The Besties - The Besties Podcast 53 - Let's finish this week

Episode Date: April 19, 2013

Boy, am I happy to end this week. Over the past few days, I've struggled to write, think or care about video games. I've struggled to really do anything. Surely I'm not alone. What an awful week. What an absolutely awful week. And yet, some really amazing things have happened this week. Like this and this and this. Many people are really stepping up. So this weekend I hope you will join me in doing what we love: playing games. And I also hope you'll lend a hand. You could donate blood or money or anything. It's been an awful week, but I believe we can help to make next week better. That's all. This week's Besties doesn't talk about "this week." We tried to focus on the good, which has been the unspoken goal of the show since its creation. I hope you enjoy it. Let's talk about some video games. 4:30 - Best Nintendo Direct 14:30 - Best way to remind yourself how difficult Dishonored was (The Knife of Dunwall DLC) 21:30 - Half time - The recently canceled Ready for Love 25:45 - The best example that in-app purchasing will bring the end of the world (Dungeon Hunter 4) 31:00 - Best reason to throw a controller though a PC monitor (La Mulana) 39:00 - The winner is... Theme song by Ian Dorsch Get the show: Download MP3" Subscribe to the podcast (RSS) Subscribe on iTunes Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

Did I tell you guys about my Jurassic Park viewing experience? You mean the one in 1994? No, I meant the farm seven-year-old Griffin McElroy. When I fell asleep in the theater. No, the far more recent Jurassic, the more recent JP experience that I had at the Alamo Drafthouse when I went and saw Jurassic Park 3D. It's Jurassic Park with an additional layer. there's added depth um there has been depth added to the like plot depth or no i mean unless you can argue that like seeing a raptor really

coming at you can add something to the plot which is okay uh i mean it's still a fine film still you know it's it's jurassic park there was a woman sitting behind me who at several points during the film, the very first time was right when shit starts to go south, shit starts to go sideways, the power goes out, Wayne Knight is fucking causing, just acting a damn fool. He hasn't really done anything too bad at this point, has he? Yeah, except he's just doomed the entire oh right he turns the power off yeah yeah he's so he wants to get a snack

because he's been how much salty and he wants something sweet yeah so it's raining and the t-rex fence is off and the little girl looks over and she's like where's the goat and then the bloody goat leg lands on top of the car all right do you guys know this scene i do know that you know this scene you know this fucking scene because you've seen the movie probably 20 times this scene happens the bloody goat like lands on top of the car woman behind me goes well she was startled like startled by this thing that i know better than my own name well which, which leads me to an important question, Griffin. Was she holding onto her butt at the time? She wasn't.

She wasn't holding onto her butt because she hadn't seen that part of the movie yet, apparently. When Sam delivers that line, she's going to be in stitches. my name is justin mcelroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and it's just so frustrating that Justin doesn't know that that's not what we do here anymore. My name is Chris Plant, and I wish this week was over. My name is Russ Brushing, and I know the best egg sandwich of the week. Best what? Egg sandwich of the week. Egg Sammy.

That's not what you're bringing to the show, though, is it? Maybe. Could be. Who knows? Never know. This is the besties where we talk about the very best in entertainment, TV, tech, movies, politics. And huevos. And huevos.

To bring it to you, where you unintentionally, I'm assuming, consume this audio content. Man, what a week, guys. Oof. Let's not even. I'm assuming, consume this audio content. Man, what a week, guys. Let's not even... We are here to be the Shirley Temples of this week, of this particular depression. We are going to shepherd you out of it. Yeah, because I think gaming-wise, I think all things considered gaming-wise,

if you can divorce it from the rest of the shitty, awful, just miserable shit that happened outside of gaming, gaming-wise, it wasn't a bad week. Not too bad. No, it's pretty good. Lots of interesting stuff. Who wants to kick it off? Who wants to kick off this Sunshine break?

You know what, Griffin, can you kick it off? Because you have just a whole drop of sunshine. The best Nintendo Direct possibly of all time. I'm going to go with yes, definitely of all time. It's getting hard because the last one was wicked good also. Last one they announced a ton of shit. That's when they announced that there was going to be two new Zelda games for Wii U. But those were pretty abstract.

This Nintendo Direct from April 17th, my birthday. Thanks for the warm wishes, Russ and Chris. I really appreciate it. Every year, every year, it's like a, I don't know, it's like smashing a bottle of champagne over the year is Russ and Chris's well wishes. You got my card, right? Yeah, I got the card.

I can't actually tell if you're being sarcastic because I did actually wish you a happy birthday. Yeah, I know. It's for the fiction of the show. Oh, sorry. Fuck you, Griffin. This Nintendo Direct. God, where do we start?

Justin, I know that you kind of like Link to the Past. I don't kind of like Link to the Past. Link to the Past is the best video game ever made. Yeah, well, there's going to be a sequel. What? A squeakquel, if you will.ak will oh god finally my wii u is gonna get some action oh you sweet boy so that's the thing like this was the most bomb ass nintendo direct ever for the 3ds they announced some games they announced some uh localization of some games

uh some release dates a new animal crossing Crossing New Leaf 3DS XL bundle, which I know everybody's psyched about. Who's on there, K.K. Slider? New K.K. Slider? No, is he his giant white face on the DS? No, it's just like a sort of a polka dot, sort of a polka dot pattern, sort of inspired by New Leaf. But the Wii U didn't get quite as much love.

The Wii U is getting a system update next week. Which I'm sure Wii U owners are... The Wii U didn't get quite as much... The Wii U was like the pedophiliac uncle that gets sent to prison for 20 years. What do you mean? You never had an Uncle Ricky. I don't know who you're talking about uh there is no uncle ricky that you have um he's gone forever he died in the womb um he died in

utero and he's your uncle ricky he's gone he never existed it was basically just nintendo sort of puffing out their chest and like boasting like look at all this baller shit we have like 2013 is going to be our year guys and coming like coming up against sony who has gone more or less radio silence on the ps vita no stop stop stop that's not true because sony spent almost the entire gdc being like we were going to bring all these dope indie games to yeah the vita is like next year is insane and and they're actually original games not just boring ass sequels games i loved when i was 12 so that's the big difference well settle down there because boom the big difference between sony and nintendo nintendo right now is essentially doing what they've always done which is pour tons of money into their internal development and be like here's zelda here's animal crossing here's all the

games you know milk Milk those properties. Sony, meanwhile, probably a better long-term solution is essentially reaching out to poor, basement-dwelling indie developers and saying, hey, we'll give you 200 bucks. Fine, fine, fine, fine. But fucking do that the year before your handheld comes out, not the year after.

But this is why... This is three years, actually. But this is essentially like them waking up and they're like, oh, this is why... This is three years, actually? But this is essentially, like, them waking up, and they're like, oh, we're fucked. This is their pivoting. That's fine. What I'm saying is that... I don't want to talk about 3DS.

That's no justification for going an entire year without acknowledging that your goddamn thing exists. Like, that's bonkers. That's fixed. Anyway, anyway... Let's get posi. Let's get posi. This Nintendo deck was was crazy and i'm

so happy that they are becoming like we are now like the news team are all basically all hands during these nintendo directs when it used to be you could just have one person watch it because you knew that all they were going to do was show you 10 minutes of footage of wii u street pass and now it's like not street pass street view now it's like man yeah man so they showed up mario and luigi dream team the new mario and luigi rpg shut up i missed that one well well there it is that's 3ds that's 3ds it's coming in august and it looks amazing can't wait um they showed off the lu DLC for New Super Mario. Yeah, no one cares.

No one really cares about that. Mario Golf World Tour. Yes. It's got all the online. It looks like Mario Golf, which is probably my favorite sports offshoot of the Mario franchise. Let me ask you. That's the thing.

That's what I want to know. That's the thing, yeah. Does it follow the RPG mechanics of the Game Boy ones, or is it the less interesting console version? I'm not sure who does it. Camelot. Camelot, that's the thing. Camelot, I'm a little shaky about it,

because I love the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color. I guess they were kind of different, weren't they? The Game Boy Color was more sort of seeded in RPG mechanics, which were really, really great. No, they were both like that. I didn't play the GBA one. They were like Legend of the Fisher, or the River King for god yeah exactly um but wow no one everyone just turned off no no i got you i got you mario tennis for the 3ds was like a piece of shit and that was that was camelot and like

they just have sort of abandoned all that good good stuff so hopefully mario golf's got it but it does have the mar Mario Kart 7 community play features where you set up communities online, and it's actually surprisingly robust for Nintendo online. Now, this is a Wii U game, though? No, it's a 3DS. No, this is a 3DS game. That weird game where it's like you live in a town

where the Godzilla monsters fight every Friday? Yeah, well, that was part of the level 5 bundle. They're doing another bundle of three games. I can't remember. All of those look super exciting. But otherwise, I mean, I don't know. That new Yoshi's Island game didn't do it for you? I've played all these games.

I've played all these games. And I'm very excited about more of these levels. What could you be expecting from Nintendo? Did you really expect Iwata to be like, and now a bald vision from American McGee. Step into the realm. I don't.

I'll tell you what got me excited. They are localized. No, because that one literally used that. Breakthrough Default. The new Square Enix role-playing game. I'm actually kind of excited about that because i think screenings once they get out of the final

fantasy mindset and make final fantasy games like usually shit's pretty good okay earthbound i'm pumped i i love it shitting me i am it is. Here is the announcement that Nintendo made during this press conference. Nintendo announced that within the next eight months, they will allow you to buy a ROM that they copy and

pasted from their laptop to the virtual console. From emulators.net. Yeah, exactly. They found it online, they downloaded it, they put it on a flash drive, and then they uploaded it to virtual console. From emulators.net. Yeah, exactly. They found it online, they downloaded it, they put it on a flash drive, and then they uploaded it to virtual console. And they're giving you the privilege to buy it within the next eight months,

and people lost their minds. Justin. How does Iwata's butthole smell? Because he's rubbing it on your face. It might not be true, though. There is a real possibility that this game, when people download it, will be missing songs and certain visual aspects of the game. Okay, that's...

What do you think? The license to don't want to miss a thing expired? Take it out? That's the thing. They infringed on so many copyrights when they released that game. That's why thing. They infringed on so many copyrights when they released that game. That's why it never came out. So it's going to be even worse. So it might be worse. That's

the saddest part about it. It could potentially be a worse version of the game. I don't understand. I assume it's like everything people are nostalgic about that it's okay but not you know not not uh earth shattering if you will um but i will i mean obviously like i i will i i say

that i'll play it but it's still gonna look like a super nintendo game yeah i'm not playing it's so good that guy mr nose who's got the blues brothers in the game? Mr. Jupiter, right? Isn't that his name? Mr. Nose. Drops of Jupiter, I believe is his name. Drops of Jupiter is in the game. But yeah, I'm super, like, when I look forward at the year, like, I do not regret upgrading to my 3DS XL. And that's really all that I want, was adjusting.

Yeah, I would say the 3DS is definitely, this is a... It's looking good, man. It's looking good. God, Animal Crossing alone. Are we all gonna alone are we all gonna are we all gonna cross i do like animal i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it we can like stop by each other's cities and like chop down your trees wii u or 3ds that one yes that one's something yes i'm so sorry justin i almost bought a wii u i i found myself um flush with like, hard cash, and I robbed it.

Justin, I don't know why you're so desperate. You have Jeopardy. You have Zomboo. I have Zomboo? And Jeopardy. Zomboo and Jeopardy are my two good. I don't really. I mean, like, I don't obviously.

I'm fine. I understand. It's just, oh man, Nintendo. Do you guys think so obviously if you're thinking about E3 Nintendo after this announcement they blew the doors off

with, we're two months out from E3 they blew the doors off with the 3DS content. Obviously they can't have too much more in the chamber. They'll circle back on some of these show you some more of link to the past two stuff like that but um what happens at e3 promises here promises it's what they've been doing at e3 every year which is

guys trust us we have like 400 billion people who want to make games for us, and all those things you love are coming. Just you wait. Well, no. What they're going to do, they're going to show off Wind Waker HD. They're going to show off whatever the Mario Galaxy team is working on. They're going to show off Smash Brothers. They've got shit in the chamber. They're going to show off the shit that they have.

They're going to show off Bayonetta 2. You're fooling yourself if shit that they have um they're gonna show off bayonetta too like they've got you're fooling yourself if you think they don't have if they're just like oh man what are we gonna do guys it's two months away fuck like no i'm pretty sure they have a plan um let's talk about let's talk about the next thing yeah okay i want to talk about something i want to talk about the uh my pick this week is the best way to remind yourself how difficult dishonored was and that is by purchasing and attempting to play and then failing and getting frustrated with the knife of dunwall which is the new downloadable content just dropped this week for dishonoredonored. It is standalone single player

content. You play the assassin. You don't need the core game to play it? Oh, no. I'm sorry. By standalone I meant... Separate story. Separate story, right. It does not take place in the context of the game. I mean, it does, but you are not playing

Corvo, the lead assassin. You're playing uh a bad guy an opposing bad guy i think his name is hank hank douglas has been set on a mission hank douglas has been set on a mission by the ephemeral uh uh genie or whatever that guy was from from the other world. Played by Robin Williams. The guy Robin Williams played in Dishonored. But mechanically you got some new powers.

He's got a wrist crossbow, which is fucking cool. Wait, there was already a wrist crossbow. No, there was a hand crossbow. There's a hand crossbow. This guy's got a wrist crossbow. It looks sick crossbow This guy's got a wrist crossbow it looks sick You have the ability to like summon Another assassin

To come work To come help you out in a pinch Help you out how? Assassin's Creed style? What? He'll get you coffee Yeah if you're like lonely Can he like go to the movies with you? He'll suggest a club To use for a specific murder.

So it's really hard. I got to a point in Dishonored where I was pretty good. I mean, I was the guy who was complaining about the end of Dishonored because the finale of it wasn't a challenge for me because I was just bamfing from ledge to ledge and then I fell on a guy and that was the end of the game this is like I am apparently have completely rusted over whatever skill set I used to get through that game because this one starts hard and goes hard the the whole time I, I repeated the introductory ten seconds like ten times

before I effectively got through it. Now, part of that is play style, right? I wanted to I like to be a little bit stealthier, and so if it busted up into a free-for-all, then I would surrender to my fate

and restart the checkpoint, but it is tough. Now, do you think it's harder than the original game, or do you think it's just you're rusty? I think that there's not... It's hard for me to say concretely, but I think that there's just not a ramp up. So, I mean, you're just in it from the... The other thing is you don't have as many powers as you did

when you finished the game obviously because you know you you is a different character and he doesn't have all the upgrades that corvo had by the end so maybe i i was overly relying on those uh by the end of it um so that that could be part of it yeah i don't i mean i love the first game i didn't find it super hard but i'm like super attuned to that stealth gameplay. I'm a little obsessive about it. I'm really good at games. Yeah, that sounds a lot like me, actually. I didn't say that. I don't know if you guys...

I'm the best at games. No, this isn't me either. That's not me saying that. I like this character. It's Rush Frustic as Animated Dog. I'm actually a little disheartened by that because i i i find i feel like the the difficulty of dishonored was like perfectly tuned for a stealth game because once you start notching it up a little bit too much that process of the forced restart when you fail stealth

which i know we've had this goddamn argument so many times about, well, just go with it. Like, that is not really appealing to me. Yeah, I don't... Like, people always say, well, you can play Super Action-y too. I've never in my life played a stealth game action-y. You guys said that. We had the fucking, the great Far Cry 3 debate of 2012.

Yeah, but that's not a stealth game. I don't think it's the Far Cry... That's an action game. It has a great stealth game. Except for the fact that it rewards you for being stealthy, but go on. I'm talking about Thief, I'm talking about Deus Ex. These are games that are like

designed to be stealthy and you can do it action-y, but invariably the game mechanics are not nearly as strong. And I sort of think that that's the case here, where like the hand-to-hand combat is fine, it's good, but it's not nearly as good as the stealth mechanics. So when shit goes down and you screw up, I feel personally like my only option is to reload the checkpoint because the other option sort of sucks.

I will say once I sort of shook off the dust a little bit, I was doing better. It introduces some really tough dudes. It has these guys called Butchers that are big, thuggish fellows that have giant circular saws, which getting into a hand-to-hand combat with them is not even a good life choice. It's not an option for combat, really. You can do it. There's no way to not feel like a failure when where you find yourself is

in a sword fight with a guy with a mechanical circular saw. How do you know they're called butchers? They actually call themselves that. What a bunch of assholes. I am the butcher! Do they not know that you are not allowed to give yourself A nickname

Certainly not in a group Of like all the butchers Can't call themselves butchers The butchers are weird because they're clearly Functional because there are like You see them A few times cutting Big slabs of meat

With these circular saws. And then other times you'll hear someone on the loudspeakers like, Butchers, he's here. Go get them. So, like, I don't know how you hire for this gig. Yeah. Because it seems like you need an artisan really for the butchering. No, a subway artist.

That's smart, though. Don't you think the butchers are like can we fucking get him in like 15 i'm i'm in like a good good cutting groove i'm in the weeds right now i gotta get five think how much stakes cut think how much like if you think about like cops and stuff like that there's like a lot of waiting around right like where they're just like in the squad car waiting for shit to go down so wouldn't it be better if they were just like mixing up some sandwiches in that we hired cops to like use guns to cut up our sandwiches and then coming down hold on yeah pardon me officer good cut i made there look i blew sandwich fragments all over but it's a good cut enjoy your sandwich

well i'm gonna play that guys i i I want to talk about halftime Because there's a special game That I've saved up for halftime That I think you're all gonna enjoy talking about Oh boy This week's episode of Survivor Was maybe The single greatest episode

Of Survivor I'm gonna have to stop you right there I have not watched it yet You guys all lucked out Pick something else of a survivor. Okay, I'm going to have to stop you right there. I have not watched it yet, and I don't want to hear a word about it. Okay. You guys all lucked out. Pick something else. Oh my god, guys.

I tried Ready for Love out, because I thought it would be a good Bachelor substitute. Fuck a duck. Yeah, that's... You know when you should stop producing a show is when you realize it's all about cutting down decent people. Right.

It's like Bachelor. If instead of having the women walk away from The Bachelor with dignity and get in a car, they got in a see-through coffin and were lowered into the ground. Wait, are you saying the women leave The Bachelor with dignity? Compared to this show? Compared to this show, yes. The difference is in The Bachelor, one man silently decides who he would like to go home in this show they have a phalanx of three evil matchmakers who who just tear these women down for being human beings yeah but one guy is still deciding right yeah except that guy's in

the plain white tea so really how much of a victory can you claim there? He only chooses between the three people that the matchmakers hated the most for really sad reasons. Anyway, let's tie this. And at the end, they rub jelly on their faces. Have you guys played the video game adaptation of Ready for Love?

No. It's the arcade version of 1 vs. 100. Instead of briefcases, there's women. Have you, it's the arcade version of 1 vs. 100. Except instead of briefcases, there's women. Have you guys dipped into the arcade version of 1 vs. 100? Yeah, it's actually, it's thrilling. That is an addictive game. Except it's wicked expensive.

Are you joking? Is this true? Yeah, yeah. No, this is a real thing. I mean, if you go to like... Nathan's? No, you know Billyy bobs wanted to land out barbersville uh yeah yeah sure billy bob yeah off the 305 tilt no i lost my virginity at billy

bobs um well i lost my west virginity at billy bobs to one of the animatrons to one of the yeah well even sweet rock and fire explosion um by the, if you ever are in Barbersville, you can play 1 vs. 100 and have a robot bear sing at you, so don't miss that. It's actually really good. It's a really well-produced. I could do with more Howie, which is to say any. Yeah, yeah.

There's no Howie. It's a pretty well-produced, addictive, like, in the million-dollar briefcase is 200 tickets, and then the tickets go, you know, like, sort of down from there. So that's like a comb, essentially. They might as well put a comb. 200 tickets, I bet you get like a slap bracelet for that.

A styrofoam airplane. Pretty good. Maybe some, maybe, maybe some Laffy Taffy. That's good. I think any game that can really get kids just super addicted to gambling super early is right where we want to be. It's not gambling. I have a system.

What about the claw machine? What possible system for digital briefcase prediction can there possibly be? They actually do. It's funny. At the beginning of 1 vs. 100, the arcade game, there is a sort of shell game of sorts where they show you the briefcase with 200 tickets in it, and then you see 20 briefcases moving at light speed in concert as though you're supposed to follow the one.

I mean, they have to do that, right? They have to do that for it not to be gambling. Maybe? I am almost certain certain i bet you're almost i bet i you know what that makes now you say that that makes perfect sense to me because but like it's not gambling because you pay a dollar to play it and like russ said the best you could get is uh is is you know a jelly bracelet or something. It's, as the jerk said, it's a profit deal. That sounds nice.

Rustin? Yeah. What are you bringing? Rustin. Okay, so this week I'm going to bring what will be the future of video games. I don't know if you guys knew, but we're already starting to see

the next generation of video games. Yeah, sure, PS4. No, no. That next generation is already right in people's homes. And I bring today the best example that in-app purchasing will be the end of us all. Oh, God. The game is... Yes, the game is Dungeon Hunter 4.

Whoa. Game Loft. the game is yes the game is dungeon hunter 4 and it came loft brought to you by game loft makers of every game ever that has been ripped off dungeon hunter 3 dungeon hunter 3 and diablo oh wait no and so the 100 104 is a free-to-play diablo i was going to say diablo style but it's essentially diablo game um which is fine like it's actually fun the controls are pretty solid good graphics the other ones have been the other ones have been yeah they're good games so you know what they've decided to do is essentially well there have been in-app purchasing in past games this game ratchets it up to an all-new level of extreme well tell me you're trying to you're trying to tease it and it's like something i couldn't give less of a shit about brace yourself you ready okay so let's say you get a health potion okay every time you use a health

potion a timer appears for two minutes before you can use another health potion that's a cool down or you can spend gems to reset that timer oh my god hey let's say you want to uh upgrade your sword that's fine spend some gems to upgrade your sword but wait when you spend some gems to upgrade your sword a timer appears for five minutes saying that you need to wait and you can spend more gems to speed up the process they threw the iap strategies against the wall and saw what sticks, and everything stuck. They were like, fuck it, put a timer, we need a second currency, let's get a third

currency, and let's socialize it. No holds barred in app purchasing. It is the most shameless example I've ever seen, and what's great is that it's a free-to-play game, so everyone can see just how shameless it is. God, fuck that noise. What if I get, like, hooked? Yeah, I'm worried for you. Does it even have, like, a hook period? This sounds like it's, like, yeah i'm worried for you does it even have like a

hook period this sounds like it's like it goes right in like it just goes for the gut yeah i mean there's doesn't give you like 10 minutes of like holy shit this is it this is there there was about two minutes before i used that health potion i was like this is pretty fun i'm enjoying this and then it was just like bend me over and did me like billy bob's animatronic bear that sucks yeah so it was it's not good how the fuck how the fuck is game loft still fucking this up are they are they just sort of hedging their bets on this being like the new shit that can be their cash cow because they've been in the game for it's not that they're fine i mean it is the way you can make tons of money free to play games like i'm not saying that they're... I mean, it is the way you can make tons of money. Free-to-play games, like...

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be making free-to-play games. I'm saying, how do they not know that, like, such hostile... I bet you people eat this shit up, though, now that I'm talking about it. Fuck. God, you're making it worse for the rest of us. Fucking whales. Yeah, you are honestly feeding the trash monster that is in-app purchasing iOS. Look, there are good ways to do it.

There are. You know, Stickman Golf has some good in-app purchasing mechanics. I've dropped probably $10 on that game. That's crazy. Did you? Yeah. Well, I played it for roughly 100 hours. So, like, I have no hesitation.

That's a lot. I had to get all the hats. I'm still missing one. They ramp up. I'm missing two. Fuck. They get expensive. They get so spencevo.

But, like, I have no problem with that because that game seriously, like, that is how I come at in-app purchases. How many hours of enjoyment have I gotten out of this product? Sure. And Super Stigma and Golf, it literally probably is close to 40. Yeah. Easily. I have no problem spending money on those games. But when in the first two minutes, they're like,

yeah, five bucks would be great. Yeah, you haven't earned that from me yet. Like, that's crazy. Yeah, so it's sad. All I can hope is that, you know, the problem is like, what they could easily do is be like, so here's a free to play version, or spend $5 or $10, whatever, and get the full game without having in-app purchasing.

The problem with that is they'll end up making way less money because the people that buy the full game won't ever spend more than that. And what they're hoping is not $5 or $6 from people that get the free-to-play. To have one idiot asshole spend. $40, $6 from people that get the free-to-play. To have one idiot asshole spend $50. Yeah. Well, and the other problem is that they just don't have, like, and this is, I think, the greatest sin of all about it, is that they don't have a game that would work that way.

Like, it is constructed to be specifically gated to weasel as much money out of you as possible. Like, to remove the in-app purchasing would be like enabling some sort of god mode, because it is so fundamentally designed around that idea of getting as much money from you as possible. Right. Hey, Plant,

do you want to tell us about your thing? So, what I am bringing to the table this week is the best reason to throw my controller through my PC monitor. and that is for a pc monitor i hate oh god oh man like a flight stick i hate it so much um so la mulana came out on steam this week and this game has been it's like spelunky in a lot of ways especially in that it has been uh released in various forms over the past few years beginning with like one that looks

much more like an nes game this one looks kind of like an snes game it's also set in a mine it's also set in a special temple mine thing full of booby traps and it is also incredibly difficult and it's a lot about learning what kills you in the game um but what if i told you unlike spelunky the uh the maps were all preset uh you knew absolutely zilch going in absolutely nothing and when you died the whole game restarted but it was a much larger game an unforgiving game uh and there were save points but you couldn't find them wait i'm very confused because it's no hold on you just said first of all a you know nothing about spunky going in every single time you play because it's random true you. But you know that you have a whip. There's a tutorial.

You start to, basically, Splunky's so simple that you're not going into menus and adding new items and finding maps that may or may not work with a computer. And the computer may or may not be able to use certain items all at once. And the computer also gets emails that ping you while you're trying to get past a scary enemy and you'll get killed because you'll be distracted by the email logo that's popping up on your screen.

What computer? You have a computer that gets emails from... I thought this was in a mine. How do you get service? I know, right? There's ore inside the walls of the mine that acts as an antenna. Here's basically the thing about La Mulana.

I think it's really interesting i don't know if it's a game for me i do think it might be a game for people who like dark souls and that's why i wanted griffin uh and my guest fresh all of you here to talk about it because it just didn't finish dark souls he's not he's not a fan wow yeah never mind Justin, you can leave. It feels in a lot of ways like 2D Dark Souls. There are these bodies that are lying around that you can get information from that sometimes clue you into

traps, but sometimes trick you. Praise the light, praise the sun. Are they player generated? But it doesn't have any of that player special stuff. This is all just made by them. The story kind of reveals itself through the environments. You can go anywhere, but the reality is there is actually a specific path that you should be taking,

and everything punishes you. It's a game that you have to experiment trying, like whipping everything, pushing everything, if you ever want to find just the very basic materials uh to start enjoying the game but doing any of that will kill you a billion times and the amount of crap that you have to do at the beginning of the game just to get back in the temple is like 15 minutes worth of junk just to get back to the place where you originally were so sounds fun it's brutal like an example of this is i figured out basically how to get past basic enemies how to how to whip them

and kind of maintain my health but there are rocks in the temple that look like they need to be moved or whipped you whip them and they electrocute you to like to almost no health um but you also rocks electrocute yeah yeah um but some of them you do need to move and whip so you never know if what you're doing is going to kill you uh or be like finally just the very small thing you need to get the piece of the map like all all the game all the game's core mechanics basically are withheld from you and then you are just dying over and over again trying to get them it's like the ability to save the ability to get a map the ability to even read the text that's on any of these bodies all of that is unavailable from the beginning okay follow-up question if you've got a

computer why the hell are you using a whip? Don't you have a fucking, like, future tech ray or something? No, just a whip. Well, Russ, you have a computer. Do you have a future tech ray? Yeah, I bought it at Toys R Us. That doesn't sound functional. It's not a real

death ray. No, I mean, it says on the description, it does shoot nerf bullets, but I like to imagine. No, I mean, it says on the description, it does shoot nerf bullets, but I like to imagine. Guys, here's the thing about... No, no, no, hold on. I want to hear more about this imagination. I really don't want to.

Because, like, it's kind of cool to shoot friends with nerf bullets, but what if it was, like, a super ray? Yeah. Like, from the future. future like with imagi beams right i was looking around the room uh for my item to use in this little scene that we have and all i found on his desk was a hammer um guys it's a good i think it it's a good game i just don't know if i have the time or tolerance for something that is essentially as difficult as old Ghouls and Ghosts.

Or Ghouls and Goblins? Why am I messing it up? Ghosts and Ghouls. Ghosts and Ghouls. God. It just handles like an old, difficult Japanese action game. an old difficult Japanese action game. And on top of that, it has these just brutal mechanics of try and repeat that takes so much time. The jumping mechanic is that very old fashioned. If you press jump and you have no momentum going left to right, you go straight up and

then you can control your descent. So you go up and can't control anything but you can move to left right on the fall yeah that's real life welcome to real life it's just it's all laser pixels and side jumping now i i have an important uh this will be my last question on this game but i think it's the most important question as someone who played this game and obviously researched it heavily before bringing it to the table what does the title mean this sounds like lombolana is the actual place that you're going lombolana and what is what is the translation i have no idea what is it it means the molano um i got you no you walked into that you got to respect when you when he sets that snare

he literally just sat gripping you're feeding him he leaned back and now he's stretching his arms yeah that's because he's the fucking fucking lion king he just fucking generals are off to you you are the most dangerous game and you just got fucking took. Everywhere the light touches, I rule. You can hate on him as much as you want, but you've got to respect the game when he wins it. You know what I mean? Guys, I would love for one of you who beat Dark Souls to play this,

and then maybe we can talk about it next week for a little bit. Because it seems like a really good game souls to play this and then maybe we can talk about it at next week for a little bit because it seems like it seems like a really good game if you are a masochist yeah and i watched uh what is it some uh playthrough videos on youtube and some of the some parts of the game look baller unfortunately i kept dying before i saw any of it what are we talking about next week y'all no we gotta pick a winner oh yeah oh it's griffin's favorite time it's griffin's favorite time let me just say i think i deserve to win because of that sick burn that uh that you did but it was unrelated to your thing that i did yeah that had to do with my game

yeah so what i think that should be a bonus, like a write-in category. I think Griffin wins. Because I feel the most, you know, I'm being pulled in both directions with that news. And that excites me. I think Griffin wins, too. I have such complex emotions. It's a positive story. It is rare for me to be so excited for so many things coming out for a single console i mean earthbound

earthbound well earthbound is for wii u is it 3ds virtual console also i don't know they weren't clear on that but a vote for griffin is a vote for originality yeah that's it that's fine guys i think griffin won congratulations griffin thanks thank you i think that's two in a row for me but um i don't want to brag but i'm i'm gonna take home the pennant this year i'm confident repeat uh so what's next week y'all i don't know i don't think there's any games we can talk about the soul sacrifice sim i haven't played it no there's a bunch dead island comes out next week monaco uh far cry blood. Monaco. Monaco. Far Cry Blood Dragon. No, that's two weeks from now.

Is it? Yeah. Oh, okay. So Monaco. So we have plenty. Yeah, it's more than enough. So make sure you keep up with those games at Polygon.com. You hear us talk about them on Friday.

Give us maybe a review or subscription in iTunes. And make sure you join us again next Friday for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best things? Besties!