Revisiting our "Most Anticipated Games" of 2024

This week, the Besties pay tribute to the words of the great Huey Lewis and "gotta get back in time." How does their list of anticipated games from January look in the harsh light of November? Listen to find out!

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

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  I was making myself a deli sandwich for lunch today.

• 0:03Griffin McElroy?

  Oh.

• 0:04Russ Frushtick?

  And I didn't have any tomatoes. I didn't have any lettuce, but I did have some coleslaw from like four days ago. Can I just slop that on there?

• 0:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, man.

• 0:13Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah.

• 0:14Griffin McElroy?

  Slaws. That's when it starts to get good.

• 0:16Russ Frushtick?

  Do I need to like, is there a presentation or do I just like spoon it on?

• 0:22Speaker 02

  No, no, no. Ain't no laws when you're slopping slaws. That's what I say.

• 0:26Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I've heard that.

• 0:27Speaker 02

  That's my thing. You just put them on there however you like.

• 0:30Russ Frushtick?

  And I phrase it as a question, but this is already something that has happened. I just went ahead and like ice cream scooped out some slaw and plopped it on the sandwich.

• 0:37Griffin McElroy?

  I tell you what my issue is, is four days is a little too late to be fresh slaw and a lot too early to be fresh kimchi. I think if you had just put it in a jar underground for a few months, then we have some, mm, now we got kimchi.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Come back and got a holiday pudding.

• 0:58Griffin McElroy?

  Got a holiday pudding of kimchi. You kind of hit no man's and no man's land lasts for several months.

• 1:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:04Griffin McElroy?

  Basically anything after, I mean, if you don't eat slaw more than one day.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  It's like that thing with meat where nobody quite understands this, even if they pretend they do. But if you got a big hunk of meat, it gets old and then that's not good. But then if you wait a long time.

• 1:19Griffin McElroy?

  Come back around.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  Come back around. Everybody's like, this is okay.

• 1:23Russ Frushtick?

  Well, because all the bacteria of old age, they've died. So they're dead now.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Fuck, Russ, you're gone, man. Yeah.

• 1:31Griffin McElroy?

  Of course.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  I know, Russ. It was just a joke for the podcast.

• 1:34Griffin McElroy?

  Wait, but I actually. Hold on. I don't think, I don't think Russ is right.

• 1:38Russ Frushtick?

  I actually don't think that's accurate.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Russ is saying exactly how it works. That's a hundred percent. It gets old.

• 1:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, but when.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  And the bacteria dies, I bet.

• 1:46Chris Plante?

  They all die.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  That's how it happens. We all know this.

• 1:49Russ Frushtick?

  Wouldn't there be new, wouldn't there be new bacteria to be like, yo, this is some jerky over here. Eat this jerky.

• 1:54Griffin McElroy?

  Sterile.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  You can't exactly how it, how it goes, Russ. That's the process a hundred percent side difficulty.

• 2:00Russ Frushtick?

  Arid, sterile beef.

• 2:02Chris Plante?

  Well, I'm glad you ate four day old egg juice. That'll go over well.

• 2:06Russ Frushtick?

  Egg juice? It's coleslaw.

• 2:08Chris Plante?

  It's mayonnaise.

• 2:09Griffin McElroy?

  They're.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Ain't much in this life I hate more than slaw guys. There's not much in this. I mean a real mayonnaisey slaw. If you get me a nice real hearty on heavy on the cabbage. Lightly sauced slaw, heavy on the red cabbage.

• 2:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Delicious.

• 2:25Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, let's call it what it is. Small wet salad is what slaw is. It's a little, little wet, very wet salad.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  When it's more, when it's more of a, sometimes the salad part gets perverted to mean like mayonnaise, a lot of it.

• 2:37Russ Frushtick?

  Too much.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  I don't like that.

• 2:38Chris Plante?

  You all feel when I start talking about poopy and stuff.

• 2:42Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah, man. Absolutely. We've been meaning to stage an intervention.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Do you like slaws?

• 2:46Russ Frushtick?

  It sounds like you don't like slaws.

• 2:47Chris Plante?

  This is the opposite. This is, this is, you're destroying me right now. It feels like my, my skin is like chafing off of my body.

• 2:57Russ Frushtick?

  Carrots and lettuce and some mayonnaise.

• 2:58Chris Plante?

  No, not just like eating stuff, but just talking about slaw. You know what? I can eat it, put it next to some like fried chicken and like, you know, I'm at KFC. But you want me to think, you want me to think about you. Here's what you, here's what you're trying to make me think about.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:13Chris Plante?

  Here's the image that you're putting into the eyes of, of all of our listeners. They're trying to speed down.

• 3:16Griffin McElroy?

  And no, and no video game stuff this week, gang. It's just about slaw.

• 3:19Chris Plante?

  No, no, we're not getting into it. They're speeding down the speedway.

• 3:21Russ Frushtick?

  This isn't even the show.

• 3:22Chris Plante?

  And, and, and they are now picturing a, a bucket, a giant bucket, like a pool cleaning tab full of bucket.

• 3:28Russ Frushtick?

  It's a pint. To be fair, it's a pint.

• 3:30Chris Plante?

  Okay, a pint of, of, of rotten mayo.

• 3:34Russ Frushtick?

  It's not rotten. It's four days.

• 3:36Chris Plante?

  On, on, on, in, in like almost creamed vegetables that you are plopping down onto two slices of white bread with nothing else. Your slaw sandwich. That's what you're trying to make people think about.

• 3:47Russ Frushtick?

  There's salami on there.

• 3:49Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, well, that's fine.

• 3:50Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're good.

• 3:51Chris Plante?

  Okay, well, let's talk about the show.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best gifts of the year.

• 4:14Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin McElroy and I would kill for some fucking slaw right about now.

• 4:20Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best things of the week.

• 4:25Russ Frushtick?

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

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and the greatest in home interactive entertainment. This is a video game club and just by listening, my young friend, you have become a member.

• 4:41Russ Frushtick?

  And I think we need to tell the people.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:43Russ Frushtick?

  That we're recording this a little early.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:46Russ Frushtick?

  It is November 2022. So if anything has happened since then, we don't know about it.

• 4:51Griffin McElroy?

  So that's true.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you're saying we're recording this two years.

• 4:56Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, we knew we would need an episode for this day.

• 4:59Griffin McElroy?

  You said 2022.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  You said 2022.

• 5:02Griffin McElroy?

  That's not this year, you know?

• 5:04Russ Frushtick?

  Correct. Yeah. It's two years ago. I mean, I mean, no, no, no. Sorry. It's two years. It's today. Two years in the future, this episode is going to be.

• 5:13Griffin McElroy?

  It's a lot of lore. A lot of lore.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Lore to drop in the show. This is feels more cold open, but we whizzed past cold open station a bit years ago.

• 5:24Griffin McElroy?

  You confuse the word months with years and now you're just kind of stubbornly sticking to your guns.

• 5:30Chris Plante?

  Not since From has this much intrigue.

• 5:33Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know what From is. Is that a television show that'll launch it to you?

• 5:36Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, wow. That's cool.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  No, actually you do know what From is and you think it is wild.

• 5:41Griffin McElroy?

  And it's also great. You're doing this on an episode where we are talking about something that happened earlier in the year 2024. We are returning to events discussed in this.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  It is an early episode. Okay. We're recording it before you're hearing it, which is the way always. So it doesn't even really bear hanging a lantern on. Okay.

• 5:59Griffin McElroy?

  It doesn't.

• 6:00Russ Frushtick?

  Too late.

• 6:00Chris Plante?

  Hey, should I tell people?

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:02Chris Plante?

  This week we are doing two things for you. One, we're looking back at the predictions that we made at the beginning of 2024 and reflecting on. How do we get them right? Do we nail them? Were we way off base yet again? Because I believe last year we like whiffed hard. This year? We'll see. Then in the back half of the episode, we are going to be your. Holiday helpers.

• 6:27Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 6:28Chris Plante?

  We are going to help you pick the perfect treats for the gamers in your life, whether that is parents, friends, kids, the secret Santa at your office, whoever it is, we have them covered. And yeah, we'll talk about it when we talk about it.

• 6:45Griffin McElroy?

  Let's go.

• 6:48Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, how do we think we did? Before we look at the list of like, how do we think we did this year? In terms of guessing with like, the games that we would really be impressed by.

• 6:57Griffin McElroy?

  Sure, sure. I'm gonna go ahead and admit this, because I'm a big enough man to admit when I put up some real stinky bricks. And I think that my hit rate was low and my miss rate was incredibly high. I think a lot of my favorite games of the year, I did not clock. When did we record this? Was this at the beginning? Was this like January?

• 7:16Russ Frushtick?

  January, the first episode of the year usually.

• 7:18Griffin McElroy?

  So it's possible some of my highlights were not announced yet, I guess. That is entirely possible. But yeah, I'm, I'm, I feel like I might have gotten some things right.

• 7:27Russ Frushtick?

  I, I think what's working against us here is it's a year where there have been a lot of games that didn't have any exposure really until launch. Bellatro is a good example, that we never ever would have been like, oh, we gotta watch out for that game. So a lot of the games on this list are like bigger games. And it wasn't necessarily, I mean, there's some good ones, but it wasn't necessarily the best year for big, big games.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  It's gotten, it's gotten increasingly difficult, I think also to know what is a big game. Like increasingly, it feels like without the big marketing push.

• 8:01Russ Frushtick?

  Gigs, I'm talking gigs.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Leading up to it.

• 8:05Chris Plante?

  Gigs? You're a hundred gigs or less?

• 8:07Russ Frushtick?

  That's a big game.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  I don't get out of bed for less than a hundred gigs.

• 8:13Chris Plante?

  I think we, I bet we did pretty okay.

• 8:16Griffin McElroy?

  Can we address, I guess, we're gonna go line item, right?

• 8:18Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 8:18Griffin McElroy?

  Talk about the, before we do that, can we talk about the games that are missing off of here? That you feel like, uh, obviously, I don't think any of us would have said Bellatro, just because we didn't know what that word was or what it meant.

• 8:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yep.

• 8:32Griffin McElroy?

  But it, it, it has certainly, ever since it came out, it's doing this. Brutal thing to me that I feel like has only happened a couple of times in the past where a game comes out on one platform and I play it a lot. And then later in that same year, it comes out on another platform. And I'm like, oh, I guess I'll refresh my memory of how much I really enjoy this game. It's really bookended the year quite savagely for me.

• 8:56Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I haven't tried it on mobile specifically for that reason, but I hear it's spectacular.

• 9:01Griffin McElroy?

  So, so, so good.

• 9:03Chris Plante?

  We didn't have Metaphor on here and I'm a little surprised by that.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  Maybe we couldn't remember the name of it in the moment.

• 9:11Chris Plante?

  That's entirely possible.

• 9:13Speaker 02

  No, none of us want to admit it.

• 9:14Griffin McElroy?

  When was it announced? Was it announced this year?

• 9:19Chris Plante?

  But okay, let's start, let's start going through the list because yeah, I, I, I thought that we probably did well and looking at it, we did do pretty well. Because the year was front loaded. So when I, I will just start from the top, Dragon's Dogma 2. Has that one gotten any luck?

• 9:40Russ Frushtick?

  It has for one person.

• 9:41Chris Plante?

  It has for me.

• 9:42Griffin McElroy?

  No, from Capcom, I mean, has they, has, my position on Dragon's Dogma 2 is there's a lot of stuff I really, really like in here. And then some stuff that makes me want to pull my fucking hair out. And it seems like the stuff that makes me want to pull my fucking hair out could be addressed.

• 9:56Russ Frushtick?

  It's stuff that Chris Plante loves, so.

• 9:58Griffin McElroy?

  Well, no, I'm talking about like technical, like if I could play this thing on Steam Deck reliably, like I would give it a fair.

• 10:03Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I don't know if they fixed that or ever will, but I, it does sound like they've done quite a bit of patches and even added some quality of life improvements.

• 10:13Russ Frushtick?

  Still all ladders. They're still pulling out the ladders.

• 10:16Chris Plante?

  A lot of ladders, but I.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Backtracking still.

• 10:19Chris Plante?

  I feel good about that. As the person who was looking forward to that game, I am really happy with what I got.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  My take is you can't say it didn't deliver on what you wanted Dragon's Dogma 2 to have in it.

• 10:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yep.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  They had that.

• 10:32Chris Plante?

  It's so true. If you wanted more Dragon's Dogma, they made that for you.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  I changed. Dragon's Dogma didn't. I did. I like this guy a little bit better than I used to, it seems. I didn't, I didn't expect it either. But Dragon's Dogma is Dragon's Dogma ass Dragon's Dogma game, no question.

• 10:51Griffin McElroy?

  Games can teach you that.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  The games can teach you that. They help you learn. And not just Mavis Beacon, lots of games.

• 10:57Griffin McElroy?

  Lots of games.

• 10:58Chris Plante?

  Yeah, my, I know my other big one was Unicorn Overlord, which was made by the people who made 13 Sentinels and other games that I adore. I, I should have known that it wouldn't be my sort of game because it is a hardcore tactics game. And that ultimately was a huge barrier for me.

• 11:19Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, as a lover of hardcore tactics games, I found this game to be not fun personally.

• 11:25Chris Plante?

  I know that people who got in deep got in, but Griffin, how, did you dive into it?

• 11:29Griffin McElroy?

  I think, I think, no, not beyond, you know, when we talked about it on the show. There's, there's a lot of, again, like, there's a lot of stuff I really like about this game. But the core kind of moving your troops around the map in real time mechanic didn't really grab me. And I also didn't feel like that. I feel like for a tactics game to really grab me, I have to feel like I am doing stuff to customize or improve my like units just like constantly. And there are systems to do that in Unicorn Overlord, but it's not like a fire emblem where it's like you level up this one guy to this ranking. You know, once you get him there, he gets to be a dragon rider or some shit like.

• 12:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I, I, but at the same time, like, I don't think it's a bad game. I think it's just, uh, on a, of a, of a genre that I think only caters to a specific type of person.

• 12:16Russ Frushtick?

  None of whom are on this.

• 12:17Griffin McElroy?

  None of whom are on the show, which like if Chris Plant isn't that type of person, it is, I would say, a quite limited subset. Yeah. Um, I'll tell you what we frickin' crushed, though. I don't remember if this was one I brought or what, but Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Still so, still, it delights me to no end that I think this one hit for everyone on the call. I think this one hit for everyone here, and that was a genuinely a surprise to me.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Russ didn't play it.

• 12:44Russ Frushtick?

  No, I played it. I didn't play 40 hours of it, but I played probably like eight hours, seven or eight hours. I liked it a lot. I was totally into it.

• 12:52Griffin McElroy?

  Juice, you finished it, right?

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Oh, but it, no, but like it didn't get Russ in the way that it got the, the rest of us, right? Do you think it has by this point though?

• 13:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it didn't get me in the way that like Animal Well got me.

• 13:04Griffin McElroy?

  I'll tell you, I think it came out, it came out at a really good time. It came out at a time where there wasn't a ton of stuff like vying for my attention. It worked great on Steam Deck. I wasn't like traveling around a whole bunch yet. And so like, it was the type of game where I was like, okay, okay.

• 13:18Chris Plante?

  Had an entire Animal Crossing mini game in it just waiting for you.

• 13:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, dude, gosh dang. I, I think it's the-

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Wouldn't it be great if just like January's are for Like a Dragon? Just like every January, there's a new Like a Dragon game.

• 13:30Russ Frushtick?

  There is one coming out in, what is that, February?

• 13:32Griffin McElroy?

  Well, it's a, that's a beat them up pirate game, right?

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, but just like every January, there's a new Like a Dragon game. And they have to be a certain kind, just, you know.

• 13:40Chris Plante?

  Sega will try to accommodate.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 13:44Chris Plante?

  That I'm getting.

• 13:45Griffin McElroy?

  I feel, I've loved a lot of the, the Yakuza games, and I feel like this is the one that does all the stuff I love about this series the best. In like the most sort of, I don't know, man, like user friendly way. It just immediately starts dishing out like really good shit. And yeah, I've, I've really enjoyed it. I think the conversation between this and Metaphor are interesting because they're both really great RPGs that handle all of this shit. Like a completely wildly different ways.

• 14:14Chris Plante?

  I can't wait for that four hour block of the game of the year episode between Just Griffin and I trying to parse those two.

• 14:22Griffin McElroy?

  My mind can't work through how these two great games that are the opposite game are both such standouts. I am curious though, to hear everyone's thoughts now, or a few months after, I think, actually quite a few months after the release of Elden Ring, the DLC Shadow of the Territory. Did y'all finish that?

• 14:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 14:42Griffin McElroy?

  Did you finish that? I did too. Yeah, I remember Rust did because we were talking about like, this was pre Nerf Radon consort, just like whipping our asses. And so the two of us were like back channeling like, I found this poison thorns build. You have to go here and max out this one stat. Uh, and then, once you do that, you can fuck up consort Radon.

• 15:02Russ Frushtick?

  Which, which I don't necessar- I think it was, there was two mistakes that they made, and we called it out, one of them at least in the first episode, which was they made the like, Shadow Seed.

• 15:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 15:14Russ Frushtick?

  Hunting stuff way too much of a requirement.

• 15:16Griffin McElroy?

  I believe you mean Skadu Tree Fragments.

• 15:18Russ Frushtick?

  No, it's pronounced Shadow Tree.

• 15:20Griffin McElroy?

  I think it's Skadu Tree.

• 15:21Russ Frushtick?

  According to Gaelic.

• 15:22Griffin McElroy?

  Skadu Tree.

• 15:23Russ Frushtick?

  Anyway, uh, they made that requirement much more tame. So you don't need as many of them to like, feel like you have that power.

• 15:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 15:30Russ Frushtick?

  And if you kind of overcome that aspect of it, you're really just left with like, a lot more, pretty fucking good Elden Ring.

• 15:37Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 15:37Russ Frushtick?

  And I, I absorbed the hell out of that game. I loved my time with it.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  I am realizing now with this, and there's been a couple of others like these where the difficulty is a big part of the point. If it's a real mechanically deep game like this, I just don't think I'm gonna be able to get back into it. I've tried so many times. I'll have one big push.

• 15:57Russ Frushtick?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  And then I just, and you're not, it's not just Elden Ring. I would say this about like, I had this with Horizon, right? Where like.

• 16:03Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  I'm just not gonna relearn all those mechanics. Like, I don't, I don't think it's gonna happen.

• 16:08Russ Frushtick?

  I remember before, uh, Shadow of the Erdtree came out, I spent like, an hour or two just like fucking around in base Elden Ring, vanilla Elden Ring. And that helped a lot.

• 16:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 16:21Russ Frushtick?

  But to do that again, in the middle of the DLC, I could see that being like, very flummixing.

• 16:27Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I did about the best I could do to, I started a new character and did a whole playthrough of Elden Ring, and I managed to finish it like, a few days before Shadow of the Erdtree came out. So I feel like I was able to keep that momentum, which I really powered through, uh, that, that stuff.

• 16:43Russ Frushtick?

  That's pretty impressive.

• 16:44Griffin McElroy?

  I, another issue that I feel like we talked about on the episode about it is like, it adds a lot of new stuff, it adds a lot of new weapons, a new build. You know, types and whatever, but I didn't feel like fucking around with any of that stuff because there was something of a barrier of entry of like, well, if I go, if I've, I found this cool new claw, if I want to use it, I'm gonna have to go like respec, I'm gonna have to go like, grab some more fragments or whatever to upgrade it, like, I don't know, that's

• 17:08Russ Frushtick?

  I used some new stuff. I wasn't, I wasn't too thrown by that. I mean, some of the stuff, you're right, like, it would've been overwhelming. And then, at a certain point, people just sort of start looking online and like, what would be a fun build?

• 17:19Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 17:20Russ Frushtick?

  And I kind of did that at the end of my run. Like, I'd finished it, and I'm like, oh, if I'm gonna, you know, look at all the dungeons and shit, I want to see what else I can do.

• 17:27Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:27Russ Frushtick?

  And then, I'm glad that stuff was there.

• 17:29Griffin McElroy?

  I thought, I thought it was great. It did not rekindle my, like, ferocious love for Elden Ring, the way Elden Ring did.

• 17:39Chris Plante?

  I just wanted to call that, just in what you said about the not being able to re-acquire those skills. I, I'm experiencing that more and more and more. And I'm curious for you, do you think it's an age thing? Like, that it's harder for us, we get older, should pull that back? Or do you think that it really is just a, I guess, a time thing? Like, no matter what your age is, the annoying part is having to like, relearn it, and now relearn it without the tutorialization that you had the first time around?

• 18:08Speaker 02

  I think that's what it is, is that the, the arc on games like that is usually so well-built, and so like, satisfyingly built, that like, to try to hop back into it, I always feel like I'm trying to, you know, reinvent the wheel, like, learn it backwards or something, and like, reverse engineer that, that learning.

• 18:29Chris Plante?

  You mentioned the Horizon one, I remember that.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  That was the worst.

• 18:32Chris Plante?

  The DLC for the first game, where you went to the, like, the snowland, and it, I feel like you, like, are unlocking the third eye for me here of like, oh, they, they're adding an extra act to a movie that was already a good movie.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 18:47Chris Plante?

  And when I get that extra act, it's like, well, now the pacing's entirely off. It actually breaks the movie that came before it, and like, I didn't need this.

• 18:54Griffin McElroy?

  I don't even think that's the most apt comparison, because it would be more like if they put a little movie in the middle of the movie. Because it's not like a bigger, it's not like a thing that contributes to the rest of it.

• 19:03Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's true.

• 19:04Griffin McElroy?

  It's like its own kind of deal. Yeah. I'm also realizing we didn't have, um, just a quick shout out to the Destiny 2 Final Shape DLC. Oh, yeah. That is one of my highlights of the year, and I'm surprised at myself for not calling it out in our. That was very good. I enjoyed that.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  To kind of lump together these two that are two that don't seem like they're gonna make it.

• 19:28Griffin McElroy?

  Are you kidding?

• 19:29Chris Plante?

  They're not gonna come out?

• 19:30Griffin McElroy?

  What are you talking about?

• 19:31Speaker 02

  There's a few in the list of things that we're looking forward to in 2024, and I was thinking rather than just like, hit them in order, we could just say all together the ones.

• 19:39Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's a good idea. I thought you were lumping Animal Well in there, and I was like, uh, you've misread the room.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  The next one is Baby Steps, which is not.

• 19:47Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know what that is.

• 19:48Russ Frushtick?

  It didn't come out. That's the Bennett Foddy 3D platform.

• 19:51Chris Plante?

  And the developer of Apescape.

• 19:54Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, God.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Right. I just think it's interesting to hit these that too. Um, I guess.

• 19:59Griffin McElroy?

  Did Alone in the Dark come out?

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Alone in the Dark, because, nah.

• 20:03Russ Frushtick?

  I think it did come out.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  There's no way.

• 20:05Griffin McElroy?

  You're kidding.

• 20:06Chris Plante?

  It did. It did. It was like, I can't believe you didn't play it. That feels like.

• 20:10Griffin McElroy?

  Holy shit, it did. It did come out. March 20th. David Harbour.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  It didn't.

• 20:16Griffin McElroy?

  It did. March 20th.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Listen, no.

• 20:19Griffin McElroy?

  Dude, I think that was your game. I think you brought Alone in the Dark.

• 20:24Russ Frushtick?

  David Harbour is crying in his apartment right now.

• 20:26Griffin McElroy?

  I have one of these two on the list.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  I'm so, I'm so looking forward to, this seems like a Dereliction of Duty on my part. It is.

• 20:34Griffin McElroy?

  A huge one, huge.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  Huge, huge Dereliction of Duty. It's got a couple of great actors, and I don't know why I didn't play this. I'm gonna buy this joint right now. I'll report back, no problem. Sorry, everybody. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. No worries.

• 20:50Griffin McElroy?

  On a similar note, I brought Visions of Mana as one of my predictions. The first mana game to be released in like 12 years, something wild like that. I was like, hell yeah, baby. We're back. About to go and, you know, ride on the flamy and just like do all my shit, and I just completely, I, it was one of those for like a month later. I was like, oh shit, that's out? And I have not, uh, I have not gone to grab it. Uh, so yes. We've all made, we all made mistakes.

• 21:16Russ Frushtick?

  We also screwed up on Light No Fire, which didn't.

• 21:20Griffin McElroy?

  That was again a Griffin, I think, prediction.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Oh, but, but there is no way you thought that was that Hello Games follow up.

• 21:26Griffin McElroy?

  I will, I will say this, I got into No Man's Sky more this year than I ever had, doing just like the expeditions, uh, and, and playing the game sort of the way it was meant to be played. It was real fucking fun.

• 21:37Russ Frushtick?

  I am so excited for that game. I don't even know if it's coming out next year, to be honest.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:41Griffin McElroy?

  No.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  And I guess Skin Deep, the new Blendo games game did not, uh, did not make it out.

• 21:51Griffin McElroy?

  And I. Nor, nor did. Get this, Hollow Knight Silk Song.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Believe it or not, Skin Deep is one I've been looking for for years. I just, I want to put that. It's funny, we didn't even put UFO 50 on this list. And had we known UFO 50 was coming out this year, it would have probably been at the top of it. But yeah, it's a sneaky surprise. For, for me, Skin Deep is kind of that. It's been a few years of just like watching that listing.

• 22:16Griffin McElroy?

  Did anyone play the remake of Brothers Tale of Two Sons? Cause that's on here too.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  I should have. I really loved that first one, but once you know the gimmick, I feel like maybe it wouldn't be as.

• 22:25Russ Frushtick?

  It is so narrative driven that it's just like.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:29Russ Frushtick?

  Am I gonna have that same impact?

• 22:31Speaker 02

  It's a great, there's like one good gag in it, like legitimately that makes the whole game worth playing, but like, if you've already played it, then.

• 22:41Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know that there's much else there for you.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 22:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Uh, let's get into though, Animal Well.

• 22:48Griffin McElroy?

  That's a bit long for me.

• 22:49Russ Frushtick?

  No, he's in the animal well.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  I beat this one, so.

• 22:53Griffin McElroy?

  Kick ass, man.

• 22:54Speaker 04

  But did you find all the bunnies?

• 22:58Speaker 04

  Did you get the secret developer ending?

• 23:01Russ Frushtick?

  Can I just say?

• 23:02Speaker 02

  You just get four things and then beat it.

• 23:05Russ Frushtick?

  I just want to say.

• 23:06Griffin McElroy?

  It's easy to watch it on YouTube, but go ahead.

• 23:08Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's easiest. I just want to say, I'm a fucking genius for calling this out so early.

• 23:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 23:13Russ Frushtick?

  And I knew how great it was and I know myself and I know how great my taste is in video games.

• 23:19Speaker 04

  And I didn't need guides.

• 23:21Russ Frushtick?

  And I didn't need guides to tell me that this was going to be a great game. It turned out to be. Be a great game.

• 23:25Griffin McElroy?

  Didn't need guides to tell you this was gonna be a great game.

• 23:28Chris Plante?

  You're so brave.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Didn't need guides.

• 23:30Russ Frushtick?

  So brave.

• 23:32Griffin McElroy?

  The experience I that that we had in the uh, there was like a discord for people like reviewing the game. Was truly cool, was truly, truly cool. And when we talk about this game and like the goatee stuff, it's gonna be hard for me to separate my experience of doing that because when. Everybody had finished the game and then it was just full fucking scavenger hunt mode to see like what other deep, deep, deep coded secrets we could find. Anytime I was able to like push that forward a little bit, it was so gratifying and so cool. Like the social experience of. Uh, of, of reviewing that game was really, really.

• 24:04Russ Frushtick?

  And as designed, like they made the game with that in mind. So I think that is part of it.

• 24:09Griffin McElroy?

  I do think it's hysterical that we bash our heads against that for like a month and then literally 36 hours later, the community playing the game had like torn it, torn it asunder.

• 24:17Russ Frushtick?

  It's a fucking planet of people.

• 24:19Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, no.

• 24:20Russ Frushtick?

  12 of us dorks cannot compete with everybody and their brain power.

• 24:25Griffin McElroy?

  That's true. That's fair.

• 24:26Russ Frushtick?

  But we did. Okay. I'm proud of us.

• 24:29Russ Frushtick?

  Let's talk about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. This is, this is maybe the biggest whiff of the year, huh? I mean, not through any fault of ours, obviously. We're not mind readers.

• 24:40Russ Frushtick?

  Well, and people did like it, but I certainly didn't.

• 24:43Chris Plante?

  I think there's a real chance that this game. It will at least get nominated for the Game Awards Game of the Year. It could win.

• 24:52Griffin McElroy?

  I think we'll be definitely on the, on the uh, I think we'll be on the wrong side of history on this one. And that breaks my heart because Final Fantasy VII is one of my like favorite games ever made. I just, I, I, there's too much bullshit in this game, gang. There's too much baloney happening. Just re, do me a favor and remake Final Fantasy VII. That would be cool. Don't rebirth it. If what's happening here is a rebirthing of Final Fantasy VII. Put that outside. Remake it is what I would like it to do and don't add a bunch of multiverse fucking garbo bullshit.

• 25:26Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. So let me ask you, let me, let me ask you, Griffin.

• 25:29Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 25:29Russ Frushtick?

  If they narratively speaking, if they were very consistent with the original game.

• 25:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 25:34Russ Frushtick?

  But gameplay wise, they did all the stuff they did in this one.

• 25:37Griffin McElroy?

  No, because the open world stuff was also not great for me. I thought the open world stuff was the worst part about this game. And then the next worst part about this game is that. In adhering to this like multiverse.

• 25:48Russ Frushtick?

  Anything can happen.

• 25:49Griffin McElroy?

  Bullshit, anything can happen and everything has happened, so it doesn't matter. This big question you've had about Aerith this whole time, ooh, what if it changes but doesn't change? Like, it's so fucking infuriating. Uh, and I, I love-

• 26:02Russ Frushtick?

  There's a thousand lighthouses and Aerith dies in some of them, but not the other ones.

• 26:06Griffin McElroy?

  And it's like, I, I really liked Remake. I really liked the first part of this.

• 26:10Russ Frushtick?

  Me too, I loved it.

• 26:11Griffin McElroy?

  I think it was, uh, it was different in a way that took me a while to kind of get used to, but the way that it, you know, adapted the story of the first part of Final Fantasy VII was really cool. And then the open world stuff is just so paper thin, it felt like, and, and the story changes-

• 26:26Russ Frushtick?

  Fucking stealth games with Moogles and shit.

• 26:29Griffin McElroy?

  Jesus Christ, man. It really, really, uh, it didn't do it for me, and it makes me so angry because there are sequences in this game that are goddamn golden. When you show up to the golden saucer, that first scene that shows when you show up to the golden saucer, it's my favorite cutscene of any video game this year. Doing a sort of, uh, triple triad or whatever it's called, battle on a ship with like, uh, Red 13 walking around in a human, like-

• 26:52Russ Frushtick?

  That was very funny.

• 26:53Griffin McElroy?

  There's so much good, good stuff in here and they worked so hard on it, but man, they, that, some of the stuff just makes me so, so bummed out.

• 27:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 27:02Griffin McElroy?

  There have not been a dearth of great JRPGs this year, fortunately, uh, which sort of, uh, I don't know, soothes, soothes the soul a little bit.

• 27:10Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 27:12Chris Plante?

  Well, I mean, that gets to the other one, Persona 3.

• 27:14Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I brought this one. I, I, uh, I love Persona. I, Persona 3 Portable was the one that I played originally, and so I was excited for the idea of like, a remake that is fully 3D and more kind of like Persona 5 inspired. Uh, I just had a hard time click, clicking, clicking with this one.

• 27:35Chris Plante?

  Especially with Metaphor coming out in the same year.

• 27:38Griffin McElroy?

  Oh dude, it gets, I, yeah, especially in the, the, the long, long shadow that Metaphor casts over you. I think it kicks its ass virtually every hand away.

• 27:46Chris Plante?

  Teeth get straight knocked in.

• 27:47Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, yeah, I just didn't really have a lot of fun with it. Persona 3 is an important game in how it like establishes basically the formula that the rest of the series would then go on to follow and Metaphor would go on to follow. Uh, and so like from a historical aspect, it's cool and they made some changes that like quality of life changes are really great, but- There's just something about the setting and characters and plot that don't really hook me in the same way that the other Persona games do. So, but it's okay. We got there. We got our stuff. We got like a dragon. We're good over here.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  We're even.

• 28:23Griffin McElroy?

  We're even.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:24Griffin McElroy?

  I think we did a good job here, right?

• 28:27Russ Frushtick?

  We're not done yet. We're not done.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  There's a more game that somebody was very right about us being against Hades 2, and Hades 2 is exactly as good as you thought Hades 2 would be.

• 28:37Russ Frushtick?

  How do we know how good it is if we haven't been updated on the latest updates for Hades 2?

• 28:42Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  It's been slow going, I'll admit. I think the last update was July at this point. And that was in reference to, now see, this may be outdated by the time that you're hearing this. So it's tough to be the, the up to the minute voice on this. The last we have is early access patch four. Yeah, I'm not behind. There just hasn't been any.

• 29:06Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, you've been on the pulse. I apologize.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  Stuff. Oh, listen bud. I check, I check constantly. I play this thing. And there's, I will say this, Greg, from me to you, Greg, Gregory, why have you, many, many are coming for the throne currently, Greg. There's a lot of games that are looking at your lunch.

• 29:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  The plate that says Greg. They're trying to eat it. And you should work, you should act fast. This with this, with the, with the speed of Hermes.

• 29:38Griffin McElroy?

  I am ready for this game to fall off the radar and then come back like a triumphant phoenix next year when the, when we're not expecting it and we're just hungry for, I'll gladly go back.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Hopefully you just hear crumbs of Greg's lunch left.

• 29:51Griffin McElroy?

  No, brush them, brush them right into my mouth. How about these honorable mentions, though?

• 29:57Russ Frushtick?

  We hit most of them. There are a couple that we didn't, but I'm very happy we called it out. Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown was like.

• 30:04Griffin McElroy?

  Fucking rips, slaps ass, great.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. The Rogue Prince of Persia, we didn't know about, but it was good, too.

• 30:11Griffin McElroy?

  That was pretty good.

• 30:11Chris Plante?

  Yumi Sock didn't seem to know about it either, so that was a kind of a problem.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Look, mon dieu, look what they spoused his couch.

• 30:21Chris Plante?

  I hope by the time this episode comes out, Ubisoft is still a company. There's no guarantee. We've got, we've got a little bit of time.

• 30:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, who knows? I also want to say, I, I really enjoyed Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door. It was one that had been on my like regret list for having not played it. Uh, I didn't finish it, but I got to like the sixth sort of world, uh, before I think another game came along and, uh, ate its lunch. I think maybe Destiny 2, the, the DLC. But I really enjoyed my time with it. That game's really cute and very novel. And I think it, uh, really stands in stark contrast to, I don't know, how the Mario RPG lineage kind of changed after this one in a way that is, uh, almost universally not as good.

• 31:03Russ Frushtick?

  Here's the crazy thing. When we picked this game, we had no idea that the Mario and Luigi franchise would be rebirthed.

• 31:11Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 31:12Russ Frushtick?

  In a new game that is coming out, uh, very soon to when you're listening to this episode.

• 31:17Griffin McElroy?

  Yep.

• 31:17Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, Mario and Luigi Brothership. Um, and that very much is like in this, the spirit of these games. So, hopefully this is like a revival of that genre. Uh, okay. I think we did it on predictions.

• 31:31Griffin McElroy?

  Great.

• 31:32Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, let's take a break, I guess.

• 31:34Griffin McElroy?

  All right, let's do that.

• 31:38Chris Plante?

  Hey everybody, we are back and we are here to make your holiday shopping so simple. We can get you ahead of schedule. You don't need to wait till Black Friday. You don't need to wait till the last minute. You just need to get your gamers all the cool stuff. So I thought the way that we could do this, cleanly without everyone sending us like a description of their parent. We could just do kind of categories.

• 32:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 32:05Chris Plante?

  A parent, a kid, a teenager. What would you get them? Right? I think that that's probably the safest way to do it. So to kick things off with this, well, let's start with the parent. What would you get a parent that you know is, they're, they're into gaming? Maybe this is, uh, maybe this is Papa McElroy? Maybe this is, you know, just a, I don't know, some other parent in your life. Who would you get? What would you get?

• 32:33Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I put on here, the great Deku Tree Lego set.

• 32:37Russ Frushtick?

  I didn't even know this existed.

• 32:39Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, they, uh, announced it with very little fanfare a long time ago. I want to say in the summer.

• 32:45Russ Frushtick?

  Jesus Christ, Griffin, this is $300.

• 32:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, so I have gotten very much-

• 32:50Speaker 02

  Lego sets are crazy, man.

• 32:51Griffin McElroy?

  Lego sets are crazy. I have gotten very much into adult Lego sets this year. I have also been prescribed Adderall this year, so maybe there's a fucking thread between those two things. But I did the D and D set that dropped earlier this year. It was just big fucking like adventure castle thing. And then they released this great Deku Tree adult Lego set. It looks fucking rad. You can build, I'm halfway through it right now. And you can build it to either look like the great Deku Tree in Breath of the Wild or the great Deku Tree in Ocarina of Time.

• 33:26Russ Frushtick?

  What?

• 33:26Griffin McElroy?

  So it's like whichever, whichever version of it you want, the book kind of like splits.

• 33:31Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think I know that they look different. I thought they were just like a tree man.

• 33:35Griffin McElroy?

  No, I mean, I mean, yeah, dude, look at the, look at these fucking trees. One of them has a little hotel inside. Everyone has like sculptures and shit.

• 33:43Chris Plante?

  I love that Griffin talks for this about two minutes on the podcast. Now I can write it off on his taxes as a business.

• 33:49Griffin McElroy?

  Right. I never do shit like that.

• 33:51Russ Frushtick?

  Is this the first time Link is in Lego form?

• 33:54Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, I feel like Nintendo has really opened up the flood, the floodgate on doing stuff with Lego. Obviously they had the big Mario sets that are very cool. And then they had a bunch of Animal Crossing sets that came out this year that me and Henry put together a bunch of.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  If you haven't seen the console ones-

• 34:14Griffin McElroy?

  The console ones are-

• 34:14Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah, those are great.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  My dream gift, my dream is that someday someone will buy me the NES set. So I will feel guilty about not putting it together. Instead of right now, I would feel guilty about doing it. But if someone I care bought it for me, they'd be like, I'd be like, well, I've got to, or their feelings would be hurt. So that was, that's my dream, my dream gift. Or the Pac-Man stand-up arcade is also quite good.

• 34:38Griffin McElroy?

  Also very cool. Yeah. What about you, Russ and Chris?

• 34:42Russ Frushtick?

  I had a suggestion for a ZenGrip Ronin. I mentioned this ages ago, but I wanted to call it out again. This has been on my Switch since I started using it, probably over a year ago at this point. And it's the only grip that I've used that actually allows you to still put it in the dock. So you don't have to like degrip it.

• 35:01Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 35:02Russ Frushtick?

  And it makes the Switch like actually okay to hold.

• 35:05Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 35:05Russ Frushtick?

  While also maintaining all the like rumble and motion sensor shit that you have in the handheld. I review everything with this. Whenever we talk about games that are on the Switch, I'm holding this thing. And so if you're a parent.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  I put this onto mine and this is just where this is what I have now. I don't, I don't even know where the other ones are.

• 35:24Russ Frushtick?

  Yep, it's great. Highly recommend that.

• 35:27Chris Plante?

  Next category, we got teenager. I think Safe Bet is a gift card because nobody knows what a teenager wants better than themselves. And while a gift card isn't perfect to everybody, a Steam gift card goes a long way with a teenager. But if you must pick something, Undertale Kitchen Collection on FanGamer is sick. And I think we have now reached the generation of teens that grew up on Undertale, which is a wild thing to say, but it's true.

• 35:57Russ Frushtick?

  So this is a literal like plates and cups and shit.

• 36:01Chris Plante?

  It's a full kitchen set. Yeah.

• 36:02Russ Frushtick?

  Wow.

• 36:03Chris Plante?

  So if you're like getting into cooking and you just want something adorable, I think this is, this is your best bet.

• 36:09Griffin McElroy?

  I'm gonna add something to the list here. I'm gonna say the Divoom D2 Pro Retro Pixel Art little device. I don't know if you guys have ever seen this.

• 36:18Russ Frushtick?

  Traditional spelling.

• 36:19Griffin McElroy?

  It's D I V O O M. If you just type that in, you'll find it. It's like a little, it looks like an old tiny computer. It's only got six keys on it, but it connects to the, the app, the Divoom app. And it's a pixel art thing and you can make pixel art, you can make pixel art animations or download other people's. And then it shows up on this tiny little screen. Henry has gotten super fucking into it, super, super into it and like making his own pixel art. That is really good. It's really cool. So I, I don't know if you're a, if you have a teen in your life who is into art and games. This is, this has been a absolute slam dunk.

• 36:51Russ Frushtick?

  I also want to just say, just fucking ask their parents what game they want. And then get, and then gift it to them on Steam or something like. You don't need to guess, like, just get them the thing they want, because game buying is so tough that, like, just go for it.

• 37:05Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 37:06Russ Frushtick?

  These are all great.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. I would also say, surprisingly, I got, uh, this past New Year's Eve, uh, we had a bunch of teenagers, and I threw them a Sega Genesis Mini, and they ended up playing the entirety of Splatterhouse.

• 37:22Griffin McElroy?

  It was like, I've never seen anything like it.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  A room full of eight kids, just like pounding through the entirety of Splatterhouse. It was astounding.

• 37:30Chris Plante?

  This is my recommendation for pretty much any category, is buy an emulator handheld. The cheapest one you can get. You can get them for like thirty or forty bucks now.

• 37:41Griffin McElroy?

  But don't get those. Get an, get an, get an okay.

• 37:42Chris Plante?

  Yeah, but like, but you get it wherever you.

• 37:44Russ Frushtick?

  You can get a good one.

• 37:45Chris Plante?

  Preload it with everything for them. And when I say preload, I obviously mean all the free games that are not official IP that are available on the internet. And that's all. Don't put anything else on it. Don't put anything else on it. I didn't say a damn thing about putting any other games on it.

• 38:05Russ Frushtick?

  Just freeware that were designed to run on those.

• 38:08Chris Plante?

  Just Pico 8 stuff.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  Just Pico 8 stuff.

• 38:12Griffin McElroy?

  For kids. I got, I got a good one. I'm excited. Let's talk about this one.

• 38:16Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 38:17Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, earlier this year, the weather was shitty. We were trying to find a way to wear out our then-two-year-old, and I bought myself, because of like a Facebook ad, which I never do, the Nex Playground, N E X. Uh, and it is, check this out, a self-contained Kinect. That's it. And it has lots of games on it, like Fruit Ninja and Doodleheads and.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  This thing is great, by the way. We have one in our house.

• 38:41Griffin McElroy?

  It's fucking rad. It's so, so good.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  It's, the games are free, I guess. There's a subscription in your.

• 38:45Griffin McElroy?

  Subscribe, yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  Right, but the games are included. You see the games that are coming out the next month, and the games are good. Like, they, and the thing works. Like, that's the other crazy thing about it. Like, they have a, I'll, I'll give you an example. There's an Elmo Simon Says that.

• 39:01Griffin McElroy?

  So fucking good.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  It's really goo, it's, it's all well implemented. He knows when you're do, putting your head on the thing, and it's, it doesn't like. Glitch out constantly, make the kids scream and cry.

• 39:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Um, they have a lot of really interesting games. There's a Hungry Hungry Hippos game that's fun.

• 39:17Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, they have a mini game collection called Party Fowl that is really fun. And then they added a, uh, this like bullet hell shoot them up called, uh, I think Doodleheads. Is that right Juice?

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:26Griffin McElroy?

  I forget exactly what it's called, but it like takes a picture of your face and it becomes the ship that you, anyway, it's a Kinect that works and has great games on it and it wears out kids.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, but does-

• 39:35Griffin McElroy?

  Straight up.

• 39:36Russ Frushtick?

  Does it have a Han Solo doing a funny dance though?

• 39:39Griffin McElroy?

  No, it has good shit on it, Russ, that is great for kids to wear them out.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  The console, by the way, is the camera. It's one cube like this.

• 39:45Griffin McElroy?

  Yep.

• 39:46Chris Plante?

  This is awesome.

• 39:47Griffin McElroy?

  It's so good. It has genuinely been clutch for us this year. If we do not wear out our three year old, he will not sleep. And so when it's like rainy and shitty outside, this thing is-

• 39:56Speaker 02

  They used to make, uh, they used to, I've been at Griffin's house when they made an obstacle course to try to train the wildness out of their child before bedtime. A series of obstacles that he had to clear.

• 40:05Griffin McElroy?

  Big Sun's cool. He's over in the corner doing pixel art. Three year old. You have to exhaust him.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, this thing's great. And I really, I took a flyer on it. Um, and I've now bought like three as gifts. They're fantastic.

• 40:19Griffin McElroy?

  They're great.

• 40:19Russ Frushtick?

  That's awesome.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Uh, I hope, by the way, if they're listening, please do like an adult, there is, there is a version of this. There's a branch of the subscription maybe. Or a different box entirely that is adult themed that would work, not adult.

• 40:34Russ Frushtick?

  But like for parties and stuff.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  For parties and stuff, it would be fantastic.

• 40:37Griffin McElroy?

  I just, I, there is a selfish part of me that hopes this thing actually does really well. Because I really like it and I would like new games to continue coming out that I could, um.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  By the way, huge fan of this model, similar to the, um, the Playdate thing of like, you just get the games. It's good.

• 40:53Griffin McElroy?

  That's it.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Like, yeah.

• 40:54Russ Frushtick?

  And if you don't subscribe, you lose access to the games?

• 40:57Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I don't know how it, where, I don't know if you can buy them piecemeal or not. Uh, the subscription is not crazy. Uh, but in it, it, I don't know. It, I can't imagine doing it any other way because like my kids feel very comfortable, like going through the like UI and stuff of the thing and would see a game and be like, why can't I play that?

• 41:14Chris Plante?

  Yeah, that sounds like the best part, like the Apple Arcade experience. I wish Apple Arcade was better about blocking off the rest.

• 41:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 41:20Chris Plante?

  Of, uh, the Apple Store. Anyway, other categories, uh, indie gamer who has everything. AKA somebody like, uh, Storks.

• 41:31Chris Plante?

  Um, have y'all played the Crimson Diamond?

• 41:34Griffin McElroy?

  No. No.

• 41:36Chris Plante?

  Hoops?

• 41:37Speaker 02

  I have it. It's on my wishlist. I know of it, but I haven't. I should, but I haven't.

• 41:42Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah. Looks like a hoops game.

• 41:43Chris Plante?

  I wanted to get a hoops game. I was like, what would I get hoops if I were gonna get him something?

• 41:47Speaker 02

  What to get for the hoops has everything.

• 41:48Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, my god.

• 41:50Chris Plante?

  This game, it looks like a Sierra Online Adventure game, but made today.

• 41:56Griffin McElroy?

  Is it text parser?

• 41:57Chris Plante?

  Uh, I believe so, yeah.

• 41:59Griffin McElroy?

  It is. Holy shit, wild.

• 42:01Chris Plante?

  Uh, and it is sick. And I tried to get something for each of, each of y'all. Um, Griffin, the one that I would have gotten for you is Kentucky Zero, the vinyl. Is back in print and is absolutely fantastic.

• 42:15Griffin McElroy?

  I bet that looks cool.

• 42:17Chris Plante?

  And then, uh, Frush, uh, for you, I went with, uh, the Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe, uh, the Collector's Edition, which comes with a little one of those figurines that you could find in the new version of the game.

• 42:29Russ Frushtick?

  It looks like a, it looks like a, uh, what are the, amiibo? Looks like an amiibo.

• 42:33Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 42:34Russ Frushtick?

  Of Stanley.

• 42:35Chris Plante?

  It looks like somewhere between amiibo and a bobblehead.

• 42:36Russ Frushtick?

  I kinda don't like the fact that they manifested Stan, uh, what Stanley actually looks like, cause he's just like a sad little man, which I guess I should have assumed.

• 42:45Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 42:45Russ Frushtick?

  But, um, yeah, I kinda, uh, that's interesting. I do like jokes, so I get it. That's a good pick.

• 42:52Chris Plante?

  I am.

• 42:53Griffin McElroy?

  What about for the old school PC gamer in your life?

• 42:57Griffin McElroy?

  I'm asking, cause I don't really, I don't know any old school PC gamers in my life.

• 43:01Chris Plante?

  This for me is like older, uh, aunts and uncles. I have both aunts and uncles who are like really into this space. I feel like I would always try to find.

• 43:09Russ Frushtick?

  It's just the people that like would spend a ton of money on like a, a fight stick, basically.

• 43:14Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, for them, that's basically what I wrote down was Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 accessories.

• 43:20Griffin McElroy?

  Is that the, is that the game for uncles? Are a bunch of uncles? I don't play.

• 43:24Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah. That, that's, that's when you're really treating your uncle well.

• 43:29Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, cool.

• 43:30Chris Plante?

  We have a couple more old school console gamer, which I think is like most of our listeners.

• 43:36Russ Frushtick?

  Well, one of these I don't think is on consoles yet. As far as I'm aware, UFO 50 has not dropped on consoles.

• 43:41Chris Plante?

  Grand irony, yeah.

• 43:42Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, wow. Yeah, that's a good point. I didn't even think about that.

• 43:44Chris Plante?

  You should make him get a PC. That's the nicest thing you could ever do for him.

• 43:47Russ Frushtick?

  People are working to get that, uh, working on Portmaster at, at the moment. So it might actually work on one of those handhelds if you buy a copy of it.

• 43:54Chris Plante?

  Have y'all seen the Sega?

• 43:55Speaker 02

  It's not seen that great. I don't know if that counts. We count, we count that?

• 43:59Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe.

• 43:59Griffin McElroy?

  It's a console.

• 44:00Chris Plante?

  Have you seen the Sega Dreamcast training cards?

• 44:03Griffin McElroy?

  No.

• 44:04Chris Plante?

  They are like classic 90s training card packs, uh, all dedicated to the Sega Dreamcast and they come out from limited run games, I think, like in the next couple of months.

• 44:13Griffin McElroy?

  They come out in March, dude. This is a Christmas shopping list.

• 44:16Chris Plante?

  Um, you know what you could do? You could get them like a little piece of paper that's like.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  I O A one rain check. Yeah.

• 44:21Griffin McElroy?

  One check. One Shunyu, gold, gold edition, limited chase.

• 44:25Russ Frushtick?

  I just don't like what it, I don't know. What do you do with them?

• 44:29Griffin McElroy?

  Look at them, Russ. You look at them. You have bought them. You have bought them. That's what you do with them.

• 44:34Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. And you've got them and you can look at them.

• 44:36Griffin McElroy?

  And you get to see them and say, I have bought these.

• 44:38Russ Frushtick?

  Here is Samba de Amigo. He's looking at me.

• 44:40Griffin McElroy?

  Exactly.

• 44:41Chris Plante?

  Did you add the, the flannel sheet?

• 44:43Speaker 02

  Is 119 a lot to pay for a set of sheets? Yes.

• 44:47Griffin McElroy?

  Why is this? Now Juice, why is this for the old school console gamer?

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Because they are old. The Ultra Soft Comfort Flannel Sheet Set from L L Bean. If you want to go flannel, it is worth paying, I think, for high quality bedding. The, we're really, uh, long fibers on this thing. You're gonna absolutely lose it. The brush softness is off the charts.

• 45:09Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think I've ever slept on flannel sheets before.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Russ, Russ, it's a lot to pay for sheets, but it's a gift, isn't it?

• 45:18Russ Frushtick?

  I believe in spending for beds.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  Bedding is, bedding is important. Bedding and footwear, I think, are both worth spending on. That's where I'm at.

• 45:26Chris Plante?

  What would you get for a Secret Santa right now?

• 45:29Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, like a little gift you're talking?

• 45:31Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I think it's a little gift or like something that's gonna be kind of sweet and fun, but not too, it can't be too sentimental, but needs to be like, you know, touching.

• 45:40Russ Frushtick?

  I think someone put this on this list before, but I will tell you, as someone who has gifted Bellatro to a person that hadn't played a game in years, it is the perfect gateway game for anyone like that. It's $15, there's no commitment. Try, like, every single part, we've talked about this repeatedly, every single person who plays it is on board, and it's dynamite. It seems that someone else is putting a retread of the L.L. Bean final. Oh, sorry, this is the pillowcase.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Well, it's a Secret Santa, isn't it? You're not gonna spend $120 on a Secret Santa.

• 46:13Russ Frushtick?

  So just a pillowcase, so they're just getting a taste of it.

• 46:16Speaker 02

  For $35, they can get a kiss of the good life with two ultra-soft comfort flannel pillowcases. Let them see what they're missing.

• 46:24Chris Plante?

  Incredible. My go-to Secret Santa trick is figure out what their favorite game is, go on Etsy and get any sort of handmade trinket.

• 46:33Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, that's a good idea. I like that.

• 46:36Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's a really nice way to treat them right.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  I have a surprise, one that I should have mentioned for a teenager, but I think there's a lot of different people in your life. I have had, I had a surprisingly good time screwing around with like hue bulbs and other wifi lighting this year. I started playing with them for like theatrical stuff, but you can do so many neat things with like very, pretty inexpensive light curtains and rope lights and stuff, especially if you've got younger kids. It's really a lot of fun. And I will say that I have, I think I have probably improved the overall quality of my life, being able to keep lights as dim as I like them all the time at a moment's notice.

• 47:18Russ Frushtick?

  It's funny you mention that, because last, last night... Much of New York had lost internet and my entire house is Hue lights and none of them were listening, which is a real problem because my entire bedtime routine with my son is like damn, damn lights and I was fully fucked. There was nothing I could do. So that is the downside. Maybe keep a candle light somewhere around.

• 47:41Griffin McElroy?

  Black Mirror, maybe we should take a second look at all this.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  Maybe lights are bad.

• 47:48Russ Frushtick?

  Someone put the Dark Souls Siegmeier plush, I guess this is also Fangamer and makes me want to spend money immediately. That is spectacular.

• 47:56Chris Plante?

  This is another one where I just kept finding stuff that I knew y'all would like. Because there's a Zelda plush costume that you can get to put on, on your plushies. And did y'all see the, uh, the talking conquer plush toy that they have?

• 48:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 48:09Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 48:10Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's really good.

• 48:12Chris Plante?

  It's really good, right? It's conquer, but he gets talking.

• 48:15Russ Frushtick?

  Does he, does he say bad words though?

• 48:17Chris Plante?

  He better. He better say dirty words. Um, last category, the person who loves stuff that's books level boring, just books.

• 48:26Griffin McElroy?

  Kinda. I added a thing that's not technically a book.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  I will say this, if you're, if you had to buy, if I had to buy a book for someone who's a quote unquote gamer right now, and if you say that label to them, they're not like, uh, I really would recommend Chang Gang All Stars. It's a real, and I talked about it in a previous episode, but like, the structure of that book, I think would be very appealing to people that follow like modern television and video games and things like that. There's a lot of that DNA in it and it's saying some really interesting, cool stuff. And I, I think it's so, I would recommend it to almost anybody. It's fantastic.

• 49:06Russ Frushtick?

  I wanted to shout out Retro Gaming by Mike Diver. Uh, this is just like an all encompassing book about retro gaming from like 1980s to basically more or less modern day. Um, I liked, like looking through it and learning facts about Yoshi and shit. My son is obsessed with it. If your kids like those like index books with a bunch of pictures in them, uh, this one is great and it's pretty inexpensive and you get it in soft copy and, uh, it's been a big hit.

• 49:38Griffin McElroy?

  I have messed around with many a e-ink tablet, both for reading and note-taking purposes. And a couple of months ago, I got my hands on the Super Note Nomad. And it is my favorite of them. It's a seven-inch, it's this little guy right here. A seven-inch little pad. It feels really, really good to write on. It feels more like writing on paper than, I think, any screen I've used. And the pens are just these thick, heavy, juicy, juicy guys. It feels really good. All the UI stuff is really cool. Lots of like tactile-

• 50:11Russ Frushtick?

  Justin seems upset. What's the matter, Justin?

• 50:13Griffin McElroy?

  Why? Is it because I call it juicy, guys?

• 50:15Speaker 02

  Pens, it's just like, it's weird.

• 50:17Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, if you felt this pen, like, you would get it. Like, it feels so, it feels so good.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  I have had, I have tried to set up several solutions like this. And I can't, there always seems to be one too many hoops that keep it from being as good as pen and paper. And I know, I don't mean to sound that Luddite. There's a specific bar it has to clear to be as like, good and satisfying and easy and cheap and quick and everything.

• 50:43Griffin McElroy?

  Cheap ain't it. This ain't cheap, but it's really, really good. It does a cool thing where if you like, write a bunch of notes down, it will, you can set it to like, convert it into like, text, like plain, plain text, which you can then sort of like, put wherever you, you want to put it. I don't know, I just love the size, love the feel of it, love the interface. And I've been using it, I mean, I've been using it as like, a daily log journal every day. I've been using it to like, take notes on stuff. And I haven't even read anything on it yet, but I'm pretty sure you can get like, Kindle shit on there. But, yep, Super Note Nomad.

• 51:17Chris Plante?

  I have a book called How a Game Lives. It's the annotated essays by Jake Geller for all of his YouTube videos. But they also include Afterwards by a whole bunch of different authors, including me, the smallest fry of the bunch. But there are a lot of cooler people, including the author of Chang'e All-Stars, who wrote the foreword for the book.

• 51:41Griffin McElroy?

  Cool.

• 51:42Chris Plante?

  So it's a great chance to like, one, read a bunch of great essays. And to a whole bunch of different voices, many of whom don't often get to write about video games, talking about them. And it's made by Lost in Cult, which is one of my favorite video game book publishers. Their stuff is just absolutely gorgeous.

• 52:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we just shouted out their handheld book recently. That stuff is great.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  I got the first one of those. Talk about books that kids enjoy looking through. Cooper was having to spend a long time looking through the first volume of that handheld.

• 52:14Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, I think we did it.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:15Russ Frushtick?

  That was a lot of gifts. You're gonna be a big hit this holiday. If you buy all of them, especially for one person, they'll be so surprised.

• 52:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, you'll be ruined financially also.

• 52:24Speaker 02

  I want to talk. I think there's a small canonical issue because I plan on playing Alone in the Dark right now.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  And so as you're hearing this, you probably heard me a couple of weeks ago rave about Alone in the Dark. And how much I loved it. So I'm worried this is gonna be confusing or anticlimactic.

• 52:44Russ Frushtick?

  You can't just do the math and say like, you're gonna talk about it after this episode airs?

• 52:49Griffin McElroy?

  We don't know.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  No, I will definitely forget about that. No, no question.

• 52:54Chris Plante?

  Also, once you've played it, every fiber in your body will be screaming to talk about this game.

• 53:01Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it could be a goatee contender. We don't know.

• 53:03Chris Plante?

  It could.

• 53:04Griffin McElroy?

  You better hope it's.

• 53:05Chris Plante?

  Probably not, though, right?

• 53:06Speaker 02

  Let's say this, you guys better hope it's not, because that will be, that's gonna be an itchy November for you boys trying to avoid playing it.

• 53:17Russ Frushtick?

  Cool. I want.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  We can't even say what we're gonna do next week either.

• 53:20Russ Frushtick?

  No, there's no telling. I wanted to thank the following people for being patrons of the besties. We have Ben Jammin, Caps, Tuxford, and Moss. Thank you for being patrons of the besties. Thank you to everyone else.

• 53:35Speaker 02

  Live to hear that. They probably posted the reviews years ago. But this point.

• 53:41Russ Frushtick?

  I'm gonna let you know, the people that are listening, that we have a new episode of our Bracket Battles episode. That's up and live right now, so you can listen to that.

• 53:52Griffin McElroy?

  How can you say that?

• 53:52Speaker 02

  What is it?

• 53:53Griffin McElroy?

  How do you know?

• 53:53Russ Frushtick?

  Just confidence, extreme confidence. It is all about, well, you're gonna hear this clip and you'll know instantly what it's about.

• 54:03Griffin McElroy?

  I thought you were gonna talk about Carriomart there.

• 54:04Chris Plante?

  Oh, please, please go down that road.

• 54:06Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know what that is.

• 54:08Griffin McElroy?

  You don't know what Carriomart is? Okay. I think it was invented by, I first heard about it from my, my Austin friends who were playing it before I moved there. Traditionally in Mario Kart 64, the only rule is you play a race in Mario Kart 64, but you cannot cross the finish line until you have finished the beer you opened right before starting the race. There's lots of tactics that go into this. Lots of people. My strategy is I don't, I like to drink beer sort of in general now that I'm 37 years old, but back when I was a young man with the liver of a young man, I would just try to slam it right before, you know, everybody else gets going. You slam it, you start in fourth place, but then you get all those good items.

• 54:51Griffin McElroy?

  You get all those good items and you know that, or you wait, like you get run off the track, you splash down in the water. That's enough time for you to blah, blah, blah. You just can't be pressing buttons and drinking at the same time. Fucking great. Really, really fun. We talked about playing it when we were on this dude's trip earlier this year and all of us were like, no fucking way, man, am I gonna drink a whole?

• 55:07Chris Plante?

  I'm so proud of all of us.

• 55:09Griffin McElroy?

  The restraint was really something.

• 55:11Chris Plante?

  We had a lot of, what is it? What are the non-alcoholic bev's? Those new ones?

• 55:17Griffin McElroy?

  I think they're just called non-alcoholic bev's.

• 55:19Chris Plante?

  Yeah, there's like a short term for it, but man, that stuff, it's really.

• 55:25Speaker 02

  What was it?

• 55:27Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, you know, you heard the clip.

• 55:29Chris Plante?

  Hilarious is what it was.

• 55:30Griffin McElroy?

  You heard it for sure.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  It was great.

• 55:31Chris Plante?

  Hissing myself. I think we did it.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's just end the show. Thanks. Thank you for listening to it. We're gonna do another one next week, so just calm down. Be sure to join us again next week for the best of it. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?