Doom: The Dark Ages is a (Shotgun) Blast

Doom: The Dark Ages is a surprisingly bold departure from the formula of its predecessors. It’s also quite fun — if you can vibe with its slightly slower, parry-heavy gunplay. In the back half, the boys pick some letters off the top of the mailbag. Plus, Plante launched his Patreon for Post Games, and subscribers can listen to new episodes right now!

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  So he's not the Doom guy. He's the Doom Slayer or the Slayer?

• 0:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Okay, but he's not ever Dr. Doom.

• 0:11Griffin McElroy?

  That's true. Speak on that.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  I just feel like if you can earn a doctorate for kicking ass, then he should be, at this point, Dr. Doom.

• 0:25Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, so you think he's studied Doom so extensively?

• 0:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's an honorary, whatever he's doing.

• 0:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:32Chris Plante?

  I think he probably has. He just doesn't want to be like a jerk about it.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  He doesn't want to be like honorary, like after every like on honor, sorry honorary doctor. Sorry.

• 0:42Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:43Chris Plante?

  Yeah, like it's like, you know, you have a doctorate in world history, but if you say that you're a doctor, world history, it seems a little weird.

• 0:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, this is a good point is you don't typically when you become a doctor and you should know this because you're married to one, you don't, um, you typically just append doctor to the beginning of your name and I don't think his name is Doom. As cool as that would be, if they would be like.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  What is his name?

• 1:08Chris Plante?

  Dr. Slayer?

• 1:10Russ Frushtick?

  No, I think, I think it's Greg. Didn't it? Wasn't it in one of the, I don't normally read them, but I think I read one that said Greg.

• 1:17Speaker 00

  Dr. Greg Doomenschmerz.

• 1:22Russ Frushtick?

  Can you become a doctor of stuff you kill?

• 1:25Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  He's not a doctor in that. He's a doctor in the killing of them.

• 1:31Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  Have you not seen? A fisherman, a doctor fisherman, a doctor of fishing can't get in there and like dissect a fish and bring it back to life. You know what I mean? He's just an X-rated hunting the fish.

• 1:45Griffin McElroy?

  Like, you know, in the Marvel movies, there's Dr. America who kills, who kills everyone who's not, uh, like an American. You see that? You seen that? You seen these movies?

• 1:55Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, I've seen them.

• 1:57Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. He's a problematic, problematic fave.

• 2:00Russ Frushtick?

  You would have to kill everyone in America for it to be Doctor America, under that premise. Cause Doom guy is killing everyone in Doom. Oh, wait. They're just demons. They're not really Doom.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  It's not called Doom. What do you mean? Planet Doom?

• 2:17Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  No, not maybe. It's like, it's Mars.

• 2:21Griffin McElroy?

  It's definitively not Planet Doom, yeah.

• 2:22Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe that's the cold, that's like how they, after the credits, they reveal.

• 2:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 2:27Russ Frushtick?

  There's a sign, it pulls back.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  I'll tell you what it is. It's a cold open.

• 2:30Griffin McElroy?

  It pulls back and it says, "You've been killing dudes on Doom." And then the Doom, and then the Doctor Doom winks.

• 2:35Russ Frushtick?

  Yep.

• 2:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, cool. What a cool game and a cool world. Thanks for letting us live in it and play around in it.

• 2:40Chris Plante?

  Oh shit. I just looked at the Wikipedia and he's a lawyer.

• 2:44Griffin McElroy?

  God damn it. Doctor Doom Attorney at Law.

• 3:06Speaker 00

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

• 3:10Griffin McElroy?

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

• 3:13Chris Plante?

  My name is Chris Plant and I know the best rock song about a Doom Lord game.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  What? Alright.

• 3:23Griffin McElroy?

  About a Doom Lord game.

• 3:24Russ Frushtick?

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

• 3:28Speaker 00

  Welcome to The Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club and just by listening, you have become a member. This week, we're going to be talking about Doom: The Middle Ages. Chris Plant, what is that? Or Doom: The Middle Age? Doom: The Dark Age? Doom: The Dark Ages?

• 3:45Russ Frushtick?

  Middle Ages is coming next. We haven't seen a sequel. You just broke a huge NDA.

• 3:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 3:50Russ Frushtick?

  That's okay. Dark Ages, yes.

• 3:52Speaker 00

  What is this? The Dark Ages.

• 3:54Russ Frushtick?

  Yep.

• 3:56Chris Plante?

  Doom is back. The new Doom. The Doom 2016 is back for a second sequel to Doom 2016. This isn't a sequel to Doom. It's a sequel to the sequel to Doom 2016. And this time, you are standing and fighting. The last time, you were running and sprinting, and now you're standing and guarding.

• 4:17Russ Frushtick?

  You know, when you said nude Doom, I kinda wanna play that game.

• 4:21Griffin McElroy?

  Nude Doom?

• 4:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, nude Doom.

• 4:22Griffin McElroy?

  Computer, can you generate a nude Doom?

• 4:27Speaker 00

  We'll talk about that and so much more right after this.

• 4:31Chris Plante?

  Y'all, can I just tell you right up front, two things? Love this game, was really prepared to hate this game. Yeah. I, the, the previous two, I love the Modern Doom series. And it was on a trajectory that was so my speed. It was, let's do Doom as fast as possible where you were sprinting across the room like Tony Hawk with a shotgun and a chainsaw. And you're just killing everything. You're getting in there. And then they're like, hey, you know what we're gonna do for the next one? Big open spaces, uh, and you're gonna parry a lot. And I was like, that seems like a terrible idea. And then it turns out it was a brilliant idea.

• 5:13Griffin McElroy?

  Is 2025 the year of the parry? I think they probably need a new Sekiro if that was going to be the case.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  July 11th, Perry White. Gonna work at the Daily Planet. I mean.

• 5:23Griffin McElroy?

  I've began, I've, um,

• 5:26Griffin McElroy?

  I've just spent a lot of this year parrying so far. And this game, I wasn't expecting it.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  What other parry games have we done?

• 5:32Griffin McElroy?

  Fucking Expedition 33 is the parryingest game I've ever played.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Is there another parry game? I think it three, it needs to be a three for it to be a trend.

• 5:39Griffin McElroy?

  Second, we'll get Sekiro 2 in here.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 5:41Chris Plante?

  It'll happen. You know what I like about the parry in this game, though?

• 5:44Griffin McElroy?

  What's that? How insanely forgiving it is.

• 5:47Chris Plante?

  Just, it's, it's basically just hitting the shield button.

• 5:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, you know, within a good like second and a half long window of a green projectile getting even remotely close. It is shocking how forgiving it is.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  It's not shocking. If you think about it, if, uh, in a sword game or another melee focused game where parrying would be an ever-present thought, it's one of, you know, three or four tools in your toolbox, right? And this, there are so many different, like, ways you could approach any given situation. I think that you need more time to flash through. You're like, okay, there's something coming at me. Uh, there's one of eight different ways I could deal with this situation.

• 6:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  And like, you gotta pull up parrying, right? Like, it, it takes a little while.

• 6:29Griffin McElroy?

  I, I guess that's true. I think it's also a, a considerate. I'm, I'm not like a huge Doom guy. Um.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  Well, definitely not. I'm looking at you.

• 6:39Griffin McElroy?

  Alright, man, Jesus. I'm not like a huge Doom player, but I was not ready for like the number of huge kind of enemy-filled arenas I would be fighting in as opposed to, you know, you walk into a room and kind of have an idea of where the demons are. I think one of the reasons why the pairing is so forgiving is that you're going to be getting shot in a full 360-degree radius at all times. And so maybe they need it to be a little bit easier for you to block shots you see coming at you.

• 7:15Russ Frushtick?

  I think we might be getting a little ahead of ourselves.

• 7:17Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 7:18Russ Frushtick?

  Because we're talking about a very specific aspect to a game that has many specific aspects, and I think that we should take a step back.

• 7:24Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 7:25Russ Frushtick?

  And reframe exactly where the first two games landed and how we think this one differs. So the first game was like, we're gonna bring Doom back, you're gonna sprint through these hallways, you're gonna kill guys using mostly traditional Doom mechanics, but you're also gonna rip their heads off.

• 7:41Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 7:42Russ Frushtick?

  It's gonna feel really, really good. Second game-

• 7:43Chris Plante?

  Melee feeds into you getting the ammo and the health that you need.

• 7:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 7:48Chris Plante?

  So you have to go in-

• 7:48Griffin McElroy?

  It's not a fallback, it's part of the loop.

• 7:49Russ Frushtick?

  It's like a combat flow thing.

• 7:51Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 7:52Russ Frushtick?

  Second game had a lot of that stuff, most of it, but it also added traversal stuff. So air dash, double jump, swinging from rafters, doing fucking crazy grapple swing, shit like that. So that, I think, mostly typifies the second game. Also, you're fighting angels.

• 8:09Chris Plante?

  Yes, it's much more escape park platform-y stuff.

• 8:13Russ Frushtick?

  This game adds, we've sort of talked about it a little bit, it adds a shield, it adds, it feels like a number of like new, almost exotic mechanics to those previous two games. Cause I think-

• 8:26Griffin McElroy?

  How do you mean by exotic?

• 8:27Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, like vastly different from anything that we experienced in the previous two games. Giant mech robots, the dragon that we've talked a little bit about-

• 8:37Chris Plante?

  Tinkles that are like the size of skyscrapers.

• 8:39Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, this feels-

• 8:42Speaker 00

  It feels like it has the spirit of Doom, but it doesn't feel like a almost half step sequel that I think Doom Eternal did.

• 8:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's so funny because I feel like those last two Doom games were so were championed and were promoted as being fast fucking Doom, like fast nasty Doom. And this game is still definitely very nasty, but it feels like Doom guy is, I mean, it's a prequel, so maybe he just hasn't.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  He's fast in this.

• 9:11Griffin McElroy?

  Hit the cross. He is fairly fast, but there's such a heft to it. The, one of the first mechanics that the game doesn't even really tell you about it. It tutorializes all this stuff, right? Like you have a melee attack and you have this shield and you can do a shield dash with the shield and then you can throw this shield and like all that stuff is cool. It doesn't tell you that you're such a big fucking beefy boy that if you jump and land from a high enough height, you will obliterate everything around you when you land. And that's, that's cool and great that he does that. But I was, I was just surprised because I, do you not feel like the game feels a bit slower than especially Eternal?

• 9:48Speaker 00

  I don't feel like it, it's, I mean, obviously it's slower, but I think that the pace is like, I think it's less mobile.

• 9:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  But I think that the thing, you are probably being asked to think a bit more quickly, I think, because there are so many different ways to approach like the given situations. It, for me, felt, I, I, I think there was such focus on like the dash attack and the throwing of the shield. And it's weird how I, I really would oftentimes like kind of forget about the gun. Like I would forget that the, that I had a gun to shoot people with, which isn't bad to make like a gun part of the like overall toolset that you're using. But it did feel, uh, I was a little less focused on the overall loop, I think, because I was, the, the different tactics that you had other than using your, your gun.

• 10:41Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  Were so varied.

• 10:43Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. So you've got the gun. You've got the shield, as we mentioned, and you can do a shield dash with that where you like lock onto a guy and just like fly straight at him.

• 10:50Griffin McElroy?

  Which you can do from about a million billion miles away.

• 10:53Russ Frushtick?

  The range is insane. You've also got the ability to throw your shield like Captain America and you can like stick it in guys. And while it's like grinding up inside, up inside of them, they're having a good time, but they're also taking damage.

• 11:05Griffin McElroy?

  That sentence was the most erotically charged sentence you've ever said out loud on this show, right?

• 11:11Russ Frushtick?

  You've also got guns, which obviously you have guns, but that is the thing. It's like, if you've got this melee, you've got this shield can do all these sorts of things. And you're basically switching between like, let's say, two guns at any given time. Like, there are so many variables that I kind of found myself leaning on the consistencies of, oh, I've got this melee combo attack.

• 11:30Chris Plante?

  Right.

• 11:31Russ Frushtick?

  I'm going to upgrade that. Or, oh, I've got this shield and I always have the shield. So I'm going to keep upgrading that.

• 11:35Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 11:36Russ Frushtick?

  Where I felt like, yeah, the guns did feel a little de-emphasized in that way.

• 11:40Chris Plante?

  I think it's again about the mid-range, right? So like, if the first one is about, you know, getting in and back out over and over again. So much of this game is about projectiles, like both towards you and away from you. So you mentioned the shield, but that dash move works best, again, like at a mid-range. The throw move, when you throw the shield, it will stick into characters, basically like freezing them. So if there's one character that you're like, I just can't worry about this one right now, you can throw it at them and it'll stay there for a good, long while unless you recall the shield. But then on the opposite end, yeah, there are like, the parry is, it's kind of a weird system because

• 12:22Chris Plante?

  you do have characters who do melee attacks, but a lot of what is coming at you is these green projectiles. And

• 12:29Russ Frushtick?

  Which I couldn't see, by the way, just a heads up.

• 12:31Chris Plante?

  Is it not a colorblind mode?

• 12:33Russ Frushtick?

  There is one. I had, I did find it in the settings, but by default, I had no fucking clue which, of which things were parryable.

• 12:41Chris Plante?

  That

• 12:41Russ Frushtick?

  And unfortunately, it does put like a full-on filter over all of the graphics, not just like the one thing you can parry. They just picked very bad colors to delineate. Anyway, there is a colorblind mode, so that helped.

• 12:53Chris Plante?

  But when these are coming at you, it's closer to, I think Ikaruga is the one that does it, of the shmups, where it's about like changing the color that you were in. So you're matching a color.

• 13:06Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 13:06Chris Plante?

  So if you think about it less like parry and more like, oh, when I see a green one, I actually want to run at those projectiles and, and then shield into them.

• 13:16Russ Frushtick?

  It's like a resource almost, like it's like half damage, half like pickup, kind of like, yeah. Yeah, most of the boss fights revolve entirely around that. That's the only way to sum it.

• 13:26Griffin McElroy?

  It's wild how much a good offense is a strong defense in this game and that it's still fun. Like, I don't associate defense with being fun, and in this game, they make it very, very active to do these defensive maneuvers.

• 13:39Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think of any franchise, there aren't too many that make like the gunplay, and this has been true since the reboot, feel as fucking good. Like, it's like Destiny and Doom are kind of the like, leading the charge in that way.

• 13:53Griffin McElroy?

  Like every, like every gun. Like, some of the guns are not as purposeful, like they don't have as many use cases, I don't think. Like, you get the auto fire, uh, like, sort of machine gun, gun, like second or something like that, and it just doesn't. When you have a gun, a shotgun that can hit from, uh, you know, 60 yards away and absolutely obliterates every, like, it doesn't feel, uh, like you need to use the other one.

• 14:18Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, some of that is like, they get more utility as they get upgraded, but you're right, like, from the jump, I'm focusing on this. Anything that is like high damage, single shot, seems like way more fitting for this game.

• 14:30Griffin McElroy?

  I, I was curious, because you all have played more of this game than I have. I've, I've only had time to play a few hours, but like, how, how do the kind of like core combat mechanics improve as you start getting the upgrades? Because I, I was not particularly wowed by like the melee combat in the game. It's based on like charges, and you can use all your charges to do like a combo, but the, it, one, it, it is kind of slow and it makes you stop for a while, and then you have to keep track of how many charges you have before you try to go in for one of these combos.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  It's also by default map pressing R3, which feels kind of weird, like, to do melee combos by pressing the thumbstick repeatedly.

• 15:09Griffin McElroy?

  It's E on mouse and keyboard, which is also kind of a strange button for, for melee, but like-

• 15:14Russ Frushtick?

  R3, clicking in the mouse, isn't that the default? Like, that's how you do melee in most games?

• 15:18Speaker 00

  So, right, but like, okay.

• 15:20Griffin McElroy?

  If you're doing it three times, it's been banned.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Three times is what I'm saying. Like, a three-hit combo feels bad.

• 15:24Griffin McElroy?

  And you'll do it even more later in the game.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  Oh, good, yeah.

• 15:28Griffin McElroy?

  But like, does, does stuff like that kind of? A lot of the stuff works for me. The shield, I think, rules and the guns feel great. But like then, there's like one or two parts of this loop that they have designed that don't really do it for me, that I tried more or less to just sort of avoid wherever I could, which wasn't especially fruitful, because it really feels like they want you to use this like melee combo stuff.

• 15:51Chris Plante?

  So I'll pull back just a little bit, but I'll get to answer that, which is comparing this with like Doom Eternal, which Doom Eternal was use all, we're gonna give you a ton of weapons and a ton of different enemies, and we want you to use all of these weapons. And you are like cycling through all the weapons to make sure you're using every bit of ammo to go through everything. And I think that's where people who didn't like the game really bounced off of it, because you could actually spend quite a bit of time in the radial menu, just zipping through, right? In this game, there, it's more like there are problems to be solved when you face the enemies. So there are these enemies that carry shields.

• 16:33Chris Plante?

  And if you pump enough ammo into them, the shield starts to heat up. And once the shield is heat and it's glowing orange, you throw your shield at it and it makes it all explode. And it will blow up a ton of stuff around it. There are ones who have plasma shields and there's a weapon for that. So it's all about kind of matching a weapon to the scenario. But, and this gets to your question about the melee, Griffin. As you upgrade other, the various weapons and stuff, they start to solve different problems for you. So for me, I have, the shield I throw now is so powerful that I can just take out any plasma characters without even using a plasma weapon. And it bounces and hits like 20 enemies.

• 17:14Chris Plante?

  Or when I see a character go into that stabilized stance, that kind of like pseudo unconscious stance, I don't even have to go in with R3 anymore. I just do that shield charge and zip to them and take them out. That's not a defense of like, you're right, the pressing R3 four times in a row. Does not feel good, but there are like more options for how you go about solving things.

• 17:39Griffin McElroy?

  It becomes more possible to avoid using this one element of the game that I don't really like.

• 17:43Chris Plante?

  And same thing with like the radial menu. If you really want to use every weapon to solve every different like scenario, you can do that. But if you, for me, I was like, I'm pretty cool having like three weapons that I really like. And then just using the shield to solve everything else.

• 17:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:57Chris Plante?

  That, that is available.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  To what extent do you have enough ability to upgrade where like, does that feel like a build that you are working towards? Or is that like an overall power arc that like anybody would, was sort of?

• 18:09Chris Plante?

  That was a build I very intentionally worked towards because I didn't like using the plasma weapons. I didn't, that felt like I was like having to really pull out of the type of game I was playing. I mostly use the like, there's a super shotgun that feels so meaty. We didn't even mention it like you blow pieces of muscle off of your enemies.

• 18:27Russ Frushtick?

  It's cool. It's cool, man.

• 18:29Chris Plante?

  And the super shotgun-

• 18:30Speaker 00

  You don't think you're a gross kid anymore until you take a shot with a shotgun. It blows a demon ass off and you're like, ah, cool. I love that. Excellent.

• 18:37Chris Plante?

  I mean, and it, and it kind of has almost match type of clay-ness to the way things just glob off. Um, yeah, I, I like, my build is very, get in there really, really strong, heavy stuff. And then everything at range I do with my shield. And that felt like a really conscious decision. And when I look at like the other ways that you could go about it, there are charge builds where you're using the like rapid fire weapons, but it gets like higher and higher power as you charge things up. It feels like there are quite a few different builds that you could approach the game with. I think the flip side of that and complaints that I've seen about the game is it's, it is a lot easier than Doom Eternal,

• 19:17Chris Plante?

  which I don't think is bad at all. But if you are the sort of person who is playing these games because he liked the difficulty, it feels to me like they've switched the difficulty for like the creativity, which is cool.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  What does that mean though? In a game that has like a bajillion different difficulty settings?

• 19:34Russ Frushtick?

  Right. Like if you're playing on the highest difficulty, they're saying it's still too easy?

• 19:37Chris Plante?

  I mean, the complaints I, I have, do not spend a lot of times in these YouTube circles, but the complaints I've seen is that the game is just much, much easier. But the complaints with Eternal was that it was too difficult. So.

• 19:48Griffin McElroy?

  I think that's more just, yeah, you can't win.

• 19:51Russ Frushtick?

  I play, I don't play every game on easy, but every Doom game I play on easy. Cause uh, it's super fucking fun to play it that way. I don't like dying in these games.

• 20:01Griffin McElroy?

  It's so insulting. How can you do that? They're so mean about it. They, when you pick the easy setting, the easy setting is like, I'm a fucking little piss baby. And they make you say it out loud.

• 20:11Russ Frushtick?

  They fucking called me. That's it.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  I feel like there's a, I'm not a difficulty person who like cares what you played at. I do think with a, a game like this, I worry sometimes if I set the difficulty too low, then there will be meaningful systems that would, are enjoyable that I just wouldn't engage with.

• 20:29Russ Frushtick?

  I, I feel like I'm still engaging with systems and still taking damage and like, it doesn't feel like it's just like a walk in the park. It's definitely easy, but uh, it's such a power fantasy thing and I want to make sure that I can like beat a level in the 20 minutes that I have.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Be honest guys, because there's again, no judgment. This aesthetic, does this still work for, this is like getting kind of heavy metal, literally like not heavy metal, the heavy metal with a capital H, capital M, like the music.

• 20:54Russ Frushtick?

  I wanted more, and maybe this happens later in the game, Plant, you can maybe speak to this. More traditional, very grounded, dark ages environments versus like fucking dragons and shit.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  It felt so spacey so quick.

• 21:10Russ Frushtick?

  And there's something so interesting about the contrast of like, you have a very normal environment and fucking Doom guy is there like ripping demon heads off. Like that, like I want to see him doing it in a fucking office building. Like that's interesting to me more so than just like, yeah, it's like a fucking yes album cover, basically.

• 21:26Griffin McElroy?

  And I get that they've, maybe there's flashbacks and shit later in the game. I should, should state again that I didn't play, uh, play it through. But it feels like they missed a trick making a Doom prequel and not having a little bit more at the beginning about like, who the fuck this dude, like what this dude's origin looked like. It's like there's these maker alien guys and they're sort of on your side. And the humans are being attacked by hell. Go Doom Slayer, go get them. And it's like.

• 21:55Russ Frushtick?

  There is, I don't know if you've gone down the rabbit hole of like the Doom lore thing. The last game in particular like went incredibly far to the point where when this game started and quite honestly, still, the plot of this game makes no fucking sense to me. I don't know who the organizations are that are working or working against or for the Doom guy. I know there's hell and they seem bad. And then there's this other organization that's like a sciency alien hell. They also seem bad because they've got the Doom Slayer trapped up in his electric thing.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was never sure the cinematic who, who I worked for because everybody seemed pretty down on the Doom Slayer, honestly.

• 22:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 22:34Russ Frushtick?

  Um, I don't, I didn't need it. Quite honestly, like if you think about when Doom, the reboot's peak happened was you break out of your fucking coffin in level one. You like hear a voice message just like fucking rip and tear and that like carries you almost the entire game.

• 22:51Griffin McElroy?

  But I would prefer, I prefer that to kind of what Dark Age does offers, which is, which is, "You are a creation of the great maker."

• 22:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 22:59Griffin McElroy?

  "But you're on loan today for these dudes and there's hell demons and we're telling you to get in."

• 23:05Chris Plante?

  There's like no story in the gameplay either. So you really can skip it, at least in what I've played so far. The thing that you will see in the game, I guess narrative wise, is that there are people you can't shoot and they seem to like you. Um, and that's maybe the entire narrative in the gameplay.

• 23:25Russ Frushtick?

  They're like night, night friends.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  Those are all your brothers.

• 23:27Chris Plante?

  And well, the best is like, I love, there'll be these scenes where there's big hallways where they're all prepared to like go fight, which they know that they're not going to do. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll definitely go, uh, right. Once you're done, we'll, we'll go clean up.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  You get, you get them first. Loosen them up for us, big guy.

• 23:44Chris Plante?

  Cathedral. They're all gathered and then you run into the room from one corner, jump over them and then just zip out the door and they're like, oh man, that was good. Thank Christ. It was getting real close.

• 23:57Griffin McElroy?

  It is tough to slot this game into my life with it not working on, uh, any of the portable gaming computers that, uh, are, are in my possession, which I know is not the fairest criticism to leverage I think, but this one especially feels like.

• 24:12Chris Plante?

  I think we just need that Steam Deck two.

• 24:14Griffin McElroy?

  It would be.

• 24:14Chris Plante?

  I'm putting this more on Valve at this point. We need that Steam Deck two.

• 24:18Russ Frushtick?

  It's their fault.

• 24:19Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, I guess so. It might, I'm, I might be able to get it going on the Rogue Ally X. I was just nervous to do so because of how hard it was to get it to work on my computer.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  Anecdotal evidence, I downloaded it on my Rogue Ally X on the Bazite side, the Linux side, and I got a pretty, it crashed consistently, like as it booted, pretty much, and not a, and I got like a weird bug report.

• 24:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, they went all in on the ray tracing for the lighting of this game, which is always a silly thing to say, but I think that's why it's just not going to work on anything.

• 24:58Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think so, because I'm running it on my gaming PC, which is mid-range to say.

• 25:03Griffin McElroy?

  That was just what the Digital Foundry video said. I'm just going off of them.

• 25:07Russ Frushtick?

  It runs really fucking, it's really well optimized for, like, I've played a lot of PC, modern, new PC games on that computer that have really struggled. And for whatever reason, I think this game, in particular, I mean, I'm running it on much lower settings than I think was intended. But it looks great. It's a steady 60 FPS, which is more than I can say for most.

• 25:27Griffin McElroy?

  It does work. It works for me now. I think I'm conflating it with like our pre-launch issues where like, I couldn't get this fucking thing to work at all until Nvidia released like one,

• 25:38Griffin McElroy?

  one driver, like a day before the game was supposed to come out.

• 25:42Russ Frushtick?

  I did.

• 25:43Griffin McElroy?

  It finally made it functional.

• 25:44Russ Frushtick?

  I did try it on Steam Deck, because I heard in like a random forum somewhere, you can actually run it on low at 30 FPS, just with all the settings low. And I tried it and it was one of the levels where spoiler alert, you control a giant 50-foot Doom guy mech. And there were just, the level launched, and I guess I cut scene played, but there were no graphics. So I could hear dialogue and, and like little artifacts of like something in the distance, and they're like, dodge through the shields. And I was like, I don't see shields. So yeah, unfortunately, I don't think that's going to cut it. Maybe, maybe updates will happen. But again, given the fact that it runs as well as it does on my kind of shitty gaming PC. I kind of have hopes. I have hopes it's gonna run on.

• 26:26Chris Plante?

  Before we wrap up, I want to talk about just where this game goes in its midsection. Because the first few levels do feel a bit like the previous Doom. Outside of yes, you can get in a giant mech. They're kind of these closed off corridor mazes you use a map to go find items. There comes a point where you ride a dragon and it turns in very briefly into a unreal Xbox 360 game. And you think like, yeah, I'm gonna ride a dragon. I know what this is. And then from there, it opens up into a humongous open world city in which you fly around as a dragon and then destroy massive battleships and then land inside of battleships and have entire like

• 27:08Chris Plante?

  level explorations in these standalone worlds, which then gives way to very, very, very large open worlds. All of which is to say, the game might feel like the original first two Doms at first. It is increasingly a different thing as you get deeper and deeper into it.

• 27:29Griffin McElroy?

  Are you gonna stick with it, Chris? Do you think it is, do you think it is worth?

• 27:32Chris Plante?

  I am like really in love with this game. I, I think it is something special. I also get why some people have like not clicked with it. But I, I don't know. This is what I, I really hope that this is what more franchises can do. Make a game every four years or whatever and have them be like pretty different. Like Doom, Doom Eternal, this, these are very different games compared to what so many franchises do. The Assassin's Creed route where it's like, maybe every 15 years you get a relatively significant change in gameplay. And I, I like that they like take the risks and that there's creativity in what they're

• 28:16Chris Plante?

  trying to do, that each one sets out to feel different. I think that's good.

• 28:21Russ Frushtick?

  Fuck, I want like an 80s neon infused Doom.

• 28:25Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I mean, going further with the aesthetic would be nice. Even with this, I feel like it didn't hoops to your point. It doesn't really go all yes album either. Like it does. It's not realistic. It's not full heavy metal album. It's somewhere in between and I wish it went the one.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  It feels like somebody, somebody had a vision at some point that maybe got a little bit. Yeah, pullback or sort of that. What's the word? We got a bunch of people putting in their feedback.

• 28:53Chris Plante?

  Timmy Cook.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  Test.

• 28:54Chris Plante?

  Product tested.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Like a testing, the product tested. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like maybe they had the people like, I don't get all the dragons and stuff like, okay, we'll cut down.

• 29:02Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  Make a little more bland. I don't know. This is a guess. I don't know.

• 29:06Russ Frushtick?

  Can't all be brutal legend.

• 29:08Chris Plante?

  But why not is what I say. Every game should be brutal legend.

• 29:11Russ Frushtick?

  Still waiting for Toodle.

• 29:12Chris Plante?

  Let's, let's take a break.

• 29:14Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 29:15Chris Plante?

  Let's do that.

• 29:16Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, we're back. We have a number of emails. A lot of these are in relation to the backlog, sorry, Treasure Trove episode that we did last week about things that people are still playing. The first one comes from James. I cleared out room 46 in blueprints, but it still feels like there's so much to do. I only figured out, I only just figured out how the pump room works. And I also need to find huge sums of money somehow. Claire Obscura is next on my list, probably. Well, the good news is I could read that and not feel like it's a spoiler because I did see that there was a pump room and I assumed that there was a room 46. But I will play this game eventually.

• 29:57Chris Plante?

  Do, do we have anything on the latest about when Russ Frushtick is going to get let off the, let off the leash?

• 30:03Russ Frushtick?

  See if there's any news.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  I can try to speak to this while you are in a general way that might be helpful for people. And then Griffin, you, because Griffin has gone much farther than me. I'm kind of a middle ground here. And I think that after you finish it. I think you play one more day. See how you feel.

• 30:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  See what you feel like doing. Cause I think you play one more day and if you feel like you've had your fill.

• 30:30Griffin McElroy?

  That's fine.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Keep on going there, friend. I had my fill after about 40 hours altogether. Saw a lot of really interesting stuff. Had a great time. Got my fill of it, moved on down the road.

• 30:40Griffin McElroy?

  But you can get, you can be a nasty hog like I was, which is eat up all the stuff that this game has on offer, but I'll warn you. You will reach a point where you're going to keep hogging around looking for more clues, but you'll have found all the clues.

• 30:51Speaker 00

  I'm just saying everyone I know has had a tremendously satisfying experience. No matter how much of it.

• 30:57Griffin McElroy?

  Where they tapped out.

• 30:58Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, except for me.

• 30:59Griffin McElroy?

  Except for Russ.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  I'm so sorry, Russ. That's, I think it's, no, I think it's really good to, to keep mentioning it because I, I, I mean, I, no, I'm serious. Because it is like, there's a lot of people, as scary as it is, Russ represents a lot of people who can connect with him. Uh, in this and I, and I think we should keep mentioning it because it, it, it, everybody should be able to play this.

• 31:19Russ Frushtick?

  The developer, I think, knows and is aware and honestly, I'm not a game designer. I don't know how hard it would be to implement some sort of like color. Accuracy thing. And, and I think Doom is a good example of like this huge studio with this huge backing. And the best they can come up with was a, like a filter that changed some of the colors in the game, but that wouldn't work in for.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  Sometimes I try to think about how blueprints would do it and I get a little, it gets a little.

• 31:47Russ Frushtick?

  The only, here's the only thing that I can think of, because I personally have an app on my phone. That's called like color picker or whatever the fuck it is. And it has an AR mode, so I can point my camera at things. So when I'm shopping. In the store, I know what color the shirt is that I'm buying.

• 32:02Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 32:02Russ Frushtick?

  So theoretically, that would be the only implementation I can think of is you would have a pixel reader built into the game. And it would tell you what you're pointing.

• 32:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's cool. That's a cool idea. Um, all right. Can we do this next one? Austin emailed and said, if Griffin, if Griffin loves Rift of the Necrodancer, he should really try the demo for Unbeatable on Steam right now. It's a rhythm based RPG, about a punk band in a world where music is banned, and I'm in love with it. It has a wholly original soundtrack and every track is incredible. I, I, I wanted to read this because I just, somebody messaged me about this game and I watched the trailer and it does look fucking rad. I don't think it's out yet.

• 32:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it looks like it's just a demo.

• 32:38Griffin McElroy?

  They do have the demo out, uh, so I may wait for it to come out, uh, but the, the trailer is, uh, pretty badass. It does look like exactly my shit, so.

• 32:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it kinda looks like FLCL. It's like my.

• 32:50Griffin McElroy?

  I know. Yeah, that's a really good comparison. I never, uh, do you guys use like wishlist stuff? Like, do you actually, is that a feature you, I know, I'm really bad about actually doing that. And I think it's partially because I took for granted the fact that when I was more actively working in the games industry, I just kinda knew when shit was coming out.

• 33:09Russ Frushtick?

  There's also just way more games now, so it's so hard to remember, oh, this game came out.

• 33:14Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 33:14Russ Frushtick?

  I think my Instagram ads are largely worthless because everything on there is overpriced and ridiculous, but it has actually helped me from a game discovery standpoint. Just because you'll see gameplay and I'll just like click right through and wishlist the game and then I remember when it actually comes out. So, look at that. Saving the world, Instagram. For the first time ever.

• 33:40Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, we have another letter. This comes from Bass Toad, Bass Toad. "Justin, are you still woodworking? I'm getting my workshop set up and I picked up an old Craftsman wood lathe for around $150. Woodworking is kinda like gaming if you think about it."

• 33:57Griffin McElroy?

  Hmm.

• 33:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, sure. I guess. I mean, anything is metaphorically, I guess. I, I, I have a lathe, um, and it scared me too much to use it. And I don't know anybody around here that knows how to use a lathe except for that guy down at Heritage Farm, who just sits down there and uses the lathe all day because that's how they did it in pioneer times. And I don't want to go talk to that guy because I don't have a good exploration strategy because it's a big open farm. What am I gonna do? Act like I got a business meeting? I don't. It's a farm. So, lathes are scary. I still.

• 34:27Russ Frushtick?

  But you bought a lathe with that, like, and you're just sitting there? Like, what was your end game when you bought the lathe?

• 34:33Speaker 00

  It was a cheap, it was a very cheap lathe that I hoped to learn on. And then when I started watching videos about it, it was like, and I would try to use it. It's just kind of daunting. It's kind of a scary tool. It spins wood really fast and you don't want to mess it up. Um, I still woodwork pretty frequently. I, it is more of a, I would say like component of stuff that I do. I got to a point where, um, I don't know, kind of leveled out with the stuff I wanted to learn. I use it a lot during the summer for like, set construction. So I've got a big build coming up for the shows we're doing this summer. Um, but that's, I, I don't know. Yeah. I guess. Was that the question? It's just like a personal question about my life?

• 35:12Russ Frushtick?

  I guess about you. I think probably.

• 35:14Speaker 00

  Weird inclusion, but okay, sure. Yeah.

• 35:16Griffin McElroy?

  You're a, you're a, you're a lot of people's idol juice. Like, that's right. And you need to be like, you know, aware of that. Great, grateful.

• 35:25Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, you're a woodfluencer.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm learning about, I got a multimeter, a couple of multimeters. I'm trying to learn how to use those and do some electronics work. And solder and learn some of that kind of stuff. Yeah. So that's where I've been focusing lately.

• 35:41Griffin McElroy?

  This next question really dovetails, is our last email. It really dovetails into my honorable mention. Kate says, have y'all talked about the fact there's a new season of The Devil's Plan? It's called The Devil's Plan: Death Room, and it iterates on the first season in some of the best ways. I'm obsessed. I'm 99% sure someone on this show turned me on to the first season, so I really hope you all are checking out the new one. Let's talk about The Devil's Plan: Death Room. Did you guys watch Devil's Plan? Cause I'm almost certain I talked about it on this show.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I watched it the first few episodes. I couldn't quite.

• 36:07Russ Frushtick?

  Can you give us the elevator pitch, just as a reminder?

• 36:09Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, it is, um, uh, something like 14 or 16, uh, competitors. Uh, usually just really smart people, people who are like, uh, this season, there's like a gaming YouTuber, like a board game player YouTuber. There's a, um, like an international go champion, like people whose livelihoods are usually related to games or intellectual pursuits or whatever. Uh, live in a house together and they play a series of games, uh, some of the. Games add money to a big prize pot that you get to take home if you win. Some of the games are more designed to eliminate players. Everything kind of is built around this currency that you have as the players called pieces,

• 36:55Griffin McElroy?

  which are these little golden fancy tokens. And as you play the games, there will be opportunities for you to get more pieces or lose pieces. They are ways of bribing fellow players to help you out in a game. But if you run out of pieces, you're eliminated immediately. That's, that's the basic setup and it's not like the most out there, bold, innovative thing. The thing that makes this show is the nature of the games that they play throughout it. Each one is different and they are so insanely complex that

• 37:31Griffin McElroy?

  it is a game about these games and it is about watching people figure out strategies for these games that probably didn't exist before they, they started playing them. So you're watching games, people, learning about games and on the fly, trying to figure out how to survive them. And it's very, very, very, very cool to watch. It is also a, you know, it is a South Korean reality competition show. I am not super familiar with that language. And so it is an extremely demanding television show for you to watch because the rules explanations for some of the games will go on for 20 minutes. And you've gotta be pretty dialed in.

• 38:15Griffin McElroy?

  The first game this season, the second season, the death room is, is a hidden role type game. It is also like, what's that game where there's like a spy and a spy catcher? And you're moving around the map and the spy catcher can't see the spy. So it's like moving around spaces, trying to see if they've been there or not. It's based on that sort of.

• 38:37Speaker 00

  Get away, hide away.

• 38:39Griffin McElroy?

  Something like that. And so there's that element, but the police officers are split into three teams. And there's secret, there's secret, manhunt sounds right. There's secret corrupt police officers on the.

• 38:51Griffin McElroy?

  Officers team who are feeding their teams like false information and like there's so many different elements and each game starts with a 20 minute log explanation of like here's how it's gonna run. Here's how it's gonna work. It's hard to follow, but once the games start, you start to see people figure it out. And it's just, it's so, the games while extremely complicated lend themselves to these like incredible tense moments of like strategy and betrayal and it really condenses down a lot of the shit that I like about these types of reality competition shows into like their most distillate kind of nature.

• 39:29Russ Frushtick?

  Would it be helpful if, you know how when they're doing like sign language and they have the ASL interpreter like over in the corner? Would it be helpful if they got Jeff Probst to do that and just like explain stuff?

• 39:41Griffin McElroy?

  I feel like this game is the kind of game that does have a subset of the audience that is like if you talk about Survivor, they're like, well, if you like Survivor, you've got to check out Devil's Plan. It's nothing at all. Nothing at all like Survivor. Nothing at all like Survivor.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  Here's what Devil's Plan is, okay? I mean, I watched it. Here's what it is. If you've ever been at somebody's house and they've got a big thick rulebook for a board game they want to play with you and they've already got 15 pages in and then they're like, you know what? We should start playing at this point and we'll pick up the rest as we go. And then someone in the room is like, no, no, no, no, no. I think there's gotta be more of those rules. Keep them coming, brother. And then that guy is the guy who would like Devil's Plan. That's the guy. That's the audience. I think it is so statistically unlikely that two people who would enjoy this show would marry each other, that I think Rachel must be trying to assassinate Griffin. That's where I'm at currently.

• 40:35Griffin McElroy?

  Rachel's very, very deeply into this show, but she, she does this thing where like, she will start to try to follow the rules and then at a certain point, just kind of let the explanation of the rules wash over her. Because once you start, once you start playing the game and the second you see someone have to make a decision on like, wait, I think I might be able to get a leg up on this game. There's always like a period after they explain the rules for like a half hour, you can kind of like mingle. And talk about what your game plan is going to be. And that's where you see the rubber hit the road of like, hey, actually, I think if we, maybe if we alternate rounds that we make these bids, we can maximize our chance not to get in each other's way and not waste all of our current, like, you see people start to make, and as people work out like how they can survive and how they can win,

• 41:18Griffin McElroy?

  the rules crystallize like pretty, they do crystallize fairly quickly.

• 41:21Russ Frushtick?

  It's interesting because, um, speaking of Jeff Probst, I have been watching Survivor.

• 41:26Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, sure.

• 41:27Russ Frushtick?

  As like the only reality show that I watch, so I'm like a total noob. But they've been doing ads for season 50, which is coming up. I don't think it's the next season, but in a couple of seasons.

• 41:35Griffin McElroy?

  They're in 47 right now.

• 41:36Russ Frushtick?

  Right. So they've been doing ads for season 50 saying, hey, we want you to get involved and you're going to vote on like the rules, like the way this all works.

• 41:44Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 41:44Russ Frushtick?

  And one of the most recent ones, they were like, do you want immunity idols or not? Because some people apparently want like a just relationships like.

• 41:54Griffin McElroy?

  No hidden immunity idols whatsoever.

• 41:55Russ Frushtick?

  No mechanics, raw, like just base Survivor. And this seems like the total opposite of that.

• 42:02Griffin McElroy?

  Of all the things to trim off of the Survivor model.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  People don't realize that those, it is, the mechanics they're introducing are constantly, that is a back and forth with the audience, I think, and the players too, of like changing those expectations.

• 42:20Russ Frushtick?

  And it keeps things interesting. Like you're not just rolling into the same scenarios.

• 42:23Griffin McElroy?

  Or it makes things like convoluted and stupid and those usually don't make it past another season, right?

• 42:27Russ Frushtick?

  Because the money, there was that money season where you're like, you have six Starbucks, whatever, Survivor coins. And that was like, no.

• 42:34Speaker 00

  I like to smash the hourglass to reverse time. Your time reversal cubes.

• 42:39Griffin McElroy?

  Now that means that you won the last challenge. Congratulations. This is fucking dumb, Jeff.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  You remember, actually that team lost. That sucks.

• 42:45Griffin McElroy?

  I will add, there is a whole other element to Devil's Plan that is there's secret shit hidden throughout the house that they all live. Like there are little puzzles and opportunities for you to get these pieces that you are your lifeblood in the game.

• 42:56Russ Frushtick?

  So it's blueprints. You're just playing, you're watching blueprints.

• 42:58Griffin McElroy?

  Kind of, right? Like you see someone walking to their room and then they're like unpacking and there's a part where like somebody gets out their clock and they're like, oh, they already have clocks here. And then he looks at the clock for a while. He's like, that clock's not moving. And he goes over and investigates the clock and there's some shit. There's like some shit going on. Like that stuff is so, so full of human dookie.

• 43:19Speaker 00

  But inside it, there's a letter E. What could it mean?

• 43:22Griffin McElroy?

  If you are able to like dial into a game, I, there is, it is a very rewarding experience watching the show. The first season kicked ass. We're like three games into the second season and it's, the whole death game mechanic this time is like, there's one round where uh, it's like, one player gets eliminated for sure. And if you're in prison, you have to play in the death game. Uh, there's a prison too, that you get sent to if you're not rich enough. It's very much like life. Anyway, that's Devil's Plan: The Death Room. It fucking kicks ass. It's on Netflix. Um, I've also been watching Andor Season 2, which I want to talk about it.

• 43:53Russ Frushtick?

  No, we can't.

• 43:54Griffin McElroy?

  For a long time.

• 43:55Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we can't, we can't talk about it at all because I have only watched the first half of the first episode of Andor Season 2 and I'm incredibly into it, but I'm dying to watch more and I just don't want to know anything about it.

• 44:06Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  The way you rule the show is actually, it gets hard to run a little bit.

• 44:10Russ Frushtick?

  I'm sure there's people at home that agree with me.

• 44:12Speaker 00

  I get it. I give the rest fresh dick thing. I give the appeal.

• 44:14Griffin McElroy?

  There's not ways to talk about why it's good without getting into the.

• 44:17Russ Frushtick?

  You can talk about the letters that are in the title.

• 44:19Griffin McElroy?

  Give me a, give me a list of things I'm allowed to say about Andor Season 2.

• 44:23Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, sure. So you could say, how many letters are in the title?

• 44:25Griffin McElroy?

  Durin's writing these down, by the way. Yeah.

• 44:27Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, you could say, is it about space?

• 44:31Griffin McElroy?

  Uh huh, uh huh.

• 44:31Russ Frushtick?

  Is it about space? And how much space is in it versus land stuff?

• 44:36Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 44:37Russ Frushtick?

  That's it.

• 44:37Griffin McElroy?

  I think that's fair. That's fair. It's so fuck, it's so good.

• 44:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Griffin McElroy?

  If you had the mo, if you had the moments during season one of Andor where you're like, wow, I can't believe they made a thing this good in the, in the Star Wars universe. I promise you that it has escalated dramatically.

• 44:52Russ Frushtick?

  It sucks because it is all over the fucking internet right now and like, I know that person. Oh no.

• 44:58Griffin McElroy?

  I got spoiled pretty, pretty bad by a TikTok. Uh.

• 45:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I've been really, anytime I see any Andor anything, I'm like, no, no, no.

• 45:05Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, get the fuck out of there. You will absolutely, uh.

• 45:08Russ Frushtick?

  We'll see.

• 45:09Griffin McElroy?

  It covers a lot of ground, a lot of territory and it, it, it's just so

• 45:14Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 45:14Griffin McElroy?

  Good and so interesting and so nuanced and uh, I've, I'm like, an episode and a half away from finishing and it's like, all I can think about is getting off this fucking stupid podcast and going to finish the episode of Andor that I was on.

• 45:26Russ Frushtick?

  They should make a movie about what happens next.

• 45:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Why?

• 45:31Griffin McElroy?

  Good idea, man.

• 45:32Russ Frushtick?

  Thank you.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  You, you can watch this at home.

• 45:35Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, okay. I've been watching the rehearsal season two still. Griffin, I'm glad you finally watched the episode that I was alluding to previously regarding Sully Sullenberger. Fucking mind-blowingly fantastic episode.

• 45:48Griffin McElroy?

  It's really, really, really good.

• 45:49Russ Frushtick?

  Really fucking good. Uh, this season has been amazing. I think there were rightful concerns regarding the first season that the impression was such that there was like, uh, we're a little bit making fun of the subjects of the show.

• 46:04Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 46:05Russ Frushtick?

  And I think over time, and this includes like late in the first season and then into this season, I think it's very clear that they are being, I think, more mindful about not only the people that appear in the show, but also like what it means to even produce this show. And so it feels like it's very much like a looking inward Nathan Fielder thing, but it's also unclear. Like, I mean, he knows a lot of this stuff, but like he presents himself as that. It's just very layered and interesting. And again, there's really no analog for it on television right now. So I've been really.

• 46:39Griffin McElroy?

  I'm behind a couple of episodes, so I actually need you to not mention anything about people or pilots or planes, uh, whether or not there's jokes, any jokes.

• 46:48Russ Frushtick?

  I can talk about whether it's in space or on land. I can do that. Both.

• 46:52Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, hoops, anything, anything else you're enjoying right now?

• 46:57Speaker 00

  Uh, let's see here. Um, I watched the last, the first two episodes of Murder Bot.

• 47:06Griffin McElroy?

  I was just about to ask about that.

• 47:07Speaker 00

  TV last night with my wife. I had read the first couple of books, or at least the book that this, uh, season is based on, and she had not. So we both were coming at it.

• 47:16Griffin McElroy?

  Does the season just cover all, all systems red? Is that the first one?

• 47:20Speaker 00

  I, I feel like yes. If I had to guess, that's what it feels like, but I don't know. Cause I, I don't know. All the episodes are now. So I don't know.

• 47:27Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 47:27Speaker 00

  But, um, that was kind of the vibe with, um, Silo, I think was doing, did, no, no, no, they split the first, but anyway, anyway, uh, this, this seems on pace to do that. Uh, but it is an adaptation. If you don't remember, I talked about the book series a few months backwardly. Before I knew this was gonna be a TV series, so that worked out nicely. But it is about a security robot that hacks his own programming and is basically working for himself, but fears that if it is ever discovered that he has hacked his own programming and is working for himself, that he'll be destroyed. So he has to fake that he is still under the thrall of whoever is renting him

• 48:10Speaker 00

  to provide security. It's about, he gets hired by a crew of human beings.

• 48:16Griffin McElroy?

  We should point out, you're saying he because it's played by Alexander Skarsgard, is that right? But I do believe that Murderbot, the character, is.

• 48:24Russ Frushtick?

  It or they?

• 48:26Griffin McElroy?

  They, I don't know.

• 48:27Russ Frushtick?

  What do they use in the?

• 48:28Speaker 00

  And the show, everyone is, well, okay, see, it's tough because it is used, it is being used in a derogatory fashion amongst the crew. So it's kind of, anyway. This robot, who is played by Alexander Skarsgard, the whole thing is kind of an extended metaphor for, I think, for people on the autism spectrum, people who are, lots of different neurodivergents, I suppose, and sort of the difficulties of relating to people who may be more typical or neurotypical. And it's using things like, he has a armor and a mask that he very rarely removes,

• 49:12Speaker 00

  which is, I know, pretty on the nose in terms of that, but like, yeah, he has to take off the mask at one point to comfort a crew member. And once they realize that there is a face under the mask, they want Murderbot to keep showing its face constantly, which makes it more uncomfortable. And the more intimacy the people of the crew want, the less comfortable Murderbot is with it, with the whole situation. So that's the dynamic, is sort of Murderbot learning about the crew and the crew learning about it, and Murderbot fearing that the crew will discover that it's just kind of doing what it wants to do and not working for anybody. It's really a fateful adaptation, from what I could tell. They get the tone.

• 49:54Speaker 00

  Really right. It's very fun and funny. Alexander Skarsgård gives a really, I think, good nuanced, funny performance. It really, he sells, I think, what they're doing really well. And I really enjoyed it. I look forward to the rest. And Sid really liked it too. So that was.

• 50:16Griffin McElroy?

  I was wondering if Rachel would enjoy it. She does not usually go for a lot of sci fi. Like, we watched all Battlestar together, which I guess is pretty, pretty firm sci fi.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  One, one hearty recommendation I can get, you know what? I would say it is sci fi, but like, only in the sense that like Hitchhiker's Guide to Sci Fi, like, the first episode is 30, the episodes are 30 minutes long. So it's like, it's skewing more action comedy than it is like hard sci fi. They're, they're, that's much more about the setting. But it is like, the fundamental human connections are really relatable. And, and I think come across really, really well.

• 50:58Chris Plante?

  Actor who was in Suicide Squad, and I really enjoy that actor. Why? David Dastmalchian? Do you know this guy?

• 51:08Speaker 00

  I know who you're referring to in the cast, because I did not realize his name, but I've seen him in a couple of things too. And yes, I.

• 51:14Chris Plante?

  Yeah, he was in Ant-Man and Late Night with the Devil.

• 51:16Griffin McElroy?

  Late Night with the Devil, yeah.

• 51:17Speaker 00

  Great face, just a killer face.

• 51:19Chris Plante?

  That guy's great. Yeah, a really great that guy.

• 51:23Griffin McElroy?

  Any other faces of people you want to comment on, Chris, for being?

• 51:27Speaker 00

  Both good and bad.

• 51:28Chris Plante?

  No, that was pretty much the only face. That's like the only thing that I really had top of mind right now. I finally played some Repo.

• 51:37Griffin McElroy?

  I'm so glad one of us is talking about a video game. I was starting to feel a little self-conscious about that.

• 51:42Chris Plante?

  I get it. I mean, I don't have anything to say that we haven't said already, other than it's really nice to play a social game.

• 51:51Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, I can add this. We've been doing it. We, our last time we streamed that game, we installed a bunch of mods, suggested by McKay, our merch liaison.

• 52:04Griffin McElroy?

  Mods really make that game fucking sing, man. There's a lot about Repo I enjoy, except for the playing of it. Um, because of how fucking hard and punishing it is. And I feel like sometimes in a way that feels so hugely unfair that it's not like, I don't know, enjoyable really anymore. And with mods, you can really tweak kind of what, what the game throws at you and what you're able to kind of do in response. And it's pretty easy to get those up and running. So you can also, if you want to preserve the uh, original vision of the game, you can just download aesthetic mods. There's one called Morehead, which uh, lets you add, you can dress up like Batman or Ash Ketchum or, you know, uh, whatever. So.

• 52:50Chris Plante?

  Uh, what are we playing next week?

• 52:51Griffin McElroy?

  We're playing Two-a-T.

• 52:53Chris Plante?

  Great. That is the new game from uh, the uh, what creator of Katamari Dominacy? A lot of people made that game, but the, the person known for that game, uh, it looks great. I, I, I played a little bit of this at GDC and really, really, really enjoyed it. I will also say, Griffin, if you need a game for the big segment, I know you only have so much time.

• 53:19Griffin McElroy?

  Jesus.

• 53:20Chris Plante?

  Do you know that there is a new Fantasy Life out?

• 53:24Griffin McElroy?

  I'm so sorry. As soon as you started saying the name of whatever game you just said, I clicked to open a trailer for the Two-a-T page. And my ears were blasted at 100,000.

• 53:34Chris Plante?

  The exact same thing just happened.

• 53:38Griffin McElroy?

  Just like, there's this game you're gonna love. It's.

• 53:43Griffin McElroy?

  So what we, what the fuck did you say?

• 53:45Chris Plante?

  Fantasy Life is back.

• 53:47Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, is that new Fantasy Life out?

• 53:49Chris Plante?

  It's out. You can play it right now on Steam. Level 5 has a new game and I am so hyped. You want a slow RPG? You want 14 different jobs? You wanna cook and fish? Maybe fight a dragon if you have to?

• 54:05Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I have that, I hold that 3DS game Fantasy Life so dear to my heart, even though it is not very good. It is extremely, extremely shallow, but the ideas behind it were so like promising and neat. So I'm, uh, is it?

• 54:21Chris Plante?

  I, I have not started it yet, but it is. And not, almost overwhelmingly positive on Steam as 92%.

• 54:29Griffin McElroy?

  This says it's out tomorrow. What do you, don't get me, don't get me all pumped up when it's not out for 20 more hours. Coming May 21st.

• 54:35Chris Plante?

  Oh, I see. There was a pre-release version of it and now.

• 54:39Speaker 00

  Guys, my Arby's is on the front porch.

• 54:42Chris Plante?

  Oh, that's awful.

• 54:43Griffin McElroy?

  I'm so sorry.

• 54:44Chris Plante?

  Get that beef.

• 54:46Speaker 00

  Be sure to join us again next week for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends eat the world's best beef?

• 54:50Griffin McElroy?

  Well, hold on, because we do usually do some other stuff. I know you want your Arby's.

• 54:54Chris Plante?

  Do you want, the Arby's or not, Griffin? Do you want, do you care or not? Is it an act? Because you guys were like, yeah, you gotta get your Arby's.

• 55:01Russ Frushtick?

  Patreon.com slash the besties. Thank you so much for being supporters of the besties. We really appreciate all of you that have been subscribers and supporters. And we have got new content coming at you, new resties coming at you on Tuesday. Uh, we got, uh, this month's bracket episode is live. We got another resties about Des Palote and a number of other things. So thank you all.

• 55:22Chris Plante?

  Kind of real quick plug. I launched a new show, like right now. People can listen to it right now. What? Called Post Games and you can listen to it at Patreon.com forward slash Post Games, or you can wait till Monday and you can listen to the free version. But like, you don't want to do that. You want to go.

• 55:37Russ Frushtick?

  Don't do that. Don't listen to the nice version.

• 55:40Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's the nice version. I made it extra good.

• 55:43Russ Frushtick?

  All right.

• 55:44Chris Plante?

  Cool.

• 55:44Speaker 00

  All right. That's gonna do it for us for this week on the besties.

• 55:49Speaker 00

  Unless anyone else has anything.

• 55:51Chris Plante?

  No, go get your beef.

• 55:52Griffin McElroy?

  Now go get that beef, son.

• 55:53Speaker 00

  Be sure to join us again next time for the besties. Shouldn't the world's best friends eat the world's best games?