The Besties - The Besties 64 - Best of the first half of 2013

Episode Date: July 19, 2013

It's that time of the year. The Besties gather around the digital fire to share fond memories of their favorite games, some as old as January itself. Yes, it's the middle of July and we're recounting the best games of the year, so far. Some of you might be surprised to know one of the games is Animal Crossing. But what are the others? To know, you'll have to listen. Or I guess you could read the notes below, but why spoil the magic? 3:45 - Griffin (Animal Crossing: New Leaf) 12:20 - Plante (Towerfall) 19:00 - Halftime! 24:00 - Frushtick (The Last of Us) 33:00 - Justin (Gunpoint) 37:00 - The winner is ... Theme song by Ian Dorsch Get the show: Download MP3" Subscribe to the podcast (RSS) Subscribe on iTunes 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!

I'm pretty sure I pooped out my ability to see colors in Mexico. I don't know what I put in my body. Like, I feel like that's like a, I don't know, maybe racist, like, trope. Like, don't drink, you know, don't drink the water. You know, there's something in the water. They have, they got, they got worms in the water. But really, don't. But super don't do it.

I didn't, but I didn't do it. Do you think when Mexicans visit the United States and they drink the water, they get sick because of all the Kmart's in the water? Because of all the what? Kmart's. Because of all the what? Kmart's. I mean, you keep saying the same word, but I'm hoping that one of the times that you say it. No, I mean, I mean, just like, I don't know, whatever gets us sick there.

Like we have a lot of Kmart's here. I don't think it has anything to do with the shopping on offer. It might. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best thing of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best thing of the year so far. My name is Christopher Plant, and I know the best game of the first six and a half months. the best game of the first six and a half months? My name is Russ

Frustic and I know the best game of the week. Don't. This is the besties where the four of us meet up, swap tips, swap kisses, and talk about the best in movies, music, entertainment,

sports. Not in that order. Usually we do kisses first, and then we give each other sports tips. Yeah. But this week we're going to talk about video games. We're halfway through the year, a little over, but basically halfway through the year. So we want to take a moment to take a look back. Look at some of the best stuff we've played so far this year. That sounds lovely.

It's been a while since I feel like we've gotten down and dirty with a slugger match, a punching fight. I'm not sure I remember how to hate Russ and Chris. Well, that's like falling off a log, but it's... How are we going to go about this? Are we going to decide at the end which is the best? Yeah. I think that's generally the place that we should do it.

I mean. We can try right now. Journey. Did I do it? That's fun. Man, we were so, we were so wrong with our shit last year. Let's, who wants to start? Do they ever get their trophies, by the way?

That's up to plant. What? Let's not talk about it. Okay, perfect. It might be on my desk at the office. Wonderful. In their name, though. Did you at least call them to say I have a trophy, but I'm going to hold on to it for a while?

Those guys have no fucking idea that they won our most prestigious internet award. I was thinking that what we'd do is it would'd be like the Stanley Cup, where, like, they never really own it. So once we pick the best game of this year, we decide if it's better than Dishonored. Yeah. Okay. They're allowed to kiss it. If they'd like to come to the New York office, they're free to kiss it.

Can they fill it with Jell-O? I heard that happens. No. With Jell-O. Who wants to happens. No. With Jell-O. Who wants to go first? Not me. Not it. Not it.

I can go first. Yeah, that sounds all right. Just so I can pay attention to other things for the next 30 minutes. So my game of the year so far isn't much of a surprise. Before I start, I actually had a hard time thinking about it. I've played some good games, but it really feels like the year is a little bit top-heavy. And by the year, I mean all years ever. Because most of the stuff I'm really looking forward to is not out until October.

Isn't that bottom-heavy? It's, I guess. It depends on how you look at your calendar um i it was hard i had a few my honorable mentions include bioshock infinite uh never winter surprise surprise uh antechamber it's a really good one almost went with that one but of course i have to go with animal crossing new leaf whoop whoop um now this is the one where you're a person in a village correct you're a person in an animal village honestly i think it's all that we've talked about for the past like three episodes so i won't belabor the point um but i've actually the last time we talked about it i talked about how worried i was that i was just one day just gonna quit and all of the obsessive amounts of time that i put into the game would be lost and

it sort of soured my thoughts on the game um but i've kind of reached this happy medium where i'm only playing every like four days or so i actually there's an ordinance that you can pass in the game that is sort of designed for the way i've been playing it recently called like Beautiful Town or something like that, where basically all the residents take care of the town for you. So you don't have to worry about like your flowers dying or a bunch of weeds springing up or cockroaches taking over your house. Like all of the normal penalties associated with not playing every day are sort of abated by this ordinance, which I think is kind of clever because that really was when i was playing like wild world on the ds which i played a shit ton also um if i didn't play for like two days in a row i'd be like well i may as well just quit because everyone's going to be pissed at me and my town is going to be covered in garbage yeah um but that's really not the case

and i i've been playing it at a much more leisurely rate. Instead of playing it sort of obsessively because I have to, I've been playing it whenever I want to, and it's a much, much healthier way to not only consume the game, but just live my life. And, yeah, I foresee myself actually playing it a lot more than I thought. I thought I was just going to quit it cold turkey full stop one day. Griffin, do you still have, when you're playing in this absentee father mode, do you still have objectives? I wouldn't call it, like, I wouldn't call myself a deadbeat.

Deadbeat Griff. You pop in every four days. Yeah, pop in every four days, bring a stuffed pony. Buy stuff in the store and then leave. Do you still have objectives? Oh yeah, I'll be at your soccer game. No, it's cool. four days yeah i'm hopping for four days bring stuff in the store and then leave yeah do you solve objectives things you're oh yeah i'll be at your soccer game no it's cool i'll see you right there ham looking for me on the 30 yard line of your soccer game i'm not coming do i still have objectives is that things you're things you're wanting to accomplish um not as much as i mean

i still do i still have furniture sets I'm trying to complete. I'm still trying to check in to see if Gracie's there to give me her fashion check so I can get the final upgrade to the Nook Mart. I guess I definitely have things I'm trying to do. I'm just not like spending all day of every day of my life trying to do them. I think a big one was quitting uh like i'm not doing turnips at least not now no yeah i can't i i just can't do it anymore which kind of sucks because like we talked about it and now people on twitter are like dude i've got like 560 bells

and i'm like fuck like that would be enough to set me up for life i'll probably hop in at some point um just to like get one final big cash out because i have almost every room upgrade and really i think once i get that i'm not gonna need the bells although i did spend 800 000 bells on a throne that i found that sounds amazing it was really i only had like 1.4 million so we're talking about like more than half of my total life savings. And I was like, I can spend this on all the room upgrades and everything's going to be okay. And then I got a letter in the mail like, come check out this fucking throne. And I was like, yes, of course.

It's made of solid gold and has two pitbulls standing in front of it. Like, I have to own that. Yeah. I think I'm at the point where i'm like i have all the room upgrades i'm i just finished the last theme challenge that you once you get all the upgrades they like give you a theme challenge and i just finished that so my house is made of pure gold how do you guys how do you let me ask you a question about this so we don't get too deep into how great this game is um how do you even begin to uh you know assemble sets like that i

mean like i check into the stores every day and i very rarely see anything that sort of even matches stuff i have or know about themes of the match or know about feng shui so that so the feng shui and the themes and stuff like that i mean that's all i've just like spent too much time on game facts by like reading like crazy 30 000 word explanations of the mechanics of this game the the set thing i would say is mostly like i'll just buy pretty much any furniture that pops up and then i'll get pretty close to completing a set like randomly and then i'll look for like the last two or three pieces yeah that's basically what i did too you can look through your catalog at any time and whenever you buy something it automatically adds it to your catalog so as long as you're buying everything every day like you're

gonna get a ton of shit in your catalog and then you just go through it and say oh i've got like seven modern wood pieces like i only need a few where would you start what are you helping what oh yeah i just you just sell it back instantly and then it's still in your catalog and you can reorder it anytime if you ever want it but if you have two people doing that like i was doing that russ was doing that and basically he would come to me and say hey i only need the minimalist couch do you have it and i you know i probably did and vice versa yeah um i i quit entirely because i know i can't go back i can't do what you're doing i i feel like it's like breaking up with someone i want to go back and do this ordinance that you're talking about but it's like going back and like giving the keys

like i know if i go back i'll just stay. Yeah. And I love the game. I wish there was kind of a post-game mode where my DS would light up kind of like a street pass whenever there was a major event. So just so I could see a lot of the cool things that happen, you know, on random days. I don't want to manage the town anymore. I don't need to collect

anything but there are these like nice moments that i really wish it notified me of uh yeah so i didn't have to check in every day that's sort of how i'm doing it though like sort of exploratory when there's something cool i i booted it up yesterday to go to that horror town have you guys been there yet oh yeah no that shit's super cool does somebody some one of the um like a japanese player the game made battle village huh it's it's based off battle royale oh i mean unless you're talking about another kind kind of it's it's so totally up to interpretation but basically they made four characters in this one village and there's only one path you can walk through through the village to go to

these four houses and assumedly it's supposed to look like each house was made by the same like little girl uh and it tells a story of basically like to me it seemed like the story of how this little girl was like murdered by her dolls or something it there's it just google it and you can find the little uh dream code in your dream suite that you just like type it in and you can go to this village it's genuinely very very upsetting what should people google hmm what should you google to find it i don't know animal crossing horror town okay that works i don't have to teach people how to fucking google i just i didn't know what you were talking about.

So go check that out. But that's how I'm playing now. It's just waiting for cool stuff to happen. And I genuinely do like it. And it sort of abated my one last fear that I had about the game. Dolls. Goatee. Goatee. How do you get a lot of bells?

That's my only other question. Beatles. Get those at night. You sell them the next day. Sell them. Christopher Thomas Plant. What's up? I want to hear from you about your favorite thing of the year so far.

Sure. Before I get to it, I'll toss out some of my runners-up. The Swapper, the PC puzzle-sol solving game in which you kill yourself over and over again um call of juarez gunslinger uh the bastion first person shooter basically thank you so much for pointing that was not going to be on my honorable mention but jesus if you have not played that game it's really good and it gets better yeah it's it's insanely good. Yeah, and Earth Defense Force 4, which is only out in Japan and won't come out in America until no one will play it

because it's going to come out next year once everybody's switched to next-gen. Wait, did you play that yet? Yeah, I played it this morning. Really? In an hour? I am a huge... It's like saying, like, oh, you love Madden and a new Madden's here? Okay, it's your favorite thing. But you don't even know how to invert the controls. I know. It's like saying, oh, you love Madden and a new Madden's here? Okay, it's your

favorite thing. But you don't even know how to invert the controls. I know. Guys, it turns out playing a game in Japanese is not as easy as it looks. Ichigatsu? Is that a word? That means January. I've been learning. Oh, great. I downloaded an app.

Shichigatsu. You got that Duolingo tip? I tried. They don't have Japanese, and that's what I want. Anyway. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, sure. No worries.

I'll just yell out random Japanese words that I've learned. That sounds helpful, especially because my game is Towerfall on the Ouya. So you're telling me back up. is Towerfall on the OUYA because that is the system that no one owns. So you're telling me, back up. I know. You're telling me the best game of the year is on OUYA. Here's what I recommend for you.

Okay? Just follow me. Get the OUYA. I'm behind you. Okay? Use your PlayStation controllers that you already have. Hook them all up to your Ouya. Turn the Ouya on. Download TowerFall. Buy TowerFall. Turn TowerFall on.

Never turn TowerFall off again. Don't turn the Ouya off either because your controllers will unpair immediately and it will probably forget your wireless network. So just leave it on forever. It's your TowerFall machine now. You're set set you're happy that is literally what we've done in the office yeah it's been on for i think like two weeks is this the is this the i know nothing about this game it is is this the multiplayer bow fighting game yeah smash brothers meets joust if well if you play the mode that we like to play or i like

johan sebastian joust or just no classic joust so the way the game works is you have up to four players and in the traditional mode you have these it's like a static environment 2d and each player has three arrows which they can fire at people to kill them with you have a dodge button and if you dodge through an arrow, it will grab that arrow, so you can steal it from people if you time it right. You also can kill people by jumping on their head, and it's easy to jump on people's head. Well, easy, because the right side of the screen loops to the left side, or opposite of that, and the bottom with the top does the same thing. Kind of like the original Mario back in the day. So you could surprise people.

Just to boil it down, because I think it's a little daunting when you describe all the mechanics at once, it's essentially Smash Bros. with one-hit kills. Yeah, that's pretty much it. With arrows. But what we love about it is, one, it handles so good. And the matches are always so very close. And the mechanics are just so clean.

Like, that option to catch arrows, the timing is just always intense, because especially if somebody fires all three arrows, there is a way, if you hit dodge at the exact moment, you can catch all three, but if not, you're going to get shot and pinned to a wall. All the animations are really precise. Like when you move past fire, it flickers.

You can have the hat shot off your head so you actually can tell when it's a super close call. But what I love about the game is the rule sets are like Halo. You can modify everything. Or like Smash Brothers. Or like Smash Brothers. Just continue that metaphor for me. Yeah, sure. But the mode we like playing is single arrow, so you're

very careful about firing it. It's an extended dodge, so it makes the dodge very powerful and you can use it to bounce off people's heads into wings, which turns the game essentially into joust. Because you're flying around these environments and trying to smash people. It's really simple. It's one of those games you just have to play i think to really fall in love with it because it is the mechanics it's like trying to pitch someone on

a classic arcade game uh but man it is extremely good it has become our chosen um game at the office when before we really didn't have any like chosen multiplayer game that like we all agreed was like a game that we could have fun with we play this like when like whenever we can get the chance the work hour ends we honestly like sprint in there and anyone can play it and anyone can play it you'll have people from like sales or production come in and be like, well, what's this? And they'll suck for the first match. And then by the second match, they're competing.

That sounds like that is quickly becoming my very favorite type of game. It's why I'm so psyched for the Sports Friends games. Yeah. It sounds vaguely like Baraberry Ball, which is one of the games in there, which is more like a, you know, Smash Brothers meets basketball or something like yeah but um yeah that sounds like something i could really sing my team if you like those types of games man you probably want the uya is it ever going to come to not uya though probably yes it will come out for something else eventually but they have an exclusive deal with uya for the time being um but yeah i mean that is why to own a uya i mean the best games on there are these really quick

simple competitive multiplayer games uh you know for your couch which is great because what other platform is doing that yeah i would say though that like if you don't have people regularly coming to your house or you don't have a place to play with groups it's not a single player device like you're not going to have as much fun nearly as much fun with just playing single or you don't have a place to play with groups, it's not a single-player device. You're not going to have nearly as much fun just playing single-player games on there. I don't know. I heard Minecraft is coming. Along those same lines, you got You Don't Know Jack,

another great pick-up-and-play multiplayer thing that you can get on OUYA right now. And Get On Top, a great game by Ben and Foddy. I didn't know Foddy made that. that you can get on the OUYA right now. And get on top. Get on top was really funny. I didn't know Foddy made that. I should have figured. It's all about the milk of motion. Let's talk about halftime.

Halftime. Hey, guys, I have an idea for halftime. What is it? We've been talking about all these besties. What about the worsties? i don't really like being negative oh shut up the razzies you razzle dazzle uh i i'll be negative uh fuck i because i played um can i guess yeah i know it's gonna Survival Instinct. That was the biggest load of duty. And I mean, I'm sorry to use that kind of language,

but it is stone duty. It is a first-person shooter where someone farts in your mouth for five hours and then it's done. Handle it. That sounds awesome. You did this to yourself, you dummy. Does it expand at all on the mythos of...

It expands on the farts in your mouth by putting more of them in there than was before. When you bought that bitch and threw it in the Xbox, you weren't like, here we go. It's on now. Here it comes. In the long lineage, including Lost Viadomas,

I am looking forward to a good television-based video game show. No, the controls are insanely awful. The acting is terrible. The story is incomprehensible. I had to play it all in one day uh and it makes my heart sad okay the end a story by justin mcelroy seems pretty definitive i haven't i don't know that i've played much shit this year um i'm struggling as well i know plant has played some bad games i don't know i was so excited for this section, and now I'm like...

No, I can think of one in particular. There have been really bad games, but I didn't have to play Ride to Hell Retribution. What about Aliens? Oh, was that this year? Yeah. Oh, man, that game was bad. That couldn't have been this year.

It was this year. Are you sure? It was February, wasn't it? February? Oh. I'm pretty sure it was this year. Wow. that game was like a travesty um i mean i can talk about that i don't know if we want to like i don't know if we want to bring it up because man that's just sad everything that happened after that game people lost their jobs there's all this controversy who do you sue where's the money going

randy game itself randy pitchford made the saddest face i've ever seen anyone ever make at pax east when he was talking when they had their borderlands 2 panel um yeah i didn't i myself cannot think of any like seriously bad multi uh gaming experience that i've had this year which is sort of a good thing it's also i've just been very careful with like how i'm spending my time yeah i had a lot of games that i got through gamefly and then sent back pretty much the same day i and they were games that like people seem to be crazy about that did just nothing for me um any examples i mean i'm i'm hesitant to say them because like metal gear rising or vengeance i got in and like there were people who really liked that game and i spent maybe a half hour with it and just couldn't see myself spending any more time with

it that's funny i thought it was highly highly diggable. Yeah, that's the thing. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, pick that bad boy up. Oh, god, yeah. I just couldn't. That series is impenetrable. Yeah. Those are both the type of games that people who really like them

that I know are like, oh, well, with Metal Gear, it was if you get past the first three hours, you'll really dig it. And Monster Hunter is is if you get past the first three hours you'll really dig it and monster hunter is if you get past the first 30 hours you're really gonna really dig it yeah yeah i just don't have a uh i don't know maybe it's my life maybe it's just my general like patience i i just can't do that anymore yeah but that being said that actually acts as a nice segue to my game tell me uh which is the first my uh well i'd be lying if i said this is my favorite game of the first half of

the year because really tower fall is my favorite game of the first half of the year so boom chris plant uh on that one it already remains but this is uh i would say it's certainly up there if not a close second actually before i mention, I do have some runners up and those would be Guacamelee which was tremendously good. Don't forget about Guacamelee doing its thing. I'm pretty sure this came out this year, but I could be wrong.

Runner 2? Yeah, that was this year. I also really, really enjoyed. I think I forgot about Guacamelee because I didn't think that a Vita game had come out this year yet. No, I mean there's been a few. Hotline just came out on Vita that I'm really enjoying. Oh fuck, I chewed the shit up out that game. God damn it's so

good on Vita. Amazing on Vita. So your sassy comment about Vita does not apply. I'm sorry, I just wanted to be one of you guys. I know. But my selection for, in the interest of variety, I thought I'd pick another game that I really liked, and that game is Last of Us,

which is unfortunately the game that I brought last week as my thing. So I won't harp on it that much, certainly not on the things that I already mentioned. I have not yet beaten it. I'm about, I think I'm probably three quarters away through the game. And I just really

love what they're doing. Ellie as a character is really one of the most fleshed out believable characters I think I've ever seen in a video game. Way more than like alex vance and half-life way more than clementine in dead walking dead like this is a beth always

or elizabeth for that matter from this year they just did a remarkable job with that character and the writing is great and the voice acting and everything like that. But also, I mean, you know, even if the story and the writing wasn't as good, the gameplay is really superb. It encourages you to play it completely different from any other action game that I've played like that. You know, encouraging like a highly mobile highly responsive reactive play style for each encounter that you have gorgeous gorgeous visuals probably the one of the best if not the best looking game of this generation not just the visuals but like the arts like oh the art design so we've seen the

world get fucked in so many different ways in so many different apocalyptic games, this is not only the most inventive, but, like, the most well, like, presented. Like, they have fulfilled their idea of the mushroom apocalypse. And it's subtle. It's not like there's a, there's, like, you know, it's, apart from the zombies, granted, but, like, the environments themselves

are very subtly, like, you know, they're dilapidated, but they're familiar. I can't i can't help but like every time i'm walking through a house like it's furnished in such a way and you see this extremely rare like you never see this in games that houses in that game are furnished like you could live in it like this is how a house would be furnished there's a couch in a reasonable place there's a tv in a reasonable place enough chairs for people sit down in whereas most video game environments like in houses you'll see like there's a desk and there's nothing around it it's just an empty desk and that's what's in that room and there was just so much thought put into each and every tiny corner of this game many of those corners you

won't even see because it's so free and open that you don't have to like scour every nook and cranny and it's just kick-ass i can't wait to finish it probably will this week it's so free and open that you don't have to scour every nook and cranny. And it's just kick-ass. I can't wait to finish it. Probably will this week. It's a little crazy that Nate Wells is responsible for a large chunk of the two prettiest games of the year, between Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite. He has a beautiful, beautiful brain.

He does. I feel a little strange when I talk about a game like Last of Us. I think sometimes I put people off because I complain a lot about them. But what I love about a game like this, and I was just talking to Freshstick about this, is that it allows me to complain about big things, like philosophical issues I have with the game or things about where story and gameplay don't connect as well.

Instead of, wow, this isn't fun, or wow, there were levels that I liked, but overall I found it boring or just derivative. Because there's so much going on to it, I feel like I have more complaints, but it's because those complaints are at a level that most games don't even warrant um if that makes or to put it in a simpler term so much of this game is leaps and bounds better than most of the other games that have ever been developed that the shit that it fucks up like makes you so angry yeah because if that stuff was better it would be the greatest game of all time but like there's so there's so like the stealth sequences where you see like ai characters running through zombies and stuff

like that yeah i mean the bugs and shit are like whatever like that that stuff doesn't really bother me anymore because i just with the connected age we live in i just assume that it's all fixable and will be fixed but shit no no that's ai work that's definitely not going to be fixed but stuff like if if i have to put ellie on another goddamn palette and like solve a totally brainless traversal puzzle i'm i'm gonna eat the disc like stuff like that just seems so unnecessary and and yeah i can clashes with the rest of the game that seems so thoughtful and so well thought out that it seems like the parts of that game the biggest problem i have with that game is parts of that game seemed like they finished the game and

said fuck we need like another two or three hours in here let's i didn't get that impression you haven't finished it yeah you're right you're. You haven't finished it yet. You're right, you're right. I haven't finished it yet. No, go ahead. I also have a serious problem with the ending of the game. Not narratively. I know we can't get into it, but I thought the story of the ending was fine, but there are parts of how they got there that drove me up a fucking wall. My problem is I think they are the best storytellers working right now and i think that they have the healthiest uh communication between the people who

are writing the story and the people who are designing the game and i think it really shows especially in how ellie works um and because of that when you have these moments uh that are very powerful either in a cut scene or just in gameplay and then the gameplay does the exact opposite of a moment you just had it's so jarring and kind of infuriating because you're i feel like i was buying into these characters more than i had with any other game. And then it sucks when it's like, okay, now kill everyone in this space to get out. Even though I had found the escape 15 minutes earlier. I had to backtrack and then go murder 20 people and waste supplies I would never waste.

And it's like, fuck, you just really killed an excellent moment. That's, that's probably a better way because, because my problem with the, without spoiling anything, my problem with the parts towards the end of the game is it makes you do things that you don't want to do, which is like totally,

it seems like, I think it's a complaint that phil probably brought up in his review that people sort of assumed meant that he was like bad at the game or just like he didn't like the game because it was so like dark and nasty but it really wasn't that it was it it makes you as the player feel like you just have no you have no input into what is going on in the game, which is kind of jarring because the story is so great and the world is so well thought out and the characters are better than any other characters ever

that you want to feel like you are a part of it. And I think that there are several moments in the game where you just, I don't know, feel like you're being spoon-fed. Yeah. Yeah. Damn, it's good. My game's got some moments. What are your runners-up?

I also very much liked Call of Juarez Gunslinger. Very much enjoyed that. You were right about that. Very much enjoyed The Last of Us. That would probably be on my end-of-the-year list. I'll actually be interested to see this year if we see a lot of these early games dislodged by...

I think we already have, haven't we? Nobody's bringing Bioshock as their best game. Well, I mean, that's true. But even the first half of the year as a whole, I wonder if... I think the general assumption usually would be, well, when the fall games come, that's really where a lot of these lists get shooken up. And I don't know if – I don't think so.

I don't know if this year is going to – that's going to happen. I mean, console launches, obviously, the push with a launch game is usually not – I mean, it's usually not the best showing. Typically, there's a big learning curve there. There are multi, like, Watch Dogs and it's actually for... There's a lot of good games coming out. Just snuck that one right

in there. Just gonna go ahead and drop that one right in there. I also would like to, everyone to keep, uh, I'd also like everyone to keep Candy Box in just box in just somewhere. Because that one, that one really shook my world up. Can I throw in two others that I totally forgot? And I think you would agree with.

Don't starve, but also state of decay. That was my last one, actually. Oh, sorry. Tomb Raider. Did that come out this year, too? Tomb Raider. Damn. Tomb Raider was this year too tomb raider damn yeah it was this year yeah it was on my list too that was awesome man wow uh state of the

cave is actually really really really cool um i finished it uh last week or so um an abysmally abysmally horrifically disappointing ending uh but the game itself is really fun. Just don't stop playing it. If you see the end coming up, just fight against it with everything in your being. But my favorite thing this year, I think, is Gunpoint, which is actually on Steam sale right now. I think it's like five or six bucks.

Or maybe a bit more, but it's less than 10. And it is fantastic. We talked about gunpoint, right? It's a 2D. You talked about the sound that you make when you attach to things. Oh, it's good. 2D sort of stealth puzzle platform where you play a spy trying to break into a facility. play a spy trying to break into a facility.

You have incredible jumping abilities, so you can leap across rooms, through windows, onto ceilings, and stick to anything. And that's also sort of your primary attack, is to leap at enemies and knock them out and punch them. Later on in the game, you get a gun, but that's not really a game changer, as much as it sounds like it would be.

And you also have a device called the Cross cross link which lets you go into a puzzle view and connect rewired devices and switches so that for example an enemy can flip a light switch that's connected to a power outlet and shock themselves or something like that yeah that's i would say i i mean we i think uh spoke at length about the the gameplay elements of the game it's it's one of those games that i found super super interesting when it was being described um but similar to rogue legacy not on macintosh and i really want to play it but it is not on a computer not on a platform that i own yeah it makes me sad looking forward to that uh actually happening so that would be great um but i i loved gunpoint it's got really funny writing genuinely entertaining uh a great great

great soundtrack that you actually get if you buy like the second tier version of the game um which is i think still less than 20 bucks. And it's fantastic. I use it constantly for writing, which I don't listen to a lot of game soundtracks, but this one's a really cool sort of electric jazz thing that I dig a lot. And it's great. The mechanics are super refined. It feels great. My only complaint about it is that there's not enough of it and i want more but that's mainly greed not really a complaint about the game itself avarice it's like one of the bigger sins that there are so obviously we're not going to pick tower fall as the best game of the year so far because Griffin and I haven't touched it.

I'm pretty sure there's two people that are voting for that game though. So if you guys can agree on another game that you want to vote for and then we'll slug it out between those two games. It's Animal Crossing, right? I mean, that's where we're at. Is it?

Yeah, Animal Crossing, I think, because you guys have to give that at least half a vote because you've actually played it is is that is that how the voting is that how it works i think we'll call it a tie between you think the griffin has won enough this year um but this is the only one that really matters so like i would really like it if you would i i would call a tie and and leave happy i forgot to i forgot um i picked up we should we should briefly talk about all of the many things we bought in the steam sale oh man it's i've only picked i've managed to hold off and only buy two things i bought surgeon simulator 2013 which fuck that game is good yeah i want to try that uh and grand theft auto 4 just so so I could download the Iron Man 4 mod.

Oh, no, download Ice Mod. What's that? Ice Mod is the graphics mod that makes it look better than GTA 5. It looks absolutely insane. Well, does it let me turn into Iron Man and fly around the city and shoot things with chest beams? Did you actually do that, Griffin? Yeah, and goddamn. How hard is it to get mods going on GTA 4?

It's kind of weird because not everything works the same way. Like, there's an external tool you have to download that basically cracks the game wide open and lets you alter files at your will. And then most of those mods that you download tell you exactly what you need to do sometimes you don't need that tool sometimes you can just like drop shit into a specific folder it's pretty easy justin it's not very hard i was surprised that disney was cool giving the rights to iron man to a modder yeah for the game yeah me too but um here we are yeah that's just that's the way that i get out of the jokes that you try to make so congratulations animal crossing you did it i've never been so proud of anybody in my entire life uh thank you for coming into our lives and forgiving us of all our sins hey justin

yeah fuck you okay cool cool cool uh do appreciate you listening maybe if Towerfall got on a real console we might be able to talk about it this is the future the future is Ouya can I download it on my Roku yes Roku is 6 in Japanese Roku has the same number of letters so it's compatible with Ouya by the way just

a note to Apple you're just leaving money on the table all these Towerfall purchases could be yours. Thank you for listening to our program. Please go to iTunes and subscribe to it. Please go review it and tell your friends to listen to the besties. We're all on Twitter. You can just Google it or whatever.

But most of our writing you'll find on Polygon.com. It's a website all about video games. We've got lots of news and features, reviews, videos. It's a beautiful site. It's beautiful people making it. So you'll definitely want to get balls deep. Oh, Jesus. I don't know why I said that.

A brief segue, I'm going to plug two video series. Chris and I have reinitiated the cooperative series so if you like cooperatives and white spaces um not the race the color uh you should watch it also we have a new episode of good cop bad cop all about the launch games for the ps4 so you should watch that uh we're a pretty big website. It'd be cool if we put people besides you and Chris in a video sometime. Hey, you want to come up to New York? You're invited.

I live in God's country. If you would like to come to a place where cameras exist, that'd be fantastic. Why don't we have other people in New York? We should have at least three to four other people. Do you not watch Alexa on Speedrun every day? I've not seen this show. You need to see it. It's really good. It's on every day.

Every day. I can't watch it's like, yeah, you finish Mario really fast. Like, I get it. I can't watch that every day. And thank you for listening to the besties. Make sure you join us again next Friday for the besties because you're the world's best friends. Pick the world's

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