The Besties - The Besties Podcast XXIII

Episode Date: August 10, 2012

Besties! Your friends The Besties are back with the audio security blanket you need to help snuggle you into the weekend. This week on The Besties, we continue to deal with the staggering lack of releases during the summer months. We get a blast from the past with an unfortunate guest and examine the importance of breakfast in Germany. Also, in a shocking turn, Justin likes FMV games.  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!

uh i'm doing uh clash of clans whoa justin no i got a question for you it's not about the clan what if i told you that i had one of the most successful first person shooters 30 multiplayer levels okay would you say that sounds like a pretty incredibly big, cool game? But it's not a game. What is it then? It's not in the rules for me to bring the fucking Sega Activator. Because it's not a game. But what are you playing? You know, Mike, this week I'm bringing War Inspector.

But no, you don't understand what Call of Duty Elite is. It is actually a game. I'm not talking about the social networking service. I'm talking about all the bonus content. Is that a game or is it connected to a specific SKU? Guys, this week I'm bringing Xbox Live Marketplace.

That doesn't make sense. Get all your games. I just downloaded a really awesome game. Check this out. Okay, if some dumb RPG released DLC like a full separate dlc would that be a game i mean can you get the call of duty elite levels without call of duty elite uh yeah okay well then okay you're crazy now that doesn't make any sense there's this uh about a half mile north of my

house there's this outlet mall and that's what I'm bringing to the show this week. So. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Chris Plant, and I'm currently playing Pitfall. Ma-ti-ven-ya-ba-ba-ee-jig-a-ba-jig-a-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo- me. Oh, shit. My name is Fresh Frustic. I'm the Lion King. Did you just say your name is Such Frustic? Fresh Frustic. Such Frustic. Can we

do a quick divergence? I'm going to Germany on Saturday, Christ, and I don't know the German language or anything about the culture. All I know is that Frustic is German for breakfast. This the culture. All I know is that Froschstück is German for breakfast. This is true. So I am set as far as the first meal of the day goes.

And maybe if I get like really hungry and it's nighttime, they'll forgive me if I just ask for breakfast over and over again. No, you just have breakfast for every meal. Mm-hmm. You can eat a lot of scrambled eggs and I guess sausage is pretty ubiquitous. Anyway, sorry, were we doing a podcast? We were thinking about doing a podcast, perhaps. Okay. Anyway, this is the besties, where we talk about the hottest, latest, newest games of the week.

We pit them against each other in brutal combat. One wearing supreme, and then we pit that game against our reigning champion uh russ fresh stick what is our current reigning champion uh our current reigning champion is spelunky this is the week guys yeah this has got to be the week now i did want to make a point by the way about last week's winner um if i had played it before we recorded that episode last week's winner was 10 million 10 If I had played it before we recorded that episode, last week's winner was 10 million. 10 million? Yeah, dog.

If I had played it before we recorded that episode, I probably would have picked it to win because in the last week, I have spent, I spent seven hours playing 10 million. I finished the game. You beat it? Holy shit, I haven't even come close. You gotta beat it, though.

That's the one trick about it. The thing about it is, you gotta beat it. Yeah, I've heard that about video games. It's sort of right there in the title. You will be shocked at how underwhelming the ending is. Okay. But, uh, but yeah, I love 10 Million. If you have, don't sleep on that. Get it on the app store. What do you do after you finish it?

Uh, well, you can actually play again to finish it quicker. Mm-hmm. Is there is there like a time trial mode no you just finish it quicker if you want this is really funny because like today i wanted to bring a game that just keeps going after you finish it oh for christ's sake except it's not a game it's a game it's also gonna end this is for the listeners i'm gonna let's just this is a theoretical, a hypothetical, a hypothetical theoretical. I give you a game. Very well-reviewed, beloved multiplayer game.

30 new levels. And they're all fantastic for a reasonable price. More enjoyable than, say, anything that Russ has brought to iOS this entire year. Wow. Yeah, so say that. What would you call that? Would you call that a game or would you call that an outlet store? Because Griffin tells me that this is an outlet store.

You could be talking about Frisbee. You could be talking about Frisbee in the park. You could be talking about having sex with somebody that you find sexually attractive. You could be talking about eating a tasty burger and none of these things are video games. Honestly, it's not even talking about Frisbee. It's like bringing Frisbee three months ago and then someone just gave you a second Frisbee

and you're now bringing the second Frisbee. It's like bringing a really cool Frisbee store. It's like bringing Amazon's Frisbee department. I just want you guys to know when all you little rpg nerds bring your uh your bioware point lookout fallout 8 dlc rom you know we're not gonna we're not gonna talk about it you're not allowed to talk about it ever again anything we actually say what you're talking about we're talking about call of Duty's DLC. 32 levels, part of Elite.

I think that's big. I think it's a good thing to talk about. Okay. Well, but we can't. No, we're going to talk about instead. We're going to talk about Kings and Gardeners on iPhone. That actually sounds good. This time, you build a house and you garden the garden.

There's somebody at Zynga who's like, yes! Kings and gardeners. Turn on the machine. There are people left at Zynga? Yeah. Let's not feel too bad for them. They don't really make video games. We only talk about game companies here.

Who is commissioning this week? I got a game. I got a game, too. I guess Plant's commissioning. I had a game. I got a game, too. I guess Plant's commissioning. I had a game. Was your game Pitfall? Yeah, and it's good. It's better than Frost's game.

Get that dookie out of here. Yeah, Frostick, you don't get to go. Your game's worse than mine. I liked my game. No, you know your game's bad. I'll give you one chance to get out of this. Is your game dumb? Is your game close to Kings and Gardeners?

We will savage you. It's not dumb until you get to a certain point when it gets kind of dumb. Okay. Well, why don't you commish, but why don't you tell us about the game that you find way to bring? Yeah, let's do that. Okay, sounds good. So the game that I was going to bring is a game called Clash of Clans. It's a free-to-play iOSos racism simulator racism so no sadly you're not i guess happily you

are not playing as the uh ku klux klan um you are controlling sort of building up a scottish warlords kingdom and um so that sort of sounds like a boring free-to-play city builder and there are about 10 billion of them the whole concept though is that after you've sort of built it up you then there's like a whole pvp element where people can invade your kingdom that you've created and you can invade theirs and there's a lot of strategy involved because you can like it's like an rts where you're picking you know different units to send in and where you set the walls are important and where you're like putting your mortar cannon so there's like actual gameplay and strategy in a free-to-play city builder which i really liked uh that said it sort of gets a little ridiculous but that's a few hours in so you can enjoy the ridiculous

and that you have to pay you have to no you don't have to obviously there's like the time element where it's like it takes like six hours to build a cannon but i was more referring to the fact that there's no limit there's basically no limit to how many people someone can use to invade your town there is but it's pretty ridiculously high so if someone really wants to invade your town there is but it's pretty ridiculously high so if someone really wants to invade your town there's nothing you could do to stop them because they're going to send in like 120 guides okay and it's frustrating well anyway it's free sounds okay it's okay that sounded like anything ever that did i could not form I heard words that I recognized from my language. I couldn't make them form images in my head.

If that makes any sense, that's how boring what you just said was. No. It starts out. There actually was a point where it sounds good. So there's a Scottish war simulator. Oh, free to play. Build a castle. Oh, free to play. Build a castle. iOS.

Russ, why don't you tell us who's going to be pitching the real games this week? The real games. It updates the app. It updates the app. I didn't download me. Would you download me? Let's start with Chris.

Basically, Rush Rush Dick is the buffalo. I'll put the lotion in the basket. Or else he gets the hose again. Chris, would you like to get the hose again? Or would you like to go first? No, I'll go first. Okay. In case you're just joining in uh i'm bringing activision's pitfall which is

a modern reimagining of atari's pitfall exclamation point at the end okay is it also not have is it a modern a modern reimagining of temple run also because that shit was getting so stale. No, it's just a derivative clone. Okay, cool. Ah, good. Actually, you know what? I didn't enjoy Temple Run because of the art. I found the art so gross and unappealing on the eyes that I could not play it for more than 30 seconds. And the art in Pitfall is a lot better.

Um, and the art in Pitfall is a lot better. It's cel-shaded, kind of has, I don't want to say, uh, jet grind radio, but something kind of like that. And because it is cel-shaded and very simple, it's easy to see what's going on and what's happening in front of you, uh, as you're moving very quickly down this temple, which makes it sound more derivative. Yeah. Well, it doesn't matter how derivative it sounds because like watch a goddamn trailer and it's a dude like running down a track sliding and jumping

and picking up strings of gold bars like sure but but you know what that's like i mean that's a genre on the ipad it's wicked okay what i understand that the definition of genre on the ios market and i guess every mobile market, it has become a very fluid definition, but that it's not a genre. That's a game. That's like a game. It's a game.

Yeah. Eh. I don't, I just, I think I'm like so, you know, like used to it on iOS games, them all being almost identical.

I mean, it, in a way it matches pitfall perfectly. I mean, in a way, it matches Pitfall perfectly. I mean, that's kind of like how maybe it sidesteps some of that, because it does feel like Pitfall. It feels like really fast Pitfall. Like, maybe in a way that's what Pitfall would be if you updated it. It would be some sort of endless runner.

So yeah, that part's good. Why would it be that? And not... It would just be Spelunky. No, it wouldn't be Spelunky at all. That's not what Pitfall was. It was just running from one end of the screen to the next. Getting past little traps.

So Pitfall was running from one end of the screen to the next, jumping over shit, dying all the time, collecting treasures. It is exactly like... No, what you just described is Temple Run. No, that's what you do in Pitfall. Because there was no exploration in Pitfall. You even have a shitty useless whip. Yeah.

No, it sounds like sorry to me. It sounds like sorry. I'm sorry we called you game. I'm sorry we didn't call you. Can you just see this meeting? Like, there's one guy who's like, I don't know. We own Pitfall. There's this Temple Run game.

F*** it. No, no. Here we go. Let me ask you. That's a pretty impressive meeting. Like, I actually, they haven't done anything like this before. One, they don't make iOS games that much. And two, that they actually saw that they had a license that was similar to a game they wanted to make.

I give them a little bit of credit that's some higher level thinking than the usual are you saying that we should reward them to stop making call of duty games long enough to rip off temple run and slap a 30 year old license on it i brought a game and i'm gonna defend it plant tell me what you're doing why don't you describe the things that you do in this game that aren't things that you do in temple run okay this is gonna be everyone for one get comfortable maybe go get a cup of coffee or something this is gonna take a while you have a whip okay two you whip various sizes of scorpions i don't think you can break those into two different things three you ride minecarts four

there are all sorts of cinematic by all sorts I mean two there are two cinematic camera angles that you can like zip to when you take alternate routes um it basically sounds like a different game five you can buy a SWAT team

costume six activision made it okay seven so it's automatically better seven there is punctuation in the title cool i i think i think i've made my point okay yeah you have the point is made this is the most it just sounds so cynical it's so like it's so creepy oh uh i did want to ask you plant how good is the voice acting in this game i haven't even noticed have you turned it's the worst let me let me go ahead and clue you in it's the f***ing worst and not because the person who does the acting is bad it's because um there's only two lines of dialogue and he says them every time he does something and there's one i forget something like how'd you like that whip or something like that every time you whip something whip it good what does he say whip it good whip

it good or something like that it's oh man here's what okay there's so many developers out there who have so many good non-derivative ideas for games out there and they they don't have the money to make those dreams come true and activision has all the money that exists on the planet and they used it to make a temple run clone guys you gotta you gotta be kidding me we you guys bring chilingo games and russ just like mentioned a world builder this game that's no that's this game at least looks good, and it plays really well. That's a genre, though. Griffin was going to defend my game. You can't tell me with a straight face that this Pitfall game is representative of a genre

and not just a Temple Run clone, then I'll eat my f***ing shoes. I'll go out and I'll get my shoes and I'll eat them in front of you. But how many clones have we brought in? i have not brought a single clone into the into the wait wait i'm gonna i'm gonna make a bold statement what about cannibal isn't temple run a cannibal clone no what are you talking about what are you saying i'm just saying if you want to i think i think the endless run i think endless run can be a genre i agree that can be a genre but when you're when you have that behind the camera behind the back camera angle you have dodging you have sliding and jumping and you

have to pick up rows of gold bars like that's that's temple run that's temple run you can't tell me that's not temple run it is you know who can tell you that the united states legal authority because according to them it's totally legal to do that i can't talk about this anymore i'm so mad that you spent your use your bully pulpit to to endorse this thing i wanted to bring other games no you wanted to bring technically speaking you did not technically speaking you wanted to bring other games. No, you wanted to bring one service. Technically speaking, you did not. Technically speaking, you wanted to bring other services. Yes, I also wanted to bring

the SSX DLC, but no. We can't do that. I just went to my salad place and I have a card and they punch it seven times and on the eighth time I get a free salad. I'm going to bring that next week. And Russ Frustic is a man who knows his salads. do he sat next to me once he said i'm loving this salad and i said really he said i i'm just it's a great salad i said oh where'd you get it he said uh place

uh place about two miles that mother that mother grabber walked two miles to get a delicious salad. That was during GDC. I remember that salad. I know you do. You're visualizing it now, and your dumb mouth is watering, and you're like, mmm, salad. Guys, I want to tell our listeners something. Tell them.

Listeners. Who's stopping you. If you have an iPhone or iPad, and you have a couple extra bucks, I want you to get onto that app store, and I want you to download Gasketball, because it's a great game that I didn't get a review this week, because I'm reviewing Activision's

Why didn't you just do Gasketball? And my life is cursed, thanks to Russ Frystick. He's in a payola deal with Activision, and they insisted that he, that they review this game for him. Sorry guys, a jet plane just landed on my f***ing house. With Activision. And they insisted that they review this game for him. Sorry, guys. A jet plane just landed on my f***ing house.

Shit, it's Bobby Kotick. He's going to kill you. Oh, man. Really? Let's talk... During this intermission time, let's talk about why my neighbor would choose this time to mow his lawn. Let's talk about how it's 115 degrees in austin texas right now so loud i yeah i actually had someone to talk about during intermission if

if we want to do that yeah and we can mute griffin's uh mike while his neighbor mows yeah that's great thanks so you guys might know that this podcast just hit 100 million downloads last week. Wow. Did you know that? I was not aware. I thought we were at 300 million. No, it's 100. I don't want to oversell it.

And so with that sort of milestone, I've noticed that a lot of people have started emailing and twitter at at replying saying you know how much they like the show but also some people trying to like get a little bit of attention and one guy i thought was particularly interesting um a brief segue have you guys seen the documentary blast from the past that came out in like 1999 do you mean the do you mean the do you mean the brendan fraser documentary yeah about blast from the Past? Right. So what you might not know is that story is actually pretty common. There were actually a lot of people in the 1950s who built bomb shelters, went in, and stayed there for like five decades. Oh, God.

And one of our listeners actually was one of those people and he just recently came out like five years ago and uh not only that while he was down there he spent a lot of time in training to be a radio announcer and he replied he asked me whether besties could use a radio announcer and i told him i don't know if it really fits we already have four people on here and he's like well give me a shot just one shot so i was like okay and so i flew him to new york oh what fresh hell is this to my apartment and uh he's here and and i wanted to give him a shot so uh definitely be patient with him he's a little nervous. He only got out a couple years ago. So, well, here, come here, come here.

Hello, besties. This is me, Chet Stampede, coming at you. Podcast time. What's going on, besties? I'm sorry, sir. Is your name Chet Stampede? My name is Chet Stampede. Is it Chet Stampede? Chet Stampede. Chet Stampede? My name is Chet Stampede. Is it Chet Stampede?

Chet Stampede. Chet Stampede. And I'm here to do the Besties podcast. How's it going, guys? It's going good, Chet. How are you? I'm very good. Thank you.

I just wanted to say I'm really happy to be here, and I hope you guys think I'm a valuable addition to the podcast. Coming at you now what uh now chet how are you adjusting to our modern times uh i find it pretty uh neat i like the fact that uh there aren't any communists around and uh the fact that uh you know women aren't getting paid as much as men. That's still the case, right? Yeah, Chet. It's very observant. Well, you know, I'm trying.

I can give you an introduction if you want. Have you played many video games since you've come out of the vault? Sorry? Have you played many video games since you've come out of the vault? No, we had, what was it called? Tennis for Two down there. That was pretty cool. Beating it back and forth. You you know guys i i noticed that your uh introduction was missing a little bit of pizzazz and i thought i

could bring that for you okay what would that what would that sound like my name is justin mccroy i know the best game of the week my name is griffin mccroy i know the best game of the week i want to stop you here my name is the reason that you would chris plan i know the best game of the week. I do want to stop you here. My name is Chris Plante. I know the best game of the week. Would you be doing the voices for us? I'm doing your introduction. Would you pre-record our introductions, and then we would take over after that?

This might be the laziest impression I have heard you do. It just sounds like a drunk, enthusiastic Russ. No, but I've got the best game ever. A boy too. It just sounds like a drunk, enthusiastic Russ. No way. We got the best game ever. A boy says. By the way, this episode of The Besties is brought to you by asbestos. The best way to line your baby's crib. Asbestos.

I see. Because it's out of time. Is this written on a notepad? Did you come with this five-minute set? Sponsored by Paul Mall Cigarettes. They're part of a well-balanced breakfast. Now, what do you miss most from the 50s, Chet? I would say probably JFK. Yeah, I miss him too.

He's still around, right? Was he an entity in the 50s? I mean, he was alive. I guess. He was a politico in Chicago. I was really into President Obama in the mid-90s. I was super into that guy's style. Also a politico.

Last week when we did this on video, I was going to compliment Russ for spending his entire segment with a straight face, but then I realized, that's probably how 90% of our listeners spend the segment, so maybe it's not that great of an achievement. Oh, he's coming back. So Chet, are you, it feels like we're wrapping up. You feel like, you kinda get that feeling like we're wrapping up you feel like you gotta kind of get that that feeling like

you're wrapping up i think it went really well coming at you the 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s and today and also the hundreds this is interesting though because i've i did you ever see that movie was it the mel gibson movie where he was like frozen in time for a long time and then he woke up and oh man with no face yeah and then no yeah maybe that no no i don't know what no gibson is oh oh uh uh oh uh oh back it was a lethal weapon four yeah that's right but the point of the movie was after he woke up from like his time capsule, it seemed all good and well, right? Right. But then he rapidly aged, and he died in like an hour.

Oh, are you talking about always? Sure. Is that what that was? Maybe. No. Oh, shit. Now it's going to bother me. Maybe it's Radio Flyer.

Oh, signs. No, shit. What is this? This is's going to bother me. Maybe it's Radio Flyer. Oh, signs. No, shit. What is this? This is really going to bother me now. I think that's how it ends. Or maybe that's the end of Phenomenon. Guys, it was Forever Young. Oh, it was Forever Young.

I don't want to keep this. I said that hoping the goof would die. It's not a goof. My point is, I have- I literally, I was trying to remember the name of that movie. I have legitimate concerns about the life expectancy of our guest. Yeah, he actually died six minutes ago. Did you say, sorry, I can't, somebody's mowing the lawn right outside my window,

and I couldn't hear you, but it sounded like you said concerns and not hopes. So, who, Russ, I'm going to, Chet, thank you so much for joining us no he died i'm gonna ask you to send russ back into the room yeah he's i'm back because chet died oh did he just benjamin button all over your carpet i don't know what that means you need to call the you need to call the cops russ what does does that mean, Benjamin Button? Did he melt? Russ, there's a dead body in your place. He's sort of like dust. Okay, so you can just sweep him. Like you remember at the end of Indiana Jones 3

when he drinks the wrong cup and he turns to dust? You should scatter his ashes at some place where shitty jokes go to die, like maybe the Mad TV studio. Oh, man. Oh, mercy. at some place where jokes go to die like maybe the mad TV studio oh mercy that was a productive halftime I think yeah it felt good to me what what uh what who do you want to pitch next Russ how about not me since there is still a man mowing his lawn outside my window well that sounds like the jay man i think we'll go with orange juice uh yeah it's my turn yeah um so my game this week is called stay dead and my hope is that no one's heard of it uh it just came out on ios uh a few

days ago and i guess it came out at the very end of July on Mac and PC. What is Stay Dead, you ask? I've never heard of it. Well, allow me to fill you in. Stay Dead is an FMV fighting game. Okay. Where you are pitted against, you control a guy. I'm going to call him Phil. Fightin' Phil.

And you control a guy, and you're in a progressively more difficult series of fights. Each is shot differently. The enemies are all really interesting. There's one that's like a weird Nazi guy with goggles, and bizarrely the swastika is blurred out. So I have no explanation for that except they were trying to get a lower rating on the ios store which doesn't make any sense uh but uh and there's like one that's like black and white uh fighting uh in a uh junkyard kind of thing so like all the settings are really different but um so the, the basic flow of a fight is you have the option to either defend or attack. If you want to attack, you have a simple attack. Yeah, is that how a fight works?

Yeah. You have a simple attack, and then you have a combo attack. So the simple attack is one timed button press. So if you choose simple, a meteor will go across the screen. When it's in the right place, you either hit, I think it's like up, left, or right are the three options you have there. Combo, you string together a few of those.

There's a strong attack where you have to tap it multiple times. There's grabs where you hold it and then let it go. And then if you defend, then you have to do another time button press, but you can end up doing more damage on your next attack. So you have to strategically plan that. So not super deep as far as the gameplay parts go, but not really on level like a laser disc game because it's not just like a you know do the right thing

and the fight continues you are having to choose how you uh how you want to attack the fight and the best strategy for that and it looks really cool i mean it's shot in high definition which those old laser disc games are obviously um so like it looks really neat. So in the payoff for performing the right combos, it looks genuinely pretty cool. So it's only $10 on Mac and on iOS. If you get it on your iPhone or iPad, it's $3. So pretty reasonable as far as that goes. And it has things like experience and bonus points and difficulty levels and all this cool stuff. So I've been digging it.

Justin, I have a quick question for you. Hit me. Did you write a review for this game on the App Store? No. Okay, so there's exactly one review for this game on the App Store. And it's a five-star review. And I'm going to read it for you very briefly because it's pretty good. Okay.

It's a five-star review, and I'm going to read it for you very briefly because it's pretty good. Okay. It's titled The Best Simulation of Men Fighting Ever by Colin Williamson. And here's the review. By who? Colin Williamson. Here's the review. Being a tough karate man, I have been in a lot of fights,

and let me tell you that no game simulates the manliness of men punching each other like this one. I am still stuck battling an angry homeless judo black belt in a flaming junkyard, much like I am in real life, but I hope to take on the final boss after I make my karate man stronger. How accurate is that review? I guess I don't understand... I don't understand how a fighting game can be full motion video well what about the time game what was that in the movie theaters the like hologram time game

oh uh time travel yeah yeah that wasn't a fighting game it was an action game right but in in this you are choosing uh well i mean it's it's pretty easy i mean it's still binary right if you decide uh if you decide like i want to do a combo attack, you push the button for a combo attack, and then you either successfully complete the button presses or you don't. And if you don't, then you're interrupted with a, you know, you get attacked by the enemy. And if you successfully complete it, then you see the animation for doing the attacks.

Remember how you said I wasn't bringing a game? Like, this doesn't even sound like a game. What are you talking about? It doesn't sound like you're doing anything interesting. Games don't have to be interesting. They just have to be things. You can lose the... I'm not saying...

No, that's good. I'm going to make sure to bring a banana next week. There is a risk reward with how much of a combo you want to do or whether you want to keep it to simple attacks. And it looks really cool. And they call it an interactive movie game. Oh, yeah. I'm glad that they added that extra thing.

They came up with a terminology. They were going to release it. And they're like, okay, here's an interactive movie. Frank, you should have really put game at the end. You should put game at the end because, yeah. It's a motion picture game. That's what they call it. A motion picture game that's what they call it a motion picture

which sounds like what like your grandpa would call any video game it's a moving picture game so do you think this one's gonna take the competitive world by sport by storm you think yeah look for it at evo yeah uh are there any known actors in this game uh yeah my dad he's in it no nobody knows any of them what is the shoutcast functionality there's full reviews on the website which you can find at stay-dead.com forward slash stay-dead html uh there are there are reviews from several outlets uh all of which are in all caps, and half of which are in Spanish. You know what I don't want to have in my browser history? What?

Stay-dead.com. Yeah, I guess that's probably true. But it's neat. Watch the trailer, and you'll get to see all the great cinematography. It's made by a company called bruce film okay so my game this week uh is an actual tan sorry i don't is there anything else no i think we've done it okay my game is sound shapes so thanks for joining us everyone for the besties uh 2012 edition uh sound shapes is the obvious winner for today i can't even remember what russ brought russ didn't even bring a game planted it was the

thief game it was the game that was made by thieves uh sound shape is is not made by thieves it is a rhythm platformer um well it's not actually even a rhythm game at all you don't need rhythm to play it but it sure helps um basically the game is split into discrete screens and each screen has a combination of notes and uh platforms and enemies and other bounce pads and other sort of very artistic entities, most of which make a sound. And then the elements in the level, you have to traverse them to make it to the exit of the level. But each screen sort of has its own tune to it, which you compose by collecting notes, which are like the coins or pickups,

and interacting with elements in the environment. And it's very beautiful, and the music in it is totally rad, and it has a level editor that is very easy to use. It utilizes both touchscreens on the Vita very well, and good level sharing functionality, sort of similar to LittleBigPlanet. And yeah, that's it. It's only 15 bucks downloadable. That was a thrilling pitch, Griffin. I think you'll get a lot of mileage out of it.

There's not a lot of, I think there's something like 20 levels or something like that in the campaign. The campaign is not super long, but the campaign is really just, it's sort of like the campaign in the LittleBigPlanet games. It's just a way for you to see like how these different components can be

utilized as you unlock them um so yeah how long is the campaign i've had a hard time understanding i've heard it had it described to me by a couple different people and i've had a really hard time understanding with the gameplay it's it's tough to describe until you play it because there's a really simple tutorial um that takes like 10 minutes to get it's just a platformer in each stage it takes up the entire screen and you jump from one end of the stage to the other collecting things and as you collect those things the objects create the music of the level and other other things that happen in the level also help to create the music and you have the option to the level and other other things that happen in the level also help to create the music and you have the option to create levels and also create soundtracks

with those levels and a user generated menu correct yeah is there a way to spend money um in like an in-game store to get better at the game no i'm not sure this is right for me okay um we're not all billionaires like you know like some people on this podcast russ what if i told you there was a sony exclusive uh in which users created all the levels and it could be any type of level they wanted uh the object in most of these levels was to get from one end to the other and collect little icons yeah that sound a lot like little big planet or exactly like little big planet oh my god uh it sounded a lot like little big planet so this is interesting let me tell what if there's a game where you jump to collect things?

Here's the thing. I've played both LittleBigPlanet and SoundShapes. And SoundShapes does have, first of all, a drastically different visual style. It's just 2D. But theoretically, if you were so inclined, you could make a pretty similar experience in a level in Little Big Blind. If you were the type of person that would think that maybe, you know, Pitfall and Temporon were the exact same game. Because they're the goddamn exact same game, but go on.

That's the only reason he thinks that. It's because they are in fact the exact same thing um no the difference you are wasting your breath attempting to tear down i know it's a great game in hopes of in hopes of maybe scoring a win for pitfall no seriously no i i will address that because they're they're the reason that they're different is that making levels and sound shapes is you're constantly you of what the music sounds like, too. Because as you're creating the stage, you're creating the music for the stage. And in LittleBigPlanet, that's just not a concern. new things and it's about creating these advanced uh you know engineering systems using uh you know

if if and switches and like it's it's much much much more complex it's a different beast entirely you couldn't make like a calculator using sound shapes level editor but then you can do that with with a little big planet i i can't i can't attack it it's a great game it's really i i do i actually like it i can't stop playing it um i are you done griffin are you done pitching yeah yeah i'm done okay i think it's time for me to decide any last minute um statements uh play that is like nothing it's not called play that it's called stay. It's called Stay Dead. It's called Stay Dead. This week, Justin is bringing Play Dead, the creators of Limbo. I'm playing games with their hearts.

So it kind of counts. Okay, Plant, anything? Anything's a game. I reiterate. If you do one thing this week, download the SSX DLC. If you do two things, download the Modern Warfare 3 DLC. If you do three, get Gasketball. And if you, like, really feel up for it, download Pitfall after that. Why didn't you just bring Gasketball?

That's what I assumed you really liked. Because I haven't gotten to play a lot of it yet because I have to review Pitfall. That's too gross. Yeah. I think we all know who to blame for that yeah that's rush fresh six fault yep russ who's our winner this week uh our winner is pitfall congratulations chris plant wow unprecedented i quit the show if the next words out of your mouth aren't jk jk y'all we have fun here but raffle now uh you got it uh there uh griffin we'll give it the sound shapes yeah now it's sound shapes i think i think i'm comfortable i think we gotta i think we gotta take spelunky down like the whole thing i don't mind taking spelunky down but Yeah, it goes into the whole thing. I don't mind taking Spelunky down, but can we just not, like, is our show always

going to be this progression of, like, just hopping from indie darling to indie darling, like, cigarette gene? Yeah, in the summer. Guess what? If somebody else would make a good fucking game, then we could move on. I agree with you. I'm not disagreeing with you.

I think we should at least justify why Sound Chips is taking Sp spelunky off no we don't need to it's just retired and we need to retire i mean i could make a case like it's it's a great value for the money like you can get i can't like i hop onto the community levels and look at some of the shit that people are already doing it's insane like it's gonna oh good thank you lawnmower man Oh, good. Thank you, Lawnmower Man. The Lawnmower Man is outside my house. He's going to rip all my fucking skin off.

You're going to have crazy virtual reality sex. Oh, God. Anyway, Sound Shapes, it's really good. It's one of the best Vita experiences I've had. Out of all the three Vita experiences, it's one of the best. It's one of the best. Honestly, I haven't had a good Vita experience like this since uh march so so check it out scope it uh congratulations thank you i feel really good about it i beat a clone and a movie so correct correct uh so anyway that going to do it for us this week on the besties thank you so much for joining us

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forward slash gaming if you don't mind maybe tweet about our show with the the besties hashtag and uh we would really appreciate that if you could also subscribe to us on itunes or uh review us there and say something about being a karate man we seem to enjoy that. Anything else I'm forgetting, gents? I won't be here next week, so you guys need to really crack that nut. Oh, man. All right. Just saying.

I hope you enjoyed this week, the time that you spent with me. I won't be here the week after that either because I'll be in Mexico. That means we get Dave Tack. Twice in a row. Two tacks. Two tacks.

Love it. But anyway, that's gonna do us first the best to be sure of doing this again next week for the best because you're the world's best friend pick the world's best games Besties!