So, we just took a trip to Utah and we brought along my young child who managed. There was some projectile vomiting, but that's okay. That happens with children. The thing that I found to be most disturbing of the entire trip, even though it was mostly good, was on the flight back directly in front of my seat, was a person playing animal well. And if you want to know the most stressful scenario I could ever be put in.
Russ Frushtick, oh my god, that sounds designed for you. That's a Twilight Zone episode. That's your good place, like, eternal torture town. Did you, did you, as soon as you saw the screen, your glasses fall from your nose and break on the ground, like, it's not fair!
Y'all, it gets so much worse. I'm watching the guy play. He had just booted, it was the very beginning of the game. And he approaches the first, very first enemy, which is the little flying ghost thing that instaculates you in a tent. Like Mario. And he proceeds to try to, like, do the crank repeatedly and just keeps dying to the thing and is trying to like...
Oh my god, you don't go for the crank first. You gotta get the firecrackers. You dummy. And he's trying to, like, juk out the ghost and, like, jump over it and, like, move around it. And there's a fucking path all the way just to the north... Just go up that fucking path and, like, run away from it. It's clearly killing you repeatedly. And I'm like, do I tap this guy on the shoulder? I kind of wanted to, like, go and just, like, do top of the head, kind of move.
Yeah, that wouldn't be patronizing at all. Especially a stranger. Especially a stranger. And then he fucking quit after 10 minutes of dying. And I was like, it's hard. Not for everyone. Yellow, you know? What would be worse if somebody did this to you, Griffin or Hoops, that somebody taps you on the head and then gives you the answer to the thing that you were doing in the video game.
Or just knowing that while you were struggling with a video game before turning it off, that some weirdo was watching. Yeah. You did make, you did make the correct choice for us, not from your own personal anxieties, but from the fact that if you said, like, and I'm going to be watching you for the rest of the flight, just to make sure... Also, I would posit that if this dude can't figure that out, maybe he ain't cut out for a whole lot of them.
You know what's really funny is that's the part that Chris Plant texted me about when he first started playing. He's like, I just keep getting killed by the ghost. Yeah. That's not my problem. It's a bad game. I think the pro move for us is as you're walking off the plane. You just whisper it is here. Something that'll break the whole case wide. He didn't know you're watching, then as you're off like, the 17 day is class. He's walking off, like, whoa, what? The 17 day, of course!
I'm Billy Besso, and I have been the whole time. No one really knows what he looks like, I couldn't be. I think he's actually been fairly public. If you look across the aisle and noticed that Billy Besso is there, is it then worse or better for you? That's how you do it. That's how you know it is someone's hell, and you're in it because of the bad things you did. Which all listening to you. Oh, we can say, we're sure it's a hell. My name is Justin Bakor, and I know the best game of the week.
My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best Prince of Persia of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Frustick, and I know the best second best 2D side scrolling Prince of Persia game of the year. I'll go to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest home interactive entertainment. It is a video game club, and just by listening right now to this audio file, you've become a member of our illustrious ranks.
This week we're going to be talking about the Rogue Prince of Persia. What's that? I mean it this time. A lot of times that's a setup, but what? Yeah, so... It's a big hit. It's a great question. This is a different Prince of Persia than the most recent Prince of Persia we played. And I understand why people might be confused because before this, they just weren't in the business to make in Prince of Persia games for a long time. Now, they're back, and they are back hard.
It's basically a Rogue-like, but Prince of Persia. I love it. This episode of the Besties is sponsored by Factor. Things are really hectic right now, and the days are getting shorter, it's getting dark earlier, and your motivation for actually full-on cooking a meal at the end of the day is gotta be pretty low. I know it is for me, and it can be really tough. That is why Factor is great. Factor has nutritious options to keep you fueled and feeling your best already in two minutes or less.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the support team for Dead Cells, which, um, fresher mind to me, had been like effectively making a lot of the Dead Cells updates over the past couple of years. Yeah, there's some five years, right? I'll give you like a brief, very brief history of where Dead Cells launched. It was made by Motion Twin and then Evil Empire basically came in while Motion Twin was working on their new game, which is a game that I don't remember the name of, but looked kind of neat. Winswept.
Winswept sounds right. And so while that was going on, Evil Empire was basically focused on all of the updates that were happening in Dead Cells, which were, if you were keeping track of, fucking radical, free and a lot of windblows. There was a shitload of updates, including like Castlevania 1 and a bunch of like story driven DLC, but that's not true.
So that, so Evil Empire is the team that went ahead and made this game, which is Rogue Prince of Persia, obviously using a lot of the framework of Dead Cells, but making some tweaks to the loop and to the gameplay to make it feel distinct from Dead Cells. But I would say the comparison is apt. It's about 70% Dead Cells. Yeah, yeah, that's about right. I will say it feels definitely structurally like Dead Cells. I think they've made a couple of really interesting tweaks to just the base combat.
I would say that like the basic combat of this is more robust than Dead Cells without the weapon variety that Dead Cells has right now. What it has, the two, I would say most prominent is one, you have a vault button, which is on the face, which is weird, right? Like I don't, I can't think of, it's basically mirroring that movement that you do in a lot of these games, pretty much everyone, where you're jumping over, turning around, attacking the back.
And this has a button that lets you do that right away, and it ties power ups to it. Like if you've fallen over somebody, you'll throw daggers at them. So that's cool. Yeah, I mean, Dead Cells for words, we've had a dodge button, but it wasn't just like up and over kind of. Right. Right. It's a different, it's a little bit different of a vocabulary. And the other thing that is big is there's a kick that you can use to kick enemies into each other or enemies into traps.
It's very quick and springy and worked very quickly. And you've got like a charge as well. Yes. That's in every video game in the world. So I wasn't going to mention it, but yes, if you hold down the attack button, it will do more power. I don't think that's how that attack. I don't think so either. I don't think that it cares. I think I was struck with how gay bros, why are we even comparing these two? I've lost track.
I was struck by how more kind of thoughtful, I think the combat is in this game. I feel like in Dead Cells, it's very much like I always just try to make a build that just seems like that just team roles everything is quickly as possible because I like to play that game like real fucking fast. And the game actually encourages that. Like Dead Cells encouraged you to really sprint through. Either that or like go no hit. Those were the two. Right. It has the timed gates.
Right. Like if you can make it through the first level in less than three minutes, you get like a bunch of currency that you can spend on these permanent unlocks. This one is very much more like there's shielded enemies. If you can kick one enemy into a shielded enemy, it instantly gets rid of their shield or if you can kick an enemy into spikes or into a pit. It kills them instantly. There's a lot. And combat also takes a couple seconds longer.
I feel like per fight enemies have a little bit more health. Your weapons aren't these diabolical tactical nukes. And so I don't know. I tried playing this game like Dead Cells and it didn't work on it. Yeah. I think the joy of this game is how you can build on top of that really basic combat system. So eventually you get these effectively like card slots. And those card slots have a special boost or power is tied to the different core combat ability.
So for example, there is a jump and down attack that you can have. And one of the cards when you use that could cover the area around you in oil. You can't think it's I think they're medallions. They're medallions but like in videos. So you can start expecting a slay the spire experience. They're perks. They're best perks. Yeah, whatever you want. But so you could do one where you you can get that.
You could do one where you can I think I can increase your health every time you do a successful vault over here. Do like do a kick and it throws tar on the ground. And then the long term I think magic of the game is how you decide to like tie those things together in two different ways. One is say you have a tar and then you have another expression where the tar any tar on the ground that hits an enemy turns into poison and it poisons them.
So now suddenly you can both slow people down and poison them with a single move. The other thing and this is where it starts to be pretty complicated is this where I said like cards because it feels kind of to me like a card game in the medallion area where you assign these is when you assign them each. Each medallion has the ability to raise the power of other medallions either like after the right placement.
Yeah, based on its placement and you each medallion if it is upgraded by other medallions can become much much much more powerful. So you are motivated to like both consider the placement of your medallions. Each one has a different if I clarify one thing that I think my bees there's four slots for these and each medallion. And each medallion has a certain number of slots like it will do the slots to the left and right of it.
It will boost or it will boost the two to the right of it or if you find a particularly strong medallion it might destroy the medallions in adjacent spots also. So there's a lot of kind of like consideration. And you might want to put a new medallion say that you fill all four slots. So you might want to put a new medallion into a spot destroying your progress on one of them because it will help you upgrade one that's more.
It's a smart way of adding variety and shaking up your like bill that you want to do. I think it can reward like a hard pivot away from rather than just like okay I'm just doing all kick stuff in this run or whatever. And it does the thing that we've talked about I think that's all specifically where you make your decision of how the combat is going to feel early and then you work towards it where this is. Hey, we want you to have an evolving experience. It's a little more reactive.
I will say I don't know if this is. I've played a few few hours of the game. I've done several runs and I don't know that I found like very much synergy and that might just be because there is also the sort of dead sell system of you find blueprints in the world that then you then can unlock permanently by like purchasing those blueprints with a currency that you also discover as you play through the game. Also, this game is we have I don't think said to this point in early access.
I don't know it's funny we're doing this right after Hades 2 which felt like pretty fucking fleshed out. I kept getting the feeling with this game of like I've seen I've seen most of what it has to offer me so far. I'm really torn on it. I've played it a lot and the playing of it like just the moment to moment I think it's pretty good like the core loop I think is solid and that's probably the most important thing for the nail but animation is sick.
Oh, the animation looks really I really like the look of it. I love the music is fucking music is out of nowhere. It's so hard it's so fucking tight. I think it's a I feel like and this is none of my business because I'm not around the place. I don't know the particulars of Ubisoft's business but this feels too early to me to be out for public consumption.
I think for for a big publisher it is surprising that it's as early as it is they've they've gone ahead and said the developer not Ubisoft have said the intention is to essentially double the amount of content that is in this game. Where it's at at early access. I don't know how long that's going to take. It reminds me though of like it reminds you know the feeling of playing it it reminds me a lot of rogue legacy to where when it launched at launch.
Yeah, we're like it's it's not that there's not of content for me. It's that the loops aren't constructed well enough right now to where I finish a run and I feel like I want to hop back in and try again. Yeah, some of the big things that I noticed is one especially early on the kicking I think is too powerful and it can make going through the early levels kind of mechanical because if you just kick everyone.
If you just kick everyone eventually they'll run into each other or spike walls they got to shake that up a bit. There's also like it's not exciting enough to get currency and spend it on upgrades because what it does is it just kind of as them to the pool which is the thing with that sells to right. But you're not there you're not getting like an immediate boost out of it. It's not feeling immediately. I don't think the weapons feel different enough.
I'm actually wondering I'm wondering something in terms of what you guys played and maybe I just didn't get there. There's a very weird way this game unlocks features where when you first start playing that like finding blueprints like currency doesn't show up for like two or three runs.
And I still I've done probably ten or eleven runs at this point I still have not seen the way to like for example increase the number of health potions I get. I only have one and it seems like you saved what you've saved. You've gotten some of the I think it's called glimmer you've got the glimmer I can unlock equipment but I have not seen like I mean maybe if you've seen like a meta progression thing that does have you unlock talismans I think so.
There's a second guy at camp yeah I found the second guy I think there is a health upgrade in there it just look like a potion but I that might have been to make potions show up in the rotation of things I don't know if it actually is that okay you're touching on something that was huge there's no expanding your central power like there's no expanding your central health strength you do not feel like you're just getting more options.
Yes, this this is where I'm so torn with this game because we've talked about my opinions on roguelikes and that I don't particularly enjoy a roguelikes where I feel like I've just spend the first ten twenty hours. Grinding to get powerful enough for the computer decided I can actually you know beat the game now.
This game is all over the place when it comes to that the big one is there's a the game is very very easy when you are in the normal levels very easy and then you get to a boss fight that is impossible.
Yeah, absolutely. But then the other part is yet your character is not itself getting stronger which I on one hand I kind of appreciate but to just even know what is going on in this game you have to die many many many times to the point where honestly the most effective way to play this game seems to a lot of times right at the start don't even try to play the game yet it is just get the basic features I mean they withhold so much of the basic features of the game.
And I just kept wanting to enjoy the game and I think with it being early access it's especially poor because I don't know what is a early access issue and what like what's not here is the game complete or like do I need to play another like 10 rounds to get some of the basic variety in each run to to make it like where you want to rush back and do it the early levels are feel very similar.
There's also some like they've tried to put in some Prince of Persia style like sort of obstacle areas that are feel a bit more Prince of Persia and those don't change as far as I can tell which feels weird to like do the same little running and jumping puzzle over and over again it really removes the
the one or however they're there feel cool yeah they're fun yeah it feels awesome they we didn't really talk about it but the you know also very easy though in addition to the current and in addition to the combat the game is like way more interested in mobility and moving up and apps and dead cells like that's the way I was talking about this the best the maybe the best wall running
mechanic in like a 2d game where you know if you can imagine you know exploring a big map in dead cells you can you start off the game being able to wall run anywhere where there is a wall in the in the background of the screen you can then chain that into like you know jumping off of a you know a wall in the foreground of this of the scene it like allows you to or grab onto a pole and swing up it and jump and wall run off of that it really shockingly feels a lot like
the good the good shit from sands of time I very I way more enjoyed just sort of getting around the world is this is more than I did the like explore the unlocking and aggression and that's a problem though to I think is that when you're hit when the mobility is locked in and you're like sort of cruising it feels bad it reminds me of Sonic the
game you get the vibe going and then there's like others a guy down there I should probably go down and attack that guy and that's one of the other weird like the maps feel a little too small for how mobile you are you know to mean like I kept wanting to like have more of a flow through the level versus like squatting down and pressing the jump button to come through this platform because there's guys below
me and there's also some weird stuff for like a lot of times you'll be on a platform and you look below you and you can't see if it's like a guy or spikes and it's like I would like to know if it's a guy or like the prince could look down right he could look down to like oh that's a guy I'm going to attack him right but you don't have that option a lot of the stuff yes I'm did you get to the point where you can start at different places
like yeah like the different pathways so there is a yeah there is one pathway that I opened up that had a lot more verticality and I was like climbing really really high effect for that yeah okay yeah I'm not in that to me weirdly felt like the truest version of whatever this game is trying to do
because it relates so much on that mobility and moving upwards solve for the small screen problems where it's like oh I'm moving at a reasonable clip here I've seen stuff before it gets to me it is all natural the other thing is the that wall kind feels so op at first because you can infinitely chain right what running up a side wall with wall running so you run up against a hard side wall and wall run up and the way that they respond to that is they start putting holes in the wall so you have
like create paths that feels so much more like the game but then you're right Justin I remember on I got up to the top one these like huge towers and then I just jumped off and it was like well I hope there is something at the bottom yeah I do do some little one thing I kind of dig is they have some like that feels like progression they have a mind map that is like basically you unlock like little story beats in the world which is like again cool the first time you do it
but at like a lot of the mobility stuff it's cool the first time you do it but like if the thrill of these games is every time it's a new experience and a new variety I know how you make combat feel that way I'm not sure how you do that with mobility you know like make that engage in every time
I think this is this is a particularly like unfortunate case I feel like where I am having trouble sort of separating my feelings from like how I feel about this game which I have had some fun with from the fact that like it is an early access follow-up to an immense fleshed out perfectly perfect like dead cells is a fucking perfect game with like so so much you could play three hours for it you could play so much right and so to follow it up with this coming out in early access
is is in a lot of ways like it it compares so unfavorably to that that I I kept finding myself honestly feeling like you know I didn't actually crack into all of the Castlevania DLC to dead cells so it's I kind of it's in a really rough position I think and the reason I think we're talking about like it is fun to like the loop is good like that's the hard part to do basically fun like it's like it is fun it doesn't compare well to dead cells it doesn't compare well to the last crown
at well okay the other prince of persia game that came out the ladies to and it that's the third one it doesn't compare well to lost crown like is doing a lot of this stuff better you know like it's very interesting but I almost feel like this needed six months to become
subservient to lost crap like we're just picking up that like it does feel I don't hate the idea that there's a bunch of princess a person running around them but they bother me but it feels like it need more space except for the Jake Gyllenhaal prince of persia I don't like the he's running I want to tell you my basis fear and I don't know that it's happening with this game but it's the fear that I kept going back to well playing it
if big publishers like Ubisoft start doing early access what is preventing them from putting a game out again they said they're going to double the content putting it out halfway through and it's really not halfway through production I know by the time you get the game up
but what is preventing them out from putting it out early being like let's see how it does and then if we feel like we want to cut our losses we're in a position to do that oh I don't think that's happening here we're just going to stop updating it right
can I just say though I mean like would that be the worst thing in the world I mean I understand that like if the alternative is you spend twice as much development time and then release something that isn't as successful as you thought and you take a huge hit I don't I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to be able to cut losses on something that's not worth it I think that I think that makes it today you are the developer and you have your own say over that
and that's kind of what early access point is I think that makes sense what scares me about a publisher like Ubisoft doing it is who is the person making that decision of when does it go live because I mean how often even with like completed games does a game go out and we hear from the developers that hey we thought we needed another year on this but yeah it was forced out the door so in any you're saying you're saying your fear is they'll sell a half finished thing
and basically leave the development team like it'll basically try to cut development costs by just releasing things half finished yeah although I would or release a half finish and then when it doesn't sell they'll be like look people just don't want more of it and the teams like it's half a game like you know I mean the pedigree of this studio I think is incredibly strong right like no if you have not played dead sell since launch
that the shit that came after is incredible it is so so so good and I don't doubt that they could turn this into I think there's something really fun here and I think that they can turn it into something really really neat I just think that the early access model is is working against it actively in this case and Ubisoft might be so obtuse as to look at that and be like people hate this fucking game get it out I don't I don't understand the decision to route to put this out right now
I legitimately don't I like it seems like such a bad time like I understand we want to build they want it to build towards something else but like man it just seems like a lot's working against it here I don't know I hope that it it bubbles back up I think that this game you're this kind of game you're hoping that a community is going to get obsessed with it and want to put a lot of time and energy into it and I don't think it merits it words at right right now I think what I am curious about is
this team built a lot of DLC for dead cells that was based on other game franchises specifically I'm thinking Castlevania Castlevania but then there was the whole like indie pack right is like this is the hollow nine bunch of other like franchise game like I wonder if this was going to be that like a Prince of Persia dead cells expansion that maybe that's so different I thought that too but it feels so different from normal
yeah it's hard for me to imagine you could jam this into the engine of dead cells and not have like a ton of work ahead of you I think this made sense for them as a project I think it has potential I guarantee when the game hits 1.0 you'll see another
like wave of attention drawn to it and we'll just kind of have to see I agree I think the road legacy to comparison is a good one which is like it doesn't feel like there's enough there yet but they have promised more and we just kind of have to hope that they're going to like make good on that
promise because as of right now at least it's not you know burning up the charts on steam it's doing well in the people that have played it like it but I think they also kind of ghost dropped I feel like there was zero fanfare is a little bit of trailer from a
attention here and there on like Nintendo or you know one of these streams but you guys you guys want to hear my tinfo hat theory about this game yeah and and and this is I feel like if this is true then a lot of this then a lot of what we're talking about makes sense
I wonder if Ubisoft is using this as a has has designs on making a sub franchise within the broader Ubisoft world so you got the Rogue Prince of Persia right but what if I told you there's a rogue assassins create what if I said there's a rogue splinter sell out there and you've got to track down what if I said there's a rogue brahalla you know there's a rogue there's a the rogue the rogue rabbits I mean I think it's like it writes itself guys every time it's a new rabbit they die and then the
next rabbit takes over that would be a straight up I play the shit out of this is what I'm saying I would not surprise me if Ubisoft's like let's just do all our fucking hey you guys may you guys put Castlevania into dead cells let me flip that on you just make splinter cell into a dead cells I don't think there would be anything they have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever by making a new splinter cell game having it be a side scrolling platforming road
there is it hey listen if you if you can conceptualize it like I mean more than like agents to into a sky scraper right you're sending spies into a sky scraper I'm not saying you're not a bad guy so I'm not saying it's a bad idea I'm saying that this is a
fridge there's certain people are clambering for and yeah no I know I mean by the time some people listen to this a new splinter cell might be announced here we'll see the road splinter cell the road splinter cell while redundant the road renegade splinter cell the lone road renegade splinter cell I'm something of a lone wolf yeah we know you said it five times okay let's think break it can be intimidating to try to establish a presence on the internet especially if you haven't done it before
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dot com for free trial and when you're ready to launch go to square space dot com slash besties to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain okay so just for you happy e3 everybody happy yay we're entering the realm of e3 next week we're going to have a much more discussion on specifically summer game fest you hope which is happening this weekend but today just for this second half of the show we're going to talk a little bit
about PlayStation state of play which had quite a number of announcements and there is one announcement in there that I literally was like holy shit this is the best announcement they could have done and I'm curious if you guys agree with that Jeff told Kataku as of Monday that he wants the people should lower their expectations about that did he have several games fast he really did yeah well he didn't he didn't tell the cataclysm it is in a stream on the the game or it's twitch channel
uh I'm about to ring for Kataku said there will definitely be new announcements but the show is largely focused on I think existing games that have new updates for fans so whatever Jeff maybe December is Jeff's Jeff's sweetest honey pot and he doesn't want to distract
with the fact or it's like a presidential debate situation where you're trying to lower expectations and then blow him out of the water is it it while how we have let this landscape shift from e3 and media things to turning keely into sort of a willy walk a S figure
just joy is every six months like look at the delights I prepared for you it's like part of the stage why do we let Jeff do all of it he's like this is a video games for today I made them all it really goes to show you that like no one at once the USA basically folded no one was ready to step
except for if you if you it is really actually for me at least gratifying as somebody who grew up in games media like I've been working it for 15 years whatever and to see keely keely is 100% a fantastic example of and I don't mean to send a disrespectful way but fake it until you make it Jeff keely has had sort of a vibe like he's kind of in charge of video games for 15 years you talk to him and he's like you taught he knows all the video games and he acts like he's in charge of video games
and you first meet him it's kind of like that where does this guy get off but I'll be damned yeah he just stood around and was Jeff keely for so long that everyone fell to his feet and he's like I guess I'm the only one standing I'm in charge of video games now and
and to his credit like did the legwork like oh no he has absolutely been husted but he was like he was acting like his stuff was a bigger deal yeah until eventually everything else died and he worked really hard only Jeff remain and it's just a single man controlling the fate of the entire industry I love it it's great it's cool okay but before Jeff's big show kicks off as PlayStation has had it stayed a while which is the official title I can't believe you did that he changes Jeff's big show
um astro bot was announced yes and there is no I don't legitimately I don't know of another place they've branchized that I am more jazzed about than seeing a full astro bot title and for people that are not aware there have been two astro bot games as far as I'm aware
unless we count that like demo desk that came with the ps4 there was the Vr game which was an excellent VR game that no one played because was on PlayStation VR and there was astro bots rescue mission is that the the game that came with the ps5 which was basically like a three to four hour like 3D
platforming game that was like celebration of the Sony prop right with a bunch of properties but from a gameplay standpoint was like Nintendo good it's like it was very good the the closest Sony has ever gotten to a 3D platformer that could compete with like a Mario Odyssey
and now they are finally giving that team the keys to make a full on astro bot game and I am so fucking jazz and it's coming this year and it is maybe now for the rest of the year my most anticipated game outside of like the ring DLC wow this game figured out the trick so anyone who has wanted a mascot forever everybody's one the mascot forever they wanted their Mario right and then they kind of like make do with what they have like like it's like sure I guess it's master chief
or whatever in astro bot they effectively have a funco pop because all they have to do is throw shadow the classes horns on a cradle yeah you do whatever you want from all the different IP that you already have that people love and then you have this really cute little toy that you can decorate
and I I saw that trailer in the media is like they they figured it out I might my fear that's not the right word but my concern that's still not the right word so much smaller than any of that but then making this game is that they would run away
from what they did in in the last astro bot game that they'd be like it's just a game about their universe right not about playstation and it's like no the whole silliness of the series is that this little robot is just shameless playstation history marketing
I mean it more or less matches what they were doing with smash brothers which I know Sony has tried to do in the past to make a literal smash brothers competitor and here this is just yeah it's shameless playstation marketing but it's also like extraordinarily fun to fucking play like
yeah great platform I mean I haven't played the new one but those past ones were like a fucking blast to play and it just feels like this team again I don't know what they've been doing but it feels like they've been underutilized until this moment and now we're finally like letting them shine
you know what's interesting watch this it reminds me of Sony very much try to push little big planet into this slot yeah like if you're a media molecule watching this there's got to be a little bit where you're like man what it all we made dreams and infinite you can make what the fuck else I'm making an astro bot dreams come you'll week I'm making dreams you know what that team should have done is made the jumps feel better and little big planet
I'm not gonna we're not gonna re litigate the jumps I'm not saying one is bad I'm talking for like I'm saying one is better I okay I don't I don't like either I'm saying that like that little big planet was this before yes I was this yeah and I think it's it's interesting that they shifted midstream to astro bot which is better to look at looking at the sack boys is bad and a lot of people didn't want to talk about that but they are boys made of sacks it's not pleasant
they're very ragged we'll see going on to take there was some other announcements that didn't super care about but I know I'm sure other people are excited I was there's some good shit in here I'm excited for the sound hill to remake
infinity Nicky looks fucking wild I was blown away at how off some of the like big tent pole sort of things in this presentation like it seemed like concord kind of went over like a lead balloon yeah this is their like a pretty guardians of the galaxy heavily inspired it seems 5v5 shooter I mean it's over like right is it just over seems like but it did not go over particularly well there was another Overwatch
there was then there was like a marvel like arena combat like multiplayer arena combat game that like there's just a lot of stuff in here that seems like it's it feels like it was greenlit 3 years ago when everyone was like oh shit there's an Overwatch 2 coming there must be like a future 4 years probably and now these games are coming out and the market is completely shifted
yeah I was also I also was excited to see more of monster hunter wilds but that's not new quantity I was I didn't think is interesting to see skydance come out with what appears position to be like a I know I would never say triple a but like press price see a big VR 2 thing and maybe I shouldn't be but the vibe on that was so negative for so long it surprises me to see see them like talking about it still I guess it's still got I
think we are just the gap between something being greenlit and a video game being made has just gotten too long it is no longer tenable and it is now just straight up bad gambling and I I thought the Sony showcase like prove that out and that how many souls likes and or VR games and our Overwatch clones can we get announced in the shortest window possible
and yeah I don't I don't know like how video game studios fix that problem but it's a real problem and it is why I think we're going to start seeing these like mid tier not mid tier but mid level studios that can spin up a game in a shorter amount of time being a better position I mean fresh and I talked about this with a hellblade too and I'm glad a lot a lot of people like that game and I'm sincerely oh my god I'm doing the thing just
and you tear me down for and rightly so I'm just glad people like this game but it to me is also this like it just feels so of a different era and I don't know it seems like there's two it seems like the lead time is too long to chase trends anymore yeah yeah if studios are chasing a trend you what you end up with is a crop of also rants you know four years after anybody is caring about it
there's like why are there five of these this is so wild like no one cares about the it does feel but but isn't that kind of what we were just saying we didn't want you yourself to do okay so this actually reminds me of a thread and I'm going to we'll put it in the in the newsletter but
there was a thread by Jacob Novak who is basically talking about the scenario that all these publishers are in and there was one chunk of it that I thought was particularly interesting he says if a game costs a hundred million dollars to make and it takes five years then you have to be as an example what the business could have returned
in investing a hundred million dollars into the stock market over that period for the five years prior to February 2024 the stock market average derailleur return a fourteen point five percent investing that hundred million dollars in the stock market would net your return of two hundred and one million dollars so that is the baseline that's the market to be so you need it's not just like breaking even which I know like
squares got a lot of shit because they feel like the expectations are too high for the sales of their games you need to beat that the market of just like not trying it all and just putting your money into a bond of some sort and that's the challenge that all these big studios are facing and the way to compete about that as point said smaller games shorter development cycles making sure that you can hit your deadlines and not take these huge risks on these enormous projects
I think also you you have to trust that you're going to make something really good and I will be and I will I'll be interested to see this guys I'm wondering if some of the recent success stories that we've had in video game adaptations will incentivize more big publishers to launch original properties like to
to have original worlds ready to be licensed you know to me rather than like keep returning to the well to keep making new things that they can repackage is trans media properties and TV series and everything yeah let's can we talk about honorable mentions yeah sure yeah I would like to talk about a destiny to the final shape which I know I think we're going to do an
couple weeks after we've had enough time to kind of dig into it I've been playing a lot of destiny over the last of like month or so kind of getting ready for this DLC the servers were a fucking disaster yesterday so I've only had maybe three hours that I put into it but I did just want to talk about the new big thing in this
DLC is wait can I touch on as a non-destiny person I just want to say it's really really funny to me that on this the last big push for destiny to the servers are still like it's still like I don't know man although credit to like now if we can get through this I think we're gold maybe let's just let's just crank these servers out for another couple days and I think we're set for life my favorite thing about destiny to and it's gotten just sort of
even better over the last couple years is like build crafting right like this idea of having this perfect synergy between the class you're playing and the armor abilities that you have in the different weapons with all the different perks like I love that shit with this new DLC
with the final shape the big thing they're adding is called prismatic which is a new subclass for all the three classes it basically that's you mix and match components of all the other subclasses so instead of like oh well I'm playing my solar warlock it's like well I've got the solar grenade and I've got this stasis melee ability I'm using the void you know a super ability they've always that not just the default now like why would why would you not do that because it
is a good question I thought this to they actually limit so you you don't have the entire kit of every subclass there are specific abilities that are exactly all trades master of none sort of but I it's it's almost more kind of complicated than that because like this
the way that it works now has cracked open the whole idea of build crafting to this whole nother level I'll give you an example one of the like aspects that you can equip to your character on prismatic is called bleak watcher which is you charge up your grenade to throw down this turret that shoots out these freezing bolts it enemies right but you can also use this arc exotic that lets you when you charge up your grenade it creates like a little auto turret over your shoulder
you activate both of those with the use of like a single ability now and that's like fucking busted like that's so powerful not only that they're also going to be adding I think after the raid drops in a few days exotic class items that let you take two different exotic abilities from other classes so as a warlock I can have this one exotic item that has a perk from a Titan chest piece and a hunter helmet to mix together to make something just fucking unbelievable
it has not really like been possible in the game before yeah it's so in the three hours I've been playing the game I've maybe like half of that just fucking around and seeing like like I created that double turret like build now that is like well I only want to use this
because this feels so good for a game that has been like so careful about how it like balances out these different things and makes these tiny percentile tweaks to these things to all of a sudden just throw open the gates like this
rails off a little bit because it's I think it yeah I think this is the last time they'll do like a big expansion for this game this is yeah I mean this is the end of what they are calling the light and darkness saga the the I mean the story is I'm not deep enough into it
but I'm enjoying it a lot just for this one sort of like aspect of it alone does this sound like do you know again we're going to open this a lot more but does it feel right now to be a thank you to the people who have been playing or it would be free no where they serving are they serving existing players or is this like I'm not because everything you're saying to me it is like inscrutable and I played hundreds of hours this and not
in screedable but like it's very it's a lot it's a lot and it's not like my big problem last time I played Destiny was fuck this is really there's so much complexity here I'm completely lost yeah what you're saying is like they finally they finally loosened it up now you can get really silly with it's like what are you talking here's what I'm doing which I think it's a good contrast to Griffin my intention is to basically I and I've played serious Destiny since
Forsaken came out which is probably four years ago maybe five I don't know how long it's been a while and my intention is basically just to play through the campaign and I played a mission yesterday and had like a great time and it's still like probably the best feeling shooter on the planet right now right and I'm just enjoying that and if that leads to like me wanting to raid which God I hope not because honestly I don't have the time
but if it leads to that like I get it and it'll least like onboard me a little better that being said I did spend a literal hour yesterday trying to figure out where the fuck the quest menu is because there are so many screens and that's gotten scooched around it's so complicated to figure out where things just quitting the game required me to Google something so it's definitely an onboarding thing but I think Justin for your
purposes if you just play the campaign on normal basically anyone could do it that is play Destiny you'll get the feel you'll probably like dip a toe into the new features and then you fucking piece out and like it's fun to play it is a fun game to play at the end of the day you can go down the rabbit I'm playing it on legend difficulty which like if you can do that like you get like an exotic at the end of it I did that for the last couple of
expansions and I really really like playing Destiny through a story mode that is like genuinely extremely challenging from start to finish but I I yeah I think genuinely if you have enjoyed playing Destiny in the past I think you'll enjoy this to the story as far as I can tell so far is very like geared towards like here's Zavala and I core and like these are the care not we're not going to like take you to some new
planet introduce like all this shit that nobody cares about like I watched a recap of four I like skipping around but it was like 40 minutes long and the TLDR is basically there's a light ball and there's a dark ball and they don't like each other yeah that's really all you need and K6 like that's all you really need to do yeah yeah for now yeah I've also been playing Elden ring to get ready for that DLC and nice when is that
happening soon a weeks 21st yeah I'm so excited that game still slaps ass man still is so rad I'm trying to get back I'm man just get yourself to the beginning of the DLC I don't know I can don't have any time to do anything I don't know why this is silly what you have a character you played the game what is that it you're probably going to have your own around as long as you didn't start a new game plus was from what I understand the DLC on new
game plus is going just too big great video games guys right sure choose your choose your fight what I watch this week what I ingest I've watched a very good stand up set from Jenny Tion on YouTube I it'll be linked in the newsletter but I was pretty blown away by her stand up she's an Australian stand up and and very very funny so highly recommend it I have been playing more 1000 x resist which is just climbing the charts of my heart do you all know
anything about this game no it is the near out of mod of this year effectively it is the big story game and just is taking off his headphones and throwing them into the trash but it it's it's really something special
it's kind of a heartbreaking game it's set is it fun because sometimes you like fun ones you are on mod is fun this is this is a good video game near out of mind is the combat so yeah so know that it's and no for you dog yeah I I keep being back and forth on how I want to talk about on the show
because I really don't want to spoil anything and it's all that pretty you can spoil it pretty quickly but it is set in the future following a pandemic that is like very clearly inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic fun it's a good to better yeah it's also dealing with like family trauma tell me I'm going to watch my son dies the Hong Kong protest not so far off you drive the tanks through the village it's it's it's a tough hang but it's just so sweet it's just I don't know it feels really nice
when you're going to play a video game we're like wow the people who made this seem to love people they seem to love their characters they seem to like love talking about their family and their friends they seem to be wondering why we exist on earth and it just makes you're like brain all the different parts your brain tingle and spark and you have ideas while you're playing it it's great and there is like a good game feel to it
it looks really simple but the way that you kind of navigate the space at times has a little bit of a gravity rush feel so it like it does have a little bit of niceness but I know this game is not for y'all I'm talking about it mostly for the type of people who listen to the show and love visual novels I think that this is going to be one of their favorite games the year cool I think we did it I want oh you want to recap plant
I mean yeah we was kind of all over the place we talked about Rogue Prince of Persia the Rogue Prince of Persia Destiny 2 we talked about all the games of PlayStation's state of play and then we talked about a comedy set and a video game that none of you are going to play called 1000 X
resist and that's it that's pretty much it hey wait plant tell me to get name that one more time 1000 X resist one one more time 1000 X resist no it's not going to stick I thought maybe if I heard it a couple of times but no it's not it's not I want to thank the following people for being patrons of the besties that patreon.com slash the besties Spaghetti Skater Garfunkel Horseman Iggy Celtic and Frank's Hussage by the way we have a new fresh bracket battles episode
this is voted on y'all the fans a best Roguelikes I guess pretty relevant for this episode in particular y'all pretty spicy is this spicy one pretty spicy so that's up actually here's a clip I think from a narrative standpoint maybe the strongest game on this entire list
because returnals actually telling a story where where his most Roguelikes do not I know Roguelikes see two tells a bit of a story and things like that but they all tell a bit of a story kind of but returnals is like more of a narrative game I think most Roguelikes even try to approach and I think it does the narrative stuff really well and it's super interesting the way it folds the narrative into the Roguelike thing which is really cool I think when you can figure it out
and stylistically like stunning and just it just doesn't feel like anything else it's really really hard really hard it's really hard and it's hard for me it's hard in a way that is I think and this is my big knock against it because like this is one where I you guys know I feel like I'm pretty demanding I feel like I can come a baby right like I really don't usually try to meet things halfway I like my entertainment to come to my door and say come on Justin forget about it all
returnal I really made an effort with because there's a lot of parts of it that are so cool like the narratives that they're doing with like the chronology and everything and the performances and even like the base combat is like it's really cool
but you get into situations in this game that are so overwhelming that it just feels like demonetizing and honestly the biggest knock with Returnal I could say it's learning curve is when you when you have a bad run with this game I you want to delete it like you want to uninstall it
and then in fact that's what I did that's what happened I I once got so angry I got so angry I learned from my Dark Souls experience to not through my controller at the wall and or or take the disc out to the backyard and hit it with a hammer pretend it was the Dark Souls ones
sneak preview not only to some games not win that one some of them don't even get to be roguelikes but it was a rip to the designation it's it's a lot thank you everyone for supporting the patreon and and just listening to the show and sharing and spreading the word we really appreciate it
but by the time this episode comes out you'll be a few days away from the rest of the episode that we're talking about some stuff that I'm really excited about oh yes very very cool there's a new game that who's like I get you on this too it's like if double fine made Simpson's hit and run
holy shit I wish you said that before I started downloading one thousand times resisting you remember like 150 gigabytes what is this plant you remembered it I was the wrong name in two different ways thank you so much for listening to the besties we'll be we'll be with you again next week be sure to join us because should the world's best friends pick the world's best games besties