The Besties - The Besties Podcast XXVI

Episode Date: August 31, 2012

Besties! This week on The Besties, Griffiin returns from his escapades. What do the Mannequin movies and Pokemon have in common? So, so much. This week on The Besties, Griffin returns from travelling around the world and Justin attempts to take control of the insanity. We also learn all about the magic of Mexican poop worms. 5:30 - Chris Plante - McPixel (iOS/Android/PC/Mac/Linnux) 11:30 - Griffin McElroy - New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS) 21:40 - Halftime: Mexico! 26:00 - Russ Frushtick - Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (360/PS3/PC) 39:50 - THE DECISION by Justin McElroy Music: "Little Marcus" by George & Jonathan 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 any of you play the noid games on nes yeah they were awful i would disagree how many were there two really yeah they were capcom if you avoid him what is there to do you keep avoiding him you know aren't you playing as him though uh maybe yeah i think oh yeah you are i think you have a yo-yo which is like the classic nes weapon yeah i just don't know how you would avoid him if you're you are him. Is it like a psychological game? There's a lot of drinking. There's a lot

of drinking to forget, to numb. To numb all the pizzas you've ruined. To void the noid. I have to void the noid. Imagine how much f***ing guilt that little bastard feels every day. Hell no, he seems pretty happy when you see him.

No, it's just because he's so blindingly drunk. Do you think he means to step on all those pizzas? No, he just wants to share and enjoy those pizzas with you. But you know what? Hey, Uncle Noid's back. I always felt bad for Uncle noid because like he was always showed up by uncle cool spot uncle cool spot came in was like hot shit those games i liked he's like uncle cool spot just wants to refresh your your palette with a lemon lime

savory blast you know the problem was though at thanksgiving my mom asked uncle cool spot to take off his glasses and they were just bloodshot turned out he had been partying for 20 years straight yeah he's doing the h yeah oh god yes um but how do you think he gets so f***ing cool the h a good way to do it it's riding the horse hammer chasing the dragon yeah here we go punching the ticket and we're off my name is justin mcelroy and i know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and let's agree to disagree on your point about knowing the best game of the week, because I feel like I'm the one who possesses that particular bit of information. My name is Christopher Plant, and I just had a crazy vacation in Mexico. My name is Ross Bersig, and I know the best game of the week. So this is the besties, as you've certainly gathered.

In the besties, we take the hottest, latest titles fresh off the digital line, and we put them inside us, and then whichever one pops out of us, like the alien, baby, and alien, is the one who's winning. Russ Frustick, who's our current champion? I think it's still Sound Shapes, but I think we have to retire it this week. You think it's Starscream? No, Sound Shapes. Got it.

Sound Shapes will be retired this week and replaced by a new victor, a new champion. Sound Shapes will be retired to the Hall of Fame. And this week, I'm the commissioner. I'm running the proverbial show. So I have nothing to talk about. I'm playing a game called The Curse on iOS. That's where I'm at. I played some Transformers.

The Curse is good. It's a series of 100 puzzles. Very Professor Layton-like in concept. It's a series of 100 puzzles. Very Professor Layton-like in concept. It's a buck, and there's a creepy guy who is running the whole thing called Mannequin or something. And he taunts you

in between the puzzles and stuff. Is it just a copy of Mannequin 2 on DVD? It's like, you're going to have to watch me. It uses 3D printing to print a DVD me. It uses 3D printing to print a DVD of Mannequin 3 on DVD. Was there a 3?

Yeah, with Kim Cattrall's little sister Cattrall Cattrall. And Katie for short. It's a really great game. It's weird. The entire film she says nothing except for she'll just walk around and be like, Control, Control! She is a great Pokemon.

The other problem with Mannequin 3 is it's about two mannequins, which is weird because they just stand there. Yeah, they're not magical at all. One of them just stands there and is plastic, and the other one stands there and just says, Control, Control! I would watch this movie the one thing the curse is a little nefarious about it is it lets you uh in games like late and you know you find hints people put hint coins in like the fountain or in their laundry or something and he just roots to your laundry until he finds

a hint coin in the curse you have to buy uh hint coins i like that because i might be doing laundry and like i'll pull like a bunch of quarters out of my pocket before because i've always got like a fistful of quarters in my pocket at any given time and i'll pull them out so it's not to damage the laundry machine and that's like finding hint coins in real life yeah absolutely like a homeless person could come up to me and be like hey let me get some of those let me get some of those dimes and i'll say i can't bro they're hint coins i need them for puzzles but if you give them to him does he give you clues he says solve for me this matchstick puzzle control control uh i am going to pick the first person who will talk this week and

the person i'm picking to go first is chris plant oh hello hello uh my game for this week is a game called mcpixel or every time you play it every 15 seconds mcpixel um because i think it is made by some european developer one man what is now what is the platform what is the platform what you can play it on a lot uh i played it on ipad it is on ios as of this week uh but it's been out on pc mac and linux for a while and it is a point and click adventure game kind of modeled after mcgruber which itself is a parody of mcgyver the 1980s television show in which uh richard dean stanton no the actor who's the actor dean anderson i don't know it's it's some one of those 80s

the guy that got oh i was gonna give a west wing spoiler oh wow uh but that guy but but dean stockwell dean dean stockwell no is it ziggy oh and it it Ziggy? Oh, it's Ziggy. He's always like, oh, today's going to be okay. Okay, please go on. But MacGyver, he was a secret agent who used basic scientific method and health supplies like a toothbrush and paper clip. He was a secret agent, though? Yeah, I didn't know that until I wikied it. I don't think secret agents are allowed to wear denim jackets. No, it's leather.

It wasn't denim, it was leather. No, if he was an agent agent, he would be wearing, you know, like, a suit. But a secret agent wears, like, you know, God knows what. He had a cool leather jacket. It was the MacGyver jacket. So when I was in Mexico and I saw a bunch of fat dads wearing a bunch of Hawaiian shirts, those were, ostensibly, those were all secret agents. Oh, of course. They look like fat dads. Have you ever seen Charlie Wilson's War? That's

like half the cast. It's all fat dads. It's just all fat dads. This shows you how closely you pay attention when you're a youngin'. But I can remember adults watching MacGyver, and I always assumed he was a janitor. I don't know why I thought that, but I'm sitting here and you guys are saying that he's like a, a spy or something, a secret agent. Uh, but I,

I know bullshit. I've just assumed all these years that he was like, he was the janitor. Really bad luck. Like, ah, I just moved into yet another job. Seems like things are going well this week.

Oh, they're going to blow up this week. Oh, shit. They're going to blow up the school. Yeah. Oh, no. Why do I keep getting these? Do you guys kind of wonder how MacGyver has held up? Well, he.

Because I wonder if it's still, like, pretty good to watch. I'm pretty sure he died in the last episode. Does he? He fails? Yeah. Moments before the paperclip can undo the time bomb and blow something's face. No, he needed a valve to uh repair the motorcycle so that the kids could escape the the burning cave and so he had to take the one out of

his own beating heart oh my god oh my gosh i would love to see a macgyver breaking bad mashup i feel like there's a lot of cross cuts you could do there that would be pretty good uh oh yeah so i got this game do you guys want to hear about it yeah oh so if you've seen mcgruber uh that's on saturday night live before you even get to the game and it's a parody of that where rather than solving the problem mcgruber just kind of gets distracted and talks about his daddy issues and then the bomb blows up and this happens over and over again uh so mcpixel is a 2d like retro pixely point and click adventure that is closer to MacGruber. It's like a parody of a parody in that it's even weirder than MacGruber, kind of by leaps and bounds. So what happens is there are, I think, 100 scenes, scenarios that he has to stop some sort of ticking time bomb.

Scenes, scenarios that he has to stop some sort of ticking time bomb. And he has 20 seconds to click any number of objects or people on the screen and see what happens after he clicks it. So it's not like it's a game, but you're not really learning anything. Because the answer to the solution is usually as far from what you would think it is. Like, if there's a fire in a room and it's approaching a bomb you would think to use the uh the fire hose but when you do that that'll end up like getting wedged up a cow's butt and then blasting out of his mouth and then like taking off a woman's head that's not a good way it's like yeah usually the answer is to like just grab a beer and then down it and then piss on the fire and put it out like or to like the the answers are always horrible uh i don't know i don't want to spoil any of them because i think a lot of people

should play them because i think spoil one more there are 100 i think you could spoil one more or two so uh in in one of them the uh on the you're on the moon and uh there's a cccp flag like a communist uh party flag and a communist astronaut and a nuclear bomb so when you tap things most of the time you like kick them uh so if you tap if you like tap the nuke you'll just kick it and it'll blow up and destroy the moon but you can pick up the nuke uh and hand it to the astronaut and then kick him in the balls which will knock his air vent out and it'll launch him off the moon and you'll save the moon but then the nuclear weapon attached to the astronaut will fly into earth and kill everyone on earth and that's how you win that mission because you saved yourself because you saved the moon and the moon

awesome yeah it's pretty good it's pretty it's just like really really silly and it's like i would the the biggest mistake you can make is playing this game for more than 30 seconds at a time because it will drive you crazy because your instinct is to try to win the game uh and not just see what happens and if you're trying to win it it is the most annoying thing in the world because it just i mean that's how it's how comedy works you know it's you know subverting your expectations so this is how comedy works guys this is how comedy works this is tell me while you're telling me about how comedy works can you tell me more about like macgyver and saturday night live yeah do you want to hear

anything else do you want to talk off topic listen just because we aren't all as refreshed as you because you've been, you know, vacationing up with Margarita Bill and your fat dad. We're going to go ahead and this game sounds great. And I have already purchased it while we've been talking. So that is fantastic. It's like a dollar ninety nine. Let's see. Griffin. Yeah.

Go next. Sure. My game is New Super Mario brothers 2 for the nintendo 3ds and here's my pitch he's still at it here's here's my pitch what else are you gonna play on the 3ds go good pitch is that the official nintendo line mm-hmm hey stupid you bought it that's it isn't it like 40 to download it's uh it's 40 it's 40 nintendo bucks it's a new currency that they've implemented basically one buck will get you two nintendo bucks so it's it is 80 and worth every worth it all that is not how money translates that would be 20 yeah you get two for two bucks you get six nintendo bucks in australia their exchange rate's really checked can i talk about

my game uh-huh don't we kind of already know what tv show is it based off of oh is this based off that one with the pro wrestler which which if you were to name one saturday night live sketch that super is closest to what would have been gilly guys gilly and that they don't give up on it and they keep playing it over and over and over again yeah uh okay griffin opera man like what can you tell us about this? I'm not trying to grief you. Good boy. I don't know what you're going to say. Canteen boy.

So, basically, it's... Here's the thing. You know all about the gold collecting stuff. No. That's the whole aspect. Gold! You got to get that gold new super mario bros too and there's some clever stuff in there that the the gold aspect let me just say

if it weren't for the gold aspect it would be the most creatively bankrupt mario game in the history of mankind because it is it is seriously like to to a t it is it is the last game is is it true that they didn't make the graph the background graphics in 3d and to make up for this they just have them blur out when you turn on 3d no no no no they they extend they go back i am not sure that's true i think i just read something about how like i don't play any of that we'll something about how like... I don't play any of that. We'll just make it blurry here. I don't play any of that in 3D. I don't think I've messed with the 3D.

I just got a 3DS XL. I don't think I've messed with the 3D switch on it. It's just not my jam. Anyway, so yeah, the core mechanics of it are basically the same. But what it does add is with the gold collecting mechanics, it adds a level of like skill of like score chasing that I don't think I've ever had for a Mario game before. Like you're not only just trying to make it through the level and collecting like the three special coins,

which is basically, I think that's basically all you did in the last, in Super Mario 3D Land. And it's sort basically all you did in the last in super mario 3d land and it's sort of what you do in every mario game in this one you are collecting coins which uh on a broad level is sort of a silly goal because you'll collect so so many when i finished the game i had over 100 lives like and that's that's been the only purpose of the gold in the past but but now you it is it's desirable they make such nice noises and it's nice to finish a level with like a thousand coins that you'd picked up um and it makes you play the game in

different ways like it makes you look for uh it makes you look for combos it makes you look for the best possible time that you can use like the special golden power-ups it makes you try to maximize your gold output on every level and it really does add a new layer of gameplay to the game and it's not nothing um and and also there's the gold rush mode which is actually pretty cool i i hadn't i didn't think i was going to be that into it but i've been traveling so much and going to all these different conventions that um i got a lot of play out of it basically you you go on these runs of three levels and when you die you only have one life when you die you're out um and so these three level like packs you try to collect as many coins as you

possibly can and then whenever you street pass with other players you pass your record on to them and they try and beat your score or vice versa i've got like i've got something like 25 challenges waiting for griffin sounds cool yeah i got a quick question for you yeah shoot as a jew i already have a lot of gold oh my god do you think i need more be careful because yeah there's literally could be racist um i think i think you could i think is it fun yeah yeah it's fun it's fucking mario like you know what it is you know what it's gonna be and it's good and it's polished and it feels great and the platforming's great um But I'll be honest.

The million coin goal, no way. There's no way I'll ever have enough interest to try to win. Why would you ever do that? When I finished the game, I don't even think I had 50,000 coins. Like, I wasn't even close, and I don't understand why. What would you get for doing that? I don't know. What do you get for completing most simple tasks?

Mad achievos, yo. Oh, yeah, achievos, right. Yeah. No achievos on 3DS. It's fun. I think the coin rush mode has some legs. I think when I travel, I'll keep it on me because going after those challenges really is fun.

But, like, for instance, there are secret worlds in the game that I just didn't even bother with. Wait, is this the Mario with secret worlds? there are secret worlds in the game that i just didn't even bother with wait this is the mario with secret worlds there are secret worlds it's sort of like how you know in the last new super mario brothers if you were like mini at the right point you would go in like a special tunnel and then yeah i'm surprising i didn't think they had secret worlds in mario games i can't tell if you're being an asshole or not i counted the seconds and we made it five um you know what would be great you know this is just an idea i'm gonna throw it out there nintendo can take it or leave it uh new super mario world why isn't that i mean that is that's

that's that's kind of what this is is it what is that though it would be like more like uh the super mario world type of graphics and play style. The play style is the same thing. I would say that it actually feels different. It's personally a little disappointing for me that this isn't a... Like, in much the same way the first one re-envisioned Super Mario Bros., that this doesn't actually re-envision super mario brothers yeah i thought oh that would be really that would be way more interesting for me because that's such a weird aesthetic and it's

such like an untapped i know it's sort of the this you know the the stepchild of of the whole thing but i i don't know that to me would would be more interesting. I think the comparison is hard. The comparison is rough because the last platformer I played was Rayman Origins. And you can't... Like, there is nothing creatively bankrupt about that game. Like, there are so many great ideas in that game that weren't in any other Rayman game or any other platformer. And to watch them just sort of... The gold collecting stuff is cool but it's not like to its core an entirely new experience yeah i would also say that super

mario 3d land was like one of the best mario games the last 10 years yeah it was phenomenal take a step back to like quasi you know dull same old same old i can't tell you how when i finished the game i was like that was great i am never ever ever going to play the new super mario brothers for wii u not never like i i'm so i'm just so done with it like i'm gonna need like a two-year refresh before i'm even remotely interested in playing one of these games again and it's not a long game which is what's messed up about it it's not like it demanded so much time for me it's just that i have done i've been doing this for two god decades now like i think the bummer part is they basically have splintered

this series into like types of games like there's like now we have 3d land we have new super mario brothers and we have galaxy and it's like i would say 3d land and galaxy are effectively the same i the my point being it used to be like a new one came out and the game itself was different yeah like it was like there was was Mario, and the Mario games were different. And now it's like, great, we just have three, you know, type of brands, like Call of Duty, that it can rotate between and just keep churning them out each year.

Yeah. Which, I don't know, I feel like I'm being too hard on it, because I did enjoy what I played while I was playing it. I just have no interest in going back to it. So, I don't know. I't know if if you if you enjoy platformers if you enjoy mario games that's the god dumbest thing i've ever said out loud raymond legends fans of the genre fans of the platforming genre hey have you heard of mario um i mean you know you know if you're gonna like it or not am i gonna be lost in the story though um that's the thing here's the story here's the here's the story of the game uh the princess

got kidnapped sure why the do i have to collect a million dollars like i rescued her i don't need it for ransom why do i need a million coins for? They literally never explain why you're on this coin binge. Was she kidnapped by a Jewish person? Oh, God, Russ. You're killing me, Russ. What's Griffin? What was the...

What's not Griffin? Everybody. What's going on in your lives? Well, I want to hear about Griffin's international travails. Yeah, did you get anything crazy, Griffin? Did you meet any locals? I actually made a point not to. I went on a snorkeling excursion with a small group of people on my last day in Mexico.

And I met an American couple, and they seemed nice enough. And then I told them I was from Texas and they asked me if I had jumped the fence. And then I said, well, I've got to go away now. No, but seriously, did you jump the fence? That's like super racist. Is it? Isn't there a fence though?

Yeah, there's a fence between Mexico and Texas. They just ask you if you jumped it. Right, that's what I'm saying. How is that right i didn't meet anyone do you know why because i was drunk for six days i'm exhausted you guys i got yeah sure all i did was when i got home was just drink two big old cups of a great american tap water great american beer can you not get that the resort you're at where was the water potable um i believe it's here's the thing potable it was a nice resort portable it was a nice resort and every restaurant that we went to at the resort um would give us glasses of water um to which uh my girlfriend and i would

would promptly uh respond oh can we have bottles and we tried to say it in like the shittiest like california accent like uh no we're gonna need some avena please um because and i'll tell you why and it's not it's not for any reason other than i just don't want poop worms i just don't want them i'm way too busy for them sure well you're living the life you want you don't have time for poop worms i got poop worms in italy from doing that out in the country drank that water it was bad yeah see and i i have a delicate constitution already it's it's it's like tissue paper down there and i i you know I felt like I had to be super careful. So I would insult them.

They were nice. They were very, very, very nice. And it was a very nice resort. I would recommend it to anyone. The Royal in Playa del Carmen, very sensible packages. But I just didn't want to just shit my guts out all week. Do you think that when they're growing up, like people in areas where the water is not super drinkable? Oh, they get used to it, yeah.

Well, but so, like, everyone pretty much has their poop worm moment when they're a kid, and then you're just, like, adjusted to it. No, it's like you have inherited and also in your gut already there are certain kinds of bacteria. Yeah, you get that. You get in vitro poop worms. Like, they live in you when you're – Actually, when you're born – I listened to a Radiolab you uh when you're actually when you're born i i listened to a radio lab recently when you're born you have nothing in there you got nothing you got

no bacteria to absorb that stuff and then within like the first minute of you being in the world your body is just a just a fucking petri just a battleground of viruses and bacterias and strict cocci and metamucil just like everything gets in there and just wants to tear you up so that's the that's how you turn into a superman though if they just keep sending crap at you you adjust to it yeah it's true that's true i when i have kids i'm gonna poison them every day a little bit yeah just a little just a little bit just not enough to keep them on their toes i just want that rasputin treatment for my offspring hey uh i just realized that i like this show a lot more if i imagine uh since i know chris and russ are in the same room do you guys just stare into each

other's eyes the whole time? Yeah, we sit across from each other. Do you have your hands up? Are you doing, like, mirroring exercises? No, but we intertwine our legs. Yeah. Oh. It's sort of like an inverted human centipede.

So, let's see. Russ Frushtick. Hey, guys. I have a confession for you i love robots i love cars the problem and planes and the one problem i've always had is that i can't find a game that is that you can't have a game with both of those yeah you really i would completely agree like for years and years i kept thinking robots planes, awesome, but no middle ground. That ends today.

Today? Last Tuesday. Last Tuesday. That ends last Tuesday. And also three years ago and also 20 years ago. With a little game called Transformersers the fall of cybertron spoiler alert cybertron falls in this game uh so prequel to something no uh yeah sort of it's a sequel it's a sequel prequel no it's why would they spoil the end of it if it's not a prequel? No, it's a... Why would they spoil the end of it if it's not a prequel? Well, it's a prequel to the Transformers getting to Earth and doing other things.

Oh. So, spoiler alert, they probably get to Earth at the end. I actually haven't beaten it yet, but I'm very, very close. I believe it's pronounced Earth. Earth. So, Transformers War for Cybertron, sorry, Fall of of cybertron takes place after the events of war for cybertron which came out two years ago wharf wharf wharf of cybertron yeah so he's a um a klingon and he's got a bailiff and something else star trekky okay um anyway it takes place after

the events of that game and oh we'll never forget the events of war for cybertron yeah i never actually played that game but from what i understand there was a war over who got cybertron and bumblebee met optimus prime maybe yeah did that happen i i'm sure it happened anyway uh fall for cybertron a fall of cybertron takes place after the events of that game those memorable memorable events uh and in this game basically the uh autobots who are the good guys uh are escaping cybertron because it's basically effed and the decepticons the bad guys because they deceive, are not wanting the Autobots to leave or something.

Yeah, basically. Autobots. So they're the car guys. We're out of here. Roll out. Roll out. Dinosaurs. Battlebeasts. Sorry, go ahead. I started playing this game

and it was sort of dull which is surprising because the first couple levels let you play as optimus prime so you would think that that would be like the most epic great parts of it but it sort of like felt like you know like call of duty but in third person and with robots and sci-fi and stuff. So bullets. So basically, it had shooting guns. No, I mean, it felt the way the levels were structured with enemies popping out from drop ships. It just felt like a shooter, like a pretty standard shooter.

Sure. So if in Call of... Just so I'm clear. If in call of your just so i'm clear if in call of duty go on you if in call of duty you were made of metal uh you uh you had no soul you were on a planet made of metal everyone around you is a robot and you could turn into a car and the guns didn't shoot bullets but concentrated energon if that in call of duty it was basically the same thing and sometimes you can transform into a pretty much basically okay all right i got the premise go on um anyway so So like if in Call of Duty you ran over hot dog buns and toppings and burgers and ketchup and salt and pepper to defend yourself, that's basically Burger Time. So that's – Call of Duty and Burger Time are basically the same.

Essentially. Essentially. At its core. They are the same. But you got imagine imagine call of duty except that your son got hit by a car and your other son is very sad and so you have to cut off your finger to make him love you again sure sure this is basically and also there's rope he's a but they're both robot car robots. Okay.

Okay. Wait, is that a sequel to the Call of Duty where your son falls out the high window and then you write a song about it? No. No. That's Eric Clapton's life. Oh, you're thinking of Eric Clapton. That is a common mistake. So, Russ, I'm sorry. Go on.

Did the game turn around for you? It did, as a matter of fact. so russ i'm sorry go on did the game turn around it did as a matter of fact so after the optimus prime levels this sort of the optimus prime levels end with like a cool moment that i won't spoil for everyone but it's cool it involves a large robot uh so they basically it the game turns into sort of like a greatest hits family reunion collection of robots. So each level or so, you're switching to a different robot which has different skills. So in the levels after Optimus Prime you're playing is this guy named Cliffjumper who I've never heard of. But he's like the stealth robot.

I did air quotes. You probably can't see that. He's like the stealth robot. And he air quotes. You probably can't see that. He's like the stealth robot. And he kills guys stealthy like. And there's a whole like stealth mission where you sneak into a garbage dump or whatever. And then there's the other guy that's like turns into a helicopter and you use more aerial attacks. So each level feels pretty different to one another. Because each robot has a very different play style.

Right. And you're going to prefer some to others some of them don't aren't as refined i think to be to be yeah well i i think ironically enough optimus prime is the most unrefined of them all because all he does is just shoot guys and then call in airstrikes it's basically an extended tutorial the optimus part i mean it's just giving you the basic shooting and and and mechanics um it's so the game picks up and adds a lot more variety and and i could care less about transformers as like a storyline but it actually you know got me sort of interested in it and um yeah i would say I know you all were making fun of me about the Call of Duty analogies

but when you get into the multiplayer that's only because they were terrible in Nuzlocke when you get into the multiplayer there's a mode called Annihilation or something to that effect Kill Confirmed where you basically it's a four player co-op mode where you're in a room and you're killing

AI guys as they flood in and then using the money that you earn from the kills to open doors and buy weapons off the walls. Oh, so zombie mode. Which is to say it's a direct copy of zombie mode. It's fun, but it's zombie mode. Isn't zombie mode just horde mode? No. Well, zombie mode has more structure.

Yeah, it's different. Okay. no well zombie mode has more structure it's different okay um but i was actually kind of surprised by how they have they genuinely have taken the idea of the flexibility of these characters as as combatants and you really do have to make use of it or you will die like it's genuinely difficult and like a lot of the times if you die it's because you weren't using everything at your disposal correctly like you can't always force it if you want to be a car in a certain place you know but you're you should be actually using cover um it forces you back and forth between the two surprisingly well um and

forces you to sort of think strategically about a situation. There's things like your car armor is stronger than in your robot form. Is it? I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can also buy upgrades to your car's armor. Can you? I didn't know that. Yeah. Have you played much?

Have you played much of it? There are upgrades, too, of course, that you can get for Energon that bizarrely carry over from character to character, even when you switch teams. They explain it away in a loading screen, where it's like, oh, the store got hacked

by the Decepticons. It's like bullshit. Although, like, the vending machine is probably my favorite thing about the game because think about it. You're in a world populated entirely by robots, but they decided that there's this one robot that they're not going to make ambulatory.

They're going to make him completely stationary but i think he still has like emotions and feelings because he'll say things like under under star screams leadership the decepticons will come to ruin like he has an opinion he's got they created basically a paraplegic yeah the Transformers lore. He sounds negative. Well, I wouldn't say racist. Yeah, is he racist against Autobots? No. This is when he's talking the Decepticons.

Yeah. That is one of the weird things about the game too, for me, is that you... I hate it when they make you go back and forth between Autobots and Decepticons because I feel like it completely sort of... How are you supposed to get invested in any sort of narrative when you're not yeah there's basically this whole mission where you're trying to save like this big

pool of energon and like a giant freighter and you do it and you're really happy and then the next mission is blow the fuck out of the freighter right which is just like okay well i don't really feel it kind of robs your motivation when it's well i don't really feel it kind of robs your motivation what's like i don't really i mean put me on one side or the other or make two separate campaigns well i think what happened was they did that with the last game war for cybertron and i think what happened was they realized that like only 10 of the people played like one of the campaigns and that was probably frustrating yeah i get that i i just i don't know it's it's it's a weird storytelling thing because you're going back and forth between the two and and which would not be

so weird in most other narrative forms um you know like in any movie you're going to be going back and forth between the bad guys and the good guys um but like to be them it sort of like hollows out your honestly i kind of liked it just because it gave you a more personal like like i'll be honest the autobot characters are kind of boring and at least the decepticons they're dicks but their motivation they have like yes like apart from like do good save cybertron like there's some like interesting element to it yeah good video game like the nice guy video game characters tend to lack any real motivation in most video games except for soap get more gold uh the game also looks yeah it's good uh so two two things that i do

want to take issue with the level design i think it's kind of like, it reminded me of Halo 1, where it was just a lot of copy and paste sci-fi rooms. Yeah, they definitely take advantage of the fact that it is a planet made of robots. Which I don't, are they living day-to-day lives like can they exist outside of war have you ever played kill zone like have you played any of those kill zone games yeah that's like my question with that is it's always like who like what the hell do the hell gas do when they're not being hell gas like right their eyes are laser beams and they all have helmets for

that it's like and for kills on three and the developer's like you're gonna learn a lot about what goes on back on hellgan and you go there and it's like well there's a lot of industry yeah transformers seems to be a cautionary tale about the military industrial complex overrunning a planet because all we have left werunning a planet. Because all we have left... To the point where we don't even eat. All we have left are sentient war machines. Actually, I think they have

malls. Do they have malls? They have like a Cinnabon if you really... That's sort of where they hang out. This is the only way I know how to relax. I eat to feel. Oh, and the other thing I wanted to mention. So they bill themselves as robots in disguise.

But if you can't disguise yourself as anything but the one thing, that doesn't really hold up as a disguise more than once. And I think that needs to be changed. Plus, there's not like cars on cybertron that aren't secretly that's the bigger problem that's like being like well when i wear clothes i'm in disguise from my naked form that's embarrassing i bet how many how many like decepticon dudes do you think have rolled up to, like, a Porsche and just been like, hey, damn, baby, are those suicide doors? Damn you.

Oh, ah, yeah, you're a car. Boy, is my face painted red. I just want to know more about their day-to-day lives, you know? I want to know more about what they're doing when they're not fighting with each other why do they want to continue to survive doesn't it take a weird turn if you consider that maybe Cybertron

used to be inhabited by people it makes it sound much better it's actually feature fiction you blew it up yes anyway as usual I don't think i pitched the game very well it was but i liked it i didn't love it but i like it justin justin actually pitched

it way better than you yeah thank you commissioner so we can just go ahead and end in the show if you if you guys want i mean there's been i i don't want to i don't know i don't want to sound petty but there's been some obvious favoritism go on say say how do you figure i'm just i'm just saying that you you obviously very badly want this game to win i'm not saying that they paid you a large sum of money to get you on their side but i am saying exactly that well i it's the only one i've played so it's harder for me actually fun fact you have played new super mario brothers 2 before you just don't know it well i mean in a manner of speaking i've played new super mario brothers 2 many many times before uh dozens of times if you want to get particular about it next week on the polygon documentary interior activision day justin walks in well sir

we have that bag full of money for you. How many people listen to that podcast again? Oh, at least 8 billion. Oh, great. By which I mean 8. So this week, I really don't know. This is so hard when I've played one of them.

Should I play McPixel real quick? I have it on my iPad. ipad just make a decision speak with your heart it's it's war for cybertron yeah yeah yeah because it's uh here's the thing wow robots in disguise can you believe the mighty have fallen that mario lost your transformers game it's a good transformers oh i i really i not no bs and i know that like you could consider mario games like 2d mario games more of like a genre unto themselves a meditation on a theme if you will but there have been mario games that have reinvented platforming like several times over and you can do this back to basics thing but that the the novelty of that is like once like once i want do this back to basics thing, but the novelty of that

is like, once. Like, once I want to go back to basics. Now will you please do... This is their... This is a flagship 3D console. It is the only console that has 100% three-dimensional saturation.

And they're making another 2D Mario game game they're doing nothing interesting with it that it just to me speaks to the sort of why is super mario 64 2 not out yeah it just it feels like it speaks to the sort of the creative atrophy in in a lot of branches of are you kidding me griffin you've played that super mario 64 2 line that's that's some mario 3d land to be fair that's no not at all not even close because it's all on tracks shut up no that's not an open world if you think that's an open world well you're dumb robots in this guys you played super mario 2 is that is that a fair critique? Or is it, am I looking for too much from this? Should I look for

another Super Mario franchise too? I gotta be honest with you. Let's read an email. Let's read an email. You can hear it. But listen, no, listen, listen, listen. I know you're angry. It was a super good email.

Your game lost and you gave up immediately. You're like, okay, I, listen, listen. I know you're angry. It was a super good email. Your game lost, and you gave up immediately. No, listen, punch right out. I'm punching the ticket. I did my job. Griffin, as the person who's going to be editing this, I will provide to you a choice. Okay. You can either, I can either repeat what I said

so you know what I said, and you can comment on it and then edit this part out. Okay. Or you can just run right along. I got it. Listen, this is a super long email can you guys finish the show without me yes so thank you for listening to the besties wait wait wait or you get the the best in edit don't we need to figure oh no we don't so i guess the war for cybertron's in the quote unquote hall of fame it doesn't get to the hall of fame without it is our game

of the year can we learn it doesn't get to the hall of fame changes every week it's hard to remember what is with the cross talk thank you sorry i had the world's best games heaven world best games this podcast is the worst they should show in the documentary the scene where we all talk to each other and say, like, I don't know, this podcast isn't very good. Stop doing it. Nobody really likes it that much. And you know what's great? It costs more than the documentary to produce.

Almost ten times more. It's an incredibly, incredibly expensive production. Every one of these episodes is actually filmed in 3D, decompressed, re-resed, de-interlaced with the video, and then published. This episode actually has 4D, this episode. So just, like, reach into that cup of water and just, like, get your fingers wet and then just flick it in your face. And that's my spittle when I yell angrily. You've got to time it. You've got to cue it.

We'll put in special bells. You'll hear the bell and you'll know to synthes's my spittle when i yell angrily you gotta time it you gotta cue it we'll put in special bells you'll hear the bell you'll know to synthesize the spittle so this has been the besties please check out our documentary you can find it at the it's not our documentary well i mean it's it's about us it's about the founding of Polygon and our ongoing – it's an ongoing video documentary miniseries webisode. Can you also just please don't tell the people that we work with about how bad the podcast is? Because I'm almost certain that none of them listen. And they're all – we're all very happy with the quality of the doc.

And if you're like, yeah, the doc's great, but listen to the pod sometimes. It's unbelievably bad. You will not. It's where they get all their bad out so they can do good work for the rest of the week. I do. I feel a lot of personal embarrassment about this podcast. I wish it was better, but it's, I mean, it's not. It's just not

good you know the the problem is probably that the idea behind the podcast is so stupid it's a pretty good idea no griffin i think we gotta be honest about it okay two two of us on this podcast are on another hit podcast that's all i mean i mean if you're scientific method. My name is Russ Rushdick's great-grandmother. And I'm here with a giraffe. He says he's local, but I've never seen him before. He must be from

uptown. Oh, man. I think the biggest problem we have are Chris Plant's impressions of Russ Frushtick doing impressions of Jimmy Stewart. Hello! As a bird.

A bird Jimmy Stewart. One man against the whole town. Now clearance. Clearance. Ah! Ah! Control! Control! Callbacks. I'm Clarence Control Control Callbacks

Thanks for listening besties we'll be back next Friday Stop listening Best games If no one listens we don't have to do it anymore Set us free Control Control Good job! Good job! Good job! Besties!