The Besties - The Besties: The Best Games of May 2014

Episode Date: June 5, 2014

What a peculiar May. Typically, I think of spring as a dumping ground, the soft, warm land where publishers unceremoniously bury games that failed to meet internal creative expectations or sales projections. The past few years have changed that, partly because publishers have learned to tie a AAA game's release to the incoming hype of E3, and partly because many games are released each year that every month is all but guaranteed to have one stand out. There were a lot of games this month that deserve to be on a best of list. And we do our darndest to talk about most of them. Let's continue the conversation in the comments, because I'm sure we missed something. 5:00 - Watch Dogs 41:00 - Transistor 56:00 - News of the month 1:18:00 - Wolfenstein 1:32:00 - Mario Kart 8 1:39:00 - The Resties! Theme song by Ian Dorsch Get the show: Download MP3" Subscribe to the podcast (RSS) Subscribe on iTunes Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

Guys, it's almost E3 time, the triple E. Triple. Leaving on a jet plane. I hope that I meet Don Matrick finally. At number one, are we going to talk about this? There is literally a section that says E3 predictions, but there goes my prediction. Oh, I thought we were going to talk about Don Matrick. Have you seen his house?

Here's my prediction. This is the year I meet Don Matrick. Probably not though, because he... I do not know that Zynga will be so heavily represented on the E3 show floor. I'm kind of bummed about Trenton not being there. Jack Dye. He actually will be on our show. He's going to be on our show talking about his E3 experiences

of years past. Okay, listen. I think that his E3 experience, Jack Trenton's E3 experience being carried in a sedan by four muscly interns from appointment to appointment is going to be quite a different experience than mine crowd surfing over an ocean of fat men. Justin, you get to sit in a room and have games brought to you. Right?

That's pretty good. Yeah, yeah. Also, call him by his full name, Jack the Switchblade Trenton. Do you think Jack the Switchblade Trenton is just going to walk from booth to booth reducing the prices of things? Like, how much are you charging for this Oculus Rift? I'm charging $200. And everyone around him just, like, loses their shit.

Yeah. No DRM. No DRM for this new PC game. Like, you don't work here. You can't. Yeah. What I do like about Jack Trenton is he saw the writing on the wall. He knew that that was probably going to be the most awesome E3.

Like, the man knows how to go out on a high note. He basically threw the mic down and was like, yeah, see ya, later. Like, at the end of this year's press conference, the man's going to have, somebody's going to have to stand up on Sony stage and just be like, guys, Mag 2! Woo!

Crash is back! What? Guys, do you think when Jack goes to the Sony presser this year, he's going to mouth the words to the songs? Like, he's going to be just... You'll turn and look at him, and he'll just be singing along with the press conference the whole way through. He's going to be like the guy that comes back to the high school band during the Friday night games. Like, standing behind the bleachers, like nice,

nice notes. Good job. Good riff guys. C sharp. Nailed it again. E3 gets older. I stay. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best games of the month. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best games of the month.

My name is Christopher Plant, and I know the best games of the month. My name is Christopher Plant, and I know the best games of the month. My name is Rush Fraction, and I know the best games of the month. Did you just run at the microphone? It's not like you came from a cave. Welcome to the besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in sports and news and culture, entertainment, entertainment, inner Sandman, and so much more. But this month, it's all about games. Not just more than Pac-Man anymore.

It's not just more than Pac-Man anymore? That was a really crazy sentence. It's just Pac-Man. It's just Pac-Man. It went back just to Pac-Man. Just not more than Pac-Man these days. Guys, are we starting at Slap Happy and just kind of going from there the whole way through?

We're burning off all the entertainment early. And then we'll just be bitter and cynical and jaded and evil men by the end of it. Like every episode, this is like a surprisingly good may. I mean, I think you're done with the drought of, I think our,

until you wait a month. Yeah. Sorry. No, i just mean like the there has always been a rough sort of cycle where like uh you know from late august to late november is when all the games come out and the rest of the year is is a little dry i wouldn't say that but you really think so i think for the past few years it hasn't like no no but like march yeah march no february march yeah no we've been moving away from it i'm just saying i think

you're you've got an even distribution a lot more than you do have like five years ago talk to me when people start fucking releasing games in july and then and then we'll talk about it i don't know what june's gonna be like i don't know what july going to be like. I don't know what July's going to be like. August, we're going to start seeing some stuff again, but I still think there's a definite summer drought. They pretty much moved all of the games out of 2014 into 2015 at this point.

Batman just got moved this morning, notably, depending on when this is going up. We're recording on a Tuesday, so Batman just got delayed. Lots of games being moved into 2015. I like that, though. Give us some room to breathe. You know?

Let us... Let me find out. So let's talk about video games. First up is probably the big... I would say the highest profile, certainly the game with the most marketing this month, is Watch Dogs. That's what we base all our decisions on. What got the biggest marketing spin?

It's Clash of Clans, yet again. No, I mean, we are basically a well-intentioned branch of video game marketing anyway. I don't see why that shouldn't figure into our... We're more principled, perhaps, but let's be honest about our place in society.

Is that below our masthead now? What? Welcome to the pasties. Is that below our masthead now? A well-principled branch of video game marketing machines. We're changing the game of being well-intentioned branch of marketing machines. Much like every other video game, Triggerless Metal.

They did spend a metric crapload of money to make sure that this game sold well. And it did sell well. It did quite well. I think it had the most successful first weekend. Yeah, that's what they said. Best first week launch of any Ubisoft game. Which is surprising to me. A little bit.

Like AC3, you would think? I would think AC4 would have been like the... That's the one I saw the most commercials for. Yeah. But no no they did it i think part of it is just like the fact that like there's again as justin said like nothing came out in march or really very much in february either so people were jonesing for well and also i mean i think april i think in the uh 14 years since this game was announced it had some time to generate a little bit of buzz maybe not in the 14 years since this game was announced, it had some time to generate a little bit of buzz. Maybe not in the mainstream audience, probably not until they started advertising the shit out of it on TV and Hulu and stuff like that.

I think it reached even, like, not hardcore fans, like, again, because they started spending money, but also because it had so much buzz around it, and, like, everyone was buying those new consoles partially to play this game. And they were, like, regardless of what you think about the game, it was pretty smart. around it yeah and like everyone was buying those new consoles partially to play this game and they were like regardless of what you think about the game it's pretty smart like you didn't see a single commercial that didn't have somewhere in it bigger and better than gta like and that's like

people understand that like that is a very clear language even if you knew nothing about the watch dogs ip and his history like oh better than Auto. Well, I like that one. So this is, Plant, what is Watchdogs? Watchdogs is Grand Theft Auto with hacking, which is what they don't want you to say. But it basically is you drive around and you shoot people and there's a lot of missions where you have to go from point A to point B. But you can use your cell phone to see very brief descriptions

of all the characters who, for whatever reason, do nothing in the city but check their cell phones. Which I guess is kind of like real life. And you can also, like, raise and lower bridges. Or make the lights go out. Just like in real life. Yeah, yeah. You don't have that app? You can connect to the Wi-Fi-enabled horsey ride at your local convenience store.

Because everything is Wi-Fi. To the Wi-Fi enabled grenades that local security guards have on their belts. Yeah, what is wrong with that idea? Why would they connect it? I mean, I get it. You want to check your email and maybe it's on your grenade. Yeah. Maybe it's the belt that's Wi-Fi enabled and the belt unl, like, unlatches the, like, clip off the grenade.

Or the grenade is a Wi-Fi hotspot. Oh, the belt idea is kind of good, because then, like, maybe your, like, employer is Benny Hill, and then you can just make everybody's pants fall down whenever you want. Maybe your employer is Benny Hinn, and you can pretend it's a miracle. Listen, Plant, just so I understand where you're coming from, R.E. Watchdogs, are you in it? So I'm probably in it more than anybody else.

Oh, God, I'm actually in the game. Is that what we're talking about? I mean, that's what I'm asking. Are you in it? Yeah. So a nice guy on Twitter sent me a photo, and apparently I am a newspaper vendor? Okay, they didn't add an E to the end of my name, plant. Oh, so you're not in it. F that.

Yes, it is me. He has nasty facial hair, and he sells media. And I think he makes like no money a year, so it sounds like me. But more importantly... Oh, yeah, thank you. Is there another factoid about him?

Is there anything else? Any other distinguishing characteristics? I got a case of the fire butt, and I'm taking care of it with some cream. Good for you. You gotta get that hemorrhoid cream. I'm gonna be stopping at every... I'm not gonna be able to get much further in the game, because I'm gonna have to stop at every newspaper stand until I find you.

And every Walgreens, so you can complete your side quest. So... Actually, that's good. We can jump off that point because this is kind of, I want to get into my issue with it even though there's a lot I like about the game, right? So you scan people

and most of these things that you scan people for are negative, right? So to be like, oh, well this guy has some embarrassing past or like he uses hemorrhoid cream or worse like he's a pedophile or like he assaults children or something they're not all

negative well yeah that's that's kind of the issue because then like these are like the broad ways they characterize people but then one of those ways will be like this person is transgender or just gay and it's like what the fuck is wrong with this game? Why is it using that as a label? There were multiple times when I was playing the game and I just felt like totally uncomfortable with how it was labeling people. And it would also like

maybe be sort of okay if like heterosexual was a label but it's not. Yeah, no, I mean I think that it was played to and I don't want to like i don't know defend this or whatever um but i mean it that entire system was clearly designed around making you feel uncomfortable feel like you were like creep creeping a sneak peek in on some some secret facet of somebody's life and exposing their vulnerability. Because the game has a lot to say about security and privacy

in the interconnected age. The issue is, like you said, using those labels as... It implies it's a secret. It implies it's a secret or it implies that it is embarrassing. Just to refocus things on watchdogs as a as a game um i gotta say i've played maybe i'd say maybe six hours or so maybe a little bit more uh i feel like i at at the beginning i really really wasn't enjoying it very much at all um it was very oddly paced for me i didn't feel like i felt like from a control perspective it felt uh really weird um what

are you planning on uh on the ps4 um i feel like a lot of the systems didn't really click together uh i feel like the farther i go in it the more um powers and abilities i unlock uh the more i i sort of enjoy it and the more it feels like its own sort of thing um there's a lot of great beats you get where like the you know you'll be running and chasing a dude and then you know you make a steam vent explode above him or something and take it down that way and when you get those moments which only above him or something and take him down that way. And when you get those moments, which only occur sort of after you've unlocked everything or that specific ability for that situation,

it feels very cool and unique and different. There's a lot of other moments like that too where there are many games, like as legally mandated by any open world game there's a a mini poker game and a mini shell game and and others but uh when you're playing the texas hold'em game you can actually uh take advantage of a uh camera that is in the the room with you you can hack the camera that's in the room and zoom in on the cards of one of the players it's pretty sweet and you can also monitor their uh heartbeat

their heart rate to tell if they're bluffing or not how does that work like isn't the dude like staring at his cell phone well that's the thing that's kind of neat about it is you can't do it on the hands when you're dealing uh because yeah that's thoughtful yeah because you can't because you know your hands have to be above the table so that kind of stuff is like oh that's really cool um i just don't i feel like the best comparison i can make is assassin's creed to me it feels like assassin's creed where there are certainly like some really interesting components some really interesting ideas and it's just not a coherent thing for me I think I think it's coherent I think the systems I I had kind of the opposite experience and like as soon as I picked

it up like I thought all of the systems worked really well together it's so i i'm willing to cut a game uh of of this ilk so much slack when it does stuff like third person action cover based stealth really well like uh like a deus ex um like systems that that should not work very well systems that people fuck up constantly. I think Watch Dogs does really well. And it also, it's very ambitious with its systems. It has like a lot of different ways that you can tackle different situations. Lots of different ways that you can develop your character.

And I think they're all very thoughtful. And they all work like shockingly well together. I completely disagree. Like especially in the stealth sequences. There are these like the, the gang assaults or the gang-based whatever assaults are probably the best microcosm of that. You'll have ten guys in a secluded area where there are lots of, like, traps and distractions you can trigger. And that idea is, like, really, really cool. But they don't clarify, sight lines and guys can see from just an inordinate distance

away and I found that like so frustrating it's like guys you're so close to having something really cool like the traps and all that like triggering with my camera and like scanning all the guys I love all that like triggering their texting their cell phone

and you get to see the text that you send them Yeah, like their doctor like, hey Chris Plant, we need to talk about your butt call me as soon as you get this. It's urgent. Vis-a-vis butt. You can see the text going through and as you see the text going through, you can sneak up behind the guys and take them down. Like, that's so neat, but then

there'll be another dude a hundred yards away who sees this exchange going on and it's almost impossible to tell if they're going to be able to see you or not. It's just like basic stuff like that that they missed out on. Yeah, it's stuff that's really hard to do. To defend Griffin's point, I do agree that the moving from cover to cover feels really good. Aiming stuff feels really good. And again, that's stuff that generally open world games do not get well.

and again like that stuff that generally uh open world games do not get well the reason that i am really put off by watchdogs um i just don't find getting around the world it's not it's not the that's a huge that's what i was getting to i think the systems are great and again like another parallel between this and an assassin's creed because like assassin's creed that stuff was like the building scaling and all the the stealth assassination shit was like so dope. It's just that the world was A, a giant pain in the ass to get around and B, like at the end of the day, kind of repetitive and kind of insubstantial. Not in terms of architecture because that was a gorgeous goddamn game. But like in terms of like stuff to actually do in the world,

it was light years ahead in assassin's creed 2 like they actually figured out like oh we should give them like varied extremely dynamic little beams and like ropes to pull you up and stuff like that yeah we should give them not only like lots of different activities but lots of activities that force them to exercise all of the different skills that they've learned and picked up to go ahead. And with Watch Dogs, I feel like you run out of different mission archetypes really, really quickly, and then it's just more of the convoy missions where you have to take down a car with your car, those are just so mind-numbingly repetitive no way the convoy

missions are the best the convoy missions are dude they're so genius because no no let me there there are chases that go on in that game that's where you're trying to bring something down for seven minutes chases convoy missions you can see where the thing's going so you set traps it's all about using the environment to actually set traps before it gets there. But, I mean, you can't really... Can you, like, activate an intersection, like, way before a person gets there? Yeah, so, like, what I did is I set up, like, C4 or whatever, IEDs, whatever they have in the game, on the four corners of the intersection.

I waited for the convoy to get to it. I triggered a car accident by accident by like making all the lights go green there so everything wrecked in the middle detonated all the c4 and then the only person i had left to take out was the guy in the bank truck i i guess that's that's interesting because that's a very uh the uh one of the interesting things about watchdogs i think you can either love or hate it for is that it has a very ambiguous sort of morality. You don't know much about the dude you're playing. You aren't given a dictate of sort of how he likes to live his life, what his deal is.

What his whole thing is. What his whole thing is. So when I was playing those missions, I was trying really hard to avoid killing people. Like I didn't, I was trying to not be a murderous psychopath because I don't know what this dude's deal is. I don't even know what this guy is like against. But you understand that's not like an intentional thing.

Yeah. That's not, I don't think that their intention was let's make this guy an empty blank canvas that our players can paint a beautiful tapestry. Like, I think he's just kind of a shitty character who, like, his niece dies and then to get revenge for his niece. Like, is he literally doing, like, this is what I had. I was literally distracted by this for the first, like, four to five hours of the game.

What is this guy doing? Like, people call him the vigilante right like who is he what who is he fighting against like what is this guy doing in his day-to-day life it's the dumbest as a job it's it's his niece dies his niece is killed so he goes on this a vengeance spree to to find the person who did it and bring them to justice. In doing so, he not only murders hundreds and hundreds of criminals, like, throughout the game,

you're going to kill one person with your car while chasing a... You're going to set off a traffic accident that will claim innocent human lives. You're gonna kill innocent human people. And if you do that more than once, then, like, it's a zero sum game. Like you have.

But it's even better than that because there are also tons of missions where you have to go wait for a crime to happen. Yeah. Like and literally watch someone get murdered. But then don't kill the person who did the crime. You have to take them down. Like no way. You shouldn't watch them. You shouldn't watch them get murdered. I can never

get it to happen if I interfere early enough. It tells you when to intercede and you just pop your gun out. But if you have precog capabilities, you know that you can see the person in the camera and it's like, this person's going to crime this person. And we already know they're going to run.

Everybody runs. Yeah. The interface tells you that they're gonna run everybody runs yeah the interface tells you that they're gonna crime it why do you have to wait for them to actually do the crime that's not pretty it should be an organization that determines when these things are gonna happen and they should sleep in little baths i think for me there just aren't enough like every game that is really successful is built out of loops. Who was it? It was one of the Halo guys that talked about that initially. One minute fun?

One minute fun loops, right? There are some fun loops in Watch Dogs. There's one that I love when you steal a car from somebody that is in motion, if they're currently driving driving it and you steal the car from them uh about half the time they'll get their cell phone out and uh call the cops and if you hop back out of the car and pull your gun on them they put the phone away or you can walk up to them and press the threaten button and you just like take the phone from them and put it on the ground like no no you can't and that's a really neat every time i steal a car i look and i'm like take the phone from them and put it on the ground like no no you can't and that's a really neat every time i steal a car i look and i'm like okay are you gonna call

no okay we're good that's a really like fun loop the uh the um you know chasing somebody and triggering traps around them that's fun there just aren't enough like i think i think steal things like that stealthing into it like trying to figure out how to tackle a big old complex like figuring out if you can even like get in there just using cameras and hacking without actually having to step foot in the area like that's awesome that shit's great i think each that each of i know you didn't like the gang areas i like those i like the um what is it the os like central hub units which are like these really heavily fortified compounds that you have to figure out how to like get your way get your way in there using like whatever play style you see fit it's like a little puzzle it's like a little rubik's cube like trying to figure out how to work that out

is awesome there's one issue with those which those that like that figuring out how to get into these giant data centers by only using security cameras is great and then your reward for all of this is to solve a really terrible line puzzle i like those oh my gosh the last thing i want after like that excitement is like uh here here's some lines i mean it's all about it's all about x it's all about expectations, right? Because for me, if a hacking system is better than the puzzles in Lost Viadomus, which has YouTube, but if you haven't played Lost Viadomus,

YouTube those puzzles, and then we will talk about terrible line puzzles. Oh my gosh. I actually really liked the, not only can you jump between security cameras, sometimes you can jump between the camera phones on guys. So you get to pretend you're Ghost Rider for a second and just leaping between people's pockets until you can sometimes sort of almost get an angle on the thing that you need to hack.

And that's really cool because sometimes you can use an explosion or a trap to, like, lure people closer to what you're trying to hack and then jump into their phones. That's awesome. I love that stuff. It's also the final solution in every single one in the, like, mid- to high-level data centers. The last person that you have to go into is the person.

I want to loop back to the Assassin's Creed comparison really quick, though. And everybody was talking about how great it is to go places in Assassin's Creed. I think it's a flip-flop here. I think running from things in this game is some of the best escape sequences I've played

in, I don't know, any open-world game. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Fresh, you haven't unlocked half of the things that make it great. Here's the thing. I unlocked the thing that Justin was talking about earlier. Most of the on-foot things I have unlocked. Yeah, this is all cars. You're talking about just car stuff?

Yeah. So I've unlocked the bridge. I've unlocked the walls that come up. Like, what am I missing? The bridge, the walls, the the spikes the pylons the yeah i have all the pipes is great the underwater the under the pipes i think you're crazy i think like when you have a ton of people on you and you're zipping through the city using like all these different things to cause like barely eek away it feels awesome um i like that a lot we should

also talk about the multiplayer which is really really super clever yeah um i i've only been able to get into a couple games on the pc version um just because matchmaking i don't think it's so hot um i haven't i haven't played it in a few days though so maybe it's gotten better with you know more adoption um but it's a really clever system and and plant you and I talked about this on the overview, but I think Ubisoft, like, I don't know why they are so far ahead of the game in terms of, like, coming up with clever multiplayer ideas beyond just, like, shooting people or capturing a flag. Like, their stuff is so on point and so clever, and it's so refreshing.

Like, I remember the first time i played the the assassin's creed multiplayer that i think was in revelations um or brotherhood one of those yeah um and and just like falling in love with it like the spy versus merc stuff and this seems like a good baseline for something i want to i want to give an example i mean before we extemporaneize on it anymore i want to like say what it is. Okay. I haven't tried all the different modes. The one that I think is the sort of most representative is there's one versus one hacking.

And basically someone will enter your world or you enter someone else's world. You find them. You track them down. And then you have to hack them without hurting them and without them locating you and killing you and if they profile you or scan you with their phone then they'll know that you're the bad guy they can kill you and that's all uh uh it'll be game over because you know it's pretty easy to drop somebody once you've figured out who they are so when you're hacking someone, it's this terrifying experience of trying to post up

and find a hiding space or walking in a crowd and trying to pretend like you're AI. Actually, the best was I was in a crowd of people trying to play that game and the guy who I was hacking

started firing his gun into the air which forced everybody to scatter right nobody's gonna stick around for that so he's firing his gun to the air everybody who's a robot is running away everybody who's ai control is running away and i'm like well i can't and you can't get too far away or you lose the hack so like okay i'll guess i'll pretend that i'm a robot too and i'll run with these people and come back later it's really neat that's really cool um yeah i like it a lot yeah i am i think it also creates cinematic moments that you wouldn't even expect like that like i think i was talking to griffin about this but there's a lighthouse like way way out in the

game it's this tiny little dot of land where I never thought this, the invasion or whatever it's called, would happen. And I climb all the way up to the very top of this, which takes a while. And right then, it says somebody's invaded that tiny island. So it's like, knowing someone is not there, that they're probably going to trap me on the top. Me trying to find a different alternate way down and then when i get there the guy had found a boat and was like literally trying to escape and then pulling out a sniper rifle and shooting him right before he gets away like there's just so many weird little moments and i'm sure a lot of people who especially like

dark souls are going to say this is just like Dark Souls. And you're right. And Assassin's Creed's multiplayer was a lot like Spy Party. Sure. But the difference is they're actually taking these ideas and putting them in giant shooting games. Well, and they're also adding. Generally just Deathmatch. They're also adding to them. Oh, for sure.

The Assassin's Creed stuff wasn't exactly like Spy Party. Like on a baseline level, it was kind of the same idea but there was some really really cool mechanics in there like the scoring mechanic for assassin's creed's multiplayer i think is like it's super ingenious of getting more points if you can just like casually stroll up to a guy and stab him in the head instead of just like running at him full speed like it's really really clever stuff guys here's my here's my question for you all all three of you i i feel like we've named a lot of like moments from this game that are really cool like i know that there have been tons of times that i've been playing like okay this is this is neat now i get it i get why this is a thing i get why this game exists so why is it that like now that we've talked about it

like and that's why i was playing it so we would have something to talk about i don't feel like a desire to go back and play more of it like i don't i'm not hungry for more i think the big thing is a the story is really really terrible like the writing is bad and the story is just not very good the voice acting is also like... Yeah, the whole package. The guy is like... That's what's so frustrating is there's so many clever, unique ideas that nobody's done before.

And when they first announced the game and they showed off that first trailer and explained the concept at E3 a couple years ago, I remember Plant and I were at that press conference like, that Watch Dogs game sounds so dope! Because there's so much inventive stuff going on. To have the story be a tale of vengeance of a gravelly

voiced white dude who it's so rote and so disappointing. I could not give less of a shit about whether this guy gets justice for his niece that died. So it's that, but it's also, as we mentioned earlier, the, like, getting around the world is not super fun unless you're in a chase,

which, granted, fine, you guys dug the chase stuff, and that's great, but, like, more often than not, you're not in a chase. And there's just, like, a lot of, like, eh. It's, like, just, like, doesn't feel super engaging. To me, the progression hooks aren't super great either. You get skill points for completing missions that you can put into different trees for, like, hacking and shooting and driving and crafting.

I found myself getting into a bad habit, and, like, maybe it's not fair to expect every open world to bend itself around the way I like to play but I found myself getting into a bad habit of saying I need to do I need to complete three levels of the shell game to unlock the reward from that

so I'm just going to power through it and just do it so I never have to think about this again and I did that with you can unlock a um silenced assault rifle if you find these like nine crates hidden throughout the world and I said okay I'm just gonna do all this so I just get the stupid gun and never have to worry about these dumb crates again I'm like that's a really bad way to play a game but like that's I I just wanted to be done with it because they're so intrinsically like not enjoyable.

Like this is not like a fun thing that I was treating myself to. I'm just going to like get through it so I can get the reward and be done with it. And there's a lot of stuff like that where like, and that process is not fun.

Like getting around the world just feels weird. They're pretty generous with like the, not checkpoints, but the bases that you can sort of like fast travel to. So you usually don't have too far to go, typically.

It's just not, it just doesn't click all together for me. What do you think about the actual world? What do you think about how they've sort of realized Chicago? Well, Griffin, you've lived there, so what do you think? Oh, yeah, that's good. I mean, obviously there has to be some condensing that goes on there.

They got that weird metal bean. I noticed that. Yeah, they got Cloud Gate, I think is what that's called. There are some landmarks. It's just they've sort of only to me like the only time i really felt like i was in chicago was like when i was in the loop or near um what is that place millennium park um once you once you get outside of that like super recognizable stuff like it could be any there's a lot of just like there's a lot of just like warehouses and stockyards and crate factories it feels like the city and saints row which a little bit yeah pretty much is super like generic factory city 101 but it also like it looks a lot like

chicago at times but like it never like feels. Like, nobody, does it, when you guys played the game, did you, like, do any missions where, like, somebody was like, hey, it's time to go to the Cubs game, get myself some hot dogs. Like, it doesn't, like, really, and coming on the heels of Second Son, where, like, I think those guys are really good at condensing a city down to,

not just, like like a visual aesthetic but like an idea and a feeling uh that that like felt like you were in the pacific northwest in like the the the womb of grunge the grungy womb you know what i mean yeah well or comparing it to grand theft auto which is the best, capturing a city there is. I mean, it's crazy how much both GTA 4 and GTA 5 feel like their respective cities. I was hoping to, like, feel like a, like, virtual tourism is such a big thing for these open world games, especially when they are set in, like, a city, like, set in a real world city.

And, I don't know, it was it was cool like being in downtown chicago again but it outside of that i could i don't know it didn't really feel like i was and they even put in all those like hot spot things so i check in at these landmarks and i'm like this is a generic train station i don't know why i would check it i mean some of that was on point but like that check-in system was kind of busted. I felt absolutely no desire to do that. You know what? I think for me, when I come down to the core of my problem with Watch Dogs, I still think it's completely worth, like,

I would maybe wait until it's a little cheaper, but I think it's worth playing around with and goofing around with. But when I play an open-world game, or really any game, but this is classically a problem with open-world games, I need to feel the hand of the creator. Like, I need to feel like the thing I'm doing is something that, like, they have considered. Like, my actions are under the watchful eye of the person that made the game. Like, these things are things that they have thought about me doing and have compensated for um and you see that with with with really good great open world games everything you do you feel like it's been considered and it's been planned for and i feel

like a lot in watchdogs um where to use just to use that um the the car chase thing that we talked about as an example, Chris points out a better way of handling those convoy missions. Like, here's a better way to take out the convoy. Just blow it up at an intersection. But when I've been on the same car chase for seven minutes, trying to take down a car by running into it, and then lose and die or fall off a cliff or whatever and have to start the entire thing over again i don't feel like i don't feel the hand of the creator there i don't feel

like the the person who made the game considered these actions and that can like be very disconnecting uh for me there are a lot of cool moments where i feel like on the track that they made like these are the things that we intended for you to do. But when you fall off that, it really is very jarring. I have a good wrap-up for it. Are you ready? I'm so ready. You remember Assassin's Creed 1 and how it wasn't, like, all that perfect?

Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood came after that, and they fixed a lot of those things and also added a lot of junk. So my prediction is Watch Dogs 2. 2 and Brotherhood came after that, and they fixed a lot of those things, and also added a lot of junk. So, my prediction is Watch Dogs 2. Assassin's Creed 2 is the perfect game. I don't think it actually was the best. Brotherhood was the best of them. Brotherhood was the best. Yeah, you crazy. I'm very curious slash excited to see what Watch Dogs 2

looks like. It feels like the sequel will be good. It made me, like, more enthusiastic about Ubisoft, if that makes sense. Like, especially the, like, multiplayer stuff made me really, like, it made me like the sequel be good it made me like more enthusiastic about ubisoft if that makes sense like especially the the like multiplayer stuff made me really like it made me realize like these dudes really are leaps and bounds ahead of the game in terms of in terms of of creativity so like the division i can't fucking wait god yeah at least ubisoft is doing something right they're doing you know like at least ubisoft is it something. Right, they're doing... You know, like, at least Ubisoft realizes, like, hey, this is an entirely different medium from movies and TV. Like, maybe we should do anything interesting with it.

Maybe let's do anything. And it's not just, like, new IP, because, like, that could be either good or bad. It's, like, new ideas. That's what's more refreshing to me. And, like, exciting. I'm really excited for Ubisoft's future, and I'm glad that the game's doing well,

because I think that that kind of behavior should be rewarded. I do wish that they could launch a PC game good just like once. Let's move on. Yeah, I want to tell you guys about Transistor, if you haven't played Transistor. I mean, you know we have. I know you have. It's from the people who brought you Bastion,

Supergiant Games, and Transistor is their new joint. I played it on the PlayStation 4. I don't know if it's out on other platforms. It's on Windows PC. Windows PC. It is a game

about a woman named Red who was formerly a singer of some sort and her friend, the giant sword named Transistor. And the two of them are Best friends. Best friends. They are on the

run from a sort of of the nature of it is not exactly clear but there is some sort of plague on the run from megabyte on the run and the glitches and the glitches there is a uh some sort of thing has gone wrong in their idyllic world and the wheels have really fallen off and everything's real shitty and bad and uh red is trying to i mean i guess figure out what happened or escape or something or fix it i guess fix the problem with the the bad thing justin's not we should point out justin's not drunk right now like the game doesn't tell you jack shit when you start it. It's really weird.

And I've finished the game. And even, I mean, like, I have a vague idea. Like, it big picture structurally, you know, color blocks of, like, what happened here. But there's a lot of stuff that I'm still not clear on. Let me, before we get much, before we talk about that, I'm going to talk about mechanically real quick. It's actually really interesting. So you have the transistor.

As you play through the game, you will find different abilities that are actually tied to people in the world, characters in the world that have, a lot of times they perished or maybe they're in hiding, you don't know, but these abilities are tied to individual characters and as you use the abilities you unlock their

story, which is really cool. Including your own story, the story of the transistor. And the neat thing about the way abilities work in this game is you can use any of the abilities as a primary

attack. So like there's one called Crash which is sort of like a direct hit in front of you and there's like a long range sort of laser attack. You can use any of them as a primary attack and there's others that are more defensive. There's one that like turns you invisible. There's one that summons a dog.

Yeah. I love that one. That's a great one. I love that doggy. And then you can also use those abilities as a supplement to the other abilities. So there's one that, like, will infect enemies with a damage over time, or you send out these three bullets in a spread pattern, and the distance is not very far, but if you can get right up on a person and hit them with all three, it does really great damage.

You can attach that to just your regular melee attack, and then all of a sudden, your regular melee attack will have its distance decreased pretty significantly, but it shoots out three attacks of your melee attack, so you can boost its damage but change its sort of strategical application. Yeah, or increase its backstab ability, stuff like that. You can also attach it to just a passive slot

for your character, which will just modify your character's sort of handling. It's a really, really, really clever system with like infinite possibility for for character customization it's super clever i would say the impression that i got like i play a lot of video games i was able to pick up on it i feel like i'm pretty smart as well so i don't know if you knew i feel like if you are like a casual gamer or like you only played bastion

which i think is a very straightforward game mechanically relatively straightforward um like most i feel like a lot of people would be like kind of overwhelmed and confused by the system well especially once you factor in the turn system which is which i adore it's super cool It's very, the game is very Bastion-like, except in combat, you have the option to initiate a turn system, which will freeze time and allow you to move freely. And you have a meter, which basically determines how many actions you can take in the frozen time. And the things that drain that meter include moving around, which drains it very, very

slowly. And then whenever you execute one of the actions, your primary actions that you have assigned, it will drain, like, a big chunk of that meter. So you could use that frozen time to maybe get behind an enemy and then use a couple of backstabbing attacks, and then that will drain that meter. And then once you execute those actions you do them very very quickly so you can use it to set up combos because some abilities can boost the the damage of other abilities you can use it to get out of the way of like a really huge attack but whenever you drain that meter it has to recharge and while it's recharging you basically can't do anything you can move around and dodge.

So you have like a five or six or seven second window where you basically just have to stay alive and not get hit until you can start taking actions again. So you have to make this constant decision of does it make sense for me to try and kill this guy in real time using these sort of bastion-like action hack and slash controls. It rarely does. Your life is decreased very quickly.

I didn't see real-time fights as a really decent option. Well, if there's just one person, then most of the time it's fairly easy to dodge their attacks and just get in there and attack them, and it's easier to do that than it is to dish out a ton of damage and then be completely, totally for for a few seconds it's also i think the game sort of encourages you to mix and match so like i think if you attack it doesn't like count against if you attack in real time it doesn't count against your turn

base time it doesn't so you could start with a real-time attack and then instantly go into a turn based and you sort of get a bonus attack exactly right so there's a lot of interesting elements to it i think the game both with the story i think to its benefit and with the gameplay maybe not as much of a benefit does not give players any help whatsoever like you're really thrown into the deep end pretty early can i talk about a weird problem i have and i think this is more me than it is the game so i don't know how helpful it is but there's a lot of story in the game there's a lot of like different cool things you can read and it all adds a lot to the characters like these things whatever they're called that you find these uh they're basically people that

they have their own backstory that you're turning into weapons they're processes right processes yeah or is that the bad things i don't know but you that you're turning into weapons. They're processes, right? Processes? Yeah. Or is that the bad things? I don't know. But you're reading, whenever you find these items, and then when you mix and match them, you're learning more about these people that were once of this world. And it's very, very fascinating.

And there's all these other terminals that have a lot of interesting story. But I had this problem with Max Payne, pain too which is a weird comparison i enjoy the action so much that i just want to keep doing it and then it will ask me to slow down and read some things and then i feel guilty if i don't read it or i worry that i'm going to totally not understand the story if i go deeper in the game so then I'm taking a break from the thing I'm really enjoying and going at a totally different tempo to suddenly just start reading all this nitty gritty mythos.

See, I kind of really like the pacing of the game. I really like reading about there are terminals where you can vote on what the weather's going to be tomorrow. And it's like, what is this? What does that even mean? And so while you're exploring, you don't know exactly, sometimes it's pretty what is this like what what does that even mean and so like while you're exploring you don't know exactly sometimes it's pretty obvious but you don't always know like

when a fight is gonna break out um and so like you'll be you know reading something and looking around like oh what's that really pretty it's a goddamn gorgeous game which we haven't even talked about yet but like what's that neat looking thing up ahead oh i'm in a fight like i kind of i kind of dug that it was always yeah and i i think it was just fight after fight after fight um that you you know it would get pretty draining so i do like those moments where it's like exploring it also has i mean it's a compliment just to the action again like max paint i i enjoy the action so much that when i'm pulled away from it i'm almost almost kind of jarred. It also has the... Can we talk about the limiter system?

Because I think it's one of the best things about this game and about Pass Gen, and I don't understand why every other developer isn't ripping it off. Well, Halo did it. I guess that's true, yeah. Talk about what the limiter is. Limiters are toggles that will make the enemies harder to kill or you know will do more damage that make the game more difficult and by turning those on you can get bigger rewards for for winning fights um so it could be something like i actually had one i played with as for a while and i had to

turn it off because it was just too goddamn annoying. But whenever you kill an enemy, they'll drop what's called a cell. And if you don't pick up that cell just by running over it fast enough, then the enemy will respawn. And there's one limiter that you can turn on that will give you bonus experience if you win the fight. But it gives those cells a shield, naturally, which was so annoying because I would burn through my turn killing an enemy. And then like for six or seven seconds, I couldn't,

I couldn't break the shield around that cell and collect it. So like, if I wasn't like super diligent about it, it would respond every time. And it basically like extended the length of the game for me by like twice as much. But it's such a, it's such a cool system that lets you like make the game's difficulty like

tailor made for what you can handle or not even what you can handle, like what you enjoy. It's not like you prefer. It's not like you choose your place. You choose one thing at the beginning of the game and then you can't change it. And I guess this is just what I have to deal with. It lets you make the game and like a very real way.

Like it lets you make the game for you. I'm in love with that system, and I genuinely don't understand why it's not in very many other games. I want to talk about the story a little bit, because I think that it's probably going to be the most divisive part of the game. Bastion, I think, notably had a really interesting central storytelling technique where there was a narrator

who not only would sort of dictate what was happening or explain what was happening, but would sort of mold his narration to the actions that you took while you were playing the game. Transistor has its own disembodied voice in the form of the titular Transistor, who is inhabited by someone, the identity of which is unclear, who speaks to your character throughout the game.

And Red, the central character, has lost her voice, so she can't respond. So it's a one-way dialogue. What did you guys think of the storytelling overall and just sort of your general impression of the narrative? One thing I want to mention that that griffin may or may not know but i know you probably know justin um is that on the playstation 4 unlike on pc the voice of transistor actually comes through the playstation 4 controller speaker which is super cool i actually turned that uh feature off for every other game because i it drove me so

nuts okay so that's weird so that didn't happen for me you game because it drove me so nuts. Okay, so that's weird. So that didn't happen for me. You probably turned it off. Not intentionally, but Yeah, from like, it's a system-wide setting, so if you ever turned it off, it was off for the game. Let me take a look. And I thought it would be lame, but it really is super cool

because in the game, Red is holding the sword and the sword's talking to her, and you're holding this controller, and the controller is talking to her, and you're holding this controller, and the controller's talking to you effectively. And the controller light actually flashes in the same way. And the controller light flashes in the same way. In pace with the dialogue. So like it, yeah.

It's, I would say, one of the most creative uses of the speaker that I've seen, if not the best. It's tremendously cool, and yeah, so that's, I mean, that's not talking about the story at all, but that is talking about one of the cooler features of the game, especially on PS4. It seems like the story is

a lot of discovery, and you run the risk in, like, a story like that of, when the nature of your story is, it's up to the player to sort of dig it up and you know sometimes interpret it right i don't want to either but but when you do that then you always as a developer run the risk of if they giving them the option of missing a plot point um or interpreting the story incorrectly or feeling like they're interpreting the story incorrectly. I never really felt like that with,

with transistor, but I could totally see people like not being, not, not being as willing as I was to like say, well, here's what I think of the story. And I guess that's fine. I guess that I did.

I, I don't know why we compare every fucking game to dark souls, but like, I felt the same way with dark souls. Like the lore of that world is expounded through, like, item descriptions in, like, all kinds of crazy ways. So, like, when I reached the end of it, I had an idea of, like, what that world was and what the story was.

And Transistor's the same way, but I can understand how that could be grating for somebody who just wanted, you know, more definition, for lack of a better term. Yeah, and I would also say like i think bastion is much clearer with how it demonstrates the story like it's just more straight i don't know about that because i mean if you remember it was like there was a calamity that destroyed the world and like after that like you didn't really know there were like a tribe of others that you had to and yeah but i think the world itself was somewhat familiar like it was tribal and like sort of familiar and more

based in like to a certain extent a more primitive version of our world whereas transistor like every aspect i mean it's kind of futuristicy, but there's like some weird like technology bent. Like it did not feel super familiar to me at all. And sort of how the story is told, which is to say very non-linearly, at least from the start, isn't quite as welcoming, I would say, in terms of, like, basics. Yeah, I found it very hard to sort of connect with the story. I mean, I had a vague idea of what was going on, but by the end of it, there were some moments

that should have had a big impact for me that just kind of left me cold because I didn't feel that connection. Like, when I, when, towards the end of Bastion, like, I really felt like I understood the characters and, like, I understood the world. I understood, like, what was happening and why it was happening. And I was really invested in it. But with Transistor, I don't know. I just didn't, I think it was because it's so ambiguous.

I spent a lot of time wondering, like, trying to piece it all together. And that's the way my brain works. If you give me a bunch of disparate narrative elements, then I'm going to try to assemble them, solve the mystery, as it were. And I found that sort of distracting with this game because I don't think it's designed for that. It's more impressionistic.

But I found that kind of distracting to it to an extent where i couldn't i didn't really feel emotionally that that involved with what was going on um i felt more like cerebrally in fact like i felt like a puzzle that i i like i wanted so bad to understand this world like every i would i would use abilities not because i liked them or because I had a strategic use for them. I would use them so that I could unlock the story beats for the characters that those abilities represented. I wanted to get my hands dirty in this world. Because one of the things that we haven't really talked about, the biggest, in terms of world development, what the game has going for it is is the presentation is like nobody's even close to what these guys are capable of doing um in terms of like art design

and and i think lore although i could understand you know some people not being so crazy about it the music is like out of control and it's like a huge part of the of the you know core character storyline there's a hum button there's a hum button that i used liberally uh like anytime i get to a new area with a new song i would hold down that hum button just to like hear what the humming was like to that different song like man i i i was i'm like fully deeply in love with with how they care so much about presentation like that company and like they i think really came into their own uh even more so than bastion with this game it every facet of it seems so carefully planned and executed uh on the presentation side that like yeah that there's nothing I can

complain there. I do want to play on Vita. Or something. I'll be curious to see if it gets as widely ported as Bastion did. But I think with the turn system, I think it would actually be a pretty good fit for ILS. Yeah, I can see that.

Y'all want to bounce some Predicciones? E3 is next week. triple um and chances are if you don't listen to this podcast this week you're gonna hear a lot of us making bad guesses for what ends up i'll get it up this week okay um i can i can swing that um god guys i don't really like... I don't really know. I feel like my biggest prediction point for the past few years has been like, what's Nintendo going to drop that's really going to

blow us, knock all of us on our asses? And every time it's been like, yeah, like, how about a Wii U 2 or a new realistic Zelda game? And I guess they're kind of doing that with that crazy Dynasty Warriors shit.

I have no idea what anybody's going to do. I think that you will see, actually. Okay, so let's go company by company. Let's do that. Let's do the big three first. Just the big three? Yeah. Nintendo.

I think we'll see new Wii U hardware. No way. A revised version of the Wii U. You're the big three? Yeah. Nintendo. I think we'll see new Wii U hardware. No way. A revised version of the Wii U. You're crazy. It's cheaper. They get the price like way down. New Wii U. Crazy. That's what I think. Not a chance. Not a chance at all. Okay. Alright. What are you basing that on? Are you basing that on anything?

Just like a gut. Iron from the hip. Here's what I think. Nintendo 1DS. Okay? Hear me out. It's just a line. It's just a line in space. I think 1 actually would be a dot.

Well, the 2DS is... Shut up. Now, I don't know what Nintendo's going to do because they're doing their... They're doing their...'re doing they you gotta do that you gotta do that metroid okay so that's this is all that nintendo predictions ever boil down to is what are they gonna do what fresh dog ice climbers like every that's it every year that's so we know for sure that they're hardcore new ice climbers though would be really sweet we know for

sure that they're going to spend a lot of time during e3 talking about a 3ds game that they have not revealed yet so it's a secret 3ds game that they have a bunch of q and a's and like press events for so in my again like my heart screams out for like a 2.5d metroid game on 3ds would be amazing um but i think what it's probably going to be is that like nfc tech stuff that they've been talking about yeah with like little figurines god i hope they don't go that i hope they don't go like the disney infinity route of like going all in on this it's not a game it's a platform like i don't want that did i tell you like the the rumor that i've heard that is like

probably from the only person that i would believe a rumor from at nintendo okay are you ready for this just gonna blow up the spot of your source four it's not earthbound like probably from the only person that I would believe a rumor from at Nintendo. Okay. Are you ready for this? You're just going to blow up the spot of your source? Earthbound 4. It's not Earthbound 4. No, it's not. No way.

I'm just here to break hearts. Yeah. I honestly don't know. Guessing what Nintendo's going to do has become so difficult in recent years because, like, I don't know. I feel like I'm terrible at guessing like what games they're going to announce for stuff but like at this point the onus is on them to like turn the wii u ship around so like what do you do if you base your prediction on like

what's the smartest thing for that company then like i don't think new hardware is the worst idea i don't know guys that's what i'm saying but i just don't think that's gonna happen i don't think new hardware is the worst idea. I don't know, guys. That's what I'm saying. But I just don't think that's going to happen. I don't think a redesigned, cheaper hardware of the Wii U is going to solve the issue, though. No, it won't solve the issue, but they're going to do something. I think they should just focus on the 3DS and mobile development, but I don't think they're going to do that at the C3. Okay, next up, Sony. What are they going to do that at the C3. Okay, next up, Sony. What are they going to do?

Sony. They got that Project Beast. That's what I'm psyched for. That Project Beast looks so tight. If you haven't seen the footage for it, go check it out. Somebody in our chat room mentioned, like, what if it's, like, a Souls game, but set with, like, Cthulhu mythos? Oh, my God. It was like a gun, right? It was like a blender bus. set with like cthulhu mythos oh my god it was like a gun right

it's like a blunderbuss yeah so oh god and it just looks like so gorgeous i know it's so pretty and there's like cloth physics uh i didn't see that souls 2 demo we saw d3 once yeah but this is running on ps4 dog just set an. Just put it there. I think probably the next Final Fantasy is probably gonna get a little bit more screen time. They'll do the indie shotgun, right? Yeah, there'll be a big indie push.

There's probably gonna be, I think, one big indie surprise from a big developer. Okay, well, call it then. Call it, Hotshot. Okay, ready? Who haven't you heard from in a while

that they could drop and just be like, and I am coming. Okay. John Romero. Okay. I mean, what? He's delivering lunch to everybody? What about who are those dudes that announced that? I don't mean that John Romero.

I'm just goofing on you, buddy. I know he's a big fan. Who are the dudes that announced that game during the VGX that looked so awesome? Super Ponchos? Hello Games. Oh, Hello Games, yeah. Oh.

Oh, No Man's Sky, maybe? That could be hot. Yeah, there have been rumors about No Man's Sky and maybe going Sony. That could be cool. That would be really cool. It's the rumor based on if they're just an indie developer and everybody...

And everybody goes there? Yeah. There's some other aspects to it. Guys, I have a prediction for Sony. And this is probably the one that... This is the long shot. Okay. I think they're gonna go heavy

on, like, old-school properties. Like, PlayStation 1 type of stuff. Or even, like, old PlayStation 2. Crash? Is that... Crash, Siphon Filter, and like the Getaway.

Not the Getaway. I think the Getaway or something, I think every platform wants to have its own big open world game. If only Infamous existed. No, I think like closer to a GTA. Ooh, that's a good point. I would love to see Sucker Punch announce something new. And by something new, I mean not an Infamous game. No, I think closer to a GTA. Ooh, that's a good point. I would love to see Sucker Punch announce something new.

And by something new, I mean not an infamous game. No, I think you're going to see. Chris, I know you were probably joking a little bit. That siphon filter sounds like. I'm not joking at all. That sounds very believable to me. It is right on the cusp of like, if you let siphon filter go a couple more years,

you might as well just forget it ever existed. But I think they're just on the cusp of, like, if you let Siphon Filter go a couple more years, you might as well just forget it ever existed. But I think they're just on the edge where there's enough people who, you know, kind of remember the Siphon Filter games that they can get some traction. Here's my question for you, Justin. Yes. If you had the choice, would you prefer a Siphon Filter game that was, like, hyper-realistic, right? Or one that was, like, modern graphic power but made to look like a ps1 game it's like heavy polygon they would never do that it would be amazing it would be the best it would be it would be fantastic i love that i love that game because you could tase people

and then just keep cooking them and not only could you like electrocute them, but you just like keep doing it. Put a nice dry rub on them and then. Maybe you're 14 years old and you're electrocuting somebody and you're thinking like, wow, I feel really powerful, really alive for the first time watching this human cook. I'm curious. Did one of the publishers pay a bunch of money to secure next gengen exclusivity,

at least maybe timed exclusivity, for GTA? That would be... That sounds like a Microsoft move if I have ever heard of it. Yeah, that doesn't sound like a Sony move. No, a Sony move would be like, we paid a whole lot of money to have a packet. Here it is, everybody, another PlayStation 4 with the game in the box you won't see any sort of big hardware announcements from sony i don't think we'll see it from anyone like no no new weird add-ons no new weird uh i mean microsoft microsoft blew their biggest hardware announcement

which is we're not gonna make you buy the connect anymore um Right. I think Sony could, I think, I mean, Drive Club's going to be a big thing, I think. You think a new Killzone? Probably too early for that, right? No, but Guerrilla Games' other game, I think I'll get a new one. Oh, right, yeah.

That rumored RPG game. Oh, is it supposed to be an RPG? Yeah, that's what I've heard. Huh. I mean, I don't know. I just hope that they come out and then they're like deadly serious.

They're like, you know that people's information is hacked and that the government is watching you. Well, these 12 dwarves are going on one quest to collect epic loot and invade your privacy along the way. That sounds like a pretty good game so far. What the fuck is Microsoft going to... Fantasia? Minecraft?

Here, check this out. Here's my prediction. They will not say the word. What's Connect? Connect? Who? Like C-O-N-N-E-C-T? Oh, yes.

We're familiar with that word in the English language. Fantastic. I can give you the English language. Fantastic. Guys, I can give you the whole Microsoft press conference. No, that document is not accurate. No, no, no. Here's how it's going to go. Are you ready? Sunset Overdrive, Call of Duty, and then, like, 30 minutes about, like, ESPN partnership, UFC partnership.

We finally got that deal with Comcast, y'all. Let's keep talking about partnerships. You like HBO Go? We got HBO Go. Halo. I don't think Halo. I think Halo will be more of an Oprah-esque, like, Halo! Halo!

And then at the very end, they'll be like, oh, one more thing. And then there'll be a teaser. And there'll be, like, a pile of crack rock. And we be like, oh, one more thing. And then there'll be a teaser. And there'll be a pile of Crack Rock. And we're like, wait, what is that? And then people will be like, it's Crackdown, y'all. And then they'll drop the mic. Crackdown has never been about Crack Rock. I think Halo will be the last thing at Xbox.

I hope not. We have one more friend. What's that? One present. Check behind the secretary desk. What's that? One present. Check behind the secretary desk. What's that back there? Here's a CG trailer. Master Chief.

Actually, you will hear a fucking lot about Halo, and not just a preview of a Halo game. You're going to hear Halo TV, Halo movie, Halo series, Halo toys. They are going to hit the Halo so hard. Another Halo HD remake? What was the first? Anniversary was just the first Halo, right?

Haven't there been rumors? Yeah, this is going to take all the Halo. Oh, yeah. Minus the good ones. Got to get that ODST in reach if you want to have fun. Okay. Let's head into halftime. Can we just talk more about what we're excited for at E3

and have that be the halftime? Sure. Because E3, for me me has always been like, it's, it's an, if you've never been or never had to like cover it and like, I don't complain about the, you know, relative difficulty of our jobs or whatever, but it is a fucking incredibly stressful week for people in, in either side of the industry, I would say. in in either side of the industry i would say um but for me it has always like occupied this place of by the time i get to e3 it you're usually so far out from the big fall releases that you know there's going to be some some good ones in there you're starting to hit like the summer drought a

little bit it's usually like a time of year for me where i'm getting less excited about video games of year for me where I'm getting less excited about video games just because I don't really know what to look forward to. And to me, E3 as exhausting and as stressful as it is, is always so energizing. I always come back from

it excited about video games again. So I don't know what's going to do it for me this year. There's always one or two games like I remember one year it was Scribblenauts because I was like, this is the fucking know i don't know what's gonna do it for me this year there's always like one or two games like i remember one year it was scribble knots because i was like this is the fucking coolest idea ever and i came home like so excited because of because of scribble knots so i don't know what's gonna i never know what's gonna do it for me i don't think you can know that i think if you know that stuff

ahead of time it's not good it's it it doesn't work the same way i mean there's not if it's gonna be a if it's gonna be like the sleeper exciting thing of the show, like it's got to be just that. It's got to be the thing that spreads via word of mouth. It's just really cool that everybody's got to get by and see. And, yeah, I always try to do that on like late Wednesday or early Thursday. I'll ask all the media people like what am I missing? Like what's the one thing I need to see? And usually people – it will be like two or three games.

It won't be like 12 games. No, because, I mean, a lot of the games are going to be known chronicles. Sure. Like, I don't know, the next Call of Duty might be super good. I'll give you an example from last year. I know what it's going to be. Last year was Dying Light, a lot of people recommended it. And I was like, it's a zombie game, who cares?

And then I went over and I played it and was like really impressed. So there is always, you know, those surprising games. Based on like what we know in terms of booking and stuff, it does feel like a bit of a safe year. But that's the thing. We don't know.

I'm banking on there being some big bombs at Nintendo and Sony and Microsoft's press conferences. And EA's. Yeah, even with the booking, I don't know. I think third parties are playing it really close to the chest. Is that right? Close to the vest? Vest, yeah.

Yeah, sure. But I think there's going to be a lot of surprises from third party. I hope I'm not wrong. I hope Mirror's Edge 2 is on the floor in some capacity that would be a really cool one to check out but just the fact that everybody's announcing things so early that like all the sequels are kind of being just announced before the show makes me think that there will be at least more new properties than normal i mean we know there are going to be new properties because it's a new generation. That's when people start launching these things.

And that everything seems to be getting announced beforehand if it is a sequel makes me think that they're making way for new properties. I could be wrong. This is the time that you do it. I mean, traditionally, in the console cycle, this is the

time. Let's go down the line and everybody say, like, three games that you are hoping to check out. Three games that you want to get your... That are, like, officially announced? Yeah. Okay. I mean, or that you hope is there, I guess.

I hope Fallout is there. I mean, what the fuck? That's like... I hope that Zelda MMO is going to be there. I hope that Pokemon MMO for mobile devices is going to be there. Okay, but let's think about it, right? I mean, we got Skyrim in... It was two holidays ago.

It was a long time ago. Essentially. It was a long time ago. That's about how often they come out, right? I think it's either Fallout or Dishonored 2. We're gonna see one of those. Where are they gonna announce that? At one of the big three? Yeah, it'll be Microsoft. At one of the big three. Probably Microsoft.

Yeah, if I were a betting man. That would go down. I mean, it's not going to happen, but golly molly, that would go down. It has to happen, because what else do they have to show? Yeah, Bethesda has to have, like, more than one game to show. I hope, as the sole person who's going to cover QuakeCon this year, I fucking hope they announce something. I don't know, Battlecry?

Did you guys watch the trailer for Battlecry? Yeah, I saw the trailer. It looked interesting. It does. It looks kind of cool. Okay, so we got Elder Scrolls Oblivion came out in 2006, right? And then Fallout 3 was 2008, right. Yeah. Right? And then Fallout 3 was 2008.

Yep. Right? Yeah. Elder Scrolls Skyrim was 2011. Not counting New Vegas which came out

I think in 2010. Right, which wasn't I mean Skyrim was 2011. There's no way we don't hear about Fallout 4. We're due.

But I mean it's a totally different Bethesda than the Bethesda that was Bethesda in 2011. Like they have way we don't hear about fallout it's we're doing but i mean this is a it's a totally different bethesda than the bethesda that was bethesda in 2011 like they have diversified they've obtained so many other studios yeah but we need to clarify our our our taxonomy right bethesda when i say bethesda i mean the real ass bethesda games with king high lord Lord Todd Howard sitting on the throne of my heart. To be clear, you mean Bethesda Game Studios. Not the one that put out

Wet. Not the one that put out Rogue Warrior. Okay, but settle down. That one you're talking about also put out Dishonored. Yeah. So let's not go nuts. I believe it's pronounced Dishonored. Secondly, it has nothing to do with Why would we get Dishonored. Secondly, it has nothing to do with...

Why would we get Dishonored 2 before Fallout 4? Prey 2. Before Prey 2. Yeah. What the fuck is Arcane working on? Prey 2 and Dishonored 2. I mean, it has to be that. You think they're working on two games?

Dishonored was 2012. I mean, maybe they get it out in two years. I don't see why they couldn't get it out in two years. I mean, fuck, I don't know anything about video games. I think the more we talk about it, the more I think Bethesda is definitely announcing something at the show. Yes, I think undoubtedly. Any of that would get me so pumped.

Dishonored 2 would get me so excited. Fallout 4, I mean, forget about it. I'll jump through a plate glass window. Fallout 4, oh my, oh my. I'll be like that scene glass window. Fallout 4. Oh, my. Oh, my. I'll be like that scene in Scanners. My head will just pop clean off. I don't, because I'm looking at, like, guys, I'm looking at the things that we know are coming for the rest of this year.

There are some, like, notable, like, surprisingly empty spaces. Like, tell me what you're excited about for the rest of the year. But that's the thing. It's a first year of new consoles. This is par for the course. This happens every single time new consoles launch. I'm wondering if maybe we just don't know about it yet. Maybe the wheels haven't started. I don't think the end of the year is going to be that full.

I think the problem is it takes... They had all the launch games. It takes at least two years to make these games, especially the good ones. Usually things don't really start picking up until like a year and a half after these consoles. Okay, but something's got to come out. I mean, there are things. Sunset Overdrive is coming out.

Sunset Overdrive. There are two Assassin's Creed games, maybe five Assassin's Creed games coming out. I'm excited for The Sims 4. I'm excited for The Sims 4 to I'm excited for The Sims 4. Say it again. I'm excited for The Sims 4. We'll have Assassin's Creed games legally. We'll have to have those.

Drive Club. Battlefield Cops and Robbers. I hope they do some fun. Battlefield Cops and Robbers. I hope they do some fun shit with that i think it'll be pretty damn fun to be honest like i like the idea of a more focused battlefield game yeah me too i'm not i'm not complaining about it as all yeah it'd be cool if it was bad company but whatever i want all of us to get in the same room and play uh hell divers the new uh paradox

game oh yeah that game looks cool oh it's cool. Oh, it's the funniest game ever. I want to play Evolve this year. I have not played that yet. I'm interested in that too. I'd like to play that. There's stuff. There's some... It's less obvious, I think. But I think that...

I don't know. I'm not going to write off the old reliable shit or the shit that we have known about for months and months. Because that stuff can still be really good. I think that this is going to be a generation that does not have as many massive triple, quadruple A games. I don't think it's going to be that same way where you have a few tent poles holding up the entire year. I mean, you'll

still have some of those games, but I think more and more you're going to see it defined by these mid-range games from smaller studios that fit somewhere in the middle that are allowed to experiment a bit more and allowed to try some different stuff.

I don't think there will be fewer of those AAA games, but I agree that there will be more variety. Yeah. Like, I think that Sony and Microsoft still know that they need their AAA exclusives to sell hardware. We're due. I think that everybody got into a pretty bad rut in the last couple of years of, um, the, the last generation.

I, I don't think anybody would disagree with that because we had, we were, it was definitely, they were buying time for themselves. Yeah. Uh, Griffin,

can you tell me about Mario? Actually, sorry. Can we do Wolfenstein? Cause I'm going to have to leave after Wolfenstein. Okay, sure. Uh, can we tell about Wolfenstein?

So, uh, Wolfenstein is a game based on a very old franchise i believe it goes back to like 1981 justin you could correct me on that yes allow me to give you the entire history there's a video you can watch it anyway it's a very old franchise um it's existed throughout the years in sort of weird it'll like pop up every like six or seven years the game that i was sort of born with was wolfenstein 3d i played it when i was like seven or eight years old not super appropriate but really had like a huge fondness for it the first first person shooter i ever played um and

then for the you know the releases after that were varying degrees of success there was return to castle Wolfenstein etc Wolfenstein I think proper came out like a couple years ago three or four years ago I never played I didn't play any of those like Raven the last one was like had some interesting

elements but still had some pretty janky elements too so when I came into this i came in with zero expectations like there's no way this is gonna be anything but a dumb shooter but also i was like starved for releases and i just wanted like a dumb mindless shooter on an next-gen console that i could play and it would look pretty and it'd be fun and whatever must have been kind of disappointed because i don't think it's a dumb shooter i don't so what i what i ended up with was a dumb shooter but with a super smart storyline and like great characterization and cool visuals

and fun like gameplay elements and a game essentially that was like way way better than i think anyone anticipated. Sort of came out of nowhere, even though it was developed by a lot of the people that made great games, like Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay. It just, given the franchise history, no one expected anything but sort of mediocrity from it. And it just, I was just super, super impressed by what they did. from it and it just i was just super super impressed by what they did um i think it's really one of the best uh first person shooters i've played in a little while the super interesting thing about my experience with wolfenstein is that i started playing it and i was like done i played an hour i was like oh the first level is i first level is terrible. Why am I even doing this?

Yeah. The first level. And then you implant, I think we're the ones who are like, you have got to play Wolfenstein. It's so good. It's like, no,

trust me guys. You don't know anything about shit because I played it and it was terrible. Yeah. And it is the weirdest thing. The first hour of that game is atrocious. It's really terrible. It's a shame. Yes.

Oh, it's miserable. The plane stuff is awful. I was like, why am I just walking through a hallway shooting Nazis? I thought it was the most boring thing ever. I was baffled. It played like, I would say, like the previous, like the last Wolfenstein game, which was like a very typical corridor shooter. Right, exactly. shooter right exactly in that first level and then you get past it and suddenly it becomes like thoughtful and cool cool areas but also like a cool mix of like stealth and action which i

really wasn't expecting um they have this really cool perk system in the game that encourages you to play different like play in different ways so like if you get 10 kills with throwing knives for example you'll unlock a new ability a new passive ability so and usually like it boosts the thing that you were doing like if you've got 10 kills with throwing knives you'll unlock an extra like slot right for your throwing knife ammo right exactly and so everything that you're doing is sort of like working towards something so it doesn't feel like a lot of these games feel like well i have to either play stealth or action and generally you pick one and just stick with it but with wolfenstein i was constantly encouraged to like really mix it up um and um it felt really really

good it kind of reminded me of the progression system kind of reminded me of uh hunted the demons forge you guys ever play that game yeah it was also published by bethesda oh yeah i played it over there it was uh in exile i think right brian fargo um and i mean the game was whatever but the progression system was really great it was the same thing like you the way that your character got better was by just playing the game as you normally would and increasing your capabilities based on what you were doing. It does interesting things with the way they handle cover is really interesting, too. If you're, like, crouched behind a box or whatever or behind a ledge or you're facing the edge of a wall with, like, a hallway to your left, let's say, you just hold in the L1 button and you can lean out or pop up above. It's contextual. Like, whatever direction you push, that's how you'll lean.

And I've never been one to like use lean in games very much, but it makes cover much more dynamic, much more sort of like you're not sticky. It's not sticky cover. It's not like holding your hand. It's actually a little more straightforward than even you're describing. All you have to do, you look at like a wall and if there's like a little arrow indicator just hitting the aim button will pop you out of cover uh automatically so yeah it doesn't what yeah it's like super so like if you're crouched behind like a low cover and you hit aim you'll pop up like stand up and aim yeah and then work around the

edges of things too so it's around the edges so what's the point of the lean button i think the lean button is essentially like if you wanted to look without like aiming like if you had like a knife equipped or something i don't know uh-huh that's interesting uh there are moments where you don't have any weapons um i think it's probably a holdover from uh riddick where there are a lot of moments where you don't have weapons and they're like oh yeah why don't we include that as well the um the one thing i have to take umbrage with and i know this is like a little niggly thing but like it drives me freaking crazy is that the button the button to change weapons like to bring up your weapon wheel oh yeah yeah is the same button as throw a grenade. It's the craziest choice.

I didn't accidentally do that very often for whatever reason, but I know a lot of people. Oh, God. I don't know why that occurred. Because I kept thinking, because there's also a quick swap button. If you press triangle, you swap between the last two weapons you use. So I know there's a way to quick swap, and it's not the button you use to, you know, I don't know.

They should have just paused the game. Like, holding down triangle should have just paused the game and let you pick whatever weapon you want. Yeah, that would be fine. That would be great. It did seem like an odd choice. My only beef with the game is, did you guys get the shotgun with the bouncy bullets?

Yes. So, I played most of the game stealth but once i had that i only wanted to use that and i also didn't want to shoot at people i wanted to like create ricochets sure yeah i had so much fun like how is that a beef odd ways of nailing somebody uh and it totally changed the way i played the rest of the game why is that a beef though it's a beef because I was enjoying playing stealth, but I don't know. Maybe it's not really a beef.

It's a flatter beef. I haven't finished a game yet, but I have been playing through almost entirely stealth. I find it so super satisfying. In a way that first-person shooters just don't do that well at all. Yeah, they did a really good job. Yeah. Because there's a really

cool system of like there are certain guards if you take them out stealthily then it'll make the rest of that sort of encounter the rest of that level a little bit easier because they won't call in extra troops um so like it almost it mechanically forces you to use stealth until it makes sense to not use stealth anymore and like mix and match your play styles. And using stealth is actually really rewarding in surprising ways because you'll come across, vignettes is probably too much overstating it, but the way the enemies are positioned, what the enemies are doing when you come across them,

like almost every time when you run into a commander, which are the guys who can call reinforcements they're like staring out a window very dramatically or they're you know listening to music it's a it's a tableau that you get to see if you're in stealth mode otherwise you know you're just shooting the guy and that's fine too but uh if you can sneak up on them a lot of time there's one great fucking part where you're in a base clearing out a base and almost everyone in the area is sleeping. Did you guys do this? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh god.

It's really satisfying. There's a stealth kill there's a guy sleeping in a bed and you hit the takedown button which is PS4 it's R3. You hit the takedown button and you jam the knife up below the bed into the guy and his eyes bug out and he says wake up you're dead

the one thing i will say that was kind of a bummer and griffin you haven't gotten to this yet is that the last like quarter of the game i would say like the last four levels almost all of them are like forced action which is to say you really can't stealth it like it's just like automatic assault mode. Once you get the BFG, it's like. No, there's no BFG equivalent. I think that would be plants, dual shotguns with ricochet. Are you sure?

I thought there was a BFG in the game. Is there? I mean, there's like a laser gun, but you get that pretty early. The one thing I have to complain about the perks and this is again one of those things like I know I'm messing it up for myself oh yeah I did the same thing I know what you're gonna say we're like okay I'm gonna

get this one next this is what I'm working on now I'm gonna shoot around cover with pistols and I would like I there was literally one engagement that I did maybe 15 times yeah because it was not the way to do it yeah i did this begging me to get two shotguns and just blow through the hallway but that wasn't what i was trying to do at that moment

and that that was i don't know i don't know if there's a way to work around that other than me just like stop being so anal retentive i mean the solution for them if they didn't want people to do that would essentially like revert your progress on any of those perks if you died. But instead, they let you keep the progress on the perks even if you reload the checkpoint. So you can just keep reloading the checkpoint until you finish the perks. I did the same

thing. It didn't ruin the experience for me, but I agree. And I was messing it up for myself. But yeah, it was unfortunate. It's also super, like, I never, like, And I was messing it up for myself. But yeah, it was unfortunate. It's also super, like, I never, like, compliment the cinematography of games, I feel like. But it's like, it's weird to say that.

It's like a weirdly well-shot video game. Well-shot and well-edited. Like, the way they, like, cut between scenes and, like, use music and stuff like that is super thoughtful um yeah and it's also it also uh strikes a really interesting uh narrative balance that a lot of games screw up between outlandish and actually being grounded um the the sort of like hook early on is the nazis won they won the world war ii and a lot of years have passed and basically the nazis control the planet and when you first encounter that like that idea and you meet these families that are sort of like were so sort of destroyed by the nazis and and and and you know their families that are sort of like, were so sort of destroyed by the Nazis and their lives have been ruined.

It's a very sort of jarring, horrific idea. I mean, when you're trying to comprehend a world where like the Nazis are in control. And then after you've sort of processed that idea, the hero, B.J. Blazkowicz, helps you to make the transition to like okay now i'm gonna kill all of them and it's like it feel it is such a stupid it's so stupid but you're like yes i am with you i am in this i've been through the the psychological idea of like nazis being

in control and i'm so on board of like let's kill everyone which is really weird when you think about how many world war ii games there have been and i honestly can't think of a world war ii game that made me hate the nazis more than this game which is really an accomplishment yeah do you know what i think helped that was there's an early mission after you like meet this the main family that has kind of kept you alive over this transition period. And you have to go from these kind of big open areas that are gated. And the dad of the family, this older man, is driving a car and kind of getting you through these different gates. And every time he stops in a new section, he turns to you and he says kill all of them and the mission is

literally killing all of them yeah you can't move on until you've killed every weird thing that is like kind of traditional video game yeah of course kill them all uh but it like really hits over the head what the goal of your overarching mission is it also has a great sense of like as a great way of making the nazis reign like feel like a tangible like their power is is so complete there's that scene in the train where um these two nazi like higher-ups are testing you to see if you are like a good Aryan, you know, citizen or whatever. And in that scene, you have the option to like go for your gun. And if you do, you'll die. And it makes you feel like so powerless at one level after you just massacred an entire

platoon. Like it has a way of like making you feel very, very powerful. And then when it needs you to to feel powerless, it can make you feel that way. I don't know, man. It's incredible storytelling. It's so, so good. Shocking. Shockingly.

It totally came out of nowhere. The biggest surprise of this year. Y'all want to talk about another big surprise? Vroom, vroom. Vroom, vroom. What's that sound? Beep, beep, beep. Mario Kart 8. Okay, vroom. Vroom vroom. What's that sound? Beep beep beep. Mario Kart 8.

Okay, I'm gonna leave. Sorry. Oh, Russ. That seems like a good time. Yeah, you're not into Mario Kart, I guess. Is that a giraffe at the door? I hate it. I gotta go. I'm a giraffe.

Extrapolate for the rest of the episode. Okay. Okay, so now Russ is dead. Goodbye. That's fine. I guess so now Russ is dead. Goodbye. That's fine. I guess we don't need him. Get ready to the podcast you've all been asking for. It's finally here.

For free. Let's talk about Mario Kart. Mario Kart 8. I don't think it's going to take us very long. Okay, are you ready? It's the best Mario Kart. It's the best Mario Kart. I've played Mario Kart 64 more than most games.

It's like one of my most played games and it's still like my go-to jam for when we have people over and we're drinking some beers. Maybe we're playing Mario Mart, which I'm sure I've talked about on the show before. It's the world's best drinking game. I can vouch for that, by the way.

It is... Oh, that's right. You played it at Travis's bachelor party. Ugh, yeah. it wrecked me. It'll get you real fucked up. Mario Kart 8, like, takes all of the good ideas that the franchise has had throughout its history and combines it in a package and then adds even more good ideas that you did not know existed on top of it.

It's, like, it's so polished, I think, mechanically. There's no, like, snaking system of, like, here's so polished i think mechanically there's no like snaking system of like here's a thing you absolutely have to do in order to win at least like not that i've run into yet um and it's very playable like i had a big group of people over to my house and it's it's a group of people that i've started to sort of introduce to gaming um with games like uh tower fall and sports friends um like these super accessible games and i didn't think mario kart 8 would fit the bill because sometimes that game can get like super esoteric and super like mechanically demanding but it actually worked i think really well um because it's very it's it's just super accessible and gorgeous and gorgeous and the

music is just because it looks like a pixar movie yeah the the music is like some of the best music that's ever been in a nintendo game ever best endorsement i can give for it is i played it with my uh my sister in law she's 13 she's played a lot of games but uh she hasn't been playing them obviously for as long as i have the very first time we played in the very first race she has not played much mario kart in her life at all she came in first and i came in second and like that to me is the if you could the that seems like an easy feat but like the idea of creating a game that someone could play for the first time and be so completely competent at and somebody else who has been playing video games for a long time can be very close.

That's a really hard experience to build. It's kind of an amazing feat if you can nail that sort of balance. also the most it's the most exciting mario game mario kart game that that has ever existed because um you'll never go longer than like seven seconds doing the same thing you're never just driving in a straight line trying to like keep your line as straight as possible and take your turns as as efficiently as possible there's always a thing you can be doing to give yourself, like, the smallest edge. So, for example, there are, there's the anti-gravity. And I have to be very careful because I called it hovering in our YouTube overview and I got, somebody threw a firebomb at my house. There's anti-gravity segments, so, like, there are branching paths all over the level because of that.

Like, maybe you want to stay on the ground, but there's a ramp that will take you up on the wall, and then that wall will have different sort of elements to the track. Maybe it'll be good for you, maybe it won't, depending on, like, who else is on it, what obstacles there are on both tracks. There are, every time that you hit a ramp you can hit the the hot button and you'll get like a tiny little burst of speed and there's also you know drifting and drafting um there's tons of different items in the game that you can utilize so it's like it's constantly demanding that you keep your your wits about you and keep like it's it's not just drive as much as

you can and get as many drift boosts as you can there's like a lot more to it than that there's a lot going on there's one bad thing about the game and like i said it is i think the best mario game uh mario kart game and that's great because i'm a huge fan of the sonic racing games and for a while i thought it had kind of passed mario kart um but compared to say the the other Mario Kart games or the Sonic racing games, there's nothing really outside of the basic races. There's no, like, interesting campaign thing, which is something the Sonic games did really well. And the battle mode, which has been fantastic in previous Mario games, is atrocious.

It's not just terrible. How did they—yeah, I tried it. I hated it. been fantastic in previous mario games is atrocious it's not just terrible it's like yeah i don't know how they hated it so the battle the battle mode now there are two main things that they've changed first of all it's no longer set in these sort of secluded arenas or these circular or you know just big open battlefields now it takes place on a set of the tracks from the game um some players are facing one way some players are facing another way. Some players are facing another way. It doesn't matter. You're not racing.

There are no laps to keep in mind. The other thing they've changed is it's no longer just a survival game. You get a point for every kill that you get, and it's also set on a timer, and at the end of the time, however many balloons you have left, you also get points for those.

And it's just not as fun it's not like and it's hard to like find people on the track it's like i and it feels like not as special because it doesn't it just feels like you're playing like a fucked up version of the races that already exist in the game at least in the battle mode in the previous games like you get to go to like these different arenas like i know like the back of my hand the arenas in mario kart 64 they're very like they're almost like iconic to me the donut the top of the building like there's there's the four different colored uh like towers with like the three different levels and the bridges connecting them like that i don't know why they got it just like there is literally nothing else I can think of other than they just didn't want to spend the resources, I guess,

to create those levels. Because it just seems like across the board it's a bad idea. I haven't talked to anybody who enjoys it more than they enjoy those standalone arenas. There's also the playback. You can get a highlight reel for each race that you can control the speed of. You can sort of change what character it focuses on and what events it will focus on and the duration of the highlight reel, and then you can share that on Mario Kart TV.

Can you upload those to YouTube yet? Because that was something I know they were talking about. Yeah, I believe you can. I haven't tried it yet. So that's, I mean, that's always, I almost always watch those if I'm playing with, like, a big group of friends and they want to see who did what. But I think you're right, Plan.

I think it would be great if they could add a more standard campaign mode to it, like Chocobo Racing, which I think we can all agree is the best sort of game of its ilk. So that's Mario Kart 8. It is a very good game. Is it going to be the Wii U's savior?

I mean, it sold over a million copies. I'm curious how many of those were tied to new hardware purchases. I think that's, if it's not already a bundle, is it a bundle? Yeah, there was a special edition bundle. I think it came with like a blue shell or something. Oh, we should talk about the blue shell. It still sucks ass.

I can't fucking believe that they left that in the game. I like the blue shell, but anyway. Well, I like the idea of having that weapon that can stop the blue shell, the horn. Yeah. But it's like insane. But you're not going to get that in the front. You'll never get it. In the front, you'll never get it.

And like, it's just like, I forget, I think like Imbigos or somebody wrote an article about the blue shell and like it's mechanical, like why it is the way that it is in the game. But like, it is never, to me, it has never ever been, you only get it if you're in like is in the game but like it is never to me it has never ever been you only get it if you're in like close to the back right and it's not like this great equalizer of the person who uses it will be the person who benefits from it no it's vandalism it's vandalism if you're it's basically the blue shell is basically terrorism if you're the seven if

you're in seventh place and you use it, you're not going to catch back up. You are basically assuring that the person in second place, assuming they're not too close to the person in first place, is going to pass that person and then be the person who's in first place. You're the anarchist. You're just fucking over. It's not about getting on top. It's just about making the world burn. Yeah, I'm still not crazy about that blue shell. Yeah.

Okay. Want to so those resties mario kart let's talk about the resties uh the first one is bounden oh i love it i downloaded this then i tried to play it by myself and i didn't know oh that's so sad i'll tell everybody what it is so So this is a game for iOS. I think it's going to come to Android eventually. It might actually even be out now if you want to test it. But two people play it. There is a ball on the middle of the screen, and the two people put their thumbs on opposite sides of this ball.

And then it's a 3D ball that is tied to, I guess, the gyroscope inside your thingamajig. And you navigate a little dot on a 3D ball that is tied to, I guess, the gyroscope inside your thingamajig. And you navigate a little dot on this 3D ball. And you work together with somebody to do this. And the result is it forces you to kind of twist and turn your bodies so that you start dancing. At first, you're just contorting. But if you kind of get the hang of it and you figure out the motions it teaches you how to do these dances which uh they had choreographed by i believe it was the dutch ballet um i love it it might be i mean i don't know i don't want to get hyperbolic but it is one of my favorite games

you have to say it's your game of the year it it's up there it's really really high up there um i just think it's really special and i think it is what i want video games to be like i've played it with a lot of people uh a lot of people who i never play games with and i also love things i can play in public spaces and play wherever i want um and things that teach me things that i don't know uh yeah there's, I just think it's really, really special. Can I talk about a game that I can't fucking believe we forgot about because we definitely should have talked about it

on the show and it definitely should have been one of our main four? What's that? Sports Friends. Sports Friends might actually be my game of the year. It is the game that I have enjoyed, like I have harnessed more enjoyment from than any other. It's a game i always play when i have friends over um sports friends over

sports friends yeah um it is it johan sebastian joust is sort of i feel like the headliner for it but it is the one that i've played the least of because i still like there's some really cool graphical implementation and there's some cool features that aren't on the pc or mac build of the game um but i still prefer having like to not look at the screen i mean you don't have to look at the screen whenever you're playing the playstation version of it on on the tv box um but i mean all you really need is the music and i can't really it when you're playing it on a console, you basically have to be playing it indoors, right? So, like, that's not ideal. It's best to have, like, a big open space that you can swap each other at.

Yeah, it's sort of made, tailor-made for that. But the other three games in it are fantastic, and I had never really played much. It's Barberry Ball, Super Pole Riders, and Hokra. And I had never really played much of's barberry ball super pole riders and hokra and i never really played much of those outside of i know a couple of them got you know released in some form or another beforehand but like i played my first game of four player uh super pole riders the other night and we ended up playing it for like four hours it it's so like all of the games in the package are so like joyous and and as simple as they are they're so like they have so much depth to them especially hokura hokura is a game that you play

with like the control stick and one button and that's it and yet like it is the game that every time we play it we are discovering like more and more and more strategy that you can use in it basically you control four little squares, two teams of two, and you have to pass a puck to one another and shoot it into your goal. And that's like it. And there's like different elements. There can be walls in the middle.

There can be nets that you move a lot slower through. But just that one simple design has like so many different layers of like, when's the right time to pass it? How do we shake the other two players that they can't steal the puck from us? I don't know it's such a it's such a neat little package and there are two other games at least two uh that i like just as much as the ones i play get on top there's get on top which uh i think was an uya game um that you can that you can play

is that's really simple and kind of dumb, but, like, so fucking funny. And then there's... Flop. Flop. Which is, like, pawn, except for you can twist the paddles. Yeah. So you can put spin on the balls. And I've seen the guys who made Flop,

I mean, the people who made Sports Friends, but also Zach Gage, who made Spell Tower. They are unbelievably competitive with this game. And when you see it played at a high level, it's disgusting. It's not even like Pong anymore. And now I'm like trying to figure out how to get good at this game because it's so bizarre. What's the game in here that you are like unexpectedly awesome at?

Get on Top probably. i play a lot of get on top i that's one of uh my wife's favorite games and she doesn't play a ton of games so we've played we actually play i wish you would release it on ios we play kind of a knockoff version on ios a lot too i'm thinking about going all pro in super bowl writers i'm thinking about hitting the national circuit is uh can you play most of these with a controller is oh you play all of them with a controller yeah you can you can play with johan sebastian joseph with move but you can also play with the dual shop and i think all the four-player games can be played with not all of them uh super pole riders can and hoekrit can i don't think barberry ball can okay is that on psn or do you yeah yeah where it is okay I'll just get it get it it's so

so much fun no listen I kickstarted it but I put it on the computer and that's not the same as a TV think about it think about it I want to talk about some of the resties people emailing us you beloved beloved readers and listeners emailing us to tell us what

games you thought were the best of May Chuck at And listeners emailing us to tell us what games you thought were the best of May. Chuck at Unwinnable said, Hacking the Uplay or the Forest. I didn't know people hacked Uplay. Also, thanks for sending us something, Chuck. I love Chuck. Yeah, thanks, Chuck.

The Forest is real creepy. Although, didn't that come out? Yeah, Forest is scary. I guess it came out right at the end of May. Real creepy. Just had an overview for it that'll be up this week week it'll probably be up by the time this podcast goes up spelunky for ps3 come on come on yeah come on i mean yeah it's a good game but kyle said mario kart yeah thanks kyle we already talked about that one kyle thanks for listening hey fuck attention um i think there's another big one oh super time force yeah super time force is what uh

brian cantwell said was the best game of the day so good it's such a good game i mean if we start talking about it i can go on for like 15 minutes but it's like one of the best uses of time travel and and like to me the best thing about that game is watching it develop like it i think it was supposed to be out a while ago but they kept sort of refining that core system into something that is like genuinely truly very special um so i know that i i know this is probably an area where i'm gonna um make myself look kind of stupid but were the the cut scenes made by the same people that made the cutscenes in Dekime Mutombo's Saves the World. Oh, I don't think so. They looked very similar, and they had a similar vibe to them, but I don't know if the Cappy people worked on Dekime Mutombo at all.

Do you think they ghostwrote Dekime Mutombo? I wonder if they ghostwrote and ghostpixelated Dekime Mutombo Saves the World. One of the greatest games of all time. One of the greatest, yeah. Absolutely. No question. It's gone now, by the way. Hope you played it because it's gone.

That's really? Yep. What a bummer. Super Time Force is incredible. Definitely pick it up. Looking through some of the other ones here. Kentucky Route CR Act 3 came out. Have not played that one.

I've been saving it for my trip because I love those games. I actually like to play them on planes because you are very isolated and there's not as many distractions. Transistor. A lot of people say Transistor. Daniel Link said Transistor. Ewan Duar said Watch Dogs. And Super Time Force also. Are there any

any good mobile games? And by Super Time Force I mean Wolfenstein was his actual favorite game of May. I didn't read the email. Quit putting words in his mouth.

Sorry. Were there any good mobile games other than Boundin' that came out? Yeah. There's a new Battleheart which is one of my

favorite iOS games that I haven't dipped into yet but there's a new you remember that one? It was like a strategy RPG kind of where you like just sort of, you had different like RPG archetypes on your team. And you just had to like drag them towards enemies. And they would like do their special attacks and stuff like that.

There's like a new, there's a new one. Maybe the same people that's 3D and stuff. Guys, I'm such a dumbo. An amazing iOS game came out. Kiro blaster oh yeah from oh my gosh from my pixel it's it is a platform like action platformer that actually controls really well like i prefer playing it on my phone like you want you want those touch controls i played a neat uh ios i've been playing a neat ios game that that I think actually did not come out in May. But The Walk is from the same people who made Zombies Run.

And it's a really cool, I guess it's not even really a fitness app, I would say. There's a story that you were supposed to listen to through headphones that cast you as a secret agent in the UK. But the way it works is there's a map for each chapter. And the more you walk, the more of the story you unlock. So as you walk, you're actually unlocking the story. And it's a really great motivator to know that, you know, another three minutes of walking and you unlock another chapter. And as you listen to it, the audio of the story is mixed in such a way that it sounds like you're walking.

You get closer to people who are talking and you, you know, it sort of makes you feel like you're actually there. It's a really great motivator for fitness and to get out there and walk because you want to unlock more of the story. And there's a lot to it. There's like 60 of of story you can unlock so it's pretty cool it's neat yeah it is neat what's our next what's what's next month what are we looking at nothing there's

nothing that's going to come out in june um tomodachi life playing that right now wild star is that next month kind of excited about that one. Been playing a little bit. I mean, this month. We are in June. Oh, that's right. Sure. This is June right now. So I'm trying to think what else comes out in June. Murdered Soul Suspect is out today.

Murdered Soul Suspect? I'm kind of excited about that. Our review makes it sound kind of strange, and I like those sort of games. Yeah, I'm into that. That sounds right up my alley. Farming Simulator 2014.

Yeah. No, I mean, I'm looking at the rest of the month. It is not looking good. Blazblue Chrono Phantasma is out. Is that how you say that? Blazblue? Blazblue. It's Blazblue, yeah.

New Worms. All right Blasblue, yeah. The new worms. All right. All right, guys. Well. It's going to be rough, but we'll figure it out together. We'll figure something out. We did it for April. Yeah, we got through it.

We got through April. All right, that's going to do it for us, besties. Make sure you go to our website. It's polygon.com. Please just click everything there. Please, please just click all of it. Watch a video and then watch it again to see what you missed the first time. Please.

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You can always reach us at the besties polygon.com. It's our email address. Uh, and that's going to do it for us this week. Uh, also when I said the besties at polygon.com, I meant besties. And,

but when you said this week, you meant this month. And that's going to do it for us this month on the besties. Make sure to join us again next month on the besties make sure to join us again next month on the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games besties