The Besties - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 with Miles Luna

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

The iconic skateboarding game is back and newly remastered, my dudes! Animation writer and director, Miles Luna, joins The Besties this week to discuss Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2! They explore the influence of the original 1999 release, play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater trivia, and review the improvements and new features. Plus they discuss the updated soundtrack and come up with their own EPIC original tricks! 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!

you make russ look bad with your counting russ is always like we're gonna do one two three and then russ is like blue or he'll flash back to his football days yeah it's like hike hike hike the number of monitors that boy is broken during our show when we do our sinking count and he just throws a football right in right through the. He just gets the thousand yard stare. We were just boys. He does the thousand yard throw. Oh, I see. They broke my body first.

They never break my mind. Slender warrior. That's what they called him my name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I do know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Plant, and I know the best compilation of games of the week. My name is Miles Luna, and sadly, I'm not Russ Frustick. No, that's not sad. Who is sad? There's only one.

He's incomparable. Don't be sad. Happy to be here. We're so happy to have you, Miles. Where might people know you from, Miles? What were your preferred credits? I'm a writer and director for animation. I do a bit of voice acting.

You might know me from Red vs. Blue, Camp Camp, Ruby, fun internet cartoon shenanigans. Alright, and today we're going to be talking about well, we always here on the Besties talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive inter-game-ment. These have come a long way since, you know, spinning up Tony Hawk on your PlayStation 1. This week we're talking about Tony Hawk. Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

One plus two. One plus two. One plus two. So three. So three. Chris, can you give us a quick rundown on what is up with uh tony hawk's pro skater one plus two remastered definitive edition uh colon dreams slash 362 days sure sure sure sure so the first thing you should know it is not the previous remaster of tony hawk one and two the very bad one this is a brand new one

it is made by uh vicarious visions? Yes. That's right. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the studio that's still around. And it is a combination of both Tony Hawk 1 and 2, but with the rule set of Tony Hawk 4. I know. I know. A real game changer.

Literally. It is basically Tony Hawk 1 and 2, but better? Which we will argue about right after this break. Tried playing it with my frickin' ride board, my Tony Hawk ride controller. I guess that's my first complaint. I was so stoked I got the Tony Hawk ride skateboard controller out of my garage, put it down on the floor,

and I just started doing... Gang, it's like falling off a log i was kickflipping i was uh christ daring uh hard to do a christ air from a standstill position but i was doing it and the the fucking game just didn't even it's like it was greek to it it didn't even realize that i was doing all these sick tricks so i give this one a one out of 10 stars. Wow. Miles, let's start with you. Talk about, before we get into this new version of Tony Hawk, talk to me about your history with Tony Hawk. The Hawk. Mr. Hawk and his great works.

Mr. Hawk's good, good games entered my life when I was about like nine or 10. I was more of a thug kid, if I be perfectly honest oh wow that's the best one it really is and then and i actually like those better i think yeah it's funny because i um my girlfriend and i were playing the game together and when we booted up we're playing we're having a lot of fun with it oh we can do a little manual do kickflips mr hawk himself runs you through a quick tutorial you're back in it um almost immediately and he warns you every 15 seconds to please be gentle with his old body please don't

make me do the tricks please in the first game he's like and if you fall down no big deal get don't just show up in this game he's like if listen if you fall down i i will break three of my bones and i have a family please don't fall off the board is one of the new kids please i'm begging you please let them fall or let it happen to bob burnquist just not the hawk it is a bold and fucking righteous choice i think to have the the cast of characters are the classic skaters you got your your Bob Burnquist your Tony Hawk your Bucky LASIK your everyone not Bam Margera not Bam Bam I don't think is in this one Bam had to go in Bam had to go but they are their ages now like you are playing as what 51

year old Tony Hawk I'm like joking aside I think that's pretty fucking cool I think they should call it come skate with your dad that's what this game should be called come skate with all your dads do you are you guys that will play as the uh provided professional skaters or do you immediately make a custom skater when you play this game immediately make a custom skater I was going to but the menu is very obtuse and I could not figure out how to do it for quite some time but eventually i did make justin mcelroy backpack skater yeah i'm a burnquist man really through and through yeah which i i realized i was not um a smart child um so i never looked at stats i just like this guy

seems like he's good at grinding uh what a twist it was to learn two decades later that i was using the character not meant for my favorite way of playing the game. So in a way, it's kind of like you were doing the training with the Resistance weight Dragon Ball Z armbands the whole time. I flew to the top of the highest mountain in Colorado, and that's where I did all my Tony Hawk sesh. I'm 39. Plant, how old are you? Like 35. Something like that.

So I don't know. This sort of hit me. Tony Hawk Pro Skater was like first year of college, like my freshman year of college and some high school, like right around there. And it was like a huge cultural thing, but definitely always one where like i had friends who were skaters like i i had i had kids for whom this was their culture but i always felt like kind of an outsider to the like it always seemed like kind of beyond the skating in the game part the aesthetics of it always seemed like kind of a window into a culture that i wasn't necessarily a uh a part of it hit me i mean i feel spoiled because meeting this game while you're in junior high is the real perfect

storm right i mean i was i had i had every band's work tour uh cassette tape i was no fx was banging on on the system when i was playing at my christian friend's house i got mxp banging on on the system when I was playing at my Christian friend's house I got MXPX playing on the system a little bit of a twist right right yeah I got some mighty mighty boss tones um and I mean we we played the Nintendo 64 version because we love a good frame rate and I mean we we destroyed that cartridge i outside of goldeneye i can't think of a game that we put more time into than than that original tony hawk one i was alarmed to discover just how much of my fashion as a child was dictated by the professional skaters and tony hawks i was like i was telling my girlfriend like they wear cargo shorts see they think it's cool i yeah i mean

it's it's so weird because i never skateboarded but like i also only wore like vans and like for for whatever reason that that left such a huge uh impression on me it also let it also like uh i think there's a documentary that uh is on hulu or something like that i haven't watched called uh pretending i'm a superman And it's about how the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater actually genuinely revitalized skateboarding as a profession, as a thing that people actually gave a shit about. We've gone on such a wild tangent, but this is-

Well, no, I don't actually think it's wild because what I was struck by with this is how weirdly, like it's nostalgia, but building, it's nostalgia done in a way that makes you feel like you did playing the original game,

which I wish we had a better way of communicating. I don't know if you all have noticed this, but a lot of people on at least my twitter timeline have picked up skateboarding in kind of the weeks ahead of and after this game coming out um nicole carpenter one of the reporters of polygon just picked it up and i think that the the nostalgia is not just for the game it is for that moment and also that freedom of being young and like doing these things. And Griffin, you mentioned like how powerful it is that the skaters are just like their age. Yeah.

And something that I really admire about that is skating always felt like a young person's game. And like I just imagine like once you turn 25, they like, I don't know, made you get like an office job or something um and i don't know like the energy of this game is like man it's do whatever you want like yeah you you you want to like relive uh that that part of junior high culture for yourself go ahead get that that sweet sweet boom boom huck uh skate deck and go break a leg like you'll be okay i mean the entire the entire sort of aesthetic of the game is this sort of like hey let's rewind let's go back there's this vhs sort of lens that's applied to everything you know it opens up with

the the skate video um just like the original did they they've got the new skaters in there you've got um super Superman fires up as soon as you hit the main screen. But like everything, like when you fall, there's not a recover animation. Instead, there's this sort of artifact-y, digital sort of effect

and a rewind sound plays and you're back on your board. If you hit a loading screen in the park creator, it goes to the blue screen rewind VHS thing. Like the whole idea is like, hey, let's go back. Let's have fun. Let's go to this olden time olden time jesus christ 1999 and also like clean it up because so i i played that um the previous tony hawk one two

remake and my reaction to that was oh wait maybe i hate these games like ah yes uh love challenges where i find people uh suffering from poverty and i do kickflips over them like so much of the humor of those games sucks shit sucks so bad it's just the worst and this game is i mean really makes an effort to be inclusive and like be friendly yeah um yeah without like feeling like it is losing its edge because i think that that's the thing that so many skate games in the past have worried about was like well for nice how can we say skate or die if we don't want to die there there it is helpful i think, to understand where this game succeeds in considering where the last remaster, which was what? Tony, Pro Skater HD, which was a compilation of one and two by Robomodo, who, God love them, really drove the whole franchise into the ground. They're the ones who made Ride and Shred.

And I'm sure that wasn't their decision to make a peripheral based tony hawk game but then they also made pro skater 5 which was a sin against god in heaven just because it's relevant we had a question i just want to get to uh from jill on twitter uh said that griffin mccrory said don't buy this game at the beginning of his review of tony hawk pro skater 5 did that like actually impact you coming into this game were you like did that leave such a sour taste in your mouth where was that was that during e3 when we were in new york griff i remember watching you play it for the first time no yeah we were in we were in new york and when it when it came out and uh yeah it like it was it was fucking terrible uh it was buggy and but the bigger thing and it was a problem with pro

skater hd2 is that it just didn't feel right and that is like the thing that's the reason the reason this game succeeded and the reason that like it became the thing it is and spawned you know a couple dozen you know sequel iterations is that it felt great if it like the ability to string together tricks and uh build these combos and uh do all these like transfers and you know try and try and combo the whole park like that was only possible because it felt very good right and it only got better uh this game incorporates we mentioned the mechanics of uh pro skater 4 so like you're playing levels from 1 and 2 but in the original pro skater you didn't have revert which lets you come off a half pipe and then turn that revert into a manual and then turn that manual into a spine transfer.

Like all of these things didn't exist in the original Tony Hawk. And they just feel right this time. And it's one of those things where they made a million little decisions to get that feel correct. But like if they hadn't gotten that feel correct, then everything else doesn't fucking matter. And that was the case in Pro Skater HD, which came out in 2012. So like everything else is just kind of icing on the cake. Like the game looks great. They've added some new goals to the levels in Tony Hawk 1.

There's like a great multiplayer mode. There's Creative Park. All that stuff is great. in Tony Hawk 1. There's like a great multiplayer mode. There's Creative Park. All that stuff is great. But for me, the headline is,

it feels like you remember Tony Hawk feeling, which has honestly not been true since like what, Underground 1 or maybe even Underground 2 came out in the early 2000s. So it's been like 15 years since there's been a Tony Hawk game that like actually felt pretty good. I think that's like pretty incredible i will go on record saying that the grind mini game in tony hawk's pro skater is one of the best feeling little game mechanics since like well

i guess not since like i would compare it to like the active reload from gears of war it's such a small thing but it just feels so right every time yeah i. I only like grinding. It's Tony Hawk's pro grinder. And the stuff in between. I will say this as a warning for this is not to denigrate the game but it is to set sort of expectation setting. It's not

Thug and it's not some of these games that later in the series that built more cohesive stories um or uh even stuff like let you get off your board which is a big deal for me yeah uh because i really like knowing oh i'm gonna fall yeah and i'm gonna stand i better get off my skateboard um but it doesn't build that stuff so for me there was a little bit there's less of a compelling reason to keep like playing it but that's just for me there was a little bit there's less of a compelling reason to keep like playing it but that's just the sort of person like i have a skill cap with this game right i

don't like i'm i've never been good at like stringing together like the flips and tricks and stuff like that i'm good at like not good but i prefer to play by like stringing together like grinds and manuals to get finding interesting path across the world and getting some of the secret collectibles and stuff like that. But like, I'm never going to be great at this. And I think that for me, what kept me playing the other games is sort of like the story stuff and like

some of the other sillier things that are not here with this. It's very boiled down and very like, well, boiled down is not even fair because there's fair but it's very focused on the skating. Right. If that is fair. That simplicity from earlier, I think that's through every layer of this game.

It is the three minute round. You're going to do these challenges. Once you do six challenges or however many you unlock the next stage and it is very much focused on that sort of loop in a way that I would actually argue, I think this is a great co-op game. Like the couch gaming experience with this is, I think, really, really great.

Like my girlfriend and I played split screen for a little bit. We did some free skate. She wasn't super interested in competing. But when we went to the, you know, I guess you could call it story mode. It's three minute rounds. You just hand that controller back and forth. And it's fun watching someone be like, oh, dude, that was a sit. You landed that. That was amazing. Or when they fall, it's also minute rounds. You just hand that controller back and forth. And it's fun watching someone be like, oh dude, that was a sit. You landed that.

That was amazing. Or when they fall, it's also kind of hilarious. I think I'm kind of with you. I don't really know what the longevity, like I don't know how long, how much more time I'm going to spend with this game. I'm normally not a person to like look at a price and like equate it.

But like, I think the $40 price tag is nice. I think the thing that is, I have a hope for this game and that hope is when the world opens back up uh and we can like have house parties again and stuff this to me actually strikes me like a great background house party game in the same way that like guitar hero rock band or jackbox has become like the soundtrack for this rules you throw this on a tv it's it's it's essentially a splash screen you can have in the background and just that like that little three minute bite-sized delicious tony hawk session that you can then hand off to people or watch like that's where i think that's where i

hope this this game might get like a breath of fresh air um but i don't know i i really like i dug the soundtrack the new songs i hearing some of the old songs is of course like takes you back there's some songs that they added that were not in the original soundtrack that i would have sworn on a stack of like i would have sworn that mxpx song was in the initial soundtrack but it's not it's added for this so i don't know where i heard it i guess church probably probably at church um but they added uh uh some more rap songs which is cool that feels like a little bit more uh in the spirit of of like inclusivity that the the game has like it's like trying to be a more encompassing culture i think um yeah i mean the the characters too they added

you know people of color they added more women they added their first non-binary skater like they made an effort there is still a magical bum you're supposed to ollie and i'm not sure here in the year of our lord anna darmanley 2020 we're still ollieing magic bumps no i don't even think we call them bums and i'm pretty sure we shouldn't ollie them if we do see people who are experiencing homelessness. Not Ollieing them is one of the top things they say. So that feels a little weird. But there is something. It was a feeling that was hard to put my finger on of, like, simultaneously, like, experiencing my nostalgia and then thinking about how someone who didn't have that nostalgia would like interact with the game.

Like all of the songs felt very relevant to me because, but like, I wonder if it had been like, if I was playing a game as a kid and all of a sudden some, like in, in it mixed in with my, um, my counting crows and Bush,

there had been a fucking Chicago track. Some doobie brothers, doobie brothers doobie brothers like what i hope it's not like that but i worry it's like uh i would be interested to see how younger people are like experiencing these these oldies this one these classic rock tunes well that's the thing like this there are people who play video games now who are probably listeners of this show who were not born when the last good tony hawk game came out like that can't be understated is that like this i i honestly hadn't thought of it that way but like there probably are a lot of people playing this game for the first time like oh

shit wait these are good like no ea isn't carrying the torch anymore with skate. And there have been a few other sort of skateboarding projects, but nothing nearly with the impact that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater had. And so this is a, for a lot of people, for all intents and purposes, this is a new genre to them, and that's sort of a wild idea. I was going to say, what is your most embarrassing Tony Hawk game? Like, the one that you love that you know is like maybe maybe not great i mean to to justin's point i i have a

deep nostalgic love for tony hawk's underground and i remember loving the story loved making your own logo getting to choose a skate team um i can't imagine the comedy in that game has aged well i just can't i specifically remember like a scene with like your manager without a shirt on and someone screaming like pencil dick and i like as a kid being like this is comedy but i can't imagine that has aged super great but the plot of thug 2ug 2 is Tony Hawk and Bam Margera kidnap you for a secret battle. The plot description of Tony Hawk Underground 2 is six paragraphs long. It's like Bam and Tony kidnap you and they're going to have the World Destruction Tour, a worldwide publicity-free skating tour

where two teams, Team Hawk and Team Bam, compete for points, and the losing team has to pay for all the expenses. Jesus Christ. This is an incredible wiki. This is the last sentence. Nigel wants Bam to give him the tape of the tour, which shows Phil, Bam Margera's dad,

in the toilet shouting to his wife April for more toilet paper the game ends with bam and tony humiliating beaverhausen once more as bam pulls down his pants on international tv this is like the stuff that i yeah i mean this i got it especially hearing skaters do terrible vo in games is like that that's my ASMR. Hearing Bob Burnquist explain why you have to ollie all the clowns, why it's really important to him. They kidnapped the president's daughter.

You gotta grind my dad's coffin. I put like 30 hours into Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam game, spin-off game, based off of the worst level of Tony Hawk. Yeah, it was bad.

Justin, what do we have coming up next? Oh my gosh, so much plant. We're not done talking about Tony Hawk. We've got some Tony Hawk bar trivia from Mr. Plant himself, some communique from you, our beloved listeners and some

probably some honorable mentions. Who knows? Who knows? But we'll get into all of that and so much more right after this quick break. So, Plant, I understand you have some trivia for us. I do have some trivia for you. And I'm going to start out easy, and we're going to work our way into the more difficult questions.

Does that sound okay? Hopefully you get the first one right. Away from keyboards? Oh, yeah. No cheating. Hear my hands. No cheating. Okay.

So we'll start off super easy. We're just warming ourselves up here. Okay. In what game in the Tony Hawk series did the 900 first appear? My wife. This is my wife. did the 900 first appear? My wife! It was in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, and they had to do it at the very last minute.

As it was in approvals, they were still adding it because he hadn't pulled it off yet. And he actually did it moments before it was supposed to go to print. Is that true? That sounds true. Wow, that's wild. It was already in...

Where's escaping me? It's when the platform holder is like... It was in Cert. Yeah, it was in Cert. And he does the track, so you have to go back and add it. The platform holder is like... It was in Cert. Cert, yeah, it was in Cert. And he does the track, so you have to go back and add it. But like, okay, but couldn't I turn my board around three and a half times in one? And you just wouldn't get an, it wouldn't call it a 900?

Like you just... It would be like in this game when you do four impossibles, it says triple impossible plus impossible. Like we've already passed the limits of possibility. You can't give me a quadruple? Come on. Okay, okay, okay. I'm going to make it a little more challenging.

Neversoft, the studio that made the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater, rest in peace, they got the job because they were able to complete a supposedly doomed action video game for Activision. My wife! Yes. Jesus.

It's Apocalypse, the Bruce Willis action game. You answered the question I didn't even get asked, which was, who is the star? Damn! Bruce Willis, actually, ironically, interestingly enough, was not supposed to be the lead of that game.

He was supposed to be your partner, then everybody realized like well this is stupid everybody just wants to play bruce willis but they had already done the vo with him so they had to cut out all the like get the red key cards and just cut it to like i'm enjoying getting he's just psyching himself up like i gotta get the red key cards come on you can do it bruce come on bruce i i remember playing that on like a OPM demo disc and thinking it wasn't half bad. Wasn't a terrible game. It was a good game.

Okay, okay. I'm going to get a little tricky here. It was a nightmare. In which Tony Hawk game does Shrek appear as an unlockable character? I'm going to say Pro Skater 4. No, wrong. No, I think it's later than that. Was it Project 8?

Justin, do you have a submission? I'm going to guess Proving Grounds. Underground 2. Underground 2. His grind special, this is from fandom involved ear waxes lubricant uh and as an alternative to spraying graffiti shrek burps onto walls which then makes this trademark s and that's really paying homage to the property that's a tender love for the yeah that's how hey also weirdly jack black is in this game did he record new VO to replace his old VO? Was he in the original? Or are they just using the old clips?

They brought him in to get redone. Officer Decker? What was the character's name? I don't think he's... I think it's Dick. Oh my god! You guys! It's a penis. It's a funny.

Okay, we're gonna get a little trickier. In which Weird Al music video does Tony Hawk appear as an extra? Oh, God. Oh, God. I believe in you. I mean, I didn't know Shrek, and I'm questioning all of my decisions. I'm going to give you three more seconds, and then I'm just going to-

Smells like Nirvana? It is Smells Like Nirvana. Wow, that's actually- all of my decisions. I'm going to give you three more seconds and then I'm just going to... Smells like Nirvana? It is Smells Like Nirvana. Wow, that's actually so good. His company helped provide skater extras. And then they're like, you know what? We got to get the Hawkman,

the Boom Boom Hook. Got to get the Hawkman. Got to get him in this game. Okay, here's the most challenging question that you're going to get. In the Korean version of Tony Hawk, Post-Gator 2, who appears as exclusive characters? Characters?

So there's more than one. Interesting that you noticed that, yes. Ah, man. Is it a musical? It is. Oh. Aerososmith i don't know oh shit i like that aerosmith is like not bad that would not surprise me seems right uh is it i mean is it a uh is it a korean musical it is okay but tony hawk but i don't i i i don't know that i know enough about the korean music scene back when tony hawk pro skater 2 came out yeah i'll let y'all know it was the uh four women

of k-pop band finn kl all four got added to tony hawk now they were actually just one character that they found each other's shoulders voltron style just hopped on a board 30 people uh uh yeah that's it there's uh some other stuff that i learned that i'll share with you uh do you know that somebody actually did uh a 1080 off of a vert ramp like for the first time during quarantine what no yeah an 11 year old brazilian skater did a 1080 on vert in like April or May. Yeah, died tragically. Just burst into flames. He just went straight up to heaven. You should get to be the Hawkman, by the way.

If you do the 1080, I am the Hawkman now. He comes out of the clouds with his wings spread and caresses you and carries you into God's arms. This is my real son. Sorry, Riley. Sorry, Riley. This is the true son to the Hawks. I didn't know somebody had done a 1260 off of a big air ramp. You're making up numbers.

He's blowing past, Tony. Like, the 900 is nothing. Logic would dictate if you make the big air ramp big enough you could conceivably achieve any number of rotations it's just it's just a question of survivability uh at when you have to then put your body back on the ground like if i vert if i vert off of you know the the top of the empire state Building. Sure, sure, sure. I could probably get a few rotations in there. Has there ever been a,

I want to move on to other stuff, but real quick, has there ever been a athlete that is more iconic in their sport? Are you joking? For a large swath of the population. Chris? Michael Jordan? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't mean, I'm not Chris, Michael Jordan. No, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't mean, I'm not saying that Michael Jordan is a very good basketball player,

but there are other people who are iconic, iconic basketball players. Like for a lot of people on the planet, skating begins and ends with Tony Hawk. Like, and because of this game, like he's the only state. Hold on.

I'd think Sean White got on a board once or twice. Well, but. I'm joking. I'm joking. That's true. But that's okay. That's, I mean, close. He didn't have the level of popularity, but like Sean White is the only snowboarder.

But that's not, that's not, I mean, obviously, clearly there are lots of incredibly talented skateboarders, but what Justin is saying is like. He's saying it's like there's two, there's so many whom tony hawk is the only skateboarder gun to their head they could make yeah no absolutely right i'm joking yeah well and i think that but also the game it's not just that it's like the game put i think the the game is actually more to blame than he is right like the game put skating into a lot like it opened the door to that entire world and subculture for like so many people i mean i know people that skate because of this game yeah yeah yeah i think if you asked how

like the average person you know for the most famous announcer people say john madden just because it's a game title yeah even though he was better known as a coach in my opinion anyway hey do we want to do mail yeah yeah what do we hear from people okay so we've got some questions uh this one's from joe d if you all invented a skateboarding trick what would you name it um i mean for me i could probably do a trick called like the 45 and it's just i turn i just turn my body instead of reaching like a 180 or 360. I kind of just like do what I can, which is like a 45 degree rotation. And I know you're probably thinking, doesn't that mean your wheels will no longer be perpendicular

when they land on the ground? And the answer is yes. It's a very difficult trick to land. That's what makes it so hard. That's what makes it so cool to look at and funny. I thought it was going to be that you would turn 45 and still have the gall to step on a skateboard. Tony Hawk's 52 and still crushing it.

I feel like we said some shit about 52-year-old Tony Hawk earlier in this episode. The videos they released as promo before this game came out, the dude fucking tears it the fuck up. It's amazing. I'm saying it rules. It's very celebratory i mean

i'm i'm i'm easing into my twilight years i hope i can still i don't have any physical activities should have picked those up before now i guess um it would be a pepperoni roll for me it would be i grab the i'm gonna play tribute to west virginia so it'd be the pepperoni roll cool and that's just where i grab the board and roll around with it. It's not a good trick. Anybody can do it. I'm bringing the granny style to the skate park. It's when you sit on your board, crisscross applesauce, and just sort of maneuver yourself forward on your hands,

and then you just let Jesus take the wheel. The original Christ air. Okay, I got another one. This one's from Nick. Tony Hawk Pro Skater has an iconic soundtrack but if you could each add any song to it what would you add i mean to date this episode immediately wop right like that's got to be the one the kids will love it immediately interesting interesting playing it for the kids i respect it yeah you know really really pandering

to that young shenanigan rebellious i don't know if any of these words describe the youth nowadays actually i don't think so they actually i think i'll just it's torpedoed out of the podcast uh justin what would you add uh i would pick the um the it's all about the benjamin's rock remix featuring uh rob zombie and uh fuzz bubble all right it's good track i'll play it real quick oh my gosh do not get us sued it's okay to do you could do a little bit of it is is actually okay because it's for what what's the word fair use satire uh criticism Okay. Because it's for, what's the word? Fair use? What would you call it? Satire. Criticism? Oh, yeah.

Crunchy. crunchy now that I listened to it I think that that might actually be the version that weird owl parodies and all about the pendiums I'm not positive um I have the correct answer I would just take the soundtrack to SSX tricky and just import all those songs right into it. Wow. Leading with and featuring Shake What Your Mama Gave You by the band Skank. That's the name of that group.

That's the name of that group. I did not name them. Perfect. One last question. Wait, no. Harder Than You Think by Public Enemy. That's what it would be. That would be so good. There you go, Buzzer Beater. There, got from... Wait, no. Harder than you think by Public Enemy. That's what it would be. That would be so good.

There you go, Buzzer Beater. There, got it right in. Sorry. Sorry, Puffy Dev. This one's from Jake. Sorry, Sean. What secret unlockable character should be added to the game? Darth Maul.

Ooh. Okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry, Baby Yoda. Oh! Shut it down, folks. Shut it down. Baby Yoda in his like, and he could even be like in his floating pod.

Like he doesn't even, you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, Iron Man had the hoverboard in one of them. Marty McFly, I guess in that case, or you know what? Carole Baskin. Oh, the Tiger King. People love that. Tiger King.

People love that. Remember the Tiger King times? So long ago. baskin oh the tiger king either one of that tiger king people love that remember the tiger king times so long ago remember when we could all just get agree on that at least we didn't like being at home and we love the tiger i mean it's coming back because all the like true tv discovery channel tiger king like ripoffs that's gonna be all fall i hope you're ready. Jesus Christ. I'm very, actually very ready if I had multiple lesser quality Tiger Kings to enjoy. Is anybody playing anything else that we want to talk about? I mean, we can talk,

next week we're doing Speed Lunky 2, which I think some of us has spent some time playing. Got it. But is there anything else that folks have been diving into? Nothing recent. I'm kind of working through my back catalog. I've been playing Deus Ex Mankind Divided. What a good game. What a very fun game. Which one? Is that the most recent one?

That was the most recent one. It was PS4. I feel like it had almost identical box art to Human Revolution. But no, it's really good. That is a game that I think really takes advantage of its sort of hub world and does some really interesting things with it as the game progresses. I would describe it as a game that feels an inch wide and a mile deep. And I think it surprises you with how often the game is listening to you. You can do some relatively small things early on in the game. And then later you're like, oh, now there's a crime scene there. And oh, this character just called me out of the blue because i helped them and um i've really enjoyed that and then although not a video game hey disc golf is also a very fun game

uh and disc golf is fun disc golf kicks ass i'm at that phase of quarantine where i'm now i've now just dove headfirst into disc golf and uh boy do i recommend it great way to go outside you can social distance and um you get some sick discs you can just let rip it's like we're the most we should socially distance yeah we should do sports and books in this segment why can't we do sports and books doesn't have to be games sports and books but it has to be books about games i've been uh i've been playing a bit more Avengers. I capped out. I hit the level cap on my chosen character,

who is Black Widow. It's my favorite one. What's the level cap? 50. Once you hit level 50, basically, you get the last point you need to unlock every skill. So there's very little sort of like build stuff going on. I think my time with the game has probably come to an end

because I really, really, I feel the same way about it sort of like build stuff going on. I think my time with the game has probably come to an end. Cause I, I really, really, I feel the same way about it that I feel about like early destiny too, where it's like, I feel like that game is extremely fun to play and I will pick it back up and, you know,

play it here and there. But I do not feel even remotely the kind of drive that I felt with like late destiny too, or I guess current destiny 2 to like really put my time like i i don't feel like the hundreds of hours of time investment that they kind of want you to put in the game is even remotely justified at this point but it you know i i also feel like it is so fun to play that whenever they drop new shit i will probably come back to it i'm kind of bummed that spider-man is exclusive to playstation 4 obviously i played on the pc um and i think that is dampening my excitement a

little bit like the idea that that's not going to be yeah uh because that that sounds like a lot of fun um i've also been playing hollow knight again because they're uh the final piece of dlc for that that came out in like late 2018 i didn't uh didn't play and God, what a good game. What a very good game. How far are we from that sequel? That's a great question. I think it was supposed to be out this year, but I don't know that that is going to happen at this point.

A lot of things were supposed to happen this year. That is true. Gerflands added perks that you unlock in your runs. So if you've been waiting for the perfect excuse to finally play uh this year's best game probably then uh now's the perfect time to play grift lands get catch it uh we'll talk about it more next week but if you want to play the year's best game spunky 2 is available now um and it is my goat it's on it's on ps4 now right it's on ps4 now and it will be available on pc at the very end of this month gotcha yes uh it's y'all it's real good real i'll say this

just maybe save some people to purchase, it's real fucking hard. I like to consider myself somebody who is pretty good at Spelunky, and I have not gotten past the second level by myself yet. It's a tough one. I have nearly beaten it. And the thing that I will say for people who didn't like the original Spelunky, or maybe didn't even try try it and they're worried about playing the second one is I think it really turns your skill in Spelunky 1 against you.

So you might actually be in a better spot if you have not played a lot of Spelunky 1 because a lot of my dumbest deaths have come with me making some pretty bad assumptions about how the game works. I'm so excited. I'm going pro.

Miles, how can people find you if they were like, I like this flavor. I would like another scoop. If you want, you can find me on Twitter. I'm at TheMilesLuna and yeah, it's so pretentious. That's pretty much it. That's like I hang out. I lurk on there sometimes.

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This was a lot of fun. Um, and I wish you were here. If you want to take my place to talk about Spelunky. Great being here. Thank you. You can, uh, as I said, Spelunky 2 next week. So try to put some time to that. If you want to join in on that conversation and follow and listen for free on Spotify, which I assume you're already doing, but if you're not, if you're getting pirated bootleg takes in the spirit of Tony Hawk, please just get it on Spotify

and tell a friend. Let them know that they don't need Spotify Premium or anything. They just go on the app and they listen to it. It's great. It would just be really nice. Besties.fan is the link to share with people. You can also get in touch with us at mail at besties.fan. We're on Twitter at at the besties pod where there's also a link to our

mailing list if you'd like to join up with that um i think that's everything right yes yes good take us home good take us home here we go be sure to join us again next week for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? The Besties is a Spotify original podcast in association with Fox Media. The show is edited by Jelani Carter and produced by Ben Hosley. And our theme song is by Ian Dorsch. Besties!