The Besties - The Deepest Cuts of Winter

Episode Date: January 22, 2021

January may not be known for a rollicking time for major new releases, but that's cool, we'll find a way to keep you busy! Today we dive into a bunch of games that you may have missed while you were busy trying to get Cyberpunk to not crash. A full rundown of all the games listed: Noita, MO:Astray, Death Stranding, Spiritfairer, Jackbox 7, and Call of the Sea. Also Griffin tries to make a prank phone call.   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!

Before we actually begin the show in earnest, and they'll cut this part, don't worry, because it might get a little awkward. So don't include this in the show. Russ, the beard is looking good, my man. I am loving it. Are you doing something different? Are you eating different vegetables or using some sort of dye? Yeah, so I tried beard-be-gone for many, many years, and then I just stopped cold turkey, and that actually made a big difference. So it grows. It wants to grow so it grows it wants to grow yeah it wants to grow and you've been stopped and you've been and you've been you've been stopped i've been stifling it because people were you know i i've

been using my uh school id to get discounts at the supermarket and the only way that they would really grant it is if uh the beard was like very short and stubbly and gross so since i ditched it um yeah it's made a big difference if you want to see this i have just tweeted a screenshot of russ uh with the caption the beard looking good so apropos of nothing so that won't make any sense to people now right if but But if you like, if you go back through my Twitter, you can see the beard looking good. The beard looking good. Who invited Robert Downey Jr. is what I want to know to our

podcasts. What a get. A little bit of pepper in the little, there should be a word for that highly sexual bit at the bottom of your mouth. That almost seems too flirty. Are you shaving it that way? That's too much for me. Or are you just blessed? Oh, and I know he gets so like pissy if we don't. Chris, your beard looks good, too.

Yeah, Chris, your beard looks great, bud. I've only been out for, you know, like, a month, and then I come back. Yeah. And the first thing you do is insult my beard. Actually, Chris, I'm sorry. We're out of time. Out of time. Chris, sorry.

We've got to start the show, bud. Sorry, sorry, sorry. God, this feels terrible to do, but I've got to do it. I've got to start the show, bud. Sorry, sorry, sorry. God, this feels terrible to do, but I got to do it. I just got to do it. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best games of the season? My name is Griffin McElroy and I know the best game of the end of the last year. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the winter. My name is Ross Pershick and I know the best game of the week.

My name is Ross Pershick and I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties where we discuss the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a game of the year show that goes all year long. It's like a book club for video games. It's all things to all people as long as all those people like to hear someone pronounce it Mario. It's the besties. And this week we are diving in as this slight lull in the hottest new releases continues. We are diving in to see, hey, do we miss anything? Were there some deep cuts we wanted to circle back

on that we didn't get a chance to do a full episode about? Because folks, the games just keep on coming. I don't know if you ever, if you log on to the Switch store and look at it, it looks like a parallel dimension of video games where there's like 50 games that no one has ever told you anything about, but they're just there. And they all cost a dollar and 50 cents. Yes.

there and they all cost a dollar and 50 cents yes and most of them are about a woman solving crimes by finding hidden objects uh that game that game is called murder by numbers and it rips it's no that's uh 30 different games oh okay okay sorry does murder by numbers does rip but that's a pit cross game anyway we're gonna talk about the latest and greatest that you may have missed. Not the big new releases. The deep cuts. Plant, I've really talked about deep cuts too much. So let's just get right into it. Russ.

You're just saying everybody's names now. Say mine. No, I'm giving it. I'm giving it to Russ. I'm tossing the puck to Russ. Okay. So I've got the puck. Russ.

Noida. Yeah. Noida. Yeah. It does like we we got through a holiday season and there were a lot of like obvious big games that we needed and needed to talk about and i know noida is a game that we've talked about very very briefly here and there um and it's a game that i played in early access i want to say two years, and then I played a little bit last year, but over the last week or two, I've been playing it as my it's early Sunday morning wake-up kind of game

while I'm eating breakfast. What are you playing it on? I'm playing it on PC. It is only available on PC, which is kind of a drag. That's what I thought. I wish it was on Switch or something portable, but it is only available on PC.

Quick refresher for people that are not aware. Noita, which is spelled N-O-I-T-A on Steam, is a side-scrolling 2D roguelike where you are like a wizard and you're basically delving into a procedurally generated mountain. to a procedurally generated mountain and you're using various spells to kill enemies that drop gold and then you use the gold at the end of each level to purchase new spells or new upgrades for your character.

That's like the juice of it. And then the hook is the mountain is made up of all sorts of materials. So it's made up of maybe there's like oil pools or maybe there's like, you know, stone or there's like wood boxes or there's's like, you know, stone or there's like wood boxes

or there's various other materials. And all of your spells basically interact with those materials in ways that are like very like a dominoes situation. So for example, if I fire a fire spell above a pool of oil, the pool of oil will light on fire. But if the pool of oil is surrounded by like a wooden container, the wooden container will also light on fire, causing the pool of oil is surrounded by like a wooden container the wooden container will also light on fire causing the pool to fall below and basically send fire on the people below it it is maybe more intimidating than spelunky is just like jumping into it because it is extremely punishing very early on but i do think what it has that spelunky doesn't necessarily have is it has a wow factor of like i can spend like 30 minutes in that first area just like

goofing around with these different materials and making these like crazy combinations of events happen and i find that like super satisfying. Unlike Spunky, there's no timer. You could like really take your time in each area and get to know how these like different things interact with one another. And it's really been growing on me a lot. No one here has really played it recently.

I mean, for the listener, people who, I don't know, were into like Flash games very early on will remember a very specific type of flash game. It wasn't even a game. It was like a physics and material sandbox where you could like click and when you clicked it would like release a certain material. So you could like just layer in dirt or layer in oil or layer in water. And you could see how all those little tiny pixel particles reacted to each other. This is like if somebody was like, hey, I really like that.

What if I also made Spelunky inside of it? And I think you're right. They're like, I don't know. It's both more intimidating and not than Spelunky. I think it's more instantly fun and i don't mean that as like a critique of spelunky i think it's very playful um and i i think like dying and it doesn't feel that infuriating because i don't know the first time i played i didn't even know that there was a level beyond the first level it just felt like something to kind of tool around in that would go on forever um and

at the same time though once you do have the drive to like complete the game it for me it felt impossible and i i really dug it but i i like looked ahead after getting past the first i think two stages and was like this is now a game that i watch on youtube like there is a certain class of person who is good at this game um much like fighting games i will go watch uh the rest of this game yeah it feels like the sort of game that you would play on the like school computer like instead of oregon trail you boot this up because it happens to be installed like some freeware version was installed on your school computer. Yes.

It's like that kind of game. We're only talking to like 35-year-olds and older. I know. Moving your turtle in Logo Writer 360 degrees. I agree with Plant. It gets really way more dense once you start getting into the like spell crafting and like all that stuff but honestly like i think just for the first area and just like screwing around there it's worth the price of admission uh whether you want to go

deeper than that is sort of up to you but i've really been digging it if you can completely divorce yourself from the idea of progression and just focus on like think of it as like a learning uh tool similar to my approach to spelunky uh i think you can have uh more fun with it i thought it was neat i'd like to return to it it was a little hinky the first time are there are there plans to bring it to like consoles and switch i haven't seen uh anything i've looked a few times like looking for like switch ports i know obviously people are requesting it um it would require some pretty extensive control changes because right now it really does kind of live and die using the mouse keyboard controls for a lot of different things yeah i think it's also i could be talking out of my

tuchus here but i think it's cpu intensive so i'm out of my tuchus here, but I think it's CPU intensive. So I'm not sure it would run on something like this. For like the physics simulation. Yeah, a lot of physics stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then again, they ran fucking Witcher on the Switch, so I think they could handle it. Well, they kind of ran Witcher on the Switch.

Chris. I can't believe, I can't believe, Chris has been gone for a while. We've missed him very much. But the way you have made your sort of grand reentrance into this debutante ball is it's confusing. It's not a deep cut. Let's be very clear. It is. It is.

I would say it's a pretty fucking deep cut. It's a deep cut in the context of this day that we are recording the year of our Lord Anadomony 2021, January 20th. Here's the thing. Congratulations, Jim Gordon-Budden. I really appreciate you. You probably haven't noticed this about me, right? But I become very infatuated with like one game a year or two years or three years. Miradamana, you had a good run.

But it's Death Stranding's time baby death stranding number one game of all time i can't wait to talk about it on every episode from here on out here's the thing death stranding it's a perfect video game and i'm talking about it right now christ almighty you can't just say those kinds of things on here chris it's a perfect video game in fact there's no problematic things in Death Stranding. Chris Plant. It is the game that I think everybody should play in the winter of 2021 because it is a game about an America

that is just in the absolute pits because there's an invisible threat that makes it so people can't go outside. Everybody's at home on their ipads and their mobile phones calling up norman reedus saying can you get me some pizza or some wine or some comic books or some fresh underwear because i need it now i'm super lonely sorry did you say normal reis? Normal Redis.

He's not easy Redis, not hard Redis, normal Redis. Off the shelf, normal Redis, no augmentations, no customizations, this is just... Can I say something, Chris, about Death Stranding? Yeah, no, I would love you to. I really liked

Death Stranding, and because of the deluge of games coming out when it came out. And I played it for a good long time. But it was something I really enjoyed. I took a little time away from it. And I tried to go back to it. And boy, howdy, was that just, that was a challenge. That was a tough.

Yeah. It was tough to get back in after you've been away for a while. That's because of the story you know and the controls and everything you know all of that's great people people dogged on like the driving this game i don't mind that at all i like how this feels like a bennett foddy game made at scale uh but boy oh boy the story they really do a lot to make sure you don't play the game. Um, because the first, I don't know, five hours it felt like are largely kind of nonsense, uh, cut scenes.

And then when you really, really, really get going and the game, I mean, much of the game is a video game ass game, like more so than I think any Kojima game I played. Uh, and then you're really in it. And then out of nowhere, the director of drive shows up and he's like, by the way, I kill myself every 25 minutes. But for the 25 minutes that I'm awake,

I need to talk to you for the next four death cycles. it happened in the game and it is uh it's really something i mean i reviewed it i don't even remember that happening yeah it's it and and everybody seems to be aware that nobody wants us to be happening because uh their director of drive keeps turning to the camera and giving you the thumbs up like just stick with me dude just keep going we're all we're all gonna get through this together are you are you saying like is are you finding yourself mostly kind of and i and i think i just assume this about you and your relationship with near automata which is a better game than death stranding by virtually every sort of metric that one can measure games but is it the novelty feels dismissive but like in in the sense of video games like novelty i

think is a really incredible thing and i think it's something that hideo kojima wields like a powerful sword can you look at you take a look in that mirror and earnestly say like that that is what is sort of endearing you to death stranding because it it's it has some big problems let me let me say this to defend plant for a second then plant can jump in a no joke i am not being facetious i think as a game like gameplay wise this is the best hideo kojima game I've ever played. You're out of your fucking mind. He's spot on. No, he's 100% right. I can't believe I'm the only one out here.

You guys are, you enjoy the gameplay of Death Stranding. I really do. Yeah, the game is actually fun. Yeah, it's very good. It is a game. Yeah, it's so innovative. Did you play,

you guys played Metal Gear Solid V though. That game was fun as hell. That was like my second favorite Hideo Kojima as a game game. And then the Game Boy Color version of Metal Gear. Yeah, but there's so many other cover shooters, like Winback, Gears of War. I just don't think it feels that original. Metal Gear Solid V wasn't a cover shooter.

What are you talking about? Yeah, there's like lots of different cover shooters. Like Dark Void was one where you went vertical cover shooter. And then there was all the Gears games. And Metal Gear Solid V was a pretty good cover shooter. Metal Gear Solid V is a game where you fucking bookie board down a hill on a cardboard box and then attach a balloon to a man so he flies up into heaven to hang out with Jesus and stuff. Like you guys are out of your...

It's a good game. Yeah, but if you attach a balloon to normal Reedus, you know what's going to happen? Fucking nothing. He's weighed down, baby. That's not true. I think you can attach a balloon to normal Reedus and Deathstrike. No, but you can skateboard down Ice Mountain.

I'll answer your question, Griffin. I think I actually told this to Freshdick while I was trying to defend my feelings. I definitely think there is a bit of... This show should be called Defend Your Feelings. I think there is a bit of, like, the wine snob here, where it's like, you know, the more wine you drink, the more you can actually taste the little details.

So you should just not drink nice wine that often. You'll be like, whatever, this Timbuk wine tastes perfectly good. I think I've, like, had a little bit too many video games so i try something different and i'm like yeah i really taste that zip that said i do think the actual gameplay it is my favorite power fantasy in a video game maybe ever because here is this huge world that does not want you in it at all. And it makes you feel miserable getting around it. And you walk it on foot for a large chunk. But as you go through the game, you are actually making the world accessible and navigable and enjoyable to go around. And I don't know how it was at the very

beginning i remember playing a little bit uh for the show when it first came out and i didn't remember seeing that many uh i don't know helping helpful items created by other players playing it now there's just stuff everywhere like the environment is full of stuff from other players so it felt like uh dark souls but nice like what if you play dark souls but everything that people did in the game and the via multiplayer was meant to help you and you were also meant to help other people and you were actually incentivized to do it so like the combination of hey here's a game where the like the actual gameplay is a metaphor for the moment of hey here's a game where the like the actual gameplay is a metaphor for the moment of like literally what's going on in our world and the

game itself is about helping other people and them helping you i don't know and it like hit me at my core like i it just it really got me in that sweet spot. Did you mention that you're talking about this because it came out on PC last winter? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why we're talking about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. It's the one that came out, I believe, in the summer.

Yeah. As I push the glasses up my nose. Griff, tell me about the hardest-nosed detective on these mean streets, Moe Ashtray. Moe Ashtray is not the name of the game i believe it was russ who who added that that h in there uh the name of the game is no no ashtray as ashtray uh it may even be mo it's mo in capital letters and then colon and then ast, and there's no space in it. So you all tell me what that is. You play a character named Moe, so I guess that's probably it.

Moe Astray was a PC puzzle platformer that came out in 2019, but last year it came out on Switch and iOS, although I would thoroughly recommend you play the Switch version because it has a sort of almost twin stick platforming element where you move with the left stick and with the right stick, you aim a jump that you execute by pressing one of the triggers. It is very much, it's funny that it came out in the same year as Carrion because I think sort of conceptually,

it has a lot in common with Carrion where Carrion, you play a monster going around this sort of conceptually it has a lot in common with Carrion where Carrion you play a monster going around this sort of ruined science facility and just like sort of wrecking shop Moe Astray takes place in a scientific facility where that has already happened and you're kind of sifting through the pieces but it is it is not the longest game it's pretty short and it's one of those great games where every idea that it kind of introduces, it sees through to its logical conclusion. So you play this little blob and you're trying to figure out what's going on through this facility.

You are sticky. So if you jump, you can stick up to the ceiling for a while. The platforming starts out very, very simple like that of just sort of aiming your jumps as you toss yourself through this dangerous environment. But as you go, you unlock new powers. And, you know, you get the double jump. That's what you would assume. But pretty much everything past that gets, like, kind of weird.

You get a power where you can attach yourself to the head of an enemy and take control of them, which you then have to use to, you know, some enemies can open up special doors with their their key cards you get an ability where you can divide yourself into and and kind of explore that way saying it that loud out loud like i don't know that there are a ton of ideas that are like completely brand new in m.o.s tray um but But this game kind of came out of nowhere. It's from a developer named Archprey Inc. And it's just really very, very well made to a degree where I was kind of blown away that I this was one of those games that I was just kind of scrolling around the eShop

and I saw it on sale and I was like, oh, yeah, I'll pick it up. It's something like 10 bucks or something like that. And it's it's really good it has a surprisingly great very very sort of uh heavy sci-fi story and i i i think i would put it like on the level with with carrion in that you know going going through a sci-fi story like this from the perspective of the you know potentially the enemy the monster uh is such a fascinating idea and this game handles it way less like in a john carpenter way and more in a i don't know just a a creepy uh almost hr giger sci-fi way yeah cool yeah that counts as a deep cut i hadn't heard about this game at all so So it sounds really awesome.

Yeah, I think this is the first game. It's like a student project from a team that just like has been working on this game for three years and then it comes out and it's their first game and it absolutely kicks ass. I think everyone should play it. I think they're based out of Taiwan. It's really cool. Oh, I also wanted to give, sorry sorry i wanted to give a quick shout out uh jackbox seven has uh has a game called talking points uh jackbox seven is really good it has a lot of good games it has a one of the games included is called talking points and it is a powerpoint presentation game

chris i don't know we've played played it in our weekly friend group call. I don't know that you were on the last time we actually got into talking points. But everybody writes a subject. And then those subjects are mixed around. And everyone is kind of assigned one. And then a player has to give a prompt or has to give a speech to this PowerPoint presentation. And they are allowed to select what the next verbal prompt is like this subject that they are going to talk about on the next slide but they have a partner assigned at random who selects the image that is put up on

the screen and so the image and the prompt never have anything to do with each other but the entire like crux of the game is you are giving a speech and you don't know what you're going to be giving it about and you have to sort of keep a train of thought and make everything feel very natural because everybody scores you at the end based on the strength of your powerpoint presentation that's great it's fucking hysterical it is so so so funny i dig it um yeah yes so i wanted to briefly talk about now this is was actually released in the fall but uh i wanted to talk about it anyway because uh i didn't talk about it and i didn't play it until now and it's great it's called spirit fairer oh yeah yeah it's great it's great all right so next let's go to our um

you're the uh you're basically the new char on so whenever uh what's his face comes by you sell him items no it's different it's the you're the like guy takes people across the river sticks to the afterlife and you are basically in control of this big boat where you're sailing around meeting souls that aren't ready to go yet and helping them sort of in a a sense, complete their unfinished business, but really more about like coming to terms with their life. And that sounds very heavy. And in a sense it is, but the bulk of the game is basically life management.

So you've got this gigantic ship and you build people their own houses and you build a orchard and a field and tend to all those crops and you've got a kitchen and a, a, a refinery, a faster pace, but, uh, similar to like an animal crossing. If sometimes the people on animal crossing died, uh, it's kind of like that. Uh, the, the tone is very sweet. Uh, the color, it's all very colorful and lovely. And the life management stuff is very satisfying. It's not too, you know, it doesn't feel too redundant. There's a lot of like, a lot of the time once you, one big run at a resource is enough to sort of cover you for the game.

It's not something where you're constantly tending a thousand different plants all the time. of cover you for the game. It's not something where you're constantly tending a thousand different plants all the time, but it is fun to like rearrange your ship to get sort of an optimal path for your, uh, your daily tending. And there's also a great exploration aspect where you're like exploring this very cool world and getting new, uh, it's a, it's in a 2d platformer style. So like you're getting these like platforming abilities as well as you're sort of helping shepherd these people into the afterlife. It's

very unique. It doesn't feel or look or sound like anything I've played before. The music is also great. It's so gorgeous. It is a beautiful game. Did any of you finish it? No. I have not yet, but I probably will. I'm very much enjoying it. Yeah, I

bounced off of it. One, I bounced off of it. And one, I think people should definitely play it. I got what I wanted out of the game. But it was part of a trend that I've felt over the past couple of years where I don't know. I don't know if it's specific to life management games or just certain type of indie games. It's not that they weren out their welcome i just don't

i just don't need to keep playing i i don't know like something kind of just fell off for me one day with that game and i don't really when you get enough plates spinning on the life management side it does start to get a little like i'd like to do other things, but I also have these 10 other like chores that I need to do. Now, some of those are kind of interestingly automated where if you keep the people on your ship happy by feeding them and talking to them and hugging them from time to time, they will tend to some of your daily jobs. So there's one person who will like play music for your plants to help them grow and someone who will like bring you some ore that they refined, that kind of thing. So that but it's not like enough to where you're just going to be able to completely rely on that. to like the best life management sim that has been made because that ladder that it builds towards automation is like the reward you get is now you don't have to water your crops anymore like you work very very hard on your farm so you can get to a point where you don't have to spend

your time farming and like spirit fair does that a bit but it didn't i still was doing a lot of you know fucking flax harvesting uh more more than i i would probably like there but it's it's fun it's very cool i also wanted to give a brief i've not played this one nearly as much but i did dip into it and it is a a winter release called call of the sea and you guys check that out no i've heard people talking about it i don't know uh very good so far it It's a, um, you are a woman who has been afflicted with this like mysterious disease and her husband left to go to this mysterious Island near Tahiti to try to find a cure. And then he disappeared. So now you are going hunting for him. And that plays out through landing on this mysterious Island. His expedition is gone, but they've left traces, and you are trying to basically track him down and solve the mysteries of this island through what are basically, I mean, it's basically like puzzles that are really well done. I mean, it's the perfect balance of like laying out enough pieces, but then making you feel smart

for putting them together. And it's getting increasingly challenging as I play. Aesthetically, tonally, I would say it's kind of like, it's that... Jungle Cruise? It looks kind of like, a lot like the Jungle Cruise, actually. But the tone is like, it's the aesthetic of 40s, British 40s. Not unlike Bioshock, it's got a little bit of that vibe, not in the Randian sort of, like. Objectivism.

Monolithic tones. Yeah, exactly. But, like, in the sense of that time period, if you find, like, romance in that 30s, you know, expedition kind of vibe. It's very cool. Very well acted. Feels good. Looks great. Great music.

Call of the Sea. what about the fun factor if you just the fun factor is actually same as the reviewers tilt 3.5 screaming faces out of five wow so okay pretty good is it just is it half a screaming face half a screaming face that's how you know it's yeah i would love to get it to four screaming faces, but the rocket launcher feels. I'm sorry, they're called Scary Larrys. Oh, sorry. That's all the show that is right now. And now there will be an advertisement or there won't be, there won't be. But if you're listening later, we've covered this.

It's time for a break, then more show. We need more listeners. Yeah, we got to get more listeners. We're being more open about this. Let's just sort of go behind the scenes a little bit. One, we need more listeners. Or this whole thing is going to fall the fuck apart. But the other thing is that every episode before, like the day before we start recording it,

Russ is like, we need a B segment. And then he always has a first idea. And the first is i think we can all agree and i think russ would even agree with this a real stinker so like i would love to get around that by one having an ongoing sort of b segment for the show but one that also puts gamer gamer asses right in their gamer chairs um the ones that vibrate whenever they do like active reloading gears of war 5 or whatever um do people like that what do people really like it when their chair is like like oh you got shot is this the segment yeah this is this is my sort of andy rooney s sort of thing where I talk about gamer chairs keep going okay

are people really doing this? like you get shot and you like that? so that's one idea for like an ongoing B-Segment yeah

Andy Rooney definitely gonna pack him in and I could start like emailing gamer chair companies and asking them to send me

their products and then they would slowly sort of evolve into me giving actual earnest heartfelt reviews of gamer chairs and telling people which ones are the best ones and which ones make your butt rumble the most when you get shot yeah that's just one idea okay i've been thinking of what if we did commentary on speed runs but we didn't have the video because

this is a podcast obviously so we really just like vocally talk through what happened in the speed run. Okay, so we all watch the same speed run at the same time and sort of talk about what we are seeing? Yeah. Okay, but we don't necessarily, we're not educated on the actual details of the strats.

Well, it depends on the game, right? So if it's Mario, like, you know, I know he's jumping on a Goomba to go higher, right? And that's a huge, that's like a major building block for Mario Speedruns as you jump onto Goomba to make you go higher. You gotta do that.

I got a new one where I find like some lifestyle hacks for pro gamers. Yeah. This is from gopuff.com, and it's popular gamer foods to fuel your sessions. Oh, cool. And so I just want to hit the list here. Yeah, let's read this.

Doritos. Believe it or not, there used to only be two flavors. Mountain Dew. The blast of caffeine and sugar have kept many a gamer going through the night. That's true. Pizza. Pizza. It's so good.

Pizza. It's so good. It's so easy to pop a frozen pizza in the oven. This will always be a go-to gamer food. It just says pizza. It's so good. It's so ridiculously good. Gummy bears.

They're chewy, fruity, and easy to eat. Yeah. No crumbs or gummy bear dust to swab out of your keyboard. The sugar punch is there too, of course. Try their cousins. Gummy bears. board the sugar punch is there too of course try their cousins chicken nuggets who can't eat a thousand chicken nuggets at a time everyone the crispy branded exterior the soft juicy interior and the choose your own dipping

sauce adventure never gets old sweet and sour bbq ranch honey mustard these are just spicy buffalo somebody's getting paid by the word chipotle um what i only want to i only want to read this website that's fucking strong cheez-its last one cheez-its bite-sized cheesy bits they're easy to eat and they just taste so good they got the cheesy salty cracker combo just right you'll find that you've cleaned out half the box without realizing it um sorry about your controller yeah so uh i i think we have to get to the heart of what gamers are uh miriam webster defines gamer as a noun uh a player who is game uh or a person who plays games. Yes.

The etymology of it is mid-15th century. An athlete. Agent noun from game or game noun. Meaning one devoted to playing video or computer games. That attested 1981. One of the original uses of the word comes from 1975 in reference to Dungeons and Dragons. Also, Gamester is attested from, this is from Online Etymology Dictionary.

Gamester is attested from 1580s, but also sometimes meant prostitute. Compare old slang, the game, as in sexual intercourse in the 1930s. I feel like we've learned a lot about gamers and that's why I think we should have a rolling

lottery contest where we give away a lifetime supply of Mountain Dew to one random listener a year. But you have to listen to every episode. I need a lifetime supply of Mountain Dew to wake me back up after that segment. I'm sorry, do you not like to learn? No, not in my gaming podcast.

It's called education. I had a cool idea where I thought we could do prank calls on Cliffy B. What? Oh. We call Clifford and we do prank calls to him. b what oh we call clifford and we do prank on do prank calls to him okay so we can call him should we play it out are you gonna play cliff i'll play cliffy hey bud i don't are you think about what you just said are you really ready to channel that energy through your body because i want a full but if you're going to do this i want it full-blown

i am zool levels of well if he be taken i mean i wasn't sure which era we're talking about because at this point i feel like cliffy b is just kind of chilling out in his house i don't think he's doing oh i don't know about that but really i don't think i think he's still out out and about i think he's still you think he's still wearing affliction t-shirts in the public yeah so let's let's let's do this thing. I want to hear what you as Cliffy B sounds like. Oh, Christ. Okay. Quick question before we start. Since this is a prank call,

I think you need to be like a similarly funny individual, Griffin. Can you be Peter Molyneux calling Cliffy B? Oh, okay. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, sure. I can definitely channel that. Yes, yes Yeah, yeah, yeah

Okay, sure I can definitely channel that What's up? Hello, hello, hello Why am I holding the phone? Is this Clifford Blutonski? Yo, yeah, it's me It's Dude Bro himself That's hot Is this Clifford Blusonski? Yo, yeah, it's me.

It's dude bro himself. That's how I, Peter Molyneux, say your name, with my accent. Clifford Blusonski, you son of a gun. Hello, hello. We used to be good friends at E3. Why are you talking like that? It's us. I have a COVID.

No, just a cold. Anyway, do you want to see what's inside of my box? Oh, I'd love to. Hey, Fred. Come tap on my box and see what's inside of it, guys. Okay, I'm tapping on it. What's in there? A dream.

We've really found a segment that is going to attract dozens, dozens of people. You know how Peter Molyneux is on the tips of everybody's tongues right now. I could not, for the life of me, I tried. I could not put the fake phone down that i was holding up with my pinky finger i really tried yeah you kids like gotas that would have been good um hey okay is there mail chris or listen i would do anything we had to have some structure we had some people people share some of the things they're planning to get through this long winter. Alexis on Twitter said,

I finally picked up the Sexy Brutale on your rec and I really enjoyed it. Yes, yes, yes. Other than that, Monster Camp has been a great pick-me-up for this COVID-19 hellscape. I don't know that. Do we know what Monster Camp is is i don't know what that game is i so i don't isn't like a pokemon well there's a switch game called monster sanctuary that just

came out that that uh people are talking about that's like sort of a pokemon metroidvania oh yeah i saw people i don't know it's a vision sorry it's a visual novel okay monster prom to monster god i see i can uh gross meat said uh don't starve together apparently it was dead for it's a visual novel. Oh, okay. Monster Prom 2, Monster Camp. Ah, I see. Gross Meat said, don't starve together. Apparently it was dead for a long time, and it is getting updates like crazy this winter. I just discovered it, and it's been my go-to online co-op experience.

Even met some new friends. How wild. That game originally came out, what, 10 years ago? It was like an HTML 5 game, and now it's like people keep playing it. It it's still going it's wild ian uh is playing uh satisfactory and jurassic world evolution hey jurassic world evolution for a tie-in game pretty pretty pretty pretty fun did anybody did any of you play that game uh which one no i don't know what it is

but with oh okay yeah and it's made by uh yeah yeah hannah is playing carto which we talked about do we talk about carto i don't think so oh so carto rules um carto is it's a 2d game and you're this like little girl who is getting around uh a map but the map is kind of like block based almost like a tabletop game and you can rearrange rearrange you can rearrange the map um so you're kind of creating the map that's what's called cardo cartography so you rearrange the actual map that you're walking around in order to get to new places so it's like a mix of like i don't know navigation and puzzle game um cool it's super charming like a slide is it like a slide puzzle situation it it looks like a slide puzzle but you don't have the uh annoying aspect of it actually being a slide puzzle. The worst type of game.

The worst puzzle. Yes. I think that's it. Was that enough structure for you, Justin? Did we get back on track? I loved it. Normally we do honorable mentions here, but I feel like we have plumbed the facts.

Do you want me to read any more of the dictionary? Because I have like... I'm glad you didn't That is That is going to do it for this episode Next week There's a new game Hitman 3

Wait this goes up on This goes up after the game has come out It's fucking great I don't know how much y'all have put into Hitman 3 But it absolutely fucking kicks i don't know how much y'all have put into hitman 3 but it absolutely fucking kicks ass everyone says it is outrageous and it has the best i've heard this the best club level that anyone has ever made at a club level like apparently there's like a level set in a club and it's like there's incredible yeah it's fine it's it's very cool that level we will talk

about that but uh for me the start of the show is there's a there is a knives out level that is like i think every single person should play it is uh i i didn't play hitman one or two uh but i am really really enjoying really yeah really i played a little bit of hitman 2 but i am really enjoying my time someone can teach me how to play this game maybe it's got a tutorial that is, it is very, very straightforward. Another cool time to talk about Hitman 3 would be next week on our Hitman 3 episode. Wow.

Hey, please, like nobody's listening to this show. Okay. If you could just do us a favor and share it with- Let's not diminish the very sturdy and ever-growing audience that we do have but it could be a lot

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in our bank and if you know how to like find gamers let us know need it because Big Daddy Spotify is depositing in our bank account anymore. And if you know how to find gamers, let us know. Yeah, if you know any gamers. Yeah, we put it on all the blogs, other gaming blogs.

But we got an email address too if you want to get a hold of us. Mail at besties.fan We got a Twitter at thebestiespod You can follow there and sign up for our mailing list there if you so choose but that is going to do it for us for this week thank you so much for listening and be sure to join us again next week for the besties

because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games Besties!