Open the Besties Treasure Trove

Due to technical issues, our Doom conversation has been delayed until next week. The good news? We finally had time to dig into our backlogs! The boys brought a bag of beautiful bits and bobs. A boomer shooter! An actually good IP game! And THE Planet Crafter.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hey guys, you wanna see something?

• 0:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:02Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but we're not gonna talk about what we're seeing, we're just gonna bask in it.

• 0:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. What the hell?

• 0:10Speaker 00

  I was not expecting that.

• 0:11Griffin McElroy?

  Justin's got a gun, Jesus Christ!

• 0:12Speaker 00

  Look at this, this is the retro shooter Reaper. Look at this, it's got a button here, got here.

• 0:18Griffin McElroy?

  So this is a-

• 0:18Speaker 00

  It's got two buttons here.

• 0:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  It's got a trigger here.

• 0:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  And it's got this here, and I, Griffin, I just wanna say, I haven't shown it to Travis, yet.

• 0:26Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 0:27Speaker 00

  So if you wanted to call dibs on it-

• 0:29Griffin McElroy?

  Are you giving it to-

• 0:30Speaker 00

  This could be like the one you use whenever you come over.

• 0:32Griffin McElroy?

  I'm not like a big gun guy, um, and I'm like excited for you, like I know that you're really in-

• 0:37Speaker 00

  Look at, wait, hold on, look how tough I looked up.

• 0:38Russ Frushtick?

  Whoa, that was crazy.

• 0:40Griffin McElroy?

  No, for sure.

• 0:42Griffin McElroy?

  And I'm like stoked you're so into the 3D printing scene, but I do need to tell you-

• 0:45Speaker 00

  This is not 3D printed?

• 0:46Griffin McElroy?

  No, no, no, are you kidding me?

• 0:48Speaker 00

  I wish, I wish.

• 0:48Griffin McElroy?

  That's a ghost gun, Justin, I read about that in Reader's Digest, and they're super illegal, and you can go to jail.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  If you don't wanna call dibs, just don't call dibs, it's fine.

• 0:56Griffin McElroy?

  I mean-

• 0:57Speaker 00

  I'll let Travis use this one, and you'll have one of the crappy ones.

• 1:00Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, I don't want a crappy one, though, I'm not a big gun guy.

• 1:02Speaker 00

  So do you wanna call dibs on that one?

• 1:03Griffin McElroy?

  If I was a gun guy, I'd want a good one.

• 1:05Chris Plante?

  It does have a few things, and you have to look pretty closely, it does have a few things about it that tell you it's not a real gun.

• 1:12Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:13Chris Plante?

  Like, one, there are buttons all along the side of it.

• 1:16Griffin McElroy?

  Buttons all over it, yeah.

• 1:17Russ Frushtick?

  Well, Robocop's gun had buttons.

• 1:20Griffin McElroy?

  Guns I don't think have, do guns have cords? Usually, do you have to-

• 1:23Speaker 00

  Robocop's guns do have cords, but Robocop ain't real! Now, uh, so Griff, did you call?

• 1:29Griffin McElroy?

  Dibs, dibs, it did, so I might as well.

• 1:31Russ Frushtick?

  Well, uh-

• 1:33Griffin McElroy?

  Shit, man, you fucking got me, Justin's got it easy. Justin's got it, what is that, an MP5?

• 1:40Speaker 00

  I got an MP5, heckler!

• 1:41Griffin McElroy?

  God dang.

• 1:46Russ Frushtick?

  Golly, quite the collection there, Justin, I don't know what you're gonna whip out next.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  My name is Justin MacGarry and I know the best game of the week.

• 2:09Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin MacGarry and I know the best game of like February.

• 2:13Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of somewhere between 2020 and 2025.

• 2:19Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Ross Ruschek. I know the best game of the week.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  Hello, welcome to the besties, where we examine the latest and greatest in the home interactive entertainment field. Today, rather than talk about a new game, we're gonna talk about old games.

• 2:36Griffin McElroy?

  We were gonna, we were gonna talk about a new game.

• 2:39Speaker 00

  A new game, an old new, an old timey.

• 2:44Griffin McElroy?

  New.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  New.

• 2:45Russ Frushtick?

  Set in the past.

• 2:46Speaker 00

  Set in the old, this is what I'm saying. It's an old timey, new, old game.

• 2:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, but as it turns out, the Doom Slayer slays more than demons and evil robots and stuff. Sometimes it'll slay your actual real life shit, which I think is a bold innovation in gaming.

• 3:04Chris Plante?

  We were playing some pre-release code and let's just say this game came in hot. So hot that I'm not sure what it did to my computer, but I'm not blaming it.

• 3:14Griffin McElroy?

  It made it hot.

• 3:15Chris Plante?

  I am legally, I am legally not blaming this pre-release code Bethesda blacklisted me for years. When I talked about getting stuck in an elevator in a Fallout game, I don't need any of that shit right now. I'm sure the game runs perfectly fine. We're just gonna talk about it next week. Okay?

• 3:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yes, I agree. We should talk about it next week, but that's okay. We've, we've figured out a good backup plan.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  As always.

• 3:42Russ Frushtick?

  And we're gonna call it, what are we calling it, Justin?

• 3:45Speaker 00

  We're gonna call it the treasure trove.

• 3:47Russ Frushtick?

  It's the treasure trove.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  It's much like a backlog, but it sounds more like something you would want to listen to.

• 3:53Russ Frushtick?

  Backlog sounds, yeah, very negative unless, no, entirely negative. There's really no way to. But effectively it is backlog, which is a term that people understand, but it's a good backlog. In fact, it's a great backlog because it's all some somewhat slightly older games that are great. And in some ways glitter like treasure.

• 4:13Chris Plante?

  I like that.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 4:14Chris Plante?

  That's nice.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Like beautiful, beautiful gems.

• 4:15Chris Plante?

  This is much better than Dookie Box, which we were thinking about.

• 4:18Russ Frushtick?

  Yes, that was the original OutKast album title and they decided to.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  It was a push for Dookie Box.

• 4:23Chris Plante?

  The love, the love.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  Early push for Dookie Box.

• 4:25Chris Plante?

  Hey, Hoops, what have you, what have you, what have you been playing this week?

• 4:29Speaker 00

  What, did we take a commercial break? I don't feel like we did.

• 4:31Russ Frushtick?

  No. No, we didn't. Should we?

• 4:34Speaker 00

  We are now.

• 4:38Russ Frushtick?

  Justin.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  So.

• 4:39Russ Frushtick?

  As, as the originator of the Treasure Trove labeling, I feel like the pressure is on for you to bring some true fucking fire to the mix.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yes. Uh, my little brother Travis has been playing this game called Planet Crafter. And he has been highly recommending that if you need something like kind of pleasant, relaxing to check out. Uh, it is, it is a, a great one to, uh, explore.

• 5:03Russ Frushtick?

  Seems like a lot of work just to build a planet from scratch.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Right. Uh, probably Planet Kajoler might be more act, Planet, Planet Shaper.

• 5:13Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so the planet's already there, but it, it could be better.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  The planet is there. The crafting here is really more terraforming. So when you crash land on the, this, uh, this barren planet, it is basically utterly uninhabitable. Think like, uh, the Martian, you know what I mean? That kind of idea where you've, you're stranded on this uninhabitable planet. The ship that you came in that had a lot of your equipment is destroyed on entry and spread out over the surface of the planet. Uh, and you basically are, uh, tasked with making this planet livable with, with improving the environment in such a way that, uh, it, it becomes habitable by living beings.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  So when you start out, it's very, you have a little like, uh, you know, all purpose mining, building laser. And you use that on the, uh, small bits of detritus lying around on the planet's surface that lets you get like base minerals, things like silicon and iron and, and cobalt, things like that. And then you use those base minerals to make basic tools, you know, a habitat, things like that. But then you start making, the overarching goal is to make things that will make, uh, the planet's atmosphere improve for, you know, for living beings. So you are crafting heaters to try to expand, you know, uh, uh, increase the heat. You're making drills that create, by drilling into the planet's surface are creating.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Pressure like more of a pressurized atmosphere.

• 6:44Chris Plante?

  It feels like this is Planet Colonizer and they just didn't want to call it that.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  Well, that's an extremely loaded term to level against a planet that does have no discernible culture. I don't know why we would want to. That's pretty judgmental of the planet. Yeah, it's very judgmental of all of you. Correct. I, I think that the, so that's the, the basic idea is you are finding tools that will improve the planet's atmosphere. As you are improving the atmosphere, you gain access to more powerful tools that let, you know, that let you drill faster or grow plants. You're finding seeds out the, the planet's surface that you can put in habitats and those habitats will create oxygen. So that's how you're creating oxygen, you're creating heat, you're creating, trying to

• 7:33Speaker 00

  create an atmosphere and you're doing it with all the basic like survival mechanics. I think Subnautica is a pretty good like comparison here with it's, but it's more, I would say more guided than Subnautica. Subnautica is very, you never lose that sort of like exploration edge. I felt like I, you always felt a little bit more in peril. This is a bit more chill. Um, as you, you know, it's not too hard to find oxygen and water line around.

• 8:01Chris Plante?

  How would you describe these visuals? Because I'm getting kind of like 1990s PC gaming magazine vibes when I look at this.

• 8:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's funny. You know what it kind of reminds me of like, it kind of looks like Half Life two to me. Like it kind of looks, it has that like, uh, that, that sort of look. It is not, it is pretty barren. I think the worlds are pretty barren, but the, uh, that allows them to do a lot of like planet why, it's not super detailed, but the scope is always really impressive. Right? So if you see like, there are occasionally like meteor showers on the face of the planet. And when you look outside, it looks like there's a meteor shower outside. It sucks that it's scary.

• 8:40Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  Uh, but they are, yeah, they're probably sacrificing some detail for scope, I think.

• 8:44Chris Plante?

  Yeah. It has that weird 1990s pre-rendered thing where people like, yeah, we can like render an entire environment. We don't know how to add textures yet.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:54Chris Plante?

  But we can make it look really big and beautiful. Oh, I say that as a compliment. It looks fun and beautiful.

• 9:00Speaker 00

  There are also like big differences in like really unbelievable differences, I will say, in like the the biomes. So you'll like take a step and all of a sudden you'll be in like a neon green, crazy spider columns emerging everywhere. And then over here, it's like a bunch of lava stuff. There's a, uh, it's cool to explore like the the crashed parts of your ship. You have to really like ready a little expedition with like your oxygen and your water. Make sure you're like set to go explore and pillage it.

• 9:29Russ Frushtick?

  So it's like Dragon's Dogma.

• 9:31Speaker 00

  It is. Well, I mean, it's just like any other.

• 9:34Russ Frushtick?

  I, the reason I was interested because what you're describing on paper sounds a lot like the game we played last week, which is Revenge of the Savage Planet. Because you land on a planet, you don't have anything. You got to like kind of build up from scratch. But obviously, the the core structure of like building out your base and all that's, I mean.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  That's really interesting, Russ. Like I, it, they, they are so different that it did not, the comparison didn't even occur to me. Because like where that game had very little in the way of meaningful mechanics that kind of kept you engaged and was really kind of relying on your innate curiosity and whatever narrative it has. Like, you really do get a sense of like your, it's a virtuous cycle of you making the planet more livable makes exploration easier.

• 10:16Russ Frushtick?

  So in this case, like, what does pressurizing the atmosphere do from a like a playability standpoint for you?

• 10:23Speaker 00

  So you, it is, as you're improving the overall pressure of the planet, uh, you are primarily with pressure, you're, it's contributing to an overall habitability score.

• 10:37Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  So there's like oxygen and pressure and those feed in and heat and those three factors feed into that. And as, as you're, that is improving, you're granted access by your employers to like better equipment, better, you know.

• 10:52Russ Frushtick?

  And presumably.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  And it also though drains as the environment improves.

• 10:58Speaker 00

  You like, for example, your oxygen stat will drain slower.

• 11:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's what I figured.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Because it's better.

• 11:04Russ Frushtick?

  It's her.

• 11:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, is this like a

• 11:05Speaker 00

  You'll get food less quickly.

• 11:07Griffin McElroy?

  Is this like a persistent server multiplayer sort of experience by design, do you think?

• 11:11Speaker 00

  It could be. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty sure it could be. It's not how I played it, but like I, I think there's some multiplayer.

• 11:18Russ Frushtick?

  It looks like it supports up to 10 players.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Wow, cool. Be neat. Uh, I, I, it was really, I really, it clicked for me in a big way. It felt, it's really fun. It's the,

• 11:32Speaker 00

  stuff like the base minerals all look very distinct. So like ice looks like a big chunk of ice, like a big white blob. And you see like, it's very easy to parse the environment and see like, oh, there's something way out there that I'm going to try to get to. And it is really intense when you're like halfway back with all your new crap and you are almost out of oxygen and.

• 11:53Russ Frushtick?

  You can like build lakes and shit in this game.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of like the, the options get really, if you compare a starting planet with someone who's been playing for like a hundred days in world or whatever, it's a huge difference. I mean, the planet itself is really, which is, you know, we talk about a mechanical improvement and I think that like, it is more about like the aesthetic sort of like bonsai gardening effect of just feeling like you're contributing overall and that being the, the, the, the pleasure of that and seeing how you're like improving an environment. It's always really nice.

• 12:27Chris Plante?

  I love it.

• 12:27Speaker 00

  It's called Planet Crafter.

• 12:29Russ Frushtick?

  The Planet Crafter, right?

• 12:30Speaker 00

  The Planet Crafter? Yeah, it's, it's a remake. It goes back to the gritty origins of Planet Crafter. No, okay. Travis said the Planet Crafter. If I looked at Steam, the logo looks like Planet Crafter.

• 12:44Russ Frushtick?

  The title of the game is the.

• 12:45Griffin McElroy?

  They might have Facebooked it.

• 12:46Russ Frushtick?

  The Planet Crafter.

• 12:48Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:50Russ Frushtick?

  It's the the.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  They might have what?

• 12:51Chris Plante?

  They Facebooked it. Take out the the. It's a billion dollar idea.

• 12:55Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Chris Plante?

  Did you never watch Justin Timberlake? Did you ever?

• 12:59Speaker 00

  I didn't have to watch it, man. I lived it. The logo, which I will say for me, a logo should be the final straw. The logo says Planet crafter. There's no the.

• 13:11Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  But everything about the game says the, so I don't know. I don't know, man.

• 13:17Chris Plante?

  Noticing a problem. Uh, so Justin has been pretending to be Robocop this week. I have been Robocop this week in Robocop Rogue City.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  Heck, yeah, man. That game rules.

• 13:29Chris Plante?

  We like briefly touched on this game a few times. You've definitely brought it as like a, you've also been playing it, right?

• 13:37Speaker 00

  I don't know if, I don't know if I mentioned it before, but it's, it's fun.

• 13:40Chris Plante?

  It's super fun. Um, it is a Robocop. Like honestly, the closest we've gotten, I think, to a good Robocop sequel is this video game. It gets the assignment. It gets the energy. It gets the tone. It gets the pacing. You are, yes, doing a first person shooter is Robocop, but there's a good deal of story in this game. That doesn't suck. It is well written. It's clever. Robocop is going through kind of a, um, psychological episode. Uh, and trying to figure out like what the hell he or it is. Um, and meanwhile, the city of Detroit is struggling.

• 14:24Chris Plante?

  Would you believe it in this alternate future? The cool thing about the game is it doesn't just play like a traditional first person shooter. And like in a lot of ways, one, the actual going around and shooting is much closer to like a mech game or a tank almost. You really can't die. Like it's pretty damn hard for, for you to get knocked down. So you move around very slowly. You can actually hear the thud of each step that you take. And then you go into this, um, analyze mode that you could use for detective stuff. But you can also use to find people's heads.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 15:02Chris Plante?

  Uh, and then you pop them like, uh,

• 15:04Speaker 00

  Is there a, is there a dick setting though? In true Robocop fashion?

• 15:09Chris Plante?

  Of course, there's an achievement for blasting off dicks. That's, I mean, they, they know exactly what they're doing. I can't tell if you're joking, but I hope that's true. No, there is. There is. They, they, they know. Um, the, the like impact that your, just your pistol hits with, the pistol sounds like almost a rocket launcher. Like it sounds louder than all the other guns and you like breach into a room and you'll shoot someone's head clean off. You'll shoot someone's arm clean off and then you'll miss and it hit somebody in the leg. But it hits with such impact that they flip like three times in the air and then like fall off a building. Uh, it is so completely over the top. It kicks ass. Um, it also looks great, like visually.

• 15:54Chris Plante?

  Um, the, it's doing the thing. It's funny that you were holding up the light gun hoops because even though you're walking around, it reminds me so much of like virtual cop or those light gun games of that era. Because again, you're not hiding. You're kind of just going from scene to scene and then just shooting at whatever you see. And like games like virtual cop and um Medal of Honor or Soldier of Fortune, that yeah, Soldier of Fortune of that era. It knows that like the pleasure is in the actual feel of destroying the environment. So you'll, the opening level is in a uh TV station. And there's just so much shit that can be destroyed. There's the glass walls. There's the papers in the air.

• 16:37Chris Plante?

  There are computers which you can shoot and blow up, or you can just pick one up and throw it like a hundred feet and just nail somebody in the face with it. Is it the most complicated game ever? No. Can I as Robocop issue a parking ticket in the middle of me slaughtering all of these people? Yes, I can. And I can go back to uh the office where everybody's like kinda uncomfortable when I'm there. And I can like help them solve really tiny personal problems. And they go, oh, Robocop, you fixed the vending machine. You're not so bad. You seem like a pretty okay guy. And I go, thank you.

• 17:12Russ Frushtick?

  And then he starts hitting on the vending machine?

• 17:14Chris Plante?

  He just loves to help out.

• 17:20Speaker 00

  That's how you get, you get health in the game by you walk up to a vending machine, you push a few of its buttons and it signs says, "Go for it," and then you smooch it and you get smooched health back from smooching.

• 17:32Russ Frushtick?

  Um, that sounds great. This seems like a very fun game. It did remind me, brief segue, I have a little anecdote from when I interned at the ESRB when I was in high school. Uh, did you guys know that I did this?

• 17:44Speaker 00

  I did, but I forgot about it.

• 17:46Russ Frushtick?

  I interned at the ESRB and when I was there, Soldier of Fortune, the PC game made by Raven, I believe, made it, um, came out and the way they, they basically evaluated the violence is they were sent VHS tapes of like the worst parts of the game and Soldier of Fortune was noteworthy because it allowed you to like fully dismember people with bullets and the key-

• 18:10Griffin McElroy?

  God, games used to be so cool, man. Fuck.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, man.

• 18:13Russ Frushtick?

  The key determinant, determining factor of the rating was how long would the like leg pieces stay on the ground before fading away? And man, they really pushed the needle on that one. It was like a full minute of leg pieces you could just stare at and that was enough to guarantee-

• 18:31Speaker 00

  Were you sitting there with a stopwatch?

• 18:33Russ Frushtick?

  But I think if it was two minutes, you gotta go adults only. I think that was the line. So-

• 18:37Griffin McElroy?

  Because of how much, how long the leg meat stayed?

• 18:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yes, that was one of the variables that they had to factor in.

• 18:43Griffin McElroy?

  Is the idea that if you look at leg meat for too long, it'll make you violent?

• 18:47Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe.

• 18:47Griffin McElroy?

  And make you sick?

• 18:48Russ Frushtick?

  It might. I've never tested it. I looked away when they were showing the VHS tape.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, good idea. It's the only safe, safe thing to do.

• 18:55Chris Plante?

  Fresh, do you know the name of the engine that powered the leg meat?

• 18:59Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, God.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  Ghoul.

• 19:02Russ Frushtick?

  Oh yeah, it was the ghoul engine.

• 19:03Chris Plante?

  The ghoul engine. They knew what they were doing.

• 19:06Russ Frushtick?

  They did.

• 19:08Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, should we take a quick break?

• 19:10Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 19:10Speaker 00

  Let's do that.

• 19:13Russ Frushtick?

  What about the rest of you? You play any video games or what? Yeah, man. I've got a couple W's for you. And by that, I mean W titled video games. We'll start with, I forget if I brought this, but I'll, if not, I think it's worth re highlighting.

• 19:29Russ Frushtick?

  The game is called Wilmot Works It Out. Have we talked about this?

• 19:34Griffin McElroy?

  I've never heard of this.

• 19:34Russ Frushtick?

  We talked about Wilmot's Warehouse. Yeah. Okay. So it's the same developer as Wilmot's Warehouse. This one's Wilmot Works It Out. And it is a puzzle game. And I mean that in the most literal sense, you are putting puzzle pieces together. You're a little man in your house and someone keeps delivering pieces of puzzles to you and you just have to like rotate them and snap them together until they make pretty, pretty pictures. And some of the puzzle pieces come in and they apply to like puzzles you'll only get in like three packages from now. So you kind of have to like separate those out and arrange them in this open space. There's no time limits. There's no like stress about it.

• 20:15Russ Frushtick?

  And when you're done building the puzzle, you get to place it on your wall, wherever you'd like to place it. So there's a very meditative experience to it.

• 20:24Griffin McElroy?

  I feel like- How are you moving stuff? Is it just like click and drag situation?

• 20:27Russ Frushtick?

  I think you, I played it on the Steam Deck. So it works with controller. There's like a hold down to drag kind of thing. And you can like rotate things with the bumpers, things like that. But I'd imagine on PC, it probably is just click and drag stuff. The-

• 20:43Griffin McElroy?

  But it's not like one of those like, I think Sokoban is the name of it where you're like actually pushing shit around.

• 20:48Russ Frushtick?

  It does to some extent feel like a Sokoban game, but it's not like, oh, you know, you can only move this box two squares. It's more just like a organizing the area kind of game, if that makes any sense.

• 21:01Griffin McElroy?

  I love that this is a genre. I love the, the like, a little to the left sort of, just like tidying sort of game. This kind of seems like that.

• 21:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Like I think Wilmot's Warehouse was like much more of a traditional puzzle game. And it was just like very interested in patterns and blocks and puzzles. And this is, this is like a jigsaw game effectively. And I've turned to it a number of times just because like- I want something chill for 10 minutes and it saved your progress wherever you are. So you don't have to like finish the puzzle to save your progress. And it's just been like a very nice vibey kind of game. So if you're looking for something very chill, uh, definitely recommend Wilmont works it out. Cause he does, he does work it out.

• 21:46Russ Frushtick?

  Total opposite of the spectrum. Another W game is called Wizardum.

• 21:50Griffin McElroy?

  Oh shit. Okay. I'm, I'm excited about this one and had wanted to play it.

• 21:56Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it is neat. It is a, uh, I still don't like the term boomer shooter, but I guess that's what it is. It's, it's inspired by like early Doom or Wolfenstein 3D, like that style of gameplay. But you are a wizard. Well, you're a, uh, you can be a number of classes. You can be like a cleric, you can be like a sorcerer, but effectively like the levels play out very similarly to those like retro first person shooter games. You know, you're going through, you're finding ammo, you're finding health, uh, you're pressing.

• 22:26Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, Hexen, yeah. Yeah. Hexen, checks quest, like it.

• 22:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, but it's worth noting this. So this is not, uh, I think Hexen was 3D like with actual polygons. Whereas this is the like parallax, like flat character look that like Wolfenstein 3D had.

• 22:45Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 22:46Russ Frushtick?

  Even.

• 22:46Griffin McElroy?

  It looks kick ass.

• 22:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's really fun. I've, I've enjoyed it and they layered in some more modern mechanics. So they have, you know, you're collecting gold throughout the levels and in past games, like gold didn't mean fucking anything. You just got points and here, when you get to the end of the level, you can get upgrades and things like that to, uh, improve your future runs. So there is that element and they've, they've added a few more things where like it helps you find all the secrets in a level. For example, so you're not like driving yourself nuts, pressing every fucking wall in the level just to get a hundred percent.

• 23:17Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I've, I've, I've enjoyed it. It seems pretty.

• 23:19Griffin McElroy?

  Are those, are those, uh, I was curious about this one because I saw it on like Tik Tok a bunch and was like, this is kick ass. So I downloaded the demo.

• 23:26Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 23:27Griffin McElroy?

  And had a really good time with it. Do you feel like those, uh, are those progression hooks? Like, uh, do they carry over run to run or is it?

• 23:36Russ Frushtick?

  They carry over level to level. I don't know that, I think it's run to run, probably not, but there's like a full slate. Like there are campaigns basically. So you play through a campaign and again, this is like, just like in Wolfenstein. So you'll, you know, over.

• 23:50Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, so it's not like a rogue like sort of format.

• 23:52Russ Frushtick?

  Correct. As far as I'm aware, all the levels are like, like designed. I don't think they are randomly generated in that way.

• 23:59Griffin McElroy?

  Cool. It feels so good. Like, it feels amazing. One of the first weapons you get is like this ice, rapid fire ice spell that you can use to freeze enemies. And then with the alternate fire, you snap and they all shatter into pieces. There's, there's a lot of really rad stuff like.

• 24:14Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they did a really good job. It has a great score. I found the score very good and like, kind of world, World of Warcraft-y.

• 24:23Russ Frushtick?

  And it's so bright and colorful, which is a nice change of pace from like most of those games, which tend to be very grim and dark. So I've, yeah, I've enjoyed it. That one's Wizardum. W I Z O R D U M, which is not how I would guess the game would be called. I thought it would have wizard in the title, but.

• 24:40Griffin McElroy?

  Zordum. Um, I have been playing Rift of the Necrodancer. A rhythm game from Brace Yourself Games, uh, the, you know, successor to Crypt of the Necrodancer and Cadence of Hyrule. Only where those games were sort of like dungeon crawlers with rhythm game elements, sort of like superimposed on, on top of them. Where you had to move your character to the beat and attack to the beat and all that stuff. This is a straight up, straightforward rhythm game. It is, uh, notes coming down a, three tracks towards you that you have to hit in time.

• 25:22Griffin McElroy?

  Allah, uh, your, your guitar heroes, if you will. Uh, so there is no like exploration mechanic. It is, it is pretty unfamiliar to, to the two games that I mentioned before. Where it stands apart from a guitar hero is that instead of just like little nodes or little beats that come down that you have to hit in time. There are monsters that come down the track that symbolize the notes. And the monsters do different shit. So it's not like you just stay there and you kind of just like wait and you're like, oh, here comes a red one, boop. So there are enemies like bats where. There are gold bats who will jump between the three tracks as you hit them three times.

• 26:07Griffin McElroy?

  And then there's blue slimes you have to hit twice on the beat. And then there's dragons that are long and you have to hold down the note for them. And then there's zombies that jump around before they land in the right like space. So you have to kind of anticipate where they're going to land when you hit the note on it. And then there's harpies that will skip spaces on the track and jump forward two at a time. So you gotta keep track of those to make sure that they don't come at you when you're not ready for them. And then there's red zombies, they can jump warp from one track to the far side of the track. There's so much, there's so much. There's three tutorial stages to the game. You're not attacking them, you are, you attack them by hitting the buttons in time.

• 26:49Russ Frushtick?

  But are the buttons, like even when you're like, like whatever, hitting the buttons and it's still in time with the music?

• 26:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah, it's left, up and right are the only ones. And then you can hit down to activate all three at the same time. I thoroughly recommend playing it on mouse and keyboard. You can play it on controller, but I have an easier time with a rhythm game like this. All of that stuff that I just laid out, like it's so complicated. And that's, I have mentioned maybe half the mechanics. Sometimes shit will appear on the tracks, like a patch of fire will appear. And when an enemy moves through fire, it moves double time. Or a little arrow will appear on the field. And whenever an enemy lands on it, they'll move over to the track that the arrow is pointing to. There's all this shit. And so you are not just having to hit buttons in time with a rhythm.

• 27:39Griffin McElroy?

  You are also constantly frantically looking at the field and looking at what's coming to you. And trying to piece together like, okay, when I hit that blue bat the first time, it's gonna scoot to the side. And then I'm gonna have to hit both those notices at the same time. But I got a red harpy coming and he's gonna get here before the other guy gets here. And it's really, it is at first overwhelming. And then as you jump up the difficulty settings, it gets really fucking overwhelming. I'm pretty good at rhythm games. I cannot rock. Not reach the level where I can routinely complete one of these on like hard setting. Because the stuff that they throw at you is so crazy.

• 28:22Griffin McElroy?

  Where this game really, really succeeds is one, the soundtrack fucking bangs. If there is a better video game soundtrack that comes out this year, I will eat my hat. It's Danny Baronowski, like the other neck or dancer games with a lot of different guest tracks. Runs the game out of a bunch of different genres, but like they're all fantastic. And where it really takes off is you know that moment that you have some time when you're playing like Guitar Hero or Rock Band where you're trying to keep up with the notes and feeling overwhelmed, but then you kind of like tell yourself like if I just kind of listen to the music and try and play along with the music. Instead of focusing so much on the visuals of like the notes coming at me, I can, I will manage to hit them more.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  You gotta cut out the pathway that is recognizing the notes and just kind of like directly connect.

• 29:11Griffin McElroy?

  Correct, connect it to the beats of the music, right? Like you have to do that at a certain point with this game, right? So you'll see, um, sometimes enemies will come at you and they'll have a little diamond outline. That means that they come at you offbeat. They come at you like on half, on halfbeats. Sometimes they'll have a little star under them. That means they're coming at you in triplets. So like those, once those show up, it's like, fuck man, like how am I supposed to possibly like keep up with this? But if you listen to the lead like guitar in the song, it's like you're just playing it along with that. And once you do that, you start doing better than you could do just looking at the field of the monsters. And it creates this like left brain, right, but like it creates a center lobe of your brain.

• 29:55Griffin McElroy?

  That is so, you get into the groove so fucking deep. It is really, really hypnotic and uh, it really entices you to like keep plugging away at a song, right? Because you'll hit a really hard section and boom, you'll fail. You have like 10 hit points and once those are gone, you have to restart the song. But you'll be like, but I got that riff now, like now I know what to look out for. I know that riff, I can totally fucking take this on.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  So there's no, in terms of the inputs, there's no randomness really, right?

• 30:24Griffin McElroy?

  No, it's the same. It's tracked. It is like tracked, like a Guitar Hero song is tracked, or like a rock band song is tracked. It's just, it's just that the notes move around because they're monsters, and sometimes you have to hit them on triplet beats, and sometimes you have to hit them three times in a row. And I don't know, it's really pretty, the monster shit is crazy, right? But like, other than that, it is a straightforward rhythm game. There is a story mode that is fine. It throws in these like rhythm heaven style mini games into the mix, but not like a ton of them. They're kind of a sideshow for the main game. But I, I really, really, it's been a while since I've played a rhythm game that I've

• 31:07Griffin McElroy?

  gotten really into. And stuff like Cadence of Hyrule is neat, but it's still more of a dungeon crawler, you know, adventure game than it is a rhythm game. And this is just a rhythm game. It is just you trying to vibe with the music to keep track of all these different rules that the monsters kind of represent. And once you make that connection, man, it feels really, really, really, really good.

• 31:32Russ Frushtick?

  I guess they've done a bunch of collabs, because they have like Pizza Tower and Celeste.

• 31:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 31:38Russ Frushtick?

  That's pretty cool.

• 31:39Griffin McElroy?

  There's some Super Meat Boy tracks in there as well. Some of it is DLC. It's a huge soundtrack, though, even without that stuff. I have not finished playing all the songs. I've played maybe two thirds of them. But really, just really, really, really, really good stuff. And the kind of game I think I'll keep around for, for a while. I don't know if I will ever be good enough to like, move up to the next difficulty setting. There's an expert level above hard that I don't know what else they could possibly throw at you there. But I've seen some videos of people like trying expert mode, and it seems like really, really wild. But yeah, if you like rhythm games, it's been a while since I have

• 32:21Griffin McElroy?

  played one like this. And it's, it's been honestly kind of nostalgic to like, I don't know, get into a game in this genre again.

• 32:28Chris Plante?

  Hey, I have my own reader mail question.

• 32:32Chris Plante?

  Did you write it? Well, no, I didn't write it down. I'm not asking you now.

• 32:36Russ Frushtick?

  The account is mail if it's just off the dome.

• 32:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 32:39Chris Plante?

  It's a voicemail.

• 32:39Griffin McElroy?

  They're just talking.

• 32:40Chris Plante?

  Okay. It's called a voicemail.

• 32:43Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, wow, a voicemail.

• 32:44Chris Plante?

  Blueprints.

• 32:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 32:46Chris Plante?

  What, what, what happened with it? Did, did people beat it? Did it, did everybody here like fully beat it?

• 32:52Russ Frushtick?

  I still haven't played it.

• 32:53Chris Plante?

  Where we got on it?

• 32:54Griffin McElroy?

  Russ hasn't played it.

• 32:55Russ Frushtick?

  As far as I'm aware, it still does not have colorblind settings.

• 32:58Chris Plante?

  Oh, wow, that sucks.

• 33:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 33:01Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 33:02Griffin McElroy?

  I be, I did everything in that game you can do. As far as, as far as the community knows, I have done everything in that game that you can do.

• 33:10Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 33:10Russ Frushtick?

  So I guess you're using a lot of cheats, Griffin.

• 33:12Griffin McElroy?

  I'm using a lot of cheats.

• 33:13Russ Frushtick?

  This is using gods.

• 33:15Griffin McElroy?

  This was like the reviewer, pre-release reviewers discord. I don't know. I have not kept up with the game. Maybe the community has found more shit. But I feel pretty confident that I exhausted, I exhausted what that game had to offer.

• 33:28Chris Plante?

  Cool. Yeah, we'll, we'll come back to it. Yeah, I guess once Prash has had the chance to play it. I was curious kind of where the story went on.

• 33:35Russ Frushtick?

  I beat it.

• 33:36Chris Plante?

  Um, do we have other, other stuff?

• 33:38Russ Frushtick?

  We have more reader mail, actual written letters from people.

• 33:42Griffin McElroy?

  Yep.

• 33:43Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, this one comes from Dustin. Dustin wrote, I don't really worry about the backlog anymore. UFO 50 kind of did the magic trick to my brain where it really made me have fun playing games again in a way that I hadn't really in a long time. So I still pick at games, but I'm not worried about checking any of them off like a list. I let myself get sucked into a game like Blueprints. But I'll dip out and play some indie metroidvania that's been in my library from Humble Bundle. And I, that I probably bought years ago. And if I want to make sure that I'm up to date on the latest and greatest interactive entertainment, I pay someone else to do that for me. So thanks for that. And thank you.

• 34:23Griffin McElroy?

  Hey, you're welcome. It's a living.

• 34:25Russ Frushtick?

  That's a good mentality to be in. I think we all have quite a bit of like Steam sale backlog things that just live in there and never leave. I bought Black Mesa for $2 this week, which is the

• 34:39Griffin McElroy?

  Alright.

• 34:40Russ Frushtick?

  fan made remake of Half Life 1 that I don't know I'm gonna play, but it was $2. And I remember playing it years ago for Resties and really enjoying it. So I'm sure I will go back and play.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  It's also a good, good, this question asker kind of touches on it, but it's good to remember like the way that we consume and think about games should not be the way that a

• 34:59Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, hell no.

• 35:00Speaker 00

  person thinks or consumes about video. Like I, I, so few, like I, maybe four games I would ever play. I mean, I'm like, maybe four, you know what I mean? It's like, it's, it's, I think, I have a, a, I think we talk about, when we talk about like, things we've missed or piles of shame or whatever, I think that should be taken into the context of like, there is a, an onus on us to be somewhat knowledgeable about as much of it as we can. So I do feel that pressure in that sense, but like, yeah, don't, don't try.

• 35:31Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, I, my, my brain's so fucked up at this point. It's not fixable. Because I saw this email and I was like, oh, UFO 50, damn, I got like 33 of the cherries in that game. I really got, I see that one pop up in like my queue sometimes. And it's like, I fucking, if I do this, I'm gonna have to get really good at like turnip delivery. Like I fucking can't, man. I can't do this again with you, UFO 50.

• 35:54Russ Frushtick?

  I hated turnip delivery.

• 35:55Griffin McElroy?

  I have, I have like Hydras in my queue where it's in my, in my backlog where it's like, once I take this on, it's gonna be a whole thing.

• 36:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. We have one more letter. This one comes from Joe. I finally finished Death Stranding, so I can jump right into Death Stranding 2 and know what's going on.

• 36:13Speaker 00

  Jump right in?

• 36:14Russ Frushtick?

  Spoiler.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:15Russ Frushtick?

  I will still have no idea what's going on with Death Stranding 2, but Griffin is wrong. Death Stranding is an amazing game, which I agree.

• 36:22Griffin McElroy?

  I'm so glad you found something in that game that resonated with you.

• 36:25Russ Frushtick?

  There's so much, Griffin.

• 36:27Griffin McElroy?

  I didn't personally.

• 36:29Russ Frushtick?

  That's okay.

• 36:30Griffin McElroy?

  But I didn't play the director's cut, which maybe. I've heard the director's cut is a lot smoother. That's, that's the word on the street. I've heard it's much better.

• 36:40Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, I think I know you as a person broadly speaking.

• 36:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 36:44Russ Frushtick?

  I think if you skipped every fucking cutscene in this game, you would love it.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  I will say this.

• 36:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  A play, as someone who played some of Death Stranding and then played a lot of other games is in concert with what we were just saying.

• 36:58Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 36:58Speaker 00

  I think better equipped to make a decision on whether or not Death Stranding is a good game.

• 37:02Griffin McElroy?

  This, yeah.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  Cause Griffin played Death Stranding and 20 other games and he said Death Stranding is not good. You played all of Death Stranding and it was like, I'm full. Yeah, you're full.

• 37:11Griffin McElroy?

  But at what terrible.

• 37:14Speaker 00

  But.

• 37:14Griffin McElroy?

  No, I, I, this is, this is also like Justin said, related to the last question. Like my gaming time is virtually non-existent. It is like what I can sneak into my day when like the kids are eating dinner while I have my rock ally like charged and at the ready. I've been playing Expedition 33 like seven minutes at a time. Like that is what I have. And so I simply cannot justify playing a game I don't like.

• 37:41Chris Plante?

  You gotta protect it. You gotta protect that time.

• 37:43Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 37:44Russ Frushtick?

  I feel you.

• 37:45Chris Plante?

  That's why I played RoboCop.

• 37:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Can I, are we, is it time for honorable mentions? Can I talk a little bit about Expedition 33?

• 37:52Russ Frushtick?

  It is time.

• 37:53Griffin McElroy?

  I've, I've spent a lot. Um, I wore, I, I, I'm afraid to tell you guys, I think you're going to need to play this one for go to consideration.

• 38:00Russ Frushtick?

  I, I, I, here's what I'll say. After the pitch of last week, cause initially, was it last week? I don't even remember. Initially, we were like, Justin and Russ, you can skip out. It's fine. But when you guys were talking about it, I was like genuinely intrigued. I haven't tried it yet, but it did make me more interested.

• 38:18Griffin McElroy?

  It's fucking great.

• 38:21Griffin McElroy?

  I'm curious to hear your thoughts, Juice. I don't know if you picked it up.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  No, I really liked what I played of it. I, here is what I had no concept of playing it. And usually I can get a better sense of it, but like if it is, I just didn't know how long, if I got invested in it and wanted to see it through to the end, I didn't know how long I was setting myself up for, because there's some games that I will not, um, I can't, won't, shant. And there are too many games where I've sunk 60 hours in and then been staring at another 60 and bailed midway that I feel really crappy about that I just didn't know with this one.

• 38:54Griffin McElroy?

  So what I've heard is like 25 to 30 hours, not like persona length.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  I'm back, baby.

• 39:01Griffin McElroy?

  And I guess it depends on like what difficulty you played on and how much of the like exploration and shit that you that you do. I don't if you I don't know. I would say it is not the most imposing.

• 39:13Russ Frushtick?

  Claire Obscur, according to howlongtobeat.com, which is a pretty reliable source, it says main story 26 hours, main plus sides is like 39 hours. And then if you want to do a completionist, it's like 60, but you know, who's gonna do it?

• 39:28Speaker 00

  I will just say that is not that is not a concept on. I mean, there's not a comment on anything other than if a game takes 80 to 100 hours, I think it is offering a certain amount of like stimulation for that like return on that investment. You know what I mean? And like, if it's going to be constantly engaging, 30 hours is a game that's going to be constantly sort of like.

• 39:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 39:49Chris Plante?

  No, I mean, it's a currency at time, right? Like, I think people always think about like, well, I want to spend $200 on a game, but less so on what I want to spend 200 hours on a game. And it's weird because it inverts. When you're young, you want to burn that currency and then you get older and it's like, dear God, I want to be precious with it. The one thing I would say about the flow of the game that I found unusual, I started the game immediately in. Great intro, great grabby story, killer music. And then there's a dip when you have to learn how the mechanics work that I did not vibe with. And only after a couple of weeks did I go back to it and really grind that out.

• 40:31Chris Plante?

  And then it gets, it's just all up from there. But it's a, it's a weird high, low, high that I don't think I have experienced in a lot of RPGs.

• 40:41Griffin McElroy?

  The, the, the writing is tremendous. The acting is fantastic. It continues to deliver moments that are like set your controller down like, fuck, man. Really, really good from the narrative side of things. But I will be honest, the thing that has really hooked me is the mechanic side of things. I have not played an RPG like this in ages that allows you to just fucking break the whole thing wide open. To just like come up with these builds and these strategies that lets you just absolutely. Just let Hulka Mania fucking run wild, not since like, setting up, you know, eight times Knights of the Round Table summons in Final Fantasy VII.

• 41:21Griffin McElroy?

  Like, that level of shit of like, okay, hold on, if I use this character to put burn on, it'll up the critical chance so that I can get these stains and then execute this with a mark on the net. Like, it's so, you get so fucking into it, and it's just, I cannot stop playing it.

• 41:39Russ Frushtick?

  And that's really where my interest peaks, is when I feel like I have direct control over the events of combat. Like, that, which I think like, a lot of RPGs tend to just be like, well, he's weak to water, or whatever, so use a water spell. And like, that's the extent of the knowledge.

• 41:55Chris Plante?

  It's strategy versus play. Do you know what I mean by that? Like, with, with what you're talking about, the Pokemon thing is like, strategy. It's, oh, well, these things have these weaknesses, and I need to remember all that, and I need to create a strategy that's going to respond to this scenario that the game has given me.

• 42:10Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 42:10Chris Plante?

  And I think what this game does well, is it lets you actually play within that.

• 42:15Russ Frushtick?

  It sounds more like an immersive sim in that way.

• 42:18Griffin McElroy?

  No, not really.

• 42:21Chris Plante?

  I think I know what you mean of like, you can go about it in different directions. And like, the way that I played the game and the way that Griffin is playing the game are probably looking quite different in terms of like, our builds, is what I mean. Yeah, so like, there's just more space.

• 42:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 42:39Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I'm having an amazing time with it, and it is, it is definitely going to be in my, in my top, top list, for sure.

• 42:47Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, no more JRPGs though, no more loud.

• 42:50Griffin McElroy?

  Well, it's an FRPG, but thank you.

• 42:52Russ Frushtick?

  I'm sorry.

• 42:53Chris Plante?

  We should probably also play, all of us should play Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, because I've kept picking it, that game, and that game's really good. I know, Justin, I'm sorry, but like, it's like, I think you all might like it quite a bit.

• 43:07Speaker 00

  I, you know what, I didn't do that game justice, because I tried to play it on the Steam Deck, and I should have started on a PC to get the hang of it.

• 43:14Chris Plante?

  That might be a good like, late summer game for us to come back to, assuming we ever get time in the schedule. I do want to shout out a different game, Rift Riff. Have y'all heard about this? No, sounds like Rift of the NecroDancer. I know. Fresh, you're gonna be excited about this. Adrian De Jong has a new game out, and we are huge fans of Adrian De Jong in this house. Adrian made Hidden Folks.

• 43:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I love Hidden Folks.

• 43:42Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah. Also made Secret Shuffle, made a game that like allows you to like play multiplayer ballet using your iPhone. Adrian is, that game's called Bounden, by the way, is one of my favorite creative developers just working and had not really released a lot recently. I think because he's been going through all sorts of different things in his life. But this game is kind of a traditional, but very beautiful and very cleanly designed tower defense game. It's tower defense that looks a bit like, what was that game that we played? Chance of Sinar?

• 44:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 44:28Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Kind of has like a Chance of Sinar type of aesthetic.

• 44:33Chris Plante?

  But it's just a delight and it is, I think, six bucks. You know, it's just, if you want, if you've been craving good tower defense and you want a chill out game, I really couldn't recommend this more.

• 44:49Russ Frushtick?

  Cool. Sick. Justin, do you have anything?

• 44:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I could tell you guys about the Retro Shooter guns that I have here. Who wants to talk about the state of guns?

• 45:01Chris Plante?

  Tell me about how these work.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  So, yeah, so there's a few different options if you're wanting to play light gun games at your house.

• 45:10Speaker 00

  One of them is, and probably the most common, I think, is Senden, which Senden guns have an IR sensor in the gun, and then they create a border, like a white border around the edge of your screen. So if you're playing a game with a Senden gun, you can activate a white border and it uses that as like a frame of reference. That's what it's doing math off of to figure out where it's positioned, right? So that's a Senden gun, that's probably the most common. There are also gun for IR and these that are from a company called Retro Shooter. These are the Retro Shooter Reapers. They do a smaller gun and they do the, this, that, this big guy.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  I should. Your full swat. Yeah, but I don't know enough about guns to say what it looks like, but it looks like a bigger gun. Uh, if you're. It's like a S and G. Like that. Kind of thing. Sure. Yeah. Uh, and then what these do is they have four IR sensors that connect, uh, that attach to like the top and bottom corners of the television and that, uh, all those are wired together to one USB cable. And then the guns themselves have two cables coming off of them. One is a USB and one is a power for recoil. Oh, yeah. And all the guns plug into like, so they have these two cords and then all the guns plug into a single hub that Retro Shooter also sells.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Uh, and then if you want, if they come in the kit, if you want to do this way, there's also little clicky pedals. Oh, yeah. Do stuff like Time Crisis and stuff like that. Um, he uses us for transcription.

• 46:53Chris Plante?

  Oh, cool. Can you just get to do a five second backwards was so nice.

• 46:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's not a lot of light gun games made these days. Uh, I always kind of got a kick out of them. And when I was started making like my own little home arcade cabinets, it was definitely something that I wanted to, to look into. And I've, I, the send and guns are okay. I definitely think the tracking with these IR guns that have the built in sensors is better. Um, it's a definitely a special specialty kind of thing, but they have a lot of different options. I will just say of the guns that I've tried, the send and guns feel kind of cheap comparatively. Send and has a model with and without recoil. The ones with recoil are a lot more expensive. Um, the Retro Shooter so far, these are the best one, best feeling ones that I have

• 47:38Speaker 00

  tried. They feel really good. They got a lot of different, uh, buttons on them that you, that is nice for like menu navigation. If you're do, and this one even has a, it's got a thumb stick. Yeah. Right here. Built in, so you can do a lot of stuff. It looks like a Dreamcast PS2 era device. Yes, that is, that is about the, the vibe. It's pretty similar to the GunCon. Yeah. Uh, controller this, this mold is, but yeah, I really, they're really impressive. They feel really good. Um, and if you are look, probably the best thing to play Gallagher's Gallery with, if you have not played Gallagher's Gallery, the light gun game where you uh, fight Gallagher. Yeah, of course.

• 48:21Russ Frushtick?

  And what is Gallagher using from a like a combat standpoint? Does he have any?

• 48:24Speaker 00

  Oh, good. You asked a question about Gallagher's gallery. I get to talk about it more. So here's the deal with Gallagher's gallery. It was an American laser game arcade cabinet, where there are four different games. One was food based, so you shoot food that Gallagher doesn't like.

• 48:38Russ Frushtick?

  What kind of food does Gallagher not like?

• 48:41Speaker 00

  Uh, spinach, and he likes cherry pie. So if you see cans of spinach, you shoot those, but you don't shoot cherry pie.

• 48:47Russ Frushtick?

  Lacking one aspect of food that seems like he has a strong.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  Oh, you're thinking about the melons. So that's when you beat all four levels. You get to go to the me- here's a true story about Gallagher's gallery. But la- last week, I was trying to get some of these different guns and emulation things set up. And I was in a chat room where I was saying, hey, does anybody know why Philip's CDI digital video conversion has never been emulated? And someone in the chat room is like, uh, I don't know, maybe you should, uh, offer a cash prize. Uh, or an Olive Garden prize to see if you can get someone going. I'm like, ah, damn, I've been clocked. So this person that I started talking to is the person that created like the, the LaserDisc, uh, uh, library of this particular like emulator. So they're like, they have worked in this field a lot. And as I'm going through the list, I'm like, you know, I noticed Gallagher's gallery is missing.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  And the person who does this as a hobby said, what's that? Like, ah, God, I've gone too deep. I've gone so deep that the people who do this for a living are, or for a hobby say, hey, you've gone too deep, pal. But then I explained Gallagher's gallery, I'd always wanted to see, and I found videos of it. And I made a post about the crappy, low quality videos of Gallagher's gallery that I found. And then I wrote a post about it for my own personal video game blog, and I sent it to Chris Grant at Joystick. And I said, hey, you guys should post about this on Joystick. It's really fascinating. And then he said, oh, you know what? I remember you sent me a job application a few months ago. Do you want to, uh, come work here?

• 50:17Speaker 00

  So if it weren't for Gallagher's gallery, I would not have a job. Sliding doors.

• 50:23Russ Frushtick?

  Podcast might not exist.

• 50:24Speaker 00

  Doors. This podcast might not exist. We're not for the hilarious, talented, and utterly unimpeachable Gallagher. Unproblematic fave. Never told a joke that I would not personally 100% endorse. Take it from me, Justin McElroy, I fully support Gallagher and everything he stands for.

• 50:45Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, so I have a couple honorable mentions, uh, just to wrap things up.

• 50:51Speaker 00

  Uh, just, I don't like Gallagher.

• 50:54Russ Frushtick?

  You don't like Gallagher?

• 50:56Speaker 00

  Gallagher was extremely problematic. Gallagher was problematic to a point where-

• 50:59Russ Frushtick?

  Like, he's okay now, though, right?

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Gallagher is dead, but he did walk out, before he died, he walked out of an episode of WTM with Mark Maron.

• 51:08Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 51:08Speaker 00

  Which ends with Mark Maron in a hotel room by himself saying, "Oh, come on, Gallagher."

• 51:15Griffin McElroy?

  It's really something else.

• 51:17Speaker 00

  Something else, man.

• 51:18Russ Frushtick?

  Two more-

• 51:19Speaker 00

  But the melon stuff.

• 51:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, primo.

• 51:21Speaker 00

  Primo.

• 51:23Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, two more quick honorable mentions for you. I'm still playing Tactical Breach Wizards. Uh, I continue picking at it. It remains one of the best narrative games of the last 10 years for me.

• 51:34Speaker 00

  Are you able to do that, to return to games that are narrative focused like that and like be able to-

• 51:39Russ Frushtick?

  I'm gonna tell you how it-

• 51:39Speaker 00

  Remember anything?

• 51:40Russ Frushtick?

  Great question. I'm gonna tell you how I'm able to do it with-

• 51:42Speaker 00

  Cause I would like to return to that one, but I just like-

• 51:45Russ Frushtick?

  I'm gonna tell you how I do it with this game. This game has the chart that after a few, after like you beat a few levels, you have to like pin things to the chart to like remember what is going on narratively. And that alone has been so massively helpful to just like re-jog my memory of like where all the characters stand. So I would, I would agree with you. Most games I'd have a really tough time, but this game in particular, it's been totally fine.

• 52:10Speaker 00

  Talk about a pile of shame. That is one that like, that and Wanderstop, I know if I went back and finished, I would really enjoy. Yeah. I just, I'm in space.

• 52:18Russ Frushtick?

  It's been great. Uh, it also got updated with like better controller support Tactical Breach Wizards, so props to that. The other game I want to call out is a game called Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which came out a few years ago, uh, kind of a deep cut, but I've been looking for things to play with my son, who is three, and, uh, he's into like watching me play Mario and things like that. But then I like, it occurred to me that I had a fucking mega island of everything going on in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I booted that up and he is fucking riveted. He wants to walk through the museum. He wants to check the mail. He wants to swim in the ocean and look for sea animals.

• 53:02Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know how interested he would be in like a, like a bare bones, starting from scratch island, but us walking around the fucking baller island that I built five years ago and hadn't touched in that long, uh, has been pretty great. So.

• 53:16Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, Henry is obsessed with this game and has been.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  This is back when daddy had free time.

• 53:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, no kidding.

• 53:21Speaker 00

  This is back when daddy had time to do this.

• 53:23Russ Frushtick?

  Definitely before child. It, there is a little bit of, oh, I was pretty down when this was going on.

• 53:29Griffin McElroy?

  Oh dude, yeah. I would love to do like a video series on like revisiting people's COVID islands. It just like, oh, fuck, man. Wow.

• 53:36Russ Frushtick?

  Built an army of gnomes. Yikes.

• 53:40Speaker 00

  You've named everyone after your extended family? That's weird.

• 53:44Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, yeah, it's, I think even for kids that are like, it's too young for them to play, just like visually speaking, kids love going to like museums and aquariums and shit, and it's basically that.

• 53:55Speaker 00

  You know, a great, a great game model that we don't get enough of the kids that age really like is Peggle. I showed, uh, like when my kids are both that age, they both got really into like Peglin.

• 54:05Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  And then I dug out Peggle because it's a great, like they can point one time, they click the button and then they just watch for a little bit.

• 54:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's, that's true.

• 54:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. They love it.

• 54:14Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, there's been a few recent.

• 54:15Speaker 00

  We haven't had a Peggle. I, what, what happened at Peggle?

• 54:18Griffin McElroy?

  What happened to Popcap?

• 54:19Speaker 00

  We got Ba- Ba- Ba-illionaire. What's the?

• 54:22Russ Frushtick?

  Ba-illionaire.

• 54:23Griffin McElroy?

  Ba-illionaire.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  Ba-illionaire.

• 54:25Russ Frushtick?

  There's been a few indie spinoffs after Peglin that have come out.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  They're, they're two, they're good, but they take too much math for littles.

• 54:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 54:33Speaker 00

  Oh, Nubby's Number Factor, I guess, is, is similar too, but.

• 54:35Russ Frushtick?

  Too much math.

• 54:36Griffin McElroy?

  That's not a kid's game. That's a game for grownups.

• 54:40Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. I think.

• 54:41Speaker 00

  I thought your kids liked Nubby's Number Factor.

• 54:43Griffin McElroy?

  Can we do it?

• 54:44Russ Frushtick?

  We did it. Uh, some, some, uh, patrons that I want to thank, we can thank Eric, Noah, Rachel and Greg. Thank you for being patrons of the besties and thank you to everyone else who is super duper, uh, great at being patrons. We have a new episode of the resties up, talked about two very cool, very, very different games. One of which you have to arrest Satan and, um, uh, you can go over to patreon.com slash the besties. If you want to learn more about that and we've got bonus episodes, we do a bracket every month with the whole gang. And, uh, we love all y'all that are making this all possible. Genuinely, uh, super awesome. Thank you.

• 55:23Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, next week, for real this time. I think we're gonna do Doom: The Dark Ages. For real, real.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  For real.

• 55:30Russ Frushtick?

  Assuming none of our computers break in the process. But I think it's gonna happen. I've also heard that you can run the game on low, low, low settings on Steam Deck, which I wouldn't recommend because obviously it's a visual spunder. I'm not planning on doing that. But if anyone is at home and only has a Steam Deck, maybe worth looking into.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  That's incredible. I thought, how is that even possible?

• 55:50Russ Frushtick?

  Well, low settings and FSR to max. Cool.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  All right, that's gonna do it for us 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?