The Besties - Dispatch's Second Chance (and The Game Awards Predictions)

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Some of The Besties were skeptical of Dispatch, the spiritual follow-up to Telltale titles like The Walking Dead. But this new, TV-like superhero series won us over with each new episode. Plus, we share our predictions for winners and announcements at The Game Awards. Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

Did you guys know that normally, I've just discovered a new feature in Riverside. Like, normally I have the chat with all four of us up. And that's good. I was trying to figure out a way to hide myself from the chat, and I remove myself from the whole call. So that was pretty fucked up. But I have discovered that if you want, you can just pin Russ. So it's just wrong.

You can just make Russ bit. You can pin Russ. And that way you're getting like a direct feed. It's like a Wicked for Good situation where you see my giant. face you can also full screen pop out russ so you don't have to see any other guys and you can really focus on how russ is reacting to everything they're saying it's makes for a business opportunity for us it's mostly eyebrows what if we just had a full-time russ feed that you know like the real top in best you subscribers could get right i think it's probably worth 70s

fat bear we're just russ i'm just telling you guys if if on this episode it's seems like Russ and I are like really grooving. I'm reading his like microaggressions, the like tiny fractal eyelash blank that lets me know he wants me to reference New York giraffe or something. Yeah, I'm also wearing Justin's aura ring. So his entire being is sufficed into my being, which is, that's cool, lovely. Yeah, it's really cool. And I've got his aura frame.

It's right behind me. You know, gift giving season is just surrender to turner. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game awards of the week. My name is Ross Fraschik. I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment.

It's a video game club. Just by listening, you, my friend, have become a member. I'm so happy to have you here today to talk about a couple of things. First off, we're going to lead off with Dispatch. Dispatch. What's that, Chris, Plant? Oh, is that how you pronounce that word? Dispatch.

Is it meant to be like a double entendge? What? What do you mean? What? Well, to dispatch, when you say it like that, sounds like you're killing someone versus dispatch, which is when you're sending like taxis out, like on the show taxi.

Now I'm going to be dispatch. Dispatch. Dispatch. Dispatch, Mickey. Chris, tell us all about Dish Pratch. Tell us about Chris Pratch. You want something like those classic tell. Telltale games that you used to love.

You want that Walking Dead flavor, that Sam and Max, not the original games, but the adventure ones. Well, you can get it right now in the form of an entirely original superhero city. Superhero story? There we go. Set in the city of Los Angeles. That's right. Chris Plain. We're going to talk about that.

And a little bit about the Game Awards. That's all coming up right after this. I hope these characters make it in the next poker night at the inventory I don't think that's too much to ask I want to see them up there with... Oh, whoa, that really...

Want to see them up there with strong bad want to see them up there with... ...inventory, she shit to me back. The heavy from fucking TF2. I feel like this is my hat-in-hand sort of Mayaculpa game of

the year of being one that I felt pretty rock solid, certain I wasn't going to like and wasn't going to be for me and was so not excited by any of the trailers or anything I'd seen about the game, but was so sort of shocked by how much buzz and positive reaction had gotten. And I'm very glad that I gave a shot because I have finished, I think, six or so episodes of the eight episodes in this first season in about three or four days. Wow.

Very, very, very, very, very into dispatch. Yeah. And I'm very glad that we, I managed to get it in here before our considerations. I do want to make a slight tweak to what Chris Plant said earlier in the episode describing dispatch. Please. Because his pitch for it, which is what I've basically heard the entire time this game has been out, is like telltale-esque. And I don't actually. actually know that that's entirely the best way to view it.

Interesting. Why's that? Because at least what I've played, and I don't know if this changes dramatically, but at least what I've played, it is much less interactive than a telltale thing. It feels more like an interactive, like you're watching a show and occasionally you have options to like choose dialogue and then there's obviously, there's a game element to it that we'll get into. Right. But it doesn't, the thing about telltale was like, you were like literally.

walking around these environments and like clicking on things and like stuff like that which this is not like this is a much more directive very very much that that that is what turned me off from it at first is like that doesn't sound great to me and honestly for me tell tale has a weird track record where I thought the like first season of Walking Dead was one of them if that was like my game in the year that came out the year that came out I really liked season two and then pretty much every other thing that they made, I never finished. I never got all the way through. I like The Wolf Among Us.

Even though I recognize a Wolf Among Us, yeah, it was great. The Borderlands one, surprisingly really great, really fun. I just never, like, they never hooked me. And so knowing that, like, I didn't feel like I wanted to get invested in a lightly interactive superhero show, like a genre that I also kind of don't give a shit about anymore and have been like pretty well turned off by regardless of whether it's movies or TV or comics or games or whatever but against all odds I think they actually do a really smart thing in how interactive it is to set it up a little bit it is familiar to those

telltale games where it is it is telling a story with important kind of like junction points and conversation choices and decisions that you will make that will sort of branch things off. You are running a superhero team called the Z team of former villains who have turned things around and become heroes, most of them kind of dragging their feet along the way. And you are basically their manager. You are the guy in the chair telling them where to go as these calls come in. You are assigning them to different jobs, making those decisions based on their like different superhero stats that you can level up as they go and they do a good job.

job. But like the narrative layer on top of that is that it is very much like a workplace comedy, I think. Not that it isn't funny. It is funny. It's just like, I don't know if that's the genre. It would slot squarely into. It's not the, the, when I think of comedy, probably something closer to like a Harley Quinn, the comic, they are animated show. It's not like joke, joke, joke, joke, it's right. It has uncomfortable bits. Character set up. It does have uncomfortable bits. The game layer, I think, is really smart because the bit where you are... Like drama.

Like drama. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, it takes some pretty fucking heavy, heavy swings in the... For the love of God, Griffin. The management parts... It's serious mostly, and sometimes there's jokes. That's good.

I think the way the, like, gameplay of sending out heroes and assigning them to different jobs on these, like, long shifts is actually a really smart, like synergistic way of kind of telling the story they're telling, where you start to get invested in these characters based on the writing and acting, which is, you know, they're both really great. But also, like, you begin to form these attachments to, like, oh, well, Golem's my dog. Like, Golem is my dog when I know things are getting, like, hairy and I need someone who I can

depend on, like, that's my dude I send into those jobs. And that kind of, I don't know, that, like, lends itself in. to you giving a shit about the characters in a way that is really effective. Some people are, some of the heroes are like more professional. And so you know like this is,

if this breaks bad, it would be really bad. So I need somebody who can like keep their composure. And they're pretty clear up front, like the mission description about like, you know, they're protecting the governor. So you need somebody.

The way that's expressed is sort of with a pentagonal skill graph with like their toughness and their fighting ability and their peer strength and charisma. intellect, I think, on like a chart. And that is how their success or failure and a mission is determined. There's, but it's not like yes or no. There is a random element.

So basically, if you imagine that Pentagon, the requirements of the job will take up a certain area of the Pentagon depending on what skills are needed for it. And your character also has their own, you know, shape represented by their skills. And in that overlap, there is a percentage overlap. so they overlap by like 70% right It's basically a chance to succeed Is really weird A chance to succeed basically

Yeah exactly Um Yeah I I found that mode That like game and I need to do more of it A little bit stressful I found the like actual show of it Interesting I need to spend more time with it really

I'm still very early But animation wise like through the Holy shit Wow incredible and shot really well Like the framing is like This is professional These people know how to do a show I'm actually surprised that they didn't like partner with a streaming network at the same time.

And I'm sure they will now, especially after the success of it, because it really is very well done. I don't know that they will. I mean, I don't, because this is the, it feels like one of those where this is the best version of it. I mean, who knows, right? If there's money to be made. I think it'll get optioned and they could turn this universe into something, certainly. But it really is, I don't want to overstate it, but like at first, I, started playing it i was like don't don't didn't click with me because it seemed so lightly

interactive once i realized that this is like it is a it's a interactive tv show like in a real sense where you're making narrative decisions that i don't know how they would write around it seems so gigantic i mean there's not a ton of those but like there's enough that it feels like you're really in not a not a like a performer almost like a director position You know, like, who you are interested in in the story. Who do you want to keep around in the story? Who do you want to keep seeing, like, evolve in the story? And once I got my head into that, where they're making concessions like the chapters

are pretty, or episodes are pretty concretely like 45 minutes. I mean, like, the length is like pretty standard. You know what it is. You know what it is when you're sitting down for one. Like you have a sense of the thing. I think what clicked for me is when I'm. I realized that there was nothing really to be mechanically gained from anything. Like your performance in the main mode, the dispatch thing is really more about how it, like, impacts the narrative and what you're interested in the narrative.

But like you're not going to get too good or too bad. Like it's not going to change the story that much, right? It's much more about like keeping you engaged with the story. But a failure, like I was getting frustrated. by how often failure seem random, but then it doesn't matter. Like, it's not, it's,

that's not the essential thing. And realistically, like, from a logistical standpoint, like, if they were programming a bunch of fail points, like,

that's, that dovetails the narrative out into 60 different options. So they did have to kind of pen it in a little bit. I wanted to ask one, so, so the first choice you make in the game

is the setting choice. So you can play as, as like, I think it's interactive or, like, traditional. I don't remember what the two options are. And this is what I want to ask. Interactive is, so you'll, you'll, I think in both modes, you're still obviously making choices.

You're making dialogue choices. You're making like moment choices. But in interactive, you're also doing like almost quick time event style things where someone throws a punch and you have to like hit B for lack of a better example. And if you don't get hit B, you'll get punched. I tried it as the interactive thing and found it to be like, kind of. cute and they do animate like fail states in that like you'll get punched if you miss the thing i was intentionally missing things just to see how it plays out i don't know that it makes a long-term impact how well you do at those moments i think it just makes might make you feel a little more engaged

but i you guys played the other but that is a very that is a super dupe and i i've always kind of felt this way basically all the way back to shenmu one of like that's not really yeah like it's it's the lightest lightest imaginable layer of interactivity and honestly this has been they hit you with a disproportionately

high I wanted to express to Russ because I know that he hasn't played quite as far like they hit you with a disproportionately high number of those in the first like 20 minutes

of this episode of the first episode there are way more Griffin tell me if I'm wrong but like there's a bunch of like putting on your suit and buckling this

and fighting this and like there's a lot more of those like quicker quick time things like it still pops up but it's it's a lot more rare so i i actually wouldn't know because i because i because i well i didn't and i and it almost it very rarely popped up okay that's good to know i think it is the fact that it does rarely pop up and like i have been really really enjoying playing watching playing this game while uh like eating and it is i don't want to be shaken out of my chill dispatch sesh because like

all of a sudden, a big A prompt appears on the screen. Are your, what happens in your, like, dialogue choices? Are they time still? Yeah, there's still time. Those are still time. The only other setting that there is is there's, like, a hacking mini game that you will do sometimes while you are dispatching, which you can do sort of in lieu of, like, taking a guess at whether or not your heroes are going to be up to this particular

challenge. You just do this hacking minigame. You can affect, like, you can, you know, choose an option of whether or not those have, like, fail states or or not. I like those. Yeah, those are fine. It could use a few more of those, I think. It could use a couple more engaging mini games like that, I think, to keep things.

But that's not the exact thing they're making, of course. Yeah, no, it's, it's, that stuff is light and it, I think it's by being light because truly, um, the, just the writing and acting is just really, really, really fucking great. really super good. Aaron Paul plays the main character and brings a level of... He's really turning into like one of the top tier, like voice talent wise.

Oh, he crushes it. He's got great, it's a great control for a character that isn't extremely ostentatious. He's like a lot more reserved and, but it's really interesting, like really accomplished nuance he's doing like with not a ton dynamically like from an emotional sense.

He was very good in Bojack as well. So he definitely has the rules. Jeffrey Wright is also in it. He's an incredible, too, right? There's also, like, a lot of casting. There's a lot of the critical role folks who are in here, which, like, obviously, like, they know what the fuck they're doing. Laura Bailey turns in a powerhouse, truly hysterical performance.

There's a running gag where her character can't think of, like, funny, cool catchphrases to say in the heat of battle that, like, lands every single time, like, every joke. But then there's also like some more a term we learned when we were vying to get in the Trolls 2 movie of stunt casting of like some streamers like a Jack Septic guy who plays punch up and I forget the guy's Charlie Moist Critical guy plays Sonar one of the characters like I feel like everyone is it like turns in a great performance and the writing is truly very very compelling. I keep coming back to it. And it's not just that it's like compelling cliffhangery good storytelling. It's like, I don't know. It's a story about a bunch of fuck-ups who are kind of nice to each, like eventually form a pretty sort of loving, misfit family. And that format has been beaten to death and done so many different times. And so I think it's like pretty remarkable how good a job it does telling that sort of

It is, as people who, like, as somebody who is very into, like, interactive cinematic storytelling and thinks about that a lot, because a lot of FMV games, I think, are in that territory. This, I feel like, is maybe the most successful in terms of interactive TV. Like, if you're talking about an interactive TV show, I can't tell you something that's worked better than this. And, like, the closest you get is, like, what's the quantum break? you know that that I think is like the closest I mean I can't think of anything else that's even in the in the neck of this neck of the woods but like

yeah uh by by hewing closer to TV and making it less like a video game I think they actually made it more successful or like quantum quantum break seemed to want to bring more game into it and I feel like that made the pacing just well it's also a budget issue like

the second you make it more like a video game suddenly you're making levels and fucking environments and characters and animations above. I mean, they're still doing animations. I mean, that's the secret sauce of dispatch, right? All the heavy action definitely is covered in like a map. Like the high octane action sequences

are usually like a circle moving around a map. Yeah, and even if they weren't, it's obviously much cheaper to do a lockdown animated scene than it is to like fully program a whole level. There are some great fight scenes. There's also, I think, a secret splinter cell inside of ad hoc, which is the studio that made Dispatch that is, from what I understand,

formed from a lot of former sort of telltale folks. There's someone in there who wants so badly to make a Mecca anime game. There's so many close-ups on fingers punching in fucking that cowboy bebop ass like launch sequins. Pushing a thruster forward. Yeah, it's so cool.

I'm fucking wild about this game. And it has, it is a revitalizing experience for me because it doesn't happen super often where I write a game off as completely being a genre I don't care about, about a genre of fiction I don't care about in a genre of game I don't care about and thinking like, well, this kind of looks like, you know, I don't really groove with like invincible or, you know, a lot of those kind of like edgy, funny, cool, nasty superhero. I thought, oh, it's just going to be like one of those. And it has truly surprised me and made me feel like, you know, I need to be more open-minded.

who's your favorite uh character god uh shit well yeah god is when he shows up i was like shit uh there's one character who is just kind of a um kind of a i don't know how to describe him water boy is a character yeah water boy that's my favorite too who is extremely nervous and wants so badly to be a superhero but is like so uh uh self-conscious and stumble through every single line of dialogue that he has and he is very good. There's also just great moments between like the more kind of like minor character members of the team. There's two named Prism and Malevola who have like a bunch of really great beats that kind of like Burton, Ernie, and it's a wonderful life, just kind of like talking after the main characters have left

the scene and just like delivering some great jokes. There's there's a lot of characters to love in this game. It actually makes for me the specialness. of the interactivity more because I feel like the things that I'm seeing feel special a little bit more special because it's like

I don't know what scene I would be getting otherwise but like this is my experience and it's good enough that that actually means something where like a lot of other games like oh who gives the fuck

I get my lizard man or a dinosaur man I don't know and even though the episodes are short there's eight of them like I still feel like it gives them enough room to like give them arcs

when you say short I mean 45 minutes is fairly short for I feel like a telltale episode It's very, yeah, that usually those are like an hour or two, or like two or three hours. What was the last tell-tale episodic game that we were comparing this to? I think I'm thinking of like Walking Dead season two.

Those were, those were beefy. Those were, those were, those, I remember those being, like, borderlands. I just, I want to be careful because what I, it is exactly the length of a television episode. Yeah. That's the length. It's not sure. I'm pushing back against short because, like, what they are doing, like, I feel like it is the exact right length for, for what I am over. I am comparing it to other games in the narrative adventure genre.

Or like if you have an episodic game, generally speaking, they're usually much longer than an hour. I think this length is perfect because it is exactly the sort of patience that you would have to absorb a narrative and feel like you get to an end point and you can stop at that moment or you can keep going, whatever you want to do, you want to binge it. Yeah. But you don't feel like whenever I was playing telltale games, I always felt halfway through an episode, I'd be like, I'm going to take a break. and it was never at a good point. It was just like, just because it went on too long. The dispatch part of the game actually is like a really helpful sort of pacing block where you will have like an intro scene.

I'll be like, this is what this episode's going to be about. Here's some bit with the characters. Now you're going to dispatch them. And there's going to be lots of dialogue and lots of stuff that is like going to build up to the events that will happen in the scenes after the dispatch part. Or maybe you'll do like one shift and it will go really shitty. And then you'll come back and fire up the troops and then go out for a second dispatch shift in the episode. It creates like a, I don't know, like an expectation to the pacing that I think is also just really, really, really smart and well designed. Yeah.

But you really got to meet it on its own terms. That's what I discovered because I blew it off at first because I'm playing games in 10-minute spurts. I don't have time for this. But if you sit down and engage with it, you know, clear an hour, I think it's really, really worth it. Or, I mean, genuinely, I don't think I would have gotten into the game if I didn't, I'm not watching anything right now that I'm like watching solo. And so I just, like, put it on my ROG Ally X and propped it up while I ate lunch one day and was like, oh, okay, if I turn off the QTEs, this is like actually kind of perfect. This is actually, I can knock one of these out a day. No problem.

Yeah. Cool. Okay. Should we eat? Yeah, let's take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the video game awards. Okay. We're going to be talking a little bit about the Big Jeff Game Awards that are happening next week.

But before. That's what they call them. Why they change the title? That's the name. That's the question on everybody's mind. Why did they change it to the Big Jeff Awards? You know, you'd have to ask Big Jeff. Only he knows.

The BGGAs? Before we get into that, though, we have some besties game of the year talk to discuss. Chris Plant, what's going on? We are finishing up our bracket. We have already chosen 12 games that will be in the bracket. What are they? Wouldn't you like to know? You'll be finding out soon enough,

but you have a chance to vote on four additional games. It will round out the 16 seed bracket. And if you're listening to this, right when the episode goes up, you can actually still cast a vote. Polls closed tonight, Friday, at 11.30 p.m. Pacific time. So you still have a little bit of time. But if you are already a subscriber to the newsletter or the Patreon, you already know all this. It's in your email inbox, which is all the more reason to subscribe to either of those. Right.

So the gist is we've picked the 12. you guys are going to vote on your top four and those top four will make it into the full 16 bracket when we do the game of the year and that'll give us enough time to play some of your picks if we haven't played the picks already that'll allow us to have some good discussion and see if it gets higher than we would have expected.

If you want to see games like Indiana Jones in the Great Circle or dispatch which we just discussed, you should go vote. You should go do that right now. Very important. It'd be a huge favor, actually. I've played a lot of dispatch at this point. If y'all could bump that one up, that would actually be huge.

Just from an ROI's time point, it would be a... Just from a, yeah, sunk cost fallacy sort of thing. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Okay. We did this last year, but I thought we'd just make some predictions on the game of the year. The Game Awards, specifically, the Game Awards picks. Okay, are you ready for this? Are you ready?

Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? Okay. Yeah, I'm ready. Claire Obscure, Expedition 33. I don't even care what the category is. I think it's just going to clean sweep.

I think it's just going to clean sweep basically whatever it's in. I think it's not going to win in hardly anything. I think people are just going to think, other people will vote for that. I want to rep my thing. It's so domineering, you know what I mean? I want to vote for a little bit indie, you know. That's the only... Split fiction.

It's coming, baby. It's coming. God. Is there a specific genre that you think you guys wanted to tackle? Fighting game. You want to tackle fighting games? Okay. So there are a lot of good fighting games here.

Most of them came out 30 years ago, but that's okay. Virtual Fighter 5. Mortal Kombat. I was kidding. Dude, I don't know fucking in it. Dude. Dude. Dude.

Come on. I wanted to talk about my announcement. predictions officially later? Your announcement predictions, not even the awards? All right, no,

do you guys want to talk about we're going to talk about awardations first? Okay. I mean, we honestly could just skip right to it because I'm not joking

when I say I think we would go through almost every single thing and it would be clear obscure expedition 33. I think... What makes you feel that confident? What makes you feel...

And to be clear, this is not our game of the year selection. No, this is just we're just game theorying what the It has everything it could possibly need. It's a narrative game,

and narrative games slash role playing games tend to win. It has the quote, indie bump. Indy is a funny term there, but right, you feel good voting for it. It has, I believe, the highest metacritic score of anything there, and it has originality. So, you know, it's not going to go up like Hades to,

ghost of Yote, Destranging 2, even split fiction. It has all the pieces of what you would expect from a winner in the Game of the Year awards. To me, it feels like it is up against one other series contender, and that's Silk Tongue. For Goody?

For Indie Game of the Year? It's best debut. It's nominated for Best debut indie game, and it feels like such a wild, and also Best Independent Game. And it's up against Blueprints in both of those categories. That feels like a tough put for old Blueprints. Safe for Dispatch.

Dispatch is in there with Best debut indie game, too. What a wild... Blueprints basically can't win also, to be super clear. It would be next to impossible for it to win because the voting body is international and Blueprints is a strictly English game. Oh, is it? The numbers don't work for it.

Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, I don't know. I could see Silk Song taking it, but I do agree if it doesn't take it. Claire Obscure is going to take it. The other thing I would keep in mind is there is a, as with the Oscars, there's the game direction category and then the game of the year category. So you could see people splitting that vote where it's like, I'm going to vote for Claire Obscure for Game Direction and Game of Year for Silk Song or vice versa, whatever it is. Don't you think, Silkson's not up for best game direction. Death Strainning 2 is, I feel like that's maybe the, spoiler for that that could be clear obscure expedition 33 in that particular category so if it doesn't if it's not a triumph of like game direction and like figuring out how to make that whole thing work I don't know what it is so yeah I don't think it's nominated for like best performance anywhere in there is Rita did Rita get a bump nope I I mean I completely agree especially like if we were doing

like what do we actually think should win from these I would definitely say death straining, too. But again, I think it's death stranding is too divisive of a game. Like, there are just a contingent to people who just do not like those games, who do not like Kejima games, and it doesn't have the big emotional pull that

the ending of Clear Obscure does. And I think it's kind of the problem that we see with, like, the Academy Awards, too, where, like, people aren't actually judging to the category. They're judging to, like, their emotional feeling in connection with the game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, I think

I think you're on to something, Chris, because I'm looking at all these categories, and it's like, best score and music, like there's a lot of really good stuff in there. Darren Poor, Pady's 2. Christopher Larkin, a holiday song, yeah, for sure, for sure.

But also, like, hip, blah, blah, blah, like it's going to feel like Claire McKear is going to get in there and get nasty on it, too. That's another one where I wish Destranding 2 had it. I mean, maybe...

Destring 2 is nominated for best music. Yeah, it could get it. Best performance, best performance is interesting because Erica Ishii is in there, for sure, for sure. Troy Baker in there for Indiana Jones in the Great Circle. Yes, absolutely. There's no way he remembers doing that.

It does not. No way. There you said they told me that I did this with this Indiana Jones game. I'm happy to be here. Am I Batman? No, not this. Not this one. Then there's Ben Star, Charlie Cox, and Jennifer English.

All Claire Obscure Expedition 33. Half of the nominees, there's no dispatcher. I think dispatch came very late, and I think the fan support happened before the critical support. Yeah, yeah, that's a fair point, and that's just what happened. I mean, it has presence in independent game, I believe, and, like, fan-dose. If there's a split, this is where I feel like it could be, and y'all, it's almost certain that Indiana Jones is going to get in through that listener poll. So I started going back and playing that game. I think it was incredible.

It's fun. It's super fun. I forgot how bonkers good that game is, and his performance is nuts. It's not just his impersonation. It's just a great performance. It's a really good job. I do want to call out one interesting thing

that I don't know what has ever happened before. Someone can correct me at the comments if it has. Somebody pulled out of a nomination. They said, I do not want this nomination. And that is the developer of Megabonk, who basically said, look, I've made games under different studio names and different type i've worked on other titles so this is not really my debut game even though it's the

first game i'm making as this studio name so don't vote for me the mystery mystery is a foot kind of who is the megabonk developer i mean if i didn't realize the megabonk developer was operating under a certain veil of secrecy and maybe they don't want to walk onto a stage to be congratulated i adore Megabonk, also. It is up against in that category, clear, obscure, Expedition 33, and what was the other big debut? Oh, Blueprints.

I also say you don't need to show up. Like, it's not like local thunk showed up for the Blotro nod. So, like... I did, didn't he? He dressed up like a clown? He did dressed up like a clown. Was he? He was there? Someone dressed up as a clown to accept an award for Bellotro. Maybe that was that, like,

a GDC award now. It couldn't. No, no, it was the, like, the spokesperson. Listen, I think it's so inspirational that within the span of a decade, we have gone from women with award winners painted on their bodies to someone withdrawing from consideration to preserve the sanctity of the game awards. It's proud tradition of the best. I am no debut. So I cannot take this from another deserving Vigy recipient. This is what Big Jeff has been working for, and he's here. He made it.

It's happening. I listen, I'm kidding on this. Square a big, Jeff. You know how proud the J-Man is of you personally. I tell you in all our texts. I hope that we do still get like a beleaguered Samuel L. Jackson on stage handing out the Viggy to fucking, fucking Umamu Sume pretty derby for best mobile game. That's a dream. There's time to call it the Viggy, Jeff.

You don't have to get us, you don't have to mention us even, but you could get this year start calling it the Vigy. I think that it's time It's time Best adaptation threw me for a loop Because did you guys know They did a splinter cell cartoon With Liam Schreiber

Is Sam? I didn't know about that The voice of hard knocks Okay like Hey guys If us didn't know About the splinter cell cartoon on Netflix Starring Leo Schrever

That came out in October Who did? Who knew about it? How did these people know about it to nominate it? I don't know I don't know Let me just check

Make sure, no, none of us are still, none of us are content creator of the year. Not yet. That's fine. I actually was, and then I pulled out. You pulled out, made room for the burnt peanut. I get it. Do we want to guess some announcements?

Yeah, Justin, you have some bold. I don't have, like, I don't have guesses, but I have some things that I pulled up, mainly based on when they, their previous appearances in the VGAs and their relative quiet since then, right? My rationale here being that announced the VGAs haven't heard anything for a while, maybe we hear something. And you guys follow a more closely, so I want to see what you think.

First of all, what about a Max Payne remake trailer? Seems like a good thing for that. We know there's a remake coming. Yeah, and that studio remedy has done actually a lot of stuff at Game Awards, so that wouldn't surprise me. What if Prince of Persia's a Time remake is there? What do you think about that? Almost certainly will be. I would put like 95% bet on.

that happening. You should keep in mind the likelihood that Ubisoft won't exist as accompanied by next week, so that's the other consideration. I would say that we will see that, and we will see Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake there. I would not be surprised if Ubisoft pulls Bethesda when

they are trying to confirm their sale and just announced everything. Do you all remember this before Xbox acquired Bethesda? And they were like, here's X 20 years of games. Ubisoft's just going to start. saying whatever they're working on. What about a blade trailer?

What about a mention of blade? Oh, I forgot Blade was being made. I would like to see that, yeah. I know, all right. It was Arcane was working on a Blade game. They were confirmed to be working on it as recently as last year, so I don't know. The only reason I think we might not see that

is Wolverine is so close that if they're going to show anything, they might want to show Wolverine, but possibly. I think we'll see what played in Wolverine are both. That's an insomniac is making Wolverine.

Right, but they're Marvel games, bud. It's Disney is the one who controls the game. And everything. This is, what would you guys think about this? Probably some Elder Scrolls online bullshit. Yeah. That sounds right. Do you think that all have?

I have a genuine question. I forgot to add the second part that I am excited about. until I see the elder skulls online those things get me every fucking year

Big Jeff you gotta stop teasing like that buddy they'll be like in a world beyond compare demons and dragons

fight for supremacy I'm like hell yeah they'll always say Cyradel they'll say Cerrodo the world of seredale

yeah return return to the forgotten yeah let's go really an aisle yeah baby coming this month the 17th era

begins like oh fuck it's an elder scrolls on lie, bullshit. Never mind. Change the channel, kids. I want to mention, so I don't think historically there's really ever been major Nintendo announcements during the TGA's, but

it does seem like we might get a Duskblood's trailer. If anybody else says VGAs from now on, I'm going to kill you. It's Viggies, please. We're not going to get it going to selling. The Big Jeff Viggies. It does seem like we might get a Duskblood's trailer given that that's a switch to exclusive and like a big...

And there's always some Chromesoft there, right? They've already announced. They haven't really shown gameplay, really. So that's, and, and my, yeah, my other big bet, I think we'll see a lot of Sega stuff. They've been showing up more and more in these things. They've got a few properties they could, like, delve into a little bit. Sega's got their crazy taxi thing and jetset radio thing. Yeah, they made that announcement.

We're like, we're bringing back everything. We're bringing back Goldenax. We're bringing back Crazy Taxi, Jetset Radio. There is a rollerblade skate shop in downtown Santa Ana that now. has what looks like all this licensed jet set radio future stuff all over it like they've like liveryed the entire outside of the store and the anniversary is coming up it just feels like something is on the way there um and then sonic has 35th anniversary and hasn't had a mainline game in a bit so i feel like there's a sonic announcement likely i think they'll show persona new persona

for uh i forget jesus christ what was the new subtitle of the i should know this since it's like my favorite game of revival. More golden? That's right. Yes, persona four, more golden revival. I'd love to see that again, especially since they didn't show basically fuck all when they announced it at the Xbox game showcase back in June. Yeah, that would be nice. That would be nice.

Yeah. The only other last thing that I would expect is that new Jurassic Park, like, Survivor game. Like, it might actually be called that survival. Yeah, it's like a Dino Crisis Jurassic Park thing. Yeah, anything that ties into movies. I feel like is Game Award spotter because they're like, we're already in L.A. Let's get the celebrities out.

Do all that stuff. Is there any fable stuff maybe? Ooh, that'd be nice. What is the other game that rare, the like open world? Oh, I got canceled. Jesus Christ. Not perfect dark.

Which also came out. No, it was like a fantasy. Ever, ever wild. Ever, yes, ever wild. Is that something? Oh, no, it was canceled. Yeah. Remind. Bye, everybody.

Everything, yeah. Yeah. And then Viva Penaata. Viva Penaata coming back in a big way, definitely. Shit, everyone out of damn, cancel. That's a bummer. Did they feel pain? The Piaitas?

Yeah. Oh. They screamed when you hit them. That's awful. I... Viva! They stay with screaming. I want to hit you guys with a prediction that is way out of left field.

But you tell me what you think. Because it just feel... This one, I feel in my bones. Please. And when I wrote it, I just... I just wrote in this document, Fortnite movie. Wow.

When I say it, there's some part of you it's like, I think Big Jeff just got a chill on his spine. He's like, how did he know? Say it again so I can receive it. Fortnite movie.

Yeah, Elimination Studios and Epic partner. Fortnite movie. They just did this kill bill thing. And they just did a big event where they basically like reenacted the scene from Player 1, but with all their fucking franchises

where King Kong, Godzilla, and Marty McFly were, like, punching a giant monster in the face. Right. So I feel like, I just, guys, it just, the, the Simpsons thing and that, like, the scope of it is getting bigger, and I feel like it is at a point where

the property, there isn't a big enough property for Fortnite to consume it. You know what I mean? Like, it almost has to be, it has to be the meta property itself. And it feels like there's a Lego movie opportunity that's just kind of been like sitting there if you nail the tone

but like I don't know it just feels like the Game Awards Fortnite movie I have one very dumb reason that I don't think it will happen at least not right away is I think Epic is proud

enough or stupid enough that they would demand it be made in Unreal Engine Oh I think like I don't think they would yeah I think that they would be like We're not going to partner with any other studio unless they're making the game in Unreal. It's all going to be Machinima.

Well, yeah, and like, they can, the players. I mean, the Unreal Engine theoretically would be capable of doing a fully-endom. It could, but would you would have to get some partners who are not illumination, right? Like, you're going to have to work on people who are going to be like, no, we're going to use our tools. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In my mind, that would look like Final Fantasy of the Spirits Within, and maybe that's unfair that I'm, that I would make that comparison. Because that looks so good? Because it looked so good

That's exactly They also exported at 720P It's going to be great It looks so good on my iPhone Can we do our It's going to be a big show Yeah Let me just do two quick reader mails

And then we'll dive into honorable mentions First one This comes from Nick I'm on my hands and knees Begging the Besties crew to try out Straftat Which I think is a game we played on Rusty A very cool game.

It might be my game of the year solely based on the fun per minute metric. This might be my tower fall. I think about it every other day. I recommend playing the tutorial, which is fine, and then just getting in a lobby together for an hour with all the maps you're on rotation. Straftap, in case you're not aware,

is a 1v1 FPS multiplayer game where they just toss you maps like fucking crazy. Like each match less is about 12 seconds. No, I'm watching a trailer. I mean, it doesn't look like my... jam, but it looks like something that I wish was my jam. It looks like, you know,

a Counterstrike or something intense sort of... Genuinely, I think you'd enjoy it way more than you think, because it looks like Counterstrike but plays like random Mario Party golden eye. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Next time you're in the same room with someone with a steam deck, I think it's... Is it free? Yeah. Or very inexpensive?

Yes, I believe it is. Download it and play it with someone in the same room. I think it'd be a fucking blast. So, Strafthead is very... very good, strongly recommend it. The other thing I wanted to mention is from Nick. This is regarding Kirby Airwriters, which you talked about last week. I'm surprised to hear that they, meaning Griffin, plant and I, like the racing more in Kirby Airwriters. I'm under 30, and Airwriters Air Ride, I guess,

was always a friend's house classic. I never owned it, but it was a sleepover classic. And all my friends love playing the battle mode much more than the racing. I don't think I've ever played the racing mode, but I think the battle mode was a kid's favorite. I think that's probably true in the context of same room, same system multiplayer, probably a lot of fucking fun, which I think none of us did for what it's worth. Yeah, I mean, from what I understand, it was the city, shit, was it city trials that was like the crazy party mode that everybody was wild about. And I do think that it is designed for a local sort of couch, but with the magic of game

chat, you can recreate that experience so seamlessly with the Nintendo Switch 2 camera. You plug it in, and it follows your face in a special dot. Okay, we can dive into our honorable mentions. Justin, I want to hear about your rise to fame, your celebrity status that you've hit in a game called Sectory. Yeah, more people need to play Sectory because I should not be in the leaderboard of any game on the world. I mean, like the number 19 on one of the modes is what Russ is referring to. I don't know which, I don't remember which one, but I barely. Classic mode, he's number 19.

I'm number 19 on classic mode. You guys, it's the guy, everybody's got to play more sectory. I think it's so fucking good. It's so good. It makes you feel good when you play it. And I need, and there is a thing about sectory, and I'm, I don't know, the meta game of it, the scoring of it, it's not like any shooter like this I've ever played, because understanding how to score better

is like a puzzle in and of itself that you have to salt. Like it doesn't lay out a lot of stuff for you. So understanding, it's, think of a geometry wars, but like in geometry wars, a lot of the strategy was pretty basic. Like once you got the basic idea, it was just reflexes, right?

And, yeah, stay alive. Just stay alive. Like, and I love that. It's awesome. This definitely has that in spades, but each mode has different meta considerations in terms of like what powerups do you have that are helping you with this situation or like how do these score bonuses like overlap together if you wait to get this thing will this thing work better and trigger more and it is almost like a it's not to the level of like a balatro or something like that but there's a this uh things click where you're like oh i've been spinning my wheels because this and this these two things need to be interconnected. So that understanding is building while you're building the reflexes, and that's very satisfying. Yeah.

They're almost all kind of predicated on like a push, pull, risk reward type thing. Like the mode I love, and it was the same in Geometry Wars. It's called Gates, and that's the one where you can't shoot. You just fly through gates that spawn in, that explode, and you kill enemies with it. But the way to score high in that one is to get a combo going, which will persist for a few seconds after you get a kill. So the idea is you want to wait and not fly through any of the games. gates and let a big fucking crowd of monsters chase you around and then at the very last second when you can't possibly have any more room to wiggle around you just go through the gate and you're just

nut and you blast and you blasts you get there's a um you can get this power up that is tough to get there's a power up that is cycling through letters and it's spelling a word almost like a pinball table and you have to fly through that power up several times to spell out the word but when you spell out the word, you enter this rainbow mode that is the most satisfying thing. It reminds me a peggle back in the day when Peggill would really hit. When this thing hits rainbow mode, oh, baby. It is a, oh, it's literally called rainbow mode. It's not even, it's literally called it.

You're so stressed out, especially in campaign mode when you're playing it and you're like, no shields, fucking white knuckle, God almighty, I can't keep up. And then you hit rainbow mode. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. And it looks incredible. Yeah, please play Sectori. The game has not hit a huge mass audience. Please be on the front lines of this fucking fantastic game.

It's truly... There's a couple games that we're going to be talking about and the Goody Considerations that are going to be kind of wild spoilers because they do everything so right. Like they obviously don't do the most incredible, ambitious, new, groundbreaking thing. But like, everything Sectory does, it fucking crushes and nails and it gets its hooks right deep down in your brain and I think could do pretty pretty pretty well actually you even play anything else juice no dispatch that you know I have been playing a lot of stuff

but it's all contextual for for gody it's like I went back to like I will say that just for like context wise I was going to play a lot more death stranding too playing a lot more sectory playing a lot more um fortnight because that new event started and fortnight could be game of the year any year you know you think about it four-night movie might be the game of the year next year i've returned to uh donkey con bananza i'm glad i've done that because it's been it's been a different experience playing through it solo without uh you know a child with a rocket launcher sort yeah it's an actual game it's an actual real game at that yeah it's very it's it's extremely polished and good um have you guys watched stranger things yet the new season i'm thank

good somebody's getting the word out I think it's an interesting show. You know what, Grimmons? These poor 34-year-olds. And my gushers for who's going to tell me about the new season of Stranger Things. It's just, obviously, I'm not here to market Stranger Things because it continues to be like, in some ways, just really kind of bad television that I am fully willing to cut the most slack I'm willing. to cut any piece of media ever because I am so like just fucking like I'm down like I'm down yeah these characters are going to say things that sound patently insane to be coming out of their

now like old adult mouths but like I don't know I find myself so I don't know I'm just in I'm down for whatever they want to throw even if it's the same kind of bits over and over again I'm in a weird spot because I watched the first three seasons and then haven't seen the latest two. And when I say latest, I mean, some of that stuff came out like four or five years ago. The last season was great. I think the last season with Vecna was was fantastic. It's just going to be very weird for me because if I watched them sequentially, there's going to be immediate aging from one episode to another. Dude, yeah, you'll finish the season finale of season four and then start season five and be like, holy shit, is there a plot line where they all fell into the time hole?

Vecna summoned the time hole. Yeah, no. And that is, I think, a great deal of the weirdness genuinely is that it's fine. It's fine. There's an inherent kind of detachment it feels like maybe from considering it's been like, I think, in the fiction of the show, like a couple weeks since the ending of season four. I don't know that they are bringing the urgency. But I I think overall it's good. The other thing I really wanted to talk about that I've been playing constantly. I'm very excited to hear about this.

Is the Castle Crashers, Painter Boss Paradise, DLC that came out earlier this year. Okay, this makes so much, I saw this pop up on Steam for you. And I was like, Griffin, what is happening? Yes, we talked about it. So Castle Crashers is actually one

that Henry and I had played before. It was a little too, he didn't like when you save a princess at the end of one of the levels and they like make out. He saw that for the first time. I was like, I'm done. But then we played, you know, Scott Pilgrim, the TM&T beat him up, Absalom, like we got real, real into.

And so came back to it and was like, hey, have you heard this DLC? And I remembered we had talked about it on the show. Painter Boss Paradise adds, first of all, like the remastered kind of sheen of, you know, new art and stuff to the game. It looks great. But the big thing it does is it lets you customize characters and download customized characters from the Steam Workshop. And the way that you customize characters is that it generates a little, like, spright sheet where it shows you each different, like, part. Here's what the head looks like facing forwards and to the sides and then to the side a little bit more. And it shows you, like, a little outline.

And you can go through and export it to the drawing app of your choice, do that, re-upload the PNG, and it looks really fucking good. So we've been making characters, we've been downloading. Griffin, are you in Castle Crashers right now? Like my character? Yeah, you yourself. I've not made myself in Castle Crashers, no. Henry made a character called the bankist Who is just a very wealthy man

With a big top hat But like it's really It's genuinely It has really given the game a shot in the arm And we've been playing a lot of it We're now playing through insane mode together Which is probably too punishing To be enjoyable

But big, big ups to the beheem For releasing DLC for this I think 17 year old video games That is truly pretty ambitious I mean, they're due for a game announcement, right? They're going to put out something soon. Yeah, man. I mean, Castle Crashers, too, would blow up.

Well, they put out that Alien Hominated game and, yeah. That was pre-Castle Crashes. I think in the vein of what Justin was saying regarding Game of the Year consideration, I started playing Root Trees are Dead, which, yes, it's very fucking good. I really, really like it. I think I might be too dumb or ADD for it. I'm literally ADD. That's not even a neg. I take medication and everything.

So I'm trying. I think it's incredibly cool, but I am also like, oh, my God, I'm getting so overwhelmed by all the options and, like, things that I could chase down. But I, just execution-wise, they've really fucking crushed it. Like, it's really incredible. And has me- I would encourage you to make use of the hint system. I think the way that they do hints is actually pretty good.

Okay. It's very light, very light touch, very like, you may have noticed in this thing that this mention that. Is there anywhere you could look to see if there is a... It doesn't say like, this guy's, this guy's son. It's pretty... That's good to know. As you know, hints are anathema to me. But if they're in game, I feel less bad about it. So... No, it's... I had to make use of it, especially for the bonus chapter of the game, which is so crazy. It's such conceptually so cool. Obviously, it's an evolution of the things we saw in Oberden, but just really well done. To remake the internet, to make a small

internet, I'm always fucking down. with a game that tries to do that. So cool. To make an internet. Play it? You have anything? Yeah. I've been playing a routine.

How was that? You all hear about this game? Got announced like a million years ago? Pretty good. Looks pretty spooky. Looks pretty scary. So the way routine works, it's basically, uh,

imagine you're set in a Ridley Scott alien, the Alien One type of space situation. And you are being hunted at least at first by a, giant towering robot. It is one of those horror games where you cannot kill the bad guy that is chasing you, you can just hope to avoid them or stun

them for long enough. That's just because you're bad at games, though. Like, I would be able to... For sure. I mean, probably. I mean, you know, even without guides, no less. But yeah, it's really good. It is really good

in that I wish it had come out all those years ago, because It was so, this concept felt really fresh and ahead of its time. It had the misfortune of actually being announced before that alien game. Oh, yeah. The literal alien game that did this thing. Yeah. And then like the many, many other horror games that have done versions of this thing.

That said, it has some art direction choices that are just absolutely killer. Because it is going for this pseudo, early digital. analog world, when you want to say, for example, it will project a screen, like a really shitty projector, project like onto a wall. So it's not just like a screen. It's just a random projection on the wall, which looks amazing using all of the modern graphical whiz bangs that you can actually use with Unreal Engine 5 now. It, yeah, it's doing a lot with a little. That said, I don't know if we'll do like a full episode on it. Not because it's not great, but just because, I don't know, is anybody here like that sort of game person? Does

anybody love those sort of hard? Oh, no. I find them horrifying and debilitating. Yeah. Very, very rarely, like, I have to be in a mood and I don't know that I am right now. Yeah. So I'm, I'm glad that I gave it a shot. I doubt I will be finishing it just because I similarly do not have the stomach. It's not this, I find them scary. It's that I don't like doing puzzles while I'm also just having to evade a thing. Like I don't, my brain doesn't personally enjoy that. But if your brain does, you should go check it out because it looks, it's absolutely beautiful look at. Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. Um, thank you, uh, to our patrons over at patreon.com slash the besties. We have a new bracket that is live right now. You can

listen to that and enjoy it for all your pleasure. Actually, here's a clip. The fact that the first thing most people did was made penises or peenai, I think gets... Hard not to. And gets to your point of it's a bit more of like a user-generated game than it is like a character creation tool. Because the time to peenai is like associated with an entire different genre of character or of creation. Well, except for Conan Exiles, which has a time to pee and I of zero milliseconds. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

I forgot. The hardest edit I've ever had to do in my entire life. Interesting. Oh, man, Griff, let's remake. Never, ever, ever. No, no, no. Is it unrated? Put it on the paywall.

Just put it on the paywall. Yeah, sure. That said, that said, the tools that Spore gives you are pretty fucking phenomenal. Lovely. Such good stuff that we did. I'm so proud of us. I want to thank a few new members to the Patreon. We have Daniel S. We have Jeffrey A. We have Larr. And we have Kaylee N. Thank you for being members. Thank you to everyone else for being members. We really greatly appreciate you. What are we doing next week? Wow, it's a big week. Next week, we have Metroid Prime 4. It's actually real. Speaking of games that have been in development for basically ever, we will actually be able to

finally play the new Metroid Prime game and you'll hear about that next week. Also, breaking news, Amber Nick has just announced the 477M. So can you guys tell me? What can you guys tell me about that device? Go. 4.7 inch screen

metal exterior. Seventh generation No, sorry. They've just announced the 477V. Oh, it's a vertical orientation. Yeah, dude. No way. the 477M but with a vertical orientation

dude Justin I think you need to end the show because really I can't even handle. The Dimensity 8300, Russell. It's the same one as the RG 477M. That's going to do it for some of the besties. Be sure that's getting next week for the besties

because shouldn't the world's best friends take the world's best games? Besties.