Pragmata Is Like Dead Space with Optimism

Announced in 2020, Pragamata has finally arrived. Capcom’s new third-person shooter puts you in the boots of a space marine-type who must overcome evil robots on a moon covered in 3D-printed skyscrapers. Which comically sounds like a pretty standard video game premise. But this isn’t your standard shooter. You must solve puzzles in the middle of combat, team up with an adorable robo-kid, and navigate some classic 3D platforming in low-gravity. Kinda Funny’s Andy Cortez joins us to discuss this odd delight!

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

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  What are y'all doing with Easter?

• 0:04Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 0:05Chris Plante?

  What are we doing with Easter? Easter's done.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  This can't be just a cold open, man. This is a bonus episode. I can't believe, yes, tell me everything.

• 0:12Russ Frushtick?

  What are you?

• 0:13Speaker 01

  If you will, Russ, tell me all your thoughts on God.

• 0:18Russ Frushtick?

  What are you? So I am, I am a middle aged man.

• 0:24Chris Plante?

  Uh huh.

• 0:25Russ Frushtick?

  And I had my very first.

• 0:28Chris Plante?

  Jewish man.

• 0:29Russ Frushtick?

  A middle aged Jewish man, it should be noted, sure.

• 0:31Chris Plante?

  Okay, yeah.

• 0:31Russ Frushtick?

  And I had my very, very first Easter egg hunting experience. And what the fuck are you guys doing to these children?

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Okay, well, let me stop you here. You said it's your first Easter egg hunting experience. Have you hunted eggs in like a completely agnostic context?

• 0:52Russ Frushtick?

  No, that's a fair question. No, I haven't. So I guess it is my first egg hunting.

• 0:56Chris Plante?

  Second question, before that, you said you are a 40 year old, middle aged man. And you participated in the Easter egg hunt, presumably with children. Do you think maybe what was, what was kind of weird about it?

• 1:10Russ Frushtick?

  I was physically there, Chris Plante, I wasn't actually stealing eggs from kids. Although there was a moment when it started where I was like, am I supposed to take the eggs?

• 1:20Russ Frushtick?

  Genuinely, I didn't know. I mean, all these people are running around.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  The wild thing about eggs is there is, I mean, to your credit, Russ, absolutely zero consistency. Some of these bad boys you could peel and eat.

• 1:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Some are plastic with candy. Some are plastic and empty. Some are plastic with coupons for hugs. Some are chocolate, right? They're just foil wrapped, big chunks of chocolate. Some are, and this is the wild ones, used to be real, then are filled with confetti. And you're supposed to smash those on your head. I mean, there's just no rhyme or reason.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  Flour as well sometimes.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Flour?

• 1:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  Those are the prank, those are the prank ones.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Prank ones, prank ones.

• 1:59Russ Frushtick?

  And, and is there, shouldn't you give the kids like a quota? Like, shouldn't the kids be like, five is enough? And then let the other kids have some? Because right now, it seems like unfettered capitalism.

• 2:11Chris Plante?

  No, no, no, Andy, Andy, I do want to hear here because we did bring you on for expertise.

• 2:18Speaker 03

  Well, I

• 2:19Speaker 01

  As a fan of the cloth.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  You know, I'm not, I'm not trying to, you know, push my beliefs on anybody, guys, okay?

• 2:26Speaker 03

  I can't recall the quote I'm looking for.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Andy's the rare guest that will push his religious beliefs on people before he's been introduced.

• 2:38Russ Frushtick?

  There was a moment as we were waiting in line, and I was waiting in line, and the line was long and we were nowhere near the front of it. And there was a couple of parents right behind me that whispered to themselves, if we miss this, they will never forgive us. And then proceeded to find ways to cut the line. And that is not a very well spirited event. That is a stressful nightmare of an event that you're teaching children from an early age.

• 3:08Russ Frushtick?

  No, no defense. You all agree that this is a bad

• 3:11Chris Plante?

  I'll be honest, I didn't hear anything you just said because I was Googling Ecclesiastes Easter egg quote just to see if there was one and

• 3:20Speaker 03

  Is that how you pronounce the word? I think I said something different.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure you have been in Ecclesiastes.

• 3:28Chris Plante?

  It counts.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  It counts. One of the Gnostic gospels was hitting bad boys.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was in the, the book of, the book of Job.

• 3:35Chris Plante?

  Right after the book of Thomas, when were the Jesus blinds dude just because he can't?

• 3:40Speaker 03

  The King James one, he's going for another title this year, guys.

• 3:43Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, hell yeah.

• 3:44Chris Plante?

  Ah. And now we're back to games, you know?

• 4:06Speaker 01

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

• 4:09Chris Plante?

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

• 4:12Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Ross Rostic, I know the best game of the week. Andy, get in there.

• 4:17Speaker 03

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

• 4:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and the greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club and just by listening, you're, you just become a member just like that. This week, talking about Pragmat, ta, ta, ta, what is that?

• 4:34Chris Plante?

  Six years ago, Capcom announced that it's gonna make another game, which means this game has been in development for seven or eight years. Imagine Dead Space, but a little bit more humanist, a little more anti-AI, and a little more Mega Man?

• 4:51Speaker 03

  What?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Well, we'll hear about that and so much more, right after this.

• 4:58Russ Frushtick?

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

• 5:39Russ Frushtick?

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

• 5:50Russ Frushtick?

  Before we start this segment, I want to introduce our very special guest who is joining us. It's Andy Cortez. Thank you for joining us, Andy.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  Hi, hello, everybody. I've been listening to The Besties since 2012. I think I'm the oldest guest to have ever been on a show. Wow.

• 6:08Chris Plante?

  One honor.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. For us, I guess. Yeah, huge for us. It's massive.

• 6:12Chris Plante?

  You don't look 60.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  You look like a solid 28, 29. It was, it was college time. It was college time in 2012. Yeah, it's a good time.

• 6:22Russ Frushtick?

  While we're holding it down, we appreciate it. People can experience Andy's magic on Kind of Funny. You also have a very good Twitch channel. You want to direct people to the Twitch channel?

• 6:30Speaker 03

  Sure, Andy Cortez on Twitch, and then we do Kind of Funny Games every day. We talk about industry news. It's usually, unfortunately, layoff news for the past couple of years, but there's always some good news sprinkled through out there. So Kind of Funny Games daily for all of the gaming news and gaming reviews.

• 6:51Russ Frushtick?

  Well, thank you, Andy. We have a very special game that, as Plan alluded to, was long delayed and comes from the team over at Capcom. It is Pragmata. Andy, you want to take a stab at summarizing what the fuck this thing is?

• 7:07Speaker 03

  Sure. Pragmata is a third-person action shooter game. You know, it's got similar story tropes to what, you know, it's the older father figure with the daughter who, you know, maybe he doesn't really care for her at the start, but then he warms up to her. And you're just sort of battling through a space station that has been kind of in disarray, and there's a lot of 3D printing all over the place.

• 7:39Russ Frushtick?

  It is very pro and anti-3D printing at the same time. It's kind of impressive that they walked that line. I think it is most notable at a glance for being the game where as you're shooting 3D-printed creatures, you're also doing like Pipe Dream-style mini-games.

• 7:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:57Chris Plante?

  Wow. That is a poll that I think no one but our oldest listener, Andy, would know the reference to.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  What a tragedy that he doesn't get to listen to this one episode.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  Damn, unfortunate. I was gonna be bummed out about it when I tell them.

• 8:14Russ Frushtick?

  When I saw that feature, I was like, oh, Justin, this is not a game Justin's gonna be able to play. Like, physically, not. And I think that was, ended up being true, correct, Justin?

• 8:23Chris Plante?

  Can you describe the Pipe Dream a little bit more for people?

• 8:26Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. So, imagine like a Gears of War over-the-shoulder third-person shooter, and then when you aim at something, a grid shows up. Imagine like a-

• 8:35Chris Plante?

  A two-dimensional grid.

• 8:36Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, like an eight-by-eight grid. And in that grid, there are like nodes, and the idea is to hack the enemy. You have to push face buttons or whatever you're using.

• 8:47Chris Plante?

  A B X Y.

• 8:48Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, to move through these nodes and eventually land on like an endpoint, which in turn hacks the enemy, leaves them susceptible to damage, might stun them, might do a variety of other things to them. So it's not like a puzzle. I mean, it is in the lightest sense of the word. Like you can, you can finish them in two seconds, but it is interesting to have to juggle that while you're in combat.

• 9:11Chris Plante?

  It's closer to a maze than a puzzle. And that like you're navigating this 2D space, getting from point A to point B. But even on like a maze, you can, for the most part, go wherever you want. It's like, do you want to build up the nodes on the way to the endpoint? So these nodes also have special capabilities that could maybe slow down an enemy or hack multiple enemies at once, or put little blue pustules on them that make them take even more damage.

• 9:40Russ Frushtick?

  I never want to hear you say the word pustule again, if you could.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  Man, that's, that's in my, like, that's, that's a word I'm constantly going to.

• 9:50Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, no.

• 9:50Chris Plante?

  Yeah, kind of like damp towelette, pustule.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  It's, it's definitely like a vocal tic of mine. I'm always saying pustule, man.

• 9:58Russ Frushtick?

  You picked the wrong guest.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:01Chris Plante?

  So the, the comparison to like Dead Space that I made up top, I think holds true in two ways. One is the game, it's like the story. You are literally in space, you are a big bulky dude, space marine type. And you need to find out what happened to this colony that is like now basically abandoned. So story wise, it's playing with a lot of the same ideas. You're picking up random, you know, audio diaries or written diaries, little hologram.

• 10:32Russ Frushtick?

  And even like, like Dead Space style, like those like projected diaries, which is used in Dead Space as well.

• 10:39Chris Plante?

  The other comparison is this shooting itself builds off of something that I think kinda got abandoned post Dead Space. I wish more games do, which is we want you to think about shooting as strategy, not just like aim for the head. In Dead Space, I think conceals this pretty well, but if you go back and think about it, the goal is to delim the enemies, right? That you wanna cut them off in certain ways and there is a strategy on top of the usual shoot for the head. Here, and because of that, the enemies move slower. Here, a similar thing is happening. The enemies move slower, or you're incentivized to find ways to get them to move slower, so that you can both shoot them and do a secondary

• 11:24Chris Plante?

  thing. And I'm kinda surprised that it just hasn't been more games like this. I was trying to think, were there other games that kinda did this, hey, we want your brain to do two things at once shooters?

• 11:36Russ Frushtick?

  I can't, I don't know, man. Andy Justin?

• 11:39Speaker 03

  I mean, aside from just the hacking mini-games in Nier Automata,

• 11:44Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  where you are actively, I can just be hacking and slashing all these dudes, or I could, as the character, go into your mainframe and do the little,

• 11:55Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  which is another arcady thing, cuz this, the hacking here always, it reminds me of Snake, and in Nier Automata, you're just kind of playing Asteroids or whatever. So I, but that's not a simultaneous thing, so it's kind of a, I don't know, I don't really know of another comparison, to be honest.

• 12:09Russ Frushtick?

  I think Bioshock 2 had like, when you're hacking like the turrets and things like that, it was like real-time, like, timing mini-games and things like that. Or even like you look at Gears of War, the like, active reload is somewhat of this, which is-

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Helldivers has the little,

• 12:25Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  beep boop beep boop things that you hit on the,

• 12:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, the airstrike thing, yeah. That's true. Yeah, no, it is. It's interesting.

• 12:32Chris Plante?

  I'm curious what y'all thought of the story because the story is coherent. I will say that.

• 12:39Russ Frushtick?

  It's also fast. It's when I started playing this, I was like, oh, boy, I'm in. This might be a situation where I have to play five hours before anything happens or I get to control the game. It starts really quickly and like gives you the controls really quickly, which I did appreciate.

• 12:55Russ Frushtick?

  Narratively, you've mentioned Dead Space. Totally different from a tone standpoint than Dead Space. I think it's important to realize that like this is a much brighter and more optimistic tone. It doesn't have the gore elements of Dead Space in it. Thematically, obviously has ties, but tonally very, very different.

• 13:18Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, I it rang as like a game about adoption, which is not what I expected. And well, I that's a surprise that it's not so like. You, yes.

• 13:30Russ Frushtick?

  It's just funny. I laugh only because the writing in this game is so ham handed that like he multiple times is like, I was adopted. You know what that means?

• 13:39Chris Plante?

  So I I I here, I don't think it's ham handed for that reason. I was so happy to have a game where it actually said what it wanted to be about instead of just being the kind of metaphor that doesn't quite work. I think there's a worse version of this game where they're like, it's about adoption because you get it. He's a space marine and he finds this little girl and then he like takes her on the way. And we never pointed out, but like you kind of know what it is. But if you actually unpack the metaphor, it doesn't work at all. It's incomplete. And I admired that the writing had the gumption for him to be like, hey, I I was an orphan and I had a very similar experience to you. And now we as characters are coming together.

• 14:23Chris Plante?

  Instead of this kind of usual like lone wolf and cub, stoic man, child relationship. It's like, hey, we actually have just a lot in common. And I'm learning from you. You're learning from me, which I think is just, it's a twist on this formula that is it just it's that extra step that I didn't expect to get from it.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  I think they could have gone the super cliche route and made it the grizzled, you know, angry dude who is pissed off about having to be in this experience because who wouldn't be? I, I think it is kind of nice that they didn't go that cliche route, but then parts of me kind of wish they did just for better storytelling period because the, the like this Hugh guy like, he, he really warms up to the fact that you, that you have now kind of pseudo adopted this robot girl. He, he warms up to the idea of that in about 20 minutes. Yeah. And he's just like, it, he just, I keep on making the comment to my coworkers that like, Hugh feels like a, like a 10 year old in this game.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  There's just so many moments where a little Diana who is a robot child, you'll experience an action sequence or just, I don't know, something will happen in the game and she'll go, wow, that was really fun. And Hugh will respond with something like, yeah, that was awesome, right? And he's like, he just doesn't, he, he just feels so tonally weird to me. Yeah. He has kind of like, I like ice cream too. Yeah. He's, he's, he's seeing the world through a, through a child's eyes as well sometimes. And it's like, you know, overall, it's really good for the positivity of the story because I feel like this is very, a very like hopeful thing. And you never really feel a whole lot of dread in this. This isn't like the last of us where you just

• 16:13Speaker 03

  always feel like garbage, but he just, uh, I don't know, man. I, I, I wish I could just like be in the room with him as they were doing writing passes on Hugh and just like, I don't know, let's switch this up. But then there are really endearing moments too. So it's, it's kind of a mixed bag for me.

• 16:29Russ Frushtick?

  It's mostly just the dialogue for me is just like incredibly wooden and not real like, I mean, I'm fine with them being like upbeat and fun, but like it's written like we're gonna tell and not show every single story beat in this game. Um, that being said, I did, despite that wooden writing, like almost immediately like feel a lot of connection to. Diana with the little AI girl and like she's very charming. They give you like collect fucking slides and crayons and various other things for her to like hang out in her in your secret basin.

• 17:11Russ Frushtick?

  And she's like playing on them and asking questions about them and like that stuff is very endearing. I I don't have a problem with the story. I just found it a little bit funny how. How we get there. Yeah, it's just blunt.

• 17:22Chris Plante?

  There is the other half of the story, which is that they're building New York on the moon. So we should probably talk about like the level design. Fresh, can you explain kind of like how the game works structurally?

• 17:35Russ Frushtick?

  Um, you have a, it's like a hub and spoke. Uh, so you have a main base. It's called the shelter. And back in the shelter, you can do things you would expect. You can upgrade weapons. You can add new gear. All the like collectibles you find live in the shelter. You eventually can unlock like training missions, things like that. And then from the shelter, you go out to these different areas where you have objectives like, oh, rescue or some character or unlock these doors to activate a radio to the earth, whatever it is.

• 18:04Russ Frushtick?

  In each of those areas, the levels are like.

• 18:09Russ Frushtick?

  It doesn't quite feel like Dead Space, which I think Dead Space feels like a very organic, almost grounded portrayal of what a space station would be. This feels a little bit closer like almost like Portal in a way that it is very intentionally designed as like a puzzle environment.

• 18:28Russ Frushtick?

  But they do take big swings where like one of the environments is like they 3D printed New York City. And it's like, and and parts of it are like sideways, uh, like weird inception style. Or one of them is like a forest that they generated on this space station. So there's that, but it I think it's it feels more like color to the actual level design, which tends to be pretty boxy for the sake of like, again, solving puzzles and opening doors, things like that.

• 18:56Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I would you would you call the level design Metroidvania Light? Like, I don't know how to describe this. Like, it's like these mini worlds where you're going to be kind of in some ways looping back.

• 19:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, there are there are elements of that where you have to like unlock powers to access.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, that one, the siege. Was that what those called? There was a sequel to it.

• 19:20Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  The surge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:24Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah, where it had.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Similar idea where like the sort of like factory biomes that you would like unlock with different skill sets as you as you went on.

• 19:33Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, and there is an element also where you'll like get the ability to

• 19:40Russ Frushtick?

  to like decrease the amount of like moon filament that's in the middle of a hallway. And that'll allow you in an earlier area. Yeah, this is a video game. That'll allow you.

• 19:52Russ Frushtick?

  That'll allow you to access like a chest that you couldn't get before. It has like God of War 2018 kind of vibes in that as well. Where there is backtracking.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  And super helpful to kind of show you the map with your completion percentage and say, oh, I got a red key for that red dangerous zone. That's kind of a challenge room. Let me go back and backtrack and see what the treasure there was. And I've been really enjoying a lot of the side stuff to like weirdly, I wasn't expecting to want to sort of chase these training missions that are back in the hub in the hub world to then unlock cosmetics and things like that. I'm really enjoying that part of it.

• 20:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they make it very easy.

• 20:29Chris Plante?

  The the training missions are called training, and I guess they are teaching you how to be better at the game, but I think the closer comparison is the kind of VR missions in Metal Gear where it's like, yeah, we want a slow story to exist in this game, but we want a space where you can really video game ass video game it. Like, Andy, what were what were some of the ones that stood out to you like that got you to keep doing? Because there's like 20, 30 of them?

• 20:56Speaker 03

  I I mean, there are all sort of a different varieties. I think you start off super easy with just platforming ones and you have your your jump and your float and your air dashes. You you move so swiftly for a big guy like you're just a big man and you're moving through really quickly with your kind of cool aerial boosters or whatever and so some of them will just be a bunch of floating cubes and you're trying you jump over the gap and then they kind of progressively get tougher where there might be another large block that is kind of an obstacle get you know moving in the way of yourself and if you fall off and that counts as a death and maybe part of the challenge to three star that mission is to not fall off or not to get damaged and so every one of these missions has

• 21:41Speaker 03

  you could just do the mission but there will also be the three sort of meta challenges within the challenge of well you also got to the goal and you also shot the six boxes and you also did it within 20 seconds or whatever and all of that just kind of you know it just sort of it it it looks at me and it challenged me from across the room and it says can you do this and the unlockables are fun and I want to get more cosmetics for the characters so I've been kind of really incentivized to go back into it.

• 22:11Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's kind of like a floor is lava game design.

• 22:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:15Chris Plante?

  Where it's like you you could just walk around this room. But what if you what if the floor was lava and you didn't want to touch it and you're like ah damn you know I don't I don't want to touch the floor even though I definitely can.

• 22:25Russ Frushtick?

  It's it's in that area that I think plants earlier comparison to Mega Man is most obvious like it really feels like a 3D Mega Man X vibe especially when you're mixing the air dashing with the floating with the jumping with the whatever. Obviously the combat itself is very different but like Capcom is bringing Mega Man back for a reason. Uh, and it's kind of interesting to see them also tackling this like 3D approach. Not saying it's an official Mega Man game or anything but design wise.

• 22:54Chris Plante?

  Let's let's teach the controversy here, you know, like there was a lot of hubbub, hullabaloo, is that the right phrase? Before this game came out of hubbub, there we go. Of is this game a Mega Man game because the little girl looks Mega Man-esque she's wearing a big puffy blue coat that is like the Mega Man color she has a glowing arm that like has a magical technological power that looks.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  And her character's name is Megan Man.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  I didn't play very far. So that's a guess, but.

• 23:37Russ Frushtick?

  I had no idea that was.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  By the way, PS, I like, just make this into a Megan game. It's free.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Right? Like swap it like, easy.

• 23:47Russ Frushtick?

  It's so close. Her eyes need to be bigger, but probably they could figure.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  We'll get that in post. That's DLC.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  When the game was, when the game was being revealed and the man's name was revealed to be Hugh and all of us at Kind of Funny are just trying to like force, to really force this into a mega.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Something.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  And we're just like, Hugh Lights? Like, if we were just like, we were really going for it, man.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Huge disappointment.

• 24:18Chris Plante?

  I, I'm ultimately glad it's not, like, I'm glad that they, they have made their own thing. And it very much feels like this is the future of something. The game has, it's plenty enjoyable at the beginning, but it has a hell of a build. It feels like kind of a slow, use a pistol puzzle shooter for the first hour. It feels like that Metroidvania light, God of War, contemporary comparison that Fresh mentioned after that. And by the end, the combat in the game is truly absurd. You have, you know, like seven or eight robots of varying sizes, some flying,

• 24:59Chris Plante?

  some tank-like on the screen, firing, you know, giant missile loads at you and you're hacking all of it all at once. And it's, it's absurd. At one point in the game becomes basically the movie Tremors, but with robots. Um, it goes for it. And I.

• 25:21Chris Plante?

  I'm happy to see just a new, a new AAA style video game that's doing its own thing that doesn't have the number two or further beyond that coming after it. It feels like a minor miracle.

• 25:35Russ Frushtick?

  I mean Capcom as a company feels like a minor miracle, just the fact that they've been able to keep up the cadence that they have with like a large backlog. Like they've got Monster Hunter, they've got Resident Evil, they've got this now, which we don't know if it's going to be a success from a monetary standpoint, but critically certainly is a success. Fucking Ace Attorney, what else? You know, they're doing very well for a company that for sure I thought was going to go the way of Konami and like just sell Pacheco machines for 20 years, which is kind of crazy.

• 26:05Chris Plante?

  Konami's back, baby. You know.

• 26:06Russ Frushtick?

  They are back. They are making actual games again. So good, good on Konami. They realize there are limits to what those balls can do.

• 26:12Chris Plante?

  But before we wrap up the section, Andy, do you have any other final thoughts on the game?

• 26:17Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I still think that this game would be so much more easy to recommend. First of all, I think the gameplay is a lot of fun and I do enjoy the action and I like the way it's been evolving. I think that if I could look at anybody and say like, yeah, but the writing and the story is like actually super awesome. I, I wish we were in that spot. I, I think that it really falls short in a lot of different ways. Like there's a, um, there's a, there's a quote that I wrote down at a certain moment where you're dealing with a bad guy and Diana, the little girl, because again, her name is like, I'm model number D I A, whatever the hell, you know, and.

• 26:56Chris Plante?

  D I A N A. I'll call you Diana.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  I'll call you Diana, you know, and they deal with like a, a enemy that's doing lightning and electric, uh, electricity. And she says, hey, I had to write this down. She says, hey, remember when you get, got hit by lightning, Hugh? That was pretty shocking. And it's, it's a cute pun, whatever.

• 27:18Russ Frushtick?

  She's playing with puns for the first time. She just gained sentience.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  And then, and then Hugh, but here's the part where Hugh seems more like a, a non-human and his reply was, well, you know what they say about lightning, right? Next time it'll be the bots that get zapped.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  I was like Hugh, no, what? Nobody says that first off. Like, I don't know what, what do you mean by you know what they say? They don't say that.

• 27:43Russ Frushtick?

  I think the implication is that you know, nothing gets hit by lightning the same time, like twice. So the implication is if he already got shocked, certainly.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  It's a lot of work. It's making us do a lot of work.

• 27:55Russ Frushtick?

  Look, I'm trying to be generous.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Lot of inferring here for little robot Diana, meeting her first human.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Oh my.

• 28:06Russ Frushtick?

  How do you feel just in, in hearing about it? Is this the sort of game that appeals to you or is it?

• 28:11Speaker 01

  I have a long list of things that I will return to. I do like games like this and I'm always a sucker for compelling single player experience. The, the dialogue does not fill me with a lot of confidence, I will say.

• 28:25Russ Frushtick?

  Turn on the Japanese and, and turn off subtitles and you're set.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Let me map my kids' faces on to the girl and then I will be into it. Cause then the kids would love that. The kids would love that if they were sitting on the guy's shoulder blasting people. Let me do that for 10 bucks as DLC.

• 28:41Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, Andy, you have, just before we wrap this segment, pulled up a truly horrifying video of what looks like a mod, maybe?

• 28:49Speaker 03

  No, this was.

• 28:50Russ Frushtick?

  What is this?

• 28:50Speaker 03

  This was Pragmata's, uh, Pragmata, sorry. Uh, this was their April Fools post.

• 28:57Russ Frushtick?

  Oh.

• 28:57Speaker 03

  And they said Pragmata is a Mega Man game, April Fools, and it's Hugh, but he's in a very like lifelike proportion sized Mega Man suit instead of his big astronaut suit. And his mask is, is, you know, Mega Man's face. And then that kind of like goes up and reveals the real tiny face of Hugh in the helmet.

• 29:18Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, that'll for sure get released as DLC or whatever.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Absolutely. You do not make a, a, a Mega Man costume and then refuse to sell it to us. That is, that is some horse armor shit. They're gonna be like, you want this for $20, you swine? And I'll be like, oink, oink, give it to me.

• 29:37Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, let's, uh, take a break and, uh, talk about more games with Andy. This episode of The Besties is sponsored by Alienware. You know, gaming today isn't one thing. It moves between cozy, chaotic, and everything in between. One minute you're exploring something slow and immersive, the next you're in a fast-paced match. And somewhere in there, you might be creating, streaming, or seeing where the session goes. That's why Alienware systems are built with the performance to handle it all. With Nvidia GeForce RTX, it delivers powerful graphics that bring every world to life while optimizing battery life. So whether you're playing, creating, or jumping between both, everything runs the way it should. No interruptions, no slowing down. You don't have to adjust the way you play.

• 30:21Russ Frushtick?

  You just keep gaming your way, however that looks in the moment. Be more Alien at alienware.com/gameyourway.

• 30:32Russ 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, I am incredibly

• 31:14Russ Frushtick?

  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 Wire Cutter 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.

• 31:54Russ Frushtick?

  Andy, I think you play more games than any of us, which doesn't seem possible because we feel like we play a lot of games. And yet, you do streaming, you do Kind of Funny. I think your cadence is more than ours, and I'm sure there are games that you've played this year that we haven't. Is there anything recent that you've played that you would call out as a special release?

• 32:16Speaker 03

  For 2026 games, let me go through the old Steam library.

• 32:21Russ Frushtick?

  Because I know you are currently going through your backlog to better inform yourself for the forthcoming Kind of Funny 100 Best Games of All Time list. Was there anything recent before we get into that?

• 32:34Speaker 03

  Um, as far as brand new games go, I did just beat Mouse PI for Hire.

• 32:41Russ Frushtick?

  That was the first person uses like old timey cartoon style, like Cuphead style graphics, but Doom gameplay.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, that's a boomer shooter, looks like a 1920s, 1930s Disney animation.

• 32:56Russ Frushtick?

  Hopefully, hopefully not exactly like one.

• 32:58Speaker 03

  Well, Steamboat Willie is fine. We can hit that area. And so that game we, I played recently, that's about a 19, 18 hour-ish video game. And that, I thought it was fine. I thought it was still lacking in a lot of different other spots. And that, so that's one that I did recently.

• 33:19Russ Frushtick?

  I think that is the difference between you and I is if you're, oh, I guess you were reviewing it. But if I'm playing something that's fine, there is no fucking way I'm spending 20 hours on it.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and that's the thing is that you would be hit with really neat moments. And I would say, oh, cool. Okay, maybe we're, we're getting even better here, right? And honestly, we're, we're very similar at Kind of Funny. And that's one of the things that they would always bring up is, you know, back at IGN, you would have to play this. And now we have the freedom of saying, I am not digging this enough to continue on. Which was kind of a lot of everybody's experiences with Crimson Desert, where they said, You have to play 10 hours for it to get good? Sorry, man. Like, maybe after a bunch of, you know, patches and things like that, but Crimson Desert's another one that I'm about, you know, 12 hours in and I'm kind of momentarily going back to it just in hopes that there are

• 34:12Speaker 03

  more patches and in hopes that it feels better and it's, it's slowly getting there, but I, I'm still needing to, I still want to see the magic that everybody on the internet is claiming like, this is some truly like generational type shit. I just don't, I'm not seeing it quite yet.

• 34:30Russ Frushtick?

  We had a question, a reader email question a few weeks ago about whether the game Crimson Desert could be saved with patches in the way that Cyberpunk was. Do you think there's a shot of that level of like resurrection?

• 34:42Speaker 03

  Um, I mean, if you ask 80% of people, the game doesn't need saving. Like, to them, it's, it's already an amazing video game and a lot of that I think is just an amalgamation of just a buttload of mechanics and cool looking things with amazing visuals, but,

• 35:02Speaker 03

  you know, mission structure wise, I think it's like one of the weakest things I've ever experienced and that's because they made Black Desert Online and they're just like an MMO sort of studio. So there's not, you know, playing Crimson Desert after beating The Witcher 3 for the first time was a massive like shock to the system. Not ideal timing. Yeah, yeah, but I mean gameplay wise, it's so deep and there's just so many wild things you could pull off. It really is like that Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, check this shit out. Look what I just did here that I figured out or look at this cool discovery I made and I'm hoping to get there one day, but at the, at the rate that they're putting

• 35:42Speaker 03

  out updates, I feel like it will inevitably get to a point that everybody says, alright, now's the time to hop in because movement is better and because now I can button remap and they've, you know, made a, a decision to not have-

• 35:57Russ Frushtick?

  Something very funny of now I can button remap.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it works. And the thing is button, you know, it's not only just button remapping, it's the fact that the controls are so- So obtuse.

• 36:08Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  And there's no button remapping like they the the things that they have you doing in this game are just really odd and it's one of those where you go, all right, I applaud you for doing something different, but was it the right choice, you know, uh? And but PC mods have been helping out a lot with for me like I in immediately installed the unlimited stamina outside of battle, which is like, I feel like every game should have that.

• 36:33Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, no kidding.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  And so I installed that mod. I installed a couple of different mods that help out with the camera angle and but I mean, they're putting out, they've put out like four updates or three updates.

• 36:45Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  Since it launched and they are, they know that this game could be a better experience and it's pretty obvious by what they're fixing. So button remapping is already in the works and that should be here probably within the next couple of weeks or so.

• 37:01Chris Plante?

  Do you think that they've considered making it a Mega Man game instead?

• 37:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, they would have been better off, honestly.

• 37:07Chris Plante?

  Bold idea.

• 37:08Speaker 03

  Would have been so much.

• 37:09Chris Plante?

  Especially not owning the property would have been very bold.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  I mean, well, the game is just, you know, it, why not throw another IP in there? Cause the game has so many other influences that like, yeah, sure, throw in a Mega Man in there as well.

• 37:22Chris Plante?

  Gotta take big swings, you know?

• 37:24Russ Frushtick?

  That's right.

• 37:25Chris Plante?

  What is the best thing that you've played this year so far?

• 37:29Speaker 03

  Oh, it's so because of the the backlog and and me finally looking at all these blind spots and empty spots in my gaming history and knowing that I want to do them justice because we we have a big top 100 thing coming up this year where all of us are going to submit our top 100 games and then we're going to add them all up, add up all the points and then do our own kind of big event that we've always wanted to do. And finally, you're like, all right, let's freaking do it this year. And so this year has been just me looking at my backlog and saying, well, I beat the first playthrough near automata when the game came out. And then I put it down like many people.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  And everybody said, you gotta go back. I'm like, I know. And so this year I finally did all of the main endings and

• 38:16Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  That that and The Witcher 3 are probably my my two favorite games that I've played this year. I think they like I was just so even mechanically for anybody who is worried about combat and the way that The Witcher 3 might feel, I think that's one of the biggest things that everybody while I was while I would let them know I'm playing The Witcher 3, they go, oh, how does the combat feel? Because I'm I'm such a I'm such a Souls-like action RPG type dude. And I think it's like totally fine. It's it's not it was kind of a non-issue for me. Of course, I would love it to feel like Liza P. does, or like any of the Souls games do. But it's totally serviceable enough when the story and the writing and the branching paths are hitting as hard as they do.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  I was just so blown away by The Witcher 3.

• 39:05Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's it's pretty staggering that. I mean, that and then eventually like Cyberpunk, in my opinion, got pretty damn close to that level as well. Like, that game is fantastic. So, you know, I think that studio has a future.

• 39:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're doing they're doing all right. But yeah, and your automata was definitely one that that blew me away as well. I was just so I was just so overtaken by the whole experience. And it's just so my shit. And the fact that I waited that long, I felt kind of embarrassed. But like, I'm so glad that I got back to it because I just really enjoyed the story and where it goes and the the the things that I would call like the Kojima isms that Yoko Taro does with all of the breaking of the fourth wall and all of those little things that I just like, oh, I love this shit, man. This is like, this is why I could have watched the movie, but I'd prefer to do this because this is so like, this is a video game, you know, like, I love that shit.

• 39:58Chris Plante?

  Well, the good thing is now you have to watch the movie and the animated series, Eight of the Plays. You have to find the story that is locked in the Gacha games and.

• 40:07Russ Frushtick?

  Justin has good tips on the fishing in the first game. Oh, yeah. Do you ever want to walk through on that?

• 40:12Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah, I'll have to, I'll have to hit you up for that, but I definitely will be going to the, the orchestra that's coming back on tour. I'm pumped for that. Cause that was one where I'm like, as soon as I beat it, I was like, I have to go watch this like symphony thing, which I only ever really do for games. Like I, I never really like seek out concerts, but I love for the big gaming experiences. Like the Final, uh, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was super sick. And then everybody's like, dude, you just missed it on tour, man. It just kind of like ended, but it's coming back in a couple of months and I'm pretty pumped for that.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  This isn't actually a problem for, for near because I'm me and I'm on this show, but it always so frustrating when you find a game like that and it's all you want to talk about. And everybody talked about it two years ago. So it's like, hold on, wait, no, no, no, listen. See there, there's different endings. You're like, so it's like you do them all. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  And the second one, you think it's gonna be Lion King 1.5 where you're playing as, as Timon and Pumba during the Lion King one, but it's so much different, man. Like, and honestly, the reason I quit back in the day was, you know, I was like, all right, that's, that's neat, but I don't want to play as the dude for another 20 hours like I just did. And then another gameplay would be another 20 hours, right? And they're like, and everybody's like, no, just do it, just do it. And luckily it's not that. So, so for anybody who's been ever discouraged of saying, well, one playthrough is about 20 ish hours, times five, that's a hundred hour game. It's not that. Every game, every next like playthrough quote unquote is much shorter and they do different things with it to keep it fresh.

• 41:47Chris Plante?

  I do want you to let me play as Timon and Pumba in near autumn. Once, once you put that in my head, you can't just take it away from me.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  What are they doing in those moments?

• 41:58Chris Plante?

  That's so true. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Um, Fresh, you wanna, you wanna dig into the mailbag?

• 42:05Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we have a bunch of reader mail. This one's for Justin from John. Uh, season four of From is almost here. My girlfriend and I are re-watching this crazy show, uh, for that good, good, uh, Harold Perrin face. You know what I'm talking about. How do you feel about From, Justin?

• 42:21Speaker 01

  So good, man. I actually just, we stopped watching From midway through season three. And the only reason, the only reason is that it was a bad show and not worth watching.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  It got, it did that thing where it started popping back up in the, in the algorithm and you start thinking, uh oh, is there something in the air? Are we going to get another season of From? And then, you know, there's nothing that makes a show more appealing to me than knowing there's more of it. So it's like, you know what I mean? We got to get back in, see what all the, it is an absolute. If you ever watched From, or if you ever didn't watch From, here's 30 seconds. It's a town, a village, somewhere in a nowhere place where when you're driving through the woods, you accidentally teleport there and you can't get out and everyone is stuck in the little village. And no one knows why they're there or how they got there. There's time travel. There are, the wires are

• 43:22Speaker 01

  hooked up to appliances, but the other end doesn't go anywhere. They just like go into the walls. There's a woman that digs a hole so deep in her house that her house collapsed. It's a, it's nonsense. The, the biggest star on the show is Harold Perrin of from Lost.

• 43:38Russ Frushtick?

  Do you think, is it better experienced as a YouTube like best moments of From? Or do you actually have to watch?

• 43:46Speaker 01

  No, no, no, because it's like, you have to get into the internal logic of it. Because if you take something out of context, you will watch and think, well, I'm sure that makes more sense in context. You need to earn, having watched all of From, you need to earn the right to with your chest, ten toes and say, this does not make any goddamn sense. And that is, and let me say, into season three, it really picks up.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Hundred hours in, both From and Crimson Desert really pick up. No. The third season, if you ever watched From, finish the third season or it clarifies what is happening in From, the, the central mystery of From is revealed. It is.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Unbelievably stupid, but it is there and there's a whole other season that I have to reckon with it. It's a, it's a really wild show. Truly, the fact that this has gone on. It's one of those shows that I feel like I forgot to cancel. You know, like I should have canceled it. Someone should have, but it's still going. I love it.

• 44:56Speaker 03

  I do appreciate you looking at and discovering more episodes and saying, they didn't give up on it. Why should I?

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Andy, there's not even a joke in what you're saying. It's a hundred percent like, hey, listen, if they're gonna meet me halfway,

• 45:14Speaker 01

  I'll keep watching their stupid ass show. I'm pretty drunk anyway at that point. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's like the dignity. They got me through a lot of nights with season one and season two. I owe them. You know what I mean? I, sure, I already paid my $7.99 for fucking MGM Plus. That's, I swear to God. I swear to God.

• 45:33Speaker 03

  That's not real.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  That's the only show on it, I think.

• 45:41Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, incredible. I'm so happy from X. Maybe I'll watch it.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I literally took a year-long gap. Came back, took a gap year from, came back, still a nonsense.

• 45:51Chris Plante?

  Saw the world, you know, lived some life.

• 45:54Russ Frushtick?

  This next letter comes from Bing Bong Bing Bong Egg Steam. And it is calling out the Baby Steps Developers React seven-minute speedrun video, which is on IGN's YouTube page. I don't even wanna necessarily tell you what happens in this video, apart from saying a Gabe Kazilo and Bennett Foddy, the two creators of Baby Steps, also the voice actors that appear throughout Baby Steps, do a seven-minute speedrun, like re-watch, like devs react re-watch video. And if you liked the tone and weirdness of Baby Steps as a project, highly recommend you watching this Baby Steps devs react because it is one of the best things I've seen in recent memory.

• 46:38Chris Plante?

  It is so funny. It's so funny and so it's smart in a way that you um every 15 seconds you're like, is this smart? Or is this dumb? What high wire act are these brilliant people doing?

• 46:53Russ Frushtick?

  It was great.

• 46:54Chris Plante?

  What a masterpiece.

• 46:55Russ Frushtick?

  Highly recommend it. We'll drop it in the newsletter if you want to watch it. Uh, this next letter comes from Jack. I appreciate your commentary on Ratcoin, a game I've been curious about for a while. I highly recommend you check out Omelette You Cook. It's the best thing I've seen uh come out in response to Bellatro. It's incredibly silly, but serves a big challenge. Uh, you can make the most unappetizing omelette and get a ton of points for it. Plus, there's a real time option for your turns, which I've never seen a rogue like deck builder before, and I really enjoyed it. Uh, and I appreciate those options. So that's a good, I haven't heard of that.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  That sounds like a video game.

• 47:29Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Omelette You Cook?

• 47:30Russ Frushtick?

  Omelette You Cook.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  How's it? That sounds good.

• 47:33Russ Frushtick?

  And no commas in there. So.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Even better.

• 47:36Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 47:37Chris Plante?

  Sounds like a jester game.

• 47:39Russ Frushtick?

  Do we have any honorable mentions that people want to call out? Anything you've seen, anything you've watched?

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Let me tell you what I've been doing lately. I, listen, Windows, Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 10 with security updates. I don't know if you knew this, but Windows 10 no longer getting security updates. There's a lot of hardware that will not run Windows 11 that will no longer get security updates. And I want to encourage you, my friend, if I could to put Linux on it.

• 48:04Chris Plante?

  Oh, there we go.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  So surprised. Here's what I want to say. I just wanted to mention.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  If you had a Calci bet.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Listen, if you had a Calci bet about, first of all, I'm rich because I always bet on me bringing up Linux. I'm just saying, if you, it doesn't have to be for dorks. Like, I'm the only cool person over here in like the Linux world, and I really need more cool people to think about it. If you go, here's, here's what I want you to do. Get a USB drive, search for Linux Mint, go there, follow the instructions, put Linux Mint on the thumb drive, put that thumb drive into some old hardware, load the BIOS, load from that thumb drive, install Linux. You got a whole new operating system. You don't like Linux Mint? Fuck you. Fine. Put a different Linux. Linux on top of it. Who cares? But a bunch, you know what I did? I did one on a really old laptop my kids had.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  And it was a distribution called Endless OS. It's a Linux distribution that is designed to impart work offline. So it, uh, there's like 23 gigs of encyclopedias and information and coding tools. And programming for kids and kids like games, stuff like that, uh, which would be an amazing resource and it runs great. Even on old hardware that has been, you know, as part of planned obsolescence, sort of like made useless. Uh, a lot of these distributions, the lightweight ones still run really easily on it. So experiment today. Go get Linux Mint, put it on a thumb drive, put that on some old hardware. Have fun.

• 49:32Russ Frushtick?

  Do you remember when I was talking about how excited I was about Linux and you asked me what distribution I was on? And I said Bazite and you made fun of me for 20 minutes?

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Right. Yes, that's true. Yes.

• 49:44Russ Frushtick?

  Past that.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. I had 20 minutes. Oh, to be a young man again. I no longer have the vim and vigor.

• 49:55Russ Frushtick?

  I have a couple that I wanted to call out. Uh, the first one is, and let me be very clear. This is not the new Mario movie, which I still haven't seen. I know you guys talked about it last week. I'm talking about the original Super Mario Brothers movie, but I have a, a caveat for you. Watch that movie on mute. No audio. You can watch with subtitles if you want. I wouldn't recommend it. Watch it on mute. I think that movie as a, uh, just a visual storytelling medium. When you're not listening to the pretty weak ass script, works way better, just as like a, experience the visuals of it than it does when you're listening to the actual narrative.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  There's gotta be an album. There's gotta be an album or a podcast or something that would sync sync up perfectly.

• 50:45Russ Frushtick?

  That is the dream. The reason I've discovered this is because my son was watching it on the airplane when we were on vacation. And we didn't have headphones that would plug into the screen and he was like, fine with it. So you watched the whole thing on mute and I was just watching over your shoulder and he had a fucking blast.

• 51:00Chris Plante?

  I feel like I read some sort of like medical study about how you are more likely to emotionally connect with movies on airplanes. Because you're in this like very vulnerable place and that's why people cry at movies on airplanes or you can like find yourself just watching over someone's screen. That was it. That's probably why you like it so much. That's a lot more sense.

• 51:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 51:22Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah, visually the movie, it looks so much like the like the Running Man and other 80s sci fi movies. So like when we, when we all watched it for work, it was like, man, if you just made the characters not named Mario and Luigi. Like this would just be an 80s action sci fi movie. And if you just remove the, the IP from it all, the, the set design is crazy in that movie.

• 51:50Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. And the storytelling, like you know what's going on in every single scene of the movie without knowing the actual words that are being said.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  You know what's going on. You just don't care what the next thing that happens is.

• 52:01Speaker 03

  It's just not good. Yeah.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Just irrelevant to you in your life.

• 52:05Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, the other thing I wanted to call out is a game called Shattered Pixel Dungeon on iOS. Uh, this game has been out for like several years, but I spent a lot of time playing slice and dice on my phone and fell kind of totally in love with it. It's a great, uh, RPG with dice in it. And I was looking for games that were similar and Shattered Pixel Dungeon is basically in the style of Rogue or games of that spirit, but in my opinion has been, uh, is much more welcoming, uh, to learning the mechanics. I've never gotten into one of those games where you move and they move at the same time, whatever that, I guess it's the rogue genre. Uh, and this is the first time that I've had one kind of click for me a little bit. It's great on iOS. If you're playing on like.

• 52:49Russ Frushtick?

  Steam, you would definitely need a mouse because it doesn't work great with a controller. But on mobile devices with touch, it's perfect. And the sort of game you look at the reviews, people have like thousands of hours logged in this game. It had, it kind of scratches that binding Visic itch to some extent. But again, it's turn based, so it makes it really good to pick up and put down. So shattered pixel dungeon is a title that I keep forgetting, but that is indeed the title of the game.

• 53:16Chris Plante?

  Nice. Mine is Exit Eight, the movie. Y'all familiar with this?

• 53:22Speaker 03

  No.

• 53:23Chris Plante?

  Yeah, and I had, I had a feeling you were Andy because you, I assume you played the game?

• 53:29Speaker 03

  I, I just know that it's like very back rooms adjacent.

• 53:33Chris Plante?

  Yes, yes. So the way exit eight, the game works, which came out in 2023. Is you are in a Japanese subway station and you are hoping to get out. But you were caught in a loop that is basically one big hallway. It's kind of like a Z shape. If you think about it like you turn left, you go down a hallway. You turn left again, and then suddenly you're looping.

• 53:58Russ Frushtick?

  I was about to reference PT, but it's a game that literally no one can play right now and has been out for 10 years. So I don't know that I could reference.

• 54:06Chris Plante?

  Exit would be the more recognizable game at this point. Yes. So the, the, the way that you get out is as you go down this hallway, you look for anomalies. And if you see an anomaly, then that means that you should turn back. And if you go backwards, you basically reset the hallway, but you, you upgrade your number. So it's like, oh, you've gotten through this. Can you get through this eight times? Either recognizing anomalies or seeing that there are no anomalies, in which case go forward and then go through the loop again. The game is like four bucks and it's a solid entry point into the whole back rooms phenomenon of these like, what if the very mundane? Parts of our world became horror in their mundanity.

• 54:51Chris Plante?

  The movie is really interesting. I will not say it's great. It is in fact, not great. It is good, but it is. One of the most loyal adaptations of the experience of playing a video game of like literally the source material to the point that it almost feels like somewhere between a movie and a let's play of this game. It is not animated, it's shot in real life, but you are hopping basically into the shoes. The first five, 10 minutes is first person of this character of why are they in this world? It's like, what are they going through

• 55:33Chris Plante?

  emotionally where they need to process getting out of this spot?

• 55:38Russ Frushtick?

  Simon Hill style.

• 55:39Chris Plante?

  Yes, like it is like they are, I mean, this is not a spoiler. It is the very first thing you hear in the movie. Their ex-girlfriend is pregnant and at the hospital. And it's like, is this guy ready to be a father? Basically, or is he going to be a kid forever? And over the course of his journey through the platform, he's going to learn about himself. What it does, it's very clever is at a certain point, you see that there are other perspectives to being in this hallway, much like there are different people playing the game, which I think is a reflection of if you watch this game on streams, you can watch people stream these sorts of games and there are people who are like, this is the scariest thing. I'm taking it very seriously. There are people who are playing it and laughing.

• 56:23Chris Plante?

  There are people who are playing it and not talking at all. It is weird how much the movie is a version of the game. And I've never seen anything quite like it. It's in theaters right now. I don't think like it's a must for the theater experience, but it's certainly not bad. And with a good crowd, I think you definitely would enjoy it.

• 56:44Russ Frushtick?

  Andy, you got anything?

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Um, I've just been setting up the old AYN Thor. Set that up over the weekend. Downloaded like some themes and some icons. And then I was like, I don't like this. So then I just started photoshopping a bunch of icons for myself. And yeah, really digging it so far. Um, kind of, I think I've played through the intro of Link to the Past about 1,200 times. So I'm, I'm further than that again, because I haven't beat the game since I was like a kid or whatever. So I'm through like the second dungeon on that. That's a pretty cool video game, Link to the Past.

• 57:25Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they figured that one out pretty good.

• 57:27Speaker 03

  Um, I've been, um, Oh gosh, in the off time, a lot of like marathon has been awesome.

• 57:34Russ Frushtick?

  Oh.

• 57:35Speaker 03

  I've been, uh, one that I will always sing the praises of that I recommend is a super fun roguelite called The King Is Watching. And it kind of like just came out of nowhere last year for me and I fell absolutely in love with it. And they've had like three major releases since then.

• 57:58Russ Frushtick?

  Oh yeah, I remember. I think we talked a little bit about this. This was the one where you have to like, the mouse cursor is determining what's being productive at any given time. Is that right?

• 58:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. You essentially have like a five by five grid that is your kingdom that you're kind of putting up different things to produce, I don't know, uh, logs or water or stone or whatever to make your castle stronger and, and defense better. And the king's gaze is like just a, whatever you're focused on are the things that are working on the grid. And, uh, you just kind of have to strategically click around there. And that's a game that has kind of been one that I revisit all of the time. It, it, it's not the best on Steam Deck because it's definitely more of a mouse game, but I've, I got it working to where like the buttons, you know, I use my finger to just kind of like be the mouse cursor and.

• 58:52Russ Frushtick?

  What was that called again?

• 58:53Speaker 03

  The King Is Watching.

• 58:54Russ Frushtick?

  Sounds cool.

• 58:55Speaker 03

  It's really, really damn good. And it's one that I'm just like, I want this game to just keep on having updates because every one they put out, they find a new way to kind of reinvent the loop and the gameplay of it while still being The King Is Watching. And it is just so much fun. I really, really dig it.

• 59:12Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Cool. Good lineup. Uh, I wanted to shout out the Patreon over at patreon.com slash the besties. Uh, we have two bonus episodes up for the month of April. I did want to call out the bracket episode that I don't think that we did last week, uh, and drop in a clip. It was one of our more fun, uh, we've done a lot of fun ones, but this one was particularly fun. Uh, this was, if I recall, about space jamming a franchise, uh, which was, which was quite enjoyable. Here is a clip from that, uh, episode.

• 59:47Russ Frushtick?

  In addition to defense, and we're talking right now about basically any ghost Pokémon, but I'm gonna go with Haunter, cuz he doesn't have feet, so there's really nothing to worry about tripping on.

• 59:58Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Passimian is a-

• 1:00:01Russ Frushtick?

  He's the point card.

• 1:00:02Griffin McElroy?

  Passimian? Which, I mean, which Pokémon does the most pass- or which basketball player does the most passing? I don't know much about the different basketball positions, but it seems like Passimian is, I mean-

• 1:00:13Russ Frushtick?

  Chris Mullen.

• 1:00:15Griffin McElroy?

  Who?

• 1:00:16Russ Frushtick?

  The Chris Mullen of the team.

• 1:00:17Griffin McElroy?

  The Chris Mullen of-

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  Maybe if you guys could throw out famous players that have played these positions, then maybe that would help, cuz I don't know. Who's like the best center ever?

• 1:00:27Russ Frushtick?

  Best center, Dikembe Mutombo is a big center.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  Mutombo is awesome, man. I loved his video game. The Old Spice one, did you guys play that?

• 1:00:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:36Russ Frushtick?

  It was a good game.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 1:00:38Russ Frushtick?

  And if we're gonna look at the tallest Pokémon, that would be Eternatus. He is 66 feet tall.

• 1:00:45Griffin McElroy?

  Now, is that a tournament?

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Everybody get up, it's time to slime now!

• 1:00:49Russ Frushtick?

  No, that's standard.

• 1:00:52Russ Frushtick?

  And yeah, we also have a new Resties in addition that's up. We talked about a very strange game called Robot- Roboto? Is that what- what was it called, plant?

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Uh, Rubato.

• 1:01:03Russ Frushtick?

  Rubato, thank you. About a frog.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:01:05Russ Frushtick?

  And not about a frog.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  It is, yeah. It is a platformer that is not a platformer, uh, about halfway through. I don't know. It's a very different game than whatever you think it is.

• 1:01:18Russ Frushtick?

  Yes. Uh, thank you to everyone who's been backing the Patreon. Thank you to new members. We greatly appreciate it. Uh, here's some members that are currently joined. We have Kevin L., we have Eric A., we have Ben R., and Moss L. Thank you for being members. We greatly appreciate you. We also greatly appreciate Mr. Andy Cortez for joining us and spending time with us.

• 1:01:40Speaker 03

  Of course. It's an honor. Yeah, I've been, I've been fans for such a long time, and it's really cool to be on the show for the first time and, and experience it in its grandeur.

• 1:01:51Russ Frushtick?

  Well, I sincerely hope it won't be the last, um, but you know what it is. I'm telling you right now it's the last.

• 1:01:58Speaker 03

  That's fair.

• 1:01:58Russ Frushtick?

  Sorry, bud.

• 1:01:59Chris Plante?

  I veto it, you're back, baby.

• 1:02:02Russ Frushtick?

  Was it the Bible references?

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  It was the Bible. The Bible did it for me.

• 1:02:06Chris Plante?

  Yeah, Ecclesiastes.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  That's gonna do it for us for this week on the Besties. Be sure to join us again next time on the Besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?