The Besties - The Besties Podcast 36

Episode Date: November 26, 2012

The Besties all trekked off for Thanksgiving last week, but before did, they wanted to share their thoughts on the Wii U! Yes, it's an entire episode dedicated to Nintendo's latest gaming console. Oh, and there's also a special guest who hasn't shown his neck in a while. 01:20 - The Console 11:20 - Nintendo Land 33:50 - Halftime: NYG is going home for the holidays 40:35 - ZombiU 51:00 - THE DECISION 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!

So here's the issue that I have with stickers in general. I remember when I was in like third grade uh there was a little girl and she had like all the coolest stickers you know like the ones with the oil in them and the furry ones and all I wanted to do was steal her stickers but she'd already used them so it would have required stealing the notebook as well and I felt too bad to do that. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Chris Plant, and I've got a bagel in my mouth.

My name is Ross Frost, and I know the best game of the week. This is The Besties, where the four of us talk about the newest, latest, greatest, hottest, sweetest games of the week. And bagels. The most fuckable games of 2012. The most fuckable games of 2012. Drop the skirts and get ready to blast. I'm going to fuck these games. No. No.

Let's fuck some games. This week is the Wii U. Arrived at the beginning of this week on Sunday. 9 a.m. some places. Midnight other places. I actually have one reserved from Toys R Us. It has not made its way to me, but I thought, hey, why don't I just go to Walmart and see if they got them? It was that easy for you.

It was that easy. I walked into Walmart and said, yo, dog, can I get some Skol and also a Wii U? And he said, and he was like, yeah, this is the last one. And he was like, and he had that, when he was selling it to me, you kind of could see that expression on his face where like he knew this was the last time in 2012 when someone would call him and be like do you have a wii u and he could say yep after after this sale he was just committing himself to two months of nope nope i was really sad you went that way i was hoping you're gonna

say yeah this is the last one and there are 12 we use over there because they're all out of skull Yeah, no, no, sorry No It was the last it was the last premium I mean just like out of skull and it's just it's so ridiculous to think that any retail chain in West Virginia would run out Of school there are gaps There are there are gaps life There are old navies that have tons and tons of skull in the back room.

So the popular seems to be all gone, pretty much. You can't really find them? Yeah. Well, they've said that they're going to try and replenish stock as quickly as they possibly can. Nintendo said that? Reggie said that. Well, that'll be really easy, because they have giant

warehouses full of them. Reggie said something like like it takes a long time to get them onto the boats it's like all right man that sounds vaguely racist um so let's let's set things up because i i don't have a wii u i've played one for maybe four wait wait we're getting ahead of ourselves because we need to remind the audience what our game of the year is. Oh. Well, I guess it could technically be dethroned. Our current game of the year is Cod Blobs 2, which I think we've all been playing quite a bit.

Actually, I don't know if Plant has been playing some, but that shit has matured. It has matured very well for me. The only thing that I'm starting to not dig is that the player base, and this happens with every Call of Duty game, and you kind of just got to keep up with it. The player base is getting so good.

Like, the matches that I get into now, it used to be like, every third match I'd get in, I would be up against, like, guys who are way, way better than me. And now it's like, pretty much half the time, I'm going up against people

who are like quad way better than me. And now it's like pretty much half the time I'm going up against people who are like quadruple prestige. Like, get your shit together, man. Seriously, people. Get it together, dude. Build your lives. Do something else. Yeah, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I've played more of the campaign too.

The Strike Force missions are a complete joke. Yes, they are. But I'm enjoying the regular campaign, too. The Strike Force missions are a complete joke. Yes, they are. But I'm enjoying the regular campaign well enough. Doesn't go anywhere. Okay. There's been a lot of interesting... I've liked the regular campaign. I keep playing more of it.

I keep waiting for the bottom to fall out. But I'm still pretty much enjoying it. It's so varied. That nightclub... I love the nightclub shootout part. That was hot. That's one of the two levels that I really dug about the campaign. There was a really cool, I thought the horseback

bit was... That was the other level. Those are the two levels I liked. Okay. You didn't like the swinging and the wingsuit? Yeah, that lasted for about 30 seconds. It was essentially a quick time event. So I will eventually name something in this campaign that you didn't like in this campaign

you hated, right? We'll eventually stumble on something you didn't like, right? Yeah, maybe. In this campaign you hated? Maybe. Maybe just being fickle. Maybe we'll just name one thing in it that is not good. There's a moment where you get the point of view, play from the point of view of the bad guy and that was the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

I like that part. It gave me a murder boner. Yeah. So that's our current game. We'll see if we can dethrone it with any wii u stuff probably not guys can we just before we get into the wii u one one more thing uh sonic uh sega all-star racing transformed oh settle down it's a it's a real it's a real good game and i'm saying it now because i know what's gonna happen happen. You're going to go, save it for next week. And then everyone's going to get to next week, and they're going to be like, this game, we have too many good games to talk about.

Well, because we do. We have better games to talk about. Listen, I won't do that, Chris. Here, let me never talk about it again. Let's say right now we are going to circle back around because there is a ton of shit out this week, and there's basically nothing left to come out this year, except for Far Cry 3. So, like, we're gonna

have to come back to, I've been playing Persona 4 Golden out the ass, and it's phenomenal, and I want to talk about how great it is. And you can play with your ass, so that's cool. And PlanetSide 2 is out this week, and Hitman Blood Money is out, Hitman Blood Money 2. Oh, yeah, I just downloaded that.

The bloodiest money. We are going to have stuff to talk about next week, but how often is it that a new console launches? I mean, it only happened once already this year. Which part? The Vitae. Didn't it happen twice? Didn't the 3DS come out this year, too?

3DS XL did, yeah. If we count me buying a PC, it happened three times. Yeah, we do count that. We do count that. Absolutely, we do. So the Wii U, I haven't played it that much. I want you guys to approach this episode. Imagine me, I'm Jennifer Connelly in the labyrinth, okay?

Mm-hmm. That's the end of the metaphor. It's a movie, for those of you who don't know. Jennifer Connelly, wait. I'm wandering through this maze. I don't know, Jennifer, wait, I'm wondering through this maze. I don't know. Am I Bowie or what's the deal? That's everybody.

Let's see how your pants. I let's see junk through the pants and let's do a comparison. That's the only way we're going to figure it out. Justin knows Fushigi. So I think he's one step ahead because he does all that bubble juggling. It's magic. There we go. Um,

I, so the Wii U, if you do not know, there we go I so the Wii U if you do not know is a console from Nintendo imagine if you will a 360 but instead of a

normal controller your gamepad had a very large screen in the middle of it and looked sort of like a uh look like a massive game gear if you can imagine playing 360 games with a dual analog game gear uh or links perhaps uh that that is the experience and almost identical the battery life of those two systems. Remarkably. Right. So I've been playing, my first experience with the Wii U was I took Nintendo Land over to my in-laws' house. And I use them as sort of a test bed for these things. You have two people who aren't super into games.

And then you have my sister-in-law, Riley, who's 12, and she is sort of grown up on games but doesn't play a ton of more hardcore games.

I think her favorites are usually like Motion Control and Kinect and stuff like that. And Skull. It was a huge hit over there. At least Nintendo Land was. It's packed full of really neat mini games. Well, let's not say packed full. There's like a lot on there.

There are a lot, but are they all neat is the better question. I think all the multiplayer ones are pretty darn cool um and and we're a big hit even the super simple ones uh for instance there's one game uh mario chase where one player is mario and they have an overhead and you're in a circular maze uh and one player is mario and he has an overhead view of the maze uh and he's running away from the other two players or three players or four players however many have who are uh looking for him but don't they're toad they're looking for him but they don't have the overhead view so mario has the advantage of being able to see where everybody is

and being able to avoid them that way and he's running away from the others and it's very simple like so simple but it works it's a new experience that is only possible with the Wii U console. Or with bed sheets

have you seen those mockups that people do at home where they like instead of like to prevent screen sharing screen looking looking, they, like, set up intricate. Essentially, it's an entire console based around not having to do an intricate screen looking setup. Because otherwise, all of these games could be done with, like, bed sheets and cardboard. My friend John Mahaffey in college actually set up a, like, he split the video signal and then he put duct tape cardboard to half of each of the – So he had a first look at the Wii U way back then. No.

I think so far the best example of what it is capable of – and I'm just going to get my sort of opinion out of the way and then I I want to hear from you guys, because I know you spend a ton of time with it, too. But I just spent the last hour playing Zombie U, which I guess I should wait to talk about that by itself. But, yeah, I will wait until we get to Zombie U a little bit later, because I think it helps to really exemplify what the system is so good at and the potential for it that I find really exciting. But so far, I'm pretty high on it. I've really enjoyed all the time that I've spent with it. So just speaking, we get to talk about Nintendo Land for a second because I feel like if you're buying the system

and you buy the deluxe edition, which you should because the other edition is so ridiculously worthless that you shouldn't uh so if you buy the deluxe you're getting nintendo land anyway and my attitude about nintendo land is a few of the mini games are terrific mario chase completely agree with you ton of fun also probably even better than mario chase is uh luigi's ghost mansion which essentially it's almost like stealth where Ton of fun. Also, probably even better than Mario Chase is Luigi's Ghost Mansion, which essentially it's almost like stealth where one person with the gamepad is playing the ghost, and they're invisible to everyone on screen, everyone that's using Wii remotes.

And as you get closer to those players as the ghost, their controllers will vibrate, and they're trying to like desperately like shine you in the face of the flashlight it's super super cool and like animal crossing candy time no no that's not bad it's totally unbalanced yeah uh that yeah so those are the two that i liked this like metroid is okay it's like you know you're shooting stuff but it feels mostly pretty standard the games you've played um and then it devolves into bad like the zelda game i don't think is good at all the um f-zero game i don't think is good at all well the f-zero game is it has bad i actually

think the single-player games are pretty good i think you can almost divide it up cooperative games are great or like the uh not cooperative the competitive games are pretty good. I think you can almost divide it up. Cooperative games are great. Not cooperative. The competitive games are great. So Mario Chase, Luigi's Ghost Mansion, and to a degree Animal Crossing, Poop Your Candy, or whatever it's called. Barf Your Candy. Wait, is that the one where you're

spotting... In the Animal Crossing game, you have players trying to collect candy. But you slow down when you have too much candy so you have to bark you have to literally you have to jam your fingers down your throat and force yourself to vomit and it's yeah it's it's horrifying it seems a little too bad then you have two people who are running around trying to it's actually one person using both sticks in the game path right right yeah yeah, right. Yeah, but they are running around trying to tackle the people collecting candy.

And it seems kind of weighted towards... Games that aren't good are competitive. There's this weird thing that happens when one person is on the screen. When one person is using the gamepad and helping out with the other people. I actually flipped this, sorry. I totally screwed up. The cooperative games are the ones that are problem which is metroid which is uh zelda and which is pikmin where you're working with people but you're staring down into the gamepad because it's so awkward looking into this tv seeing something that the other people you're collaborating with

can't see and then trying to communicate and ultimately what i felt like kept happening when we played it is the person with the gamepad would just stop talking yeah uh which is really weird uh i mean that was good for me because i didn't have to hear chris talking but other than that it really ruined the gameplay um also the games are just incredibly repetitive uh yeah i mean they just keep going in each level is more or less the same except for a boss fight okay so that we've talked about the good competitive games the bad cooperative games and f-zero is a single player game and that is also bad i watched you suffer through that the problem with f-zero is just that it relies on this jump move at the end of the game which if you want to finish it though all the single player games are very like arcadey,

where you have to complete them a certain number of lives. And F-Zero is the worst because it's one life. And there's a mechanic that requires you to jump, and it will throw you off the track for no reason. And after, you know, playing for 10 minutes straight, trying to beat the darn thing, it forces you to do like six jumps in a row. Not only that,0 f0 relies

on gyroscope aiming to like steer you can't use the controller from the uh from the sensor bar yeah and it it's not from the sensor bar it's from the gyroscope inside oh yeah yeah yeah because it actually is a sensor bar because when we did it without the sensor bar it never happened it whatever this is getting super technical. Is there a living human being on Earth who prefers that? Who prefers gyroscope controls for steaming? No. So the real problem with it

is not only are they inaccurate, the gyroscope is incapable of remaining accurate for three minutes. So in the middle of the race, in the middle of the race rigid corpse in the middle of the race you will have to realign the gyroscope the game like pauses you're at a quote-unquote checkpoint and they're like put your gamepad down so we can realign that is a sign that your game's broken when you need people

to recalibrate in the middle of the game r Russ, can you describe what I looked like by the end of the race? Yeah, so Chris probably retried and retried the F-Zero race about 30 times. And by the end of it, it was like his soul had been broken. It was like a horror crux. His soul had been broken at the 17th. And someone needed to journey out and kill all of them to make sure he was dead for real he Was so upset and the gyroscope

Got so far off of Its alignment during like one big race So like i'm at nine minutes of a 10 minute race Right and i can't lose so I just to go straight on Screen i am i'm facing Behind me my Body is tilted sideways

Like my the top my body is tilted and then leaning forward so i'm literally my my legs are looking forward my back is twisting totally around behind the couch and i'm looking beneath the couch i i would say it's the best simulation of dui ever oh my gosh it was awful but before we trash all the single player, there are some really good single player games. I think actually the Ninja Star game, which was awful. Oh, I would shut up. That's not really good. It's okay.

It's good. The Donkey Kong game where you ride around the course trying not to break your little car, I think is probably my favorite game in the collection other than Luigi's Ghost Mansion. I think they're really fun. Brief segue. Why do you think Luigi bought this mansion

knowing that it's a ghost mansion? He didn't, dude. Read the fucking canon, bro. It's called a ghost mansion. His uncle died and he has to stay a night in it. He won it in a contest, I thought. Wait, what? In the first game, he won it in the original Luigi's Mansion.

He won it in a contest. And now he's just sticking it out? Yeah. It's been years, and he's just like, meh, I'll deal with it. How does he have the taxes, you know? Because that happens to people. They win these great things, but then they can't pay the taxes on them. And I feel like that's the real horror story story it also explains why he's so scared all the

time because he lives in a ghost mansion and because he's always evading the irs um guys look really quick though let's talk about zombie you well no no no no we need to segue back to wii u we sort of ignoring the we of we jumped right over talking about the actual hardware. I know, and that's where I want to go back to and I think there's a good point to be made. That is Nintendo Land and Zombie U. I'm segueing for you guys, just let me segue. Can I segue?

No. Can I stop on the segue? Are we talking about the hardware or are we talking about games? I think we're talking about Nintendo Land and I think we're talking about the hardware or are we talking about games? Because the games are after the break. I think we're talking about Nintendo Land and I think we're talking about the hardware and we're talking about the games. I feel like you're not looking at the rundown at all. You know, guys, can you just fly? Just use your wings and fly.

Okay. Okay, here is, I think, the problem with the Wii U. And I think ZombiU does a good job of using this to its advantage but I don't think you can do it much more than one game and Nintendo Land did this too the the hook of using the gamepad is that it's annoying and difficult and cumbersome and that that tension that that creates is used in games like ZombiU where it's like ah I'm looking at the screen and now i have to look here and that's difficult and doesn't give me an advantage in the game and we're going to make a mechanic out of that and nintendo land does that too for the games that use the gamepad and the screen at the same time but that's about the only thing you can do with

it that involves using both the gamepad and the screen other than like dopey maps yeah and i don't know how many games you can make where the inherent fun is basically how unfun or how unhelpful the gamepad is i i think you're i think you're not like i think you're generalizing quite a bit i i think that there are things i don't think it's only thing it's only philosophical reason for existence is that it's harder to use than the actual i'm i'm not saying that's philosophical reason and i'm not saying you can't use it without the tv there are a lot of good games you can do where it's like you're just looking at one or the other but the games that want you looking at both i i have not seen a mechanic that is not it makes it easier is it really easier to like to press the start button and open up the menu to look at your mouth than

it is to move your eyeball muscles it would be because in the case of uh what is it zombie you you can't pause the game when you're going through inventory so they make it but you can't pause your game and going through the inventory in dead space or dark souls like that's games do that like that's not new yeah but in dead space and dark souls the screen it's it's on one screen in front of you whereas here you have to look down and you can't like see a zombie coming up on you fucked up are your guys eyeball muscles that it's taking you entire seconds to look from one screen to the other look i'm gonna look at this i'm gonna look at my computer monitor and caught off guard that's a whole point but i but but um everyone else including justin and excluding chris plant is

right that i think we're getting ahead of ourselves and talking about zombie you and i don't want to do that because that's justin's nut to pop justin's justin's got a nut about zombie you fuck that nut i do what is happening i do want to talk about the console because we pretty much skipped over that yeah the console itself i'm going to talk about sort of just using not being in a game but just using like the menus and stuff like that so the menu griffin for you the one person i was using the menu is almost identical to the wii u so if you loved the wii u menu it's back baby it's all about channels yeah so it's all about like those like boxes i don't know what they called them but like essentially there are like 48 boxes on a page and there's nine pages and you just like drop apps in there

which when you think about it let's say once um a ton of downloadable games comes out that's me being uh hopeful what's gonna happen when you have 60 games on your console i don't know what's gonna happen when you have 60 games on your ipad The difference is the iPad has a search functionality. You can search on your iPad. And you have folders. I never use that, though. I know where I put Chip Chain. I know where Chip Chain lives on my iPad.

Russ? What? I love you like a brother. And I have to tell you that your fantasy scenario where there are so many Wii U games to play that you cannot keep track of all of them is beyond wishful thinking it is like it it is like Roald Dahl-esque fantasy landscape you're leaving a tapestry here that is not even worth considering you're completely right but you would think that Nintendo as a company would consider it as a possibility and design the UI with that in mind. Russ, they didn't consider the possibility that people would want to go online with the son of a bitch.

Why do you think they're going to... You know what would be the perfect UI is if it was just a slot that already said Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Pikmin. And then you just click the one. And it's like, is there a new game out? Not yet. But don't worry, that's what you bought this for, so it'll go here once we have it. And that's all you use that console for.

The other thing I wanted to mention about the overall using the system, so let's say you want to look at your friends list, or try out Miiverse that you might be hearing about. Essentially you're looking at about a 20-second load screen any time you want to do anything,

whether it's browse the store. Are you being hyperbolic at all, or did you sit there with the stopwatch? No, no, no, it is, Griffin. It's crazy. It's any time you want to do the store, the friends list, anything, anything requires. Games are all so bad.

This is the first time that I've seen these, like, the load screens, like what you have on a PC game, where there's, like, a title card that appears and sits there for 30 to 45 seconds before every game you play. Yeah. And it's like, oh, I've gotten gotten the habit of turning the game on my game pad letting that screen appear and then not changing the tv to the game until like a minute or two is past there's also no indication that anything is happening at least in the games that i saw so it's just like a still flash screen so it looks like it crashed. I think that there is a problem with the Wii U accessing its memory. The nearest I can figure is that it is not able to access memory fast enough.

Make this super technical, by the way. What? Make this super technical. Because both our listeners and you are going to know. I'm not. I'm not. No, this is the reason I think this. This is why it's my favorite.

Is this RDRAM we're talking about? Because if you look at a game like Zombie U, for example, even after, first off, there are surprising number of load screens and surprisingly lengthy load screens. Also, I went to open a door at one point and it told me that it was still loading. Um, that my guess, the only thing I can think of that might account for like the long load

times and long, uh, the, the slowdown with the, uh, uh, the iOS, the OS, the operating system is that the memory they're using isn't fast. Now. Has anyone seen a teardown yet has anyone does anyone know if that's possible yeah for memory to be slow like shockingly cheap hardware i mean not shockingly they've always gotten they've always i mean even though the gwee was essentially a gamecube yeah but apparently it's like even i think it's lower than what people expect the other thing to consider is on the 360,

when you like go to your friends list or use the guide for any reason, the reason you're able to do that in the middle of the game without like a lengthy load screen is because Microsoft was like, okay, 10% of the system is going to be dedicated to running everything the guide does. And because of that, it can boot up instantly. And every game has to like put that 10% aside. Now on the Wii U, that doesn't happen. So essentially, if you're going to do anything else

that's not what you're currently doing, you have to sit through this load screen every time. So like the system allocates that memory. And it's just like not forward thinking design. Well, I think that is the other thing that interests me with the Wii U, is if you look at a Xbox 360 launch game, right?

And then you look at one that's out today, and it's insane. Peter Jackson's King Kong. Sure, look at Peter Jackson's King Kong, a masterpiece of gameplay, but a visually flawed product. And then look at, you know, Far Cry 3 on a 360,

or Gears 3. Guys, hold on, hold on, hold on. Who's got their phone next to the mic? Sorry. I mean, I did, but it's not there anymore. Okay. Okay. But do that.

Then look at the launch Wii games, and look what's even out now there's not a lot i don't feel like that system went very far uh i don't think there was a lot that they had to discover uh that you could do with this hardware it seems like it is pretty face value and i kind of feel like our i guess i wonder is that what we're going to see with the wii u where is zombie pretty much as good as this is going to get? No. You don't think there's going to be that much? You think there will be that substantial of a shift?

I think so, yeah. I'm shocked. I think once third-party developers start thinking of cool ways to do this, and, like, well, they can think of cool ways to do it. Yeah, graphically, I don't think there's anywhere to go. Oh. Because they're essentially making late generation, like, Xbox 360 games now, like Darksiders 2. I can't speak to that, because I don't really give a shit about that aspect of...

Yeah, I'd rather, I'd take, I mean, I'd take cool ideas over squeezing a little bit more... Hey, here's a cool idea. Make your game look good. No, I mean, okay. So that's not like a constructive discussion. I think it is when next year you're going to have this machine that's going to look drastically better

and we're going to have the same thing all over again. And you say that now because that's what you're used to, but it's just like why I didn't enjoy playing Wii games. It looked like Jack on my TV. It looked awful. No, I don't think there's any doubt that this is a stopgap. I mean, I cannot imagine a world in which Nintendo thinks

that this is going to carry them for the next three to five years. That's madness to me. So how are they going to carry themselves through those years i don't know i'm not a i'm not an atman another ds that seems to work it seems to me like that's their answer is this is their console for the next three to five years like they're not going to put out another piece of hardware i think that's madness i mean it is I think it's so crazy. And I'm trying to stay positive about the, like, for me, like, I've enjoyed the time I've spent with it. I don't feel like I waste my money, but I'm a bad,

I'm not, you know, a good part of the sample because I have to have one for work and I do this for a living. So, like, it's not, it could justify itself in many other ways um i i don't see let's talk about the future later can we do that can we talk about the future after after halftime yeah um because i think that that's a it's a longer discussion um and i don't want to get down on it because as it stands as it is i think it's pretty neat i mean if you take it at face value i think it's cool i'm not sure that it i don't know how i i just don't understand that i i mean i've played so much of this console

and it's like it's it's it's a cool toy like nintendo n is a cool toy but sometimes that's sometimes that's that's that's just what you want like that fifty dollars i don't know yeah like some of us are making sky-high stats over here. Oh my gosh, it's so much money. I think, but like, that's such a, that's not a good justification because you're abstracting it so much. No, that's a great justification. No, look at

something like the iPad. The iPad is literally, was literally just a toy. It didn't have any practical application. Are you kidding? What are you, crazy? When the iPad first launched... I'm sorry, that is one of the silliest things i've ever when the ipad first launched if you already had an iphone and an and a computer there is not a functional functional thing that that the ipad is adding to your life it has since evolved to take, it has grown into that space. When it launched, it was not-

You don't remember how heavy laptops were when that came. The MacBook Air was not what it was then. This was a like, that's a whole different discussion, but that's crazy. That is a tablet that I have never used as a computer. I'm not like taking it around and typing on it. No, but browsing the internet, watching movies and stuff like that.

Finally, the internet. Like I've been dying to try that out. Yeah, exactly to try that out remember that company that couldn't have it ready until the day before launch what I'm talking about is like you can browse the internet Nintendo's better than Apple whatever you're saying is Nintendo's better than Apple oh my gosh

guys we're besties it's a toy it's a video game console what do you want from it you want to make you breakfast no here's what i want do you want you want to pour your mr t cereal like the machine in peewee's big adventure like what do you want i want to play video games and play them well for the next five years yeah guess what i think do that you can do that on your sex box like you don't need here's what honest to god you're gonna think i'm joking that everyone should have multiple video game consoles yeah they wicked should like gosh listen listen listen spoiled jerks how many of you like yeah this is the way the world has always worked

yeah dennis dyack like what are you talking about listen i don't need the Xbox 360. I don't need the Wii U to be, like, have the same features as the Xbox 360 and PS3 because I already have two of those. And I know that not... Can I make a point without you making me feel like a fucking 1%? Like, it didn't do that. I'm sorry. I just want to say one thing.

I know we're going to get to the future thing, but I think Griffin's right. I think that the Wii U can do a lot of different things that those systems can't, and I think what we should be most excited about is third-party developers doing crazy, ambitious, innovative things. But I don't think any third-party developers will be doing that if there isn't parity for mega-hits like Call of Duty that get people to buy consoles to exist. You are right. If it can't be the graphics, they isn't parody for mega hits like call of duty that get people to buy consoles

yeah to exist you are right it is the only graphics they won't come anyway so it's meaningless the onus is going to be on next year the onus is going to be on nintendo to convince those developers to come over all that i am saying is that i am fine with it not being in parody with the xbox 360 and ps3 because those already do what I need them to do. And when the new Xbox, the new PS3 come out, those are going to do what I need them to do also. If Nintendo was part of the hegemony, that would be kind of disappointing for me.

Let's talk about the future in a little bit. Yeah, we'll talk about the future. Guys, I think i could use a halftime you know yeah let's i i could use a break um we should have prepared something i for for the segment to so there's a palette sorry i think someone's at the window okay how can i ask how someone could be at the window well this this guy just keeps it's a giraffe hey yo it's me new york giraffe hey my besties i'm sorry guys he just keeps stopping by hey how are we all doing today again good to see you justin i wasn't around new york city giraffe i wasn't around the first time uh painted. It's New York giraffe. It's not New York City.

I'm from New York. New York giraffe. Are you from a borough? Could it be Albany? I'm from all the boroughs, baby. All of them. Not just one. Because I would think it would be hard for a giraffe to get around.

Oh, my God. Marlon, let me tell you. Getting around New York City as a giraffe, there's a lot of racismron let me tell you getting around new york city as a giraffe there's a lot of racism let me be honest because those subways are not built for giraffes that's what i'm saying not in the least i tried riding the bus that didn't work either so i walk a lot yeah i tried getting a segue that was not built for giraffes no no i've always said that about segways i'm really glad you're here, New York giraffe, because I was really worried.

I hadn't heard from you after the hurricane. Yeah, it's been tough. Thankfully, you know, it got pretty rough, but I'm pretty tall, so the waves didn't really affect me too good. Sure. I mean, it didn't affect you physically, but I did hear about how all the other animals drowned around you, but only your head stayed above water.

And I can only imagine how devastating. Well, on the bright side, that sort of allowed me to move into their territory. So it's been good that way. Although, you know, the death and destruction is not so good. I imagine you've been harassed your entire life about how much higher your head is than everybody else's head. Is it nice to just watch everybody else's head is it nice to just watch everybody else die because of that and then you can say like well maybe you shouldn't have made fun of me i could have let you climb up this thing yeah so i've said that

for a while that being tall is is an asset but i haven't really believed it like right i you know i tell my my uh you know analysts that like you know i tall. It's a good thing. But in my mind, I'm thinking, God, I hate being tall. I wish I was like four or two. Wait a minute. You want to be like Peter Naturally Short. Is that – you want to be like Peter Naturally Short? Well, you know, like a dog, but like a big dog.

Oh, okay. I got you. Some people would call that a horse, but let's go with it. Maybe a pony perhaps. Okay. So have you – sorry, go on, okay. I got you. Some people would call that a horse, but let's go with it. Maybe a pony, perhaps. Okay. So, sorry, go on, Plant. We've got a lot of questions. I don't know if you guys know this about New York Giraffe.

It's something we've talked a lot about, is how difficult it is for a giraffe in a zoo, because really, he's the only one who sees above the fence. So, I mean, he was always telling people that there's more to life than the the zoo and they didn't believe him right he was seeing through the veil that's true so i mean it must be a relief to just have all those people dead yeah they they were jerks i never liked them especially the hippos they were no not no good i think they would actually be the ones that would survive yeah since they are somewhat aquatic in nature. That does make me wonder, did you hold them underwater? You would think they were softened by the city life. You know, they hadn't swam in a while.

I guess that makes sense. All that pizza, it just weighed them down. And bagels. Yeah. I do want to say, though, so I got to make a trip coming up. I got a trip this week. As you know, Giraffes celebrate Thanksgiving Just like humans celebrate Thanksgiving

Of course I did not know that Well it's true And I got a trek down to Ohio Where I got a whole mess of family Down there That's where I'm going for Thanksgiving Well it's horrible Are giraffes native to Ohio?

I did not know No giraffes native to Ohio? I did not know. No, no. They are not native to Ohio. So you know how you're walking around the Midwest and those areas, and they have those really sad zoos where there's like a kangaroo. The Cincinnati Zoo is a fine zoo. The Toledo Zoo. These are not the zoos that I am talking about.

I'm talking about the zoo where you're on like a rocky unpaved road yeah and you stumble upon it and there's like a hand drawn sign with the s's backwards and they have like oh sure rogue zoos a lone kangaroo and like a squirrel and they're like in the pen together and they're fighting. Those are the sorts of zoos I'm talking about. This is where my family lives in one of those zoos. It's not very happy. Is the squirrel on display in the zoo or is it, did it just kind of wander in?

No one really knows. That's the mystery of those zoos. It's a risk. Is the kangaroo your family? No. One of these zoos have multiple giraffes so one of these zoos managed to wrangle a bunch of giraffes these are not my immediate family we're talking like first and second cousins here but i want to say this out front they're a little bit racist uh

they don't like people from the outside i'm worried that you may have like a complex i think you may have an insecurity about people hating you because of your of your oh no no they don't hate me i'm family i'm a giraffe what they hate this one time my brother mookie brought home a zebra they freaked out yeah it was not good so i did not know that zebra was a race can we talk about that yes so there it's a kind of horse they got stripes you're saying of the species horse zebra is a race yeah they got stripes okay all right i just wanted to clear that up for our audience because some of them might be children who don't get those zoo friends books. They may not understand how the world works. They're called zoo books, Griffin.

You can order them in packs. Griffin is hoping there's a joke here, but he does not know for sure if zebras are in fact a race, of course. Also, is it true that your brother Mookie is married to Rosie Perez? No, he is not. Sorry, what?

I do not know what you are inferring there. I thought that you lived in Do the Right Thing. I thought that was your life. Hey, Chris, I just want to congratulate you. Russ is pretending to be an anthropomorphic giraffe, and you're somehow the bad guy here. Let's get back to talking about the Wii U.

I'm going to roll out. I got a long bus ride to take. Hopefully it's built for giraffes. That's impossible. Take care, guys. I'll see you soon. Thanks, New York Giraffe. It's always good to have you around.

Let's fucking yell at each other some more. I want to talk about Zombie U. That's a game that I have been playing for the last hour or so. I'm not super deep into it. But the ways in which it is using the Wii U pad are really exciting. The basic structure is that you are a lone survivor

in the zombie apocalypse. You wake up with no assets, no resources, and you have to try to survive. You are helped along the way by a guy named the Prepper, who guides you through the pad.

Wait, does he call himself the Prepper? Yes. I don't think you're allowed to do that. His friends actually, he says specifically that his friends call him the Prepper. He used to be called the Fluffer, and then they had to change it for very obvious reasons. So you're in London. It's a Nintendo console console the prepper has been ready for this day so he's hold

up somewhere uh and he is trying to help you through the pad so you hear his voice actually comes through the the wii u pad which is which is super cool uh and why is he helping you the because he wants he's he's lonely and he wants a way to repopulate the earth with i guess would you kindly kill these zombies can i please just talk about the game uh so you use the wii u pad uh as a map you use the wii u pad as your inventory uh navigation you also use the wii u pad um as scanner. You hold it up and it mirrors sort of what you're seeing on the TV screen, but shows you some important things that you'll want to access. Not having to leave to go to menus and some of the ways that they're using the pad are really

immersive and really help to keep you in the experience especially with his voice coming through the we use the the gamepad speakers um it it it really helps to immerse you in the in the scenario so they've got a lot of really they're they're using it in a lot of really smart ways um the cool thing about the structure of the game is that you have mission objectives that you're trying to complete, and it is very difficult because you're the only living person, so you will occasionally die. When you die, you're dead for good, and another survivor arrives at the safe house

and has to pick up where you left off, they also, if you want to get your gear back, you have to find your zombie, the zombie that you were in the previous life, and kill it to get your equipment. So sort of similar to like a Dark Souls idea. Yeah, I like that. I like what you, I've been picking up what you're putting down. So sort of a similar to like a Dark Souls idea. I like what you, I've been picking up what you're putting down.

If you die again, do you lose the stuff from the last? Now that I don't know. What I do know is that your zombies are very, are difficult. They're hard to kill. So like, and it also shows how many points that zombie got, like how far you got with that zombie. And it's just so brutal. Like, man, I used to be that guy. And now i'm putting a cricket bat into that guy's it's really clever

it's it's really smart like the uh like the base weapons i was they were actually giving me the moment where that sort of like um that that touchstone zombie situation where there are three zombies and I've got like six bullets and a cricket bat. And I think, okay, if I can just take them out with the bat slowly and quietly without like alerting the rest of their attention, I can save my ammo. And you actually have to weigh those, which still seems... You know, so many games that use zombies are really just a... You know, they're really just a permutation of an already established genre. Yeah, it's just an action game, essentially. Right, exactly.

This is like you're really weighing the benefits of the resources that you have and the benefits of how to approach a certain situation. It sounds like more of like an RPG. Um, no, not really. I mean, when I say RPG,

I mean like, like almost like a pen and paper where you're like, you have to like really consider every decision that you're making rather than just like running in and. Yeah. Right. And, and,

and, and, and, but unlike dark souls i would think and this is something i like that that has always bothered me about it is it's difficult but you when you die like you could have done better like you you know where where things went wrong um so it doesn't feel cheap in that way and the controls are are good, unlike Dark Souls? Uh, yes. Correct. That is correct. The controls are pretty good, actually. I fiddle...

The aiming is a little fiddly. Which they, you know, you can always say may be intentional in a game like this. It's just somebody who's never used a gun before, whatever. But, yeah, play it. What's the question? Okay, so, question. This guy who narrates it, right? Who's talking to you? The prepper.

Yeah, the prepper. Every time a new person comes along, does he just assume they know what he had been talking about? By the way, I have to catch you up. So 15 people have died before you, and you found the keys to the tower, and – or is he just like, whatever? That's a good question. So when you die, when things get really bad initially, he shuts off the CCTV connection between the two of you. Which feels, and he says, I'm tired of watching you die. And then you just get static on the bottom. Wait, tired of watching you die?

Yeah. So like he's watched you die a number of times? No, he's tired in that moment of you screwing up. I mean, he probably says other things, but I've only died once because I'm elite. So how do you get him back? Well, you don't get him back. You die. As you're dying, he shuts down the connection with you.

Oh, what a dick. And you see static on the screen, and it's like very, it reminds me very much like a Sega CD, like that trope of like. Way to go, dog meat. Yeah, way to go, dog meat. I'm shutting down the connection. Or you let too many augers kill Dana dog me i'm shutting down the connection or you let too many augers kill dana plato i'm shutting down the connection so uh so so uh but when you start back up i mean there is a limited number of he says listen the cctv cameras need to be fixed he doesn't do much like in the way of immersing

this he doesn't slowly gradually help this person acclimate to uh to the situation they're in he kind of just tells them what they need to do um and you start off with some base things uh when you come back you start off with a pistol with six bullets and a cricket bat um and then you have to go get your elite gear back by killing yourself your old you um that's really cool there's also um messages that people have put on the walls that you can read oh um so it's very dark souls it's yeah it's it's got a definite dark souls uh vibe um but i'm really uh i'm i'm super digging it so far i'm super you know it'd be confusing if the people that play call of duty

play that game as well, and you'd see all sorts of swastikas on the wall, and then you'd think you're in a World War II game. You would just see a weird, fucked-up grid, because there would be so many swastikas on the wall that you wouldn't be able to make any one of them out. This is like a Jackson Pollock painting. Of swastikas. that's a that zombie you it

the things that it is doing with the pad the way it's using the pad is is are not even that like are not even that bizarre or out of the box but it really shows the potential i think and it really shows uh what what the pad could be good for so it left me got me pretty excited explain to me then what game spot despised it as much as they did you know what i honestly i know that several outlets did not did not enjoy it and i think maybe they didn't get the structure so much i think if if you really did get it and just didn't care for it or or they just didn't like it, right? But I think that... Let me put it in another way. If I had played the hour

I just played and had not already played Dark Souls and sort of gotten into that idea of a sort of pseudo-rogue-like, then I don't think that I would have grokked the structure of this game as as

quickly as i have yeah um so i mean i and i don't know that might be disconcerting for some for some players i'm not i'm not trying to say that they're like there's also get it one other thing that arthur was mentioning was that the uh touch screen which i agree with is not really made for finger touching uh every time i've tried to like use my finger on it i tend to not get a very uh consistent like especially when i'm dragging stuff and what i've heard is when you're interacting with the inventory uh it's sort of a pain in the ass have you not have you not cut your fingernail into the shape of a pointed stylus that's something that the wii u kind of demands from you i know i've like i i've gotten gotten... There's times in Zombie U, like, for example,

when you have to switch from your pistol to your cricket bat, that's an on-screen operation. You have to touch the touchpad, and then in the heat of the moment, that can be a little frustrating. Wait, you can't switch weapons without looking down at the touchscreen? There may be a way to. The way it tells you to is not, but they have a lot of backdoors like that. Like, for example, when you're looting something, it tells you that you should swipe the screen to close the box.

But you can also just pull the thumb stick away okay from what you're getting into so there may be a back doorway of changing the inventory i'm not i'm not sure so let's talk a little bit about the future of the of the console um we'll even take turns because it'll be polite plant plant what does the future look like for the wii u um how about how about one of you goes first okay i'll go first uh so the issue with the future of the wii u right now like if you went to the store and bought a wii u right now you have no idea what the future holds because apart from pikmin and uh what was that project p100 whatever it's called now there's like no games coming out that you can be like super super excited about like there's no

word about like a like a true original mario game not just like a side-scrolling new super marios uh there's no zelda no metroid so right now the future is like a total mystery i think there's no Zelda, no Metroid. So right now, the future is like a total mystery. I think there's a lot of promise for these first-party games, but there's been no evidence that like the old Nintendo credo of really great first-party games and nothing else is going to change with the system. And given like once the new consoles come out next year, I think that's only going to become more true

because it's not going to make sense to down-res and down-res your port to support the Wii U when you're supporting the 360. I think it's, to be honest, if I was making the purchase decision now, I would wait a year and see where it's at because right now I don't think spending $350 making the purchase decision now, I would wait a year and see where it's at. Because right now, I don't think spending $350 for Nintendo Land, Luigi's Ghost Mansion,

is a good fiscal decision to make. I'll second that. I think you should wait a year because I just think it'll be cheaper in a year. That too. I think it'll be significantly cheaper. I think by E3, we'll have an idea of at least what

other first party games are going to release i think that's the real problem is it's not just that nintendo will probably stick with the hey here are the first party games you love no third party uh options available it's that we don't even know what those first party games are after pikmin and project p100 uh and bayonetta because i know people will say that um i i don't see a reason to buy it now unless you are that person who either a has to play every mario game which there are people who are that way uh or if you just have to play every game that comes out and you have a lot of money and you will never be sated and have lots of free time. I think there are a ton. If you are a sultan, then you should buy it.

There are a ton of great games to play this year on 360, PS3, PC. There's lots of great indie games. I can't imagine who the person is who has the time to play everything that is out right now. And I would say play that first. And then if you have the time and the money, then I would consider buying a Wii U. But I just would not rush to do it. This is the problem, though, with every console, right? I mean, the best time to buy a 360, for example, is the, you know, now. Yeah now yeah you know it's like you can always say

that about it now that it's a hundred dollars and there's a billion games for it yeah right this is a very easy thing to say like wait a year and then buy it like like yeah i mean it'll be cheaper and there'll be more games well i'm not saying wait a year and then buy it i'm saying wait a year and see what the the road looks like because right now we have no idea so with the 360 a year in we knew like oh dead rising is coming oh there's a new halo or something there was like an indication i think with the wii u that'll be that indication as well and you use that information to determine whether let me let me let me let me fire up my crystal ball here. Hold on. I'm seeing, ah yes, a Zelda game and a 3D Mario game.

Burn the witch! I've used my powers. I swear I would never again, but I've tipped into my prognostication. So nothing about the apocalypse in a month? Nothing. We're good. Waiting here to see if we're still on Earth.

If Quetzalcoatl hasn't swallowed us all whole, then maybe think about buying a Wii U. Yeah. I am very... On the one hand, on the one hand, I am concerned that the very

obvious thing of the Playstation and the 360 are about to get their successors they will I mean they will in 12 months 18 months at the outside I'm saying I'm saying 2013 I'd say probably

2013 for PS3 2014 for durango okay well that's it that either way durango is not going to wait two holiday seasons 360 is already inhaling they're already like uh prepping for for the next next thing i they're done i i think that you will probably see both of them in 2013 at the outside like midway through 2014 yeah i don't see how there if you're clinging to the hope that uh multi-system ports will come to uh you know whatever durango psango, PS4, and the Wii U, don't, if that's what you're wanting, it's never going to happen. And that's really scary for me

because unique experiences on the Wii U, but not enough graphical power to compete with the other two platforms, sounds a lot like the Wii. It is exactly the Wii. They're mapping that out again. Now, if I'm a business, I see the Wii has sold something like 93 million units,

and I think, well, gosh, if we could harness that again, then we'll be off to the races. I don't think they're going to catch lightning in a bottle the way they did with the Wii. I don't think this has the... I read an editorial about this. I don't think this has the... I read an editorial about this. I don't think it has the potential to be sort of the breakout, mainstream

hit. I do think you're saying this, and I do realize something, though, is what you want is this cool technology, the second screen that interacts with your TV, right? And you can do all these kind of cool things.

And you like that it allows maybe smaller developers to do really creative things. And the crazy thing is this already exists. And it's the iPad you were making fun of. Da-da-da-da. In two years, the iPad will be at least as powerful as the Wii U, I would assume. I expect.

I think the things that you're wanting will exist. The question is, will they exist on the iPad, or will they exist on the Wii U? Or maybe both. Maybe that could actually be the Wii U's best gift, that there actually be the Wii U's like best gift that there would be something that they

could do cross platform for and that would be the Wii U and the iPad I think that's the dream right that's the dream I just think I still just think there's so much room to grow I think that when those two other consoles do come out I still think by far the Wii U

is going to be the easiest and cheapest console to develop for. I think that, I think that that's going to help out a lot. They've already got unity on the fucking thing. Like I, I think that's going to help with the indie scene. I think it's going to help with the triple a scene.

Yeah. Well, the question about the indie scene just specifically is like, cause the store was a disaster for the indie scene in the last, on the Wii. Sure. And like, if people aren't a disaster for the indie scene in the last, on the Wii. Sure. And, like, if people aren't using it again. But I don't, I feel like, and again,

they haven't shown that they have any interest in supporting online with any, to any extent at all, but I think that they can do that a little bit better with the Wii U if they get started early, which they have sort of dropped the ball on so far. I just think, like, I don't think it's time to write off third-party developers

saying, like, they're not interested in the Wii U, because I think Zombie U has the potential to do extremely well. I think more than any other game, even Nintendo's first-party shit, like, it is the one game that I've heard more people talking about. And I think if that's a huge success then maybe third-party developers will look at the wii u with with more with more seriousness

oh i think that they will in the next year i just don't know if that's going to be sustainable i don't i don't know if it's going to make sense to put the kind of time into a Wii U game that you do with your next generation 360 and PS4 games. Yeah. I don't know. I can't predict the future, but if you look at a roadmap of the Wii and where the Wii has gone,

and for me, that is the basement to my basement where I don't see it anymore. The Wii U is troublingly on that same path. And I don't think that you're going to have the answer of, well, it's sold a lot. I don't think you're going to have that this year. Yeah. I don't regret buying my Wii, though, is the thing.

Like, I can see it. You're right, conceptually, it's the same kind of console. But, like, i've had more than enough pleasant experiences playing my wii that that like i just i can justify the i can justify the investment you know what i want i think i think i just what's troubling about the wii u is i haven't seen any of the things that i loved in the Wii. Like, I haven't seen... When they first announced the Wii U, the first thing that came to my mind was like, oh my god, what if they did like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles with the Wii U

and you could use the touchscreen to like do all this stuff you could do with the Game Boy Advance and the GameCube version. Like, that would be so great. Or what if they did like a, you know, Zelda Four Swords Adventures. Like, I haven't seen... I haven't seen that stuff. And that's why. And I think in the next year...

Just give me Wii Sports 2. Just forget the game pad. I the next year... Just give me Wii Sports 2. Just forget the gamepad. I don't care. Just give me more Wii Sports. I'll play that. They're not going to do that. I mean, they did that with Ground Golf. That sounds terrible.

Don't do that thing that Chris said if you're listening. Why would you not do that? Because they love the gamepad. Ignoring the gamepad is not going to work. That is crazy. You're crazy. We're all crazy please don't make a sequel to your most successful game

they already did it's called Wii Sports Resort Jerk thank you so I think we can all agree that the Wii U beats Cod Blobs 2 Cod Blobs 2 will retain its title for this week I believe.

Thank you so much for joining us for the besties. Things are going to get pretty heated over the next few weeks as we wrap up this year's games and pit all of our Hall of Fame games against each other. You know what I've been thinking since December is going to be kind of slow? I think we stretch it out. Oh, yeah. I think we do semifinals. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it's think we stretch it out. Oh, yeah. I think we do semifinals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

I think it's going to get fucking rad. Oh, yeah. It's going to be Sweet 16 heated up in here. Get your brackets now at the office pool. Oh, we should actually do that. Okay. Maybe we will. And thank you for listening to our show.

We sure appreciate it. If you can go to iTunes and subscribe and tell some friends about it, that they should listen to it, it's good now. Or at least better. And you can find it on our website, Polygon.com. Just search for the besties there. And you can find a list of all the things we're talking about and a bunch of other cool stories that we've written. And videos we've made, et cetera, et cetera.

You can see Russ and Chris arguing about Nintendo Land in our ongoing video series, Cooperatives, that you will really enjoy if you like good things. And make sure to join us again next week for the besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? besties