Splatoon Raiders Might be the Most Fun Switch 2 Game Yet

The guys are back again to talk about the magic and wonder of Splatoon Raiders, a game that finally made us all agree that Splatoon is really kinda awesome. We've also got some reader mail to dive into and whether we can actually find someone who inverts their horizontal axis.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I think I have a pretty good case against Christopher Nolan and his cronies.

• 0:06Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, boy. No. Okay. Oh, boy. I was, I was really, I was really waiting for, for you to weigh in on this, Russ. I can't wait to hear your thoughts.

• 0:16Russ Frushtick?

  Those crumbums over at Warner Brothers, whoever made that movie, did something that is unforgivable, in my opinion.

• 0:24Griffin McElroy?

  Wow. Alright, dude, I'm, my butthole is clipped so tight in absolute terror right now, but what, what is it?

• 0:31Russ Frushtick?

  Somehow, and I don't know how they did it, they seem to have fully body scanned my nude body and put it in their film as the body of the Cyclops in The Odyssey. Cause that's my bo- I've seen enough of my body to know that's my body.

• 0:48Griffin McElroy?

  God's Christ, sadly, me too.

• 0:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 0:52Griffin McElroy?

  Can I tell you a fun, a fun story? And this is like, I don't know if you know this about our relationship, Russ, but yesterday I was, I was upstairs in my house and my phone was downstairs. And so I got a notification on my phone. You got a text message from Russ Frushtick and it includes a photo. And I couldn't see the photo on my watch because my phone was downstairs. And do you, like, I was scared, man. I was scared because what if it's like a picture of like, your huge nasty toes that like a bee stung? Or what if it's like a picture of like some sort of goiter that you've got? Um, or, or it could be a screenshot of Blue Prince, like where you're at in the game.

• 1:33Russ Frushtick?

  Which is what it was, yeah.

• 1:35Griffin McElroy?

  That is what it was this time.

• 1:36Russ Frushtick?

  But it does make me think that maybe all of those pictures that I've been sending, really out of the kindness of my heart to both you have somehow.

• 1:45Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:45Russ Frushtick?

  And we're gonna have to look at the bank records vanished and a- arrived at Chrissy Nolan's doorstep. And poof, there's my naked body in The Odyssey.

• 1:56Griffin McElroy?

  And they can take, I mean, technology is as such, AI is just so powerful these days that they can take photos of your gnarled puppies.

• 2:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 2:05Griffin McElroy?

  Of your disgusting feet. And then it can extrapolate from there what a nude Cyc- Cyclops version of yourself would look like.

• 2:14Chris Plante?

  What I'm trying to figure out is like, have you had Christopher Nolan over for dinner or anything lately? Because now that you mention it, I can see how he would be inspired. Having been to your house, you do tend to just be exclusively in the nude.

• 2:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 2:27Chris Plante?

  You grab onto random animals, bite their heads off and kind of cry, you know, asking for a god to kill you.

• 2:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it did come up, but I did, I do want to say when he was here, I did mention that I know the difference between hay and sheep hair.

• 2:42Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 2:43Russ Frushtick?

  Like I made clear, I was like, by the way.

• 2:45Griffin McElroy?

  You said, "Don't fuck me. I know the difference between these two. Don't embarrass me in film."

• 2:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 2:50Griffin McElroy?

  "I know the difference between these two."

• 2:52Russ Frushtick?

  And I'm so method that there would be no way to fake it, really.

• 2:56Griffin McElroy?

  Right, sure.

• 2:56Russ Frushtick?

  Even modern technology couldn't allow for my performance to imply that I wouldn't know the difference.

• 3:02Chris Plante?

  So they had to go with someone else, is what you're saying?

• 3:04Russ Frushtick?

  But clearly they didn't. Clearly they, they went with someone's face. That wasn't my face, but.

• 3:09Chris Plante?

  Oh, I see. Kind of like a, a Mark Hamill's face put on a younger body sort of thing.

• 3:15Griffin McElroy?

  Right. Makes me so exhausted whenever I have Chris Nolan staying with me as a house guest. And I'm like, "Alright, Chris, I'm gonna go take a shower. I'll be in the shower for like the next 10 minutes, Chris, just so you know exactly where I'm gonna be." And he's like, "Okay, okay." And I'm like, "Don't walk, don't come into the bathroom."

• 3:31Russ Frushtick?

  Chris, Chris, Chris, what is that noise? What, that sounds like an IMAX camera. It, I know they're very loud. It sounds like it.

• 3:37Griffin McElroy?

  It sounds like an IMAX camera in my, in my re- "I'm gonna go use the toilet, Chris." Chris, please, man. Oops. Oh, I didn't know you were at- Yeah, you did, Christopher. I told you I was in here. Don't, don't fucking, don't green screen me, dude.

• 4:13Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin McRoy and I know the best game of the week.

• 4:16Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant. I feel pretty confident that I know the best game of the week.

• 4:21Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Russ Frushtick. Ah, I know the best game of the week.

• 4:24Griffin McElroy?

  Welcome to The Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a game of the year club, and just by listening, you have become a member of the club called The Besties. This week, we are talking about a Switch 2 exclusive first-party title from the Nintendo Entertainment Company. Uh, and it is called Splatoon Raiders. Chris, what the hell is that?

• 4:46Chris Plante?

  Splatoon is back, but you are mostly familiar with those multiplayer games. This time, they're back with a looter shooter of sorts. Not quite Borderlands, not open world. More of one quest after another, and it's pretty delightful.

• 5:01Griffin McElroy?

  Can we go Schluter? Can we say Schluter? We can call it a Schluter.

• 5:06Russ Frushtick?

  Splatoon Schluter.

• 5:07Griffin McElroy?

  No one's here to tell us not to call it a Schluter. Um, you, the listener, might be yelling that at your radio, but we can't hear you. So let's take a brief break and then we'll talk about Splatoon Raiders and what makes it such a, just such a delight.

• 5:23Russ Frushtick?

  This episode of The Besties is sponsored by Alienware. Start your Alienware journey with the streamlined Alienware 15. They designed this machine to refine the essentials, creating a more focused gaming laptop for players who demand quality without the clutter. They engineered a brilliant 15.3-inch 165 Hz display seamlessly into a portable 15-inch body. You get a larger immersive window into your game that still travels easily wherever your mission takes you. Step into the future of gaming with up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 laptop GPUs. Designed to push boundaries, the RTX 50 series with Nvidia Max Q delivers jaw-dropping graphics while optimizing battery life.

• 6:04Russ Frushtick?

  This is the Alienware experience distilled into one iconic machine. Visit Alienware.com/15 today.

• 6:14Russ Frushtick?

  I think I have always been like, "Man, I really want to get into Splatoon, but I have no interest in playing PvP paint shooting."

• 6:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's been an interesting franchise for, for me. We're like, the aesthetic of it is off the chain, dude. Crazy. I'm, I'm crazy about this aesthetic. The, the, these little squid kids and they're running around and you can, they, they're all about, you know, dressing up in their gear and their fashions and they live in, you know, kind of a, a sort of fish, fish world Shibuya sort of analog.

• 6:47Russ Frushtick?

  Neo Tokyo kind of vibe with fish.

• 6:49Griffin McElroy?

  Love, love the vibe. And just the feel of the game is great. The weapons, when they shoot their little ink out, that's great stuff, man. That was a really good, that was a really, really good sound of paint coming out.

• 7:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it was good.

• 7:01Griffin McElroy?

  I didn't know I had that in me. That was really exciting. Um, but yeah, I, I find the sort of turf war model of ink as much of the stage as possible. I don't know, it, it's hard to feel like you know how good a job you are doing.

• 7:16Russ Frushtick?

  It's just stressful to me. I feel, I feel like I'm playing an RTS, which is not my genre at all.

• 7:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 7:22Russ Frushtick?

  And they have teased, um, like tried to do, and you, you've talked about this before, they've done non-PVP modes, like they had the Salmon Run, things like that.

• 7:31Griffin McElroy?

  They had Salmon Run and I forget which one. Uh, there was Splatoon Side Order. Uh, and then there was all like the single-player campaign-style things that they've had in, I think, all the games at, at this point. Uh, which received, you know, varying degrees of attention and, and, uh, work that went into them. This is, I would say, by far the most sort of fleshed-out, single-player focused with, like you can also do multiplayer in it, like cooperative multiplayer. Uh, there, there is no PvP side of Splatoon Raiders. It is, it is just you versus the, the Salmonids. And you're going into missions and you're blasting a bunch of guys and you're collecting loot and you're upgrading your stuff between missions.

• 8:14Griffin McElroy?

  That's pretty much the whole sort of setup of the game.

• 8:17Chris Plante?

  The way that you do these missions too is really clever because it avoids the looter shooter problem that I have in a lot of open world games where you do spend a lot of time just wandering between things to do. And I say that as somebody who generally likes open world games. Here, these missions are anywhere between like two to maybe six or seven minutes. The, the longer ones, the multi-layer ones.

• 8:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 8:44Chris Plante?

  And what they're doing with the design is each stage.

• 8:51Chris Plante?

  Has either a unique kind of geography, or it has a unique way that it hammers you with the enemies. So you might have a stage that is a kind of like a mini level, like you would have in a Mario game, where you're going from point A to point B over a long area, and you're shooting different types of enemies, and you're doing a bit of platforming. And then you might have a stage that is kind of like a horde mode, where you are doing three layers, and you are just in the middle of a field, and enemies are coming at you from different spots. And then you might have a stage that looks like a bowling alley, almost. And there's just waves and waves of enemies coming up from one end toward you. And what's really smart about this is, one, each just feels different.

• 9:35Chris Plante?

  There's like actual design happening. Two, it gets you to learn the different enemy types and like what they specialize in. If you have a hundred of a UFO enemy that you have to kind of hop on top of using this special jump maneuver, you're gonna have a different experience. In theory, it gets you to actually use all those different weapons from the multiplayer game, which I was very curious how they would figure out, because the weapons in multiplayer are meant for covering the arena in paint. Like, there's a paint roller that is not a great offensive weapon at times, but is really good for covering tons of the ground with paint. Here, it turns out, it's also really good against large hordes of weak enemies, but is quite poor against one really big enemy.

• 10:17Chris Plante?

  So it just, they designed it in a way that really uses every part of the Splatoon formula in a single-player experience.

• 10:26Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I'm pretty impressed by the structure of it. Mostly because I never thought of Splatoon as like a build crafting game. Again, I haven't gotten so deep in the multiplayer that maybe that gets introduced at some point, but this is fully like, you know, in the ballpark of Destiny, where you have three classes. One of them's like a strategic, like dropping bots and things like that. One of them's more like a tanky class, and one of them's like a ranged class. So you have three classes driven by your backpack, and each of those has special abilities that you can equip. And those special abilities can be customized with mods that like increase the damage, or the range, or recharge time, things like that. And so all of these things are combining to the point where you are fully customizing

• 11:10Russ Frushtick?

  your capabilities at any given moment. And oftentimes, you do have to make a new build if you're up against guys that you have to attack from the back, otherwise they won't take any damage. Like, you're constantly reevaluating things in a really cool way.

• 11:23Griffin McElroy?

  It also, it gets very interesting. You're like leveling these different kind of class backpacks up, between like the speed one, and the melee sort of close-range one, and the strategic one. And after a certain point, you will level them up to a point where you can start hybridizing them. I don't know if you guys have gotten to that point yet, but once you've leveled up a pack to a certain point, you can start equipping gear from the other classes and make more of a, more of a hybrid one. Uh, which, I don't know, man, it's really cool. It's really, really cool. And you will find yourself like, the loot you're finding in the levels, right? You're finding, uh, resources that you were using back at home base to, uh, usually like craft new upgrades for your gadgets.

• 12:08Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, or otherwise, like upgrading your weapons a certain amount, just sort of like numeric, uh, statistical upgrades, or like expanding parts of your base. That part of the game isn't like super fleshed out. I was a little disappointed in that. You have this like floating base, and, uh, they've talked a lot about how you'll be kind of like upgrading it as you go, and that's like a big focus of the, of the gear. But really, like, I don't know, it's like five or six different facilities. And it's like, now you've unlocked, uh, weapon upgrading. Now you've unlocked gadget upgrading, and then you don't ever, like, there is very, very, very little to the, to the game in that department.

• 12:44Russ Frushtick?

  I like that there's a hub area that you can go back to and kind of fuck around in, and you can test out weapons. There's like a, a training course, so you could like try out weapons, things like that. But yeah, the like, actual customization of the area. You're not like deciding what furniture shows up and things like that.

• 12:59Griffin McElroy?

  Right, yeah, exactly. And, you know, I don't know that that game necessarily needs that, but it, it is, um, I, I've, I really love this game. I love it a lot. I've been playing, I'm almost finished with it. Like, I've really been burning through it. And from what I understand, there is like a post-game sort of like mode that I'm like really excited to dig into, because I have become like pretty, pretty diesel. Like, I've found a weapon that is, uh, really, really, uh, insane. They have like different rarities, and once you get up into the higher rarities, then they start to have like special properties. So the one I have now has like a freeze debuff.

• 13:31Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, cool.

• 13:32Griffin McElroy?

  That it procs sometimes, but it also has like a burning debuff that it can proc also. Uh, and it's also just like ungodly strong. I'm like automatically dropping down turrets and like vacuum blades, and these like orbiting satellite ink blasters. Like, it's just like absolute, uh, non-stop chaos. And I'm excited to like, maybe get to a, a part of the game that can be a little bit challenging again.

• 13:57Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 13:58Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, because I've, I've, I don't know, for the past, I don't know, one-third of my time with the game, it has been a real cakewalk.

• 14:04Russ Frushtick?

  Is that even with like going back? Because you can replay old missions with the higher difficulties.

• 14:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, so, yeah, there's different difficulty, so, so there's three difficulty settings to the game, which I do appreciate, because it has made it more accessible to my son, Henry, who loves Splatoon. But for the same reasons, we kind of have outlined, like, never really got into the competitive side of it. Gets like very stressed out by the like, uh, super-duper tough like side order levels and, and stuff like that. Uh, being able to have like an, an easier mode that you can turn into is, is good. But then also, once you beat a mission, you can go back and play a spicy version of it that spawns in like way harder enemies and gives you like way more loot. Um, so there really is like, there really is a lot to the game. Um, I, I would say the multiplayer aspect of it is,

• 14:53Griffin McElroy?

  uh, it, it kind of follows, I think Nintendo's track record of not being so, so great, so like fleshed out, especially compared to really any of its peers in this space. Uh, you can play with friends online, easy. You can play with friends local, sort of, uh, local co-op, easy. I don't think there's split screen.

• 15:13Russ Frushtick?

  Well, we should clarify. So it does not have split screen, you're right. And if you're doing local co-op, it needs to be two Nintendo Switches with two copies of the game.

• 15:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, there's no game share. Which is a heartbreaker, man.

• 15:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, really a bummer. I kinda, I kinda get it, because it's like, there's a lot of stuff going on screen, and they would have to render a lot, but it's also like...

• 15:35Griffin McElroy?

  That's also true of Pokopia, which does game share to a Switch one. Like, this, this technology is so dope. Like, it's really, really great when it works, and I think is a huge sort of selling point of, of, of the hardware. Uh, and it just seems like such a huge missed opportunity to not have it.

• 15:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 15:53Griffin McElroy?

  To not have it here.

• 15:54Russ Frushtick?

  Definitely a disappointment.

• 15:55Griffin McElroy?

  Also, the online multiplayer is, it is weird how they handle that, right? You can play with friends, no problem. If you have like a bunch of friends who have the game, you're gonna have a great time. For matchmaking purposes, there is a call for help setting that you can do, almost sort of like Monster Hunter style, where like you can press a button, and then it will call for help, and then if there's other players who are like, uh, volunteering their help in like a, you know, waiting room lobby, uh, then they can hop in and you guys can do a mission together. But you, as someone volunteering, you don't have any input on like what you're gonna do, what you're gonna play, it's just wherever you happen to go.

• 16:30Russ Frushtick?

  You do get rewards, though, if you help someone out.

• 16:31Griffin McElroy?

  You do get rewards for going in for helping, but like, if I wanted to do, I, I don't know, it, it's, it's a weird limitation of matchmaking, I think. I've, I've not done a ton of the multiplayer, because it doesn't feel very, like you have a ton of control.

• 16:46Russ Frushtick?

  My understanding is, if you're doing the, I want to help other people, it will only give you the missions that you've done previously.

• 16:53Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 16:54Russ Frushtick?

  So that's a way to, again, not have people like see content that they haven't seen before.

• 16:59Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 16:59Russ Frushtick?

  But I, I like the fact that it's there, because I've definitely used it. Like, when I go up on a hard mission and I'm struggling, I can call for help, and we like fucking smoke the mission. I think it's also on a timer, because they don't...

• 17:13Griffin McElroy?

  A lot of the missions are on, not, not all the missions are on a timer.

• 17:15Russ Frushtick?

  When you call for help, if you try to call for help like in subsequent missions, there's a cooldown on it, so you can't constantly do it.

• 17:23Griffin McElroy?

  There's also a weird thing where if you go in to help someone and you don't succeed on the mission, you don't get any loot at all. Whereas if you're just playing single player, and you try a mission, and you get some cool stuff to drop, but you fail the mission, you get to keep that stuff. It, it's just, I don't know, man, it just seems weird. It just seems like a weird, just like, give me a, just let me pick a level and just say play online, like, yeah, why, why all the, the rigamarole? Um, I, I don't understand it.

• 17:48Chris Plante?

  I, I wanna, I wanna run back to the hub world stuff really quick, just because this is my one big bummer of the game. The appeal for people who are not into the multiplayer side of a multiplayer game in Splatoon 1, 2, and 3 was the hub worlds, was these Neo Tokios, was the fact that there were other players walking around and they were sharing like little bits of art. And there were just a bunch of characters and it was very beautiful.

• 18:15Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 18:16Chris Plante?

  And this ship, I think I know what they're going for and that they want it to be a more solitary, if not like lonely, experience, that you are the only person.

• 18:27Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, narratively, you're in the middle of the ocean, basically.

• 18:30Chris Plante?

  Yes. And like you have like two buds and then you have your little man-array or whatever who's hanging out with you.

• 18:36Russ Frushtick?

  He's also a bud.

• 18:37Griffin McElroy?

  He's also a bud. His name is Big Man and my son is obsessed with him.

• 18:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, mine too.

• 18:42Chris Plante?

  But it's, it's definitely a smaller, it is all just the one ship. And even as it grows, it just doesn't feel nearly as extravagant as that stuff had in the past. The game is so much about style and like the clothes that you wear. And you just kind of unlock clothes.

• 19:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, this was my biggest failing was the clothes customization.

• 19:03Griffin McElroy?

  The clothes customization is also, yeah, it is weird. Uh, cause it's, you get things basically as achievements, right? So it's like, upgrade a level plus five for the first time, you get this outfit. Uh, you know, max out your friendship level with Big Man and you get this outfit. Um, but there's not, uh, you know, the, the way that Splatoon handles that stuff is like all the clothes have, you know, different properties, different upgrades, different things that they do for your character. And that is not, that it's just purely aesthetic.

• 19:31Russ Frushtick?

  Which I would have been fine if it was purely aesthetic, but it's a huge downgrade from Splatoon 3 where if you look at the, like, I am deeply motivated by character customization that's just cosmetic. And in Splatoon 3, you could change the goggles, the hat, the shirt, the pants, the shoes, every aspect was kind of bespoke. And here, you're basically locked into very simple outfits that have palette swaps and you do unlock a little bit.

• 19:58Griffin McElroy?

  They have palette swaps, but they are all, they almost all, with very few exceptions, do look like, uh, an ensemble that perhaps, uh, like a fly girl dancer on In Living Color would wear. Like, it's pretty much all, it's pretty much all bare midriff and like verres.

• 20:14Russ Frushtick?

  Which my son is very pro bare midriff.

• 20:16Griffin McElroy?

  Huge baggy pants. No, it's a dope look. Just give me some fucking options, dude.

• 20:20Russ Frushtick?

  And the really, yeah, and the really sad thing is there are three outfits that I'm dying to use, but they are all locked behind the fucking amiibos.

• 20:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm about to bust out the, the old flippers. I cannot find, I want those amiibos, I just can't find them anywhere. As is always the case with amiibos.

• 20:37Chris Plante?

  A, a word of warning for anybody who is watching footage or gameplay of this game, the game's feel is infinitely better than it's looked.

• 20:46Griffin McElroy?

  So good.

• 20:47Chris Plante?

  This is one of those games, I, I mentioned that kind of bowling alley level. There is a, this level where you're just going down a path and enemies are coming up at you up this hill. And the first time I played it, I had the wrong weapon to click. I had, I had just like a little splatter gun, completely underwhelmed or overwhelmed by the enemies. Next round, I put on that big paint roller and I just zip through it. I am literally just laying the paint down over these enemies. It feels so good. You describe it, it is tedious. You watch it, it's even more like, what is going on here? But when you play it and you feel that, oh, I figured it out, that aha moment. And then you just start hopping these, it feels like bubble wrap going through these bad guys.

• 21:28Russ Frushtick?

  It's scratching the like Vampire Survivors itch of like, oh, you get that combo.

• 21:32Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, definitely. Yes. Yeah. I mean, especially once you get strong, especially once you get these gadgets that, that can really put the work in sort of for you. Uh, it, it really does become just like enemies exploding constantly, dropping their big, beautiful power eggs.

• 21:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 21:47Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, that looks, it looks great. It sounds amazing. Like, Chris is right. We have, I feel like spent a lot of time kind of registering our qualms with the game. For me, they are completely overshadowed by the fact that it's just fucking fun to play. It is so much fun to play. Um, and all of my hangups with the game involve like, I don't know, I wish it could be fun to play like at the same time as like playing it with my son, but that's not really doable unless we buy another Switch.

• 22:18Russ Frushtick?

  Switch 2.

• 22:19Griffin McElroy?

  I wish, I wish it was quicker to, you know, pick, play, play online. I wish I had a little bit more control over who I play with online. Uh, there've, there've been, uh, I was looking to see like what, if I was missing something, uh, with the online multiplayer and I found that, uh, you can punch in like a code, almost like a dodo code in Animal Crossing where like if someone has this code, they can find you. So there are like, people are trying to popularize the, the codes that a lot of online players are using. So it's like, there's no matchmaking in the game, but if you use JP513 or whatever, that's not actually the real one, then, then that's actually where all the real players are.

• 22:58Russ Frushtick?

  I actually.

• 22:58Griffin McElroy?

  And I just want to grab Nintendo and shake them and be like, do you see what they're fucking do? Do you see what they're doing? Just put it in the game, dude.

• 23:05Russ Frushtick?

  This is relevant, cause I have a reader mail, we'll jump ahead very briefly to reader mail from Sammy, writes, folks playing, playing Splatoon Raiders, set that multiplayer keyword to besties. And you would be matched.

• 23:16Chris Plante?

  Oh, is that simple as that?

• 23:17Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. I guess it's simple as that. You, uh, and then you'll be matched with besties people. I'm certainly going to do that. Uh, maybe you'll stumble upon me and my pals in the paint world.

• 23:24Chris Plante?

  Before we wrap this section, can I, I've been cooking up a hot take for you.

• 23:28Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, I can't wait to hear it. Yeah, please.

• 23:31Chris Plante?

  Might not be the flashiest, might not be the even best designed, but this is the most fun Switch 2 exclusive that I've played yet. Even more than Donkey Kong, even more than Mario Kart. This is the one that like has really got me in the gut.

• 23:46Griffin McElroy?

  I, I, I might agree with that, man. I might agree with that.

• 23:51Russ Frushtick?

  It's definitely down to Donkey Kong and this. And I would agree, it is, it is close. I think Donkey Kong is a more interesting game overall to me, but from a minute to minute standpoint, this game is so much fucking fun.

• 24:04Griffin McElroy?

  I, I want to return to this, maybe even just next, next episode, once I've gotten to sort of like the, the post-game stuff, right? Because I think that this genre for me kind of lives and dies by the length of its tail. And if, if, you know, it doesn't have a lot going on, if I just kind of finish the campaign and then that's it, that's fine. But like, I think this game has promised to be something more than that. I don't think it's going to be Destiny where I'm.

• 24:34Chris Plante?

  I'd like to do that because I'd like to talk a little bit more about multiplayer and about like the boss fights and then the post-game stuff.

• 24:41Griffin McElroy?

  The boss fights are great.

• 24:42Chris Plante?

  So I think, yeah, having a little bit more time with it in the next, whether that's next week or coming up would be a good idea.

• 24:47Russ Frushtick?

  It's also worth considering that like of all of Nintendo's properties, Splatoon might be the most well-supported in terms of post-release content.

• 24:54Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 24:55Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that is true. Absolutely.

• 24:56Russ Frushtick?

  They go generally like a full year, if not more of like, forget the just like, which do you like, pizza or salad battles? Uh, they also like do actual like content drops and new levels and new stuff like that. So I, I definitely plan on keeping this installed for a very long time.

• 25:12Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm super optimistic and I, I've heard really good things about the, the end game sort of mode. Um, and so I'm, I'm eager to check that out as well.

• 25:23Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 25:23Griffin McElroy?

  Um, but yeah, man, Splatoon Raiders is a good, it's a good freaking time, man.

• 25:28Russ Frushtick?

  Nintendo's doing, putting out some good stuff.

• 25:30Chris Plante?

  Just keep doing it. Everybody else is just collapsing and Nintendo's like, I don't know, you want another great game?

• 25:37Griffin McElroy?

  It's really wild, man. But it's also like, I mean, this year has been kind of weird for Nintendo. Like the games have been good, like Pocopia and, and, and this, but it's like.

• 25:47Russ Frushtick?

  And, uh, Rhythm Heaven.

• 25:48Griffin McElroy?

  Rhythm Heaven, yeah, sure. But there's not like a, you know, a Zelda or a like.

• 25:52Russ Frushtick?

  There will be.

• 25:54Griffin McElroy?

  There will be, yeah. I mean, I guess.

• 25:56Russ Frushtick?

  It's a remake, but yeah.

• 25:58Griffin McElroy?

  I, it's still weird to me that that's coming out this year.

• 26:00Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, and Fire Emblem is, is closing in. I'm so excited about Fire Emblem, man.

• 26:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, me too.

• 26:06Chris Plante?

  I, I just want to give a number on that really quick though. The, uh, the new Tomodachi Life, uh, has sold over 3.8 million units. Uh, so the weird thing about Nintendo right now is even when they put out the weird small game, they're like blowing past everyone else.

• 26:25Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 26:26Chris Plante?

  Which is so weird.

• 26:27Russ Frushtick?

  It also helps that.

• 26:27Chris Plante?

  It's like, I get it. Yeah. Mario Kart will sell like 59, some astounding number, but yeah.

• 26:32Russ Frushtick?

  Well, it also helps that title was, uh, Tomodachi was cross-generation. So it also came on a Switch 1, which definitely helps on sales.

• 26:39Griffin McElroy?

  Um, let's take a brief break and then, um, Russ, I believe you, you want to.

• 26:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I have no way to set this up, so we'll, we'll talk about it when we come back.

• 26:48Griffin McElroy?

  Kick ass. All right. We'll be right back.

• 26:51Russ Frushtick?

  This episode of the Besties is sponsored by Alienware. Start your Alienware journey with the streamlined Alienware 15. They designed this machine to refine the essentials, creating a more focused gaming laptop for players who demand quality without the clutter. They engineered a brilliant 15.3 inch, 165 hertz display seamlessly into a portable 15 inch body. You get a larger immersive window into your game that still travels easily wherever your mission takes you. Step into the future of gaming with up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Laptop GPUs. Designed to push boundaries, the RTX 50 series with Nvidia Max Q delivers jaw-dropping graphics while optimizing battery life. This is the Alienware experience distilled

• 27:35Russ Frushtick?

  into one iconic machine. Visit alienware.com/15 today.

• 27:43Russ Frushtick?

  I do want to start by talking about the way, some of the changes that like, I think we make to controllers by default, depending on like, the genres and things that we play. Okay, so while I was playing Splatoon Raiders, the very first thing that I did, and I'm curious if you guys did the same, was I turned off motion aiming. I know a lot of people like it, but I really don't, because it makes me feel like I'm constantly having to like, hold my hands steady. Do you guys turn that off?

• 28:11Griffin McElroy?

  I pretty much exclusively play Switch games in handheld mode. And it is for that reason I don't love it. Because I don't want to be moving the screen I'm looking at. I think that's pretty, a pretty reasonable thing. I don't want to be moving the screen I'm looking at around. And it's selectively, like, I do like it in a, in like, the Ocarina of Time and Jor's Mask 3DS remakes, like, you know, lining up bow shots with like, that level of detail, like, that's great. I never liked it in Splatoon, in a competitive environment. I just like, couldn't get the feel for it.

• 28:45Russ Frushtick?

  But it does give you a huge advantage if you're using that. But I don't like using it, but yeah, it does.

• 28:50Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, I think that the common sort of agreement is that it is the, the more effective way of aiming and stuff in that game. I tried it for a little while in this one, but I, yeah, I just, doing the aiming and shooting and platforming on the controller that is attached to the screen I'm looking at, was just not my, not my favorite.

• 29:14Chris Plante?

  Five hours of this game on a plane, and it would be unacceptable. I would have left that on, on the plane. You know, I think people would get pretty annoyed with me.

• 29:22Russ Frushtick?

  The reason I mention it is because there are a couple of things that I do to my control settings that are like, pretty uniform across certain genres. And the biggest one that jumps to mind that I don't think I've heard anyone ever do, but I kind of love it. If you're playing a side-scrolling Metroidvania search-action game, which I do very frequently, I remap the right bumper to attack, to main attack. So Castlevania or anything like that.

• 29:49Griffin McElroy?

  Started like Dark Souls?

• 29:50Russ Frushtick?

  Dark Souls style. The reason is, because a lot of these games have like, jump attacking being a crucial element of it. And for me, doing a jump attack where I'm hitting A and then maybe X, or whatever's on that left side, doesn't feel as satisfying. It doesn't feel great, as much as it does jump with my thumb and then use my index for attacking. So that is like, something that I do for every search-action game now, and it's been a huge help. I did it for Mio, for Silk Song, every search-action game I do that. And it is inspired by Dark Souls, really.

• 30:22Griffin McElroy?

  It makes sense to me. I don't know that I do it necessarily for that genre, but any game where, you know, jumping is a heavy concern, and also you're going to be attacking a lot, I don't want to be using the same thumb to do that stuff. I think that makes sense.

• 30:38Russ Frushtick?

  And ditto for like, dodging. I almost always try to put dodge on a trigger, like in Hades or anything like that, because I don't want to have to move my thumb from attacking to dodge and back again.

• 30:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure. So I think the craziest I ever got was when I was playing Destiny. I definitely reached a kind of cap on what I was able to do on controller. And I have the, you know, the Xbox Elite controller that has the back paddles on it. And I read a lot of people saying like, you know, bind, jump to one of those. And then now, all of a sudden, you can move with the left stick, aim with the right stick, and be jumping at the same time, as opposed to moving with the left stick and then moving your thumb between jumping and aiming.

• 31:19Russ Frushtick?

  Basically bumper jumper, right?

• 31:20Griffin McElroy?

  Bumper jumper, right? Yeah, I mean, kind of. Bumper jumper, technically, I think you're supposed to use the actual shoulder, shoulder buttons is the historical usage of that phrase.

• 31:29Russ Frushtick?

  They didn't have as many buttons back then, so they had to do.

• 31:31Griffin McElroy?

  I went buck wild, and I put like, reload back there, and I put switch weapon back there. And now all of a sudden, like, I don't have to hit the face buttons, really, at all. I bound all of them to the back paddles. And it made, it truly made a huge difference, specifically for the PvP side of the game, where like, jumping and moving and aiming, you know, all at the same time is pretty imperative. And I think I did that, I did that for a long, long time. I played that way for a long, long time, until I realized, like, I should just be, I should finally just bite the bullet and learn mouse and keyboard. And so I did eventually switch over to doing mouse and keyboard for, for that. And I tend to do that now for shooters. Destiny was Destiny

• 32:13Griffin McElroy?

  and Sea of Thieves. I was playing Sea of Thieves with some people who gave me a hard time for being on controller. And I did find, yeah, actually, being on mouse and keyboard does make an enormous difference for, for that game. I'll tell you, another big one for me is any open-world survival craft game, like a, you know, like a Rust, or anything along those lines, where Valheim, or Enshrouded, or Dragonwilds, or like, any, any of those, Power World, anything where you're running around and picking up a bunch of shit off the ground, I do not want to do that, like, with my thumb, that I have to also aim with if I'm using a controller. I will always put that on a shoulder button or a back paddle button, because it's just a thing you're going

• 32:58Griffin McElroy?

  to be doing a million, billion times. And so I just, I don't know.

• 33:02Russ Frushtick?

  Assassin's Creed actually has a setting in accessibility where you can like, mass pick up every item in your area with one button press, which is like, fucking bring it.

• 33:11Griffin McElroy?

  I appreciate that a lot.

• 33:11Russ Frushtick?

  Inject that in my veins.

• 33:13Chris Plante?

  Yeah, that was especially helpful during the Far Cry era, where you would have to go through an individual animation for every pickup. And it was like, just let me have the things.

• 33:22Russ Frushtick?

  I think Horizon introduced a skill unlock, where it's like, fast pickup, and now you just don't have the animation. It's like, go fuck yourselves, just give us the good stuff. Plan, I know you're an inverter, but beyond that, I don't know if there's any.

• 33:36Chris Plante?

  No, I'm not.

• 33:36Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, you trained yourself out of it, that's right.

• 33:38Chris Plante?

  I untrained myself after having my son. Yeah, I realized after handing him the controller and realizing I don't want to.

• 33:45Russ Frushtick?

  You can't spread that trauma to another generation.

• 33:49Chris Plante?

  Yes, and it really is about a year of being completely confused. And the most confounding thing now is when I will start a game like Ace Combat, or something that has the natural inversion. So it's just there from the beginning, and my brain's like, what's happened? Like, this is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

• 34:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, with plane games, it kind of makes sense. Like, you're, it's supposed to be like a flight yoke.

• 34:14Chris Plante?

  Yeah, but it's like, I kind of can't even go back to that now, because my brain, it will disorient me for, this sounds ridiculous, but for a half hour, if I play it, because then my brain is trying to remember which version of the me I should do. I have done a lot more of what Griffin has said about the Xbox Elite controller, but I use that for things like screen capture, or video capture. Being able to have those extra buttons that allow you to do those things that, again, previously were limited to your, your keyboard, like hitting,

• 34:55Chris Plante?

  I think it's F12 or something for Steam, is great. I guess there was actually like, a way to capture screenshots on some consoles, but now it seems so much more difficult to do with like, the Xbox controller and Xbox console specifically.

• 35:08Russ Frushtick?

  No, you can still do it. There's a button dedicated for it, a share button.

• 35:11Chris Plante?

  If you press it, you put the, yeah.

• 35:13Russ Frushtick?

  You just press the button, and it screenshots, or you hold it down for a video.

• 35:16Chris Plante?

  So much easier just to just tap that little back of the controller, it feels so good.

• 35:19Russ Frushtick?

  I know.

• 35:19Griffin McElroy?

  It does feel good. Yeah, I don't think I do any other weird shit, other than that. I think that the rise of back paddles on controllers, the like, I don't know, I feel like those have become so ubiquitous, is really just such a, I mean, an accessibility victory, and also like, a customization sort of victory as well.

• 35:41Chris Plante?

  Griffin, there is, there is one version of weird shit that you do, which is you do play one video game with three people, spreading the controller out.

• 35:49Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, sure. Yeah, I mean, we do Six Thumbs, One Heart. We're doing Dark Souls now, which has required us to play with mouse and keyboard, because there's not a great way of doing that with, like, you know, splitting up an actual physical controller over three sort of, different, different sort of users. And man, playing Dark Souls on mouse and keyboard is a trip, y'all. I would not recommend it. It's crazy, dude. Would not, do not recommend.

• 36:18Chris Plante?

  Did either of you ever do the thing of playing a game with the Guitar Hero controller, or like, the DDR controller?

• 36:24Russ Frushtick?

  I would watch those videos. It's very impressive. But, you know, I got time, I got things to do.

• 36:30Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 36:31Russ Frushtick?

  I do want to know if anyone has, any listeners have like, things that they do on the regular for certain games or genres or anything, let us know. I've definitely been making more like, custom Steam controller profiles. Like, I set something up for Escape from Duckoff, which is a keyboard and mouse-only game, a parody of Escape from Tarkov, that allows me to play on a controller. So like, I use those Steam custom controller layouts all the time. They're great.

• 36:59Griffin McElroy?

  I usually just grab them.

• 37:00Chris Plante?

  Also, if there's anyone listening to the show who inverts horizontal, please let us know.

• 37:05Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, that's a great question.

• 37:06Chris Plante?

  And tell us about that experience.

• 37:07Russ Frushtick?

  Because it's always there. You always have the option for invert horizontal, and I've never met anyone that does that. So please, yeah, share the, share the knowledge. I'm very curious.

• 37:19Russ Frushtick?

  Um, we have some reader mail. Uh, we mentioned the one from Sammy regarding the besties keyword for Splatoon Raiders. I haven't even messed with the keyword option. Um, but that's cool that it's there. Uh, this next, next letter comes from Winky. Um, what EQ server are folks on? Anyone down to spend three hours making their UI and key bindings functional tonight? Okay.

• 37:41Griffin McElroy?

  I'm on, I'm on, uh, I believe it's pronounced Quenos or Canos.

• 37:45Russ Frushtick?

  With a Q.

• 37:45Griffin McElroy?

  Q E Y N E O S. Um, which from what I understand is the Pacific time sort of server, whereas Freeport is the Eastern time. Um, despite that, like, I don't know, my, the people I know who play the game, uh, started on Canos and I wanted to be.

• 38:01Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. So Griffin, the other day I was like, Griffin seems really hot on this EverQuest Legends thing. Like, maybe it's something that I should check out.

• 38:09Griffin McElroy?

  Ooh, I can't wait to hear the next sentence.

• 38:10Russ Frushtick?

  And I went to everquestlegends.com and I was like, let me take a look at some of these screenshots here. Just see if it's my kind of.

• 38:16Griffin McElroy?

  And it looks fucking, and it looks fucking great. You're right. Yeah. No, I agree. It looks amazing.

• 38:19Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I'm sure it's very, very faithful to the, but holy cow, is it faithful to the original. It is.

• 38:26Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, if you can't rock with that, that's a, that's a you problem. That's a, that's a personal failing.

• 38:30Russ Frushtick?

  It's a skill issue.

• 38:31Griffin McElroy?

  I'm obsessed with the aesthetic of, of EverQuest.

• 38:34Russ Frushtick?

  It's very charming.

• 38:35Chris Plante?

  The website itself also appears to have transcended time and space.

• 38:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Yeah. No, it's definitely, it's definitely a relic.

• 38:43Russ Frushtick?

  Props to them. That dragon made of 16 polygons is just like, multi bene. So good. Uh, oh, we have another letter. This one comes from Matthew. It's worth noting that the devs of TR49 explicitly cited TypeHelp, an early version of Gallery House as an inspiration. So it's funny to hear that, uh, Galley House was, uh, now being compared to TR49. So that's cool. Um, all of these games are like, doing like early releases on HIO, which is cool to see. It's like, continues to be a really cool, uh, testing ground. And eventually just, just an alternative release platform than Steam on PC for making like cool ass shit.

• 39:25Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 39:27Russ Frushtick?

  Last letter comes from Andrew. Sorry to be contrarian. Uh, if anything, I feel more vehemently anti-Microsoft right now, uh, than the show. But will this same sentiment regarding Microsoft apply to the pending Ocarina remake? That is basically Nintendo reheating the old hits of this year with Star Fox and Ocarina of Time. Is it just the layoffs that make this bad? Or is it otherwise like a fine? I mean, I thought the game was fine. Um, but I guess we're kind of exploring.

• 39:56Chris Plante?

  I, I, I am happy to take this one.

• 39:57Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, go for it.

• 39:58Chris Plante?

  I think it really depends on what the Ocarina remake looks like. And we talked about this a little bit with the Halo remake remastery thing. But there is a huge gap between this Halo remake and what Capcom is doing with its remakes.

• 40:15Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 40:15Chris Plante?

  Right? Like, yeah, those are very original experiences, very much inspired by the original games, but going on and doing their own thing. And there's a difference in terms of quality. There's a difference in terms of ambition. And, uh, I, we'll see with basically what Nintendo does. Are they going to do kind of the Star Fox thing where it's really similar, but very beautiful? And an emphasis on the spectacle? I wouldn't be surprised if they changed the game design a little bit here because the game design of Ocarina is fantastic, but very of its time. And there's a lot of opportunity there. And I think expectations are different for that sort of a game.

• 40:57Chris Plante?

  So it's, it's tough to say what it is, but I think the Halo thing was specifically tough. And I know that I saw some comments too, where people wished we had talked even more about the game. But there really isn't that much more to say about the game than what we said, which is it's very, very similar to the original thing, except they have made some areas that were too dull and repetitive. They've simplified them and they have given you more either weapons or, you know, kind of like buffs to make it easier to get through and it looks pretty. But otherwise it's, it's the game. Like they remade the game. Um, and I think that is where kind of our, again, like you said, fresh, it's not a bad game.

• 41:42Chris Plante?

  It's just, it's a fine game that also represents a kind of commitment to that, to kind of averageness, to not, you know, offend anyone.

• 41:54Russ Frushtick?

  It would be really hard for me to recommend that game to anyone that isn't just a hardcore. I remember playing the original Halo on Xbox and I want to replay it again with my friends in the best possible graphics. Like anyone new, I would never recommend that game. I'd recommend Halo Infinite certainly before I recommend that. And we've seen a number of remakes recently, like the Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake. That's a game that I would recommend to anyone, regardless of you, if you know anything about Assassin's Creed. Cause, uh, in addition to the remake being good, the game itself feels like a modern game.

• 42:23Griffin McElroy?

  It's also a thing that are like, one, remakes are not inherently like creatively bankrupt.

• 42:29Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 42:29Griffin McElroy?

  It's a, it's a, there's, there's so many different ways of doing it. So many different, like, it's such a sliding scale of how much has been fixed, how much new stuff has been added, how much has been preserved, right? I think Halo does an okay job with that. But you also look at like the legacy of the, of the franchise itself. And I think that they've, the Zelda games that have come out in the last decade have been fucking incredible. And so they want to return to Ocarina of Time. Like, cool. That's one of my favorite games ever made. I, you know, I hope that they put a lot of care into it. I really liked the Grezzo, uh, remakes of the, the N64 era games for,

• 43:10Griffin McElroy?

  uh, for the 3DS, but also like, has Halo, has Microsoft been as good of a steward of Halo in the last 10 years? I don't fucking think so. I don't think it's even remotely comparable. Like it's, it's, I think these are two like wildly different situations.

• 43:25Russ Frushtick?

  And I think you also just need to look at the, the release cadence, the overall context of if you're comparing Microsoft and, and Nintendo. Cause Nintendo is still like, we've talked about a bunch of them, putting out unique, interesting,

• 43:40Russ Frushtick?

  uh, titles this year that are exclusive to the platform. And we're just not seeing that. I know there are a number of titles in the works for Microsoft, but a number of those titles also got canceled or shifted out. Cause they're, those studios are now independent. So it's just, I think in a very different place, those two companies where Nintendo feels very confident and is willing to take risks outside of its remakes, whereas Microsoft feels like it has shifted into a very safe place.

• 44:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. And I just, I, we can't, I think it's unreasonable to like, think about these things in a vacuum. I, truly, because, you know, Nintendo is certainly not faultless as a, as a company, but they, they have not been acquiring talent, acquiring studios, uh, at breakneck pace. And then fucking shuttering them or, or failing them in a way that leads to their, their, uh, their erasure from the timeline. Uh, and it's, it's tough, like not to look at Halo as a, this is what, this is what we're getting instead. This is the, this is, to see it as like a symptom of a much, much, much bigger thing.

• 44:50Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I, I, I don't know. It's, it's tough not to hold that against old Master Chief and his, his buddies. Also the new stuff in the Halo remake stinks. It's very bad. So like, it's, if, if, if Ocarina of Time comes out and they're like, yeah, we got a new, a whole bunch of new dungeons in it. Uh, and the dungeon is like, you know, tingles, tingles, family reunion or some shit.

• 45:14Russ Frushtick?

  Fucking awesome.

• 45:14Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, that actually sounds incredible. And I take back what I said. Um, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's a, it's a different thing.

• 45:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. It's, it's nuanced. Speaking of nuance, I've been playing a game called Blue Prince, which is a game set in a house. You explore it.

• 45:30Griffin McElroy?

  Interesting. You sent me a screenshot of some shit last night that I did not know, that I did not see.

• 45:36Russ Frushtick?

  What did I send you?

• 45:38Griffin McElroy?

  You sent me a screenshot of like a letter you had got.

• 45:40Russ Frushtick?

  Oh.

• 45:41Griffin McElroy?

  A fucked up thing you had done.

• 45:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I broke the game.

• 45:43Griffin McElroy?

  The houses. You broke the game, which is very cool.

• 45:45Russ Frushtick?

  So much that I was like, oh no, did I literally break the game permanently? I, uh, it involves, uh, summoning a room in a place where you probably shouldn't summon it. And I asked around to a number of people that know these things. And they were like, uh, I don't know what you do. And then a couple of days in, the game actually knew that I'd broken it and sent an in-universe letter seeing, being like, uh, you broke the house, dog. You might need this item, which is dynamite. So, so cool and awesome. That game rolls. Uh, I just, uh, got over another hump and the game once again has sprawled out before me in a pretty fascinating way. So Christ, how does that game keep throwing haymakers and not ending is amazing.

• 46:27Russ Frushtick?

  Anyone else? Honorable mentions?

• 46:29Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I mean, EQ Legends launched yesterday. I'll probably talk more about it next week. I don't know that I've spent enough time with it to have any new thoughts.

• 46:36Russ Frushtick?

  What class are you playing as?

• 46:39Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I have settled on, so it's a triple class thing, right? You pick three classes and then you kind of have to figure out how they all kind of combine. Um, I am playing a warrior monk shaman. Um, warrior and monk both, you know, melee focused, uh, have some cool AOE melee attacks. And then shaman's just sort of about buffing and healing. So I can just run into a room and try and kill all the stuff in it. It's a very straightforward way of doing it. If you wanted to, you could be a enchanter, magician, bard, and just be all about charming, you know, different NPCs and making them fight each other. Like there's, there's, there's a lot of different ways to go about it, but that's, that's kind of how I'm starting. But what's cool is like they're doing the Final Fantasy 14 thing where if anytime I want to

• 47:22Griffin McElroy?

  switch, I can just switch and level up other classes alongside the ones that I've been doing. Um, it's been tough to get in on launch day specifically.

• 47:31Russ Frushtick?

  Hey, that's a throwback too.

• 47:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, dude, it really took me back being in a 35 minute long queue to get into play EverQuest was, uh, was a trip. Uh, but it seems like the game's doing very, very well.

• 47:42Russ Frushtick?

  That's great.

• 47:43Chris Plante?

  Y'all, it is summertime, which means I'm respecting a great in tradition of watching The Mummy by director Stephen Summers. Uh, it is one of the great summertime movies ever made.

• 47:56Russ Frushtick?

  And that's the Tom Cruise one?

• 47:58Chris Plante?

  Nah, yeah, actually no, it's the new, the new, new Mummy remake because they just keep trying. Um, it is, it's just such a great movie, y'all. Everyone in it is impossibly beautiful. There is CG that is kind of tacky, but it's always paired with like actual effects or real places or real actors. And I yearn for those days. Same thing with Jurassic Park, right? Where the CG was, it was the spice that got sprinkled over the practical effects. And there are just so many stunts in this movie that I forgot about. There is a stunt where they light an actual boat on fire and they are like fighting through

• 48:41Chris Plante?

  the flames. Fire is rippling over the ceilings of the boat. People are jumping off. Just incredible old school stuff that is, it's a delight.

• 48:50Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Is that the one with the sand mouth that you like see the, the mummy?

• 48:53Chris Plante?

  There is a sand mouth that is like trying to swallow a real plane.

• 48:57Russ Frushtick?

  So good.

• 48:57Chris Plante?

  That is flying through the dunes. It's, it's great.

• 48:59Griffin McElroy?

  That is a cool sequence.

• 49:00Russ Frushtick?

  So cool.

• 49:01Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I haven't really been playing too, too much else. Um, I, I've been watching the new season of Married at First Sight, but I don't think anyone really wants to hear about that.

• 49:10Russ Frushtick?

  I want to know about Married at First Sight.

• 49:13Griffin McElroy?

  It's on Peacock now. The thing about, okay, I watch a lot of reality television and Married at First Sight to this point has been on the Lifetime network. And it's been really, it's, it's a, not a watch that I enjoy a great deal, but I do enjoy the, um, I don't know, the kind of rough shod nature of it compared to a Netflix reality show that is like, one, like pretty cookie cutter at this point. All of the, uh, Love is Blind, Two Out to Handle, the, the Perfect Match, like all those shows look and feel and sound exactly the same. And now Married at First Sight feels like a Netflix show as

• 49:53Griffin McElroy?

  well. It used to feel like a, just like a shit, like a shitty show. Like things would just be blurry. Like entire scenes would just be like out of focus. And it's like, whoa, holy shit. You never really see that on television. Uh, the casting was like, I don't know, these, these, a lot of these folks are not really ready for prime time. And that's like, I kind of enjoy that. I do kind of enjoy a little bit of a little shaggy nature, uh, to, to, to my reality television shows.

• 50:21Russ Frushtick?

  What is, I don't actually know. What is, like, what do they do before they meet?

• 50:26Griffin McElroy?

  Nothing. They get married at first sight. They show up at the altar and then they get married.

• 50:30Russ Frushtick?

  So they don't know anything about the other person?

• 50:32Griffin McElroy?

  No, man. They get married at first sight. This show doesn't fuck around like a Love is Blind where it's like, let's date over the pods and we'll talk, we'll get to know each other and then we'll see each other and then we'll get engaged and then we'll decide whether or not we want to get married, you know, six weeks down the line. This one's like, you're fucking married now.

• 50:47Russ Frushtick?

  How do they match them up? Is it for?

• 50:50Griffin McElroy?

  With a really, with an expert process. This season is like all new, like matchmakers and shit. And like, I don't know, it's a colossal failure, I think, from a, uh, from a actual romance point of view.

• 51:03Russ Frushtick?

  But isn't that intentional? Aren't they like doing bad matches?

• 51:06Griffin McElroy?

  I think so. Yeah. I mean, some of these fucking dudes, man. Some of these fucking dudes, man. There's a dude, guys, whose whole life, there's a dude whose whole life is jet skis.

• 51:20Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 51:21Griffin McElroy?

  His whole world is jet skis.

• 51:23Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 51:23Griffin McElroy?

  And like, the, the couples.

• 51:26Russ Frushtick?

  What are we talking about?

• 51:26Griffin McElroy?

  Couples, I don't know, man. But the couples send each other little gifts before they like meet.

• 51:32Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, so they, so the, they knew the woman or knew that he was into jet skis.

• 51:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, because the present he sent her was a, like a, um, like a tether that you put your jet ski key on. So it doesn't go flying off your wrist. Uh, what's it called? A kill switch bracelet. Enjoy. She rolls up to his cabin, like by the water where he keeps his jet skis and goes into his bedroom. He's like giving her the tour and he has two like climbing ice pick, pickaxes like stuck into the wood ceiling. And she's like, that's fucking terrifying, man. You gotta get rid of that. He plays the piano at, at their wedding reception. They're like, play some music. And he's like, huh, okay. I'll play some music at my own wedding reception. He sits at the piano. Gang, he plays Fur Elise.

• 52:19Russ Frushtick?

  Oh.

• 52:20Griffin McElroy?

  He plays Fur Elise. And it's like, everyone get ready for this one. Ba ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma. Fur Elise? The first song that you learn to play? Whenever you learn to play piano?

• 52:31Russ Frushtick?

  You spend a lot of time mastering it.

• 52:33Griffin McElroy?

  And then he's like, you know, he plays all of Fur Elise. Then he's like, all right. And now I'm going to play just another one. And he plays like a Beethoven track or something. Everyone's like, huh, huh. One of the like, uh, the, the brides, like friends is just like head in her hands, just like laughing while her other brides are just like, stop, you have to stop laughing at the fact that the group is playing Fur Elise. And it's, it's just like, it's not a, it's still not a great show. And it's still largely pretty gross. And it's hugely uncomfortable television a lot of the time, but still, man, you can't get moments like that really anywhere else. You really can't. You simply can't. I watch a lot of good reality TV too, but this is still, this is still really a one of a kind

• 53:17Griffin McElroy?

  kind of experience. Uh, it's on, it's on Peacock now. I think there's probably a different company making it. Um, and I think it has lost a lot of its charm in like not being as just openly visibly shitty all the time. Um, but, uh, yeah, that's Married at First Sight. I can't believe I talked about it on this program.

• 53:35Russ Frushtick?

  Thank God. Thank God you did. Um, okay, Plant, you want to recap the games we talked about?

• 53:40Chris Plante?

  Here is what we talked about today. We talked a lot about Splatoon Raiders. We also talked about more EverQuest, which is, is coming back with a vengeance in EverQuest Legends. We talked about The Mummy, the, uh, 1990s version with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Uh, we talked about Blueprints because it's an episode of The Besties. And we talked about Married at First Sight because it's an episode of The Besties.

• 54:08Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know that that's, I don't know that that it's, that needs to be a Besties sort of trademark.

• 54:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, probably not.

• 54:14Griffin McElroy?

  Um, we'll probably never talk about that program again. It's just the only other sort of thing I've been on. That and, that and Friday Night Lights. If you guys want me to go deep on that.

• 54:23Russ Frushtick?

  I love that show. I love Peter Berg.

• 54:26Griffin McElroy?

  Um, hey, thank you so much for listening and thanks also to our patrons. You can go to patreon.com slash the besties to get bonus bracket battle episodes every month and also weekly episodes of The Resties where Russ and Plant talk about the games that we don't cover here on the program.

• 54:41Russ Frushtick?

  Twice, twice a month we do Resties and, uh, and we do one a month for the bracket battles. And we have actually a new bracket battle coming up right soon with this very special guest.

• 54:52Griffin McElroy?

  Um, yes. Can you thank maybe some of our patrons?

• 54:55Russ Frushtick?

  I would love to thank some of our patrons. Uh, we have VGR, uh, we have Michael S., we have Dale, and we have Ryan H. Thank you for being patrons. I also want to say thank you to everyone else. Um, tickets are selling very well for our live show, which is happening in October of this year. If you're interested, it's happening in New York City. You can go to besties.fan. We have a post pinned all up there, uh, which has all the details on where and when to buy tickets. Uh, so I would recommend doing that. If you're interested in, in coming, we'd love to have you. It's going to be very fun.

• 55:26Chris Plante?

  You will not believe the stuff that we have planned for you. I initially, I did have a 15 minute break dance set.

• 55:33Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 55:33Chris Plante?

  I was vetoed on that. Uh, but we do have other stuff that we think is going to be pretty great.

• 55:38Russ Frushtick?

  Special guest.

• 55:39Griffin McElroy?

  No, you know what? I changed my mind, Chris. I want to see that.

• 55:41Russ Frushtick?

  15 minutes enough is the real question.

• 55:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's, that was my issue is I need at least 30 to finish. Um, so that's it for this week, this episode of The Besties. Uh, next week we're going to be talking about Beast of reincarnation, Game Freak's latest Pokemon title, uh, that I can't wait to discuss more, uh, at length. Uh, and so join us again next week for that discussion and join us every week here on The Besties because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best games?