Dispatch's Second Chance (and The Game Awards Predictions)

Did you guys know that normally I've just discovered a new feature in Riverside. Like normally I have the chat with all four of us up and that's good. I was trying to figure out a way to hide myself from the chat and I removed myself from the whole calls. I was pretty fucked up. And, but I have discovered that if you want, you can just pin Russ. So it's just, you can just make Russ bit. You can pin Russ and that way you're getting like a direct fee. It's like a wicked for good situation where you see my giant face. You can also full screen pop out Russ so you don't have to see any other guys. And you can really focus on how Russ is reacting to everything they're saying. It's makes for a really nice opportunity for us. It's mostly eyebrows. What if we just had a full time Russ feed fit, you know, like the real top in best you subscribers could get right. I think it's probably worth 70. Fat bear, fat bear week. Don't just rest. Tell you guys, if on this episode, it seems like Russ and I are like really grooving. I'm reading his like micro aggressions, the like tiny fractal eyelash blank that lets me know he wants, he wants me to reference New York draft or something. Yeah. I'm also wearing Justin's or ring. So his entire being is suffice into my being, which is cool. Lovely. That's really cool. Is that our sponsor? I've got his or a frame. It's right behind you. You know, gift giving season is just around the corner. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas plant, and I know the best game awards of the week. My name is Russ Froschik. I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club. You know, just by listening, you, my friend have become a member. I'm so happy to have you here today to talk about a couple of things. First off, we're going to lead off with a dispatch. Dispatch. What's that Chris plant? Oh, is that how you pronounce that word? Dispatch. Is it meant to be like a double entange? What? What do you mean? What? Well, to dispatch, when you say it like that, sounds like you're killing someone versus dispatch, which is when you're sending like taxis out like on the show taxi. Now I'm going to be dispatch. Dispatch. Dispatch. Dispatch. Dispatch. Chris, Chris, tell us all about that. Chris Pratch. Tell us about Chris Pratch. You want something like those classic telltale games that you used to love. You want that walking dead flavor that Sam and Max, not the original games, but the adventure ones. Well, you can get it right now in the form of an entirely original superhero city, superhero story. There we go. Set in the city of Los Angeles. That's right, Chris. We're going to talk about that and a little bit about the game awards. That's all coming up right after this. I hope these by our characters make it in the next poker night at the inventory. I don't think that's too much to ask. I want to see them. Oh, whoa, that really made them up. They're a strong bad. Want to see them up there with inventory. She shits me back. The heavy from fucking TF2. I feel like this is my hat in hand sort of may a culpa game of the year of being one that I felt pretty rock solid, certain I wasn't going to like and wasn't going to be for me. And was so not excited by any of the trailers or anything I'd seen about the game, but was so sort of shocked by how much buzz and positive reaction had gotten. And I'm very glad that I gave it a shot because I have finished, I think, six or so episodes of the eight episodes in this first season in about three or four days. Very, very, very, very into dispatch. And I'm very glad that we I managed to get it in here before our considerations. I do want to make a slight tweak to what Chris Plant said earlier in the episode describing dispatch, because what his pitch for it, which is what I've basically heard the entire time this game has been out, yeah, is like tell, tell, ask. And I don't actually know that that's entirely the best way to view it. Interesting. Why is that? Because at least what I've played, and I don't know if this changes dramatically, but at least what I've played, it is much less interactive than a telltale thing. It feels more like an interactive, like you're watching a show, and occasionally you have options to like choose dialogue. And then there's obviously there's a game element to it that we'll get into. Right. But it doesn't. The thing about telltale was like you were like literally walking around these environments and like clicking on things and like, yeah, stuff like that, which this is not like this is a much more direct. This is very, very much that that is what turned me off from it at first is like that doesn't sound great to me. And honestly, for me, telltale has a weird track record where I thought the like first season of Walking Dead was one of that was like my game in the year that came out, the year that came out. I really liked season two. And then pretty much every other thing that they made, I never finished. I never got all the way through. I like Wolf Among Us. Even though I reckon I Wolf Among Us. Yeah, it was great. The Borderlands one, surprisingly, really great, really fun. I just never like they never hooked me. And so knowing that like I didn't feel like I wanted to get invested in a lightly interactive superhero show, another like a genre that I also kind of don't give a shit about anymore and have been like pretty well turned off by regardless of whether it's movies or TV or comics or games or whatever. But against all odds, I think they actually do a really smart thing in how interactive it is to set it up a little bit. It is familiar to those telltale games where it is it is telling a story with important kind of like junction points and conversation choices and decisions that you will make that will sort of branch things off. You are running a superhero team called the Z team of former villains who have turned things around and become heroes. Most of them kind of, you know, dragging their feet along the way. And you are basically their manager. You are the guy in the chair telling them where to go as these calls come in. You are assigning them to different jobs, making those decisions based on their like different superhero stats that you can level up as they go and they do a good job. But like the narrative layer on top of that is that it is very much like a workplace comedy, I think. Yeah, not that it isn't funny. It is funny. It's just like, I don't know if that's the genre it would slot squarely into. It's not the the when I think of comedy, probably something closer to like a Harley Quinn, the they are animated show. It's not like joke, joke, joke, joke, joke. It's a lot of comfortable bits, character, uncomfortable bits. The game layer, I think is really smart because the bit like drama, like drama. Yeah, OK. I mean, it takes some pretty fucking heavy, heavy, heavy swings in the for the love of God, Griffin. The the man is serious mostly and sometimes there's jobs. That's good. I think the way the like gameplay of sending out heroes and assigning them to different jobs on these like long shifts is actually a really smart, like synergistic way of kind of telling the story they're telling, where you start to get invested in these characters based on the writing and acting, which is, you know, they're both really great. But also like you begin to form these attachments to like, oh, well, Gollum is my dog. Like Gollum is my dog when I know things are getting like Harry and I need someone who I can depend on. Like that's my dude I send into those jobs. And that kind of I don't know that like lends itself into you giving a shit about the characters in a way that is really effective. Some people are some of the the heroes are like more professional. And so, you know, like this is if this breaks bad, it would be really bad. So I need somebody who can like keep their composure. And they're pretty clear up front, like the mission description about like, you know, they're protecting the governor. So you need somebody the way that's expressed is sort of with a pin pentagonal skill graph with like their toughness and their fighting ability and their peer strength and charisma and intellect, I think, on like a chart. And that is how their success or failure and admission is determined. There's but it's not like yes or no, there is a random element. So basically, if you imagine that pentagon, the requirements of the job will take up a certain area of the pentagon, depending on what skills are needed for it. And your character also has their own, you know, shape represented by their skills. And in that overlap, there is a percentage overlap. So they overlap by like 70 percent, right? It's a chance to succeed is really a chance to succeed, basically. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I I I found that mode that like game and I need to do more of it a little bit stressful. I found the like actual show of it. Interesting. I need to spend more time with it really. I'm still very early, but animation wise, like through the holy shit. So incredible and there's really well, like the framing is like this is professional. These people know how to do a show. I'm actually surprised that they didn't like partner with a streaming network at the same time. And I'm sure they will now, especially after the success of it, because it really is very well done. I don't know that they will. I mean, I don't because this is the it feels like one of those where this is the best version of it. I mean, who knows, right? If there's money to make it, it'll get optioned and they could turn this universe into something, certainly. But it really is. I don't want to overstate it. But like at first I started playing it. I was like, don't don't didn't click with me because it seems so lightly interactive. Once I realized that this is like it is a it's a interactive TV show, like in a real sense where you're making narrative decisions that I don't know how they would write around. It seems so gigantic. I mean, there's not a ton of those, but like there's enough that it feels like you are really in not a not a like a performer, almost like a director position, you know, like who you are interested in in the story. Who do you want to keep around in the story? Who do you want to keep seeing like evolve in the story? And once I got my head into that, where they're making concessions, like the the the the the chapters are pretty episodes are pretty concretely like 45 minutes. I mean, like the the length is like pretty. The length is perfect. Standard, you know what it is. You know what it is when you're sitting down for one, like you have a sense of the thing. I think what clicked for me is when I realized that there was nothing. Really, to be mechanically gained from anything like your performance in the the like main mode, the dispatch thing is really more about how it like impacts the narrative and what you're interested in the narrative. But like you're not going to get too good or too bad. Like it's not going to change the story that much, right? It's much more about like keeping you engaged with the story. But a fail like I was getting frustrated by how often failure seem random. But then it's it doesn't matter. Like it's not it's that's not the the essential thing. And realistically, like from a logistical standpoint, like if they were programming a bunch of fail points, like that's that dovetails the narrative out into 60 different options. So they did have to kind of pen it in a little bit. I want to ask one. So so the first choice you make in the game is the setting choice. So you can play as as like I think it's interactive or like traditional. I don't remember what the two options are. And this is what I want to interactive is. So you'll you'll I think in both modes, you're still obviously making choices. You're making dialogue choices. You're making like moment choices. But in interactive, you're also doing like almost quick time of quick time event style things where someone throws a punch and you have to like hit B for lack of a better example. And if you don't get hit B, you'll get punched. I tried it as the interactive thing and found it to be like kind of cute. And they do animate like fail states and that like you'll get punched. If you miss the thing, I was intentionally missing things just to see how it plays out. I don't know that it makes a long term impact. How well you do it those moments. I think it just makes might make you feel a little more engaged. But you guys played the other. But that is a very that is a super dupe. And I've always kind of felt this way basically all the way back to Shenmue one of like, that's not really gay. Yeah. Like it's it's the lightest, lightest imaginable layer of interactivity. And honestly, this has been they hit you with a disproportionately high. I wanted to express to Russ because I know that he hasn't played quite as far. Like they hit you with a disproportionately high number of those in the first like 20 minutes of this episode, the first episode. Like they're way more. I look griffin, tell me if I'm wrong, but like there's a bunch of like putting on your suit and buckling this and fighting this. And like there's a lot more of those like quicker, quick time things like it still pops up, but it's it's a lot more rare. So I actually wouldn't know because I turned that shit right off. Because no, because I. Well, I didn't. And I and it almost very rarely popped up. OK, that's good to know. I think it is the fact that it does rarely pop up and like I have been really, really enjoying playing, watching, playing this game while like eating. And it is I don't want to be shaken out of my chill dispatch sesh because like all of a sudden the big A prompt appears on screen. Are your what happens in your like dialogue choices? Are they time still? Yeah, there's still time. Those are still time. The only other setting that there is is there's like a hacking minigame that you will do sometimes while you are dispatching, which you can do sort of in lieu of like taking a guess at whether or not your heroes are going to be up to this particular challenge. You just do this hacking minigame. You can affect like you can, you know, choose an option of whether or not those have like failed states or or not. I like. I like pretty much for a minigame. Yeah, those are good. They are fine. It could use a few more of those, I think it could use a couple more engaging minigames like that, I think to keep things. But that's not the exact thing they're making, of course. Yeah, no, it's it's that stuff is light. And it I think gets by being light because truly the just the writing and acting is just really, really, really fucking great, really super good. Aaron Paul plays the main character and brings a level of he's really turning into like one of the like top tier like voice talent wise. Oh, he really. He's got great. It's it's a great control for a character that isn't extremely ostentatious. He's like a lot more reserved and but it's really interesting, like really accomplished nuance he's doing, like with not a ton dynamically, like from an emotional sense. Yeah, he was very good as Bojack as well. So he's definitely. Yeah, for sure. Jeffrey Jeffrey Wright is also in it and he's incredible. Fantastic. There's also like a lot of casting. There's a lot of the critical role folks who are in here, which like obviously like they know what the fuck they're doing. Laura Bailey turns in a powerhouse, truly hysterical performance. There's a running gag where her character can't think of like funny cool catchphrases to say in the heat of battle that it like lands every single time, like every joke. But then there's also like some more a term we learned when we were vying to get in the trolls to movie of stunt casting of like some streamers like Jacksepticeye who plays punch up and I forget the guys. Charlie Moist critical guy plays Sonar, one of the characters. Like I feel like everyone is it like turns in a great performance and the writing is truly very, very compelling. I keep coming back to it and it's not just that it's like compelling cliff hangary good storytelling. It's like, I don't know. It's a story about a bunch of fuck ups who are kind of nice to each like eventually form a pretty sort of loving misfit family. And that format has been beaten to death and done so many different times. And so I think it's like pretty remarkable how good a job it does. Telling that sort of tale as people who like as somebody who is very into like interactive cinematic storytelling and thinks about that a lot. It's like a lot of F and V games, I think are in that territory. This I feel like is maybe the most successful in terms of interactive TV. I gave you talk about an interactive TV show. I can't tell you something that's worked better than this. And like the closest you get is like, what's the quantum break? You know, that I think is like the closest. I mean, I can't think of anything else that's even in the in the in the neck, this neck of the woods, but like, yeah, by by hewing closer to TV and making it less like a video game, I think they actually made it more successful. We're like, quantum, quantum breaks seem to want to bring more game into it. And I feel like that made the pacing just well. It's also a budget issue. Like the second you make it more like a video game, suddenly you're making levels and fucking environments and characters and animations above. I mean, they're still doing animation. I mean, that's the secret sauce of dispatch, right? All the heavy action definitely is covered in like a map, like the high high octane action sequences are usually like a circle moving around a map. Yeah. And even if they weren't, it's obviously much cheaper to do a locked down animated scene than it is to like fully program the whole level. Sure. Yeah. There are some great fight scenes. There's also there's, I think, a secret splinter cell inside of Adhoc, which is the studio that made dispatch that is from what I understand, formed from a lot of former sort of telltale folks. There's someone in there who wants so badly to make a mecca anime game. There's so many close ups on fingers punching in fucking that cowboy peabop ass like launch sequence. Pushing a thruster forward. Yeah, it's so cool. It's I'm I'm fucking wild about this game. And I tried it has it is a revitalizing experience for me because it doesn't happen super often where I write a game off as completely being a genre I don't care about about a genre of fiction I don't care about in a genre of game I don't care about and thinking like, well, this kind of looks like, you know, I don't really groove with like invincible or, you know, a lot of those kind of like edgy, funny, cool, nasty superhero. I thought, oh, it's just going to be like one of those. And it it has truly surprised me and made me feel like, you know, I need to be more open minded about this. Who's your favorite character? God, shit. Well, yeah, God is when he shows up. I was like, shit. There's one character who is just kind of a kind of a I don't know how to describe him. Waterboy is a character. Waterboy is my favorite who is extremely nervous and wants so badly to be a superhero, but is like so self conscious and stumbles through every single line of dialogue that he has. And he is very good. There's also just great moments between like the more kind of like minor character members of the team. There's two named Prism and a level who have like a bunch of really great beats that kind of like Burton Ernie and it's a wonderful life, just kind of like talking after the main characters have left the scene and just like delivering some great jokes. There's there's there is a lot of characters to to to love in this game. It actually makes for me the specialness of the interactivity more because I feel like the things that I'm seeing feel special, a little bit more special because it's like, I don't know what scene I would be getting otherwise. But like, yeah, this is my experience and it's good enough that that actually means something or like a lot of other games. Like, oh, who gives a fuck? I get my lizard man or a dinosaur man. I don't know. And even though the episodes are short, there's eight of them like I still feel like it gives them enough room to like give them arcs. When you say short, I mean, 45 minutes is fairly short for I feel like a telltale episode. It's very yeah, that usually those are like an hour or two or like two or three hours. What was the last telltale episodic game that we are comparing this to? I think I'm thinking of like Walking Dead Season two. Those were those were beefy. Those were those. I remember those. Borderlands. I just I want to be careful because what it is exactly the length of a television episode. Yeah, that's the length. And it's not sure I'm I'm pushing back against short because like what they are doing, like I feel like it is the exact right length for what I am. I'm comparing it to other games in the narrative adventure. Or like if you have an episodic game, generally speaking, there might usually much longer than an hour. I think this length is perfect because it is exactly the sort of patients that you would have to absorb a narrative and feel like you get to an end point and you can stop at that moment or you can keep going, whatever you want to do, you want to binge it. Yeah. But you don't feel like whenever I was playing telltale games, I always felt halfway through an episode. I'd be like, I'm going to take a break. And it was never at a good point. It was just like just because it went on too long. The dispatch part of the game actually is like a really helpful sort of pacing block where you will have like an intro scene. I'll be like, this is what this episode is going to be about. Here's some bit with the characters. Now you're going to dispatch them and there's going to be lots of dialogue and lots of stuff that is like going to build up to the events that will happen in the scenes after the dispatch part. Or maybe you'll do like one shift and it will go really shitty and then you'll come back and fire up the troops and then go out for a second dispatch shift in the episode. It creates like a, I don't know, like an expectation to the pacing that I think is also just really, really, really smart and well designed. Yeah. But you really got to meet it on its own terms. That's what I discovered because I blew it off at first because like, I'm playing games in 10 minutes spurts. I don't have time for this, but if you sit down and engage with it, you know, clear an hour, I think it's really, really worth it. Or, or I mean, genuinely, I don't think I would have gotten into the game if I didn't, I'm not watching anything right now that I'm like watching solo. And so I just like put it on my ROG LIX and propped it up while I ate lunch one day and was like, oh, OK, if I turn off the QTEs, this is like actually kind of perfect. This is actually, I can knock one of these out a day. No problem. Um, yeah. Cool. Okay. Yeah. Let's take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the video game awards. 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 $8 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, want $8 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 dragnet and make sure that you're not spending money that you don't even know about. 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Okay, we're going to be talking a little bit about the Big Jeff Game Awards that are happening next week. But before that's what they call it. Why did they change the title? That's the name. That's the question I raised mine. Why did they change it to the Big Jeff Awards? You know, you'd have to ask Big Jeff. Only he knows. Yeah. The BGGA's. Before we get into that, though, we have some besties game of the year talk to discuss Chris Plant. What's going on? We are finishing up our bracket. We have already chosen 12 games that will be in the bracket. What are they? Wouldn't you like to know? You'll be finding out soon enough, but you have a chance to vote on four additional games that will round out the 16 seed bracket. And if you're listening to this right when the episode goes up, you can actually still cast a vote. Polls closed tonight, Friday at 11 30 PM Pacific time. So you still have a little bit of time. But if you are already a subscriber to the newsletter or the Patreon, you already know all this. It's in your email inbox, which is all the more reason to subscribe to either of those. Right. So the gist is we've picked the 12. You guys are going to vote on your top four. And those top four will make it into the full 16 bracket when we do the game of the year. And that'll give us enough time to play some of your picks. If we haven't played the picks already, that'll allow us to have some good discussion and see if it gets higher than we would have expected. If you want to see games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle or Dispatch, which we just discussed, you should go vote. You should go do that right now. Very important. It'd be a huge favor. Actually, I've played a lot of Dispatch at this point. If you all could bump that one up, that would actually be huge. Just from an ROI point, it would be. Just from a sunk cost fallacy. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Okay. We did this last year, but I thought we'd just make some predictions on the game of the year. The game awards, specifically the game awards picks. I have the list. Are you ready for this? Are you ready? Are you ready? We only need to start. Put the clean box down. Are you ready? Okay. Yeah, I'm ready. Claire Obscure, Expedition 33. I don't even care what the category is. I think it's just going to win. I think it's just going to clean sweep basically whenever it's in. I think it's not going to win hardly anything. I think people are just going to think, other people vote for that. I want to rep my favor. Yeah. It's so domineering. You know what I mean? I think I want to vote for a little bit indie. You know, that's the only thing. Split fiction. Of. It's coming, baby. It's coming. Is there a specific genre that you think you guys wanted to tackle? Fighting game. You want to tackle fighting? Okay. So there are a lot of good fighting games here. Most of them came out 30 years ago, but that's okay. Virtual Fighter 5. Mortal Kombat. I was kidding. I was dude. I don't know fucking in it. Dude. Dude. Dude. Dude. Come on. I wanted to talk about my announcement predictions officially. Later. Your announcement predictions, not even the awards. All right. No, do you guys want to talk about that? We're going to talk about war predictions first. Okay. I mean, are we honestly could just skip right to it because I'm not joking when I say. I think we would go through almost every single thing and it would be clear of obscure expedition 33. I think. What makes you feel that confident? What makes you what makes you feel. This is not our game of the year selection. This is just how we think it would go. What the. Yeah, it has everything it could possibly need. It's a narrative game and narrative games, such role playing games tend to win. It has the quote, Indie bump. Indie is a funny term there, but right. It's you feel good voting for it. It has, I believe the highest metacritic score of anything there and it has originality. So, you know, it's not going to go up like Hades to Ghost of Yotte, Destraining to even split fiction. It has all the pieces of what you would expect from a winner. I mean, the year awards. To me, it feels like it is up against one other serious contender and that's Soak song. So when it for. Go to go to you for Indie game of the year, like when it's maybe it's best. They be it's nominated for best debut indie game and it feels like such a while and also best independent game. And it's it's up against blueprints in both of those categories that that feels like a tough that feels like a tough putt for old blueprints. Say for dispatch dispatch is in there with best debut indie game, too. What a blueprints basically can't win also to be like super clear. Like it would be next to impossible for it to win because the voting body is international and blueprints is a strictly English game. Oh, is it? The numbers don't work for it. Interesting. OK. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I I I could see Soak song taking it, but I do agree if it doesn't take it. Claire is going to take it. The other thing I would keep in mind is there is a as with the Oscars, there's the game direction category and then the game of the year category. So you could see people splitting that vote where it's like, I'm going to vote for Claire, up here for game direction and game here for Soak song or vice versa, whatever it is. Don't don't you think so it's not for best game direction. Destraining to is I feel like that's maybe the spoiler for that. That could be Claire, obscure expedition 33 in that particular category. So I do not think that's it. If it's not a triumph of like game direction and like figuring out how to make that whole thing work, I don't know what it is. So yeah, I don't think it's nominated for like best performance anywhere in there. Is Rita. Did Rita get a bump? Nope. I I mean, I completely agree, especially like if we were doing like, what do we actually think should win from these? I would definitely say Destraining to. But again, I think it's Destraining is too divisive of a game. Like they're just there's a contingent to people who just do not like those games, who do not like Kojima games, and it doesn't have the big emotional pull that the ending of Claire obscure does. And I think it's kind of the problem that we see with like the Academy Awards, too, where like people aren't actually judging to the category. They're judging to like their emotional. The vibes connection with the game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, I think I think you're onto something, Chris, because I'm looking at all these categories and it's like. Best score and music. Like there's a lot of really good stuff in there. Darren poor, baby's too. Christopher Larkin, a whole night's silk song. Yeah, for sure, for sure. But also like like it's going to feel like Claire is going to get in there and get nasty on it. That's another one where I wish Destraining to had it. I mean, maybe Destraining to is nominated for best music. It could get it. Best performance. Best performance is interesting because Erica, she's in there for sure, for sure. Troy Baker in there for Indiana Jones in the great circle. Yes, absolutely. There's no way he remembers doing that. He does not. But not Tukato. No way. They told me that I did this with this Indiana Jones game. I'm happy to be here in my Batman. No, not this. Not Destraining voice. Then there's Ben Starr, Charlie Cox and Jennifer English, all Claire Obscure Expedition 33, half of the nominees. There's no dispatch representation. I think dispatch came very late. And I think the fan support happened before the critical support. Yeah, that's a fair point. And that's just what happened. I mean, it has presence in independent game, I believe, and like fan. If there's a split, this is where I feel like it could be. And, y'all, I say it's almost certain that Indiana Jones is going to get in through that that listener poll. So I started going back and playing that game. I think it's incredible. It's fun. Super fun. I forgot how bonkers good that game is. And his performance is. Oh, it's crazy. Nuts. He's not just his impersonation. It's just a great performance. It's a really good. I do want to call out one interesting thing that I don't know has ever happened before, at least someone can correct me in the comments if it has. Somebody pulled out of a nomination. They said, I do not want this nomination. And that is the developer of Megabonk, who basically said, look, I've made games under different studio names and different title. I've worked on other titles. So this is not really my debut game, even though it's the first game I'm making as this studio name. So don't both. Mystery. A mystery is afoot. Kind of interesting. Who is the Megabonk developer? I mean, I didn't realize the Megabonk developer was operating under a certain veil of secrecy, and maybe they don't want to walk onto a stage to be congratulated. I adore Megabonk also. It is up against in that category, Claire Obscure, Expedition 33 and. What was the other big debut? Oh, Blueprints. I also say you don't need to show up. Like it's not like local funk showed up for the Bellatro nod. So like I did. Didn't he dress up like a clown man? He did dress up like a clown. Was he there? Someone dressed up as a clown to accept an award for Bellatro. Maybe that was a local fund. The person. Couldn't. No, no, no. It's like the spokesperson. Yeah. Listen. I think it's so inspirational that within the span of a decade, we have gone from women with award winners painted on their bodies to someone withdrawing from consideration to preserve the sanctity of the game awards. It's proud tradition of the best. I am no debut, so I cannot take this from another deserving Viggy recipient. This is what Big Jeff has been working for, and he's here. He made it. Yeah. It's it's happening. I listen, I'm I'm kidding on this square. Big Jeff, you know, you know how proud the J-Man is of you personally, I tell you in all our texts. I hope that we do still get like a beleaguered Samuel L. Jackson on stage handing out the Viggy to fucking fucking Umamusume, pretty derby for best mobile game. That's a dream. There's time to call it the Viggy, Jeff. You don't have to you don't have to get us. You don't have to mention this even. But you could get this year, start calling it the Viggy. I think that that's time. It's time. Best adaptation through me for a loop. Because did you guys know they did a Splinter Cell cartoon with Liam Shriver as Sam? I didn't know about that. Oh, I know that. OK, like, hey, guys, if us didn't know about the Splinter Cell cartoon on Netflix starring Liam Shriver that came out in October, who did? Who knew? How did these people know about it to nominate it? I don't know. I don't know. Let me just check and make sure. No, none of us are still. None of us are content creator of the year. No, yeah, that's that's fine. I actually was. And I pulled out. So you pulled out made room for the burnt peanut. I get it. Do you want to guess some announcements? Yeah, Justin, you have some. I don't have like I don't have guesses, but I have some things that I pulled up mainly based on when they their previous appearances in the VGA's and their relative quiet since then, right? My rationale here being that announced the VGA's haven't heard anything for a while. Maybe we hear something and you guys follow more closely. So I want to see what you think. First of all, what about a Max Payne remake trailer? Seems like a good thing. Oh, yeah, we know there's a remake coming. Yeah. And and that studio remedy has done actually a lot of stuff. It came awards. So that would surprise me. What if Prince of Persia says the time remake is there? What do you think about that? Certainly will be. I would put like 95 percent bit on that. You should you should keep in mind the likelihood that Ubisoft won't exist as a company by next week. So that's the other consideration. I would say that we will see that and we will see Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake there. I would not be surprised if Ubisoft pulls a Bethesda when they are trying to confirm their sale and just announced everything. Do you all remember this before Xbox acquired Bethesda? And they were like, yeah, here's 20 years of games. Ubisoft's going to start saying whatever they're working on. What about what about a blade trailer? What about a mention of blade? Oh, I forgot. Blade was being made. I would like to see that. Yeah. I know. All right. It was Arcane was working on a blade game. They were confirmed to be working on it as recently as last year. So I don't know. Only reason we might not see that is Wolverine is so close that if they're going to show anything, they might want to show Wolverine. But possibly I think we'll see. That's a different studio. That's insomniac is making Wolverine. Right. But the Marvel games, bud. It's the one who controls the game and everything. Now, this is what the. What would you guys think about this? Probably some Elder Scrolls Online bullshit. Yeah. That sounds right. Do you think that I have a. I have a genuine question. I forgot to add the second part that I am excited about until I see the Elder Scrolls Online. Those things give me every fucking year, big Jeff. You got to stop teasing like that, buddy. They'll be like in a world beyond compare. Demons and dragons, fight for supremacy. I'm like, hell, yeah. I always say, Siridale. They'll say Siridale. Very. The world of Siridale. Yeah, return, return to the. Forgotten. Let's go. Really? Nile. Yeah, baby. Coming this month, the 17th era begins like, oh, fuck. Elder Scrolls Online bullshit. Never mind. Change the channel, kids. I want to mention. So I don't think historically there's really ever been major Nintendo announcements during the TGAs, but. It does seem like we might get a dustblood. If anybody else has VGAs from now on, I'm going to kill you. It's Viggies, please. We're not going to get it going. The big Jeff Viggies. It does seem like we might get a dustblood trailer, given that that's a switch to exclusive and like a big. And there's always some from soft there, right? They've already announced that they haven't really shown gameplay really. So that and my. Yeah. My other big bet, I think we'll see a lot of Sega stuff. They've been showing up more and more in these things. They've got a few properties they could like delve into a little bit. Sega's got their crazy thing and Jet Set Radio thing. Yeah, they made that announcement. We're like, we're bringing back everything. We're bringing back Golden Axe. We're bringing back crazy taxi, Jet Set Radio. There is a rollerblade skate shop in downtown Santa Ana that now has what looks like all this licensed Jet Set Radio future stuff all over it. Like they've like liveryed the entire outside of the store. And the anniversary is coming up. It just feels like something is on the way there. And then Sonic has 35th anniversary and hasn't had a mainline game in a bit. So I feel like there's a sonic announcement. Like they'll show percent new persona for I forget Jesus Christ. Oh, yeah, the new subtitle of the. I should know this since it's like my favorite game of revival. More golden. That's right. Yes, persona for more golden revival. I'd love to see that again, especially since they didn't show basically fuck all when they announced it at the Xbox Game Show case back in June. Yeah, that'd be nice. That would be nice. Yeah. The only other last thing that I would expect is that new Jurassic Park like survivor game like it might actually be called that survival. Yeah, like a dialogue. It's like anything that's like. Yeah, anything that ties into movies, I feel like is game awards fodder because we're already in LA. Let's get the celebrities out. Do all that stuff. Is there any fable stuff maybe? Oh, that'd be nice. What is the other game that rare? The like open world. I like I canceled Jesus Christ. Not perfect. Dark, which also. No, it's like a fantasy. It's like a ever wild ever. Yes, ever wild. Yeah. I think. Oh, no, it was canceled. Yeah, I never mind. But even everything. Yeah. Yeah. Then Viva Pignata, Viva Pignata, coming back in a big way, definitely. Never. Damn cancel. That's a bummer. They feel pain. Uh, the pinatas. Yeah. Oh, they screamed when you hit them. Yeah, for sure. Awful. Um, I. Viva. They stay with screen. I want to hit you guys with a prediction that is way out of left field. But you tell me what you think. Because it just feels this one. I feel in my bones. Please. And when I wrote it, I just wrote in this document, Fortnite movie. Wow. I wrote it. Dude, right when I say it, there's some part of you is like, I think big Jeff just got a chill on his spine. He's like, how did he know? Say it again so I can receive it. Fortnite movie. Yeah. Elimination Studios and Epic Partner. Fortnite movie. They just did this kill bill thing. Were they? And they just did a big event where they basically like reenacted the scene from Ready Player One, but with all their fucking franchises where King Kong, Godzilla and Marty McFly were like punching a giant monster in the face. Right. So I feel like I just guys, it just the the Simpsons thing and that like they're the scope of it is getting bigger. And I feel like it is at a point where the property, there isn't a big enough property for Fortnite to consume it. You know what I mean? Like it almost has to be, it has to be the meta property itself. And it feels like there's a Lego movie opportunity that's just kind of been like sitting there if you nail the tone. But like, I don't know, it just feels like the game awards. Fortnite movie. I have one very dumb reason that I don't think it will happen, at least not right away is I think Epic is proud enough. Or stupid enough that they would demand it be made in Unreal Engine. Oh, I think I think they would. Yeah. I think that they would be like, we're not going to partner with any other studio unless they are making the game in Unreal. It's all going to be my cinema. And it's well, yeah. I like they can the players. I mean, the Unreal Engine theoretically would be capable of doing a full year, it could, but when you would have to get some partners who are not elimination, right? Like you're going to have to work on people and be like, no, we're going to use our tools. Yeah. In my mind, it would that would look like Final Fantasy of the spirits within and maybe that's unfair that I'm that I would make that comparison. She is that looks so good. Because it looked so good. That's exactly. They also exported it 720p. It's going to be great. Looks so good on my iPhone. Well, it's going to be a big show. Yeah, we let me just do two quick reader mails and then we'll dive into honorable mentions. First one, this comes from Nick. I'm on my hands and knees begging the besties crew to try out Straftat, which I think is a game we put on. Very cool game. It might be my game of the year solely based on the fun per minute metric. This might be my tower fall. I think about it every other day. I recommend playing the tutorial, which is fine. And then just getting in a lobby together for an hour with all the maps on rotation. Straftat, in case you're not aware, is a one V one FPS multiplayer game where they just toss you maps like fucking crazy. Like each match. Let's do you ever play this 12 seconds. No, I'm watching a trailer. I mean, it doesn't look like my jam, but it looks like something that I wish was my jam. It looks like, you know, a counter strike or something intense sort of. Genuinely. I even enjoy it way more than you think because it looks like Counter Strike, but plays like random Mario Party, GoldenEye. Okay. Yeah. It next time you're in the same room with someone with a steam deck. I think it's. Is it free? Yeah. Or very inexpensive. Yes, I believe it is. Download it and play it with someone in the same room. I think it'd be a fucking blast. So Straftat is very, very good. Surely recommend it. The other thing I wanted to mention is from Nick. This is regarding Kirby air riders, which we talked about last week. I'm surprised to hear that they, meaning Griffin, Plant and I, like the racing more in Kirby air riders, I'm under 30 and air riders air ride, I guess was always a friend's house classic. I never owned it, but it was a sleepover classic. And all my friends love playing the battle mode much more than the racing. I don't think I've ever played the racing mode, but I think the battle mode was a kid's favorite. I think that's probably true in the context of same room, same system, multiplayer, probably a lot of fun, which I think none of us did for what it's worth. I, yeah, I mean, from what I understand, it was the city, city, shit was a city trials that was like the, the crazy party mode that everybody was, was wild about. And I do think that it is designed for a local sort of couch, but with the magic of game chat, you can recreate that experience so seamlessly with the Nintendo switch to camera, you plug it in and it follows your face in a special dot. Okay. We can dive into honorable mentions. Justin, I want to hear about your rise to fame, your celebrity status that you've hit in a game called sector. Yeah. Um, more people need to play sector because I should not be in the leaderboard of any game on the world. I mean, like the number 19 on one of the modes is what Russ is referring to. I don't know which, I don't remember which one, but I bear classic mode. He's number 19. I'm number 19 on classic mode. You guys, it's, everybody's got to play more sector. I think it's so fucking good. It's so good. It makes you, it makes you feel good when you play it and I need, and, um, there is a thing about sector and I'm, I'm, I don't know. Mm. Huh. The meta game of it, the scoring of it, it's like, it's not like any shooter like this I've ever played because understanding how to score better is like a puzzle in and of itself that you have to solve. Like it doesn't lay out a lot of stuff for you. So understanding, it's, think of a geometry wars, but like in geometry wars, a lot of the, the strategy was pretty basic. Like once you got the basic idea, it was just reflexes, right? And yeah, stay alive. Just stay alive. Like, uh, and that, and I love that. That's awesome. Uh, this definitely has that in spades, but each mode has different meta considerations in terms of like, what power ups do you have that are helping you with this situation? Or like, how do these, uh, score bonuses like overlap together? If you wait to get this thing, will this thing work better and trigger more? And it is almost like a, it's not to the level of like a Bellatro or something like that, but there's a, this, uh, things click where you're like, Oh, I've been spinning my wheels because this and this, these two things need to be interconnected. So that understanding is building while you're building the reflexes. And, uh, that's very satisfying. Yeah. They're almost all kind of predicated on like a push, pull, risk, reward type thing. Like the mode I love, and it was the same in geometry wars. It's called gates where, and that's the one where you can't shoot. You just fly through gates that spawn in that explode and you kill enemies with it. But the way to score high in that one is to get a combo going, which will persist for a few seconds after you get a kill. So the idea is you want to wait and not fly through any of the gates and let a big fucking crowd of monsters, uh, chase you around. And then at the very last second, when you can't possibly have any more or not room to wiggle around, you just go through the, and you blast. Good. You get, there's a, um, you can get this power up that is tough to get. There's a power up that is cycling through letters and it's spelling a word, almost like a pinball table. And you have to fly through that power up several times to spell out the word. But when you spell out the word, you enter this rainbow mode that is the most satisfying thing. It reminds me of Peggle back in the day when Peggle would really hit. Yeah. When this thing gets rainbow mode. Oh, baby. It is literally called rainbow mode. It's not even. It's called rainbow. You're so stressed out, especially in campaign mode when you're playing it and you're like, no shields, fucking white knuckle, God almighty, I can't keep up. And then you hit rainbow. You get to take a breath. Oh, and it looks incredible. Yeah. Please play sectory. The game is not, uh, has not hit a huge mass audience. Please be on the front lines of this fucking fantastic game. It's, it's truly. There's a couple. Really? Couple games that we're going to be talking about the go to considerations that are going to be kind of wild spoilers because they do everything so right. Like they obviously don't do the most incredible, ambitious, new groundbreaking thing, but like everything sectory does it fucking crushes and nails and it gets its hooks right deep down in your brain. And I think could do pretty, um, pretty, pretty well actually. You don't play anything else juice. No dispatch that, you know, I have been playing a lot of stuff, but it's all contextual for, for go to. It's like, I went back to like, uh, I will say that just for like context wise, I'm going to play a lot more death stranding too. I'm playing a lot more sectory, playing a lot more, um, Fortnite. Cause that new event started and Fortnite could have been game of the year any year. You know, you think about it. For now, movie might be the game of the year next year. I've returned to, uh, Donkey Kong, uh, but Bonanza. Glad I've done that. Cause it's been, it's been a different experience playing through it solo without, uh, you know, a child with a rocket launcher. So yeah, it's an actual game. It's an actual real game at that point. It's very, it's, it's extremely polished and good. Um, have you guys watched stranger things yet? The new season, I'm thinking to somebody's getting the word out. I think it's an interesting show. I think it's, you know what, Grimace, it's, it's 34 year olds and my gushers for who's going to tell me about the new season of stranger things. It's just, obviously I'm not here to, uh, market stranger things because it continues to be like in some ways, just really kind of bad television that I am fully willing to cut the most slack I'm willing to cut any piece of media ever because I am so like just fucking like I'm down, like I'm down. Yeah. These characters are going to say things that sound patently insane to be coming out of their 35 now, like old adult mouths. But like, I, I don't know. I find myself so I don't know. I'm just in, I'm down for, for whatever they want to throw, even if it's the same kind of bits, uh, over and over again. I'm a weird spot because I watched the first three seasons and then haven't seen the latest two. And when I say latest, I mean, some of that stuff came out like four or five. The last season was great. I think the last season with Vecna was, was fantastic. It's just going to be very weird for me because if I watch them sequentially, there's going to be immediate aging from one episode to another. Dude, yeah, you'll finish the season finale of season four and then start season five and be like, holy shit, is there a plot line where they all fell into the time hole? Vecna summoned the time hole. Yeah, no. And that is, I think a great deal of the weirdness genuinely. Is that just fine? Whatever. There is a, it's fine. There, there's an inherent kind of detachment. It feels like maybe from, uh, considering it's been like, I think in the fiction of the show, like a couple of weeks since the ending of season four, I don't know that they are bringing the, uh, the urgency, but I think overall it's good. The other thing I really wanted to talk about that I've been playing constantly. I'm very excited to hear about this. Is the Castle Crashers painter boss paradise DLC that came out earlier this year. Uh, okay. I, this makes so much, I saw this pop up on steam for you and I was like, Griffin, what is happening? We talked about it. So Castle Crashers is actually one that Henry and I had played before. Uh, it was a little too, he didn't like when the, uh, you save a princess at the end of one of the levels and they like make out. He saw that for the first time. I was like, I'm done. Um, but then we played, you know, Scott Pilgrim, the TMNT beat him up, Absalom, like we got real, real into. And so came back to it and was like, Hey, have you heard of this DLC? And I remembered we had talked about it on the show painter boss paradise adds. First of all, like the remastered kind of sheen of, uh, you know, new art and stuff to, to the game. It looks great. But the big thing it does is it lets you customize characters and download customized characters from the steam workshop. And the way that you customize characters is that it generates a little like sprite sheet where it shows you each different like part. Here's what the head looks like facing forwards and to the sides and then to the side a little bit more. And it shows you like a little outline and you can go through and export it to the drawing app of your choice and do that, re upload the PNG. And it looks really fucking good. So we've been making characters. We've been downloading. Griffin, are you in Castle Crashers right now? Like my character yourself? I've not, I've not made myself in Castle Crashers. No, um, Henry made a character called the bankest, who is just a very wealthy man with a big top hat. But like it's really, uh, it's genuinely, it has really given the game a shot in the arm and we've been playing a lot of it. We're now playing through insane mode together, which is probably too punishing to be enjoyable, but, uh, big, big ups to the beam for releasing DLC for this. I think 17 year old video that is, uh, is truly pretty, pretty ambitious. I mean, they're due for a game announcement, right? They're going to put out something soon. Yeah, man. I mean, Castle Crashers too would blow up. Well, they put out that alien hominid game and yeah, uh, it was pretty Castle Crashers. I think in the vein of what Justin was saying regarding, um, game of the year consideration, I started playing root treats are dead, which yes, it's very fucking good. Uh, I really, really like it. I think I might be too dumb or ADD for it. I'm literally ADD. That's not even a neg. Uh, I take medication and everything. So I'm trying, uh, I think it's incredibly cool, but I am also like, Oh my God, I'm getting so overwhelmed by all the options and like things that I could chase down, but I just execution wise, they've really fucking crushed it. Like it's really incredible and has me. I would encourage you to, uh, to, to make use of the hint system. I think one way that they do hints is actually pretty good. Okay. It's very light, very light touch, very like you may have noticed in this thing that this mentioned that, is there anywhere you could look to see if there is a, it doesn't say like this guy is this guy's son. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's pretty, uh, that's good to know. As you know, hints are anathema to me, but if they're in game, I feel less bad about it. So no, it's, it's, it, I had to make use of it, especially for the, uh, bonus chapter of the game, which is so crazy. It's just conceptually so cool. Obviously it's an evolution of the things we saw in over din, but just really well done to remake the internet, to make a small internet. I'm always fucking down with a game that tries to do so cool to make an internet. Play it. You have anything? Yeah. I'm in play in a routine. I was here, but this game got announced like a million years ago. Pretty good. Looks, looks pretty spooky. Looks pretty scary. So the way routine works, it's basically, uh, imagine you're set in a Ridley Scott alien, the alien one type of space situation and you are being hunted, at least at first, by a giant towering robot. It is one of those horror games where you cannot kill the bad guy that is chasing you, you can just hope to avoid them or stun them for long enough. That's just because you're bad at games though. Like I would be able to. For sure. I mean, probably, I mean, you know, even without guidance, no less. Right. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's, um, it's really good. It is really good in that I wish it had come out all those years ago because it was so this concept felt really fresh and ahead of its time. It had the misfortune of actually being announced before that alien game. Oh yeah. The literal alien game that did this thing. Yeah. And then like the many, many other horror games that have done versions of this thing. That said, it has some art direction choices that are just absolutely killer because it is going for this pseudo early digital analog world. When you want to save, for example, it will project a screen like a really shitty projector project like onto a wall. So it's not just like a screen, it's just a random projection on the wall, which looks amazing using all of the modern graphical whiz bangs that you can actually use with Unreal Engine five now. It, yeah, it's doing a lot with a little that said, I don't know if we'll do like a full episode on it, not because it's not great, but just because I don't know if is anybody here like that sort of game person. Does anybody love this sort of? Oh no, I find them horrifying and debilitating. Yeah. Very, very rarely. Well, like, like I have to be in a mood and I don't know that I am right now. Yeah. So I'm glad that I gave it a shot. I doubt I will be finishing it just because I similarly do not have the stomach. It's not this. I find them scary. It's that I don't like doing puzzles while I'm also just having to evade a thing. Like I don't. My brain doesn't personally enjoy that. But if your brain does, you should go check it out because it looks. It's absolutely beautiful to look at. Yeah, that's it. That's it, right? That's it. That's it. Thank you to our patrons or at patreon.com slash the besties. We have a new bracket that is live right now. You can listen to that and enjoy it for all your pleasure. Actually, here's a clip. The fact that the first thing most people did was made penises or Pini. I think hard not to and gets to your point of it's a bit more of like a user generated game than it is like a character creation tool because the time to Pini is like associated with an entire different genre of character of creation. Well, except for Conan Exiles, which has a time to Pini of zero milliseconds. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. I forgot. The hardest edit I've ever had to do in my entire life. Interesting. Word choice. Oh, man. Griff, let's remake. Never ever ever. No, no, no, no, is that unrated? Put it on the wall. Just put it on the paywall. Yeah, sure. That said, that said, the tools that Spore gives you are pretty fucking phenomenal. Lovely. Such good stuff that we did. I'm so proud of us. I want to thank a few new members to the Patreon. We have Daniel S. We have Jeffrey A. We have Lar and we have Kaylee N. Thank you for being members. Thank you to everyone else for being members. We really greatly appreciate you. What are we doing next week? Wow, it's a big week. Next week, we have Metroid Prime 4. It's actually real. Speaking of games that have been in development for basically ever, we will actually be able to finally play the new Metroid Prime game. And you'll hear about that next week. Also breaking news, Amber Niggas just announced the 477 M. So can you guys tell me what can you guys tell me about that device? Go. 4.7 inch screen. Good. Metal exterior. Seventh generation metal. They've just announced the 477 V. Oh, fuck. Vertical vertical orientation. Dude, no way. It's the same panel as the 477 M. But with a vertical orientation, dude. Justin, I think you need to get in the show. We're talking. Dimensity, eighty three hundred. The Dimensity, eighty three hundred. Russell. It's the same one as the RG 477 M. That's going to do it for some of the best days. We should be sure to get next week for the best days because shouldn't the world's best friend take the world's best games? Besties.