Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Two BEST FRIENDS Talk About Video Games - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

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Yo, what the heck is going on, everybody? Welcome back to the two best friends podcast. Talk about the best video games and the best of time spent together. It's Mike and... Andy. My best friend. And we're back. Taking over today's Kind of Funny Gamescast for Wednesday, July 2nd, 2025.

That's right. It's just Mike and Andy in the studio alongside with Barrett. And we're taking over today's broadcast and podcast. Now, Andy, you need you to be real. really quick. I had a lot of thoughts in my mind last night about how I wanted this podcast to go. Because last week, they were like, hey, we got a lot of people out. A lot of people out. What's going to happen here? Hey, Mike and Andy, do you think you could do the games cast together? And I smiled and said, of course. Yeah, yeah. And they were like,

what should you guys talk about? And I said, don't worry about it. We'll just talk about it. We'll get there. Yeah. Yeah. And now, I'm in the Uber on the way over here because my car's in the shop. Yeah. And, you know, Rogers, I can you do the thumbnails? Because I'm, I'm, have a doctor's appointment. I'm like, I got you Big Dog. And then Greg's like, hey, we're pivoting a bunch of stuff. Can you do Gregway? I'm like, I got you Big Doc. And I made like two

different thumbnails. I fucked up on one of them. And for the Gregway, the Gregway is probably going up very, very soon. Okay. I ranked and just spoke very eloquently about the two newest Mountain Dew summer flavors. I got to taste some, you know, blind taste test right there. And then a little

whack some poetic about Mountain Dew. Yeah, yeah. Summer, it's one of them bomb pop and the other one, infinite swirl, pineapple berry. I got a story about a bomb pop that you'll never forget, but I'll save that for a different. I don't know if I want to know that. I think I'm okay. I'm going to tell you about that bomb pop later. Andy, it's you and I talking all things video games, and unfortunately I'm tired, okay?

I can hear it. Unfortunately, this is not how I wanted today. I can hear it, yeah. But we're here, and we're just going to have to kind of put up with it, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there I was last night thinking about so many cool ideas for you and I. And I need you to know that I forgot all of them. I didn't write him down fast enough.

And then I watched a movie in the beanbag chair. And I forgot everything. Sometimes you think they're going to stick up there and they don't. Yeah. I was like, that's a good idea. And I was holding it strong, but then I forgot about it. Ooh, I noticed you wearing the Den of Wolves hoodie. Yeah, yeah.

So the thumbnail that I made. Okay. Was meant to be, it was an image meant to be on yesterday's thumbnail. Okay. And I was like, because at first I thought the only news on Games Dilley yesterday was that Outwriters was almost finished. Outwriters 2 was almost done. Stop. And it got canceled.

No. Yeah. Big news yesterday, Mike. Outwriters 2 nearly done in development got axed. No way. That was one of the projects that got axed. So I was like, ooh, I'll do a recreation of the Stonebike Mike dumb know that I did of you during when you were looking really, really sad and depressed.

The halo. So I had Tim take some photos of me and I'm wearing that hoodie. ended up not using that image yesterday, but I was like, oh, I could use it today for me and Mike's thing. I'll look super depressed. I'll have an image from one of Mike's YouTube.com slash so mic mic thumbnails where he's like looking all happy. And then Roger says, you better not be wearing that fucking hoodie because I'm wearing it today. And I said, like I give a fuck. Like, you know, like anything you could tell me could affect me. But it seems like he's going to have some beef with you now.

Yeah. And he responds, I don't know if you saw his response to like I give a fuck. He said, bro, I'm going to, I'm going to embarrass you in modern warfare. He did say, you two have to do one v1 on Rust. Snipers only, no knives. And like, if today's the day we do it, I'm down to watch this. I'll commentate it. We'll watch it.

Best of three, first to 11. I got to watch Jurassic Park Rebirth today. Like, you got game, though. You can get a man. We'll cut this podcast so short. We'll be ready to play this. Like, you won't even believe. Because that's what went down this weekend.

You two look phenomenal in this hoodie. You know what I mean? We won't comment on me. I gained eight pounds in five days. Let's not talk about that, okay? Which I don't believe, I don't think that that's true. The numbers are fun. That's a T-Mo-Ski-scale.

I don't want to talk about it. It's not accurate, Mike. I mean, that's like the heart rate monitor. Oh, Mike, your heart might explode. It's 177 resting at 155. Do you think you're going to die? That's all fake numbers. Let's get some real scientists out here, you know?

Roger. Yeah, fucking Roger. I was joking about that because they, my Twitch chat last night let me know about the eight pounds gained. Yeah. And I said, first I was like, there's no way. That's not possible. Scientifically, like he was walking a lot. And they were like, anybody ate a lot.

I was like, nah, but you know, science. And then I, and then it took me back to when I went to the doctor a couple weeks ago. And he was like, all right, let's get you weighed in. Yeah. And I was like, all right. And I like took my jacket off. and then I took my Bluetooth little my headphone case out

Take that off My wallet out And the whole time I'm looking at him And I got I know that he's singing dog That shit doesn't matter Like you're fat You're fat ass

Like the two keys that you're taking Out of your pocket To not matter in this way in this way Yeah Unfortunate Yeah I unfortunately You know I should take it off all my clothes In front of Roger

I wouldn't wait in differently It's right You had heavy clothes From the sweat you know It was really heavy And my shoes. The liquid pack, you know, the liquid boils. Exactly.

I also have a bubble in my, in my leg. Yeah. And then I also have a bubble on my belly. You felt that bubble. Yeah. It's moving. You asked me to feel it twice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Almost had Ben Star feel it, but that's for another story. It's right. And I watched a bad movie last night. Hmm. I wanted to play games. I sent out the rematch invite. Of course, Gary Winner put us in a Discord and a group text message to play rematch with him. Yeah.

I said, Gary, I can't play. all weekend, but the moment I'm free, I'll do it. I did respond. And I said, Gary, I'm free. No response back. You responded, I'll play tonight too. No response. No, Gary did respond. Well, he was like, hey, they're fucking me up. But he never said yesterday. He already had it. Well,

I think it was by that point a little bit too late. I had just finished with Liza P. And I knew, all right, I got games daily tomorrow. I got my car service thing. I'm going to wake up extra early. Let me cut things off a little bit early. Yeah. But as he was leaving, he said he's down to get this going because we want to start the five

V5 comp squad. I want a YouTube video on our channel that says from going from bronze to gold with Gary Whittah. And we just battle, you know what I mean? You see Ludwig? We had a good couple games. Me bless. You got a game? Me bless Witta and Adam.

Like we started off awful. I hadn't played since the beta. Yeah. But we got things going. I haven't played at all for this whole launch. So I'm excited to jump in and check it out. It was my first time yesterday playing since the first betas. I mean, you were nasty though.

We got really good. What are you seeing? Footwork wise. meta wise. What's the vibes right now? Let me tell you the meta. Yeah. As much as I said, this will be as close to a medalless game as possible.

Yeah. The meta is. They're doing something. I know they are. The meta is when you have two people rushing towards a goal, one of them is a ball handler, right? Handling balls. Kick off the wall. Of course.

To cause the goalie to jump. And then the rebound, the other kicker will be there to kick it in. We knew that was going to be. So we immediately went down over like four zero lost. quickly due to that sort of strat. But then bless, here's the thing, I wish we could clone bless. Because blesses are the best goalkeeper,

but also when he's not on the field, things aren't happening. So we need him in both places. He's doing everything. Yeah. He's the best at all of it. We gotta give him a quick happy birthday shout on this day's birthday. Happy birthday, bless. We wish we could clone you because you could be here right now. Yeah. Joining the two best friends podcast. Should we figure that out today

for his birthday? Cloning him up? Yeah. He'd be really thankful for that. Yeah. He wants to be everywhere. He wants to play magic, the gathering. He wants to play more rematch. He wants to be on podcasts. He wants to stream.

He wants to write YouTube videos. He wants to do Game Showdown. Here's my thing about blessing. You need about seven Blessing clones. Here's my thing about Blessing streaming. I've been meaning to get, I need to get very honest with him. You want you real with him? I need to get very, very honest at times of bless.

Because sometimes you may be asked to play a game you're not super stoked about and you got to play it. Yeah, yeah. There have been more than a handful of times that we're like, oh, Bless, we'd love to have you on. I'm good. I'm not super, like, stoked about that. Yeah.

So it's like, Bless needs to understand that the horizons need to be broadened, right? And the streaming world, you got to try. Yeah, there's times where, Mike, you have to play a PVE game. You're not super stoked about, but you're there. Yep. You know. And we've been big time a couple times by Bless. A couple of big times.

More than a couple times with streams. So, like, that's just something to kind of keep in mind. I was peak yesterday. You guys also big time, bless a couple of times as well. so I feel like that's kind of moving back and forth. We evened out the big timing because I gave a whole day to Blessing Dune where he'll never return to. And me, Andy, Nick, we were going.

That fucked us. And like that's slow. Ruin momentum. That's like Mike and Andy pull up to the starting line. We are two drag racers right there. We're going to rip this thing. And blessing, as it turns green and I hit the throttle. But I was like, hold up.

I want to be a part of it. And I had to rewind. And I was like, we're not even in shape. We got to get through the right shoes. Like, it really fucked us. Yeah. Yeah. Our Dune Awakening.

journey was really, really halted there. I heard that you're kind of done with an awakening. No, no, not at all. I just haven't played it all. I'm worried that you guys are ahead of me. Well, where are we at? We're definitely ahead of you, but I'm not as ahead of you as everybody else is. You got a buggy? I just built one.

You haven't done shit with a copter yet, though. Don't got a thopter, no. Okay, okay. Then we're in. We're in. Orthocopter. That was like the other day. Ornicapture. I'm going to get this orthocopter. Well, so Washi and Kevin A.Sex and Maddock, I believe, are.

already mining on the southwest area, which is apparently the hell zone. Is that the cave? I don't know. I went into a cave with Washi and it was like the coolest experience around. That dune game continues to impress. The pink crystals?

Yes, the pink crystals. That shit was cool. Yeah, when you go into the cave and you get lost in there, Washi and I were doing that and it's like, just like it happened to us turned a marathon stream, game update.

In an hour and a half, you got to get out. And Washi... It's scary down there. The buggy's already slow enough and to go from the south West Desert or East Desert to where we live was a long ride. Washy's over here panicking.

We got to hustle, Mike. We got to get out of here. Like, Washie, let's just, let's roll the dice. You know what I mean? Let's stay a little bit longer. And next thing I know, we're mining the aluminum stuff. We're mining the pink crystal stuff. And I'm telling what I'm like, let's just chill for a little bit.

We made it with like five minutes to spare. We survived. I've yet to see it's cool. I've yet to do the aluminum stuff. because the pink crystals turn into cobald paste. We're getting really dirty with Dune Awakening. We have to because it's one of our favorite games in the summer. Yeah, yeah.

But like there's something for the aluminum that was in there. Or you know what it was? It was something that I hadn't got yet. Because washing one of the pink crystals, but I needed a rock because I'm less than y'all that was like higher than the two rocks that we've been getting. Because we've been getting copper and ore right. There's one more above that that I had not been getting

that was plentiful. It's something about. It's something about like air. It has something to do with like an air. Yeah. Maybe a, uh, yeah, it's, it's because you use iron and the other thing to make steel. Carbon. Carbon.

Air, dude. God, you had it, bro. And so we found some of those rocks in there. And I was like, wash you, like, let's do it. So we're putting it all in the truck. Oh, yeah. That buggy can carry. Dude, that colds everything.

That's how I made my big move. I moved to the new neighborhood. Oh, shit. Yeah. So you put it all in the buggy. Dude, I put everything in there. held everything, God. That's brilliant. There was so much space.

So where did you go on the map? Can we get a... Barrett, I know it's on the fly. Can we get a map? We'd love to see. But also, you should know that we want the Dune map right now. Like, you got to read Mike's mind. I mean, Kevin, you got to be on there. Kevin, you got to be on that. Okay, we don't have a graphic.

Like, well, no, you didn't prep anything. Well, you got to know. You got to read it. You got to mine, bro. Go to a million miles an hour, you know. You got to feel it. We would love the, um, you would love the, um, The Iraqis map, Barrett, from Dune Awakening?

Yeah, I want to talk about our home and where you've gone. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the hilt, no, the helm, the something? The next place we're going? What's the big base in the middle that has... That we've been at, the anvil. Anville. The anvil, close.

The anvil, yep. You're very close. It's the anvil. I'm on the east side of the anvill. So you're still... Okay, so for viewers watching out there, and if you're listening, we're describing the You're starting the South Basin down there. You move up to this Western gap up here or the Eastern Gap if you got lost. But we're in the Western Gap. You can read that.

Good for you. Yeah. Thank God. Yeah. You know, there's a couple times. Verr brought up a couple tweets earlier and got it home to get daily. And I'm like, am I about to ask Gary to read this shit right now? So like, thank God I'm seeing it right now.

Gary, you take this. You got this. Gary, I can't read that. I don't read that. So now we're in the Western Gap. And it's funny because you see the anvil up on that top right side, that big green marker. We've been over to the left-hand side of that

is where we kind of move towards. You're telling me, you move just, why to the anvil then? You're still in the same area as us. Because it's a quick, oh, sorry, not the green, my bad, the yellow on the right, the icon on the right in Eastern Vermilious Gap,

the yellow icon of top. Oh, you really moved. Yeah, because we're on the left island, Mike. Yeah, we're on the Western gap. No, no, no, we're on the Eastern gap. Okay. Yeah, we're in the Eastern, but we're in the big landmass to the left of the end.

You're right. So I just moved to the right side because it's a real short jaunt to get to the rift. To the pink crystals. Okay. The erythricer site or whatever the hell. That's smart. That's smart. That's a quick little journey.

So your thought was, let me move the base to make my movement time. I hate always driving around. You didn't think about making like an outpost, a second base, a smalling mining outpost? I love building so much in this game. So why not build a second one? love the visuals of it so much. I probably should do more. Well, what we should do is all just make each other's houses, each other's houses, because

that becomes other outposts for our friends. Of course, of course. But I just love building so much. And it was so meditated. It was the first night of you and Raj playing. I had you all on a little mini screen. And I was just building to my heart's content. Which, by the way, give it up from Mike and Roger for freaking it.

We freaked it. Number two. And thank you all to everybody in the chat for all the massive. for that. Mass is trying to stream. Keeping the lights and mics on, supporting us. Thank you to Andy. Thank you to Kevin, Nick, Andy, Joey.

You get double shoutouts for you. Thank you, Mike Miller. Barrett, we missed you, but we love you. You tuned in as well. But yeah, we had a lot of support from the whole team here. Great merch, too. Great merch. We sold some special merch.

But, yeah, thank you for breaking us, your second screen experience. Yes. Because, yeah, we brought it. And a nice move. Okay, I'm jealous of them. Building a beautiful house. Yeah.

It's, you know, great, great walking score on Zillow. There's a lot of great schools around there for the kids. Can we talk about the house building? You and I have played a lot of these survival crafting games. A lot of wood shacks in our day. Right, of course. Now we've upgraded. We're in the sci-fi world.

How do you feel about the building stuff? Are you getting everything you want? Have you gone to your point of your building where you get more into the Sims with like home decor? Are you still keeping it pretty, hey, this is an empty giant room? but it's got a lot of refineries. It's got the workstations. The home decor is definitely an option. I'm all about the lighting.

The lighting is so... I'm mainly decorating with lighting in Dune Awakening. Yeah. Like the different structures that I've been kind of experimenting with on the roof pieces and messing with different shapes and stuff. I'm having such a blast with the building aspect of it. And I'm so behind because I have been putting off the deep desert. which is the big PVP zone.

That reason they got an update. They got a big update, big update. A lot of fans saying, I don't want to just do PVP. And, you know, I think Dune Awakening would be one of the most perfect games for me if they took more liberties with a Dune IP

and said, hey, what if we also had like monsters that you fought? Yeah. Let's get a little wacky and weird. You're fighting humanoids. Yeah, of course. You're fighting normal sized humans. Give me weird like sand lizards and shit.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I want, you know, I think it would be the perfect IP if, you know, obviously me saying taking liberties with the Dune IP, that's probably going too far. But if it was any other IP where it's just your desert-based third-person shooter, like I would love to fight other stuff than just humans. Scorpions, weird spider bugs. Yeah, yeah. It would be cooler to have, you know, more memorable boss fights of you going through a big ass cavern and having this crazy dungeon with these awesome layout, having a big boss. at the end of it.

Starship Troopers. Yeah. That would have been the killer IP. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, Dune's got the name in the hotness right now, but Starship Troopers, you can just add a bunch of crazy bugs and then have boss fights with all the wild bugs that you could think of.

And still be dealing with human factions and raiders and things like that, but also dealing, like I would just love more enemy variety, but they already took enough liberties of the Dune IP by making this an alternate reality. I'm excited because I think I want to change your thought, your mind process here. with the outer desert, the PVP zone, to get you a little more excited

because I look at that, like the dark zone from the division. I want you to start thinking dark stone division, extraction moments, right? Especially now with the new update where half of the map is PVE and then half of it is just PVP, I want you to start really thinking of like,

let's get wacky with the extraction moments here where it's, hey, we're in the safe zone, but we're going to choose to go up there for 30 minutes and we're going to risk it all. You know what I mean? Instead of, hey, I'm just moving to PVP and they could tear it on everything I've ever had. It's more like, no, we're going up there in the buggy and we're praying to God that

like nobody sees us. And if they do, we're in an intense firefight. Hopefully we make it out. I'm excited to at least try it out. Okay. But I am not excited for it to become the norm. Like, this is where I'm at now at the end game. This is by far the most I've spent since Icarus with the survival game.

True. You know, like, we are deep in this game. I feel like the, I feel like once we get the deep desert, that will be the end time for us with that game. But I'm enjoying every moment until we get there. I want to, I want to get a new sniper because a new sniper requires aluminum. And we don't have that yet. I want, the weapons are so fun to use. They're so sad.

The sounds are great. The way that my base is built out now, because you told me about the grappling hook, I, I park my buggy in my sort of what is, what is kind of like the bottom floor of my house. but the only way to get into the house is either through the front door stairway or from within my house, I grapple up into my house. So it's just like a quick little and now I'm in the top floor. It's just so much fun. The movement's great. The abilities are awesome.

I would have never thought that I would have fallen this hard for Dune Awakening. It's so good. Chad, don't forget this is today's kind of funny games cast. Of course, we'd like to thank our sponsors, Cash App and Mood. We'll talk about them later. and our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs' Omega Buster, and Delaney, Twining, with a new nickname? The Sam.

The Sam. We looked it up, me and blessed yesterday. Can I get a read, yeah, Bob Check. The Somalir. Wine. Oh, the Somalier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I say, Somalier?

Yeah, yeah. I said Somalier yesterday. Why don't I do that? I don't know that one. What did I do that? And what is that? Just like the game vibe? Like, no, I think he's a Somali.

You know what? I think you're right. We've spoken with Delaney twining. and that's their job. They got like a family winery or something. Bless mentioned a winery during one of the Patreon calls or something. I didn't think of that. How did I say Somalir?

I don't know if I ever said that in my life. Somalia, okay. Yeah, I'm so glad that we've been deep in the dunas. It's like a fun family collective. It's been really, really fun. I'm truly blown away that that game is that good. Yeah. I cannot believe how good this game is.

I think it has a really fun loop and it's easily the most surprising game that I've experienced in 2025. Game of the summer? I mean, yeah. I can't stop playing it. I booted it up. When you and Rod start your stream on Friday, I started up on my PC over here,

and Nick's walking by me going, you fucking asshole, dude. I hate your ass so much. I want to go in there and play. I was like, well, they disconnected the PCs, and he's like, that's fucking bullshit. He was so angry. Dude, every time.

The PCs are disconnected. He's all about it. Nick is like, he's got to be the furthest bound. You think he's in front of me? He's furthest behind. No. Yeah. He can't be in front of it.

He hasn't booted it up in a while. So have you unlocked all of the skill tree now? Not meaning like you've unlocked it all, but like, have you finally found the people to then progress it? Because it's interesting of there's five different classes, we'll call it, right? I think I'm being progress. And you can. Progress blocked, really.

Yeah, I think there are a couple of other missions that need to open those up. For you to go meet the sisterhood and be able to progress that higher? I did a mission for them. Okay. Went back to them. By the way, thank you for tuning to the Dune Awakening Podcast. for all the wakers out there. Come get doomed.

Yeah, I did go back to talk to them after I did a mission, and they were like, hey, cool, I'm glad you did that. Yeah. I'll have something else for you later. And I don't really know what that means. Nothing has popped up since then. I'm assuming maybe I've got to do the next big things that we have on our. Yeah.

So you haven't made it to, we got the anvil, but there's another spot where it says greatness awaits. No, I haven't done that yet. You haven't gone? Oh, man, you've been really holding back on the mission? Yeah, I've been holding back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great, okay. Yeah.

I like that. Yeah, the mix of mission structure with that MMO-R-P-G type of vibe with the survival crafting is just a hit combo. Yeah. A hit combo. And it's not, it's not so breathing down your neck with the survival mechanics. And that's what I love about it the most. There are some games that are way too easy on that shit. Okay.

There are some games that don't stress that enough to where it feels. like, well, this is even really a survival game? But, like, I love that the amount of times in other survival games where we are mid-story mission, and you go, oh, time to progress to the next part of the mission, and you go, I'm gonna eat. Oh, dude, I'm starving.

And that becomes the whole journey of, should, I didn't pack it, whatever. The fact that this game is not so, you know, survival heavy. and it's always a it's a delicate balance It's a give and take It's a delicate balance to make me

Not want to go I gotta find like a setting That lets me turn this shit off Or make it a bit more chill I think I think at moments Valheim was maybe a little too intense With the survival stuff You read my mind

I was just gonna say that Oh no I'm okay I was gonna go with Icarus was too intense I think Arc was a little too intense Okay As well Okay But then there are other games

that are way too lenient where I'm like, well, I still want to be reminded every now and then, you know. Let's talk about rematch really quick. Let's switch gears now. Rematch. You talked about kind of the meta kicking it off the back wall. How are you feeling with that? Where are you at, right?

Like, you're the striker. You got the big foot. Have you been playing goalie? How many times have you played since launch? Where are we at with this game? I played once since launch. Does this game have the juice? I think it does.

I feel like it does, but like at the same time, it almost feels like it doesn't. And maybe that's because I'm not playing it, but like, I don't know, maybe there's so many games that I thought this game would ascend to greatness and it doesn't feel like it's ascended quite there. Well, I mean, to sell a million copies

in a day and age where everybody expects, I mean, three million players with game pass, but selling a million, I think is such a massive mark for the devs of Sifu in a day and age where everybody expects, their games to be free to play. Like there, in

any other, I always go with like the multiverse argument. In all the other multiverses, there's everybody complaining, this game needs to be free to play. It's going to die. It's got to be free to play. You know, like the fact that they put out these successful betas showed people this is worth being on your radar.

If you care about sports, if you care about soccer or football, if you give a shit about that, we're going to give you two different betas to kind of try it out. And selling people immediately and they're going, oh, fuck, I got to play this when it comes out. And it comes out 30 bucks, whatever it is, I'm gonna

buy this. I gotta play with my friends. I think that they are in such an amazing position to succeed and keep on getting better. Now, the stuff that you kind of start to worry about is like monetization and customization because you see any of that yet? You got to buy like

haircuts, you know, you got to, you know, there's not a whole lot of... How much can you sell, though? Like, let's go on the flip side. They don't have, you don't, it's such a bare bones, like, just straight up game, that there's not much to sell, right? Of, like, shin pads, socks, shoes, headbands, jerseys, and your haircuts are really the only things you can sell here, right?

I think there will be full player skins. Okay. Because one of the alternate skins you could be is, like, the coach, whatever. So, like, messy will be there. Yeah, I think they will, I mean, the fact that they already did this partnership with Ronaldino. Yeah. And I don't even, I don't know if he's actually in the game or not. I don't think so.

But like the, I think that's where you go next. I don't really know how else you can monetize because this isn't a game with a story. Like the season passes seems like a kind of an odd thing to do unless he's already introducing new arenas to look at. It's such a bare bones product, but those bones are so solid. They got a Puma partnership that they just had. Oh, nice. That's exciting. Oh, Ronaldino is a skin.

Nice. Okay. So it'll be very interesting to see. I mean, yeah, I'm down with all of it. I just, I guess I thought it would just be more of a global takeover. But it's there for sure. But I thought it would be more of a global takeover. I mean, I don't think it can be a global takeover without the FC license.

Like without FIFA or whatever they're calling it now, like I'm very, very angry when it comes to soccer. But without those big names and clubs, I don't think it ever. hits that sort of status, but it'll still be, I still think it'll be Rocket League big, where Rocket League's still being, like, Rocket League's a free to play game and it's still always doing numbers and people are so

dedicated to that. I think this builds a fan base like that. I guess I thought I was looking for it. That's a pretty big base, though. That's still like a large expectation, I would say. Well, no, but I, what I'm saying is, I still think it, like, generates a fan base like that, that starts to go towards that. unless you start getting all these big other companies going, maybe we should do something like that.

Yeah. And we have the licenses. And we have the IP. Because here's the deal. You saw the recent news? Both. Both the teams now are teasing NCAA basketball. Yeah.

EA sports, of course, coming back. But 2K had a tweet that was like, we'd be teasing something. I hate it. Really? I mean, I just hate it. I'm excited for whatever EA is going to do. Yeah. And this, you know, this sounds like, oh, pick the one big, you know, gigantic, gigantic conglomerate over the other one. But, like, it's no secret that I really hate 2K's

practices and what they do with monetization on the NBA side of things. And also just because the last several times that we played it, the last several iterations, it just felt like dog shit to play online. So it's like, man, you have such a, you have a product that's making so much money and it still feels like shit to play just in a co-op match with friends. Like, why is there so much delay on everything? With them going, the campus has been kind of quiet recently.

It's like, oh, God, no. We've been paying them kids now. We're going to the campus. That's what me and Blupe are going to the campus. It's like NILs massive. Yeah. Let's get these big deals with these college athletes. We can pay them.

They can be on the cover now. I, like, you know, competition breeds innovation, but I just don't know if there's any innovation to be had here. It will just be the re-skin of this, just like we always talk about. It's the exact same game in its core. They're like tweaks. This game runs faster than the other one, and you have the pageantry. But like, it is just mad at an NCAA football.

The same thing. It's 11 people versus 11 people you're playing the game. You're going to be on the campus. A little mini game to play beer pong over there. They're like, oh, God. Do you think they one day do NCAA baseball? No. The show team does like a little mini...

I don't think so. NCAA baseball world championship, something like that. I don't think... If anything, I would just see NCAA, like, larger teams being included in the show. Well, they have the... Yeah, yeah, they've been slowly included more and more. Yeah, it's right.

Yeah, I'm just not super stoked on that. Okay. I don't know. Well, here's... I mean, we're getting more, a little more room and playing, rematch, possibly NCAA, maybe NBA... one day?

What do you think? I don't know. I mean, I don't think I'm always going to be the one screaming for street and blitz, but I don't think we will get that. As Washington likes to tell me, the NFL has really tried to make a move away from the word CTE

and any sort of vision of people getting concussions. So I don't think we will have blitz where Mike is throwing the people's elbow on guys that are down. Those intro videos are so cool, though, man. Just watch every player get their fucking life. They're destroyed.

Like I don't think we're in that world anymore of that, unfortunately. But I think the gameplay is just so much fun, right? You bring up rematch where it's like you can speak to an audience that's like, I don't want to play Madden, Mike. I don't want to play 2K. And it's like, well, this is different. It's still soccer at its core, but it feels different. It's more fun and easier to jump into.

I think NBA Street is definitely poised for that. You have so many stars, especially, hey, LeBron's getting up there, Andy. Yeah. strike now with the LeBron on the cover NBA Street before he's gone. Because homie's getting out soon. He might coach the Knicks. What's like?

No, he ain't. No, like. They still don't have a coach. It's crazy. Coach and player. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I'm hoping for some things like that. Let's talk Liza P. Oh, yeah. You finally beat this or what? Why am I waiting on this?

Well, finally beat the, I mean, finally beat the main game. You beat the DLC? Where are we? I'd already beaten the game before. Yeah, of course. A lot of questions around people coming to my Twitchine going like, wait, you haven't beaten this yet? I started a brand new play through in anticipation for the DLC. Then the DLC came out. I beat the DLC.

That shit rocks. That shit needs to be played by everybody. Beat the DLC. Beat the DLC. And then continued and finally beat the rest of the game. So this will be your second time being the main game. Yeah, second time being the main game. Yeah.

A lot easier this time around because the DLC got me a higher level. Okay. And the DLC was definitely tougher than I thought it'd be. But then that got me higher leveled for the rest of the core game. And the bosses that took me two and a half, three hours last time, first tried them both. Like, just in an instant. It was such a short stream yesterday. And then I tried out the boss rush mode, which is brand new to Liza P.

What's that like? Like Bloodborn? No, they just let you. The Chalice Dungeons? They just let you... No, no, no, they just... They give you a list of all the bosses, and each boss has five difficulties,

and you can replay any of the bosses that you want. Just click the name, you put me in the arena. Put the game there, yeah. That's a cool way to re-experience that you, because it's always a frustration with Souls games, because, you know, all right, while I'm playing on PC, I'm going to have to download it in mod in order to, if I do want to re-experience this, right?

Yeah. There's a lot of bosses that are so awesome. It's like, oh, I would love another, chance at that with a different weapon or whatever. But I love the idea of once you clear the main game, you can hop in. There's the full-ass list of everybody. We live the moments. You have five difficulties.

And five is the hardest. And they realize, I think what's awesome about Neo-WIS and Round 8 is that they look at the hardcore souls and action adventure or whatever community. And seeing that there's a big appetite. for challenge runs. There's a big appetite for no weapon only fists or what, you know what I mean? Like there's all that sort of stuff out there.

And so introducing the ability to fight every boss at five different difficulty levels, I think is super cool and just a fun, neat way to add more content to your play-through. Yeah, I like that. Now, what does it look like weapon-wise? So like the boss-st mode is unlocked after I beat the game? Can I do it any time?

Only after you beat the game. So what character is that pulling your character with your weapons? You're still playing as your character. You're going to, like, think of it as like going to any bonfire. And at any bonfire, as long as you don't start new game plus, you're starting with your character at that build. And then you can change whatever you want each and every time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Interesting. Okay, cool, cool, cool. And then at the bonfire or the Stargazer in this game, you'll see the boss. Now, see, I want to play this DLC. I should just play all of Liza P because it's a great game. You can't just play the DLC. That's the issue. You can only get there.

So where do you fall on this? Should DLC just be a, hey, this is a standalone thing over on the side, you can just press start or do I really have to go get mixed up in half of the game to start this game? Well, I mean, the whole game kicks ass. Yeah, that's the thing. You know, if this were a situation where DLC kicks so much ass and it finally writes all of the wrongs and, you know, it fixes the sins of the full game, that'd be one thing, but like the whole game kick so much ass and you're only getting

even better content with the DLC. Now I would say if you want to skip all the other stuff you could you know download a mod that gets you a certain save over there. It'll give you a save at a certain point and you could be DLC ready

but I think the game is just so fucking fantastic like it is so good. Still got all the cool moments where I break their weapon because I parrot them so hot. So good. They do that? So good. And the bosses are amazing and The story just gets better and better. And the, you know, a lot of people looking at the DLC is, as a, oh, it's a prequel DLC. It's kind of like darks, right?

But, I mean, it's a, it's a, it really is like, it's a time travel DLC. You're going back in the past and you're also changing shit in the future. And you're realizing that like, oh, that thing's there because my dude from the past put it. Yeah. You know, it has like those sort of awesome revelations. What if I don't know Pinocchio? I don't know Pinocchio either. You think I know this guy?

It's him, the woodworking guy, they got swallowed by a whale. No. No, they won't know. I mean, that was in the main story. Oh, okay. You know. Yeah, I'm just trying to remember like the movie. This has got a, like that.

I mean, this has got a lot of little touchtones to other public domain IP of like other tales and fairy tales and stuff like that. But like, you don't got to know Pinocchio. You don't need to know Disney's. You just got to know that this game is about a guy. What else do you need to know? I'm sorry, really. What else do you need to know about Pinocchio? I don't know any of the story of Pinocchio.

I don't even know Pinocchio. You know what happens with Pinocchio lies. Knows gets bigger, yeah. And he's wood. Yeah. But in this, they're automaton. They're all robots. Okay.

But he's a real boy. Or is he still a robot? He's wanting to become a real boy. Yeah. So the thing in this story, let me a quick little rundown. Yeah, that's why I need to know. Quick little rundown. a dude name

Vinini he's an inventor in the world of Liza P Inventor He creates like this golden rule For automatons and puppets You cannot hurt your creator You gotta obey all the laws

Whatever the fuck But then somehow puppet uprising happens And all of the The puppets but they're automaton's They're robots, they're like servants for your house or whatever They go crazy They start killing people and it's like, well, how did this rule get broken?

But the rule of robots is, or these puppets are, they can't lie. But every once in a while is Pinocchio in this game, you're facing the decision of a person going, hey, that one MPC that you talked to earlier, did he say anything cool about me? And you'll be giving the decision, should I lie to make this person feel better? Or should I tell them the truth and say that, whatever, you know?

And so you could lie, and then as the more that you lie, the more that you start becoming more and more human. and then suddenly it's like what's really cool is there's an idle animation in the game where you're just standing still and Pinocchio, he's a robot, he's doing like his little like kind of robot jittery or whatever the more and more you lie, the more human you become,

the less jittery you get. Like there's little touch tones like that. Is it like my health bars going down because I'm human? No, you're just... I'm bleeding blood? No, you're just, uh... Let me tell you this, a little cat who's scared of automaton's,

starts to warm up to you because you're becoming more human. I'm lying. Yeah, you're lying. If you're lying, you're dying. Roger, I love lying to you. I love lying to you, Roger. My favorite quote of 2023. Mello fellow writes in and says,

Are you guys going to touch the hard mode in night rain at all? Sentient Pest is out for the week today. I didn't try. I fucking hate Sengi, but no. I will not be going back to that guy. Absolutely not. I don't want a hard version of that. But I really want to go back because our friend,

Alana says that she wants to play it. Okay. And I'm always down for more night rain. I tried a couple of solo ventures recently. I was like, let me see if I can get to this. Oh, you've been trying solo. Good for you. I'm like to try and get to this full gore guy or whatever his name is.

The big guy on the horse, horseman. Oh, man, horseman, centaur, man. Centaur, Minotar. And didn't even get there. No. I'm just so bad at this game. Oh, you got game. He's helping me you didn't make it tonight, too?

I don't have game. I have persistence. Yeah. And you don't like that. Like, oh, yeah. once you start dying to this, the snowball effect happens. It's why I relate so well to Alex Garland

talking about Eldon Ring. Alex Garland is the movie director, Mike, of Civil War. He's going to be the movie director for Elden Ring. He also did X Machina and he did freaking devs, one of my favorite shows on Hulu. What's up? What's up, Brent?

Sorry. I didn't know he did devs as well. Yeah, so Alex Garland is going to be, he's the one who signed on to the right. write the movie or whatever for 824 and was asked about elderly recently and he was like there's really for him I relate to his experience he says there's no real getting better it's like eventually if you give a bunch of a monkeys a typewriter they'll write Shakespeare

that's like a saying right and I relate to that so hard because you know that I just get it's not that I'm like super improving of course I'm learning patterns and things like that but I'm so precise that I'm never really first trying dudes a whole lot. It's mainly like, no, I'm going to stick here because I'm going to beat your ass. And I don't care how sleepy I am. I don't care that I'm two and a half hours into this. I'm going to get this motherfucker.

Just takes one. Believe in the build. But you can't do that in Night Rain. As you die, you start over. It's like, a 40-minute adventure got to start again. I love it. I love Night Rain. I don't know if I'm going back for a hard mode.

Barrett, have you hop back into the night. No, if you need a, that's why I was popping up originally. If y'all need a third, I would love to put more time. into it. I was talking about it on my stream last night. Like, I've, between the beta and then since it has come out, I've only put in, like, 10 hours just because when it came out, it was a bad time for me to play anything new.

What's that? But now... The golden triangle. Oh, golden triangle. Oh, yeah. Golden triangle. Yeah. Golden triangle. It's from my king of Tupelo right there. Oh, gotcha. Hell yeah. Now that, you know, I'm on the other side of Death Stranding, too, and stuff. Like, I'm... I actually have time to play other stuff, so let me know if you need an extra night run.

I still need to play as the Birdman. The Birdman's my... I want to learn the Birdman. Dude, the Birdman is so OP and just too boring for me. Really? But so useful. Okay. Like, man, the amount of times I've seen clips of this dude just full blocking

through the most crazy attacks that some of these bosses are doing, he's just ding ding, like getting fish back. See, I never block. I need to see this could elevate my gameplay in all Eldon Ring games. Well, because he's got the special attack with the halberd. Okay. With the pokey sort of halberd. So like only he has this ability to like as he's blocking,

just be like, bat, pat, pat. You know, like he's got a special little thing going. Okay. He's a really, really strong dude.

I just never really love using the bird guy. Now what I'm excited about, did this Bandai Namco showcase already happened? It happened already, right? I think it happened already. You know stuff about it? I was hoping they were going to give us news about DLC. Oh, dude,

I'm surprised we should have DLC. Because there are parts of the, world that do not turn into a shifting lands thing, right? Because you have the top left with the snow mountain. You got the bottom right with the rock. Love the volcano in the center. You got the bottom left with the city sort of

thing. Volcanoes in center. Top right and bottom middle don't have anything. What are those going to be? Do you think that needs to start rolling out like, I don't want to use the word live service, but like do you think that needs to start getting more updates than just hard mode now? Or like, hey,

we got a new boss coming. July, August. How do we roll this out? The showcase is happening literally right now. Oh, shit, okay. Well, I see they don't have anything noted there about Eldon Ring. They only got Digimon, Strange, uh, Oh, shit.

My Hero Academia game. Another My Hero Fighting Game got announced. Tawa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree Toa. But there's an and more. And more. It could be an, and one last thing. It's never been a better time to hop into Eldon Ring Night Rain. Has we got a new fucking boss.

If they were like, if they introduced, not only new boss, but like new night fairs. Think about how that could change. The new night bosses, the night boss. No, just like, no, you're home. The ones you control. Oh, you want a new character. Yeah, I think that's something that they, like, there's so many avenues of new content for this game. Yeah.

That there's just so many opportunities. So much like juice to be squeezed here. And that sounds like a negative. That sounds like, oh, you're just, you know, you're just milking this thing. but for me it's excitement. No, it's a live-service game. This game kicks so much ass. The bones of it are so good.

My opinion of it only went higher and higher as we cleared everything. Like we had such a great time fighting all those bosses, involving people in the community with, you know, putting your little passcode up and saying, all right, anybody join in. Let's do this. You know, like it was an awesome time. I'm so excited for this.

Does this game get you excited for the PVP one on the Switch? No, because that's a different concept. I'm still excited because it's a new Frumsofting and it's Miyazaki lead. I'm pumped. I can't wait. The idea of, like, I always am thrilled when we get an invader. Because I was him. I'm always excited when it's like, oh shit, you came into my world and you want to kind of bring it on me.

Like, let's battle. I love the idea that they're going to experiment with, yeah, experiment with, all of a sudden, they're going to give us a map like Night Rain, and there's going to be eight of us or whatever the number is running around. and all of a sudden I'm going to look at you and you're going to look at me and it's like, are you stepping to me right now or are we going to wait till later? And like, we could collide. I love that.

I can't wait to see that. But I think the idea of an invader is exciting to me. Yeah. The idea of having ever present other players. Oh, the looming threat that like I've been watching you like a goddamn mountain lion and I'm going to strike upon you when you're fighting another boss. Less exciting to me. Oh, I can't wait.

There's Andy fighting for his life and Mike just, taking photos like National Geographic. Stop taking photos. The moment he finishes that boss, I swooped down. And he's like, oh, fucking Mike. And I'm like, gotcha, motherfucker. And that's the last time I play the game. I cannot wait for this video game to have those moments.

Well, the things that Miyazaki's been mentioning about that sort of play style, right? Because this is all because he really thought Tarkov was cool. Oh. And so the way that he's hoping to make it fresh is that there are ways that, to form alliances that go further than, that are more than just a, a vocal,

hey, I'm cool, you're going to be cool? All right, let's be cool. The way that he's talking about alliances seem more mechanically based, like there's going to be a mechanic or a system that. Like, call duty wars, remember when we used to be able to add team members together? When you could just be like, hey, you want to roll with us? And all of a sudden, you're in my party?

Yeah, yeah, that was crazy. There have been hints from him that seem like there's going to be, something more to the let's squat up and take on this dude process. That's cool. Somebody brings up covenants and it'd be really cool that if we all chose from like five different

covenants at the beginning of the game, right? You chose the rat king. I chose the lemon tree or whatever the hell it is. I just made that one up. I don't remember the covenants that well. Besides the rat king, shout out. Lemon tree. But like every game has two of each and when you jump in it's your goal to find the other covenant

person and maybe you link up. and if you team up, you get a boost, and then you run around together. But you'll never know. It's like among us, an imposter. You don't know who's part of your squad. Or maybe I look at somebody I'm like, you have negative loyalty with the Lemon Tree Covenant.

Like, you've fucked us over in the past. I don't know if I want, you know. And maybe those covenants are the leaderboard sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. What I really, really want is for Night Rain. I'm going back to Night Rain instead of Dustblobbed. I would love for the, I think the way that these extra hard mode bosses have been rolled out,

I wish that they could have rolled them out in a way that felt a lot more like how Hell Divers 2 rolls out their stuff where it's more like, hey, these dudes are back and we got to go take them down. Like community led almost, there's a new threat out there. We all need to take this on. I think the idea of the way Hell Divers does, not only the social media and the way they're marketing, but the way that they do, looking at the map and seeing what's happening,

you are losing on the front lines and how you need to take this shit back. I want that more in games. That community-led thing is so sick to have logged on every day and go, oh, shit, dude, we're back up to 73% control. That's awesome. Like, that living sort of thing is so exciting

and kind of so immersive. And I don't know how they could really do that with Night Rain or anything, but I would love for that to just be in more PVE-focused games in the future. I love that. Yeah, my one request of Night Rain, try a limited time mode, a wild one, where it's two groups on the map, but they can kill each other. I want a little PVP and Night Rain, but we're still playing through the nights.

And like my night one and your night one are on separate sides, but like eventually we will collide. And then winner gets to fight the big boss. I think when it comes to the team stuff, the one thing I always kind of wished would be for there to be PVE or PVP invasions in Night Rain, where it's just like one person wants to go fuck up somebody's run. In the same way that Margett comes from fucking heaven

to take you on and chase you down. You queue up as invaders. When that team gets to day one or day two, instead of getting a boss, you get the three invaders and you've got to fight each other. Yeah, that ends the day. That could be sick. That could be sick.

That could be cool. You know what is cool? More best friend podcast. Coming up right after a word from our sponsors. This episode's brought to you by Cash App. We've all had those moments getting meals out with people that always end in some kind of awkward experience of having to figure out the least complicated way to just get it done.

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For real, there's no catch. Just download cash app and sign up. Use our exclusive referral code, kind of funny, in your profile. Send $5 to a friend within 14 days, and you'll get $10 dropped right into your account. Terms apply. That's money, that's cash app. This episode is brought to you by Mood. Let me tell you about the online cannabis company that's revolutionizing how we deal with life.

challenges. From sleepless nights to stress-filled days. Mood.com has created an entire line of functional gummies that target specific health concerns with 100% federally legal THC blends. They'll deliver them discreetly right to your doorstep, and you can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code Kind of Funny. I've been having a great time trying out all their different gummies, and I'm loving how each one feels. Their sleepy time, gummies will knock you out in about 15 minutes flat, no hangovers, no groginess. And, And their epic euphoria gummies are perfect for those days when nothing's going right. And best of all, not only does Mood stand behind everything with an industry leading 100-day satisfaction guarantee,

but as I mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code Kind of Funny. So head to Mood.com, browse their amazing selection of functional gummies, and find the perfect gummy for whatever you are dealing with. And remember to use promo code Kind of Funny at checkout to save 20% on your first order. And Andy. Gonna rank upcoming games. 2025 seems really cool, but will their list be lame?

Welcome everybody to a blind ranking right here where me and Mike are going to do the TikTok trend where we are given, you know, we're giving a list of stuff that we don't know what order they're going to be in, but the list of games, I gave Barrett, a big-ass list of games. Hell yeah.

The rest of the games coming out in 2025. Okay. and he's going to only give us 10 of them in a weird randomized order. And then you and I are going to put them in place to go, you know what, I'm going to rank these from the games I'd love to play and spend the most time in to the games I don't really want to play a whole lot of. And you just got to hope that you put them in the right spots.

Okay. We did this on TikTok a couple times. I like that. I love that. I love when you go in their TikTok on them. And you just got to hope that you're doing it right. You just got to hope that the right games are popping up in the right moments. Because if you put, if you put Art graders at number one, and then the rest of your list is filled out, and only nine is left, and then Silk Song pops up, you're an idiot.

People are going to laugh at your list. What are you doing? You know? Well, let's do it. I'm ready to make a list with you. Yeah. So this was a list of 34 games. I'm only giving you the top 10 of this now randomized list.

Your number one game to rank is Subnotica 2. Oh, man. Okay. That's a real tough one because this isn't a bad game. This is something I'm looking forward to. I'm so looking forward to this. But I can think of a lot of other games that I would put above Subnotica 2. Okay.

Now it's just like. Now this, now this hits your survival crafting type game. And it's co-op. New underwater world for you. Did you play Subnotica 1? I played a lot of it. And the whole time I kept thinking, man, I wish I was co-op in this with Mike right now. Just somebody, yeah, dude, this game rocks.

Now, so some new story that we'll probably talk about tomorrow on KFTD, rocking the studio over there, I believe, like, some of the heads of the studio left that. So that's tough. But on the game excitement for me and the game itself, very high. This is a tough one. Because I, you know, I know what the other games are coming out this year. I just don't know if they'll be in this top 10 that Barrett has randomized. I'm.

Okay. Well, we're going from like games that we want to spend that we will spend the most time with to the least. Okay. The games we're most excited for to the least. Subnotica 2. Hit me. I might go right in the center at number 5. I like that.

I think it's like right there for me. I'm going to put this at number 5. I love that. I want to play it safe and put it at 4, but no. It's a Mike TikTok list. Subnotica 2 at number 3. Oh, wow. I'm spending time underwater in this game.

Okay. I don't hate that either. I think this is like a very solid game. Yeah, I'm excited for this one. Yeah. It's an exciting one. All right. All right.

Up next is dying light, the beast. Now this one, I'm not a dying light guy, Mike. Okay. I'm not a scary gamer guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't want to get caught out at night of this game. I would hate to put this at number 10 and then like dragon drive pop up or some shit like that. You know what I mean?

true, true. And, you know, and that would make my list look like a joke. Okay, hold up. I really like dying light. I love a good open world zombie game. You'll hear me and Roger talk a lot about Dead Rising and how much I love that franchise. One and two, three, four, we started going downhill. But I've always enjoyed dying lights because of the parkour from Assassin's Creed meeting that open world zombie game in a fun, fresh take. But I was really down on dying light too. Really? I did not like that story.

I got kind of bored of the world there. I enjoyed what they were trying to do of like, hey, make decisions. You can join this squad or this squad. And we'll kind of update the world with different gameplay effects, deciding on what team you wanted. That really didn't do that much for me. And so I'm actually a lot more down on dying light right now.

We're like, when I hear this game, I'm like, I don't want to play that right now. I don't want to play that. I, I fucked up with some Noticotica too. that low. God damn it. I'm already regretting that. I'm going to put dying light at. It's going to be a quality game.

Oh, okay. It's going to be good. I think it's, you know, it's going to get like eight, you know. Is this the beast? Yes, dying like the beast. And you're going to become a zombie this time. Like, you're going to go freak bone zombie. Yeah, I think that's the whole selling point of the beast. Is you got something deep down inside of you and you're going to lose it. It was you on the treadmill. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was your fluid packet on your calf. I will put dying light.

Ew. I will put dying light the beast at. I hate this. At number, where are you going to put it? Oh, you want me to go first? I'm hard on this game. I'm going to go number eight.

That seems low, but such an open board. Maybe this will probably fall in like a six to seven range for me, but this is an easy eight for snow bike money. You know what? I'm going to go eight as well. Okay. I'm going to go eight as well.

Yeah. Eight for me as well. Dying light. The Beast. I spell that gliding light. Dying light. And keeping track on my side just in case as well. But also big credit to that studio.

Very talented. Making some good open worlds. And the parkour mixed in with that, very good. Yeah, I heard, I mean, I always knew that the gameplay, just based on everybody talking to me about how the gameplay felt good. We streamed it one time. And even when I played, I was like, man, this is obviously a very scary game for me.

Yeah. But holy shit, this feels good to play. Don't go out tonight. All right. You're ready for number three? Let's do it. EA Sports College Football 2026.

Fuck. Damn it. So here's the fun one. I went to Orlando. I can finally talk about it. And I played NCAA football ahead of its release here in July. I also played Madden. We'll have a fun little Mike Minut talking about all the deep dives that I went into.

But I did go down to Orlando. I got to go behind the scenes. I got to get all the information on Road to Glory. I got to see what they're elevating on the next one, presentation-wise, and more. Of course, remember, every team is somebody's favorite team. And so we really worked hard on the pageantry the first time around to bring, I mean, first off, they brought the game back after like what?

Crazy. 10 years, 15 years. It's back, right? They brought the pageantry this year. They're doubling down on that, making sure even more teams are in this sphere, making sure you have the fun. and really identifying what people love. You love Dynasty, you love Road to Glory.

We're going to elevate a lot of that in Road to Glory, making your player kind of being the focus on that. Now are you going to be hearing more than... Andy, you will be. Wow. Chuck that out the window. Wow. You heard about the Metallica contest, right?

They challenged college fans all around the globe, but really the nation, to put on for a big presentation, and whoever one got to team up with Metallica to make the theme song for college football. Whoa. Yeah. Weird.

Interesting. And so for me, college football is high. Everybody knows. I have one request. Mike and Andy in my basement on the beanbag chair. You have a baseball? I live in the basement. I'm a basement dweller.

Joey and Katie sometimes see me crawling out the basement. Like I've got a big foot. Like I haven't seen. seen the sudden week. I'm very high on college football. Okay. I'm going to put college football. I've screwed up my list so bad. Why did I put synodica two that low?

It should have been a three or four. But I'm already in this position. I've already kind of screwed myself. I'm going to put NCAA at number seven. I just have a feeling drag and drive is going to pop out. Okay, okay. And that's got to go below dying light, the beast at number eight. I love that, you know.

Well, your boy, Snowmike, Mike, is very high on NCAA football. I love college football. It's number two for me. I'm leaving room for one more game. Starts with a JW. Oh, what? If it's on here, Jurassic World Evolution's three. Oh, shit.

I love Jurassic Park. It is on the big list. So you never know, you never know. We'll see if it pops up. Maybe there's some more games that I'll forget about, but like, yeah, I'm feeling confident with number two for me. And you're just like, after day seven, you're like, we couldn't, we couldn't call up Nelly? Yeah.

You know what I mean? Machine Gun, Kelly, anybody? Just, where's Post Malone? He'll sing on any... What about Bo Belly or Shelley? Everybody. Everybody. Help me out.

Andy, give me a drum roll, please. Oh, sorry. Is that loud enough? No, it's very quiet. Yeah, I don't know why it got quiet all of a sudden. Very quiet. I don't know what happened. Being freaked out.

Oh, there we go. Ninja Got in football. Oh, Ninja Guideon 4. Okay, that's awesome. Because I think me being more of a traditional Ninja Guidance fan because I play the shit out of the earlier ones when I was a tiny little baby. Okay, okay. Super, super hard games.

I never played the 3D versions. I know that when Ninja Guardian 2 black comes out and has it sort of, hey, it's a reboot. That was this year, right? Really big excitement. Yeah, yeah. The big visual refresh. I never had time to hop into that. Oh, shit.

But I know that they're kind of right up my alley. And my favorite thing about Ninja Gaiden 4 is, you know, they're kind of exploring that one sort of thing we were hoping to kind of, or not that we were hoping to get that we didn't even know we wanted, but oh shit, cyberpunk in Ninja Guyon. Oh, okay. Like this cyberpunk futuristic sort of looking thing, duh, that makes total sense. Why wouldn't you do that? And to have this sort of be this tale of kind of the future in the past, it seems pretty hype to me. I'm going to put this, I'm going to put Ninja Guideon 4 at number 3. I like that, Andy.

I played, I encourage you to stream through Ninja Guidein 2 Black Edition, really good. Because your boy, Mike, I tried it, got my butt whooped. Okay, I had a bad time with this game. I thought I would dig it a lot more, too hard for me. Okay. But, but here's the deal, Andy. Well, your soul's like nice. I played Devil May Cry 3.

Oh, right. And I'm pretty nasty at it. Oh, shit. I got better at it as we progress. So here's the deal. I think I'm coming around on it, but I'm still, I still know this game is too difficult for me.

So I'm going to put Ninja Guide in 4 at 5. Number 5 for me. How many subs I got to donate for you to play through Final Fantasy 16? It's DMC gameplay. Okay. You get the high flying action and juggling and super crazy abilities. And the side quests are good? How long is it?

I would say don't worry about side quests. for a while. Just figure out the right ones to do. Okay. But it's the big set piece boss fight. So you're just like, what the this is where the budge went. There's like nine of them. And the music is amazing. And it's going to make you cry. Oh,

what a game. Okay, put it number five. Okay, I like that. All right. Next up. The Outer Worlds 2. Oh, all right. All right. You did the re-review of Outer Worlds one. I did. A vowed earlier in the year.

you seem to be pretty higher on this game than I know me. We had the Xbox game showcase. The second presentation, the afterwards, was all about this and obsidian. Where are you at, Andy? Because you've got to be higher than me on this. I'm pretty low. I'm pretty high on this, but I'm scared to put it at number one.

I'm scared to... Oh, because you know there's others. I'm scared to go that high. Yeah. Because if Silk Song pops up, egg on my face. An egg on my face for everything that's coming out this year. What about ghosts? Oh, fuck.

Ghost of Yote's all shit. Don't forget about Yote. God damn. All right. There's still some games out there. There's a lot of games out there. Panza. Oh, God, dang.

Okay. Kirby Air Riders. Okay, you're bringing up a lot of titles right now. You're getting me real excited. So now I'm like, do I put Outer Worlds 2 below Ninja Guiden 4? Should I even put Ninja Guiden 4 there? Yeah, exactly. Well, it's not where my heart is.

I just don't want to. Well, let's just say this. This afternoon I present to you, Ninja Guideon 4 and Outer Worlds or Outer Worlds 2. I would go Outer Worlds too. Your heart is spoken. No, but this is like, This is like when we used to do the old school MCU rankings or it's like, well, I like this movie better than 15, but I like number six or like number 12 way more than this. You know, you know, or Tim would do the really stupid fucked up ranking.

It's just your personal list. You're not like combining your list. Yeah, you don't have to combine it with anybody. It's the one and two that I am scared of sacrifice right now. You want to leave room for Jesus. Yes. Okay, could be the best game in the end of the year. Yeah.

Put your hand on my lab, Jesus. That's fair. Crimson Desert as well. Man, is that game coming out this year or not? Because that's high on my fantasy critic And I need this to drop and deliver What do you mean? Yeah, where is it at? Nobody's giving me a date. Why are you getting mad at me? They'll fucking come at me.

Show me a date! Why are you coming to me with this? Fucking reveal the date already, Andy. Jesus. I would go Outer Worlds 2 at Number 4 because I'm leaving room for Jesus. I love that. I really like The Outer Worlds 1.

I did not have the best of times with it though. I wanted more out of that. And I have seemed to have fallen off a big cliff with a lot of open world RPGs that normally I would love. I think about oblivion, Skyrim, the Fallout series. I had time for oblivion. I loved those games. And so the issue is, is like, in recent past, we talk about a vow.

And I think there was one last year. Oh, Dragon's Dogma 2 came out. Kingdom Come Deliverance, too, came out this year. These are these games that are like, young Mike loved. I would spend hours upon hours. Assassin's Creed Shadow. I love these games. Now lately, they're not my thing.

I play 10, 20 hours, and I'm like, I'm never touching this again. Am I worried with Outer Worlds, too? I'll feel just like that. I'll jump into the world and have fun little kooky characters will be in space. I'll think to myself, man, I'd like to spend all the time in the world in this.

And really, Mike's going to play five to ten hours of this, never play it again. So I have to be real with myself. Outer Worlds, too, definitely above dying light, though. I'll spend more time than this and die of light. Do you think it's seven? I'm going to give it a seven. I'm going to give it a six though.

Man, thinking back to it, I would, I like, I know it's such a silly thing to always look at any game and go, man, I wish I was co-op. I really wish Dragon Zogman 2 was co-op because of just how silly all the- That should have been four adventurers just going off and getting weird. I mean, even if it's not four, just like if it were two-player co-op, just the silliness that happens with physics in that game and how many laughs that I have whenever I watch the, the created version of Kevin that I made for you, who then became my homie that I recruited. And having 4'1-11 Kevin throwing a big-ass rock at an enemy, like, dude, it's just the funniest shit, man.

What's up with that game? Is that just going to be done? You think we'll get DLC for that? Or is that like... I think they moved on. I don't think it's old enough. Okay. Next up here.

All right, next up is... Madden, NFL, 2026. Oh, fuck me. Madden. Okay. Your list is getting tight. Your list is getting tight. I got to put this at number six.

Madden at six? Above college? You're not going to go nine or ten with your madden? Because I'm so scared of Dragon Drive. You got to drop it. Don't worry. That's half the fun. I got your face.

I'm so scared of Dragon Drive. Okay, number nine for me. Number nine. All right. I'm so scared of Dragon Drive. Okay. We got to figure out something else with the KFFL. We got to do like a special thing.

Maybe we create a character. I really wanted to do an only playoff's KFFL. Okay. We're like the, maybe the day before the Super Bowl or the weekend before the Super Bowl, where we have four teams do a playoff. Okay. And the kind of funny crew is kind of laid it throughout all the different teams. Yeah.

It's not just the kind of funny crew, you know, it's okay. And then we, you know, get audience members in all the other times. So it's just like four squads and then it's a playoff. They fight each other. Then they, eight too many games? I think so, maybe.

I'm just thinking like, it's like a whole day affair. Yeah. And it's kind of more like, it's on the background. We're grilling up burgers. We don't have to be like full commentator, like the first games.

And maybe it's like, hey, we're doing a little backyard vibe. And like the game is going on. We see some of the highlights. And then we get, we knock out that first round. And then in the second round and the final,

we kind of similar to what we did for the launch of college football. Yes. Yeah, yeah, that's how I imagine. Maybe we switch to different areas or it's like, now we're on the couch for this game, then we're in the tailgate, and then we are on the set, you know, like we just, you know, make it a big event. I'm not mad at that. Big, a sort of variety event. Madden, you're on my mind.

I'm more of a college football guy right now. Madden when I go into Madden, it's a lot of mutt, and I'm trying to get away from mutt. You do mutt? Yeah, oh yeah, hell yeah. I don't know you were a mutter. I'm not a big franchise guy anymore. And play now is like, I have no one coming into the basement to dwell with me. So it's like I have to become a mutt man.

You're not invited Joe. And like, I want Tim Tebow on my team. I'm a Tim Tebow guy. It's like, I got to play mutt now because that's what Tim Tebow is. You know, I got to get that card. And every now and every now and every... How do you love Tim Tebow? Once a year, Tim Tebow will get that 92 card and you know I got to have it.

So I'll just throw money at him until I can pack that Timtoebo. him. Give them that money. I'm going to go with Madden NFL 26, number 10 for me. Fuck! Lock that down. Lock that down. Whoa. That's crazy. All right. So for audio listeners, Mike's got his one spot open, his four spot open, his six, and his nine spots open. And he has his one, two, six, and ten spots open as we get into our final four here.

What games are going to be brought up. Let's see. Next up is Wheel World. The bike game. Tour de France. Open world pastel color way. You're biking. You're rolling up on people in this cute little village,

good music. And they're like, hey, we're biking to the brewery. First one there gets, last one they has to buy the pints. And you're like, I'm going to fucking race you. Yeah. And you bike. Yeah. But guess what?

When you bike, how much going on? the game of world of biking. It's just pedal and brake. You're peddling. It's an open world racing game. Yeah. You got little missions. People be like, oh, if you go over there, you'll get some parts. You get some cool parts, upgrade your bike. This is a game that I wish

it's the only game that I cared about. Oh, wow. Because I could see myself getting sucked into this game. Okay. Okay. In the same way that I got sucked into Forsa. Yeah. Just, it's, you know, it's very, it's a really, it's a real. relaxing type of game. I, but I think there will be too many other things out at the time for me to really,

really give a damn about it. I think it will review well. I think we'll get like sevens and eights, you know? Okay. I'm still, I'm so scared about these one and two spots. Real world is not being your number one and two spots. I'd be stunned. But I'm just scared of worst games popping up.

Yeah, but you got a six spot right there to say, hey, this is a good game. It's going in the six spot. If we all look at this list And we said, oh shit, Andy Cortez is telling me that Wheelworld is his most excited I'm going to spend all the time in 2020 You're right. You're right. No, no.

You're so right. Wheelworld number six for me. You're so right. It'd be cool if this game had multiplayer as well. So we all could race together, roll up in your open world. No, I don't think it has multiplayer. Damn. I think it's like a chill.

It's like a, it's got a vibe. It's a vibe game. It's a cool vibe game. And for me, this vibe game, vibe game will be number six. You know I made friends. Back in high school, we grew up with a kid. Taylor Finney became a big time bike racer.

Really? The tour to France. Did all the bike races. Kid was big time. Finney. Taylor Finney, he was a vibe. Tall, lanky kid. Got up on that bike and just rode.

Super aerodynamic. In it, you know what I mean? You'd be checking out post. You're like, where's Finney now? Oh, he's up in Switzerland. Just bike riding. Really? Oh, shit.

Where's he at now? South Africa. Just bike riding. You see all your friends getting blown by the world. and he's just not having a problem. So fucking cool, you know what I mean? Then you look at his house, he's just got bike frames. Like, man, that's kind of cool. That's pretty bad ass.

That's fucking cool. So his house looks like the inside of like an apple bees or something. All right. We've got our last three games. Where are you putting Wheelworld? Oh, you put it at six. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have our last three games.

Mike has his number one, his number four, and his number nine spots left open in this blind ranking. Andy making a big gamble here. with his one and two spots left open and his number 10 spot left open with these last three games that these boys are randomly ranking. Next up is

Crimson Deserts. Oh, baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the thing. Tell me. Okay. I got Silk Song in the back of my mind. Really hoping on that one.

That's a song pops up. I mean, that's a high chance on the list. But I am. too pumped for Crimson Desert to not put it at my number one. So Crimson Desert will be my number one. Over ghosts? Over ghosts. I just can't take the risk.

Like, I think ghost, I think I would put ghosts over Crimson Desert, but we're not in that situation right now. Because you don't know about that list. We don't know if it's popping out. But in reality, outside of this list, you're more excited for ghosts. I'm more excited for ghosts. Okay. Crimson Desert, I am so pumped for it though.

Yeah. It is right up, you know, you could look at the top games for the rest of the year, and it would be up there in a big ass four-way, five-way tie. I would put him to Desert, number one. I'm just too scared to take a risk, and I need something cool. Remember we saw that cool tech test, too, that the shows of that engine? So awesome. Holy shit.

People got to play it at some event recently. Some of Game Fest? No, it was over. It was either in Europe or Asia, I figure. I'm really, I mean, the tech was unbelievable. And this is a game that I've been, like, all in on. I liked Black Desert a lot, that MMO. I'm excited for what they got going on.

here. The idea of it's like a single player game now and like you get to be the focus I'm really pumped up about. Crimson Desert is my number one, 100%. This is the game that I want to play right now. Yeah. That's the game. This is the game. Let me play it. When they showed off that, you know, hey, there's that big ass wooden door like that shit on fire. It'll eventually get weak and kind of breakdown. Then you can break it with melee because it was too hard to break earlier when it wasn't burnt. Like, I love the lighting effects. The crazy collision and like the anti-collision now of like how to work with the physics of the horse meeting your cape and how it rests on that.

The water looked so good. All of it looks amazing. All the, this game. Trees. I got some crazy tree stuff going on in this one. I can't wait to play this game. All right. We've got two spots left.

Mike has his number four and number nine spots open. Andy has a big gap here between his number two. and number 10 spots left open for these last two random games. The first 10 games on this list of a total of 34 games, but we're only ranking the random top 10 that these boys don't know. Next up is baby steps. I can't believe this game isn't out yet. Get this game out.

I think it's out soon. Let's fucking play this game, y'all. God, your list is so much better than my. Are you going to do another marathon stream for this? Oh my God, Barrett. We got to find a stair stepper. You got to get a stair stepper now. We cannot take down that goddamn treadmill right now.

I would put baby steps. I got to keep room for Jesus. Wow. Andy, let me tell you. I am taking a risk. Me and Greg went behind closed doors and met the team behind baby steps at GDC. We got the rundown. Andy, this has got the humor.

It's got the heart. It's got a little story to it. It's got a giant fucking mountain to climb. Like this is going to be big. It's going to be good. This isn't, this isn't only up where all of a sudden some crazy AI generated voice comes in and we start talking about my dead parents. No.

This is like Sony. What was that? Very odd situation. Wasn't that crazy? We didn't need that at all. That was an insane moment. I got to go 10 here. I have to keep room for Jesus, though.

Okay, okay. I'm taking a risk either way. Yeah, you're taking a risk either way. I put it at two, Ghost of Yote pops up at number 10, or I put it at 10, and drag and drive pops up. Yeah.

I'm scared either way. I mean, I got to be real with myself. I want to play baby steps way more than Ninja Godin 4, real world, out of worlds two, dying light, the beast.

So it's four for me. It's easy. I'm locked in. All righty before, we'll do a whole reread of these personal list of, what are we calling this? Most anticipated games, a blind ranking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for 2025.

The games I'm going to spend the most time in. Yeah, ranking the rest of 2025 in games or something. Mike has his number nine spot left open. Andy has his number two spot left open. Of the last game we have to rank, there's so many options, boys. There's so many options. You have Ghost of Yote. You could have Dragon Drive.

You could have Kirby in the Forgotten Land plus StarCross World, or you could have Hallow Night Silk Song, Lost Soul Aside, Hell is Us, Donkey Kong Bonanza, Ninja Guide and Ragebound? What is it? Also the Kronos game. Kronos? Yo, by the Bluebird team? Yeah. Hey now. That's another one.

And the last game. Metal gear is also on the list. Metal gear. Is Wuchong Fallen Feathers? I'm not mad at this. But you're number two. I'm not mad at this. That's a high, you better sell this on me.

Is that legit? Well, I have no choice. But there were a lot of other worst choices. Okay. Wu-Tung-Fand Fathers is a game that I didn't even love at GDC when I previewed it. Okay, okay. It's a Soulslike. It's another one of those. And see, that's the problem for me is this game falls into the bucket of.

It looks like 20 other games, and we know what it is. And the only way to differentiate yourself is me going hands-on and saying, oh, this is a standout. When you watch these games, you go, oh, that looks like a dime a dozen nowadays. I don't know if that'll happen, but I would rather play this over Baby Steps. In my mind, I made the right call.

You did? I still don't know if I, I mean, looking back on it, I think I did play Subnotica 2 in the correct spot. I think, when I look at your list, Andy, at first when we go through all this, you're like, oh, Andy might have messed up with this list. Now when you look at it fully done, no, this is an Andy list. That's an Andy list.

Yeah. You know? Baby steps madden dying like. college football at the bottom. Yeah, that's a win. It looks like I just listed them without random, without being given random choices. Now, Metal Gear Saul didn't pop up. That would have obviously been a perfect number two. Wuchong Falls at number nine for you, Mike.

I don't, I unfortunately don't know if it can stand out amongst the crowd of a lot of these games that look very, very similar. You and I've played a lot of these games. Yes. And recently, we've had a fad where now people want to jump on this genre and recently, we've played games where it's like, that's forgettable. I'll never play that again. You didn't stand out.

Right. But there are some standouts. You brought up Liza P. That did it. Liza P is the main one. I never went back to finish Kazan. Kazan. I never went back to finish.

Well, long fallen dynasty. Well, I did finish that, but I never went back to finish a journey to the west. What's the, um, oh, oh, fuck. Wu Kong. Wu Kong. Blackmouth, Wu Kong. Never finished that. I needed like two more bosses there, two or three more bosses there.

I, don't know if it'll stand out enough, but I'm happy that they're, I'm happy that like another sort of NCAA game style sports game that I don't really care about popped up at number two. Exactly. And you're like, hey, Andy's definitely going to try this. Might fall in love or might just fall into the middle. Yeah. Bless what or, sorry, Barrett, where were the other two options or what are the next sort of names on the list that would have popped up? So yeah, I'll give you the next five because yes, this was a list that Andy gave me of 34 games. I put it into a randomizer.

So you were close to ranking Mecca Break. Oh, thank God. Metroid Prime 4. Okay. High on Life 2. Oh. Ninja Guide and Ragebound and Moonlighter 2. Damn.

Okay. So Ghost of Yote was really low on this randomized list. Hollow Night was in the 20s. So, yeah, it was. We avoided a lot of the heavy hitters. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I hit a, we both hit a solid 10.

I think we're happy. I'm very happy with that list. If you looked at me and it was like, I want to know about Mike, there it is. That's definitely me right now. Do you want to read your list off for most anticipated 20, 25 games, blind ranking? Yeah, I would love to list them off. I'm going to start at the 10th spot. Madden NFL 26.

Then at 9, Wuchang Fallen Feathers. Number eight, dying light, the beast. Number seven, the outer world's two. number six, wheel world, number five, Ninja Guide and four, number four, baby steps, and my big three. Number three, Subnotica, two. Number two, college football, 26, and number one, Crimson Desert. Number 10 for me is Baby Steps, followed by number nine, Madden, NFL, 26. Eight, dying like the Beast.

Seven, college football, 26. Six is Wheel World. Number five, Subnotica, two. Number four, the outer worlds two. three is Ninja Guiden 4. Number two is Wuchong Fall and Feathers and number one, Crimson Desert. A lot of doubters with Crimson Desert,

and I don't think it's undeserved, but everything that we've seen so far, it's like, you know, the fact that it's all real and possible is what, you know, that the reason why they showed all this shit to us behind closed doors was because all of it is real

impossible and because we know that you all don't believe it. So I think there's a lot of doubters out there. Now, the game could slow. suck story-wise. It could still suck, you know, level design-wise, whatever it may be, but, you know, for everybody worrying about it may be trying to do too much, I think it's, I think it's like going to excel at all the system stuff, you know. Those lists, if you, Ben, I don't know if you just deleted that, but those lists are very much us. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, you have Andy with the more action RPGs up at the top, but willing to get weird and different with some of those

in the middle. And then you have Mike, right? He likes action RPGs. He likes sports games. He loves crafting duo games with his friends. It feels right. I love subnotic. You look at that and it feels right for us. I'm excited for it. This has been the two best friends podcast.

We took over today's games cast for Wednesday, July, 2nd, 2025. We've got a big weekend here in the States. Please be safe. Take care of yourself. Be mindful if you're lighting off fireworks and having your hands and your digits. nearby, have fun, be good to one another.

And this has been two best friends talking video games with you. Until next time, goodbye. Bye, everybody.