Assassin's Creed vs. a Train That Does Backflips

Summary

The Besties – "Assassin's Creed vs. a Train That Does Backflips"

Date: July 17, 2026
Hosts: Russ Frushtick, Chris Plante, Jeff Grubb (guest, filling in for Griffin McElroy)

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Episode Overview

This episode delivers a lively, in-depth discussion as three of the Besties (with Jeff Grubb sitting in for Griffin McElroy) tackle two dramatically different games: Densha Attack, a kinetic, Dreamcast-inspired indie about trains pulling off extreme stunts, and Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, the polished new remake of a legendary entry in Ubisoft’s series. The team breaks down what makes each title special, how they connect to broader gaming trends, and reflect on what modern gaming can learn from older titles’ design philosophies.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

1. [00:00–04:16] Bannerman Island Cold Open: Russ’s Castle Strife

• Russ recounts a hilarious, awkward encounter on a tour of Bannerman Island, upstate NY.
• He accidentally sparks drama between two local volunteers over the questionable construction of the island’s “castle,” learning sometimes being “interested” causes accidental chaos.
• Notable quote:
  • Russ: “I created some strife, but it is gonna require some setup, some history, if you will.” [00:16]

2. [04:17–06:22] Introductions & Guest

• With Griffin out, Jeff Grubb joins as guest, plugging his Giant Bomb show Blight Club—a series about suffering through terrible video games in costume.
• Notable moment:
  • Jeff, on costumes set up by others: “My wife has. When she saw it, she looked upset. She looked worried for me.” [05:48]

3. [06:22–08:26] Show Announcements (Live Show)

• Promotion for The Besties live event in NYC and related travel tips.

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Feature Game 1: Densha Attack

[09:25–23:53] Densha Attack – The “Tony Hawk with Trains” Game

What is Densha Attack?

• Russ: “There’s a train culture where people drive trains to make deliveries and like become celebrities...but the act of driving the train feels closer to like a Tony Hawk or a Sonic the Hedgehog than it would be like a train simulator.” [09:56]
• Chris Plant compares it to Sonic’s flow or Tony Hawk’s layering of skills, but set on rails, with tricks, jumps, and fast lane switches.

Presentation & Gameplay Flow

• Flow state: The game escalates complexity, asking for rapid-fire inputs and tricks as you move from beginner tracks to hallucinatory challenges.
• Generous checkpoints lessen frustration and encourage learning through experimentation.
• Jeff Grubb highlights “Score Attack” elements and his Tony Hawk background, finding nuance in adapting to its unique controls:
  • “When I’m in the air in any game sort of like this...I’m going to prime my next jump when I’m in the air. This game doesn’t do that...I need to retrain that.” [12:46]

Score-Attack vs. Platforming Perspectives

• Some, like Jeff, are driven to perfect a single stage and chase high scores, while Chris Plant struggles to get into repetitive perfection but appreciates the elegance.
• Plant: “This is part of a Sonic game, but it’s not the entirety of a Sonic game. And what Sonic does well...is it breaks these things up. Sometimes you’re doing this, sometimes you’re slowing down and you’re walking around and exploring.” [16:45]

Visual & Sonic Aesthetics: The Dreamcast Nostalgia

• A standout for its style, inspired by Jet Grind Radio and Dreamcast-era visuals but “running at 60fps and you can see all the way into the distance...yet it’s comprehensible” [18:25].
  • Russ: “Presentationally it might be one of the best indie games I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” [18:06]
• Austin Walker’s “style is substance” (Jeff quoting) applies: stylish menus, kinetic music, and rapid transitions fuel the game's rush [19:55–20:01].
• Compared to Neon White for speedrun intensity and energetic design.

Accessibility & Learning Curve

• Challenging even for veteran players, but so visually arresting that messing up is “still really enjoying myself a lot.” [20:33]

Final Thoughts on Densha Attack

• Praised for “wacky, memeable, Internet-friendly idea and then delivering on it,” avoiding the pitfalls of viral oddities that lack substance [22:34].
• Chris: “It is polished like a Dreamcast game. It feels like it could have been released on a Sega console 20 years ago.” [23:17]

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Feature Game 2: Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced

[26:09–41:50] Revisiting a Classic: What Makes the New Black Flag Tick?

Why This Remake, and Why Now?

• “Money is a good reason,” quips Russ, but also: Ubisoft did more than a simple HD refresh, overhauling visuals, controls, and mission design to modern standards [27:57–28:52].
• Visuals: Modern lighting, detail, and character models (“the character models look like a wax museum gone wrong” – Plant [28:52]).
• Core controls and combat now match newer Assassin’s Creed entries (like Shadows): parries, crouch, improved stealth.
  • Jeff: “It’s just better combat...they have parries and stuff. Perfect parries. And that stuff’s kind of expected at this point.” [30:13]

Unpopular Changes? Debating the Loss of "Friction"

• Chris notes that some players and critics miss the slower, more immersive feel (“…you climb so fast in this game…great as gameplay, less great as an immersion experience.” [31:05])
• Jeff admits he’s fine with a “processed food version” of classic games: “They are removing the points of friction that maybe did give the original character, but I experienced that already. I kind of want to just hit the high notes.” [32:12]

Streamlining and Modernization

• Open-world pacing now much snappier; players get their ship and environment much faster (“You're into it real quick.” [30:39])
• Russ: “The meta that is super engaging...there's no downtime where you're going from gameplay into ship play, into gameplay into ship play.” [33:18]
• Performance on Steam Deck—an appreciated feature for modern play [33:55].

Thematic & Structural Brilliance

• Chris launches into a passionate thesis: the game excels because its smaller islands and intentional spaces create immersion and manageable scope (“It feels designed to put you in the space” [34:38]).
• The “immersion mode” benefits from self-contained settings—refreshing after a generation of sprawling, checklist-driven open world games.
  • Chris: "It’s strange to play a game like this one that to me feels more modern than modern video games. And that’s weird." [36:19]

The Value of Streamlined Games in the Modern Age

• Discussion of big games suffering from “feature bloat” and how Black Flag’s structure—even after 13 years—feels both contemporary and refreshing.
• Jeff: “And now we've reached the logical conclusion of that, which was unsustainability...everyone's kind of like stepping back, going like, what were games like just before this? And it was this sort of end of that ramp.” [38:54]

Broader Context: Remakes and the Future of AAA

• Disappointment at Ubisoft's struggles + layoffs; the remake serves as CPR, not a total revival [41:44].
• Hopes expressed for similar remakes (e.g., Freedom Cry DLC, Assassin’s Creed Rogue) to bring overlooked entries to a modern audience.

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[41:52–46:40] Listener Mailbag

Key Topics:

• Should you wait for all DELTARUNE chapters? – Listener advises that ramping bullet-hell difficulty can make intervals tough for casual players.
• Rhythm Heaven's uniqueness: “not a game about responding to prompts on screen… it’s hand-ear coordination” [42:37].
• Advice for listeners wanting to get better at games:
  • Jeff: Recommends practice in relevant genres or even aim training, but notes that often the fun is just playing with friends [44:23–45:11].
  • Russ and Chris: Don't overthink being the “weak link” in co-op. Friends play games to have fun together, not to judge.

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[47:13–51:03] Honorable Mentions & What Else We’re Playing

• Jeff: Heave Ho 2 – a chaotic co-op/competitive “friendslop” adventure with “chargeable” farts and swinging physics [47:28].
• Chris: Cat Chess – exactly what it sounds like, a whimsical seven-dollar chess game featuring animated cats in lush CGI style [48:14].
• Russ: Blueprints – a first-person exploration game, playing with his wife after waiting for accessibility features (colorblindness update). Shares willingness to seek hints after a grueling 71 days [49:30].

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[51:03–End] Outro & Shout-Outs

• Jeff plugging “Mysterium,” a Myst convention in Portland [51:03].
• Patreon thanks, reminders, and anticipation for next week’s episode—with hopes Griffin will return.

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Notable Quotes

• “Presentationally it might be one of the best indie games I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”
  – Russ (on Densha Attack) [18:06]

• “Style is substance, right? Austin Walker used to say that, like style is substance. And that’s what this is.”
  – Jeff (on Densha Attack presentation) [19:55]

• “They are removing the points of friction that maybe did give the original [Black Flag] character, but I experienced that already. I kind of want to just hit the high notes. So having my ship in the first hour and a half… thumbs up.”
  – Jeff [32:12]

• “It’s strange to play a game like this one that to me feels more modern than modern video games. And that’s weird.”
  – Chris (on the remake’s editing and focus) [36:19]

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Episode Summary

In this episode, the Besties dissect two wildly divergent but stylish games, interrogating what makes gameplay satisfying—be it high-speed, flow-driven platforming or streamlined open-world adventure. “Densha Attack” is praised as a stunning, kinetic indie tribute to Sega’s heydays, while “Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced” earns admiration for updating the best of the past without sacrificing charm. The crew also reflects on the drawbacks of modern open-world bloat, celebrates focused design, and connects with listeners on learning new games, with warmth and humor in every exchange.

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For anyone who missed the episode, this summary delivers every big idea, spicy quote, and game-changing insight—without the need to endure any accidental park drama or grind those blue tent notes alone.

Transcript

[Russ Frushtick]

Okay, guys, have you ever created strife within a public park? Sorry, Accidental. Accidental strife among volunteers in a public park.

[Jeff Grubb]

Gotta say, I haven't.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sounds like a crime.

[Russ Frushtick]

I created some strife, but it is gonna require some setup, some history, if you will. And I hope you'll stick with me through.

[Jeff Grubb]

You have a history with the park. All right, You.

[Russ Frushtick]

No, no, no. I mean actual history.

[Jeff Grubb]

Okay.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay.

[Russ Frushtick]

There's an island in upstate New York called Bannerman island, and it was owned by a guy named, like, John Bannerman or something, whatever it is. Anyway, he built this castle there. It was only, like 1900. It was not that old, but he loved castles. He's from Scotland, so he built this castle there. And while he was building it, he wanted to save on materials. So instead of using, like, rebar to, like, structure up the. The walls and things like that, he. He stuck whatever he could find. So bed frames, bayonets, any piece of metal he could find, he stuck it up there.

[Jeff Grubb]

Upcycling?

[Russ Frushtick]

Yeah, yeah, upcycling. Some years later, there was a giant explosion and also weather. And the castle collapsed.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay.

[Russ Frushtick]

Okay. I get this information because my wife and I were visiting the island, Bannerman island, and the volunteer who was giving us the tour explained all this to us. So now I'm a Bannerman island expert, even though I don't remember the guy's first name. I get that information. And then I'm talking to another guy separately, who seems like the head of the organization. This is the Bannerman island guy. This is the guy that raises all the money. And I'm saying casually to him, like, man, it must be really hard to raise money for this island when they have such a. I didn't say shitty, but such a shitty castle that you're trying to restore. They spent no effort. And the guy was like, what? What did you say? I said, you know, because he, like, there was, like, bayonets and bed frames, and he didn't, like, build it. Great. And the guy's like, actually, I think they might have overbuilt it, if anything. And then he asks, who told you that?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, no.

[Russ Frushtick]

Who told you that the castle was poorly built? And I was like, uh, Mark.

[Jeff Grubb]

You threw Mark under the castle?

[Russ Frushtick]

And then I went back to Mark, and I'm like, mark, by the way, I was talking to this guy up there, and he kind of took.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

What is wrong with you?

[Russ Frushtick]

I'm just interested.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Why are you. Human? Seinfeld episode.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Russ Frushtick]

Okay. So I talked to Mark, and I'm like, this guy up there, I told him like, hey, it's a shitty castle. And he got kind of offended. And Mark was like, is that the guy in the gray shirt? And I was like, yeah, beef. And then Mark went up to go talk to gray shirt guy. And that's when my ferry was leaving Bannerman Island. So all we could see was Mark going up the steps to have like a fucking.

[Jeff Grubb]

Was this like, confrontation fist, like, like curled and like kind of like. Yeah, yeah.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

He.

[Russ Frushtick]

He looked pissed.

[Jeff Grubb]

Hell yeah.

[Russ Frushtick]

Because who's gonna undercut your tour that you just did in 90 degree weather, like.

[Jeff Grubb]

So did they use bed frames or not? Russia?

[Russ Frushtick]

They did. They did. But I think the question is, is using bed frames, does that count as shitty building? I think it does.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I mean, I think the more concerning shit is the bayonet.

[Jeff Grubb]

No.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Russ Frushtick]

Half of the castle was gone. It did, however, worth noting, it did explode because they did store gunpowder there en masse and kind of left it over the winter and didn't really maintain it. And it did kind of half explode. So that is part of it.

[Jeff Grubb]

It seems important to us. I'm going to be honest.

[Russ Frushtick]

It was part of it. It was part of it. But also they said the bed frame, it was poorly built. Take that, Bannerman Island.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Jeff Grubb]

Go to hell.

[Russ Frushtick]

It was. It was beautiful. Otherwise.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week.

[Russ Frushtick]

My name is Russ Freshik. I know the best game of the week.

[Jeff Grubb]

My name is Jeff Grubb and I know the best game of the week.

[Russ Frushtick]

Welcome to the Besties. It's a video game club that goes all year round and just by listening, you are a member. Griffin is not here this week. He is dealing with some personal stuff.

[Jeff Grubb]

We can't be on the same podcast together. It's a whole thing.

[Russ Frushtick]

I know that is part of the rule. He did request that he should have nothing to do with Jeff Grubb, but we are very pleased to have a very special guest. And Jeff Grubb, I suppose, welcome. Not your first time being here, but we do appreciate you coming back and filling in for our boy, Big G. Yeah, absolutely.

[Jeff Grubb]

Glad to be here.

[Russ Frushtick]

Where can people learn more about the Jeff Grubb experience? I know the answer to this, but,

[Jeff Grubb]

yeah, just go to Giant Bomb. We're doing a lot of fun stuff over there. It's. You know what? Actually here, I'll give you a very specific thing. I am like the second. We got a heart out today because I have to go immediately into my first episode of a new season of Blight Club, which is Our series where we play bad games and we don't just play them, we have to complete them, we play them to credits. So the horror. Yes. So Dan Riker just beat Space Ace for the Super Nintendo, which I know maybe doesn't sound as bad. It's awful. It was true.

[Russ Frushtick]

Can you play it with like cheats and.

[Jeff Grubb]

No, no, no, no.

[Russ Frushtick]

We.

[Jeff Grubb]

We have to play it on the base difficulty and we have to actually like play it for real for shoot. As we say Mike, before that did Virtuoso, which is a weird three do game where you play as a rock star who. Like the. The way he gets away from his rock star lifestyle is he goes into a virtual reality where he has to shoot snowmen and clowns and stuff. And that one might not sound bad either. It was terrible. So they're mad that they both had really bad games that were also very difficult. So now they want to punish me for sitting back and laughing at them for the last year. So it's going to be. I. I really don't know what to expect. I won't know what my game.

[Russ Frushtick]

You don't know what the game is?

[Jeff Grubb]

I don't know and I won't know. Right behind me is a box with a. We also wear costumes. So behind me there's a box of the costume. I haven't seen it. My wife has. When she saw it, she looked upset. She looked. She looked worried for me, so.

[Russ Frushtick]

Well, I'm gonna have to tune into that. That sounds fantastic. Not for you, but for everyone.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, apparently.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I do hope that it's just like a paint target and a jock strap and you're going to be playing Jackass, the video game. Exactly like that would be really nice.

[Jeff Grubb]

The Slinkini that Borat wears. Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes.

[Russ Frushtick]

Chris Pint, you want to tell the people what we're talking about today?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So this week we are talking about two. I'm going to say great video games. I'm going to say it. I'm going to say how I feel. Up top, we've got Jinxa Attack and we've got Assassin's Creed Black Flag re synced. People are probably familiar with the Assassin's Creed. This is a remaster remake. Some might even argue sequel. We'll get into that too. To Assassin's Creed Black Flag and Densha Attack. Lesser known picture sonic the hedgehog 3D era, but good slash. A skateboarding game where the skateboard is a subway and you're basically there. Or a train. I guess it's a train.

[Jeff Grubb]

Show's Japanese for train, right? Yeah, train.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh shit.

[Russ Frushtick]

Jeff Grubb just pulled some Japanese knobs while Chris playing.

[Jeff Grubb]

Don't get your hook up for any more than that.

[Russ Frushtick]

Take that plant.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I love it.

[Jeff Grubb]

It's good stuff.

[Russ Frushtick]

That all sounds very exciting. All that and more after this break.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

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[Russ Frushtick]

Okay, before we're going to start with Dentia Attack, before we dive into it, I do want to call out. We mentioned it last week, but I will reiterate it and you'll probably hear it a little bit in the coming months. The live show is on. It's happening. You can buy tickets right now for the besties live show. It's October 9th at the town hall in New York City. There will be a link on besties fan. If you go over there, there will be a pinned post that will have the link make it very easy for you. Tickets are already selling and great seats are going fast. So please get your tickets now. And maybe in the chat of besties fan people can throw in like travel tips or hotels they've stayed at before, things like that that would make the trip better.

[Jeff Grubb]

I'm going to stay at Jeff Bacalar's house and not tell him.

[Russ Frushtick]

That's fantastic. Very close. Really not far from where we're doing it. I love that.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You like five blocks east, about 10

[Jeff Grubb]

blocks south you see a wing stop hanger left.

[Russ Frushtick]

Okay, let's. Let's dive into Denture Attack. I played a bunch of this Chris Plant. You specifically seem pretty hyper targeted for this game. Is that fair to say?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, I am. This should be like my game of the year and it might grow on me even more. Right now I'm enjoying it but I'm not in a place. Well, let's talk about what the game is. I don't want to get too down the weeds of it. Can you give the Basic pitch.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yeah, sure. So there is, this is like an imaginary version of Japan where various people within Japan. It's really hard to like summarize this, but basically there's a train culture where people drive trains to make deliveries and like become celebrities for driving trains. And so you are going through these, I guess, missions where you're trying to accomplish different feats while driving a train. But the act of driving the train feels closer to like a Tony Hawk or a Sonic the Hedgehog than it would be like a train simulator.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes. It's also a game about layering on your skills piece by piece. So at first it's just ride the track and learn how to jump over obstacles and then it's learn how to kind of grind into a curve and then it's switch between tracks and then it's add tricks to it.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

It's.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Each time you play it's getting more and more elaborate so that by the time you get deep into this game, you're entering that kind of hallucinatory flow state of how is it possible that I am reading all of these cues back to back to back to back? Which again is what Sonic at its best aspires to be from the beginning.

[Russ Frushtick]

I don't even know that Sonic ever throws you as many prompts as and

[Jeff Grubb]

inputs as not consistently the way this game does. No.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jeff, how did it, how did this game hit you?

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, so I, the way you were describing it, where it's like I'm enjoying this, I should love it and I think I'm on that trajectory so I'm not too far into it. I think I'm near the end of like the, the way the stages work. It's like 1, 4, 2. I'm, I'm, I'm nearing the end of, I think of world one, that, that first number there. So they're still layering stuff on, on top and I, I'm. This is laser targeted at someone like me. It's. It's about Score Attack and I just, I like a video game ass video game and I have, I'm. I'm like very Tony Hawk coded. And I think some of that has maybe worked against this game in the early hour of it, the early hours where, where I am trying to do things the way I play the game where like this is very specific. But when I'm in the air in any game sort of like this where it's like an extreme sports game, which I think this kind of is at the end of the day. Yeah, I'm like, all right, I'm going to prime my next jump when I'm in the air. This game doesn't do that. Like, you have to, like, wait till the train gets back on the track, then you can prime the next jump. So I'm like, okay, that just a little thing that I'm so used to doing from years of Tony Hawk or 1080 or whatever, I need to retrain that. So I'm in the process of doing that. And as I'm doing, I'm like, okay, More and more is beginning to. To win me over. And the way I really like to play a game like this is I will get obsessed with one stage and try to perfect a run and see if I can't put up a really high sc. And I'm like realizing, like, oh, I just looked at my customized train page and it shows the train I have doesn't have any extra abilities. Like, oh, I'm not using the real train. I'm going to be using later on in this game to really be doing the high scores. So I might be wasting my time a little bit. I should probably progress through the story and unlock more stuff and then come back to these levels. So I. I've kind of just had that realization, and that's got me back on the flow of going from level to level, which is it's very fun to. To get through a level. And I just. I will have more fun when I do that perfect run on a stage and I'm competing for scores with my friends.

[Russ Frushtick]

I think maybe where it started clicking for me, more is less. When I was looking at it like a score attack game and more as a platformer.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Russ Frushtick]

And like surviving the platforming challenges that it put in front of me because I was fucking up a lot. Like, crashing fall, like slamming to the ground when there was no track, things like that. And the game is very generous in terms of checkpoints. Like, it doesn't start you from the beginning. You will start pretty close to where you fell. And just getting through a stage, as you said, was fun. But also I was messing up a lot. And I was kind of okay with that because it was like throwing me a lot of new things and modes and things like that. But I think it helped when I stopped looking at the score because invariably I would beat a stage and it would be like one star or whatever. Less than that maybe. And I had to sort of like, know, let's power through and keep going. And that. I agree with you. I think that's a good strategy. Helped because you do get more stuff as you. As you progress that'll help you score better things.

[Jeff Grubb]

I do think, like learning the. Learning the stages and kind of beginning to read stuff early on is the more important part. And. And it is just fun to do the little challenges that they do put in front of you. Like that gives you a list of stuff kind of, again, kind of similar to a Tony Hawk game, but in Tony Hawk, know, one plus two or three plus four. Now, the games that most people would be familiar with. It's like go do a kickflip over a certain thing in the stage. You're not, you're.

[Russ Frushtick]

You're.

[Jeff Grubb]

You're on track. So then there's a couple of variances throughout each level of like, maybe some areas you can go left or right. And there will be different challenges hidden on each side of those tracks. But it does stuff like, okay, you're going through a building and it's an office building and you have a horn. So once you go through the building, hit the horn and blow the papers off the thing. It's more like fun little gimmicks to keep you engaged in exploring the levels while you're. While you're learning them. And I think the idea is, okay, now you do that on the first playthrough, and then when you do come back later to do the Score Attack, you can ignore that stuff. And so it's again, like, I'm shifting my focus in that direction. And I find trying to find all of those to be pretty entertaining so far.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Tony Hawkwise, what it actually has more in common with is Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Do y' all ever play those? This was a Wii and a Nintendo DS exclusive where you didn't have the open tracks or courses or parks that you had in the main game. It was simply these, like, go bomb a run straight downhill, try to get that perfect run. But it's going to be more or less the same each time. How you modify it is up to you. And I think that's where I struggle with it. Not because it's not great or even exceptional. Those aren't my favorite types of games. I am the opposite of you, Grub. Where I don't like Score Attack, I don't like doing the same thing over and over again. I don't like the sense. It's not that I don't like. I just have trouble making my brain turn off to allow me to give the time to that. Right. And doing something like this or another game, I admire a lot but struggle with is like Thumper or A Guitar Hero, which is another like you're moving down the lane. I just can't get myself to chill out and let myself really get good at something that sounds great. It's just not where my brain is always at. And that's where I think the Sonic comparison kind of collapses is. This is part of a Sonic game, but it's not the entirety of a Sonic game. And what Sonic does, well, at least for me, is it breaks these things up. Sometimes you're doing this, sometimes you're slowing down and you're walking around and exploring. There is a bit of variety which is not what this game is interested in. There is a game very similar to this that I also enjoyed, which is Action. Hank, do you remember this game? I do, yes. It was a really interesting game by Rage squid, released in 2015, where you are this kind of grotesque, I would say like European style cartoon kind of asterisks and obeliques running through little toy sets like old Hot Wheels, orange Slides and loop de loops. But I'm realizing that there is kind of a whole genre of this that I have always. I always like it and I. And I can never quite, you know, allow myself to fully dive in.

[Jeff Grubb]

Reminds me of like going back to like uniracers for Super Nintendo. Like it's got some uniracers in there for sure.

[Russ Frushtick]

I think that the one thing that stands out to me is presentationally it might be one of the best indie games I've ever seen in my entire life.

[Jeff Grubb]

Like, I mean we, we've like moved on from like everything. Like, you know, I don't, I'm not complaining, but everything being a PSX inspired game to oh yeah, remember Dreamcast is still very cool. And yeah, it is.

[Russ Frushtick]

I mean, forget like, like this. I think takes the Dreamcast aesthetic, which it certainly does. It looks like Jet Grind Radio, but like modernizes it in a way that the game is running at 60fps and you can see all the way into the distance and everything's flying at you at like lightning speed, but it's still like comprehensible. And man, the fact that they pulled this off with like a very small team over, I think the development was like two to three years, something like that and is unbelievable. There are moments in this, there's a mo. There's. There are like splashy moments where you like jump the train on a Ferris wheel or you're controlling like a, a boat in the middle of a race, things like that. And Those moments. And I feel a little bit bad saying this, but those moments scratch the same itch of when I'm playing through an Uncharted 4 level where they spent six years on this 1 32nd chunk. And the same brain itch is happening by a team of whatever, 10 people, five, I don't know how many people. But small happening on that because of the art design, because of the way it's all presented. Like, I'm still getting that same charge. And it's a reminder that that splashy thing can be done with much smaller teams if you have a really, really strong art design.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

What they get about the whole Dreamcast aesthetic and separate from the P.S. one thing is Sega knew that the menus mattered, that the stuff between the action had to be added.

[Jeff Grubb]

Style is substance, right? Austin Walker used to say that, like style is substance. And that's what this is. Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And carrying you from one action set piece to the next maintains that cool factor. The game that I most compare this to is Neon White, Another game that got that. If you want to have these really cool speedruns, then you need to go into these really energetic user interfaces. You need to have the music that is carrying you from moment to moment. You need to have these really beautifully animated sequences. Otherwise the train stops. And the whole point is that the train needs to keep moving.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yeah, I'm pretty blown away by it. And I think there is a person out there who is probably about 10 years or maybe 20 years younger than me that would instantly pick this up and be able to like do all the prompts pretty quickly because it did make me feel very old. But even though I'm fucking up, like, I'm still really enjoying myself a lot. Mostly because the presentation is so fucking through the roof gorgeous.

[Jeff Grubb]

It does feel like that's what they focused on here. It was like they had a game that was going to be my obsession. I'm someone who played like one level of Neon white first, like 20 hours at least. I'm probably undercutting like the amount of time I actually spent on a scene singular level in a game like that. And I bet they had that nailed down very early. And I bet that was the part where it's like that's. That's the easy part. Making this game appealing to anyone, sort of picking it up and giving them something to do and giving them something to feel like they are moving forward and accomplishing something that does require the synthesis of all the audio and the visual and the gameplay and the physics all working together. And they really got that right as well. And you could, you could see that like the, the reviews have been very positive. People seem to be kind of getting this across the board.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yeah, I do think I do miss the like the freedom that you have in games like Sonic. As you mentioned, Plant and Neon White where you, where you literally can move in any direction you want. There's obviously an ideal location you should be moving in. And I think that's part of the challenge of like, I need to remember, like there's a more or less a path, like there are branching paths, things like that, but you are locked to a track for reasonable reasons. So that was, I think, something that I was having a challenge like wrapping my head around. But again, once it kind of started clicking for me, I was really interested.

[Jeff Grubb]

It helped that I just played Sin and punishment for the N64, which is on Rails sort of treasure shooter. And I always was like, man, if I'm gonna play a shooter, I want to be able to control my character. And it's like, no, there's so much cool stuff they can do here if they have control of the camera. And yeah, that is definitely what they are doing here.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. Now I feel like a hypocrite. That's one of my favorite games of all time. I'm gonna dig more into this game and keep it going. I want to carry us to the next section. But there's one last thing I want to say about this game, which is good on the creators for having a really wacky, memeable, Internet friendly idea and then delivering on it. Yeah, right. This is not Squirrel with a Gun. And sorry to call it one specific game, but that one was. Was particularly frustrating. But there are so many times that a thing trends because it's quirky and cute and it's called Densha Attack and it's about a train.

[Russ Frushtick]

Well, and also like in a 10 second clip, looks like the most fun game you've ever seen, right?

[Jeff Grubb]

You can get. You turn this into a gif. Yeah, exactly.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And the amount of effort and polish that went into this, because that is the other piece of it. It is polished like a Dreamcast game. It feels like it could have been released on a Sega console 20 years ago. It's really interesting. That said, yeah, I do want to talk about the game. That was what I needed while I was sick and was the Just Wander around game of the year. How about we take a quick break and then we will come back and talk about Assassin's Creed. Black Flag Resynced no colons involved.

[Russ Frushtick]

This episode of the Besties is sponsored by Factories. You know, sometimes eating well is not a willpower problem, it's actually a setup problem. That's where Factor comes in. Factor can help you hit your goals this season without planning grocery runs or cooking. Factor has meals built around your nutrition goals, including high fiber, high protein and carb conscious options. It's fresh, never frozen, with over 100 rotating weekly meals to pick from. I personally prefer the pork chops that's been always my favorite, but there are a number of other meals that I'm like, oh yeah, I'm for sure getting that. That is delicious. It's delivered straight to your door and it's ready to eat in two minutes so you have more time for everything you love this spring. Head to FactorMeals.com Besties50OFF and use code Besties50OFF to get 50% off plus free daily greens per box with this new subscription only while supplies last until September 27, 2026. See website for more details.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

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[Russ Frushtick]

Okay.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh boy. I'll try to set this up. Assassin's Creed Black Flag came out, like, over a decade ago, 2013.

[Jeff Grubb]

I remember, like, it being like an Xbox One game, that it was 360, 360. But I remember playing on Xbox One because it's like it's coming out alongside the new consoles. And there was a version of that ready to go.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes. One of the earliest games I remember doing previews for at Polygon. A real. Oh, I'm getting old. When I am playing the remasters of games I remembered covering midway through my career and the appeal of Assassin's Creed. Black Flag, both versions was, we're going to take the climbing of Assassin's Creed and we're going to put it in what seems at first like the last place you would want to see it, and the open waters where there are no buildings to climb on. But quickly you realize, no, what is special about this game is twofold. One, ships, these big, beautiful old ships are fantastic for that feeling of climbing an adventure. And two, by moving it to an island setting, rather than have to design these open worlds that have to illogically all connect, you can create really intentional spaces for you to explore. And it was revelatory, I think, for the series, and it was revelatory in a weird way that they didn't quite learn from it until much later on. I don't think we really see what they were going for until the modern series set in Egypt, in ancient Greece. So that's the basic premise. Can one of you explain why this remake exists and why now?

[Russ Frushtick]

Money is a good reason.

[Jeff Grubb]

Being able to sell the game again for $60 and get 2 million copies sold in, like, a day. That's good. Yeah.

[Russ Frushtick]

I guess to Ubisoft's credit, like, they have done quite a bit of work to modernize this game both visually and in terms of the controls to make it feel like it is not just an HD remaster, which they've done of this game previously. They basically ported over most of the controls that you saw in Assassin's Creed Shadows, which is the newest release that came before this. The visuals instantly look like a modern game. I think it looks stunning. Yeah, it's a very beautiful game. And the original, I think, looks stunning. But obviously, if you play it now, it's very easy to see, like, oh, there's barely any lighting going on. The textures are pretty flat. The, like, random towns that you're in are, like, pretty basic comparatively to a modern Assassin's Creed game.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The character models look like a wax museum gone wrong.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yeah, all that stuff was modernized, but they also took the time to modernize a lot of the missions that were incredibly shitty from the first game. A few things they did, they took out the first person. Abstergo nonsense that was in the first game. If you don't remember. You, like, played as a fucking hacker in Abstergo on the computer and, like,

[Jeff Grubb]

read the things that were clearly please. From the game's developers talking about Ubisoft. Absolutely. Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Russ Frushtick]

It was funny from a meta standpoint, but from like, oh, I'm loving building my pirate army, and then suddenly I'm a fucking office Dr. Not a great transition. So they took that stuff out. They also adjusted the many, like, hide in plain sight trail these people missions that the original game had, right? Such that originally you'd had to hide, like, while you were trailing to, like, overhear what people were saying. And if you got spotted, boom, mission over. You restarted the mission. Huge pain in the ass. Now those missions play out. They start the same way. You're hiding in plain sight, whatever. But if you get spotted, you'll get some clue to be like, oh, I heard that the warden actually has a key. We can go to him, and you just murder everybody.

[Jeff Grubb]

And there's also, like, a dedicated crouch button. So, like, stealth makes more sense now.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Russ Frushtick]

You're not as reliant on, like, hiding among a crowd of random people standing there. So all that stuff makes the game feel.

[Jeff Grubb]

The combat's also just better. Like, it's just better combat. Yeah. Like, they have parries and stuff. Perfect parries. And that stuff's kind of expected this point. So it's like, almost like they didn't always have that. And that's. No, it. It didn't. That is much improved.

[Russ Frushtick]

There's something the plant mentioned when he started playing it and was, like, telling me I should really dip in was how much faster the whole thing feels. And it feels incredibly fast. Not only just the gameplay, which it does, just the pacing of it.

[Jeff Grubb]

You're into it real quick.

[Russ Frushtick]

You're into. You're. You're. You have a ship in the first hour and a half, and you're like, basically let loose on the open ocean, essentially, which. Which is a big contrast to, like, a lot of the Assassin's Creed games, which, like, throat clear for about five hours, which was nice. Plant, I know you are. You've been waiting with bated breath to talk about how impassioned you are over this release.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Well, yes, I do want to talk about these things that are changes, though, because that is where I see the biggest gap in Opinion, and that is there are people who are now going back and playing the original one and preferring it. There are a number of pieces. I'll make sure that you link them in our show. Notes that have pointed out these changes do remove some friction that added a lot of character to the game. For example, you climb so fast in this game you can scale a tower in seconds. And that is great as a gameplay experience. It is less great as an immersion experience. I'm curious, Jeff, for you, like, where did you land on these changes? Because I personally found that I didn't mind. I'm also, as I said earlier, very conscious of my time and a game, respecting it and letting me enjoy what I enjoy most about these games, which is like just being in a beautiful tropical setting for, you know, 30 hours.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, that I think I might be with you on this one. Where it's. I played the original game when it came out and really enjoyed it and have fond memories of it. You know, it's maybe my second favorite, Assassin's Creed. I was always a Brotherhood guy. That was my favorite. But. But like, this one was like, yeah, this is right up there with that. And it was like, oh, yeah, I'll go back to that someday. I really like that game. And then this gets announced and it is kind of the version of the game that I want as someone who played that game within the last 15 years. It's the processed version where it's like, I'm gonna be able to digest this very easily. They are removing the points of friction that maybe did give the original character, but I experienced that already. I kind of want to just hit the high notes. So having my ship in the first hour and a half. Yeah. Thumbs up. Being able to climb to the top of that thing in three seconds. Yeah, I was. I was trying to get up there and I got other stuff going on in my life. Yeah. The processed food version of this game is. Is kind of what I needed here because. Does that make it feel like something that we're going to still be talking about a year from now? Probably not. But in the moment of playing it, it does go down very easy. That's what I wanted from it.

[Russ Frushtick]

I mean, easier than I would say even Assassin's Creed Shadows, which I think is the, like, the thing to remember is why this game works for me is because the minute to minute works really well. There's like a somewhat engaging narrative sort of. But the. The big part and why I think you like Brotherhood as well is there's a meta that is super engaging. Where you're building up the ship and building up your team of guys and that feels like there's no downtime where you're going from gameplay into ship play, into gameplay into ship play. And you're constantly like feeling that power curve, but also just enjoying the sights and sounds that you're experiencing.

[Jeff Grubb]

And this game also runs on Steam Deck, so it's very easy for me to play it on my time.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yeah, I mean that's a huge thing as well. Like they, they built it in a, with a scalable engine and I think we're going to see more and more of this. We've talked about, we talked about a bit when talking about the Steam machine where granted it's not the highest of high end computers, but I think more and more studios are going to make games that allow them to run on not the highest Nvidia card imaginable.

[Jeff Grubb]

Silly to do that at this point.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yes, incredibly silly to do that. And I think those days of like Crytek fucking bragging about you have to spend $3,000 on a computer to run our game.

[Jeff Grubb]

That's just a computer now. Yeah, that's just regular computer.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay, I'll now do my why the game is brilliant spiel, which is because this game was made a long time ago in video game, you know, time. Weirdly, they are more comfortable editing it in the way that I feel like we're always begging these publishers to edit their games, to make choices that simplify them in ways that are helpful and beneficial to the story, to make them move at a reasonable pace, but also to remove just filler. And they've been toying with this idea of a kind of like immersion mode. In Assassin's Creed games, Assassin's Creed Shadows had this where it's like, hey, you can basically turn off the UI and. Or you'll go into like a castle and maybe you'll find a character and then you'll get a clue and that'll kind of give you a little dot on the map of where to go, which is really neat. But the games themselves are so big and so dense that actually getting those things to trigger can be a pain. Where in this game where you will start and I believe the mini map is off by default, you kind of are playing a version of this immersion mode. But because the game is very small compared to these modern games, because each setting is kind of its own standalone experience, you really do feel dropped in. So I do think this game is absolutely stunning to look at. I think it's incredible They've said that because each setting is its own unique place, they are allowed to just cram in so much more detail even than they did with shadows. But also I think the fact that it feels designed to put you in the space and to make you feel like you are actually visiting rather than just checking off boxes on your to do list, that feels so refreshing. And again, part of that is trimming things down. Part of it is this is before the glut just got so, so, so, so out of control. And it's strange to go and play a game like this one. That to me feels more modern than modern video games. And that's weird. Like, that is. It shows just how much money and effort is being wasted on these games, on stuff that is making them demonstrably worse. It's a bummer. And it feels like a lesson that's being learned too late.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yeah, I think that if you're playing this with like a modern eye, you could point out, like, oh, from a design standpoint, this room should have more fucking pots in it or whatever. Like, not every room has that level of attention you would necessarily see in a modern game, but we don't care. And it goes back to my point about Densha Impact. Like, you're still capturing that spirit of a very, very expensive game in a game that came out 15 years ago because it has that art design, because it has that overall flow and theming that supports it, even though it doesn't have the ultra high fidelity that you would get from a Naughty Dog experience. And that's okay, that's fine.

[Jeff Grubb]

And I do think, like, when games get made today, they are being made with this idea in mind. And I think, like, Starfield was the one that suffered from this the most of. We are making the Forever game. We're making the game that's going to last 10 years.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

And.

[Jeff Grubb]

And I think every Assassin's Creed game after a certain point was trying to do that. Despite the fact that they knew another Assassin's Creed game was coming out in the next year and a half, this one was still made in that time. It's like, there's going to be another Assassin's Creed next year. So we can kind of really just focus on what we're doing here. And then we did get to like 2014, 2015, 2016, where games did start to come out at a point where it's like, Witcher's here and Witcher 3 is just going to keep selling forever. And. And we're going to. We're not just Going to like make new Witcher games, which we will eventually do. Ten years later, we're going to make a new expansion for the Witcher 3. And it's like things shifted really quickly around this time. It's like we. We reached a sort of. There was the end of the ramp for graphical progression. Like the RX 480 came out in 2016 and that like did 10, 80, 60 in just about every game and still kind of does.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And.

[Jeff Grubb]

And it's like, okay, so what are we going to do to make these games stand out? And everyone had the same, same thing in mind. Bigger, bigger, more. Just filled with more stuff. We got to spend, you know, countless person hours making as much content for these games as possible. And now we've reached the logical conclusion of that, which was unsustainability. As everyone was shouting back then and now here we are and it's like everyone's kind of like stepping back, going like, what were games like just before this? And it was this sort of end of that ramp of. They learned so much about making video games in a really sleek way while still getting bigger and bigger. But they reached this like, nice balance point. And I, I do think Assassin's Creed Black Flag was like a game that represented that in a really strong way. And so kind of bypassing that and just attaching on the modern elements that make games smoother to play today while keeping the skeleton really does show the strengths of what we were doing then and kind of the weaknesses of. Of the way games have been made in the last 10 years.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yeah, I completely agree.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I don't want everything to be sequels. But also I know what Ubisoft is. I know that we're getting sequels or remakes in some form anyway. If they're gonna do that, I would love for them to do the DLC for this Freedom Cry. Also Rogue, the sequel to this, which is I think Steven Chintillo's favorite Assassin's Creed game of previous show. There's. There are games that people just didn't play in this universe or at least the large audiences did not play and the opportunity to bring those back.

[Jeff Grubb]

What was Rogue's release thing? It was the Xbox 360 and PS3 only at the time game, while there was another newer Assassin's Creed for the next gen consoles. Is that how it works?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes, I believe it was that. If you want to go play Assassin's Creed on the previous hardware, we have a game for you in New York.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And it's like it's a sequel to Black Flag, like, you will love it. And I think it was maybe higher praised at the time.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, it's a really. It's really interesting for where Ubisoft is. It does feel, I fear, a bit too little, too late. I don't know, like, if this is the sort of thing that's gonna pull them out of their. Their rut.

[Jeff Grubb]

I mean, I don't think it is. They immediately started laying people off. Right. They didn't. They didn't take this team or one of the teams that supported this and like, all right, get to work remaking five other of these. Just like Capcom has done to great success. It's like, we made some money with this game.

[Russ Frushtick]

This feels like CPR right now. Yeah, it's very good cpr.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah.

[Russ Frushtick]

But, yeah, I do worry certainly about the future of this company and any AAA company for that matter.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

Definitely.

[Russ Frushtick]

Okay, cool. We do have some reader mail. I want to dive into that real quick. This first letter comes from Clayton. We were talking about deltarune Chapter five. I want to say they're at chapter five now, plant, and I still haven't really started at any of the chapters. So there was some debate about, like, whether how we would do that. Clayton writes a note for anyone debating if they want to wait for all the deltarune to come out before starting. The difficulty really starts to ramp up with each chapter, and when you're rusty, it can be very frustrating. If you're like me and this bullet hell skill does not come to you naturally, you might want to wait because I had to resort to watching the end on YouTube.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Wow.

[Russ Frushtick]

I didn't realize that. That's interesting. We have another letter. This one comes from Chris F. About Rhythm Heaven. Did you play Rhythm Heaven, Jeff?

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

I did.

[Jeff Grubb]

I loved it. I reviewed it.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yes. Yeah. Thought it was really good. It seems to me what's special about Rhythm Heaven is that it's not a game primarily about responding to prompts on the screen. There are no button icons or string of jewels that make elite beat agents or rock band. Mostly a test of hand eye coordination. Rhythm Heaven is about learning the sound prompts that tell you when to respond. It's about hand ear coordination. Whoa. Then that necessitates a unique, unique features in the series. The in depth tutorials. You need to hear the sound prompts multiple times to get them in your head, the relative simplicity of the songs, and the simplicity of input. Long story short, I'd argue Rhythm Heaven is probably the most musical of the rhythm franchises. That's a good argument.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's like, it's very, it actually is very deep despite not appearing so. And it, it like, and it like, it kind of gets to what, it does, what it's trying to do very well, which is just give you an experience of what it's like to get in rhythm with a band and the game is the band and, and you get to play your part and your part is actually the key part and it's, it's, it's, it's crucial and they give you a bunch of on screen fun stuff happening, but you can play the game with your eyes closed because you're just listening for that music and that's, and kind of giving a bunch of different expressions of that idea throughout the course of playing that game. It's, it's really well done.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yep.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I got one more question here that I want to make sure we share, which is from Alex. Hey guys, popping in with a question. What's a game that will help me get better at gaming? My brothers live across the country and we often play together as a way to still hang out. But I feel bad that we either have to always resort to friendslop type games because of my skill level or I'm the weakest link on the ship. While we sail the high seas and Sea of thieves we still have a blast. But I'd really love to be able to feel like I'm contributing when we play. Love the show.

[Jeff Grubb]

There's, there's like two things here, right? Like what, what are you bad about when it comes to games? Because there is the, there's the clicking on heads and shooting them and then there is the understanding what the game is trying to communicate. And they're two very different things. If you're, if you're lacking in skill of like on the controller, being able to make the character jump when you need to. I mean just playing more of the game you're trying to get good at probably just is the answer. There are like aim. Aim like test games that you can get on Steam if that's what's happening. But if it's about like understanding the world, I don't like spending like a month in an MMO will put you in so many different kinds of. Of quest that you will eventually just understand the language of how video games are made by the end of that almost certainly. So yeah, those would be my recommendations. It's, it's a little bit difficult though.

[Russ Frushtick]

I would even say like Assassin's Creed, rethink that. We just Played is like a pretty good example of that because it really throws you so many different curveballs of gameplay and things like that. But mostly, like I would say, if you're getting very stressed out because you feel like you're not doing a good job, just understand that most people play video games with their friends because it's fun to spend time with your friends and the video games are the secondary thing.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. The fact that you say that you are, like, having a nice time sounds great. And maybe the pressure that you are feeling, nobody else is even thinking about. Yeah, it's a problem.

[Jeff Grubb]

The truth.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The other thing that you can do that I would still emphasize exactly what Fresh said. If I feel good and also just be in the game watching a video, that's like 15 things I wish I knew before I played blank.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, good point.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Is good. Because games are not always great at communicating just the basics of what they want you to accomplish. It's very weird. We'll spend, you know, 15 minutes teaching you how to crouch and jump, which you've already probably know how to do, but we won't tell you how, like, the systems work, how to unsheathe a sword.

[Russ Frushtick]

Like, they'll forget some, like, very important.

[Jeff Grubb]

Or if they do it, they do it like, with like, one, like one style of communicating that. And it's. I definitely need it, like on screen, written out. Say it, show it to me. Give me a chance to play around with it. I need multiple modes there to get across those ideas. And games don't usually do that.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Russ Frushtick]

Good letter. That is very interesting. Good letters overall, thank you everyone for submitting that. You can. If you ever want to write us notes, you can drop them into the newsletter at Besties fan. If you're a member of the Patreon. You could send us DMS if you have any questions there. But yeah, those are the two best places to reach us for reader mail. Any honorable mentions? Jeff, this can be a movie, it could be a book, it could be a board game. It could be a great toenail cutter that you've been using. I don't know.

[Jeff Grubb]

I will go with another video game right now just because it is the first thing that came to mind when you said that heave ho2 is coming out. Have you guys. Have you guys seen Heevo? You played Heave Ho before.

[Russ Frushtick]

I have not played it. I. I am aware that he HO2 is about to launch.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yes. This is a. A cooperative or competitive multiplayer. Kind of like a definitely friend slop adjacent where you are just a Little guy with arms. And you have to sort of like work with your friends to swing across gaps and create little bridges. And there's a fart button and you can charge the farts. So it's like you could be working together.

[Russ Frushtick]

Moly is smiling somewhere, right?

[Jeff Grubb]

And then the. The little demon inside of you could take over and be like, but what if I just let off a really big fart and blew us all apart and caused us to fail? And that's fun too. They got some nice competitive modes. It's almost like there's some races, there's some weird physics versions of Towerfall, and they, they just really kind of know what they're doing. And it was immediately fun when I played it with the. With the guys over at Giant Bomb. That's awesome. Check that out.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That rocks. Yep, I've got one. Y' all remember battle chess? Yeah, Battle chess was chess. But what if we animated it and you could see, you know, the pieces really like, kick each other's ass back in the early 90s. This is a DOS game. Yep. Well, in a way, battle chess is back, except for now it is cat chess, where you can play chess with beautifully CGI style. Animated cats. And that is it, as far as I can tell. Nothing more, nothing less. It costs seven bucks and it is just a very adorable, sassy cat version of chess that is now on Steam. The animation is Dreamworks chic illumination chic, I would say, and it is a delight.

[Guest or Sponsor Voice]

Cool.

[Russ Frushtick]

Last update for me is Blueprints. It's a first person exploration house game. I'm on day, Jeff. I don't know if you're aware, but the colorblindness forced me to wait a

[Jeff Grubb]

year before finding yes, you were just talking about this and I'm like, why did he wait? And then you mentioned that. Yes, of course.

[Russ Frushtick]

Yeah. So I waited a year and I've been playing through with my wife. We're on day, like 71 momentous day. And I'm sorry that Griffin wasn't able to make it today because this is the day where I tell you that I did ask for help after 71 days.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Wow.

[Russ Frushtick]

The help that I asked for, and again, I'll keep this relatively spoiler light, was specifically regarding the notes that you find once you unlock blue tents, which for people that have played blueprints, will know what the fuck that means for people that haven't. I mean, even people that haven't gotten to the end game might not know, but I'm not going to tell you what that is. But there are, like 60 of them, and only four of them are helpful for the purposes of, like, progressing what you're trying to progress. And I did multiple runs where we were just focused on blue tense notes and not getting anything. And eventually I broke and asked a friend of the show, Jason Schreier, which rooms I should be chasing for the blue tense notes. And so I. That was the help that I got. Wasn't a lot, but it was enough that, like, I didn't have to do 12 runs of just grinding those fucking notes to find something useful. So I. I wanted to be honest on the show. It's a show about honesty, but that's. And now I'm. I'm on the hunt for the next step. I know more or less what I think I should be doing, so we're going to. We're going to see how that plays out.

[Jeff Grubb]

Man, what a game.

[Russ Frushtick]

What a game. Okay, I think that did it. Jeff, thank you so much for joining us. I know people can find you over at Giant Bomb.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, if you're in Portland. I'm gonna be at Mysterium, which is a missed convention, next weekend. Not so the week.

[Russ Frushtick]

Good segue from Blueprint.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, exactly. That's what reminded me. It's the weekend of the. The 24th. We have a panel on the 25th, the mist busters, which is the crew of guys that were playing Mist on Giant Bomb, uh, recently. And so, uh, yeah, go to that. I think there's tickets still available. Small little convention out in Portland. It's. It's a lot of fun.

[Russ Frushtick]

That's awesome.

[Jeff Grubb]

Yeah, we're very excited about it.

[Russ Frushtick]

I wanted to thank the folks [e-mail] thebesties Some recent backers include Justin G. Bill with several L's, Corey S. And Nimbus. Thank you for being backers, and thank you to everyone else for being backers [e-mail] thebesties next week, I'm gonna say TBD, there's a couple games that I think we're gonna check out, but with Griffin being out today, I didn't want to finalize it. So. Tbd, there will be things. Griffin should be back next week, and we'll enjoy those games together. But for now, I want to thank you all for being with us on the Besties, because shouldn't the best friends play the world's best games?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You kind of got it. Yeah. Besties.

[Jeff Grubb]

Besties.