The Besties Best Game Bracket: 2025 Edition, Part 1

This is just great podcast for sure. I had a dream last night. I wanted to share it with you. And I wanted to kind of talk to you. Let me stop my recording. Okay, good. There's could be this stuff. No, let me stop my recording. I'm not gonna make anybody listen to a dream. Hold on, let me just, yeah. Got it. Okay, I'm deleting, go ahead. Okay, okay. So I went to sleep wondering how we would give an award for the best tea best tea. We used to give people the Golden Marcus Phoenix. I think we did that one time. We did it one time. We're actually physically doing it to anybody, right? And I don't think they actually accepted it. I think that's the other part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my understanding of the thought. And then I, we're sort of the bad boys of game podcasts. Yeah, yeah. Then I had this dream last night and I did smoke before going to bed that we would give people bronzed versions of ourselves. But in my dream, like we were kind of dipped in bronzed. It was nice. It was nice. It was not like carbonite, hot and solo kind of. And a few questions came to mind. One, how much would it hurt? Two, do you think a video game was one of the four of us they get? Oh, well, would they accept it? You know, yeah, not what also which one's more valuable? Sure. Is it ranked? Is it platinum gold silver bronze? Is that what we're, I mean, I think we could do that. I think we could do it. But do you think people would accept a gold silver bronze? That's four different colors of metal, Griffin. No, I know, but I don't want, but then who does the show? If we sort of like freezer, saying if we get away the whole, it's a wonderful thing. I mean, it's a powerful thing. We could keep doing it from our space inside the bronze, you know, you put a little good mic in there. The bronze is the bronze, the name of the, isn't the bronze the name of the night club and Buffy the vampire. That's where we'll record from now on. It's great. That'd be awesome. We record from inside the bronze. It's frequently updated, interrupted by vampire attack, but that's life. That's life in the city now, I guess. High schoolers going to a fucking warehouse, rave every fucking day straight at drave. It's the, it's, it's a great bar in town that doesn't serve alcohol. It's all, yeah, and it's frequently attacked by vampire. No, no, no, dude, I swear they have this place, right? It's a big box full of teens, no beer. Just teens, wait, no, no, yeah, and sunny day, I kid you not. I know you're thinking I don't have an ID because I'm a vampire. It is not an issue here. It's no problem. It feels like a, it feels like kind of a bait, bait club, right? Well, in a sense you are right. Yes, it is. It is in fact one mean woman who comes and kicks us in the ass a bunch sometimes. Just choose your night, well, man. Congratulations to Disar 3. God, I will fucking wish. Why name is just a macaroni and I know the best game of the year? My name is Griffin McAvoy. I know the best game of the year, I think. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the year. My name is Rose Freshwick. I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the best season, which is a video game club where we have for many, many years decided on the best game of the year and this year is no exception. It's just like every other year. We're going to be looking at all of the hot releases that came out at the end of last year or came out this year and had appropriate accessibility options. All of the hot releases of 2025 or late 2024 that are playable. Croshing it. Chris Plant, what is the game of the year? Well, the game of the year is a very special tradition where we pick the game that is the best of the year. And will it be good this time or I think this time it's going to be pretty good. You know, there's no guarantees here at the besties. That is the thing that we make sure we state at the beginning of every episode, no guarantees could be bad game guarantees. Yeah, but I'm feeling no guarantees confident that we are going to sell a lot of that new merch. Yeah, actually, it's only like 60% of the people who order it get it, but it is like part of the field that get it is good. When I said, the best game of the year I was lying, I know it less than I've ever known it. But before we get into it, let's talk about like our guiding light, our Polaris is the game awards as the game awards go so good the besties I've always said. So does anybody want to talk? Did anybody watched the game awards, the biggie? I was. I was physically half a block away from the space watching on a television. Oh, damn, they had the overflow. I mean, I didn't try to get in. It's very loud. I've mentioned this before, but it's very loud in that theater. So you didn't even want to come. You don't even care. Are you in California for this? I was in California for this. You flew to California to watch it in a nearby building. Bingo, bingo. I just the pleasure. The luxury to be that close to the jet. Did you see the polar bears as you flew over them? Did they have a single tear coming out of their eyes as you blasted the climate so you could go to a adjacent facility to Jeff? Carbon credits out the ass. I really made up for it. It's fine. The worth are really fine. Jeff, do they? Yeah. The game worth happened. I don't know. For my money, there were a couple of things that jumped out at me, but I thought it would be fun if each of us just call out one announcement or trailer that you saw that got you a little bit hyped up. Oh, wait, two. The Ace Combat 7. Oh, really? Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby. You want to get in the bandit MCO says, you know what? We're feeling real hot right now. We just keep on winning. We're going to see how far we can push it. Can we make Ace Combat a mainstream hit? Can we give it a story that people care about? And the answer is, you're damn fucking right. You can. I am so ready for Ace Combat 7. Justin, you're a big Ace Combat guy, aren't you? I like it in theory, but I haven't played a ton of it. I mean, I love that idea of taking planes too seriously. Yeah. And I've done it so seriously that you have to worry about landing gear and things like that. Yes, exactly. I don't like that kind of nonsense. I like unlimited rockets. You know what I mean? Sure. I've, hey, listen. My biggest announcement that I'm most excited about, Mike, surprised you guys. But I'm so in for game, the gang of dragon. I'm so excited to be a big boy, strutting around Japan, punching everybody in the face as hard as I can. Yeah. Get into with a bunch of other bad boys, just a big old boy running around Japan, punching other boys in the face. I love gang of dragon. I mean, I love gang of dragon. I mean, I love punching ass in this fucking trailer. There's a dude at the end of it. The initials of the game come up, but it says, G-O-D, he's like, heck, yeah, that's my big boy. Let's go punch everybody in this. My big boy gets stabbed fully with a knife. Doesn't care. Doesn't get to shit too big to be stopped. Yeah. Gang of dragon. That's not, yeah. That's not Yakuza. Notably. It's a different game. It is a, I think a director who left Ryugaga Toku in, yes, and then he got that net he's money and now can hire Don Lee to be the star of this big, big game. Yeah. Looks sick. I mean, everyone's favorite. Unproblematic faith, John, those guys, new shit coming. We're all still poor. Yeah, dude. I was really excited about that trailer. It was sick. I kept waiting for a Russian guy to come out and be like, it looks nothing like the ads. Yeah. That's cool. I would love that. That game is, what is it called? Order of the... Kings clash, mobile, fury, Kings clash, mobile fury, I think. Yeah. It's Kings clash. Yeah, zombie go, King clash. King clash puzzle melee. Is this called... It's a thousand puzzle, a thousand puzzles, ten years in the making. No one gives a shit. Order of the city. It's ten years, dude. Yeah. No one cares how long it took you to make 1,400 puzzles. It takes a while when you're living off your... For like, for water, you purify from a big barrel outside or whatever. For people that didn't see the trailer, it is a, like a Sakobon style top down block pushing game. Sort of like, Lolo, I guess. Yeah. But it's for game. It's sort of like Lolo, if Lolo took ten goddamn years to make. It may have. The screen is like split in four ways and like there's four developers making each puzzle. Yeah. Or something. I... Say it again. It's like a Sakobon game. Don't need to explain it again. I want there to be more of the games I was stoked about, which was the new coach or game and the new Divinity. Oh yeah, Divinity will take a minute. That's interesting. That's the interesting way that they have gone with Divinity. Like, we blew up, so don't worry about the numbers. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I'm stoked for those two. But when you think that coach or game is coming out, 2030, 2034, 2037. I don't really think it's going to come out anytime soon. Right. It's not going to come out, but like, it is fun to think about. They need to know that with Star Wars games, they can't just sort of reveal some eyes and a name and that Casey Hudson's up on it. I've been hurt so many times before by, here's a new Star Wars game. Here's a face of one of the characters and here's the name of a real life writer. Who is attached to the project? Ketchia Never. My chosen trailer, which was not revealed in the actual show itself. It was revealed in the pre-show. He's called the free shepherd and you're a dog, hurting sheep and it looks fucking spectacular. You're basically like an iceman or somewhere hurting sheep and that's all you do. And granted, we did play a sheep hurting game earlier this year and it left me kind of causing the best, but it didn't have a dog that you were playing as hurting the sheep. You had to be a person with a stick and I think that is a notable exception and I have very strong. They also weren't sheep. They were herdlings. Yeah. Was that what they were actually called as herdlings? That's what I thought you were the herd monsters. Anyway, it was to say. Big show. It's a small herd. You had a small herd. You had a herdling. I'm also excited for the new for loop. The game from the left or dead. Oh yeah. Also control too. Whatever that's called. Oh yeah. Lenny Kravitz is joining first light. Can't wait for that. Which, as long as we're having fun, which announcement made you guys laugh the hardest? Because Lenny Kravitz joining first light hit. I do want to offer some context actually for the Lenny Kravitz announcement. So earlier that day, is it going to make it more or less funny? More funny. Earlier that day about three hours beforehand, there was a press event. I didn't get invited to this so I can freely talk about it. It was a press event for the announcement that Lenny Kravitz was coming to Hitman. It was a press event as one of the bad guys. Or is it the bond game? He's one of the bond game. It's the bond game. Anyway, there was an announcement. And part of that announcement included Milo Jović, who also announced that she was coming to either Hitman or Bond. Cheers. And they were so serious about keeping this information locked down. Even though they made people sign in bargos, they also insisted that everyone there put stickers on the lenses of their cellular phones to ensure that the information did not get out in those three hours between them. That was how important it was. Let me get my phone all dirty. For Lenny Kravitz. Oh, you didn't have to sit there. You didn't have to sit through the longest press event ever in which they showed a total of 20 seconds of video games. And then Milo Jović talked about random non-video game. Lenny Kravitz comes out before this. He seems completely confused as to where he is. And it's a cruelest thing you could do to somebody who does not act professionally is show them acting poorly right before it with some dialogue that I will, I will never forget. Like James Bond, you are a cancer. But like any cancer, you can be stopped if caught early enough, which is why I'm going to cut you out and feed you on a platter. Take light cancer? You can make your metaphors a little bit there, but a little bit of mixing in that. You got it, you got it, you got it, you got to push back on that script. You got it. Or maybe you would have. Did he mocap for this? He's a mocap. They got apps. They got those. Yeah. Come. How many times do you think while wearing that big green suit covered in the little white balls? He had to bend over in it. He bent over and it ripped the pants of the green suit. At the image of the little guys coming off my ab guys. So long I got to fix my- Milo Jović was like, are those your abs? And Lenny dead serious is like, yes, they are. Like, I don't work this hard to be joking about my abs. Special push. I, yeah man. Every time my kryptonite is seen celebrities come out at the VGA's that don't- that were told by their agent an hour before. And then that's not what I care about the most. I care about when they try. That's what hurts. Is weird like you see David Harver up there fighting for his life. Even though you know that I'm Lily Allen is in the mind of literally every human being to the building. No Dave, tell me I'll excite you are about 40k coming to total war. Yeah dude. Yeah man. Me too dude. Hey, you know what I'm pretty excited about, David's that nobody released an album about me being a huge hukish shit. That's my goody. That's why goody's that that didn't happen to me. Jeff will catch him on the way down. Don't worry. Jeff will get him on the way down. I think it's time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good time is come. We have one actually more caveat before we go. We have a game that we're not galaxy needs racing. Oh well, yeah. I mean, the game is not going to be out of our hands. The galaxy needs, right? Hold on. Let Justin. It can be really important next year that the galaxy needs racing. I'll be reminding you guys a lot if you forget about Galactic racing. So the galaxy does need racing. And who believes that the galaxy needs racing? Uh, I guess, Symbol book and me. I mean, there you go. I guess it's just a two of us right now, but it doesn't take more than that to start a revolution. You know, the galaxy needs racing. They can release two Tomb Raider games in one week or whatever. I mean, Symbol book and start a revolution. All right. You ready for the caveat? Yeah, you've got to caveat. Yeah, it's the caveat. There's a game that we're not talking about today, but we will talk about it next year. And that game is a big prince. Oh, yeah. Right. Let's circle back to that idea because I don't feel confident. We're going to get to next year's Goody considerations and have the courage of our convictions to stand out there and be the only video game podcast on the planet that is weighing blueprint. What if Blueprints wins our 2026 game of the year? We can't say that. That would be sick as hell. It's a good, good ass game. I feel very good about that. You know what, y'all, it is really like I would like to get, I've been thinking a lot about accessibility this year. Like not just that, but like as we've been talking about the carpal tunnel stuff and like games being difficult to like play, it is a like, I don't know. You know, accessibility has always been an issue, but I feel like Blueprints really has helped me to put it in like a perspective. Like you know, and I feel like even if it's not the, like even if it's not the best way of like judging what all the games for this year, I feel really good about our decision to hold off on it because it does feel like such a notable thing. So I feel good about holding off. Yeah, just for the context of in case there's people that just listen to this episode, not the subsequent. I still can't. I mean, technically I could play Blueprints, but because it's such a color-centric game, and there's no like colorblind settings or anything like that within the game, I intentionally didn't play it because I thought it would be kind of a miserable experience for me. They are working on a colorblind setting. It wasn't in it launch, which is a drag, but they are, they've said it's going to come out sometime next year. So we've decided to punt that game. Now granted, who knows there might be 16 games that are better than Blueprints next year, which probably not. It's pretty good. I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know. Yeah, all I saw was like you walk in a house and you switch the berms around. That's all I saw. That's crazy. That's what happens. That is good. That is good context. Yes. There is certainly, certainly enough to talk about this year, even without Blueprints up in the mix. And the other caveat I want to say is this is a taste show as really all game wards are, but especially for Gaudi for Besties, which is to say there are games on here that like a lot of people considered to be their game of the year and more power to them. That's awesome. I don't think there was a single game that we, that was like universally beloved or at least critically acclaimed by a big chunk of the audience that we didn't at least try. So if there are games on here that are missing, it's because we tried it and it really didn't click with us in a way that I think would be a compelling listen. That's the Besties game of the year. There's not trying to be some objective thing. It is trying to be our game of the year based on our conversations throughout the year. So we've been in the game for a while now, guys. I think we've preamble enough, right? Yeah. Yeah. We did a whole episode of, if you find yourself upset by our choices, just listen to the episode of sort of caveats that we put out a couple of years ago. We did the caveat of Raiamau already. Here are the games that are up for the award expedition 33 dispatch, absolute Hades 2, illustrating to Ghost of Yotay, baby steps, Donkey Kong, Bonanza, Silksong, Wunderstop, Blippo Plus, Citizensleeper 2, About Indiana Jones, The Root Trees, Our Dead, Sectori. We have the competition broken up into themes and we're going to start with the very first one right now. And that is the story selection, an emphasis on story. We have Expedition 33 against dispatch. So we have one to start with. Out there. This is both of these are top fiveers for me. So to get to knock off one now is going to really stink, but that's the way it happens sometimes. The dispatch is, I think, as somebody who cares, not here's a lot, but like, I'm really interested in interactive fiction. Not in the visual novel sense, but in the interactive cinema sense, like interactive TV, that kind of thing. And I think dispatch is the most successful example of that ever. I think it's way more successful. For me, at least in terms of like, have you finished the, I'm, I finished episode seven. So I'm like pretty, you're on the finish. Yeah, I'm almost done. It's great. And like the story is, and all, not just the story and dialogue, it's not like good for video games. It's just, it's good. And I actually found myself, really digging the central mechanics. I wish, and I think that for me, I'll go ahead and like put this in as somebody who really liked Expression 332. The game parts of dispatch fail it in a way that I think should keep it from progressing beyond this as good as all the story stuff is, especially as you get late. You're playing a lot of like high stakes mini games that impact the story in a way that feels like not especially pleasurable. But yeah, that, but in terms of like storytelling and like the performances, the writing, it's all like so worth like checking out if you, if you enjoy that kind of storytelling at all. If you like stuff like the boys, invincible, you know, whatever, I think that you're really going to dig. But for me, it is what it does different from those two examples from the boys and invincible of being less. It's so weird because I feel like it with superhero fiction, you are, you are sort of gauging whether or not it is a cynical take on that universe or a straightforward take on that universe. And this somehow kind of sidesteps it where like the superhero business is not told in this like grandiose kind of style as much as it is a workplace kind of comedy drama with characters that it kind of like focuses more on rather than their, their play. I may have failed it a little bit by not just saying up front. It is a game about a guy whose dad was a superhero, come an Iron Man equivalent with a robotic suit. The suits damaged in a way that this guy can't be a hero anymore, but he's brought in to run a dispatch. And that's basically the company he works for is sort of like superhero insurance. You pay and superheroes will come and help with problems that you have. And your job as the player, since you don't have superpowers anymore, is to assign what heroes will go to which emergency. And because you are a new, new employee there, you are stuck with the Z team, which is a bunch of former super villains that are trying to make it as superheroes. So you have like sort of the worst of the worst. And it's sort of, I mean beyond that, it's kind of like bad news bears, you know, like the years. Yeah, mighty ducks. Yeah, exactly. It's that and it is a lot more, I think even though it's like edgy for whatever that's worth is a lot more humanist and positive than things. It felt to me like a, even a Mike sure thing like in that spirit of parts. Yeah. Yeah. Not quite to that like coziness, but yeah, definitely that's the vibe that it enemies to friends for sure. Yeah. One of, I will say probably the funniest game of the year. There's a lot of moments in this. If you're not counting the death spank really, really released in yes. Yes. Sorry. No, I wasn't counting the death spank release. I think that's cheating because like they already busted me up once. It's not fair for the bacon. I love it. I love it. Sorry. I got to mute. So five has a unextended bar fight sequence that is I think maybe pound for pound the funniest kind of like 10 minutes of video game that's maybe ever been made. It's just like non stop banger after banger after banger joke and I'm wild about this patch. Should I lead the charge on expedition 33 here? Probably good. I think you said I love you. So X-Vision 33 is a French heavily JRPG inspired role playing game that is about a team of expeditioners in a sort of fucked up weird kind of post apocalyptic world. You start out in Paris basically. Lumiere. It's called. And every year in this world, people of a certain age, when they reach that max age, they vanish into rose petals effectively dying. And when the game begins, you start with one of these ceremonies and you lose someone very, very close to you as does a lot of other people. And then the clock winds down. And now it's 33 is the max age. You are one of the expedition 33 team members and together with a crew. To go out, you try to defeat the panchress who has inflicted this curse on the world. And pretty much right away shit goes, shit goes haywire. And then it's up to you to lead a very doomed expedition in more ways than one. It is a game about death and grief and loss. But it does those things with so much heart and so much style. And with kind of just a unique tone and unique design and some really truly tight RPG mechanics, there's a lot of emphasis on reflex based inputs in your turn based combat to Perry and dodge attacks, which becomes extremely vital. Really cool customization options. You're like unlocking these permanent little power ups that you're assigning to your characters and great writing, great acting, just kind of fucking. There's a reason it swept the TGA's good call, Chris Plant, by the way, with that prediction. Because I think it is just a I think it is a triumph from a very, very small team. You rarely get games of this scale and polish that kind of come out of nowhere from a non sort of AAA studio. It's also an RPG that grabs you immediately, which I think. Yeah. JRPG, Western RPG, wherever you want to call them. That's a hard thing and a rare thing wherever and to have one that just from the drop is like, here is this compelling high stakes issue and your any action is really awesome. Yeah. I'm going to be thinking about the game for a long time. I think it does some, it does some stuff with its story in the third act that I think has been kind of divisive. And I'm not going to get into spoilers or anything here, but it very much reframes the entire story that you have been watching and sort of makes you think differently about all the characters that you've been spending so much time with. Although I have a few times, I think, misrepresented the game as being sort of JRPG length. It is actually a bit more digestible than that. I think you can really cruise through it in like 30 hours, which is obviously still a long time, but for a game of this genre, quite slight. I went much longer than that because I wanted to do all of the stuff because it really, really deeply hooked me. I found the story stuff interesting. I like when games take big swings and this one takes some pretty fucking big ones. Yep. And yeah, I'm not sure how much time you guys spent with it. So I'm not sure how deep the river of affection flows. I played about, I don't know, around 15 hours. And then I did the old like switch to watching the playthrough. Yeah. What happened to me was role playing games when I just want the story. And I probably regret that decision. Why you regret it? And I don't regret it. And that the gameplay seemed like it was getting more and more repetitive. I think I would have gotten very frustrated. Also the ending didn't click for me. Fresh eyes are hoops. I see you, you, you, you're throwing, throwing. Well, I mean, I've played a lot of it. And I just feel like I, I, I, I understand why we have to have these discussions, but like guessing how you would have felt had you continued to play the game. I don't feel like it's a metric that we need to consider, right? It's already feels a little weird to like, I got out of the story and it didn't really click for me like, I don't feel like that really. I also, that doesn't feel that substantive as a point to break. I guess what I would say is I had a feeling where it was going and I did not think I would like where it was going. And then I found out where it was going and I was very glad that I did not commit the rest of my time to it. It's a lot of time. I'll speak for myself and say, as Pant said earlier, immediately grabbed, super compelled by the story, the setting, the characters like really well performed great voice acting, things like that. I liked the gameplay initially, like the combat sequences. I liked the active combat stuff and the way that I like Mario, Paper Mario games, things like that. Right. Right. I felt myself getting drowned by the systems. There are so many systems going on where you're unlocking, met whatever the fuck they're called, medals that then permanently unlock and then you can catch those to people and then those people can unlock other metal. It was, I was drowning in it, which again would be fine. But the other issue I was running into is because I only had like, let's say 30 minutes to like dive into a game and the lack of like a map when you're in a lot of areas, I would get lost. Right. And so I'd spend my 15 minute, half of my time trying to figure out where to go next. I think it would probably be a much more fluid experience if I could sit down and like play for three to four hours straight. But I would say like the combat wasn't grabbing me in the way that that initial story beat grabbed me. And that's why I got to a point after about 10 or 12 hours where I was like, this isn't necessarily that compelling to me. I am interested to see where the story goes, but the gameplay isn't pulling me through. So at that point, I really just like watched an explanation of what happens in the story. I don't think I would have made it to the point of playing it. I played more realistically. I definitely bounced off around the point you're talking about and took a good long break from from expedition 33. I think when I realize that like with enough adeptness at the like reflex based stuff that the game throws at you, you can kind of sneak ahead of where you should be and get some stuff that is like too powerful for you to logically have at that point in the story. And I really fucking like when games. Yeah. And then that does is every main character that you unlock for your party has kind of a different mechanic that it sort of changes the way that combat works for them. Like there's one who has a perfection system so that the longer they go without taking damage, the stronger their attacks get. One of them can steal the steal the feet and legs of the enemies that they defeat to then transform into those enemies, giving them sort of a blue mage style vibe going for them. So guys, can I talk to Chris and Russ over here? That's not a character in the game. Griffin has been talking about the guy that steals the feet. I love this. He's starting to learn and like that's not part of it. That's a man. Griffin, if you could give me one second. Sorry, sorry, sorry. There's nobody in it that steals your feet. Keep saying that. Like he smells. And the thing is his magic power. He says, he says, I need the modesty. Yeah, he says he puts it in his stinky cheese and that's like offensive to French people. Yeah. He's insisting there's a guy that steals feet. Wait, wait, wait, I'm gonna get you. Okay, so that character's not there. But what about the one that steals my nose? David Cage? That's not. Yeah, David Cage is in it. There's a fully rendered David Cage. He's in the lower. I put the stink of the. I want to give major props to how this game has changed the face of sort of cosplay norms at conventions because God damn guys, anyone that you go to now, you are just going to see roving packs of mimes out for a picnic is what it looks like most of the time. Right. And I do love that. I want to go back to that. I'm sure there are people just like you who are like you didn't play the end of the game. Your opinion isn't about. I want to say one, all the games are rejecting it here. I didn't say it. No, I don't think that's going to happen. No, it's okay. I won't put those words into your mouth. I think that's a fair thing for people who are listening to feel. I want to say is all the games here are good. The trouble I had with this game is not whether or not it's good. The music just absolutely rocks. The writing is all there. I have consumed so many stories about what is grief and then I've also consumed so many stories about what is art and I don't like Mario RPG. And there's a lot. Yeah, this is not going to be bad. Made it so that I am just not the ideal candidate for this game. It doesn't mean any of those things are bad decisions. It means I found myself about halfway through being like, uh oh, this is playing to all my weaknesses. And I felt validated. Yeah. You know what's hard is not hard, but this is just a contextual point. And I feel like this is a lot of this year. I bounced off to scratch so hard at the beginning. It was like almost instantly. But fresh said about a dragon's layer. That's exactly how it felt, but worse like because it felt like I wasn't having any impact on it. It was like the most boring quick time events ever. It really, it really was a, it felt like a slog and it wasn't till I did this with with Expedition 33 too though. It wasn't until I returned to it and kind of met it on its own level, like met it where it was at, like that I really started to get into it. And that's kind of shared trade between both of these. I think it was a part of it for me of that, like dispatch. It was, I thought it was one thing. I thought it was the boys. And then as I got through more of it and the pilot, which I do not think does it a lot of service. And I found that more cozy hang out with your office workers vibe that it really sang. And the more I, the more I played slash watched the more it grew on me. I mean, to boil this down, I'll speak for myself. And you know, I played a lot of both of these games. Dispatch is the one that was like, we'll leave a longer mark for me. I want more of dispatch, whereas I stopped halfway through Expedition 33 because I wasn't super enjoying myself. So that's really, that's just a personal preference thing that I'm at. That's what all these are going to be. Yeah. We've tried to get facts more as a part of this, but it just can't really do it. It doesn't work. So I will defer to you guys and where your heads are at. It's, it's honestly close for me. I really fell in love with dispatch. I really, really, it hooked me in a major way. And there's also a recent thing that is truly tough to weigh because I beat Expedition 33 back in like April or something. And I finished dispatch over like a breathless four day period a couple of weeks ago. So it's still kind of a super fresh in my mind. I think they both do a really great job telling a really great story with mechanics that are really strong for the genre that they represent. I think I would give it to Expedition 33 personally just in terms of like scale of achievement, scale of like ambition a little bit. But it is, it's not a blowout in my mind. Yeah, I really like dispatch a lot. And Expedition 33, you know, both of these have some pretty big astros, astri. Next to them, I guess. I would go with Expedition 33 just because there are so many, I really love the time I spend with dispatch. I find Expedition 33 like hard to shake. And it's hard to shake in a way that like all the things I want video games to do, like look different and make you feel like you're exploring a different place and like do things that other video games are not doing. I feel like Expedition 33, it just like tries to buck convention so hard that it makes it really engaging. And I find it like the aesthetics and the music and everything it really sticks with me. But I would go Expedition 33 for that. It seems like we have a split here. I would actually probably go Expedition 33. I'm not in love with either of these games, but I think I appreciate Expedition 33 more. I guess like dispatch was a solid like, yeah, there was a nice time for me. And in the end, I loved it happy. Expedition 33, I was really wowed by the first 10 or so hours. And then no one leaves that fucking game happy. I guarantee you that no one leaves expo 33 like, no, whistling it. Jolly tune. I think the net, I want to go on a limb here and say the next dispatch thing, whatever happens, next with that is going to be really big. I think the game parts will be fleshed out. I think that the cast will be more, I think it's going to be really, really successful. Because I think the people who really, and Expedition 33 probably too, right? It'll probably be a grip before we see Expedition 32. But which I assume the sequel will be by the way guys. This might have helped you guys with Expedition 33. The numbers are going down. If you're someone like me, that would be so confusing for 12 to 15 hours. If you couldn't understand why all the numbers of the other expeditions that you get find were higher. But then once you figure out that the number is going down, a lot of the story makes worse. Yeah, that does check out. I do want to mention that one of the expeditions just was super strong guys. I was going to say the next game should be Expedition 60, which was the, where they got so strong that they like punched through this invisible, invincible barrier and they were all shirtless the whole time. I wouldn't do Expedition 5 Expedition babies. You know what I mean? It's just five. We're going to get it this time. Let's go get the juice boxes. Okay. Congrats to Expedition 33. Dispatch. You're going to spoil it. The next one, honestly guys, is the one I'm dreading. I think the most. I don't worry. It's not going to be bad. Next up, we've got action. Absolute versus Hades 2. Just action. These games have action. They're the only two action games of the whole game. Finally, games of action. I'll start with the Absalom unless Russ or Chris. I can do. Yeah, you go, go, go. It's a surprise game from the developers of some of the best beat them up that have come out in recent memory. I'm blanking on the name of the studio at this exact moment. It's like a dream. Quantic dream. I really got it. That man lives in your head. It's not free. I think about David Cage eight times a day. It's always during this show. That's what the hard thing is. It was a Dottimo and Guard Crush games. Super moments. Super mugs, yes. Guard Crush game is made Streets of Rage 4. Just like a lot of really great lineage in this genre. Really kind of the the inheritors of this genre, I would say. Doing something completely new in a new world. A beat them up fantasy game that does feature a lot of Hades-esque road-like elements. You have your character. Each run you go through a world where you're making sort of like branching paths to go to different levels, leveling them up, earning unlocks that give you permanent upgrades. Each run you are getting these aspects that add certain special things to your beat them up, light and heavy attack, special attack skill set. For instance, there is a water type aspect where you can trap enemies in little bubbles and knock them backwards and deal more damage as they fly backwards to the air. There is a like thorns aspect where you are creating these daggers that you can throw whenever you do certain moves. There are lots of different ways that your character is going to be different every time you play the game depending on the choices that you make. I think that stuff is very, very cool and I know has been somewhat divisive. Behind all of that stuff, I find the beat them up gameplay of absolute, probably my favorite. Probably my favorite beat them up gameplay. I think it is the most fun, tightest beat them up game that has ever been made. I have had so much fun playing that game. Even though it only goes to two players, which is I think slight compared to, I've been playing a lot of castle crashes, the Henry that one goes up to four. I think that the shit that you can do in this game, the combos you do is so fucking slick. I think it is the best co-op game I played all year like Bar none. Yeah, the progression hooks are really great. You really, really feel every run like, oh, okay, I got this stuff that is going to add new aspects to the game next time I play or new special skills for my favorite character. I think it is a bit, it feels a bit first drafty to me by which I mean like more than any other game this year. This is the one I'm excited for this equal to where we can get more than, I think there's four characters in there and I feel like I've seen kind of the tricks that they have compared to the other game that is up for content right now. I spent way more fucking time with Hades too, but the time I spent with Absalom Man, I really, really, really enjoyed also a game that I could play with Henry a lot and that's always like, you know, good, good, good stuff for me. Fucking frog wizard in this game for Christ's sake. He's my least favorite of the characters. No, fucker, no, there's no frog wizard. Okay, okay, that's cool. I like the one who looks a lot like Taco from the task graphic novels. There's so much fucking wild stuff that you can do with her. But yeah, Absalom, I, I, I, I, I want everyone to play this game mostly because I want there to be a, a sequel and soon, but also because like I think if you even have a passing interest in beat them up games, this is the best one that's ever come out. Agreed. Um, you want me to do Hades too? Yeah. Hades too is the sequel to Hades. Uh, it's the same studio that worked on both. Excellent start. Thank you. The two that worked on both games, the notable, chronic dream, notable. We can't keep talking about chronic dream. They haven't made it get 100 years. Are they going right now? I know, but I'm sure it has been a tough issue. Tell us about the character in Hades two that'll steer your toes. Okay, be serious. You're a, uh, Millinoway, who's a witch raised in this, uh, K oven, basically a member of the family of Hades that, and all of the other family members that basically vanished and, uh, been kidnapped or whatever. And it seems that Kronos, the Titan of time, uh, is the new big bad that, uh, is keeping all of your family members locked up and you got to go chase them down. Uh, I love this game. Uh, I know Griffin played quite a bit of it. Um, as well, did you finish it, Griffin? This is the thing I never finished hate. I didn't finish Hades one, but you got to end of a loop. I didn't finish Hades two. I beat Hades to about 15 times, which was insufficient for Hades to give me the goods. I think the, this to me is a thing when you say beat Hades, do you mean see the real ending of there's a credits? There's like a, I know, listen, I know I'm asking. Yes. Yeah. To see that I don't think it's necessary for what it's worth. I think you can have an experience that feels cumulative at the end of, uh, you know, 20 hours, maybe 25 hours. You'll see most of the content. Although if you stop playing Hades after 25 hours, my hat is off to you. My friend, you have power. You're strong in the mind. Um, I think for me, this game feels like a, I don't mean this is derision, but it does not feel like a full sequel to me. It doesn't feel like a full reimagining of the Hades model. It feels like we were building on the incredibly strong foundation that was set in the first game. I think it's better than the first game. I know there's some objection to that across the board. Some people feel like the first game is better. I think this better game is better. Um, I don't think the narrative is better, but that's not there here and there. I think artistically and in terms of the gameplay, I find this a little more compelling. But I think the challenge is I keep running into with Hades is that it doesn't feel special to me in the way that the original Hades felt special. It felt like new territory. And honestly, we probably, as people that have to play a lot of games might give too much credit to games that are doing something brand new, but quite honestly like that's who we are because we have to play a lot of games. So when there's something that stands out and is doing something really special, we kind of give it its flowers as the children say. So you thought a long journey with this game? So I really want to hear about thoughts on it. There was a time when I was doing updates. Remember I was doing like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's about as recurring as a bit to get here on bed. Yeah, right. Yeah, I, you know, it, I have returned to it past a couple weeks as I've been trying to like freshen up everything in my mind. It's great, but I did have a very long journey with this game where I started playing it when we first got access and I played a lot and each time there was an update, I would like go back in and play more. And I am somehow, I'm, to some extent, a victim of that because it's harder to remember like what's new and what's not new and what, you know, what I was working on and the meta becomes almost impossible to keep tabs on like I'm not going to go in there mess with my arcana anymore. I've got a 30 out of 30 bill that I'm just going to leave forever. So I don't know if I'm going to spend the, the amount of time. I honestly, you hit on the, the head, Russ, I think the biggest problem with Hades 2 is that Hades 1 is a fucking amazing video game that everybody I know has spent about a trillion hours with and it's like it to, like to even do more with Hades 2, like it, it's like they nailed it so hard with Hades 1 that I don't know what a Hades 2 would, would feel like that would feel like a, you know, worthy successor to that. Like I just don't know that there's as much room there for, because to grow because Hades 1 was so good. So loom feels to me closer to a sequel that I would expect from Super Giant Games than Hades 2. And by that, I mean they have until this point never done a traditional sequel and they've always built on whatever they learned from the previous game and then moving into a different genre and doing something that will surprise you. And I think Absalom is very much borrowing from Hades the way it is avoiding the repetition of the beat them up genre by incorporating these little story changes that hit you at the various branches of your, yeah, so smart journey throughout it, right? And similar with how it has incorporated Hades style in rogue-like growth, character progression over the course of a mission, where Hades 2, I went back and played it this week and again, this is the thing you say about a fantastic game. I was more scared of how much time I was going to sink into a thing that I was enjoying like well enough. There's nothing about it that is like, wow, I love this. And at the same time, there's nothing really wrong with it and I want to keep playing it, which is great for most people who want to play video games and not great for making a bracket that, yes, as we do, tends to favor something new and surprising and interesting and challenging. I adore Hades 2. I spent a fucking lot of time with it and I think more than maybe the rest of you, it sounds like I think it is a real accomplishment to make a sequel to Hades and have it be like as rock solid as this is. I think it does enough stuff new from Hades where I've spent more time beaten quote unquote, this game more than I beat Hades. I've had way more runs and I've gotten way more into the progression hooks which are really, I think rock solid, really strong. It's a tuning thing for me where I hit a wall after beating both routes of the game, a half dozen times each where I felt like I was having runs where I was spending a half hour and then didn't really get anything to show for it. When I am playing a game that is so progression hooky as this, once that starts to happen, it's way, way, way off for me. I feel like I wanted it to move a little bit, be a little bit more generous, I guess I suppose with the progress. But yeah, for me, it's absolute in this category for the reasons Chris outlined. It's just so new and so exciting. The world is so weird and cool and the characters are great. Yeah, I just think absolute is boring. When you play it, it's boring. Every run with Hades 2, your new strategies, new ways these things build on each other and you go into Absalom, you're pounding on the attack button and you do the special and there's regular beat them up stuff. You can grab and there's some, they've introduced some like clash mechanics and stuff. But when I would finish a run in Absalom, I would think, alright, I'm good. Because first start is the upgrades that you get after a run don't change the things that you're doing that much. They don't change the feeling. You get a different like ultimate power that you can unlock. A lot of it is your unlocking choices rather than like upgrades to your power where you feel considerably more powerful. And for me, like the runs just felt so samey that when I finished one, it was like really a struggle to get myself to do another one just because I had no appetite to get back in and do it again just because the gameplay is so repetitive. I didn't get a repetitive sense necessarily, but I did get a sense that I think the game is designed specifically with Co-op and mine and I think that's when it shines. The brightest because it ends up moving a lot faster than you would have an experience playing solo. You do unlock a currency at a certain point that gives you pretty flat upgrades to the like aspects where it's like this one is now stronger or the really smart thing that it does is you unlock synergies between the different paths that are unique. So it'll be like, okay, now every time you hit someone and you cap, you know, trapping one of these bubbles, it is also going to, you know, set the ground on fire where they land, which will then activate this synergy. It does some of that stuff, but it does, that does get back to my core sort of thing with Absalom, which is like, I wish there was more of that progression stuff. I wish there were more choices. I wish there were more characters. I wish there were more levels. And the thing that stood out for me for Absalom wasn't necessarily the gameplay, which I found super fun, but like whatever I played beat him up so far, this is definitely a very good one of those. The thing that stood out for me was the constant level of surprise that I was having on runs where you would run into an NPC and they'd be like, yo, we're, we're doing a heist of this castle over here. And suddenly you're in a totally different fucking environment that you haven't been in before doing some like side mission. And I don't, you don't really get those surprises from much of Hades too. Like you'll do runs, you'll go to familiar places, the surprises will come in like dialogue that you'll get like fun dialogue from the NPCs you meet. And occasionally you'll do, you'll get like teleported to like Hades or whatever, but largely like you're doing the same runs a lot. And I do agree with Justin that there's more variety and they'll like way you can set up your build. But for me, I found a build that worked. I figured out which cards were best, most synergistic with that build. And every single time I did a run, I used those cards for that synergy. So it did end up feeling very samey in the end as well. In Hades for Hades, yeah. Yeah, but the builds you are doing in every run of Hades are completely different. I mean, like you are building completely different skill sets that are changing the way that you play. And that's just like, that's- Only if you're willing to change weapons, which I like I felt comfortable with. No, no, because the boons are completely different. The boons will change your play style. You don't have to be sorry to get prudantic. But if you pick specific treasures that guarantee a certain boon that you know is ideal for your weapon, I was picking the same boons basically every single run. So I will agree with Russ that if you pick the exact same options every single time, there will be some repetitive nature to your game. Russ, you know what? I'm sorry, Russ, you're right. Thanks. I'm just saying there is a certain weapon that there's like an ideal, more productive way to get through the level. It's not a hot dude. I understand wanting to win an argument, but like in terms of gameplay variety, it sounds silly. Like Hades is completely different every single time. I agree that he would choose a different what I agree with you that Hades too has more variety. I agree. Let's do a vote. Let us do a vote on this one. Absolute versus Hades too. Whoops, where are you at on this? It's obviously Hades too guys. Please do not let your innovation bias ruin this for you. Absolute for me with a bullet. Interesting. Me too. Wow, I'm absolute. I'm sorry, whoops. I mean, guys, it's fine. It's gonna happen. Everyone's being either going to die. Every wrap. Match up. I guarantee it. Next. Next up, we have PlayStation worlds. We have Death Stranding 2 versus Ghost of Yote. Who wants to kick out? That's a good, that's a weirdly good pair. Yeah. Where they fit in the lineage of their own franchise, it makes a lot of sense. Who wants to take Ghost of Yote to kick it off? That seems like a Justin. You want to do it? Ghost, I really like the predecessor to this game. Ghost of Shima. It didn't like it enough to stick with it. Ghost of Yote, I feel like it would be easy to say, especially I feel like Open World Japan in this era we've been really inundated with. I think it'd be easy to kind of ride this game off. I think it is so aware of how hard it needs to fight to be worth your attention. I really did that Ghost of Shishima, it's an Open World revenge story where you start running. You start knowing what you need to do. You know the list. You have a list of people that you're going to kill because of what they did to your family. The character that is played by Erica, she did a really amazing job. Nominated, Viggy nominated performance. She feels like a real angry person that is really focused on this one thing. There's a lot of characters that have revenge stories in video games that you don't buy. I really buy it with her. You root for her and the way she is going after the revenge. It feels very plausible. It draws you in right away. It is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful to look at. With many games that I don't know if everybody is back, but I think they are still very clever. Like the sucker punch is doing. They're funky. They're funky game, the controller stuff. I dig that kind of nonsense. But yeah, it's just like it's a very generous sort of game. I feel like they're giving you a lot to look at and experience. A lot of the story beats are very cool. They do really not just the gimmicky stuff, but I love this one thing they do where you're learning a weapon and to practice using the weapon, you have to do this complicated button combo that is sequenced. It reminds me of a classic dreams game specifically. Yeah. It's a very quonic dream for a moment. Thank you, Russ. As the montage continues, the button sequence that you have to do to perform the cut gets easier. So like you are physically getting better at the button presses and your character is getting better, but it is like it's using mechanics to tell a story in a really, really smart way. The whole game is sort of the initial combo is awkward. So yeah, it feels uncomfortable. It feels uncomfortable. It just feels uncomfortable. Yeah. I think the big thing in this game, the same thing with the use of the type of game. It's a touch pad where it really wants you to feel tactile the game when you're writing the con or congear, whatever. I think it's cool too. I think that's who's my favorite character of a game this year. I think the way that the world sort of reacts to her as this instrument of engines is really interesting while also she is so at times like outmatched by the people she's hunting. She is not this like everyone thinks of her as this invincible spirit of vengeance incarnate. And yet she gets her ass like kicked a lot like it is a there is a human vulnerability. She reminds me of the bride. A little bit. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. It's like her super power is like the relentless like the the the sea suit, you know, that her unwillingness to die. I feel like it's her super power. Sort of it. It's funny because we'll talk about him more later, but I got more of an Indiana Jones thing where it's like you are you are plucky and you are going to keep fucking fighting, but you are not invincible. And I do really, really enjoy that. Yeah. I mean, similar to the kill bill thing, they did the work and ghosts of sashima took inspiration from Japanese action cinema and it had like Kurosawa mode and that one and it has it here again too. And I think this story of revenge, it really feels like they went back and watched all of the great films from the 50s through the 80s. Yeah. They get that the appeal is not just as you said hoops that this is a, you know, basically a superhero, but these characters are usually just normal people who have to buy the grit of their fingernails. Make this work to get their revenge. And I think it gets that I also just want to go back to one other thing you said hoops about it knowing that it had to distinguish itself for better or worse, depending on what you want from this sort of game. But we've played these open world games so much that we are refining refining refining refining the gem until we get the tightest shine. And that is what this game is. There is a bit of diminishing returns for open world games, but holy moly have they really refined every little detail down to simple things like when you need to kind of travel back in time to learn stories, you hold down the touchpad and you just zip right to it. It doesn't have a loading thing that creates this barrier to make it, you know, instantly less enjoyable. It every little detail is there. And it's almost all optional to that stuff. Like it is, you are investing in this character with your time and you will want to do it, which is. So we can compare these two. Sure. Death Stranding 2 is equal to Death Stranding. I'm not going to fucking try to summarize the story line. I think the gist you can get from it is this is a very new, well, Death Stranding 1 was a very new approach to an open world game where you are sort of crafting the open world in such a way that it makes it easier to traverse. And in turn, as you are connecting new areas of the map, you will see other players' creations within your world. Death Stranding 2 basically smooths out a lot of the very rough edges of the first game, kind of leaned on. The first game would frequently be awkward and overwhelming and didn't make a lot of sense and player hostile. And I think this game goes through those periods, but really only very early on. When you said, sorry Russ, when you said player hostile, I was reminded of how much time you spent playing the first Death Stranding. I actually really liked it. I know, I know, but it's like, and there's something deep in the psych. It was really mean to me. But I still like David. It was super hostile, definitely, when I could admit it. And I'm like, when I think this game actually leans on that a lot. And even the sequel leans on that a lot specifically. So you'll be in this environment where let's say you're climbing this giant snowy, perilous mountain, and you've got basically very few tools and you're trying to log this giant weight up. And you eventually make it to the top of the mountain and you connect the area. And then suddenly you can set up two zip lines from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain. And the thing that you struggled with and like suffered through for those 30 minutes now takes 30 seconds. And that fucking loop only gets bigger and more expansive as this game goes along. It's constant. And it's constant in a way that made me finally like, I hate a destiny. I think that the stuff it throws at you to make your life easier is 100 times more generous and more enjoyable than destiny. And one so much so that like I was running back packages that I found so I could finish up, you know, leveling up this one connection so that I could get, you know, whatever this upgrade to my try cruiser is. And it gives you that stuff so fast. I kept playing it. I had reached, I didn't finish it because for both of these games, I simply don't play my PS5 that much. If these were on Steam Deck or Steam, I would be cranking through for sure. But I got to the monorail system that you can unlock in a game and that felt like, oh, okay, they really want you to enjoy playing this game. And that's great because I really enjoy the insane story stuff that it does at every turn. It feels like a lot of games say this. The Death Stranding 2 really does feel like you can play it, how you want to play it. It is like the first game is like we have a very specific kind of idea for how this which should be. And what's interesting for me about Death Stranding 2 is by giving you more weapons and more, and like making it a little, some of these decisions a little bit easier and less punishable. And you can actually shoot people without them exploding, which was a thing without them exploding, which is such a treat. They do that. I found myself deciding to do things in an annoying way because it seemed fun. Right. I know I could get the tricruiser and just run over there. But it looks like it would be, I think it would be kind of fun to take two ropes with me and like a ladder and just fucking go do it myself. And the sensation of setting out with like looking at a map and saying like, I got two big gaps I got to think about. And packing that stuff, there's nothing in video games like nothing. The sense of preparation and setting out on an adventure and like really knowing the things that you have in your bag and like having a tangible sense of what that is. And not being constantly fucking interrupted by invisible monsters that will kill you and ruin your fun time. Yes, exactly. Right. You can go have your fun. It's so different. All that shit I chalked up to, well that's just Kojima's like vision in the first game. I was like, well, I don't like that vision sucks. I don't like it very much. The extent to which that stuff has been trimmed back here is I think shows fucking tremendous growth from Hideo Kojima, which is not taking another game and someone else came in. We can fix that now. We can fix that now. Quick quick quick quick. It's either either he let someone else work on it or he experienced his own hallmark Christmas movie where he finally found love in his heart. Right. He didn't know it doesn't have to be like this. You know what I mean? Like you can be caught. Like you can still find joy. You know what I mean? You're the guy who let people fight with the sun. Remember? Remember Bogdaw, you please. Let's let's let's I feel like for me it's nesting to just because it's it is for me as well. I think it's a lot more to say about it, but I'll say that for the next round. Yeah, I think we're this is just part one. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, like if you if you like it, you'll love it. That's what I say about. That's it. And it'll grow on you the more you play it. It is a good game just to have in the background throughout all next year. It's also one that I find myself returning to this and that stranding actually I will like return to for a few hours and just like experience the world again because it's killer. Yeah. Next up we are reimagining the platformer with baby. For crazy smash the plant and Donkey Kong Bonanza. No good. Justin, you say it's the crazy smash trap, but both characters are barefoot. So it is worth. That's a great point, man. Maybe that's a good shot. I even bet it for you. It was like I just hope my game is better than Donkey Kong, but it's my main comment in it. Is that it sounds it's a better video? It sounds it's a more successful video game than that. I'll do baby steps if you want. Yeah, please. Baby steps, you play as a rest of development man who is living in his parents' basement vice funky and gets teleported to a magical other land where all he has is his onesie that he is wearing and his feet and you control the feet individually, you control each leg individually as you move through this world, which is an open world environment that is filled with perilous climbs that you must take using this very interesting mechanic. The reason for me that it stands out, it is one of easily one of my favorite games of the year, is the intentionality that you're taking in every single thing you do is incredibly satisfying to me. I think desk stranding does this with tools and with gear upgrades and transforming the map itself. Baby steps, your every little one second or five second loop is you making a choice of where you're going to put each footstep and making a choice if I'm going to go fast or slow and I'm going to take this risky path versus not and I found it endlessly compelling and super genuinely fun in ways that I've never found a Bennett Foddy game fun before. I find them torturous generally and this was just incredibly satisfying to me. It crystallizes a moment from getting over it in a way that is able to distribute much more frequently, which is in getting over it, which was the game you're making on a call train using a hammer to push yourself along. You would be going along and then you would hit something where it's like, there's no fucking way they want me to plant my hammer on that balloon and do a single jump. This game will throw stuff at you where you'll be walking around a desert area for a while and then see a empty swimming pool and you think like, if I go in there, I am not going to be able to get out. So I really want to know what the fuck the game's going to ensure enough that you go in that swimming pool. It rewards it with some truly hysterical interactions with the characters of the world. I get playing this game because Russ was such a staunch supporter of it and I really wanted to see what the emotional payload of the game was because it seemed so silly and I did get to a point that kind of took my breath away a little bit. I have not finished the game but the way it kind of explores, I don't know, self-loving and isolation and how loneliness makes you so self-reliant to a fault is like, I've never played a game that wanted to really talk about that before and I think it's easy to write it off as like slapstick. There's a lot of talking about how bad you have to piss and there's a lot of donkey dicks, holy shit. The part I reached yesterday was just like, I can't believe how many dicks are my computer is rendering on my screen at one point. But I mean it punches above its weight class I think constantly and really was very, very surprising. I think I'm going to keep playing it and finish it which I've never done with a faulty game before either. It, in desk straining on top of both things, games about walking or games about accepting help. In desk straining I think is very much like the new deal, like how do we all work together collectively. It results in these kind of messy interlinking highways that maybe don't look great but they make it so much easier to get around. Baby steps is bonkers because it is a game about our unwillingness to accept help. Root keenly it is telling you there is an easier path and yet you can challenge yourself to the point that there is an option at the end of stairs versus the hardest imaginable path towards the end. And so many people online are like bragging about taking the harder path which is its own weird meta commentary of a performance of toughness of strength. And I think what's good about the game is it doesn't say that's inherently bad. It is routinely actually giving you options intentionally to make it harder because saying well maybe what you take from it is that it's fun. Maybe you do want to step into this swimming pool. Maybe you do want to dive off the diving board knowing that it's going to throw you to the bottom of the mountain. But it is also kind of constantly reminding you hey maybe you should take this energy outside. Maybe you should turn the game off for a while. If you like the challenge in the game maybe maybe take a little bit of that out into the real world. It is but like it is man. I can't think of too many other video games where I legitimately can say that they are open to interpretation. And I don't mean in like an in narrative sense right like I think that there are multiple valid reads on baby steps right like I hated playing baby steps. Like when I by myself when I would get through a section and be making really good progress and I take one misstep and I hit the mudslide and I'd slide all the way down a hill and be back where I started 20 minutes ago. It's like personally that made me feel like shit and I was like fuck this dude. I'm turning it off. That's like a valid I like that's actually you know what I'm saying like that's a valid baby steps experience which I feel like pretty confident saying because I also play with my brothers and had like a really fun time and we played for a long time and I feel like we had a very valid experience with baby steps right I cannot think of it because at first it kind of pissed me off because I was like you know if you don't want me to be playing video games so much then why are you making a video game but that is does feel like the point and that's like a little bit that's fucking cool man. I like that a lot that's that's something else that's pretty brave I think to to put something out there like that that really is like a lot of games are art and I think baby steps actually might be so bold. Yeah I also love how it kind of fits into Bennett Foddy's sort of canon because it is commenting a lot on Bennett Foddy games because all of that is so intrinsic to it. I don't mean to keep the ball rolling but we've been talking a lot about donkey dogs. Can we talk about what about hams? I mean kudos also to Nintendo for making a game that is pretty much a new kind of platformer I don't know that I've ever played one where you can smash the whole fucking world if that is if that is what you choose. I will I will start by saying that I played it wrong at first it has a co-op mode that is intoxicating to play with the child where you can just become a bazooka a little girl bazooka that can sing at mountain faces and crumble them before her will I play a lot of the game like that and had a great time and also did not get why people were so fucking wild about it. You like actually turned on no clip like as you started playing you're like yeah exactly that's a hubbub. But going back and playing it a little bit more since we sort of did our setup episode for this I have really really been enjoying my time with it because it is fun to hunt for treasure as a gorilla who can go wherever the fuck he pleases and I think that it does such an it invents a new way of the collectible hunt that is so like core to the the the world platformer. I'm feeling that is only Nintendo that I only recall from Nintendo games usually but there's a sense when you start playing this where at least that I had where is like whoa you're going to let me do this the whole game like it like it seemed that like whoa that doesn't seem fair like yeah whoa you mean I can smash everything like I genuinely felt that thrill of like something new like a new way of interacting with it that made me feel like this doesn't seem right I'm normally not allowed to do all this stuff we're going to cut me off and the fact they didn't was like really exciting I found that really energizing yeah occasionally that doesn't always pay off like echoes of wisdom that Zelda game where you play Zelda was like it was it didn't quite work but in this case it felt like they came up with an idea and they just executed on a really great way I I always think about DK Bonanza when I'm looking for like a how do I kill the next 20 minutes if I want to and I have my switch right there I'd rather be playing DK Bonanza it's like the go to fuck around game on that platform yeah and I wish there were more of them I'm really encouraged so it means for the rest of the rest of the rest of switch to because it's also it's an ugly game at times in a way that Nintendo games aren't and by that I mean when you are inside of a tunnel that you created and it's doing this we're clipping effect where you can see you can't see it doesn't have that that need to be absolutely perfect that I expect from most Nintendo games for the better it has privileged the fun above all else without the game actually breaking and it really wants you to be able to read the situation I I think that is really cool and I'm curious where Nintendo goes from here because it seems like they know that that is the world that we live in now it feels like it's going up on Roblox broken is almost expected or assumed yeah I think even with tears of the kingdom like that feels like their design is pushing in that direction more and more of player freedom versus like a lockdown experience I'm here for it man yeah that's one hundred percent let's let's let's vote well for me it's baby steps I really like DK Bonanza a lot but baby steps will stick with me for quite a while I would agree with that actually I like DK Bonanza also I just I can't stop thinking about baby steps and did have a very unique experience playing over Justin and Travis sharing the controls like that was it became a party game at that point which is what it's not supposed to be but I enjoyed my time with it solo going back and seeing some of the story stuff as well yeah I mean on baby steps I will say fuck baby steps which I believe is a better game than Donkey Kong Bonanza that is my personal feeling of baby steps I think it is better I think it is a fucking truly truly cool thing yeah that made me want to die let's take a break if you have a child or other family member who likes to play games on your iPad sometimes you're probably well aware that a lot of those games do want to charge you eight dollars a week for you to do them and you may think that's ridiculous why would a game that pretends to be a slime that you touch one eight dollars a week I can't answer that for you what I can tell you is that you should probably be using rocket money to catch that stuff in the drag net and make sure that you're not spending money that you don't even know about rocket money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions monitors you're spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings obviously the the subscription catching thing is enormously useful for someone like myself but if you need help sort of keeping all of your different accounts in a single place a single dashboard so you can kind of get a whole idea of your financial health rocket money can do that too and set budgets for things and automatically categorize your transactions you can see where your your money is going there's a lot of stuff that rocket money does to help you with your money and I've used it countless times in the past can't recommend it enough let rocket money help you reach your financial goals faster join at rocket money dot com slash besties that's rocket money dot com slash besties one last time rocket money dot com slash besties next up we have stress versus no stress we have silk song versus wonder stop I think that we should just say some nice things about wonder stop because we all know where it's going you big shots I get it I get it I get it I think that's probably true I I really want to hang a lantern on wonder stop though uh it is a it is a cozy game that sort of shakes a lot of the expectations you have about cozy games you talk about like if video games in conversation with uh how you feel while you're playing video games I wonder stop does that better than it baby steps or any other game that has come out in my recent memory uh you play as a warrior who has uh had to retire after a streak of losses has sort of got in her head you go seeking the training of this legendary fighter and instead get lost and tired in the woods uh you cannot escape from these woods and keep finding yourself waking up in front of a t shop and so with the kindly owner of the t shop you run this business growing uh plants that you then turn into delicious teas for the eccentric customers that come by uh what it does special is uh it constantly resets and you are not making progress you're not unlocking a stronger you know uh fire to boil water with you are not uh becoming better at planting things you know I've been really building a lot of like long term relationships like no except with the t shop owner and you will get sort of returning customers after these like instant reset points but what it is like a persona kind of thing where that's uh another it's not treated like an unlockable or something that you like you can you can you get it or you don't there is no mechanical incentive like what so ever full stop there is no leveling there is no unlocks that it's like changing fundamentally your core interactions with the game in doing that it is trying to tell a story about rest and it is trying to tell a story about self-care through kind of like meditative rest and leisure uh and it couldn't tell that story while also offering you special level ups and like the things other than like you uh help someone out and she runs a little shop and every time you help her out she's like yeah take something and the things you take are like art you can hang on the wall uh that has no absolutely no like implications beyond just that um it is I mean god damn it it really goes hard in the last few chapters of the game in how it kind of like talks about work and how people think about achievement and being their best and how hard you are on yourself when you are kind of like thinking about your life solely that way uh there is a moment in this game that is so beautiful and devastating and uh really brought me to tears uh which I I don't know I think the game does a pretty good job of setting you up for that kind of emotional resonance and then gosh it really really it really sticks the landing and I think it does it in a way that a lot of people would find extremely relatable um and so for that like moment and that scene alone like that is why it can totally hang in the in the goady consideration but it is also like there are no hooks right there's no progression hooks that it sort of assues this entire piece of the puzzle of what I think about is like making a game that I really really like because it is telling a story about enjoyment for enjoyment's sake rest for rest's sake uh and I think that's really really unique but it also like I don't know it's up against holiday silk song which is like the opposite game where you are fighting and dying and getting stronger and losing progress and it hurts in a way that is different um I also I mean the soundtrack is uh it's my like go to working music now which is maybe ironic um uh it's a really really great game that you can get through in a few hours uh and and get the story and I think everyone should should do that yeah I left I really liked a lot of what wanderstop was uh going for I think that uh and I I felt like engaging with it was very pleasant aesthetically uh I will say that um I didn't necessarily agree with everything that the game is saying it's definitely a game that has more of a perspective it has more of a perspective than baby steps you know to mean in a sense that like I've definitely feel like wanderstop is coming at you with an opinion and I feel like baby steps is more of like the start of a conversation I don't agree with a lot of what like wanderstop is saying in terms of I'll just say this it felt preachy a lot of the time you know it felt like lots of people relax in different ways right and I feel like people relax with lots of different kinds of video games right and it just seemed weird uh it seems like a weird uh contradiction I think to like I yes I I'm trying to relax right now you know to mean like I'm and I don't necessarily agree with what you're saying about what we are oh ourselves and what we are are each other and so like I'm not really being engaged by the mechanics and narratively it was kind of like uh leaving me cold too which I think is the danger of having a game that has a message is that if the message doesn't connect I it really it just kind of left me cold I think silk song we have a lot to get through still a lot of time for going I think silk song is is better I think so is anyone object me so silk song moving on now I I really enjoyed wanderstop but I think you can go back and listen to our episode if you want to hear more about that game yep cool uh silk song silk song is fucking great we will we will get into it in part two for sure okay next up we have the stories part two blipo plus versus citizen sleeper two who boy just about the fuck is blipo plus shit man blipo plus isn't a video game why is it on this list but more than this happens to be on steam man yeah yeah it's not a video game it's on steam you know what I mean but it's like okay blipo started on play date which is a crank powered not powered that'd be sick when that's when you're cranking it it's not getting that's a crank powered uh no it's a it's a a a little portable video game system that has a crank you interact with it there's still some reference so if you see references to cranks in blipo plus it's because blipo plus is an adaptation of blipo original it is a full color uh I say high definition but that's probably miss miss gives you the wrong idea uh it looks like watching cable or more accurately like broadcast TV uh in the 80s if it was from space like the late 80s mid 90s era of that beginning stages of cable TV started that no one listened to this remembers but uh it feels like your own space tv station that is showing these brief 15 30 like sometimes minute long tv shows that you see in like a channel guide and these tv shows are all I would say abstract in nature you you can kind of uh understand what's happening for example there's like a an American bandstand kind of like dance tv show for teens where they play like the latest music it's the same song every time the song is nonsensical and the dancing is unlike anything uh that you can relate to as like a from our world but the entire thing is like that it's this like bizarre abstract art project like the there's a lot of love and energy and time and attention being poured into each of the little episodes that you're coming through and the fact that you could miss it at different times it makes it feel very alive um my kids had a really good time just kind of flicking flipping through it and like uh watching some of the different channels it's really kind of like uh uh some of you you let wash over you uh and and but as an experience it's really really unmatched and extremely extremely cool it reminds me a lot of um like meowulf uh specifically the Denver location where you are in sort of an ale you hop on a elevator that lets you out into an alien world and that is so much it very quickly the game becomes a tv station from an alien planet that knows earth is watching and that is that's when the game kind of clicked for me and when it sort of sort of felt like it was directly talking to me uh it it became much more sort of absorbing there's like not i'm trying to think of what interactive elements there are there is the phantom facts sort of uh channel where you can go and look at message boards and stuff like that but um i i really was charmed yeah it shouldn't progress farther in this like it's not a video game and i really i don't even mean that as a slight it is an interactive thing that is not like one or stops a video game because you can get to the beginning of the end of it right like that just because there's not challenges still a video game this is not a video game i don't know if the creators of blipo plus would even argue with that in fact i don't think they would i don't think they would um i spoke with just you can't upload it to logo tv or opra tv so you gotta put it on steam yeah uh i'll talk citizen sleeper too real quick i think it's gonna walk away with it but uh uh it is somewhat similar to the hatey's conversation for me because it is doing a lot of the stuff that citizen sleeper did really well it is a game about being a sort of android replicant in a cold and unfeeling version of outer space far flung future where uh sort of corporate entities have destroyed the galaxy time and time and time again and you are sort of a scavenger as is everyone else of those uh those fallen sort of dynasties uh and it is a universe that does not give a shit about you except for the one person who does think that they uh own you uh who is constantly hunting you and with that pressure you are going through a variety of like space stations and putting together a crew and running odd jobs to buy supplies to you know keep your ship fueled and uh keep your your belly full so your stress remains low uh it is very very classic pin and paper RPG inspired very much blades in the dark i would say is the the vibe that it is giving me more than anything where you have diced that role at the beginning of each cycle just like a day and then you apply those to certain activities you have better chances of success if it's things that you have high stats in um and then as you are going through the new big things citizen sleeper two adds is you also have a crew that lives on your ship with you that goes out and does quests like odd odd jobs that are sort of these very very self-contained loops um that once you figure out kind of how to do those the game is fantastic it doesn't do a amazing job of kind of like making that particularly evident uh I had to restart this game because I kept fucking losing over and over and over again because I just didn't really know how to get through those little quests how to get through those missions and uh was failing sort of a lot and so I do think it struggles in the same way since it doesn't sleeper one did with kind of like getting across how you're supposed to really be playing it somewhat optimally and there are um there are also chunks of citizen sleeper two and one for that matter where you're like supposed to lose like it's basically like and that's an auto fail it's tonally I think appropriate you are supposed to be like beaten down but I have that that feels bad you know I mean it was like it doesn't feel good I want to win trick once in a game and right yeah but if it keeps happening it's it can be a lot yeah I think citizens sleeper two is better tuned for that citizen sleeper one you get so strong by the end of it that like everything is easy and citizens sleeper two never really gets to that point uh I haven't I've not finished it I've made it quite quite far into it but the the tone and vibe of this game are is unparalleled it's fucking incredible sci-fi storytelling incredible world building very like uh pulpy noir inspired which I think gives them a little bit of flexibility and like not having the characters be these very fleshed out uh you know entities going through these huge kind of like emotional changes throughout the thing they are very taciturn kind of uh beleaguered space survivors like yourself but like I don't know that's part again of the of this of this story and the tone that they are trying to capture and I think they capture it really really well while also having some some more engaging uh you know interactivity than than the first game I love both these games as companion pieces and I think if you are playing one you'd be well off to play the other almost like right alongside it because it's green activity blipo is a game about how you protect and maintain a utopia and citizen sleeper is a game about how you make space for yourself in a dystopia citizen sleeper is a game all about stress it is a game of literal stacking ticking clocks uh and there is a right way to play it blipo plus is a game that's the exact opposite you can wander around and you will do no wrong and there is no harm um let's uh let's vote yeah I can I just say this is sleeper I wish they would stop doing the dice thing I think it's like one level of abstraction too much and it makes it harder for me to understand the many many many many many many mechanics I don't know why the dice has to be part of it I find it I find that to be just the random result sort of element of it like five actions per day sort of the adding of like dice I understand that do I die the die are like metaphorical but once they start layering on like glitches and stuff like that I just don't find screwing with the dice that satisfying it just feels like another way like it feels like a complication more than a fun mechanic you don't look for a visual novel something where it's like yes I don't understand why I have to under it's like another I don't know dice yeah dice again you know what I mean give me a health bar sword you know there's a dice yeah right so let's vote uh fresh mine's probably blipo but that's again just the taste thing I just like playing blipo more but I also know it's just not really a game uh for me it's citizen sleeper too I like it quite a lot I'm probably blipo I'm on the slip oh wow blipo I'm changing my back side of its valid it can it can keep going yeah it's now it's on the list man you fell for the classic my classic maneuver I thought I made it look like I was supposed to lose but in fact I won it's a it's a citizen sleeper too um I really like citizen sleeper too and I think if you like the first one you're really like that one but blipo plus is I mean it's better than blipo in basically every way so that's yeah huge improvement more than one bit so that's like great for it the colors the colors the colors the colors are huge um what's next next up we have a game from this year versus a game from last year we have a vowed versus Indiana Jones shit man shit dude yeah we did we did actually bring back something from December of last year because it came out it can happen blueprints can come back next year that's right yeah uh okay um I can do Indiana Jones if you want what you want to do any ad Jones point I yeah Indiana Jones let's Indiana Jones people who are famous for making first-person shooters said you know what the thing that we're best at the S and the FPS the shooters we're gonna cut that part out we're gonna make the first person game that's way more adventure you're gonna do some puzzle solving you're gonna have Troy Baker doing one of the single grist uh impressions of a still living actor ever accomplished and you're going to beat the the living snot out of people with your fists as you kind of go through a I don't know like a Indiana Jones film the puzzles aren't especially difficult the combat isn't especially difficult once you accept that the stealth is not really going to publish punish you it's not super difficult and suddenly you're on a ride you're on a great you're on the theme park ride of Indiana Jones that you've always wanted because it doesn't give you back pain because the car moves too hard uh I I have gone back to this game more recently and let me tell you it is really it's it's a hell of an achievement it looks so beautiful and we don't tend to be the people who privilege graphics but let's do it for just a minute this game looks unlike pretty much anything else out there it is right it creeps you out when you go into caves it's creepy yeah it's like you go and like oh I don't like this it's like I'm gonna be 10 seconds it's it's it's yucky fresh dick has uh constantly ask me why does ray tracing matter is this really worth it and that is right most of the time most games I don't know why I need ray tracing you know where I need it and a game like this where there is not a lot of human made light there aren't there's not electric light and a lot of the situations you're having a natural light and that is the ray tracing in the Vatican's in the Vatican City you must have God rays having must having a light pour through the fabric uh uh into the uh the windows of a Vatican office looks stunning being in the cave and having the light bounce from the entrance looks incredible having fire flicker underground in these tombs it looks absolutely spectacular also great uh melee combat which is such a rarity you really do know I do like how extremely heavy and weighty and butcher baye like all of that stuff feels yeah um so let's talk about about why I want to be you juice I did I have made my content for a vow known oh really I cannot I've tried to play about 10 times it is the RPG that will not stick in my brain I don't know why it's on this list I'm my case for a valid plant you really I I really enjoyed this game and I think that there are two games basically came out this year about covid and I think that is expedition 33 and about and in terms of hitting that anxiety avowed worked a lot better for me personally it is a game where you're exploring this fantastic land that is more um I don't know influence Marie by marine biology than you would expect from many fantasy settings um and you are dealing with the fact that there is some sort of thing spreading across civilization and people are deciding whether or not to quarantine to a degree what I like about this game is not just that as a heavy handed story about covid but the individual stories the one off moments the side quest I found really really rich and really engaging and felt really personal like I could imagine someone deciding to write the story about you going and finding the birth control uh from the uh warehouse that's on a seaside port and you're fighting to find out why the people in this um these group of like courtesans want to capture that from the government that's all really cool and then there's the density of it which I found great there are so many open world games where you spend a lot of time going from point A to point B and that can be rewarding it's you know a zen sort of thing this game is not that every few steps you are discovering something new it feels like they took a traditional Bethesda game and really smushed it down and made it compact while still feeling like a livable space which I think is an accomplishment and then the very last detail I'll add is that I personally felt like the combat was quite solid um whether you ended up going with like uh the various guns that they have or the magic which I think is some of the coolest first person magic that I've felt in a game where you're casting these really really bold spells um I thought it all just it worked if there is a hitch against this game it's that I don't know if for any of us it really ever came together all these solid pieces kind of are they all they they never quite congeal on the way that I would hope yeah I just needed a character to really hook me and I I just kind of didn't get that with the story sort of at all I enjoyed the combat I agree the magic is fucking cool the the spells you unlock very quickly are not just like fireball or bigger fireball it's like yeah they really change the way you yeah and and that stuff is really neat I think the world of pillars of eternity which is the series that this is kind of like building off of is super duper unique uh in how like you said how kind of weirdly not a call a lot of this stuff uh in in the world is uh it just it uh it just didn't just come together we didn't click for me but yeah I think it's a stronger game than the other uh there obsidian put out three games this year grounded to and this and uh how to worlds do I think this is the strongest of the three um but I'd still think that there are elements that I think the individual side quest stuff works really well for me but as we've said the the cohesiveness of the whole thing feels a little bit hit or miss yeah yeah it just doesn't quite come together um I would say indie for me yeah I would also quote for you that's right and we can talk more about yeah yeah yeah next I mostly just decided for this last conversation we have for this yeah oh man this one's tough I okay look for the first and last surprises of 2025 the first surprise from January the root trees are dead in the last surprise sectory from just this month basically in November um I'll do root trees if that's okay uh the root trees are dead is a a new age investigative journalism game you are tasked with not crystals and stuff what like crystals and stuff yes there's there's uh sound baths that you'll take no you are uh sort of a detective in an office with a computer and that computer could take you to a fictional version of the internet that you're going to have to use to learn all about the root tree family and it's a long history they are candy magnates and when the game begins there's been a an airline crash that has wiped out the kind of like last living uh core members of the root tree family and so it is your job to put together the genealogy of the root trees by searching terms uh in this fake internet sort of her story style uh you're looking for certain keywords you're going to different uh uh uh you know you might learn the name of a periodical right so you'll search one member of the family and be like in this interview with uh you know business times they said and you're like oh okay so I'll go to this periodical search and search business times and I'll be like yeah that's a magazine now you that is now unlocked that has been added to your kind of like list of search engines for all this stuff it does that a lot and you will have to use all of that stuff to sort of put together the puzzle does it a very clever over dinting where it only locks in after you've like gotten a certain number of entries correct so you can't just kind of like guess your way through and try and figure out who uh you know who goes where on this big sprawling family tree and then once you sort of solve all of it it throws us whole second quest at you that is way way way harder than the original where you are like more going through the company's history rather than just the families uh and trying to figure out who all of these illegitimate fathers are which is fucking real hard because they've tried to cover their tracks um just really impressive how much they put into the fake search engines of this game and it's so satisfying to unfold another piece of that to like then realize like oh shit I can go back and search all these other terms that I kind of ran into a dead end on now that I know that I have this other like you know newspaper that I can look through um this is the game when over the last couple months people have asked me what game I should check out especially people that don't play games very often this is the game I recommend uh it runs on a shitty Mac or whatever computer you have pretty much yeah um and it's immediately grokable by people that don't understand video games because you're just searching stuff I mean everyone knows that Google and effectively you're googling within the the systems um I was just blown away by this a little overwhelmed uh I I have been using more of the hint system which I think has helped uh but there is a certain mind like a project management mind that I think would like find this incredibly sticky and awesome and a journalist mind this is like you just came to this right yeah holy smokes uh if I ever teach my journalism course again this would be the day one thing that I would ask everybody to play because it's not the end of journalism but it is the beginning of of researching a story which is you have a suspicion and you just start searching you just start pulling threads and those threads lead to more threads and you keep pulling and pulling and pulling the way to get a bigger picture is to just find the tiniest little detail of information that you didn't know and then dig deep on that and then to find the new tiny detail and then dig deep on that and the way the onion of this game is so it's so many layers deep uh I really really really was spitten by the game and the writing itself is great yeah um the story is really compelling and um great session also chill jazzy soundtrack that I actually think is free on steam if you don't just download that uh really very very very very good sector is geometry wars but new and with more shit and also a campaign mode um yeah and I I don't know how hard we have to go on sector reasons it is so fresh and so new but it has been so fun getting caught up in a score chase game in 2025 uh which I don't know I have gotten quite as like hooked on since geometry wars two probably on Xbox live arcade uh we don't need to get it so much into the minutia but uh I I think it's fucking amazing we'll have plenty of time to discuss sectoralry yeah I know I sectorated to just a little bit more is a game about discovering how to play it and in the same way that fresh is always like don't look at the guides the guides will ruin the experience he is right specifically in this case that I took a lot of enjoyment of discovering how its bonuses work how the systems work how there are better ways to play it how there are optimal ways to play the game and that there are many there are kind of different strategies that you can take to get through this geometry wars type game I also just think we've used the word generous in the past this is a generous game um the sheer number of modes in this game that could be standalone games it could have been DLC that could have been sequels is ridiculous you could just play any one of these modes and you would be fully entertained um I spoke with the uh the creator of the game last week and with surprise to learn that most of those modes were produced in like the final few weeks of the games development because they feel so fleshed out um but yeah wow what a video game um I'll never uninstall this yeah from my raw gilaxe I will keep it on there forever and keep coming back to it to play because it's uh it tickles the brain in a way that is truly truly saddest Justin your rank 19 in the world how do you feel basically used to be me my big math total listeners about it no I'm not anymore I'm gonna admit that I don't know it probably it probably was not my our individual power uh I don't know man it's just it's it's great and and you know what it it worked there's like six different modes and they all function in different ways uh seven is the campaign yep uh yeah that's that's a good point yeah um and I I think everyone is like super interesting and engaging in a world where man I just feel like it's tough for a game like this to get oxygen anymore and in like an an era that I'm good I would describe as post social media I feel like it's it's tough for a game like this to kind of like uh uh get get kind of a head of steam but um I think it's fucking excellent yeah let's vote wolf sack I like I like root trees a lot I think sectory is is is is my favorite I think root trees is fantastic I played a third of it and I wish to gosh I could go back and finish it but I would have no idea how I began approaching that at this point I it really uh it was neat but I just it wasn't quite the same as sectory I'm so split that I honestly like don't care I'm kind of on the same like I like yeah I I think it's sanctuary winds by the fact that we have to love them both so much that I yes do not care which one advances because they're both so great so you guys go for it sectorate let's just shut up congratulations sectory all right what's our top eight Chris can you run us down the list that we'll consider next week uh yes our top eight are expedition 33 absolute destiny two baby steps silk song blipoplus indiana jones sectory I fucking love this list I'm so happy to meet you guys this is good these are a lot of good video games guys a lot of good video games this is gonna do it for us for the besties uh we are gonna be with you next week to settle this once and for all that's gonna do it for us though for this absolutely besties be sure to join us again next week for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends think the world's best games yeah Besties!