Monster Hunter Wilds is Surprisingly Great in Single-Player

Over the past 12 years, The Besties have — one by one — fallen in love with the Monster Hunter series. The latest entry, Monster Hunter Wilds, is the most welcoming version yet. It’s still a tremendous multiplayer experience, but the group discusses how well this entry works solo. Plus, Plante talks about his new love: the new revival of Tokyo Xtreme Racer, an all-but-dead racing series from the 2000s

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

• 0:00Griffin McElroy?

  Russ, why don't you tell everyone what you just told Justin?

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Just exactly. Don't put any more mustard on it than it had. Just like, tell me how you told me.

• 0:08Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so Justin, um, next week, we're doing a game called Split Fiction, which is the game from the team that made It Takes Two. Uh, it is a exclusively co-op experience. You can only play it with two people. And I know that Griffin's gonna be traveling, so...

• 0:26Speaker 01

  And you're gonna be playing with Plant, you'll explain to me.

• 0:28Russ Frushtick?

  And I'm gonna be playing-

• 0:29Speaker 01

  And this was not even like-

• 0:31Griffin McElroy?

  Not a conversation, not an explanation, proper-

• 0:33Speaker 01

  I wanna be clear with this, like, Russ is like, "I am playing it with Plant." And everyone in town is supposed to be like, "Yeah, ops." And then you're like, and then, go ahead, go ahead, Russ, go ahead with part two.

• 0:46Russ Frushtick?

  And then you can play if you want. I guess I didn't-

• 0:49Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And "if I want" would have been quite the chocolate coating on that bitter pill. There was not an "if I, if you want," go on.

• 0:57Russ Frushtick?

  It's a game, anyway.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  What, Justin, what you'll be doing?

• 1:01Russ Frushtick?

  You, I, I think I say, "You can play the Blendo game that you've been waiting for for fucking six years."

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Now, is that kind of a one or two player? Could, is that kind of like a flexible, like, experience?

• 1:14Russ Frushtick?

  Justin, it's very difficult to coordinate multiplayer sessions.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I'm not that familiar with it, and I just didn't know if it was like something that people with friends can have their friends over to do like a friend activity with. Or like, is it something where like, if you know for sure the person doesn't know anybody that would play a game with them, you would pick this game to give to them?

• 1:35Russ Frushtick?

  You're implying that you don't have any, I'm implying that you don't have any friends to play with. Is that the implication?

• 1:41Griffin McElroy?

  That's one of the like five hurtful things in the sentence you said.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Very hurtful thing.

• 1:46Griffin McElroy?

  I think, Russ, you should have to play Split Fiction with Chris and then play it again with Justin.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no, you guys play Split Fiction, Russ and I are gonna play It Takes Two, because that's closer to where we're at personally, I think.

• 2:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  In our relationship.

• 2:02Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, this might have been a moment of pragmatism gone awry.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Hey, you know what?

• 2:07Russ Frushtick?

  That-

• 2:08Speaker 01

  That should be on your tombstone. First, I didn't wanna say that.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Sorry, it's a really powerful phrase, wanna make sure it got etched into history. Secondly, I already asked my friend Slice to play it with me. And he's gonna come over to my house and we're gonna play it together on my big screen, Russ. And you know what? You're not invited!

• 2:29Griffin McElroy?

  And they're gonna eat trash can nachos and drink sodas.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know who else I'm gonna FaceTime while I'm playing the video game with my friend Slice? You know who I'm gonna FaceTime, Russ? I'm gonna FaceTime my personal friend, fucking, multi-award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda, okay? That's what I'm gonna do, Russ. I'm gonna FaceTime him on the phone. And he and me and Slice are gonna play together, okay? I'll, I'll, I'll call some of the other many celebrities that I have by name saved in my phone.

• 2:58Chris Plante?

  If we do not have Lin contributing a guest appearance next week, I do not believe that you are actually friends with one of the greatest musical writers of all time.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Sorry, okay, I should've been more clear this whole time. I wanna be clear. I've been talking about Canadian Lin-Manuel Miranda. I, sorry, I have, he, my Lin-Manuel Miranda is in Canada.

• 3:23Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's like a Cana- you guys wouldn't know him. He did like Canadian Hamilton and like, yeah, it's like a different, yeah, but it's like, it's, he's just as good.

• 3:34Griffin McElroy?

  In, in Canada, they call it Canadian Bakleton.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  That doesn't make any fucking sense! Hey, if you gotta put an A in his name to make him Canadian Lin-Manuel Miranda, where is it the funniest? Cause I've put it like five different places in my head and it hits every place.

• 4:12Speaker 01

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

• 4:15Griffin McElroy?

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

• 4:18Chris Plante?

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

• 4:22Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Russ Rush. I know the best game of the week.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Welcome to Monster Hunter Wilds.

• 4:30Griffin McElroy?

  Whoa, that's crazy. You usually say the name of the show and get swapped around.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Welcome to the besties, which is a video game club. It's a show about the many ways in which interactive entertainment interweaves with our day-to-day lives. But today, this one's about Monster Hunter Wilds. Chris Plant, what is that?

• 4:49Chris Plante?

  Monster Hunter Wilds is a long-running multiplayer, grindy, action RPG. It was most famously available on mobile platforms a long time ago, but now it's on consoles and it's bigger and better than ever and you get to kill big beasts with your buds.

• 5:09Russ Frushtick?

  When was it? It started as a PS2 game. What are you talking about, mobile consoles?

• 5:12Chris Plante?

  Yeah, but like its most popular period was when it was on Nintendo portables and you could go play it, you know, outside with friends.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  But there's never been a better time!

• 5:21Chris Plante?

  But there's never!

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Is this the one? Let's talk about, is this the Monster Hunter? We'll talk about it after the break.

• 5:29Griffin McElroy?

  Unfortunately, the best time to get on board Monster Hunter was Monster Hunter Generations, so you missed your window.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  I wanted to say, Plant, I'm not sure what long-running means, but I agree with you that the Monster Hunter franchise is long-running. Whatever it means, it feels very apt for this particular series, which has just been sort of like chugging along. I feel like the story of Monster Hunter isn't always like, is this the point? Is this the accessible one? And I feel like we've had that. Conversation enough times that it's not really that helpful because that is the trajectory, right?

• 6:06Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  I think this Wilds is absolutely another, another round of like smoothing off a lot of like rough edges and bringing in a lot of like quality of life improvement.

• 6:16Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I, it's, it's interesting. There is this conversation in the Monster Hunter community, this like theory frankly, that there are two teams working within Capcom on the Monster Hunter games.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 6:27Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, one of which makes the mainline series, one of which makes the like, uh, you know, used to make the handheld ones. And so the theory is most recently Worlds was the most recent mainline game and then Monster Hunter Rise, which, you know, was on Switch and stuff is the, is from the other team. I don't think that's actually accurate. Uh, I think it's a pretty simple way of looking at it, but I do think that Monster Hunter Wilds is much more in the vein of Monster Hunter World, which is to say like much more about story and characters and, uh, you know, really getting, getting down deep, dirty with the like ecology of, of this, this new world. Um, so make of that what you will.

• 7:09Chris Plante?

  For people who are, are new to this series, would you say that the loop is a, a destiny like in, in that you as the character don't have like various stats and stuff? The whole point of the game is to grind out better and better weapons, better and better materials. And then to when, before you go into each battle, pick the best weapons and materials that align with the battle that you're going to go into.

• 7:36Russ Frushtick?

  I think if like at a very clinical level, maybe, but it's not what made me fall in love with Monster Hunter.

• 7:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Russ Frushtick?

  And I come at this, this is the first time that I've, I'm playing a Monster Hunter game after being Monster Hunter pilled, which I was with Monster Hunter Rise.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  That was.

• 7:54Russ Frushtick?

  So I, this is a very weird, interesting experience to be from the jump onboard.

• 8:00Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 8:00Russ Frushtick?

  Versus that like, I'm going to spend 10 hours.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:03Russ Frushtick?

  Try like wrap my head around.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  They're pretty, they hit pretty hard when you're ready to accept them into your heart and you're like primed for it. Like they're. Hit pretty hard.

• 8:13Griffin McElroy?

  What I would say to Plant's point is, is this just like a number go up game? I don't think it is, and here's why. I think the minute to minute of fighting monsters is completely peerless. There is no analog for it anywhere in the video game industry. This series, this game is fucking incredible for the way that it recreates what it would feel like to fight a giant fucking chicken. And I don't think, I think it's easy to be like, oh, well, you get better armor from fighting the chicken. And that's why you're doing it? That's not why I'm doing it.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  I do think though, it's a really useful, as a, as a starting point for something that's a little bit more like well-known. I think structurally, it makes a lot of sense. The only way, like the only major difference, I would say, is the way in which you have to alter your play style to suit the situation where I feel like in Destiny, it's much more about like, uh, deciding what you're gonna go with and like kind of charging through whatever. And I feel like this, this game much more rewards, uh, preparation and getting ready for a battle, but.

• 9:17Griffin McElroy?

  I, I wanted to say that I, I do, there is an element of this is a decent one to jump on board with because I, it has been my experience, I've not had a ton of time with Monster Hunter Wilds. I probably put like seven or eight hours into it, which is I guess a decent amount of time, but not in the grand scheme of how long I've put into other games, uh, in the, in the franchise.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Similar for me, I've only done like three or four hours because we were, we were traveling and yesterday's servers were down.

• 9:40Griffin McElroy?

  And it does not work on Steam Deck, not fucking even a little bit at all. Um, it is, I think, a bit easier. I think the difficulty has, has been smoothed down a little bit. Part of that is because when you're playing in single player, you can get, uh, AI co-op buddies and they're actually fucking good. Like they're really good at killing monsters and warning you when attacks are coming in and helping you like figure out what to do. Uh, I don't, I push back against the idea of it being a grindy thing. I think it certainly gets to that point once you reach the end game, but this is way, way more a. Story campaign focused affair than really any other monster hunter game I've played.

• 10:22Griffin McElroy?

  And so just by doing the story quests, going out, doing a hunt, you come back home, you can make a new weapon. You can make some new armor. It's not, I have not once had to go out and be like, well, I gotta go fucking hunt this, hunt this monkey a few more times.

• 10:35Russ Frushtick?

  Or we have to find like three berries before I can do that, you know, to do this side quest to advance the storyline. That that's not in the main, the main campaign.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  What they have done narratively too, I think is so smart because I think that, uh, so a lot of times you wander into like the town of a monster hunter. There is like an entire ecology, you know, an entire economy, I should say, set up around monster hunting. And that's like every level of monster hunter. So no matter how deep you are in the systems and it can feel so overwhelming. And by putting this on sort of like a, it's more like a frontier, like you're, you're out as it says wilds, right?

• 11:10Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  It, the camp is much more like bare essentials. And I think that makes it easier as a player to kind of understand like what you really do need to pay attention to, right? Like, yeah, it's a big deal when someone like has a fire going and they're, they're the person who can do armor and weapons. And it's like very clear to you, like this is that person.

• 11:31Russ Frushtick?

  Everything's within like 30 feet.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. Right. It's very condensed. It's like, here's all you, there's the monster hunter stuff.

• 11:39Chris Plante?

  My, my question for the long time monster hunter players here. Is there a scenario where this is fun for me as a single player experience? Because here's, here's.

• 11:49Russ Frushtick?

  Exclusively.

• 11:50Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay. Well, I was gonna say like my, my experience with this is I bounced off these before. I, I like them moment to moment. I agree. The combat feels really cool. This one especially just looks beautiful. It is a world that I want to like stay in, but my fear as I started to put more and more time into it was, okay. I'm now starting to sink hours into this game. I'm gonna 10 hours, however many more. And I'm going to hit a point where this won't be fun unless I'm playing with friends and I know my schedule. That's just not going to happen. So I should bounce off. But if you think like.

• 12:26Griffin McElroy?

  There's a scenario where I make it to the credit, single player.

• 12:28Russ Frushtick?

  Here's what I say. It is maybe the best game for elder millennial dads. Or I'm not the gender, anyone. But the fact that the game is designed in 20 minute chunks.

• 12:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 12:45Russ Frushtick?

  That I played exclusively in single player. I think most people play in single player. I think the multiplayer is like a nice to have. And especially when you get to the late, late, late, late, late game, sure. If you want to fight the strongest monster, it's probably easier with multiple people.

• 12:59Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 12:59Russ Frushtick?

  But playing in single player, you've got like your, your horse, which is now like a giant bird. You've got your palico, little cat friend. And as Griffin said, you can summon AI guys to help you out. Never at any moment did I feel like I needed people. Quite honestly, I feel like I'm more productive solo because I am like very directed in what I'm doing. It wouldn't, you know, it would be a more social experience, but like from a gameplay standpoint, I think it's a better solo experience.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  I will also say that, and, and I love the experience in a lot of Monster Hunter games, but this one is really hitting it. The way that you can be so fluid in combat and like instantly sort of responding to like you'll ride on your horse past a, like some sort of like special ammo for your gun. And you like whip your whip out and grab the ammo and then put it in your sling or the way as you get better at that, it's that, that feeling of expertise being more and more pleasurable. Like you're, it's, uh, I always think of it like the fire swamp in Princess Bride, right?

• 14:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  The lot, by the end of it, they're like navigating it really easy. There's a pleasure in that. There's a joy to that.

• 14:08Russ Frushtick?

  It's like a spelunky vibe to it. Where you learn all the rules and then you know how to react to them.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Or knowing that you feel like, and I think that this game is, in what I saw, it's great at that. And then Monster Hunter is always good, but like the personality of them and feeling like, I know what he's gonna do. Like I know what this guy's gonna do. He's about to bail. You watch. He's about to run.

• 14:27Griffin McElroy?

  There is a tempo to the combat that I've played Monster Hunter for, for a long, long time, but it's been a while. And so, starting this one up, I really felt like I was getting my, my sea legs back under me. But once you get a feel for that tempo and you get in there and you bob and weave and you get, you stick them a few times and then dodge out of the way just in time and give them a big bonk on the head and knock them like. It's the fucking best. It's the, it is the best. I do would have returned to Justin's thing about you shoot your whip out to collect items while you're running around on the go. It's never been easier to like, there's a nerve, you just get it. And that is, I think, a contrivance of the fact that the story,

• 15:08Griffin McElroy?

  it involves a lot of just kind of following people on horseback. And I think they probably realize like, this is a little boring. We do need to give them something to do while a Nata is like.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Sharpening your weapons on horseback is cool.

• 15:23Griffin McElroy?

  It's great.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  That is fun to have some activities like.

• 15:26Griffin McElroy?

  I think the story is pretty lackluster. I have gotten to the point now where I just kind of skipped the cutscenes because I have not gotten any. The cool thing about this game is the, is this like, almost annihilation-esque. Like, we're in a fucked up, like, really, really, really strange landscape. There's a, a fight that you do. It's like one of the first big fights in this forest against this spider monster that like, I was met with this moment of like, holy shit, like, I'm fighting this already. This is a terrifying, like, thing in a terrifying environment. And it, it really does feel like you guys are, you are strangers in a strange land.

• 16:07Griffin McElroy?

  If they had focused entirely on that, I think the game would have benefited from it. Um, because I do not care about.

• 16:14Russ Frushtick?

  It does lean in further into the weirdness of it, but I completely agree. The story, there are some very cool cutscenes, but anytime anyone is talking, I'm like, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip. I do not care. The, the story goes in places that are like truly insane. There's a character that's like, don't hurt that monster. He's my friend. Shit like that, which really doesn't jibe with, I've been doing this.

• 16:38Griffin McElroy?

  But I need his jawbone, unfortunately.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  I, I wish there was a feature in games like this where it's like, hey, we noticed you've skipped 20 lines in a row. And we have to imagine at this point, it is going to be pretty hard for you to get back on board with the story. Do you want us to just skip all of it from now on? Like, we'll give you like the very bit, like bad guy, good guy stuff, but like, don't be on that.

• 16:59Griffin McElroy?

  This, this shame.

• 17:00Russ Frushtick?

  Name of it, and I'm not dragging the game for not running on Steam Deck because I get it.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  I'll, I'll fucking drag it for not playing on.

• 17:08Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think it's fair.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  A hundred thousand times more than I am now for this game.

• 17:12Russ Frushtick?

  Sure, but at a certain point, like, I don't think it's fair. You need, like, in the same way, we can't drag any game for not being on Switch, which is on Ancient Hardware. So I, I get it. That being said, the part of the reason that I eventually wrapped my head around what Monster Hunter is, is because of Rise being a portable thing.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:29Russ Frushtick?

  That I could pick up and put down and not feel like tethered to it when I was like, right in front of a screen. And I do think, even though there have been a lot of strides with this game to make it more accessible, make it more approachable. It's very clear to me that if someone was going in raw with no information whatsoever, they would have a really tough time. An easier time than past, but you're still dealing with.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  This is.

• 17:52Russ Frushtick?

  The item box and the loadout and the blah, blah, blah.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  What I wanted to, I've had kind of an on again, off again relationship with the series. There's some that I've played a lot more and some that I've played less. I've never gotten to like where I would say an expert level of, with any of these. There are weapons that I've learned before, right? Like, that's very much Monster Hunter. I learned longsword. Like, I look at it and I remember the, like, about two thirds of it.

• 18:18Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  And, and, and I'm trying a different weapon, and I really wanted to try to go into this without getting on the internet. Because I have a terrible habit where I want to min-max this.

• 18:29Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  And so I'm looking for the best weapon, the best combo, the best this, the best that, and I lose the fun of it, right? So I got the.

• 18:35Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, so you're, so you're saying you're not gonna look up guides? Is that?

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Don't be this. Don't be like, you don't have. No, I was, I was genuinely trying to see how far into, like, what that experience would be like, right? Because I think that's the metric, because if, if you need to go start looking through the internet to get the most out of the game, it's, it's just not. And for the life of me, man, I couldn't remember how to make the longsword stuff come together in a way where like a tutorial in 30 seconds would be like, here's the core combos.

• 19:03Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Here's what you need to know. And I don't, there's probably an area that teaches you some of those basics, I know, but like, not in the way that you.

• 19:10Chris Plante?

  Need it so get like functional.

• 19:12Griffin McElroy?

  In past games, they have had special hunts that you go on for each weapon. That really go do a lot to like, teach you some of the intricacies, right? Because as a, as a, you know, a new player, you're not going to probably realize like, oh, I need to store energy in the longsword. Once this bar is full, I can charge it. In this game, those are not there. There are no like specialized hunts. There is a training area that when you have a certain weapon equipped, it shows you some of the basic combos. I play Hammer as like basically exclusively at this point.

• 19:48Griffin McElroy?

  Although this game does let you carry a secondary weapon around on your mount. So if you want to switch in the middle of a hunt, you're able to do that, which is cool. But there's stuff that just doesn't get taught in the training area, which is kind of crazy to me because this game seems so, I don't know, tooed for beginners, except for the fact that it doesn't teach you how to use the weapons very good.

• 20:10Russ Frushtick?

  I want to hear from Plant because I know he struggled.

• 20:13Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I, I, well, I, I think this is the challenge with the game and I have like a lot of sympathy for the developers and making this. Is the game is just complex. Like that's just the reality of it. It's just complex. This is like if we played Civ and I was like, why can't they just finally make it? So I just know Civ in three minutes.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  And like a lot of like ancient programs, you're building on structures.

• 20:38Chris Plante?

  And yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Been there for a long time.

• 20:40Chris Plante?

  Exactly. And I, I think the challenge that they run into each of these times is you can't erase the fact that the game itself is complex unless you just want to at some point start destroying parts of the game. And I think that is a challenge that they've run into here is this version of the game, I think onboards you much faster than any of them. It gets you in there fast. It gets you doing cool stuff fast. It gets you not just doing the cool stuff in the tutorials, but kind of feeling like you're playing on your own out in the world. It has a lot of tutorial features in the mid options menu where you can select like, hey, do you want stuff to keep popping up?

• 21:20Chris Plante?

  In case you forget some of it, but along the way, it loses the things that Griffin's talking about. And I have just come to the point with a game like this, if you're onboarding. Watching a YouTube tutorial is just part of it. I also am starting to feel like YouTube tutorials are the new um video game manuals like when we were kids.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  They're offloading that to someone else.

• 21:43Chris Plante?

  And they just assume that you will look at it because the reality is most players will, which I don't.

• 21:48Russ Frushtick?

  I think it just depends on the game. Like, there are obviously a lot of games that like you don't need to do that, but certain games for sure.

• 21:55Griffin McElroy?

  But you could think you know how to use a weapon in this game or in Rise or in World. And then you go to, you know, Geigen Hunter or whatever, like YouTube or RX Gaming. And then you watch a tutorial like, holy shit, this weapon can do 50 things that I did not know about.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  That's interesting. The experience that I had with Dual Blades, which I've never played before, so I went in completely just trying it. Um, I am completing the hunts without any problems and I can understand all of the basic things that they have laid out with Dual Blades. I know there's gotta be more to it because now I'm at a point where I'm bored and I want another level of complexity. And I don't think it has a really good way of walking me into that, right? It got me into that first thing of like having fun, hitting guys with two swords, that's cool. But when it's like, okay, I'm ready for this to be a deeper experience, it's not necessarily great at saying like, okay. Now that you're ready for this complexity, let us like walk you into it.

• 22:55Russ Frushtick?

  They did add something that I think is was maybe the smartest thing they added of all, although they had two features.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  I can't wait to hear what you say.

• 23:02Russ Frushtick?

  So one of them is you can uh automat- from your radio menu. It'll automatically pick either the best healing item you should use at that given time or the best like support item like, oh, I have poison. It'll automatically pick a an antidote. And previously you had to like scroll through your fucking shit and have a radial of like nine things and oh, I have to. So they made that much easier. The other thing I want to call out, kind of goes to Justin's point, the wound system that they added.

• 23:29Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, fuck yeah. It's so good.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 23:30Russ Frushtick?

  So while you're fighting a monster, these wounds will appear. They, I changed it to colorblind settings, so they're like bright purple for me, but they're probably, I guess, red. I don't know.

• 23:39Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 23:40Russ Frushtick?

  Um, and all you have to do is hold down the left trigger and hit one button while pointing at the wound. And you'll do a fucking badass thing. So depending on what weapon you're using, when I'm on a longsword, I'll do like a giant slash slash anime style, whatever. I know insect glaive, you do like a somersault while spinning on your fucking glaive, things like that. It's what's so cool about that is even if you don't know anything and you're just using like basic combos, you can see the wound and hit one button and feel like a badass.

• 24:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 24:11Russ Frushtick?

  Rather than having to, again, watch a YouTube tutorial. Now.

• 24:14Griffin McElroy?

  It also lets you get, uh, like monster parts. When you, every time you destroy a wound, it drops an additional thing. So you are really, I've had times where I've been, you know, a monster's been on its last legs and then I'll open up that focus, sort of left trigger to focus to see all the glowing wounds. It'll have like six wounds and it's like, okay buddy, I need you to hang in there for a little bit longer until I can stock up on some of your scales.

• 24:39Russ Frushtick?

  But that is an approachability feature. Like that allows people to feel like they're powerful, even if they don't know those combos, which is a really great stuff.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  It also, it also makes it, a lot of the combos in Monster Hunter, there's like, it removes that terrible feeling of feeling like you built up to a big payoff of an attack and they move at the last second and you just like do your big attack to nothing.

• 25:00Griffin McElroy?

  Well, I mean, that's still very much a thing. If you play greatsword or hammer, uh.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  No, but I'm saying the, the wound, you know, minimizes that.

• 25:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure, sure.

• 25:07Chris Plante?

  They've also clearly heard the feedback, uh, of, hey, this is a game about, uh, killing poor animals that just want to chill out. By going two directions, there's a lot more before a fight of, oh man, this one animal just happens to be a real piece of shit. Like all the other animals were pretty cool.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Normally these things are pretty nice, but this one's a real ass.

• 25:27Chris Plante?

  And then when you collect materials throughout the game, using that, that grappling hook feature, did you notice that with the animations, you'll like take materials off of the animal and then let it go?

• 25:40Russ Frushtick?

  Oh.

• 25:41Chris Plante?

  So there'll be like a, yeah, it'll be like a thing that's covered in goo and it's like very sight, but if you look at the animation, you'll like pour, squeeze the goo out into a little jar and then just like flutter the little critter off.

• 25:52Griffin McElroy?

  Beautiful. That's not true of the big monsters. Those you kill graveyard dead or capture.

• 25:58Chris Plante?

  And then you carve them up.

• 25:59Griffin McElroy?

  And then you carve them up. Yeah.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  I feel, I. It still got on my nerves that there were still, there would be things that I knew I could do, but then didn't know how to do. And that would make me feel like getting around the, the map is still kind of like a nightmare.

• 26:14Griffin McElroy?

  Well, it's, it's, oh, we haven't even talked about the fact that it is more open world than the series has ever been.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  It's like so confusingly open world. This is what I'm talking about. It, this is where it starts to feel that like cruft of history, right? Where, to give you an example, if you go out into the open world, right? You, you charge out and you, you see an animal and like you're messing around and eventually you hit it a few times and a quest starts. And it's like, why? Like, why do you need a quest to start for this to be like, I'm just hunting this monster? Like it, the, but the structure of the thing, it only understands in terms of like hunts and quests, you know? Like it, it has to have that because that's how it's built.

• 26:55Russ Frushtick?

  The getting around aspect is interesting though. I don't know if Rise had this. And if it did, I just never used it.

• 27:01Griffin McElroy?

  The camps?

• 27:02Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I was gonna say the, the fact that the secret, which is your like horse thing.

• 27:07Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 27:07Russ Frushtick?

  Will just auto run.

• 27:10Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 27:10Russ Frushtick?

  You hit a one button and it will just like run directly to where you mark on your map. So if you want to find a monster, previously you had to like, oh, there's a footprint. I'm gonna smell the dirt and see where the monster is. And you have to do that a bunch of times. And then eventually you find the monster and they've like cut all of that out. And I know that pissed off a lot of like hardcore monster hunter people. Guess what? I fucking love it. Yeah. That stuff is great. It's like, especially the later maps, it gets so hard to navigate if you're not just like auto targeting.

• 27:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 27:37Russ Frushtick?

  But it does take, I guess, some of the quote realism out of it.

• 27:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I, I, I, I found myself missing the hub and spoke format of past.

• 27:49Russ Frushtick?

  The like main, like.

• 27:51Griffin McElroy?

  You have your main area and you do your shit there. And then you go out on a hunt and it launches you automatically into one of a few biomes. And like, that stuff is here in so far as like, sometimes you'll finish a quest and they'll be like, let's go back to camp. And then the screen will go black and then you'll be back at camp. Like it's not making you schlep everywhere. There's a system where you can set up pop up. Camps and then you can use those as fast travel points. You have to like spend resources to like open them up. But monsters will sometimes find those camps and destroy them. And you'll get a little notification like, hey, your camp's under attack. And you can either go and defeat that monster, or you can just spend, you know, 100 license points or whatever back at home base in order to open up that camp.

• 28:33Griffin McElroy?

  It's, it's, it's neat, but again, like my least favorite part of this game is when you're in town and they're like, okay, let me know when you're ready to go out on a quest. You're like, okay, let's do it. And then you're riding on, on sacred back for like a few minutes while they talk about some inane shit. When it's like, man, I would rather just hang glide off of a pterodactyl and then it's monster time. Like, that's the part of the game that beats absolute ass and I feel like they could get to it a lot quicker.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  I was confused the first time that a quest ended and I didn't go back to camp. I had this like weird like, well, what do I do now?

• 29:09Griffin McElroy?

  I just have all these monster parts.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. How do I get back to, where's camp? Like, I don't know. What do I do? You're supposed to teleport me. Why is there a button to make the quest end? What does that mean? I'm just out here. Like I killed the monster. I took his back or whatever. Go away or teleport me home. Pick me up daddy.

• 29:29Russ Frushtick?

  For what it's worth, I did finish the campaign, which takes about 10 or 12 hours.

• 29:34Griffin McElroy?

  Really? How many chap? We'll talk about it after. Yeah, I don't know how far I am.

• 29:38Russ Frushtick?

  The chapters are not a good rubric for knowing how long the game is. Once you finish it, the game just more or less turns into hunt this, like there's no like lead up. You're just like in it. There's no slow walking, talk to Nata, whatever. And that I think turns into like much more traditional monster hunter. Oh, I need to kill this monster to get his parts to build the armor to make the armor set to get the perks that I need.

• 30:05Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 30:06Russ Frushtick?

  So if you're looking for that, that does click in pretty dramatically, but I do think the first 10 to 12 hours is like more, as Plan said, more welcoming than it's been.

• 30:17Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Russ Frushtick?

  So long as you can overcome the things of like, oh, I just died. And I need to like go in my box and get more potions because the little cats that follow me around can't just like fill my bag up again.

• 30:28Griffin McElroy?

  But they do do that this time and you anytime you hop on your sacred back, it always it has a supply pack that you can open up and restock all your shit.

• 30:36Russ Frushtick?

  Right, but it's not like if I need traps.

• 30:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 30:38Russ Frushtick?

  They won't tell me. I need to like really refill and it's buried in like three different menus and there's just still stuff that isn't fun in any way that doesn't really need to be as esoteric as it is.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  There's a lot of it's it starts to feel a lot of it starts to feel like perfunctory like in the way that like some Christmas traditions are perfunctory like no one's really enjoying this, but if you take it away, it won't feel like Monster Hunter. Like I think you're already hearing some of those in the community, right? Where it's like stuff that isn't fun, like isn't a pleasurable thing, but like it's part of the experience. I feel like Monster Hunter has so many of those and I do feel like they are constantly pressing to see how many of those they can whittle away to make it like more accessible.

• 31:25Griffin McElroy?

  I think I hope I think and hope they're going to get the message that they've whittled away the Palico cat kitchen and that is a that is a bridge too far.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  What are you talking about?

• 31:36Griffin McElroy?

  In in Monster Hunter World, you had like the Palico chefs that would cook your meals and you'd get those great cutscenes. That system is still in the game, only you now you'll get like invited to eat at these different villages or you can cook on a portable barbecue grill. So like in some ways.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  You sound insane. What sort of little tyrant is displeased with the game because his cat chefs don't make his meals to his exact specifications?

• 32:03Griffin McElroy?

  You're so in the wrong right now.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  You sound so wild, man. Do you know how hard they worked on this? And you're like, the cats aren't cute enough? Go, go buy a poster of them. Get a real cat. You know what I mean? Like.

• 32:15Griffin McElroy?

  When you customize your Palico, you do get to choose if you want it to just meow and grumble, or if you want it to use the human, human speech. And I thoroughly encourage you to go for the former.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  You should have to get into the fucking bios. Of your system to turn on a human palico dialogue. It is a nightmare. It should not be. It should be very like hot coffee styled.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  You need a game shark to make your palico talk human language.

• 32:45Russ Frushtick?

  I do want to mention one other thing that has only gotten better over the years. And that's like cosmetic customization.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 32:53Russ Frushtick?

  Um, you can fully like basically, once you get past the main campaign, any armor set that you craft becomes like a layered armor set. So it acts like a transmog. So you can change any armor piece that applies to armor you're getting for your palico. And I dress my palico up like a large farting monkey.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:12Russ Frushtick?

  That carries around a giant banana and that is peerless. Like you cannot match that experience.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  That's art. That's art, Mr. Ebert.

• 33:20Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know, man.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  I can, I do, I feel a little bit like we haven't, I don't know that we have.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  I feel like in the sort of like Madden-esque iterative discussion.

• 33:31Russ Frushtick?

  It is very Madden. I was thinking that same thing. It is like very mad.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  It's a, there is a Madden-esque feature of like, well, if you want these things to be improved, maybe we're going to cut away some of the weapon training stuff because we're working on this other stuff. And maybe next time this will be, but like it in this sort of like Madden-esque iteration, I don't want to lose sight of the fact that like, this is still very fun. Yeah. Like it's really fun. When you go out and the monsters look so stupid and they're walk around, not stupid, bad, stupid, like you just want to beat them up. Like they're like idiots and angry and like you're flipping around and you got your horse running around and you're, you can like run from a battle and like slingshot some better ammo and then start shooting them with it. And like the environments are, are, uh, very dynamic.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Like you, you can, the landscape really changes the kind of fight you're having, which is so cool.

• 34:21Russ Frushtick?

  A monster that it was clearly inspired by Wario. Like it's a large baboon who farts and then throws his farts at you. And then he's got like little baboon friends that also fart. And so they're like willingness to be so fucking goofy with something that can like tonally feel very serious. I just, I, I think they continue to like, I, I'm just like so happy this franchise exists because I think again, there's no real analog for it. And for people that love it, I think they're getting everything they want. And I do think eventually this franchise will get to a point where it can welcome new people a bit easier and it's getting closer and closer to that. Uh, man, this is a very good installment. I think people are gonna really enjoy it.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Yes, it is, uh, it is an extremely good video game.

• 35:08Griffin McElroy?

  Let's, let's take a break and then what are we gonna do? I don't actually know.

• 35:11Chris Plante?

  Oh, I've got a whole thing to tell you about.

• 35:13Griffin McElroy?

  Fuck yeah.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Uh, I've got in my notes here, Chris Plant, you have a whole thing to tell us about that's good and you put seven O's here like.

• 35:23Chris Plante?

  Whoa, crazy.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like, yeah, I heard it in my head.

• 35:27Chris Plante?

  This is like, I was at the birthday party and I saw the, the chips and dip and I just put my whole hand in the dip and then put it in my mouth.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Don't do that.

• 35:34Chris Plante?

  That's good. Um, I'm telling you about Tokyo Extreme Racer. It is back and you're probably wondering, was it ever gone? What's Tokyo Extreme Racer?

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Did it ever exist is what I'm wondering.

• 35:48Chris Plante?

  I guarantee that all three of you as true gamers played a Tokyo Extreme Racer game at some point in your life. You were bored, you were at Blockbuster, you had nothing else to do and you rented one of these games for the PlayStation two or the Sega Saturn or the Sega Dreamcast and you probably really enjoyed it. And then you just forgot about it because it was just another racing game in an age of racing games. But ladies, gentlemen, friends, countrymen, they do not make games like this anymore. This is a racing game truly of a different era.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  I thought that's the whole point that you're making, Chris Plant, is that they do not in fact make games like, is that what you just said?

• 36:31Chris Plante?

  They quite literally do not make this game anymore.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  But now they are making it now, right?

• 36:36Chris Plante?

  Now they're making it. Almost 20 years later, the many members of the original team, Genki, have. Come back to make this game. And here's what I mean when I say it is neither arcade racer nor like full on simulation. It is a combat racing game. Here's how it works. You're on a highway in beautiful Japan and you flash your lights at a rival car. And they say, okay, baby, let's race. I have a need, I have a need for speed. And you start racing and above the screen appears two full health bars. Just like as if you were in Street Fighter, right? And as you bump up against each other, boom, takes a little bit of that health down.

• 37:19Chris Plante?

  If you crash into a wall, boom, takes a little bit of that health down. But the way that you really win is if you get far enough ahead of the other car. That also starts to deplete their life. So it's not about getting to the finish line. It is about getting as far in front of the racer as you can for as long as possible to deplete their health until it hits zero. The brilliance of-

• 37:44Russ Frushtick?

  Just like winning a race, though?

• 37:46Chris Plante?

  Are you saying-

• 37:46Speaker 01

  No. No. What Chris Plant is saying is Ruben is racing in this one.

• 37:51Griffin McElroy?

  Or not Ruben, being really far ahead.

• 37:53Chris Plante?

  So, but the cool thing about this system is, again, you also deplete life if you wreck. So if you are a player who's going like, I'm gonna go 150 miles per hour to get ahead of you. And then I have a whole bunch of hairpin turns ahead.

• 38:07Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 38:07Chris Plante?

  You could crash and then still lose.

• 38:10Russ Frushtick?

  Oh.

• 38:10Chris Plante?

  So it becomes a game of, okay, I really wanna get ahead, but do I wanna like be a little cautious? We've got these turns coming up. Do I wanna give them the chance to catch up on me? Or do I wanna, do I wanna go all out? And I, cause I got that need, that need for the Fast and the Furious. It is such a cool game and despite being in Unreal Engine 5, which is just comical overkill. It looks and feels like the rose colored glasses version of a Dreamcast game. Which is to say, it has that, you know, you know that type of reflection that cars had in video games in early 2000s?

• 38:47Russ Frushtick?

  Reflection thing?

• 38:48Chris Plante?

  Yeah, but you're like, oh.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Everything looks wet.

• 38:50Chris Plante?

  Yeah, and you're like, I can't believe, it'll never look better than this.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  It's so wet!

• 38:55Chris Plante?

  It has that, it has this pulsing jungle beat that is just rolling through the whole thing. And the-

• 39:03Russ Frushtick?

  So the, all the races are just two, two cars?

• 39:06Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's just two cars. And then it also is set in this Tokyo, like nighttime Tokyo, that I can only describe as Miami Vice the movie aesthetic, that like early digital video camera look where the light just like looks really specific. I don't even know a better way of describing it.

• 39:26Russ Frushtick?

  It's like the lens flares.

• 39:28Chris Plante?

  Yeah, well, kind of. It's like distortions, but it it's such a specific thing. And speaking of millennial parents who can only fit in like 15 minutes of game time, this is that, plus it runs on Steam Deck, which is even better. Right now, it's technically in early access. I think there's like 30 hours of gameplay here. So for most people, it might as well be full access, but for like the hardcore car nuts, I think the full release will be later this year.

• 40:02Russ Frushtick?

  And is the full release gonna add a third car, or are they good with two?

• 40:06Chris Plante?

  I think, oh, that's the wild shit about it, is there's dozens of cars and they're licensed.

• 40:11Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, you need a Nissan Skyline. If it's not, if that's not in there, I don't know what.

• 40:17Chris Plante?

  All of the cars that you expect to be in this game are in this game, I assure you. Yeah, it is great. You can also flash your lights at pretty much anybody. So

• 40:29Russ Frushtick?

  Whoa, are you kidding?

• 40:31Chris Plante?

  The goal is to, that's a level of enthusiasm that I appreciate.

• 40:35Russ Frushtick?

  Me too, man. I can do that with my car, no problem. People love it.

• 40:40Chris Plante?

  It's this new advanced feature. You can start a race with just like a crappy, like a little, you know, truck, and then just shame them for no reason, other than like wanting to shame a random person on the highway.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  What's the community like for this right now? Because I don't feel like I've heard anybody, but you talk about it ever.

• 40:58Chris Plante?

  The community for this game is losing their fucking mind.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Did the community for this game just quadruple by you telling us about it, Chris?

• 41:08Chris Plante?

  I'm feeling that way. How many reviews do you think this game has on Steam?

• 41:12Speaker 01

  I couldn't even.

• 41:13Chris Plante?

  Just take any guess.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  5,000.

• 41:16Chris Plante?

  9,353.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Fuck.

• 41:20Chris Plante?

  Wow.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Not a bad game.

• 41:21Chris Plante?

  People care about this game.

• 41:22Russ Frushtick?

  95% on Steam. That's a good sign.

• 41:25Chris Plante?

  I do think this is, this is a game though where 10,000 people have been waiting for this game for the last 20 years.

• 41:33Russ Frushtick?

  They're all playing it right now.

• 41:35Chris Plante?

  They all are playing it right now.

• 41:35Russ Frushtick?

  They all wrote it.

• 41:36Chris Plante?

  They all left their reviews. But thank you for letting me talk about it because I just love this shit. I cannot believe they brought back one of these games. It was such a cool game on the Dreamcast and to get to play it again, just a little bit better. It's living the dream.

• 41:53Russ Frushtick?

  I love it. We have a little bit of reader mail coming at you. This comes from S. Payne. For gamers on a budget, I recommend looking at Netflix again. When I first found out about games on there, it seemed like mostly mobile shovelware, but recently found out that there are quote, "real" games now. Just finished the sequel to Curse of the Golden Idol and it worked really well on tablet, Into the Breach, Civ 6, and other great titles. If you already have a subscription, it's definitely worth checking out.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  I can't make my brain, like I have a Netflix subscription. And I know I have played Netflix games. I can't make my brain wrap around how one accesses Netflix games. You see the games advertised to you sometimes where you're watching Netflix on television and you can't make that happen. And I know that you can access them, but for some reason I just can't make, like, I don't, I don't know, it seems like a weird ecosystem.

• 42:47Russ Frushtick?

  You just download them from the App Store. They have a little, the Netflix logo sort of on the thumbnail. That's how you know it's a Netflix one. And then when you start playing the game, you have to use your Netflix login. That's it.

• 42:57Chris Plante?

  It's weird.

• 42:58Russ Frushtick?

  It's fucking crazy. They have Into the Breach, they have Dead Cells.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Man, it's good stuff.

• 43:02Russ Frushtick?

  They have Haynes.

• 43:03Chris Plante?

  That's crazy.

• 43:04Russ Frushtick?

  Point P, the, from the makers of Downwell.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  What's irritating is that is probably the most like, that's like the least irritating way of doing it, right?

• 43:11Russ Frushtick?

  Right, yeah.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  But there is something about it being a Netflix login that my, like. That's for movies, Jay Man.

• 43:17Russ Frushtick?

  I almost won a hug.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  And sometimes Gabby's dollhouse.

• 43:20Russ Frushtick?

  I almost want a hub where I could just see all of the Netflix games.

• 43:24Griffin McElroy?

  It makes it easier to conceptualize the benefit if you can see them all in one place.

• 43:29Russ Frushtick?

  That might be in the app. I've never looked.

• 43:31Griffin McElroy?

  There you go, Ted Sarandos. That one's free.

• 43:32Russ Frushtick?

  Last note, this comes from Noah. We were talking last week about reusing maps in future games, as in Tears of the Kingdom, from Noah. "On the subject of games reusing old maps, in areas, trying to think of examples of this, and I realized in almost every case that comes to mind, I actually thought it was really cool. In Tears of the Kingdom, I was actually really excited to visit each familiar area to see what was different. I still have a crystal clear memory of realizing the whole Kanto region was in Pokemon Gold and Silver. Still familiar, but new and different at the same time. It makes those places feel real to come revisit them after time has passed." And then Jack Honian wrote, "Are you older maps? I love the inclusion of the original locations in Zelda 2 and Dragon Quest 2."

• 44:15Griffin McElroy?

  Is that... Wait, Zelda 2 had the map from Zelda 1?

• 44:20Russ Frushtick?

  I think it does have a few familiar chunks that are analog to the original game.

• 44:27Griffin McElroy?

  I didn't know that because that game sucks so bad that I've never been able to spend much time.

• 44:30Russ Frushtick?

  There is a remake. I've been meaning to play a remaster that someone did that made it good, but I have not done that yet.

• 44:36Griffin McElroy?

  Really?

• 44:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 44:40Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, honorable mentions?

• 44:43Griffin McElroy?

  I played through a game I think we're going to talk about in two weeks.

• 44:49Griffin McElroy?

  So I'll sit on that, but I also have been playing a lot of Star of Providence.

• 44:55Russ Frushtick?

  What is that? I saw that pop up.

• 44:57Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, so that is... It's a game that's actually been around for a while. It used to be called Monolith. It is a top-down rogue-like shooter where you are this ship and you fly through this facility, basically going from screen to screen. Every screen is like its own little self-contained room with enemies and traps and stuff in it. But there's also a bunch of different ways to get stronger each run. You find weapons. You find these cartridges that add these modifiers. You can find a skill that adds a bunch of stuff. It is very much a game that by the end of a run, like you have probably done some stuff that you have not done before in the kind of Binding of Isaac style.

• 45:39Griffin McElroy?

  It is fast and it feels fucking great to play. I liken it to, and maybe this is just the aesthetic, but Downwell, like that kind of like pace of the gameplay, if that was sort of converted to a top-down twin-stick shooter. And then after each run, like you will unlock some new stuff that you can purchase. So like weapons that will now start spawning in, or skills that will become like available for you to choose when you find like a skill upgrade spot. It is, it's just, it's just great. It's just really, really, really fun to play. It's not like the deepest, like rogue-like experience that I've ever had.

• 46:23Griffin McElroy?

  But it is, I don't know, it's fitting, it is scratching an itch for me right now, where like I'm not playing other games like this, where I can just pick it up and do one like really sweaty run for like 15 minutes and then go on to something else. And I do like having one of those kind of in the rotation. So it's on Switch and I've been playing it on Steam Deck and it works great and just rules. It's published by Big Mode, which is how I heard about it.

• 46:53Chris Plante?

  I've been playing more of that too. Fresh talked about it a little bit on the Resties and got into like the whole very weird history of the game and how it came to me. But I just, I got a note here for public record. Fresh on his first time playing it made it three levels deep and I made it five levels deep on my first run. So I do think we have a new resident best gamer.

• 47:19Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's good. Let me update.

• 47:22Chris Plante?

  I wanted to make sure he did it in the document. Sure. Hoops, what have you been enjoying?

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Well, I...

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Installed Linux on a laptop.

• 47:34Griffin McElroy?

  Jeez, buckle up, Russ and Chris. This was the whole tour. It's just a lot. This guy's could turn fucking Linux in such a major way. He's got code.

• 47:44Russ Frushtick?

  This is, sorry, this is the Penguin one you're talking about?

• 47:46Speaker 01

  What?

• 47:47Russ Frushtick?

  This is the Penguin one?

• 47:48Chris Plante?

  Yeah, like the one that's tattooed across his neck right now.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's where I have, that's why I have the black and white. Symbolizing. No, okay, it, it's, it all goes back to good Russ. He broke my brain when he came on the show and he opened my world to the fact that I'm a computer man and I, I love these, I love these digital wonders and I have been interacting with them in a much more meaningful and profound way. Um, I, no, it was, you know, it's, I've been messing around and uh, a lot of the stuff that you do with a Raspberry Pi, it, it's running on their, the, the OS of Raspberry Pi is sort of

• 48:29Speaker 01

  built on a distribution of Linux and so like with the overlap there, I was like, I want to know more about this, the, the Linux OS because I want to understand how to use that. And at some point I just decided, you know, it's been, I've always kind of like appreciated the idea of open source computing, uh, and open source like software and all that is like a, uh, an ideal, but never really did it like resonate with me and seeing the way things have gone

• 49:04Speaker 01

  technologically in the past, you know, 12 months, 18 months, I, I really, it, it became incumbent on me. I like, I feel like there's a real value in understanding computing and not letting it be something that is completely controlled by oligarchs and billionaires. And I feel like that has been a concerted effort to make it something that is controlled by, by people. And I think that As somebody who's always been pretty okay with brands, it's always kind of made sense. And then when you see how quickly people or companies make a heel turn, it really reminds you that it's good to take this stuff in your hands. So I've been trying to learn Linux because it's more based on like open source.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  There's a community of people who you're relying on rather than, you know, whoever is, is running Microsoft or Apple that, that week. So it's been really interesting. I got a cheap laptop, the cheapest one I could get. And I found a distribution of, so I don't want to go into this very deeply. But anyway, I put links on it. I don't want to talk about specifics because like 95% of the people will be bored.

• 50:13Russ Frushtick?

  I'm mostly curious about what the like, and what happens at the, like, what do you do with the laptop after you've done all this stuff?

• 50:22Speaker 01

  So what do I do with it?

• 50:24Griffin McElroy?

  Put it in the garbage.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  I throw it away. No, part of it is learning, right? I understand a lot better how computers work because I have this computer that I basically like, put everything onto it, right?

• 50:40Russ Frushtick?

  Sure, yeah.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  And because I have to understand all those parts in a micro, like on a very small system, I feel like I can understand on a larger level, how it works. So part of that is the learning process. The other thing is this laptop that I made, I, I was using it on the road. I was using on tour and it was super stable and runs super fast. And it would cost $200. And it's like, it kicks ass.

• 51:11Russ Frushtick?

  And you just like browse the internet and videos and Gmail.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  No, no, Russ, I'm, no, okay. So this is the, this is, this was my impression, right?

• 51:19Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  I got Slack, got Spotify, I got Reaper. There are video editing tools. There are analogs, open source analogs to almost every program like available. So part of the end goal is like, I am relying on it. I'm, I am trying to adapt to a community that is self sustaining rather than. Be in a system where it is like spoon fed and all of it is like owned by corporate interests.

• 51:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  So I'm trying to transition as much as I can to take control of that back, right?

• 51:56Russ Frushtick?

  Sure, yeah.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  I've been doing it at my house too, trying to get like, I, I, I started trying to do some smart home stuff and then I realized the first time the internet went down and the whole thing sucked. And I was like, okay, I'm starting over. So I've been putting like Zigbee radios in a, in a, anyway, trying to take that out of the cloud, right? To bring it into my house, to put it into my control. Um, but anyway, that's what I've been doing lately.

• 52:19Russ Frushtick?

  Wow.

• 52:19Griffin McElroy?

  That's really cool. I, I genuinely think it's a, a valuable, even if nothing comes of it, like a valuable sort of.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Something, what do you mean, nothing comes of it? What do you, what is that? This is what I'm saying, Griffin. You heard what I'm saying, how smart I am? I know everything about computers.

• 52:36Griffin McElroy?

  That's what I'm saying. That's what comes of it.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  So what did you even mean, nothing comes of it? You're being a real Russ right now and I don't want, and not good Russ, I'll just say, I don't wanna.

• 52:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I get confused now. We really fucked things up by bringing another Russ on this show.

• 52:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it was a mistake. Uh, I've been playing Slay the Spire. I beat it three times with three different characters and I felt really good about it.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  So glad it finally got you, Russ.

• 53:01Griffin McElroy?

  Wait, is this like your first time?

• 53:03Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I've played Slay the Spire.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  But like, I'm getting texts about it now. It's working.

• 53:08Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, it's working. I don't feel, now that I've won three times and I know there's more I could be doing. There, I don't necessarily feel a pull to like, keep doing it.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Can I ask, what did you, what did you beat it with?

• 53:22Russ Frushtick?

  I beat it with the first three characters.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Like one time with each of the first three?

• 53:27Russ Frushtick?

  I know there's more. I know there's like another act and you have to do special stuff, but like.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  I mean, if you don't feel the pull, I, I really got to a point with Slay the Spire, so I understand what you're saying. And I think that is like a completely valid, if you're saying like, I feel like I've reached my off ramp and I've gotten what I'm gonna get, I think that's like.

• 53:44Russ Frushtick?

  I just don't, I don't see what the 300 hours, how, how the experience would change.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  For me, it was, and I never feel this way about games, but this, it's so robust. That every time I, it was genuinely for the joy of playing it.

• 53:57Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  It's genuinely like every time that I would build a new deck and I would feel that feeling of like, it's just so well balanced at being able to like pull a working, when you can pull like a working model out of something that was not working, like it's really, that is the motivation. I, it really is not a, there's no achievement for me. There's nothing I'm chasing. It's just, I like playing it.

• 54:21Russ Frushtick?

  And realistically, that's what Finding Isaac did for me.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 54:25Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, no, I totally. Yeah, it's a very good game. Uh, the mobile interface is, I'm playing on a phone. It feels a little cramped and maybe not the best. I'm sure on an iPad it would be better and probably even better with a mouse keyboard. But from a convenience standpoint, like having it in my pocket and being able to like do a hand fucking clutch. Yeah, no, it's good stuff. They should make a sequel. They should make like a follow up to it. I don't know. That seems ambitious, but.

• 54:52Chris Plante?

  Uh, what about you, Chris?

• 54:53Russ Frushtick?

  They're making one.

• 54:54Chris Plante?

  I mean, yeah, Star of Providence was my, my big one. Um, and then. Have you finished it yet? Have you beaten the like, I guess? No, no, the, the only problem with that game, and it's not even a problem, it's just the runs are long. The runs are like 35, 45 minutes.

• 55:10Russ Frushtick?

  You can stop at any, you can put like stop.

• 55:13Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it does let you, just turn the game off. Next time you turn it on, it's like, do you want to continue your? I need to do that. That, that sounds much better. Um, uh, but yeah, I, I was, I was really enjoying that. And then, um, there's a movie coming out that I just recommend people check out if it happens to be showing in your area called Ephus. Have you heard about this?

• 55:32Russ Frushtick?

  How do you spell that?

• 55:33Chris Plante?

  E E P H U S. And it is about a bunch of like older dudes who have been playing a game of baseball forever and ever and ever. This is in like the 1990s and their, their very small town baseball stadium is about to get demolished so that they can build a local middle school there. And it's basically just a movie about the last game. If you said, we want to make a geriatric sandlot.

• 56:07Chris Plante?

  You would be very close to this.

• 56:10Russ Frushtick?

  That sounds great.

• 56:11Chris Plante?

  And just as charming as that sounds, it is truly weird. Who is in the cast? There's a guy named Frederick Weisman, who is a documentarian who is 95 years old. He's one of like the most important, long feature documentarians alive. Just happens to be in this movie about baseball. I don't fully know why. But yeah, if you like good vibes and just a chill hangout movie, you really can't do much better than this.

• 56:42Russ Frushtick?

  I'm looking at a trailer and it looks like a Wes Anderson movie, the way it's shot.

• 56:46Chris Plante?

  Kind of. It's not quite as composed, but it definitely has, it has that very delicate vibe.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Do you think if Wes Anderson had never become a filmmaker, the word twee would have fallen into the dustbin?

• 57:01Chris Plante?

  Probably.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  At this point, would we have lost the use of it?

• 57:05Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Okay. I think we did it. Well done us. I wanted to thank some patrons over at patreon.com/thebesties. We have a new episode of Resties. As Plant mentioned, we talked more about Star Providence and kind of went deep on that, as well as a game called Keep Driving, which is very cool. Thank you to new subscribers. We have Sam, we have Aiden, we have Paul, and we have Rubber Chicken with a Polly in the middle. Thank you for being supporters of the Patreon. We greatly appreciate it.

• 57:37Russ Frushtick?

  Justin, what are we doing next week?

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Oh, well, we're gonna kind of do like a split, kind of a two-tiered thing for Friends and Others. I guess like there's a Friends version where they're gonna be doing split fiction and then there's like Others.

• 57:55Chris Plante?

  You made plans with your friend Slice before you knew.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  I made up Slice. There's no Slice, Russ. Obviously, there'd be a person named Slice, Russ.

• 58:03Chris Plante?

  You go by hoops.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  So we're gonna be doing split fiction and some sort of sad painting movie, maybe. I don't know. I don't know what I'll do.

• 58:14Russ Frushtick?

  Do your computer shit. You'll be fun.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  Oh man, how can I make other friends when you're already my best one, Russ? Let's get a dude of friends on the Besties. Be sure to join us again next week on the Besties. Pursue the world's best friends, pick the world's best games.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Besties!