Marathon Is Both a Miracle and a Monster

Frushtick and Griffin were Destiny dudes, and yet it's Plante who has fallen in love with Bungie's new extraction shooter. What's so appealing about Marathon? Is the extraction genre's difficulty a dealbreaker? Who is this game even for?

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

• 0:00Griffin McElroy?

  Could have used a Dinklage. Could have used a floating Dinklage. That accompanied me all about Marathon.

• 0:09Griffin McElroy?

  And would sort of, you know, squip, drop cracks.

• 0:13Russ Frushtick?

  Do you, do you understand how deep into the Destiny hole you would need to be? To know that Peter Dinklage at one point, but no longer voiced the ghost that followed you around in Destiny?

• 0:25Griffin McElroy?

  I actually downloaded an update. Where I downloaded an update to fix it because they did swap him out with Nolan North in 2016. But then I found an update online.

• 0:39Russ Frushtick?

  Did you pay Peter Dinklage a cameo?

• 0:42Griffin McElroy?

  So yes, it was a very, very complicated. So basically what I had to do every time Bunchy released a new expansion, I would transcribe all of the ghost dialogue. And then I would buy many Dinklage cameos.

• 0:53Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's like 60 or 70 per.

• 0:55Griffin McElroy?

  Per expansion, yeah. Some of them use a little bit less verbose than others. But yeah, I think it would be better. I think it would be a better game if there was a, there's a classic summons little healing bots. All I'm saying is just have Dinklage say like, no problem. I'll get in there and heal him up. Good boss.

• 1:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:14Griffin McElroy?

  Stuff like that, like I think would.

• 1:16Russ Frushtick?

  And you could probably do like the Pokemon anime thing where they just keep reusing the same animation. You could probably slot in some of those lines.

• 1:22Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, for, for sure. No problem. Yeah, I could probably take lines from his other movies that sound like. Like maybe there's a movie where he's a doctor and he's like, I'll heal him up. And you can put that on the healing robot. But I think a Dinklage would have bumped this up to a 10 for me.

• 1:38Chris Plante?

  Just a question about the cameos, because I hate to like dwell on it.

• 1:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:43Chris Plante?

  Did it get annoying that every line was like, I think you should heal up. Thank you for another cameo, Griffin. I look.

• 1:50Griffin McElroy?

  Well, no, sometimes if it was a short one like that, you can trick him into saying, he won't just do it. You do have to trick him. And it'll be stuff like, hey, it's my niece's seventh graduate anniversary of her wedding. And it would really make her day if you would say drone incoming, prepare to, prepare to strike like. And then he doesn't ever fall for it because I use a fake name every time.

• 2:14Russ Frushtick?

  And you did change the Black Pyramid to be called Cameo. So you could kind of work it in that way too.

• 2:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that was like, I got him. That one was three different cameos because I had to get the in one and then like black was like a different one. And then pyramid, that pyramid was tricky, tricky how to say into, but I did manage to get that one in there.

• 2:35Chris Plante?

  Thank God.

• 2:35Griffin McElroy?

  Doing a thing about the food pyramid for my nephew.

• 2:39Chris Plante?

  He has really complicated views about that, so we probably shouldn't go any further.

• 2:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, no, but Dinklage would have helped.

• 3:04Griffin McElroy?

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

• 3:07Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I took a glass.

• 3:09Griffin McElroy?

  I saw you take down a Hardy Gulp.

• 3:12Russ Frushtick?

  He's so used to having that Justin beat.

• 3:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 3:16Chris Plante?

  That's my water beat.

• 3:18Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 3:19Russ Frushtick?

  You want to take it again, Chris?

• 3:20Griffin McElroy?

  No, it's good.

• 3:21Chris Plante?

  No, no, no, no, I'm really happy with it.

• 3:23Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, just say your name.

• 3:24Russ Frushtick?

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

• 3:27Griffin McElroy?

  Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive intergame.

• 3:31Russ Frushtick?

  Justin's recovery continues. He is not.

• 3:34Griffin McElroy?

  This is maybe the worst possible game for him to try to play. It has been slow going.

• 3:39Russ Frushtick?

  A Twitch based, intense, very demanding shooter.

• 3:44Griffin McElroy?

  Very punishing, very time consuming shooter. There's a lot of heats that this thing was bringing that that juice was not able to sort of.

• 3:52Russ Frushtick?

  If anything, it was kind of mean of us, but I think we would put that on Chris Plant, who was the one that suggested we play this game.

• 3:58Griffin McElroy?

  So rather than, you know, the three of us speak enthusiastically about this cyberpunk extraction shooter while one of us just kind of sits and waits for the bit to be over. We're going to be rocking trio mode, just like in Marathon. Chris, what the heck is Marathon, dude?

• 4:18Chris Plante?

  Marathon is the latest first person shooter from Bungie, the people who brought you Halo and Destiny and Destiny 2, but this time they are going after a new multiplayer trend. They're going after the extraction shooter where you land on a terrifying terrain of enemies and other players. You try to collect lots of good loot, complete a little mission or two, and then get the hell out of there without dying.

• 4:42Griffin McElroy?

  If you don't care about extraction shooters, and I don't, there's some really wild choices that this game makes that I think are interesting to talk about, and we will get all up into that and more after this short break.

• 4:56Chris Plante?

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• 5:35Chris Plante?

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• 6:09Chris Plante?

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• 6:31Griffin McElroy?

  Can I try and set this scene for like the vibe before Marathon's release? And it's been out for, what, a few weeks now? Yeah, a couple of weeks now. So I was playing Destiny 2 pretty actively when they announced that they were working on Marathon. This was already when the, I don't know, vibe around Bungie in general had started to get a little bit weird. Because there've been some like higher up changes at Destiny 2 and some really, really, really shitty decisions made for that game. Uh, I remember it being announced during a sort of not great period. And so there was already kind of that vibe hanging around. I think people were not so stoked about Marathon as a property.

• 7:12Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I think people were, had no opinions about Marathon because it had been dormant for 30 years.

• 7:17Griffin McElroy?

  It had been dormant for a very long time. And then when the news came out that it was an extraction shooter, I feel like that, that was also a little bit tough. And then there was the thing where it turned out that some of the, uh, some of the art from the game had been plagiarized. Um, and so like, there's just been kind of a lot of, I have been very hesitant to check this game out despite my thousands of hours I have logged across Destiny one and two because of that stuff. And I don't know, I think it's a, um, another object lesson that like a reputation should maybe not precede a game when you are in the position of talking about games professionally. Uh, cause it's, it has surprised me that I've been having some fun with Marathon.

• 8:00Russ Frushtick?

  I was totally ready to fully skip it because of a lot of the things you mentioned and emphasis on me not really liking the genre.

• 8:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Russ Frushtick?

  The fact that Chris Plant, of all people, the last person I would ever think

• 8:16Griffin McElroy?

  topsy-turvy.

• 8:16Russ Frushtick?

  To be into an extraction shooter. And we talked about it last week. So obviously we know, uh, we were all surprised about that. But the fact that he was into it genuinely was the most piquing of my interest for this game. That is what got me to be like, okay. I've got to see where Chris Plant's brain is to, for this to be clicking for him so hard.

• 8:35Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, could we do, Chris, could you set up sort of what the extraction shooter model is? Before you kind of get into what works about, about this for you. I think we all have sort of the same concern. Thought it was, and then what I think it is now after falling in love with this game. I thought an extraction shooter was.

• 8:56Chris Plante?

  Collect lots of loot and then lose lots of loot and therefore it's a waste of time that you go into a really terrifying map full of really hardcore NPCs and also other players who are absolutely ruthless and you try to find rare guns that you can then use in another round where you will die and then they will steal those guns and suddenly you're back to where you started and that didn't sound super fun.

• 9:25Russ Frushtick?

  And for what it's worth, there are those games like extraction shooters like what you described do definitely exist. In fact, I would say they're kind of the norm in a lot of ways.

• 9:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 9:35Chris Plante?

  What I read this game as is closer to a game with a campaign that takes place inside of what I just described. So before you go into any mission with your buds or solo, you can select a variety of missions for different corporate leaders and it might be as simple as like break 20 windows or it might be more complicated like a four-point process where you need to go back and forth across the map, loading different, you know, like computer terminals, triggering various enemy things. These are not complex.

• 10:11Russ Frushtick?

  Is one of the missions really break 20 windows?

• 10:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, one of the onboarding missions for one of the factions is like, everything you need to know about us is we're bad boys. Go break 20 Tau Seti four windows. It's like, holy shit, man. Why is this your whole deal?

• 10:26Chris Plante?

  So when you go in and you complete those missions, you do not have to exfiltrate to have completed that mission. So right away, the hard, most hardcore thing about it is gone, which is go in, you can do the mission and then if you die, that's terrible. If you happen to get out with lots of cool weapons that will help you in your next mission, that's great. That's, that's the real gravy and you can do that over and over and over again. What is interesting about the missions is they start to establish what the meta is and why people are doing what they're doing. So another, the bad boys of, of Marathon have a mission that's like, you need to go and not just down 10 people, but you need

• 11:10Chris Plante?

  to execute them on the ground, which is a rough move to do because it immediately puts you in the fire of like whoever they were with, right? Like it's probably going to get you killed trying to show off doing that. But once you do that, you then know the next time you get executed, ah, they were probably, they're probably just getting their campaign, you know, I'm pretty happy for them. And it completely changes your mindset about the kind of hostile behavior that you're going up against. There is this equalizing that you start to feel in the game of, I get it, we're all here to get our job done. Yeah. So that's, I would say like, that's the top level.

• 11:49Griffin McElroy?

  We could talk for the whole episode, just about that. That is a, that is a, that is a core pillar of the extraction shooter model. That this game kind of just handles with vibes, right? The two things are true simultaneously. One would turn me off of this game and did. I, I fucking hated my first couple hours with this game and I haven't had time to play it. I've played like maybe five hours because it, I'll talk about this later. Tough to fit into, to the, to the routine.

• 12:16Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 12:17Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, but like, I have not had a single encounter with another player that did not begin and end with one of us shooting and killing each other. Like I have not, in Arc Raiders that I've played a little bit of, you always have that moment when you roll up on someone like, hey, I'm chill. In this game, there's like, there is a dedicated, hey, I'm chill button that you could do. You could just like say like friendly, friendly. But like, it's never, they just fucking drop you because the time to kill is insanely short. So why not? Uh, and two, it just kind of seems to be the, the weird ingrained behavior in this community where there is no doubt, you are going to shoot and you're gonna kill people. There's a class that is basically just a kind of hunter of other classes, uh, which is very interesting.

• 13:00Griffin McElroy?

  But what makes that not so bad is that the game gives you so many ways to like soften the blow of that. There are sponsored loadouts that you can get for free that will just like fill you up with some basic shit. And you can go out there and if you die, it's like, eh, whatever. If you live, usually you'll get a reward from that sponsor. Uh, so that's great. There's a whole class that you don't equip loadouts at all. So you're not going in and losing a bunch of stuff. Uh, that class is just kind of about going in there solo, picking up what you can and, and, and getting out of there. So like this, this hangup I have in my mind of like too stressful. I don't want to work to get a bunch of shit and then lose it. Or. Or, uh, you know, I don't want to go down on the map and find something dope and then get killed. Like, the game kinda has an answer for all of that stuff. And I don't know, it is

• 13:44Griffin McElroy?

  what has made me want to keep playing the game. It is the single most sort of like defining feature of the game so far to me.

• 13:50Russ Frushtick?

  Where I've kind of run, uh, I don't know how to approach this necessarily because I don't want to come off as negative because there are certainly-

• 13:58Chris Plante?

  No, no, no, fresh, fresh. Go, go full throated on this. You, I, I want to hear like your real opinion because first had a journey-

• 14:06Griffin McElroy?

  This game also has huge problems that I do want to get into, but-

• 14:10Russ Frushtick?

  The game is unquestionably, I've played a lot for this podcast and in general, played a lot of video games. Maybe top five worst onboarding games I've ever played in my life. Like horrible, indiscernible onboarding where the UI makes no sense. You don't know where you need to look for your inventory or where quests are or where assignments are or what these people are that are talking to you and why they're talking to you. It requires a good, I would say, two hours of like someone, in this case, Chris Plant, walking you through each and every screen and where you should be looking and what icons mean and which things

• 14:54Russ Frushtick?

  to pick up and what not to pick up. And if you don't have that, I guess you could probably watch a YouTube video for an hour. But Christ, for, for, given the fact that like Bungie made Destiny and spent a long ass time getting the onboarding of Destiny in a really good place.

• 15:11Griffin McElroy?

  Came up with like six different onboarding solutions.

• 15:14Russ Frushtick?

  They kept trying to nail it. And here it feels like they did not even try. And in its place is genuinely one of the most stunning games to look at and also one of the most interesting UIs to look at. But from a actual like navigating it standpoint, horrendous, like really bad.

• 15:34Griffin McElroy?

  There's a question of like, what's the loop of the game? The loop of the game is obviously like an extraction shooter. Okay, I go down, I pick stuff up. The question of like, what do I prioritize picking up? Cause my inventory space is like super duper low. Okay, well, okay, I got out, I got a bunch of stuff. What do I do? Like, what do I do with this? There's a, there's an upgrade screen, but I can't really get, oh, I need 12 unstable biomass? Jesus Christ, like, that stuff is so, there is no visible carrot for most of that sort of early period of the game. And so you're just kind of playing, cause it's, the guns feel good.

• 16:06Chris Plante?

  Oh, I would actually say there are, there's a carrot and then there's about 30 other carrots. And you're in the middle of them and you're like, which fuck?

• 16:14Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, which carrot? While you're getting shot at by robots. The, I'll point to an example that I think would have been better, which is another extraction shooter. The game is Helldivers 2. Helldivers 2 has three upgrade resources. Common, rare, ultra rare, whatever the fuck it was called.

• 16:34Russ Frushtick?

  And this game seemingly has 30. And there's only one resource that you really want early in the game. And it's unstable diodes, I want to say. I don't know what they're called. But you're drowning in other things. And if the game was just kind enough to like, throw you a bone and like, highlight the things that you need for an upgrade. For example, like those are the sorts of things that I think would make the onboarding a lot.

• 16:56Chris Plante?

  I, yes, I, I have theories about all of this. One, I had a very simple onboarding experience, but I increasingly think it was rare. I think it was like, I just was playing with the right people and it all felt like natural. And it was definitely people giving me the onboarding experience. And not the game itself.

• 17:18Chris Plante?

  The, the thing that you're talking about fresh with Helldivers, where it's like, well, you have these three things and how much simpler that is. I think what they're trying to do is they're trying to solve for the fact that everybody is splitting the same loot. So with you not having a ton of inventory and there being a wide variety of resources, the odds that you need the same thing as your other players need at any given point are lower and therefore. Or like you're gonna grab these things out of the bin, they're gonna grab those things. It's gonna all like equal out. The other thing, and I'm not saying this is a defense, I'm just saying like this is a sign that they put in the game. They, for the thing of like, what items do I need?

• 18:00Chris Plante?

  You can go into the upgrade chart and then manually pick an item and then mark it. And then it will show up in the game when you go there and it will even tell you which areas of the game have that, that material.

• 18:15Griffin McElroy?

  Would have been cool for the game to tell me that dude.

• 18:18Chris Plante?

  And then the weird thing is, the game does at a certain point tell it you in big print, like it comes up as like a whole screen that you have to pop out of. And even when it tells you it, it doesn't really tell you how it works. So it's like, hey, you should probably go and mark your gear. And it's like, yeah, what does that mean? Like, yeah, it, it, tell me more.

• 18:38Griffin McElroy?

  That the, I struggled a lot with the, with the loot economy of this game. I, I still feel like I'm just playing it because it's kind of fun. I have gotten good enough now that like, when I'm in a team of three and I roll up on another team of three runners, like, I actually feel pretty good about my chances. I can hang in there. I had a game with seven runner eliminations last night. I felt pretty fucking good about that. And that's fun for me. I don't feel like I am getting cooler guns or attachments that are making those guns like noticeably more particularly stronger. I'm not unlocking new like abilities or anything like that.

• 19:14Russ Frushtick?

  I guess it's the perks that you're working for with the.

• 19:16Griffin McElroy?

  It's the perks, right? There's, and the perks are extremely helpful and they go across all of the characters.

• 19:22Russ Frushtick?

  It'll be like more inventory space.

• 19:24Griffin McElroy?

  More inventory space, your heat, uh, which is like the way that the game keeps you from just sprinting the whole time. Uh, that, that is improved. There's upgrades that just improve the rook, which is the solo only. Go into a middle of a match class, disguise yourself as a robot NPC and try to fucking merc other players and get out. With the much more limited time limit that you have. That's how the rook class works and it's fucking cool. And sometimes the only thing I can play because I will set as a set aside 30 minutes to play this game. Knock out a match, which is 30 minutes and then I'll get my clock cleaned 10 minutes in and be like, well, I don't have time for another full match. It's rook time, time to get in there and just get nasty like, but those upgrades are are the most meaningful thing.

• 20:06Griffin McElroy?

  I think that I am sort of chasing down. It is a far cry from there's this exotic I'm trying to get. Or I'm trying to like, get enough resources to unlock this class feature. Or I think there are class cores that is like a type of equipment that do kind of modify the, the, what is there? Seven different classes that you can, you can equip, but like, I'm saying like, I've been playing this game. I've played maybe a dozen matches. I've gotten okay at it. I do not feel like I am working towards anything super exciting or that I have found anything where I've been like, oh, goddamn. Yeah, I'm going to use this gun until I inevitably am killed and someone takes it from me. Maybe that is a, I don't do a lot of ranked play. Maybe if I'm like moved up the ladder a bit, I do think the loot drops in general are more kind of desirable.

• 20:49Griffin McElroy?

  But like, I don't know. I just, I, it doesn't excite me, which also means if I die and I lose shit, it's like, eh, who cares? I didn't really give a shit. If I lost my unstable biomass, that's a pain in the ass because I'm trying to get like my heat reduction perk upgraded. But like, I don't know. I don't know if that gets better, Chris. You have played, you have played more than me. So maybe you are finding, you know, exciting guns and shit like that.

• 21:09Chris Plante?

  The answer to that is not exciting. It's like, it will help you survive more. So on top of, on being able to upgrade these like perks, these permanent buffs, you also unlock the ability to buy items. That are significantly better. So you can buy a shield. You start with the lowest possible shield in this game. To the point that it's barely even there and barely effective. And you can start every time you drop by being able to buy a much, much, much better shield for relatively cheap. Those are the, the kind of.

• 21:44Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know about relatively cheap, man. I feel like I'm always dying for credits.

• 21:49Chris Plante?

  I mean, that's, yeah, as you, as you get on, you will be finding better weapons, which you can cash out for like more money. But that it's, it's not a sexy.

• 21:59Chris Plante?

  You know, growth trajectory, right? It's like two rats. You get to live a little bit longer. I, I agree with you. I'm, I am largely playing it just because it's fun. Like I, I am treating this, I, fresh, I think I talked to you about this, like a single player rogue-like that happens to be trapped inside of an extraction shooter universe. That I have these goals that I am doing as if it were a single player campaign and I'm largely avoiding other human players unless I know I have the jump on them. And because the time to kill is so fast in this game, if you get the jump on somebody, you're gonna knock them down.

• 22:36Griffin McElroy?

  That's it.

• 22:37Chris Plante?

  Which I love because I am, could not stand playing a game like Halo or even Destiny, where if I got the jump on somebody, often they would just kill me because I had not grinded enough hours to like have the weapons that I needed to bring them down as fast.

• 22:53Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, the time to kill was just much longer.

• 22:55Chris Plante?

  Right. Yeah. But as a result, that means that it is not always about skill. It is about who has the best weapon. And it is.

• 23:03Griffin McElroy?

  It also, it also lends itself to a general sense of paranoia that you will have the whole time that you play this game, especially when you make your way to an extraction point, which you have to activate, wait about a minute, and then it will turn, uh, it'll light up and then you can step near it and you have to stay near it for 10 seconds before you can extract. And half the time, there is somebody camped out hiding with a shotgun, waiting to fucking perforate you or a thief with their nasty little drone. Oh my God, I found a fucking cool like upgrade. And as I was getting X filled out, I heard, and I was like, what the fuck? And I looked out and it was on the ground and I picked it up again and I heard, and they yoinked it out and then I teleported away. I was like, no, please no.

• 23:48Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, can we talk about the classes?

• 23:50Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause I think we actually probably played mostly different ones, which should make it for interesting discussion.

• 23:57Griffin McElroy?

  I think they're, they are interesting, right? Comparing this to a Destiny, right? Which was always struggled with how they are balancing between PVE and PvP. And people on both sides of the aisle being like, kind of pissed off most of the time about the decisions that they were making to benefit the other side. This feels entirely kind of PvP balanced. And as a result, there's not these like huge, dramatic, like, uh, you know, oh, man, if you're running Warlock, you gotta do Sun Seer, cause this is like the meta. The powers are like a lot more kind of like subtle, right? There's a triage class that can drop a little healing drone out. And when you heal yourself, it heals your allies too.

• 24:38Griffin McElroy?

  And then you have an alt where you shoot out like prods to resuscitate someone instantly. Or, found this out yesterday, you use it to absolutely destroy an enemy. If you're in like a tunnel fight and you launch those down the hallway, you will, you will clear them out. But it's not like, those take a long time to recharge.

• 24:57Chris Plante?

  They take a really long time.

• 24:58Griffin McElroy?

  So it's not like you're throwing them down left, right and center. And that's true of like all the classes.

• 25:02Russ Frushtick?

  I think that's the biggest difference with Destiny is in Destiny, what I was used to is like, I could use my class ability every eight seconds. And here it's like, once a minute, if you're lucky. A lot of that stuff takes a really long time. So you have to be smart about using it. And I, I have like, kind of locked it. So I've been playing as assassin, which is the like sneaky class. I mostly play it defensively. I'm sure there's a very aggressive way to play assassin where you go invisible and like run up on people. Mostly it'll be like, oh, they got the jump on me. I'm going invisible or I'm gonna drop smoke or whatever.

• 25:33Griffin McElroy?

  It's a great oh shit button.

• 25:35Russ Frushtick?

  It's a great oh shit button. And, and it's worked out like a few times where we were extracting and I dropped a smoke bomb and it saved everyone. There was another time where I, I think I was alone and there was a whole squad that wiped out plant and the other person.

• 25:46Chris Plante?

  The Benny Hill moment, you were, we were playing last night and all of us got downed. And I was like, fresh, run, run, run. And you went and assassined, but then just went and hid in a corner, like literally five feet away.

• 25:58Russ Frushtick?

  It was like, I took, I took two right turns and then ran to the nearest corner and went invisible and crouched. And the, and the whole squad just walked right past me and it was.

• 26:06Griffin McElroy?

  Love it.

• 26:07Russ Frushtick?

  Cool. So I like those moments. I think those moments are good. For me, I like the power fantasy of using powers more than I do the gunplay. So it is kind of a bummer. That's like, oh, I have to save this invisibility for when I really need it. I understand there's a reason for that from a balance standpoint, but it's just, you know, it's a little bit of a drag that it just takes a little bit of the fun out. And Plant, I know you talked about Thief in the last episode, which sounds quite fun as well.

• 26:35Chris Plante?

  Yeah, Thief is where I made you have the thing that you were talking about, a drone that you can use to scout spaces and also use to like steal things from other people.

• 26:43Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, as a scout, it's incredible. I feel like the player base has gotten wise. And like they hear the sound and immediately start looking for the drone in the sky to shoot. But you can tag people while you are flying around with the little like loot drone. And then be able to get the, get the drop on them, uh, which is like pretty incredible.

• 27:01Chris Plante?

  Another fun thing that I'm not sure if they will keep it in or not, but you can put a claymore or a proximity mine on the drone.

• 27:08Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, man.

• 27:09Chris Plante?

  And then you can start chasing people with it, which is great. But the other power of, well, the other two things about the thief is you can put on a visor that shows you the color of gear inside of every box and does it through walls.

• 27:23Russ Frushtick?

  I'll tell you what I love most about that is it just lights up where the boxes are. Cause they look a lot like the other non-interactive boxes, which is another, sometimes I play Thief just because I get so fucking fed up of like running around a whole station, not finding any containers at all and being like, I know they're here. I know that they're here somewhere.

• 27:39Russ Frushtick?

  I had a quest yesterday that was find this key card from this commander, pick it up and then scan the nearby crate. And there were about 30,000 crates within spitting distance. And eventually like Plant, I guess, just walked on it, but there's no indication of what that thing is.

• 27:58Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it is really tough to find some of that shit. Yeah.

• 28:00Russ Frushtick?

  I

• 28:01Chris Plante?

  That thief ability is like, yeah, super duper useful.

• 28:03Russ Frushtick?

  That sounds very useful. I, I think this game is doing very interesting things. I don't think this is my game, like as a genre. And I think a lot of it is just because of the amount of focus required. You know, to some extent, we look at multiplayer gaming as like just key hangout time with your friends.

• 28:23Chris Plante?

  Right.

• 28:24Russ Frushtick?

  And Plant was saying this earlier, like it is not. A hangout game because there's so much communication that has to happen from minute to minute to be successful that there's like no opportunity to actually have a conversation with anyone. That being said, there's a lot of people that like wanna wear headphones and like go like fucking tactical hardcore. And good for them. Like that's this game. It's like you can go fucking beast mode with it and be really successful.

• 28:52Griffin McElroy?

  It's, it's, it is, if I, if I were in a different phase of my life, I would play this game probably a lot. I find it very enjoyable to play. I actually haven't played it with people I know yet. I've only played in like groups and I've had some actually genuinely pretty great like teamwork encounters that hearken back to like, you know, pickup groups for Destiny raids and stuff like that. That's like really great when it happens. I would love to play it with friends. We tried to set up a session three or four different times that I was unable to make work due to mostly kid interruptions. And so like it's simply incompatible. I do think it takes a little bit too long to queue into a match unless you're playing as a rook.

• 29:34Griffin McElroy?

  Again, why sometimes I'll just dip in as the nasty solo boy because like I know there's not going to be a queue. It's gonna be a shorter match. It is tough for me to sit down and like play a game for, you know, 30, 40 minutes, however long it takes me to get my loadout and shit together before I queue into like it's.

• 29:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, there's no, and there's no pausing, obviously, or it's a multiplayer game. So you better commit.

• 29:55Griffin McElroy?

  It's, it's, I, I've really been enjoying it and I've been struggling with it. It's like there's stuff about it. I definitely think

• 30:02Griffin McElroy?

  as, as much sort of early release time as this game had, like it's weird. Some of the things that haven't been sort of addressed seemed kind of weird to me. The fucking aesthetic is through the roof.

• 30:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, amazing.

• 30:14Griffin McElroy?

  The, the, the music and sound that plays just in the like lobby is so transportive and fucking weird. And like ASMR-y, you'll be like listening to it and then you'll hear just a weird atonal plucked string that like has nothing to do with anything. You're like, what the fuck is going on? I thought I had like a Chrome tab. Open that like had started playing some like ad. Uh, but it was just the game like getting, getting weird with it. Like all that stuff is so, so, so cool.

• 30:48Russ Frushtick?

  It's a swing, man. And, and I'll say I, for beginners that just want to fuck around a little bit, play Rook. I actually like now that I've played more of it, just to like wet your feet a little bit. You're going to die a lot, but like.

• 31:00Griffin McElroy?

  A whole lot.

• 31:01Russ Frushtick?

  Just figure out like what the UI elements are. When you're playing with other people, I think it moves too quickly to like really absorb a lot of that stuff.

• 31:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Yeah. It'll also take you a long time to figure out like what guns you like. Like some of that, uh, some of that, I mean, it does, the gunplay does feel similar to Destiny.

• 31:18Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 31:19Griffin McElroy?

  A little heavier, a little slower maybe, but like the, the, the feel of the guns, like they obviously, they know what the fuck they're doing in that category. But like I, it took me, not until very, very recently, did I start to like pick up a gun and kind of know like eh. This isn't like, I, I want that like battle rifle. I want that like semi-automatic rifle or the bully SMG. Like I know some of this stuff now. All that stuff just takes a while to kind of, I don't know, fig- figure out, figure out what you like. And what's worth kind of like chasing, what's worth going for.

• 31:51Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, there's definitely homework. It's a homework kind of game. It's going to take a while. And for people that don't have the time or patience, and I'm certainly to some extent, one of them, uh, you just need to be aware of that going in.

• 32:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 32:04Chris Plante?

  Yeah. I, I, I mean, I agree and I disagree with that. And just in terms of like people who are considering this. All of this is true. If you're going to play this game competitively, and I wonder if this is where the difference between y'all having so much experience with Destiny. Comes in versus me and your expectations of like how to invest in one of these games. Because for me, almost none of this is true. I've been playing it in like 15 minute bursts because that's about how long a round is. I have not had to do much homework because I'm kind of just doing whatever the quest line says.

• 32:39Russ Frushtick?

  Well, well, but you had, you also had a personal person guiding.

• 32:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. For, for the first maybe like hour and a half.

• 32:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 32:46Griffin McElroy?

  And then a few other matches, but then a lot of solo. I just, I.

• 32:51Chris Plante?

  I think all of this is true if you are going and you have a lot of experience with multiplayer games. I am just perpetually surprised by like my experience with this game is so the opposite of the experience that people who love these sorts of games have. And I think that is strange. Like it's just, I think, I think it is a reflection of the fact that I do not play these games. So I don't have all the baggage of like how to play these games. Well, I don't think I'm measuring like, was this successful? Or was this just me like having fun? I don't know like what the the rub was there. I mean, even we talked about Rook, but like, I never shoot at anybody as Rook. Like to me, Rook is just like a

• 33:34Chris Plante?

  scavenge. It's a stealth scavenging simulation.

• 33:37Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, man, if you get the drop on someone who thinks you're a normal ass NPC and then you start moving decidedly unlike an NPC and watch their bean get freaked, it's pretty good. I would recommend getting nasty with the Rook. I might, I feel like I would love to check in on this game in like a year, right? And see if maybe the economy is a little bit more exciting and you know, whatever. But so much of this genre and really any kind of like live service game, I guess this kind of like fits into that sort of category is like, will it be around in a year?

• 34:16Chris Plante?

  That's what I was gonna say.

• 34:17Griffin McElroy?

  I know that that's like tough to, I generally don't sort of go for that kind of prognostication of like, oh, who knows, but like,

• 34:25Chris Plante?

  Well, here's what I'll say.

• 34:26Griffin McElroy?

  I just check, it's sitting at 91 on like the Steam activity charts.

• 34:31Chris Plante?

  Well, I'll say they're at 50, around 50,000 peak concurrents per day right now. And I guarantee when Sony bought Bungie, knowing that they were working on their next shooter, and it was going to be all online, they were expecting much higher than 50,000 peak concurrents. That's just on Steam. Obviously, it's on consoles as well. But I'm sure they were expecting more of a phenomenon right out of the gate.

• 34:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, there's three times as many people playing Ark Raider. Like, and that's an older, much more established game. But like, I, I, I, I don't know, man. Uh, I'm a little, I'm a bit concerned. Uh, yeah.

• 35:08Chris Plante?

  Yeah. With the Concord and the, what was the more recent one that just got axed? Yeah.

• 35:15Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know.

• 35:17Chris Plante?

  I think these are all like such different things and I worry about.

• 35:21Griffin McElroy?

  Comparing.

• 35:22Chris Plante?

  Every online game being compared to this and it being a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. The game sold over a million copies.

• 35:29Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 35:29Chris Plante?

  It has, the number is going up like, I don't know, I just, I.

• 35:33Russ Frushtick?

  I think it's more the, the investment, if someone's making an investment, whether that's a time investment or whether it's a literal monetary investment and I'm going to buy skins or whatever it is.

• 35:42Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 35:43Russ Frushtick?

  You would want to know if the game's going to be around in a year, like.

• 35:45Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I, I also think that a lot of this just comes down to that like reputation stuff that we talked about, you know, at the, at the top of the bit, because the, the reviews have been like pretty positive for this game. I think it has a very positive score right now on, on Steam and I, I don't know. I was surprised when I saw that because of the, uh, just, uh, pure disdain that, that, that folks had for Marathon and everything it kind of represented. So like, I don't know, I maybe it's, maybe it's, maybe it is having a slow start.

• 36:16Chris Plante?

  I, I think the, the gap that they have to close and that they are running into now is they said, we've done a totally different type of shooter before. We've gone from the competitive multiplayer to the living game MMO style shooter. And we, it felt like our fans followed us and now we're doing that again. And what they're finding is that just like both of y'all hardcore Destiny two players who almost didn't play this game, maybe wouldn't have played this game if not for this podcast, right?

• 36:46Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 36:46Chris Plante?

  And I think that is pretty common. I think there are a lot of people who played Destiny who see an extraction shooter and they're now even older. And they're like, wait, so you want me to get even more hardcore as I am older? No, no, thank you. And the recurring thing that you see is like, once people play it, they're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I get it. I can get into this, but that's a big ask for a lot of your fan base, especially as they get older and, you know, they're playing fewer and fewer games to say, hey, we need you to try a genre that you're already afraid of. And the first five hours are going to do practically nothing. To ease those concerns.

• 37:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 37:28Chris Plante?

  That's, that's a big ask, which again is why I get to the like, weirdly, I think the people who are finding this game first in these early stages are either other extraction shooter people or weirdos like me who have none of that baggage. You're like, I don't fucking know. Like to me, this

• 37:44Griffin McElroy?

  You just want that. You just like that ghost in the shell shit. You're like all about that.

• 37:47Chris Plante?

  Easier, honestly, infinitely easier to parse this game than to parse Destiny two. Getting everything that you all are describing was absolute hell.

• 37:59Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 38:00Chris Plante?

  It was miserable every time I played that game with y'all. And it was fun because I had, I was hanging out with you, but like, dear God, if I had to hear about a new type of like vendor that I needed to go to, I was, I was just completely barfed out. But, but again, it's, it's all expectations. And I think Bungie in deciding to do this, there has to be this moment now where they're like, oh, well, fuck, we, we chased this genre and it turns out our core fan base. This is not exactly what they were looking for.

• 38:35Griffin McElroy?

  But isn't, I mean, yeah, I feel like a lot of people could have, a lot of people could have guessed that. I think when they first, I don't know. I, I want, Bungie is such a like, the developers, the like raw tonnage of talent at, at Bungie and like institutional knowledge about what makes shooters feel good. Cause I do think they make the, in my opinion, the best feeling shooters in the business.

• 39:02Chris Plante?

  Good bang bang.

• 39:03Griffin McElroy?

  That, that, that stuff is like all there. And I'm like, I, I think that it has been best executed when the people making it are clearly like passionate about the thing that they are, that they are making and uh, I'm sure that there's lots of people who were passionate about, about making this game. And I think that, that some of that does come through.

• 39:22Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, the fact that it's such a swing is, I think

• 39:24Griffin McElroy?

  It's a huge swing.

• 39:25Russ Frushtick?

  Such a swing.

• 39:25Griffin McElroy?

  But at the same time, like,

• 39:28Griffin McElroy?

  Destiny 3 also would have been a bigger swing and in my opinion, probably a safer bet for Sony for like-

• 39:34Russ Frushtick?

  It's still happening, Griffin.

• 39:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I mean, when, like, Cooper, get off the pot on that one, man. It's, it's that- That spring hair isn't as lively.

• 39:44Chris Plante?

  I think that's the bigger question about the speculation of Marathon's life that I'm curious about is that Bungie is not that big of a studio. It is not big enough to make Destiny 3 and make Marathon at scale at the same time. So like, they, they, they could be in pre-pro for sure and maybe or even early design, but like, I think that, that is where the bigger decision has to get made about the future of what Bungie wants to be.

• 40:12Griffin McElroy?

  What's the studio gonna do? Yeah, for sure.

• 40:13Chris Plante?

  That's tough. Um, that said, the lore fucking rocks. Destiny lore sucks. I'm going through fantasy bullshit.

• 40:20Griffin McElroy?

  Destiny lore fucking rules, dude. Do not talk to me about Destiny lore being shitty if you've not watched-

• 40:24Chris Plante?

  You want that hard sci-fi.

• 40:25Griffin McElroy?

  If you have not watched a 15 hour long My Name Is Bif fucking full lore breakdown of sword logic and don't fuck-

• 40:32Russ Frushtick?

  What part of giant ball do you not understand?

• 40:34Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Split the nerds between fantasy and hard sci-fi with their space operas. It's great.

• 40:41Griffin McElroy?

  I could talk about this game for another hour. I think it does a lot of really interesting shit and it, it interests me more than Ark Raiders. I, I'm not talking about the quality of the thing because like, I don't know. I think Ark Raiders honestly has fewer rough edges about it, but like, there's so much interesting stuff, even when you get killed. There are times where I'm like, that's interesting. Huh. Okay. That's cool. Wow.

• 41:04Chris Plante?

  We haven't even talked about, no, no, the silk worm that creates all of your, your, your cybernetic suits.

• 41:11Griffin McElroy?

  So cool. So, so cool. The, and like, I don't know. This game's been out for not that long and there is all of this kind of like, player etiquette, like-

• 41:21Chris Plante?

  Happening, yeah.

• 41:22Griffin McElroy?

  Rooks, like I went on the Discord and there's just like a rook channel on there where people are just like, here's the fucked up shit I did. Here's the dreams I crushed. Like there's just like, a lot of that stuff has already kind of, uh, taken root and I think that that- That's also very interesting. I don't know. I don't know if this is the extraction shooter that makes me like fall in love with the genre or anything like that, but I am glad I played it and I do want to play some more of it if we could ever actually get all together in the same room and play. Yeah.

• 41:51Chris Plante?

  Griffin, to wrap up, I have a rook story that I want to share, which is I thought the rook meta was shifting towards rooks protect other rooks. That we're all just vultures out here to scavenge. It was for about a day. It felt like I was coming across some really happy scenarios. And then I got to an exfil, loaded an exfil. It was guarded by a ton of the NPC robot characters, big, big beastly robots. And as I am waiting behind a shipping container, I see on the roof, maybe like a hundred yards away from me, a rook with a sniper rifle. And I'm like, what are we doing here? We're both rooks. He knows what I am.

• 42:34Chris Plante?

  And I nod at him. He fires at me. I don't fire back. I come back out. He doesn't fire at me. Okay, we get it. We're not here to fight. Put on my, my robot mask. I walk over to the exfil site. We're all good. He's there. I'm there. And then I see that gun raise. Sprint to get into the exfil site. I get downed. Whatever. You can exfil in this game if you're down. That's all okay. Five, four, three, two. He fucking executes me.

• 43:04Griffin McElroy?

  Oh. Right before the exfil pops. Not, not even enough time to take your shit.

• 43:09Chris Plante?

  Exactly.

• 43:10Griffin McElroy?

  Just slimed you just to slime you. That's fucking, that's rook shit 101, man.

• 43:15Chris Plante?

  It was, it's bad when you like know like, oh man, I'm gonna show up on a highlight video. This sucks.

• 43:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, don't, don't, don't trust a rook, basically ever. That's a good, that's my number one marathon pro tip. Should we take a break? Yeah, let's take a break and we'll answer some, some reader.

• 43:31Russ Frushtick?

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

• 44:20Russ Frushtick?

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• 45:02Russ Frushtick?

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• 45:41Griffin McElroy?

  Crack that bag.

• 45:43Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so we've got a bunch of reader mail coming at you. Some of this is from a couple of weeks ago, but we wanted to cover as much as we could because we've missed a couple. About Pokopia. I think in that episode, we mentioned that this was one of the only, maybe the only Pokémon game that does not have Pokémon in the title. And as far as we can tell, there have been two. Thank you, readers. Brian wrote in to say that Pocken Tournament does not have Pokémon on the title. And Joe wrote in to say that Detective Pikachu also does not.

• 46:13Griffin McElroy?

  Ah, yes, yes, yes. You are right.

• 46:17Russ Frushtick?

  Case wrote in, said, "My partner and I have been loving Pokopia this past week. We've both been playing on our own Switch 2s, and I'll usually take the handheld shift, which can be more uncomfortable in a longer play session. Does anyone have good recommendations for grips while in handheld mode? I've continued to use the Satisfy Zen Grip 2. They make a pretty good grip. What's nice about it is you can dock it, which is a rare commodity. I know there are a bunch of grips out there. I don't know if you guys have used any, but that is the one.

• 46:46Griffin McElroy?

  No, but I need one. I've been playing so much Pokopia still, and after a long sesh in handheld mode, I can feel it, man.

• 46:54Russ Frushtick?

  I will say the one thing that I've been doing more that I very rarely did with the Switch 1 is I'll put it on a desk and use a Pro Controller. And because of the larger screen size, it's like actually viable and enjoyable. So that's another alternative.

• 47:10Russ Frushtick?

  We have another letter. This one comes from Christian. "Since it came up, you might already have answered this, but do I need to play Death Stranding before playing Death Stranding 2? I'm excited to play the sequel on PC, especially because I've never experienced any Kojima game." What do you guys think?

• 47:25Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I mean, it helps, but I've never finished Death Stranding 1, nor do I plan to. So like, it's a big fucking ask. There is ample, like, recap shit. Like, from the main menu, you can recap the entire plot of the first game.

• 47:40Russ Frushtick?

  If anything, I think it tells a better story because it's so focused on the actual plot beats of the first game, rather than getting lost in the actual game, which...

• 47:48Griffin McElroy?

  Death Stranding sickos may disagree. I don't, I don't think it's worth it to play the whole game.

• 47:52Chris Plante?

  I prefer Death Stranding 1 as a game. I think you should play Death Stranding 2 first. Death Stranding 2 will teach you how to actually just read the game. And then playing Death Stranding 1 is almost like playing on hard mode because it's... It's way less forgiving. It's also the story is you should play Death Stranding.

• 48:16Russ Frushtick?

  And also, I would say just largely not as much fun because like combat is a mess in Death Stranding 1, whether intentionally or not.

• 48:23Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's like, it depends on what you want from fun. If what you're wanting is the combat and stuff, definitely play Death Stranding 2. Death Stranding 1 is much more of just a like-

• 48:31Russ Frushtick?

  It's like a stealth game with deliveries.

• 48:32Chris Plante?

  Yes. Stealth and construction.

• 48:34Russ Frushtick?

  I do love it, but yeah, no, 2 I think is much more approachable. Uh, we have another letter. This one comes from Samantha. Uh, definitely recommend Sway the Spire 2's co-op. It works really well, is super fun and a different way to engage the game. And there are cards and events specific to multiplayer that change things up to keep it a bit more interesting. My spouse and I have been playing on the couch at night with his Steam link and my Steam Deck. That sounds like a good way to do it.

• 48:58Chris Plante?

  That does sound fun. Um, yeah, no, I want, I'm, I am eager to do it. I still think I'm gonna wait. Maybe I'll save that as like the exciting new thing I know is going to be there when I, you know, the game is out in full access.

• 49:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it seems like a really fun, just multiplayer, like, uh, just the idea that you're like all sharing strategies and things like that would be pretty interesting. And really, no one in the genre has attempted it. So it's cool to see. Uh, this last letter comes from Mike. Uh, I'd like to respectfully disagree with Plant on the differences between a Battle Royale and an Extraction Shooter. We were talking about Marathon again last week. Uh, I think Plant was making the point that they're similar? I don't remember your initial point. Anyway, for me, the anxiety of an Extraction Shooter and a Battle Royale anxiety are not the same. I think the biggest difference is that you start with all the same equipment in a Battle Royale and RNG is important for your kit, which takes a bit of the pressure off.

• 49:52Russ Frushtick?

  And in Extraction Shooters, you either go in with good gear and the fear of losing it, or bad gear and you have an automatic disadvantage. This gameplay loop is a lot harder for me and it seems like a larger risk of wasting time rather than loading up a Battle Royale.

• 50:06Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I think that gets to what we were talking about earlier about the structure of Marathon is if you go into an extraction shooter and you think your experience is about the loot, it's gonna be, I think, a pretty miserable experience.

• 50:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 50:20Chris Plante?

  The loot is the bonus, but the experience is the reward. And the, what I said last week was that you have a better chance of actually, quote, "winning" in an extraction shooter of getting out than you do in a battle royale. Just numbers wise. So it depends on what your, what your goal is, but I completely understand this point. If, if you play these games and you're, you're, wherever your brain or your heart tugs you at is, is the items, is the loot, whoo, an extraction shooter is gonna be a, a big ask.

• 50:55Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I, I still think this game could do more to try and have its cake and eat it too a little bit. But it does also, like, I love the sponsored kits. Like, I know that there is a way of playing this game without having to risk the shit that I have and just get in there and get some more experience fighting and like find some, some more materials for my upgrade. Like, I, I really do think that this has not been nearly as big of a concern for me as I, as I thought it was going to be.

• 51:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think that's right.

• 51:23Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, honorable mentions, anyone been watching, playing? Did you see Project Kill Mary, Chris?

• 51:31Chris Plante?

  I did.

• 51:31Griffin McElroy?

  Did we talk about that last week?

• 51:34Chris Plante?

  Rush unfortunately only saw the beginning of it, so I won't.

• 51:37Griffin McElroy?

  I was in a screening.

• 51:38Chris Plante?

  I won't spoil for anybody else who sees that. I'll just say that it was a very enjoyable movie and it's so nice to see a big budget blockbuster that's like beautiful, as in like visually interesting. It has great framing. They use lots of practical effects. They're bright colors. It doesn't have that, that kind of sludgy pasty look that we've come to expect from a lot of big budget stuff that is not called Avatar. And, uh, and Ryan Cozine, the, the most beautiful special effect of all, you know? You gotta look at that face, in sweaters and, oh, he's just, he's got it all going.

• 52:18Russ Frushtick?

  I've been watching the, I think it's the fourth season of Shorzy on Hulu. This is the Canadian non-professional hockey show from the creator of Letter Kenny. And it's great. It's like weirdly warm-hearted and sweet. Mixed with like EDM and like kind of shameless sexuality stuff, but I don't know.

• 52:42Griffin McElroy?

  Capital S shameless, not like the Russ Frushtick is like judging.

• 52:47Russ Frushtick?

  No, no, yeah, correct.

• 52:48Griffin McElroy?

  People with their shameless.

• 52:50Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, no, right. They, they don't hold back is what I'm saying. And that's fine. Good on them. But yeah, it's really well-written and lovely characters and I'm always happy to see it come up again.

• 53:03Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I've been playing a few things, but I think we've talked about all of them. Berry Berry Berry, I got quite into following Russ's recommendation. And like that, like that one a lot. Very self-contained. Which I, which I do appreciate from time to time for my, from my incremental games. A lot of Pocopia, just a lot. I finished the main story of it and now like, I don't know. I've just sort of been undergoing projects on the Palat Town with Henry. We just finished up building a huge nine-room apartment complex for all the EV and EV Lucians in Palat Town. It's just like, I don't know, I haven't fucked around building stuff in a game like this since like, you know,

• 53:49Griffin McElroy?

  early Minecraft days. So I'm very much enjoying that. Played a little Diablo four. You can play as the new Paladin class if you preorder the, the next expansion, which I think is out soonish.

• 54:03Griffin McElroy?

  But I don't know that I've played enough to like really comment on how that game has changed. The thing I really do want to talk about on Amazon Prime, the new season of Last One Laughing UK. This is the truly, truly brilliant kind of concept for a show, a reality show with comedians. And they were not the first to sort of come up with it. If you're familiar with Documentary, the Japanese television. Program is very much the same. They lock 10 comedians in a room for six hours. And if you laugh once, you get a yellow card. If you laugh another time, you get a red card and you are ejected from the competition. And if you watch Taskmaster, you're gonna know about 75% of the cast on this season.

• 54:46Griffin McElroy?

  Sam Campbell is on it. He's a fucking stone cold killer. Bob Mortimer is back from season one, who is pound for pound, I think, the one of the funniest living human beings. Diane Morgan, who plays Philomena Kunk from Kunk on Earth.

• 55:04Chris Plante?

  Wow.

• 55:05Griffin McElroy?

  Is on this season.

• 55:08Griffin McElroy?

  Mel.

• 55:08Chris Plante?

  Murderers Row right here. This is nuts.

• 55:10Griffin McElroy?

  It's wild. It's a really, really wild list. And from the jump, it is just like absolutely astonishingly funny. So many people taking so many heavy swings at each other, trying to make each other laugh and then having to literally stand up to remove themselves physically from like the, the location where the jokes are taking place before they laugh. Like, to me, there is nothing funnier than that. So, so I think there's only three episodes of it out so far. New episodes are, are coming on Wednesdays and I'm waiting with bated breath because it is hysterical.

• 55:45Griffin McElroy?

  Plant, what have we talked about this week?

• 55:47Chris Plante?

  Oh, we've talked about so much. We talked about Marathon. We talked about Shorzy. We talked about Last One Laughing, Diablo Four, Pecopia, and Project Hail Mary.

• 55:57Griffin McElroy?

  That's a lot of stuff.

• 55:58Russ Frushtick?

  Lot of stuff. Covered a lot of stuff.

• 56:01Griffin McElroy?

  If you, if you want to hear us talk about more stuff, may I suggest going to patreon.com/thebesties and joining our Patreon? It, it helps us out a lot and you also get access to Sweet Boko and episodes of The Resties and just all kinds.

• 56:17Russ Frushtick?

  Bracket Battles episode, we have a very good one coming at you. We just did a besties, we just did a Resties on a very cool racing game called Screamer. And then we have Bracket Battles coming at you first week of April, which is a really fun one. I'm very excited.

• 56:31Griffin McElroy?

  Patreon.com/thebesties again. Do you want to shout out some members?

• 56:35Russ Frushtick?

  Oh yeah, absolutely. We have, sorry, I'm gonna butcher this. Sarojah B. I'm sure there's a better way to pronounce that, but I'm gonna just go with that. Eric R., Jacob M., and just the letter V. Could be Vendetta, could be those aliens from the 80s. We don't know.

• 56:51Griffin McElroy?

  Could be. Thank you all so much for supporting us and thank you to our dear listeners now for listening to us. Next week, I don't know that we have a game selected.

• 57:01Russ Frushtick?

  I'm actively working on it, but it has not been fully confirmed. So we're going to keep it up in the air. It'll be a mystery episode.

• 57:08Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. Join us for a mystery game next week. That new Legacy of Cain game comes out March 31st.

• 57:16Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, that might be fast.

• 57:18Griffin McElroy?

  We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. So join us next week as we play more games and we talk about them to you, for you, with you here on The Besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?