The Besties - We Invented A New Genre Name!

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

The Operator is a spy game set entirely on the desktop computer of a government employee. We call this sort of game a UI RPG. We talk about other entries in this growing genre and then open the mailbag to answer some particularly excellent questions. 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!

Are you guys familiar with the concept of WAA in Japan? Yeah, yes. Okay, what do you know? Like, the particle WAA, or like, what? I guess it's like a prefix. It's harmony. It's harmony, correct. That's very good, Justin.

Isn't it fucking weird that Nintendo would pick WAA to identify all of their evil characters? Okay, no, I'm sorry. I do also believe that Wa also means like bad, right? So, Wa-ru is like- Wa-ru is bad. Yeah, it's bad. Yeah, so- So it's like bad. Could be like maybe a bad harmony

is what you're trying to go for. So you're saying, so let me see something. I'm just- I just wanted to- I just wanna check the series of events. I have a cork board here. I wanna look, I. I just wanted to check this area of events. I have a cork board here. I want to look, I got some pictures taped to you. You said right before we started,

I need to check something. Yeah. Horrified. Okay. And then you said, I think my lead for the bit is going to be my misunderstanding of the Japanese language. It's not a misunderstanding. There is a concept of wa that refers to harmony. Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure.

So maybe we've all got it wrong this whole time and it's not bad Mario and bad Luigi, it's- Harmonic. Harmonic. Right, and maybe the other asshole plumber is the guy that's like causing trouble. When you see Wa Luigi, that's a Luigi in balance. That's his humor in balance. His humor's-

His fashion sense? Yes, his mood. Russ, you host this show with three people who have actively studied Japanese. Like, why did you tuck me through the decision-making? That's what I'm trying to get through. Every one of us on the call. Thankfully, I've brought this to three learned experts

that could better elucidate my understanding of the Japanese language. So I don't know what stage of the language learning process you learned about the concept of wa. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Forget the Japanese of it all. What you did is you brought us a syllable and you were like, can you believe ha, ha,

is at the beginning of hate? What's up with that? You literally brought us a sound. Justin knew what it was. I didn't even need to say harmony. Sure, Justin knew. Listen, I Googled it, listen. Listen, I Googled it.

Listen. How do you pronounce W-A-R-I-O, Russ? This is huge. This is a big moment for us. This is a big moment, Russ, and don't try to gut. Hey Russ, look me in the eye and give it to me right down the zoom. Give it to him wrong. Don't fucking punch it up.

How would you pronounce W-A-R-I-O? Wario. No, you fucking would not. Strike the podcast, I'm too angry. Okay, I know we need to get into the show. I know we need to get into the show. But you accidentally blew my fucking mind. Yeah, man. We're over here laughing.

We can't even- there's no intro on this episode of the Besties, okay? You find us in media res. We've never done this before. If you want to know who we are, listen to other episodes. Google it. There's a billion of them. But listen. Google it like I do. Google why. Listen. Here's the problem. The joke here was, this idiot's gonna say Wario. But the game is called WarioWares. The joke here was, this idiot's gonna say Wario.

But the game is called WarioWares. That would be the joke of WarioWare. Is it a WarioWare? What are the fuck are you talking about? Listen, I pulled Russ back in on his little boat and I put you in Russ's boat and you're going out in the boat with Russ. You're in the boat with Russ. Wario- You're in the boat with Russ now.

We call it WarioWare. Okay. But the pun, like the sound pun would be WarioWare. I don't think Russ- Chris- See Chris, I just confused you with Russ. That's how far out you are in this mountain. You're gone. You're out in the Zephyr with Russ. Russ is Zephyr. Russ hasn't spoken for three minutes because he is so terrified to say the word Wario.

All he wants, he knows in his head he's gonna fuck up and say Wario. All right, so let's talk about the operator. We are talking about the operator this week on the Besties. Chris Platt, what is the operator? What? Wait, wait, wait.

No. Nah, man, we're in media res. You heard him. There's gonna be no introduction? No. No, you got it all, baby. We got it. Everybody knows what's up.

The podcast Cops Will Not Come For You. It's the Besties, where we talk about Pac-Man and shit. This week we're talking about the operator, which has come a long way since Pac-Man, this operator's more like the spy craft. You're gonna be a operator. Hey, you actually know what this game is? Here's the easy way of putting it. Yeah, because you just referenced the game

that no one has ever played. Hey, hey, hey, you ever watch that show 24? And then Jack Bauer calls up somebody, and he's like, I got an image, I'm sending it to you. Enhance! Yeah, you're Chloe. You're Chloe, and you're enhancing the images, and then you're saving the day from your computer far away, the're Chloe. You're Chloe, and you're enhancing the images,

and then you're like saving the day from your computer far away, the video game. We will talk even more, there's even more to say about it if you can believe that. The people don't even know what our names are. How are we even gonna go from here? Exactly, exactly. This is gonna bother Rob.

You nasty thugs. I'll do it at the end, okay? Just so everybody knows, It'll be a grand reveal. we can take a big break. Warioware is not what it's called in Japan. It's called Mado and Wario. Okay.

Which you will not derail us again. Okay. Okay. See, I'm the- Lost privileges of talking about how names are pronounced. We're fucking jazz today, huh? I'm really, really excited to talk about the operator. Thelonious Monk podcasting right now.

It's just our names, Russ. If they don't know, they don't care. I mean, at this point, right? Yeah. If you went in blind, if you don't know us by now. You're right. The operator is, you know what?

I think there's actually more recent references that are in this sort of like sub genre. I thought a lot of- Is there a name for this genre of- Fake computer? Fake user interface, fake computer interaction. Maybe we could cook up something. I mean, the most recent example that jumps to my mind

is Hypnospace Outlaw. Yeah. And I guess there was that game that came out earlier this year that Justin liked about safety. U-I-R-P-G. U-I-R-P-G is kind of cool. U-I-R-P-G is good. Thank you. Yeah, U-I-R-P-G. Yeah, Home Help Hotline.

That was cool. That was a neat one, the word, basically you're working, basically it was like a 911 operator for like the Supernatural. So you had to identify Supernatural. Anyway, that's not the operator. The operator, you're in sort of a, you're an operative at a, is it?

No, it's an operator. FDI. FDI. FDI. Which is like not the FBI and it's not the NSA and it's not a real. And it's not the FDA. Which would be another different game that would be pretty badass, I think. Yeah, that would actually be cool.

But you are the one back at the desk who when the agents are out on the field and they need technical help or what have you, you are the one that they call. You have a variety of tools at your disposal, a pretty wide, wide array. Like you have a database where you could enter in any name to get more information about people.

You have video files, photos, documents, all kinds of things you can have to go through. And you have enhanced powers. Right. You can like, yes, you can connect two ideas together and see if they, you know, connect to the database or what have you. And the story such as it is, is really presented through your conversations with these agents in the field. Yeah. I found it like immediately pretty engaging,

more so than a lot of these games. I found it like, oh, I'm like into this. I think it's because it checked the box of Ace Attorney for me, because I liked the like light puzzle solving mix with some narrative stuff. I don't think the narrative was like keeping my attention, for me, because I like the light puzzle solving mix with some narrative stuff. I don't think the narrative was keeping my attention,

which I think started flagging for me a little bit, but I don't know, off the jump, I was interested in the concept of it at the very least. There's a type of puzzle this game dabbles in that I think is very rewarding and very immediately compelling, and I think Ace Attorney's a great comparison because it's a great comparison

because it's a lot of cross-reference, what the agent is telling you, what this database entry is telling you, and what you can actually see with your eyes on this photo or this video file or this map. And I don't know, that is a type of puzzle that I feel like is pretty rare. Like it can really only be executed in in games like this, which there are not a ton.

I think there's one other place the puzzles in this game show up. And that is a middle school logic test. And like quizzes, and riddles. So much of this game is spot the difference puzzles very basic word like problem-solving puzzles of like if this person started here and then they moved for an hour 45 at this pace where would they be like but it is presented in a more engaging fashion yeah by a little I mean like reading as knowing how to read a chart and then put in the numbers from a chart into a document,

it is, I say this like as a compliment. Some of the puzzles are, yes, it does a lot of different kinds of stuff. I would say it's more satisfying than it is like. Challenging. Chall is like, challenging. Yeah. It's more like a fidget toy video game experience than it is a Rubik's cube.

It also reminded me kind of another thing from like middle school and high school. Did you all ever get the ocarama test? Did you ever get this? Ocarina. You mean the Macarena? No, the ocarina test. I'll do that in class right now.

No, nobody got the ocarina test? The ocarina test is where you get this one sheet about society and it's like, wow, the society's so weird. They use these weird sticks to shove in their mouth and poke all the stuff off their teeth. And they are obsessed with this like weird being who like bleeds into cups and they like drank from it, you know, like once a week and all this stuff. Oh, you're thinking.

There's the acarama. And then at the very end, it's like. Something backwards. Flip that word America. And like the twist is, oh, you had to like read the end and think about it. And then it puts everything else in context. And not only one. Acarama is definitely not America backwards for what it's worth. And like the twist is oh you had to like read the end and think about it And then it puts everything else in context another one is definitely not America backwards for what it's worth There's no way that is the test. Yeah

At the end it's like it's America backwards, and if you say no, it's not then you've had Well, yeah The other one in this is where it's like they give you a five page test and at the first words are read the entire Instructions before taking the test and then the final line is read the entire instructions before taking the test. And then the final line is if you read this, don't take the test. Yeah. Right. It's like that sort of classic cool teacher move. That's yeah, it's a lot of that. All this sounds like I'm like dunking on the game. I'm not. I actually think this is like one of the cooler learning games that I played. Like you could put this game minus the ending, which we will or will not get to, in a school,

and I think it would be like, this would be a cool game if I played this at a school. Yeah, it's a logic. There's a logic element to it. I also like the, like, personal RPG aspects of it. Like, when I get a call in this game and they, a name comes up, before they even fucking ask me to do that, I'm already pulling up the database to like search that person. Absolutely. And it's very, you have what's called, you have a human DB and anytime you see any name

come up in any circumstance, you can search it in the human DB and you can do that to kind of get a little bit ahead of what the narrative is telling you. There was one conversation I was having with a character with whom I was already familiar, and they mentioned some personal fact about their life, and they said it in kind of a weird way.

And I was like, huh, I wonder what that's all about. So then I typed on the HumanDB and saw that they were lying. And I was like, oh shit, okay, well that person's up to something, and that did end up being true. So like, there's a lot of exploration outside of the boundaries of like the core puzzles that the game throws at you that I found to be like

really, really cool and immersive. I gotta give them credit for something, and it's sort of a criticism of myself, I guess, in a sense, but you get video clips in almost every case where you're reviewing stuff, and you can click on important things in the video and it'll give you an archival information about it. And I swear you guys, the first two I thought were FMV,

because they're grainy and they're animated in such a way. And it's like VHS quality. Yeah, it looks like, I thought, oh, wow, wow. And then the first time they showed a face, it's like, oh, no, no, no, no, okay, my mistake, no, that's absolutely not. But the animations and the effects that they used on it were really cool.

Does one of you, or could one of you kind of summarize the beginning of the story, like the elevator pitch of the story? Yeah, so the FDI basically has a workflow, has an operator workflow. There are directors and there are supervisors and there are agents and there are operators and operators are sort of the go-between for the agents in the field and the sort of vast resources of the FDI at home. And so you get hired on, it's your first day,

your buddy has hired you to, or basically I think put in a good word for you to join. And so you learn kind of like how the workflow works and you get put on a couple like easy baby missions by the supervisor, but very quickly you get embroiled in a vast conspiracy. And this one goes all the way to the top? Mm.

Uh, it, this is tough. We were talking about this before the call of like, I think the story is kind of a thing that is worth talking about in this game because of what it attempts and what it accomplishes and what it does not accomplish. And I don't wanna spoil it though. I could say this.

I think that as cool as a lot of the aspects and the individual aspects of this are, I feel like so much of it is going to rely and sort of live or die by the script the performances and the quality of those calls because those calls are really carrying so much and I for me while they were all like serviceable and got the story across and what all there wasn't any

like bit of the dialogue or performances that really like stood out enough to where I'm actively enjoying them or like looking forward to them or getting like emotionally attached to these characters. It's all, there's a lot of line reads where you have to assume there was not a native English speaker in the loop somewhere or something

because there's line reads that are just like wrong. You know what I mean? Like the- The emphasis is on the wrong word or something. Yeah, right. That kind of thing or like little bits of the story that just don't quite add up. And for me, the mechanics being sort of as simplistic

as they were, the narrative was again, it was like fine, but it never really really gripped me. With the exception of, I think his name was Agent Walker, who is this sort of hard-nosed asshole one day off from retirement, like, God damn it Tanner, I gotta talk to a new guy, God damn it Tanner. I mean, that was very A's attorney to me.

And I kind of wish that more people in the cast were that like hammy. Campy, yeah. The performances are very like soap opera, which is to say like pretty like, it's like overacting, but also a little bit flat, except for him, which was like way bigger than everyone else. You know what it reminded me of?

It reminded me of David Cage voice acting. Yeah. And especially like heavy rain, like, yeah, I don't know. Let's go to the mall in Philadelphia. Like that sort of range. I don't even know if I would put all the blame on the voice acting, because the writing reminded me of,

back in like the 60ies and seventies, sci-fi and like pulp writers would just write a story a month for a magazine. They would just like bash it out. Right. And they were so fun, but you could feel it. Like, it was like, oh, you wrote this with the two hours you have between you, your day job and this. And that's how the story felt to me.

It felt, I, I guess I couldn't tell if it was almost intentional. Like, were they trying to go for that, you know, that Ian Fleming era of a spy thriller, we want this to be pulpy. And sometimes in pursuit of pulpy in B movie, you end up just making your thing worse than it actually needs to be. Or, or what? I mean, I think the big thing that we're talking about here is this is a visual novel, I think, more than it is anything else, which kind of surprised me. You know what it reminds me so much of,

and this is a bit of a pullback to years and years and years ago, but I know we talked about it. You guys remember the Lifeline games? They were a mobile game where basically you're messaging with someone in real, the game happening in real time. They were stuck on Mars. It was kind of like similar to the Martian, I think. And you were messaging them, trying to help them get back.

They were awesome. They made a hundred of them. And there was like a degree of quality. But this is kind of like that on a full screen. It feels like something that would be fine on a phone, maybe better on a phone. I had a better, yeah, I had a better experience, not with Lifeline specifically,

but another game called Majestic, which came out in like 2000-ish. And that was, you would get messages on your own personal IM through email, through faxes, granted no one has a fax machine anymore, and like, they'd send you to like fake websites and things like that. Like that I found more engaging

because it was like real life a little bit. And also I was at an advertising agency internship and not actually working, but it looked like I was working really hard. Yeah. Which I loved. I love bees, all the classic orgs, missing since January.

Yes, I mean all those. Yeah, that's the thing. This is like a really neat presentation to me, but no individual element of it is so compelling that I feel like worth, and I will say this about the, the, how the overall narrative goes, because we've sort of danced around, but like, let me say this. When Griffin finished the game and reached out to me, Griffin asked me the

exact same question that I went and Googled and couldn't find an answer to, which is, are there alternate endings? There must be. There must be. Because I will say this, I finished it, went, huh. Yep. That was my reaction to finishing the game. So that is amazing, because that was exact same question.

Yeah, I think that's sort of the general. And I was scrolling through YouTube playthroughs to try to find one. Me too! I tried to find like, wait, no, no, no, no, no. Um, yes. Okay. I, I agree. I, what I hope for this game is one, just coming up with the system for this to all work I think was probably a real challenge. And I think that they created the skeleton really well. It seems very much like a first pass at a thing,

which is evidenced by the fact that the ending is very much cliffhanging. If I could say one other thing on that, because I think we're coming, because it folds into what you're saying and it plays into this. There are also some things that just make the digestion of it unpleasant, by which I mean like,

there's infrequent checkpointing, so if you have to stop and go back, there is no way that I could find to skip or fast forward through dialogue or any of it. Like everything is going to go at that, because it is the entire game, right? Like the text and the dialogue, they don't want you to skip it because it's the whole game. Well, and there's also those vibey, like, act break moments. That's the rough, between each sort of act of the game, there are, not a joke, several minute long cutscenes

of your character in first person with horrifically blurry vision. I mean, it's like, I thought something was wrong. Walking through the city streets. But Plant, to your, you were saying along those lines. Oh yeah, I mean, I just think that there are two directions that I would like to see this go. I think either of them would be excellent. One is, y'all remember Twine?

Yes. Like Twine was like a platform for telling text-based stories. Oh yeah. People still use it, it's great. Yes, like twine was like a platform for telling text-based stories People still use it. It's great But it feels to me like there is almost a engine in this game for telling stories that are like computer set stories there's a Trillion different ways you could go with it And I would be so curious to see this almost as a tool that other people could use if there was a way to

Convert this game into a tool that would people could use. If there was a way to convert this game into a tool, that would be cool. The other direction would be more player involvement. If you're not going to go more the visual novel way, more the player involvement. And the game really sums itself up in terms of your engagement right from the top, which is your character sits down at the computer and a login screen comes up and there's a spot for a username and password. And I sat there for probably two minutes being like, oh, what might be in the answer?

And then I went to type and it automatically filled in the words with each keystroke. And that's fine. Like that's not bad. That's what this game wants to be. But that's kind of how the entire game felt. Where time after time somebody would talk to me and they'd be like, we've got to figure this out. And I'm like, okay, I'm ready to go figure it out. And they're like, you've got to figure it out. So here are the two names you should search for. And I'd be like, oh, okay.

Well, now I'd search them and it would be like, unknown error. And I'm like, oh, okay, a mystery. And they're like, oh, how are we gonna find that out? And then a new text box would pop up with another character and they'd be like, here's how you're gonna find it out. Here's the file you need. Yeah, it's like, I'm gonna use magic to do it.

Got it, okay, so when do I get to be involved? There's all these tools, but so often I was not using them. Which, again, not bad if you're a visual novel. At a certain point, I said before we started, I stopped playing the game and just watched the back half. And let me tell you, pretty fun. It ended up being pretty good. I knocked this bad boy out in like two and a half hours.

Yeah, it's not a big ask. As long as we have started this conversation about UIRBGs, as a genre, I will say, something that this made me think about, you gotta have more, I think, to do, to play with and to mess around with and to explore if you're gonna do a UIRPG. I think that's one thing that Hypnospace Outlaw did so well

is that it would lead you down these alleyways where you would discover things that are fun, but not necessarily what you're looking for. Which I think is the problem with what we're talking about, right? Plant, if they don't give you as much information, the looking for it is not fun. Like it's not a fun, because there's such a narrow pathway of like what you can actually do. Right. You having a poke around in this UI is not an engaging experience. because there's such a narrow pathway of what you can actually do, right? Having a poke around in this UI is not an engaging experience.

I think you gotta have a bit more to make it feel immersive. A bit more like- And I feel that way about the Ace Attorney games as well. I wish that they were more interactive. I think investigations, which is I think getting a re-release pretty soon is supposed to be a little closer to a more interactive thing.

But when it goes for like a good 20 minutes of just dialogue back and forth is when I really kind of tune out a little bit. Even though I like the writing of those games, I just want a little more to do. Yeah, for sure, for sure. I actually went back and started playing Hypno Space Outlaw just because I had a hankering for a good UI RPG after this.

Did we invent that? Did that happen on this podcast? That it's not good because it's not an RPG, but it's, if we want to, it is, everything's an RPG now. That's true. I will say this. I will say this. It is, I don't think anyone's ever said it before. Like this exact phrase, I'm going to try to get UIRPG.com guys. And we're going to get rich. You guys.com guys, and we're gonna get rich Get some frigging money already We should have got search action game a long time ago, but this is our second shot This is our thing tell me the numbers on the business credit card again, please or four four four niner niner

I I I think hypnosis outlaw does a lot of the stuff that we are talking about. We're like, Hypnospace Outlaw, ostensibly there are cases you are assigned and there are goals that you're supposed to do, but I will just dick around in that game for literal hours. Just like, I wonder what the cool punks are up to.

What's happening in the teen zone? Like, there's so, so, so, so much for you to sink your teeth into. Whereas this one, like, I don't know, I really enjoyed this game. I think the ending was not great, but I genuinely had a great time with it. And when it ended, I was like, oh, that's it.

That's all the, I did all the stuff. And it was over very, very quickly. It didn't feel like there were a lot of there was a lot of room for kind of like lateral thinking or exploration. It just kind of felt like figuring out the solutions. I would say this feels more approachable if you're like interested in the genre than Hypnospace Outlaw which I found to be like very much so. If this is your first UI RPG it's a good place to start. This is the true foe of UIRPG, whereas Godard is hypnospace outlaw, which is not as approachable.

Yep. You're welcome. What is the series of games where you find a phone, and it's like the person's been kidnapped or something, and you have to figure out what happened to them by going through their phone? Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah.

Something that is alone. Those are kinda FMP games. Those are the ones that have video clips in there. Anyway. Anyway. E.T. I don't think it's E.T. There's a Doctor Who one, actually.

Doctor Who UIRPG, where you're helping the doctor on a phone-based interface. It's on Steam. So seven out of 10, fun factor. Seven out of 10, fun factor. Eight and 10. Graphics. Et cetera. Pretty good. I guess we can break it when we're back.

We're back. Okay, in case you're curious about that game we just talked about, which was the Operator that was developed by Bureau 81. I think that's their first game. It's at least their first game they published on Steam. So. It's 14 bucks too, by the way. Yeah, that's good. I think that's a very, very reasonable, very reasonable.

Also, if you're curious about the game Griffin mentioned that took place on the phone, it's a normal lost phone, and at sequel, another lost phone. Though you could also be confusing with Emily as a way. There's a whole bunch of UI RPGs. There's a, yeah. It's a thing. There's a whole bunch of UIRs. Yeah. It's a thing.

There is a whole series of those. We have a bunch of questions from the fans. Dump it. Thought we'd jump in. First question comes from Mac. I grew up playing, oh, this is appropriate. I grew up playing Mac games in the 90s, and aside from major titles like LucasArts and Blizzard games,

my number one source of new games was getting comp CDs of demos, shareware, and freeware. There were some great freeware and shareware developers like Ambrosia that made the Escape Velocity games. Did you guys have any unusual methods for finding and acquiring games when you were young? What was your source for small PC games for Steam and other online marketplaces, pre-internet distribution especially. Being the youngest child in a family of gamers, I didn't have to do shit, man.

You just had a pile. I didn't have to do shit. Shit just showed up on the computer from my brothers and dad, and I'd be like, okay, I'm playing this now. Yeah. Let's see. I know that our Uncle Mark loaned us some, and we copied them off of floppy disks. Even though they said, don't copy that floppy.

No. We did, we did. Because our parents went and buy us such a dull entertainment. I discovered games through the official PlayStation magazine. Well, are we talking about PC games? Because I could talk about OPM demo disks. Yeah, I think we're specifically talking about PC games in Because, oh, I could talk about OPM demo discs. Yeah, I think we're specifically talking

about PC games in this case. You know, we used to, I'm old enough to have connected to like bulletin boards to download demos of games like Shareware and stuff like that. Yeah, I think there was like an AOL thing that I went on to download Shareware. I think that era, I guess these aren't small, small games, but I definitely

have very vivid wandering the aisles of CompUSA memories and just like looking at box art and trying to make a decision that way. Do you remember all those compilations that you used to see of like computer games and it would be like 600 games, 600 games. And when you're like 13, you're you got to be like, wow, that is a lot of games. That's a good deal. Let me see. That's a really good number of games.

Let me see what I got. Most of them are just like the pieces in Tetris are different colors. Right. It just counts as 30 games. I have fond memories of CompuSafe for what it's worth. I realize it's such a relic these days, but the idea of making a non-educated decision about what PC game to play based on like, this box art looks cool or even like a quote on the box is such

a relic, but it worked back then. Yeah. I mean, we had a bad bitches in town. Yeah. And then it became just like everything else became a electronics boutique and then it became a game stop. I don't know what the fuck they filled that entire con. There was one gaming aisle at CompUSA. just like everything else became a electronics boutique and then it became a game stop. I don't know what the fuck they filled that entire comp.

There was one gaming aisle at CompUSA. What was the rest of the, it was as big as a fucking Best Buy. Like cables. It was just cables. There was a lot, you know, though, in mainly the game buying for us would have been like, toys are like department stores.

Oh yeah. Moreover, where it's typically, it would be like, our mom would, would take us into a store we really didn't want to go to. And that would be like the deals we get to look through. We get to look at, not buy, but like look at the video games. I also, since you mentioned it, always found that the ticket process at, at Toys R Us kind of sucked. Like it did not have the satisfaction of picking up a box. We get like-

As a former R Zone employee at the Toys R Us, I could say that it, I mean, for shrinkage, it's just huge. I mean, it's- Shrinkage meaning like theft. Theft, yeah. And how easy it is. You just put a big pile of tickets out there.

You know what I mean? It's great. It's great. It's great. Okay. And I'll tell you what was bad though, during that time period along with Toys R Us, is you used to have,

when there would be a really popular toy or game or whatever, that parents could buy rain checks at Toys R Us. Oh my God, yeah. What a scam. And they would like, like literally the parent would put that under the tree. And it was like, or at least that's the intent. It's like you open it up and you're like,

oh, sorry, you bought, yes, I bought a Nintendo. Is it here? It is not. It is not. Someday. It's a rain check. Yeah, that's brutal. God, our parents bought, sorry.

Our parents got an NZ4 when they were impossible to find. they're really hard to find. And at the, when the N64 launched, it was like also a massive shortage of the, the cartridges. You couldn't find any of them anywhere. And also they were all like expensive. So our parents got us an N64 and we're like freaking out and then they're like and also we have Wayne Gretzky That first that first round of launch games usually has something holding it back

And the next day the next day we took our Christmas money to the mall to buy Shadows of the Empire. That's good. Did you return Raincoatski or keep it? We went to Blockbuster, we walked to Blockbuster in the snow every day, hoping whoever had Mario 64 would return it. We used to wait by the counter, just hoping, God, somebody would return Mario 64. Oh, yeah, I forgot it wasn't a pack-in game. Right.

So you just had an N64 with Raincoatski. Just had an N64, we played more... somebody would return Mario 64. Oh yeah, I forgot it wasn't a pack-in game. Right. So you just had an N64 with a raincoat. We just had an N64, we played more. That's how my love of hockey started. Do you think in hindsight, Shadows of the Empire is a good game? It is. Probably not, right?

I don't think, I mean, I think Mario is probably the only decent... N64. You know, until like Ocarina shows up. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, Blast Corps, like, that's a little out there, but it's not good. Yeah.

Next question. The final Dan. A little while back, Chris, if I recall correctly, teased Harold Halibut as a possible contender for an episode. Just curious if any of y'all played it. I found the art to be the selling point, the characters memorable and endearing. I actually remembered their names,

but the gameplay and pacing was kind of weak. Did anyone play that game? Hey, that's a great summary of why we did not end up talking about it. I've never heard of the game. It's a really cool-looking kind of adventure game, like old-school adventure game. It was like The Neverhood? Was that that game? It was kind of like that vibe. Kind of adventure game, like old school adventure game.

It was like the Neverhood? Was that that game? It was kind of like that. Yeah, it has like a very handmade aesthetic. And it took them, they had been in development for a long time. I had a really cool backstory, but I just did not find the gameplay itself engaging really whatsoever. Doesn't mean people shouldn't check it out. I think like the art is pretty incredible, but that wasn't enough to get me into it, unfortunately. It's also like, I feel bad for a game like this because there are years of this show where we would have still talked about it and probably even liked it, but there's just so much stuff right now. And so much good stuff.

I mean, I think this conversation on the operator is so interesting, because again, even with that, I think a few years ago, we would have just been like, holy shit, just that it exists and it's different is incredible. And now we're just drowning in UI RPGs. This is a good tie in. Let's do Noah's question here. Okay, we've got a question from Noah.

How do you prevent video game burnout? If I had to play a new game every month, I'd be exhausted, much less one per week. Also, what are your comfort games you return to when you're tired of new stuff? I think I know that Ross's is Binding of Isaac, but I'm interested if y'all have others you return to when you're tired of new stuff. I think I know that Ross's is Binding of Isaac, but I'm interested if y'all have others you return to. I'm gonna be talking about One Touch Game

and the honorable mentions. Oh, that's exciting. I will say, apart from Binding of Isaac, the other comfort game that I've been turning to lately is Hotshots Golf, which is like such a chill-ass experience, and I love playing those games. I don't care if I lose, I just wanna fuckin' vibe out which is like such a chill ass experience and I love playing those games. I don't care if I lose, I just wanna fucking vibe out

and have people yell great shot at me. It's really fantastic. I do love a clap hands. Yeah, I mean, your relationships with games change when you play games like a show like this. That's one of it. So I understand not wanting to play more than a game a month.

It rarely feels like too, if the game sucks and takes forever, like that is when I feel it the most. But like, I love games, man. Yeah, well, and I think we really appreciate like novelty of games and trying lots of things. I think we also have developed pretty healthy expectations for ourselves and also for like how we play them. I think we also have developed pretty healthy expectations for ourselves

and also for like how we play them. I mentioned earlier with the operator, like halfway through I was like, yeah, I'm actually feeling pretty good about just watching this game. And like that I have that option for games now and then is great. That is like a way of going about it. There's some games where I feel like I can put in a ton of time because I'm loving it. And there are times where I'm like, I know that hoops or Griffin or fresh is going to bring like the heat on this. And like, if I'm not feeling it, I don't need to put as much time into that. And I can use that week to put some time into another game.

The other thing that I just think is really important is having a healthy media diet of other stuff and other interests. So like listening to audio books or podcast or having like, for me, it's movies, having something else reading strategy guides. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like a lot of like, especially like old strategy guides for games that you can't like get anymore. Walk plays, walk throughs on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. Reading.

Listening to other video game podcasts just to kind of like know what the. No, but throughs on YouTube. Yeah, yeah, reading financial reports. Listening to other video game podcasts just to kind of like know what the- No, but yeah, for sure. It's got, I will say this is 100% relevant to everybody. Everybody should do this, but it was especially noticeable when people would look for video game writing jobs and you would realize like, oh, this is the only thing you do, huh?

Okay, so you don't have the other stuff going on. All right, got it um I I it is tough sometimes when I know that like at this point I know there are some games that I'm not gonna like and and that's if it's evident before usually will like Pick a different game or like split it up or whatever. But sometimes I get a few minutes in, I'm like, Oh boy, this is really, really unpleasant. And that's not a bad problem to have.

In those scenarios, like my brain sort of shifts and I start looking for like, what do I connect with or what do I think is interesting about it? But I'm not engaging with it the same way that you would be engaging with a game that you had bought that you wanted to experience. Like the games that I engage with like that are actually pretty rare. Like even if I really, really like something that we play, there's a lot of them I have not returned to

that I would like to, but it's just been so long. I would say that's my biggest pitfall is like losing track of games that I really like to, but it's just been so long. I would say that's my biggest pitfall, is losing track of games that I really was enjoying. Yeah, definitely. This question comes from Daxleen. What would it take to get all you nerds to play Final Fantasy XIV with Griffin? For real though, it's a great game and worth a time sync.

I mean, quick update, I fell off again. I tell you, man, it's, I think that Shadowbringers, which was the one before, it's two expansions ago. Yeah, the one with the crystals, right? Shadowbringers, yeah, this one had crystals. It's fucking great. It's like some of the best Final Fantasy storytelling ever.

And I think I am just about done trying to play the one after that, which is like the big finale arc. I am finding the actual quest part of it really falling into some MMORPG tropes that bore me two tears. Is it actually the equivalent of the end game moment in MCU? Is it really the end? I mean, I don't know,

because I haven't fucking gotten there yet. I've tried, I've endeavored not to spoil myself on it, because I've been playing this game for forever. But it falls into these patterns of really, really, really laborious fetch quests that are not very fun and they take literal hours to complete. As much as I love Final Fantasy and I love Final Fantasy XIV and I want to know how this story ends, I will play it for... My gaming time is quite limited, and so I'll have a night where I stay up and I play it to try and make some headway, and I play it for, you know, my gaming time is quite limited and so I'll like have a night where I stay up and I play it to try and make some headway

and I play it for like a couple hours and nothing has happened and it's just, I can't hang with that anymore. But that's kind of answering the question, right? I mean- My tolerance for that is so much higher than your guys's and I am having trouble with that. But it's like, but that is part of the math, right? We know anytime one of us is asking us to check something else out, like, you're running

a pretty big equation and like this amount of time that you're putting into it, like, if it's not delivering pretty consistently, like, you kind of have to move on. There's just not enough, enough hours in the day. We're also always kind of bullying each other about consuming media, right? I feel like at any one time, each of us has at least one thing that we're trying to get one of the others to do. Yeah. I'm not gonna burn that card out.

Massive, it's a massive check. It's a massive check. I can't get them to play anything else. It's a massively multiplayer check for the years. If I have them play Final Fantasy 14. Russ and I are gonna be making you watch Fargo after Fargo after Fargo after Fargo. I'll be so deep in debt.

We'll take you back to Legion, Gryffindor. We'll make you watch all the FX classes. Anyone got anything else to talk about in that context? I, in reference to comfort games, obviously Sea of Thieves, which I'm still dipping into maybe one night a week with some buddies, had a great time with our friend JD, taking down the Burning Blade, the big fiery ship.

He has not played the game very much, and so that was a hoot. But what I've really been getting into is No Man's Sky. Since they added the Worlds 2.0 update. Well, to be clear, it's worlds part one. So this is only one part of the world. Okay, you're right. It's worlds part one.

Basically, this update changes a ton of shit about how worlds are generated. Everything, it's a major graphical overhaul. The ecology of every planet has, has, has changed. And, uh, that part of this game has always been pretty incredible. Like the diversity of what you will see when you land on a planet and having no idea and feeling like, oh, I'm exploring this, uh, has been exponentially improved to the point where I am landing on planets and seeing shit that

I've never seen or thought would be possible in the game. Just like, I landed on one planet yesterday where it was like, it felt like, honey, I shrunk the kid's backyard. Like, just everything was very, very, very tall, which gave you the impression, and then there would be like these bubbles with glowing crystals floating around inside of them that you could tame and ride around the map,

doing all kinds of wild shit. They have also, I've not played the game in quite a few updates, and so they've added like ship crafting, and all of the space stations look different now, and you can get a staff that you can customize. And I'm doing the expedition, which is like their seasonal content.

Which I'm not sure. Sorry, what kind of staff? It's like a multi-tool in the form of a staff. Yes, it's like a multi-tool in the form of a staff, but with different sort of capabilities. I thought I could hire a staff. You can. You can actually do that too.

You can do that actually. If you haven't dipped into the game in a while, I think that it's, I think it's one of the most interesting games in the history of games, just in terms of where we started and where we are now. And I think I enjoy it in the same way that I enjoy Sea of Thieves, which is just like, I like exploring and immersing myself in a world and feeling like I am making meaningful

headway into this vast expanse. Yeah, and you have a visual representation of the progress you're making, whether it's your base or your freighter or whatever it is. Yes, and what the expeditions do that's very, very cool, when you start an Expedition, you start a new save, and you can't tweak a lot of the difficulty settings, like you can't set it so that you can craft whatever you want for free and nothing costs any money, like there are some restrictions placed on it,

and you earn these exclusive rewards, but you have this list of new objectives that give you crazy rewards, so it accelerates your starting point very, very quickly, but it gives you basically a checklist of things to do that is different from the usual no man's sky of like, well, you ran out of warp drive cells, you better go find some dihydrogen jelly.

I thought they changed Expeditions such that you could use your normal character to do them. So you can, you can take your character and basically put them in this universe. Oh, got it. During the length of the expedition, and then when the expedition's over, you move them back, taking back the dope shit

that you found, so there is a layer of permanence to it. I hadn't played in a while, so I thought a fresh start would be good, and I'm glad I did, because I am- How hard was it to get back into? I feel like there's so much. I definitely watched a video, I definitely watched a video. I definitely watched like a Beginner's Guide 2024 video

just to kind of like brush up on the stuff. A lot of the core mechanics haven't necessarily changed. There's a lot easier quality of life stuff. When I read. Especially if you start an expedition, like the first thing you knock out in the expedition is like, you know, find your ship and you do that. And it's like, you know, find your ship, and you do that, and it's like, okay, for finding your ship,

we're gonna give you these blueprints, we're gonna give you these resources, we're gonna give you a bunch of units. Like, if you do the things that the expedition is telling you to do, you don't have to focus so much on the like, I'm gonna go and grind out some warp cells, because the expedition is trying to funnel you through this curated kind of way through the world.

And I'm having a fucking good ass time. I have a video game for you, Griffin and Hoops mostly. Okay. Vivid Lope. Vivid Lope? Vivid L-O-P-E. I have no idea how this even came across my eyes But thank God it did Imagine a PlayStation 1 maybe Dreamcast era video game. That is a cross of Splatoon

choo-choo rocket clanoa vid ribbon all of it in one game the premise is you are in this very PS1 Dreamcast maps, and the maps are made up of square tiles, and as you walk over them, you paint them or change them to a different color. Is that why it's not recommended for me? Yes.

Well, it's not full Sokoban or whatever it is that you don't like. No, no, no, the color. I'm asking about the colors. Oh, the colors could be an issue, yeah. Well, it's not it's not full soccer bond or whatever it is that you don't like Colors could be an issue. Yeah, this looks like IQ intelligent cube Yeah, that's that's another great comparison And the goal is just to color all of the square tiles on a map before effectively your like Energy runs out and as the game goes on you have more abilities of how you do that you can like slap paint onto them you can get rollers that like zip across the all the tiles and it's like a mix of puzzle action platformer that just I don't play a lot of these anymore and I really like it I'm sure you could play

it as a hardcore puzzle game of like, get all this and get an S to your grade. But a lot of it is just kind of simple puzzle solving in this like old school very it's weird when I say PlayStation Dreamcast, those are kind of contradictory generations, but it's almost like PS1 era graphical horsepower, but with that very Sega reflective surface kind of a set. It looks great. A cleaner, cleaner PS1. Yeah, yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

Yeah, not as like grimy as a lot of the cool PS1 games. But I think you all will really like it. It is great for a Steam Deck. And yeah, people should check it out. Juice, Russ, what are y'all up to? I tell ya, I wasn't on this episode because I was on vacation, but I played a, have been and did play a whole lot

of Steam World Heists too, man. Like a lot, a lot. Oh yeah. What did you guys, did you guys like it? Yes. Liked it a lot, yeah. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun.

I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun.

I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun.

I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. and their heads popped off so frequently. And I found that too irritating. But now that I lowered that and I no longer am worried about challenge, I'm just enjoying sailing the high seas and blowing stuff up with my ship.

It's great, it's great, it's great. I hope that was the tenor of your discussion. Yeah, basically, yeah. What about the music? What did you guys think of the music? Music was dynamite. Music was also good. I liked it too. So nice to have like a, yeah, house band

at every place you stop. I, for what it's worth on the difficulty front, if you end up keeping it on the default difficulty, you will eventually, I guess, pace over the difficulty through gear. Like eventually you're gonna get, start getting gear that will allow you to like three star missions the first time you do them.

You don't have to like, or you could just dial it down and like have that experience much quicker, but the game does sort of find its balance. It sounds better when you say it, right? When you said it, it sounded better by the way, right? You just make it really easy. No, I don't always make that choice

because I did like, I could see the arc of, I could circle back to like one grade below where I am, build up a little bit, lower the difficulty. I mean, like I could see the path forward there. I just am not super interested in ever replaying stuff. I don't want to have to grind any of the levels. I was loving it so much that I like, it didn't bother me at all to go back

because I just wanted more time with the game So I'm going back and getting like perfect score. Yeah, yeah Yeah, and stuff and and especially now it's weird how early it closes off the first Like fourth of the game and I finally just got the ability to go back and yeah close out some of those But and it does actually give you pretty hefty rewards for perfecting each region. Yeah, you get some cogs and stuff. I really, I dug, I dig it a lot. It makes you wonder if I should go back

and I've like messed around with some other SteamWorld games but never, I just think all the kids. Dig one and two are, I think are dynamite. Dig two is my fucking jam. I don't know that you would necessarily get a lot out of heist one, cause this feels like basically an upgrade on every Yeah, but dig one and two I think are really great and worth playing I tell you they this this team has a real superpower with with making like

definable memorable like instantly sort of like sticky characters Yeah, like as many as they introduce you to, they really have a good shorthand for each one where you like in 10 seconds, you're like, oh, you're the, I get it, yeah, cool. Okay, you're this kind of guy. Yeah, and there's actually a,

there's a gameplay implication to that too, because the characters all have like one unique ability that's specific to them. Right. So you know, oh, this guy, every time they take damage, they'll deal damage to the guy that attacked them. And that's unique to that. So, you know, oh, this guy, every time they take damage, they'll deal damage to the guy that attacked them. And that's unique to that one unit rather than, you know,

shared or around everyone. Yeah. I I'm like, I it's definitely one of my favorite games of the year. No question. Um, I've just been playing hotshots when I'm, when I have like a little bit of time, it's like a great, I have five minutes, uh, game. Uh, the version I'm playing is hotshots golf open T, which is the first PSP. like a little bit of time, it's like a great, I have five minutes game. The version I'm playing is Hotshots Golf Open T,

which is the first PSP game. So good. Is there a Vita one too? I feel like there's a Vita one as well. I don't think the Hotshots games before that PSP version are that great, because they don't have a lot of the RPG stuff that I found to be like really engaging. And then later ones kind of added that. So I think anything PSP and later in that franchise is a lot of fun. I know the last one, the PS4 one they released was great. Excellent. And you could probably still get that on the PlayStation Store front stuff. But I love those games. They're really the only golf games consistently that I've enjoyed over the years

Yeah, oh one other thing new polygon people should go check it out polygon comm looks Mighty nice. Yeah, we have a different design and everything. It's a really exciting Thank you, thank you No one asked me though What do you think of it? Not I mean before I don't get it for free after Well, we're gonna be doing this every week. So the site's just gonna keep refreshing So let us know what you want to do next week, then I'll keep refreshing to enjoy the clicks guys I know that's all you want

We did it Enjoy the clicks, guys, as I know that's all you want. We're rich! We did it. You guys, do you see your break accounts just increasing? Whoa! Click, click, click. Here, I'll give you guys a few more. LAUGHS I guess that'll do it for us, right? What are we up to next week?

We are gonna be playing a game called Tactical Breach Wizards of Waverly Place. I don't think the last part is accurate, but that would be cool. Maybe they can do a license thing. Maybe DLC. But we are playing Tactical Breach Wizards very creative turn-based strategy wizard game,

which I'm very excited to check out. Also, there's wizards in the game Also, yes, there are wizards in the game. I put it I was worried. It was just a snappy title I'm glad to hear that the wizards promised in the title are delivered. No, there are wizards We played the demo I think at one point during like a grab bag episode. So this is the full release And I'm yeah pumped to talk about it. I'm also pumped to talk about our patrons, who are great and we love you. Here's just a few of them.

Stress Test, Riz, I guess Riz, Hallium, BDA Lime Me. I hope BDA doesn't stand for something inappropriate. And yeah. Big gang energy. Big gang energy. That's right. And thank you for being patrons. Thank you everyone else for being patrons. We have a new Rest These episode that's going to be up on Tuesday, so keep an eye out for

that. Wait, is that right? No, we had one that just went live this past Tuesday. We'll have another one the Tuesday after the upcoming one. The Tuesday after that. And we've got a new bracket coming for you in early September, first week of September. So that's exciting.

Games we discussed on this episode are The Operator, Hypno Space Outlaw, A Normal Lost Phone, Final Fantasy XIV Online, Sea of Thieves, No Man's Sky, Vivid Lope, SteamWorld Heist 2, Hot Shots Golf, Open T. You can find links to all those games and many other things, probably a No Man's Sky 2024 Beginner's Guide if you want on besties.fan. I think I'm going to wait for World's Part 2. I think that's the time to get back into No Man's Sky.

Proud of you. That's going to do it for us for this week on the Besties. Be sure to join us again next time for the Besties. Because should the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!