The Big Switch 2 Episode – Plus the Best of SGF

Nintendo’s new console is finally here. With Plante undergoing a colonoscopy (which was all okay!), the crew invited long-time friend of the show Chris Grant to discuss the Switch 2. In the back half, the group shares the most promising games from Summer Game Fest. Chris Grant: https://bsky.app/profile/charstring.com

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  They used to come with games. They used to come with games. You used to get, do you know how many games they used to come with when it was the NES?

• 0:07Griffin McElroy?

  How many?

• 0:08Speaker 00

  It came with so many games, they had to shove two onto one.

• 0:11Russ Frushtick?

  And it came with a robot.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  Both. And it came with a robot and Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. They used to be begging for you to buy these things. Desperate for you to buy them.

• 0:22Russ Frushtick?

  You're on your own, buddy. This is the new age.

• 0:25Speaker 00

  What do you mean I'm on my own in the podcast or on my own in the, in the hellscape?

• 0:29Russ Frushtick?

  It's like Imagine Dragons. I said, this is the new age.

• 0:32Griffin McElroy?

  Do you like Imagine Dragons?

• 0:33Russ Frushtick?

  Fuck, I love Imagine Dragons.

• 0:35Griffin McElroy?

  Imagine Dragon, Imagine Dragon D's nuts on your face.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  I'm so excited for this new gaming console, guys.

• 0:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:04Speaker 00

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

• 1:07Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin McRae. I know the best gaming console of the week.

• 1:09Russ Frushtick?

  Ah, my name is Ross Fraschetta. Ah, I know the best game of the week.

• 1:13Speaker 03

  Uh, my name is not Chris Plant.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  And that's it. Yeah, that's Chris Grant. He's just on the show.

• 1:18Griffin McElroy?

  It's the closest we could get, guys. The first name's the same. The last name rhymes. It's pretty close, don't you think, gang?

• 1:25Speaker 00

  Sonically?

• 1:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  It's really actually very close. Like the phonetics of the, of the name are actually uncanny. I'm pretty proud of that.

• 1:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Body size wise, two completely different silhouettes these, these fellows carve.

• 1:39Griffin McElroy?

  We're saying one's bigger than the other one. And I don't, I don't know why that is a shameful thing. It's beautiful. Both, both of you guys have beautiful bodies. I want to say that a lot and be on record saying.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  That's such an interesting thing for you to be talking about right now, Griffin. I think that's so fascinating.

• 1:52Griffin McElroy?

  Chris, I didn't, you didn't say thank you when I said that.

• 1:54Speaker 03

  No, I did. I, I'm blushing.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  I noticed that too, Chris. You want to speak about that or?

• 1:59Speaker 03

  I have a lot of, um, body shame, so I'm still coming to terms with what you just said. It's hard for me.

• 2:04Griffin McElroy?

  Not, you don't need it, pal. Shed that. Shed those layers. Feel the rain on your skin.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Good for you, Chris. What are we talking about this week? It's the Nintendo Switch 2. Russ, what's that?

• 2:15Russ Frushtick?

  The Nintendo Switch 2 is the new console from Nintendo, the makers of cards and that weird grabbing toy you can get for $5 at Target. They've made a new console. It's very wide, it's very tall, it's very big, and it has cars on it. Not cards, cars.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  Thanks for clearing that up, man. I'm so glad to know it has cars on it. That's cool. And we'll be, and man, I've never missed Chris Plant more than right now. And we'll be back to talk about this console right after this.

• 2:47Russ Frushtick?

  This episode of The Besties is sponsored by Lisa. You know, we are starting to get into the cooler months of the year. And you know what I love in the cool months of the year? An incredibly cozy mattress that you can just cozy up into. You got the blankets and everything, and I will speak from experience, but maybe not my experience, because Lisa sent me one of their mattresses. But it was timed as such where actually my son, who was becoming a toddler and needed like an actual bed, needed a mattress. So we had him use the Lisa mattress. And every time that I get into that bed to read him a story at night,

• 3:28Russ Frushtick?

  I am incredibly jealous of his mattress, because holy cow, that thing is incredibly comfortable. Lisa was awarded the Best Hybrid and Best Memory Foam Mattress by New York Times Wirecutter and is featured by West Elm as their go-to mattress partner. You can go to lisa.com for 25% off select mattresses, plus get an extra $50 off with promo code BESTIES, exclusive to our listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A.com, promo code BESTIES for 25% off select mattresses, plus an extra $50 off. Let them know we sent you in the survey after checkout. Lisa.com, promo code BESTIES.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  Chris Grant, you've been someone who's been watching the video game space and hardware. You're very smart about hardware and video games and a great student of that industry. You've covered it for many, many, many years. How does the, the feel, I want to talk about the vibe first. How's the vibe of this launch compared to other launches that you've been alive for?

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm gonna say sleepy.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  That's sleepy. Okay, interesting.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, nobody else thinks it's sleepy?

• 4:37Griffin McElroy?

  Just from a like, uh, like you're less, you're not as big, like not as busy having to grind on the coverage.

• 4:44Speaker 03

  That, well, there's, that's true. That's true.

• 4:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  I'm busy.

• 4:48Griffin McElroy?

  It's gotta be nice, right? To just like fucking kick back, pop open a cold one and place a switch to without having to worry about the content, except here you are. Got you. Having to worry about the content.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Back in for one more job, one more. Right. Um, no, I, I mean, I think just talking to people, there's a lot of sort of, is that out? Like a lot of this question of like, is, is that a real console? I think some of that is that it doesn't have a major hook on it. It's a bigger, quite literally bigger, faster switch to or switch.

• 5:18Griffin McElroy?

  Um, yeah.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  And I think when you tell people what's unique about it, the answer is it's, it's a gooder switch. And that's it. And like, there's a lot more you can say about that. And so how do you get people hyped about a gooder switch? I think you have to have exclusive software that pulls them in. I don't think a gooder Mario Kart is that just yet. Will people play it and buy it? Yes, they will. Um, but that's not the, gonna be the thing that gets people really amped about switch to, I think. So what we have now is like a relatively slow and sleepy launch, um, based on the preorder chaos, like can we swear on this podcast? This is where podcast.

• 5:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, you can swear. Oh yeah, we love.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  That's so great. Love on the preorder shit show. Um, the idea.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Oh, whoa, you didn't say S bombs, dude?

• 6:04Griffin McElroy?

  Heck and holy.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 6:06Griffin McElroy?

  And bastard, you can do two bastards and then there they go.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  All right, I'm, I'll pay the fine. Um.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  Based on that, it was surprising for me to walk into a Best Buy on release day, two hours after the store opened and just get, just buy one with money.

• 6:23Griffin McElroy?

  You are not the only person I have heard say that and it's wild.

• 6:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 6:27Griffin McElroy?

  Because I was caught up in the preorder shit show. It was up until like 1:30 in the morning. Uh, one morning, just refreshing furiously. Fortunately, Walmart did come through for, for me, but then I heard like so many people like, yeah, I just went to fucking, I just went over to the Costco and they had a whole pyramid built out of them.

• 6:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, mine was in stock at the, uh, at the Best Buy when I, I went to go get, um, a memory card of, um,

• 6:54Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, those are fucking, I was not prepared for the rush on those. Those aren't anywhere. You cannot find one of these special SD Express cards.

• 7:02Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, yeah, it was a hot ticket, but they had them. You could just buy them.

• 7:04Griffin McElroy?

  Crazy.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  Also based on like, not just the pre-orders, but people getting their pre-orders canceled? Like even like the day and a couple of days before, hours before, it still seemed like it was going to be a scarcity. So I, I remain pretty surprised that you can just walk in and pick them up.

• 7:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, my, I had a preorder and it came, I think a day or two post-release. Um, so, uh, not too bad, but yeah, like I could have just gone to the store and gotten one. Obviously the anxiety of knowing whether you could get one on launch day was very present. And I think I regret nothing. What it did mean is I had to fly to California to go to Summer Game Fest without it and I had to, uh, beg for scraps from Jason Schreier, who's, uh, which I used a few times. So.

• 7:53Griffin McElroy?

  Let me touch it. Just let me touch it. He somehow side-loaded blueprints on that shit. Man has a sickness.

• 7:58Russ Frushtick?

  He's a wizard.

• 8:00Griffin McElroy?

  Serious illness. Uh, what was, what was y'all's first impressions? I, I, uh, it's, it's, it's not the most impressive launch lineup in the world, but I was, uh, I was pleasantly surprised by the, by the performance of it, I think. One of the first.

• 8:16Russ Frushtick?

  By what? How? In what sense?

• 8:17Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, well, sir, the first thing I booted up was Tears of the Kingdom, Switch 2, uh, Edition, which is a, I think a $10 upgrade unless you are a Nintendo Switch Online member and then it's free. Uh, and seeing that game run at, you know. I think 120 FPS butter smooth with like real fast load times was fucking pretty great. Pretty exciting. Not, not quite, you know, as juicy as my, my Rogue ally X probably, but uh, you know, I'm not going to be able to play Zelda on that. So there's, there you go.

• 8:52Russ Frushtick?

  In addition to like the games that they said they were going to patch, I have been very impressed by the games. They didn't say they were going to patch, but immediately got improvements regardless of patch. So, so like Animal Crossing, for example, Animal Crossing's load times dramatically shorter. I haven't done the math, but they're like absurdly shorter. And if people will recall, I became a little bit scary with my island design to the point where the game would consistently run at around 15 FPS when I was running around the island.

• 9:21Griffin McElroy?

  Oh shit. I didn't even think about that.

• 9:22Russ Frushtick?

  No longer an issue. The game runs.

• 9:24Griffin McElroy?

  I put too many waterfalls on my island. That shit wouldn't even work no more.

• 9:27Russ Frushtick?

  Waterfall the ass out of it. You'll be fine.

• 9:29Griffin McElroy?

  It's funny. I played, I played with Henry, him on the switch two, me on my switch light. And it like, I flew to his island and on his screen, it was just like boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. And on my screen, I had to wait the whole time while he just stared at a black screen for a while.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  I'll say this from the hardware side, they're doing all of this in software. This is not a hardware emulation layer. It's all software, which is like pretty impressive. Yeah. Especially when you look at some of Nintendo's more recent emulation foibles, the N64 back compat on the switch being a bit of a mess.

• 10:01Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  And so seeing them kind of nail this out of the gate with really high levels of compatibility on pre-existing games is, is really impressive. And like even pre-patch, they'll start patching some of those gaps that, you know, individual players find on games.

• 10:17Griffin McElroy?

  Juice, it seemed like you were surprised to hear me say that I, I found the performance of the thing impressive.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Well, it's just, I didn't mean, I, I guess I was kind of like compared to what I guess would be the question? Because it is like, everything on it is bespoke for the, for the thing.

• 10:33Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, compared to the switch one, like the games I played are the games that I play still a lot with Henry all the time. And so like, I don't know, I, I, most of the gaming. I do is either at my PC or my rog ally acts like 95% of it. And then like if I'm playing games with Henry, it's it's it is on the switch. And so having a system that offers a markedly better like experience, uh, just from a, you know, load times, performance, all that jazz perspective is, is, I don't know what I feel like I am getting out of it right now.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, I think I have struggled because the whole thing just feels so iterative. I mean, I can't think of a time and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but I, I can't think of a time where Nintendo in a, in a generational switch has ever, pardon the term, has ever been this like conservative. I, I mean, this is, uh, I mean, I, you have to go back to like the new Nintendo DS for, and yeah, I probably wouldn't count that as a new console per se, but. If you called that the Nintendo DS two or the, the Nintendo three DS two, I, I think the reason they didn't do that is because even hearing me say it out loud,

• 11:46Griffin McElroy?

  well, also like.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  To say the three DS two, but I'm saying like, that is the, I don't think it is more of a leap forward than the, than the new three DS.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  I would say three DS in general.

• 11:57Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I think like from a pers- percentages standpoint, like the new three DS from it, like, uh, I'm not talking about flops, but in terms of what it could do versus what the previous version could do, the new three DS could not do that much. It was like 20% more and the, and the actual exclusive.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  Well, I'm not talking about the sort of Murphy's law of the whole thing. I'm talking about the, the actual like console and, and like what you're gonna, Chris, you were gonna say something. What, what were you?

• 12:24Speaker 03

  I think I would not look to new three DS to three DS. I'd look at three DS to DS. Right. Where the basic form factor, um, sulfur compatibility, feature set is almost identical with the lone exception that the three DS had three D support, which, you know, most of us just turned right off or, or we got a two DS that didn't even support it. But I think that is a better. Paradigm of like, what was it? And I think they had the gimmick. They had the 3D gimmick to try and get people excited. I think the Switch 2 is missing a gimmick.

• 12:53Griffin McElroy?

  It has a mouse.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  It does have a mouse.

• 12:56Griffin McElroy?

  C button.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  I mean, I have a mouse at home. Kids, we got a mouse at home. We don't.

• 12:59Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, does it work on, does it work on your fucking lap, Chris?

• 13:02Speaker 00

  It's not a mouse, man. You can use arrow keys to move a cursor around and then make it a mouse.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  Griffin, it's actually working.

• 13:09Griffin McElroy?

  It's blurring it out. Your camera is, for whatever reason, thinks what you're doing, rubbing your mouse on your lap is a pornographic motion. And can I just say, good call on that, Nanny?

• 13:18Speaker 00

  I, I have struggled with the, okay, when you're an early adopter of a console, there's very little reason to do that logically, right? You do it because you're a fan, you're an enthusiast, you're excited to play with it, and you're, but I think also you're excited to share it with people, right? You want to say like, you want to see this new thing. I have this new thing. Do you want to see it? And since I, I, you know, since the Switch 2 arrived, I've really struggled to figure out what to put in people's hands. To say like, what do you think about this? Like, the, the, the closest I have had to a novel experience sincerely is like the feel of, when it has a ball in the maracas.

• 13:57Griffin McElroy?

  In Welcome Park.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  And you can roll, move it around, you can feel the ball in there. That's really cool. That's pretty rough, guys. It's pretty rough. I'd be like, yeah, the new Nintendo, the Nintendo Switch 2 is amazing. Give me 10 minutes to get into this maraca simulator, because if I turn it to ball, it's actually a very good console.

• 14:15Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, because a bunch of people had them at Summer Game Fest, uh, in like various hotel lobbies and things like that. And I'm not saying this is like a fully unique feature, but it did kind of stand out to me in ways I wasn't expecting. Because of the increased size, specifically the screen size, the idea that you can play a multiplayer game on tabletop mode with other people and not have it be like a squinting mess is actually kind of a big deal. Like, it actually kind of facilitates a use case that I know Nintendo was pitching for the first Switch, but wasn't the most feasible for most games. And now because of that screen size, it is much more feasible.

• 14:56Griffin McElroy?

  Adding on also that the Joy-Cons and the specifically the trigger buttons on the like Joy-Con side profile controls, actually you can actually use them. And so like I was playing, I forget what game I was playing with Henry, but we were doing that and I never, that shit never felt good on Switch one. Like use and, and here it's still like not as good as using a, you know, pro controller or whatever, but it, it's way, way, way more doable. And so I do think it kind of like, I don't know, fulfills the promise of some of that novelty from, from

• 15:31Russ Frushtick?

  It seems like unlikely that we will ever have any like holy shit new console moments in the, like short of like fucking holograms.

• 15:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Just because, hey Russ, just because you can't dream.

• 15:46Russ Frushtick?

  Well, apparently neither can any of the other console manufacturers because either the experts of the PS5 were like basically the same problem, right?

• 15:54Speaker 03

  I think this question of diminishing returns has been one that's been plaguing video game hardware iteration for like a really long time. Um, how do you show off a console, PlayStation four to five, where like the games in a lot of cases look identical, run a little bit better, letting one spend $500 for that. And when you tell them, Justin, that the, the ball demo, which is neat, can be theirs for the low, low price of 500 US dollars, like.

• 16:20Griffin McElroy?

  Five, 10, five, 10.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  Have a tough sell. And so I think that getting to a place where what they're offering you is, is more broad compatibility with AAA games. So you can play Cyberpunk on it, for example, Fortnite runs.

• 16:33Griffin McElroy?

  Did anyone actually get that and check, check it out? The, uh, the, the Cyberpunk, I've, I've heard good things. I just replayed it or I'll say probably would.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  Cause I had it on PC running at a million frames a second, a decade ago. Like it's like, it's, it's late. And so I think that the sense of what are you buying here? You're buying portability. Um, and that's really interesting. And you know, you can sort of offset some of that compute power to portable thresholds. And that's what they're really offering. And they can increase the screen size and that also comes with battery life. And that's what they're offering. Um.

• 17:05Speaker 03

  But at some point, what you're looking at is diminishing returns where, to your point, Griffin, you can play a lot of even PC games like on a portable PC now and get a good enough experience. And that's just what you do. And the raw horsepower is not really necessary anymore.

• 17:20Griffin McElroy?

  It feels like especially sort of boutiquey stuff because it's like the, the real thing that you're buying here is like access to Nintendo's first party catalog.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  Always.

• 17:32Griffin McElroy?

  Played on a system that doesn't feel like a 10 year old Android phone. Like it is, it is at least on par with what, you know, good graphical fidelity was, you know, a year or two ago, maybe, but that still feels considerably better. And I don't know that that is the best case to make for a, you know, a console launch.

• 17:56Russ Frushtick?

  I think there's, there's one more thing that I wanted to mention, and it goes back to my earlier point. I don't think there's any other device that is more like group multiplayer friendly than the Switch 2. Like bring it to a house and have a multiplayer game. I can't think of anything that is like better than that.

• 18:16Speaker 03

  I bring my Uya everywhere and we can just fire that.

• 18:18Russ Frushtick?

  That was pretty good, too. And I, and I don't think that's like, that is, I think, how they continue to differentiate, differentiate themselves from the other consoles is you're not going to log a PS5 over, you're not going to set up a screen, you have an option to with two to four players or whatever, have a good multiplayer experience on the go, in addition to having access to like the first party.

• 18:43Speaker 03

  I have a lot of fifth graders coming to my house on a pretty regular occasion. And the amount of times where it's just bring your Switch.

• 18:50Russ Frushtick?

  You specify you have kids, by the way.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  I do. I have, I have children, specifically a fifth grader.

• 18:54Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they're not just strange fifth graders coming to your house.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  I mean, some of them are strange. I'm not going to say they're not strange, but.

• 18:59Griffin McElroy?

  Come on down to Grant's Arcade. Fish town.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  So we have a lot of kids here and like they just bring their Switch everywhere. And it's really portable and it has some commonalities. They can play Minecraft together. They can play Fortnite. They can play Smash. They can trade cards or games. And I think that sense, I'm excited about the game share feature. I think that's really cool. I think it's a really neat iteration of the Wii U technology and like, how do you reach back into that grab bag of failed ideas and repurpose it for something new, but. To your point, it is a portable system and is a system that is often convened in the same space. So game share starts to make a lot of sense if it is native. And when you have that extra horsepower, what do you use it for? The game I've been playing the most on Switch two

• 19:45Speaker 03

  isn't Mario Kart World, which is neat. And it's not, um, it's probably a little bit of Fortnite. I had my nephew over yesterday and we were playing Fortnite and it is, um, runs fine as opposed to the Switch version, which ran really poorly.

• 19:59Griffin McElroy?

  Like shit. Yeah. Uh, but I'm Big ol', big ol' file Fortnite, though, for the old

• 20:04Speaker 03

  Oh, she

• 20:04Griffin McElroy?

  internal memory capacity.

• 20:06Speaker 03

  Forty gigabytes taking up my whole.

• 20:07Griffin McElroy?

  So if you are unable to find a, a, a SD Express memory card, which you will not be able to do, um, then you might want to skip this.

• 20:16Speaker 03

  I did go put, uh, notify me on all the local stores. Um, I don't buy SD cards on Amazon anymore because they're always fake. Um, so probably will notify me on Best Buy and Walmart and Target. So hopefully I'll get one in. Um, but I think the, uh, game I'm playing the most, which is not really using that hardware, but is one of the few Switch two native launch games is, uh, Deltarune, chapters three and four. And like, it's not using that hardware. It's just a system that is portable that I'll play, that my son will play and bring places. And I think the, why are we playing it there instead of PC? Because he wants to bring it to his friends' houses and play with it there. And, um, and so I do think the portability even more than the hardware still is unique. But, you know, I say this with a family with two other switches in the house.

• 20:59Speaker 03

  It is frustrating that the Switch two dock doesn't work with the Switch one console.

• 21:05Griffin McElroy?

  Little frustrating. Yeah.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  I kind of didn't, I don't know. I'm, I guess I missed that detail and all of the preview coverage, but that seems, that's really maddening to me to need to set up two docks that dock that dock the same way. Why couldn't you have just made it compatible? I really don't understand.

• 21:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I'm glad that a lot of the I have so many fucking pro controllers just from like the fact that the switch was my if if I'm going to a lake house thing with a bunch of friends like I'll bring the switch and all my pro controllers so we can play tower fall or whatever. I am glad I do not have to. Yeah, I'm glad I don't have. Well, there I don't live in Austin anymore, so I don't need all those pro controllers. I'm sort of a solo guy now. But all the switch one controllers were with the switch two.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  That is nice.

• 21:47Griffin McElroy?

  I was glad because I did not fucking buy a switch two pro controller.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  I did. I did foolishly only because I whiffed on all the switch two pre orders and didn't get one and I was really feeling sorry for myself and I did manage to land a switch two pro controller preorder. So I put that in as a consolation prize.

• 22:06Griffin McElroy?

  How is it?

• 22:06Speaker 03

  It's nice. It feels really good. It has this like soft texture, same as on the back.

• 22:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's like a brushed plastic.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, I worry about it because as somebody who's packing up a bunch of old controllers now, I don't know if you know anything about those plastics with that kind of treatment on them, but after 20 years. They get sticky and gummy.

• 22:23Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 22:24Speaker 00

  Well, you guys think about the pro the holder daily.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  The grip.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  The yeah, that I mean, it's not.

• 22:31Griffin McElroy?

  It's a bit of a different form factor. I don't love it so much. It's also.

• 22:34Speaker 00

  Oh, like the grip that you slide the.

• 22:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 03

  I think it feels a lot nicer than the switch one grip because the switch two joy cons just feel way nicer.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  I got. Okay, I um, I I feel like I'm struggling because

• 22:48Speaker 00

  early adoption doesn't like I've said earlier, early adoption doesn't really make sense. And so you're talking a lot about intangibles. And I think that one thing that the switch is really up against for me personally, and maybe there's other people who are in this scenario, but not I understand it's not the biggest segment, but like as the the sort of portable computing segment, you're like steam deck, portable PC, you know, rog, all those guys. As that segment gets better and better and more evolved and more interesting. I feel like the it gets harder for the switch to or the switch period to feel like a very impressive. And I think that it is a market that the switch really like kind of.

• 23:33Griffin McElroy?

  Carved out in a, in a, in a sense, and it really like created a lot of, but I think at this point where we've had so many really solid handheld PCs with more on the way, we're seeing a lot. That's what I've been playing most of. Like that's the Rogue ally X is like the thing I play most. So when I picked up the switch two, it's kind of like, eh, you know,

• 23:53Speaker 03

  I just gotta, I gotta play it out though.

• 23:54Griffin McElroy?

  And it'll end up being worth it when there's a lot of Nintendo games, which is the oldest story.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  Every time you guys say Rogue ally X, I do think you sound like total dweebs though. So. Okay.

• 24:04Russ Frushtick?

  Should you say, I mean, that's.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. If you said Republic of Gamers ally X, I think that would be cool.

• 24:09Griffin McElroy?

  Republican gamer.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  That'd be cool.

• 24:11Griffin McElroy?

  I, I, I mean, I agree with you. There's not a, there still is not going to be a third party title that comes out that I'm going to opt to buy on switch two, uh, over.

• 24:21Russ Frushtick?

  Unless there was like a, I'll give you an example, Virtua Tennis, not announced, but like if you wanted to play multiplayer Virtua Tennis, wouldn't you buy it on switch two and not on other?

• 24:30Griffin McElroy?

  Sure. Yes. You got me in a technicality there. Uh, Russ Bazinga.

• 24:34Speaker 00

  There's just no, it's, it's, it's like, it's hard to talk about because the truth is this, right? If you really like Mario Kart a lot, I think it's, you could know, I don't think you could justify it yet. No, I wouldn't know. Well, when there's a few Nintendo games you like, you can buy it. I mean, it's really, but there is very, very, very little reason to buy this thing right now. I wouldn't buy this thing right now.

• 24:58Speaker 03

  One of the ways I justify it to myself, I'm going to take this on a trip with you guys and tell me if it, if it smells okay. Um, Nintendo doesn't lower the prices. If you wait five years for there to be a whole bunch of first party Nintendo games, guess what? The switch two is going to cost the same dang price. It might even be more expensive with tariffs, et cetera.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  Eh, yeah. I mean.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  They're not going to lower the price.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  And there's a tariff question. Maybe there, maybe it's more expensive in a few months.

• 25:22Griffin McElroy?

  If you don't buy one right now, you're losing.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 25:25Griffin McElroy?

  You're an idiot. You're actually losing money.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:27Griffin McElroy?

  Um, can we spend a little bit of time going through some of the games that we have been planning? I don't think we, I don't know if we're planning on doing like a whole Mario Kart world episode or what, but, um, I, I think that that's probably salient is what we've been planning on.

• 25:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, for sure. I'll, I'll just speak for myself again. I was sort of playing when I could, uh, over summer game fest. Uh, I landed last night, so it's, it's, uh, just trying to fit it in. And I played Mario Kart, as you mentioned. I really enjoyed it. I think the knockout mode in particular, I was really enjoying.

• 26:02Griffin McElroy?

  It's the highlight.

• 26:03Russ Frushtick?

  I think it really stands out. I was a little disappointed by the open world stuff. I was expecting more and I kind of hope that like maybe over time, over the year, they'll like update it with like more challenges and more online, whatever it is. But right now it feels

• 26:18Griffin McElroy?

  It's so weird, man. To find, I didn't, I couldn't find it.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  How do you even get?

• 26:24Griffin McElroy?

  On the title screen, on the title screen.

• 26:26Speaker 00

  I thought the open world was the fact that you could like drive between the different little towns. I figured that's our open world.

• 26:31Griffin McElroy?

  On the title screen, like if you go into like single player or whatever, it's not one of the options there. But on the title screen in the bottom corner, it says press plus for free play, for Free roam and then.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  All right. Well, you guys keep talking. Let me go grab my.

• 26:45Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  It is weirdly hidden for a game where world is in the title and they kind of marketed it this way. I was very surprised that I had to hunt for it.

• 26:56Griffin McElroy?

  But like Force of Horizon, it is not. And I think that the interconnected levels is very novel and it benefits a mode like knockout, which is like a stay above this, this place in, you know, the, in the race. Every time you reach a lap, we're going to knock out, you know, places 20 through 24. So you got to stay ahead of it. And then those laps are just like one on a course and then you seamlessly drive to the next course. So you go through like five and cross the whole country. It's very, very cool. But like, I don't know, without a more, without much more to do in the open world stuff, it feels like a weird thing to kind of anchor the game around that they did

• 27:38Griffin McElroy?

  not sort of put a lot. There are P switch challenges that you can do to earn stickers. You can stick on your car and that is just about the only thing that I've found to do in Free roam.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  Is, I have only played a handful of races and all of the extra costumes I got, I got in Free roam. Are those available if you play just Grand Prix, whipping up food? Or is that only in Free roam?

• 28:00Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know. I got a biker, a biker Luigi, Waluigi costume from playing a Grand Prix. And I think, and then I was like, I'm good. I don't need any.

• 28:09Russ Frushtick?

  I got a crab that I did. I didn't recognize the crab previously, but it's crab.

• 28:14Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, you can be a crab fully in this one. Um, the online works great. I was surprised when you play with, that is the benefit, I think of the Free roam mode is that when you play online, it drops you in a lobby with 23 other people. For me, like every time I've tried, like fairly quickly, and then you get to just kind of cruise around the open world while you wait for them to finish whatever race they're on. And then everyone votes on what they want the next race to be. So you can kind of see like where people are at and cruise around and it's like a, it's, it is a fun little thing to do to spend time while, while you wait.

• 28:45Russ Frushtick?

  It's like the Namco, uh, playing like Gallagher in the load screen.

• 28:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, exactly. But it worked. I mean, it, I, I think the online is, is commendable how much it, how well it works. And I think the tracks are neat. But it, it's, it's hard, I think, to follow Mario Kart 8, which was in many ways like the, like the Super Smash Brothers ultimate of Mario Kart, where it's like, it has fucking everything. It has a hundred tracks and everything you could ever want. Following up on that, I, you know, I, I see why I had to do something different, but.

• 29:16Speaker 00

  Really great looking menus.

• 29:18Griffin McElroy?

  Love the menus.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  That's something that matters a lot.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  Really. My sexual point it out when they had on the TV and he said, it looks really like, I forget the word he used, but he basically said, it looks crisp. I was like, you're right. Like he was just trying to point out how it looked different.

• 29:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it was, you were running it at 720p before and now it's not 720p.

• 29:34Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Um, I really like Welcome Park. I think it's still wild. You have to pay $10 for it.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  It's not wild.

• 29:41Griffin McElroy?

  But, but like, I think you want to talk about the thing that makes you feel like, uh, that was $500 well spent is a $10 little game. It's like, check out every little fucking thing that this little, this little guy can do.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Can we talk about that $10? Like it's still, it seems quite literally like unimaginable to me that they're charging $10 for what is effectively a.

• 30:03Speaker 00

  Please don't buy Welcome Park. Like, whatever we say here, don't get Welcome Park. Don't buy that.

• 30:08Griffin McElroy?

  I welcome Welcome Park.

• 30:09Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin just recommended Welcome Park. He said it's the only reason to spend $500.

• 30:13Griffin McElroy?

  I like, I like tech. I'm not saying, it is insane that it costs $10. It is insane that it is not a free thing, which is the literal norm that has been established by every modern game, you know, company on, on earth. As a person who likes the moment where you get a new technology, a game where you get to turn into a little guy and climb inside the controller and it's like, yeah, this is what the fucking microchips look like on the inside of it. I think that's very neat. I think that that is a very neat experience that is, uh, is somewhat fulfilling as a, I don't know, person who is enthusiastic.

• 30:47Russ Frushtick?

  It is exclusive. Like, I think the positivity would be through the ceiling about Welcome Park if there wasn't a price tag on it. And I know there's like a reputation within Nintendo of like, Reggie claims, this is sort of up in the air in terms of accuracy, but in Reggie's book, he claims that Miyamoto said, "We do not give games away for free." And Reggie convinced him to give Wii Sports away for free, and that's why it blew up in the States. And obviously Reggie died. Sorry, Reggie. So we're here having to charge for-

• 31:17Griffin McElroy?

  Reggie did not die, I do want to say here right now.

• 31:19Russ Frushtick?

  He died in Nintendo. He was-

• 31:22Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 31:22Speaker 03

  In the, in the, no fiction.

• 31:23Russ Frushtick?

  So now we have to pay $10.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  Crazy to have a game that is a tech demo with a cute little guy who's inside the hardware bouncing around for a $500 console. And historians of ye olde times in gaming might recall, uh, the PlayStation 5 had a little free pack-in called Astro's Playroom, which was a cute little guy who bounced around inside the hardware and told you about the cool new features. And the big difference there is I think that was a much better game with higher production value than Welcome Park. And it was the, um, blueprint for the game that won game of the year and swept every single publication last year.

• 32:05Speaker 03

  And Sony gave that away for free.

• 32:07Griffin McElroy?

  Well, you wait for Welcome Park 2 next year, baby. It's gonna blow your fucking mind.

• 32:10Russ Frushtick?

  Oh my god, that little guy that runs around, he's gonna be fucking awesome.

• 32:12Griffin McElroy?

  I, I think that the money question is, is link, lingers over, casts a pretty long shadow over the Switch 2. And like, I know that that is not a conversation that we want to get especially mired in, but I will just say that I think Mario Kart World is pretty fun. I do not think as a first shot across the bow of can $80 be the standard price of our first party games? Uh, I don't think that is the strongest fucking argument for that case because, uh, it's not, it's not, you don't feel, you don't feel that $20 difference. Uh, in the, you know, when you equip the cow skin and switch it to HDR.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  Especially a product that is like better the more people that play.

• 32:57Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  Right? Like the more friends that you have playing Mario Kart, the more valuable Mario Kart is.

• 33:03Russ Frushtick?

  Um. Did anyone else play anything else that like stood out in terms of, those were the two games that I played for what's worth?

• 33:10Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, I've been playing Tears.

• 33:11Russ Frushtick?

  Oh yeah, you mentioned, yeah.

• 33:12Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, it's been just long enough to have forgotten all the puzzles and shit.

• 33:16Russ Frushtick?

  Have you been doing Zelda notes?

• 33:18Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, it's very cool. It truly is. You can, you can connect to your, I don't know how it connects. Uh, but whenever you are playing the game and connected to the internet and you have the Nintendo app on your phone, it will do like a live GPS. Show you exactly where you are and you can see whatever on the map and it will do like voice navigation for you in that updates in real time. Uh, which is very neat.

• 33:41Russ Frushtick?

  Would it let me find all the Koroks?

• 33:43Griffin McElroy?

  It would let you find all the Koroks and let you find all the cave entrances if you wanted to get really filthy about it. Yeah, that's true. I forgot what the nasty boy was doing.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  Griffin, how old was your, how old was your Tears save?

• 33:54Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I started a new one.

• 33:56Speaker 03

  Oh, so.

• 33:57Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, I played at launch. Yeah, 2023, so.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  I had not gone back in. This was kind of surprising to me since August 23. So firing it back up, I kinda, I felt like it was more recent than that, but, um.

• 34:08Griffin McElroy?

  It, it feels fucking great, right? Like I was.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  No, it feels great.

• 34:11Griffin McElroy?

  It, it runs so, so, so, so well and it's like the best game ever. So.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  I think the smoothness is a huge W, but the load times, like the load times in that game were painful and, um. Being able to fire it up and, and, you know, immediately have the game pop up quickly or die and have it pop up quickly. That was really nice. The Zelda notes thing is really cool. I worry that it's a great, um. I don't know, proof of concept for the kinds of things they can do with Nintendo Switch app. I don't know if we're gonna see a lot of that kind of integration.

• 34:41Russ Frushtick?

  Probably not. This felt like it was like, not for free, we don't want to redesign the core internals of the game. So we're gonna kind of halfway it with an app.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  I think that second screen thing is really clever. I mean, they launched a whole console with that in mind. And I, I think adding it is smart. I just, I don't know if they have enough ideas to, to extend it. And if any other third parties are gonna do it. But yeah, I was really impressed with that. And breath of the wild, I did some of the GameCube. Fired up some.

• 35:09Russ Frushtick?

  Oh yeah, how's that?

• 35:10Speaker 03

  Fired up some Wind Waker. I have not, I'd managed to finally order a GameCube controller, but I didn't get it yet.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  I didn't, I wasn't exhausted, but the emulation seems really good. It doesn't, it doesn't seem really compromised. It's fun to get GameCube games on there and I'm excited for them to add more. I would love Luigi's Mansion to be available. You know, for spooky season when you.

• 35:32Russ Frushtick?

  I'll see what, I'll see what I can do.

• 35:34Speaker 00

  You should check out the Rog Ally X.

• 35:36Speaker 03

  I mean, I have a GameCube right here. It's just, it's when it's on the Switch, it's really.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  You want to play with widescreen, up res widescreen?

• 35:45Russ Frushtick?

  Come on. Justin's got some really, really sick shit, man.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  Justin, is that?

• 35:48Speaker 00

  No, it's just like, there's no, I, I mean, the, the truth of the matter is if, if, if Nintendo didn't have a first party. Uh, stable to like fall back on, this is an unimaginable flop. I mean, it is twice as much as like competitive devices that can play a lot more stuff and have a lot more flexibility.

• 36:07Speaker 03

  Hard work standpoint.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  Literally no reason to get that. They are holding it hostage. They're holding Mario and Link hostage in, in their expensive box like, and this, and if you think that I'm like being hyper like, like, like facetious here or. overstating it, they are charging you $10 for the tutorial. They will do anything to get as much money out of you as humanly possible. And I'm saying that like, there's no, this, this, this device, you cannot justify it.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  I'll say this, the, the, compared to the PC gaming portable segment, that's your Rog Allies and your Steam decks and everything else. The Switch one outsold the entire category by a bajillion to one. The forecast on the Switch two are that they're going to continue to outsell the entire portable PC gaming category by many orders of magnitude. So in some cases, this is a popularization of the concept, the super dweebs in the house like you and I. I'm a Steam Deck user, still not, I'm not fully Rogue Ally pilled. But we'll, we'll play that because we have games on Steam and I still would rather spend time and money on Steam library than Nintendo library, even though I will give Nintendo a lot of credit. I went back before the Switch 2 launched and pulled up my op-ed just before the Wii U launched.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  And then I wrote another one just before the Switch launched about how bad Nintendo's online capabilities are and how much.

• 37:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 37:27Speaker 03

  It, it gave me pause with regards to their ability to kind of compete in a modern environment, but also.

• 37:33Griffin McElroy?

  That used to be the Charlie Brown football with us. I feel like even as far back as joystick of like, man, did you hear about this fucking street pass stuff at 3DS? Nintendo's finally figured it out.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  And then that and a Monster Hunter, this is the Monster Hunter that everybody's gonna get into.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  Even the Switch, like if you lost your DS, if you lost your 3DS, if you left your portable console at school or on the bus or wherever, all the games you bought on it were gone. That's insane. That's like a truly insane prospect. And so the Switch changed all that and the Switch 2 changed all that. I think the idea that your library has some, and the fact that your Switch 1 games work through a software layer on Switch 2 and they work better, gives me some confidence that this is a place you can actually put your digital purchases safely and not feel like they're going to disappear in one generation. In the way that I think that's part of why a lot of people stick with Steam because those games you bought in 2007 on Steam are still there.

• 38:26Griffin McElroy?

  It's still like, the stuff all does kind of the same thing, but I do think that there are clearly still two. I mean, there's more than two, but the Rogue Ally X Steam Deck ecosystem is different from the Nintendo Switch ecosystem. Insofar as you can go to Target and buy the Switch and then you turn it on and Mario's like, here's how to put $80 in to get me to take my clothes off. And the Steam Deck, if you are not familiar with that world and you're not familiar with that ecosystem and you are not as savvy about that stuff. You know, it's, it can be a bit imposing, I imagine. And the Rogue even more so. Yes, fuck yeah, man. The stuff you have to

• 39:05Speaker 00

  I just, it's just, you know, with the, with a, with a Nintendo console, you're not paying for horsepower. You're not paying for, like, you're paying for the library and the joy, the pleasure, the whimsy.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  I actually think that this is the first time that you can make a case that Nintendo is really hardware forward.

• 39:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  They're bragging about the specs of this thing. Their entire pre-release cycle was about a spec sheet in a way that it normally is not. In the early readout from your dorks at Digital Foundry, um, you know, once the smart nerds get a hold of it, is that from a hardware standpoint, this thing is more powerful than a Rogue Ally and it is more powerful than a Steam Deck. Um, it won't always be that market will iterate more often than the Switch 2, but for right now, this thing is kind of a beefcake.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  Compared to the Switch one at its launch and certainly compared to some of the other current PC gaming counterparts. Um, what they do with that horsepower, like

• 39:58Speaker 00

  It's just so hard to just, unless you're dying to get back into those old Nintendo, the, the Switch one games though. It's just so hard to justify it. Like there's so little, it feels so cynical that it's really hard. I think to get excited about the launch because it, it feels cynical. It's not my cynicism. It's like, it feels cynical to me.

• 40:17Russ Frushtick?

  Even at the Switch one launch, we were like, you, you should wait, like you had fucking Breath of the Wild and people were still saying, you could, you're fine waiting. Like wait a year, the library will be more filled out. It'll be have more

• 40:29Speaker 00

  You're always fine. Wait. I mean, like, that is a, you know, I want to try to separate like the, my anti-consumer's impulses here from like, I don't, I'm not trying to rain on, on the parade. Like it's always, you could always wait and the prices, the prices are always gonna get better. But as they say at, at the RV store in my town, the price is gonna go up and the kids are gonna grow up. Eventually you just gotta pull the trigger and get it. This one, I just don't know how I, it's, I wish I could justify it. Like I'd love to get excited about it. There's just nothing there.

• 40:58Russ Frushtick?

  Well, it's a good thing you have a podcast about video games. So there's your justification.

• 41:01Griffin McElroy?

  It's fully justified for you. Do not sweat it, man. Like you're good personally. You don't have to worry about that.

• 41:07Speaker 00

  I wish I could justify endorsing.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  Well, as soon as Super Mario Odyssey 2 comes out later this year, I heard it from my uncle, who does definitely work at Nintendo.

• 41:18Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I heard at the end of Bonanza, Donkey Kong gets killed by Mario Odyssey.

• 41:23Griffin McElroy?

  With a hammer.

• 41:23Chris Plante?

  Mario from Mario Odyssey, and then he's like, "November 15th, 2025." And he announces the release date.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's it.

• 41:31Chris Plante?

  So fucking.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  That's the good stuff.

• 41:32Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's so cool. We should take a break.

• 41:35Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, let's take a break.

• 41:36Chris Plante?

  We have been going for a while, and we have Summer Game Fest to talk about. So let's do that.

• 41:43Chris Plante?

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• 42:22Chris Plante?

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• 42:54Chris Plante?

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• 43:20Russ Frushtick?

  So, as I mentioned earlier, I was in California this past weekend for Jeff Keighley and the other gang's Summer Game Fest 2025.

• 43:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, a lot. God, the announcements.

• 43:35Russ Frushtick?

  There's a lot of announcements, a lot of games.

• 43:37Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 43:38Russ Frushtick?

  I didn't play a ton of games, but I did watch a lot of trailers. I don't know. Did you guys follow any of the news? Anything that jumped out to you in particular?

• 43:47Griffin McElroy?

  Well, they're remaking my favorite video game of all time in Persona 4 Revival, which they announced with the trailer that was the equivalent of Atlas saying like, "Yeah, we're doing it. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. It'll be done when it's done. Persona 6 is coming in 2081. Fuck you. It'll be out when it's out." It was 15 seconds of the protagonist running through the fancy, updated streets of Inaba, while one of the songs from Persona played. And for us, for us weirdos, that's all you need.

• 44:16Russ Frushtick?

  Do you want to guess when the actual next sequel will happen?

• 44:20Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, I mean, I don't know in Persona 6.

• 44:22Russ Frushtick?

  Well, because they do say in addition to the trailer that in the letter that they released.

• 44:26Griffin McElroy?

  They put out a statement because I think they knew that this trailer, this thing was so thoroughly pre-revealed via the rumor mill that I think people's expectations were a little bit high. And the trailer really was. I think it's 40 seconds long and it is very, very, very, very little footage to go off of. And so they did put out a statement that was like, "Hey, it's good. We're working on it. Really excited. We know people like this one a lot and we're still working on the next one, too." I think probably it's not going to be until like 2027 that we see Persona 6 at the earliest. And I don't, I think it would be a shock if Revival shows up this year. As excited as that would make me.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  But yeah, I'm glad that that one paid off. Also, Grounded 2.

• 45:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yep.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  Grounded 2 would be, uh, would be awesome.

• 45:14Russ Frushtick?

  Um, the games that jumped out to me when we were watching trailers were, uh, ill. Did you see that trailer for ill?

• 45:22Speaker 03

  It looks sick.

• 45:24Russ Frushtick?

  Looks very cool. It's a scary first person shooter. It looked kind of like, uh, Resident Evil.

• 45:30Speaker 00

  I'm surprised I spoke to you, Russ, because you're usually such a scared guy.

• 45:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I'm not gonna play it. I'll be too scared to play it.

• 45:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, but you like the idea.

• 45:35Russ Frushtick?

  But I like the idea. I thought the visuals were very impressive and it, and it just jumped out at me as like, because they do like weird crowds of zombie babies that, uh, it was just working for me.

• 45:45Speaker 00

  New Resident Evil?

• 45:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  Resident Evil, what's it, Requiem? Is that the name of it?

• 45:50Russ Frushtick?

  I'm gonna go with Resident Evil 9, which I think is a good shorthand.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  I'm, I got a real thing for Resident Evil games, just in general, like historically, but ever since 7 and then Remake 2, um, 3 and then 8, like, they're all so.

• 46:09Speaker 00

  They've all been really good.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  They're all so good. I go back and I like go, I get weird about like completely finding everything, doing all the stuff. Um, so they showed no gameplay, new characters. Is this a continuation of the story? I don't know. I have no idea.

• 46:24Speaker 00

  I think it is.

• 46:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess.

• 46:27Russ Frushtick?

  I will say they showed gameplay at Summer Game Fest in a back theater that was under embargo. So.

• 46:34Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 46:35Russ Frushtick?

  And, and there were aspects of that that I can't share, but I am aware of. Uh, so there's.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  So you're just bragging right now.

• 46:41Russ Frushtick?

  Well, I didn't see the, I didn't see it. I just heard it through my sources.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  Does it have graphics in it?

• 46:47Russ Frushtick?

  So there are graphics and characters and.

• 46:50Speaker 00

  Can you shoot guys?

• 46:51Russ Frushtick?

  Can't say that.

• 46:52Speaker 03

  Come on, Russ.

• 46:53Russ Frushtick?

  No, that's too much.

• 46:54Speaker 00

  You weren't even there. You didn't sign the embargo.

• 46:56Russ Frushtick?

  That's true. Uh, I am optimistic of that one because basically every Resident Evil game released recently has been pretty, at least good, if not great.

• 47:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:07Russ Frushtick?

  If not excellent, some of them have been excellent. So I think they're really being very smart with that franchise in ways that, uh, for many years they weren't.

• 47:16Speaker 00

  Very excited to see Mina the Hollow.

• 47:18Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, hell yeah.

• 47:19Speaker 00

  The next Yacht Club games, the creators of Shovel Knight. It looks a lot like Shovel Knight, but their take on a sort of more top down. What would you say, like almost Zelda?

• 47:29Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it looks like Link's Awakening. I think it's probably the closest analog. You're like a little mouse named Mina, I assume. And there's like a whole open world of dungeons and puzzles and upgrades that you can find for your character. And man, I loved Shovel Knight so much. So I kind of have a lot of faith in this developer to make dope ass shit. I think there's actually a demo, a playable demo on Steam right now. I don't want to play it because demos for games that I really, really want to play seem like spoilers to me. And you know how I feel about spoilers. So, but it was really cool.

• 48:03Speaker 03

  How about Scott Pilgrim? I like everything Tribute Games does. That's my, that's my intro there. And I know it's not a game that didn't like the World on Fire. It was just, it was missing for a while and they just did the re-release last year, but years ago.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  But that scratches it for me. I'll say this, I don't know if my kids have any affection for beat them ups. And like, I don't think it does much for them. And I'm always like, let's play Streets Rage 4. And they're like, no, that's stupid. But it does it for me. So.

• 48:35Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. And this is a new, a fully new game.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 48:38Russ Frushtick?

  It feels like it's borrowing more from River City Ransom.

• 48:43Speaker 03

  As like these RPG elements, yeah.

• 48:45Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Which is cool. I'm into that as well.

• 48:49Speaker 00

  I want to talk about Deadpool.

• 48:52Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. He's the bad boy of Marvel.

• 48:56Speaker 00

  So Deadpool is the bad boy of Marvel and he is back with a new Twisted Adventure in virtual reality. I think it's developed by Twisted Pixel. Pretty sure I'm accurate in that. Does that feel right?

• 49:10Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know actually who developed it.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  There you go. In concern still?

• 49:13Speaker 00

  I think I'm right.

• 49:14Speaker 03

  I'm a Google.

• 49:15Speaker 00

  Twisted Pixel, yeah. Okay.

• 49:18Russ Frushtick?

  What, what other games for to remind the people what Twisted Pixel has worked on?

• 49:22Speaker 00

  So Twisted Pixel did, uh, Wavy Tube Man Chronicles and Wilson's Heart.

• 49:29Russ Frushtick?

  Explosion Man.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  Lococycle and Explosion Man and they've, I'm looking at their website now and they've done some other games that I was not aware of, like Path of the Warrior, Defector and B Team. And then this, now we got Deadpool VR and, um, it's a new Wade for a new day. Neil Patrick Harris is taking over, uh, as Wade Wilson. And I just want to know how everybody feels about this. Do we feel betrayed? Or I want to talk to my biggest Deadpool guys and just see where we're at.

• 49:56Russ Frushtick?

  I'm just glad that, uh, Mint Mobile's doing okay. Uh, and clearly it's doing okay to the point where he can just set it aside and be like, yeah, you can get the scraps, Neil. You're good.

• 50:04Griffin McElroy?

  Ryan's going through a lot right now.

• 50:06Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 50:07Griffin McElroy?

  And so sometimes when that happens, you need a friend to step in and pick up some of the slack. So.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  Usually though, being Deadpool is his outlet. You know what I mean? That's where he works through.

• 50:17Russ Frushtick?

  Now, do you think?

• 50:19Speaker 00

  It's behind the.

• 50:20Russ Frushtick?

  Do you think in classic Deadpool fashion, Neil Patrick Harris will allude to the fact that he is not what people think of when?

• 50:27Griffin McElroy?

  I bet we'll get.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  There is, hey dude, there's no way, there's no way that he is going to refer to the fact that there's usually a different guy doing the Deadpool voice. No way. I will bust up so.

• 50:39Russ Frushtick?

  He for sure will, he will say that and you're going to be busting. Just.

• 50:43Speaker 03

  There was a whole, there was a whole, Brian Reynolds already made like a joke video about the whole thing. I, I imagine this is just going to run in gag for a while.

• 50:51Russ Frushtick?

  You're going to have a good time, Justin. Good news.

• 50:53Speaker 00

  That's good.

• 50:54Russ Frushtick?

  Worry not.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  That's good.

• 50:55Russ Frushtick?

  I played a game, uh, I played a game. Did you have anything more to say about the work with the math?

• 51:01Speaker 00

  No, I'll, no, no, thank you.

• 51:03Russ Frushtick?

  I played a game called Art is Rifle. This was at the, uh, it's called the Mix or the Indie Mix, I guess. Uh, it's like a collection of indie developers showing their stuff. And I have no fucking idea how this game is played. I tried playing it and enjoyed shooting paint around.

• 51:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it looks like if Antichamber was like a fun.

• 51:24Russ Frushtick?

  Game.

• 51:25Griffin McElroy?

  Game.

• 51:27Russ Frushtick?

  Sorry.

• 51:28Griffin McElroy?

  I love anti-chamber, but this looks like if anti-chamber was also tried.

• 51:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Yeah, it looks fucking sick. Uh, yeah, it's, it's, uh, all these hard lines and, and weird. Yeah. Anti-chamber is a good analogy. It's on Steam. You can look it up, uh, the screenshots of it. Uh, I have no, again, no idea how it's played. I was stuck in an area. I assume there are puzzles and color probably plays a big part, which might, uh, preclude me from enjoying myself. But what I, uh, did play was encouraging.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  I'm excited about the idea of Killer In, which is a, a social deduction.

• 51:59Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  It looks like there has been a murder and you're like trying to figure out with a bunch of other people. It looks a little like vibes wise, not vibes wise, but like, uh, it, it, it seems a little bit like after the, the shooting has happened, like after the action has happened, you're kind of like trying to put the pieces together. It's not super specific, but it looks like a really neat idea from the, the trailer. So I'd like to check more of that out.

• 52:21Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I'm excited to play the Liza P some more. I never finished it, but now there's DLC and it's out now.

• 52:27Russ Frushtick?

  Apparently the DLC is too hard for even Liza P's sickos. They've been complaining.

• 52:31Griffin McElroy?

  Sucks, cause I am not one of those.

• 52:33Russ Frushtick?

  So they are patching it to make it easier. So maybe it's a good thing that we haven't played it yet. Uh, but I am excited about that as well. Uh.

• 52:40Griffin McElroy?

  What was this Lego game? I didn't actually watch the trailer for, uh, Lego Voyagers.

• 52:44Speaker 00

  Hey, watch it while we're just sitting here. It looks really interesting. It's like you're, it's sort of following a, a piece, like a Lego piece more literally.

• 52:51Russ Frushtick?

  Actually, you're confusing that with the other Lego game.

• 52:56Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, there were two Lego games. Sorry to interrupt, but there were two Lego games announced.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  How did you psychically know?

• 53:01Russ Frushtick?

  Because we're looking at the rundown.

• 53:04Speaker 00

  Okay. Got it.

• 53:06Russ Frushtick?

  The, a good question though. Uh, talk about your.

• 53:08Griffin McElroy?

  Oh no. Yeah. No, I was talking about Lego Voyagers.

• 53:10Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, so I was wrong.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Oh, you are. So one of us is a clown who knows my brother better than the other one. And it turns out it's me. Wow. I know Griffin better. Weird.

• 53:19Griffin McElroy?

  There is a game called Lego Party and I didn't even know that that was a thing. What is that, Russ?

• 53:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. You seem like such a big fan of it.

• 53:26Russ Frushtick?

  I am. It was on the rundown. I was such a big fan. Uh, Lego Party is Mario Party, but with Lego and a little less bullshit. But if you like Mario Party and less bullshit in Mario Party, uh, I really found that quite enjoyable.

• 53:37Griffin McElroy?

  Play warrior wear. This does, this Voyagers game looks cute though. You are like a little piece and you're just going around and you're building stuff and you're solving puzzles with a friend.

• 53:45Speaker 00

  It's like, it's like Deadpool VR, but with Lego.

• 53:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I mean, I get excited about games where I'm like, yeah, that's that Henry will definitely want to play that. And this seems like one of those for sure. Uh, and Deadpool VR.

• 54:01Speaker 03

  You know what other game Henry might be into? I was thinking.

• 54:04Griffin McElroy?

  What's that?

• 54:05Speaker 03

  There's a new Wu-Tang game coming out and.

• 54:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  That was cool as hell.

• 54:10Griffin McElroy?

  Henry's really excited for that.

• 54:11Speaker 03

  At some point, you have to introduce him to Wu-Tang and I'm not sure. Different parents, different styles. I'm not going to tell you when, but you know, it's good to know it'll be there when he's ready.

• 54:21Griffin McElroy?

  We do a sort of like when Rachel was still pregnant, we would put Wu-Tang up to the belly.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:25Griffin McElroy?

  And so there would be like, that way, when they were ready for it, they would have some, the lattice work would be there.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 54:32Griffin McElroy?

  Some of the support systems.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  The scaffolding is there for them to clip right into the 36 chambers. That's good. It does look fun though.

• 54:39Speaker 00

  Also, La Chiffre from Casino Royale has come to Hitman, which is very confusing. I don't know why they did that. It's very confusing.

• 54:47Griffin McElroy?

  La Chiffre, the bad guy from the Mads Mikkelsen, bad guy from Casino Royale who cries blood.

• 54:53Speaker 00

  He's going to be a high value target in Hitman.

• 54:56Griffin McElroy?

  God bless you. God bless you, Hitman. Keep doing your thing, man.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  I want to, okay, Hitman, if we're doing it, let's fucking do it, dude. Let me hunt Freddy Krueger. Give me the tools to hunt Frederick Krueger.

• 55:08Griffin McElroy?

  I thought it was going to be fully like, let's do a James Bond Hitman game. I thought that's.

• 55:12Speaker 00

  They are already mixing the media. Let's get Sub-Zero in there. Let me hunt Sub-Zero.

• 55:16Russ Frushtick?

  Cause all the Hitman missions happen with like people just going about their day to day. So like, just like checking him out and trying to take him out while he's like at the library, checking out books would be fucking awesome.

• 55:27Speaker 03

  I got a better one. Let's do Freddy Fazbear and we could just mix, get the, get the kids, get the, you know, get the gens, the zoomers, the alpha gen kids on, on Hitman. At some point you got to bridge.

• 55:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 55:40Speaker 00

  Let's do, let's do Hitman versus It Follows.

• 55:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 55:44Speaker 00

  And it's like, you don't know who the target is until you see someone walking all weird and then you shoot them.

• 55:49Speaker 03

  Social deduction game. I like this.

• 55:51Russ Frushtick?

  But it might be.

• 55:51Speaker 00

  deduction game, like Spy Party 2.

• 55:53Russ Frushtick?

  But that might be Hitman disguised as It Follows.

• 55:55Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure. It's a, this thing's got legs and layers.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  You call it, you call it Hit Follows. Cause it's like Hitman.

• 56:02Griffin McElroy?

  You would call it that, Chris Grant. Fuck yeah, man.

• 56:04Speaker 03

  That, um, I want to talk about the game that wasn't at Summer Games, and it's driving me crazy because I feel like there, I don't, torture is a strong word. I don't want to use it lightly, but I feel like there is an abuse going on with a certain games community.

• 56:19Speaker 03

  From a certain developer, and that is Hollow Knight, specifically Silk Song.

• 56:24Russ Frushtick?

  It actually was at, it was at Game Fest, by the way.

• 56:28Griffin McElroy?

  It was to a certain extent. It was showed on a screen at the Xbox event.

• 56:32Speaker 03

  That's what they keep doing. This is the torture. And when's it coming out? It's coming out later. Check us out.

• 56:38Russ Frushtick?

  They said this year.

• 56:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure.

• 56:41Russ Frushtick?

  They did. They said this year.

• 56:42Griffin McElroy?

  That's adorable.

• 56:43Russ Frushtick?

  And it's confirmed.

• 56:43Griffin McElroy?

  So wild. I made a joke in the Slack chat when it showed up on, on a screen and was like, what if this was the only Hollow Knight Silk Song that we got during this thing?

• 56:55Russ Frushtick?

  Or ever, for that matter.

• 56:56Griffin McElroy?

  Or, or ever, yeah. What if this is the last time we got to see it? Yeah, no, it's wild that that's, that's not more of a known quantity at this point.

• 57:03Russ Frushtick?

  Even Deadpool made fun of Hollow Knight.

• 57:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. He's nothing sacred to that guy.

• 57:10Speaker 00

  Was that in the Deadpool VR trailer? I missed it, man.

• 57:12Russ Frushtick?

  It might've been in Jeff Keeley's promo for it.

• 57:16Russ Frushtick?

  Real quick, Griffin, I'm surprised you mentioned Stranger Than Heaven, which is the Yakuza in like nineteen, various decades in Japan.

• 57:25Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, was that at the, the KIWI event?

• 57:28Russ Frushtick?

  They showed a new trailer for it. I don't remember which.

• 57:29Griffin McElroy?

  I didn't catch, I didn't catch all of those.

• 57:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah. Stranger Than Heaven looks very cool. It was originally called Project Century.

• 57:36Griffin McElroy?

  Ah, okay.

• 57:37Russ Frushtick?

  And I think it was, I think the idea is that you're gonna see Yakuza through different time periods.

• 57:43Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, fuck yeah. This looks rad.

• 57:44Russ Frushtick?

  Fucking sick. And there's.

• 57:45Griffin McElroy?

  This looks really cool.

• 57:47Russ Frushtick?

  Jazz in it.

• 57:47Griffin McElroy?

  Hey, man. Thanks. You're a good games journalist. Cause I didn't know that, and now I do.

• 57:52Russ Frushtick?

  I try. A couple more to wrap it up. Mixtape looks very cool. That's from the Artful Escape developer. I don't know if you guys played that game, but that game.

• 58:01Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:01Speaker 00

  Oh, God, I love Artful Escape. It's fantastic.

• 58:05Russ Frushtick?

  Moonlighter 2, which is obviously the sequel to Moonlighter. I think that also has a demo on Steam. That looks fucking sick. Luminesce Arise is.

• 58:14Griffin McElroy?

  You're kidding.

• 58:16Russ Frushtick?

  Luminesce is back, baby.

• 58:18Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 58:19Russ Frushtick?

  It's got chameleons in it.

• 58:22Russ Frushtick?

  It looks fucking sick. It's obviously made by the developers of Tetris Effect. And then the last game, which I wasn't expecting, especially because it's named so forgettably, is called Crimson Desert. Crimson Desert is, basically looks like a medieval game, but with the gameplay of Breath of the Wild, and you are a single knight, I guess. And, but there's a war going on, but you are not part of the war. The war is like between two factions and you are like an outside element to that war. And so you have all like Breath of the Wild tools and grappling hooks and such, so on and so forth. And you're going through pretty gorgeous like medieval environments as they're fucking like duking it out.

• 59:06Russ Frushtick?

  And I guess trying to like complete missions and stuff, but I thought it looked really neat.

• 59:10Griffin McElroy?

  This looks sick, yeah. I thought it was a massively multiplayer online game, just because the name of it.

• 59:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think it is developed by a team that traditionally makes MMOs, but this is not.

• 59:21Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, okay.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  Well, it's from Black, it's, it's from the Black Desert people, right? So I'm assuming it's a.

• 59:27Griffin McElroy?

  Is it from that? It is, you're right, okay.

• 59:30Speaker 00

  So I'm assuming it's part of the Desert verse.

• 59:32Griffin McElroy?

  That's great. I love that there's a Desert verse.

• 59:35Speaker 00

  I invented that just now. It may not be a Desert verse.

• 59:38Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, now there's two games in the Desert verse.

• 59:39Griffin McElroy?

  They're making it happen. Two games with Desert and I'm like, now I have a Desert verse.

• 59:44Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, I think that's basically it. We covered a lot of ground. Grant, anything you want to mention in honorable mentions before we close it out? Could be a game, could be a book, could be a piece of machinery that you're using.

• 59:56Griffin McElroy?

  TV, movie, whatever.

• 59:57Speaker 03

  Two fun games I've been planning, I didn't get to. One, it's this JRPG influenced, it's not Japanese though. Game and it has like this really cool innovative parry system that everyone's been talking about.

• 1:00:14Griffin McElroy?

  Is it called Clear or Obscure?

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  No, it's not, it's Sea of Stars. Great game.

• 1:00:21Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, I thought this was setting up a bit and it was.

• 1:00:24Speaker 03

  Sea of Stars, just got a new DLC that came out. It's like eight to 10 hours. I'm not that far into it yet, but that's what they say. And it's excellent. And since I played it last, it has now three player couch co-op. So you can just hop into it with your buzz, your fam, right from the couch. The. The base game was excellent. So if you haven't played it, but now there's a whole new expansion. The expansion also costs Nintendo zero dollars. Which is nice. So.

• 1:00:54Griffin McElroy?

  Do you need to, uh, is it one of those things where it picks up at the end of like a finished save file? Or can you like start it from scratch and just?

• 1:01:01Speaker 03

  I think you need to save file.

• 1:01:02Griffin McElroy?

  I guess this is it's.

• 1:01:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's a certain chunk of the game we have to get to. I had beat the game, so I loaded up for my end game save and went that way.

• 1:01:10Griffin McElroy?

  I forget which platform I beat it on, so I was struggling to remember.

• 1:01:13Speaker 03

  Um, so there's that. And I've also been playing Solaco, which just, um, had a big patch come out. And if you were playing Doom and just want to scratch more Doom itch, it's, um, it has a decidedly old school look, but it plays. Like a really honor game. They've been in a long early access period and they've been changing a lot. Um, and there's more stuff to come, but, um, I've found it.

• 1:01:37Griffin McElroy?

  Is it an aliens game?

• 1:01:38Speaker 03

  No, it's just an indie kind of old school boomer shooter FPS. Um, but it, they do a really good.

• 1:01:46Griffin McElroy?

  I thought that was the name of the ship from, uh.

• 1:01:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think it's a nod to that.

• 1:01:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:51Russ Frushtick?

  They don't have the rights or anything, but.

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  Um, but yeah, great game, a lot of fun and it scratches that itch. And I've been going in and just kind of getting all the secrets and. Min maxing my runs through the levels and good stuff.

• 1:02:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Speaker 03

  I like video games.

• 1:02:05Russ Frushtick?

  Chris Grant, you would like a game that we played, uh, like six months ago with the hook shots and grappling and sliding on a hoverboard whose name I don't remember. Does anyone here remember that name?

• 1:02:15Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 1:02:16Griffin McElroy?

  No, I don't. I simply don't. I simply don't.

• 1:02:19Speaker 03

  I'll go back and listen to every Bessie's episode.

• 1:02:21Russ Frushtick?

  That would be the best way to do it.

• 1:02:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I don't think that's too much to ask.

• 1:02:24Russ Frushtick?

  I finished Andor season two, which was very good.

• 1:02:27Griffin McElroy?

  Don't spoil anything. Don't even say that it's good, Russ, because if you say that it's good, I'm gonna know exactly what happens at the end of it.

• 1:02:33Russ Frushtick?

  No, that's fair. I think that's a fair critique. I won't. I won't do it.

• 1:02:36Griffin McElroy?

  It's fucking great though, right?

• 1:02:37Russ Frushtick?

  That's, yes, it's, it's very, it's very good. I was, I was very, uh, engaged with it. I also didn't realize that Dedra Miro, who's one of the stars of the show, is also the voice of Yennefer from Witcher three.

• 1:02:51Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:52Russ Frushtick?

  She's, she's making it happen. Good for, good for Dedra Miro. That's not her real name. That's the character's name.

• 1:02:58Griffin McElroy?

  No.

• 1:02:59Russ Frushtick?

  Anyone else have anything? Uh, Justin?

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  Uh, you know what? I set up, um, the GeForce Nvidia streaming, uh, which I messed around with a couple of years ago and didn't do much with, but I, I set it back up now. The GeForce Now, uh, set it up and, uh, I set it up on the

• 1:03:22Speaker 00

  Steam Deck, uh, just as a, uh, I don't have anything like installed on it now. So I wanted to set it up for streaming. And, uh, it works really, really well. I, I, it has evolved to a point where it is, uh, it works really great. Um, and it's also the front end will let you tie in your like game subscriptions. So your, your Steam, your, uh, uh, other, whatever other games you have like cloud access to Epic Game Store, whatever. And then you can play them from that main hub. So it kind of like turns all of your library into a, a streaming, uh, setup and it works really well. The lag is almost unnoticed and you can play a ton of stuff, just like right on the Steam Deck.

• 1:04:04Speaker 00

  Um, so that's, that's, uh, very convenient and it works super duper well.

• 1:04:09Russ Frushtick?

  What is that called again?

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  Very GeForce Now.

• 1:04:13Griffin McElroy?

  Um, we finished, uh, Devil's Plan, season two, fucking rules. Uh, I, we also finished, uh, rehearsal season two. And I do want to just, uh, second Russ's full-throated endorsement of that. It's a rough ride at times, but it is also the most ambitious comedy thing I think I've ever seen. Uh, and it's also like thought provoking in a very genuine way that, uh, has really left it stuck in my craw for, I don't know, like five days after we finished it.

• 1:04:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Griffin McElroy?

  Um, uh, and yeah, I've been playing something else that is not, we can't talk about yet, but, uh, and then a bunch of Switch two shit. Clubhouse games. Clubhouse games on the Switch. Played that on the Switch two a little bit. Mostly because I watched, uh, Devil's Plan and they played some Munkhala on there. And I was like, oh yeah, hell man. I'd love to tear up some Munkhala. I have ways of doing that now.

• 1:05:04Russ Frushtick?

  You can just find some stones, set up some cups.

• 1:05:07Griffin McElroy?

  I guess I can make my own Munkhala board. Sure. I guess.

• 1:05:11Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, I think we did it. I wanted to thank Chris Grant for joining us.

• 1:05:16Speaker 03

  It was a pleasure to be here. It just took us not working together anymore to get an invite. No big deal. I wasn't counting the days or anything. It's fine. It's not a big deal. I'm not so.

• 1:05:24Russ Frushtick?

  It's cool. You were, you were working in my heart.

• 1:05:27Speaker 00

  No big deal. Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm so happy that you're here, Chris, to podcast with you is a real gift. So thank you.

• 1:05:34Griffin McElroy?

  We left it all out on the court today, man, and we did it for you. Um, because we did it because we wanted to do a good job for you, boss. So.

• 1:05:41Speaker 03

  You know what? Let's just keep this one for me, personal, private stash, and we'll do a whole other episode for the.

• 1:05:47Griffin McElroy?

  Your own vintage. Yeah.

• 1:05:49Russ Frushtick?

  I also want to thank our Patreon over at patreon.com slash the besties. We have some new members that have recently joined us. We have Lindsay, we have Duncan, we have Andrina. I hope I pronounced that right. And Jamison, thank you for bringing, uh, members over at the besties. You can go over to, did I say it already? Patreon.com slash the besties? I've heard, I'm sure.

• 1:06:07Griffin McElroy?

  You can't say it too many times.

• 1:06:08Russ Frushtick?

  You can't say it too many times. Yeah, actually, three is too many. So I hope I didn't hit three. Okay, next week, uh, we are gonna keep it vague for y'all, uh, because we're still kind of figuring out the whole plan. But, uh, at the very least, I guarantee at least one game will be discussed. Is that fair to say?

• 1:06:25Griffin McElroy?

  Wow.

• 1:06:25Russ Frushtick?

  Guaranteed.

• 1:06:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, man, I think we can pretty much offer that, um, for all of our episodes. I do think we've at least hit on one game at some point in the, in the runtime.

• 1:06:35Russ Frushtick?

  I also know that I'm going to be playing a switch that isn't owned by Jason Schreier. So that is something that I'm really looking forward to because he got his meaty grips all over that guy.

• 1:06:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, wet.

• 1:06:44Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it wasn't wet. They were, they were meaty. It was a meaty switch.

• 1:06:48Griffin McElroy?

  It was wet when I did it. Please take us out of the show, Justin.

• 1:06:53Speaker 00

  Thank you. That's gonna do it for us this week. Be sure to join us. See you next week for the besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?

• 1:07:27Speaker 00

  Besties.