The Besties - The Grab Bag is Full and it is Only February

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

We're pivoting a bit this week, discussing a half dozen sweet, lesser-known new releases that we've been enjoying during what's been an otherwise action-packed first month of the year! Join us, why don't you? Discussed: Tiny Rogues, Tekken 8, Home Safety Hotline, Enshrouded, Lunistice, Lil Guardsman, Devil's Plan, Fargo, Taskmaster, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Chain Gang All-Stars, Piranesi 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!

I brought the cum joke last week, so I can't start this week. Are you in the penalty box? This is the intro, though. You don't even realize it, Russ, but that's the intro. Russ is in the, Russ, imagine this, if you will. The three of us are skating on the ice, and big old cum joke Russ is in the penalty box. He's dying to get out, but we've sidelined him.

That can't be this show, but he's dying to get back on the ice this is a he got he got a four minute major penalty and the rest of us with you the listeners are on the power play and we are going to have to defend our house from you because of russ's russ's selfishness in his terrible joke i rely on russ i need my vitamin r for two minutes before we record this podcast to hear what's going on in his life and i've been deprived by him yeah unbelievable you're really not gonna give us anything the selfishness i would do anything to have her back. Anything.

Anything. Hey, plant. Did you, like, drop some eggs on your kid and it made you eat a bunch of fiber or anything? Nothing? Hey, there are a lot of funny names of vegetables like tomato, cucumber. He's failing. He's failing. No, he's failing. Did you say cucumber? You're in the box, cucumber. He's failing. No, he's failing. Did you say cucumber?

You're in the box, too. Get in the box with rocks. Wait, Chris, show me the inside of your ears. Oh, no, no, no, no. The microphone fell out. Of what? What? My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best games of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best games of the week.

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I'm opening up the penalty box to let the star of the show out. My name is Russ CJ Frushtick. I know the best game of the week. Well, welcome to Russ Frushtick's The Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest. The CJ stands for cum joke. Claudia Jean.

Now come on. Come on. We're going to talk about a lot of different video games this week. Chris Plant, what are video games? They're interactive movies, pictures, songs, and plays. They're bigger than ever. We've come a long way since uh robotron well we're going to talk about that and so much more right after this brief commercial break

now while we are going to talk about video games today there is a one video game that we are not necessarily going to talk about today, although I think eventually we'll talk about it, but not today. And that game is? That game is Power World. We're not going to talk about it. Do you want me to talk about why we're not going to talk about it? Yeah, please. I would be happy to. Here's the thing about

Power World. People have really strong feelings about Power World right now, and it is a very big game. When I say big, I mean it both ways. The game itself, playing through it takes a lot of time. And the game, its popularity, also humongous. And the conversation slash discourse around it where people are like, hey, this is made with AI. We looked into that. It's not so easy to prove. Or the developer said this or they didn't say that. That's also so easy to prove, or the developer said this, or they didn't say that,

that's also pretty hard to prove. So what we want to do is we want to take some time, we want to like learn more about the game, about the people making the game, about the people enjoying the game, about the people not enjoying the game. And then we want to come back to you, you know, in a few weeks, when everything's nice and calmed down, and we have a lot of cool information, we're going to keep you informed. and we're going to do the episode then. But what we're going to do instead right now is talk about a ton of other games that we've been playing

because with all that extra time that we had, we got through, I mean, at least six killer games that we're excited to share with you. So, Pow World in a few weeks, great games right now and that's the pitch. Love it. So, Pow World in a few weeks, great games right now, and that's the pitch. All right.

Love it. Well, we will circle back, we will circle back to that. We have instead got a whole bevy of,

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of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of them. Some of them are. It's called Tekken 8. Well, you know what I mean.

It's slightly smaller in terms of interest. You know, fighting games is a niche. It's a niche. Oh, for sure. And let's start with a little one that I actually played a lot, and you all played a lot, and I would love to hear someone tell me about Tiny Rogues. Fuck yeah.

This game kicks ass. All right, guys, that's it for me. This game kicks ass. All right, guys. That's it for me. Checking next week. He did it again. Best in the biz. Yeah. This came out of nowhere.

Was anyone else aware of this game's existence before? Not at all. Okay. I played it. It seems like a Russ Freshnick joint. It is. It really is. I played it probably a year or so ago, and I played it because of Northern Lion, who

was streaming it and honestly continues to stream it with some regularity. Is it a Destiny streamer? No, Northern Lion does roguelikes. So Binding of Isaac and a bunch of other roguelike games. Okay. I know the name. It must be from watching Isaac. He's a big Super Auto Pets fan as well.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Very good YouTube, good streamer, but that's where I first saw it. What makes it different from, like, all the roguelikes that y'all play? Because I played a bit of this, but I don't know if I'm as hardcore in the genre as you two are. It works for me in a way that I feel like games often do,

where it is aesthetically pretty like simple it is very simple it's like very very simple it looks like pre-nes era yeah graphics um still i mean it's still like it works yeah and it's the game sounds great okay it works for me. But it is so mechanically dense, and there are so many ways to customize your character. You're making constant decisions with every sort of room. So it's basically a twin-stick sort of bullet hell roguelike game. Yeah, like a Geometry Wars kind of thing, if you will. Sort of, yeah yeah except there's a

like an auto lock-on feature so really it's more you are able to focus a lot more on the bullet hell aspect of it of dodging shit and uh you know weaving your way through walls of uh painful red bullets um and while you are doing that you are working your way through a dungeon made of 10 floors and each floor has like a bunch of different rooms every your way through a dungeon made of 10 floors and each floor has like a bunch of different rooms every time you clear a room full of enemies you get a reward and then you get to pick which room you move into next and it shows you what the rewards are going to be so you are just like crafting your build as you move through this dungeon but it's funny because if you describe it that way it sounds like literally every like every other game right

at that point. But you have an inventory, like an equipment with nine different slots in it. And then it gets wild with like there's different armor sets with unique bonuses that change the way that the game plays completely. There's stat boosting gear. There's levels up with perks. There's a blacksmith that you can increase your weapon or go to the tavern and enchant it like i've i've played this game i finished my first run i beat the the the game for the first time last night and i don't think in the half dozen

like runs or so that i've done so far like i i'm just i'm just always seeing new shit uh and that is very exciting uh for me i i find it to be an immensely playable game and i also i've been playing it on steam deck i feel like if this thing was on ios which i think it very well could be it would be um i mean slay the spire levels of uh dedication from from yours truly to. You think this would be as pleasurable to play? I feel like it might be a little tricky on a phone, because it's pretty specific in terms of the bullet dodging and stuff like that. Griffin played a ton of

Vampire Survivors, right, on phone? Yeah, and this is definitely more twitchy than Vampire Survivor. It is more akin to Enter the gungeon and that you have like a ref a recharging dodge that you have to use to like zip through you know walls of damage that are coming at you i think i would need a controller i don't think i can do a touch screen for this game personally um can i tell you about my experience playing this game for the first time

please please so i i i thought like roguelike you know i'm gonna turn this on i'm gonna get my ass kicked i'm gonna live about 30 seconds then i'm gonna you know maybe live a minute and then maybe uh two minutes yada yada yada i play this for the first time and i'm having a little bit of trouble but i'm not dead yet right and i'm going from dungeon to dungeon i'm getting a little bit more powerful and at some point because there's 10 dungeon levels that you go through um probably about halfway i discover that i have a a wand that shoots tornadoes that is by at this point fully upgraded and then i find a spell book that shoots uh uh comets or asteroids that fill quite literally a quarter of the entire frame each time one hits and kills

what i can tell god um and then i just beat the game there there is effectively the back half of the game there is very little game for me to play other than you know humor the enemy by moving around uh and let me tell you i felt like the smartest person on earth that i had somehow done this that i figured out the game and then it is only uh after you beat the game for the first time and this is not a spoiler uh you you die death comes out kills you um uh and then it reveals a giant spider web of upgrades and i realized then oh no the whole game is just filling out your like astrology chart of upgrades and i am not in fact good um it expected astrology here oh okay i'm great at astrology ask ask um yeah there's there's a great sort of uh progression

to to the game where uh each time you beat a boss, you get like a currency that lets you level up and unlock like permanent upgrades. And the upgrades are really well balanced where it's not like, you know, double your attack, but it's more like, you know, the shopkeeper will show up at set points now. And, you know, you can refill your healing flask for a little

bit cheaper it's like small stuff but it's a game about sort of like small stuff uh and uh yeah i just i really like it i find it to be very a very playable almost arcadey style sort of uh experience less it feels like less of a commitment that i think a lot of roguelikes do these days, which can be... I feel more comfortable stopping in the middle of a run than I do in an Isaac run, where I have to keep way more in my head, which I like about this.

I really like the way the damage scales with different item sets, it really makes each run feel really different. I feel like, and this is kind of the plant's point, I feel like that your success is real,

and you can level this at a lot of games that have similar structures. I feel like your success is super dependent on the drops that you get and your item loadout. Right. And your individual skill starts to drop off in importance pretty quickly. It's rare that that's something that you are having to really focus on if your powers and stuff are all like working in concert with each other.

And so sometimes it starts to feel especially like first few levels start to feel really rote because you're not really having to target anybody uh and it's it's really dependent on what kind of drops you get it very wisely there is also a uh a pickup that you can get that are dice that let you like re-roll perk selections when you level up or re-roll boss loot. Which once I discovered that, it made that sort of element. How do you do that?

Because I kept getting dice and didn't know how to use them. There's like a prompt that is sort of context sensitive whenever you like level up. If you have the right type of dice, it'll show you a prompt to let you re-roll. Okay, all right.

But yeah, it's fucking great it's also only 10 bucks which like awesome yeah yeah i get a lot of value out of that i see this being a game that like i'm gonna keep on my steam deck and is like the jam i'm going to return to you know when i don't really have anything else to play and i'm like on a trip or something i was gonna say this is an airplane game through and through i like cannot wait that i'm gonna be bored on an airplane three hours into a flight and this is gonna save me um i'm looking forward to that what's next uh can i talk about tech and eight i would love to hear about tech and 8. Tekken 8 coming at you. Okay. So Tekken 8, it happened to me. I fell in love with the fighting game.

I think I am having the experience with this game that a lot of people had with the exceptional Street Fighter game last year. Where it's teaching me how to love fighting games. It has so much stuff. Just like Street Fighter, there are at least two fully complete big story modes in this like full campaign cut scenes everything why they got two huh oh well yeah that's a great question well i'll just say there's also the individual characters all have their own kind of like mini campaigns let's talk about the main ones the main ones uh they teach you how to play the game in different ways one is like you kind of

have experience with tekken you love these characters i i guess and you want to get into like what's up with them as like a whole unified group and cool cut scenes where you're fighting in times square that is one then there is the one that I played, which is called like Tekken Quest or something. And it is a RPG lite in which you play as a like Xbox avatar, or like me, and you go from arcade to arcade, hanging out with buddy avatars, and learning how to play the game from them at a like ultra

basic level so they'll like it'll start and be like hey here is how to just learn a really basic combo do it three times and then we'll let you like kick someone's ass uh so you feel you still feel like you're having a nice time and you get tons of because it's rpg you get currency you get all these like little incentives that make you feel like you're making progress. And it is very, very well paced in that I didn't feel like I was trapped in a tutorial. But I was actually learning how to play the game. The only bummer that I will say so far, is I did hit the point with the tutorial, or this quest mode that I seem to hit with every tutorial and every fighting game, which is when I get to complex combos, it's like, hey, just hit

these seven moves in a row. You have to nail the timing of those moves. It's not so much about like hitting the buttons as it is about actually nailing the exact timing that they want you to hit it. And this doesn't have what I think Street Fighter had, which was almost like a metronome built in to help you get it. I can't remember if it was Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat that did that. And I'm just at that point where I'm like,

I'm putting the button prompts in, but I'm not pulling off the move, and I don't know why. And that is always something that frustrates me. I would never in a game be able to do that like seven move perfectly time combo. So it's just about like getting over that challenge and never thinking about it again. And I always take those moments. The other thing is it has that simple control variant that we saw in Street Fighter. variant that we saw in street fighter yeah and you can switch between traditional controls and simple controls at any point in any match from what i can tell so it's not like you have to

even go into the options menu there's like a button to switch back and forth oh wild um so like when i got really frustrated i would just be like I'm going to switch back and keep going because I want to see more of this game. And that worked fine. Like, honestly, I really felt like after probably like three hours of play with it that I was not butt mashing. That even with the like simple controls, I was using positioning. I understood how much of the game relies on defense. They say that this is like Tekken, but like be aggressive. But Tekken really is like a defense heavy game. Your blocks are super powerful. You're not getting like chip damage unless they turn on a certain like there's a special move that you can use once per match. like it felt like i got the competitive play of it quite quickly and that i was really enjoying it also it's just meaty as hell like it just feels cool that's always been tekken's draw yes for me

is like it feels you feel like you're really punching some dudes muscle just some big slabs of beef i mean real big slabs like real prime you, you know, grade A beef. Yeah, I really recommend people who are curious. If you are, you know, thinking about getting into a fighting game, need something that's a little cute and a little like friendly, this seems

like as good an option as any. Do I think it's as good as Street Fighter? I mean, I don't know. I've read so many reviews about both games and it seems like you could go either way some people think street fighter is the best starting point some people think tekken is um but the cool thing about the genre right now is you can actually get into it with two of the biggest entries that have you know ever existed good time to be in fighting games i have have a question either for Plant,

if he knows the answer to this, or for people listening at home who have maybe played Tekken 8 and have the answer. Chris Plant, did you play as Panda by any chance? I've beat Panda's ass a few times. Okay, I don't care for that. I only play as Panda when I'm playing Tekken games because I really like Panda.

And in researching, I was looking throughken games because I really like Panda. And in researching, I was looking through some of the costume options for Panda and I saw that Panda was wearing a giant bee outfit and I wanted to confirm if that was in the game. Explain yourself, Chris.

I think if anybody needs to explain themselves, it's Frushik who was, quote, researching. What were you researching? I was researching what costumes Panda has in Tekken 8. Don't make this about us. Real librarian over here. I was doing some in-depth

analysis on whether Panda has a giant fucking bee costume in Tekken 8. So can anyone confirm this? The internet seems unsure of whether that's the case or not. There's a bunch of character customizations, so you could probably do whatever you want with Panda, is my guess. That's not an answer.

You freak. Let's talk about the next game, Nasty Boys. Yeah, Home Safety Hotline is a... Ooh, this looks so cool. Yeah, it's really neat. Analog horror is the genre that I've seen most commonly attached to this. Basically, you are a responder for a hotline that people call when there's danger in their home, sort of like a poison control center, that kind of thing.

danger in their home like sort of like a poison control center that kind of thing uh but the interesting thing about it is that the things that people are encountering they start out with things like black mold or termites or moles or whatever you say moles and then mole m-o-l-e like skin moles or like no like a pet like that moles or like the creature? No, like that pest. It's like a pest control sort of hotline. So people call and you hear – the interface is very much like a Windows 95. It's very immersive. So you are looking at the computer. You are in the computer sort of like – oh what was the not quadrilateral cowboy

thank you yes god how do i know space outlaw that kind of that kind of ideal and everything is through that interface um and when you're getting these calls you basically will get like a very grainy picture of the person and you'll hear the audio and the audio is all super like well presented and well acted um but when you hear like i've i've been hearing this this sort of scratching noise from behind my bed and in the morning i wake up and my dishes are all clean and it's like oh okay well that's a that's a desk goblin they've gotten out and they've cleaned. I know that because they climb around the walls. And so these entries get increasingly bizarre as you go forward. And like your dictates from your employer get increasingly strange and unnerving.

And the pacing is really weird. Like after you take a call, there's often like 30 seconds where nothing has happened i mean like there's nothing happening and so you're very it is very much that that thing of like you're sitting your desktop and i don't know i'm just kind of fucking around and like reading the different entries because like you it really makes you feel like you have this job so you're like reading through because you've got nothing else to do so So when you get a call, it's like, oh, it's a little bit surprising. You know, it kind of takes,

it catches you off guard a little bit. Oh, so there's like, yeah, there's like a quiet, you're waiting for the next call. Exactly. That's really, and then the call comes in and you're dealing with it. But in the off times, like, it really is just like you're working a desk job.

So it's this interesting ebb and flow of like, making you really feel like you're part of it. And then sometimes you will get people calling you back if you did – made the wrong choice or advised them with the wrong strategy. And there's like some ads for your employer that start popping up in your – on your desktop and you'll start getting emails from people warning you that like you're headed into down a dangerous path or whatever and but that is anyway that is the the the game you can't play with the uh a controller to to sort of give you an idea what we're talking about here is just mouse and keyboard that's it uh because it really does want you to feel like you are working this this gig but although i guess, could you use the track pad on a steam deck as the mouse? Would that work? I mean,

you, you maybe could, but honestly, like you'd be missing out. Like it's, it's really, it would feel weird. And I just don't think manipulating a mouse,

I mean, in a pinch, you could probably swing it. I just don't think manipulating a mouse with a track pad is very, especially because it's your primary, but you're basically like clicking through you're reading the descriptions and looking for stuff that matches what they're describing on the call yeah that sounds dope and that gets harder to pair as you go forward right like at first it's pretty easy the person is describing like black mold or something it's like oh you got black mold

no problem and then there are some other ones you have to try to discern and use a little bit of like lateral thought. Is there like an overarching storyline? Yeah. It's more in the background through emails and stuff like that. But there is definitely like a through line that is connecting everything. It's very cool. That sounds dope. I think we have a bunch more to talk about after the break.

I'm exhausted. I can't talk anymore right now about video games. Please, please give me just a second. Let me go to my corner and have my cut man cut my video game. What are they cutting? I don't know what they're cutting at the boxing time. Like the, I don't know. I think they're like your eye gets all swollen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cutting. I don't want to describe it because it's gross. So they get the goo out. Yeah, the goo. Let's get the goo out and we'll be right back. Okay, we're back. And I have a game to talk about,

which I'm quite excited to discuss it is a game called lunis dis and i found this game i was watching some random youtube of someone talking about um switch games that you might have missed which is often a place that i look to those sorts of videos to find games that i might have missed. And in this case, indeed I did. Uh, Lunas, this is a, this is one of the most insane intros to anything I've ever heard in my entire life.

That was top to bottom unhinged. Uh, Lunas, this is a 3d platforming game that kind of looks like it came out on dreamcast. It has that aesthetic to it. I know there's been a few games like the neon whites of the world that have sort of adopted that aesthetic. I honestly, it has that aesthetic to it I know there's been a few games like the neon whites of the world that have sort of adopted that aesthetic I honestly it has more maybe PS1

vibes oh yeah Saturn yeah Saturn that's true it's a little more simple than I guess Dreamcast era and it has like a little bit of a crunchy pixelated look to it but it's 3D and in terms of the actual gameplay it's it's a very straight down the middle uh 3d platformer it's not like banjo kazooie where it's like these giant open worlds and you're like exploring every nook and cranny for jingos or whatever the fuck he found uh this is more like a linear like sonic style platforming game um in this case you play as a raccoon who has a double jump and then if you attack at the top of the double jump you get a basically a third jump and you're trying to get through these levels as quickly and cleanly as possible while collecting

a bunch of shit along the way um it's very quick it's very easy to jump into uh the controls feel great like just overall game feel wise. It feels like really really sharp. And I've been really really digging it. I feel like a lot of Sonic 3D games. Tend to be a lot shittier than what this is doing. And so I feel like. This might check a box for people.

That have always hoped for a good Sonic 3D game. And not gotten it. So yeah. I really like it there's also like unlockable characters and shit and and uh it's kind of i think it's selling for a song last i checked it was like six dollars on steam which is a steal i don't know what's on switch but i put it on so many good games out right now that are like under ten dollars i mean this game came out in 2022 so it's not like a new game but i also never played it before so yeah new to me it's 4.99 right now that's nuts there's a free demo

if people want to try it it also like opened my eyes to the fact that this genre has actually a pretty big following on steam of people making these 3d platformers there's a series called tori which i wasn't familiar with. It's T-O-R-E-E, I believe. And it's basically the same idea, but you're like a little yellow bird. And then Tori is one of the playable characters in Lunastice.

So there's that connection to it. But there's like this whole group of indie developers that are trying to make these like dope third-person platformer games. And they kind of just keep getting better and better which is really exciting cool yeah it's dope um should i talk about enshrouded yes please uh cool i don't know how to talk about enshrouded without uh referencing pal world because it's fucking wild these two games came out at the same time i mean you can reference the like other 16 games that came out before the other million survival

crafting okay so intruded is a survival crafting game okay uh what kind of sets it apart is it is a lot more rpg heavy than a lot of uh similar games in this in this fashion. I would say it is kind of a blend of a sort of Valheim. And I mean, I think it's going for a lot of sort of Dark Souls style stuff, both aesthetically and in terms of like how combat works and how build crafting works. If that excites you, I will say that it is, I mean, I don't think it necessarily hits

the highs of a FromSoft game, but it is compelling enough to sort of serve as another carrot on a stick on top of the usual survival crafting carrots of you know build your base and um you know discover these new uh tools for crafting and uh all this jazz some cool stuff it does in how it kind of fuses those two ideas is like uh you know how every souls game has a like hub area with all the different npcs uh and they all can do different stuff for you. There's different vendors, different services that they offer. And in Shrouded, you have to explore the world and find these NPCs who are sleeping in these stasis pods. And then once you find them, you summon them to your base and you can like put them down wherever you want.

So the base building is kind of like crafting, you know, Majula or I can't remember any of the other names of the hub areas. The Shrouded Cavern. Sure. So the titular shroud is this sort of mushroom-like plague that has destroyed the world. And there are parts of the world that are enshrouded. And you can only be in those areas for set amounts of time. I think it starts with like five minutes on the clock. So there's a lot of really genuinely great loops in this game and i would say the main one is you know you build up your base you you know uh maybe craft some new

armor craft some new weapons stock up on some food and then you go out on like an expedition maybe into one of these like shrouded lands which are full of monsters and treasure and new stuff for you to discover um there are little like lore journals that you can find uh which is not usually my cup of tea uh the lore of this game has kind of gone over my head as i have allowed it to but sometimes you'll find something that'll be like oh uh here's a a journal that describes this flintstone mine, and then it'll mark it as a point of interest on your map. It has a little bit of like Breath of the Wild style stuff where you can craft a glider. And then there are these watchtowers that you can

climb and explore. And then once you unlock them, they become fast travel points. So you can zip right up to the top of them and then glide your way down to you know so one of these hot spots that you just found on your map i i want to know like one of the things that always frustrates me with these games and the games that like don't do this i always get much more latched into yeah when i feel like the survival mechanics of like oh i have to repair my gear oh i'm hungry start feeling like padding as a way to extend the gameplay experience so that so much of my time is just that yeah no it doesn't do that i mean you do have uh your gear has durability but that is basically every time you come home to your base and like click on your crafting table it automatically repairs every single thing you have on you so it's a question

of like how long can i stay out there in the world without having to like come back home, which is a big sort of- I mean, that's a soul's thing, right? Like that's how souls handles their ability mostly. You also don't have like a hunger meter that drains, but food instead gives you buffs. Oh, love it.

So like you find berries in the wilderness, you eat that, it gives you health regeneration or you farm animals to get their pelts and meat and then you cook the meat and it gives you like a a buff to your uh to your max health so it is an extremely non-punishing game which is great because i feel like stuff like that in a game like this wouldn't work because it would just get in the way of like i want to go out and find this thing that i read about in this journal that's now marked on my mat yeah um i have not played it with anyone else it is i think up to like 16 player multiplayer in a server um and there's some workarounds that you can do to have like persistent uh servers i forget the dedicated servers

otherwise it's like you know one player hosts the world and the others join it. And I'm pretty sure your character is separate from like the world save. So if you join another world, I'm pretty sure you can bring your character into it. This game, honestly, it has a lot of really cool shit going on in it. It is not some of the things it is swinging at, namely the, you know, soulsie style action RPG thing. It doesn't quite hit the level of polish. Right. But this it is in early access. And I have found myself coming back to it a lot more than I really expected to. And a lot more than Power World has kind of kind of hooked me because i think it is doing a dramatically

different thing than power world obviously uh and it's it is uh yeah it's just got a lot of really really great ideas uh works pretty well on steam deck yeah i was gonna ask so do you what do you run it at like a 30 fps or something yeah it's it is a little it's it is not it is playable it is not like amazing but it's early access i could see them different optimizing it um i i would i would love to give this a try with with you know one or all you guys uh because i think that the like the rpg combat of it is pretty cool it's also pretty punishing like if you go into a fight with an enemy and you're not careful you will get killed it is it is that type of game um and so i'm curious to see what that looks like with multiplayer.

But yeah, it's called Entrouted. It's in early access now. And it's very cool. If you like this type of game, maybe if Palworld left you feeling cold, this is, I think, a good next course. Yeah, it does definitely seem like something that I would enjoy. I tend to play these games a little later in early access when a lot of the rough edges have been smoothed, but definitely keeping it on my list. Juice, you had one

more that you played, correct? Yeah. This is an interesting little one. It's called Lil, and I do mean Lil. Lil Guardsman is a story about a young girl who is her father works the gatehouse for this like fantasy kingdom um and he has a gambling problem so when he needs to go play

the ponies or bet on goblin ball then he asks you to fill in for him at the guard shack the way that plays out is sort of like a funny a light-hearted papers please which saying it now i realize so papers please is a game where i'm not going to explain papers but basically people are telling you their stories and you have to decide if you're going to permit them to enter the kingdom or not. And the way you decide that is one is talking to people and hearing what they have to say. You also have tools like a truth spray or a metal detector or a decoder, right, that you can deploy in these different conversations to figure out if people are actually telling the truth or not, if they're, if they're being honest about what they, their intent for, for entering. And you want to let people who are going to help the kingdom in

and people who are going to be a detriment to the kingdom, keep them out. So that's the starting mechanic. That's where it sort of begins. And then what you very quickly early on, you are given a device that lets you rewind time. So if an interaction with one of these people doesn't go the way you're hoping to, hoping it would, or you learn something that you wish you could apply, or you had the wrong loadout of tools that you didn't love, you can rewind time to take another pass at the interactions in the hopes that if you do it, you know, it's not a binary, let the right person in or let the right person keep the right people out. There's a star rating.

Three stars is like you did everything right. To get four stars, you have to unearth some sort of secret that needs to be uncovered using one of your tools or some other specific technique. So you benefit from the repeated attempts and trying to do repeated information. There's also some segments in between that are a little bit more like point-and-click adventure. Like, you have an inventory,

you have things that you can use, there's people you can talk to in the kingdom, that sort of stuff. It does seem like, I mean, for people that have played Papers, Please, I think the universal understanding of that game is that it's pretty depressing to play, even though it's very interesting and well-designed. It's also's also like at every turn you're making a decision that makes you feel

pretty bad yeah it's not no not to that extent um you're you're more making decisions based on so you have like royal advisors that put up these dictates every day which is similar to what you saw on papers please like now this this kind of person isn't allowed and this kind of person is, but this is more like one of the people on the council will say, hey, I've got this person coming by today. If you see them, make sure you let them straight on through. Like don't even hold them up, like let them straight through.

But those people may not have the best intent for the kingdom. Right. So there are different people in the world have different desires for what they want you to do. So there's not a straight up and down like good, bad. It's more like who are you going to like? What kind of kingdom do you want to shape? Like how do you want to how do, how do you make the judgment on what is good and what is bad and what you want in town and what you don't?

It's, it's very cute. It looks great. It's, I love the way it looks. I will say that my, my, and this is very,

very personal. Your mileage may vary. Obviously I was not like laughing out loud at the dialogue it's more sort of like um amusing than it is funny and that can sometimes make the conversations themselves feel like a little bit more of a slog than they they maybe need to i wish talking to people and just the dialogue itself was like a little bit sharper, a little bit more more fun. But it's I found the writing to be kind of like flat. It's also kind of weird to me that your dad's gambling addiction is like played for laughs and maybe they'll swing back around to, you know, having something to say about it that's worthwhile.

But it's a real gambling addiction. It's not like fantasy measles. That's a real thing that people have. It's not really that funny. So I don't know. I guess of the addictions that can make you a bad

parent, it's one of the better ones, I guess. Justin, I'd love a power ranking. Yeah, it depends how bad my expectations are. Yeah. But there's a demo. So go check it out. See if that hits for you.

It's really cute. It feels also, I'll say, and like, I don't know if y'all have started to get this feeling when you play games, and I know that this is obvious, but you start to feel like why did you make this gameplay choice and it's to make streaming it better right oh there's a lot that you know what i mean like i feel that like it it is designed to be like what people in your stream telling you what you should do or or whatever and not and left me a little cold as a as a player that's interesting it's rare it's usually like an optional thing that you turn on or like a streaming mode where people can vote it's i feel like i've not played a lot of games

where it's like so in your face but i also understand it's not in your face it's more like i was feeling like this would probably be more enjoyable if you had people talking about it while you were playing it. Do you think it would be more enjoyable if you were in a room of family members playing it? No, not really. I mean, there's a lot more reading. It's a little too finicky for that. I don't know. And maybe I'm completely off base.

It's a little too finicky for that. I don't know. And maybe I'm completely off base, but like it definitely feels like it is designed to show well as a streaming game and not necessarily show well when you're just sitting one-on-one, like ingesting it, I guess. I don't know. Try the demo. See what you think.

Cool. Well, a lot of games. Should I open the mailbag? Everyone to try out. Yeah, let's open the mailbag, Chris Plant. Okay. First up, we've got this crisp letter from Michael G. It says, if Russ is in need of more wholesome game show style content, then Game Changer on Dropout absolutely scratches that itch for me.

Have any of you watched it? Oh, yeah, man. I was going to say, right? It's fucking great. I don't know what this dropout is what is dropout dropout is college humor's uh sort of standalone streaming app uh and it's got i mean it's got a lot of really fucking good stuff on it uh game changers is i mean kind of just what it sounds like they play play a different sort of game every episode, a lot of the time sort of in the style

of a studio game show, but sometimes they spin it off. There's a really great episode where they have to do an escape room, but it's always very funny people. They have sort of the same sort of cast. Dimension 20 is part of Dropout also, which I don't know if you've heard of or not,

but it's also really good. So yeah, it is really, really, really tremendous. Fresh, you have almost certainly seen clips from Game Changers without knowing that you were even watching it. It does start, as you're describing it, seems like something I would see on like a Reels or a whatever.

Yes, it is a delight. TikTok kind of thing. Yeah, you'll really enjoy it. Cool. Next up from Myung Beans, we've got, not sure if Griffin has mentioned this, but please watch Devil's Plan on Netflix if you haven't already. Given that he's liked Physical 100, Siren, and other game survival shows, I know he's going to love Devil's Planet. It's a Korean reality show where 12 unique people from the entertainment industry are gathered to play in a seven-day survival game with complex strategic and social games. The first game is a variation on One Night Ultimate Werewolf.

It's seriously the best shows in the genre. I watched the first couple episodes of it. I did really, really like it, and it's one I'm planning on returning to because it does seem to hit a lot of the same stuff. Why didn't it, you and I have a lot of the similar tastes in, well, I guess I should say you and your wife have similar tastes to me and my wife

for this kind of stuff. Yeah. Why wasn't this like an immediate, was there other stuff, or was it just like, oh, yeah, we'll return to that? It is remarkably dense in terms of, and that is like, oh yeah, well, we'll return to that. It is remarkably dense in terms of, and that is like by design,

it is the One Night Ultimate Werewolf sort of variation that they describe is like a 10 times more complicated version of One Night Ultimate Werewolf, which is cool. Like there is a lot of like strategy and interesting stuff. And I really enjoyed what we watched.

But it is the type of show, particularly because it is, you know, a Korean reality show, like that I can't like half watch. Yeah. It is. Right. It demands your constant sort of attention, both from a, you know, language barrier perspective and also from a like there's incredibly dense gameplay mechanics happening here uh so it is one that is like it's on our queue and i'm sure one day we will uh return to but it was it but it was on at the same time as like i feel like or rather it's on netflix it's always on but we discovered it at the same time

as like you know we were watching survivor Survivor and hockey and, you know. I also always have difficulty with the beginnings of these sorts of shows just because you're learning all the characters and you don't know who to care about. So it kind of relies heavily on how strong that initial like storyline stuff is. Yeah, that's that's why I mean, you don't have that issue with some of the shows described like Siren. I feel like does such a good job of like. I think like survive, like I watched survivor pretty much every year. And,

and that I always have difficulty in like the first two or three episodes where I'm like kind of latching into it. Yeah, absolutely. I, yeah, I, I will,

I think I'm going to give this one another shot. Cause our, our friend JD is also like a big reality show. Not spoke very highly of it also. Cool. I think we have one more letter. Yes, from Will. I love that Plant mentioned a Beat Takeshi movie.

But if you're looking for movies to prep for the Yakuza games, I got to recommend his Outrage trilogy. That's Outrage, Beyond Outrage, and Outrage Koda. Not only is this one of those trilogies where the second movie is just absolutely excellent, got to recommend his Outrage trilogy. That's Outrage, Beyond Outrage, and Outrage Coda. Not only is this one of those trilogies where the second movie is just absolutely excellent, it's also a dense and twisty trip through Yakuza politics, allegiances, and betrayals. If you can follow these movies, you're absolutely ready for Yakuza 0 through 6. Yeah, I mean, with Beat Takeshi, you can't really go wrong so this sounds like good advice for people cool do we have any honorable mentions for people um i'm just gonna say because we've talked about i think three weeks ongoing now uh we have been watching the new zealand

season two taskmaster with our friend guy montgomery uh who we host uh deathblart with uh i had seen some episodes of it but you had to like find it through some weird uh you know daily motion or some shit in order but they have started uploading uh the the new zealand season two on the taskmaster youtube. I think eight of the 10 episodes of it are up now. And it is fucking amazing. It is hysterically funny. But I've also extolled this show's virtues in many forms. But it is very fun to watch this show knowing someone on it.

Because it's like a level of attachment to sort of the, you know, creativity and lateral thinking. the stakes yeah and that that really uh make it something very special there's a challenge i want to just describe there's a challenge in the new zealand season two where they all get a burner phone and are told to keep it on them at all times have you seen the season juice yeah and then everyone takes the phone. And then two months later, after keeping this phone on them, they get a message sent to the phone that says, Join this Zoom call dressed as Abraham Lincoln and pretend to be Abraham Lincoln. Fastest wins. And then you watch in real time as these five harried people who were in the middle of their days threw together the most ramshackle ass Abe Lincoln cosplay.

Also, all of them are from New Zealand. So I would say there is a tenuous understanding of Mr. Lincoln and his legacy and what he sounds like. It looks like, and watching just five Abe Lincolns on the same Zoom call is, it is, it's,

it's unbelievable. It's so fucking good. So again, for the million It is, it's unbelievable. It's so fucking good. So again, for the millionth time, watch Taskmaster. It's all on YouTube. I love it. Frush, how about you? I wanted to call out Fargo season five,

which I believe Justin recommended on the show. If there was a better show last year, I don't know what it was. And I'm looking I'm counting maybe the bear the bear is definitely up there I just started it I think the thing that I've noticed about Fargo

is a lot of those seasons even though I do love them the first episode not dissimilar from what I was just talking about about reality shows the first episode tends to be kind of a like deep dive crash course into a very dense history. And what I liked about this season is that it's a much,

at least to start off with, a very focused, smaller story that you slowly, obviously, it gets bigger over time, I'm sure. But I was able to immediately grok what was going on, which characters I should care about, what their motivations are, et cetera. And you have that overlaid with like incredible writing and performances. And, and,

uh, I'm really just, uh, pretty blown away by it. So it's been really good. Um, I also finished Prince of Persia, the lost crown.

Ooh, which was great. I loved it. Um, really, really strong Metroidvania. I, I i i but but i would say the narrative never really comes together so like that's it is what it is for me it just like every time there was any narrative scene it like kind of fell flat for me even though like the

visuals are really strong i love the powers you get, especially in the late game. Some of the powers are like fucking amazing and feel incredible and really actually, in a lot of ways, trump some of the powers that you had in Hollow Knight. I still think Hollow Knight overall is a stronger game just because holistically, I think it nails every aspect of what it's trying to do. But Prince of Persia is fucking great.

It's definitely one of the best metroid venues i've played recently and um if you love that genre i would strongly strongly recommend it i love it cool um yeah i'm still i've been sticking with this very good i uh i watched a short film i have no idea even how i found it it's called the jenn Jennifer Myers story. And it is a it's like a 12 minute short. I'm trying not to spoil it. That feels like it is a true crime story about a murder. But as you're watching it, it's being recreated with kind of like yarn and like toy models. And it's very like cute, but strange. And I don't want to say more than that. That's probably the first two minutes.

But I think everybody should watch it. I'll include it in the newsletter. Justin, I especially think that you're going to really be into it. Excellent. It's one of those just like one person had reviewed it on Letterboxd and I happened to see the review. And then I watched it. And then I actually mentioned it in the Polygon Soccer Room and it turns out that Frosh and I's coworker, Simone,

is friends with the person who made it. So one of those like very, it's a small world sort of things. But wow, it's wild to find something that has like 500 views on YouTube or whatever and is just exceptional. It's pretty cool. I would just like to give my strongest possible endorsement to chain gang all stars which is a book by nana kwame ajay banyan um it is a okay it's a somewhat satirical novel you may want to to put it in like a pseudo-dystopian kind of piece. It is the story of a near future where part of the penal system is that if you have a life sentence, you can opt out and join what's called the CAPE program.

life sentence, you can opt out and join what's called the CAPE program. And you are basically pitted into an American gladiators style system where you are battling other prisoners to the death. And if you kill enough other prisoners, then you will eventually earn your freedom. prisoners then you will eventually earn your freedom your only sort of support system here is the other people on your chain which are sort of like teams in the sports that we uh understand in in the book they call in the world of the book they call them hard action sports is what the the cape program is is referred to the detractors for this program who we also follow um refer to it as neo-slavery sure so it's it is a uh it's a book that is hugely entertaining because you are invested in the stories of the people on the chains you're invested in seeing if they can get their freedom you're invested in seeing how the game system changes.

There are rule changes and things that people do to make it more entertaining and more satisfying for the viewers. The viewers are also not just watching the competitions. There are reality TV shows basically that follow the contestants and follow the drama behind the scenes. shows basically that follow the contestants and follow the drama behind the scenes right so the whole system is obviously as i'm describing it like you can tell it's like morally bankrupt right like it's obviously hoarded what's really interesting about the book though is you are basically following these stories in the same way that the viewers are following these stories and so like it is relentlessly entertaining and you get swept up in it and then you think ah fuck that like this is real and the way it does it is so fucking smart and i i don't think i've ever seen a book do do

this in this way this book uses footnotesnotes in a way that makes it almost like an immersive read. So sometimes you'll have someone who gets killed on the battlefield right after their character is introduced, right? They're out there 20 seconds and they get off by one of the main characters and the book moves on. But if you follow the footnote you might get like a half a page anecdote about how that person ended up where they were or like the background of the like why they committed the crime in the first place like how they ended up like it humanizes them if you choose to go read the footnote and take the time to and are the footnotes written in the same voice as the rest of the book? It's usually written in a voice that is specific to the character.

Oh, interesting. Just specific to who it is. Sometimes you're getting their last thoughts. Sometimes you're getting thoughts in their heads. Sometimes it'll be a fucking two pages of the US penal code describing why a system is the way it is. Sometimes it's like real bracing, upsetting statistics about imprisonment in the U.S. The author, his dad was an attorney, a criminal defense attorney. And he grew up thinking like his dad defends bad guys, so his dad must be a bad guy. and this is like really very in conversation with that like i i cannot recommend this book enough i listened to the audiobook version has uh a cast

which a lot of more audiobooks are doing um and it's they're all exceptional uh it's it's a fantastic book i i really can't recommend it recommend it enough can I also give a book recommendation just because my thing everybody all aboard the books train point extra Justin McElroy point extra Justin McElroy turn me on to this one oh yes yes yes Piranesi

or perhaps Piranesi it's by Susanna Clark who wrote Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell and it's one of the wilder books by Susanna Clark, who wrote Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. And it's one of the wilder books I've ever read. It is in the style of a diary of a man who lives in a parallel sort of world that is a gigantic sort of house. And it is made of infinite sort of uh chambers and vestibules uh each of which is filled with like infinite statues uh and there are rules to this like

weird world like there's three different floors to this house and the bottom floor is all flooded uh so that's where he goes to get like fish and seaweed to turn into nets. And the upper floors are all filled with clouds. He is the only living person in this world, aside from a man he calls the Other, who comes to visit him twice a week. And then there's 15 dead bodies that he has discovered and sort of outlined in these diaries. that he has discovered and sort of outlined in these diaries. And it is all from his perspective as he kind of unravels how he got to this world and what this world is and who the other is

and who the different people, all the different bodies that he's found are. But he has been there for so long that there are so many different ways that he has changed his way of thinking about the world like for instance the way he dates his uh his journal entries uh started out being like you know october 16th uh 2015 and then was like the 17th day of the year the albatross arrived in the southwestern third chamber like it gets that

level of like weird and granular uh but it was a a real fucking page turner uh and so like beautifully written it's it i will say this and i don't know griff if this is your uh experience at first the first few chapters the first, maybe even like fourth of the book, you have almost nothing to grab onto that you recognize from you, your world. It is like very much being shoved into the deep end, if you will. And it makes it, for me at least, it was a tough read at first because it's like what the fuck is happening what do you want me to derive from any of it but by the end of the book it all 100 makes like all will be revealed it will make 100 sense like and watching it watching the pieces snap into place once they

start they go real fucking fast and it is very gratifying i had one night that i was up until like 12 30 in the morning having read it for like two hours because i was like oh shit oh okay oh okay there's a flip point at which you are not allowed to stop reading this book like there is a point at which it's like well you have to know what happens next it is and it's a short read too it's it's a lot jonathan strange and mr norrell was was a bit of a tome and this is a this is much more brisk for for folks who've already read the book uh there's a great video essay by friend of the show jacob keller called the shape of infinity that i think you will really really like because i know probably

have quite a few listeners who've read the book at this point, because I think we've recommended it a few times now. Oh, have we? I think so. I think. I think I did on a week you were off. Oh, okay. A special double plug for, uh, Chiwetel Ejiofor narrates it, and it is... Oh, shit! Oh, oh, man. It is sublime. Sublime.

That rules. Um, uh, cool. That's a great rec. I wanted to thank the following people for writing reviews for the besties on apple podcasts uh thank you to chad hernandez gleapers and really real racing thank you for writing reviews fucking good names guys good names reviews for the you are treating you're treating podcast reviews with the dignity that they deserve really real racing uh thank you to everyone what are we doing next week justin mack well we got really real racing 64 uh we are finally gonna delve into it this this unearthed gem no it's suicide squad kill the justice league

that's not me saying it it's the title of the the game. I would never. Kind of a spoiler, but... A little bit. A little bit. Cool. I know what you're saying. I've heard a lot of things about that game. Yeah, us too. Let's figure it out.

We're going to say more things about it. We're going to say more things about it. We'll add to the pile. Why not? I'm making the call right now. Justin is going to come back and be like, guys, I kind of liked it. This is, I can think of few games with such a,

and the arc, the trajectory is landing square and the adorable little puppy shows up on Justin's doorstep. It's got a sniffle. Not this one. Can I be honest with you guys? This is something I realized about myself watching the trailers for this game. And everybody's got their own preferences, right?

And I know we're trying to wrap up the show, but just real quick. I like games with one guy. And this has like many more guys in there. I don't like to worry about a lot of guys. I like to worry about one guy. In Yakuza, when they're like, you got more guys than you can use,

that's when I start to be like, well, I don't really want to play because I just want to think about one guy. I just want. I think there's just four guys in this. That's so many, Russ. You're hearing it, right? Yeah, that is more than one.

Who needs four dudes for anything? This does explain why you like Piranesi, that you're like truly a one guy book. That I can follow. Batman, that's one dude. That's true. When you're like, we got a bunch of different people, it's like, well, that's a lot. I don't know. I'm not very excited about it

because it's so many guys. I mean, that's real true. Because it's not just Suicide Squad. It's also Justice League, if we're going off the title. Well, not for long. Yeah. I don't care if there's other characters in a game. You don't want to be a bunch of guys. I don't want to be a bunch of guys. I want to be only want to be... You don't want to be a bunch of guys. I don't want to be a bunch of guys.

I want to be one guy. What about your favorite fucking RPG of last year had a bunch of guys? What? The pixelated... What is that called? Sea of Stars did not have that many guys. Sea of Stars did not have that many guys.

It had three guys. It had exactly as many guys as you need. Four guys. That's plenty of guys. You never had too many guys in that game. Justin played Starcraft. Are you about to talk about Baldur's Gate? Well, here's the thing about that. You like had too many guys in that game. Justin played Starcraft. Are you about to talk about Baldur's Gate? Well, here's the thing about that.

You like that too? You could have sex with some of them, and that was romance. You know what I mean? That's a relationship. If you can pork the guys. If you can pork the guys, then it's different.

Also, they all have the same thing in their head, so it's basically one guy, if you think about it. If it was Suicide Squad, pork the justice leader oh somebody's already made that like right yeah but all there's gonna have one superstar and his buddies right yeah will and his friends so in in just suicide squad i don't know if it's like that is it just harley quinn and her? Because that's one guy and his friends. You know what I mean?

Okay. I'm glad we're all on the same page about this. Thanks for listening. I'm... Got a whole episode of that next week. Be sure to join us again next week for the besties because shouldn't the world's best guys There's four of us. I'm realizing.

Shouldn't the world We gotta make some changes. Well I guess it really is Russ and his buddies though. That's true. You know what I mean? Yeah sure. That is gonna do it for us

this week until next week. Be sure to join us again for the best news because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!