The Besties - The Besties Podcast XI

Episode Date: May 4, 2012

The Besties return with what's likely to be the most comprehensive discussion of flume and flume-adjacent theme park rides you've ever heard in a podcast. Also? Video games! (Note: You may notice a little audio weirdness: Take heart, we've corrected the problem, and it won't happen again!) 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!

Do you think that... Never mind, that's gross. Okay. I was going to say something about bringing him e-porn on a thumb drive because he gots to have that. Well, he was saying that he printed out a bunch of GIFs and made a flipbook out of a GIF. Oh, like a raunchy 1930s cartoon.

But really it was like corgis. Oh, gross. Yeah. Everybody's got a bite of their bread somewhere, you know? That's what my pop likes to say. Can we not talk about butter? Okay. I'm getting hungry. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week.

My name is Griffin McElroy, and I am currently playing my best game of the week. My name is Chris Plant, and I'm playing the best game of the week. My name is Chris Plant and I'm playing the best game of the week. My name is Russ Froshtick and this week's all about funny accents. The master of what you could tell because we all did them. The master of voices, Russ Froshtick. This is the besties. It is a show where the four of us bring the new releases of the week and the week prior sometimes and pit them against each other in a battle royale to claim supremacy. Once we have a winner, that winner will be pitted against our current champion.

Our current champion, since it is mine, I have the honor of explaining it, is The Walking Dead, an unconventional take on narrative adventure games, a lot of choice, a lot of high-stakes intensity, and Journey didn't fix the Middle East, so it got removed from the top slot. Now, Russ, you had a, what is the best way to put this? A masterstroke. A masterstroke. Thank you, Griffin. That is hugely, hugely complimentary to Russ in a fashion that I would not myself normally be. But Russ, why don't you tell us sort of what your thought pattern was regarding our process?

So a lot of people in the comments, listeners, took issue with the fact that games that release early in the year are at a bit of a huge disadvantage. Right. Your journeys, your SSXs. Because, you know, after a few weeks, if this game, you know, doesn't set out what we hope it's going to set out to do, like cure world, cause world peace. Cause? Cause world peace. Then, you know, it kind of gets the boot. So in this case, Journey was sort of at a disadvantage because it came so early in the year. And people were concerned that we weren't giving the game due credit. So we've come up with a bit of a shift in the rules,

the besties rules. I would say an evolution. An evolution, I agree. This is an iterative process. We're figuring out the best way to do this. We're growing. As we go. Yeah, so we're going to have a new system

which will allow us, so same as it ever was, we're still all bringing four games a week, but when a game gets picked for our game of the week, wait, one second, let me codify what exactly we did. We literally don't have this, it's literally evolving in front of our eyes because

we did not decide on anything. So, okay. Well, the basic concept is that we're going to have a Hall of Fame of games that we really, really liked, and these games will come back later in the year to sort of do battle against one another. And I think we can all

agree Journey is an appropriate entry into the Hall of Fame. Yeah, I think Journey is definitely in the Hall of Fame, and I think SSX is in the Hall of Fame. And SSX stuck around for a while because it let you play with your dead dad. Right. Yeah, so let's throw both of those in the last chance kitchen. Let's put them both on Survivor Island,

and we'll see if they can make a last-minute comeback. So interestingly enough, this is our 11th episode, and in 11 episodes, the only games that are currently in Game of the Year contention are Journey and SSX. No, that sounds right to me. Yeah, I mean, it's not completely... No, Mass Effect 3? Mass Effect 3 had its shot. You know what happened?

What happened there? Worst ending ever. Well, it also lost the journey. So what chance would it have? This is a good point. Right. Let's tell you what. Let's get into the adjudication.

Griffin, who's going first this week? This week it's Chris Plant goes first. Oh, wow. Okay. Everyone else can. Do you have any justification for? for i just it sounds like you've you it sounds like you really need it you you already know that it's gonna be a shit game one times times have been tough for you lately i had a good game for this week. I planned it maybe six days in advance,

and I told Justin, and he said, I think Russ already chose that. Oh. Yep, I did. That's a shame. It is a shame. But, you know, my game is better, and I'm going to tell you about it.

So I'm bringing a game called Brains that's three S's at the end, and it is a game about, of course, zombies. It's by a company called Lonely Few, which is a few experienced people from the industry, mostly Bioware and Atari and Pandemic. But the twist, because I know you're hearing zombie, and you're thinking, I've played a few zombie games.

The twist is you play as the zombies, and it's kind of this like top-down cutesy, I don't know if I want to call it an RTS, but you can select groups of zombies, and the goal is to take over an area of the town. So you'll want to like corner them by taking three zombies down one road, and then swooping another flank of zombies around the other and trapping people. And as the game goes on, you play these different areas of the other and trapping people. And as the game goes on, you play these different areas of the city, and you have bigger enemies like the police who can fire weapons at you, so you want to have a whole bunch of zombies to swarm him all at once,

or else he'll just shoot them all to death. So it's like a zombie top-down strategy game. It plays pretty well on iOS. i can't really imagine doing it without uh touch controls i guess you could do it on pc with a mouse uh and that's that's it i'm you know i'm gonna give up the rest of the time that's good i wasn't timing i was working on my fushigi isolations oh thanks we're gonna we're gonna come back to Yeah, it sounds like, is it sort of tower defense-y? Is that? No, no, you're not defending anything. See, you're the zombies and you're taking over the town.

Isn't it like Pikmin? It's kind of like Pikmin. That's a great point, Russ. Because I'm a great guy. That I play this game. God, Russ is so great. Can we talk about how good russ is at os games it's pretty much the best um what's the graphics like the graphics are these like kind of

cutesy cartoonish uh yeah cartoony and blocky uh versions of zombies and humans uh and they're just like cute little cartoony plucky xylophone type of music that is playing throughout the whole thing and everyone has like adorable little screams when they get murdered okay this is the second week in a row that you have brought a game about the complete decimation of mankind i mean i wouldn't call it a decimation i would call it maybe an evolution i don't even remember what even remember what his game last week was. It was DTF Teleporter. Oh, God.

Free for all. I think it was a combination of that and don't tell boss we're kissing. Don't kiss your boss's daughter in front of him. Yeah, yeah, that. Bonus kiss. I'm just worried about i'm just worried about you that's all it it's a good game like to be fair last week's game it wasn't good it wasn't great but i think this is actually are you like playing these games and like listening to

like evanescence and just thinking about how nobody gets you. Why do you hate zombies so much? Don't you think that maybe they've had a bad rap? I mean, you've been subscribing to the zombie propaganda where everybody's getting killed by zombies. Maybe it's their time to tell their side of the story. It's our time down here. I'm saying there's a difference between enjoying a zombie game and fetishizing the extinction of humanity. Right, that's all.

That's all I'm saying is that one of us, I like Left 4 Dead, right? You fetishize the destruction of humanity. That's all I'm saying. Can I also, and we're trying to limit the combativeness during the presentation phase of our show. I'm not talking about the game, I'm talking about you. I'm worried he's worried about you. I personally, I'm just

I don't care how clever you are about it, we've just gotta stop with the zombies. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Juice, what did you bring last week you brought Walking Dead? Uh, yeah, wait, wait, wait. Whoa, whoa. Juice, what did you bring? Last week you brought Walking Dead. Yeah, like that beat everybody to it. What's our current winner?

Who is our current winner? I'm saying, yeah, that was already like, that was already an established property. Who do you play as in that game? The Walking Dead helped to bring about the zombie renaissance. Who do you play as in that game? A zombie named Phillip trying to get back to his family. You don't play as Phillip. You don't play as Phillip that game? A zombie named Phillip trying to get back to his family.

You don't play as Phillip. You don't play as Phillip Phillips. Marjorie! Marjorie, where's your kids? It's like an American tale. American brains. And what it was my wife. You see what it is. Do you like zombie games?

It's just not a thing. It's creatively bankrupt. Do you like zombie games? There's no answer to that. That's like asking me if I like Sky Games. What does that even mean? I love Sky Games. The inclusions of zombies is...

Here's what I see. if you're making a new property not an established one based on like a long-running graphic novel if you're making a new property and you're putting zombies in it here's what i get from you i don't know how to make ai i don't i don't know how to do it i don't know how to make ai no no it's hard to do so i'm not gonna do it as the zombies did you listen to what i said? Yeah, the humans are controlled by AI. They made human AI. You play as the zombies, and you're taking over the world. Russ Freshstick, tell me about your game.

I wasn't even ready. Well, get ready. Griffin, you ready? Yeah, Griffin, you go. Okay. My game is called My Little Hero, and it's for the iOS platform. It is a top-down action RPG akin to Zelda. And not like the old sort of explore one screen

and move on to the next Zelda. It's more reminiscent of the Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass, only without the constant repetition of the same dungeon over and over again. And it is fully 3D. It was published by NCSoft and developed by

I believe the name of the studio is Acne Labs. And it's sort of, it has like a, it has a sort of where the wild things are vibe and a sort of heart of darkness vibe, both of which really work for me. That's groovy. Yeah.

You're this little boy. Oh, sorry, plant. Not the Apocalypse Now related Heart of Darkness. No, the Eric Chahi game. So you're going down a river to find a man. No, no, no. Leftist tribe. The Chahi title.

Okay. to find a man left his tribe. The Chahi title. Okay. You're a little boy trying to rescue all of his stuffed animals that were stolen by the boogeyman. And so you travel through these different worlds. It has touch controls that work surprisingly well. And, yeah, it operates sort of like a Zelda game.

You can attack. You get different items, like a slingshot, that you can use to fight off enemies, and you explore and earn buttons that you can use to buy things. And yeah, my only complaint is that it has

been moving a little slow. I'm a few levels into it now, and it tries to teach you these things very incrementally. Are you at the point where you talk to the French colonists about freedom? Is that why it's moving slowly? Oh my God. Guys, I don't know how to read.

So like, it just feels unfair to me that you guys can talk about this kind of stuff. No, but it's a good game. It looks fantastic. And the boyish wonder vibe is is is really great and it's only a buck right now so i i don't think that price is gonna stay for very long tell us a little about the art um i mean it's sort of uh i mean it's 3d you have a box on your head. You have a box on your head, right? You have a box on your head. That's your helmet. And your sword is also cardboard.

So wait, is the kid an idiot? No. Why would... He's got imagination. That's like being an idiot, though, basically. I guess, but... Like, I don't know why you would need to go there. He's running around with the box on his head

and let's just take him seriously there's just really ugly there's eye holes cut in the box he's not just like running around with a closed box on his head no he's he is not wearing pants okay all right i didn't want to address that because I don't think you guys are like ready to have that conversation. You walk around as a little boy without pants on. You have a long t-shirt on. You can't see anything. You're a pervert. You can't see anything.

God's honest truth. Scouts honor. He looked. I didn't choose. He zoomed. He pinch zoomed. I didn't pinch zoom. I swear to God. You guys, I swear to god you guys i swear to god you can't

see anything i bet i haven't checked question where are his pants he didn't have time to get him he went after the bookie man didn't have time to think what will i need in this harsh forest environment he had time to put and draw and create a cardboard helmet, but he didn't have time to put pants on. It was pre-made. Pre-fab. Pre-fab helmet. Pants are a little trickier to figure out when you're this much of a dullard.

Yeah, I don't know where I'd go to buy pants. So that's my little hero. It's wonderful. Is it wonderful? Yeah. Because between the kid who can't see anything because of the box on his head and a kid with no pants, it sounds like a few jello shots short of Uncle Griffin's Keep a Secret Weekend. Which just makes me really nervous.

I mean, I like the 99 cent price tag. Don't get me wrong. It just seems like a game of metafiles, basically. Incredibly, incredibly uncomfortable. Well, then let's take a break. Let's all try to get our composure. Chris Plant, you went on a trip recently. Do you want to talk about it?

Yeah, I went to Los Angeles. What do you want to know? Do you want to know? Holly weird. I went to Disneyland. Did you really? Yeah, I did. I went to Disneyland and it was raining, so there was no one there. So we got on all the rides.

Is that safe? We did all the rides in like four minutes. Do you know what? They close Thunder Mountain when it's raining, which doesn't make sense because that's a water ride. Also, thunder doesn't electrocute people. Lightning does. Is that right? Yeah. Thunder is a sound. Yeah.

Yeah. Flumes are like superconductors. I don't know if you knew that. I didn't know that. Any flume-based ride? Oh, yeah. It collects enough electricity to power a small town. Really? Yeah. I don't know a lot about electricity. Or flumes, it sounds like.

I know nothing about flumes. He's not very flume-oriented. Can we get over flumes? Like, I went to Six Flags. Was it this past weekend? Yeah, it was. I went to Six Flags, Fiesta, Texas. It was actually pretty great.

It was like 70 degrees. Nobody was there. But my girlfriend and I, we saw this flume. We were like, that's a good-looking flume. We should ride that. And we rode it. And it was a low-riding flume. So a little bit of water dipped in it.

And once you dunk a little bit of water in your flume, it's like, my butt is just gonna be wet for the rest of the day because like the water just goes right there on and in you know yeah i think water rides in general should should probably be everybody always seems so into it and i'm like you could always be like ah fuck like yeah it makes me feel like it makes me feel like Ghost Whisperer. Like, I'm the only one who can see the future of this, and that is that we will all be wet and not happy. You're not all wet. There's always, like, two or three people don't get wet,

and then, like, one person gets wet, and it's, like, just right in their butthole. Here's the thing that I like about water rides that I think you guys aren't giving enough credit. So when you go to a park, like a theme park, oftentimes the lines for these rides are very long. Also long, the lines for the bathroom. See what I'm saying? Two words.

I hate what you're saying. I hate it because it sounds so right. There's something in there that people have glommed on to but then you run the risk of if you're the guy like sitting in the middle of the flume log and you don't get wet at all you're like oh it's so weird it's just like it's just like splashed up in the sun oh no the uh okay so uh my game this week is Risen 2, which was actually released, I want to say, April 30th? Like right around there at the end of April. You're pushing the deadline.

I know. It's an open world pirate game. And I never played the original Risen, so you won't find any comparisons there. But I'm led to believe the hero from the first game is back for this game. Led to believe the hero from the first game is back. For this game, he is a soldier for the good guys, the Inquisition, they are called, quote-unquote good guys. And they want his help to stop a water demon named Mara who's been plaguing the seas. So for some reason, in order to do this, there's a weapon apparently to be used against her that a certain pirate captain has. So you go undercover as a pirate.

You get your ship. You collect a crew. And you go through this world of different islands collecting items that you'll – collecting the weapons you'll need to fight Mara all the while you're learning, you know, different combat skills like there's sort of play. There's pistols that you can improve at. There is there even there's like a treachery where you can use it in conversations to get sort of what you want. And dirty tricks are part of that where you can, you know, throw sand in your enemy's

eyes and stuff like that. You can also learn voodoo, which I didn't get really into because you – there are some real big branches in the game that if you choose a different – depending on which side you choose, you miss a lot of stuff. So it kind of begs for replay there. So it kind of begs for replay there. But most importantly, you can get a pirate – a parrot, sorry. You can get a parrot and you can get a monkey. Your monkey can jump through windows and steal things for you, and the parrot helps you in combat. So it's open world. It's a lot of fun.

It's a little – I don't want to say janky but i do i do mean it it it doesn't hold your hand a lot in and let me give you an example of what i mean at one point you're supposed to collect five vines so this little gnome can make you a raft and they need to use the vines as ropes and there are only five vines they're hidden throughout the island they don't give you any indication of where they are and in the 45 minutes I spent looking for them, I found two actual goddamn ropes that would have been just fine. Well, you can't mix the ropes and the vines. It would offset the tension and buoyancy of the raft. Yeah. But if you're into this, there's a lot of there's a lot of fun pirate type skill stuff.

There is even a skill called Nuff Said, where if you learn this skill, then sometimes in the middle of conversations, you'll get an option just to pull out your pistol and shoot the person in the face, which is which is pretty great. But it's out on PC right now and believe it's it's coming to... I know it's coming to consoles. I think like June-ish. I don't know, guys. I'm over pirates. Are you, though? That's what Justin sounded like earlier. Yeah, that was a Justin impersonation.

Oh, that was good. Oh, wait. Was that you talking, Griffin? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds good. I like an RPG that tries to break the bonds of the fantasy setting, which I guess this is kind of fantasy, but it's high seas fantasy. Yeah, and I get the impression that the first one is a lot more fantasy angled.

I didn't play it again, uh this one is much more i mean it feels like a piracy simulator i mean there's notable sort of emissions like there's no ship to ship combat really which seems like a kind of a large part of the piracy experience i've when i've been told um but there is treasure maps and and that kind of cool stuff. And the combat is interesting. It's multi-layered and you have to buy new skills

like with gold. So that's kind of weird how that always weirds me out when you have to use the currency to improve your skills. I feel like that the skill system is one layer or two too confusing. You have to pay your skills. I feel like the skill system is one layer or two too confusing. You have to pay for college. That's true.

It's sort of like stab college, basically. Monkey college. Yeah. That's reason two. I think it's being published by Deep Silver. If you like this sort of game and you're able to forgive some I'm going to call it

European quirk which is sort of a nice way of putting it sort of racist what are we talking about what I think European games and not all European games obviously but this is a generalization especially Eastern European games

I'm not sure I think this one was made in Germany. There seems to be a common thread there of rebelling against holding the player's hand the whole time. I think you definitely saw that in Metro 2033, for example. You saw it in Xeno Clash. I think it was a big a big part of that too uh i kind of like the the finding your own way and you know being sort of left to your own devices and not getting like you know the big star on your hood that says go there now you know a lot of those games have in common what's that they're they're little puppies with broken arms that you love to just take care of you do have to meet them you have to meet them halfway i think that

that's a fair your favorite games the ones right there is they're like so cute and they want it so bad but they're hurt and like if you didn't take care of it, who knows if they'd make it. Yeah. But I would take a game like that over Fable Heroes, which I also played, and will spare you. Because I don't want to be laughed at at a competition. I agree with you. I mean, Metro was one of my favorite games. But I see in you a bit of myself. And I wonder if that's this game.

That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. I wonder if that's this game, though've ever said to me i wonder if that's this game though like maybe it's not a good game because you you started talking about it i'll be honest i didn't have a lot of interest in this game but the more you talk about it the more i really want to play it which makes me think it might not be that good uh no you know what it looks great and it does have some what is it just polished is that the is it like lacking in pot like no it's not even polished it's like it's literally things like that like um it's european game design where they're just like yeah we don't give a fuck yeah it's like well this might

not work for you but figure it out like yeah there's a guy you need to go talk to and we told you what his name is but we're not going to put him on the like on the map or anything so just like wander around and find him i don't know he's around somewhere go talk to go find it how many steves could there be yeah there's only one pirate steve just go find pirates to even talk to him pirate steve so there's there's crazy things like the vines they are the the exception more than they are the rule. Hey, who's left? Fresh Rushstick? It's me. It's me left. So you know, guys,

sometimes you're having a tough week, sitting at your job, not too happy about it. You're driving home, you hit some traffic. Your wife's yelling at you. Kids are yelling at you. Grandkids are yelling at you.

Sometimes you just want to kick back, relax, maybe play a little game. Play a little game. And that game has a few things

to teach you. Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun Like stealing bodies Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun Jump kick in helicopters Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun Swords for arms Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun

Go bowling Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun Say it f*** Prototype 2 Thanks. saying, prototype two. Thanks. Are we done? That's it.

So is that it? Yeah, that's it. Oh, okay. Russ, how does prototype two compare to prototype one? They're pretty similar. Okay. Okay. God. Are you the worst at this?

Each independently Wikipedia and have internet. It's funny because as I'm playing Prototype 2, I keep thinking like, yeah, this is pretty similar to Prototype 1. It feels a lot more polished. Like the controls feel sharper. It feels like moving around the world feels a lot smoother like the best part about this game by far is just like like flying through the world doing like super jumps gliding like moving around the world feels honestly this is a bold statement better than it did in crackdown and i know a lot of people love crackdown this feels like a better

overall game than crackdown because it's, I don't know. I feel it's like you have way more control. Overall game. Overall control. Yeah. The game is. Honestly, overall game than Crackdown. Oh, no way.

Yeah. Does Prototype have multiplayer? No. Then it's not even a competition. But for the record, the multiplayer in Crackdown 1 was not very good. Oh, get out of town. You're done. You done you're drunk i played it online it wasn't good i was gonna i was gonna play nice with this game because you know the controls are great you can do all sorts of goofy stuff but you know how you feel after you play this game for an hour you feel

horrible okay so disgusting there's something that I wanted to mention you're probably better off playing this game muted because every word that is uttered in this game is the worst ever it is give me some examples yeah well okay so the hero of the game is this guy I don't even remember his name it's not important heller his charles i charles yeah his family died and he's not not happy about it so he goes around being like shut your fucking face mother sucker bitch sucker it really out of context too like you'll complete like mini game challenges like racing across rooftops yeah and at the end of it he'll go hell yeah like not necessary he'll punctuate sentences with bitch it'll be like oh so you're saying

i gotta get to the hospital bitch does he maybe have like a low grade Tourette's it seems like that's just his style. His way of actually you you don't unlock the Tourette's until you've evolved seven times and then you get shoulder Tourette's. What Russ is saying is this is like this is the friendly part of the game. This is like the savory stuff. The really unsavory stuff are these like audio tapes that you find. And every scientist in this world is like worse than like heinrich hemler they're like yeah they're like oh yeah i'm just glad that i can

finally work on living subjects ones that scream and then there's another one where it's like a wife and she's like oh don't don't hurt my child and the soldier's like why is he being so quiet and she's like he has autism and he's like i don't know why he's so quiet and then you just fire rounds into the child and it's like first off autism is not the same as being mute like no no but some some consequences could be that they're not uh comfortable talking to strangers yeah men who are about to fire rifles at them can i i was gonna make a joke something about uh one of the scientists making a surfboard out of limbs but none of it would have been as funny as what you just said to me that that is really in the game and you know that some

motherfucker finished that was like good work today good work today, Gary. Poignant stuff. Poignant stuff, Gary. It's like Bioshock. It's like Bioshock. So, Prototype 2 makes me very torn because there's a large... It tears everyone half constantly. Well, there's just a chunk of the game

that is just horrible beyond belief. No, the whole game. No, no, no. Stop. Because the gameplay, all the gameplay. No, the combat is fun. I like the combat. I like the character advancement. The challenges. If you played a Spider-Man game,

that's like, the combat is on par with Activision's Spider-Man game. No. No, absolutely not. It looks neat, but it is like, it is bust. The camera is really consistent. You can't just say it's on par with Spider-Man Activision games. It's like, that's such a wide field.

Like, are you saying... It's on par with Web of Shadows. Well, that's a high praise. That's the one where that is the best. Get your facts straight, Perry Mason. F*** you. Jesus. Bitch. Bitch.

Is it possible that he just never learned the words like ma'am or female or mailbox miss can you put my letter in the bitch I'd like a salami and ham on bitch. Did you mean rye? Like, just say rye. It's the same number of syllables. Why are you wasting our time? So it's more of a failure of the American public school system, is what you're saying.

I want to get in one more horrible thing that you do in this game. Okay. So you lose your life pretty easily. Your health bar, it decreases. And the life uh pretty easily your health bar it decreases and the way the only way to restore your health is by sucking the life out of other living beings yeah for whatever reason it seems like the easiest way to get health is from homeless people so you'll be like you'll be fighting and you're like oh wait one second and then for two minutes you'll be fighting and you're like, oh, wait one second. And then for two minutes, you'll like just brutally slaughter probably like maybe 25, 26 homeless people.

And they're just like chilling out. They're like, oh, hey, what's up? And then you're like, oh, nothing. And then you grab them by their heads and you just pop it off. Yeah. When you kill people, it is not a fun way to go.

It's disturbing to think that you are in a boss fight and you look around and are surrounded by homeless people, only you just see them as, like, floating red crosses. Yeah. I don't want to praise the storytelling because it's awful. It's difficult to separate the horrible parts from the gameplay. Yet, I guess I'm able to compartmentalize my brain from sociological terrors versus... But even, to be fair, even the gameplay here is...

Fun. Repetitive. No, it's insultingly sort of stupid i mean that you are any game i i'd like to put a moratorium on if you're in the first like three minutes of your game and it says move left stick to run like can we not assume some basic level of player competence at some point like can we not assume there's some sort of shared vocabulary here? What if your nonny is playing and she doesn't know what controllers are? I don't want to think about my nonny ripping the heads off of homeless people like peeps on Easter Sunday.

I was talking about Justin's nonny. WW2 got pretty tough for a lot of people. And nonny had to do some things she wasn't so proud of. Including but not limited to killing homeless people and drinking them um yeah let's anyway prototype is actually really fun if not also horrible at the same time you got to turn your brain off it's purely power fantasy yeah yeah there's no real interesting game design it's nothing you haven't seen before in that respect but like if you want to feel cool

and powerful and run around the city and the locomotion is actually genuinely pretty good you are a malevolent god and if that's what you want to be it right probably the best game at doing that this uh this is a it'll be an interesting week i think yeah yeah i don't i don't i mean let me let me position my game like this my my little hero. It is the moral and thematic antithesis of Prototype 2. It's all candy and sunshine and little kid adventures, whereas Prototype 2 is about drinking vagrants. But Prototype 2 doesn't have any potential pedophilia. Yeah, he is wearing pants.

I mean, Prototype 2 does a lot of gross things, but they at least put their pants on when they wake up. If you wear a long enough shirt, it's basically like a dress or a utilikilt. So I don't understand why you guys are making a big deal out of this. I feel like I should make my case for Risen 2. If you like pirates and expansive adventure. Right.

We got that. Okay. That's all I got, actually. Okay. So I think we can boot Risen 2. Sorry, Risen 2. Why? For lack of enthusiasm.

I know. I thought it was really fun. I haven't played My Little Pony or whatever. What was your game, Plant? Brains? Brains? Yeah, Brains. Hey, guys, remember the new rules.

We're trying to find a real good game. Okay. Okay. I will at least agree that Prototype is better than Risen. Okay. Okay, I can get on board with that. Well, then let's take R's take risen out of it if it's not gonna win this is like the primaries yeah yeah okay i think the fact that my little hero

is the diametric opposite of prototype two it's like good versus evil you want to show that's what you're saying yeah you're saying that brains in prototype they're both games about just being horrible monsters. Yeah, and I don't want to hear the sound of you slowly jerking it over there, because I know that that's your thing. I love to watch it when I win. Chris Plant is like a diminutive Tyler Durden.

He just likes to see it all fall apart. Some people just want to... Some people just want to see the world burn. See, funny accents, I told you. They're back uh you know what i'll i will say that yeah we'll get rid of brains but if you you you all should go try it it's 2.99 on the app store which i know is a little bit of money but i think it's worth it it's universal app so my little hero do you like zelda do you like where the wild things are do

you like heart of darkness do you like little children? Here's, and I have not played My Little Heroes. I don't know why I'm making a case for it. But Prototype, I don't want to reward anything about Prototype. Yeah. Like, I don't want to, there's nothing in Prototype. Although I do enjoy playing it, there's nothing in Prototype that makes me say, like, everybody else, take note. You should be making more games like this. Like, no, they should be embarrassed of themselves.

No, I honestly think that the, honestly, like, okay, you rip the story out. Maybe the aesthetics are a little, like, the graphics or design of the game is a little douchey. You can't rip any of it out. Yeah, I can, because my brain is like data from Star Trek. I'm just saying this as a holistic evaluation the game that people are gonna buy is gonna have lots of the word

bitch in it but i find despite me hating all of that stuff the bitch and the curses and stuff like that uh i find that i'm able to ignore it and have a good time playing the game let's break it down like this there's a lot of things in russ's game that russ hates and there's nothing in my game that i hate okay uh i see i i gotta say my little hero uh uh sounds like the is i don't i don't want to reward prototype it's despicable like if you can tell me here russ i will i will give this to you and this is a legitimate legitimate point so don't try to say one of the dumb things you always to you. And this is a legitimate point. So don't try to say one of the dumb things you always say. I'm asking a legitimate question. If you can point

to one interesting, well-crafted idea. See that? Remember? You got that out of your system. You got that out of your system. Tell me one interesting, innovative, clever, well-conceived mechanic facet of Prototype 2.

I think the, as you've said, the traversing the world, I don't think any open world game has done world traversal better than Prototype 2. Well, it's completely skill-free, unlike an Assassin's Creed where there's more skill involved. I think even like a Spider-Man game, there would be more skill involved in the locomotion. I'm going to defend prototype here. Not to get into the nitty-gritty of this mechanic, but I think Assassin's Creed wishes it was this. Because Assassin's Creed doesn't want to be skill-involved. You have to have skill because the controls aren't that easy. They want the free- want to be skill involved. Like, it just, you have to have a skill because the controls aren't that easy. Like, they want the free running to be super natural.

Well, maybe, but, like, they also want it to look decent in animation, and there's a lot of times in Prototype where it just looks preposterous. I don't think it looks that bad. The other thing that I really like is how it ties, I think that hunting mechanic is super badass. You know,

where you guys, and then you like zoom in on them. If you want to, if you want to tell people about this, you want me to explain this. So you could, you could basically real quick, you can click in the left stick and the whole world kind of turns red.

And then if you're hunting someone, you'll see like a radar ping, like in the game world, like flying out from, even if they're like three miles someone, you'll see like a radar ping, like in the game world, like flying out. Even if they're like three miles away, you'll see it. And you could like slowly narrow in on them and eventually get really close and you could like stealth kill them by like flying down from a rooftop. Like it, it's like that ping is like a return of the normal, the world's real color from that point. So it's like the world is like rushing in this big circle full of cover from wherever,

full of color from wherever this enemy is. And it's something that they could have very easily done with a radar icon. But the fact that they went this very, very different route that I've never seen before in a game, I thought was very, very... My Little Hero has something like before in a game, I thought was very, very...

My Little Hero has something like that. It's like a bloodlust mode. Where if you shake the device, if you shake the iPhone device while you're walking backwards and hitting the attack button, you take your teddy bear, and you rip all of its limbs off,

and you eat all the cotton inside of it. And then the little kid is like, yeah, yeah, but fuck you, bitch. Okay, in the interest of moving forward, I have to concede that the hunting mechanic is cool and I did promise to switch my allegiance if he could produce one. So

in that case, can we agree that prototype two is the winner we can agree to disagree okay maybe we should make that the new title of the show agree to disagree so our uh game of the year prototype two can we make a case for prototype two versus walking dead oh we've recorded for 70 minutes, so please let's not. So no way. I won't fight it. Walking Dead retains its title as Game of the Year, current Game of the Year.

And will it make it into the Hall of Fame? Who knows? We don't know why. We don't know what. We don't know how a game does that yet. We don't know how a game does that. We just know it when it happens. It's like art. We know it when we see it. And pornography like art you know we know when we see it uh and pornography uh so this has been the besties thank you so much for listening follow us on

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has links to all this stuff so it's probably the best place to go and thank you if you hey if you get a second could you tell someone about this show the besties could you say like hey I like the besties to somebody who doesn't listen to it or maybe tweet about it with the besties hashtag that would be great uh and and check us out on itunes give us a subscription hey guys yeah i think we should thank the people who are making uh photoshops and art and music out there too oh yeah get a few things each week and that that that just makes us feel good

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