened to him. Anyway, I think it's a really interesting game. I don't think we need to talk too much more about it just because it is, it's only five or six hours and I would hate to spoil it, you know? Um, but are there any, any other final thoughts that you have on it? I would say gorgeous game.

Like, oh my God, the art is stunning. Really good music, like presentationally, like immediately grabbed me and and really looks like a very few other games around so yeah if you just want to like soak it all in it is a great game for that and if you like video games that are cinematic or borrowing from cinematic imagery but in its own way this game really clicks with me in that and there there is a thing that it does early on that is i don't know if they did it intentionally or not but very nearly identical to a shot from bram stroker's dracula the francis ford coppola movie where these like giant piercing eyes loom over a train on the horizon and and then the train is on top of a giant book um and the way they

created it if you ever want to like see a wild like how did they do that um google you know behind the scenes bram stoker's dracula and this shot will come up it is absolutely bonkers um but there are a number of things moments i saw where it was it was recreating these beautiful cinematic kind of set pieces but in pixel art in a way that i don't feel like i ever see pixel art attempt yeah um yeah i i can't believe that the game is five to six hours long considering how much original artwork is in it yeah like it's pretty wild it's it is bonkers how much are they created for this game um cool how i i think that that kind of takes us to the end do you have any recommendation for the week no i don't think so really i mean i've been playing elden ring i've been playing tunic

it's all stuff that i've talked about before so i don't need to bore people uh that's fair yeah um uh you know what i i recommend a little movie called speed racer oh yeah is that streaming somewhere i honestly i don't know is it on criterion uh no it's it's playing at theaters in california right yeah or where i you know. I hear it's great. I've not experienced it, but. Oh my gosh. I know. You know what? It's a delight,

but it kind of has done that cult thing where it comes out, loved it when it came out, ended up being widely despised. Yeah. Couldn't really blame people. It's its own thing. Then it builds a cult status.

So then, great. Now it's kind of like equaling out. But then the cult status just keeps going and going and going. And it almost becomes like a meme. Oh, yeah. You know? And it's like, well, I mean, this movie is good. But there is a reason that it got kind of trashed.

It does have its flaws. So, yeah. I would set your expectations for visual chaos i mean you're literally watching wachowski's try to reinvent the language of film yeah which is a just such an idea it's it really is an incredible choice um and for the most part they pull it off and then just nobody wanted to use that new way of visual metaphor ever again it's a shame I think that's it we did it

we did another episode of the resties because shouldn't the rest of the best pick the best of the rest resties