The Besties - The Besties Podcast 39

Episode Date: December 15, 2012

This week on The Besties, we take a look back at all the games that have made it into our Hall of Fame of 2012. We also decide which three games from the fan vote are getting resurrected for next week's finals. And, what's this, one of our very first HOF selections gets the boot at the 11th hour? Incredible! 03:00 - Playing catch-up! 20:30 - The user picks! 30:00- Halftime: VGA thoughts! 40:15 - The full HOF list! 51:15 - THE NEXT STEP! Help The Besties build their Sweet 16 bracket! 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!

justin i know you have a weakness for uh yogurt and holiday cookies seems that i have a weakness for seltzer um i i'm i've become an old jewish man all of a sudden i was once a young jewish man suddenly overnight when the full moon strikes now i called a bar mitzvah yes all i can drink is seltzer and all i can think is how do these young kids drink regular coca-cola it's so sweet it's a hard seltzer so seltzer is just like it's just carbonated water right it's just sparkling water yeah and jewish people like it more oh my god do jewish it's that and salmon basically are the two things that power us as a people but now you're into it right so it's just the way of life. It's fascinating to me.

They should do like a Richard Attenborough documentary on the life and attitudes of Jews in Manhattan. So, Russ, fresh take for you. Every day's great at your Jew-ness. Nine people are enjoying that. I get that joke now 10 people got the joke but didn't find it very funny and like 30 people got the joke and were offended by it yeah it was super offensive but that means that like 50 people are listening and i'll take that My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and it's time for the final countdown.

My name is Christopher Plant, and I'm in the Sweet 16. My name is Rose Ross, and I'm in the Best Game of the Week. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I feel like my final countdown was a little pitchy. Can I do it? Can I try it again? Can I maybe go drink some sweet tea? I want to move on.

Welcome to the Bestie Super Sweet 16 Spectacular, where we lay out the 16 games that we'll do battle in our contest to see which game reigns supreme. A few are already assured we will reveal the rest right now, and then we will decide on one final super sweet wild card that will not have much of a shot why is everything so sweet because is this is this show a tie-in with ncv's my super sweet 16 did our daddy buy us all new it's a cross promo okay i love it's transmedia love you dad um guys what of – before we get into business, and I do consider it that, business, has anybody been playing anything for fun this week?

I think we should catch up because for the first time, I think all of us have been playing two of like the last two winners, 100% of the last two winners in a row. Yes. Yep. I mean, let's not spend too much time on Persona because I feel like we've exhausted it pretty You've been dipping. Persona 4 is great. If you haven't played it, you should. It is a 10. But make sure

you set aside a week and a half to get past the boring part. Cool. So I've been playing a lot of last week's winner, Far Cry 3. And by a lot, I mean I played for 18 hours and made myself sick on it, on the game. Because it's so good. It is really good.

I feel like I have a few issues with it, though. I like it a lot. And it really is like scratching the open world itch for me in a way that i don't think any game has this year um and like i like the the gun play and all that but like i was sold on it last week as being like a good stealth game and there are some problems with the game that make it not a very good stealth game and but that is like so what the game is focused on like you get more experience if you clear out a camp stealthily and you get more

experience for just killing a guy stealthily and all the takedown combo stuff it's it's all sort of built around that gameplay loop but there's some problems with it and what's interesting is whenever i talk to somebody who's been playing it on pc it doesn't sound like a pc problem my biggest problem with it i'm'm playing it on Xbox 360, my biggest problem is that the manual saves are a fucking joke. Like, they just don't work. They don't work at all. What do you mean?

Are any of you guys playing it on console? Yeah, I'm playing it on console. Okay, so on Xbox 360, the manual save option, first of all, is turned off when you're in a mission which is bonkers so in a mission it just defaults you to these sort of arbitrary checkpoints and in some of the missions the checkpoints are like crazy crazy spaced out that's funny because i didn't i never like i beat the game and i never came upon a mission where like i kept dying and getting sent back like really far what difficulty were you playing on normal okay um i've been having that a lot um

and outside of a mission you can use the manual saves but uh as far as i know they just don't they just don't auto load like okay so you get to an encampment right and there's so many encampments to clear out so you auto save right and you get out your camera and you scope out all the people and then you auto say or you manual save and then you sneak into the camp and you clear out a few guys and you get to a good place and you manual save and then all of a sudden somebody sees you and kills you it doesn't load up your latest manual save it loads up this arbitrary checkpoint to like when you first got to the place and you have to do all of that shit all over again yeah there are no manual saves it's essentially but that's

the thing it gives all you're saving is the progress of like how many missions have i done how many like items do i have in my backpack you're not saving like where you are in the world that's right i read something online i haven't tried this yet but if you load back to the main menu and then manually load you can load your manual save but fuck that noise because like i don't want to spend i think you could like i never it never occurred to me to try to play it that way that's really weird like yeah i guess i would never try to like if an engagement didn't work i just would die and and try it again right like i don't understand this trying to save halfway through like doing a base is like i don't know like a two minute gameplay loop right but we are also it's also much longer than that if you if

you try to take an encampment without anybody seeing you it's a really difficult process um 10 minutes at most that that's i think that's the key though i i agree that like when i when i said it was a good stealth game i i think maybe I should be more specific and say it's a really good guerrilla warfare game. I don't think it's trying to be Metal Gear Solid in any capacity where the fun is trying to slowly kill every single guy without being seen. I think it's like I'm going to set an elaborate series of booby traps and try to kill everyone but that's that's that's fine and everything but if you set that elaborate series of booby traps and it takes you you know five minutes to get everything set up and then for some reason shit shit goes wrong and you die it starts you back over to before you did any of that shit and like after which is fine because i

think the game another thing that i like about it which goes to this guerrilla warfare thing is that i think when like a stealth action sort of goes to hell yeah most stealth games generally that's like that's what you would do you would reload the save but there are actually a lot of techniques that come into play once you know you've been discovered like you know shooting a cage open and letting the lion kill everyone or breaking and like you can continue actually the stealth the stealth gameplay is not even like actually a good bit of nomenclature for that because it's actually closer like you can break sight lines and then get that get that flow going again so it's it's not like right it's not like somewhere you know the alarm is tripped

off so now i have to go loud you can vacillate between like hiding in the bushes and waiting for them to come to you or sure you know climb up a roof and jumping and getting a stealth takedown that way the sightline stuff is actually pretty good and that's like the biggest problem that i have with stealth games is you can never actually know when you are hidden and this this game has a very elegant way of like letting you know how how you're doing stealthily and like if you kill a few guys and people start seeing bodies and they're going to notice you a lot faster like all that makes a lot more sense there's other stuff like the takedowns for me were really like hit or miss like i was never quite sure i would be hiding around a corner

somebody would walk into a room and then for no reason at all i just wouldn't get the prompt to do a takedown. And then they would see me. And then once they see you, unless you can like get behind them or break sight lines, like you're fucked. And that is the kind of thing that is super frustrating where if you spend a long time setting up this

stealthy sequence to take out an encampment and it goes wrong because the prompt to stab somebody to death, like for some reason just doesn't pop up when you need it to like that that is the worst for me that's the most frustrating um and there's other like weird stuff about the prompts not appearing like whenever you have to climb one of the towers and you have to climb up the netting like that that that whether or not you can make that jump

is sort of based on whether or not that prompt shows up and sometimes it just doesn't show up which is yeah another like really frustrating another i just wanted to say another interesting thing about the game this isn't a complaint but i would say the only white person that's not a colossal douchebag in this game is the german guy yeah and i found that rather interesting yeah um he's technically an american but i want i want a lot i like i just i think i just want a few more things than far cry 3 than it's willing to give me i'm also not crazy about the progression system i have twice now gotten to points where i had locked i had unlocked basically everything that i wanted and couldn't unlock the other shit that i wanted because i just hadn't gotten far enough in this in the storyline so i would just like rack up six or seven skill points from leveling up that just like

i didn't really want to spend on anything and if people are going to compare this to skyrim and i know that chris plant loves that comparison but in skyrim every time you get a point you know exactly where you're going to spend it and you feel like this you know super specialized god yeah i think i think the issue is that like it tells you oh you can't unlock these skills yet because you need to do more missions but there's no sense as to like how many more missions you need to do right you're just sort of like i was just yeah what did what you did which was like hoard the skill points until i can finally use the i want to spend those in the stealth tree but until you get like a few hours into the game there's only like three or

four stealth abilities available to you you're gonna rack up like 10 points and they're like well you can go spend them on those other trees it's like i don't really want to do that i don't want to be the long range combat guy i want to be the stealth guy please just let me spend these points where i want to spend them i do think that is designed in a way that it wants to make you the all-around soldier like it's giving you the option to kind of play how you'd like at certain points and making that available to you immediately but ultimately it wants you being in proficient right and they're also very generous i think i think they're very generous then why have why have branching skill trees like why say this is the stealth tree this is the takedown tree this is the long range Like, why even... That way you can get them in the order that you prefer.

I guess, but even then, like... I mean, I agree. I think I agree that that's a problem, and I agree there are many small problems with this, and there's even a big one, which I think is the boss fight in the middle of the game, which is downright awful. Oh, yeah, that was bad.

The story definitely takes a new turn. I don't know which boss fight you're talking about, because they've all been pretty bad. Yeah, we don't want to say who it's with because that's a big spoiler but you'll know it when you get there you you use a bow and arrow and it's oh yeah uh and it's pretty offensive too uh but i i don't know i i just i'm always weary to to go after a game because of what it isn't uh and i feel like some of these criticisms are are leaning towards that where it's like i i agree it could have zigged when it zagged but i don't really hold that against the game i i do like like the button prompts though when they come at

me with official marketing slang taken from a review where they say it's like skyrim with guns that that instills in me certain expectations oh but that's not the developers it's not the developers fault you're right but like I don't know when I see branching skill trees I expect that I will have this you know customizable soldier and like the way I play through the game won't be the same way that anybody else plays through the game and I don't think yeah that's not the case that's not the case at all and that's that was genuinely disappointing for me guys can i talk about a game that everyone loved uh and i just finished last night what was it persona 4 i finished it and no i finished it i spent lost 80 hours yesterday was a weird 80 hour day it was 80 hours yeah they called it

persona day so what what's what's uh what'd you play i played spec ops align and i feel like we talked about this game maybe a little i don't even remember i on it maybe it was before i think it was before that was that game came out in like yeah i don't know a lot of people yeah i've got a lot of requests not a lot but i've gotten some requests from people to talk about it on the show before, because there is this kind of cult of fans that have formed around this game being, you know, the greatest story video games have seen in a decade, which is a real thing. I've seen a few people say, and I can attest to not being true.

But just to catch you up on, for those who don't know much about it it's a third person military shooter uh set in dubai uh after a crazy sandstorm and the general story is basically heart of darkness apocalypse now you are commanding a small troop of guys basically two and you who are going into the heart of dubai to find this colonel nelson who you think has gone rogue uh and i think you just gave a major spoiler no i i don't think that i think that's the first thing they say okay it's on you think he's gone well and i don't know in in the first honestly i finished the game and it's still, yeah. In the first 15 minutes, you start shooting American soldiers and you proceed to just kill Americans for pretty much the rest of the game

while your sidekicks tell you how awful that is and you say, I don't have any other choice. Hey, watch it, buddy. You're an American too. You could be next. That really is. They're like, hey, don't do that. And you're like, hey, we're doing what we're doing.

And then like five minutes later, they'll be like, this is awesome. Shoot him in the face. I'm like, okay. You change your opinion constantly. But then the rest of the game is you're doing is basically committing war crimes. And as the game goes, as it progresses, the crimes get worse. And you are supposed to feel awful for these things you're being forced to do

because there's no other option. You have to do them. And then at the end, it's kind of like, get it? It's video games. Like, that's the end of it. The screen goes black and in giant white letters. Did you get this? Did you get it? Do you understand?

It's video games. It's a metaphor, idiot! there are these little things that pop up during the load screens that everybody was cheering about uh and they're awful like about 90 of the way through the game you'll die and the load screen will appear and instead of giving you a tip you'll be like do you feel like a hero now and it's like no i don't feel like anything. I feel impatient. You made me kill all those innocent people. I don't know why you did. I feel like they are a little more proud than they should be.

And they sort of jam it in your face how proud they are of the story. Yeah. Whereas, like, I mean, Bioshock obviously had that same idea of, like, well, you have no control over what you're doing because it's a video game. But they didn't necessarily, like, pat themselves on the back for it it wasn't like constantly like have you ever thought what if we're the aliens like okay i get it well and on top of this so even if you're doing that that maybe maybe that's fine i personally think it's a little heavy-handed but then there's a twist at the end that undercuts the entire thing, where they're basically like all the oomph that we built up. You know, you are the player. The player is you.

It was an autistic boy's dream. Don't worry about it. Not really that big of a problem. Just forget it ever happened. And it's like, oh, okay, great. I'm glad I spent that four and a half hours playing your entire campaign. So since you mentioned it, I do want to talk a little bit about just to go back to Far Cry story, because I feel like it is very similar in terms of like the base overtones. Like, obviously, Heart of Darkness is a big inspiration for it. But I sort of goes the other way where the story doesn't really go anywhere.

doesn't really go anywhere towards i mean i'm not going to ruin anything but like you keep expecting these like weird psychological things to continue throughout far cry 3 and they really don't it like just becomes a pretty rote shooter by the end kirk hamilton at kataku made a great point uh for a twist that isn't in the game so i'm not spoiling anything but if the bad guy who's on the cover of the box which game are you talking about not spoiling anything. But if the bad guy who's on the cover of the box... Which game are you talking about? You, Far Cry 3. Okay. If you, the white guy, the preppy white guy,

and the bad guy who's on the box in all the commercials were just the same person... Right, so that's what I was sort of ready for. Which I still think would have sucked. It would have been bad, but at least it's something marginally unexpected. I mean, the story is flat for the second half of the game like it does not go anywhere you don't think it's gonna go yeah that what i'm not i will get into it when we start talking about the games that are on the list but i do want to make a note here

that hotline miami does what both of these games tried to do uh cheaper and a thousand times better uh that's something i will have to talk about when we actually get to the list it's crazy how much it hits all of these let's get into it right now because that's pretty germane because hotline miami was our highest voted upon game in the poll so it is it has joined the sweet 16 right as a community choice along with two others only two others and one we're going gonna pick later so congratulations hotline miami you did it you're not a real you're an indie game you're not a real triple a um but you know we'll see you're not a game you're not like a video game as much as you are like that's cute what they did there they made themselves a game they did but that's any game

were they like three weeks after like what about controllers like i don't think that's really a video game like it's like in my favorite video game call of duty any um you can use a controller with all those like day one basically yeah it's yeah you are the worst that game controls just fine on keyboard it's not his fault My fingers don't know anything about video The only thing my fingers know how to do is shoot people These fingers If they made a keyboard with triggers on it

Then Justin would be good That would be sick Maybe a keyboard that you could hold Our second highest vote getter Should we talk about Hotline Miami? No It's not um shitty i'm like i am actually gonna go before we have our finals i'm gonna go back and play it with the the controller because i need that is large and i need to play it at all yeah i need to play it it's it's quick and you should finish the whole game if possible

all right well we should all dip into it but plant you enjoyed it a lot right yeah i i think it it like like uh spec ops is a game that is about violence in video games uh and talks about that by being incredibly violent uh but in terms of you know talking about the player's responsibility in playing these games and kind of what we expect these games to make us do, it's just so much more subtle. And it's not subtle. It's like, it's still pretty obvious what it's trying to say. It pretty much writes it on the screen. But it's not like Spec Ops where it literally says, you know,

Are you not happy? Have you not killed killed enough why aren't you turning off this game uh and it doesn't have any awful twist at the end where you want to make sure the game just never appears on your hard drive ever again lovely um we'll have more to say about it on the finale once we yeah i'm gonna play i plan on playing it more i've played i think all everything so much i'm so tired of playing video games guys I've played, I think, everything so much. I'm so tired of playing video games, guys. I've played everything. Can we write about food for a while?

I always want to eat. I'm looking at this. The only one of these I haven't touched or touched to completion is SSX. I didn't touch SSX. You got to get that. I think that's okay. I know myself well enough. I'm sure it's very good. It's't touch SSX. You gotta get that. I think that's okay. I know myself well enough. I'm sure it's very good. It's just not for me. So we should clarify. These are all the

picks, essentially. So we had our 12 picks, and these are the picks that people voted on that didn't make our 12. We had 12 that we had pushed back to the Hall of Fame. Meaning if it had stayed as our favorite game for more than like two weeks or so, sometimes one week, we would push it into the Hall of fame meaning if it had stayed as our favorite game for more than like two weeks or so

sometimes one week we would push it into the hall of fame so we have 12 games throughout the year that are in contention three from the community and then one that we're going to pick on this on this app um so the second game is mass effect 3 i guess a lot of people like mass effect 3 uh it's a very good game and like i've And I don't remember what game we put up. Journey. I guess it was Journey. Journey beat it. In retrospect, I maybe would have done it the other way around.

No. I completely disagree. In retrospect, I probably like Mass Effect better. I think we were all swept up in the magic of Journey. It really lifted us away to a different land. I'm still swept up. We were swept up in how shitty the ending of Mass Effect 3 was.

It was super shitty, and it is better post-update. It genuinely is. I don't know if you guys... Have you guys watched or played it? Yeah, I watched it. It addressed a lot of the problems I had with it, but that would be great if I hadn't played it

before, and that just tempered my feelings about the game so much because like divorced from all of the hype and all of the you know crazy internet mass thinking like it really was it really was a disappointment um well not only that i would say i i honestly believe that mass effect 3 is not as good of a game as mass effect 2 and that definitely colors my opinion of it i disagree i think every other aspect of mass effect 3 i thought was an improvement i thought the combat was fantastic i really combat was fantastic but i thought the story overall and like the mission structure it just didn't feel as memorable as mass effect 2 i don't know i didn't mass effect 2 story

structure was so like here in this first part of the game you're recruiting these people and then the second part of the game you're recruiting these people and then there's the ending but then you're learning these like interesting backstories for each character whereas this was essentially like go here and recruit a bunch of people go here recruit a bunch of people there was no like depth to it yeah it was all very surface burn you burnt me i got burned i did burn you're burnt i think it stands an okay chance i think i think yeah i think it's worth i think it's a phenomenal game and like the the entirety of the game when you look at it as a whole package like it was it was good and there were some really truly extraordinary moments in the game, especially if you got, like, real deep into the characters and real deep into the lore.

And those parts of the game are so strong that I feel like even though the ending was kind of a disaster, it makes up for it. Our final contender from the fan wildcards is a little game called Borderlands 2. Borderlands 2. Shoot porn. What? Shoot porn.

I thought you said shoe porn. I don't remember that being an element in the game. That's me at Zappos. Look at all these pairs. Free shipping. Don't mind if I do. Some snappy pumps with some curb appeal like it all this enthusiasm you can't understand why we didn't pick these mass effect 3 is better than journey journey i think we got no at the end journey's like when journey was like think of any wish in your heart and it'll be granted. But it doesn't say that.

There's no dialogue in Journey. That's what happens at the end of Journey, if I remember correctly. You made your own dialogue. Here's the thing with Journey. You get away from it and you get cynical. Think about how you felt when you were actually playing it. My heart swims when I think about it. Let go of your dark, cold heart and actually enjoy it.

Bitch, if I was capable of doing that, I'd still be collecting garbage pail, kids. That's not how the human mind works. Oh, you're so sour. Now you're thinking sour patch, kids. It won Game of the Year at the VGA, so it's not indie anymore. So we don't like it. Don't you pay attention to anything.

And it's Walking Dead. Walking Dead won Game of the Year. It won Best PS3 Game, though, and that's still pretty not indie. No, it won Best Indie Game. And Best ps3 game though and that's still pretty not indie and no it won best indie game and best game and that's really indie it's pretty indie i guess none of that's an arbitrary distinction well let's talk about borderlands 2 because the fans like it the fans do like it i liked it a lot for the first like eight hours or so yeah that's how i felt too and then like it was just it was just numbers it was just and this is coming from somebody who played wow for hundreds of hours like i the grind of borderlands 2 just got to be a little bit too much for me i i will probably want to go back to it at some point and

to be honest i think the problem is that i was trying to play through a bulk of the game single player which is ill-advised yeah guys i have to tell you about bioshock infinite really quick what because why is this related no it's it is it is related the numbers from borderlands are in infinite now so when you shoot people they bleed numbers no way the most distracting thing they have this they have a large health bar over their head uh and then they bleed numbers i'm sure you could turn that off you can uh and i it was the first thing i did but it looks awful it's like they they built this beautiful world and at the beginning it was like the screen was just covered in numbers they did for the record there was a health there were health

bars in the first bioshock um i turned those uh yeah before we get into picking our wild card can we have a fun diversion where we talk about the vga winners we don't want to talk about borderlands anymore i think we should talk about borderlands tomorrow but hey god like they're shooting the fans love it there's a fans don't know anything that's not why this is my attitude i just i want to say something about borderlands too my attitude too. My attitude is basically what Griffin said. I do want to give props to the writing because I think the writing is pretty great. It's exceptional. It's the best games writing that happened this year.

Or it's up there. It's up there. I would agree it's up there. It's very funny. And the world, like, design-wise, I think looks really cool. And it's a very tight, like, technically it's a very tight shooter. And for what it is, it is fantastic. But, like, I just can't.

It just doesn't go anywhere. I can't find my, I can't get into the, open every chest that you run into every 10 feet and hope that maybe there's a blue gun inside of it this time. And maybe the numbers are going to be a little bit higher. Like, that crawl, it's the same reason why Diablo 3 isn't on our list. And it's, like, why i just couldn't get past the first like 10 hours of diablo 3 is like i'm i am just not interested in that type of game

anymore regard like diablo 3 was a phenomenal game for what it was in that genre and borderlands 2 is the same way i just i just i can't just need to advance it like the you compare that to the original borderlands and it does not feel all that like obviously the writing is better but in terms of the overall game it feels pretty much the same game like skill trees feel pretty similar you can't vary your character that much it just doesn't well this game adds a lot of stuff like the the the kits like you can change you can make your like the the turret class you can make them like an engineer or a commando with those special yeah you could do that too in the last game though

but it doesn't feel like a drastic like for example in diablo 2 for example you could make like oh i'm gonna do all summoning or i'm gonna do i don't know it just doesn't feel as uh narrow like you can't diverge that much yeah i really do want to go back and play it. I actually liked where it was going. I wish I had had a better ability to dismiss some of the side quests.

Like, I'm incapable of ignoring them. You can actually hide them. I just wish they were laid out in such a way that it made it easier to do a bunch of them. I can't actually hide them i just wish they were laid out in such a way that it made it easier to do a bunch of them like yeah i couldn't handle the going to a place doing a mission coming back and turning it in and then realizing there was another mission objective like 10 feet from me at that time they don't show up on your map unless you have them like selected to be tracked so like you can do that but you have to go one by one and track a quest look at it on

the map then go back to the quest menu track another class go back to it like it doesn't it doesn't make any sense um and that that really was a big issue for me too um but i think we're all in agreement good luck borderlands gear good game borderlands you've got a good chance away from you um you got a chance to say but i actually like borderlands that's one of the few on this list that i actually did enjoy i just thought it was it had some structural problems that didn't compel me to finish it. Sure. Yeah. Is the best way.

To completion. Right. Oh, my. Let's say to completion as much as we can. Should we take a break before talking about what our picks, our wild card potentials are? I think we owe the VGAs a little attention. I think we should break them off a piece. Yeah want to throw it out let's go i have the list pulled up here like all the winners justin you didn't watch the vgas my first year i think ever not watching the vgas actually

and i i it seemed like kind of a slow year as far as the announcements go um i'm at this point now where like i like to see things announced but i don't really if it's something that i know i want to play like infinite it's a good example if it's something i know i want to play like i'll just hang and and try to avoid coverage yeah i'm gonna get so doing what we do you get so drenched in the stuff oh my god okay some of these are crazy all right game of the year walking dead sure okay sure yeah it's got a performance by a human male got it by the way uh what's the name michael pactor before the show was like god never in a million years can we all agree that michael pactor cannot be listened to for anything ever in terms of like a reliable source he gave me a

great shrimp taco recipe once uh best performance by human male damon clark in borderlands 2 as handsome jack yeah i can dig that oh they gave they gave him that award on the red carpet uh which was great they handed him the vector monkey which was painted in all matte black right and they handed it to him and they said congratulations you won for best performance by a human male he was like is this a joke this looks like shit and they're like no you really won and he was like come on get out of here this this isn't real and they were like no we promise and uh i was so uncomfortable that i turned to ash where i was sitting i turned into a cloud of smoke and disappeared from the room so i wouldn't have to watch anymore the award looks so shitty he didn't believe it was real and that he had won but it to his credit why the fuck were

they giving out awards on the fucking red carpet before the show because that's pretty crazy speaking of things that are crazy that made me want to die i got subjected jessica alba saying how much she liked dark souls oh she was hey you Oh, she was... Hey, you know what? I'm not saying anything about Jessica Alba, and I'm not saying anything about celebrities, and I'm not saying anything about their relationship to video games. I didn't like Dark Souls that much. You didn't like Dark...

I didn't like Dark Souls, and I love Dark Souls. Right. You did not like Dark Souls. But we're skipping over the bigger news, which is that Dark Souls 2 got announced, which... Oh, my God. that i realized watching that trailer that dark souls has a place in my heart apparently that even i didn't know yeah it possessed like i watched that

and like i was i was moved and here's the thing craziest thing i didn't finish border i didn't finish dark souls one i got to a point with dark souls one i was like okay i get it i have to move on with my life i can't do this with you anymore yeah um but it's still i i'm weirdly still obsessed with it even though i couldn't finish it you'll do is it because you know that one day you'll reach down deep inside and find that well of strength and courage within yourself to to finish it i have considered going back he doesn't know how to increase his courage i've forgotten like all the buttons well let me let me prime you right bumper is attack because that makes the most sense that's the best button for that function oh god best performance by a human female melissa hudson is asine, The Walking Dead, sure.

Musical score, Journey, dig it. Best graphics, Halo 4. That is a crazy category. It's 2012. It's a crazy category, but I think that's about right. I cannot believe that best graphics did not go to a PC game because it seems like if you're calling it best graphics, it would probably go to the console or the system platform that has the best

graphics that's just like a from me to you i don't know yeah best dlc is the elder scrolls 5 skyrim dong guard yeah that dlc was not good oh by the way when i forget who the celebrity was that announced the award uh they definitely said dong guard oh and then they looked out into the audience at somebody and like smiled and it made me think that like he had made a bet with somebody i bet you won't say dong guard on the stage and then he totally did and then he gave him a smile like i did it jerry did it for you that sounds like a saint's row dlc pack uh i do want to bring up the one trailer that seemed to have everyone a twitter uh which was the phantom pain trailer

and i will admit that the moment that i realized that it was a metal gear solid trailer my interest dropped precipitously yeah yeah sort of a bummer guys do you want to do you want to know what it was like there do you want the hard truth oh yeah you want to know how it felt uh one everything was on fire they kept lighting the stage on fire and it was very hot two this is to be clear drunk like at the event you were you were at the event i was in the theater everybody was drunk out of their minds like i have never seen that group of people in such a confined space that drunk and what they would do is they had these people who would come by with beers and if your cup was more than halfway empty they would take it out of your hand and they would replace it with a full cup what would they do with the chaff

and i i don't know probably give it to the the swill like the pig swills just take it out to the red carpet and throw it into the audience or the seat fillers yeah uh and and you you never see like the bottom of a cup so you don't you lose count and everyone was just gone yeah um were you gone or were you working i was working i was busy tweeting i don't know if you saw it no but no i had my show that night i had you don't actually have to be drinking even though they give you free drinks chris I don't know if you saw it No I had my show that night You don't actually have to be drinking Even though they give you free drinks Chris You don't have to drink it I know I didn't drink at all

That's like a fun tip too if you're at a party That's also a fun tip that you should follow You don't have to drink Do you have to give up your three month coin now? No Never Here's the final thing The after party was sponsored by konami uh because

of phantom pain or whatever uh though they didn't people were like wearing phantom pain shirts but they were covering them up it was all and they were wearing konami people were wearing moby dick shirts right yeah that's what i mean yeah uh But the worst part about it was the waiting staff who was wearing nothing. I'm into some PR events where you, like, go around and they do this sexy lady kind of, like, cooters-esque thing. And everyone kind of shuffles around uncomfortably. But this was literally women in negligee only. Like, it was just, I mean, it was just i mean it was just like off the rack lingerie uh you know what would be cool is if they were amputee victims as well oh man yeah that would

have been great that would have been so kojima and their negligee was only there to sort of exhibit their missing missing parts yeah i like but all all i could think of was that hashtag like one reason why and that pretty much summed it up because no women were there i mean other than the ones that were the ones that have been paid there were publicists that had to be there and then just like tons of guys just like drinking really gross orange soda cocktails and just ogling i will say i will say that this vgas uh as a as a sum as a sum total is not the worst vgas i've seen i i think that it has gotten a lot lot better in terms of like being less cringe inducing and not being that being more inclusive yeah i mean it's not the year with it all to the after They didn't fucking paint the winners on the stomachs of bikini-clad women.

Oh, my God. That was... Yeah, I forgot about that. Or lower them from the ceiling in Victoria's Secret Angels outfits. Yeah. We weren't there. I would also say I don't think there's a better way necessarily or a much better way to telophize a video game award show and still make it, like, watchable.

Like, they're sort of at a wall here certainly not on spike and also right no i think that there is a lot more room to move away from the fucking uh fucking limp biscuit not limp biscuit who was who is the performer you actually you saw them live chris playing who was it it's It was Lincoln Park doing a masterful tribute to the troops. The audience was, let me say, bored. Is that the best we can do for our fighting men and women? Oh, gosh. Okay, listen.

We need to get into the meat of this. This is enough of a diversion. We have to talk about which game is going to be our super secret, super sweet, special wild card. Hey, how about before we do that? Oh my God. I understand.

I understand how excited you are. How about I just list what games are going to be in it so far? So everyone can just get all that. That's a good idea. Okay. So here's what we have. And this is by no means an order of priority because we're starting with Max Payne.

Nope. SSX. Save it. Journey. Save it. means in order of priority uh because we're starting with max pain nope ssx save it journey save it yeah this is not the venue do you want you're not gonna honk after all just go for it just listen halo for all four black ops 2 our proudest moment go on persona for golden yeah x-com enemy unknown dish on a red love it far cry 3 f till splunky get in there walking dead okay it's good miami portland love it yep mass effect Good. So let me start here. Here are the games that were on our fan list that did not make the cut. Dragon's Dogma. Sure.

Fez. Fez got close. Yeah, Fez got close. Sleepy Dogs. Oh, Sleepy Dogs. Spec Ops. Mass Effect. No, no, no.

Not that one. Mark of the ninja tales from space mutant blobs attack dicky me matumbas for an half weeks to save the world which by the way if you have not been dipping into that oh it's on your mind say some man your feet it is the best need for speed most wanted super hexagon diablo 3 diablo got... I'm looking at it now. It got the least amount of votes. That's pretty amazing. That's crazy. It got beaten by a Vita launch title.

Right. Dragon's Dogma beat Diablo 3. Right. Now, does Dragon's Dogma... I would like to submit that Dragon's Dogma is the best. Okay. Do you want that to be your game? It is my favorite game of the year.

Oh, my God. I can't believe... I cannot... I can't believe you've done this. best okay do you do you want that to be your game it is my favorite game of the year oh my god i can't believe i cannot i can't believe you've done this dragon's log is my favorite game of the year and it would be the game that i would pick to add to this list i i think it is magnificent what was the name of your slave child what oh special boy special boy i would like to put forward the premise that this disqualifies justin's taste for anything ever again from the rest of the of the entire besties that we no longer give him an equal vote i didn't say it was the best game of the year i said it was my favorite i just i wanted to go here with you justin i so i got it in gamefly i so badly wanted to go with you and i just i just couldn't i could tell

that there was a lot of fun shit there and like i loved the demo but there is so it is the and coming from somebody who has beaten dark souls twice in the past year it was the most like inaccessible video game i think i've ever played yeah it's not fair you know it's just it's much like the works of wagner it's not for everybody you you know? I guess that's true. It's like caviar. It's an acquired taste. It's like a fine, stinky cheese, except that cheese is inside of four nested safes, and you have to get through those to get to them.

I don't know. I really liked it. And I know that it's not going to have much of a chance here, but it was the game that touched me the most. Okay. And I felt lucky to have it in my life. Freshstick, do you want to go next? Because I'm pretty sure Plant and I are going to bring the same thing.

Okay. I am going to go next. And my pick from this list, because I would say I probably, Spelunky was probably my favorite game of the year, but that's already in the list. So of this list, I'd probably pick Mark of the Ninja. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, from like a core stealth mechanics standpoint, it's probably the best, one of the best, if not the best stealth game I've ever played. It is so tightly wound to perfection in terms of you knowing everything you're doing, like what they're going to hear, what they're going to see, like taking on a room filled with bad guys and feeling like a badass while you're doing it. Cool story, good writing, really cool graphics. Just baller all the way.

I love this game. I've only played the demo, but I didn't know it was that rad. But it was if Borderlands 2 had gotten a few fewer votes. That's right. It was right behind Borderlands 2. It was our fourth runner up. I'll have to go back and play it. But unfortunately, the game that we are going to put forward is... Okay, hold on one second.

Before you say the game, I'm going to make a suggestion. Okay. Because I want to avoid what's about to happen. Oh, okay. And I think there's a way to do it. I think there's an easy way to do it. Are you going to filibust us? I am.

Okay. Let me first start by saying Aaron Aronson. Okay. Aaron Bethelstein. This is me reading from the phone book. I got you. No. So what I would suggest is I think we can all agree that the...

Yes, it's a Jewish phone book. Every name's great in your Jewish phone book. I want to remind us the only reason, the only reason that SSX made it into the game of the year is because we thought it was funny that you could play with your dead father right that was the only reason it was a weird show at the beginning that's what it was we were essentially picking games to make it the game of the year just because it was funny to think of are you trying to overthrow ssx to try and get

two games no it's not gonna happen so this is what i would suggest this is what i would suggest i honestly think because there ssx has zero chance here here i'm out here i'm out because less than zero three of us hate ssx and you're the only one who likes it there's no way it's gonna win i would be absolutely in favor of saying need for speed would take SSX's slot in our game of the year. You know, Besties is about constantly changing the rules, and I think— I love this move because Plant, like, you know it's going to be in there. You know it is, and it's going to be kind of anticlimactic to just— Of course it's Need for Speed. Of course, of course, of course.

SSX—not only that, SSX is not a good game. It's not even the best SSX game. It's a great game. It's not. Plant, trust me, it's not very good. Let's do this. best ssx game it's a great game it's not it's plant trust me it's not very good um let's let's do this i love this idea frustrating i i think it's great ssx ssx you're out you're out now wait see ya i okay so here's officially wait i want to hear the rest of the frustrating proposal no so essentially so you and uh chris plant can now pick whatever

games you'd like and this can actually be an actual decision instead of, of course... And guess what, Plant? If you want to, you can make your game SSX. Okay, so here's what... I think you made a great point. So I'm going to get rid of Persona 4. And I'm going to add in Sleeping Dogs because I like that game. No.

But the problem is that... That's how it works. The problem is that Persona is a good game. That more than one person on the show likes. Right. Okay, here's what I'm going to do then. I'm getting rid of Max Payne 3 and I'm replacing it with Sleeping Dogs. Now, here would be my argument.

Because no one on the show likes Max Payne 3. Here's where I argue it. I kind of like that. I think that at this point, I don't think now that we've asked readers like to vote on these things. I don't think that we can now go back and change the lineup because that eliminates the possibility that they would have all voted for us. I'll give you that. But listen, listen to this. You couldn't even say that what

is what do we care more about keeping keeping it honest for the readers or keeping it sexy and hot and unpredictable what are they gonna do next they don't know what we're gonna do next we're gonna get rid of one of the games that we said we were gonna take in here's the deal okay i'm making i'm making an offer a counter-off all, if you will. One, need for Speedmost 1 and takes the random wildcard slot. That has nothing to do with anything. I strongly oppose that. Here we go. One, that takes the wildcard slot.

So that's our 16. We get rid of SSX, but the only option is to Keme Matumbos 4.5 weeks to save the world. What does that mean? That's what we replace it with. I'm happy. I will get rid of the game that I love, but in return, I get to choose its replacement. I don't like that.

I just don't think that Dekime Mutombo is a very good game. Yeah, I would like to pick a game. I would like to pick a game that has a chance of maybe winning. Fine, Sleeping Dogs or Mark of the Ninja. You guys really took the oomph out of me. I'm sorry, Chris.

I see what they're saying. I understand the point that SSX, there's no planet on which SSX could even make a run at this thing. Even on SSX planet where it's all snowy and madness, it would not win. Are you saying that on a planet where the denizens are exclusively SSX Planet, where it's all snowy and madness, it would not win. Are you saying that on a planet where the denizens are exclusively SSX fans, it could not win in this context? People on SSX Planet would be like, actually, did you play Sleeping Dogs?

I liked it. I had a bold vision of the future of Hong Kong. I'm sorry, Chris. I would be okay with replacing SSX with Need for Speed Most Wanted because they're both racing. Yeah, and they're both made by EA, and they're both basically the same game. Yeah. If we're going to do this, there's a right way to do it. We get rid of that slot.

We then bump up the list of user-voted games to four. So that means Hotline Miami, Mass Effect 3, Borderlands 2, and Mark of the Ninja. Okay. I'm fine with that. And then we vote in the wild card, which will be Need for Speed Most Wanted. Okay. Yeah, I'm fine with that. Yeah, I'm okay with that too.

I mean, six and one half. It's essentially what I was hoping for anyway. Okay. I think that's good. Now, we are like, honestly, our podcast is like jazz you never know it's all about the games we don't choose um and the people who say they like it are lying are you are we what games you're gonna go back and uh play more of yeah so i i still haven't played need for speed chris plan is gonna loan me his copy tonight oh yeah you gotta get uh so that's definitely a big one i'm trying to see

what of this list i have not played i'm really it's a treats of pizza i played it played everything else justin you really hotline miami i haven't played hotline miami you just got it in need for speed like today right i've played yeah i played like five hours of it you called it a treats of pizza it's a treats of pizza and i daddy like they were right about that one i like it a lot it can i ask you guys this is it when i get furious at it is that because i need to get a different car i think that means you need to be fast as well the rubber banding in the game is awful yeah it's not very good you need to be both as well. It's because the rubber banding in the game is awful. Yeah, it's not very good. You need to be both fast and furious. There's this one, like the way you go climb up the ranks is you beat these like 10 supposedly like baddest,

raddest cars. And the second one I took on was this like old looking jam. And basically I had souped up my car to the point where i know that like flat out i was probably 30 faster in this car like i there were several times where we were in sort of a dead heat and like i was blowing its doors every time but the moment i would get in front of it it would keep pace with me like perfectly there's no reality in which it should be able to keep up with

me um and i i found that infuriating because it almost makes it so you don't care about how the race goes because in the end it's all about the last 30 seconds of it anyway yeah justin did you blow its doors to completion i blew its doors so i'm gonna go back and play more of that uh i want to play some more mark of the ninja. Oh, I love that game. Griffin, seriously. It's hell of a game. Yeah, I'll get Mark of the Ninja. I'll get up on Hotline Miami.

I think that's about... I think that's... Yeah, those are... Yeah, I need to play Hotline Miami as well. Chris, anything that you still need to dip into? I'm going to get some more Halo 4 in borderlands 2 in oh yeah i need to play i'm not gonna play the rest of mass effect 3 there's no way in hell i'm sorry guys it's all right it's um it's probably not gonna win anyway that's probably not going hey uh so

i want to tell the readers about how what the next step is okay oh exciting so we are going to publish this list of the top 16 games and much like sports, you guys are going to vote on which one you think has the best chance. And we'll use that to determine the seeding. So when we do our, and then on Monday afternoon, I'm sorry, Tuesday morning we're going to be, this is very

exciting, we're going to be shooting a super duper year end video special where we will figure out which game reigns supreme. Griffin and Justin are super duper year end video special where we will, we will figure out which game reigns Supreme. Griffin and Justin are trekking all the way to New York city, land of hot dogs and Jewish people.

Why is it always that to you? Because there are a lot of Jews here. What can I say? So make sure you vote before Tuesday morning on which one you think stands the best chance of winning. Try to take your own personal feelings out of it. Then we will use that for our seeding. So much like in sports, the number one game will go against the number 16 game and so on and so forth. We'll also use it to settle ties.

So hopefully we won't have – hopefully cooler heads will prevail in every debate and we will we'll be able to assess that out ourselves but if not we may have to drop back and punt chris the chris granitron is broken i threw i threw it at the wall and so it can no longer help us um to crack crack those particular walnuts uh if you want to contact us to tell us that our uh way of doing this is dumb this welcome this must be your first episode of our show we do not care do not do not care but you think it's dumb thank you guys for sticking with us to this point yeah we made our season and perhaps series finale. It's been a turbulent, ever-changing ride here on the Besties.

I think, let's say experiment. It's been an experiment. When we started, people said, this is impossible. But then more people said, no, this is just kind of dumb. And then maybe a podcast solely about arguing won't be pleasant to listen to but we proved those people we proved them yeah that's what they said when we started and then when we stopped they said is that still on i miss it i miss it now you need it i stopped listening i don't enjoy listening to it, but I'm sorry to say that it's ending. It's like your wife, and she has that snore, you know, that snore that she does. But then she leaves you, and you can't sleep anymore because you miss that snore.

That's what we are to people. That's what Christmas Shoes is about. All right. Thank you, guys. Don't forget to vote. Go to our forums, and you'll find that in the meta section of the Polygon forums. And while you're there, why not go to Polygon.com and just read everything? There's this really cool new double-find feature we just put out that is actually two

features on one page and you can hover you'd see it's it's like a box of nerds you know how they split up the nerd boxes into two flavors and you choose and sometimes they mix at the bottom because the cardboard's not down all the way it's really shitty and it gets wet from all the sugary syrup and your tongue sticking in the hole sticking in holes and your dad is like get out get that out of there what are you doing i mean but i kind of like it oh okay oh yowzers so that's the end make sure to join us again on whatever day this video goes up it'll probably be next friday for the besties next fr Friday. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's

best games? Best games! Besties!