The Besties - Too Many Games? Not a Problem!

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

This week, The Besties bring a crop of games that hadn't received the time and attention they deserve: Children of Morta, Core Keeper, Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines. Plus, Griffin shares his favorite exercise games, and Justin talks at length about a TV show that might not be real. 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!

I was pretty excited that Russ wasn't gonna be here today for obvious reasons, but... A wild thing to say. I was looking forward to rolling in a little late, because he's always the taskmaster. But I don't understand how this shook out, because Griffin and I showed up right on time. And Plant was several minutes late, and it started to make me miss Russ in a very weird sort of way. Like, is Russ the one who's sort of keeping plant, keeping the plant trains running? You know what I mean? Like, is your fear of Russ the only thing

keeping you on the rails? This podcast is very much a fox chicken bag of grain situation. Right. If we don't- If that puzzle could be a psychosexual melange. Right. Sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like video games and like tension, like that is the best. I think I'm the fox. No, Russ is the fox, which is crazy. Yeah. Which I guess makes Chris is the, Chris would then be the chicken and either me or Ju, what do you think, juice bag or grain? I'm the boat baby, I'm carrying all of you. You could be the chicken and either me or Ju, what do you think, juice bag or grain? On the boat, baby, I'm carrying all of you.

You could be the farmer. You could be the diligent farmer making sure that none of these three. Hey, can I ask a question? Yeah. How come the fuck the farmer's responsible for the fox at all? Here, I'll solve the puzzle for you.

Farmer gets on the boat, takes chicken and bag of grain, leaves Fox behind because who, why? Like, why do you care about the Fox? You're not in charge of transporting. Are you gonna take it home to harvest its Fox milk? What about the one trip the farmer has to make with the fox solo? I bet he's not wild about that.

Probably not. Probably not. No one's loving that arrangement. I'll tell you another thing. Those solve for the puzzles, of course, you take the chicken across first because the fox is left alone with a bag of grain. If I'm the fox, I'm going to look at that bag of grain and be like, I'll try it. I'll try grain. Let me eat.

You come back, the grain's gone. The fuck, Fox? I'd start rolling it into the water, like hey, turn around right now, or the grain gets in, I don't care. I just made the puzzle way easier for me, for you, farmer. Take me across so I can eat your fucking chicken.

Do you think a long time ago, society tried all the different milks, and then they just decided they weren't good, or are we kind of sitting on a big business opportunity? Of exotic milks? Like a Fox milk. You mentioned it, now I'm just, I'm sorry, you kept talking about- No, so you stepped right on

Justin's Meet the Fockers joke and I need him to be able to celebrate. Please, go ahead. I got nipples, Foxer. Could you milk me? What happened to this show? Rust lips. Oh, okay. You milked me? What happened to this show? Wrestling. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy and I know the best game of the week.

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week. I will remember you. He's not dead. He didn't pass away. No, Rush Fresh Dig is out on assignment. So he's very missed, but this week we are going to take a moment without Russ to just do a little bit of a grab bag and see what everybody's

been enjoying lately. But Chris Plant, what is that? What's a grab bag? What's a video game? There are just so many of them and they've come a long way since Pac-Man. Such an important part of who did it. We're talking about three that I don't think

have been mentioned on the show at all or maybe were mentioned only in kind of early access form. Sure. And I think all three kind of speak about different, hey, where are video games at these days? How are they doing? Yeah. And I can't wait to talk about them. That's too much shit. Hey, what is where video games at these days? How are they doing? Yeah? And I can't wait to talk about them. You know, let me let's let's do it right after this. Let's go

Follow me Hi welcome you got through the commercials I had no doubt I wanted to talk about these three games Can I talk about my game first? Because it's fun. Yeah. Was yours updated recently? Or are you just kind of coming to it a little bit? Mine was not updated recently. I just haven't played it before. And it is one of those that has been sitting

on my Steam Deck for a long time. And I got a recommendation. I don't even remember. I think I own it on Switch. And I've never, I have not. I downloaded it for a flight. And you've never played it, right? No.

Can I tell you guys how good this game is? Yes, please do. Because it's really good. What's it called? What's the name of it? Children of Morta is what it is called and it is about a family called the Bergsons. They are the defenders of this area that they live in. They're the custodians of Mount Morta, and they are protecting this incredible, ancient, powerful mountain, which is sort of like the source of all life and magic in this world from this thing called the corruption.

And this family is sort of like the last line of defense against the corruption. And it's a very, the story is almost sort of like eternal and cyclical of this family, like trying to defend this mountain. And each member of the family is a different class of fighters. So there's one member that wields a huge hammer and the daughter, Lily, fires fireballs, but only when she's stationary.

And there's one- It's like the Incredibles. It is like a monk. Yes, exactly, right? So the way it plays out from a gameplay perspective though is something akin to like, vampire survivor or dead cells or that sort of like- I was looking at it because I had a hankering- Class based. or Dead Cells, or that sort of run-based, class-based.

I had a hankering for Hammerwatch after Hammerwatch 2 came out and it didn't really scratch the itch for me, that kind of gauntlet RPG-y sort of style thing. Is it in that vein? It's closer to a, I would say like, Hades gauntlet, like a Hades gauntlet, like a Hades gauntlet kind of thing, where it is like, it's very run-based, but the way you approach each level

and like the way you play, it varies a lot, depending on which family member you're using. So every run feels like really, really different and you don't unlock all of them at first and they all independently level. So you start with one family member, the dad or this sort of like one of the dads in the family, it's multi-generational but he's just like a basic warrior and he has got a shield on the left bumper and then he's got a sword in the other hand and then his wife is the next one you unlock and she

has like bow and arrow And she's doing all range attacks and stuff like that. So every time you play is like it feels very different What's really neat about it is? each of the characters is leveling individually and As you play through you buy new talents Let them like have more abilities whatever but as you develop and level up each member of the family, it also unlocks abilities for everybody in the family that they teach them.

Oh, cool. So if you raise up, for instance, if you raise the abilities of the knife-wielding little brother, Kevin, if you level up Kevin a bunch. His name's Kevin? I think it's Kevin. I'm pretty sure it's Kevin. If you level up-

You have to scream it every time you say it. If you level up Kevin enough, it'll start increasing your critical damage. And then as you get more powerful, you unlock better things. Like if you get surrounded by a bunch of enemies, for example, Kevin will appear and like help them, right? So Kevin will appear and like help them. Right. So Kevin will just bomb into it. But guys, this is Spotman420 here talking about the new Kevin spec in Children of Mordor. You're going to go deep into Kevin.

What's so cool is that like there is a, uh, ongoing really beautifully narrated and animated story that is played out a little bit after almost every run. And it's a story about how this family is like bringing new people in and making room for new people. Like for example, I mentioned Lily, who is like the fire mage that has to stand stationary. You see her in several cut scenes, like as it builds to that reveal, where like you see her training with other members of the family and you see her like, and then eventually you get a cut scene that's just like, finally Lily was ready.

And then at that moment, you can then take Lily on on a run. They also have, if any one family member goes in too many times, they build up corruption, which basically means you should use a different character for a while to level them up. Because keeping them in a sort of parity is kind of helpful because you do have all these different abilities that you're unlocking as you level up

each individual character. Tell me a little bit about this art style, because I haven't seen anything quite like this. It looks almost like a mix of Saturday morning cartoons meets the cover of Children of Mana, and that's extraordinarily specific. I know. It's so, yeah, I hate talking about how games look,

because I feel like I'm genuinely so bad at it. It looks, it's very, there's a lot of animate, you know what kind of reminds me of like Sword and Sorcery EP, like over-animated, but like low on the detail, like low detail, high animation, if that is anything, I don't know, Dead Cells is another sort of like, I think aesthetic touch point, but the story is genuinely really engrossing and well told.

And there's like really high stakes throughout it. And it really does like, you are re excited to play certain characters again, because of things that have happened in the story. Like it would make sense to take this character out and use them at this point. And all of the characters feel very different. Like there's a big change for each one.

There is one who is a monk who only uses his hands. And basically you're always controlling the movement with the left stick. Right stick is usually a directional attack. So you can do the attacks in whatever direction you're facing. You can also use X to just like attack in the direction you're going.

But usually it makes sense to just use both of the sticks. But the monk, when you push the stick in the direction of the enemy, he'll sort of like close the distance between the two of them with a kick. So it's sort of like moving quickly between the enemies and like finishing the combos. And I think he is one where the more attacks

he does successfully in a row, he like builds up more armor. So each time you're approaching it, it like feels very different. And it's also got the other, like the kind of run-based he like builds up more armor. So each time you're approaching it, it like feels very different. And it's also got the other, like the kind of run-based things where you're getting different sort of sub weapons each time you go in

and those are on their own refreshes. And you also have like, you know, you're leveling up different boons that you will collect throughout your run that change the feel of it. But none of it is as substantial as sort of like which character you picked to take. Yeah. That sounds good.

I realized this is 11-bit Studios was the publisher of this too. And I'm like, dang, I should have given it a try right when it came out, because this publisher, they are best known for, I think they're also the developer on Frostpunk and I think this War of Mine. But in terms of publishing, they put out the Thaumaturge and Indica and the Invincible,

a bunch of stuff that we've been really interested in. Moonlighter. So cool how consistent they have been as a publisher. Yeah, and this is really, it's narrative and well told, but it's really about the fun of like figuring out how each of these different characters play and like which ones you kind of click with

and which ones are better for certain situations or whatever, but it's a lot of fun. Nice, you can check it out. I love games like this. I mentioned Van Brijs Survivors, but it's not, I mean. It's not an auto shooter. It's not an auto shooter in that sense, but. I dig it.

Griffin, what have you been playing? So I have been playing a game called Corekeeper, which I don't know if we talked about on the show before. Probably we have, because it's been in early access since March, 2022, and it's so like explicitly mine and I think specifically Russ's shit that I would be surprised if it hasn't showed up on the show. But it just came out in 1.0 at the very end of August and I tried playing the game before this 1.0 update like maybe a year ago or so,

and it did not really click with me then, but it has really got its hooks in me now. It is a top-down, sort of bird's-eye view survival sandbox game. I know that comparisons between games of the same genre are pretty derivative sometimes, but it has such huge Terraria-like inspirations that if you think of Terraria and then kind of like lay it down flat so it's a top-down game instead of a sort of side-scrolling platformer,

you are very much in the right space. If you haven't played it before, you start out in this underground world in front of this massive, unpowered machine. And then it is sort of up to you to start digging around, collecting resources, building new things in the survival sandbox style of like, well, I got some wood, I'm going to build a crafting table and oh, I got some copper. So I'll upgrade my crafting table and I'll build a furnace and now I can smelt this and now I can make a stronger pickaxe to help me go out into the world. But then it, you know, from that those sort of familiar trappings, it starts to do the terraria thing of like, okay, well, I've started to find some pretty good stuff for like a mage build. So I'm gonna see if I can't like focus in on that.

There's lots and lots of different pieces of like armor and accessories that you can find that all synergize with each other. There's like armor sets where it's like, okay, if you get this set that is all sort of summoner-based, then when you use these items that summon monsters to help you fight, now you can summon more of them and they attack faster and they're stronger. Which was sort of my favorite part about Terraria is that idea of like, well, I'm gonna go with a range build

and try that out and really focus on my efforts and like maximizing that. You have skill points also that you just sort of accumulate naturally by doing stuff, like there's a running skill that as you just run around is constantly sort of leveling up which lets you run faster. I'm such a sucker for that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah.

It's just like, congratulations, you existed. You did the things. Well, it does. Justin's been playing it too. It's very generous about it to where, like, for instance, you can get a huge pile of wood or a huge pile of dirt and just make them into floor tiles. You can just sit there and like make them into floor tiles. And as you're crafting floor tiles,

your crafting skills going up. You're like, this is good. Yeah. I like this. I could do this all day. I have 300 floor tiles now, it feels good. It's also nice to, the base building is really great. You can go full fucking factorio at a certain point,

like you get an electronics workbench and an automation workbench, and you can build structures to automatically farm and harvest wood for you, so you can build a bunch of mine cart tracks that you can use to suddenly crisscross across this massive world a lot faster. Also the skill system, what's great about it is you can look at your skills and see which ones are at zero

and be like, oh, should I be messing around? I should be messing around more with cooking because my cooking skill's really low and you do that more and it makes you better at that. Question for you in terms of playing this alone versus with friends. I know you can play it single player. Is it one of those games where I would be having a lot more fun if I was playing with this with someone else? Probably, but again, like Terraria, it does the thing where it separates world progress from character progress. So I'm playing in a single player world. I would love to play multiplayer,

but I don't feel like I'm wasting my time. I don't feel like torn. Like, eh, should I wait on this until I have friends to play with because my character's leveling up and I can take them to whatever world that I want them to be in. Which is fucking rad, which is like such a smart. This game does a lot of really, really smart stuff

that a lot of sort of of quality of life stuff. The 1.0 update that just came out expands the world pretty dramatically. It also, I think, original Corekeeper, the world was infinite, it stretched out infinitely. In 1.0, it changed that to where it has a perimeter and it has made things much more dense, which is, I think, honestly, one of the biggest reasons

why I'm enjoying it more now is that I am constantly finding stuff, constantly finding new stuff, one of the biggest reasons why I'm enjoying it more now is that I am constantly finding stuff, constantly finding new stuff, constantly finding weird shit on the map. They also added fast travel waypoints for the first time, which, yeah, absolutely. So I have this base that I've just been building nonstop around this central core machine that you're working

to power up at the beginning of the game. And then as I go out, I will find a waypoint and be like, well shit, awesome. And then as I go out, I will find a waypoint and be like, well, shit, awesome. Now whenever I wanna like go out on an expedition, I can like start here instead of having to like, you know, make this long trek every single time. I will say that it does feel that sort of like density that Griffin is talking about for somebody

who has not played it prior to this. I will say that it got pretty overwhelming for me pretty quickly. I think that this feels like a 1.0 release that's very much for the people who have been playing for a while. Like when I went to go look for like videos about like, where can I find 10 or whatever. Some of those videos are from two fucking years ago. I mean, it's like, it's not super duper,

I found it a little overwhelming. I feel like it could have a little bit better of a ramp up on resources and the things you discover, so it doesn't feel like I have so many different kinds of resources, and as a new player, I don't know what any of it is for. This is a strange side effect of early access games, where I feel like originally early access games,

where we're gonna put them out, the audience is gonna kinda help us beta test them to some degree, and then we're gonna smooth it out so that when we do the 1.0, it's great for everybody, right? Yeah. And I think now there's this thing where, I think that's still part of it, and that sounds like what some of the decisions were

for this game, but then unintentionally, you do have the, oh, wow, our most hardcore fans are giving us feedback years before the game comes out. And then you end up making the most hardcore version of the game, which isn't bad. I don't think that's necessarily negative, but I do think it is a kind of a classic medium is the message thing where the medium is shaping games now in ways that I don't think even developers maybe necessarily see at times.

It could use more sort of like quick tip tutorial stuff. Terraria did a great thing where there was just a guy there when you spawned and you could talk to him and be like, so what should I do next, right? As far as I know, this game doesn't have, I think actually you can interact with the core machine and it can maybe give you some advice sometimes. I fully, fully recommend watching a beginner's guide

to the video because the way that you progress through the game is not particularly obvious. Very much in the same way that when Russ and I got into Terraria a few years ago, the guides would be like, okay, so then you have to go and find this temple. When you find it, you are looking for the Blood Sacrifice Altar. You can only blow it up with this,

and when you throw it in the lava, it will spawn the next world boss, which moves you into hardcore mode. Like, it's so wild. I don't think Corekeeper is quite that abstract, but it is very, very helpful to understand what progress in the game looks like, because that is sort of not inherently apparent.

Once you get there though, once it gets its hooks in you, I am finding the progression hooks and the exploration of the game just like really, really, really satisfying. And it also just did a great thing where I've beaten a few bosses now and I thought like, I'm getting close to the end of the game, and then it reveals like, actually,

this is the great plateau of Breath of the Wild. Like you're actually just kind of starting the game, and there's a lot more to discover. And I think a lot of that stuff came in the 1.0 update too. So I'm fucking loving it. It's great on Steam Deck. I think it's out on PS5 and Xbox now too, and then it's coming to Switch I think later,

or maybe it's on Switch now and it's getting a physical release later this year, but can't recommend it enough. If you played it and tried it and bounced off it, I would give it another shot, because it's, I don't know, man, it feels really, really, really good. Looks great, sounds great, like combat is really fun. man, it feels really, really, really good. Looks great, sounds great. Combat is really fun.

The boss fights are really, take a lot of strategy. It's some of the most fun I've had playing a game like this in a long time. That's awesome. Chris, I'm curious about your game because I had my phone open to Slack when Henry was sitting next to me, and you messaged and he saw it,

and he was like, I want that. He just saw the thumbnail image Henry was sitting next to me and you messaged and he saw it and he was like, I want that. He just saw the like thumbnail image and was like, get me that game please. Yeah, I hope more kids see it and have that reaction because right now this game has 57 reviews on Steam and that bums me out because Grapple Dogs Cosmic Canines is a delight. You play as adorable, a pair of adorable dogs in a beautiful

cartoon universe and it's just a classic 2d platformer with the thing every game needs, grappling hook. I thought you were gonna say dogs. Well the dogs, I mean they don't hurt. You can't really pet the dogs because you are the dogs. But grappling hook games, especially classic platformers, they're just fantastic. And I think this one in particular is kind of blending a little bit of the old school Mario Sonic, honestly, Alex Kidd, like that sort of platformer era. Yeah. Is it worth mentioning that you and Russ both do have a sweet penchant for like

Grappling Hook games? Grappling Hook games that are actually quite bad and that Grappling Hooks feel quite bad. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Do not. Have you mentioned that failing of your character? Do not blend, we are not the same person. He is the fox. That is true.

I am the mere chicken here to bring you good games. The chicken liked that moss game there, right? No, I did not know. No, that was very much a fox joining. That was the fox. The fox is like, oh, did you know you can break it and you can jump 5,000 feet? And you're like, meanwhile over here,

you can't jump five feet because it's broken. No, this is a good. This looks great. It looks like, it reminds me, not in terms of art style, but in terms of like, kinetic kind of motion, it reminds me of Peppergrinder that came out earlier this year. There's just a million things happening on screen all the time.

Yes, and it has a nice build up. There are two different characters who are slightly different. There is a normal dog who can like, jump on enemies Mario style, give them a bop, they can punch through things, and they can do a kind of a upward-downward stomp. And then there's Shadow the Hedgehog Dog,

who is the lady dog who has a gun. And that's how you can tell this is a sequel, because they're like, you know, we needed the second dog with the gun. Oh, is it a sequel? Yes. Okay, I was looking at the Steam page, and one of the bullet points is the return of Pablo.

Which I guess is the- Right, so I did a mess up on this one, and I actually played Grapple Dog. Is that why- Is that why, okay. The original Grapple Dog. And you beat it too, right? You played all the original Grapple Dog.

No, I played about an hour of Grapple Dog, and I will give you my brief review. Oh, cute. Okay. Yeah, this is better, I would assume in every possible way. The original Grapple Dog came out in 2022. A lifetime ago. Speaking of which, by the way, Children of Mordor came out in 2019.

I have no idea why I missed it for five years. I'm glad I played it. It's fun. I have no idea why I missed it for five years. I'm glad I played it. It's fun. I have no idea why I missed it. So this is kind of the topic around Grappledog that I am curious about, which is, dear goodness, there are just too many fucking games. Oh, man. I got a PR email for the Nintendo Switch release last Thursday, for the release of all the

games that come out every week, right? Those emails are always completely insane. I don't know. It was upsetting. It was like 50 or 60 games coming out on the Switch. The Switch, they have some boundaries. They aren't Steam. They're not just putting up everything.

And you want to know why you haven't heard about a game that came out a few years ago? Because this is every single week. And I don't know like what to make of what indie games can find success anymore. And I look at Grappledogs, I look at especially the sequel and this is a really, really solid, really polished 2D platformer with a lot of charm, great level design. 57 reviews in a week feels like a death sentence for this game. It is bleak and the only reason I happen to see it is scrolling through random steam games to think of like, hey, what do I want to talk about? Seeing a trailer and being like, yeah, I guess that's what I'm going to talk about playing it and being like, well, shit, this is one of the better games I've played in the past few months. Yeah, this is tough, man. This is a problem that I feel like it feels unsolvable in a lot of ways. Like you look at what we could do, right? Like we could do this episode every week.

We could every week say like, we're all bringing a different game. We all found that, but like even trying that, it doesn't scale. Cause how do I know what are the decent games? I don't have time to go play 20 games and find one good thing. Like discovery is so hard.

It feels almost random at this point. Nintendo should send out two of these new announcements. They do it every Thursday. They send out email called Nintendo Download, and it's all the games that come out. And there's not a joke. I mean, there's probably about 60 games on here. But they should do one that's like,

okay, look, we know that in the original one we included such titles as Hell City Demolition Man and Just One Minute Memory Test with Masterpieces and Goobin Balloons DX. But here's the good stuff. Here's the cream of the crop. Man, I say that, I feel like I'm gonna have to to go play goobin balloons DX now just so I feel like Not joystick podcast we used to do spot the real weird DS game because we would do this in the e-shop

We would yeah read the list of all the all the games and try to come up with the ones that actually existed Because when you have an open marketplace where people can shove whatever they want to onto there, it's going to continue to be an issue to separate the wheat from the chaff. And what's frustrating is you see companies like even Apple hasn't found a good way of solving this problem and they have a ton of money and resources to try to attack it. And like, you see the solutions

that they've tried to come up with and like, this is not a better problem over there. It's maybe worse. Yeah, the answer in theory is like us and like the media, right? Like curation can be a media solution. Like we can be the solution for it. But the problem is it is, it's completely on,

it's a mountain that cannot be climbed. It feels like, and the example I'd give is even streamers who their entire goal is I'm going to go out, I'm going to find something new. I'm going to find something original. I'm going to kind of like make my name off of that. And that's going to help also make my star rise. Don't find a game like this.

And there are so many games that don't get found. There's a certain survival bias or survivor's bias for the stuff that does get through, but does not account for the tons of games that do, uh, just like kind of flop. And I, yesterday I was listening to a friend of the show, Simon Parkin, who does My Perfect Console, I think is its name, but it's a podcast

where he interviews game devs and other kind of people associated with the games industry. But games don't really matter to them. And he was talking to Derek Yu, who we're gonna talk about next week with UFO 50. And about when the original Spelunky came out and how you could find success as an indie game developer at that time if you had the ability to just make the game and put it out because people were craving new original ideas.

And now I think of like a game like even the original Spelunky, like does it find its audience in the same way if it is released on Steam today from a developer? It does start to feel like maybe a bunch of these smaller indies should look at each other and be like, hey guys, if we all work together, we could make a real video game. Well, that's a fucking perspective. If we got together, we could make a real video game. Well, that's a fucking perspective.

If we got together, we could make a real AAA video game they could sell right in Walmart. A real video game. A real Walmart game. A real video game. We're talking about real Walmart games. Oh my God. I wish this was my job,

but this is the vicious cycle of this, right? We talked about this, we've had this conversation, like in games media, we've had this for 20 years, because it's not like you can watch, you can watch 10 movies in a day, like you could. It would suck. You could watch. It would suck, but you could do it. Like, you could do that.

You could watch every movie that comes out, like realistically, the games take too long to play, and to get a sense of it, you can't do it. And the thing is, when you do find the small things that you wanna elevate, it never performs as well as people reading about real video games at Walmart, real Walmart video games. Like it just, the audience doesn't know

to look for the coverage. So it's tough. There's no solution for Discovery that I think is consistent enough on the press side. I think honestly the best Discovery system now, and even it is not like amazing, is like the Steam storefront, like what's, what are people, what are people playing? What are people talking about? The shit, the only thing, my discovery mechanism does not scale because it's emails to the besties account

that are like, hey, you guys would like this one, check this out. I'm like, dang, I did. I mean, that's pretty well, I mean, personally speaking, like I'm eating good over here. No, no, no, I'm just saying like, not everybody can make a podcast where they in depth explain their taste

and then wait as the recommendations roll in. It's true, it's true. Let's take a break. We could opine about this, I feel like, for a little bit. Yeah, it sounds like literal hours. Yeah. But we got more show for everyone.

I have been on a sort of start stop journey to improve my physical form, to create strength inside of me. I have been on a sort of start stop journey to improve my physical form, to create strength inside of me that I can harness. A deep strength. To what? A deep strength. A deep strength, well, a reservoir of power

that I can use mostly when my kids try to kill me just by the rough play, rough play. And so I got a new exercise bike, which like is usually my kind of go-to jam for getting some cardio in. And I set off looking for a good workout game, which is what I wanna talk about in this block. I think it's something we've talked about in the past,

but I figured it would be good to kind of like check in on. I downloaded World of Warcraft. Wow. Realizing that you can play it on controller. There's like a lot of controller support for that game. And guys, let me tell you, if you want to turn off your fucking gourd, I will sit down on my bike and be like,

time for 30 minutes of bike time, and then I'll- You're gonna activate something in me that's gonna make me do this, and I don't wanna do this. I don't want it, okay, I won't go too deep down into it. Something, but no man, it's like the idea, that is pretty good. You can't, you're telling me- Maybe I could get really fit.

I only feel, I only only feel comfortable talking about this because I thought that the viral nature of my condition would not spread. I did not think it would find purchase in the hearts of minds again. You got a guild? I don't have a guild, no. I play it very solo.

I'm playing it on the same server as a friend who is still into the game. This new expansion came out. I haven't even gotten- Text me the name, girlfriend. Text me the name. I will. I will. As Joel Narube, if you wanna, I mean, pop on. I'm not trying to recreate Peacecraft, but maybe I am. It is, it's a much different game now.

I feel like they have streamlined a lot of the bullshit out of it that sort of characterized the last few expansions, where like you had nine different things you had to manage in order to get stronger. Now it's very much like get level up and get better gear and shit. But I will sit down on my bike and I will turn that game on. I have it on my Steam deck so I just dock it right onto my TV and I will sit down and be like time for a half hour bike ride and I will bike for an hour or more, just because I will completely lose myself in the wonderful world of Azeroth

and the dragon isles and beyond. Now, inventory management on a controller while riding a stationary bike, how's that working? I mean, it's all pretty automated now. They have systems where you have your different bags and then you can set different types of items different bags God that sounds like a good system. Okay, man. Thank you 24 you can set those bags to immediately sort different types of items you say like this is my equipment bag

This is my you know junk bag that will automatically sell as soon as I go talk to it That's good. The the mod is called console port and it's really fucking great and I play it on my steam deck, connected Bluetooth to a PS5 controller, and you can use the touchpad for any mouse sort of interactions that you may need to do. But yeah, I've also been doing a lot of Core Keeper on the bike too, because I find that that sort of genre of game is really great for it. of game is really great for it. Things like Destiny and like twitchy, like really twitchy stuff, I find not particularly conducive.

Like it activates a certain, I don't know, reflex in me that is hard to do while doing another sort of laborious physical activity. But I know you guys have also fucked around with like gaming while exercising, and I was curious curious what your most recent kind of fascinations have been. These types of games like Children of Morta

that I talked about, these sorts of run-based games are really great for this sorts of thing. One, your typical run is typically about as long as I'd like to be exercising in a stretch, you know, that 20 to 30 minute sweet spot where you can have a good, uh, good time, but you're not going to be like absolutely, uh, in the middle of something when you have to wrap up. So that's pretty good. Uh, I also can't have any like, or at least very little downtime in terms of narrative,

like story and stuff. If I'm having to like watch a cut scene and ride a bike at the same time, that's asking too much. Yeah. I did a lot of this when I was in Austin because I found the heat made it impossible to go exercise outside.

And for me, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, open world games in general were sure perfect because I could, yes, there would be cut scenes, but I could avoid them if I wanted to or save them for a different time. And I could do a lot of the grind. I found that this is probably only reinforced my obsession with becoming extremely overpowered and open world games before I go about the story and just like bashing through the rest of the game. Odyssey was also just fantastic because it's just a series of islands. So I felt like every other time I was biking,

I was just in a new setting. So it felt like a reward. I always wanted to get back on the bike because I wanted to see what new place was I going to go to this time. Weirdly, I played almost the entirety of Death Stranding on exercise bike. Totally, for sure. I get that. Yeah, and the cut scenes would seem to contradict that,

but two things. One, when you're actually playing the game, there's something that connects brain wavelength-wise with the grind of I'm going to climb mountains over and over and over again with no particular goal and I am going to be on my exercise bike and put it on max settings and see what I can do. You are Jack Bridger or whatever the fuck

that guy's name is, you are on your bike. You are taking you know baby pods From from one outpost to another Taking mommy president corpse to the burnery. I also the cutscenes I don't know if I felt like hey, you know, I'm knocking out two birds with one stone I'm getting this cutscene out of the way and I'm getting my exercise out of the way. What a win for me. So it's like two bad things that will happen.

Yeah, this is good. I also think you get that thing where when you're really pushing yourself, you kinda enter a little bit of a hallucinatory state. And I think that that was a real good match for some of those cut scenes, especially as it got deeper into Die Hardman's backstory. There are games that I find addictive,

but not necessarily enriching. Yet I often deny myself in my day to day life, things that I could get very lost in. World of Warcraft is an excellent example. I could at any point just do that again. You know what I mean? Like I could just be that again. Which is scary.

Which is terrifying actually Griffin. But there's games that like, I don't let myself get too deep into that I do, will like tie to exercise. So it's like, hey, this is like absolute brain candy, like nothing, but it's okay for like, it's good for this because it's like, you're just sort of, it is positive. It's a positive way of spending your time.

So those games that I get like really fixated on and really lost in, I will sometimes save for that. Another good example of that for me was Deep Rock Galactic. Survivor? Survivor, yeah. That's a very much, a very rewarding. I have sort of reverse engineered it where I don't, I don't play WoW unless I am exercising.

And I am very- Exactly, exactly. I'm very much enjoying it. And I feel myself getting into it, and like the game has done a lot of very cool stuff that makes it more fun to play. And so I find myself wanting to play it, but I also say like, well, if I'm gonna take some time out of my day,

if I have like a free hour in my day to like do that, and I wanna play WoW, like I have to get on the bike if I wanna do that. It's so funny, cause it explains why you look like a character from Triplets of Belleville now. I don't know what that means. You got those, well, nevermind.

You got giant cycling legs. I'll put an image. I liked it. I'm gonna put an image to this in the newsletter and people are gonna see it and they're gonna be like, that is what you're crying. They're gonna be like, that was a fucking funny thing I've ever heard.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know that they're gonna say that. I don't know that people are gonna say that. I think they're gonna bus up in hindsight. Do we have any mail or do we wanna go to honorable mentions? Let's go to honorable mentions. We can save questions for when Frush is here. I wanna make sure he's part of the group.

Good. Oh, I did wanna say, Chris, on your recommendation on our most recent flight, a flight home from Portland at like six in the morning that I took a couple weeks ago, I downloaded, I watched Perfect Days, and that shit goes down real smooth, my man. Yeah, yeah, do you wanna tell people kind of what it is? Yeah, I would be surprised if you have not talked about

on the show before, but it is a movie about a Japanese man living in Tokyo, who his job is he cleans public toilets, and he has a very solitary, very ritualistic life, where he does the same things every day. He goes and gets dinner at the same spot and he eats lunch under the same tree that he takes pictures of with the same old camera and he listens to the same cassettes in his van as he drives around and has a very ordered, lonesome existence. And the movie is just about a week in his life where it It shows you kind of like the patterns he is in and his sort of like philosophies and then starts to sort of disrupt that As other characters kind of like hove into his life at one point his niece comes to stay with him after Running away from home for a little while and he kind of like shows her the ropes a little bit Very very very vibey quiet movie with very little dialogue in it.

But if you are in the mood for that, it is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. It hit me with that airplane movie, like full blown weeping at one point of the film. Carlock, what is it? Kermit and Mayor called it altitude induced lacrimosity Syndrome. Exactly.

Beautifully acted and shot and it is, I don't know how one makes space for this. It was, the circumstance in which I watched the movie, I think it was perfect. I can't imagine making space for a movie this kind of like slow and quiet and contemplative in my normal kind of like day to day. But yeah, man, it is a gorgeous movie that doesn't do a ton, but the stuff it does do,

I think hits so, so, so, so hard. A perfect, perfect landing. Yeah. Just a beautiful final shot that is such a payoff to everything. Yeah, oh my God, yeah, absolutely. Some tremendous face acting from the star of this movie, whose name I do not know off the top of my head,

but yeah, perfect days, it's great. Fantastic. Hoops, how about you? Man, I started watching this show called From... Okay. You guys know about From? Is it Monster? Is it got Monsters? Okay, so I don't know why I'm watching From.

Okay. So don't even ask. Cool. Okay. But an ad pop up on Amazon Prime and it's like, have you checked out the MGM Plus exclusive from? What is that platform? I've never heard about that until the moment you just said it. But it was Amazon Prime telling me

that I should check out from MGM Plus. And I'm like, what are you talking about? But I saw it had three seasons. So I'm like, wow, three seasons of a show called From? It must be doing something, right? So I start watching this show called From. It started coming out in 2022. It stars Harold Perrineau from Lost.

Oh shit, yeah. Where you been, Harold? Yeah, I'll tell you where he's been. He's been from. So from. He was on the, he got lost on Lost Island and he was there for a wicked reason. So there's that image for from that Plan is putting here.

Here's the deal by from. What's going on here? This can't be right. You're driving, you're driving through, the episode starts, the pilot episode starts with his family. It's a wife and a husband, and they're having marital problems. They have their two kids with them.

They're driving in an RV, taking one last cross-country trip before they tell their kids that they are getting a divorce. When they pull into this town, their car breaks down, and they are told by the inhabitants of the town that they can never leave. So they try to drive out and as they try to drive out, they drive through the woods for a bit and then they realize they're back in the town and they are in

this town where everyone had a similar experience, but they all arrived from different, uh, from places from different places. So they're completely isolated. They're cut off. from different places, from different places. So they're completely isolated, they're cut off. There are food and supplies that arrive for them at different times. And if they're out at night, then monstrous people come out and murder them. And they are only protected in their homes

because they have mysterious talismans, Harold Perrino found, that help them realize that if they put those in their houses, the monsters wouldn't come in at night and kill them. Cool. And they're from. And then this family shows up. And let me tell you guys what happens after that

is a whole lot of different things happen. A whole lot of stuff happens in front of them. I love when shows do that. Hey man, so much stuff happens in every episode. Something else happens. What is the most surprising stuff that has happened? Whoa, that's what's happening? One punishment of the town,

they only have one punishment in town and it's called the box. And the box was invented by Harold Perrino. And this guy allowed his family to be killed because he didn't put their talisman up because he was off drinking. So he had to be punished. And the way the box works is you get in the box

and then you stay in the box all night. And when they come back the next day, the monsters killed you because that's what they do. So that's how the box and then you stay in the box all night. And when they come back the next day, the monsters killed you because that's what they do. So that's how the box works. Oh, okay. That's the whole thing of the box. So it's just a plate. You are just, you're a-

So it's just a plate that you and the monsters come and eat you. Okay. People are doing some things on this show that I don't know why they're doing them. Yeah. And the reasons for that are getting more and more mysterious. Let me put it to you this way.

They are doing so many different things you won't even believe it on from. This thing's been going for three seasons, and it looks like a pornography movie. Nobody on it acts like people. Nobody on it does anything that makes any sense at all. There's a kid who gets an arrow shot through his leg and later on that day he's on a crutch, but he's on like a weird Victorian tiny Tim crutch that looks like it's made out of everything,

like just wood and twigs and cloth and stuff. Well, they can't go to the fucking crutch store, Justin. They're stuck in the From Town. I Googled From. That boy with the arrow in his leg sees the same mysterious ghost boy that Victor the grown man with a disco lunchbox who walks around town going on what he calls quests.

Hey guys, you would not believe how much happens in From. I really wa- Oh, did I mention? There's a Silicon Valley billionaire who just sold his company and he believes the entire thing is an AI exp- exp- There was a 10 minute scene last night's episode, seven episodes in, 10 minute scene where two characters ruled out the possibility that they were dead by like writing a flow chart on the wall.

They're like, they do have to rule it out for the viewer. Cause at home you're watching it like, you're all dead, right? They had to sit there with a chart and be like, here's why we can't be dead. Does it make sense? At one point does Harold Parano turn towards the camera and be like, hey guys, you might remember me from Lost.

And in that show, we told you a lot that we were not dead, guaranteed. And that didn't end up being entirely factual. But this is, I'm an actor, Harold Parano, this is a different show, I'm a different character. My presence here makes this all very questionable. You get the Harold Paranow guarantee, we are not dead. I wouldn't do that to you again.

I promise you. I promised you. You as Harold Paranows. I fucked you bad last time. On Lost, with this. Not on From, different show. Four letter name, monosyllabic, yes, but that's in my contract. That's the only kind of show I'm in.

When you arrive in town, you have to decide if you want to live in town or in Colony House. Colony House is all about trying to find a way out. In town are people that have decided that they are, uh-huh. That they're staying put. And when the family arrives, the daughter says she's going to Colony House instead of in town.

So they live in different places now. Did I mention that Harold Perrino has a son that does not enjoy him, that lives in Colony House? Did I mention Harold Perrino is the sheriff? Yes. I'm gonna watch this freaking show, man. Griffin, watch this fucking show! You will not believe how many different scenes

every episode has! I do recommend you join the subreddits. Plural. Because there are at least three of them. A fourth one got deleted, but now it sounds like two new ones might have sprung up. There is a hot conversation around From. Can't keep From down.

From feels like, this is what From feels like to me. It From feels like that these companies are trying to make it seem like they have more of a selection by artificially generating logos of shows that don't exist. But I fucked up because I was stoned on tour and looking for something to watch in my hotel room. And I clicked on one of those things

that no one is intended to click on. And now I think the algorithm is building the show scene by scene as I'm watching it. Like anywhere I'm not looking, the show is like, um, I don't know. Maybe the devil made her write something on her arm. Ah, so hard to do this. Harold and the gang are like, oh shit, someone clicked.

Okay, you go over there, you're a vampire. Wait, did I mention the vampires? Cause I shouldn't have mentioned the vampires. That's a big spoiler. No, sorry. Did I blow that? You didn't, I just guessed. I just guessed.

I'm kidding, I don't actually know there's vampires. Amazing. It's vampires. Amazing. It's unclear right now. What do you got, Chris? I'm gonna watch every episode, and at least two thirds of the scenes. Hell yeah. We're in spooky season, so I'm gonna recommend

Little Shop of Horrors to start things off for most people who are getting into it. I went and saw it the other night at the movie theater. And as with so many old movies, seeing it with an audience who does not know the movie, a real treat. People being absolutely stunned to see Steve Martin show up as a sadomasochistic dentist and Bill Murray is the his biggest fan. Just wonderful. People are really into it. It's also a great movie in that there's a director's cut of it now that ends with 15 minutes of pure giant stop-motion destruction and when you go

see it in a movie theater you don't know which one you're gonna get. So the whole movie you're like am I gonna get a happy ending or am I gonna get 15 minutes of total chaos and we got the chaos and I was happy about it. But really either version is wonderful and if you've never seen it before, basically we wouldn't have all of the great Disney musicals of the 90s if not for this musical. So if you like those, you will definitely like this

because it's kind of the urtext of things like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast. I've never seen this movie. Really? You should watch it, it's fucking incredibly entertaining. You will really like it. Every second of it is an absolute delight. Yeah. Okay.

By the way, I showed Sydney the thing for the first time last week. Oh, how'd that go? Fuck yeah, dude! That's my favorite. That's my favorite horror movie probably ever made. Within the first five minutes, she was like, why are they trying to blow up a dog?

I'm like, oh my God, this is gonna be the best time of my life. I'm so excited to watch this thing. Okay, but wait. If you haven't seen the thing. Wait till you see why they're trying to blow up a dog. If you haven't seen the thing, there's a very good, I get it, people are very sensitive about dogs.

There's a very good reason why they're trying to blow up this dog. Fully justified. If you've never watched the thing, that, oh, oh. I've watched it probably three times in the past year. It's so good. It's really, really good. Have you ever seen the claymated version of the thing?

No, no. Okay, I'm gonna include this in the newsletter too. I think you're gonna enjoy this a lot if you wanna see little cute claymation cats. I think it's better than Halloween, personally. Oh, yeah, man. Oh Okay, good. I thought this is where Halloween I think is significant because it like kind of sets up a genre It's an important movie, right? It's culturally significant. The thing is a kick-ass action horror mystery

Kick-ass action horror sci-fi mystery. And it does all those things really, really, really fucking well. It's also just so decadent. It feels like everybody involved getting to go. Going full ham. Full ham. Full out. Full brimley.

Yeah. Like, yeah. So decadent. Talk about also stop motion in that movie. Some truly grotesque. The best in every area. It also has, has a great thing that I've never noticed where there's so many times you get Keith David or Kurt Russell absolutely torching a,

a monster and you want them to say something cool while they're doing it. And they never do until the very end when Kurt Russell has the biggest throwaway, whatever, but it hits so good because they haven't been saying cool flame thorough lines for the entire movie. Did either of you see the new Alien movie? It was good, right? It was supposed to be good?

I didn't see it. I'm asking because I was curious of your opinions if you'd see it. I'm asking because I was curious of your opinions, if you'd see. No, I saw Deadpool twice. Really? Tell me about that decision. I mean, I saw it with Juice the first time.

It kicks ass. Wildly entertaining. Movie whips us. There's a lot of fun. Wildly entertaining. And I didn't see it with Griffin, but it was really entertaining. Now I wanna see it.

I feel like I've been misguided by people. Oh, anybody who says that it is not an absolute triumph has really no heart inside of them. Yeah. They're a mean person if they didn't like that. All I know is a spoiler about a certain Cajun character. Yeah, of course. And that's been pretty spoiled.

It's a lot, but like it is, it is a very, I think it's really interesting. And if you like movies and you're interested in movies, I think that it's- If you have any nostalgia, any at all for the Fox universe of Marvel films, this film was made for you, Chris Plante. I will say for me me it was a fascinating exercise in watching how

to watch someone excise a property from a reality and attempt to like tastefully graft it into another reality while isolating the parts of the reality that they didn't wanna keep. And also there's like lawyers watching the entire thing as it spins and still make that a narratively satisfying film. I think that shit's fascinating. Yeah, it's- Yes, I think that was my fear is that last part would be the first thing to suffer in such a venture.

No, it's- It's about it. It's about the thing. It's about it. Oh, it's about that. I'm gonna watch it, now we'll report back. I'm excited. Please do. Next week, will you? Next week?

Yeah, you have seven days to go watch Dead. Seven days to watch. I mean, you've actually had months. Or you'll die. If you don't, you have Deadpool climb out of the TV screen and he's like, shimmy chongos. Just, okay, I know that we were trying to wrap up it super quick because I think it'll hit with a lot of people.

Shudder is doing a new docu-series, which is about, it's one of those like, I'm such a sucker for compilations that are talking head compilations about horror movies where you see like 100 horror movies just to have something on in the background. These is like a sort of walkthrough of like, the first episode is about tropes. So you have all these like heavy hitters talking about

like why certain tropes exist, whatever. But they get into more interesting areas. Like there was an episode we watched last two nights ago. There was just Japanese horror. So it's just like going through that sub genre and talking about some of like the high water marks and the history of it and stuff like that. If you're interested in, if you want to watch something

seasonal that's not necessarily terrifying, I love stuff like that. What's the name of that series? I'll get it for me later when we can add it because they did the 101 scariest movies of all time. No, it's similar. I'll find the. I'll find the name, don't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, we'll get it. Hey, did we do a show?

Oh, I wanna thank some people really quick. I just wanna thank some patrons for joining. We have Sam L, Horseman 5, Nicholas, Erica, Zachary, all these wonderful people. Fareens, PinkNaval, I mean so many wonderful kind people who are checking out our Patreon. We appreciate you so much. We have so much good stuff on the Patreon right now. We have a great besties bracket that we did.

We have Frush and I talking about a variety of indie games I think y'all will really wanna check out, including honestly an evolution of a Stardew Valley that I find personally much more appealing than the original Stardew Valley. It has really stuck with me and I am still playing it. Is it a field of mystery? Yeah.

Sorry, were you trying to keep it a secret to like- No, it's not a Field of Mysteria. Horrors Greatest was the name of that shutters here. Horrors Greatest. Horrors Greatest. People couldn't see it because it's an audio show, but when I said Field of Mysteria, Griffin was fucking crying.

I recoiled. He was. I recoiled as if I had seen an asp on my desk. Games this week, talked about children of Mordor, Corekeeper, Grappledogs, Cosmic Canines. I talked about some exercise games. But not Grappledogs, don't waste your time. Not original Grappledogs.

World of Warcraft. No, sorry, singular. We talked about other exercise jams. We talked about, I forget, man, we didn't write any of this stuff down in the notes. This is really Russ's job. Russ is so good at when we say something, he'd write it down.

We talked about From, and that's the only thing. I talked about From quite a bit, and Perfect Days, and I'll be honest, Chris, I forgot. Little Shop of Horrors. Yeah, remember, you're gonna watch it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you're gonna watch Deadpool 3. We all have homework this I'm gonna watch the the Deadpool the ring mashup. It's gonna be great. I'm gonna tell you all that next week

We're gonna be talking about UFO 50 a game. I Seriously never thought would actually be released games 50 games. Games collection. Yeah, how am I gonna have time to watch a movie when I'm playing 50 video games? 50? Well, none of them are real Walmart games, that's why. Yeah. If you combine the 50 games... If you combine the 50 games, it's a Walmart game.

That's gonna be it for this week on the Besties. Be sure to join us again next week, because she's one of the world's best friends, and she's picked the world's best friend and she picks the world's best games. Besties!