The Besties - Mafia Is One of the Strangest, Messiest AAA Games Ever Released

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

Mafia: The Old Country is one of the most visually extravagant AAA video games we’ve ever played. And yet, there’s very little game to be found in this strange, disjointed, but decadent tale of organized crime in early 20th-century Sicily. Why has the Mafia series struggled for decades to deliver on its ambitions? And how did this get made?The Besties unpack their complicated feelings after a week with this oddity. And because we always like to provide something fresh for you to try, we share a few new, enjoyable games. 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!

um i'm about to begin the count one two three four five six i mean that was worse wow it's worse yeah yeah fuck so when you say it works great on other platforms what other platforms are you referring to specifically it doesn't matter i'll i'll have to figure this out later yeah i don't i think like long-term what a solve it is well what's weird is like again long-term, you were, we more or less had addressed it, and then you switched to the desktop and it was borked, and then you switched back to the left. I want to try one other thing. Let me try seeing, like, if it literally runs any different, if I run it through a different,

like if I'm get off Chrome. I mean, is this just like a technological impossibility? No, because we've had it working. So there's like a variable here that we're not accounting for. that I don't fully some sort of plug-in or something. Me too all the white. Put on it.

You know what, Russ? It's not working on Safari. It's like just literally not giving audio. There's a process that's going on in your computer. That's slowing it down. Yeah. I'm going to do a restart and let's see what that does. I think we should go back to before you do that.

Okay Fucking kill me Can I say something Russ? Yeah It's a shame because this is I guess we're just Recurring the backup here

But this is it At least Russ At least This is still more fun Than all you Oh that is That's a good cold up We can do that

My name is Justin McRoy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Ross Frasic. I know the best game of the week. And this week here on the besties, we have decided to sort of convert it into less of a club and more of family. A La Familia. Well, when you're here, you're Lafamilia. And where is here? It's Mafia, the Old Country.

Chris Plant, what's that? Mafia, the old country, is the latest entry in the long-running but long-troubled series Mafia. People often think it's going to be like Grand Theft Auto, and people are often mistaken. This time, the trend continues, baby, and I can't wait to chat about it. Yeah, though, we'll talk about that. And we'll take a trip to the old country right after this. You know, Chris, in the, in the intro there, you described Mafia as a long troubled franchise. And that's kind of an interesting point because, like, they've been, what is this, the fourth one at this point?

They must do okay, right? We could fill. This is, I think Strauss-Zell-Nich-loves the mafia guys. That's literally my operating theory. that he owes a debt to a certain somebody who helped him get there who maybe likes to take a video I think it seems so obvious

that it should work imagine you are the people who controlled the Grand Theft Auto series and then you say why don't we make a mafia version of that that seems like a great idea and it's like you take that to the board and they're like yes and you take that to the game designers

and then they're like, yes. And then you finally bring it to the audience, and they're like, maybe not. Maybe it didn't work. But there are... They're all... Okay. Should we go back to the beginning?

Take us back in time. Let's go back to the beginning. Because I've talked a little bit about Mafia in the past, and I actually have a lot of fondness for the original Mafia game that came out in fucking 2000, whatever it was. You're right. It came out around the same time as the, like, the GTAs were starting to rise up. But it was a very different thing.

insofar as despite taking place in an old-timey open-world setting, you really had no choice. Like, every mission sort of led from one to the next to the next to the next, as it kind of guided you through this kind of classic mafia story. At the time that it came out, it was, in my opinion, very ambitious from a narrative standpoint when compared to other games in the world at that time. Like, it was telling a mature, interesting, if a little bit tropey,

Mafia story. I am having played the newest one, not sure that it has changed one fucking Iota in the 25 years or however long it's been since that first game game. So this is what's weird, and we'll fill in the space in between there, is they did get a little bit further away from that with each entry. Mafia 2 goes a little bit more into like, oh, we're an action game. It's still kind of levels are little closets that you find inside of the open world. You know, you drive around and then you like enter a level and you play and then you come back out. And then Mafia 3 really felt like- Maroni's hardware.

They say that it's eight stories tall and some of the walls of cardboard and another's a glass and rebar. Yeah, and I know it looks like it's a two-story. No. You walk inside chest after chest after chest after chest. The floor is littered with some machine guns. The place is incredible. Justin, your voice of repentance is crushing. it right now. You're doing okay.

Nailing it. Mafia 3 was a little bit more of an open world but the problem was when it went more open world it did draw more Grand Theft Auto comparisons of which it could not match up to so then yeah so we get

this game which is one of the weirdest AAA experiences of recent memory. It looks on pure surface level like Grand Theft Auto Quality

new AAA video game quadruple a video game. I can't think of the last I play a lot of AAA video games and it takes a lot for me to be like whoa

and I was playing this game and I was thinking whoa it's stunning it's like you have imagine imagine if you had a magical horse

that could take you inside a wine bottle label that's what this game is imagine imagine imagine imagine being whisked away

inside the label. That's where this game could take you. Let me, I'll set up the setting, and then we can talk about how beautiful it is. It is set. Imagine this, perfect. Sicily, early 1900s. You play as Enzo, who is an indentured servant, you're working in a soul for mine,

extremely dangerous conditions, and one day you say, enough is enough. Wait, let me just say, you know what's a great way to start your game in a completely gorgeous environment? In a fucking cave for an hour. No, I disagree. Okay, I disagree. Okay, I disagree because I do think that from Inzo's perspective, having that background

is actually important because I do think you appreciate the outer world a little bit once you get out of the mind. Okay, I would have more appreciated a text slide. I'll give them that boring part, okay? Let's put a pin on Enzo's perspective because we're going to spend a lot of time there. It's their person. What is there to talk about? He pushes back.

He says no. and enough is enough and he slices somebody and then the mafia is like now that's our people you should come stay with us in this gorgeous mafia estate. It's a good setup I was actually pretty excited about

the setup. A solid setup. You basically escape one family as an enslaved minor and then you are rescued practically by a competing family that takes you under their wing like if you want to talk about like loyalty and motivation and like a real like entry point into the world like I think I was really excited by the setup I thought was really excited the writing is so clever because then you go to this estate right and what's the first thing they do they put you right back to work you're you're moving potatoes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth I mean I would pick potatoes over the mind quite honestly like that is an upgrade they basically say that like you like this better it's like well the controls are similar but the animations are

A little more predictable. The problem is, very true. If I were either of those things. I, myself, am the person playing video games. And I myself am three hours in and still doing fucking chores. It is crazy. You go from literally working in a mind doing chores, not having fun, to going to a beautiful estate, doing chores, not having fun. Two, going to a beautiful festival party, and guess what you're going to do there?

More chores, no more fun. Don't say, don't think that he means chores like video game quests. Yeah, yeah, not like family. No. He means literal fucking earn your allowance chores that your mom told you. Please slowly carry this box of wine. To every house in the neighborhood. There's a scene.

There's a scene. Okay, there's a, there's a scene where I carry this fucking box of wine so long. and then this dude gets hassled by so local tufts. And in defense of this lady who he has a crush on, he like throws the wine at him. And I out loud was like, no, because I had worked for so long to keep that stupid ass box of wine hauled through this stupid village

that I was more invested in not breaking this dumb wine than the fight I was about to get to have. Okay, so let me take a step. Before we get too deep into the game, I want to go back to the mine. And really, no, I think it's important. I think it's important. Because it's not the first time we've seen a relatively large budget game start in a dingy, dusty, unfun mine.

Yes. Most recently, Starfield started the game almost identically. Tutorial mine. I know, it's well, it's well mine. Technically, Donkey Kong Bonanza also started to mine a bit more fun than this one. What if this, what if in this game the dude walks up to a wall? He's like, dang it, I'm so mad. a wall and it like made a huge hole and he's like what guys get over here bring me more to those nannas

yeah i know they're freaky i'm not gonna eat them i just let me hold them i guess i just don't understand if you're putting your heart and soul into a thing and i maybe if it's a movie or something i kind of get it but if you're putting your heart and soul into a video game why you wouldn't start people off with like a bit of razzle-dazzle i i agree with hoops that that that well i agree with both of you. Starting up in the place of the suck and then working your way to the reveal of magic is a cool experience.

The problem is, two parts. One, the suck should be quite short because you get that it sucks within 10 minutes. Yes. And two, then there actually should be magic on the other end. And the real thing that both of these games have in common is the lack of magic on the other

end. Remember, you got out of the mind in Starfield and it was like, oh, there's still no beauty. There's still no awe. It's just kind of a mine planet. But get out of the, get out of tutorial mine in Oblivion, and it's like there's a bunch of skeletons around. Go do whatever you want. You know, there's a knife. Go kill somebody.

To your point, Crush, you can do both, which is the Zelda games, where they start you in a place where you are stunned, and then they take you to a place where you are more stunned. Yeah, or even like Avatar, that avatar game that I didn't particularly like, I thought did this better or you're in that prison and then you go out to Pandora and it's like beautiful and crazy. I just like, I was watching this and I was like, I could have saved this team $6 million by just making a text scroll and being at the house. Well, okay. So, but it's, but okay, I understand

what you're saying. I know what you were right. But it could of course corrected this at any point after that also. Like, sure. I know. I agree with you. I cannot over. And, and y'all, the reason I said that about Strauss-Zalnik loving the mafia is, to me, there feels like a level of, that was a joke, but it feels like there's a level of inoculation between whoever

developed this game and whatever market pressures are like dictating the success in games right now, because it does not, it feels so obviously out of step with literally like everything right now, and it

is so obviously, and it is such an infringement on the player's patience that like I feel like someone at some high level learn the wrong lessons from Red Dead and they said well that was books level boring we could get away with that and it just like doubled down I think it's the opposite I think this to me feels like someone was so engaged in telling this story this narrative in the way they wanted to tell it and and the publisher was like i mean this is so consistent with every other mafia game the way this is structurally told and how the interactivity is that i don't think this is publisher interaction i think this is what the developer wanted to make but it's like why were they

allowed it's confusing i'm going to put on my i don't mean that and i mean this is pure speculation conspiracy theory and i generally try not to do it but this game is so unusual trying to make an exception here. This to me feels like it was meant to be a very big game and they didn't actually know how to make the gameplay and then they salvaged everything else and put it in a box and sold it. Like there is, we haven't talked about the game because there are stealth action third person missions that are unacceptably bad. It is, it. And, And they're so wide. It's PS2 level like, like we're just figuring it out kind of stuff.

Like really, in a way where like the environment is so deeply, like, so richly rendered that it makes the behavior of these enemies seem, I mean, it's baffling. I mean, you'll see five guys just walking shoulder to shoulder with the same animation and you shoot one with a shotgun and his wrist flips and the other three. I mean, it's baffling and it's so discordant with the aesthetic detail. To get it just how off this is, the hats are historically accurate. There are lifelike dead animals in the kitchen. You have the sweeping countryside. Every little detail, the performance capture, the voice work, the writing, it's all there. And then you get to the game.

And it's just not, like the experience that I think kept coming to mind for this. Because I was like trying to make sense of it. would be like going to the most expensive, fancy, decadent restaurant of your life, right? And you are seated next to a string quartet. And there are celebrities sitting across from you. And then the food inexplicably takes three hours to arrive. And when they put it in front of you, it's warmed up macaroni and cheese. Like, everything else is there.

Yeah. It's so weird. So, I cannot express how much of the early. hours of this game is riding on horseback while you listen to people talk while you follow them slowly and it is to a point where like I kept getting bored and I would like do

other things and then I would have to reload and start again with a very long horseback ride and there's like once I was starting one and there was a prompt that's like skip horseback skip ride and then it never happened again

and it made me feel like so you know it's but wait a minute it. But you know it's boring. You can't skip it. If you put a skip button in there, then you know this is boring. So let me skip it every time, because you know it's boring. How long would this game be if you skipped everything? Because the game is nine hours long. I mean, I legitimately don't know. I was so desperate. And I'll tell you, man, it makes the non-interactive cinematics really feel like an encumbrance. Like, I mean, I go from, like, barely holding the left thumbstick so bad that my thumb is slipping. And I have to just, like, lean on it because I can't. okay I do want to talk about because we've basically talked about like the first five-ish hours and there was a part of me

as I was playing it was like I'm going to ride this out as long as I can because I do think maybe there's going to be some sort of payoff somewhere and you almost beat it at that point because again nine hours I know it's about I looked it up

it's about 14 hours long if I really sorry I want to hear all of it I want to say what just the last thing about the beginning part yeah okay is it is not slow-paced in the sense of a slow burn where someone goes from like a mine worker to wow this is the first time I've ever had a knife

to wow this is the first time I've ever had a gun like the first actual like action set piece in this is like you go from almost never having a gun to like sprinting around shooting 30 bandits with a shotgun someone insisted that there be a gunfight at that point because it is and it's wild every enemy looks the same and he looks like the old racist TV icon the Frito Bandito

like literally every single one is just like the Frito bandito and it's 30 dudes you have to shoot with a shotgun it's so baffling. Sorry, go ahead. No, once the game... Okay, so the game is set in chapters like structurally and you kind of like each one has a beginning

and middle and end theoretically and each of the chapters basically mimics the flow of the beginning five hours of the game where you always have like a slow, very hardcore talky bit. And then the like, here's your payoff, the action

sequence, and the action sequence will be like, I'm in a car and I'm trying to rescue the Don's daughter, for example. And it's like, you're shooting guys that are on horseback in your car and then you're doing a dramatic jump in a cutscene.

This is all stuff that like, again, we've seen a million, billion times. And I almost wish they made it instead like fucking pentament where the whole thing was boring as balls and like allow it. I almost would have been down with that.

Honestly, if the horseback riding and stuff is good enough that I was like, the problem is it looks so much like another kind of game that it's hard to not be expecting that other kind of game and they know that expectation

because they're throwing in like a lot of the hallmarks of that kind of game, right? Like you're getting the very blatant guide markers telling you exactly where to go to. You're unlocking, like, different horses and guns. Like, the first screen of this game is a QR code that you scan to get a special gold car.

Like, that's not bad a man, you know? Yeah, I, yeah. Frush, I went a bit further down that path, which is to say I watched a YouTube play through. And that's why I keep saying nine hours because I watched, like, last three or four hours. Oh, you know exactly how long it was. And, yeah, I mean, that's watching a pro play, you know, so. Who knows how long it takes.

But pretty good experience. Can talk to the story here because the story is solid. I say solid because how does it compare to TV or film? But there's like a good romance. There is a lot about Sicilian history and the like early, early days of the mob. There's a lot of stuff in here that is quite cool. And that's where I agree with you. I would say I'd push back on the Pintment, and here's me being pedantic.

Pintimate still has at least a good design idea that doesn't align with this. No, I never said. I was being. No, I know what you mean. But L.A. Noir is another series that they have. And L.A. Noir in this game, feel like a match. But I just want, like, I would have been happy if they'd been like, why don't you go look around? no one has yet to say that

I don't know that you can I don't know you can look like like you can walk around a static area but like I don't think you can just go off on your own I think you have to this okay

I think this is the main question and I need you guys to help me understand this has this been a very long buildup to a part where it opens up or is it really like this because it that to me

feels like a oh man that's what I mean by it feels like it was a different game right it feels like something has gone terribly wrong at some point but they are throwing up map markers and stuff that very much feel like it's a and I think that's part of what made it so hard is because I kept waiting for the when will my life begin you know but I would say I would say it maybe it was a different game but you have to

look at the historic you have to look at the history of this franchise and all of the other games in this franchise more or less use the exact same structure that this game does, which is a quote-unquote open world. It is open, but you have no real reason to go around and very little freedom to go around. But really, they're just telling like a very linear story, which again, is not a bad thing if the actual gameplay and the things that you're doing feel good. I mean, this game has almost no player choice, which is like so tough for me to get over to feel like I am. essentially the entire game is a QTE. That's like a really tough thing to overcome for me.

I do want to say like I have some impact. And I'll even say though, like even with the writing, I will say that like is, it's all serviceable, but like, and it's better than a lot of video games, but it is also like all cliches. I think it's direct to Netflix mafia. It's all cliches and the performances are, I mean, it's weird. Like some of these people, they owe like. like performance capture rights to some of the godfather actors

for how closely these dudes are like, you know, just do you know, do it like that. I thought the VO was good for what it's worth. I thought the VO did they do their... I can't be a judge of the accents. No, I think they're very accurate. Knowing deeply authentic Sicilian accents from that time, I think they really know.

Yeah, I trust. I trust... I do want to say there is some player choice that you just completely zipped right past and I can't believe. Picking a knife, which knife? Close. Picking out the beads on your rosary. Oh, yeah, you've got charms.

Oh, my gosh, guys. My wife gets upset when people use a rosary as a necklace. I can't wait to see how she thinks about it being a fucking utility belt for your perks. Jeez. It did kind of sell Catholicism on me. I got to be honest. That sounds pretty appealing if I'm getting fucking faster reload times. That's the craziest shit, is the perks are.

the perks are like this rosary bee gives it's so insane that it makes the rest of the enterprise seem like a spoof like a pair like that is what you would put in the the like naked gun version of this game it's i couldn't be funnier when i was doing like when we were all doing like jokes about video games back at like in the ye olden times i could not have been funnier than rosary beads that increase your reloads I also realize the Naked Gun Mafia movie is also just called Mafia

but with an exclamation point Yeah Yeah this is one exclamation point away It really man I'll tell you what it's hard This is one of This is one of my least favorite things Because it really takes a little bit

Before you realize it's not good Because I man I kept thinking like Ooh this is good And then I was like okay this feels like it's gonna be i get this is getting i'm getting fired up okay so at this point how many hours how many how many what what period in the story are you feeling this feeling that you're having right now where i thought it was good yeah when i escaped and got rescued by the other family and they were going to put me into their family i thought okay that was crappy but now

I'm, like, in it, and they're going to instantly bring me. I thought, I kept praying to Jesus that a time lapse was about to start. I kept thinking, here it comes, baby, let's see that montage, and then I'm running around with a gun in the mafia, but nope, nope, that it pretty quickly wore I have to, as soon as the, as soon as they asked me to, yeah, as soon as they asked me to carry the box of wine around for 20 minutes. That's what I was like, actually get, actually eat shit. That is, mine is after the potatoes before the box of wine.

Because after the potatoes, there are people who follow the show closely will know that we talked about Indica, a game that also asks you to fetch water and do a chore. Right. Here's the big difference. One, you could finish pretty much the entirety of Indica within like the first half of Mafia. Two, it does that with a very clear point of yes, this sucks. And the joke is it sucks. And the game is making jokes about it sucking. And then you go and do the rest of the game. What's so weird about this game is it keeps making that point. It is, it reminds me so much of the brainy gamer era of video games criticism from like the mid-2000s where it's like, yeah, but it's good that this video game is punishing you. And it's buying into like, yes, on an academic level, I can appreciate it. Unfortunately, this game is called Mafia and it's released by Take 2. like right and you can make that case in 15 like we've said it before you can make a hey you're suffering in 10 to 15 minutes and and it has the same exact level of impact without being

truly torturous to the player yes it is very confused like it goes from a you think there is a point to the whole thing and they oh man that that runway runs out so quickly when you realize there isn't i'm i cannot i'm actually kind of in shock a little bit to hear that i i i i just thought it was really taking a long time to get started i really legitimately i mean it does do that as well it does both of those things takes a long time to get started and then doesn't get you know it changes like there's more action in the less is this a case of them like spending so much on a lot of these resources they just try to got to try to recoup so no because again the other games follow this model like that's i don't think that can be right i i i agree with hoops i i know what you mean

fresh i think that was i think the problem is they probably started out with yes make it more like traditional mafia and then it also got win a like tripped down i mean it's just so short and there's so little gameplay and then they're so if they i don't know that almost makes it worse it actually definitely makes it worse if they like set out to make this because then the question would be why is there not L.A. Noir narrative features or like, why is there not anything that is a game? It is $50.

So there's that. There aren't too many, quote, AAA games that are $50. But it's, uh, there's also a shitload of other games that are, uh, not $50 that are much, much better.

Can I make a point about something real quick? I just wanted to settle this a little bit because we were kind of talking to the theoretical. So I loaded up a playthrough of Mafia 3. Okay. The very first thing that happens is you drive to the Federal Reserve and do a huge bank robbery on the Federal Reserve where you're taking people down. And then you're in the army, like in your military days, and you're doing a bunch of like action sequences by an hour 30, you are back in town shooting like the opposing the Confederate guys in the hotel or whatever. Like you're fully in the open world driving around.

doing every, I mean, side quests, doing all of it. There is no comparison. I mean, there is no comparison. I did the same thing for Mafia 1 because I was trying to remember. So I looked at a play-through of Mafia 1. And it takes about an hour and 15 minutes to get to the point where, like, you have a gun and people are shooting at you, which is about half the time, maybe even less, for how long it takes for this. But this is a different game is what I'm saying. I'm looking at a different kind of game, you know, like it, this is a game where you get to play.

in it like you get to play this game and we're not saying you need to like go and be going straight to action shooting and stuff you just need to go to doing something if you had gone an hour in you were doing any sort of interesting gameplay but no weird

wow weird crazy wild wild okay it's not often that I can enjoy a rant for that long but quite honestly that was a little cathartic because the time that I spent playing this was they don't make them like this anymore more?

They genuinely don't. They genuinely? One game. Well, we have some more uplifting stuff coming in the second half of the show. I feel much better, actually. It is weird.

We don't do this very often, but it was a long week with this fucking game. That was like a reenactment of the first five hours of Mafia of the old country. We'll take a break and we'll come right back

and talk about more great stuff. Okay, so the first The first thing I'm going to talk about as a pallet cleanser from the first half of the show is a game called Dog Walk. Dog Walk is free. It's on Steam. It was made by Blender Studios, the people that make that 3D modeling stuff. Yeah. Cool. It takes about 30 minutes to complete. And you play as a giant sheep dog dragging your owner around a snowy landscape trying to build a snowman. In those 30 minutes, I had so much more. fun than the time hours. You know, I wouldn't put this on the level of something like, what is it, a short hike. Like, you know, I don't think this is necessarily going to win huge awards, although I thought artistically it was pretty spectacular, which makes sense given the studio's history. But just like interaction-wise, like, you are literally dragging this little kid around this

snowy landscape and he has your leash, but realistically, because you're a giant. sheepdog you have like full control of the situation and you're just running around like looking for a shovel that's trying to like act as a cane for the snowman and you're just having like a nice little moment it felt like a Pixar short to me

and I feel like everyone should play it again it's totally free on Steam so there's no real reason to skip it I would strongly recommend it I love that can I tell you all about college football can we talk about sports on this can we do this? I

I guess. Yeah, I love to talk about college football. But just like focus it in a way that will make me care. One, it just looks beautiful. Watch the trailers. They're like Grand Theftado ass trailers. The game looks fantastic. It's got all the pomp in circumstance.

Do the ears look okay? I feel like historically they haven't nailed the ears. They're wearing helmets the entire time. So, yeah, I guess they haven't. Yeah, they'll get around to it. Here's the thing about this game that I am loving this year in this go-round. One, the series came back last year after a long hiatus, and I had a little bit of time with it. It was great. I have been slowly learning how football actually works. Let's imagine that I'm saying when I say football, I'm saying Dungeons and Dragons. It could be anything, right? I'm learning how a gameplay system works. And over the last four or five years, listen to podcast, watch YouTube videos, figuring out what all the different packages are on offense and defense, and had not really gone back to football video games. And had not really gone back to football video games. I was just enjoying it because it made it more fun to watch football, right?

Like if you read about e-sports. And then the amazing thing happened, which is I started this game. And suddenly, while I was playing, I could actually read the game because I knew what a defense was doing. So if I'm the quarterback and I hanked the ball and I see one of my wide receivers go out and then break right across the field, but I see a defense's safety pushing in because they're trying to play. apply more pressure than I know, oh, my wide receiver is going to be open, I should pass to them versus the past where I was just like, I don't know, let's sort of that wide receiver. They seem nice. And that felt really good.

And that's how I want to talk about. I'm just saying it's really cool that a video game can be close enough to the real thing that you can invest some time into caring about it. And then suddenly you hop into the game and you can apply it and it all works. I think Justin's on his phone right now. He's definitely on his phone. And he's actually And he's listening to a podcast

It's pretty incredible It's funny to me I'm glad you know how football works now In the past you were like Oh let me throw that guy And you'd rack up like 16 touchdowns in a game So yeah if you had on easy mode But now you can like

All you're really doing is making it So you can play on a hard or difficulty I get it It's silly It's fun It was nice It was really surprising and rewarding to, like, be able to hop into a game and actually know what the hell is going on.

That's good. Justin, do you think it's comfortable to hold the Switch 2 for long periods of time? God, no. Yeah, I would agree with you. I don't think the Switch 2 is very comfortable to hold for long periods of time. There was something when the Switch 1 was around that actually... Hold on. There's a very...

Can I do a good joke about... Please. I can't imagine there'll be too. No, go ahead. Go ahead. That was pretty good. That was right. So when the switch one was around, I used a thing called the Zen Grip, which is made by Satisfi, is the name of the company.

What was good about that, it was like a grip pretty typical that, like, is more ergonomic, but you could also use the dock while the grip was installed. Like, you didn't have to keep removing the dock on and off, on and off. And once I got that, it basically stayed on for the entire Switch 1's life cycle. It took a little while, like a few months, but they are finally selling Zen Grip 2s, which, is the switch two's version of that it's the exact same fucking thing but it works with the switch two and let me tell you yeah once again a total fucking game changer i can play switch two games at length i have no problem whatsoever i'm looking at the website for this thing now and it looks so comfy i think i find the switch two almost the same exact design is bigger yeah something

about the switch two i don't know i it really makes my hands uncomfortable um i think it is more comfortable than the switch one because it's slightly just from a preference standpoint but not comfortable I actually the first time I held it I wrote a whole piece for Polygon about how they still haven't quite nailed it and I think this addresses the issue so if you're looking to play in handheld mode

there are a number of options I know DeBrand sells them as well but this is the one that I have been drawn to and it may like I was playing Donkey Kong with it and it was like so much nicer and then when I was done I could just drop it in the dock and go back to playing other games and it wasn't a problem. Also, it works as its own stand for the Switch. Is that right?

I have not been bold enough to try that. Yeah. But I'm sure that's true. Interesting. I was with wise, because the Switch is already, Switch 2 is already a big fucking thing. I was curious how it compared to the Steam Deck and it is now with the grip attached basically the exact same size lengthwise as the Steam Deck is. So that kind of gives you a sense of how fucking big it is.

It's big. I'm not joking around. it's big but again as something that I actually want to hold it's a nice change of pace um hoops have we talked about blipo no do you know about blipo

yeah man I I checked out blipo if folks if you haven't tried blipo you should try blipo wait isn't that a lab labo boo boo boo thing no sir it's a play date game it is a oh okay it's a play date game right now that is coming in color

to steam and switch And Blippo, game is a funny word for it. It's not a game. It's a cable. It is cable TV broadcast from the planet Blip. And you just turn on the old tube and you flip through the various channels. And each channel has multiple TV shows. And each channel also airs across, I think, 11 or 12 seasons.

So it's just a recreation of the experience of watching. cable TV and like local public broadcasting I want to see if I can but through an alien's perspective so we see what's in charge not to make the comparison to Rick and Morty but I'm going to do it anyway

is it like those Rick and Morty episodes where he's watching TV it's closer to Peewey Herman in style like it's very earnest it's closer to Peewee Herman and if you watched early Nickelodeon like Roundhouse it's stuff like that

or Bill Nye the science guy it is all giving that that vibe um it is made by a bunch of different la art collectives and you think like how does that get funded and the answer as it always is is panic panic god bless them i i want to do like a post game's episode on what's going on there because they are out there just putting stuff into the world and sometimes it's untitled goose game and other times it is the most bonkers shit that I cannot believe it got released and it is almost consistently awesome

they put out Arco last year they put out Despelote Time Flies Both those were this year I think our game next week is them We're doing hurdling I think you're right Yeah

They're yeah They're just really making some cool stuff And this is this is right there. Oh, it's not next week. It's in two weeks. Yeah, but this is coming out in Blipo Plus is coming out in September, in late September. So people should keep in mind. I'll be interested

to see, I kind of feel like the lo-fi is part of the fun, so I'll be interested to see how that feels. I would love to watch quote-unquote TV on like a screen that's like a one-bit screen. That's very cool. I went to an event that they posted in L.A. That I think was also their like after

party for just finishing the game. it looks amazing on both you're right it looks so good like it looks shockingly good on the playdate and really shows how good that screen is but there's something about the um the color they shot it in actual analog uh tv studios in la so it's not the thing where you're like shooting on high deaf and then bringing it down it's like no it really does look like you are watching old tv that just got up converted for yeah yeah it looks like early MTV, like music video quality. It looks so good.

That's awesome. You know what I messed around with a lot while I was on vacation? It was at PICO8. Oh. And this is something that, like, I would just want to talk through it because I didn't really grok all the different components of it. And it's one of those things where, like, it's old enough now that I think a lot of people that were into it kind of, like,

had their time or, like, they know about it, but it's not as much talked about. So it took a little while to, like, figure some of the ins and out. So let me give you the quick pitch. PICO8 is a fantasy console. It's not a real console. It's a pretend-the-consul. But there's a standard that games have to be developed for.

And the Pico-8 can run on just about whatever hardware you got. Once you have a license for Pico-8, then it can run on Windows and Mac and Linux. And a little bit of got Raspberry Pi you want it to be on. You can do that too. If you pay 15 bucks,

you get the license to the pico8 that's both for playing games that people make for it but also for developing games for it when you get the pico8 there is a command that you can use called splore which is also the sort of like main browser and splore will let you look through all the games that have been uploaded for the pico8 and they don't cost money you browse through them and when you like click on a game it instantly loads into the game and then saves a tiny version of that game onto your hardware

so you can play it in perpetuity offline. It's not even a tiny version. It's just the game is so tiny. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, all the games are tiny. Yeah. Like 100 kilobytes tiny.

Like, they're tiny. They're tiny. But there's a lot of depth in some of them. I'll tell you that, like, first of all, what's really fun is there's a lot of demakes where people have said, like, okay, I want to recreate, like, this old Star Wars arcade game,

with the vector graphics. So I was like, okay, I bet I can recreate. And there's like a decent version of it that you can play. You're like, oh, that's really cool. The one that I've been playing a lot is called What the Flag. And it is a, it is just a game where you identify country's flags. That you can choose the continent that you want to do. And then it just speed runs through.

You can get on a hot streak. There's very little game to it other than that. But as a tool for learning that, I love it. I, that's exactly, I love that idea. Did you want to learn flags? Was that something you were looking to do? I want to learn anything, especially if you can gamify it for me. And then for the rest of my life, I can look at any flag and tell you what country.

Yeah, absolutely, I want that. I want that. And the game makes it possible, the power of the PicoA. But it's a lot of fun to, like, you can download. I mean, so many different genres are represented. There's a lot of, like, for instance, one that is popular, it's called Pico Craft that I've seen popping up a lot. and it is a little version of Warcraft that you can play with a little mouse

and you can play your mouse and you can play this little version of Warcraft. It's so neat and it's so fun. And it's like, if you have old hardware, you could turn it into a Pico8 with very little work and that would be a very cool little project to do. I have been playing it mainly on the RGXX cube because it's like a square screen

that looks very good with the, the PICO8 stuff. But that's what I've been... I messed around with that a lot. I would also add, if it's something that you're interested in, everything can be played in a browser. So if you just want to test out some stuff, you can open up a browser without having to, like,

install a bunch of stuff as well. I'll include a little story in the newsletter, but I met the creator of Pico8 in Tokyo about 12 years ago when he was making some of the early games that created, like, popular voxel technology, which now we're seeing in stuff like Donkey Kong. But this

guy Joseph White is super interesting. Just runs a cafe in Tokyo, creates amazing stuff that ends up powering a lot of cool games technology and inspires all these artists and really kind of just modest humble person, quietly

tinkering on stuff like this. Real quick, we have some reader mail. Ari was writing recommendations for a JRP with good quality of life, as in you can play it on the Steam deck or a Switch 1 or 2. I finished Octopath Traveler 2 a year ago and absolutely loved

it. Before that, the last year I prepared JRP I played was Dragon Quest 7 on the 3DS, which was too much and turned me off for years. I played a time when I was younger, but I don't have the time or patience as an adult for really grindy games. Do Octopath 1, see if Stars, or the

bravely default remaster fit that bill or something else? Thanks so much. I guess this is just for plan, probably. Excellent. Yes. There's a bit of grindiness, but I really recommend Dragon Quest 11S, Echoes of an Elusive Age. It is one of the best RPGs ever made, and it is absolutely perfect. I think if you really enjoyed Octopath, you're going to really enjoy this game. It is like a 3D RPG, but here's a really sick thing about this game. With a tap of a button, you can play the full game in 2D pixel mode. It is both. Like,

It can look like a S&S game or it can look like a modern 3D game. That's cool. Yeah, it's quite awesome, and I really recommend it. We have another question. This one comes from Emily. Question for you all, do you ever get the controller buttons mixed up when going between systems? I've been a PlayStation and Nintendo player since I was a kid, and I was able to keep those button configurations separate in my head.

But when my significant other got me to play some co-op games with him on the Xbox, it drives me nuts that they use the Nintendo names with the general PLs. formatting what controller config do you guys use on PC and does it ever mess you up

when you play on different systems it definitely messes me up for sure I play on usually I use an Xbox controller

on PC and it's just when I it's really just when I go back to switch games that's like everything else

I'm fine but when I go back to switch games I for sure get it screwed up I was like no I think this used to be

problem for me and then I got over it in my 30s and then I looked at my Xbox controller and I was like yeah the X is at the bottom and no it's an A so yes I think that Nintendo should give up the ghost they're not going to but I even though they were first I think Xbox has it right I think that alignment makes the most sense are we talking about the glyphs or are we talking about the orientation oh I think it's the fact that A is in two different spots and X is in two different spots between an Xbox controller

and a Nintendo controller. But you don't have a problem with like PlayStation to Xbox? No, because it's so different. Well, then the part that really mess your brain up is the original Xbox, or not sorry, the original PlayStation Japan versus US, where

they switch the X and the O as what is your main command prompt. So this is the problem that I have been into lately with stupid retro handhelds is that so many of these things default to one like to either south or east

as confirm and I have gone back and forth so many times at this point that nothing feels natural to me anymore like I don't I don't have one that because I was playing like Beninanza and I was using the confirm on the you know the the the confirm over on the the east side side, and that's the way a lot of those Japanese PlayStation games are. So I'm doing that half

the time. Nothing feels right anymore. I don't know what the true answer is anymore for me if it should be confirm on the bottom or confirm on the right. I think it's a question of what are you doing more. And I think if you are confirming more than you're canceling, the button that your thumb is on more frequently, which would be the south button, should be confirmed. That makes sense to me that's my logic of it and unfortunately that's logical that doesn't really jive with what Nintendo has been doing I realize they were first but you have to keep in mind they were first and they kind of figured out the lineup the like arrangement on the NES when it was just two like buttons that were directly in a line together and then they had to convert that into

something that was in a diamond shape for S&ES and I think it's just been a mess ever since So, yeah, I get confused, and I would prefer it if everyone just sort of accepted the except on South, because I think that's the M.O. Someday. Someday. Okay. Any honorable mentions before we wrap. I would just like to mention very quick. I read a great book while I was on vacation called Camp Damascus.

And it is by Chuck Tingle, who you may know from his tinglers that he writes a lot of erotic. fiction, a lot of erotic fiction with a lot of really disparate themes, like dinosaurs or tidepods or a lot of really erotic. If you've never looked up the name Chuck Tingle, then you should look up the name Chuck Tingle, because usually he writes Tinglers. Yeah. Which this is not a Tingler, okay? Chuck Tingle mainly writes books like... Is Space Raptor Butt trilogy?

yeah there's um trans wizard harriet porber and the bad boy parisar o lopfus um not pounded by anything six platonic tales of non-sexual encounters there's a lot of different chuck tingle books but this is a not uh explicitly erotic

um not like space raptor butt ascension or pounded by how good this bowl of cereal is at like two in the morning or you know any of those like classic chucktinkle stories this is a story about it this is a serious book about a uh christian gay conversion therapy camp that boasts a 100% success rate but none of the kids that have gone can quite explain what happens there and it is a story about i mean about that concept about the questions that sort of begs and about like the nature of accepting that, accepting things about yourself. It's a really, really great, like, fun thriller set up, like a lot of, like, horror imagery

and, like, really moves fast with a fun central character. But it's saying a lot of really interesting stuff. And if you've only run into Chuck Tingle as a creative erotic fiction, then I think that you're going to be really impressed by Camp Damascus. he's got another a follow-up to that called barrier gaze in the similar um more serious realm um but not as serious as pounded by president bigfoot sorry say again not as serious as pounded by president bigfoot no not as serious as that although that one is uh quite moving in spots um i should also mention just in the um sense of fairness that chuck tingle does have a potty

where he has people read his books and do audiobooks, and I did perform pounded in the butt by my handsome Tidepod. So if you did, yeah, so there is a connection there that's full. I wanted to be honest about the full disclosure. I appreciate that. I read it to my wife, so it's tasteful. I wanted to shout out the King of the Hill remake, which is on streaming now on Hulu. it's great i i am a huge huge king of the hill stand it is probably my go-to like comfort in the way that

people watch the office or friends or whatever i think king of the hill is that um which isn't a shock because it was made by gregg daniels originally um and i think the remake has done a really very clever smart job of updating the format of it and making sense of the fact that like like like why would Hank Hill be bewildered by an Uber and sort of justifying that in the narrative in just a really smart way I cried during the end of the first episode

and I was like what is going on here like this is some real like I need therapy and I think the thing is it was the show that got me through the first year with Mosey it was like my every time I was up at two in the morning

that was what I was just watching and I think it was a mix of like that and then just kind of genuine relief that it didn't one it didn't suck and two that it wasn't like mean or hateful in fact it's it's much nicer than even the original episodes this is some like simpsons season two season three level um sweetness going on here and also you're right it is it is amazing How prompts like Hank and Bobby get into craft brewing, which sounds like it should be trite, and yet they know just how to thread the needle to make it like, oh, yeah, this is actually quite nice and relatable. Yeah, I don't know why I'm stunned because, yes, Greg Daniels. And also, Mike Judge has an incredible hit rate.

So, yeah, it's a good stuff. Yeah, it's a new showrunner, so that's pretty impressive. but yeah i think they just nailed the tone overall and uh i'm it's it's redeeming because that would have crushed me if it came out and was just like something that was like a hollow form of itself uh i was really pleased to see it come back every other tv return yeah yeah yeah my fun fact about that that that entertains me is they uh uh have a new voice for dale yeah it's toby huss who's done some of the other characters but do you know what toby huss is perhaps most

Farty, the strongest man in the world The strongest man in the world! Yes! That's my favorite. That's my favorite. It made me so happy. See, Toby, that's working. Did you watch Halt and Catch Fire?

What? Did you watch Halt and Catch Fire? No, I was playing sports and reading books about sports. Oh, that's fair. You should watch Halt and Catch Fire is going to be your new favorite TV show. I have to do Pilates and workouts.

Okay, okay. Toby also in weapons. So, So even more reason to go see weapons. I love to see Toby. He's really actually, he's in Weird, the Weird Al biopic as Weird Al's dad. It's freaking hysterical. He's so funny.

He's so good. My very quick thing that also I think both of you will dig is stupid TV be more funny. It is a new nonfiction book by Alan Siegel. And it is the history of the Simpsons, basically seasons one through nine or so. The worst seasons. Yeah, yeah. Nobody likes those early ones. So they really find themselves around season 10.

But it's about how the show came together, how the writer's room worked, how individual episodes kind of fell into place and talks with tons of people from behind the scenes. And does a really good job of not falling into the trap that can happen with Simpson's nonfiction where it's. It's like, who do we give credit to? Who was the person who made this good? Was it Matt Groening? Was it this person? Was it that person? And instead, it just really clearly states what individual people contributed.

And then you can kind of piece together what you think. Because the trick is what you like about The Simpsons is not the same as what other people like about it. So it might be that you think like, oh, Simon is most important because. he contributed just the structure or somebody can uh what's his name oh my gosh gracey films um contributed the heart james el brooks yes and and being able to see it actually come together it's really interesting and a great audiobook too like a great thing just to have in the car cool i read i've got i've already read a simpson's history the the the simpsons the the oral history that came out.

I can't believe I'm going to read another Simpsons history, but I think I probably actually am going to do that. I will read any TV history book that it, like anything, even shows that like I didn't care about, like if it's like, uh, desperate networks,

stuff like that. I'll read any. It's wild how also little Conan O'Brien was there. I always forget that he was there for like a season. Um, but yeah. Yeah. Uh, okay. we did it I wanted to thank some patrons over at patreon.com slash the besties we have DJ

we have Justin we have Billy and we have Blurp thanks y'all thank you for supporting us we have a new episode of Resties that's up thank you Blurp Blurp love us and begging them to listen we talked about Wheelworld this week which is a really great game I highly recommend shit I should have talked about Wheelworld you blew it cool and we're next week we're doing a game called Sword of the Sea, which is a game from the Abzu team. So I imagine it's going to be like experiential and weird and cool. I don't know. I haven't played it yet.

Oh, man, I'm getting excited already. Just don't make me carry any grapes. If you like games like Journey, I think it's going to be in that vein. Okay, I think we did it. What do you think, Juse? Yeah, man, let's get out of here. Be sure join us again next week on the best season. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?

Besties