Split Fiction is everything fans want (and more of what critics fear)

This week, the Besties play Split Fiction, the latest game from the creators of It Takes Two. It tells the story of an evil corporation that uses AI to steal creative ideas and create generic sci-fi and fantasy drivel. It's published by EA. Video games!

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I I'm worried because we were talking about like honorable mentions. I'm worried that what I'm doing at this point, the way I'm filling my free time. I am worried that I will have lost the besties audience with it's too much.

• 0:13Russ Frushtick?

  Do you think it's too smart? Do you think you're too smart now?

• 0:15Speaker 00

  It's not too smart. It's too, it's too niche. It's too small. It's too annoying. It's too pointless.

• 0:23Russ Frushtick?

  Because your brain is too big now for everyone else is that?

• 0:26Speaker 00

  It's not a brain is too big. It's that the brain has winnowed itself down to just where it only cares.

• 0:31Chris Plante?

  Refined.

• 0:32Russ Frushtick?

  So yours, okay. So basically what you're saying is the equivalent would be if you really got into whittling, but only whittling small piccolos.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, exactly. Yes. And they were, and they didn't make noise. So they were like decorative artisanal piccolos, right? Like just because, just because learning how to SSH into your raspberry pi so you can make a time lapse camera for your wife's plants. Just because

• 1:01Speaker 00

  just because it has computer stuff in it, doesn't mean that it is like cool to people who like video games. And that is a tough distinction.

• 1:09Chris Plante?

  I saw the comments on the newsletter for last week and I have never seen more people engage with your fucking piccolos. There's a lot of cis admins in our comments. All the Linux. Well, I think what we've discovered is maybe kind of subconsciously, there's a rhythm in your voice that has been training our audience over the past decade to care deeply about your bullshit.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  I, I think it's just, I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna keep that audience, but I'm gonna, I'm not, it'll be like a baiting kind of thing where like I'll throw them every, every couple of episodes. I'll just kind of like casually throw out like, put a new Destro on the, the rig. They took out, took out Ubuntu, put on Kubuntu, messed around with Linux Mint a little bit, but some of the packages weren't there. I gotta have that Spotify snap installation.

• 1:59Chris Plante?

  The listeners are sweating with joy right now. They are just drenched.

• 2:04Russ Frushtick?

  Do you have to wedgie yourself or is that something Sydney does?

• 2:07Speaker 00

  I have a professional. Yeah. My wife is a very busy woman. She doesn't have time to come give me nuclear turbo wedgies every hour on the hour. I have to wake up. I pay a guy to wake me up at four in the morning because I can't get him in in my waking hours. I have to have a man come by and wedgie me at night. He scares my children. I beg him not to, but then he wedgies me harder. Because he's a bully.

• 2:30Chris Plante?

  Oobunchoo.

• 2:37Speaker 00

  The fact that people talk about fedoras so much, you guys have gotta work on that, though. I, listen, a lot of it's good, but you guys have gotta work on the fedora stuff.

• 3:05Speaker 00

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

• 3:09Chris Plante?

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

• 3:13Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Ross Fraschigano, this game of the week.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  No, there's only three of us. Yeah, welcome to the besties. It's a video game club where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club and you're a member because you started listening. That's kind of a trap we lay for you every week. This week, we're going to be talking about Split Fiction, sort of, kind of like the fourth. I think of it as like the third or fourth in like a sort of pseudo series.

• 3:40Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  That, that, that the, that has come from this studio. Uh, this is the new one. Uh, what is, what is, uh, this one, Plant? What's the setting this one apart?

• 3:48Chris Plante?

  Split Fiction is a co-op focused game. There's a follow-up to It Takes Two, which might be the most slow, rapid growing mega hit of all time. I don't even know how to describe its trajectory. This time, you and a friend or family member are going to play as one character who loves fantasy and another character who loves sci-fi as they get trapped in the worlds of their own imagination and fend off evil AI.

• 4:17Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, do we know that AI? Really?

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Whoa, twist.

• 4:20Russ Frushtick?

  Corporations.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  It's probably AI.

• 4:22Chris Plante?

  It's all AI.

• 4:23Russ Frushtick?

  Oh.

• 4:24Chris Plante?

  What do you think corporations are at this point? Oh, gotcha!

• 4:30Speaker 00

  So Split Fiction is, I mentioned it as like a sort of pseudo pseudo series, I think is, is, I don't know if you would count Brothers, although Brothers is definitely like exploring some of these co-op ideas, you know, even though it's a single player game.

• 4:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they're all from the same developer. You said four games from the same developer that all are either strictly exclusively co-op, like you can't play with just yourself, or they, in the case of Brothers, could play, you could play as a single player. It was a single player game, but it had you controlling two characters at once.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. So that single, it was Brothers and then A Way Out, which is like a prison break kind of thing. It Takes Two was the most recent, and that was a game that like, I thought It Takes Two was really interesting because I feel like-

• 5:17Russ Frushtick?

  That was the divorce puppet that you turned into like little people.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it really, I feel like the, it is one of those rare examples, maybe not rare, but like where I feel like the, a lot of the press and the critics kind of saw like the parts that weren't functioning, and then it seemed like there was this audience that found the game of people playing together. And like there not being a lot of games that like, the people that I've encountered that really enjoyed It Takes Two have been couples that have like played it together and like had a really good experience with it as a result of that. So this is another co-op game. I played split screen. I don't know what you guys did, but I thought we-

• 5:57Russ Frushtick?

  We played online.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Okay, cool.

• 5:59Russ Frushtick?

  But it, but when you play online, it's also a split screen. You can also see the other person's screen.

• 6:03Chris Plante?

  Which is helpful. Yeah.

• 6:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Well, they probably would have to balance it twice for different experiences if you didn't have that because you-

• 6:09Russ Frushtick?

  And it's genuinely like Plant was making the point, even though we're online, like he could, if I was looking at like something cool or whatever, he could see that because I was looking at it.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:19Russ Frushtick?

  And you can give each other advice on like, oh, you should hit that object.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  You're also, the, some of the experiences that you're having, I think are asynchronous enough that it's kind of neat to like see what the other person's doing. It like builds the, helps build some tension in some of the, some of the scenes.

• 6:35Russ Frushtick?

  And maybe some jealousy when one person has the boring job and the other- Person has a cool job.

• 6:40Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah, no comment.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  So what should we talk about first?

• 6:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I want to talk about this. I want to, no, no, no, I want to start with the narrative first.

• 6:48Chris Plante?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 6:49Russ Frushtick?

  The narrative is like, pretty fucking funny, um, just as a baseline premise. So you have these two characters, there's Mio and, sorry, I'm blanking on the other person's name. Zoe. Uh, and they are both aspiring writers, but Mio seemingly doesn't give a fuck about writing and just wants to get a paycheck. And Zoe really, really cares deeply about her fantasy stories. And they go into this high-tech, uh, I guess, corporation that is like, we want your stories.

• 7:17Chris Plante?

  That's also literally called Raider.

• 7:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 7:20Chris Plante?

  Which, you know.

• 7:21Russ Frushtick?

  The company's called Raider, wink, wink.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  And he says, I am Raider. Like, he doesn't say, hi, my name's JD Raider. He says, hi, I'm Raider, and it's J period D, no period. Raider. Okay, fine.

• 7:33Russ Frushtick?

  Um.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  Steal a period from one of the authors while you're at it, JD.

• 7:37Russ Frushtick?

  So they go in there, they want a paycheck for their great stories. And it turns out what they're going to be doing is putting on VR suits and getting shoved into balls of light. Uh, wherein they kind of go into a Tron situation where they are experiencing their stories in a virtual environment and they have to like, survive them.

• 7:55Chris Plante?

  Uh, an animus from Assassin's Creed, I would say is like, rather than re-experiencing history, you're experiencing your stories.

• 8:03Russ Frushtick?

  I see.

• 8:03Chris Plante?

  And they're being extracted.

• 8:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  Now, in a, in a really baffling twist, they've told, not twist, setup. They've told these authors that they're bringing them there to publish them. And then they put them into white super suits. And it's like, none of the authors save one is like, this doesn't normally happen in publishing. And they're like, no, it's part of the publishing, get in the bubbles. And it's like, just tell them you're gonna let them walk around their worlds.

• 8:29Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  Like, just say it's, it's a VR thing where you can walk around your book worlds and the authors will go and do it. You don't need all of this nonsense. It makes that people look so stupid from the jump of the story.

• 8:41Russ Frushtick?

  Also, the fact that they're trying to make money in publishing is also pretty funny.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Their master plan, I, I, hopefully their master plan is not make money in publishing.

• 8:50Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so that's the setup. And very quickly, you, I guess Mio gets shoved into Zoe's bubble. And now they're together experiencing one another's stories and kind of bouncing between the two. So you've got some levels in fantasy, you've got some levels in sci fi. And then you've got some quote, side quests that take place in some like, for lack of a better term, just like direct references to other video games.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  So if we were talking about the narrative first, I think there's a lot of really cool stuff happening gameplay wise. But I did want to say, just from a narrative perspective.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  I think this game is so poorly written. None of the dialogue feels like anything human beings say. And you shouldn't say that your main characters are authors, who are filled with such creative ideas that people need to steal from them. And then make them two of the most generic human beings I've ever seen in a video game. These people are not authors, they don't care about their stories, they don't care about their worlds. They don't, I don't know what they, like even their stories are the most, is that Studio 60 problem of like, if you're gonna do a show about funny people, it's gotta be funny.

• 9:58Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  So if you're gonna do a show about authors who are so inspiring that people are gonna steal their ideas, they gotta be better than like, cyber ninjas. And I, I am sorry to be like coming out on a hard note, but it is so frustrating to see the arrogance on display here, that the studio thinks that they are able to write, like dialogue that works and none of it, I mean, none of it works. It is built entirely of cliches and I, and it feels like people who don't have a great grasp of the English language, writing dialogue primarily in English and having to overly rely on cliches because it is uniformly terrible.

• 10:36Russ Frushtick?

  The analog that I would say is, if you've played like Quantic Dreams stuff, that it's a very similar issue. Where I think it's people that like, I don't doubt that Joseph Faris is very confident in his writing style. Cause obviously he makes games that are very narrative forward. But I think this is true of a lot of his stuff. And arguably for me, I didn't play A Way Out, but I, uh, I loved Brothers and it's kind of telling that that is a game without any dialogue whatsoever.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  I mean, yes, yes.

• 11:07Chris Plante?

  The, the, the thing that's happening on a moment to moment level that makes it just difficult to latch on to the story is there is no real antagonist. Once you are in the game for the first few hours. So you, you arrive at Raider, Raider is purportedly the antagonist, right? This corporate publishing overlord who's going to steal all of your ideas. And then you hop into the bubbles of sci-fi or fantasy. And suddenly the antagonist would be the villain of that story. So it'd be, you know, like the sci-fi overlord or the fantasy evil queen or whatever. But they don't really have any connection to the overarching story. So they don't really have anything to do, they're not real.

• 11:52Chris Plante?

  There's no stakes. They, they, if you die in this world, nothing happens. If you stop or don't stop this world, nothing happens. The, the wants and needs of the villains in these worlds are irrelevant to the overall story for the first few hours. And that is a really tough way story-wise to pull you through the game when you're like, wait, why am I here? Who is this villain? What do they want? What will even happen to me if they don't get it?

• 12:17Speaker 00

  There's no villain, no motives. And it's also, um, I think kind of the worst thing is it's, it's like dull for such a sweaty premise that seems set up to like, it feels like Riff's Apart kind of where they're setting up like this world could go anywhere.

• 12:32Russ Frushtick?

  What is Riff's Apart? I don't know what that is.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  Sorry, Ratchet and Clank where they're jumping between like different realities, right? Or like, it seems like they're setting up a big like, why make the levels ideas? And then have like a straight down the middle sci-fi game for three hours. It's like it, that really feels like such a huge missed opportunity that they're not bringing in, like when they're taught, they show you other authors, and this may be happening later in the game, they show you other authors and they're like talking about their worlds. And like, I kind of expected it would be like you're going into their stories to do something to warn them about something.

• 13:06Russ Frushtick?

  You maybe do, I don't know.

• 13:08Speaker 00

  Maybe you do at some point, but there's no other. The worlds that I have seen have been like, uh, so there are a couple of side things that are kind of like really cool and creative. But then there are some that are just like straight down the middle rips of game worlds that you've played before.

• 13:24Russ Frushtick?

  Well, intentionally to the point of like, like there's a

• 13:27Chris Plante?

  They quote.

• 13:28Russ Frushtick?

  There's a line.

• 13:28Chris Plante?

  They quote, they quote the game.

• 13:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, there's a line that's like, we have to take a leap of faith and then you do the leap of faith from Assassin's Creed.

• 13:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:36Russ Frushtick?

  That's the, how direct.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  And it's not a game about video games. It's a game about books.

• 13:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  It's frustrating because I like so much of the stuff that is happening in this game and it feels like an arrogance of, well, the story is done. And we don't have to like achieve something there that is new or unique or original. The machine that the bad guys use in this game is called the machine. Like just.

• 14:00Chris Plante?

  Well, I mean, last game it was the book of love, you know?

• 14:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, it's like, I think an AI machine already stole all your good ideas, guys. And you're just like using nouns and adjectives.

• 14:10Chris Plante?

  I, okay. So why, why do these games work so well? And why do I think this game is going to make a gajillion dollars and people are going to love it? Is the other half of it. And I do wonder how much people, you know, these games have a great reputation for the writing. Is that people really loving the writing, which it might be? Or is it people associating the good vibes that they have spending time with their, the people they love? Maybe even goofing about the writing, telling their own story. That seems more like it.

• 14:45Russ Frushtick?

  And yeah, I think that's what's happening. I think people are talking over the writing. Certainly Plant and I, to some extent, were doing that, even though I had the subtitles on to make sure I didn't miss anything. But like, there is a back and forth that brings life to the co-op gameplay, which I did enjoy. That kind of trumps the very kind of vanilla flat.

• 15:08Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  It's kind of like you get a bonus point because playing a video game with your friends is fun. Like, it was fun to do that with my friend Slice on the couch, playing together. Like, I think you're bringing some of that positivity.

• 15:21Chris Plante?

  Yes, and if you break writing down into like three parts, right? There's the structure of the whole story, there is the dialogue. I don't really enjoy either of those. But if you think of the scenarios that they're actually creating, like, what are you doing?

• 15:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 15:34Chris Plante?

  What is the gameplay? That stuff's clever as hell. There is, I mean, the amount of raw ideas. Nothing in this game is, you know, 10 out of 10, the most exciting new video game idea you've ever seen. But as somebody who's been playing games their entire life, it's basically a tour, a breakneck tour of video game mechanics.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  There is something about, and I don't exactly know, it's a very unique feeling that is specific to this kind of game. But there is something about there being a fun gameplay thing that you are not doing, or any gameplay thing that you're not doing, that lends to the verisimilitude of the world in the moment to me. Like, it feels like more believable because the fact that there's other fun stuff happening, it makes what I'm doing feel more real. Because it feels less like a video game and more like, that's happening over there, and this is happening here. And holding both of those things in your mind is really not something that video games do very often.

• 16:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, the closest you can get, like, you're playing an online game, and, oh, like, someone's giving you comms that, like, oh, there's a guy around this corner that you don't actually see. But here, you'll see, not only someone might be doing a call-out, your buddy, next to you or online, but you also see their screen, so you can see what they're doing. And sometimes I'll see, like, Plant in the distance, like, trying to hit a switch or missing a jump or something like that. And so you're seeing it from, like, three different angles in a way. And that is pretty cool, and it does, yeah, lend more life to these environments.

• 17:08Chris Plante?

  They really enjoy.

• 17:11Chris Plante?

  I really enjoyed being able to see you screw up a lot, Frush.

• 17:15Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 17:16Chris Plante?

  Because it was great to know that you are not the perfect gamer. You're infinitely better than me. Let's get it over with.

• 17:21Russ Frushtick?

  It might just be that I'm more persistent.

• 17:23Chris Plante?

  Well, let's talk about your persistence. Let's talk about my favorite moment of this video game. So Frush and I get in, there's all these rapid fire. You're learning everything. You're learning how to jump. You're learning how to walk on walls.

• 17:36Russ Frushtick?

  The pace of the first two hours of this game is fucking buck. It's like an uncharted like cutscene, but like for two hours.

• 17:42Chris Plante?

  Doing so much.

• 17:43Russ Frushtick?

  There's no stopping in that two hours.

• 17:45Chris Plante?

  And then Frush and I, we're hopping from like giant space semi truck to giant space car. We're flying through cities, fifth element style. And I, and I hop from one truck onto another. And I'm climbing through, you know, the, the future world. And I turned to Frush and I say, okay, lift that ladder. And he says,

• 18:06Russ Frushtick?

  You did not say that. You said, what do you do now? And I'm like, well, all I can do is latch onto this one ladder.

• 18:13Chris Plante?

  Get the ladder. And he said, it can't go any further down. And we bash our heads against this thing.

• 18:20Russ Frushtick?

  We're like, is the game broken?

• 18:22Chris Plante?

  Is it? We try everything. We try to break the geometry. We, we reset the checkpoint. We come back. And then what was, what was the fix?

• 18:30Russ Frushtick?

  I just had to raise the ladder instead of lowering it.

• 18:32Chris Plante?

  You turned the handle the wrong way.

• 18:33Russ Frushtick?

  Do you know that part, Justin? Do you know which part I'm talking about?

• 18:35Speaker 00

  I know exactly which part.

• 18:36Russ Frushtick?

  Did you get stuck on that part?

• 18:37Speaker 00

  No, no, no, instantly. I had a slice in iron. Like, it's like, when you're really good friends, it's like you kind of,

• 18:43Russ Frushtick?

  No, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.

• 18:45Speaker 00

  It is, those sequences are, again, it is that asynchronous, like one person trying to platform while the other person is driving a truck. It's really fun. And, and it only works because they are like, it's weird because it only works because they're depriving you of something, right? It only works because they're kind of depriving you of half of the experience, but that's like a reductive way of looking at it because you are like sharing it with somebody else, but it is, it is neat, like, because you do actually feel like you're working together because you're doing different things. Like when both of you have swords, then one of you could just be a better. Sword guy, you know, it's it's neat that you have to have different skill sets.

• 19:24Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, there's a reliance on the other player that I think makes this all work.

• 19:28Chris Plante?

  I also think having some tension, healthy tension in a co-op game is good. Like, it's fun and funny when one person has the really cool feature and the other person is a pig that shits rainbows. And is not having as much fun, me, but is like, I don't know, there's, there's like some bonding that happens. When one person is getting to have more fun and then it switches, you know, 30 minutes later and suddenly you're the one getting to do all the cool stuff.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  They also do a good job, I think, of making areas where if you are having fun with the other person and you're approaching it in a good, in a good spirit. There were several areas that Slice and I ran into where like, we would just play around. Like it was just fun to, they have props in the environment that are like interactive.

• 20:16Russ Frushtick?

  It's like a basketball hoop at one point.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's like a, uh, we were like, there was a water slide and we were like trying to go down the water slide and land in the, in the rings. And you could like sit in a ring and just float around and like, there's no reason to do it, but it is like in, in, in, if you're like having sort of a hang with someone else. It's nice to have those moments where you don't feel like, there's zero stakes for screwing up. It's so low pressure. If you die, you're instantly back. I mean, it's like not a, a big, a big deal most of the time. Uh, when you're like not in like an active combat situation, it's like you make a misstep, you're right back into it most of the time.

• 20:51Chris Plante?

  Did you find this game more challenging than It Takes Two or any of the other games they've made?

• 20:57Speaker 00

  You know, I didn't play It Takes Two. I'm, I'm, I didn't, I didn't find this particular, particularly, uh, challenging. I would say we, it was pretty, I don't think we like fully wiped at, at any point where like both of us were down. Generally, it was like one of us would die. Um, but it never was like something where I felt like we were having to adjust our approach.

• 21:20Chris Plante?

  Sure.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  To get past something. It was not, it was, it was never like that. Like, okay, we died. Let's try this again a different way. It was usually like adapt on the fly.

• 21:29Russ Frushtick?

  This feels very much designed. For one person is like pretty capable of video games and the other person is like tangentially familiar with video games, but doesn't play them very often.

• 21:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:41Russ Frushtick?

  And that's great. Honestly, like that makes for a really tough design challenge because obviously you can't make sequences super hard because it's just going to get frustrating. They wisely have it so that if one person dies, they can be revived by themselves very, very quickly.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  They do a little like you can hammer the button to go faster with adds just like a little bit of skill and interest to like the reviving.

• 22:03Chris Plante?

  It looks a little more challenging than it takes to on the surface for people who've played it. The game just moves faster. Fresh made the uncharted comparison, but it does so much to make sure that you don't screw up. So there is, you know, intricate jumping sequences, but the reality is you can pretty much smash the jump button and it's going to magnetize you to the poles that you need to go toward, like big time magnet.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:29Chris Plante?

  So I think it, it wants to look like a hard game.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  There's some cool perspective stuff too, that look like where one of you is playing a top down game and the other one's playing a side scroller and that's, that's pretty neat.

• 22:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. They also have sequences that the height of the absolute peak of what we played, which was the first, I would say like three ish, three and a half hours. Um, there's a moment where Mio is driving a motorcycle and Zoe has to activate a self-destruct thing on the motorcycle.

• 22:58Chris Plante?

  And Mio is not just driving a space motorcycle. Mio is going through a Jerry Brockheimer film. It is the most exaggerated.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  It's fifth element. It's great. Yeah.

• 23:08Russ Frushtick?

  So, but while that's happening, Zoe has to activate an app on her phone that can activate this self-destruct mechanism and the app in the middle of this intense race.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Wait, can I, I feel like this is a little bit like this is for me, I thought the phone thing was like one of the best things that we did. I feel like it's a little bit, that's fairly, it's a few hours in.

• 23:27Russ Frushtick?

  Spoiler territory. I would say if you're going to play it, uh, that moment, and you'll notice it when it happens is really like a spectacular highlight for me from a gameplay standpoint and from just like a storytelling standpoint. I wish that there were more moments like that. What's difficult for me to kind of wrap my head around is if you've got two people that play games a lot, obviously Plant and I play a lot, Justin plays a lot of games, I can't speak for Slice, whether they exist or not, but it does feel like if you take,

• 23:58Speaker 00

  Obviously.

• 23:59Russ Frushtick?

  If you take the multiplayer out of it and you were just doing the things in this game, it would be like maybe the most dull, flat, like, third person.

• 24:09Speaker 00

  To a comical degree, where it feels like, it feels like the video game that's in a CSI episode. You know what I mean?

• 24:18Chris Plante?

  Yeah, but I, that feels to me like being like, well, you know, if you don't fry the potatoes, tastes like just bland potatoes.

• 24:26Speaker 00

  To Russ's point, though, I think, for me at least, I had a pleasant time while playing it with Slice. I do not feel a compulsion to make that happen again. I feel zero compulsion to like, see what happens with the rest of the story, or like, see what else happens like mechanically, where if I was, it was fun to do together, but I'm not anxious to return to it and like, playing, I mean, I can't play by myself, but like, it has not even occurred to me to like, I got, I want to see what happens next. It feels more like matter of fact, like, oh, this is really fun to play together, but I don't feel like, Slice, come on, we gotta see what happens with the, this incredibly inane story.

• 25:09Speaker 00

  And I just feel like a little bit of that would have gone so far towards making this something that's easier to recommend.

• 25:14Chris Plante?

  Do you think it's even for us in that way? I picture the type of person who's gonna really enjoy this game is the person who plays maybe two or three games a year, or maybe hasn't even played a game in five years, and it's the family member that you bring into the game, right? And, do you know like, hotel TV, that idea? Where it's like, you haven't watched TV in like, years, cable, and then you go like, a hotel, and you turn it on, and you're like, oh shit, hotel TV, I'm like locked in.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:43Chris Plante?

  I feel like that's, this is like hotel TV of games. If you haven't played games in a few years, you pop this on, and suddenly you're just surfing through all this shit, and you're just so overwhelmed cognitively, it must feel amazing for that sort of person.

• 25:57Russ Frushtick?

  It does feel, yeah, like a greatest hits almost of like, where video games are at.

• 26:01Chris Plante?

  Yeah, and again, if you aren't, if your brain is not used to playing games very often, it is already so. I don't know, it's revving up your brain in all sorts of fun, good ways. And then I think for the person who does like video games, being able to spend time with somebody who normally doesn't have interest in your hobby, and suddenly they're like really jazzed and revved up about it, that's gonna release all sorts of good chemicals in your body. So I get how these games have such a huge audience, because I think if you have that perfect pair, if you have your Mio and your Zoe, this becomes something really, really special. I just think it really relies on the audience, basically.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  Is it though, like, are we making a... Is there a point at which, like, if the narrative is too good, or the story is too well-written, or like, where it would make me happy, but it would be an experience where we're like sitting in silence? And kinda, like, sometimes my wife and I like to watch Love is Blind, but it's not because we think it's better written than Severance. It's just like, you know? Like, that's about what I'm up to, right now. I think I'm putting too much pressure on it, because I think what they're doing with the mechanics is so interesting, that I wish they were trying to be just a little bit more inventive on any other aspect of it. I wish it was just like a little bit more fulfilling

• 27:26Speaker 00

  in any way other than this one specific thing they're doing.

• 27:30Russ Frushtick?

  And there was an element in It Takes Two where, even though I didn't think the writing was very good, I did, I was desperate to figure out, like...

• 27:39Chris Plante?

  If they were gonna do the ending, would they...

• 27:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, how are they gonna do the ending? Because it's like, these two should get a divorce. They are not in a good relationship, they clearly don't like each other, and there's really no coming back from this one. And just, that was kind of pulling us along, apart from the fact that like, Planet and I both had to review it for Polygon. And I just don't have that, like, pull, that's pulling me forward.

• 28:02Chris Plante?

  I think that's the pickle. The story doesn't have to be great. You're you're spot on hoops. But the inner conflict of we're making a game about AI or publishing or companies and how they steal ideas and we're going to have the main characters be people who really only have ideas from other stuff. They themselves.

• 28:26Speaker 00

  You're right. A hundred percent. They invite the dialogue of like ideas and commerce and AI and like what makes a

• 28:34Russ Frushtick?

  The value of an original thought.

• 28:36Speaker 00

  It feel I when, when, when people ask me about writing video games, writing reviews of video games back in the day, the thing I would always tell people is like, please read things that aren't video game reviews and play then read things other than video games. And I, this feels like a game made like just in a world where only video games exist, which is like, if you're gonna do that, that's cool. Astro Bot's that kinda, but like, don't it make it about literature? Don't why is it about literature?

• 29:04Chris Plante?

  Have the company just be a game company?

• 29:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. Here's why, uh, plan. Cause then they're a hundred percent ripping off Assassin's Creed. This way they can kind of pretend that they're not ripping off Assassin's Creed.

• 29:17Chris Plante?

  I would say it's because then EA is their parent company and it's a little too obvious.

• 29:23Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. I don't know if they EA owns them for what it's worth.

• 29:26Chris Plante?

  Right. They're publisher. Thank you.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  I don't know, man. It, it just, I know that I'm probably asking too much and maybe that's unfair. And I know that people are gonna like it because they liked that last one and go, and I'm glad go with God. I just wish, I feel like if you're gonna make a whole game, why not make all parts of the game good, you know? I, that's me though.

• 29:46Russ Frushtick?

  I just think they need to acknowledge that they have a weak writing situation and I don't know how to get that in their heads because their games continue to sell millions and millions and millions of copies. So I think we just have to live in the world where they continue to put out fun co-op games that are written pretty badly.

• 30:04Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, maybe we could send Quantic Dream over and just be like, I know right now it seems like this will never win. Take it from me, David Cage. Eventually the money, she stops.

• 30:18Russ Frushtick?

  We will make a great office environment for you. It is very healthy and fun.

• 30:23Chris Plante?

  We should go to the B segment.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  Through the power of generative.

• 30:28Chris Plante?

  Would you just become Dracula?

• 30:31Speaker 00

  David Cage became Dracula.

• 30:32Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, I knew it.

• 30:36Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, we've done it. That was Split Fiction. Given the fact that it's a co-op game, I feel like there are a lot of games that are single-player games technically, but actually work great in co-op. And I just experienced one recently with my child, which was What the Golf. My child has played like three games in total, and played with a heavy asterisk next to it. What the Golf has been the hugest fucking hit. Props to Chris Plant for the recommendation. He suggested it. And the way we play What the Golf is, he has control over the A button,

• 31:17Russ Frushtick?

  which if you remember that game, really just controls the power of the swing. And I have control over the left analog stick, which controls the direction of the aiming. And between the two of us, we can actually finish levels, which is kind of shocking. I think we beat the whole main game just playing like that. And that's, that's really exciting, playing with a kid that's, you know, three and generally not able to do much else in terms of video games. But like, that was a really fun experience with him.

• 31:49Chris Plante?

  It's the best.

• 31:49Russ Frushtick?

  It's also like Buck Wild. That game is like totally unhappened.

• 31:52Chris Plante?

  And a tour of video game history, more ambitious, I would say, than the one that we just talked about.

• 31:58Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Speaker 00

  I have, I've really gotten into with Cooper games that are a little bit more sandboxy. One that, things that she has really been drawn to lately is stuff like Untitled Goose Game, or she really likes, she's just gotten into Goat Simulator a lot on the iPad she loves. And the other one, what was the British one? Thank goodness you're here. Which is like, that's something where we can play together and I can kind of put it in her hands. And she, she likes to like, she doesn't have that frustration of, we don't have that push and pull of like, losing and winning. It's more like, playing together. And, and that's like a co-op experience that's fun to share. Cause I can kind of nudge her, but

• 32:44Speaker 00

  control-wise, it's, it's very accessible.

• 32:47Chris Plante?

  We actually have, we're gonna dig into reader mail and I might as well just start because my single-player co-op games tied to it. Harrison asked us, "What's the best single-player game to play with someone? Example, my wife and I played through The Witness together and it was a perfect couch co-op experience. You can both try and crack each puzzle section and it actually helps keeping from getting frustrated because you have someone to keep it from getting dry and in theory succeed more with two people putting their heads together. Looking for more games that we can enjoy together, even if it's just one person behind the controller. Love you guys." So, for me, this is the narrative games coming big time here and the deduction games. We've talked about Curse of the Golden Idol, especially if you are able to get a Bluetooth

• 33:31Chris Plante?

  mouse and keyboard. I think that's great. I think games like Kentucky Route Zero are good for this, where you're picking dialogue, but it doesn't really matter what dialogue you pick, it's more of a feel. I think that is excellent for this sort of situation. Do y'all have any other narrative typey games?

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Witness is funny because I tried to play that one with Sid because she's into puzzles and what we learned, and we probably knew it from long ago, but first-person things where I'm controlling it and she's not are instantly nauseating. I mean, looking for 10 seconds and she is done.

• 34:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think that game in particular, I remember feeling motion sick because of the lack of a reticle or something.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  Any first-person thing though, where she is not in control and she's watching me play?

• 34:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 34:21Speaker 00

  It is tough. So the more static things, Curse of the Golden Idol, Return of the Obra Dinn is really great for that.

• 34:30Russ Frushtick?

  I was gonna shout out The Walking Dead, the first Telltale Walking Dead game I played in co-op with my wife, we switched off.

• 34:38Speaker 00

  We did that too. Those are extremely old though, aren't they?

• 34:41Russ Frushtick?

  Those, they're very old games.

• 34:43Speaker 00

  Extremely old games.

• 34:44Russ Frushtick?

  They still work, I still have a memory of, there's a sequence where you realize that what you're eating is human meat.

• 34:52Chris Plante?

  And you fed it to a child?

• 34:54Russ Frushtick?

  And my wife was playing at the time and she was like just too late to stop Clementine from eating the human meat and I've literally never let her forget it.

• 35:06Russ Frushtick?

  Good times.

• 35:08Chris Plante?

  I also just tossed 1000 Exorcist on the pile because why not? If I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna shout it out. I think it's a good.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  It is, I would say. Just to mention it as a game that people can purchase and play, right?

• 35:19Chris Plante?

  I'm mentioning it as a game that you could play with somebody else because.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  I think it's, hey, hey, man, you can't even get me to play it. It's pretty fucking overzealous to think you're gonna get me and somebody else to play it. You're getting greedy, Plant.

• 35:31Chris Plante?

  I'm telling you, I'm gonna wake up. Oh, people haven't told everyone that I am the wedgie man. So next morning, I'm gonna wake up at 4 a.m. I'm gonna put you up on a little clothes hanger by the back of your briefs. And I'm gonna say, baby, it's time to play through this game.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  A lot of people wouldn't fly cross country to give their friend a wedgie every day. You know what I mean? A lot of people don't have the guts.

• 35:52Chris Plante?

  I'm cool like that.

• 35:53Russ Frushtick?

  I have, speaking of 1000 Exorcist, I have played a bunch of the Phoenix Wright games with my wife. And it's actually, it's good, but for, for, what are they called? Graphic novel, was it visual novel games? It can generate some like minor tension when there's like a reading pace difference. And I think that can throw things off.

• 36:15Chris Plante?

  Did your connection to 1000 Exorcist be the X in Phoenix, right? How did you?

• 36:20Speaker 00

  And did you just wanna brag to me and Plant about how much faster you read than your wife?

• 36:25Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Russ Frushtick?

  Why do you think I was the one that was a faster reader?

• 36:31Speaker 00

  You wouldn't have brought it up otherwise. Uh, listen.

• 36:34Chris Plante?

  You didn't even need a guide to learn how to read. Okay, let's.

• 36:39Speaker 00

  Russ is going guide free on learning how to read. He has not mastered Q or X, but he is going to nail it.

• 36:48Chris Plante?

  They're coming, they're coming.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  He said he's never gonna squint until he masters those two letters.

• 36:53Russ Frushtick?

  People keep saying that this is a one, but it looks like an L to me. And there's no convincing me otherwise.

• 37:00Chris Plante?

  Hey, let's get into some more mailbag really quick.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Please.

• 37:03Chris Plante?

  The big question from Nick. I am so shocked to hear Justin install Linux for personal use. As a servant, server engineer, I applaud their excitement for wading into waters even I haven't bothered to yet. Hoping for SteamOS on desktop soon. Here are some recommendations for some quick helpers. If anyone wishes to dive deeper into some of the basics, I highly recommend Wizard Zines by Julia Evans. They cover topics that are tough to even begin to, quote, "know what you don't know," and help you get a handle on the OS and what to look up next. I also recommend ExplainShell.com for whenever you need a quick explainer on a command that you found online. Easy way to learn what a command will do. It mimics the, quote, "man,"

• 37:47Chris Plante?

  the manual pages found within the terminal, but in a more comfortable interface. I see you Hoops writing these down as I name them. I love that we're turning everyone into Linux people. It's great.

• 37:58Russ Frushtick?

  Do you know how long it would take me to realize that man is short for manual? Thank God for Nick actually writing that in parenthesis, because I definitely would not have gotten that.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  And you can do the man page on man, so you can man-man. Then you find out all the stuff about manual. Yeah, that's a great resource. I'm excited about, I heard about an OS this week called Bazite.

• 38:20Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah. I know that.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  It's a Linux distribution that can run on a mini PC. So I've been thinking about, I've got a Batacera mini PC that is running like all my emulation stuff, and I was thinking about setting up a Bazite, like, mini PC, like a Bazite PC, basically, to like, turn it into like a gaming, like, just use my gaming PC as like a living room type gaming setup and, you know, use something else for like my day-to-day stuff. It's just really, there's a, it's a confluence, because I started messing around with like the Raspberry Pi stuff, and then that sort of like opened the door to Linux, because Raspberry Pi computers are running a, you know, version of Linux.

• 39:00Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  But those, they all work together, and I just find it very satisfying to figure out how those pieces interlock.

• 39:08Chris Plante?

  I love it.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  I feel like, I didn't mention this last week when we were talking about Linux, but the thing that has been appealing to me is... I've always been someone who like surface level knows how to kind of do stuff with computers, but mainly because I know how to like Google it and figure it out. And I feel like what's cool about with the Raspberry Pi stuff and Linux, because it's similar setups. Because you are doing it all yourself, you really understand. I think I'm a lot less afraid to mess around with things because I know that I could just put the USB stick back on the thing and start fresh. Uh, and since I put most of the things on there and I decided what they all do and I can interact with them. It's much more simple than a normal computer, but like, I feel like I'm understanding these concepts in a way.

• 39:52Russ Frushtick?

  It feels like you're, you're building an engine from scratch almost.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I'm like, understanding what's going on, like, like yesterday I used my Windows computer to, through the terminal, connect to the camera that's doing the, the time lapse of Sid's plans upstairs. And I did that and I had no idea that the computers, even if they're running like different operating systems, all that crap. You go in the terminal, they don't care. They get to talk to each other. It's great.

• 40:15Chris Plante?

  It's also just wild to learn something almost entirely new. Once you're in your like late 30s or early 40s, because by that point in life, every day, what you learn is the equivalent of like, if you're redecorating the house, you're like, I don't know, changing a pillowcase. It's like, oh yeah, that's, that's a new, a new thought. But this is how I feel with learning Japanese is each day is like, oh, I'm just going to have to put a whole new expansion here. Because I just straight up didn't know any of this when I woke up this morning. And I think it's really intimidating at first because you're bad at stuff in a way that you just have not been bad at stuff in a long time, like since you were like a baby. But once you get past that, if you accept, if you give yourself the permission to just be bad at it.

• 40:58Chris Plante?

  The goal is not to be the best at the thing.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. My, uh, my, my learning advice, and I've been, I do this with like the Python coding that I've been doing, like the Linux stuff. And, and, uh, I did it with Japanese and too, but I think it's a really helpful thing. Is I tried to start learning in a few different ways, rather than agonize about the best way to start learning something. I'll start in like three different ways usually. And because the base entry level thing is always the most rewarding to me. Right? And as it gets more advanced and it gets a little more, a little harder, then I start to get a little bored and it gets a little frustrating. Maybe I go away, but if I start back again with a different learning type and then do that introductory stuff again, I'm reinforcing those concepts.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  And then maybe I do it a third time and see how different learning platforms teach these concepts in different ways. And if you can understand them in two different ways, or even three different ways, then as you progress through, your understanding is a lot more complete. Like it's a holistic understanding and it, and I, for me, that goes a lot quicker, even though I'm like kind of doubling the amount of work. The second time I'm going through this stuff, I'm like, okay, I know this, I know this, I know this, I know this, but it's reinforcing it in a different way. Um, and I think it's a really fun way to, to learn stuff, but anyway.

• 42:10Russ Frushtick?

  Justin, have you considered like Tony Robbins style, uh, presentations? Cause I think you've got it. I think you've got.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, who wouldn't want to, uh, to live more like me? I mean, who wouldn't want to spend more time staring at a terminal? You know what I mean? Who doesn't want to be reading more man pages?

• 42:27Russ Frushtick?

  Man, man.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  Man, man, that's who. Hi, I'm man, man. No need for the man, just ask man. Do you know that you can type in just a command? There's a lot of commands that you can type in that start with sudo, S U D O. And you know what sudo means?

• 42:42Russ Frushtick?

  No.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  Means run this like I'm the boss of the whole thing, no matter what. And you just type in sudo, it's like, fuck it. Run this like I'm the boss, no matter what. And you could type in things into that computer where the computer's like, all right, bye. Okay, I'm dead. I'll forget everything I know. Bye. It's like, oh man, I shouldn't have told you to do that, but you can.

• 43:02Russ Frushtick?

  So much of what I do when I'm like setting up a gaming handheld or something like that is typing in like these phrases. One of them is sudo. I remember doing that. And then being like, okay, it's going to say like, you're about to fucking delete everything. Just hit okay. It'll be cool. I don't know what I'm doing.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Rewarding to be in now at a point where like, I feel more comfortable in the terminal. Like I just want to get in there and do the stuff that I need to do and not fool around with like the, the, the GUI stuff. And that's like, that's very, that feels very good. I feel like I understand the crap that you're talking about on like a much deeper level without actually knowing anything.

• 43:37Russ Frushtick?

  And you don't feel like you're gonna like, you're, you're working without a net, like you're gonna type. Yeah. You do.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  I do feel like that.

• 43:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, so that's not scary to you.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  It is, but this computer costs $200. This is what I'm saying. I bought the cheapest laptop they have. And I just kept putting new operating systems on it, you know?

• 43:55Russ Frushtick?

  That's smart.

• 43:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I'm covering, hold on, wait.

• 44:00Russ Frushtick?

  Justin ran away. He ran so fast his chair spun like in a Looney Tunes cartoon.

• 44:06Speaker 00

  I'm covering my Linux desktop with all the most kick ass hacker stickers I can find.

• 44:11Russ Frushtick?

  You've got a Raspberry Pi sticker.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Got a picture of a pirate.

• 44:15Russ Frushtick?

  There's a picture of a pirate.

• 44:17Speaker 00

  Look at this. This is fricking lasers.

• 44:22Speaker 00

  My other computer costs $35. Unbelievable.

• 44:25Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, bless you.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  Unbelievable.

• 44:26Russ Frushtick?

  Are the stickers more expensive than the laptop at this point?

• 44:29Speaker 00

  No, they came with the

• 44:30Russ Frushtick?

  Oh.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  Some of the many, many, many, many different components, $5 components I've gotten from China.

• 44:39Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, man.

• 44:40Chris Plante?

  Yeah, while we're sharing just nice things that we've learned, can I tell you the euphemism I picked up in Japanese a couple of weeks ago?

• 44:46Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, sure.

• 44:47Chris Plante?

  When you want to say that somebody's fly is down, it, uh, it's shakai no motto. I believe that's right. Yeah, shakai no motto. And it means, uh, your window to society. Which is, that's great.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 45:03Russ Frushtick?

  God, Japanese men, they're so poetic.

• 45:05Chris Plante?

  Figured it out.

• 45:06Russ Frushtick?

  We can jump into honorable mentions, I think.

• 45:08Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 45:08Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I've been watching a new show and I, uh, I'm pretty excited to talk about it. Here's the premise. There's a guy who is having like kind of a tough time in life and decides that he wants to, uh, kind of like unplug for like eight hours a day and not even worry about it. So he joins a job where he like has no memory of that while he's at the job and then he leaves the job. And then he can like live the rest of his life without knowing like what he was doing at the job. And this show is called The Big Brain Theory and it's on Apple.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  Uh, big brain.

• 45:49Chris Plante?

  Big brain theory.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  Big brain theory. Okay, so I don't think.

• 45:54Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  So you're talking about The Big Brain Theory hosted by CalPine in 2013?

• 45:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 46:01Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 46:02Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 46:03Chris Plante?

  So where's this bit going?

• 46:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm interested.

• 46:06Chris Plante?

  Where's this bit going?

• 46:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:08Chris Plante?

  Where are we going with it?

• 46:09Speaker 00

  Cause it's different. It doesn't actually have anything to do. Where are we going, Russ?

• 46:14Russ Frushtick?

  I started watching Severance.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, good, okay.

• 46:19Russ Frushtick?

  And it took me three years. I also, for what it's worth, spent the last week watching the first season of The White Lotus.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 46:27Russ Frushtick?

  So I am on the fucking pulse of culture right now.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  There's a lot of great TV that you are in store.

• 46:34Russ Frushtick?

  I've been rearing a small child and it left me in a bit of a black hole.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Doesn't that sound hard?

• 46:41Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:43Russ Frushtick?

  Oh. It left me in a culture black hole because we also have the homework of playing the games on this and I have that.

• 46:50Speaker 00

  That sounds hard to play. Oh, imagine, man, having to have a family and play games.

• 46:55Russ Frushtick?

  I'm just saying it's hard to keep up with the culture.

• 46:58Speaker 00

  Sure, yeah, it sounds stuff.

• 47:00Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, but Severance is a good show. People should watch it. I highly recommend. I hope it, I hope it finds an audience because it's kind of weird. But it's got some good actors in it and, uh, yeah, I think it's gonna do well.

• 47:10Chris Plante?

  Big brain.

• 47:11Speaker 00

  There was so much talk when the second season started, but I feel like algorithms have made that so hard.

• 47:16Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  To tell like what's actually buzzy and what's like.

• 47:20Russ Frushtick?

  The good news is I'm.

• 47:22Chris Plante?

  That's always been the problem though, right? Remember when Girls came out and it was, the whole internet was talking about Girls and then I think like 30,000 people watched Girls when it came out?

• 47:31Russ Frushtick?

  That's, that's because, yeah, that's a New York media focusing on this show that only New York media is watching. Uh, I do think Severance is a bigger deal. I think it like has actually driven subscriptions to that thing.

• 47:44Speaker 00

  Something that I really liked about Severance that I, I wanted to mention is it's not afraid to be a genre show. And I feel like a lot of shows that have a high concept like this or sci-fi concept would want, like would immediately want to dismiss that and talk about the heady concepts.

• 47:59Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  And they are not afraid of the mythology. Like they're like, no, there's concrete mythology. If it's not abstract, it's not Lynchian. Like, these things are happening and here is like our reality and here's what it means.

• 48:11Chris Plante?

  It doesn't get lost in a metaphor either. I, I had kind of avoided it because I was like, okay, I get it. Like, you have a personality at work and you have a personality at home and now we're going to do the thing that all the horror movies have been doing recently. Where they bash you over the head with the like very obvious metaphor. In this. It's that it's interested in that sort of, but it's much more interested in the world that it's creating as if it were a real thing.

• 48:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 48:35Speaker 00

  I love it. I think it's a credit to your audience, too.

• 48:37Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 48:38Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, balances the humor really well. It's also the fact that I've been able to get as far as I have without it like being quote spoiled is kind of, I mean, I do intentionally avoid stuff that is involved with the show, but like it's been four years and

• 48:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:54Russ Frushtick?

  You know, that's kind of exciting and cool that I can have that experience.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  And it is, I think it's a, it's a different way of like, um, doing this sort of television where it kind of puts the twist at the beginning, if that makes sense, like the big idea, like the big, like, what does it all mean? Is in the first episode, like you know what it all means.

• 49:20Russ Frushtick?

  That's what I was saying to Alex, like after watching the first episode, I was like, oh, that would be the last episode of the first season of a normal show.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  Right. Instead, the first, the last, how far have you made it?

• 49:31Russ Frushtick?

  Um, like halfway through season one.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  The last episode of the first season, it, I did not breathe.

• 49:38Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  Amazing. I can't wait to hear what you think about the rest of it. What about you, Plant? You been doing anything interesting?

• 49:42Chris Plante?

  Uh, oh yeah. I'm always up to like cool stuff, you know, like raising a kid, playing games. It's really hard. I don't have time to watch things like Severance. Actually, I watched Severance season one. I have not started season two. Uh, I want to recommend a movie called Bad Genius. It is a 2017 Thai heist thriller about smart high school kids. And this is a movie I saw a long time ago. I had, um, not really thought about it recently, but now I'm starting to see it pop up on like Netflix and, um, Canopy and lots of different places. And I don't know if it's kind of finally having its moment.

• 50:24Chris Plante?

  I understand a years old Thai high school thriller. Is this for everybody? Yeah, it really is. If you like stuff like Ocean's Eleven, or you just like high school centered stuff like Gossip Girl, here is your mix of those two things. It is so compelling and so exciting. And yeah, you do have to read subtitles. But if you can get past that hurdle, you're in for a real, real treat. And I do believe it is on Canopy. So you don't even have to pay for a streaming service. So long as you have a library card, though. I think it might be on Netflix, too, which most people have.

• 51:04Chris Plante?

  So with the school year now kind of approaching that big test taking time, I think this is a movie that especially younger folks would really enjoy.

• 51:15Russ Frushtick?

  Cool.

• 51:15Speaker 00

  I just wanted to real quickly recommend The Substance, even though it was an older film. I was trying to catch up on, man, I tell you.

• 51:24Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, this is older, it came out in the last year, right?

• 51:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, but it's like, I was trying to catch up on some of the Oscar stuff. And man, I know this sounds how this makes you sound, but this year, more than so many, I just could not get it together enough to watch some of these things. Man, they look so boring and sad. Like, I just couldn't do it.

• 51:42Russ Frushtick?

  Brutalist.

• 51:42Speaker 00

  What?

• 51:43Russ Frushtick?

  The brutalist.

• 51:44Speaker 00

  It's called The Brutalist. Like, ugh.

• 51:47Russ Frushtick?

  I don't like those buildings. They're ugly.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  Substance was very cool. And I liken it to, it reminded me of Night Bitch. And I feel like this feels kind of embarrassing and vulnerable to say, but I hope that it hits the way it's meant to. There have been things that I have sort of understood about being a woman and being a woman, like in America specifically, that I've only sort of understood through my wife and like talking to her and intellectually understanding it. And I think that it's really cool to see movie. Like Ebert said, that movies are like engines for empathy. And I feel like both of these movies have really helped me to understand in a better way and like an emotional way.

• 52:33Speaker 00

  What it is like to be a woman, and in this case, the substance, like a woman who is older than many of her peers that is trying to like still make it and still like what society expects of her. The plot is similar to Severance. It kind of lays it out, the ideas, pretty early on. It is about a substance where this fitness influencer who is played by Demi Moore, basically creates a second her. It's a second body that she can utilize as long as she switches back and forth between the two once a week. So she can have this career where she is this young, vital superstar and she goes back to herself, but she has

• 53:17Speaker 00

  to switch every week or a movie happens. So, yeah, but it's, it's great. It's very, it's, it's weird. It is unsettling to watch. It is a good example of a movie that was written by someone who, English is not their first language, but they have made that a strength by not trying to make the dialogue literal. It feels a little disorienting. It adds a heightened reality to the whole thing.

• 53:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 53:50Speaker 00

  And it, and it is not trying to feel like literal dialogue.

• 53:53Russ Frushtick?

  Not going for naturalism.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I think that like that, that really, that, that helps a lot. And I think that it's very, very cool.

• 54:01Chris Plante?

  There's also a lookbook for this movie that now is online that people can check out. That is extremely cool to look through. Oops. I don't know if you had a chance to see this yet, but I'll send it to you. I think you'll really dig it.

• 54:15Russ Frushtick?

  Cool. I think we did it. Griffin will be back next week. I wanted to thank the following people for being patrons of the besties. We have some new members. We have Giora. Sorry if I'm going to screw up the pronunciations. I'll do my best. Giora, Jared. Kale or Chell, I'm not sure which one, but I did research the pronunciation of your name. And Alistair, which is an awesome name, and I didn't think anyone had that name since Alistair Cook. So I'm glad that they're keeping it around. Welcome. We appreciate you and we appreciate everyone else at the Patreon. We have a new bracket episode, which

• 54:54Russ Frushtick?

  is about the best Easter eggs in video games. That is live right now. Here's a clip from it.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  The thing that they've connected is that the year the X-Files is, the year the X-Files started, you put that in and you get abducted by aliens. I say this is, this is, I gotta say, man, this is primo. This is primo Easter egg. Because it has the, a quality that I think we have been dancing around this whole time, but I think this one really highlights it. A great Easter egg makes you kinda wanna give the creator a wedgie. Yeah, sure. This makes, it's like, oh, you dorks. God, you guys are such nerds. Clearly bully, you guys have made it. You're making your murder game, but really you're just watching

• 55:47Speaker 00

  X-Files and being big dorks. I think that that, that is primo, right? That they're sneaking that kinda junk in there. Yes, please.

• 55:55Chris Plante?

  That's the power of a snort, too, right? I mean, that's really, we kinda have it beneath us all the time. Because when you snort, that's kind of a...

• 56:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:03Chris Plante?

  Like, well, yeah.

• 56:05Speaker 00

  It's how a person who is congested laughs. And that's inherently pretty dorky.

• 56:13Russ Frushtick?

  Awesome. Good times.

• 56:14Speaker 00

  Cool, that was good.

• 56:15Russ Frushtick?

  That was fun. What do we do next week, Justin?

• 56:19Speaker 00

  Next week, we're going to take a break from all of this work and all this gaming, all this action. We're gonna take a little break with Wonderstop. And we're gonna continue to do what we have to do. We will still be working because we have to talk about a video game, but the video game's kinda about like not, not doing that, but...

• 56:36Russ Frushtick?

  It's ironic.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  But we're not taking a break. Like, we never do.

• 56:39Russ Frushtick?

  Nope.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  We never stop. Be sure to join us again for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends get the world's best games?

• 57:16Speaker 00

  Besties!