The Besties - The Besties Podcast XVIII

Episode Date: July 6, 2012

This week doesn't seem like a fair fight, but at least your buddies The Besties are still getting along. This week: Hear how honestly terrified Justin is of mice, walk the exotic wasteland that is Huntington, WV and be there when a new king game is crowned! 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!

Stay with my in-laws until the power comes back on, and, um, the cat killed a mouse, and it's in the living room. Oh, God. And I don't know what to do. That's a cat. Is there anyone else home? Her parents are in Lexington. Sydney is in New York. I literally don't know what to do.

Is there an adult you can call I have no adults I can call in the area they didn't leave you like a list of numbers of adults you can call there are no numbers of adults I'm serious guys I do not know what I'm going to do about the situation do you know what I just realized what you're a grown-up no I'm not in this situation why can't you do this? Not in this scenario. Is there a... What do you mean? Do what, Chris? Have I never told you about the rat apocalypse?

Now, hold on. Hold on. Don't tell me about this weird, gross thing. Tell me what I should do to make there not be a mouse in the living room. Okay, here's what you do. Get a towel from the bathroom. What are you even saying? Get a towel.

Where is a towel? Get anything. Get a ratty shirt. Take a shirt off. Go into the bathroom. What are you even saying? Get a towel. Where is a towel? Get anything. Get a ratty shirt. Take a shirt off. Go into the room. Pick the mouse up. Wrap it in it. Throw it in the trash. Knowing your condition and your scenario, I think you gotta go full-blown Ripley. I think you gotta

burn the whole house down. hello everybody my name is justin mcelroy and i know the best game of the week hi everybody my name is griffin mcelroy and the best game of the week might not be mine. Hi, everybody. My name is Christopher Plant, and my game got a 10 out of 10. My name is Russ Frustick, and I know the best game of the week. You actually literally don't. Yeah, that's why I know the best game of the week Because I'm picking it Fair enough

This is of course the besties A show where the four of us best friends Meet to talk about the new releases of the week And try to figure out Which one reigns supreme Once we pick our winner It will battle our current champion In Mortal Kombat in a fight to the finish.

What is our current champion? Still Gravity Rush? Gravity Rush. Might be time to retire that one, guys. I think we've got to retire Gravity Rush. Let's make the decision before we go in. Yeah. Okay.

I'm happy with it going to the end for it to be a nominee for Game of the Year at the end of this. What are our current Game of the Year nominees? Does anybody remember? Max Payne 3. We got Journey. SSX. And SSX, I think that's it. And Walking Dead, right?

And Walking Dead. Which we should talk about Walking Dead briefly. Justin, do you want to mention that? I played the second episode, and we should have a review up at some point, but if you haven't played it, get on it. Get on it. But it's not going to be... first episode it was terrific so it's

not a nominee this week because well it just seems with the episodic thing it seems weird to keep busting it back out the first one just came out two weeks ago but um two weeks but it was like two months sorry two months two months two months ago but the point is it's already a nominee for game of the year at the end of this. So when we review all these games, we'll address it as the whole package, not just that. Oh man, that's going to be hard to beat. It's going to be tough. Yeah, it's going to be a tough package to beat.

I'm assuming. I haven't played it because it seems a little spooky for my taste. Yeah, it is definitely spooky. I prefer it kooky, a la and max not right not spooky or ooky for that matter uh russ as the uh commissioner this week maybe you can tell us who's going to go first as the commissioner this week i have determined the best way to determine who will go first is to it's like jazz it's like jazz. Yeah. Say... You can hear it. Okay, we're going by ...

... ... How much power you have. Okay. I've got all the power. I mean, no one man should have this much power. I have been without power since Friday at 7.30 p.m griffin would you say you have a medium amount of power i would say that my power levels are average i'm pretty

sunburned right now i i aim for sun kissed when i go out in the sun and i i overshot it by uh a few degrees so you gift i'm a little sluggish okay so so I guess we'll go least to most power, starting with Mr. Justin McElroy. Okay, so my game this week didn't technically come out this week. It's been out for a few weeks, but it's a Facebook game, so a lot of people are still getting on board with it, and it is ever-changing and ever-evolving. But my game this week is You Don't know jack on facebook on the book um when did this game originally come out was it uh 1971 well i mean the the you don't know

jack itself dates back to the the early to mid 90s but this is of course oh you don't know jack in name only uh it is a a Facebook version of the game. It's kind of smart how they work it out. So it is broken up into five question games. Each one probably takes five to seven minutes to play through it. The question types and the questions themselves are all new. Question types are some that you might remember. They have, you know, like a gibberish question where they say a series of nonsense words,

and you have to identify the idiom that they sound like. But you don't actually play with people simultaneously at least. Your scores are pitted against people who are friends of yours who have already played through this particular game. So you see what questions they got wrong and what questions they got right and how quickly they buzzed in on certain things. So it's not unlike playing with other people um they don't have the uh the only thing that's notably missing that's sort of like

a you don't know jack staple is the uh the screw option because you can't force someone to answer questions when they're not playing at the same time as you what about the most important uh you don't know jack option the voice of funky with winker bean or whatever his name is sorry cookie masterson yeah cookie's way up in it okay cookie cookie hosts all the episodes um the only the best thing is like the the freeness of it um is is not just a sham like with a lot of facebook games uh they you can keep playing the only thing you have to buy, well, there's three things you can buy. One is you can buy more games. Uh, you can play a game a day and that's no problem.

You get a free game a day. Uh, if you want to play more and you earn free games when you, uh, level up, um, you level up by accumulation of cash. Um, when you level up, you get a free game. accumulation of cash. Um, when you level up, you get a free game. Um, if you want to play more than that, uh, you can buy additional games. Um, I usually find that one is like the perfect amount. It's kind of like a fun little five minute diversion during the day. Uh, I don't, I don't feel much need to play more than that. You can also buy, um, score enhancers, which will give you a percentage boost to your score, so like 10 or 20 or 50 percent to your score. People always know when you're using one of these. It's very obvious,

so it can make it kind of a pyrrhic victory, but if you just need a little bump, need a little kick, and those are the only things that you spend money on. I mean, there's social hooks, but it's nothing egregious. It's always, you know, you have the option to, like, brag after you get a good score, or go to your friends' walls and dump on them, or after you get a score, you can send it to friends to have them challenge it if they're not currently playing, and everybody will get double cash. But it's all very, it's fun, and it's good-natured, and none of it is like sort of crass like a lot of these um social games are but it it's a ton of fun and i've i've really been enjoying it i've been really impressed by how ethically they've handled the the facebook space uh managed to keep it really

fun for free and uh i really dig it um i i agree with all the things that you're playing too i know you're upset yeah it does a lot of stat tracking too so like you can see what percentage of times you've been smarter than your friends and like it gives you an overall percentage of like dumbness or smartness compared to them you're 20 dumber than they are or whatever. So that's pretty fun too. My only problem is that it does kind of... It hands out the free games pretty liberally when you're in the lower levels. You get a free game for every level up you get, but as the leveling slows, I don't know,

it kind of feels like it's... The pace of the game slows down unless you do pony up a little bit of cash for it. That's only if you want to play more than once a day, though, right? Right. You always get that one free game a day. That's right. But the big bummer is that if you close...

I'm sort of a fast and furious internet browser. If you close the window of your You Don't know jack game while the game is open it's gone and then you lose that free game you don't i don't even know where that episode goes like you can't i haven't found a way to play it again and i understand like the reason for doing that is if like somebody's doing a bad job and they can just close the window and then restart the thing and then know all the questions and answers and stuff. But not to mention just stopping to. Yeah, right.

Just cheat in general. When you're not cheating, it's just a bummer. OK, Justin, since I am the commissioner this week, I want to give you the chance to earn some bonus points with a trivia question. OK. In favor of your game. You ready? Yeah. In the television show Mary and Rhoda,

what was Rhoda's maiden name? I have no idea. The correct answer was Morgenstern. Rhoda Morgenstern. Of course. No bonus points have been earned this round. Maybe next time. Thanks.

Thanks for giving me the shot. I just appreciate the chance. No problem. Anyway, I'd encourage you to play it. his points have been earned this round maybe next time thanks thanks for giving me the shot i just appreciate the chance no problem uh i anyway i'd encourage you to play it uh it's it's like i said it's you don't know jack it's a lot of fun you know what i always loved in that one you don't know jack game and i forget which one it was it was one of the ones that didn't have cookie masterson and it had that other guy oh um you could type in you as an answer and he would uh like say something about how you have a potty mouth and he would attract points from you and then if someone else said you they'd be like oh cool so this is what the show's about now that's

fun that's really great and he'd attract points from you and then if the third person said you he's like all right I'm done and he would like close the program that's awesome he would close the game was it nate shapiro uh it was yeah it was it was just shapiro was his name it was just one name and the name was shapiro was he a mouse was it was it schmitty it was schmitty that's that is correct he was the tv and the ride and i think the net show yeah uh no i'm sorry i was thinking of the paul rubens uh short-lived uh game show on choice stevens choice stevens sorry choice stevens look that up on youtube it's not it's not gonna treat you good it's gonna give you the willies, I think. It's going to unnerve you, I'd say.

I would say that it's unnerving. A game show with a plot. Yucko. Legends of the Hidden Temple had a plot. Can I go now, or are we going to talk about Legends of the Hidden Temple? Yeah, as the person with the medium amount of power, I would say, Griffinin it is time for you to pitch your game side note this past halloween i went to a party dressed as a blue barracuda from legends of the hidden temple i had the shirt and everything and cargo pants and a

yellow helmet just a blue shirt and cargo pants i mean it had the yellow barracudas on it did you have your name tag they didn't have name tags oh Were there like five other Blue Barracudas there? There were. I know. Nobody knew who I was. Did a lion jump out of a closet and grab you? These were my contemporaries. That's shocking.

I don't know. I know. Anyway, my game of the week this week is Outlitters. It is a new iOS turn-based strategy game by, I i think it's one what's the name of the one man left something like that one man left the creators of tilt to live so getting this now yeah uh it's free which is good it is very very very similar to uh hero academy uh except it is hex-based. It takes place on a hex-based board instead of just a rectangular board.

I'm out. Well, you don't like hexes? I don't like Hero Academy. What? I didn't really like Hero Academy. Well, then I'll be honest, you're probably not going to care for this very much. It's entirely player versus player. Well, then I'll be honest, you're probably not going to care for this very much.

It's entirely player versus player. And you control a team with different classes in it. Like there's a scout type class and an all-around class and a heavy and a sniper. So you move these classes around the battlefield and the point of the game is to get to your enemy's base and destroy it with your guys um and you have like energy reserves you you can take five turns basically in your turn but you can earn more turns by uh controlling these control points on the map. So you kind of have to balance your strategy between defending and attacking and also going after these different resources to boost your team because the resources let you move, they

let you attack, and they let you build new units. So it's really, really nicely paced. Taking a turn takes like two or three minutes of you know sort of strategically observing the map uh there's fog of war so you like have to really get your units into the enemy space to like tell what they're doing which hero academy doesn't have and it adds some some uh deeper levels of strategy um and yeah it's it's it seems pretty beefy um it's it's free and they charge i think like 199 for each additional team you want to get or you can just pay 299 to get all of the teams and all of the teams that will be added in the future which is so i don't understand so if you're not paying are you just like using the default? You start with one team.

Yeah. Is it random which team you start with? No, you start with the Scalawags, which are sort of a mutant sea monster pirate hybrid class. But then there's like a robot class and then there's an adorable team. It's all like teddy bears and stuff. So you'll want to spend a little bit of money. You don't have to, because the teams, all of the classes are uniform,

except there's one bonus class that each team has that's different. Like, for the Scalawags, they have, like, a giant hermit crab, which is also a cannon. But those cost, like, a bunch of energy to spawn, and so you really can't do anything else on your turn but create them so um but yeah it's it's neat it's satisfying and uh the only problem i can foresee is you know the same problem that i had with hero academy which is i want to take my turn right

now but i can't um but but there's a lot of options for getting into a random match or a ranked match. There's, like, a ladder system or, like, a match with a friend, and there's push notifications that, like, tell you when it's your turn and stuff. So that will hopefully abate a lot of that. So, yeah, that's Outwriters. How would you describe the art style? Sort of cartoony, sort of sort of reminiscent of the the risk game that came out which in and

of itself was sort of reminiscent of penny arcade um but yeah it's it's mostly cartoony now okay what about people like justin because i'm sure a lot of people heard strategy game and they immediately zoned out oh it's it's i mean when i say strategy game it's it is not a level of depth more than a board game that wasn't even actually we're talking about like which board game we're talking about we're talking about uh guess who are we talking about mousetrap like axis and allies othello mousetrap uh uh go 13 dead and dry no it's i mean it's the level of strategy is move your guy next to a guy and then hit them so i guess yeah pretty much i guess who that wasn't with hero academy like i thought the mechanics were okay i just didn't like a i don't like waiting on people and b i

didn't like like i would ask like hey who wants to play Hero Academy? And then I got 30 invites. I was like, ah, delete me out. I can't handle all this pressure. Yeah, I mean, the easy way around that is to just not do that and just play with randos or play up the ladder. I just got crushed in Hero Academy because, like, I was destroying Brian for a good long time, and my ego was, it was inflated. And I played Jamie from Clay, Cly? Clay? Is that how you pronounce it? Yeah. for a good long time and my ego was it was inflated and i played uh jamie from clay cli clay is that how you pronounce it yeah cli and it was it was humiliating like well the problem

hero academy hero academy relies a lot on luck right like you get those little items that you can put on your characters and if you get a good string of those and put them all in one guy, you can clean up. And there's really nothing like that. Here, it's all, like, strategy. And, like, depending on which map you start on, all of your, like, starting units all start in the same places. So you can almost develop your own strategies that you can play against people over and over again and sort of work it out without relying on any element any element of luck whatsoever like a chess sort of like chess yeah sure um which which seems really rewarding i'm i'm like i started two games right away both in both games my units started out in the same places and so i'm sort of going with different strategies like in one i'm trying to

capture all the control points and then saving up for bigger units and one i'm just trying to rush and get into their base as fast as i can to see if that works um so it seems like it'll really lend itself to refining a set strategy that you can use um every time you play that map that all sounds well and good but yeah are you prepared to answer the bonus question yeah for bonus points okay you ready i'm i don't want to but i guess i'll do it this will give your game a better chance of winning okay in the film porgy and bess who played sport in life Daniel Day-Lewis the correct answer was can I try again Sammy Davis Jr.

Sammy Davis did you know that one Justin yeah and you know who plays him Sammy Davis Jr. three names you know who plays him now David Allen Greer three names again as if we wouldn't notice. Unfortunately, that was not your question.

Do I get points since I answered Justin's question? Nobody gets points right now. No bonus points have been awarded. Sorry. Wow. But Outwarder sounds quite cool. I'm interested. I will download it.

It's really neat. It's neat. It seems like it's got legs. Which is really, it's weird when you have a conversation about it seems like it's got legs which is really it's weird when you have a conversation about like a an ios game or really any free to play game it's not like is it worth your time is it it's it's is it going to continue to you know grab you yeah you know who's gonna keep his eye on it mr savvy davis jr his eye on it jr his eye on it sammy davis jr uh say his eye on it again see maybe you'll sell it his eye on it okay griffin have you changed your your feelings uh about all the apps i brought

to the best use early on um didn't you bring a game called out my balls no that was me no that was that was ross okay i write good games and and every week you slammed them i slammed them yeah i think it's just because i didn't i didn't care for gaming on my iphone i didn't really care for it now you changed but now i've changed i got that ipad it really is it's worlds apart it's so much better to play a game on an ipad than an iphone for sure if you think like oh it's okay because i've got that you're you're fooling yourself you're fooling yourself guys uh i haven't had electricity for a week yeah this is sort of let me ask you would you does it remind you going through the streets of west virginia is it more like mad max beyond thunderdome or is it more like Waterworld?

At first, it was very Mad Max to the point where you would get reports of stores that had generators and there would be a mad rush on them. There were signs outside of stores that said

no ice and things like that. You would, I actually, this was a first for me. I actually went to a gas pump and they were out of gas. It was out of regular gas. I had to pump plus, which doesn't sound that bad now that I think about it. But it was just sort of like a testament to, like, how crazy things have gotten in the derecho. In this post-d post derecho world i'm living

in what does that word mean exactly oh from the spanish it means straight line it's actually a i thought it meant right in spanish it's hard to say scholars still don't agree on what derecho means no it's like a collaboration of thunderstorms that all uh get into a line um and and basically bring about like hurricane force winds um to there we were getting hit by winds that are that were 90 miles an hour i mean it was it was pretty crazy uh There was a plane that actually got flipped at the airport. Wow. And basically right after the storm, there was about 60% of the people in the state and surrounding states were out of power. I mean, there were millions of people without power.

Here in my neck of the woods, we had I think half a million people in the state that were without. That number has gone down to where, for my county at least, there's about a fifth of the people are still out of power. And that does include my house so that's cool um it's actually really weird to drive around at night because you'll see

just whole blocks of and whole neighborhoods that are black uh in every direction and that's pretty scary um can we can we go ahead and analyze that sentence you just said i have thought about it as i was saying it and i regret it i was really glad that i no one said anything for two seconds i would it was i mean it was dark not not not black that was dark um there are upturned trees everywhere um and that's not exaggeration uh on some blocks there are three or four just, like, massive uprooted trees. Some of the trees were broken. Some of them literally, like, just took a big chunk of ground and fell over.

It was really bad. We are not built. The state is not organized for those. We never have a tornado. We never have a hurricane in our neck of the woods. Usually the mountains catch that and then gets rid of it. Yeah, this time they funneled it to my house and knocked out my power. Yeah, okay.

But it took out a lot of Virginia. It took out a lot of Ohio. I know that some people in Columbus, I guess, are still without. So it got pretty bad up there, too. people in columbus i guess are still without um so it got pretty bad up there too um can i you you seem you seem more exotic to me now you seem like you remember in like elementary middle school like one of your friend's houses burned down and at first you're like oh man that sucks but then you're like whoa how really special he's really special. Because he's seen. It's not just that he's seen.

It's like he's getting back to brass tacks, you know? Yeah. You are straight brass tacks right now. So you're just living life as it was how many years? 300 years ago, basically? I was yesterday on the 4th. I was sipping. What do you mean 300 years ago? You know, because it the power's out.

We have to stop and analyze that. Yes, like it was 1712? Yeah. Yes, sans power. Sans power. But you have, like, wigs and you're riding with those? Yeah, I mean, it's like powdered wigs, obviously. Well, that's what happens, right?

When the power goes out, everyone goes. Yeah, you went and got some whale oil and filled up all your lights. Why 300 years ago? You can power goes out. You went and got some whale oil and filled up all your lights. Why 300 years ago? You can go much further. 300 years ago they had fire. Right. And 3G.

It's awesome the arc that you go on though because my wife and I were like the first night we were like, this is so novel. This is so romantic. We sat outside and drank a bottle of wine and like in the candlelight. Like literally by the next one we're like, we have to find f***ing power. We have to find an outlet or something. We eventually went to like the Black Sheep Burritos and brews free plug for uh for brunch and just kind

of sat there and tried to plan our next move which turned out to be leaving the state to go to louisville where would you recommend looting if you're gonna go looting uh my neighborhood's still dope it's really dark there and there's no electricity and most of the people seem to have vacated the premises i have one there's one guy across the street who has a generator and um i always hated him for it because it meant that he was just like living the high life but now i hate him even more because when i pull up to the house to see like i don't know maybe they've gotten by to fix it i hear that generator is like christmas lights going yeah Yeah, right. Exactly. Hey, neighbor, you want a daiquiri? No. Standing on the porch just like, keep on driving.

Keep on going, man. Ain't no power for here, you buddy. And of course that's been compiled by the record heat wave sweeping through the area. So it's been pretty rough. Yeah, they didn't have. the record heat wave sweeping through the area. So it's been pretty rough. Yeah. They didn't have, um, they were out of chicken at,

when I went to Chipotle the other day. Oh man. Steak. So I could sort of get what you're saying. You like lost your mind. Yeah. Uh, I,

when I was out by the lake yesterday, we had to park and then walked all the way and set up our blanket and then cracked open some sweet Modellos. And I realized I left the lime juice in the car. And I was like, this is probably the worst thing happening to anyone right now on the planet. Yeah. I had to take the F train yesterday. Oh.

I know. Yeah. Well, that sounds lovely. I dare say we have one more game to discuss the winner yeah it's gonna win the person i see it wait yeah before before we get into this because i i need to see this problem with just me do you guys ever have a thing where you're in the app store and you press the button to buy an app and nothing happens yeah yeah you just it just like it's the logo like the icon changes like it changes from like install app to buy app or whatever, and then it just goes blank.

It's even worse than the music store. Downloading podcast is a mess for me. No, I know. How good is that podcast app, by the way? It's much better. What podcast app? What? Pitch it.

The podcast app sucks. Oh, it's bad. Have you used the music store app? The podcast app at least works yeah i mean it's at least a better than like you mean in itunes like better than itunes yeah it's better than that but like it looks like it looks like a like apps that were around with the original when like when the iphone was first released like yeah scrolling is impossible like and it the whole thing runs incredibly slowly um i don't know i i think i i appreciate

the effort like i like that they have collected all of the podcasts you can like listen to any episode you want and stuff i like all that but like woof i've been trying to buy outwaters here for like a minute and i just keep it says free and i press the button and it says install app and i press the button and it goes right back to free. I dare say we have one more game to discuss, Mr. Chris Plant. Yeah, I got a game. What do you got? I got a game called Spelunky. Never heard of it.

Yeah, I'm sure you haven't. You were briefly the number one in the world, but that's gone now, isn't it? It's gone. It's never coming back. Never coming back. It's gone now, isn't it? It's gone. It's never coming back. Never coming back. It's okay. So the game originally came out a few years ago as a free-to-play, not free-to-play, just a free PC game. And it is a procedurally generated Indiana Jones adventure game, I guess is how I'd describe it.

It's a 2D platformer in which you play an adventurer going through these randomly created mines. Each one's a stage, and it's incredibly difficult. I mean, I guess that's the premise. Everything in the world reacts to what you do, so you might set up a trap that'll kill you. You might throw a rock that'll ricochet and kill you. Pretty much any creature except for yetis is that'll ricochet and kill you. Pretty much any creature except for yetis is out to eat you or kill you. And the goal is, of course, just to get to the end with the limited resources you have, whether that be your health, rope, bombs, or weapons and supplies that you can buy at stores. And that's, I mean, that's pretty much what the game is that the one on 360 is a much prettier

version of the original game it has four player co-op locally it also has a four player multiplayer game uh that includes bots that is only local it's more like a bomber man type of game where it's just a rush to be the lost one alive uh sometimes the best tactic is just to stay the hell away from everyone else. And that's it. I mean, it's really simple. I could get into the very philosophical game design BS

that is in my review. I think it is a perfect video game. I think everything about what a traditional video game is and about how mechanics uh react to what you do and how you learn to use them uh to proceed is at the core what this game is it's like just a system of mechanics it's pure it's like pure cocaine uh pure video game so that's my that's my What? Pure cocaine? Like, it's like...

What? It's just a box quote right there. Pure cocaine, pure video game? What does that even mean? Like, it's unadulterated. It's just a game. Like, it doesn't have any of the BS that is in so many other games.

It's not, like, weighted down with, like, story or cutscenes or, like, tutorials. So there are no FMV cutscenes in this game? There are no FMV cut scenes. You just play a game. And you learn from it. It teaches you. And if you don't learn from it, it just keeps killing you. I think there will be some

people who don't like the game because it doesn't have any interest in holding your hand. If you're playing it just to beat it, it will drive you insane because it's more about learning the world uh and experiencing it than it is about just you know beating it in your first half hour of playing uh which i mean justin how did you feel about it were you were you a little put off by the uh the difficulty it wasn't the difficulty

i've i've played games like um you know super meat boy or dark souls and actually have seen the appeal of those um i guess with spelunky i just didn't like note that like any problems i have with the game are purely philosophical it has a very clear voice and has a very clear idea of what it wants to be like i'm not faulting it necessarily it's just sort of my own personal thing but like when i played super meat boy or to a greater extent dark souls i would learn like the world like uh i always think about with dark souls that bit in princess bride when they're like going through the fire swamp and wesley knows where all the things are like he knows this environment so well uh you know he's learned all his tricks and he can navigate it r-o-u-s's yeah exactly he knows where everything

at dark souls was like that for me where i got to a point where like areas i could get through perfectly because i knew how how it happened um. Um, for me playing Spelunky, it just doesn't, it, I, I wasn't getting any rewards from it. I guess what I'm, I guess what my problem was, like, I wasn't getting that feeling of like, oh, you're getting better. Or I, I just learned to be more cautious, but I wasn't getting the reward of like feeling like I was necessarily better at the game and and and it doesn't give me some of the hooks that I would hope for to provide some reward when those things when that feeling isn't there like for instance leaderboards for example which you think would be a pretty good motivator right like well he got this far i can certainly get that far um they're super unclear first off they're in alphabetical order which is like the dumbest

most bizarre choice in the world to me your friends leaderboard is out of order um it doesn't show how you have done in comparison to them uh like at the end of a game or whatever you have to go into it at the opening menu uh and then you see this leaderboard that shows all your friends in alphabetical order and it shows how much money they've earned uh and then it shows a world but i don't think it's the farthest world they've gotten to i think it's where they got to on the run where they got the most money yep yeah i so i don't i i don't know so like those rewards being absent or it seemed really there there are things that they could i feel like they could do to make it more provide more rewards but i don't know i just wasn't having fun with it um i i found it pretty frustrating go ahead i think there's i think there is maybe it's just different from person to person

because i i do feel like i'm getting better at the game because I'm getting further in the game. And to me, the reward is when you make it to the end of every world, there's a guy who if you've saved up a certain number of resources, you can give them to him, and then it creates a shortcut. After you get to him enough times, it creates a shortcut to the next world that you can just take to try and get to the end. So to me, that's a big reward i do i know it's sort of against the philosophy of the game but i do i just wish there was more stuff that

carried over um that's my other problem and it's actually one that we talked about right when you first told me about spelunky during the besties of pax i remember um was there's just no and people were pointing to binding of isaac which is a roguelike I actually did enjoy. But at least when you played that, you would find these collectibles that would carry over and make it feel, you know, would be like at least something to show that you had played it. And Spelunky doesn't really have that. It actually does. There are unlockable characters that you get as you play the game. Based on how far, like certain characters will only unlock if you do certain things in the game yeah well or you just find them randomly yeah yeah only a couple of them

are random most of them are actually very specific objectives you need to complete that are sort of a secret but that's i think the equivalent to what justin's talking about with um with binding of isaac i do want to say because binding of is of Isaac was in my mind when I've been playing this for the last week or so, it's interesting because they're very similar games, and Edmund, who created Binding of Isaac, has said that there wouldn't have been a Binding of Isaac without Spelunky. I think the difference is, Binding of Isaac is oftentimes, once you get good at it, very empowering.

As you get later in the game, sort of become this like unstoppable beast and spunky you never get there you're always like very very vulnerable and human and it's definitely more punishing to the player but i i think it also i mean like i've beaten binding myzik probably like 15 times and it sort of loses some of its like intensity if it's that easy it's relatively easy to beat whereas spelunky i think every time you beat it is like a really special moment that you have i i also i mean i feel like when i speak about this game, any eloquence I have goes out the window because I'm torn onto two sides of liking the philosophy of the game design and then just also enjoying how much fun I have playing it.

But to go off what you said, Justin, of making the comparison to Dark Souls and what was the other one? Super Meat Boy. I think what makes this game so special for me uh compared to those games is i love i love super meat boy and you are learning but to some degree you're also just learning muscle memory uh particularly in the later levels what what happens with spelunky is the opposite of that you You have to learn skills. You have to learn what everything in the world does, how it can affect you, and then you have to continue to think about it. You have to consider new puzzles. When you see an order of these things, like an exploding frog

and a shopkeeper and a booby trap, and then you think, well, these are three different things I don't normally see together. How can I use them to get further in the game? I think that is what is so special about the game to me, is that you can keep playing it and keep finding out new things to do with it. I mean, it's just like a little experimental room. And that's my fun from the game. I mean, I think the scoreboards are good once you've beaten the game and once you're kind of an expert i guess uh and i definitely see how

they could pull in more people if they were designed the way you're talking about almost like need for speed where you're constantly being motivated to do better than someone who's just a little bit in front of you but at the end of day, what I like about the game is not particularly that. It is that it's a game, the actual, what little story is there is about discovery and adventure, and the game itself is about those things. And I think it's rare that you have that sort of connection where you have a game about something, and the game is actually about that very thing, where you are exploring, and you are learning these worlds and uh and you are kind of going on an adventure every time like russ said where you eventually don't you never feel like the powerful superman

you every time you play it it feels like well i could i could die in world one even though i've beaten the game yeah and that's nice i i do i genuinely enjoy the fact that it's a different game every single time you play it um it's just there's there's something it's a very very good game but for games that are difficult like this i feel like games like this have to walk a balance of difficulty where when you do get like screwed over, you get frustrated to like a point of determination. Like you get, oh God, that sucks. All right, let's do it again now that I know it.

And sometimes Spelunky oversteps that line where like I've saved up a bunch of money. I'm on two four. I'm on my final run before I can unlock the new shortcut. And then there's like a spike trap that I didn't notice literally right next to the door that kills me, I'm out. I'll turn the game off, and I won't play it for a few days.

Those are some of my best stories. That's why I told Russ. There was one run that was just painful. I had like eight or nine health going into the end of World 3, and it was like a perfect run and i saw the uh the damsel right next to the exit she was like on a block right above it i was like this is great i'm gonna have a ton of health i'm gonna go into world four this is this is my perfect run i grab her i jump down uh to the area below and what i don't see is a frog hiding like i'm in the water and as i jump in

before i hit rv to go into the thing he jumps out and nails me into the water full of piranhas and i lose all my health and die and at the same time it was totally fair because i should have known when you have when you're jumping below especially near water you should throw something down there to set anything off. But I didn't do it. I could have just dropped her. She would have gone in the door, and I would have seen that frog, but I didn't do it. That's incredible to me.

I think it's very easy, especially when you're just starting out, to look at this game and think that the game is just constantly f***ing you over. But I will confidently say that 100% of the time that you die it's your fault it is all yeah i i agree with that like and and that isn't my complaint like i i think it's i think it's fair it just is too it goes beyond that point of like oh i'm having fun now like i'm not i'm i'm i'm enjoying it does take it it takes a certain kind like i'm not i'm i'm i'm enjoying it does take it it takes a certain kind what i'm what i'm really curious about because the game is so new uh is how you guys feel about this game in a week or two because i i i said this before they sent the review code out for this game close to its release and it is not a game that is meant to be played uh just non-stop it is a game that i think

you like uh like you don't know jack you play it for you know 15 minutes a day 30 minutes until you get frustrated and then you take a break from it and i think you kind of like all learning your brain absorbs it when you're away from it and then you go back and play it and suddenly you're that much better and i think it's one of those games that if you just kind of take your time with it and don't feel the need to just get to the end and be the top of the leaderboard, you'll enjoy it all the more. I still haven't played the multiplayer. Is there online multiplayer, or is it only split-screen?

No, no, it's not split-screen. It's just co-op. I mean, it's same screen, not split-screen. Okay, but is there online? No. That's a bummer it's too bad here's the one thing i'm not gonna excuse it because it is a shame and i wish it did have online i would say because the game is so precise i don't i can't think of an online game it would be a mess like a platformer it would just that would be already very difficult with someone sitting like a hitch of lag like later in the game and that would just be it yeah so so i can imagine and not to mention the like number of things that are going on at any given moment like a frog jumps

into a trap that lands on the spikes and it's exploding and whatever just like making sure that both of the all those things happen for both players at the exact same time i just imagine like they worked on this game for two years the net code to like make sure that that happens i can't even imagine it must be a nightmare so uh i appreciate that there are a lot of people that would be bummed to find out um that being said i've probably sunk 15 20 hours into it and that's uh playing almost exclusively a single player and it is great to have a good local multiplayer game i like that that's the other thing is while it isn't online i love having a game that four people can pick up and play on the couch because there

aren't that many of them um all right russ, I'm ready. Do away with the pretense. No, I think it's time. But before it's time, Chris Plant, are you ready for your bonus question? Am I? I think you are. What creatures are Alvin, Simon, and Theodore? Chipmunks.

What? Chipmunks. Are you f***ing kidding me? The correctodore. Chipmunks. What? Chipmunks. Are you f***ing kidding me? The correct answer is chipmunks. Like it wasn't already being handed to them? Congratulations. The chipmunks. Are you sh*** me?

That was a hard question. How many holes are in your butt? No, take your time. One. Please, don't rush into this. I got one butt hole. And I think it's time to make a decision. Does anyone have any last minute statements?

You're an a**hole. You're an a**hole. I think you're time to make a decision. Does anyone have any last-minute statements? You're an asshole. You're an asshole. I think you're doing a great job. No? No one wants to say anything in defense of their games? You're a dipshit. I hate your guts. You know, it was really close,

but I think that bonus question just tipped it over the edge. Going to have to give it to Spelunky. I win! Given that Gravity Rush was just retired, Spelunky is our new game of the edge. Gonna have to give it to Spelunky. Given that Gravity Rush was just retired, Spelunky is our new game of the year! For the time being. Congratulations, Spelunky.

Good job, Spelunker. So proud of you, and make sure you come back and keep listening to us, the Besties. We usually have a new episode every Friday when we can. Subscribe to us on iTunes, leave us a review. We're Friday when we can. Subscribe to us on iTunes. Leave us a review. We're under the besties.

And read us on our website, Polygon. It's located at www.theverge.com forward slash gaming. Follow us on Twitter at Polygon. And thank you for listening. Make sure you join us again on Friday for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? besties