The Besties - The Besties Best Game Bracket: 2025 Edition, Part 1

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

How do you pick the best video game of the year when over ten thousand games have been released since January? You bring together the world’s best friends, hand them a bracket, and hope for the best. Yes, friends, it’s time for the Besties to pick the Game of the Year, or as we prefer to call it, The Besties Besty.Will The Game Awards champion Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 claim the most coveted prize in all of gaming? Or does another game have what it takes to battle for the crown? 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!

This is just great podcast, which I had a dream last night. I wanted to share it with you. And I wanted to kind of talk through. Let me stop my recording. Okay, good. This should be, this could be the show. No, let me stop my recording. I'm not going to make anybody listen to a dream.

Hold on. Let me just, yeah, delete. Okay, okay. I'm deleting. Go ahead. Okay, okay. So I went to sleep, I'm wondering how we would give an award to people for the bestie, bestie.

We used to give people to Golden Marcus Phoenix. I think we did that once. We did it. We did it. We did it. We did it. We did it were actually physically doing it to anybody, right? And I don't think they actually accepted it.

I think that's the other problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my understanding of the thawly. Because we're sort of the bad boys of game podcasts. Yeah, yeah. Then I had this dream last night, and I did smoke before going to bed, that we would give people bronzed versions of ourselves, but in my dream, like, we were kind of dipped in bronze.

It was nice. Carbonite Han Solo kind of deal. Yeah. And a few questions came to mind, one, how much would it hurt? Two, do you think a video game studio Which one of the four of us they get? Well, would they accept it? You know, yeah, not what also which ones are more valuable?

Sure. Is it ranked? Is it platinum gold, silver, bronze? Is that what we're... I mean, I think we could do that. I think we could do it. Do you think people would accept it? I did take platinum gold silver bronze.

That's four different colors of metal, Griffin. No, I know, but I don't want... But then who does the show? If we sort of like... Oh, you're saying if we give away the whole... I'm going to... That's a powerful thing. We could keep doing it from our space inside the bronze, you know?

You put a little Bluetooth mic in there. The bronze, is the bronze the name of the, isn't the bronze the name of the nightclub and Buffy the Vampire Slaters? That's where we'll record from now on. It's great. That'd be awesome. We record from inside the bronze. It's frequently interrupted by vampire attack, but that's life.

That's life and study now, I guess. Why those high schoolers going to a fucking warehouse rave? every fucking day. Straight edge rave. It's a great bar in town that doesn't serve alcohol. It's all jeez. And it's frequently attacked by vampire.

No, no, no, dude, I swear. They have this place, right? It's a big box full of teens. No beer. Just teens. Wait, no, yeah, in Sunnydale. I kid you not. I know you're thinking,

I don't have an ID because I'm a vampire. It is not an issue here. It's no problem. It feels like a It feels like kind of a bait Bate club right Well in a sense you are right Yes

It is in fact There's one mean woman Who comes and kicks us In the ass a bunch sometimes Just choose your night well man Congratulations to Dishonor 3 God I would fucking wish My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the here?

My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best game of the year, I think. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the year. My name is Ralph Frusick. I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the Besties, which is a video game club where we have for many, many years, decided on the best game of the year. And this year is no exception. It's just like every other year.

We're going to be looking at all of the hot releases that came out at the end of last year or came out this year and had appropriate accessibility options. All the hottest releases of 2025 or late 20, 24 that are playable by all those of the show. Crushing it. Chris Plant, what is the game of the year? Well, the game of the year is a very special tradition where we pick the game that is the best of the year. And will it be good this time or?

I think this time it's going to be pretty good. You know, there's no guarantees here at the besties. That is the thing that we make sure we state at the beginning of every episode. No guarantees could be bad games. No guarantees. Yeah. That's what the T-shirts we sell, say. No guarantees.

Confident that we are going to sell a lot of that new merch. Okay, great. Actually, it's only like 60% of the people who order it get it. But it is like, for those people that get it, is good. When I said, I know the best game of the year I was lying. I know it less than I've ever known it. I know less than I ever know. But before we get into it, let's talk about, like, our guiding light, our polarity.

is the Game Awards. As the Game Awards goes, so good, the besties, I've always said. So, does anybody want to talk? Did anybody watch the Game Awards, the Viggies? Did anybody... Physically half a block

away from the space watching on a television. Oh, damn, they had to be the overflow? I mean, I didn't try to get in. It's very loud. I've mentioned this before, but it's very loud in that theater. Yeah, you didn't even want to...

You don't even care of Justin in... Were you in California for this? I was in California for this. You flew to California to watch it. at a nearby building. Bingo Bango. I just the luxury. The luxury to be that close to Jeff.

Did you see the polar bears as you flew over them? Did they have a single tear coming out of their eyes as you blasted the climate so you could go to an adjacent facility to Jeff? Carbon credits out the ass. I really made up for it.

It's fine. The worth would be fine. Closer my Jeff to thee. Yeah. So the Game Wars happened. And I don't know. For my money, there were a couple things that jumped out at me,

but I thought it would be fun if each of us just call out one announcement or trailer that you saw that got you a little bit hyped up. Highway to the Ace Combat 7? Oh, really? Yeah, baby. Bandnight Amco says, you know what, we're feeling real hot right now. We just keep on winning. We're going to see how far we can push it.

Can we make Ace Combat a mainstream hand? can we give it a story that people care about? And the answer is you're damn fucking right you can. I am so ready for Ace Combat 7. Justin, you're a big Ace Combat guy, aren't you? I like it in theory, but I haven't played a ton of it. I mean, I love that idea of taking planes too seriously. Yeah.

But not so seriously that you have to worry about landing gear and things like that. Yes, exactly. I don't like that kind of nonsense. I like Unlimited Rockets, you know what I mean? Sure. I've Hey listen My

My biggest announcement I'm most excited about Might surprise you guys But I'm so in for Gang of Dragon I'm so excited to be a big boy Strutting around Japan Punching everybody in the face as hard as I can

Get into it with a bunch of other bad boys Just a big old boy Running around Japan punching other boys in the face I love Gang of Dragon Pellell a punching ass in this fucking trailer There's a dude There's a dude at the end of it. The initials of the game come up and it says GOD.

It's like, heck, yeah, that's my big boy. Let's go punch everybody in this. My big boy gets stabbed fully with a knife. Doesn't care. Doesn't give a shit too big to be stopped. Yeah, love it. Yeah, gang of dragon. That's not, that's not Yakuza notably.

It's a different game. It is, I think, a director who left Rio Gagatoku in, yes. And then he got that net easy. money and now can hire Don Lee to be the start of this big, big game. Yeah, look sick. I mean, everyone's favorite unproblematic, Fave Jonathan Blowe's guy, his new shit

coming. We're all still four. Yeah, dude. I was really excited about that trailer. It was sick. I kept waiting for a Russian guy to come out and be like, it looks nothing like the ads. Yeah, that's cool. I would love that. That game is... What is it called? Order.

Kings Clash Mobile Fury. King's Clash Mobile Fury, I think, it's King's Clash. Yeah, Zombie Go, King Clash. King Clash puzzle melee. Is this called? 1,000 puzzles, 10 years in the making, no one gives a shit. It's 10 years, dude. No one cares how long it took you to make 1,400 puzzles.

It takes a while when you're living off your, like, water you purified from a big barrel outside. or whatever. For people that didn't see the trailer, it is a, like a Sakobon-style top-down block-pushing game, sort of like Lolo, I guess. Yeah.

But it's four games. It's sort of like Lolo, if Lolo took 10 goddamn years to make. It may have. The screen is like split in four ways and like there's four developers making each puzzle. Yeah.

Or something? I... Say it again? It's like a Sukabon game. Don't need to explain it again. I, I want there to be more of the games I was stoked about, which was the new Cotour game and the new Divinity.

Oh, yeah, Divinity will take a minute. That's interesting. That's an interesting way that they have gone with Divinity. Like, we blew up, so don't worry about the numbers. Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm stoked for those two. When do you think that Cotor game is coming out? 2030, 2034, 237?

I don't really think. it's going to come out any time. Right, it's not going to come out, but like, it is fun to think about. Yeah. Um, they need to know that with Star Wars games, they can't just sort of reveal some eyes and a name and that Casey Hudson's up on it.

I've been hurt so many times before by here's a new Star Wars game, here's a face of one of the characters, and here's the name of a real life writer who is attached to the project. Catch you never. My chosen trailer, uh, which was not revealed in the actual show. itself, it was revealed in the pre-show is called the Free Shepherd

and you're a dog hurting sheep and it looks fucking spectacular. You're basically like in Iceland or somewhere hurting sheep and that's all you do. And granted, we did play a sheep herding game earlier this year and it left me kind of

called that sheep hurting game. It wasn't the best but it didn't have a dog that you were playing as hurting the sheep. You had to be a person with a stick and I think that is a notable exception and I have very strong They also weren't sheep. They were herdlings. Was that what they were actually called as herdlings?

Yeah, they were like big, crazy monsters. Anyway, who's to say? Big show. It's a small herd. You had a small herd. You had a herdling. I'm also excited for the new four loop, the game from the Left for Dead folks. Oh, yeah.

Also Control 2, whatever that's called. Oh, yeah. And Lenny Kravitz is joining First Light. Can't wait. for that. As long as we're having fun, which announcement made you guys laugh the hardest?

Because Lenny Kravitz joining First Light hit really good for me. I do want to offer some context, actually, for the Lenny Kravitz announcement. So earlier that day... Is it going to make it more or less funny? More funny. Earlier that day, about three hours beforehand,

there was a press event. I didn't get invited to this, so I can freely talk about it. It was a press event for the announcement that Lenny Kravitz was coming to Hitman as one of the bad guys. Or is it the Bond game? He's one of the Bond game.

It's a Bond game. Anyway, there was an announcement, and part of that announcement included Milo Jovovich, who also announced that she was coming to either Hitman or Bonn. And they were so serious about keeping this information locked down, even though they made people sign embargoes, they also insisted that everyone there put stickers on the lenses of their cellular phones to ensure that the information did not get out in those three hours between the game. Awesome.

That was how important it was. Let me get my phone all dirty. What was it like being there? I was not there. Oh, you didn't have to sit there. You didn't have to sit through the longest press event ever in which they showed a total of 20 seconds of video games. And then Milozovic talked about random non-video games. Lenny Kravitz comes out before this.

He seems completely confused as to where he is. And it's the cruelest thing you could do to somebody who does not. act professionally is show them acting poorly right before it with some dialogue that I will I will never forget like James Bond you are a cancer but like any cancer you can be stopped if caught early enough which is why I'm going to cut you out and feed you on a platter to like cancer makes your metaphors a little bit there about a little bit of mixing yeah dude Lenny you got it you got to you got to push back on that script you got or Did he mocap?

Did he mocap for this? He's a mocap, and they got his abs. They got those. Yeah. How many times do you think while wearing that big green suit covered in the little white balls, he had to bend over and it, he bent over and it ripped the pants of the green screen suit? At the event, me little guys came out with my ab guys. Hold on, I got to fix my head.

Miloovich was like, are those your abs? And Lenny dead serious, it's like, yes, they are. Like, I don't work this hard to be joked about my abs. Special purpose. I, uh, yeah, man. Every time my krypton night is seeing celebrities come out at the VGAs that don't, that were told by their agent an hour before. And then that's not what I care about the most.

I care about when they try. That's what hurts is weird. Like you see David Harbour up there fighting for his life, even though you know the name Lily Allen is in the mind of literally every human being in the building. Yeah. No, Dave. Tell me how excited you are about. 40K coming to total war.

Yeah, dude. Yeah, man. Me too, dude. Hey, you know what? I'm pretty excited about Davis that nobody released an album about me being a huge chunk of shit. That's my goody. That's my goatee is that that didn't happen to me.

Jeff will catch him on the way down. Don't worry. Jeff will get him on the way down. I think it's time Yeah Yeah Time is come We have one actually

More caveat Before we go We have a game that we're not The Galaxy needs racing Oh well yeah I mean the galaxy It's not gonna be on Let Justin

Let Justin Okay no cook Go ahead It's gonna be really important Next year that the galaxy Needs racing I'll be reminded you guys a lot If you forget about

Galactic racing So the galaxy does need racing And who believes Who believes that the galaxy he needs racing. I guess Sebulba and me. I mean, there you go.

I guess it's just the two of us right now, but it doesn't take more than that to start a revolution, you know what I mean? The galaxy needs racing. They can release two Tomb Raider games in one week or whatever. Me and Sebulba can start a revolution. All right.

You're ready for the caveat. Yeah, you've got a caveat. It's a caveat. There's a game that we're not talking about today, but we will talk about it next year, and that game is a blue prince. Oh, yeah. Let's circle,

back to that idea because I don't feel confident we're going to get to next year's go to considerations and have the courage of our convictions to stand out there and be the only video game podcast on the planet that is weighing blueprint what if blueprints wins our 2026 game of that'd be fucking sick then that'll be sick as hell it's it's it's it's a good ass game I feel very good about that I you know what y'all it is really like I I would like to get uh i've been thinking a lot about accessibility this year like not just that but like as we've been talking about the carpal tunnel stuff and like games being difficult to like play it is a like i don't know it you know accessibility has always been an issue but i feel like blueprints really has

helped me to put it in like a perspective like you know what and i feel like even if it's not the like even if it's not the best way of like judging what all the games for this year i feel really good about our decision to hold off on it because it does feel like such a notable thing. So I feel good about holding off. Yeah, just for added context in case there's people that just listen to this episode, not the subsequent, I still can't, I mean, technically I could play Blueprints, but because it's such a color-centric game and there's no like colorblind settings or anything like that within the game, I intentionally didn't play it because I thought it would be

kind of a miserable experience for me. They are working on a carbine setting. It wasn't in it launch, which is a drag. But they are, they've said it's going to come out sometime next year. So we've decided to punt that game. Now, granted, who knows, there might be 16 games that are better than blueprints next year in which. Probably not. It's pretty good.

I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know. Yeah. All I saw was like you walk in a house and you switch some rooms around. That's all I saw. So that's it. That's all that happens. But it's like good.

That is good context. Yes. There is certainly enough to talk about this year, even without blueprints up in the mix. And the other caveat I want to say is this is a taste show, as really all game awards are, but especially for Goody, for besties. Which is to say, there are games on here that, like, a lot of people considered to be their game of the year and more power to them. That's awesome. I don't think there was a single game that we, that was, like, universally. beloved, or at least critically acclaimed by a big chunk of the audience, that we didn't

at least try. So if there are games on here that are missing, it's because we tried it and it really didn't click with us in a way that I think would be a compelling listen. It's the besties game of the year. This is not trying to be some objective thing. It is trying to be our game of the year based on our conversations throughout the year. We've been in the game for a while now, guys, I think we've preampled enough, right?

Yeah, we did a whole episode of, if you find yourself upset, by our choices. Just listen to the episode of sort of caveats that we put out a couple weeks ago. Yeah, we did the caveat of Rima already. Here are the games that are up for the award. Expedition 33, Dispatch, Absalom, Hades 2, Destrating 2, Ghost of Yote, Baby Steps, Donkey Kong, Bonanza, Silk Song, Wonderstop, Blippo plus Citizen Sleeper 2, Avowed, Indiana Jones, the root trees are dead, sectori. We have the competition broken up into themes, and we're going to start with the very first. one right now, and that is the story selection. An emphasis on story, we have Expedition 33 against dispatch. Tough one to start with. Both of these are top fivers for me. So to get to knock off one now is going to really sting, but that's the way it happens sometimes. Dispatches, I think, as somebody who cares a lot, but like, I'm really interested in like interactive fiction, Not in like the visual novel sense, but in sort of like the interactive cinema sense, like interactive TV, interactive, that kind of thing. And I think dispatch is the most successful example of that ever.

I think it's way more success. For me at least, in terms of like, have you finished episode seven. So I'm like pretty deep into it. Yeah, I'm almost done. It's great. And like the story is, and all, not just the story and dialogue, it's not like good for video games. It's just, it's good. and I actually found myself

really digging the central mechanics. I wish and I think that for me, I'll go ahead and put this in as somebody who really liked Expedition 332. The game parts of dispatch fail it in a way that I think should keep it

from progressing beyond this. As good as all the story stuff is, especially as you get late, you're playing a lot of like high stakes mini games that impact the story in a way that feels like not especially pleasurable but like that uh but in terms of like storytelling and like the performances the writing it's all like so worth like checking out if you if you enjoy that kind of storytelling at all if you like stuff like the boys invincible you know whatever i think that you're really

going to dig it for for me it is what it does different from those two examples from the boys and invincible of being less it's so weird because I feel like with superhero fiction you are sort of gauging whether or not it is a cynical take on that universe or a straightforward take

on that universe and this somehow kind of sidesteps it where like the superhero business is not told in this like grandiose kind of style as much as it is a workplace kind of comedy drama with characters

that it kind of like focuses more on rather than their, their play. I may have failed it a little bit by not just saying up front. It is a game about a guy whose dad was a superhero, kind of an Ironman equivalent with a robotic suit. The suit's damaged in a way that this guy can't be a hero anymore, but he's brought in to run a dispatch. And that's basically the company he works for is sort of like superhero insurance.

You pay and superheroes will come and help with problems that you have. And your job as the player, since you don't have superpowers anymore is to assign what heroes will go to which emergency and because you are a new new employee there, you are stuck with the Z team, which is a bunch of former supervillains that are trying to make it as superheroes. So you have like sort of the worst of the worst. And it's sort of, I mean, beyond that, it's kind of like bad news bears, you know, like, mighty ducks. Yeah, mighty ducks. Yeah, exactly. It's that. And it is a lot more, I think even though it's like

edgy for whatever that's worth it's a lot more humanist and positive than things like it felt to me like even a Mike sure thing like in that spirit of parking rack yeah yeah yeah yeah not quite to that like coziness but yeah definitely that's the vibe enemies to friends for sure yeah one of I will say probably the funniest game of the year

there's a lot of moments in this if you're not counting the death spank really re-released and yes yeah sorry no I don't I wasn't counting the Death Bank re-release, I think that's cheating because, like, they already busted me up once and it's not fairfully

all the baking stuff. Yeah, I love it. Sorry, I'm laughing. I got on mute. Bang is episode five has an extended bar fight sequence. That is, I think maybe pound for pound

the funniest kind of like 10 minutes of video game that's maybe ever been made. It's just like nonstop bangor after bangor after bangor joke. And I'm wild about this patch. Should I lead the charge

on Expedition 33 here. Probably a good idea. Lay it out. I think you said it up to. Sure. So Exhibition 33 is a a French

heavily JRP-inspired role-playing game that is about a team of expeditioners in a sort of fucked up weird kind of post-apocalyptic world.

You start out in Paris basically, Lumiere, it's called. And every year in this world, people of a certain age, which they reach that max age, they vanish into rose petals, effectively dying. And when the game begins, you start with one of these ceremonies and you lose someone very, very close to you, as does a lot of other people. And then the clock winds down. And now it's 33 is the max age. You are one of the expedition 33 team members. And

together with a crew, you go out to try to defeat the painter's who has inflicted this curse on the world and pretty much right away shit goes haywire and then it's up to you to lead a very doomed expedition in more ways than one it is a game about about death and grief and loss but it does those things with so much heart and so much style and with kind of just a unique tone and unique design and some really truly tight RPG mechanics There's a lot of emphasis on reflex-based inputs in your turn-based combat to Perry and Dodge attacks, which becomes extremely vital. Really cool customization options. You're like unlocking these permanent little power-ups that you're assigning to your characters and great writing, great acting.

Just kind of fucking, there's a reason it swept the TGA's. Good call, Chris Plant, by the way, with that prediction. Because I think it is just a, I think it is a triumph from a very, very small team. You rarely get games of this scale and polish that kind of come out of nowhere from a non sort of AAA studio. It's also an RPG that grabs you immediately, which I think, yeah, JRPG, Western RPG, whatever you want to call them, that's a hard thing and a rare thing wherever. And to have one that just from the drop is like, here is this compelling high stakes issue and you are in the action is really awesome. Yeah. I'm going to be thinking about the game for a long time.

I think it does some stuff with its story in the third act that I think has been kind of divisive. And I'm not going to get into spoilers or anything here, but it very much reframes the entire story that you have been watching and sort of makes you think differently about all the characters that you've been spending so much time with. Although I have a few times, I think, misrepresented the game as being sort of JRP length. It is actually a bit more digestible than that.

I think you can really cruise through it in like 30 hours, which is obviously still a long time, but for a game of this genre, quite slight. I went much longer than that because I, you know, wanted to do all of the stuff because it really, really deeply hooked me. I found the story stuff interesting. I like when games take big swings. and this one takes some pretty fucking big ones. Yep.

And yeah, I'm not sure how much time you guys spent with it. So I'm not sure how deep the river of affection flows. I played probably, I don't know, around 15 hours. And then I did the old, like, switch to watching the play through. What happened to me with role-playing games when I just want the story. And I probably regret that decision. why you regret it and I don't regret it in that the gameplay seemed like it was getting

more and more repetitive I think I would have gotten very frustrated but also the ending didn't click for me or hoops I see you you furrowing furrowing well I mean I've played a lot of it

and I just feel like I I understand why we have to have these discussions but like guessing how you would have felt had you continued to play the game I don't feel like is a metric that we need to consider, right? It already feels a little weird to like I yada yadaed the story and it didn't really click for me.

Like, I don't feel like that really. I also, that doesn't feel that substantive as a like point to bring. I guess what I would say is I had a feeling where it was going and I did not think I would like where it was going. And then I found out where it was going and I was very glad that I did not commit the rest of my time to it is what I was a lot of time. I'll speak for myself and say, uh,

as Plant said earlier, immediately grabbed, super compelled by the story, the setting, the characters, like, really well performed, great at voice acting, things like that. I like the gameplay initially, like the combat sequences. I like the active combat stuff and the way that I like Mario, Paper Mario games, things like that. Right. I felt myself getting drowned by the systems. There are so many systems going on where you're unlocking, whatever the fuck they're called,

metals that then permanently unlock, and then you can attach those to people, and then those people can unlock other metal. It was, I was drowning in it, which again, would be fine, but the other issue I was running into is because I only had, like, let's say, 30 minutes to, like, dive into a game, and the lack of, like, a map when you're in a lot of areas, I would get lost, and so I'd spend my 15 minute, half of my time trying to figure out where to go next. I think it would probably be a much more fluid experience if I could sit down and, like, play for three to four hours straight. But I would say, like, the combat wasn't grabbing me in the way that that initial story beat grabbed me.

And that's why I got to a point after about 10, you know, 10 or 12 hours where I was like, this isn't necessarily that compelling to me. I am interested to see where the story goes, but the gameplay isn't pulling me through. So at that point, I really just like watched an explanation of what happens in the story. I don't think I would have made it to the point of playing it had I played more, realistically. I definitely bounced off around the point you're talking about and took a good long break from Expedition 33. I think when I realized that with enough adeptness

at the reflex-based stuff that the game throws at you, you can kind of sneak ahead of where you should be and get some stuff that is too powerful for you to logically have at that point in the story, and I really fucking like Wing Games. Another thing that it does is every main character that you unlock for your party has kind of a different mechanic that sort of changes the way that combat works for them.

Like there's one who has a perfection system so that the longer they go without taking damage, the stronger their attacks get. One of them can steal the feet and legs of the enemies that they defeat to then transform into those enemies, giving them sort of a Blue Mage style vibe going for them. So, guys, can I talk to Chris and Russ over here? That's not a character in the game.

Griffin has been talking about the guy that steals your feet. I love this. Since he started playing it, and like, that's not part of it, guys. His name is To Man, and he's nasty. Sorry, sorry. Guys, there's nobody in it that steals your feet. He keeps saying that. He smells him, and the stink is his magic power.

He says, he says, Zootalore, I need them more stink. Yeah, he says he puts it in his stinky cheese. And that's, like, offensive to French people, too. And Griffin keeps insisting. There's a guy that steals feet to put the stinking jeez. Okay, so that character's not there, but what about the one that steals my nose? David Cage?

That's not the game. Yeah, David Cage is in it. There's a fully rendered David Cage. He says, So, the Lord, I put the stink of the... I want to give major props to how this game has changed the face of sort of cosplay norms at conventions because, God damn, guys, anyone that you go to now,

you are just going to see roving packs of mimes, for a picnic is what it looks like most of the time and I do love that I want to go back to the I'm sure there are people just like you hoops who are like you didn't play the end of the game your your opinion is invalid I want to say one all the games we're talking about here rock I didn't say no I don't know I but I it's I'm not okay I won't put those words into your mouth I think that's a fair thing for people who are listening to feel what I want to say is all the games here are good the trouble I had with this game is now whether or not it's good. The music

just absolutely rocks. The writing is all there. I have consumed so many stories about what is grief, and then I've also consumed so many stories about what is art, and I don't like Mario RPG. There's a lot, yeah,

this game's not going to pitch you where you're at then. Made it so that, like, I am just not the ideal candidate for this game. It doesn't mean any of those things are bad decisions. It means I found myself about how Halfway through being like, uh-oh, this is playing to all my weaknesses. And I felt validated.

Yeah. I, you know what's hard is, not hard, but this is just a contextual point. And I feel like this is a lot of this year, I bounced off dispatch so hard at the beginning. It was like almost instant. What Frush said about Dragonslayer, that's exactly how it felt, but worse. Like, because it felt like I wasn't having any impact on it. it was like the most boring quick time events ever like it really it really was a it felt like a slog and it wasn't until i did this with with exhibition 33 too though it wasn't

until i returned to it and kind of met it on its own uh level like met it where it was at like that i really started to get into it and that's it kind of shared trait between both of these i think it's it's the opposite for me of that like dispatch it was i thought it was one thing i thought it was of the boys and then as I got through more of it and the pilot which I do not think does it a lot of service and I found that more cozy hangout with your office workers vibe that it really sung and the more I played slash watched the more it grew on me I mean to boil this down I'll speak for myself and you know I played a lot of both of these games uh dispatch is the one that was like will leave a longer mark for me, I want more of dispatch, whereas I stopped

halfway through Expedition 33 because I wasn't super enjoying myself. So that's really, that's just a personal preference thing that I'm at. That's what all these are going to be. Yeah, I mean, realistically, that's all these are going to be. We've tried to get facts more as a part of this, but it doesn't work. We can't figure out of way to do it. It doesn't work. So I will defer to you guys and where your heads are at. It's honestly close for me. I really fell in love with dispatch. I really, really, it hooked me in a major way.

And there's also a recency thing that is truly tough to weigh because I beat Expedition 33 back in like April or something. And I finished dispatch over like a breathless four-day period a couple weeks ago. So it's still kind of super fresh in my mind. I think they both do a really great job telling a really great story with mechanics that are really strong for the genre that they represent. I think I would give it to Expedition 33 personally, just in terms of

scale of achievement, scale of like ambition a little bit. But it is, it's not a blowout in my mind. Yeah, I really like this patch a lot. And Expedition 33,

you know, both of these have some pretty big astroi next to them, I guess. I would go with Expedition 33 just because, there are so many, I really love the time I spend with Dispatch. I find Expedition 33, like, hard to shake. And it's hard to shake in a way that, like, all the things I want video games to do, like look different and make you feel like you're exploring a different place and, like, do things that other video games are not doing.

I feel like Expedition 33, it just, like, tries to buck convention so hard that it makes it really engaging. and I find it like the aesthetics and the music and everything, it really sticks with me. But I would go Exhibition 33 for that. It seems like we have a split here. I would actually probably go Expedition 33. I'm not in love with either of these games,

but I think I appreciate Expedition 33 more. I guess, like, Dispatch was a solid, like, yeah, there was a nice time for me. And in the end, I left it happy. Expedition 33, I was really, wowed by the first 10 or so hours and then no one no one leaves that fucking game happy i guarantee you that no one leaves expo 33 like no whistling it jolly tune i think the next i i i want to go on a limb here and say the next dispatch thing whatever happens next with that

is going to be really big i think the game parts will be fleshed out i think that uh the cast to be more i think it's going to be really really successful because i think the people who really, and Exhibition 33, probably too, right? It'll probably be a grip before we see Expedition 32, but, which I assume the sequel will be. By the way, guys, this might have helped you guys with Expedition 33. The numbers are going down. And if you're someone like me, that would be so confusing for 12 to 15 hours if you couldn't understand why all the numbers of the other expeditions that you get finding were higher.

But then, once you figure out that the number is going down, a lot of the story makes one. Oh, yeah, that does check out. I do want to mention that one of the expeditions just was super strong guys. I was going to say the next game should be Expedition 60, which was the, where they got so strong that they, like, punched through this invisible, invincible barrier, and they were all shirtless the whole time. I want to do Expedition 5. Expedition babies. You know what I mean? It's just five years old.

We're going to get her this time. Let's go. Get the juice boxes. Okay, congrats to Expedition 33 dispatch. The next one, honestly, guys, is the one I'm dreading, I think, the most. And don't worry. It's not going to be bad. Next up, we've got action.

Absalom versus Hades 2. Just action. These games have action. They're the only two action games of the whole year. Finally, games with action. I'll start with Absalom, unless Russ or Chris. I can't do. Yeah, you go.

Go, go. A surprise game from the developers of some of the best beat-em-ups that have come out in recent memory. I'm blanking on the name of the studio at this exact moment. Quantic dream. You really got him. That man lives in your head fucking root free. I think about David Cage eight times a day, and it's always during this show. That's what the hard thing is.

It was a Doddimo and Guard Crush games. And Super Monks. And Supermunks, yes. Guard Crush games made Streets of Rage 4. Just like a lot of really great lineage in this genre, basically kind of the inheritors of this genre, I would say. Doing something completely new in a new world, a beat-em-up fantasy game that does feature a lot of Hades-esque rogue-like elements.

You have your character. Each run, you go through a world where you're making sort of like branching paths to go to different levels, leveling them up, earning unlocks that give you sort of permanent upgrades. But each run, you are getting these aspects that add certain special things to your, you know, beat them up, light and heavy attack, special attack kind of skill set. For instance, there is a water type kind of aspect where you can trap enemies in little bubbles and knock them backwards and deal more damage as they fly backwards to the air. There is a like thorns aspect where you creating these daggers that you can throw whenever you do certain moves and there's lots of

different ways that your character is going to be different every time you play the game depending on the choices that you make. I think that stuff is very, very cool and I know has been somewhat divisive. Behind all of that stuff, I find the beat-em-up gameplay of Absalom probably my favorite. Probably my favorite beat-em-up gameplay. I think it is, I think it's the most fun, tightest beat-em-up game that has ever been made. I have had so much fucking fun playing that game. Even though it only goes to two players, which is I think slight compared to,

you know, I've been playing a bunch of Castle Crashers, Henry, that one goes up to up to four. I think that the shit that you can do in this game, the combos you do is so fucking slick. I think it's the best co-op game I played all year, like bar none.

Yeah, the progression hooks are really great. Like you really, really feel every run. Like, oh, okay, I got this, that's going to, like, add new aspects to the game next time I play or, or, uh, new special skills for my favorite character. Um, I think it is a bit, uh, it feels a bit, uh, first drafty to me, by which I mean, like, more than any other game this year, like, this is the one I'm excited for the sequel to where we can get more than, uh, I think there's four characters in there. And I feel like I've seen kind of the tricks that they, they have, uh, compared to the

other game that is up for contention right now. I spent way more. fucking time with Hades too, but the time I spent with Absalom, man, I, I really, really, really enjoyed also a game that I could play with Henry a lot and, and that's always like, you know, good, good, good stuff for me. Fucking frog wizard in this game, for Christ's sake. He's my least favorite of the characters, actually. Go fuck yourself, Griffin. He's a frog wizard.

Okay. Okay, that's cool. I like the one who looks a lot like Taco from the Taz graphic novels. There's so much fucking wild stuff that you can do with her. But, yeah, Absalom, I want everyone to play this game, mostly because I want there to be a sequel and soon, but also because, like, I think if you even have a passing interest in beat-em-up games, this is the best one that's ever come out. Agreed. You want me to do Hades 2? Yeah.

Hades 2 is the sequel to Hades. It's the same studio that worked on both. Excellent start. Thank you. Same studio that worked on both games, the notable... Quantic Dream. Notably. We can't keep talking about Quantic Dream.

They haven't made it a hundred years. Are they making one right now? I don't know, but I'm sure it has great office environment. Let fresh tell us about the character in Hades, too, that'll steer your toes. Okay? Be serious. You're a Melinaway, who is a witch raised in this coven, basically a member of the family of Hades and all of the other family members are basically vanished and been kidnapped or whatever, and it seems. that Kronos, the Titan of Time, is the new big bad that is keeping all of your family members locked up and you've got to go chase them down.

I love this game. I know Griffin played quite a bit of it as well. Did you finish it, Griffin? This is the thing. I never finished Haiti. I didn't finish Hades 1. But you got to finish Hades 2. I didn't finish Hades 2 about 15 times, which was insufficient for Hades 2 to give me the time.

I think the This to me is a fan... When you say beat Hades, do you mean see the real ending of Hades? There's a credits. There's like a... Yes, I know. Listen, I know.

I'm asking. Yes. Yes. To see... I don't think it's necessary for what it's worth. I think you can have an experience that feels cumulative

at the end of, you know, 20 hours, maybe, 25 hours. You'll see most of the content. Although if you stop playing Hades after 25 hours, my hat is off to you, my friend.

Your well power is stronger than mine. I think for me, me, this game feels like a, I don't mean this as derision, but it does not feel like a full sequel to me. It doesn't feel like a full reimagining of the Hades model. It feels like we were building on the incredibly strong foundation that was set in the first game. I think it's better than the first game. I know there's some objection to that across the board. Some people feel like the first game is better. I think this game is better. I don't think the narrative is better, but that's neither here nor there. I think artistically, and in terms of the gameplay, I find this a little

more compelling. But I think the challenge that I keep running into with Hades is that it doesn't feel special to me in the way that the original Hades felt special. It felt like new territory. And honestly, we probably, as people that have to play a lot of games, might give too much credit to games that are doing something brand new, but quite honestly, like, that's who we are because we have to play a lot of games. So when there's something that stands out and is doing something really special, we kind of give it its flowers, as the children say. So you've had a long

journey with this game, so I really want to hear your thoughts on it. There was a time when I was doing updates, remember? I was doing like, here. Yeah, that's about as recurring as a bit as we get here on a bit. Yeah, right? Yeah, I, you know, it I have returned to it

past a couple weeks as I've been trying to like freshen up everything in my mind. It's great. but I did have a very long journey with this game where I started playing it when we first got access and I played a lot and each time there was an update I would like go back in and play more and I I am somehow I'm to some extent a victim of that because it's harder to remember like what's new and what's not new and what I was working on and the meta becomes almost impossible to keep tabs on like I'm not going to go in there and mess with my arcana anymore I've got a 30 out of 30 bill that I'm just going to leave forever. So I don't know if I'm going to spend the amount of time. I honestly, you hit on the head, Russ. I think the biggest problem with Hades 2 is that Hades 1 is a fucking amazing video game

that everybody I know spent a bajillion hours with. And it's like it to do like to even do more with Hades 2, like it's like they nailed it so hard with Hades 1 that I don't. know what a hades two would would feel like that would feel like a you know worthy success to that like i just don't know that there's as much room there for because to grow because hades one was so good absolute feels to me closer to a sequel that i would expect from super giant games than hades two and by that i mean they have until this point never done a traditional sequel and they've always built on whatever they learned from the previous game and then

moving it into a different genre and doing something that will surprise you. And I think Absalom is very much borrowing from Hades, the way it is avoiding the repetition of the beat-em-up genre by incorporating these little story changes that hit you at the various branches of your journey throughout it. And similar with how it has incorporated Hades style in rogue-like growth, character progression over the course of a mission, where Hades 2, I went back and played it this week. And again, this is the thing you say about a fantastic game. I was more scared of how much time I was going to sink into a thing that I was enjoying well enough. There's nothing about it that is like, wow, I love this. And at the same time, there's nothing really wrong with it,

And I want to keep playing it, which is great for most people who want to play video games and not great for making a bracket that, yes, as we do, tends to favor something new and surprising and interesting and challenging. I adore Hades, too. I spend a fucking lot of time with it. And I think more than maybe the rest of you, it sounds like, I think it is a real accomplishment to make a sequel to Hades and have it be like as rock solid as this. is I think it does enough stuff new from Hades where I've spent, I've spent more time, I've beaten, quote unquote, this game more than I beat Hades, like I've had way more runs and I've gotten way more into the progression hooks, which are really, I think, rock solid, really strong. It's a tuning thing for me where I hit a wall after beating sort of both routes of the game,

you know, a half dozen times each where I felt like I was having runs where I was spending like, you know, a half hour and then didn't really get anything to show for it. And I can't, when I am playing a game that is so progression hooky as this, once that starts to happen, it's like way, way, way off for me. I feel like I wanted it to move a little bit, be a little bit more generous, I guess, I suppose, with the progress. But, yeah, for me, it's Absalom in this category for the reasons Chris outlined. It's just so new and so exciting. The world is so weird and cool and the characters are great. Y'all, I just think Absalom's boring.

when you play it it's boring I mean every run with Hades too you're like new strategies new ways these things build on each other and like you go into Absalom you're pounding on the attack button and you know you do the special and there's like regular beatem up stuff you can grab and there's some

they introduce some like clash mechanics and stuff but I was when I would finish a run in Absalom I would think all right I'm good because like for starters the upgrades that you get after a run don't change the things that you're doing that much they don't change the feel you can get a different, like, ultimate power that you can unlock. But a lot of the, a lot of it is you're

unlocking choices rather than, like, upgrades to your power where you, like, feel considerably more powerful. Um, and for me, like, the runs just felt so samey that when I finished one, it was like really a struggle to get myself to do another one just because I, I had no appetite to get back in and do it again just because the gameplay is so repetitive. I didn't get a repetitive sense necessarily, but I did get a sense that I think the game is designed specifically. with co-op in mind and I think that's when it shines the brightest because it ends up moving a lot faster than you would have an experience playing solo. You do unlock a currency at a certain point that gives you pretty flat upgrades to the like

aspects where it's like this one is now stronger or the really smart thing that it does is you unlock synergies between the different paths that are unique. So it'll be like, okay, now every time you hit someone and you cap, you know, trap in one of these bubbles, it is also going to, you know, set the ground on fire where they land. land, which will then activate this synergy. Like, it does some of that stuff. But it does, that does get back to my core sort of thing with Absalom, which is like, I wish there was more of that progression stuff.

I wish there were more choices. I wish there were more characters. I wish there were more levels. And the thing that stood out for me for Absalom wasn't necessarily the gameplay, which I found super fun, but like, whatever, I played beat them up before. This is definitely a very good one of those. The thing that stood out for me was the constant level of surprise that I was having on runs, where you would run into an MPC and they'd be.

like, yo, we're doing a heist of this castle over here. And suddenly you're in a totally different fucking environment that you haven't been in before doing some like side mission. And I don't, you don't really get those surprises from much of Hades to. Like, you'll do runs, you'll go to familiar places. The surprises will come in like dialogue that you'll get, like fun dialogue from the NPCs you meet. And occasionally you'll do, you'll get like teleported to like Hades or whatever.

But largely like you're doing the same runs a lot. and I do agree with Justin that there's more variety in the way you can set up your build but for me I found a build that worked I figured out which cards were best most synergistic with that build and every single time I did a run

I used those cards for that synergy so it did end up feeling very same in the end as well in Hades for Hades yeah yeah but the builds you are doing in every run of Hades are completely different I mean like you are building completely different skill sets

that are changing the way that you play. And that's just like... Only if you're willing to change weapons, which I felt comfortable with you spend. No, no, because the boons are completely different. The boons will change your play style. You don't have any... Sorry to get prudantic,

but if you pick specific treasures that guarantee a certain boon that you know is ideal for your weapon, I was picking the same boons basically every single run. So I will agree with Russ that if you pick the exact same options every single time,

there will be some repetitive nature to your game. Russ, you know what? I'm sorry, Russ. You're right. Thanks. I'm just saying there is... For certain weapons, there's like an ideal, more productive way to get through levels. It's not a...

Dude, I understand wanting to win an argument, but like, in terms of gameplay variety, it sounds silly. Like, Hades is completely different every single time. I agree that Hades. I agree with you that Hades, too, has more variety. I agree. Let's show up. let us do a vote on this one absalom versus Hades 2

Hoops where are you at on this one? It's obviously Hades too guys please do not let your innovation bias Griffin where are you ruin this for you Absalom for me with a bullet Interesting me too Wow I'm absolute I'm sorry Hoops I mean guys it's fine

It's gonna happen it's gonna happen It's gonna happen everyone's babies are gonna die Every round matchup I guarantee it Uh, okay. Next. Next up, we have PlayStation Worlds. We have Death Stranding 2 verse is Ghost of Yote. Uh, who wants to kick off? Thematically, that's a weirdly good pairing. Like, yeah, like in, where they fit in the lineage of their own franchises, it makes a lot of sense. Who wants to take Ghost of Yote to kick it off? That seems like a Justin, you know, yeah, man. Ghost, I really liked the, the predecessor to this game, Ghost of Shima. I didn't like it. I didn't like it enough to stick with it.

Ghosts of Yote, I feel like it would be easy to say, especially I feel like open world Japan in this era we've been really inundated with. And I think it'd be easy to kind of write this game off. And I think it is so aware of how hard it needs to fight to be worth your attention. And I really did that Ghost of Tsushima, it's an open world revenge story

where you start running. You start, like, knowing what you need to do. You know the list. You have a list of people that you're going to kill because of what they did to your family. The character that is played by Erica Ishi, who did a really amazing job, Vigia nominated performance.

She feels like a real angry person that is really focused on this one thing. And there's a lot of characters that have revenge stories in video games that you don't buy, and I really buy it with her. Like you root for her and the way she is

going after the revenge. It feels very plausible. It draws you in right away. It is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful to look at. With mini games that I don't know if they're everybody's bag, but I think they are I still, like the

sucker punch is doing, they're funker. their funky game controller stuff i dig that kind of nonsense but uh yeah man it's just like it's a very you know it it's it's a very generous sort of game i feel like they're giving you a lot to like look at and experience um a lot of the story beats are very cool and they do like really not just the like gimmicky stuff but like i love this this one thing they do where you're learning a weapon and to to practice using the weapon you have to do this like complicated button combo that is sequence

It reminds me of Quantic Dreams games specifically Yeah Yeah It's a very Quantic Dreams Sort of moment

Thank you Russ But like as the montage Continues The button sequence That you have to Have to do To perform the cut gets easier

So like You are physically getting better At the button presses And your character is getting better But it is like It's using mechanics

To tell a story In a really really smart way but the whole game is sort of the initial combo is awkward so yeah it's like it feels uncomfortable weird way that just feels uncomfortable um in feel is a big thing in this game the same thing with the use of the touchpad where it really wants you to feel tactile the game when you're writing uh the kana or kanji or whatever i think otzu i think otsu is my favorite character of a game this year i think the way that the world sort of real

reacts to her as this instrument of vengeance is really interesting while also she is so at times like outmatched by the people she's hunting she is not this like everyone thinks of her as this invincible uh spirit of vengeance incarnate and yet she gets her ass like kicked a lot like it is a there is a human vulnerability she reminds me of the bride a little bit yeah a little bit yeah it's like her superpower is like the relentless like the the si-sue You know, that her unwillingness to die, I feel like, is her superpower. Sort of it's funny because we'll talk about him more later, but I got more of an Indiana Jones thing where it's like, you are, you are plucky and you are going to keep fucking fighting, but you are not invincible. And I do really, really enjoy that.

Yeah. I mean, similar to the kill bill thing, they did the work. And Ghost of Sashima took inspiration from Japanese action cinema and had like, kyrgyz. saw a mode in that one and it has it here again too but i think this story of revenge it really feels like they went back and watched all of the great films from the 50s through the 80s they they get that the appeal is not just as you said hoops that this is a you know basically a superhero but these characters are usually just normal people who have to by the grit of their fingernails make this work to get their revenge and i think it gets that i also just want to go back to

One other thing you said hoops about it knowing that it had to distinguish itself for better or worse, depending on what you want from this sort of game. But we've played these open world games so much that we are refining, refining, refining, refining the gem until we get the tightest shine. And that is what this game is. There is a bit of diminishing returns for open world games. But holy moly, have they really refined every little detail down to simple things like when you, need to kind of travel back in time to learn stories, you hold down the touchpad and you just zip right to it. It doesn't have a loading thing that creates this barrier to make it,

you know, instantly less enjoyable. Every little detail is there. And it's almost all optional to that stuff. Like it is, you are investing in this character with your time and you will want to do it, which is. Sorry, death straining to, could we speak to that too so we can compare these too. Sure. Death Stranding 2 is equal to get Death Stranding. I'm not going to fucking try to summarize the storyline. I think the gist you can get from it is this is a very new, well, Death Raining 1 was a very new approach to an open world game where you are sort of crafting the open world in such a way that it makes it easier to traverse. And in turn, as you're connecting new areas of the map, you'll see other players' creations within your world. Death Raining 2 basically

smooths out a lot of the very rough edges that the first game kind of leaned on. The first game would frequently be awkward and overwhelming and didn't make a lot of sense and player hostile. And I think this game goes through those periods, but really only very early on. When you said, sorry, Russ, when you said player hostile, I was reminded of how much time you spent playing the first desk stranding. Oh, I actually really liked it. But you, I know, I know, but it's like, There's something deep in the psyche. It's like, it was really mean to me, but I still liked him. It was like, it was super hostile, definitely, even I could have been at night in sight.

Well, and I think this game actually leans on that a lot, and even the sequel leans on that a lot, specifically. So you'll be in this environment where, let's say, you're climbing this giant, snowy, perilous mountain, and you've got basically very few tools, and you're trying to lug this giant weight up, and you eventually make it to the top of the mountain, you connect the area, and then suddenly you can set up two zip lines from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain, and the thing that you struggled with and suffered through for those 30 minutes

now takes 30 seconds and that fucking loop only gets bigger and more expansive as this game goes along. It is constant in a way that made me finally like, I hate a Destrating 1.

I think that the stuff it throws at you to make your life easier is a hundred times more more generous and more enjoyable than Death Stranding 1 so much so that like I was running back packages that I found so I could finish up, you know, leveling up this one connection so that I could get, you know, whatever this upgrade to my Tri-Cruiser is. And it gives you that stuff

so fast. I kept playing it. I had reached, I didn't finish it because for both of these games, I simply don't play my PS5 that much. If these were on Steam deck or Steam, I would be cranking through for sure. But I got to the monorail system that you can unlock in the game. And that felt like, oh, okay, they really want you to enjoy playing. this game. And that's great because I really enjoy the insane story stuff that it does at every turn. It feels like a lot of games say this, but Death Strand 2 really does feel like you can play it how you want to play it. It is like the first game was like we have a very specific kind of idea for how this which should be. And what's interesting for me about Death Stranding 2 is by giving you more weapons

and more and like making it a little some of these decisions a little bit easier and less punishing. And you could actually shoot people without them exploding, which is was a thing and you can shoot people without them exploding which is such a treat um they do that and then i found myself deciding to do things in an annoying way because it seemed fun right i found like i know i know i could get like the tricruiser and like just run over there but it looks like it would be i think it would be kind of fun to take two two ropes with me and like a ladder yeah and just fucking go do it myself and the the sensation of setting out with like looking at a map and saying, like, I got two big gaps I've got to think about.

And packing that stuff, there's nothing in video games like, like, nothing. Yeah. The sense of preparation and setting out on an adventure and, like, really knowing the things that you have in your bag and, like, having a tangible sense of what that is. And not being constantly, not being constantly fucking interrupted by invisible monsters that will kill you and ruin your fun time. Right. You can go have your fun. It's so different. Yes.

All that shit I chalked up to, oh, that's just Kojima's like. vision in the first game and I was like well I don't like that that vision sucks I don't like it very much the extent to which that stuff has been trimmed back here is I think shows fucking tremendous growth from Hideo Kojima or he was working on another game and someone else came in was like we can fix that one else quick quick it's either either either he let someone else work on it or he experienced his own hallmark Christmas movie where he finally found love in his heart And they're like, Hideo, it doesn't have to be like this. You know what I mean? Like, you can be caught. Like, you can still find joy. You know what I mean? You, you were the guy who let people fight with the sun, remember?

Remember Bokta? Please. Let's, let's, let's, I feel like for me, it's destiny too, just because it's the fun. It is weird. It is for me as well. I think Gozzi Yota is a fun game. I have a lot more to say about it, but I'll save it for the next round. Yeah, I think we're, this is just part one.

Gose Yeta is sick, though. Like, if you, if you like it, you'll love it. That's what I say about Gossiota. And it'll grow on you the more you play it. It is a good game just to have in the background throughout all of next year. It's also one that I find myself returning to. This and Death Stranding, actually, I will, like, return to for a few hours and just, like, experience the world again because it's killer. Yeah.

Next up, we are reimagining the platformer with baby steps. It's the craziest matchup plant. And Donkey Kong Bonanza. No, Justin, you say it's the craziest matchup, but both characters are barefoot. So it is worth considering that. Great point, man. Maybe that should be the genre. You think Bennett Fadi was like, I just hope my game is better than Donkey Kong but ananza.

That's my main competition is that as long as it's a better video. As long as it's a more successful video game than that. I'll do baby steps if you want. Yeah, please. Baby steps, you play as a arrested development man who is living in his parents' basement. Vice Funky. And gets teleported to a magical other land where all he has is his onesie that he is wearing and his feet. And you control the feet individually.

You control each leg individually as you move through this world, which is an open world environment that is filled with perilous climbs that you must take using this very interesting mechanic. The reason for me that it stands out It is easily one of my favorite games of the year Is the intentionality that you're taking in every single thing you do Is incredibly satisfying to me I think Death Stranding does this with tools And with like gear upgrades and like transforming the map itself And baby steps your every little one second or five second loop

Is you making a choice of where you're going to put each footstep And making a choice of every. am I going to go fast or slow? Am I going to take this risky path versus not? And I found it like endlessly compelling and super genuinely fun in ways that I've never found a bett fought a game fun before. Yeah. I find them torturous generally.

And this was just incredibly satisfying to me. It crystallizes a moment from getting over it in a way that is able to distribute much more frequently, which is like in getting over it, which is the game where you remain in a caldra and using a hammer to push yourself along, you would like, be going along and then you would hit something where it's like there's no fucking way they want me to like plant my hammer on that balloon and do a single jump this game will throw stuff at you where you'll be walking around a desert area for a while and then see a empty swimming pool and you think like if I go in there I am not going to be able to get out so I I really want to

know what the fuck the game's going to and sure enough if you go in that swimming pool it rewards it with some truly hysterical like interactions with the characters of the world I kept playing this game because Russ was such a staunch supporter of it. And I really wanted to see what the emotional kind of payload of the game was because it seemed so silly. And I did get to a point that kind of took my breath away a little bit. I have not finished the game, but the way it kind of explores, I don't know, self-loathing and isolation and like how loneliness makes you so self-reliant. to a fault is like, I've never played a game that wanted to really talk about that before.

And I think it's easy to write it off as like slapstick. There's a lot of talking about how bad you have to piss. And there's a lot of donkey dicks. Holy shit. The part I reached yesterday was just like, I can't believe how many dicks are my computer is rendering on my screen at one point. But, I mean, it punches above its weight class, I think, constantly. And really was very, very surprising.

I think I'm going to keep playing it. And finish it, which I've never done with a faughty game before either. It and Death Stranding, on top of both things, games about walking are games about accepting help. In Death Stranding, I think, is very much like the new deal. Like, how do we all work together collectively? It results in these kind of messy interlinking highways that maybe don't look great, but they, you know, make it so much easier to get around. Baby Steps is bonkers because it is a game about our unwillingness to accept help routinely. it is telling you there is an easier path and yet you can challenge yourself to the point that there is a option at the end of stairs versus the hardest imaginable path towards the end and so many people online are like bragging about taking the harder path which is its own weird meta commentary of you know a performance of toughness of strength and I think what's good about the game is it doesn't say that's inherently bad

It is routinely actually giving you options intentionally to make it harder because it's saying, well, maybe what you take from it is that it's fun. Maybe you do want to step into the swimming pool. Maybe you do want to dive off the diving board knowing that it's going to throw you to the bottom of the mountain. But it is also kind of constantly reminding you, hey, maybe you should take this energy outside. Maybe you should turn the game off for a while. If you like the challenge in the game, maybe take a little bit of that out into the real world. old. It is, but like, it is, man, I can't think of too many other video games where I legitimately

can say that they are open to interpretation. And I don't mean in like in a narrative sense, right? Like, I think that there are multiple valid reads on baby steps, right? Like, I hated playing baby steps. Like when I, by myself, when I would get through a section and be making really good progress and I'd take one misstep and I'd hit a mudslide. and I'd slide all the way down a hill and be back where I started 20 minutes ago

it's like personally that made me feel like shit and I was like fuck this dude I'm turning it off that's like a valid I feel like that's actually you know what I'm saying like that's a valid baby steps experience

which I feel like pretty confident saying because I also played with my brothers and had like a really fun time and we played for a long time and I feel like we had a very valid experience with baby steps right i cannot think of it because at first it kind of pissed me off because i was like you know if you don't want me to be playing video games so much then why are you making a video game but that is does feel like the point and that's like a little bit yeah that's fucking cool man

i like that's that's something else that's pretty brave i think to to to put something out there like that really is like a lot of games aren't art and i think baby steps actually might be if I'd be so bold. Yeah. I also love how it kind of fits into Bennett Fottie's sort of canon because it is commenting a lot on Bennett Fottie games.

Hey. Because all of that is so intrinsic to it. I don't mean to keep the ball rolling, but we've been talking a lot about donkey dongs. Can we talk about donkey d'ong? What about Hans? I mean, kudos also to Nintendo for making a game that is pretty much

a new kind of platformer. I don't know that I've ever played one where you can smash the whole. whole fucking world, if that is what you choose. I will start by saying that I played it wrong at first. It has a co-op mode that is intoxicating to play with the child, where you can just become a bazooka, a little girl bazooka that can sing at mountain faces and crumble them before her will. I played a lot of the game like that and had a great time and also did not get why people were so fucking wild about it. You like accidentally turn on no clip, like as you started

playing you're like yeah exactly what's the hubbub uh but going back and playing it a little bit more since we sort of did our setup episode for this uh i i have i have really really been enjoying my time with it uh because it is fun to hunt for treasure uh as a gorilla who can go wherever the fuck he pleases uh and i i think that it does such an it invents a new way of the collectible hunt that is so like uh core to the the the open world platformer genre. Is that a feeling that is only Nintendo, that I only

recall from Nintendo games usually, but there's a sense when you start playing this where it, at least that I had where it's like, whoa, you're going to let me do this the whole game? Like it seemed that like, whoa, that doesn't seem fair. Like, whoa, you, me and I can smash everything. Like, I genuinely felt

that thrill of like something new, like a new way of interacting with it that made me feel like, this doesn't seem right. I'm normally not allowed to do all stuff we're going to cut me off and the fact they didn't uh was like really exciting i found that really energizing yeah occasionally that doesn't always pay off like uh echo's the wisdom that uh Zelda game where you play at Zelda was like it was it didn't quite work but in this case it felt like

they came up with an idea and they just executed on a really uh great way i i always think about dk bonanza when i'm looking for like uh how do i kill the next 20 minutes if i want to and i have my switch right there i'd rather be playing dk pananza it's like the go-to fucker round game on that platform. And I wish there were more of them. I'm really encouraged by what it means for the rest. Switch to game. For the rest of Switch 2, because it's also, it's an ugly game at times in a way that

Nintendo games aren't. And by that, I mean, when you are inside of a tunnel that you've created and it's doing this weird clipping effect where you can see, you can't see, it doesn't have that need to be absolutely perfect that I expect from most Nintendo games. for the better. It has privileged the fun above all else without the game actually breaking and it really wants you to be able to read the situation.

I think that is really cool and I'm curious where Nintendo goes from here because it seems like they know that that is the world that we live in now. It feels like growing up on Roblox broken is almost expected or assumed. Yeah, I think even with Tears of the Kingdom

like that feels like their design is pushing in that direction more and more of player freedom versus is like a lockdown experience. I'm here for it, man. Yeah, that's, 100%. Let's, let's, uh, let's vote. Well, for me, it's baby steps.

I really like D.K. Bonanza a lot, but, uh, baby steps will stick with me for quite a while. I would, I would agree with that, actually. Um, I, I, I like D.K. Bonanza also. I, I, I just, I can't stop thinking about baby steps. And I did have a very unique experience playing with Justin and Travis sharing the controls. Like that was, it became a party game at that point, which is what it's not. supposed to be but I enjoyed my time with it solo going back and seeing some of the story stuff as well uh yeah I mean on baby steps I will say fuck baby steps which I believe is a better game than donkey Kong Bonanza that is my personal feeling of baby steps I think it is better I think it

is a fucking truly truly cool thing yeah that made me want to die let's take a break versus no stress. We have Silk Song versus Wander Stop. I think that we should just say some nice things about Wanderstop because we all know where it's going, you big shots. I get it, I get it, I get it.

I think that's probably true. I really want to hang a lantern on Wanderstop, though. It is a cozy game that sort of shakes a lot of the expectations you have about cozy games. You talk about like video games in conversation with how you feel while you're playing video games, I wonder Stop does that better than Baby Steps or any other game that has come out in my recent memory. You play as a warrior

who has had to retire after a streak of losses has sort of got in her head. You go seeking the training of this legendary fighter and instead get lost and tired in the woods. You cannot to escape from these woods and keep finding yourself waking up in front of a tea shop. And so with the kindly owner of the tea shop, you run this business growing plants that you then turn into delicious teas for the eccentric customers that come by. What it does special is it constantly resets. And you are not making progress. You're not unlocking a stronger, you know, fire to boil water with.

you are not becoming better at planting things. You're not even really building a lot of long-term relationships. No, except with the T-shop owner, and you will get sort of returning customers after these like constant reset points. But what it is trying. But it's not like a persona kind of thing where that's another, it's not treated like an unlockable

or something that you like, you can get it or you don't. There is no mechanical incentive, like whatsoever, full stop. There is no leveling. There is no unlocks that is like changing fundamental. your core interactions with the game. In doing that, it is trying to tell a story about rest. And it is trying to tell a story about self-care through kind of like meditative rest and leisure.

And it couldn't tell that story while also offering you special level-ups and like things other than like you help someone out and she runs a little shop. and every time you help her out, she's like, yeah, take something. And the things you take are like art, you can hang on the wall. That has no, absolutely no, like, implications beyond just that. It is, I mean, goddamn, it really goes hard in the last few chapters of the game in how it kind of like talks about work and how people think about achievement and being their best and how hard you are on yourself

when you are kind of like thinking about your life solely that way. There is a moment in this game that is so beautiful and devastating and really brought me to tears, which I don't know. I think the game does a pretty good job of setting you up for that kind of emotional resonance.

And then, gosh, it really, really sticks the landing. And I think it does it in a way that a lot of people would find extremely, relatable. And so for that moment and that scene alone, like, that is why it can totally hang in the in the goate consideration. But it is also like, there are no hooks, right? There's no progression hooks. It sort of eschews this entire piece of the puzzle of what I think about is like making a game that I really, really like because it is telling a story about enjoyment for enjoyment's sake rest for rest's sake uh and i think that's really really unique but it also like

i don't know it's up against holonite silk song which is like the opposite game where you are fighting and dying and getting stronger and losing progress and it hurts in a way that is different um i i also i mean the soundtrack is uh is my like go-to working music now which is maybe ironic. It's a really, really great game that you can get through in a few hours and get the story. And I think everyone should do that. Yeah, I really liked a lot of what Wanderstop was going for.

I think that, and I felt like engaging with it was very pleasant aesthetically. I will say that I didn't necessarily agree with everything that the game is saying. It's definitely a game that has more of a perspective. It has more of a perspective than baby steps, you know what I mean? In the sense that, like, I definitely feel like Wander Stop is coming at you with an opinion. And I feel like Baby Steps is more like the start of a conversation. I don't agree with a lot of what, like, Wander Stop is saying in terms of, I'll just say this. It felt preachy a lot of the time.

You know, it felt like lots of people relax in different ways, right? And I feel like people relax with lots of different kinds of videos. games right and it just seemed weird uh it seems like a weird uh contradiction i think to like yes i i i'm trying to relax right now you know what i mean like i'm and i don't necessarily agree with what you are saying about what we are oh ourselves what we are each other and so like i'm not really being engaged by the mechanics and narratively it was kind of like uh leaving me cold too which i think is the danger of having a game that has a message is that if the message doesn't connect, it really

just kind of left me cold. I think Silk Song, we have a lot to get through still and not a ton of recording. I think Silk Song is better. Does anyone object to Silk Song moving on? No, I really enjoyed Wander Stop, but I think you can go back and listen to our episode

if you want to hear more about that game. Yep. Cool. Silk Song is fucking great. We will get into it in Part 2 for sure. Okay, next up, we have the stories. Part 2. Blipo Plus versus Citizen Sleeper 2. Justin, what the fuck is Blipo Plus?

Shit, man. Blipo Plus isn't a video game? Why is it on this list? Even more than dispatch, it tests the boundaries. Yeah, man, it's not a video game. It's on Steam. You know what I mean? But it's like, okay, Blipo started on play date,

which is a crank powered, not powered. That'd be sick, wouldn't it? That's some could you. We don't know that when you're cranking it, it's not getting... It's a crank powered. No, it's a little portable video game system that has a crank where you interact with it. There's still some reference. So if you see references to cranks in Blippo Plus, it's because Blippo Plus is an adaptation of Blippo original that is a full color, I say high definition, but that's probably missing.

gives you the wrong idea it looks like watching cable or more accurately like broadcast TV in the 80s if it was from space like the late 80s mid 90s era of

that beginning stages of cable TV started that no one listening to this remembers but it feels like your own space TV station that is showing these brief 1530 like sometimes minute long TV shows that you see in like a channel guide and these TV shows are all I would say abstract in nature you can kind of understand what's happening for example there's like an American bandstand kind of like dance TV show for teens where they play like the latest music it's the same song every time the song is nonsensical and the dancing is unlike anything that you can relate to as like a

from our world but the entire thing is like that it's this like bizarre abstract art project like there's a lot of love and energy and time and attention being poured into each of the little episodes that you're combing through and the fact that you could miss it at different times it makes it feel very alive um my kids had a really good time just kind of flicking flipping through it and like uh watching some of the different channels it's really kind of like a a something you let wash over you. But as an experience, it's really, really unmatched and extremely, extremely cool. It reminds me a lot of like Meow Wolf, specifically the Denver location where you are in sort of an

alien, you hop on a elevator that lets you out into an alien world, and that is so much, very quickly the game becomes a TV station from an alien planet that knows Earth is watching. and that is that's when the game kind of clicked for me and when it sort of sort of felt like it was directly talking to me uh it it became much more sort of absorbing there's like not i'm trying to think of what interactive elements there are there is the femtofax sort of channel where you can go and look at message boards and stuff like that but um i i really was charmed yeah it shouldn't progress farther in this like it's not a video game And I really, I don't even mean that as a slight. It is an interactive thing that is not a, like, Wanderstops a video game because you can get to the beginning and the end of it, right? Like that, just because there's not challenge, it's still a video game. This is not a video game.

I don't know if the creators of Blippo Plus would even argue with that. In fact, I don't think they would. I don't think they would. I spoke with- It's just you can't upload it to Logo TV or Oprah TV. So you've got to put it on Steam. Yeah. I'll talk Citizen Sleeper, too, real quick.

I think it's going to walk away with it, but it is somewhat similar to the Hades conversation for me, because it is doing a lot of the stuff that Citizen Sleeper did really well. It is a game about being a sort of Android replicant in a cold and unfeeling version of outer space, far-flung future where sort of corporate entities have destroyed the galaxy time and time and time again and you are sort of a scavenger as is everyone else of those

those fallen sort of dynasties and it is a universe that does not give a shit about you except for the one person who does think that they own you who is constantly hunting you and with that pressure you are going through a variety of space stations

and putting together a crew and running odd jobs to buy supplies to keep your ship fueled and keep your your belly full, so your stress remains low. It is very, very classic pin-and-paper RPG inspired, very much Blades in the Dark, I would say, is the vibe that it is giving me more than anything, where you have dice that roll at the beginning of each cycle, just like a day, and then you apply those to certain activities.

You have better chances of success, if it's things that you have high stats in. And then as you are going through, the new big thing Citizen Sleeper 2 adds is you also have a crew that lives on your ship with you that goes out and does quests, like, odd, odd jobs that are sort of these very, very self-contained loops that once you figure out kind of how to do those, the game is fantastic. It doesn't do an amazing job of kind of like making that particularly evident. I had to restart this game because I kept fucking losing over and over and over again because I just didn't really know how to get through those little quests, how to get through those missions and was failing sort of a lot. And so I do think it struggles in the same

way citizen sleeper one did with kind of like getting across how you're supposed to really be playing it somewhat optimally and there are there are also chunks of citizen sleeper two and one for that matter where you're like supposed to lose like it's basically like fullness and auto fail it's totally i think appropriate you are supposed to be like beaten down but i that feels bad you know what i mean it was like it doesn't feel good i want to win that trick once in a game and right be okay but if it keeps happening it's it can be a lot yeah i think citizen sleeper two is better to tuned for that. Citizen Sleeper 1, you get so strong by the end of it that, like, everything is easy. And Citizen Sleeper 2 never really gets to that point. I've not finished it. I've made it

quite far into it. But the tone and vibe of this game are, is unparalleled. It's fucking incredible sci-fi storytelling, incredible world building. Very, like, pulpy noir-inspired, which I think gives them a little bit of flexibility and, like, not having the characters be these very fleshed out, you know, entities going through these huge kind of like emotional changes throughout the thing. They are very taciturn, kind of beleaguered space survivors like yourself. But like, I don't know, that's part again of the, of this story and the tone that they are trying to capture. And I think they capture it really, really well, while also having some, some more engaging, you know, interactivity than the first game.

I love both of these games as companion pieces, and I think if you are playing one, you'd be well off to play the other almost right alongside it. Second screen activity. Blippo is a game about how you protect and maintain a utopia, and Citizen Sleeper is a game about how you make space for yourself in a dystopia. Citizen Sleeper is a game all about stress. It is a game of literal stacking, ticking, ticking, clocks. Yeah. And there is a right way to play it. Blip-O-plus is a game that's the exact opposite.

You can wander around and you will do no wrong and there is no harm. Let's vote. Yeah. Can I just say, Cis and Sleever, I wish they would stop doing the dice thing. I think it's like one level of abstraction too much and it makes it harder for me to understand the many, many, many, many, many mechanics. I don't know why the dice has to be a part of it. I find that to be... Just the random result sort of element of it or like the five actions per...

day sort of. The adding of dice, I understand that the dye are like metaphorical but once they start layering on like glitches and stuff like that, I just don't find screwing with the dice that satisfying. It just feels like another way. It feels like a complication more than a

fun mechanic. You almost prefer a visual novel. Something where it's like, yes, I don't understand why I have to under, it's like another, I don't know, it's dice. You know what I mean? Give me a health bar a sword you know there's a nice yeah right so let's vote uh fresh mine's probably blipo but that's again just the taste thing i just like playing blipo more but i also acknowledge it's not

really a game uh for me it's citizen sleeper too i liked it quite a lot i'm i'm probably blippo i don't know blipo wow blipo i did not change your mind you decided it's valid it can it can keep going yeah it's on the list man you fell for the classic my classic maneuver i thought i made it look like i was supposed to lose but in fact i won it's a it's a citizen sleeper too um i really like citizen sleeper too i think if you like the first one you're i really like that one but blipo plus is i mean it's better than blipo in basically every way so that's yeah huge improvement more than one bit so that's like great for it the colors dude the colors the colors are huge um what's next

Next up we have a game from this year versus a game from last year We have a vowed versus Indiana Jones Shit man Shit dude Yeah we did actually bring back Something from December of last year Because it came out too late

It can happen Blueprints can come back next year That's right yeah Okay Indiana Jones if you want Do you want You want to do Indiana Jones Point? Yeah

Indiana Jones Let's, Indiana Jones, people who are famous for making first person shooters said, you know what? The thing that we're best at, the S and the FPS, the shooters, we're going to cut that part out. We're going to make a first person game that's way more adventure. You're going to do some puzzle solving. You're going to have Troy Baker doing one of the single greatest impressions of a still living actor ever accomplished. And you're going to beat the living. snot out of people with your fists as you kind of go through a, I don't know, like a Indiana

Jones film. The puzzles aren't especially difficult. The combat isn't especially difficult. Once you accept that the stealth is not really going to punish you, it's not super difficult. And suddenly you're on a ride. You're on a great, you're on the theme park ride of Indiana Jones that you've always wanted because it doesn't give you back pain because the car moves too hard. Uh, I, I, I, I, have gone back to this game more recently and let me tell you it is really it's it's a hell of an achievement it looks so beautiful and we don't tend to be the people who privilege graphics but let's do it for just a minute this game looks unlike pretty much anything else out there it is it creeps you out when you go into caves it's creepy yeah it's like you go and like

oh i don't like this it's like i'm gonna hit 10 seconds it's it's it's yucky Frischdick has constantly asked me, why does ray tracing matter? Is this really worth it? And that is right most of the time. Most games, I don't know why I need ray tracing. You know where I need it in a game like this where there is not a lot of human-made light. There's not electric light in a lot of the situations. You're having natural light.

You need God rays in the Vatican City. You must have God raise. Having a light poor. Or through the fabric into the windows of a Vatican office looks stunning. Being in the cave and having the light bounce from the entrance looks incredible. Having fire flicker underground and in these tombs, it looks absolutely spectacular. Also great melee combat, which is such a rarity. You really do not find.

I do like how extremely heavy and weighty and butcher bay-e, like all of that. that stuff feels yeah um someone let's talk about a vow it's why i think that might be you juice oh dude i have made my contempt for a vowel known oh really i cannot i i've tried to play a vow ten times it is the RPG that will not stick in my brain i don't know why it's on this list i'm my case for a value plant you really i i really enjoyed this game and i think that there are two games that basically came out this year about covid and i think that is expedition 33 and and avowed. And in terms of hitting that anxiety, avowed worked a lot better for me personally. It is a game where you are exploring this fantastic land that is more, I don't know, influenced by marine biology

than you would expect from many fantasy settings. And you are dealing with the fact that there is some sort of thing spreading across civilization and people are deciding whether or not to quarantine to a degree. What I like about this game is not just that has a heavy-handed story about COVID, but the individual stories, the one-off moments, the side quest, I found really, really rich and really engaging and felt really personal. Like I could imagine someone deciding to write the story about you going and finding the birth control from the warehouse that's on a seaside

port and you're fighting to find out why the people in this um these group of like cortisans want to capture that from the government that's all really cool and then there's the density of it which i found great there are so many open world games where you spend a lot of time going from point a to point b and that can be rewarding it's you know a zen sort of thing this game is not that every few steps you are discovering something new it feels like they took a traditional Bethesda game and really smushed it down and made it compact while still feeling like a livable

space, which I think is an accomplishment. And then the very last detail I'll add is I personally felt like the combat was quite solid. Whether you ended up going with like the various guns that they have

or the magic, which I think is some of the coolest first person magic that I've felt in a game, where you were casting these really, really bold spells. I thought it all just, it worked. If there is a hitch against this game, it's that I don't know if for any of us, it really ever came together. All these solid pieces kind of are, they all, they never quite congeal in the way that I would hope. Yeah, I just needed a character to really hook me. And I just kind of didn't get that with the

story sort of at all. I enjoyed the combat. I agree. The magic is fucking cool. The spells you unlock very quickly are not just like fireball or bigger fireball. It's like stuff that is. Yeah, and that stuff is really neat. I think the world of Pillars of Eternity, which is the series that this is kind of like building off of is, is super duper unique in how, like you said, how kind of weirdly nautical a lot of the stuff in the world is. It just, it just didn't come together before it didn't click for me.

Yeah, I think it's a stronger game than the other. Obsidian put out three games this year Grounded 2 and this and Outer Worlds 2. I think this is the strongest of the three but I still think that there are elements that I think the individual side quest stuff works really well

for me but as we've said the the cohesiveness of the whole thing feels a little bit hit or miss. Yeah it just doesn't quite come together I would say indie for me yeah I would also quote for indie we can talk more about in the next I'm mostly just excited for this last

conversation we have for this yeah oh man this one's tough i okay the first and last surprises of 2025 the first surprise from january the root trees are dead and the last surprise sectori from just this month basically in november um i'll do root trees if that's okay uh the root trees are dead is uh a new age investigative journalism game you are tasked with not crystals and stuff what like crystals and stuff yes there's there's sound baths that you'll take no you are sort of a detective

in an office with a computer and that computer could take you to a fictional version of the internet that you're going to have to use to learn all about the root tree family and it's long history they are candy magnets and when the game begins

there's been an airline crash that has wiped out the kind of like last living core members of the root tree family. And so it is your job to put together the genealogy of the root trees by searching terms in this fake internet, sort of her story style. You're looking for certain keywords. You are going to different, you know, you might learn the name of a periodical, right?

So you'll search one member of the family and be like, in this interview with, you know, business times, they said, and you're like, oh, okay, so I'll go to this periodical search and search business times. It'll be like, yeah, that's a magazine. Now you, that is now unlocked. That has been added to your kind of like list of search engines for all this stuff. It does that a lot. And you will have to use all of that stuff to sort of put together the puzzle.

Does a very clever Oberiden thing where it only locks in after you've like gotten a certain number of entries correct. So you can't just kind of like guess your way through and try and figure out who, you know, who goes where on this big sprawling family tree. And then once you sort of solve all of it, it throws us whole. whole second quest at you that is way, way, way harder than the original where you are like more going through the company's history rather than just the families and trying to figure out who all of these illegitimate fathers are, which is fucking real hard because they've

tried to cover their tracks. Just really impressive how much they put into the fake search engines of this game. And it's so satisfying to unfold another piece of that to like, then realize like, oh, shit, I can go back and search all these other terms that I kind of ran into a dead end on now that I know that I have this other, like, you know, newspaper that I can look through. This is the game when over the last couple months, people have asked me what game I should check out, especially people that don't play games very often. This is the game I recommend. It runs on a shitty Mac or whatever computer you have pretty much. And it's immediately grockable by people that don't understand video games because you're just searching stuff. I mean, everyone knows that

Google and effectively you're Googling within the systems. I was just blown away by this. A little overwhelmed. I have been using more of the hint system, which I think has helped. But there is a certain mind, like a project management mind that I think would like find this incredibly sticky and awesome. And a journalist mind. Yeah, Chris, you just came to this, right?

Yeah. Holy smokes. If I ever teach my journalism course again, this would be the day one thing that I would ask everybody to play because it's not the end of journalism, but it is the beginning of researching a story, which is you have a suspicion and you just start searching, you just start pulling threads, and those threads lead to more threads, and you keep pulling and pulling and pulling. The way to get a bigger picture is to just find the tiniest little detail of information that you didn't know, and then to dig deep on that, and then to find the new tiny

detail and then dig deep on that. And the way the onion of this game is so it's so many layers deep. I really, really, really was smitten by the game. And the writing itself is great. Yeah. The story is

really compelling and great music too. A chill, jazzy soundtrack that I actually think is free on Steam if you don't just download that. Really very very, very fucking good. Sectory is Geometry Wars, but new and with more shit and also a campaign mode. Y'all.

And I don't know how hard we have to go on Sectory since it is so fresh and so new, but it has been so fun getting caught up in a score chase game in 2025, which I don't know. I have gotten quite as hooked on since Geometry Wars 2 probably on Xbox Live Arcade. We don't need to get it so much into the minutia But I think it's fucking amazing We'll have plenty of time to discuss Sectori Yeah, I don't know I'm just a little bit more

Is a game about discovering how to play it And in the same way that Fresh is always like Don't look at the guides The guides will ruin the experience He is right Specifically in this case That I took a lot of enjoyment of discovering how its bonuses work, how the systems work, how there are better ways to play it, how they're optimal ways to play the game, and that there are many, there are kind of different strategies that you can take to get through this Geometry Wars type game. I also just think we've used the word generous in the past. This is a generous game. The sheer number of modes in this game that could be standalone games.

that could have been DLC, that could have been sequels, is ridiculous. You could just play any one of these modes, and you would be fully entertained. I spoke with the creator of the game last week and was surprised to learn that most of those modes were produced in, like, the final few weeks of the game's development, because they feel so flushed out. But, yeah, wow, what a video game. I'll never uninstall this from my Rock I L IX I will keep it on there forever and keep coming back to it to play

because it's it tickles the brain in a way that is truly truly satisfying Justin you're ranked 19 in the world how do you feel? It used to be me and my big mouth told all the listeners about it no I'm not anymore

I commit that I don't know it probably was not my our individual power I don't know man it's just it's it's great And you know what? There's like six different modes and they all function in different ways. Seven if you count the campaign.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. And I think everyone is like super interesting and engaging in a world where, man, I just feel like it's tough for a game like this to get oxygen anymore. And in like an era that I would describe

is post social media. I feel like it's it's tough for a game like this to kind of like get kind of a head of steam. But I think it's fucking excellent. Yeah.

Let's vote. Oof. I like root trees a lot. I think sectory is my favorite. I think root trees is fantastic. I played a third of it and I wish to gosh I could go back and finish it, but I would have no idea

how I'd begin approaching that at this point i i it it really uh it was neat but i just i it wasn't quite the same as sectory i'm so split that i honestly like don't care i'm kind of on the same like i like yeah i i think it's sanctuary wins by the fact that we have i love them both so much that i do not care which one advances because they're both so great So you guys go for it. Let's do Sectory then. Let's just ask it up.

Congratulations, Sectory. All right. What's our top eight, Chris? Can you run us down the list that we'll consider next week? Yes. Our top eight are Expedition 33, Absalom, Destranging 2, Baby Steps, Silk Song, Blippo Plus, Indiana Jones, Sectory. I fucking love this list. I'm so happy.

Yeah, me too. This is good. These are a lot of good video games, guys. A lot of good video games. This is going to do it for us For the Besties We are going to be with you next week To settle this

Once and for all That's going to do it for us Though for this episode The Besties Be sure joins us again next week For the Besties Because shouldn't the world's best friends Pick the world's best games

Besties. Thank you.