The Besties - Where Do Star Wars Games Go From Here?

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

This week, The Besties travel to a galaxy far, far away to play Star Wars: Outlaws. The crew also talks about some delightful new indies, including Bloodless and Fields of Mistria. Plus, CHIMP CRAZY?! 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!

So I came up with a meme. Oh, that's how they start. And this is important because I don't want you guys to describe the meme that I've sent you, but I made this meme up. This is like a fully original creation that I made. Okay, awesome, awesome. So I'm looking at it and you don't want me to describe it?

So this is, to be clear, the intro is, you sent us a visual joke. Yeah. And you don't want us to describe. Here's what I'm gonna do. Is this a newsletter tease? Did I mention that I'm a marketing genius? Okay.

We will put the meme in the newsletter and everyone can vote on how they feel about it. But I have to. This is engagement. This is engagement. We have to say something. I don't think we do. Not even a clue?

Not even a hint? It's a picture with words. Why don't you say the actor who's in the picture? No! That's too much! That's too much you'll know exactly what it is. Like verbatim. One of the words is dick. So it's a dick-based meme.

So that's funny. So I hope that was bleeped. I hope that was bleeped, because it's such a huge spoiler. How do people sign up, Russ? I know this is just not recorded, because it's the cold opening. Sure, yeah. So how, like, where do you sign up?

I think you can sign up to the newsletter besties.fan. Besties.fan. OK. It's not even, like, limited to the Patreon folks. Anybody can see this. And honestly, I just wanted to get your guys first gut impression, like am I now? It's a good meme, Russ, and it's worth the investigative work

that people are gonna have to do to figure it out. I just know that there's gonna be people in their car who are so like seriously curious about this that they're gonna pull out their phones and crash and explode and die. I mean, that's what the shoulder is for. When you're driving. Pull over to the shoulder, rock that rumble strip, check out this sweet meme

that Russ made, subscribe to it at besties.fad. But Jesus, can you imagine Russ, if someone doesn't like the meme, how mad they're gonna be? At that point, they're already subscribed. I guess that's a good point. True, you already got them. God, you're good. God, that's a good point. True, you already got them. God, you're good.

God, that's good stuff. All right, yeah, so let's do that. And I guess every week we can kinda do something like this. Like, we'll do one of our feet. Probably start with Chris, because he's got the best feet. We gotta start, if we're gonna put this effort into it, we gotta start paywalling it.

Fucking primo feet. Jesus Christ. Primo toes on this puppy. Those sweet Kansas City bubbies. You gotta check out these sweet Kansas City bubbies. You gotta check out these sweet Kansas City bubbies. They're fucking Plants got rockin'. Only in the newsletter you're gonna catch a whiff of these bad boys. Oh yeah. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy and I did play one.

I did play one. My name is Russ Freshdick and I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It is a video game club. And just by listening, you have become one of our illustrious members. This week we're gonna be talking about Star Wars Outlaws. Russ Freshdick in the absence of Chris Plant,

you have to tell me, what is that? Sure, you're like a Han Solo type in the world of Star Wars, a third person action adventure game, you're using stealth and cunning to go deeper into the world of Star Wars underbelly, Jabba the Hutt type people. Great, that was really good actually.

That's perfect actually. Believe it or not, there's more to say. We're gonna do it right after the break. Guys, I'm gonna say this. Yeah. They don't make them like this anymore. They sure do not. It's funny you say that, they kinda do.

Okay, that's interesting. So okay, I think we're probably talking about different aspects, but like, let's talk about Star Wars Outlaws. I think in the broadest terms, it's like uncharted Star Wars game. It's trying to be. Now Griffin, if you're gonna launch in

with some negativity, I'm gonna need you to disclose a play time, please. If you wanna launch with negativity. I did not have a ton of time to spend with the Star Wars outlaws. I've played probably about three hours of Star Wars outlaws. Okay, okay. So maybe we get through just like, setting the table before...

Yeah, no, for sure. Before Captain Knowledge swoops in with his three hours of play time. Three hours of... Yeah, no, I'm not, listen, this is an open world Ubisoft licensed game with forced stealth segments. It may as well come with a Mr. Yuck sticker on it

specifically for me. This game wasn't made for me, and even if it were, what it tries to do, I think it does exceptionally poorly. But I'm not going to be Mr. Fuddy Duddy the whole time, because I think that it is also a very interesting game. And I know that Justin has had a very sort of different sort of reaction to it. So Justin, I've played like six or seven hours, probably.

We're approximately about the same. Okay, there's like, yeah. I've gone into hyperspace. There's like more than one planet is a fair assessment. I don't feel at, I actually, it's funny. So Griffin's first Blush experience with it is very different from mine

because I think the beginning of this game shows like off pretty well. Like I was actually pretty encouraged by what I played by the first hour or two of this game, just cause I like, it looks good. It runs well. It feels good to play. There's like fun, like you've got like a little alien buddy

with you that can like do like distract enemies and do like help with the stealth sequences, things like that. In my experience, it doesn't have a lot more to say after those first three hours. So Griffin, you've, I think, seen a lot of a loop. And that was really my big issue, is that it felt kind of shallow.

But the reason I said earlier, I was, Justin was making the joke that they don't make games like this anymore. This feels a lot like if they took a like very robust Assassin's Creed game and narrowed it down to three mission types instead of the unnecessary 12 that they have. And that's the bell that's ringing for me. I mean, it's really, and it feels like to me,

the reason I say they don't make like this anymore is when you get into like a sequence that is clearly like a mission, right? Or like even a groove, you know, you find them around the open world. Once you're in that groove, and you're out of the open world. It's very, I said it, I said when I was playing the first few hours, it's the most like PS three, as PS5 game. It's like very relatively linear.

It's relatively like there's once you're into a mission, there's a pretty clear path. I will say I think more than a lot of games like this. I did find there were like a couple different ways to approach a situation. That's funny. You know, slicing or using a, you know, you could have your little guy who's your assistant named Nix. He's like a little, your pet, and he'll run around and like do things for you.

And really that's kind of interesting because it really puts you in a stealth game where you're actually usually able to do it two people at once, like simultaneously. Cause Nx can get one and you can get the other, and then you can go over and get his guy. And you see a lot of tools like that. And his controls feel really good. Like I think the implementation of like how they use him,

it doesn't feel like a chore at all. It feels very intuitive, which I actually liked. It's funny you say the thing about like doing things multiple ways, because I found that I didn't get that experience a lot, because there were a number of times where I would approach for example, like a stormtrooper base and I'd approach it from one side of the map and There would be like a ledge that was too high for me to jump up to and I would later discover that oh no

They want me entering from the other side of the base discover that, oh no, they want me entering from the other side of the base, because there's literally no way to enter the base from this side of the base. So it does feel like in a lot of ways they kind of funneled me. And then once you're in the base, you have a little more of- This is what I'm saying. There's like a conflict a little bit, I think, between how open the open world is and how confined. They want you to like get into the track, right?

They want you to like, here is the entrance door to this ride, like you have to come in through here. Which is a little bit of a bummer because we're used to playing games. It's a big, big, big, big bummer. I do concede that there, in the missions that I have played there are always a couple of ways through it and it's usually like a vent or maybe you can kill this guy and then go up the stairs instead. like, event, or maybe you can kill this guy

and then go up the stairs instead. And if you get caught, a lot of the time, it says caught on the screen, and then it restarts whatever sequence that you are in. I think that that is- That's like so early, it happens a couple times early on, but that's not really a persistent issue. I mean, there are, the areas that he's talking about, like, do come back. Whenever you're in a faction's restricted zone

and you get spotted, you'll get booted out in that way. Everything I have played of this game feels so wildly antiquated in a way that I feel like the best stealth games have like figured out ways around. Okay, in a sense you're right. Like some of the stealth sequences, I didn't mind them because I found them pretty easy, but also if you don't wanna do them,

then you can try to improve your faction standing with that faction and then they'll just let you walk around. That's really cool. And that's really interesting to me when stealth is not just like a, if you get caught, a lot of times it's, if you're stealthy enough, you won't accrue negative faction rep. And if you get caught, you do get negative faction rep.

So that is how it is like stealth is rewarded and penalized is like, yeah, you can go in guns blazing, but you're gonna piss a lot of people off where if you're smooth, you're not gonna get dinged if you're breaking into, there's like three factions. There's the main, Gorak is the guy that runs it. I forget what his- Crimson Dawn is one of them guys.

Crimson Dawn is the- The Hutts and- The Hutts and the Corax family. Yeah, they're the ones that sort of run the main, the city that you land in. What you lose in the missions in terms of like flexibility and approach, I really liked because it gave, when you were like in the pocket

and the thing was working as intended, it had a lot of really cool cinematic moments that I really, really dug that the scope of it and everything just like wouldn't happen in a, in a game that's like a lot more non scripted, nonlinear like what's the word that was going around a lot for immersive not not immersive gameplay that sort of comes from That isn't scripted but is like Created from moments in the game. What a boy. Yeah, sorry. Keboinks keboinks or roblox. Yeah So the instant fail stuff it tapers off the further you get in the game? Yes. Yeah. So like there weren't a lot of circumstances where I was in an environment where if I were

to get spotted, it would just end. They would start shooting at me or get like very pissed at me, but it wouldn't just end the mission. Okay. That is very good to hear. Which is definitely encouraging. There are instances though where like I would be sneaking into an area, because there are still restricted areas, even if you have really good rep with a faction. So you'd be sneaking in that area

and you'd be like, or I would be maybe this is how my brain works, like oh I really don't want to get spotted because I can't lower my rep because I'm almost at the next tier of rep and I want to unlock the reward things like that. And I did try to start save scumming it and the game kind of broke when I tried to do that. It did not like that. It started respawning enemies in weird ways. And I think the faction system is really cool. It's probably the coolest thing about this game

because it really does change the way you play and like what areas you have access to. I've never not taken on a side quest, like you will see a treasure that is in the next room and you'll know it's there. And you're like, boy, I really don't wanna piss him off. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe I could get in and take it

and nobody would notice and that'd be pretty cool, but I really can't afford to get on their bad side right now because you can get bad enough that they'll just start sending like death squads at you. Like while you're busy doing other things, they'll come try to kill you. But there are moments within story missions too, where like you'll be doing a story mission for one faction

and then a guy will show up halfway through like Slugworth in fucking Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and be like, hey, it'd be really cool if you actually gave that data to me and I'll help you out. And it shows you how that's going to improve one Faction and you know lower the other factions rating so making those choices. I found really cool the actual minute to minute Just didn't feel very diverse to me

And that was only highlighted when I started I got very close towards the end of like doing missions on that main planet I got very close to maxing out the Crimson Dawn, which is like the stealthy group and they've got like dope rewards when you max them out. So I got very close and I was like, Oh, I could do these. They're called contracts, which in hindsight are really just like randomly generated missions. So I did those a couple of times and they were all like, go to this box and open the box up and then run away.

And that was all of them. And it kind of highlighted that like, they had, I think a very cool idea for this game. Like the elevator picture is very cool. And they had like a pretty decent like core loop of like 30 second loop of like stealth stuff, not amazing, but decent enough. And they just like kind of ran that into the ground because everything else around the world is like stealth stuff, not amazing, but decent enough. And they just like kind of ran that into the ground

because everything else around the world is like serviceable but not thrilling at all. You guys have played more than me. Does the combat ever become more interesting? Because at the start of the game, you have your blaster, you have sort of a little melee, very uncharted melee combo that you can execute. And then you have Nyx a little melee, very uncharted melee combo that you can execute,

and then you have Nyx, your little space dog that you can send to distract someone so you can get a one-hit knockout. I've found the blaster combat to be pretty bad feeling, and you get alternate weapons that you can pick up from down to enemies, but you lose those. I mean, if they run out of ammo, you drop them pretty much immediately.

Or if you have to climb a ladder, if you have to climb a ladder, you drop them immediately. Does that does does that get more do you get more options there? Does that get more sort of like interesting? Does combat ever feel like a desirable kind of solution played? Justin, you might feel differently. The enhancements that you're getting are like, you'll get like a smoke bomb to distract people

and hide and smoke and things like that. You also get upgrades to your blaster, so you'll get different damage types. And sometimes you'll come upon enemies that have like a ion shield, and you have to kill the ion shield before you kill the enemy. But I don't think any of that feels great. like an ion shield and you have to kill the ion shield before you kill the enemy.

But I don't think any of that feels great. I think they are cautious to not let you spec so far in one direction that it becomes your de facto. Like it does not make it so that at some point you're like, I'm just a blaster guy now and I just shoot people. Like that's my thing. I go into everything loud. Like that's my thing. I go into everything loud.

Like it's really more about like having more options in a given scenario. I think you can, for instance, like one of the early unlocks you can get is fast talker where if someone spots you, you can press the right stick and like get an opportunity to put your hands up and fake surrender. And then you have like a stun shot you can use on people. There's a lot of stuff like that that game does not spell out very well. There's like stuff that it doesn't explain.

Yeah, you've got a silent stun shot that recharges over time. It'll like, you only get one shot and then you have to wait like a minute. But if you do silent takedowns, it recharges like instantly. Again, I don't know that this is ever conveyed, but incredibly important if you do silent takedowns, it recharges instantly. Again, I don't know that this is ever conveyed, but incredibly important if you're trying

to play a stealth game. Yeah, a lot of that is not, you have to kind of discover as you go. I had a lot, a lot, a lot of instances, even in my few hours of playing it, where I would be hidden in the grass or hidden around a corner, execute the classic Ubisoft whistle

to get a dumb idiot to come around and then you knock them out. But sometimes when the dumb idiot comes around, you pop out and you get into the middle of the knockout animation and it sets off the, it sets off the, you get caught. Did someone, okay now did someone watch you choke the friend out? Because if that happens, this is kind of an AI thing where if one of the guys sees you choke his friend out he will shoot you. No, it very much seemed like the person

who I was knocking out saw me as I was knocking him out. It came aware? Yeah, and then like sent out a sort of telepathic danger wave that's off. There is definitely some. You are fighting the Borg, it is worth considering. There's some hinky, there's one part, seven hours in, seven hours into the game, I started sliding down a ramp

and it was one of those where you had to like jump onto another thing and as I'm sliding down the ramp, it pops up a tool tip that's like press X to jump. It's like, what? What do you think? And then when I saw the tool tip, I was like, okay, and I pressed X and it jumped at the wrong time and I died. It's like, why didn't you just let me do that?

Personal taste aside, it feels pretty rough. I've been playing on PS5 and I've had, in the three hours I've been playing, two straight up Crash to... Wow, I am surprised. One of which was at the end of a pretty long sequence where I had to sneak around this huge base and disable these shield batteries

so that I could get into the, I disabled these two shield batteries after sneaking around for like 20 minutes, finally made it to the door and boom, hard crash. And that was pretty fucking demoralizing. Yeah, that's crazy. I played on PS5 as well, didn't have any technical issues, but I've heard a lot of reviews talking about technical issues.

So I might just lucked out. I had a couple of like prompts disappearing, like where I needed to press something and it just wasn't like I had to back up and re-approach to get the prompt to appear. Here's the weird thing about this game. Using R3 to interact with everything? Yes. Why?

Yeah. No one likes that button. No one likes R3. Here's the weird thing about this game. I had so much more fun playing this game than Starfield. It's not even close. Oh, it's not even approximate. It's not even close.

And they are like. It also looks outrageous. And I feel like we haven't talked about that. Like every frame of this looks like a freaking concept painting. It really looks gorgeous. It looks so good. Except the frames with faces in them moving.

The faces moving and talking don't look so hot. That's true. The face animation, especially with the protagonist. Kei's face looks all right. The other faces when they move and talk are not particularly rad. I have noticed that, yes. I think environmentally it's very good.

Environmentally it's fucking radical. And runs really well. Again, on PS5 it's very good. Environmentally it's fucking radical. And runs really well. Like again, on PS5 it's 60. The Snowdrop engine has its pluses and its minuses. Yeah. This is, I just don't want to see it lumped in with like, it's not, it is not a far cry and it is not an avatar. It's not one of those.

Like, it's not. Oh yeah. That was my confusion is like, in looking at it, and they did this intentionally. So we want to call out Ubisoft's marketing team. I guess well done. They'll probably get a bonus for that, but it is not a GTA clone. It's not a Far Cry. It is not an open world game in that sense.

Even though there are huge open environments, most of it is taking place in these like mini missions. And it doesn't have like thousands of activities to keep you busy. open environments, most of it is taking place in these like mini missions. And it doesn't have like thousands of activities to keep you busy. I like that though, because for me, I would rather when I get to the big mission of a thing, like the actual like mission part of the world, I really like like having a level that someone designed for me to play. That's my preference.

Like I would prefer that to like, they're like an avatar, there's just a huge base and you can start wherever you want and, you know, piece it together how you want. And that's like, that's like preference level stuff. I would much rather have the other thing that you described. Yeah, because my preference in this sort of game would be to do what Metal Gear Solid 3 does, uh, 5, Metal Gear Solid 5 does, which is, you can really approach it from any fucking angle and you feel some ownership over the choices that you're making, but I understand that's a very different experience.

I had a few times where I was looking for a way through an area sneakily and I would see a path pretty high up that I would try to climb up to only to realize that like, oh, that's not actually, I can't actually, that's not actually a walkway that I can climb up. I can't get over this hip high wall to get into this little walkway where there's nobody there. And maybe I should have guessed that

because there's nobody there. And I, yeah, I felt a little bit funneled in those. You know what this game feels like to me, and I'm curious, tell me if you think I'm off base. This game feels like Assassin's Creed I insofar as there's some interesting ideas but it's incredibly shallow and a little bit janky but on paper it's like kind of an interesting start and it feels like the sort of thing I guarantee there's gonna be a sequel I assume it's doing okay and it's probably cheaper at this point now that you have the whole engine

and systems built, I think this feels like they have more of a interesting groundwork to work off of than for example, like 10,000 Assassin's Creed sequels. I don't know that games work like that anymore. I don't know that you can do that in 2024. I don't know that you can put that in 2024. I don't know that you can put out a game that has some interesting ideas that have been executed, I think, pretty poorly and say like,

and people are gonna be so excited about those ideas that it's going to, that it's going to. I don't know how it's selling. I mean, it's just a question of how it's selling, yeah. I think there's a basic conflict. If they wanted to do another one of these, I think there's a basic problem they need to solve. When you are doing one of those open world, like fully open world games, right? You're able to, the power curve can be very satisfying because you are, what

you're doing is basically like ramping up how stupid you can be in the environment, right? You're going from like sneaky around to like calling in airstrikes and whatever. I think that this game, to keep that like level of balance you need for something more scripted, the power fantasy never really runs out of control, right? Like your shocking gun can do another shock, right? You're not like calling in airstrikes. And I think that that is tough

because if you have a whole open world that you want me to explore, you gotta have a lot of carrots like that I wanna keep gobbling up and I don't get worked up about cosmetics. So I feel like you can't have like a huge power. Now they've done some smart stuff with that, right? Like some of the rewards, the faction stuff

lets them give rewards that are meaningful without necessarily being, they're like convenient without necessarily being like overpowering, like opening up new fast travel points that you can use and stuff like that. But I think to make a full open world work with something this scripted, they have to figure out another way

of making you want to do the stuff in the open world. Because a lot of times you don't know why you're, and like Russ said, you can end up in these like, I don't know why I just did this. Like it just gave me a mission and I did it, but I didn't have a clear idea of what I was doing it for. Right. The dream sequel to this game for me would be Mercenaries Star Wars Edition. Where you're not necessarily being the sneaky person, you might have that ability occasionally,

but leaning more into the power fantasy that you're talking about of like calling in X-Wing strikes and shit on a Stormtrooper base would be fucking sick. Now, technologically speaking, I have no fucking idea if that's even possible using this engine. But that- I was gonna say, Mercenaries is a million year old game, so I'd imagine it would be doable. Technically possible. Sure, yeah.

That interests me, because I agree with Justin. There's just a ceiling to what you can really do with the hiding in the shadows stuff. Has the story clicked at all for you guys? Because from everything I have heard, it is sort of a bit Mass Effect-y in that the first part of the game is you putting together a crew.

And then everything I've heard is that once the crew's together and you start off on the job in the last part of the game, it gets very, very good. And I don't know if you guys have seen any of any of, any inkling of that. There's a, the first act, you basically have no crew whatsoever until the very end of the first act. And then the like, what will become your crew starts showing up.

I haven't played much beyond that. So it's possible that it starts clicking for me. I really liked the writing. I think the writing, especially for a Star Wars thing, they do a good job of making it feel like, it feels Star Wars, but not high Star Wars, right? It feels like regular. I would say it's a lot, it reminds me a lot of Andor.

In fact, it's kind of weird that this isn't an Andor game because it feels so close to what an Andor game would be if they did it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this was made, you know, they started making this. Wait, they take longer to make video games than... It does, by like a lot.

Longer to do it? Longer, it's longer. So like weeks, longer? Yeah, it's weeks. It's just like a few weeks like weeks longer. Yeah as weeks. It's like a few weeks That sounds tough. I'm just saying that it's similar I'm not saying they should have put and or in the game. Oh, man. They should have I'm not 12. No, great Where's where's Chewbacca? Do you think you're gonna want to stick with it at all?

I know that I think as soon as meeting is done, this little recording of ours. I'm going to get right back on my speeder and get out there. I got to that second area. You know, you get to the second set of planets, first set of planets, I guess, after the original planet. And I was like, I've got it. And I don't know that the game changes dramatically after that, but that I got there like probably four or five days ago and have not had a desire to keep going since then.

So this is probably the end of the road for me unless Justin comes back and says it's his game of the year, which seems unlikely. But no, I'm very I'm very clear about what this like I this is this feels, it feels old in a way that I like. Like when I said they don't make like this anymore, there's a lot of stuff in here. It's like, yeah, this is how I like games to be. Tell me where to start the level for the most fun to enjoy myself. I like that.

You know what it reminds me of? Did you guys ever play Mad Max? No. No, I never played that game. The open world Mad Max game is a lot like this. Just keeps a nice calm seven for ya. Ah! Nice easy seven.

Nothing you feel like you gotta get the kids in the room to come see, you know, just a nice relaxing seven. Crazy seven, all right. Ah, they do need Shpok in it though. Yeah. Next time. Did we say when this takes place, it's after? Does it matter?

Yeah, it matters. It matters a great deal. I think the first Death Star blew up, but the second Death Star did not blow up. They're making another? Nice spoilers for us. The third Death Star hasn't blown up either. Yep.

Star killer base. Wizard Annie. Can we talk more about Star Wars after a brief word from our sponsors? Sure. Cool. What do we think is left? Star Wars at this point has been mined. A lot of angles of Star Wars have been mined for video game purposes. What has not? We've got racing, we've got a fighting game, we've got a third person action adventure. What do we think?

Fucking that chess game that they play on the Millennium Falcon, like what is left at this point? Can I be honest? I think a lot. I think there's a lot of untapped ground in this world, right? And I think that if you need any evidence of that, look at how much people fucking love KOTOR 1 and 2,

and then just think about if they announced KOTOR 3, like that's pretty much all it would take. I guess The Old Republic is sort of that. Did you guys ever play The Old Republic? Did you guys ever play the second Star Wars MMO? No. For me, that is one of the kind of gold standards of it, because when you picked your class in that game,

it tailored a story specifically about that class fantasy better than anything I think I've seen in a Star Wars game before. So much so that like- That's very high praise. I mean, I- It's very high praise, but man, I tell you, if you play as a commando, right?

You can play as like a clone trooper basically in that game. It really just focused the story exclusively on that. If you played as a scoundrel, you got to live that story, just sort of focusing only on that. And I think that the writing and presentation of that game was like truly, truly next level. And I feel like there's just a lot of opportunity

for that kind of storytelling. I think I just really want Couture III, right? Because I haven't loved a Star Wars game as much as I love those games. I haven't loved like Jedi Survivor or Outcast or, that's not true, I actually really liked the Jedi, Jedi Outcast was the Kyle Katarn, that was one of those, right?

And Jedi Academy, like it's such a huge rich world with a lot of like cool stuff to explore and mess around with. And I think that there aren't a ton of Star Wars games that explore that in a way that is also like innovative from a gameplay sort of side of things. So like, it seems to me like there is a lot of opportunity here, it's just a question of like,

who is the right team to seize it, right? Like that's my question is, looking at all the game developers and seeing what their skill sets are and what kind of like games they are good at making, what is the like developer and game franchise with all of its strengths and all of its mechanics that you would want to see grafted onto Star Wars in, like, your dream scenario, right?

Yeah, so Amy Hennig very famously had a project, Amy Hennig being one of the creators of Uncharted over at Naughty Dog, and then had a game, was working on a Star Wars game at, I believe, EA, that got canceled, and now was working on a star wars game at i believe ea that got cancelled and now is working on it at sky dance new media Uh, I don't know if it's the same game. Whatever. It is a action adventure game set in the star wars universe by her so This I mean that could be interesting. She certainly from a storytelling standpoint always focused on narrative pretty heavily. I do wonder

Storytelling standpoint always focused on narrative pretty heavily. I do wonder I Don't know if this game proves it or disproves it the question of like Jedi versus not and like Can you make a very diverse Star Wars game without Jedi like without playing a Jedi? I think I think you could do I think there could be some sort of cool I think there could be some sort of cool, you know, search action thing. I don't think that we've had a good search action Star Wars that I can recall. Has there ever been, I guess the closest would be the Jedi Survivor,

Jedi, those games are like kind of- Yeah, sure. Those have some pretty good Metroidvania books. Gear game. Yeah, but like I'm thinking specifically like a really slickly animated and fluid 2d. Yeah sort of thing you know, maybe you're like a Jedi trying to rescue kids during the purge or whatever and you're like trying to

Explore this this base and fight your way out something like that. That'd be cool. You know be cool Here's a free free this one's free. You play Ben Kenobi, hiding away on Tatooine. You're charged to keep care of a young Luke Skywalker. During the day, you fend off the Emperor's men that he's sending to look for Luke. But during the night, Luke, a poor farm boy is also a very poor moisture farmer and he doesn't do a good job. So during the night, Ben Kenobi tends to the moisture farm.

So you have a half moisture farming, half action. You know what I mean? That's cool. It's like Plants vs. Zombies, Star Wars edition. Okay. Let me hit you with this. No, it'd be more exactly like Stardew Valley. Yeah, with lightsabers.

Oh, got it. Okay, how about this? Boba Fett's deep in the Sarlacc's belly and there's a whole city in there. And there's other people and there's a whole city in there, and there's other people, and he has to try to build his way out. He can collect bricks by hitting them with a pickaxe,

and he uses them to, he has to make a big staircase to climb out of the Sarlacc's big belly. Is everyone in the city his size, or are they teeny tiny, like the Lilliputians? Do you mean Jawas? Yes. There's a lot of Jawas in there. A lot of Jawas. You can't have a big sandy environment without having some Jawas fall.

Oh, it's sandy in the belly. Yeah, of course it is. It's a sarlacc so he's going to eat a lot of sand. I thought he filtered that out. I thought he had like a baleen situation. No, it's very sandy inside of there. If it was baleen, sand would still get through. And so it's a city builder and a romance, a dating sim.

Okay. Oh, so this game I just came up with is called Star Wars Edge of Dawn. While protecting a young grogu, a different one. It's a different grogu. A different kind of grogu. A different kind of grogu A different kind of Goku. It's Grotu.

It's his brother Grotu. Jeez. You are, your ship crash lands on a planet, but you, a wily Jedi, manage to escape, but you escape on the other side of the planet, and then becomes a rust-like survival game, but you're a Jedi trying to like set up your bases and stuff and you can use like your lightsaber to cut up rocks to mine

and you can use force powers to build buildings with the resources that you mine. Yeah, that's very good. And you gotta make your way to grow too on the other side of the planet by building your own star speeder and other stuff like that. I just wanna have some Star Wars desktop adventures.

That's my personal dream. I'm having them right now while we record. In Star Wars galaxies, your class could basically be small business owner and you could open up your own cantina that other player carried. Like for me, I think that Star Wars MMOs hold the most potential for Star Wars storytelling

because it, specifically Star Wars Galaxies, really let you be what it, I was a fuckin', I made a Twi'lek hairstylist. That was my fucking classes, I was a hairstylist, I was a Twi'lek named Bobby Trendy, and I would give people fucking haircuts in a cantina and tattooing. And I got experience points for that. That was my Star Wars fantasy, right?

Like, it's a world with like all kinds of crazy shit happening in it, and you can decide like sort of what your niche in that world is. And for me, MMOs are kind of like the sweet spot for that. and you can decide sort of what your niche in that world is. Yeah, so, yeah. For me, MMOs are kind of like the sweet spot for that. MMOs, the future of gaming, you heard it here first. Griffin McRoy is saying... The future of Star Wars gaming, right?

Sure. Where you make video games here at the podcast? Star Wars, the last deal. You are a world-ren renowned sabacc player going through like a branching, slay the spire type deal, building your ultimate sabacc deck and befriending, but also be enemy-ing all the different factions of the galaxy with your only tools being your cards that you love and your wife who's on your ship and your gun that can kill anyone and is faster than any other gun.

But you can only use it 30 times. So you have to keep track. Star Wars, The Last Deal. It's the same character. It's the son of the same character from- That rescued go to. That rescue go to in Star Wars Oh, that's a last horizon. Yeah continuity. This is so fucking easy. It's really easy I don't know why it takes so long to get Star Wars games. We did like five

I think we have some do we have some questions we did and now I got him. I got him right here Do we have some questions? We did, and now I don't. I got them, I got them right here. Please be quiet, please be quiet. I'll say the questions, you don't have to say anything else. I'll say them right now, okay? Okay. If someone is in the, this is from Andrew.

If someone's in the mood to play a large open world Ubisoft game, but only have the time to play one, which recent release would you recommend? Avatar, Frontiers of Pandora or Star Wars Outlaw? Absolutely crazy question. Just the crazy question. Absolutely, yeah, really.

Unhinged. If someone wanted to play an open world Ubisoft game, which of these two not the best Ubisoft open world games would you suggest that they play? Maybe they've played every other open world Ubisoft game. I mean, you've played every other one. Your memory has probably forgotten some of the earlier ones. So maybe go back and play Brotherhood.

We could probably put a power ranking, but I thought Avatar was really neat, and I thought this was really neat. If you want more open style gameplay, like Avatar really delivers on that. They'll really let you go at it however you want. If you want something more scripted, I would go with this. Especially if you like Star Wars stuff or Avatar stuff,

you're gonna like either one of these, because I think they both do a really good job with their worlds. Alternate opinion, I think they're both kind of dirty dog water, and I would recommend that you go with Far Cry 4 or one of the good Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is my personal choice for- Yeah, one of them's. I've only played like three hours of that one, so I don't want to comment on it. Next question What's it like reviewing a video game? Do you keep notes while playing?

Do you have a different mindset while reviewing a game versus just playing it for fun? I'd love to know more about the process. Thanks for being my favorite podcast. I'll say my process real quick. You guys can tell me the difference for you, but I- And let me ask you, is this, when we say reviewing a game, do we mean for this podcast or in our history of reviewing a game? I think probably like a formal review,

I feel like. Okay, I think you're right. That's probably the- I would have like a pen and paper with me and just like whatever like little thoughts would come to my head. I didn't want to get too down the road and like forming opinions or trying to get anything too concrete when you're early,

but I would take little notes as to like stuff I wanted to make sure and hit. And then I would usually find from that, I would end up starting to kind of like write the review in my head. That's certainly later, like I didn't have to draft as much, but I would think like, it would start to happen in my head as I was playing the game, like it's almost like

in conversation, the review would change in my head as I'm playing the game, because I would see different parts to think about it differently, but that's... It's like the movie Inside Out. Yeah's. It's like the movie Inside Out. Yeah, it's exactly like the movie Inside Out. I would do a similar thing. The process is so different for besties, because I feel pretty, I don't know, for besties,

I just play the game and I talk about my experience playing it. I feel like when I was writing a more formal review, it would be helpful to, after I would play the game for a little while, go sit down on my computer and write down a few thoughts of the things that I thought stood out the most. There is some structural stuff that I feel like goes into most reviews, right?

You wanna make sure that you write about... How many levels, how many weapons, how much one vector? Well, you wanna make sure that if, that you write about... How many levels, how many weapons, how much one vector? Well, no, but like, you know, the visuals of the game is like, the performance of the game, right? Like, that is a thing that you write about. Typically, actually, I would only write about the performance of the game if it was an issue.

Rarely would I give game points, because I would be like, and it didn't crash once. Yeah, but like, I would prop this game, outlaws for like, sorry, I give a game points because I would be like, and it didn't crash once. Yeah. But like I would prop this game, Outlaws, for like, sorry, I know it crashed on you. But for me, my technical experience was actually pretty good. I think that the biggest difference for me with like this and Besties is I would get,

and this is like, I still don't know the best way of dealing with this, but like I would get into situations while I was reviewing a game, especially later on where like I'd reviewed a lot of games where I would know, I would know one third of the way in exactly what the review is going to say because I had put as much work into, like I had seen everything that was in this game, no question. And like was so positive. And it would be the situation where I know what I'm gonna write.

I really need to play more, but I know it's just gonna make me like it less. Yeah. Like this is the moment I would walk away for, for maximum pleasure. And like, that is what I would do in besties and say, like, okay, I know how I feel about this game. I I'm good. But like reviewing a game, you really feel like you got to put it through its faces because there's going to be somebody who paid that $60

and isn't gonna buy another game for a month. And they're gonna be going to the bitter end. So I tried to, it looks like good. The reality of the besties is we play a different game every week. Even when I was reviews editor at Joystick, I was not reviewing a game a week. I would have other people that I was shopping them out to. If I was reviewing a game a week, it would be I would have other people that I was like, you know, shopping them out to. If I was reviewing a game a week, it would be like a small XBLA title that I could,

I could, you know, pound through. But it wasn't like, you know, when I was reviewing Final Fantasy XIII, it was like clear the fucking decks. It's like, this is my whole, this is my only shit for like a couple weeks here is just gonna be playing this game so that I can, I can finish it and be able to talk about it.

And I do wanna do a good job by that most of the time here on the besties, but it's not, you can't take that much time to it. There was also the problem that deadlines would shift how you would report stuff. Magazines, when they were doing video game reviews and they existed, would have much longer lead times because they had a print deadline and they wouldn't have to be day and date with the game.

A lot of times like review code would come in three, four, two days before the review embargo. So that was another tough one where you had to strike this line between if I play this game, like the first time I played Fallout, like when I reviewed Fallout three or four, one of them, I feel like I was probably harder on the game than I needed to be because I was so beaten down

by playing 12 hours a day of it. Like it was really not the ideal way of consuming it. So that was always a struggle that we don't really have that much of the besties. Yeah, I remember Skyward Sword came in really fucking hot and I, gosh, I love this word and my wife fucking hates it. I poop socked that game so hard over the course of like four or five days.

And I really enjoyed it. I came out the other end of that with a very positive feeling about Skyward Sword, which is, I think, unusual for that experience. You know, Dark Void was one like that for me that I reviewed where like, if you don't remember Dark Void, it was during an era where cover shooters were really big. And what Dark Void imagined was,

what if we give you a jet pack and make it a vertical cover shooter? So you're going up and hiding behind ledges as you climb. And then there would be like some free sort of like flight sequences. And it was so cool. And the back half of the game was miserable. Like I was like, I could feel whatever passion

and love I had for Darned Void, just getting sucked away by the fact that I had to play the whole thing. Best theme song. Best, best, that was Bear McCreary. That was when Bear McCreary, that's one of his earliest soundtracks, I think. Okay. I think we answered the questions.

Do we have any honorable mentions this week? I got a couple. One, Henry has gotten very into Animal Crossing, New Horizons, so I have restarted my island. I know. Did you delete your old island? I did, I did. I offloaded some of my stuff to his island

to help him get a boost, help him get a start when he started over. And now we're coming up together. And it's been really fun. It's, I'm not going to, it is impossible for me to get as into it as I did back during the COVID shutdown times because I have doubled my kids,

the number of kids I have compared to that time. And also I am not sequestered in my house for months at a time. But it is a fun game to play with a kid, and it's fun to hop over to his island and help him out with stuff, and it has been a very enjoyable game. That's not what I wanna talk about though.

I wanna talk about a new, buckle up, a new high concept, high production value Korean reality competition show called The Influencer. Are you watching? Are you watching? Ah, baby. Okay. Hey listen, I found the three hours required

to watch the first episode, no worries. The Influencer. This is, listen, it's on some next level shit and it takes a little bit of, it takes a- Just listen for a second, brother. Just listen, don't do the normal thing you do. Go do the rust thing. Because I bring a lot of Korean reality competition shows

because they are absolutely whipping our asses vis-a-vis reality competition shows, in terms of like the concepts explored and the execution of it, okay? The Influencer, it is a show. They bring on, I believe, 77 influencers, internet influencers in Korea across different platforms, TikTok, YouTubers, Instagram.

Is 77 an important number culturally speaking or where does that number? No, I think it's just the number of people that they could get together for the show. It's a lot. There's a platform called Offreka TV, which has broadcast jockeys or BJs on it. I'm learning a lot.

You can download it by the way. You can't make heads or tails of it, but you can download it and scroll around on there. So they bring them on this show and over the course of five games, they will reward the number one influencer. Everybody comes on the show and they're wearing a collar, and the collar has a little LED display

showing how many followers they have. And then there's a 300 million, what, one, I believe is the currency prize that everybody, as they come in and their follower count is displayed on their collars that is then changed. They get a chunk of that 300 million won at sort of in ratio to how many followers they have.

So followers in real life, not like in real life in real life. Right. And so the people who have like, you know, I've got 11 million followers on YouTube, bang, you get a big chunk of money on your collar. And so everybody is quickly ranked on their fucking collars that they are wearing. And then they play a series of games where they knock out half the contenders in the first round and then half the contenders

in the second round, sort of weaning it down. The games are all sort of microcosmic simulations of being an influencer online and what that looks like. And it sounds so gnarly, what I'm going to describe, but it is really quite genius the way that they have sort of gamified this entire industry that we are, I would say, tangentially kind of a part of, right?

There are things about being influencers that we have to think about in order to do a podcast for a big audience of people and try to grow it. But it's things like, it gamifies skills like how to make a good YouTube thumbnail, right? Like that kind of stuff that is stuff that you think about if you watch YouTube, if you're on Instagram. A lot of open mouths and surprise faces.

There's for instance, like a, who appears to be a very famous actor, like in Korea, like a very famous actor. And he is on there, sorry, everybody has a phone. And if you tap your phone on someone's collar, it will show you a short form video that they edited to introduce themselves and what they do. And his video, I get the sense, sucks.

And everyone's being really nice to the guy, but it's like, this sucks. It would be like, it seemed like if Tom Hanks came out with like a YouTube poop short that he tried to edit in InShot, you know what I mean? It's like, and everyone's kind of like, no, I don't think that that's very good. And he's like, he has no filters.

There's no PR people to protect him. But he's just looking at his shitty video. There's no PR people to protect him. But he's just looking at his shitty video. Like this is kind of embarrassing. I'm embarrassed of my video. The first challenge is everybody has these short form videos that they've made. You scan your colors to look at it.

And then everybody has 15 likes and 15 dislikes to hand out. And then they are told that like the people with the worst rankings, like 37 people are gonna be kicked off this round. The people with the worst rankings, like 37 people are gonna be kicked off this round, the people with the worst rankings. And- How do you get 77 people to watch 76 other-

They have an hour. They have an hour to go around and just, they don't even have to watch the videos. They can just, as soon as the vote starts, the very famous guy, dislike, dislike, dislike, dislike, start coming in because people are like, I don't wanna compete against- And then they have a stage in the middle of this room

where everyone's mingling and there's a microphone and you can get up and do your thing to show people what you do. And then when people would get up on the stage, immediately everyone would be like, dislike, dislike, dislike, because they had risen their head up. But, organically-

Spoiler, spoiler for 30 seconds. Organically, one person sort of comes up with the idea, like it doesn't make sense. This is the influencer, we should be rewarded for all this. So then they go around and start trying to accrue dislikes, like trying to piss people off, because it's who can get the most attention. That's who's gonna get, the people who get cut are the people who don't get any likes gonna get likes. The people who get cut are the people

who don't get any likes or dislikes. The people who hang back, like, I don't wanna get any dislikes, I'm not gonna go up on the stage, but that's not how it fucking works. Like, this is what I'm talking about. Right, so was the answer, like, did the people who didn't get any votes end up being the people

who get kicked off? The people who got attention either way were the people who are the highest ranked. The people who didn't get any likes or dislikes because they didn't put their head out, they get cut. Did they know that going in? No, they did not say that going in. They didn't even know for sure until the end of the game what they were supposed to do.

It is, that's game one. I have watched the first three games of the five games and each one has like, one of them is a live stream challenge where every five minutes the person with the most viewers on their live stream automatically moves onto the next round and the person with the least viewers on their live stream gets kicked the fuck off the show. So every five minutes people are like,

hey look at me, look at me, hey here's my butt. Like just fucking like losing their mind. But it really is a, I don't know, the way that it kind of takes influencer culture and turns it into a cutthroat, really, really genius designed game, I am finding to be incredibly compelling television. If I could make one warning for people

who are interested in this game, because it almost stopped me and Sydney from watching it. The game starts with an introduction of the players. And because I assume they had to kind of make deals with every single one of these people, there are introductions, there is a full half hour of introductions of Korean influencers that listener,

I guarantee you, you do not know any of them. Now that may not apply to all of you, but it applies to almost all of you. And it is a full 30 minutes of them introducing Korean influencers that you have no awareness of. A lot of them? And edited in a way where it's like, can you believe we got Wetboy?

It's like, yeah, I'm Wet Boy, I'm here. No, listen, Wet Boy Rules is just like one of the best names. But yes, imagine 70 Wet Boys eventually the novelty wears off. Honestly, I would kind of like, I would skip along or get a cocktail or something. I would cruise on it because a lot of them are fucking lit. You do have to, if you want to have any sort of like investment in it, you do have to get through, but like, buyer beware.

It's an hour and 20 minutes for the pilot, and the first 30 minutes is introductions. By round two, the field is cut in half and it is much, much easier to follow. I mean, it takes me seven episodes of Survivor to remember who the fuck anyone is. I think there's only seven episodes of this show. But each one is four hours long. I genuinely, I've been recommending it to everyone on our staff because even though this isn't like our thing, right? We're not fucking Logan Paul, we're not like out here making- Not yet.

Okay, we're not, our personal brands aren't our livelihood as much as these, as much as as a traditional capital I influencer is, right? Travis plays this character on the bim bam of this is my personal brand, Trap Nation, right? This is that, but very real, and also they've turned it into game mechanics, and I think it's so fucking interesting. I also, by the way, as a reality, somebody who watches a lot of reality competition television,

this is, I think the second one in recent memory, Squid Game being the first, where they're doing this like more large scale story editing, where, god, this is really hard to make the distinction if you don't watch, but like, rather than have a controlled narrative of like 15 people who the producers are sort of like

clearly controlling all the storylines, there's much more of a sense here of there being so many moving pieces that the scenes are more organically captured. There's a lot that are filmed from like across the room and they have to highlight the people talking. So, you know, it must've been an absolute nightmare to edit. I cannot imagine. And everyone's probably mic'd and like, how do you-

Everyone's mic'd, everyone's mingling. It's like a Herculean feat, but it's as a viewer, to me, this is really the only kind of show that I can like feel stuff anymore. Cause like the other ones are so produced. Like it's so scripted and so like produced. Like the last season of Are You Too Hot to Handle was like unwatched.

Unbearably bad. But like, there is, I don't know enough about the, I don't know enough about the culture, I don't know enough about the industry. I am just saying that this devil's plan, Siren Survived the Island, Physical 100, New World, South Korea is making the best reality television on the planet right now, and it's not even really that close.

And I don't know how, I don't know what is so intrinsically different, but this show is made in a way that is so much more ambitious and so much better executed than any other reality show I've seen come out of the States. And you know, we're obviously once Parasite became like the global phenomenon that it was, I think it shone a light on South Korean entertainment

that hadn't really happened before that outside. In Squid Game. In Squid Game, certainly. Yeah, sure. Netflix is the one bringing all of these shows over, right? Right, and I don't think any of this is new, certainly for people in South Korea. Like, people have known, but it does feel like,

in the way that, like, when I was first introduced to anime, and then realized that there were 20 years of, like, very high quality storytelling that I just completely didn't know about. Yeah. If, if, uh, if we could move on. Yes, I'm sorry, that took a long time, but it's a very good show.

No argument here. We talked a little bit about this last week, and we did a whole episode on it for Resty's, but just to tease this, and this is mostly directed at Griffin, Fields of Mystria is fucking directed at Griffin fields of mystery. Yeah is fucking Great is it okay? It's the first game that I've played that's a Stardew Valley like that

Not only holds a candle to sorry Valley But in a lot of ways from a gameplay perspective does a lot of things much better than Stardew Valley does Okay, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's not building on a game that was developed 10 years ago, whenever Stardew Valley first launched, where they have a lot more flexibility in terms of the game structure and things like that. I don't necessarily know from a narrative or the soundtrack or whatever, artistic style might not be to be your taste, but just gameplay-wise, this is a game that will absolutely dominate your world, Griffin.

I have it downloaded. We're going on tour tomorrow, and I have it on my Steam Deck. It is a great portable Steam Deck. I think it's on, oh no, it's not. It's only on Steam Deck because it's in early access at the moment. But it is like at least 30 hours of early access gameplay, so don't be concerned.

Um, it's really dynamite. If you're looking for like a little bit more of an RPG in your farming sin, like a little bit more control over your character and how you develop your character. This game fucking rules. Also it has a jump button. So, yeah, if you want to hear more, uh, yeah, it's a, we plan and I talked about it on, uh, this upcoming episode of the resties. So stay tuned for that I will also one more game. I want to call out. We also briefly talked about on rusty is pretty cool an indie called bloodless

You basically are a samurai returning to your village. It uses like 2d pixel art The whole hook of the game is that you don't kill anyone. it's all about disarming people and having them run away in shame Which is just a really cool neat idea the combat has like a Almost like a Batman Arkham Asylum kind of combat system to it Really cool art style almost like a dot matrix printer art style to it And just like a kind of reminds me of down well. Yeah, it looks like down well Really dug it just a neat small indie game worth checking out. I think that's on steam and switch. I like down well like the secret like the sequel to down well, if it became a kill free. What about you juice? Ah, I already told you about Chimp Crazy, but Chimp Crazy is the most shocking, wild thrill ride.

This is the documentary about people raising chimps in Florida or wherever it is. Yeah, and I don't want to say anything else. I guess I have a question. A large part of the episode that I just watched was about Alan coming hunting for Tonka the the chimp Okay, I guess I'm working with him and buddy so much Oh, yeah, he devoted his life to finding him and protecting him. Absolutely. That's like five minutes of the show It's one of the wildest shows I've ever seen when I finished the second episode this show I had to stand up off my couch and scream at my TV for five seconds straight. So Sydney

We almost woke up our dang kids. That one's for free though. I already gave you that one. That one was for free. Chimp crazy. The question I have for you, Justin, and the thing that has kept me from watching this show previously is that I have concerns

because whenever anyone talks about caring for chimps, I have a memory of that story that happened to that lady with the, she had her face eaten by a chimp. Didn't go well for her. So that was get out, you're thinking, or not get out, fucking nope. Nope, but it happened in real life as well, because the chimp ate someone's face.

So... Well, Russ, are you asking me if that's a 20 minute sequence of the show? Because the answer to that question is yes. But. That is what I was asking and thank you. I will say this. You should fast forward through that part listener.

I wouldn't watch that. Sounds like a tough hang. I made Sid watch it for me and me and my friends, the Crimson Darn got a little work done. And then I went back in the room after the face was fully digested. Hmm, fantastic. That was not a happy time for that lady.

They don't keep cutting back to that story, right? It just as a reminder of why you shouldn't care for chimps. They circle, no, they tie it. It's all tied in really good. I mean, it's a good lesson. I'm not kidding you. It's one of the, if you like, it's the same people made Tiger King. If you liked Tiger King, it's the wildest show I've ever seen in my life, if you like, it's the same people who made Tiger King, if you liked Tiger King,

it's the wildest show I've ever seen in my life. But you should watch it and it's a lot. But it's a lot. And you may need to go play Star Wars Outlaws while the chimp eats the lady's face. Okay. Great endorsement. This week we talked about Star Wars Outlaws,

Chimp Crazy, Fields of Mystery, A Bloodless, Animal Crossing New Horizons, and The Influencer on Netflix. And then a bunch of other stories. I read Get Shorty, too. Oh, all right. And Justin Redd gets shorty. Elmore Leonard, right?

Yeah, man, if you ever want a nice, easy read that you're gonna like, just pick up Elmore Leonard book. There's no, just get it. Russ mentioned the Resties earlier. You can get all the Resties episodes and our monthly bracket battles over at patreon.com. Oh, which is live right now actually. We're gonna throw to a clip right now.

Here's a clip from that episode. Badoo! Dreamcast the best. Dreamcast the best you say. Wait, let me try again cause I need to say I'm more authoritative. Cause I'm trying to save us a little bit of time. It sounded like you were taking a bong rip when you said that I was trying to get my like That was my voice. I was going for

Guys, do you cast the best? I was trying to see if I can skip the episode if I could just be like dreamcast This Never be like dreamcast and then it wouldn't even be an episode I mean plant is on board for dreamcast about I was ready for it But you just walk away here. We owe the people what they want, you know, we have to at least put on the charade. I forgot. Probably a little more than just Dreamcast the best. I forgot about our wild rubric though, I don't know if it's gonna come out on top, but I

thought it would be worth flo-dream, Dreamcast the best, and then just see how it played. Griffin, do you think Dreamcast the best? Um, I don't know about the best. It makes me sad that we don't live in a world where Sega was allowed to keep fucking up in huge and expensive and spectacular ways. Because Dreamcast's not the best, but Dreamcast does have the VMU, Dreamcast does have Phantasy Star Online and Shenmue.

No, fuck it, Dreamcast's the best. What am I saying? I wish we had some patrons that we could thank by name. Oh man. I have that right now. We have Skyla, we have hoof hearted, we have Moe and we have a little nervous. Thank you all.

Thank you all so much. Thank you all so much. You're the best. Next week we're gonna talk about Astro Bot. Guys, hold on for this. I can't say anymore, but tune in for Astro Bot because I have some statements that I will have to back up and they will be strong statements to make. Oh boy. And I had a galaxy to protect so I only played Star Wars.

But now I'll play this other one. That's gonna do it for this week on the Besties. Star Wars. Alright. But now I'll play this other one. That's gonna do it for us this week on the Besties. Be sure to join us again next time for the Besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!