← The Besties
The Besties
In The Alters, Life Comes at You Fast
00:53:06
The Alters is one of the year’s most interesting games, blending experimental sci-fi narrative with a clever management simulation. The Besties talk about how the game’s mechanics clock together, why the story deserved more space, and what makes the developers’ use of AI so irritating. Plus, Plante played an awesome Persona/SMT spin-off
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- [00:05]
Christopher Thomas Plant
It does sound like you're in a haunted house.
- [00:06]
Griffin McElroy
It feels like they want to be.
- [00:08]
Justin McElroy
Part of the show. It added a whole real surreal Lynchian quality to the conversation. Like a telltale heart sort of like the ship is creaking beneath us sort of vibe.
- [00:19]
Russ Freshick
Just keep in mind, Rachel. According to Rachel, none of this stuff is audible, at least in my audio file. So if we reference it, she had to, like, physically add it back into the audio file.
- [00:28]
Christopher Thomas Plant
There is no way it. Today is. I think in the past.
- [00:33]
Justin McElroy
This is the. No, dude, this is the craziest it's been.
- [00:36]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Truly. Sounds like you are being like on the Titanic and you are working the halls.
- [00:42]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, and I. And this is not. We're not saying that. You know how sometimes we start saying things in a funny, cold, open way that's like, well, this must be the cold open. This isn't that. I mean, it probably will be because it's so real and raw, but like, this is it for this.
- [00:55]
Griffin McElroy
We haven't. We haven't counted those elections.
- [00:57]
Justin McElroy
We haven't even counted. We're have to count after. So they have to sink in reverse.
- [01:00]
Griffin McElroy
But how do you sink something that already happened? You know what I mean? Like, you're on some tenant shit right now and I'm having fun.
- [01:06]
Justin McElroy
Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon?
- [01:09]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I don't.
- [01:09]
Griffin McElroy
I've never really quite understood what that meant Exactly, Griffin.
- [01:13]
Justin McElroy
And you never, ever, ever, ever, ever will.
- [01:16]
Griffin McElroy
Is that what she says in the song?
- [01:19]
Justin McElroy
And you never will.
- [01:20]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You never fucking will.
- [01:21]
Justin McElroy
Keep digging, Griff. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week.
- [01:44]
Griffin McElroy
My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best game of the week.
- [01:47]
Christopher Thomas Plant
My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best Persona Shin Megami Tensei spin off of the week. But it's not the main game of the week. And I'm throwing to my boy Freshstick. Oh.
- [01:58]
Russ Freshick
My name is Russ Freshig. I know the best game of the week.
- [02:01]
Justin McElroy
A lot of syllables all around for everybody today. Hey, welcome to Besties. It's a video game clubhouse. You've walked inside, you've gotten a punch to enjoy. You've slipped off your shoes, you've put them back on. Because it's not that kind of party, baby.
- [02:14]
Griffin McElroy
Nope.
- [02:15]
Justin McElroy
And you're gonna enjoy some great video game content. Now, how did you join the club? Well, you're listening. That's it. That's how you joined. We're gonna be talking about a new video game this week. It's called the Alters and Chris Plant. What's that?
- [02:27]
Christopher Thomas Plant
The Ultras is a management game in which you manage clones of yourself. That's right. You are in outer space. You are trying to solve a sci fi mystery while also reflecting on all of the little choices you could have made that made for a different life. And you're doing that with the help of the plot of multiplicity.
- [02:48]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, that's basically it. Yeah. And we're going to talk more about it. Not that there's that much more to say, but we'll talk more about it right after this.
- [02:55]
Russ Freshick
Okay. I know we have to talk about the altars. Very important. But before we do that, I want to talk about the time I was in the shower.
- [03:01]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah. Okay, good. May I be excused from the story?
- [03:06]
Russ Freshick
No, you need to be part of the story. The year was 2021, I think somewhere.
- [03:11]
Justin McElroy
Around there something like that.
- [03:12]
Russ Freshick
And I was taking a shower. And you know, sometimes, you know what, there's even a subreddit dedicated this the idea of a shower thought and a shower thought. I was taking a shower dedicated to me taking a shower. The idea of a shower thought came into my head and it was, what if you had a hand towel and it said you dried in Dark Souls font?
- [03:32]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah.
- [03:32]
Russ Freshick
And it took three years to make it happen. But bless McKay on the team for executing it on it.
- [03:40]
Griffin McElroy
Towels are so hard to. I do not know how you make a towel.
- [03:43]
Russ Freshick
Yeah, I don't know.
- [03:44]
Justin McElroy
And these things have been absolutely flying off the shelves.
- [03:47]
Russ Freshick
Genuinely. They did sell out the first time they were in the store and we have a restocking of it.
- [03:51]
Justin McElroy
We're extremely good folks.
- [03:52]
Russ Freshick
We couldn't even promote it the first time it sold out so quickly. So if you want a hand towel that said you dried in Dark Souls font, I guess don't sue us nap.
- [04:01]
Justin McElroy
You may be thinking that you can do it yourself, but it took Russ three years, so get comfortable now.
- [04:08]
Russ Freshick
I was really the creative director on this project. I had nothing to do with the execution, but I'm glad that it exists. And you could just Google Dark Soul. I don't know Dark Souls. It's in the merch store. The McElroy merch store.
- [04:22]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah.
- [04:22]
Russ Freshick
And that you dried towel should narrow it down.
- [04:25]
Griffin McElroy
Smackerymerch.com all right, thank you.
- [04:28]
Justin McElroy
So the Altars is not quite like any other video game I've ever played. I'd say it's mechanics and narrative kind of unroll together. But as Chris alluded to, you are on a space station. That's Populated and crewed by clones, sort of of yourself. You can think of these clones due to a bunch of sci fi nonsense that really doesn'. It doesn't quite work explanation. It doesn't really make sense, but this is some sci fi nonsense. There are branching points in your life where if you had made a different decision, the science of this world, this quantum computer and this thing called the womb will let you switch that moment in time. So you made a different decision. Maybe you stood up to your dad when he was being mean to your mom, or maybe you stayed in school instead of dropping out and that creates a new branching timeline for yourself. This scientific magic in the game lets you create a clone that made a different choice at that point and is thereby has a different life experience and for our gameplay purposes, a different skill set.
- [05:30]
Griffin McElroy
It's like if Gwyneth Paltrow could have pulled Gwyneth Paltrow through this lighting door into her own world on the other side of the door. Never seen the movie, but that's what the Alters is about.
- [05:39]
Christopher Thomas Plant
And also if when Gwyneth Paltrow did that, she was like, oh, you bought a computer that day and now you're really good at hacking, right? And then somebody else is like, oh, you stepped in rain puddle that day and now you're a marine biologist.
- [05:52]
Griffin McElroy
And also the Gwyneth Paltrow that you pulled through the door would be like, fuck you, I hate you other Gwyneth Paltrow. And he'll be like, here, eat some spaghetti. It's my mom's recipe.
- [06:01]
Justin McElroy
You know how Waymond Wang is. He runs a laundry machine place in one reality. In another reality, he's a soldier. This is like that, except there's like eight different realities or 10 or 12 or 15 or however many where he's made different branching choices that have made him have different careers, like doctor or miner or refiner or whatever. And these, like, as you create these different identities and you research these different clones of yourself, you both have to like, use them in a mechanical sense where that you use their skill set to help you crew this spaceship that will hopefully help you do your science mission. But you also have to deal with them as people, as characters. This is like human beings that are adjusting to the very weird circumstance of being a clone.
- [06:50]
Russ Freshick
Yeah, it's a little bit Sims and a little bit just like no Man's Sky Resource Gathering.
- [06:55]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah, I had not put together the everything everywhere all at once connection, but yeah, it's extremely, extremely there.
- [07:02]
Justin McElroy
Yeah.
- [07:04]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah. So the actual gameplay of It. It has a rough start. Let's talk about that. Because I do think the game gets much, much, much, much, much better.
- [07:12]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, you're on a crashed ship, the only survivor of the crashed ship, and you find your like, base, your headquarters, intact. You make it there, you're the only one alive. But the sun is going to come and destroy the surface of the planet and kill you in 10 days.
- [07:28]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Fortunately, your base is a giant wheel that can drive away from the sun. Right.
- [07:34]
Griffin McElroy
I did not recognize that at first. I thought, damn, man, I've almost blown through all my 10 days and all I've done is get enough biological material to make food slime. I'm fucked. But then it turns out that's just kind of the tutorial. And then there is more game after that.
- [07:52]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yes. So the beginning is tough because it is a game about accumulation and hoops. We were talking before we even recorded this about the idea of like incremental games and where the more you invest in it, the more it plays itself. So at the beginning you have to do all the manual work. So you are just cleaning up the base, getting food, setting up rooms. You're having to go out and mine different resources. You're having to set up these beacons that create power supplies between your base and the mining stations that are elsewhere in the world. Exploring the world itself is a little bit confusing. It's just a lot to intake. And then on top of that, you're laying in a lot of heavy narrative lifting, which is the. The here's the magical trick that makes all this sci fi goobledygoop work, right? It's a lot to ask of the player, which is why if you do end up playing this game, I encourage you to get past that hour. Because then once you do get into it. Hoops, can you explain how the game works when the game game actually starts?
- [08:55]
Justin McElroy
Okay, so at this point, I'm in the sort of second act of the game. I've moved the ship a couple of times and I think that structurally it seems like you come across a big obstacle that keeps you from moving forward. And then you have to solve that and then you'll move on to the next sort of big section. Currently I have four clones of Jan, the lead character. I have a miner, a refiner, a scientist and a technician. And the four of them are. I have a lot of different jobs. There's different types of mining stations that I have on the planet that mine different types of resources. There is an infirmary on the ship that can be staffed by a doctor. There's a lab that needs to be staffed research. There's a kitchen that needs to be staffed for cooking. There's refinery, a greenhouse where plants are being grown. And basically I'm moving these cats around, having them figure out what tasks are important for them to do. And you're kind of always under the gun of the sun is inching towards you and you need to move before you get fried. So it's like balancing the quality of life of your clones with the. How quickly you need to get the thing, the, you know, the thing underway. So idle or incremental is not quite. It's not quite accurate because like it is more of a resource management game because you will die if you are not fast enough.
- [10:27]
Russ Freshick
So there's a lot of crewing like a team. It's almost like FTL in that way rather than like, you can't just leave it alone and have it do its thing. It requires like a lot of hands on time.
- [10:36]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah.
- [10:36]
Justin McElroy
And the narrative is constantly kind of evolving in what seems like a really sort of organic way where just you see a couple of your alters arguing with each other in the kitchen and you'll get like a little pop up on your HUD and you'll go in and see what they're talking about. And sometimes it's mechanical, sometimes it's. One of the alters thinks that you should curb your resources and the other one thinks that you should let everybody sleep more because it would be better. And you have to make that decision. And maybe you're gonna piss one of those alters off and make the other one happy. So you have to like moderate their mood. And there's sort of this idea is if you. And this is sort of Persona Lock, I guess. But you. If you progress the relationship enough with the alter, you eventually learn like a lesson from them. And that lesson is mechanical in the sense that like upgrades your character in some meaningful way. So you like learn the thing that you're supposed to learn from them.
- [11:33]
Russ Freshick
Like, it feels like a traditional squad based RPG in that way. Just because they're clones kind of doesn't matter because they all have pretty divergent storylines based on where the split in their memory happened. And so you just treat them as characters and oh, this one's good at this and this one's good at this. Which I think conceptually is like incredibly unique.
- [11:54]
Griffin McElroy
I think conceptually it kicks a lot of ass. I am impressed at that. They were able to kind of like achieve what they achieved with this branching pathway. Of your life clone idea. But I do feel like the idea is maybe a little bit more ambitious than they could possibly tell in a story. I feel like there's a lot of. You'll be watching a cutscene that will suddenly jump to a slideshow with a little bit of dialogue over it. And I get that there are certain. You have to take certain shortcuts to tell a story with like an infinite web of potential.
- [12:36]
Justin McElroy
It feels budget driven rather than like there's some narrative reason for this to be a cinematic right now. It seemed like there are several characters talking at once and we're just not gonna animate that.
- [12:46]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah. And outside of like the little scenes that you get with them that they do not come across as particularly vibrant, you know, characters.
- [12:54]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah.
- [12:55]
Justin McElroy
I will also say, and I should have mentioned this earlier, there is like another big aspect of this that is like there is a open world sort of that you are exploring. Not open world. It's. It's very structured, but it's like you can theoretically go wherever in this individual area, but where you are finding resources, sort of marking them, collecting them, building resource collection things and exploring. And there's some sort of like, not similar to enemies. There's some like sort of pseudo enemies that you can find and deal with that you can collect resources from. So this is like a more active mechanic that only you can do. Your altars can't go out and like explore and find stuff. That's just you.
- [13:40]
Griffin McElroy
The map is very unappealing at first, I will say, but you are able to add fast travel points to it when you create big structures out in the world. Like automatic. Automatic? Automatic, like mining stations. If you build one of those out in the world, then you can fast travel to it anytime you leave the ship. But it has to be powered. So what ends up happening is you build like actual power grids across this island. And so like navigating this pretty confusing, twisty, turny map is made a little bit more manageable by the fact that like, you can actually. You can look out the ship and look at your power grid and see like, okay, it stops there. Like, that is the area that I have not really fully explored yet.
- [14:22]
Justin McElroy
You can also usually find your ship. If you look around, it's big. It feels like a huge ass ring in this dirt.
- [14:30]
Russ Freshick
I didn't find the running around outside stuff to be super compelling. I mean, eventually, as Justin alluded to you, like, there's some evil clouds that you need to fight, which adds some complexity to it, but it feels fine. But like, I actually found the, like doing the stuff in the base far more compelling. Like the other stuff felt like added on.
- [14:49]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, I think so too. I think that a lot of games just will give you the. Just give you the sort of headquarters science lab simulation side of things. I love Fallout Shelter without or even.
- [15:01]
Russ Freshick
Like a la this war of mine.
- [15:04]
Justin McElroy
Right.
- [15:05]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, sure.
- [15:05]
Russ Freshick
The same studio, which. I mean, Justin, you were saying there's not a lot of games like this. Like, that's a kind of a direct one to one. It feels like they brought over a lot of the design base building stuff into this. But added on top of it, I.
- [15:19]
Griffin McElroy
Didn'T hate the exploration stuff. Once I was able to like build a grappling like a climbing hook and like once you get some of the tools that.
- [15:28]
Russ Freshick
Yeah, I didn't hate it. I just. It just didn't feel.
- [15:30]
Justin McElroy
The super combined does an interesting job of like making you feel like you're being like having to manage your time and your resources. Like, I think it's a decent. Like you always feel a little bit of that pressure of like, God, I'm really far out here and I'm not sure I can make it back or. Yeah, I'm not sure I have enough energy to like, climb back the way I came or something. That could be interesting.
- [15:50]
Russ Freshick
Yeah, I agree with that. I just like the fact that you can. In the. When you're back at the base, it is like quasi 3D. It's like a 2.5D and it just adds like a little bit of depth, like literal depth where you can go in and out of the background of the environments that you're in and interact with like computer screens and things like that. I thought that was. It felt very fluid.
- [16:11]
Griffin McElroy
It very much reminded me of Shadow.
- [16:14]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Oh, Shadow Complex.
- [16:16]
Griffin McElroy
Shadow Complex.
- [16:17]
Justin McElroy
Was that the Orson Scott card?
- [16:19]
Russ Freshick
Oh, God. The aspect we don't like to focus.
- [16:22]
Christopher Thomas Plant
On Chair, I think was the developer who had then gone to make Fortnite.
- [16:26]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, there's some really fun. It does some really fun stuff with the story. I had a. At one point, the point that I would just reach the guys decide that they could pick up their spirits by starting a band. Yeah, that's a lot of fun. The characters are. The dialogue's interesting because the characters are like. They're all you in a sense, but obviously they've had very different life experiences. And there's not like a assumed. How can I say this? There's not like an. When you're the protagonist in a game like this, there's an Assumed rightness. Like, because you are the moral lens through which the rest of the game is told. Right. Like, your character is sort of your entryway into this.
- [17:10]
Griffin McElroy
Right.
- [17:11]
Justin McElroy
Your avatar in the world. And it's weird because the other ones, there's this assumption that they're kind of right too, in the same way. But you have to keep reminding yourself that they are not your character. Right. That they are a.
- [17:24]
Griffin McElroy
Another resource you are kind of managing.
- [17:25]
Justin McElroy
Right? Yes, exactly. And there's like, there's a tension to that. Whenever you're talking to one of them where, like they are. There's a couple of times where they bump up against their own unreality. And that can make a lot of the conversations really interesting, I think, and give them an interesting heft.
- [17:44]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah. I want to talk about the scope and the challenge of making a game like this. And even playing a game like this, which you mentioned some things that look really nice, like the shadow complex style look inside. But then randomly we will be thrown into these 2D sliding comic cutscenes. Or sometimes the world looks like absolutely beautiful and scenic. And the other times where you turn a corner in all the cragginess and you have found yourself in an Xbox 360 game.
- [18:14]
Justin McElroy
Right.
- [18:15]
Christopher Thomas Plant
And I just think making a game like this is such a challenge because. And I mean in playing it, it's frustrating almost to play a game like this because I can sense where it's making decisions to create a sustainable version of itself, I guess to not become a like AAA version of this game. And at the same time, it still clearly wants to look aaa. It still wants to be able to have like its trailer and it's any given image look like a AAA game. And that's.
- [18:51]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, that's.
- [18:52]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I almost like it to a detriment where I wish that it could have been a bit more simplistic and how it looks and in the world that you are in and really, really just focused on the story and all the stuff that you're talking about. Hoops, because I. I enjoy that. And you can feel this thing where that is clearly where their interest is, that is clearly where their investment is. And yet there is some pressure for it to look and feel bigger than they necessarily have like the time or the resources for. And I don't know the answer because they probably know much better than I do of if they had made this game look like a game I loved last year, 1000x resist or strike Resist or whatever, would it have like found its audience? I don't know, like I really don't know. People say they want games that look like Morris, but I don't know if that's actually true. Yeah.
- [19:48]
Griffin McElroy
For me the visuals weren't like the part where the shortcomings were sort of more visible as much as it was like the speed at which I think they had to kind of tell the story since it was as open ended as it was talking about. Sort of like the budgetary concerns. Also does bring up the fact that they were sort of caught using AI generated, I think like background text and translation.
- [20:20]
Russ Freshick
Yeah. Some of the. In the game when it released, I think it has been patched out. But in the game when it released there were like literal AI prompts and some of the like sciency. It's like generate some sciency dialogue for us. Which is.
- [20:34]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, the one I saw was like, okay, you got it. The nanoweave of the. Yeah. Which they. They did cop up to.
- [20:44]
Russ Freshick
They did.
- [20:45]
Christopher Thomas Plant
It's.
- [20:45]
Russ Freshick
It. It does give me pause because it tells me like, I don't know. You know, they said it was a tiny, tiny percentage of the overall, I don't know for sure how much was generated. So it does give me.
- [20:56]
Griffin McElroy
You also have to mark that like Steam has a notification specifically for games.
- [21:01]
Justin McElroy
That there is a solution to this. It's called Lorem Ipsum. This has been something that people have been using for a long time to use as fill text. I think from my read, the only reason you wouldn't use that is in case you're like, well, we might forget.
- [21:15]
Griffin McElroy
Just in case we forget.
- [21:17]
Russ Freshick
That's why you do tk, TK and Capital.
- [21:20]
Christopher Thomas Plant
It's very visible.
- [21:21]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, you can't miss that.
- [21:23]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Luke Plunkett over at Aftermath wrote a story called I'm getting really tired of not being able to trust that a video game doesn't have AI crap in it. And I think that is a lot of the vibe right now with this where it's like it's coming into a game like this that is made by a developer and publisher that has made like some really great stuff. I think like tends to make stuff that is like human and existential.
- [21:45]
Griffin McElroy
They used to do Frostpunk. All the Frostpunk.
- [21:47]
Christopher Thomas Plant
They did Frostpunk. They published Indica. You know, it's just. It's a. It is extremely frustrating and it's especially frustrating when the Steam warning doesn't help. Right. That like people are supposed to be able to use that. It just sucks. It's also just leading to a lot of like. I feel like I see this now, in other games where people don't like the writing, it's this assumption of, like, well, I'm sure it's AI crap.
- [22:12]
Griffin McElroy
Oh, dude. The fucking, like, what? Voight comp.
- [22:18]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Tests.
- [22:19]
Griffin McElroy
It's the having to run the numbers on every single thing that every asset that you see at every word. It sucks. It's not.
- [22:26]
Russ Freshick
Oh, good news. I know for sure that Split Fiction was not written by AI Man, I.
- [22:33]
Griffin McElroy
Missed a fucking Z. Zesty episode.
- [22:36]
Justin McElroy
Let's do that one again. Man. I would love to continue being right about Split Fiction while the Internet burns around us.
- [22:44]
Griffin McElroy
This game is kind of heartbreaking for me because I really think it's a cool idea and I really think they did some cool stuff with how they told this incredibly branching story and explored this really interesting sci fi prompt. But I don't know, there's a lot of parts of it that just felt like, not quite fully fleshed out enough. And I think maybe to fully flesh out the ideas in such a, like, ambitious prompt would be, you know, maybe fiscally impossible or whatever.
- [23:13]
Russ Freshick
But I think it also is harsh for us as well because we're coming off of Death Stranding, which does some similar things in terms of, like, automation and like, managers, resource management, things like that. And obviously that is like a massively, massively huge budget game. So. But they're both doing similar things, so it's. It can be a little bit tricky.
- [23:33]
Griffin McElroy
Hey, let's take a break.
- [23:36]
Russ Freshick
Second half of the show, we have a handful of questions. This comes from our Patreon people. Thank you for being members. We're going to read some of your questions because we love you. We love everybody. But Patreon members, we like you a lot.
- [23:49]
Griffin McElroy
I don't love every. I don't love everybody. That's insane, dog.
- [23:53]
Russ Freshick
I meant everyone who listens to the show.
- [23:55]
Griffin McElroy
I'm not even gonna own that. Cause what if some real creepazoids check it out one time? Cause they. You know what I mean? Like, I. Most of the folks who listen to our show seem amazing. I'm not gonna say every single one of them.
- [24:06]
Justin McElroy
Right?
- [24:06]
Griffin McElroy
You know what I mean?
- [24:07]
Russ Freshick
That's fair.
- [24:07]
Justin McElroy
Bad apple's ruining the bunch.
- [24:09]
Russ Freshick
That's fair. This first letter comes from Tokyo. As people who notoriously don't finish games, what is a good way to stick with the games I love but fall off towards the end?
- [24:18]
Griffin McElroy
I don't know why you would say we notoriously don't finish games and then ask us how to do the thing we notoriously don't.
- [24:23]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, how about Notoriously, just leave us alone.
- [24:27]
Russ Freshick
I think it's just picking for me it's just pick your battles because. Yeah, I mean, you're right. We don't necessarily have time to finish a lot of games, so I pick a few. I'm gonna be death stranding. I'm working my way through it, but you can't.
- [24:41]
Griffin McElroy
It's inconvenient when the game that you fall in love with and decide to Finish is a 120 hour long Japanese role playing game. Like there is a. There's a certain extent to which I do the same thing, make those choices of like, okay, I'm gonna see this through.
- [24:57]
Russ Freshick
But sometimes you can also, like, you know, if you're saying it falls off towards the end, just watch it on YouTube.
- [25:03]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, I really, I think that there's a real value to that. You get the gist of it. That's great. You know what I mean? Especially if it's the narrative you care about. You don't need to click attack a thousand times. Just go see which dragon has sex with which dragon or whatever.
- [25:19]
Griffin McElroy
I also reach a point in games. I'm usually kind of a completionist when it comes to like RPGs and STU. If I hit a point where I'm like, I'm feeling like the spark is gone a little bit. I will just bum rush the ending as quickly as I possibly can and usually it turns out okay, drop it down to easy. Yeah, sure, why not?
- [25:41]
Russ Freshick
Okay. This next question comes from Nicholas. With how terrible Steam and the rest of the stores are for searching. How do you discover worthwhile games that aren't huge talked out releases? I'll give you two methods that I use. One of them isn't as useful, but it's useful for me. It has been at least. I found a lot of stuff through my Instagram ads. This is not an ad for Instagram, like fuck Instagram.
- [26:05]
Griffin McElroy
But I have seen just like my answer is my TikTok algo will show me clips from streamers that I do not follow, but knows that I like games and shit. And so I'll occasionally see a clip from some streamer playing a game and I'll be like, that looks fucking great.
- [26:23]
Russ Freshick
The other methodology that I use is SteamDB, SteamDB.com I guess allows you to search by release date and cross reference by like user rating. So I'll frequently like scrub that. And maybe it's only like 800 people playing it, but they all fucking love it. And I'll usually just like look into that and see if it's worth doing.
- [26:44]
Griffin McElroy
I also get a lot from these guys. That's the truth.
- [26:50]
Justin McElroy
Yeah. The Besties podcast. Yeah.
- [26:53]
Russ Freshick
This question comes from young Padawan. Did any of you at any point in your youth ever go want to go into game development as a career quote when you grew up?
- [27:03]
Griffin McElroy
I feel like growing up our parents were super supportive of any career path. Too supportive, some might say, which is why two of the three of us went to school for and got theater degrees. But there was nothing off limits, right? Like, we were like, we wanna be actors, comedians. They were like, yeah, go for it. I was like, I'm gonna be a youth pastor for a minute. They were like, yeah, dude, shoot your shot. The thought of being a game developer never crossed my mind, I don't think even for a second because I had literally zero exposure to how a game. I don't think I knew how games got made, right. And so the idea that I would do it as a job simply didn't register to me. Which is wild so far as I used to make my own little games in QBasic, like text adventure, multiple choice, choose your own adventure games in QBasic and like fucked around with RPG Maker so hard and I literally. Those neurons in my brain never connected of like, you could go to school and learn how to do this and go school.
- [28:10]
Justin McElroy
A lot of game development for though at that age for us seemed like it was happening in Japan. Like I. There was very little of that. That seemed like an American thing that was happening. The only thing, like the only notable examples I could think of are like PC stuff that was like, you know, your Sierras and things like that were definitely.
- [28:28]
Griffin McElroy
But I don't know, I think about it a lot now. Like, I think about what it would be like to possess that skill set and what that, you know, fucking grind would look like now with some, you know, envy, sliding doors. I could grab that neuron in my womb.
- [28:43]
Justin McElroy
You've had some discussions, right, Guffin? You've had some.
- [28:45]
Griffin McElroy
I mean, I fucked around with Unity and you know, you know, Godot and all that shit. I like to goof around with that stuff. But it is. It is extraordinarily time consuming and I simply do not have any time. So it's like a hobby or interest that I will plug into for like a couple weeks and then I'm currently way off of it. So.
- [29:03]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Always seemed like a lot of math to me, you know.
- [29:06]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, they've ameliorated a lot of that now, but it seemed like it was only math back then.
- [29:12]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah, it seemed really overwhelming.
- [29:14]
Russ Freshick
We have one last question. This comes from Patrick. What do your physical game collections currently look like? The idea of, quote, more clutter in my life is not appealing. But the idea of digital only games that could disappear down the corporate memory hole also has me concerned.
- [29:31]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, that's a tough one.
- [29:33]
Griffin McElroy
It's a valid concern. I do think that there's stuff happening out there to prevent.
- [29:39]
Justin McElroy
Like, I don't worry about the second one.
- [29:41]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah.
- [29:41]
Justin McElroy
Hey, come close. Yeah, don't worry about the second one.
- [29:46]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, we got it.
- [29:49]
Justin McElroy
Listen, listen.
- [29:51]
Griffin McElroy
We got it.
- [29:52]
Justin McElroy
We got it. We got it.
- [29:53]
Griffin McElroy
Just knock your water over.
- [29:56]
Justin McElroy
We got it.
- [29:57]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Also, you leaned in close to the camera. Nobody could see you.
- [30:01]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah. As you tell me so many times on this show, this is not a camera product, man.
- [30:06]
Justin McElroy
That was for you.
- [30:07]
Griffin McElroy
That was for me. I have my Game Boy advance collection right here on my sort of bookshelf that I have next to my desk. And then literally everything else is a big stack in the closet.
- [30:20]
Russ Freshick
Yeah. Griffin's running to show the closet.
- [30:22]
Justin McElroy
Yeah.
- [30:22]
Russ Freshick
Oh, my God, it's overflowing with stuff. It just poured on top of it.
- [30:27]
Justin McElroy
I lit. Okay. I legitimately have. So, like, I maybe have eight physical video games.
- [30:35]
Russ Freshick
Yeah.
- [30:36]
Justin McElroy
At this point in my life, I think I've. I used to collect. I made a run where I was trying to collect all of the FMV games. Physically, I want to correct all of, like, the. The fmv, all the Sega cd, Saturn, PC, all the FMV games. And then I had a depressive episode and I was like, this is fucking stupid. Why am I wasting my time with this? But then I got rid of a lot of that. But actually, weirdly, for that, do not agree. Do not disagree with. That was still a good choice because I donated it to a retro game club in my area for kids. So that was great.
- [31:10]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah.
- [31:11]
Justin McElroy
And that kind of got the ball going for me, where I was like, well, if I don't want those things, I don't think I want the other physical games either. So I really started divesting a lot. The ones that I kept are the ones where the physical object has some value to me. Like, I have. Let me sh. Hold on. I have one game in a box. Let me grab.
- [31:30]
Griffin McElroy
And now, Chris, you won't be able to show us anything because you have green screened out your background into the Beauty and the Beast ballroom, I think, which I've never. It's funny, you've done it a few times now, and I don't think any of us have ever asked you why? And I don't know if that means, if that's a good thing or a bad thing, that we have never inquired why you have the Beauty and the Beast background, in your opinion.
- [31:49]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You know what? I didn't even notice until you said it. And you're kidding me because you've been.
- [31:53]
Griffin McElroy
Sort of phasing in and out of it for this entire recording. Oh, he's back.
- [31:58]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I'm looking at myself. Oh, look who's back. Thank God he's here to save me.
- [32:01]
Griffin McElroy
What do we got? So we got Glitter Mitten Grove here.
- [32:05]
Justin McElroy
Boxed, unopened games for windows. Glitter Mittengrove.
- [32:09]
Griffin McElroy
What is that?
- [32:11]
Justin McElroy
Well, this is Frog Fractions two.
- [32:13]
Russ Freshick
Oh, yeah.
- [32:14]
Justin McElroy
So this is one. This is one of the very few. I think this was like a Kickstarter award. Was your physical box copy of Glitter Mitten Grove.
- [32:24]
Russ Freshick
It says on the top it does say Frog Fractions too. So it kind of blows the truth about it. Doesn't it say Frog Fractions too on the top?
- [32:31]
Justin McElroy
It does on the inside. Behind the sleeve, it says Frog Fractions too on the. So it's like, if you want to.
- [32:37]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, you got Lumiere needed.
- [32:39]
Russ Freshick
I'm more or less in the same boat as Justin. I have very, very few. A lot of that is just like living in an apartment. I don't have the space for it. But also, I don't like physical media because I. People. People talk about, like, the store shutting down, which is a valid concern. They do shut down.
- [32:53]
Justin McElroy
Yep.
- [32:54]
Russ Freshick
I'm more concerned about, like, me losing things.
- [32:57]
Griffin McElroy
Sure.
- [32:57]
Russ Freshick
I just, like, lose the. Hey, that's like. A store shutting down is when I lose things. So, yeah, I'm not worried, you know, if Steam. I don't know. I don't want to say if Steam shuts down because we're really fucked then. But if, like, a store shuts down because it's been 30 years. Yeah. I think you will be able to find those games in other locations for a lower price.
- [33:20]
Griffin McElroy
What do you got there, Chris?
- [33:23]
Christopher Thomas Plant
What is this? I don't know how to turn off my background. You want to know why?
- [33:28]
Griffin McElroy
It's an envelope, but it turns into the Beauty and the Beast Ballroom.
- [33:32]
Russ Freshick
Guys, this is just a tale as old as time.
- [33:34]
Christopher Thomas Plant
When I pull out this manila envelope, let's see what I find inside. I find this video game. It's a Jason Ward, the Diamond Trust of London for ds. And I find these potentially illegal diamonds that were sent via the mail with a copy of that game. Because as a truly disturbed and strange political statement, in the style of Jason Rohr, he mixed up tiny fragments of diamonds that were real diamonds with blood diamonds and then sent them across state lines with every copy of that game without letting people know about it. Yeah. Truly one of the weirdest things. And also these stamps. Yeah, I am of the same thing. I collect a lot of what I would call horrors, like things that I worry will be lost in video game history. Another one of these is. Do you know that Blackwater. Do you remember Blackwater, the evil military contracting company? Do you know that they made a Kinect game?
- [34:40]
Griffin McElroy
No.
- [34:41]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah, they made a Kinect game. And I have. I have a copy of it also. I have. It's right next to Lost via Domus.
- [34:47]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, dude, when are we going to do our Lost via Domus discussion?
- [34:51]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You know what? Like, that should be. That should be our next special. People need to play that game, you know, like, because you don't understand the full story until you've, you know, played that game. I think that's why a lot of people didn't connect with the ending.
- [35:04]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, you got to have the context.
- [35:06]
Griffin McElroy
Anybody else been playing anything they want to talk about?
- [35:09]
Russ Freshick
You got some weird shit going on.
- [35:10]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah, I want to talk about my thing really quick. Griffin, have you heard about Raido? The Mystery of the Soulless Army? Do you know about this?
- [35:19]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, not to an extent where I have tracked it on down, but I've seen some stuff about it.
- [35:26]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I think you're gonna want to do that. So basically it is a remaster of a PS2 game that is in the Devil Summoner series and a spin off of the Megami Tensei series. What you really should know is it feels like a spin off of Persona. If you are only familiar with Persona, you're going to see a lot of characters that have appeared in Persona games in this game. The big difference about this game is it is a action rpg, like real time action. And you play as a detective, Devil Summoner who is going around Japan in 1931. So I believe that is the Taisho period is what they call it in the game. But you are solving these little mysteries by going around its opening open world, meeting different people and kicking demons asses. The cool thing about it is just like in any Persona or Megami Tensei game, you collect monsters and you can do it in the middle of a fight. So you'll be like brawling against Beast and then you'll pull out your little magic wands and you'll say like, get in this wand. And then the monster will be like, oh shit, no. Are like, are you horny for money? And then you get like a series of questions. You're like, yeah, I am horny for money.
- [36:48]
Griffin McElroy
And the monster, I mean, that's peak SMT shit.
- [36:51]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah. He's like, cool, because I'm horny for money too. Let's do it, brother. And then they like, hop.
- [36:56]
Russ Freshick
What if you say you're not hoarding for money?
- [36:58]
Christopher Thomas Plant
They'll get mad at that one I went with. I've played enough of these games to know what the monsters usually want to hear. The first two monsters have butts. There's like big. There's a lot of.
- [37:08]
Griffin McElroy
Lots of. Well, yeah, that's. That's normal. That's normal too. I just watched a trailer for this game while you were talking about it. And in the trailer the main character gets in a sword fight with a car. So I'll definitely be checking this one out as soon as is humanly possible.
- [37:25]
Russ Freshick
Is it an old timey car?
- [37:27]
Griffin McElroy
Yes. It looked like a sort of Model T situation.
- [37:29]
Russ Freshick
Okay. Yeah.
- [37:30]
Griffin McElroy
Not like a fun living car like a Morgana from Persona 5, but just a car. Like a. Just a car. Man.
- [37:36]
Russ Freshick
It does look stunning.
- [37:38]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah.
- [37:38]
Justin McElroy
Yeah.
- [37:39]
Christopher Thomas Plant
As a remaster, it's really neat in that they. They spruce up the visuals, but from what I can tell, they cleaned up the fighting mechanics quite a bit. Everything I've read about this game originally is a big ahead of its time, doesn't actually feel good to play, has a lot of quality of life issues. And playing this version of it, you would not sense that. It feels like, I don't know, like a kind of like a spin off of a larger series that Atlas makes. Like it has less resources and Persona, but it still is like quite entertaining. And it's just cool to have characters that you are familiar with in Persona following you around in the real world.
- [38:20]
Griffin McElroy
When you say characters, you mean like the demons, right? Not like Chie fucking.
- [38:24]
Christopher Thomas Plant
No, the demons. Yeah, so it's like, oh, you know, like the little fairy or the demon with the butt or the demon with the other butt.
- [38:31]
Russ Freshick
Who's that little white ghost looking guy with the clown?
- [38:34]
Griffin McElroy
Jack Frost? I mean, they are consistent across the Devil Summoner and Shin Megami Tensei and Persona. Like those are just the Atlas, the Atlas Zoo crew.
- [38:47]
Christopher Thomas Plant
It's great. I recommend checking it. It's also on. It was a good excuse to use my switch too, which has been nice.
- [38:54]
Griffin McElroy
I will have more to say about it, I imagine, next week, but I picked up Deltarune as chapters three and four. Both dropped, I think day and date with the Switch 2. Although I'm actually playing it on my Rog Ally X because I can't get the Switch two out of Henry's hands. So in order to play this other.
- [39:15]
Justin McElroy
Game, he's the only one in America. You knew there had to be somebody.
- [39:21]
Griffin McElroy
I've been playing deltarune and I played the first chapter of deltarune when it first came out and felt kind of weird about it. It is an episodic sort of structure that I think I was like, wanting or expecting to be kind of a sequel to undertale because it is created by Toby Fox and looks a lot like undertale.
- [39:42]
Russ Freshick
And it's in the same universe, right?
- [39:44]
Griffin McElroy
It's sort of in the same universe. But like, I feel like if you get hung up on that as I was waiting essentially the whole time while playing it, like, trying to put together the pieces of like, what's actually. How does it. Yeah, right. And I was sort of lukewarm on it. And the fact that it wasn't fully out yet because it's episodic was like. Well, I may not. I didn't really check out the second chapter when it came out, but I'm giving it another shot because now it is being sold as deltarune and there's four of the seven chapters out now.
- [40:17]
Russ Freshick
And if you buy this package, you get all of them.
- [40:19]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, it will include all of them. It's not like a. It's sort of a, I guess, Walking Dead season, whatever those old Telltale games like that package. But that said, now that I kind of know what to expect and I am not waiting for it to turn into this other game and I'm sort of like. I know that the structure is episodic. It is working for me much, much better. And so I am partway through two now. And so I haven't even started the new shit. So I don't think anybody would want a full discussion of it. But I'm hoping to be able to do that next week.
- [40:54]
Russ Freshick
Yeah, I'm excited.
- [40:56]
Griffin McElroy
It's good. It is a good game that I am really looking forward to playing more of. I've also watched Squid Game. I don't know if you guys have been watching season three of Squid Game.
- [41:06]
Russ Freshick
I haven't seen any. Any of Squid Game, which is especially funny because when I was at Summer Game Fest, there was a character dressed as Squid Game person.
- [41:16]
Griffin McElroy
His name is Squid Game.
- [41:17]
Russ Freshick
The shape on their face and they like, gave me.
- [41:21]
Griffin McElroy
Well, what do you remember the shape. Because There's Squid Game X. I want to say X is. X is Dr. Squid game.
- [41:27]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Okay.
- [41:27]
Griffin McElroy
And he's in charge.
- [41:28]
Russ Freshick
He's the boss. So Dr. Squid game gave me a card and was like, here's this card, but didn't say anything because it was mute. And then put the card on the ground and then gave me another card. And I guess I was supposed to throw the card at the other card to make the other card flip.
- [41:42]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah.
- [41:43]
Russ Freshick
And I did that. And then they gave me another card.
- [41:46]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah.
- [41:47]
Russ Freshick
But that having no context for what Squid game. As. I mean, I know.
- [41:51]
Griffin McElroy
I mean, you should count your stars. So fucking lucky, dude, that you did not end up in a squid game. You would not.
- [41:57]
Justin McElroy
You would not have fared well.
- [41:59]
Griffin McElroy
No.
- [41:59]
Russ Freshick
Really? You don't think I'd do well in a squid game?
- [42:01]
Griffin McElroy
You. No, dude. You crafty.
- [42:03]
Justin McElroy
Oh, you know what? Actually now, I say that because it seems easy Crafty because it is his nature. But I feel like he could actually do a pretty good job. He's good at games. You could do the one where they.
- [42:14]
Griffin McElroy
Have to punch a cookie out.
- [42:15]
Justin McElroy
If you're, like, looking for people to take down because they're an obvious threat. I don't need to finish the rest of the.
- [42:22]
Russ Freshick
You're saying I'm a goat is what you're saying.
- [42:24]
Griffin McElroy
The third and final season of Squid Game just went up on Squid Games. Went up on Netflix.
- [42:29]
Justin McElroy
I can't do it. I tried to watch the second one.
- [42:31]
Griffin McElroy
It's fucking brutal.
- [42:32]
Justin McElroy
I'm not headspace. I can't. I can't.
- [42:35]
Russ Freshick
People didn't like the second season. So does it rally?
- [42:39]
Griffin McElroy
I'm four out of the six episodes in. And I don't know, man. It's genuinely just so fucking brutal. It's just so brutal. I think they've done a pretty decent job of creating some great characters this time around. There's a lot of people you're rooting for. And the end of season two is kind of a cliffhanger halfway through a series of games. And season three jumps right back the fuck into it.
- [43:04]
Russ Freshick
There was a new shape they introduced.
- [43:06]
Griffin McElroy
Yes. But naturally it's a battle royale. So all those characters are going to die. And it is not fun.
- [43:13]
Russ Freshick
Yeah.
- [43:14]
Griffin McElroy
TV watchin'. So I don't know. I feel like knowing it's the end of it. I feel like I'm gonna watch these final couple episodes kind of out of obligation because it is not.
- [43:24]
Russ Freshick
Gotta know who wins the game.
- [43:26]
Griffin McElroy
Doesn't feel amazing. Yeah.
- [43:28]
Justin McElroy
I'm feeling pretty smart over here about not watching.
- [43:30]
Griffin McElroy
Not watching.
- [43:32]
Justin McElroy
I wanted to say ever since we had good wrestling program, I've been playing around more with like the retro game handhelds and it's a retro game space and emulation in general been messing around more with and I just want to say the YouTube space that covers that area is. Has become a real light for me lately. It's been such a pleasant. It's a community that is. It's not sort of caught up with like the business aspects or the current aspects or trends or whatever. It's really about like the joy of experiencing the thing. Like the how much joy the device or the game is really like bringing you. There's an earnestness to all these that I think make them a lot of fun to engage with. It seems like they lost a lot of the cynicism that I've become so accustomed with with gaming coverage and stuff recently. There's one called Tech Dweeb that is a guy who's basically created a character that lives in his mom's basement and reviews handheld gaming stuff. And it is so endearing and tender hearted and sweet. Obviously gotta recommend Retro Game Corps with good Russ. A huge super reliable cat for all like retro emulation stuff. Kind of a genius in the space. I wanted to also mention James Channel. Have you Griffin, you're watch his stuff?
- [45:08]
Griffin McElroy
Almost certainly.
- [45:09]
Justin McElroy
Yeah. So he does a lot of like tear downs of old consoles but also just like cheap ripoff consoles. He'll buy crap off Temu or Alibaba and just like tear it apart and see what's. But there's like a respectfulness to it. Like he'll rehab old broken like NES console ripoffs and like make them work again. You get to see the guts of like a virtual boy and stuff like that. It's really fascinating enthusiastic stuff. So. But that whole like space whenever I see new videos pop up in any of those channels it's. It makes me happy to watch them. So yeah, you should watch those.
- [45:49]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Wow. James Channel is really just called James Channel.
- [45:52]
Griffin McElroy
It's a good fucking name man.
- [45:54]
Justin McElroy
Good name man.
- [45:55]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Great name.
- [45:56]
Justin McElroy
It's no tech. Tech Dweeb. All of his videos are. You never see his face. You only see this, his like tragic orange and black sweatshirt that he wears. And he did, I have to say a really fantastic face reveal video where it was good Russ in an orange and black shirt. And he said yeah, that's right. It's been me the entire time I've been Teg Dweeb.
- [46:21]
Russ Freshick
It's great. It's really good. As I mentioned earlier, I'm still playing Death Stranding 2. It continues to be like my. The ultimate. My shit.
- [46:33]
Justin McElroy
I've really struggled and we didn't talk about it, but this is so like, this feels like these two are so close to each other in terms of like, you know what I'm in the mood for kind of like sci fi, body horror, existential talking to different versions of yourself, weird things with babies growing up too fast. Just like, I have not known which of these games to pick up. I kind of do it randomly, just like whichever controller I get first.
- [47:02]
Russ Freshick
Yeah, there are definitely similarities, but man. First of all, Death Stranding 2 is a much longer game than I think I was expecting it to be. It just kind of keeps. Oh music to my ears.
- [47:12]
Christopher Thomas Plant
It's twice as long as the original stuff before it came out. Did you dodge that?
- [47:18]
Russ Freshick
What?
- [47:19]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You didn't. You didn't get bombarded by the Kojima? Like, this is twice as long as the original.
- [47:24]
Russ Freshick
I did not see that news. I was mostly blind on all of that news. And now I'm sensing it. I am fine with it because I am genuinely enjoying the game. But I definitely was at a point where I was like, I made it to the end of the like side of the island and I was like, okay, yeah, now things are gonna, like, start wrapping up and we're gonna big boss. And then someone came on, was like, Congratulations, you've connected 50% of the island. I was like, okay, we're hanging in.
- [47:53]
Justin McElroy
I may not.
- [47:54]
Russ Freshick
Fucking fun, though.
- [47:55]
Griffin McElroy
I like playing it a lot.
- [47:56]
Russ Freshick
You need to be into it.
- [47:57]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You know what I did last night?
- [47:59]
Russ Freshick
What?
- [47:59]
Christopher Thomas Plant
In your honor, and I named it the Roshfrostchik honorary Connection of ziplines and spanning the eastern and central eastern side of Australia.
- [48:12]
Russ Freshick
So fantastic.
- [48:13]
Griffin McElroy
I'm still at a point in the game where I don't know if just more of the player base has caught up now because we played it a bit with the pre release codes, but now when I play, it's the fucking highway. It's just like. And now when I play, there's just like a very helpful interstate highway that I can just kind of hop on and scoot. And it does make the game a lot more smooth and easygoing.
- [48:39]
Christopher Thomas Plant
It's a bit more like a theme park now that people have started contributing to it.
- [48:43]
Griffin McElroy
Right.
- [48:43]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I felt like when I played the first one, there came a point where I was like, oh, wow, this is so nice. People built roads. This is like, really encouraging. And now I sign on last night and I'm trying to build zip lines. I'm like, yeah, I'll do that right after I hit some sweet jumps off of these weird anti gravity ramps. There is so much little hidden shit in this game. So many surprises. Resist as best you can the 500 weird things in Death Stranding YouTube videos. Because it is such a treat when you come across something that makes no sense in the game, like it was there just for you.
- [49:20]
Russ Freshick
Yeah, it's been fantastic. I'm continuing through it, but it's going to be a little while probably before I wrap the credits, but highly recommend it.
- [49:30]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Great.
- [49:31]
Justin McElroy
Fantastic, Fantastic show.
- [49:34]
Russ Freshick
I wanted to thank some people over at the Patreon. We have some new members at the Patreon. We have Mark, we have Shareef, we have Patrick, and we have tj. Thank you for being members over at the Patreon. You can go to patreon.com the besties. We really appreciate your support. Hey, if you don't. If you're not a member and because you can't spare the money or whatever reason, you don't trust us.
- [49:58]
Griffin McElroy
I get it.
- [50:00]
Russ Freshick
You can be a free to even.
- [50:02]
Griffin McElroy
Put that idea like out.
- [50:05]
Russ Freshick
That was the first thing that I thought of. You can be a free member. So you just be a free member and you'll see some posts and things like that. But bunch of shit, though.
- [50:15]
Justin McElroy
It's a bunch of garbage, right, Russ?
- [50:17]
Russ Freshick
Just so much. Some good stuff that the free people get as well. So that's a good way to kind of dip your toe in and. But obviously we also appreciate anyone that wants to throw some bucks. And you get a new bracket episode one of which is live right now about the games that should be rebooted. And in fact, here's a clip from that episode.
- [50:39]
Griffin McElroy
You want to mod Billy into Mafia 3? You can do that.
- [50:42]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You can do it.
- [50:42]
Griffin McElroy
Anything.
- [50:43]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You can do it.
- [50:43]
Justin McElroy
It's in there already. Use the code.
- [50:45]
Russ Freshick
Mafia 3 has a city. There's no bayou city.
- [50:52]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, man, he has a good point. There isn't a bayou.
- [50:56]
Justin McElroy
I really do want Rush Freshstick's bayou. Billy's Bayou World.
- [51:00]
Griffin McElroy
If only Russ made it. Russ has to write it.
- [51:02]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah, I want it personally make it.
- [51:04]
Justin McElroy
I want Russ in the meetings. Like, that's not part of the bayou. That's not the kind of trees that we have in the bayou. That's not bayou.
- [51:09]
Griffin McElroy
That isn't bayou. This city.
- [51:11]
Justin McElroy
He's like walking up and down like, bayou. This up.
- [51:15]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Needs more bayou.
- [51:16]
Justin McElroy
Give that guy more chest hair. That's not even close to bayou. Come on.
- [51:19]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Bayou fresh is gonna come back with a cajun accent.
- [51:23]
Griffin McElroy
It's gonna be so good.
- [51:25]
Justin McElroy
You all are what the bayou call lazy competemps. You know what that means?
- [51:36]
Griffin McElroy
All right, man.
- [51:36]
Justin McElroy
Or maybe it's like, huh.
- [51:39]
Griffin McElroy
I will say this one has the wildest twist of any. This one turns on a dime in a way that none of the bracket episodes have in a way that I could not have anticipated in a million years. Hey, you'll want to check it out.
- [51:51]
Justin McElroy
Thanks for your support. What we do next week.
- [51:54]
Russ Freshick
Next week. I think Griffin's talking about deltarune.
- [51:57]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah.
- [51:57]
Griffin McElroy
And someone will probably talk about other games too. I don't think I'm going to get up there and deliver a book report.
- [52:01]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah, I think it's going to be a bit of like a grab bag episode next week. There's so much cool stuff out right now. Some more about what I do. I need to get you to play that. Griffin, I just want to talk about.
- [52:13]
Griffin McElroy
My dance card is pretty full time.
- [52:15]
Justin McElroy
More about lord of the Rings Two Towers on PlayStation 2.
- [52:17]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Oh, you want to do that?
- [52:19]
Griffin McElroy
We all. We all have really important to get to. I think it's the moral of the story.
- [52:23]
Christopher Thomas Plant
We're playing my way through. I can't wait to play peak.
- [52:27]
Russ Freshick
We'll see what we got.
- [52:28]
Justin McElroy
It's going to be. It's going to do it for this week on the besties. Be sure to join us again next time for the besties because should the world's best friends pick the world's best games.
- [53:04]
Griffin McElroy
Besties.