The Besties - The Besties Game of the Year Spectacular - Part One

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

It's the day of the show, y'all! We've got a sweet sixteen games from this year up for the GOTY consideration, and by the end of the episode, we'll have whittled them down to an exquisite eight. Join us for a extra-long episode as we begin arbitrarily smashing these pieces of software together until only one survives! 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!

Can't we just vote on who had the best, like the most fun? Like, shouldn't we just be happy that like people made fun games? Who made the most friends along the way? Yeah. Why can't there be enough? I learned a lot about myself and my body through games this year. Thank you. I don't care so much about the self, but I do want to know more about the body.

Yeah. Yeah, it's just some, so I used to fake sick in school a lot. And so like I went to health class like one or two times. And so there are some places that I thought the hair was wrong to have it there. But as it turns out, it's fine. And I learned that one through Final Fantasy VII Remake Retro.

Whatever the fuck it's called. It was wonderful. It was a wonderful experience. I know I skipped talking about that one because it's extremely private, wonderful it's a wonderful experience i know i skipped talking about that one because it's extremely private talking about my private hair yeah this show is more sexual than ever and i love this new direction it's just hair justin it's natural everyone's got it not everyone and for for me it's battlefield 2042 that helped me learn about my my growing body and it's it's needs and it surges now that that is a battlefield moment if i ever heard yeah man My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best games of the year.

My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best game of the year. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and remember best game of the year my name is christopher thomas plant and remember when we only did this episode each year my name is ross farshek and i know the best game of the week welcome back to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive intergainment it is a video game club and just by listening you my friend have become a member welcome to the ranks this is this is as close as we get to like a a gala and in the year gala for the besties for a while as plan alluded this was the only episode of the besties that we did for a few years but we kept the streak alive i don't think have we missed a year of these? No. I don't think so.

Of like the game of the year. I don't think we, I feel like we've at least done this every year. But anyway. I break out my ruffle shirt and it hasn't been washed in 10 years, but it's still good. And it adds a little flair every time we record this. I want to propose this to you guys. No bullshit. That's my theme for this

year's game of the year no bullshit like just games games you know what i mean but like some trailers as well right no some exclusive reveals yeah some awards painted on the bodies of women yes obviously like yes naturally that's one of those things that sounds like it could be a joke, but actually happened. We have a lot of people who don't know as much about the gaming industry. I forget that I'm an elderly man. I'll deal with my own mortality for this quick break. This is what I'm saying.

No bullshit. We know what we're here to do. This is going to be a fight. I love fighting with you guys. Fighting with my, I call it, you know what I call it? Fighting with my family. That know what we're here to do. This is going to be a fight. I love fighting with you guys. Fighting with my, I call it, you know what I call it? Fighting with my family. That's what I call it. I like it.

We've got a list of 16 games that are going to go head to head. And how was the seating done this year, guys? Was it random or was it thoughtful? Chris Blank, you did the seating. Yeah. I mean, I would say it was pretty thoughtful. So the 12 games that we picked, right, those were in the top 12 seeds. And then the listener voted picks are the final four of those seeds. And then, you know, with the top 12, I just tried to put it

by what I think has the best odds of making it to the end. Kind of like a, you know, of any sports seed where like the best team is number one and the least likely to win team is number 12 or 16. In this case, it should be noted though, that the, all of the games that the fans selected, I think, except for one were games that were in our individual top fives.

So they were not like totally out of nowhere these are all games that we really really enjoyed um right i would say all these games i mean even even that one extra one is not not one that we were again no sure that's one we were into um but but let's get let's get into it can we yeah is that okay with you guys oh yeah yeah okay our first match. Oh, boy. Metroid Dread versus Loop Hero. I have been looking forward to Loop Hero on Switch for a long time. I think I talked about it last week. I didn't know that it had come out on that day, and Russ had mentioned already been playing it. And so I downloaded it, and about 30 minutes in, I realized I have loved this this game but also i don't really want to do all

this stuff again like it's it's such a its design is extremely compelling like in terms of like upgrading your camp and unlocking things and unraveling this like story uh but i guess i didn't sort of think about the fact that that was not something that i necessarily wanted to repeat which is i would say mostly on me because i played a fucking lot of loop hero on on pc when it first came out yeah it's a weird thing for me like i have this weird opposite of recency bias because i was kind of disappointed that i didn't have more staying power the next time i tried to pick it up yeah i mean i think it has a lot to do with the fact that you have to unlock so many of the features of that make the game super interesting that are basically onboarding features like it makes sense that

they're there that you you know know the systems and know how the different classes work and stuff like that but if you're playing for the second time having to get through that stuff could take five six hours probably and um that could be yeah a little bit of a slog but uh the game itself i think is fabulous i don't know that we can knock it necessarily because i think you know someone who's played a lot of it obviously will be at the end game where I think the game really kind of coalesces and bring, brings everything together. Um, I don't think it has much of a shot in this matchup against Metroid dread,

but I do think it is one of the most creative games I've played this year. Artistically awesome, visually really cool, a great like eight bitty soundtrack. Just like, I mean, I literally can't think of another game that I can compare it to, which is a very rare thing. It's also great, like, just chill. Like, you want to, if you're, like, want something to fiddle with

while you're listening to something else or watching something or whatever, it's, like, very kind of zen. Like, you're not going to get a bunch of like huge surprises yeah if you zone out for for a minute or two like very little terrible stuff will happen to you usually like it's it's a it's a pretty relaxing sort of sort of thing i'll be the one to push this off the boat because it sounds like the three of you are not going to do it i disagree i push back especially on the idea of it being artistically sound. I think it's a very clever game.

I think the design is really smart. But I did not feel worse after playing a video game this year than I did after Loop Hero because it felt so empty. And I think the problem for me is it's an idle game, but you actually have to pay attention to it so it's like the worst of both scenarios it both is too slow and i can feel it sapping time while i'm quite literally doing nothing but also i can't just leave it on the background so after i would play like an hour of this i I felt like I got a few minutes worth of positive video games and a lot of, oh my gosh, I can't believe so much time just got lost to this.

I don't really know what I got out of it. as much as it is like a compliment um were the moments where i could like develop a build that would be more or less set it and forget it yeah developing a uh you know playing as the warrior and getting like a bunch of vampirism and damage to all and regen and once i do that like this is no longer going to be a run where i get some materials that I might be able to build like a supply depot with. It is a run where I'm going to come back as King Shit of Fuck Mountain and like build, you know, a metropolis in this like shitty rundown camp because I just got, you know, infinite like upgrades. Yeah. Getting a big chunky sort of like overpowered run like that was was very satisfying but like russ said it's gonna take you a very very on a long time to unlock like

a lot of different types of cards before you can even approach something like that yeah and even then i because i had that same path then i did uh ignore it for a moment. And then I lost while I was ignoring it. Yeah. And like, that was absolutely brutal. Yeah. Counterpoint Metroid dread just to very briefly. It's like really,

really fantastic and accessible and a wonderful place to get onto the series. If you've never played one and introduces. Okay. Interesting. Trust me. place to get onto the series if you've never played one and introduces okay interesting trust me introduces like uh a really nice ebb and flow with the the sort of like more horror or survival parts that i think make it feel a lot more varied and really break up the the monotony very nicely um and it's great it is interesting that you say accessible because I have spoken to a lot of people that haven't,

that are like play games a lot, haven't played a lot of Metroid games necessarily and found it to be at times pretty impenetrable just because it doesn't give you a lot of direction. I love that about Metroid Dread, but it is interesting that- i don't think i guess what by accessibility i meant you're no worse i don't feel like you're worse off for having not

played yeah yeah that's probably true especially from a narrative perspective yeah yeah i mean the narrative is basically nothing i i think it's the most modern certainly of the metro sure yeah yeah literally yeah before before we send a loop hero uh off into the sunset i do want to say I think it's the most modern, certainly, of the Metroid games. Sure, yeah. Literally, yeah. Before we send Loop Hero off into the sunset, I do want to say, I think it's very clever. Even though it didn't click for me and I have my own guilt complex about how I spend my time, I do think it's very shrewdly designed, almost.

I think the visuals look great. I think Fr fresh is right and that i haven't played something that uses the idle game format and this kind of like tactical format quite as well um it i mean it's just going up against one of the best games of the year that's that's like maybe the harshest thing about it and and i think we should say just as a blanket statement, all the games we're going to talk about today are fucking great. Yeah.

There's no game on this list that we're like, and it sucks. If you want to hear us expand upon their virtues, like listen to the episodes that are about these games because they were overwhelmingly positive. Right. Congratulations, Metro Dread. We'll talk more about you shortly. Once you've earned it uh the

next one this is the one i'm dreading i'm really i'm i'm yeah i'm not looking forward to this one uh we got death's gambit versus wildermyth yeah this is afterlife death's gambit after life yes that's important death's gambit got launched in i think 2018 the afterlife expansion came out this year and it's what like completely sort of transformed it um i'll start with death's Gambit got launched in, I think, 2018. The Afterlife expansion came out this year, and it's what completely transformed it. I'll start with Death's Gambit. Death's Gambit Afterlife is a 2D action platformer, Souls-like-y game that looks... I would say its artistic design could best be described as... Its artistic design could best be described as it looks a lot like Dead Cells. And that's a great thing. Like the pixel art and everything like really pops. But it does a lot of the same stuff that other games in this genre have attempted. I'm talking about like Blasphemous and God, what's the, Hollow Knight and-

Salt and Sanctuary. Yeah, yeah. Where you have like incredible power to customize your character to have one that feels right for you. Like there's so many different ways to play the game, so many different builds that you can go for. And the world is very cool.

The boss fights are incredibly well-designed and it's the only game this year that I played and was just so enchanted by that as soon as I finished it, I realized that I didn't get the ending I necessarily wanted. And instead of like reloading my save and doing something else, I just made another character and did it again and beat it in half the time, as is the case usually with these kinds of Souls-like games, and enjoyed it even more my second time through uh this is a genre that i personally like adore uh especially this game which has a lot of sort of metroidvania elements in it also uh and while it doesn't necessarily do anything super new and um you know noteworthy i think it nails the execution on everything it

does it does do uh pretty astonishing okay i it goes without saying i really love this game as well because i literally recommended it to y'all i don't know that you would even have it on your radar necessarily because of without that recommendation. Why does it have to be this every time, Russ? Why does it always have to be this? I'm just saying. You liked it before it was cool. I get it.

Yeah, you were into it before it was cool, and now you're going to destroy it. I think it's an incredibly good, maybe the best 2D Souls like I've played, unless if you're counting Hollow Knight, which if you're counting that then hollow night's better but it's better yeah even i will admit that yeah but it's extremely good it i would disagree with griffin on the front of like i think there are areas that it kind of screws up

um you know no game is perfect certainly um i think death's gambit kind of screws up even even with the afterlife expansion kind of screws up a little bit more than it should specifically in the areas of character like advancement the whole perk systems in areas kind of lacking the weapon options kind of i don't know light there's only yeah there i will grant you that there's like five weapons in each different weapon type like there's it is not it's not dark souls itself where you can be like oh the sword of ramses's broken heart yeah the abbey's um i you like those games i do i love it i love that dirty shit that's what i'm saying is that that's just not nasty enough for you well yeah it's that's cooler than aldwin great sword plus four sure yeah um i you know i i really like it i don't know that it's a game that will stick with me beyond like the six month span that i played the

game i probably played it like four months ago um because it is just like a very well-made game that, you know, it's very good. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, I find it mechanically pretty sound, but I'm sitting here like struggling to recall details about this game. I have a question. You know, maybe a month ago. I struggled to get into this game, which is like not against it. It's just not my type of game.

But at the beginning of the game it like does that boot up where it's like initializing soul visualization like soul visualization.exe does it ever is there like some meta thing that happens later in the game that that connects to do you know what's funny i've beaten the game twice and seen basically i get the gist of what the endings all sort of propose. No. Okay. Yeah,

there is, it gets, it gets weird. I don't know how far Russ. Yeah. I know you got to like the weird sci-fi. Yeah. Yeah.

It gets weirdly sci-fi for a fantasy game at points. I can't like explicitly tell you where the pieces connect, but like it, it, it crosses genres. I, I would say like narratively isn't great there are certain there's like funny moments but it's very inconsistent narratively like well though

where they'll make like very goofy gags next to like very dark i don't know i i think the gameplay is phenomenal and the boss fights are phenomenal art style great just narratively it didn't land it didn't really stick with me i i on the subject of like it being forgettable i i can see that i also feel like this is a game that i will want to replay yeah no sure i replay like the old castlevania like advanced games games probably once every couple years, and this is the sort of game that I would slot into that grouping. It sounds like a keep-your-hands-busy game. Like while you listen to a podcast or have something on TV.

Oh no, it's way too fucking hard for me. You have to get dialed in. It is really difficult. I just figured I was bad at it and that y'all were pros. I mean, that too. That is possible. We should talk about Wildermyth, which is going up against Death's Gambit. This is not how I expected this to go.

I expected like more of a bloodbath here. We have not had a dedicated episode on Wildermyth. It kind of came out at a weird time. It's a game that I think we've all kind of come to over the course of the last couple months, but not right at launch. Plant, you want to like do the very quick elevator pitch on what it is?

Yeah, it's the best video game that captures the experience of D&D with a great dungeon master. Like even more than Divinity Original Sin. And it's broke up into two parts. There's like the story beats where you are shaping your characters and making decisions.

And then there's the tactical RPG bit where you're like dungeon crawling. Like the combat is fine. I would say the best part is when you're a spellcaster, you can like take control of objects in the world and you can upgrade your ability to do that. So you could really focus on taking over like plants or taking over furniture, as an example, or fire. And all that's good. It's like quite good. But the storytelling stuff is really what I just find kind of astonishing in that this very, very, very small team, I think it's six in austin um did stuff that a lot of more established video game developers have been trying to do for a long time and not quite figuring out can you can you give like a i don't know that i played i'll be honest i did not play this game a ton and i don't think that i played it enough to necessarily understand that how like it nails that that narrative element because for me it just kind

of felt yeah i i'll give you a a perfect example so i had this character who she was like just kind of like piss and vinegar always starting trouble with the group you can make people antagonistic with your peers you know you could say like oh they should be friends or like, oh, they are rivalers or enemies. And she was definitely the outcast and very greedy. So at one point, we stumbled into a tomb. And after like having a battle, I believe, we found this purple gemstone. And you know, it's like, very D&D, it's irradiating all bad vibes. And I was like, Oh, you know what what she should just steal it like let's just roll the dice and see what we get um and the dice did not fall in her favor really uh because the gemstone immediately implanted itself in her eyeball and hurt her quite a bit i believe it

took uh some permanent health on her so that's like a thing right well then as the game progresses because time passes you can get old have children and die that purple gemstone started to take over her body and i could say like don't do it just like let it stay there she'll just be only you know she'll be operating with a gem in her eye but i was like no let's go down this path so at first it turned her arm into a giant purple blade um but once that happened it just kept spreading across her body so after that it took over her legs and she became heavier and could move slower but she was like effectively a tank and on top of that this character was already a spellcaster. So now I have a spellcaster who can be a tank from far away, but if anyone gets close to her,

she just lops her head off with her giant purple arm blade. And that is what I am so impressed about the game. Even though the combat isn't great, the story and the combat interact with each other. So your decisions in the story are impacting your combat. And then in combat, I mean, most of my characters, once I got to more challenging quests, die. And that takes a real number on the story to the point where you can have a character almost die and feel like they betrayed the party because the party had to run. So then that character just runs away for a chunkier story.

And when they come back, they just don't talk anymore. Like, it's a truly bonkers game how much this thing is doing. Yeah, I think there is a lot of very cool algorithmic procedural stuff that's going on with the storytelling. I think some of that is a little bit i don't think it's quite as magical as what you're saying i think the game entirely relies on the strength of the writing which is phenomenal but i you know in addition to playing like the starter campaign which you know all the events that you just talked about happened in my campaign as well um i played a game that was just um procedural moments and if you're just playing procedurally there are a ton of scenes that will play out um and you have to make interesting decisions

where like there's one character stuck in a cave do you help them out of the cave whatever but it does not have like the necessarily the like anything can happen vibe that i sort of got from that first campaign because that campaign rightfully was really handcrafted every single area in that campaign was like a very carefully structured uh encounter and event that sort of made it really really special i would i would hate to knock it for the procedural only stuff because there are like there are many campaigns there are not many campaigns i'm sorry there are three there are three written campaigns and then a bunch of campaigns that are just procedural campaigns i'm not knocking it for the procedural stuff i think

the game is built in such a way it kind of reminds me of dreams it's basically built in such a way that they are showing you the potential here are three campaigns or whatever it is that can show you like how good things can be it's up to you to make your own campaign and write your own thing and then the community would then fill that in with a ton of additional stuff yeah the issue right now is that the community is not very large so i'm not finding a i looked there's not like a ton of fan-made stuff but i do think that it lays out and it gives you all the tools to do everything you can design your own characters you can design your own spells write every encounter animate every encounter it's all in there so it's

an amazing toolkit i just hope that it gets the community support to fill in what six people on the team couldn't personally do reasonably it is an amazing an amazing experience playing it i really would recommend it to anyone that is like interested in dnd but can't get the logistics figured out with like a group of people just try this and you will totally get why dnd is so special yeah i think for this one i think we move this one forward and justin and griffin y'all should give it another go before part two that's interesting that's fair yeah i think that's okay i i feel about the same with both of these.

So I am fine with moving Wildermyth on. Yeah, that would be my approach as well. Look at that. Look at us go. Next up. Oh, man. You got some drubbings in here, huh, bud? This one's going to be a stinky guy. This next matchup is Halo Infinite versus the Forgotten

City no it's just gonna make me sad because I don't know that we know which way this is going to go the Forgotten City is in what I think is a meta theme for this year in a way that

has to be happenstance but is also very fascinating of time looping and the passage of time and how we manipulate that and how it affects us. The Forgotten City is a first-person, I guess you'd say,

I would classify it as a first-person. It's not. Skyrim mod, but that doesn't- It's also not a Skyrim mod. They remade the entire thing. They remade the Skyrim mod. It looks a lot like a Skyrim mod, but that doesn't, it's also not a Skyrim mod. They remade the entire thing. They remade it. Okay. Yeah.

It looks a lot like a Skyrim mod. It does. It's a miss. It's a mystery game. Like you are, you're trying to unlock a mystery, uh, by methodically finding pieces of it that,

that you are able to use the knowledge you unlock. And sometimes the physical items you unlock. Uh, because at the end of the day, or it's a town where if you sin, everybody dies. Yes. Okay.

You should listen to the episode. We went pretty in depth if you're curious. Yeah. You're playing a mystery. And I'm talking around like so much stuff. You're solving a mystery, uh, about some sort of calamity that's going to befall this world.

And while this is happening and all of this stuff uh and the very cool part is you are the clues and sometimes physical items that you get carry over to your next loop you mind if i take a quick try at this please yeah so you are a modern day like person you wake up in a Roman town that seems to have not changed in history. It is underground. There's no way out. And you learn that you need to solve the mystery of why this town, everyone in it will be killed if they sin. What is a sin? That's a great question.

The game is very excited to figure that out with you. Yes. That is the central question yes and and very quickly you realize your purpose there is much more significant than actually answering that question yes you have to do jobs to help people all over the city odd jobs around jobs around town that in in this sort of genre's style like you learn things about the loop and then you can help people out more next time i think chris mentioned this first while talking about this this game in the episode and i agree the best feature of this game is this guy yes who character should

have this guy this guy who's standing at the entrance to this city that you wake up in every time you loop back and he's like hey what's up and city that you wake up in every time you loop back. And he's like, hey, what's up? And you're like, I fucking know everything about you. And he's like, oh, cool. And then you're like, go give the antidote to this person. Go tell this person to get out of the temple. Go tell this person that an assassin's coming. And also go tell this person to stop being such a dick.

And he's like okay got it and he runs off and does all that stuff for you so you don't have to worry about i was trying to remember like majora's mask does have anything like that like like when it reboots the day does it like no but you don't have to all that's all of the shit in majora's mask is like individual side questy stuff that you use in order to earn new masks and, you know, pieces of heart. But all those people are still sad every time you reboot the day. Oh, yeah.

And in fact, when you do hop up to that moon and save the world and go back down, you know, that couple's still trapped in that shrine. And that guy's still stuck on that rock. Greg. Yeah, man. Hey, you got what you needed out of them. You got that piece of the heart container and a mask. exactly thanks for the mask that turns me into a rock what a

transactional relationship link yeah you're not kidding uh forgotten city i found to be really really special i was totally captured by it uh it's not a very long game it takes like five or six hours but i was like immediately like really connected to everyone in the city and like very invested in their problems and solving their problems. I really, really liked it. I know plant ran into a ton of technical issues, which totally destroyed any momentum and enthusiasm he might have had for the game. But I thought it was a very special experience. Definitely one of my favorite narrative experiences of the year. I really enjoyed this game, despite the bugs. And we're going to talk about another game on this list that has this issue. The very end of this game,

and I'm not going to spoil it, don't worry, don't worry, but the very end of this game, I do not like at all. I hated it. I thought it was so bad. It's such an unnecessary turn for something that... I thought it was. I thought it was cool, actually.

I didn't mind it. I mean, sure. I mean, I liked it when so many other video games did the exact same thing. It's just, yeah. I don't agree. Wait, I don't know if you're talking about the ending. He's talking about the... I got it. Ending, yeah. It's just not. I don't agree. Wait, I don't know if you're talking about the ending. He's talking about the. I got it.

Ending, ending. No, not the credits ending. Right. Okay. The ending. It did. I know. You go in that secret room.

I wanted something that landed a bit harder. This is the most surreal thing that we've ever done. I know. Let's talk about something. Fucking Halo. Okay. I know. Let's talk about something. Fucking Halo Infinite. Okay. I want to ask you guys. I did not listen to your episode.

Interesting. It would never, it wouldn't even cross my mind. Justin, I know you. The thought, it wouldn't even, not even. But I was traveling to go to the Seattle, the Emerald City Comic Con. And I had Halo Infinite on my laptop. And I plugged it into a TV. And I just played a lot of Halo infinite,

which is a great video. I didn't even tuck into the campaign. I just played. Yeah. And this is like, I guys, I can't tell you what it is because I, I have played lots of Halo games. I've played lots of,

I've never played this much of a first person shooter, like multiply. I, if I've ever played this much of it, I do not, I do not recall. Like it has been years. I play it by myself. I don't care.

It does so many smart things about getting you to experiment and expand your skills in a way that like makes every match feel meaningful. And I know that some of the progression stuff is broken, but I'm not even that focused on it. Cause it's all cosmetic stuff, but the real progression. And I think this is lost in the conversation of like the, you know,

the, the weapons in halo are very, very varied and they have very different applications depending on the situation. And by giving you objectives that force you to use new weapons or creating modes like Fiesta, where you're given a random assortment of weapons every time you spawn, you are really forced to, you know, practice with these new things. And forced isn't even the right word because it's sort of like making it comfortable and easy because a lot of other people, especially like Fiesta, a lot of other people are doing the same thing. They're trying guns that maybe they're not completely comfortable with. And I really enjoyed feeling my skills progress with the way that this is structured.

my skills progress with the, the way that this is structured. And now I like routinely in like leading the, the team in, in kills or captures or whatever. And I know that's that if, if history is any indication, I will quickly be outpaced by people who have a lot more time to play and aren't playing other stuff. But, uh, I have just, it's, it's so fun every single time. So many of the weapons are a joy to use. The stuff like the grappling hook is great. There are pulsar that knocks people away. It really gives you opportunities to, even if you're, I think the best thing about Halo for me,

Infinite for me, is that it is the kind of multiplayer shooter where even if you are not the best at like pointing a gun at someone and shooting them before they shoot you if you are smart and thinking you can get the upper hand on people a lot by like predicting

behaviors and playing enough to think like oh that guy's about to go around here I'm just going to drop a grenade and I'll blow him up. Or that person has this weapon. I know what they're going to attempt to do. Like, I'm going to try to get one up on them. And it's so satisfying and so fun.

And that was all before I'd even touched the single player. Yeah, I think what you didn't mention, but I think is very important to this, is that Halo Infinite multiplayer is free to play. And I don't just mean that, right. It's free or whatever. I mean, the part of the reason that you're able to do well is because the audience

for this game, it's not only free to play, it's on PC, it's on Xbox. It's on a lot of, you know, uh, that's a lot of people that I can reach.

And so the people that you're playing is a much broader audience than the people that are like, oh, I'm a hardcore Halo fan. I'm going to pay $60 on day one. Right, it's brilliantly, it's really exceptionally able to pair me with people who are like of a similar skill level. That is absolutely, I should not say that I'm like getting great at Halo, although like getting pretty good at Halo.

No, no, no, I mean, it helps you to not leave it. It helps if you feel like you're not it makes it feel satisfying and most of the matches i play are close yeah the matchmaking i don't know how intense the skill-based matchmaking is in things like quick play or whatever but it seems very very good like i have played very few matches where it's just like a total stomp fest and compare that to call of duty where almost every match's just like a total stomp fest. And compare that to Call of Duty, where almost every match I play is a total stomp fest. So that is very impressive.

Sorry, sorry. It's a festival of stomping that they do? Yeah, we shorten that to just stomp fest. It's easier. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is that like stomp fest? Yeah. Is this a stomp fest with your feet,

or is this a stomp Fest with the city streets of New York, a trash can, a broomstick? That's not stomping. All right. No. The only stomping that happens in Stomp is when they're stomping their feet. All the other stomping is just hitting. Oh, that's good.

Gosh, Stomp's here. To be really clear. Thank you. That's really good. Which one wins? And I'll be honest here. I don't really clear. Thank you. That's really good. Which one wins? And I'll be honest here. I don't really care. I feel like both these games are pretty good.

So I don't want to get into the campaign right now if Justin hasn't played it. And I still think even with just the multiplayer, I would probably still advance. Oh, I've played it now. Oh, you have played it now. I just like, I thought it would make more sense. Okay, I'm not trying to force this issue, i feel like the forgotten city is cool very cool everybody should

play it uh for me i just feel like halo infinite is a more consistent success uh i agree with you uh i have a lot of thoughts about the campaign specifically but i don't know that we need to go into them now because that was part of my rationale yeah that was part of my rationale that makes sense all right so congratulations halo infinite okay uh outer wilds x of the eye versus monster hunter rise as the next can i talk about outer wilds really quick i yes can i say though i i because i've gotten some shit from y'all uh because i loved outer wild so much i just finished echoes of the eye yesterday oh and so i i feel i'm glad that i it's one of those games i'm happiest that i played before we had this discussion oh that's nice i think outer worlds like echoes of the eye has the best opening of a video game ever maybe maybe ever i i think arriving at what the DLC or expansion actually is

is one of the coolest things that I have experienced in video games. And I... What? You disagree? Sorry, I thought I was muted. Hold on. No, I forgot. You don't like good video games.

Yeah. That's the problem is you don't like the good ones. Go ahead. I'm going to let you... Please, I request 30 seconds about this game because I've made my feelings about Outer Wilds a bit abundantly clear. Yeah, no, you have bad ones. I want to say all the good stuff because it's on this list. You'll probably actually agree with me if you let me finish the thing. I think the game is incredible.

I think it has a sense of scale that I love. I wrote about this on Polygon that it does the thing that I always wanted from a Halo game, which is that you actually feel like you are on a Halo, and you're going the entire width of it, and that it is a living object. And the way that that terrain evolves is just so cool. I think the kind of like silent film nature of this game and how it plays with uh with the silent films that you find throughout it is super chill um here's my only rub about the game the final third becomes a survival horror game that i don't enjoy at all

uh to the the point where I just stopped playing it. And I loaded up a playthrough. And just watched like the final hour of it. And that was like a much more enjoyable way of experiencing that. They do some things to I guess like prepare the player for that. There is a option that makes it less scary. But the issue for me wasn't scary it was that the the time limit so the game is you know each play session is on a time limit you kind of like almost inception in this game like going within a world within a world within

a world and being on time limits for that just really was not pleasurable for me and it wasn't so much even stressful it was just like this is not this is this has ceased to be rewarding yeah i i i would agree that you know that that setting basically these there are these stealth sequences and that setting makes the stealth sequences much easier but i agree that they are not fun i i'm just so incredibly taken by the ambitiousness of the entire yes package that it definitely overwhelms my relative displeasure with those stealth sequences it is outrageously ambitious what they have pulled off in this standalone game, in the standalone DLC of an already remarkably insanely ambitious game. So I, I mean,

I look, I like, I love Monster Hunter Rise as well. I'm not saying I even know how I'm going to vote here, but I do want to say like, wow, Echoes of the Eye is like a special experience. I want to hear from Griffin because he literally just beat it.

Yeah, I was, wow echoes of the eye is like a special experience i want to hear from griffin because he literally just beat it yeah i was i think the reason why i put off playing the expansion to one of the most impressive games ever made uh and my favorite game of was it last year i think i think like two years ago yeah it was not uh it lost to secro just for future crime that's wild yeah i wonder who did that it was griffin second fucking kicks ass too anyway i i that whole game the whole of outer wilds is so intricate uh i just actually just watched the no clip documentary about the making of the game which i would oh yeah i gotta watch anybody to watch because it's so fucking interesting the way that like you know you don't think about how difficult it is to

make these spheroid planets that is the game setting like like super mario galaxy style and how difficult it is to make you know the physics of one of those make sense let alone a system with six orbiting like planets all that exist at the same time and all interact with each other and all are sort of physically accurate with each other. Like, and then not only that, but, like, the mysteries of this game are so intricately interwoven that it is clock-like in its precision. And that is so impressive. And I loved that game so much. I loved unraveling that so much. The idea of throwing something into it i worried would like disrupt the whole system right yeah and to some degree i think it does a little bit like they're very

clever about how they hide it how they hide the new setting and how they sort of explain why you couldn't see it before mike you couldn't go to it before um and if i go back and replay the outer wilds like i don't know if i'm gonna go back and play the dlc because it is so it is really cool and it tells a story that is not as sort of compelling as the core plot of um of outer wilds but it does introduce like and here's how another you know alien species did it. And I really liked it. I thought the puzzles were clever and sort of figuring out the mysteries of that world and how to use them to solve it

was like a microcosm of the Outer Wilds experience. For one thing, I don't know that it was as great as they did it with the original Outer Wilds, but especially because of those stealth sequences which i think are are are just terrible um you mentioned going back and playing it if you haven't played this game before or this is how i would do it if i was even going to go back and play it i would about it's hard to even know what halfway through the game is though i think you could feel it i would do the the expansion about halfway through

the game because i don't think it works as well as a post script but i think finding out that there is not nefarious but menacing like extra extraterrestrial, watching the universe that you're in is such a cool twist. And I think it adds a lot to the story. And so much of this game is about scope, as you know, that like the world is bigger than you, that the universe is bigger than you, that there is so much out there that you can't even comprehend. And I loved that idea that, oh my gosh, despite the game telling me over and over again that everything is bigger than I can conceive, I had not conceptualized that like, oh yeah, there was probably something even watching the entire universe that I was in the first game. I had a great time playing it and it sent me down the same spiral I went down the first

time I finished Outer Wilds, which is like, I want to know every fucking thing about this game. Like I want to watch 40 minute long, like plot interpretations and like all this. Echoes of the Eye sent me down that path too. The world is really cool. The ring world is cool.

Like, you know, these fucking space nerds who made the original game were like, well, we got to do a ring world planet. But it's just like, if if outer wilds is a clock then echoes of the eye feels like a smaller very similar clock that they put inside of the first clock and it i don't know when i would recommend playing it when playing through out of wilds because like i feel like outer wilds has this tremendous momentum that jumping into this like small scale version of outer wilds would maybe take the legs out of.

Guys, one love. This is DLC. There's eight more games to talk about, and you didn't have any attention on Monster Hunter Rise. All right, let's go ahead and have your 30 seconds of... I don't actually want it anymore. Oh, okay. On the other hand...

It doesn't matter. I hate this game. I hate Outer Wilds. I think it's because you're mad that it doesn't click with you because you know how much other people like it. And also because it seems like your jam. Yes, Plant Justify. The moment where you encounter the DLC is fucking great,

and it makes me so mad that this game, I can't get past all. It's so fucking annoying just getting into it that I had to get a walkthrough from Chris plant on how to like actually access the DLC. And once I was in though, I was like, okay, that was annoying.

But like, I'm back baby. And I'm loving it. And like the day reset. Right. And I get my rocket ship and I use the little thing to go back to the thing. And I like, I'm about,

I'm like, you know what? This rules. I'm going to keep playing this. I'm gonna keep playing this I've I was too harsh on Outer Wilds and I get out of the fucking spaceship and like use my jetpack too hard and crash into a wall and die before I

walk in I'm like oh that's right actually fuck this game forever please please delete and like put a like never let me install it again I hate this game. Five, ten years from now we're gonna be doing an episode because this show will just never die. Right.

And you are going to come back and be like, I can't believe. So I played Outer Wilds. Yeah. No, I, no, I, this is not that.

Like I really, it makes me furious because like I don't, no, except for the fact like, I don't like feeling like, this is the only game I had to play. I would be very into it. Like, but I, it's like, I feel like the, the only game I had to play. I would be very into it.

Like, but I, it's like, I feel like the, the, the loop hero thing that you described. Oh yeah. A lot of times I just feel like I want to be like doing like,

I want to know that I'm like moving forward, moving, moving forward. And I don't know that. And also like my progress is impeded constantly by these, like that, like I get it. I get it all.

I just don't like it. I like that about that, that it doesn't tell you if you're progressing but it is yeah it's a big change from every other game on this list and that like you you do not know if you have progressed an interim mile yeah uh okay uh monster hunter rise beats ass it's a good fucking game it's a really good monster hunter game on a portable platform and it kicks 10 asses i mean honestly 10 it is very it's basically correct me if i'm wrong monster hunter world but you can climb on everything basically yeah it does some a few things differently from monster hunter world and there's a grappling hook yeah i think it has a little bit more of like the classic like uh 3ds ds uh monster hunter games dna uh in that like it's very separated out into

into missions like monster hunter world felt bigger and a bit more open uh but i mean i i i i loved this game i played it like constantly uh and then about a few weeks after it came out we had gus and i stopped playing all video games for a few months uh and at that point i did feel like well there's no fucking way i'm going to remember how to, you know, use my, you know, hammer combos. So I'm going to drop off now. But there's DLC coming out next year. And I'm, like, very excited to relearn all of that shit in order to participate in that. Yeah, this was the first, you know, I talked about it when we first brought it up. This was the first Monster Hunter game that ever fully clicked with me.

And it clicked with me hard. up this was the first monster hunter game that ever fully clicked with me and it clicked with me hard it is just amazing to you know every the combat feels like super satisfying and the monsters look incredibly cool it's satisfied like every time you do a mission it doesn't feel like grinding it's like incredibly satisfying to fight even the same monster over and over again just because they did such a good job with the animations. And the fact that I can play it in handheld on the couch is insane. It actually has opened this new series up to me that has been closed for fucking 20 years or 25,

however long Monster Hunter has been around. This was the game to open it up for me. I think it's so interesting that this is the one that did it. I mean, there isn't really a more approachable Monster Hunter game. Even World was not as approachable as this game. I feel like World is more, I don't know.

I feel like World was actually a better onboarding point, but like they're both, they're both. Yeah, I think we, it's. We were, we were, we were suspicious that Rise would take the lessons that it needed to from Monster Hunter World, and it really, really did. Yeah, and I also think, like, it being portable

allows this game to do things. Like, with World, the second I realized, oh, I have to farm for ingredients to make more bullets or whatever, I was like, I'm not sitting in front of a TV and doing this for six hours. That's crazy. But doing it while watching Netflix

and, like, passively fighting monsters, like, hell yeah, it made a big difference. So I'm fully in on Monster Hunter Rise. I have probably stronger memories of playing Echoes of the Eye, but I would be okay with Rise winning this face-off. Yeah, it's tough because i i the whole package like i

did like echoes of the eye quite a bit but um i i god i just i i heard you describe one part as i let me check the notes here uh absolutely terrible i think rotten is the word that i may have used yeah i mean you can't get around it the stealth part is forced stealth in games that ain't about that you don't need to it's a it's a it's an interactive environmental puzzle game that's so so satisfying but also now there's spooky aliens that are going to kill you the game that wins the bestie this year there is a very real chance that the number of these games will have a moment that i would describe as very bad so i don't necessarily think like we should hold out i'm not saying i'm this is not my full defense i don't think echoes of the eyes is going to win this round i would just say be prepared for that to be a thing that we have said about a game that wins this year because everything

here has i would say a bit of a rub to it all right so congratulations monster hunter rise we are going to take a incredibly brief commercial break for this maxi length uh episode that's right we're not done we're basically halfway through so uh let's keep on cranking let's take a quick break and we'll come back right after this next up inscription versus psychonauts 2 okay so i don't think this is going to be a super tough decision because i know how y'all feel about psychonauts 2 but i do want to say narratively you know i've said this about forgotten city one of the best narrative experiences i had this year but there's a big caveat. It took a good amount of time to get to the parts

where I was engaged with the narrative. I was going to say, these games are opposites of each other. I think Inscription has one of the best openings of a video game of the year, and I think the very ending is not great. And I think Psychonauts 2 has one of the worst openings, but the longer you play, the stronger the game gets. Yeah, I wouldn't be that fatalistic about inscriptions.

I kind of agree with you, but I definitely agree that Psychonauts' narrative gets better and better as it goes, and I found it to be a really special experience. I still did not care for the gameplay, which is a pretty big sticking point for a game. But I think visually, like art design wise and narratively, Psychonauts is an incredibly special game and well worth playing, both for people that like like the original, but also accessibility settings that make the game super easy to just like go through and like if you aren't good at targeting or you can't physically target enemies it handles a lot of that for you um so you can just experience the story and it is a story well

worth experiencing yeah one more one more thing before we move on because i we don't need to talk about inscription we know it's gonna be talked about later i like that this game takes really you know dark and like adult themes you know dealing with alcoholism and grief and anxiety and then it kind of like wraps them and dips them in candy and serves them to a family audience because i i just i like when children's media is dark and vulnerable and gets into heavy topics and treats kids with respect and recognizes that they can handle these things. And they actually really want to engage with these ideas because this is a safe place for them to do it. And I think the game is weakest when it panders to kids. I think we talked about cheese jokes or whatever.

Yeah, bacon. I don't know that bacon shiters to kids. I think we talked about cheese jokes or whatever. Yeah, bacon. I don't know that bacon shit is for kids. I think it's for comedically sort of stunted adults. Go on. Yeah, but I don't think we need to spend time dunking on this game. We have limited time. I think it's fantastic.

I was too harsh on it the episode that we talked about it, and then I played more, and I was okay i i this game is is very special okay so inscription wins that round yeah is it weird that we didn't like we barely touched i mean inscription is it's really i don't know that we need to describe what inscription is but it's a collectible card game just like pokemon or whatever or or euchre. It's like Euchre. Or Poker. Nothing else. There's no surprises. No.

No, it's just the same whatever. Okay, next up we have Forza Horizon 5 versus Death's Door. Oh, fresh. I'm so excited for this one for you. I am not excited for this one for me. Where do you fall? I'm sorry, Plant? Where do you fall on this?

I don't know. Both of these were in my top five personally i think i had death's door higher um that store isometric kind of soulsie game where you play as a raven who is like like uh reap souls um in this like bizarre universe very cool uh combat adventure game and forza horizon 5 is the most fun i've had with a racing game in 10 years like it's the best open world game i think out right now i think it's the best open world series i i think it's more interesting than like all of these um shooter open world games where you know you go unlock towers and i think that is because the game is just like profoundly generous god that's so funny that you said that plant because that is when i was thinking about these games last night as i was falling

asleep and going through the list in my head that is the phrase that that jumped into my head with forza horizon 5 which i did play even though i didn't know talking about on the besties i did play it and like um here's the the best thing i okay this is forza horizon 5 right it is the first video game that my three-year-old played wow like wow she pulled the trigger right And then you move the stick. Sometimes she moved the stick. Other times she didn't. And it was still fun. Yeah.

Like ripping through, like she's doing stunts. She's tearing down a bunch of cactuses. She's like unlocking cars for me by like blowing through the scenery. And like, that's, it feels so eager to like, just eager to please like,

listen, thank you for playing a car game. We know they're boring. What can we do to make it more fun for you? And I feel like they really go all out. I really appreciated that from them. Again, not my jam, but seriously, I'm very impressed. It's also like any type of car game you want it to be. You can make this feel like Mario Kart,

or you can make it feel like it's not a car game at all, and you're just exploring an open world. You just happen to be a car, like in the film Cars, or Cars 2 or Cars 3, or Planes. Yeah, any of the cars. And, you know, I saw some people complaining about this online. They were like, oh, you know, it's such a hardcore player thing. They give you good cars too early you know how this game isn't you know tricking me into spending 300 hours

unlocking you know a porsche that is such a i'm so glad that they are not making their game for the most hardcore fan because for someone like me who's going to picket this game over the next two years, and maybe I see the end of it, just getting a really nice car up top and zipping through a valley and then trying to go up a volcano, that's all the fun I want. That's all I need.

And it genuinely requires a wide range of cars to do most of the things like you try bringing the porsche off-road good luck so it genuinely like there's a reason to have like a big catalog of stuff my my neon genesis evangelion liveried porsche with uh the off-road mods can go pretty much anywhere i want to share uh it's extremely good i i i it's hard to sort of put into words i hate for what it's worth i think they're very well made games but the core forza motorsport games as well as gran turismo games i cannot play i find them dull as dishwater the idea that you're like slowly taking a turn you know in this super car like why am i doing this and i hate brakes

sorry you hate brakes no i hate brake i hate brakes and and this game in addition to like letting you pick all the settings so like if you don't want to worry about breaking you can play it that way but you can also like slowly ease off the settings and say like okay i think i have a handle on brakes now i'm gonna like use that and you'll get like a ease off the settings and say like okay i think i have a handle on brakes now i'm gonna like use that and you'll get like a little bit of extra like currency for turning off that uh setting um feels really good like it's satisfying to feel like i'm more in control than i was previously and there is kind of a skill ceiling there that i haven't quite reached yet it's also funny like playing this and halo because

in this as plant said like you can download any car design of anything um of evangelion or whatever other anime stuff you can like put on any car halo meanwhile is kind of selling the color blue for your armor but uh that's fine uh i appreciate forza's generosity on that front can i can i read you the notes i have for death's door yeah because i i was kind of like i wrote down my notes before it sounds like that's the door i don't know i wrote another game that i've cooled on a little i really like the first chunk of this game and i really like the characters in writing i wish there were more people to meet in the world it's all very polished and smooth,

and the art direction is gorgeous. You know, I guess I don't actually have that many gripes with this game. That's fun. It kind of feels, I would agree, because I felt like I wanted more from it, but that's actually not a knock. It kind of made me want a sequel because I wanted to see more of this world.

It is that kind of intriguing and welcoming and fascinating. It's, this game mystifies me. I think maybe I feel about it the same way that Juice feels about Outer Wilds and that it is like on paper, my shit. Yeah, very Griffin game. But I don't, I have never been able to remotely get into it.

I have not. And maybe it's the... There's something about it being like this isometric top-down action game that I feel like makes the action feel not as tight as, I don't know, maybe a 2D platformer game would have been. I know I'm like, that's a really wild criticism to lay it to you. And if it was a football game.

Right, yeah. It just doesn't, the combat doesn't feel great to me. I find the world kind of annoying to explore. Like it is labyrinthian in a way that even when I'm making progress it doesn't feel like i'm making much progress uh i don't really love the like way that it handles uh healing and stuff like that like there's uh i don't find the upgrades particularly compelling

so like i there's a part of me that feels bad that i'm not loving it as much as everybody else but there's a darker part of me that's like, why the fuck is everyone so head over heels about this game? I don't think it's bad, but it just feels kind of eh to me. And that is disappointing, I think, on a personal level. Yeah, I know how you feel. I like Death's Door a lot um but it it didn't again it's not one that i finished i didn't feel like super compelled to to keep going with it it felt more of like a distant appreciation sort of like oh yeah i get it like it's i i appreciated what

it was doing but it wasn't something that like grabbed me yeah i'd agree about the navigation stuff i definitely was frustrated on that front but everything else totally grabbed me uh in this game i i really really dug it but i want to get kind of silly here oh what if we what if we just make it forza horizon yeah i i don't i don't have particularly strong feelings about forza horizon 5 but i was actively disappointed in in death's door so i'm cool with forza i mean both of these games i think are more or less on par for me um so forza works yep forza i i think i just have a warmer feeling towards which is yeah you don't need more than that yeah i think there is some recency stuff here but i also

i get it like i'm cool with either of these games. Okay. Two more matchups. Deathloop versus Unsighted. Man, I've been playing some Unsighted too recently. I haven't, I'm like nowhere near beating it or anything like that. Where are you at? Are you at the museum? You at the highway?

I don't know how to describe where I'm at. It's a future land apocalypse have you gone to a dungeon yet yes yes i i i hate that this is coming right after the the death store discussion because i feel kind of the same way which is like i love these types of games but for for whatever reason um this one is not i i think it looks um maybe someone who who likes okay i'm gonna yeah that's a fair i don't yeah i don't want to be too i will start okay death store uh fuck there's so many death games uh unsighted uh this is the game we talked about this we had a breakout episode of

the resties on it uh if you want to go like really in depth but basically the gist is it's a top-down action RPG where any NPC that you meet has a timer next to its name. And if that amount of time passes in in-game time, that NPC vanishes forever. They go, quote, unsighted and basically run off into the wilderness, becoming a thoughtless being. And you have to decide, while you're playing this action rpg that's very tough who effectively lives and who dies using a very limited currency they can be your shopkeepers they can be you're like you're literally you're like tutorial character it's everyone and you um i you know i talked about it in the episode but i turned that feature off because it gave me so much stress and agita making these calls but i do appreciate how

someone might feel certainly super attached to these characters if they were to start vanishing but i'm but i also appreciate that they included the feature to turn that off because man But I also appreciate that they included the feature to turn that off because, man, even with it off, it is still an incredibly well-made kind of Zelda-esque top-down action RPG. And one that I really enjoyed. Did I get to the church? I don't think so. I'm pretty late. I just finished the highway.

I think I have one more dungeon left yeah there are things that you might skip just because they're not necessary since you don't have to worry about time yeah but in the church and this is like a very minor spoiler because it is as fresh alluded to not like part of the main line there is a character who will kill any other character in the game and give you however much time they have left but you have to choose to kill them yeah huh yeah it's wild and you can choose to kill that character the character that is offering this choice yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah which unlocks a whole other ending path in a certain way um yeah there's there's a lot of like little hidden stuff

throughout the game that i i really appreciated which is kind of wild considering again you have very limited time to get through the game i i would say and there's a normal mode and there's a very like unforgiving mode and the normal mode it's stressful normal mode normal mode, it's stressful. Normal mode. Normal mode. He's sweet, though, if it had a normal mode where everybody was normal from Garfield. Thank you. I think it's forgiving enough that you can complete the game and you'll have some losses, but it's not pure anxiety, which is what I feared it would be when I started the game. Justin, you played a fair amount, right? Yeah. I liked all the mechanic stuff. I think what I'm torn on is the fact that you can turn the death feature off.

Because while, again, we've talked about accessibility a lot, and I think that it's cool to make games as sort of flexible as possible, even more so after our conversations about it. I feel like I understand that it's cool to make games as sort of flexible as possible even more so after our conversations about it like I feel like I understand that more I think what I'm torn about is it either I was really conflicted about it because I didn't like that part I found it very stressful but also like people would die

and I hadn't even like met them and that was definitely the sense of like FOMO like oh gosh who are these people you know what I mean like I should be rushing through the the other parts of the game which I don't like rushing through typically like I should be rushing through so I can meet all these characters and see all these people and like I don't you know I I just didn't feel that but I'm I'm conflicted about the fact you can turn it. Cause either that is the game that you're making or it's not,

you know what I mean? Like either you want me to have this experience. Cause it's like part of the intent. Like it's not going to land as hard for me if I don't have it or like, it's not essential. And I don't think it's binary. I think, I think they made two games.

Right. But like, I was sort of like, neither one felt sad. Like, I don't know that like what am i missing by not doing that like do you want me to do it or like is it is it important enough that you include it in your game thematically like is it narratively thematically important or am i missing like well i miss the resonance of it but i'm playing it without and i'm saying like i get the narrative hooks of it being there even though people aren't explicitly dying because there's still like story elements that like still talk directly about the idea that all of these characters

are facing this ticking clock even without that thing i i don't think it's a binary choice yeah it's also what do you want to get out of it, right? Like if you want to get just that playing a very cool dungeon crawler action RPG, that is a thing that you can get out of it. I think a pretty compelling story. On the flip side. I would also say mechanically, I did not. I felt like I spent a lot of time lost or like not knowing where I should be headed and trying to get from A to B in a way that like is even considering this mechanic of like time slipping away is like, it seems unforgivable.

Like, I don't, I don't know why that would be. I don't have a good sense of direction. Like it's, it's a failing of mine personally as a human being and like the fact that i'm like trying to figure out a map and while people are like dying it's like it was like i found profoundly unsatisfying yeah i genuinely think that you would have enjoyed the game if you just turned off or joint enjoyed i did not enjoy it no i enjoyed it more i think you would have enjoyed it more if you just turned that off and it wasn't hovering over you i i have a feeling this game is not going to survive this round so i just want to say a couple more nice things about it i did play the um the version where time matters and people

start falling away and what i liked about it even though i don't think it is like the mandatory way to play the game for me i liked how it got me thinking about just how i spend time in life and how limited my own abilities are because like justin's right there is a sense of FOMO there is this realization that you're not going to meet every character in the game there's i mean there is a character that i really liked and I kept sinking, you know, my resources in to keep them alive. And at a certain point I realized, like, I can't do this. Like, this person is going to die at a certain point. And I am sinking resources.

Sinking, that sounds awful. what i'm giving this person resources that i could go to people who i need them to have it so that i can complete this quest so that i can like save the bigger world and it raises some really uncomfortable questions of like who lives and who dies and what what are the burdens of a responsibility like that falling on one person and like, how unfair it is for one person to having to decide that. I really liked how it got me to think about both it's fictional world, but also like the very limited time that we have in this one and how we kind of have to live with being grateful for what things we do have rather than obsessing about all the things we don't,

which is, Hey, pretty cool for a video game yeah and on the exact literal opposite end of that ethos right is death loop uh who liked death loop the most and wants to talk about it uh-oh i know you know what man I tell you it just that was one that were like I was really enjoying a lot of Deathloop which is a it's like Forgotten City except you have

a lot of guns sinning is required there is only sin I honestly I will say that I other people may not agree with me and that is fine if you if you disagree but i do and i and i'm go for it okay i enjoyed a lot of death loop i thought mechanically a lot of it was really fun and i thought like the interactions between the characters were really fun. And I thought the last, the final beats of this game that is like hinting towards

like the overarching mystery of the game, the final act of this game and the way it all resolves and what it is doing like narratively and thematically is so thuddingly bad. And so like, I would just say like unsatisfying unrewarding uh like kind of like misogynist and like shitty and like has nothing to say really it has nothing to say um i found that like so bad that it retroactively like made all any enjoyment i had of the narrative stuff, like conversations and all that stuff,

like really, really, the bottom fell out so hard for me. I, guess what, Justin? What? Totally agree with you. Oh my gosh. And I don't think we're totally outside of the norm here. I think I've heard a lot of people with that sentiment. I agree that the narrative sort of doesn't,

they just don't do a good job wrapping everything not necessarily up but just putting a bow on it or as they were um even putting that aside even though that aspect i thought was like not good that the final act of the game basically has you doing like a quote perfect day which is to say you follow a schedule to essentially assassinate every major target in the game and in doing that it sort of lays bare just how rigid a lot of the systems in the game are specifically like the methods you would go about assassinating these people are pretty limiting especially when you compare it to a game like hitman 3 for example which you could kill someone in about 13 different ways in hitman 3 in death loop you can kind of do it with like two maybe three in each case and

it kind of made me feel and this again you think I'm talking about retroactively looking back on it. It made me feel like everything that I was doing felt like I was following a very guided path that didn't allow for a lot of versatility. Or improvisation, which is like, the best thing about Arkane's games is like, if something goes wrong, you have something to fall back on. But when you're trying to build that perfect day, which is like the solution to the puzzle that the game is there is there is no there's not much room for you to like get get frisky with it if one thing

goes wrong and it didn't even feel like a puzzle to me like you literally like 90 of it is running from waypoint to waypoint yeah reading a document and then running to the next waypoint after that. It didn't feel like I was figuring something out, which was kind of upsetting. I love the visual design. I think the level design is really, really clever and interesting. I compare it to the Dishonored series,

which is not the same studio, it's worth noting, but it is different studios within Arcane. But I feel like Dishonored, there's so much versatility that you can do in a Dishonored run that you just cannot do in Deathloop, and it kind of does hinder the experience. It makes me feel like I had the same experience that everyone else did while playing this game.

It is the same studio as Dishonored. Oh,ane leone oh sorry i thought i always confuse that in the austin studio yeah i know the austin studio is doing the vampire game yeah that looks dope we gotta move on but i do want to say it's funny how much this stands apart from echoes of the eye and forgotten city which is like use your brain figure this shit out and this one's like uh use your brain, figure this shit out. And this one's like, use your brain to figure this shit out, but kick that guy in this way and poison that one. And yeah. Unsighted one? I think Unsighted wins. Unsighted didn't put a sour taste in my mouth

in the way that Deathloop did. Hey, I'll take it. Surprise. Okay, God. We have six minutes. Ratchet and Clank versus Resident Evil Village. Is Ratchet and Clank the one that the listeners snuck in on us?

I think probably. It's for kids. No, it's for the whole house. No, I'm just kidding. I'm absolutely kidding. Ratchet and Clank is a stunning, stunning visual tour de force that is doing a really, you know what it is?

It feels like one of the best proofs of concept in terms of like, you know, we talk about there being sort of like a cap on graphics fidelity where like eventually you run into, you don't have the resources to process it and you don't have the visual fidelity. Like we don't have the ability to distinguish whatever. Ratchet and Clank is a really good argument for the way that like computing power can still like improve mechanics and like the way that that you can like where there's still room to grow where you don't even like notice it because i feel like that area of games has been a lot more stagnant where like once it starts doing things like instantly sucking you between dimensions and stuff like that you realize like oh I've been sort of

like you know I've gotten used to the way things have worked before and it really feels like a cool shake up it's an alternate universe where Knack was really good that's exactly what I was thinking Griffin yeah I mean it's like

it's like Mark Cerny's fever dream where he's like all these teraflops are gonna make a game look so fucking good that you're gonna shit your pants and then you play knack and you're like uh mark but then you play rationing you're like yes you did it mark the shit's in there bud you did it uh it it is very good they make some really good refinements to the ration clank format with like rocket boot cysts like the rocket boots are really cool you know there were story beats that i like were i was attached tos like the rocket boots are really cool you know there were story beats that i like were i was attached to i like the new characters uh it is you know definitely tonally for younger folks unquestionably it is a very good game that doesn't feel necessarily the most

modern outside of the visuals it feels kind kind of like a, you know, taking a lot from the PS2, PS3 era. And that's not a bad thing. It makes for like kind of a lighter experience. It's the best one of those. It's certainly the best one of those.

I would agree with that. And it's definitely one of the best, if not the best looking PS5 game around. I would argue by extension maybe one of the best looking games ever made. It's the only, it's the only game I played this year. I was like, holy fucking shit.

Yeah. I cannot believe this is a thing that I am playing and experiencing and not like a tech demo, like Pixar style thing. I know that we're getting to the end of it. I think we should save our feelings about Resident Evil for the next round it's the best Resident Evil game of all time I agree that's Village

we should clarify that's Village not for VR yeah which argument there is an argument to be made there yeah I know listen I gotta bounce I need you to wrap this show up without me but let me say this let me get my honorable mention real quick.

Kingdom Two Crowns has been absorbing so much of my time. It's so good. If you've never played it, you're a monarch and you're on a horseback. You get other mounts if you're interested.

But you are it's like a 2d side scroller where there are evil forces called greed that are coming to destroy your village and take all your money and you're earning money that you then use to uh hire people around town and to build up your defenses and to grow crops that you earn money from and to find sages that can help you improve your village and all this stuff. And it is literally like you are running back and forth between the monsters are coming from both sides.

So you are running back and forth between these two sides of your village, trying to like buffer your defenses and prepare for like the nightly onslaught of of greed coming to take your your money and destroy your shit um and it is and you're trying to basically destroy the portals that the bad dudes are coming through uh by building up your your forces and travel from island island like wiping the greed out and kind of starting fresh each time but it is i've been playing on ipad actually weirdly it was like a plane game for me but i paired the xbox controller to it

which is a lot easier than it was five years ago the last time i tried to do that it's pretty easy now i don't know if it will still be by the time this episode comes out but it was free last weekend on i on did you play it i downloaded i have not played it yet i played i accidentally played the original kingdom after your recommendation which i did not love as much but yeah two crowns was free might still be i don't know anybody been playing shovel knight pocket dungeon no i haven't is it good gang really it's fun as shit uh i'm not very good at it but it's real good uh imagine uh you know it looks like a puzzle game there is a you know 10 by 10 or whatever grid that pieces fall down on the pieces are enemies or potions or treasure chests and like you can guess what each one of those things do

and you control shovel knight or any of the knights as you unlock them while playing through the campaign uh and like the core mechanic of the puzzliness is if you hit uh one of those things that falls down right if you hit a certain type of enemy that is connected to other of that same type of enemy you can chain them so like any damage you do to one you do to all the others they can deal damage back to you uh and you have to basically clear out this board before it fills up or before you are killed by the enemies as you wait for like an exit door to fall down into the thing uh and you earn currency that you can use to unlock like relics and you know consumable items that you can use that will then show up while you're playing and it's rogue likey so that if you die or you get the board filled up at any point uh you start right back over from the very beginning as you work your way through

a series of levels uh with different types of enemies and an escalating like danger uh and you unlock other characters as you go and each character has like certain things like shovel knight uh more potions show up for shovel knight Knight, Plague Knight, you poison enemies as you hit them, Specter Knight heals when he does damage, but also is hurt whenever he picks up potions. I mean, that's about it, but it is so challenging and so frantic

in a way that now I have played a few dozen rounds of it, I'm getting really fast at it and you know keeping up a combo meter and unlocking a bunch of new cool shit and like what are you playing on how to survive switch switch yeah it's it's it is uh i play i was up to like midnight last night just like it is a very good one more run style game and i uh i've been really liking it point well i thought i i want to hear what you... No, I want you to do yours first. Okay, okay. I have a movie to share.

It's a snobby art movie, but I'm serious. Everybody should go see it. It's called Drive My Car. Unless you don't want to go to a theater, then don't go see it because that's okay. I'm sure it'll be streaming soon. Drive My Car, it's an adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short story.

It is, in fact, fact not short it's about three hours but i laughed i cried i cried and i cried cried a lot during this movie probably my favorite movie of the year very beautiful i hope people go see it so is the murakami short story also called drive my car no the i don't think so it's in that um that more recent collection he had the men without women men without women yeah yeah yeah yeah um it is great also i've just been loving adaptations of murakami like this and burning both cut out some of his not as great habits in writing or it makes them more palatable so that that's pretty good how about you fresh what have you been enjoying i've been enjoying a movie called refifi uh-huh which is a french

noir film from 1955 i mean i wish jesse was here people would um well probably recall and i've certainly heard on twitter that i give chris plan a lot of shit for bringing like really snobby art films as recommendations it should be noted chris and i have known each other for 20 years that has been a consistent mainstay for those 20 years so um nothing has changed he's very confident in himself and his choices there's nothing I could say or do that would make or remove that. And to that extent, I've brought my own snobby, snobby art film,

which is actually incredibly entertaining. Um, or Fifi channel. I'm pretty sure it is streaming on the criterion channel. If you subscribe to that, um, it is basically the original, um,

heist movie that all heist movies have sort of borrowed from in terms of structure and format. Four men plan a jewel heist out of a French jewelry store, and it's very intricate, and then things happen after that. So Fresh sent me a picture of just the word Rafifi. And I thought, this can't be the movie. There's no way that he has learned to like good things. This must be some children's music that he wants me to Google. That's raffling, but I can understand the confusion. I know.

I'm genuinely shocked and happy to know that um for people that again i know i know it's a little intimidating because it's a french normal movie from 1955 but if you dig that's not the word i would use that's not the word i would use boring yeah yeah yeah that's probably the one i would use okay i'm just saying if you like reservoir dogs if you like oceans 11 if you like those sorts of movies this very much was the progenitor to those movies so if you ever want to see that and be entertained there's a 30 minute completely silent heist sequence in this movie that is fucking awesome so highly recommend it snobby art film over this rules do you want to thank some people fresh

yes thank you to the following people for writing reviews on apple podcast prior z thousand autumns wet squad gamma ray 18 and bail zander 667 thank you for writing reviews on apple podcasts as well as everyone else who has written reviews thank thank you as well. I would name you all, but it would take... I think Thousand Autumns is not David Mitchell. Whoever left that, good job. Excited for The Matrix now, with a great writer writing The Matrix. Anyway, we're getting back into Snobby Town.

Here are the winners. I'm just the winners. The winners of this round, Metroid Dread, Wildermyth halo infinite monster hunter rise inscription forza horizon 5 unsighted resident evil village we also talked about kingdom two crowns and shovel knight pocket dungeon and that's it enjoy my car not game so yeah the next episode that you hear of this show will be us pitting those eight games against each other and seeing who comes out on top this was a this is one

of the more surprising first part of the goatee process for me yeah excited at the games that made it through um but yeah that'll be next week and that'll be our last episode of the year. Last episode of the year. Yes. So please join us again for that. And thank you for listening and adding your submissions to this list. We were pretty critical this time, but again, all of these games are good. We just have to, you know,

we gotta be tough choices. You can follow us at TheBestiesPod, or you can leave a really nice review on Apple Podcasts. We love nice reviews, especially this time of the year. It's the giving season. Yeah, so join us again next week as we wrap this bad boy up and then enter a drought of unimaginable proportions. But then at some point there will

be cool games to talk about hey griff and i do have a question before we wrap up yeah shouldn't the best friends pick the world's best game you messed it up oh my gosh did i riff it shouldn't

the world's best friends oh yeah pick the world's best games it could not matter less goodbye everybody bye It could not matter less. Goodbye, everybody. Bye. Besties!