Baby Steps is Video Game Heaven and Hell

Baby Steps is the latest game from the creators of QWOP, Getting Over It, and Ape Out. This time, these connoisseurs of challenge have created a game about an awkward man who is transported from his parents’ basement to a fantastical mountain. His goal: reach the top. The challenge: learning to walk. Plus, Justin catches us up on the state of emulator handhelds. Like the show? Leave a review!

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

• 0:00Griffin McElroy?

  I fucked up pretty bad. You guys remember how I was talking about there's so many games out, too many games to play and master and complete?

• 0:09Chris Plante?

  You were talking about that.

• 0:11Speaker 02

  I remember that.

• 0:11Griffin McElroy?

  And how I was gonna do, I was gonna make a multiplicity machine so that I could clone myself.

• 0:19Chris Plante?

  Wait, are you the dumb one? And I didn't realize?

• 0:21Griffin McElroy?

  This is the problem, Russ. So I did it. I made it so I could platinum all the games. And I have forgotten which one was the original, sort of, the original guy. I don't even know if I'm him, which is like...

• 0:36Chris Plante?

  There's actually, there is a trick to this. Um, because I've actually seen the source text.

• 0:41Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:41Chris Plante?

  Multiplicity, um, which is what you, you study to be an expert in the multiplying of people. Um, you need to look around and kind of look like, is there a sexy one? Because if it's a sexy one, good.

• 0:53Griffin McElroy?

  They're all pretty, I mean, they're all pretty, they're all, stop. They're all pretty sexy.

• 0:57Chris Plante?

  That's true.

• 0:58Griffin McElroy?

  Russ, you can't say that. You can't agree with that. I'm allowed to say it about myself.

• 1:02Chris Plante?

  Is there, is there kind of like a clown one that's always like getting into pranks?

• 1:07Griffin McElroy?

  No, there's five sexy ones. One of them's just been grinding away on Silk Song, trying to platinum that one. And he looks sexy while he does it, but it's like me, but not me, and...

• 1:18Chris Plante?

  Sweattier.

• 1:18Griffin McElroy?

  Super duper duper sweaty.

• 1:20Chris Plante?

  Yeah, wet. I'm gonna guess that's not the original one.

• 1:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. And I don't have a belly button. Like, I don't have a belly button. So, and no, and no nipples and smooth down there, and so like...

• 1:34Chris Plante?

  Hey, hey, hey, hey, Griffin? You mind, you mind just taking your headphones off for a second?

• 1:39Griffin McElroy?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:40Chris Plante?

  Hey, uh, guys, uh, this one doesn't have a belly button, so I'm pretty sure it's Griffin. Yeah, that's true. Right? Justin, you, you remember. He never had a belly button.

• 1:50Griffin McElroy?

  Is it okay? Can I come back?

• 1:52Chris Plante?

  Can you come back? Yeah. Uh, I have some great news for you.

• 1:56Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:57Chris Plante?

  You're the original Griffin.

• 1:58Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, right. Yeah, okay, yeah, no, that makes sense. Good. Awesome. Well, I'm gonna go put the other ones in the incinerator.

• 2:06Chris Plante?

  If I seem like I didn't know what you guys were doing, it's because I wasn't listening to that part. It's not part of the show, so I don't think I should have to listen to that part, right?

• 2:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, if I'm uninvited from the talk, then everyone can pretty much.

• 2:17Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 2:17Russ Frushtick?

  Michael Keaton was just fucking non-stop.

• 2:21Griffin McElroy?

  Exuding it, dude, non-stop.

• 2:22Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, literally, like, he was just like him and Andy McDowell, like every scene.

• 2:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, dude.

• 2:27Russ Frushtick?

  With a different hat on.

• 2:28Griffin McElroy?

  Fucking Birdman.

• 2:30Russ Frushtick?

  He won.

• 2:48Speaker 02

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

• 2:51Chris Plante?

  My name is Griffin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Fruschik and I know the best game of the week.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Welcome to The Besties, where we discuss the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It is a video game club. Just by listening, you, my friend, have become a member. On this week's episode, long in development is Baby Steps, uh, from the people that brought you Quop and...

• 3:20Chris Plante?

  Ape Out?

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Getting Over It. Getting Over It and Majora's Mask.

• 3:26Chris Plante?

  Whoa.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  That one's not right. That's that one I made up. What's Baby Steps again, though? I've forgotten.

• 3:31Chris Plante?

  Baby Steps is a game where you take baby steps from the bottom of a mountain to the top of a mountain. One big problem, this isn't your Papa's video game, you're gonna have to take each step individually, one leg at a time. Is that it?

• 3:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's traditionally how steps are ta... that is this, my strat for steps, IRL.

• 3:54Chris Plante?

  Cool, cool, cool, cool.

• 3:57Chris Plante?

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• 4:40Chris Plante?

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• 5:25Chris Plante?

  That's protonvpn.com slash besties.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  So Baby Steps, a game where walking is hard. Absolutely the funniest tutorial moment I've ever experienced my entire life. There is nothing funnier than when this game says, "Press the stick to move forward." And you press the stick to move forward and you fall on your face. And you immediately be frightened of mud. It's so, it's so good. It's so good. But that is how Baby Steps says hello to you. No longer will push forward to move forward. That good old classic standard of ambulation in video games, it has failed you because you are steering the legs.

• 6:10Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, you will literally have direct control, one-to-one control over your two legs. You don't have to worry about the arms, pretty much. You can pick stuff up, but that's it. But all of it is in the legs and the level of control you have is like every, there's the X, there's the Y, you've even got the Z in there.

• 6:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. It's really, really great. I had a fun experience, actually, yesterday. Travis and I did a stream where I controlled the body. Actually, we took turns, one of us controlling like the tilt and the camera and the other person controlling the legs.

• 6:42Russ Frushtick?

  That sounds horrible.

• 6:44Griffin McElroy?

  It's no, it really actually dividing up the kind of like left brain, right brain like that actually made for a really unique, I've played quite a bit myself. I don't know, I really actually liked the experience because it kind of really cements how much this game requires you to, I don't know, juggle, spin two plates very, very fast at the same time with, I will say, for a Bennett Foddy game, fairly unpunishing at the beginning. Like, there's not a lot of, I mean, Getting Over It is the quintessential version of this where Bennett Foddy is constantly taunting you with voiceover as you like, each and every mistake that you make, you lose possibly

• 7:24Griffin McElroy?

  all of your progress. I have not had any experience remotely that rough in baby steps. And so it is fun to play a Bennett Foddy game and feel like I am progressing and not like that is going to be snatched away from me at a moment's notice, the first time that I fuck up.

• 7:42Chris Plante?

  There's a key difference between Getting Over It, for people who remember this, the one where you're the nude bald dude in a giant black cauldron with a hammer.

• 7:51Russ Frushtick?

  He could be wearing a bathing suit.

• 7:52Griffin McElroy?

  He could. We might have full pants on down there.

• 7:54Chris Plante?

  He might, he might. That's so true. And you're trying to climb up like a mountain of trash. That game, to me, is a game about refining fast motions because you have to kind of sling yourself with this hammer. This game is, you can go fast, but you're rewarded for going very slow and like actually looking at the way that your legs flex and your feet take a grip on the environment. So if you kind of lift the camera up or lift it far down, either way, but wherever you can get a good look at your toes, you're gonna spend a lot of time looking at them and you can see the ground give way beneath your foot. So as long as you have purchase with like,

• 8:36Chris Plante?

  let's say your right foot, you can test out the environment around you with your left foot and look to make sure that you have some grip. And then you can put the next foot in front of you. As you know, y'all were saying with that X, Y, and Z movement, you can really place your foot down to an exact spot where you want it to be.

• 8:56Griffin McElroy?

  And you'll have to.

• 8:57Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 8:57Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, pretty often.

• 8:59Chris Plante?

  Especially if you start climbing, yeah.

• 9:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 9:00Russ Frushtick?

  I was not expecting to like this game as much as I do. I will tell you off the bat, it is definitely in my top five and maybe in my top three of the year right now. I am completely fucking smitten by this game. Uh, I haven't, although I appreciate the artistry and the design of specifically Bennett Foddy's games, this is the first one I've like genuinely enjoyed playing.

• 9:24Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 9:25Russ Frushtick?

  And because, there's a few reasons. You mentioned at the top, like, this is not as punishing as any of those other games. There are moments in this game where you can lose a fair amount of progress.

• 9:34Griffin McElroy?

  Absolutely, yes.

• 9:34Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 9:35Russ Frushtick?

  But even in those moments, like, at most, you're losing 30 minutes.

• 9:39Griffin McElroy?

  It's not a fall all the way down again with a single mistake and I don't want to play this game anymore.

• 9:43Chris Plante?

  I'm gonna hear Hoops, Hoops, your take, because I, Frush just said a thing that was very funny to me. He said, "It's not a whole lot, it's just 30 minutes."

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, yeah, that was like, the, the experience I had right before we started recording was like climbing to the top of a hill and then there was like a gap where there was a creek, sort of. And I took a wrong step and in the creek and I slid all the way down the creek. And then through this like little waterfall person sized gap where I just kind of like schlump down to the third and then I literally I it took 30 minutes to walk back up to those rocks and I actually went backwards because I didn't understand where I was, you know what I'm saying? So like I went the wrong way around and ended up back where I started and then as I was

• 10:35Speaker 02

  crossing the gap, I took a wrong step and I went into the creek and I schlump through the creek into this person sized hole and slid back down to the exact That's great. God damned place as before. Yeah. But it was like, but can I say though, I, I, I know my, I know my reputation. It was a very,

• 10:58Speaker 02

  I found it strangely zen. I found it strangely sort of like, I felt like I was meeting the game. It was if I, like I was meeting the game on its own level. I felt like it was there. It saw exactly what happened. Do you know what I mean? Like it knew exactly what happened. That was exactly as designed.

• 11:17Russ Frushtick?

  The game is designed, first of all, it's designed for you to fall in those situations. It's also designed for you to know for pretty sure when you do fall at certain moments, how devastating it's going to be. Like it telegraphs that stuff.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  It's never a surprise. If you fall in that creek, you're like, yeah, that makes sense.

• 11:34Russ Frushtick?

  That's gonna go bad.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Oh, I knew a hundred percent when I saw, and I, did I walk up to that creek very carefully? Or did I walk up to that creek like, what's up bitch? I'm back. I'm about to walk over you. Ah, like that's literally.

• 11:49Russ Frushtick?

  So I think the game is fair in that way.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. I deleted it. And it's also fair because if you, if you're just like the basic walking around, for me, it was very much like riding a bike, except if the bike changed in size free from top every few minutes, right? Cause I would feel like I'd get in a groove. Yeah. But it would not be fast enough for me and I would want to push the pace. And if I would just go slower. Probably fine. I'd be making a good, but nope, I gotta, I gotta push it.

• 12:18Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  That's when I would get frustrated is when I would just stand up, fall right over and I would feel like, why can't I get it? Like I can't find the rhythm again. And that's, that can be really frustrating.

• 12:28Russ Frushtick?

  So what I really like about the falling of it, and this happened to me too. Usually it happened when I was intentionally doing something very, very stupid.

• 12:37Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 12:37Russ Frushtick?

  I'll give you an example. I was walking on my, on a main path, very safe, no real threats around. And there was a swing hanging from a tree.

• 12:46Chris Plante?

  You got to.

• 12:47Russ Frushtick?

  A tree swing, if you will.

• 12:48Chris Plante?

  You have to.

• 12:48Russ Frushtick?

  And at the top of the tree was like a fruit or something. And I was like, I'm going to try to eat that fruit. Now the, now the tree.

• 12:58Chris Plante?

  God.

• 12:58Russ Frushtick?

  Swing situation.

• 12:59Chris Plante?

  That video game shit against you constantly. It's constantly like, all fruit, man. Look, there's a torch. Don't you want that? Fuck.

• 13:06Russ Frushtick?

  There was a cliff on the side of the tree swing. And when I stepped on the swing, I found out for the first time that the tree swing was actually a physics object. Cause there are apparently physics objects you can walk on in this game as well. And yet.

• 13:21Chris Plante?

  Which means if you put weight on it, it's gonna start moving around.

• 13:24Russ Frushtick?

  It moves like a swing. Yes. And it was then that I continued forward attempting to it and I fell. Now, when I fell, I had no way to get back to where I was. There was seemingly no pathway to get back to where I was. But I ended up just kind of walking and finding other pathways that went around different paths.

• 13:45Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 13:46Russ Frushtick?

  And took me to like weird fucking, I found a cardboard box fort that was full of like crazy ass platforming materials. They want you to fall. They want you to walk maybe a different way than the way you walked. Because they want you to find the weird shit that they made. That is the game. It's not, even though yes, they're pressing you, they're saying, hey, get to the top of this mountain, whatever. It's kind of not the point. It's more about having a fun, weird experience.

• 14:10Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 14:11Russ Frushtick?

  And I think, yeah.

• 14:12Chris Plante?

  Fresh, a couple of days ago, uh, after you had sent me a video of this, I, this'll shock you. I found that exact same tree with that exact same swing. And I said, you know, not today, Satan. I know exactly what this little trick is. I've seen this before. And then I said, but what if I did pull it off?

• 14:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 14:31Chris Plante?

  And the video to fresh. And, uh, there's like, uh, there's like two stones before you get to the swing, right? I was like, okay, just step on the stones. Turns out they had a little bit of moss, a little wet moss on them.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:43Chris Plante?

  Slipped, didn't even make it to the fucking swing.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  Didn't touch the swing.

• 14:48Chris Plante?

  Zipped right down this hill. I did find a way up. You want to know how long it took me? Forty-five minutes. Uh, I made my way all the way back there and I was like, now I'm gonna do it. Got onto the swing and then what I realized, fresh, did you go back to the swing ever? I looked at it, but no, I did not. Here's the great trick about it. When you put your weight on the edge of the swing, it lowers you just enough that your other leg can't get onto the tree. So basically you have to kind of do a hopscotch move if you want to pull that off.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Easy, easy in this game.

• 15:21Chris Plante?

  Oh, so easy. That is when I said, no, thank you. And that is also when I realized what the game is, which is exactly what you're saying. It is, you know, you have to embrace the zen. It's not about finishing the game. If you play this game and your goal is purely, I want to get to the end and I want to get there as soon as possible, you're going to have a miserable time, like a truly miserable time. If you play this game and you say, I just want to see where it takes me. It's going to be up and down. I'm going to see this as a fun experience. You're going to have a great time. There is a moment, probably like halfway through the game, where you are very, very, very high on this mountain.

• 16:04Chris Plante?

  And you will see in the distance, a little ledge coming off and you will walk over to it if you so choose. And you will discover that ledge is a diving board and that diving board encapsulated the entire game for me. Because you can either look at life as like punishment, as a series of like falling down, or you can look at it as like this playground where you could voluntarily choose to jump off that diving board and go like pursue all the adventures that are in the wrong direction, but are like, the whole reason you're playing the game, the whole reason you're playing the game, is to overcome these obstacles. And if, yeah, again, if you're fighting it, good golly, is it going to be miserable for you?

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Okay, but I really struggled with this plant because I'm, I'm split, I should say. Because I very much agree with you. I think that's right. I think that if this was most games, what I would be complaining about is saying, well, if that is the experience that makes, if that's the mindset that makes this pleasurable for me, then the game should be doing more to put me into that mindset, to not, you know what I mean? To not make it look like that. Because I don't think, I think there is a tension there because you do have to have the urge to move forward, right? And you do have to have, you have to treat it as a linear experience in that regard a little bit. And I feel like it does, if the game came out and was like, hey, don't get frustrated.

• 17:29Speaker 02

  Don't worry about it. This is just an exploration experience. It's a different thing, right? They want, you want the frustration too, but I think if they came out and said, this is gonna be frustrating, just embrace it, then it wouldn't, I don't think it would feel the same.

• 17:46Griffin McElroy?

  Feel as good to find out yourself. I, I think they actually very elegantly introduced this idea through the, through the writing and the cutscenes that you will get with the characters, which are so fucking funny. Like it has this game, which is already-

• 17:59Speaker 02

  That is the frustration for me is I wanted to see more of them. That was the only sort of like, I want, I want more, come on.

• 18:04Russ Frushtick?

  And falling will lead you to more, actually.

• 18:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 18:07Russ Frushtick?

  I found way more from like-

• 18:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, because you'll go different routes and you'll reach different checkpoints where you will run into these characters. And the writing is like, the gameplay is so fucking funny and the writing is also very fucking funny. Like this, the, your main character that you're controlling Nate is, is this sort of like socially, deeply socially inept kind of guy who lives in his parents' basement and is like binging One Piece when he gets sucked away, another world style into this, into this climbing experience. And every character he meets, he does not want to talk to. He wants to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. Uh, it also does his best to appease them without having to engage with them in the conversation. There's like a guy who's like an experienced avid hiker who's like, did you get your map? Oh, you gotta have the map, man.

• 18:53Griffin McElroy?

  And but, and like flashes it in your face and a little UI pops up for like two seconds and then disappears.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  That's the best, like, that's so funny.

• 19:01Griffin McElroy?

  It's really, really, it's good. And I think-

• 19:02Speaker 02

  I think it introduces like, it shows you the, the different ways that people have of getting up this mountain. While also providing a little bit of like incentive because yeah, I wanted to see more of those cutscenes.

• 19:14Russ Frushtick?

  There, there's, the, the game is filled with like AAA jokes like that. At one point he's like, oh, just use your grappling hook. And it like gives you a UI element of a grappling hook that you absolutely can never get.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:25Russ Frushtick?

  My favorite of those is one that a lot of people probably won't see, but I had seen a couple of cutscenes, uh, cause I reverted a save. So I'd seen a couple of cutscenes before, so I was skipping them. And when you're skipping cutscenes, they change the interaction each time you do it. So one time you have to hold down the button. One time you're doing like a quick reload, like Gears of War. One time you have to tap the button a bunch of times, just as like a fuck you AAA games thing. So many funny little jokes like that.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  I, I started a little bit with that main character because I, I couldn't tell if that was supposed to represent me as a player, like if that, if that was the, the way I was perceived by the creator of the game. And that made, that put a little bit more of a mean spirited sort of thing in the initial, I think, stumbling that I had because it felt like I was the jerk for wanting to play it a little bit. And I don't think that was the intent, but that was definitely the feeling that I had early on.

• 20:20Chris Plante?

  I have some great context for that, but again, this is the tricky thing of it, you, it wants you to do the hard stuff to then get the story. But if you get hats, like, did you see the hats around the world at all hoops?

• 20:34Speaker 02

  Um, no, wait, yeah. What do you mean? Hats?

• 20:37Chris Plante?

  They're like, they're like hats that you can find.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  I'm looking at the ground so I don't fall. Like, how would I see a hat?

• 20:42Chris Plante?

  That's, that's fair. They're, they're like little hats, uh, on each stint of your climb. And you can find in, in hidden places and you'll put this hat on and it's a challenge because the hat will come off if you fall. And we'll get back to that in just a second, but if you take the hat to a campfire, which is like the core checkpoint, you'll get the usual cutscene where like some dude, climber, or a donkey who is not wearing pants and has a giant dong, which we'll talk about also, uh, we'll chat with.

• 21:12Griffin McElroy?

  Is that the nudity? Is that the nudity?

• 21:14Chris Plante?

  That's the nudity.

• 21:15Russ Frushtick?

  There is more, there are more cocks in this game than I've ever seen, no joke, in any other game ever.

• 21:20Griffin McElroy?

  Let's circle back to that. Let's put a pin in that conversation, because I would like to circle back to it.

• 21:24Chris Plante?

  Yes, yes. You gotta leave some spoiler meat on the bone, guys. Come on.

• 21:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 21:28Chris Plante?

  To wrap up the narrative part, when you, so you go to the campfire, you're wearing the hat, and then it will cut to this Atari-style story, where you are literally just bouncing around in an RPG-like environment, Atari visuals, and you are, I assume, this guy in his real life. And that's where you start to learn kind of what this game is about. And it is very much about like dudes who are too online, do not have opportunities for social connection, feel ostracized from society, and get sucked into like basically manosphere culture. And the whole game from there opens up to be about masculinity and like the pressure to do certain things.

• 22:11Chris Plante?

  And that is how we can loop back to the tons of dongs, because...

• 22:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I just, I just want to say, when you start this game up, it says, "Do you, there's nudity in this game, do you want to turn it off?" And I said yes, because one, I knew we were gonna stream it, and two, like, I thought this was gonna be a really funny game to play with like Henry, who is eight. Uh, and Russ forewarned us, like, "Hey, this game is 90% like super kid-friendly and 10% like not kid-friendly even fucking remotely at all." I have not hit anything that feels like, I don't know, that I wouldn't want to play it with him, but...

• 22:45Russ Frushtick?

  There's two, two things.

• 22:47Griffin McElroy?

  I've seen a donkey, he's, he didn't have a, like a big wiener or anything, so...

• 22:51Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, no, no, no, you saw, you saw a normal donkey, you seen it, didn't see a humanoid donkey.

• 22:55Griffin McElroy?

  No, I haven't seen a hu-

• 22:56Russ Frushtick?

  With a giant cock.

• 22:57Griffin McElroy?

  No, I haven't seen that.

• 22:59Russ Frushtick?

  Here's what I'm gonna say, for people, I, I, I've played this game with my four-year-old, but in very, very selective moments.

• 23:06Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 23:06Russ Frushtick?

  Generally speaking... If you're playing just the normal walking around game, you're fine. You might want to lower the audio. You can lower the like talking audio because he does say like fucking shit sometimes.

• 23:18Griffin McElroy?

  It's really funny because he doesn't do it every time, but then like he'll do a little spill and be like, oh, fuck, Christ.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  It's like he gets frustrated. It's not proportionate to whatever happened. Like it gets really mad. It's like a small fall.

• 23:30Griffin McElroy?

  Shit.

• 23:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. But when the cutscenes start, it's, I would say, odds on that you're going to see at least one large cock, if not multiple. And I don't know what happens when you do the nudity thing. It probably blurs them out, but still you should probably know that there's a fair number of cocks in this game.

• 23:48Griffin McElroy?

  So much.

• 23:50Russ Frushtick?

  I, it should be noted, all the cutscenes are improvised, which I didn't realize until.

• 23:54Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, really?

• 23:55Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's all improv.

• 23:56Griffin McElroy?

  That makes so much sense from the fucking jump, dude.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  The two creators, all of the side characters are Bennett and then the main character is Gabe.

• 24:05Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 24:07Russ Frushtick?

  I love this game. I think it offers the like level of like stuff that I nerd out about regarding like things that I felt like I earned, like I earned an experience. Because you were literally like deciding every step. When I play Death Stranding, even though I really love Death Stranding, especially two, there are moments where it just like automates the, the hard parts where it's like you're running through a craggy stream and the AI is just deciding where to put your feet. And the fact that you are making all of those choices yourself in this game just makes getting to the other side of the stream such a fucking exciting experience.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  If you were playing Death Stranding and you were like, ah, easy mode, I just walking around is like so like this is the game for you. This is where the real, the real big dogs play.

• 24:51Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know. You can joke about that, but I also feel like if you have too much shit or your weight is misaligned in Death Stranding, it is a genuinely unfun experience because it is different. It is so different from how it always, than how it normally sort of feels. In this game, like as hard as it is on purpose, as like antagonistic as it is sometimes with its like challenges that it presents to you. I don't know, man. Like, I know how this guy moves. I kind of know what is expected of me and how to deliver on that. It's a question of like, execution and strategy and routing and everything, but like, I, I actually, I don't know, I am really surprised at how approachable I am finding this game from-

• 25:32Speaker 02

  It feels fair in a way that that stranding doesn't necessarily where like, and fair isn't the right word, but um, you know, it's the same challenge that anybody else would have with navigating that.

• 25:43Chris Plante?

  Real quick before we wrap, can I share my video game achievement of 2025?

• 25:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, is it related to Baby Steps?

• 25:50Chris Plante?

  It's related to Baby Steps. So, there is a point, again, around halfway through, where you'll come out of a cave and you'll see this big, tall set of stones that you can climb up to get to the next area. And you'll climb up those set of stones, and then you'll get right to, right before the top, and the final stone will be too high for your leg to be able to get up. And it's like, ah, you sucker, you fell for it. You're gonna have to go find a different path. So, I go and I find a different path. I do get all the way up there. I'm now hiking somewhere else where I have a hoops moment. I slip, whoop, and I fall down and I fall-

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Is that sort of our slang term for fucking up that we're all agreeing on?

• 26:33Griffin McElroy?

  A hoops moment?

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Just like a hoops moment is something where like, you've made a mistake and embarrassed yourself. Is that the-

• 26:40Griffin McElroy?

  Lock it in.

• 26:41Chris Plante?

  And I whoop, and um, I, I go falling down the side of the thing, and my hat falls off. And I'm like, where the fuck is my hat? My hat fell on the top of that one stone that you cannot reach. So I had to, if I, I was like, I'm gonna get this damn hat. So now I couldn't climb up to get the hat. I had to go all the way back around, go high, high up, and then I had to kind of walk down the side of a cliff to be able to get this hat. I did this for an hour, maybe an hour and a half. And it truly became that thing where I am, I'm convinced that I know how to do it. And actually getting down the side of the mountain, doing the opposite of what the game wanted me to do,

• 27:25Chris Plante?

  to get this damn hat that I didn't even need, but I really wanted to see that little story beat, I have felt like- A damn video game god. And like, even if I don't finish the game, though I think I will, like, that was more rewarding than finishing a trillion other video games.

• 27:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  There's also something very self-directed about it. Like, you can't get too frustrated because you know exactly what you're doing. Like, my, our dad used to say all the time, from this old cartoon, Super Chicken, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. And that, like, I felt that a lot playing this game. It's like, I mean, look at it. Like, you, you know exactly what this is. If you're continuing to engage with it, you're doing that of your own accord. Like, no one's making you do it.

• 28:06Russ Frushtick?

  I have one last anecdote that I'd like to share. There's a moment, mid to late in the game, where I've overcome a pretty sizable challenge. It's like a giant mine sequence that took like a while to figure out. I was very proud I made it to the very top. And at the very top, there is a large girder sticking out over a ledge. And at the end of the girder is a hat, a construction hat. And I'm like, I have walked across these sorts of girders a thousand times in this game. I'm a fucking master at this. I know how to do this. If I fall, I lose all the progress entirely. But I know how to do that. So I walk across the girder.

• 28:48Russ Frushtick?

  And as I'm walking across the girder, I'm like, but honestly, I'm gonna hard quit the game because I'm not doing this fucking thing again. And I'll just like reload the save. So I made it to the hat. I go to bend down for the hat and I fall ass over teakettle. I'm in midair, losing all of my progress as this is happening. I quit the game. I reload the game. I am in midair, falling.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  No way.

• 29:12Russ Frushtick?

  It auto-saved as I was falling. And I was like, bravo, I'm fucking doing this again. I don't care. Well done, guys. And I had a blast. I found new stuff when I was down there. I found a new way up. It was great. That's the magic of the game. The fact that I kept going is really telling of how much enjoyment I was getting out of it.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  It is like, by, by making traditional progress so frustrating, it does kind of prompt you to kind of make your own, it's like prompting you to make your own fun in the, in like, in the sense that like, well, I mean, I might as well enjoy myself. I'm hiking all the way up, back up this way. I might as well like, you know, you can't get too frustrated about it. So it lets you kind of, it's something beyond like the reward of progress. It's the, sometimes you'll get in a groove. And that'll just feel really good. Like it'll just feel.

• 29:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  And if you think about it, if you notice you're in a groove, you will fall over.

• 30:00Griffin McElroy?

  It's like signing your name and someone's like, hey, think, what are you doing with your signature? It immediately like, yeah. Yeah.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  So it is another sort of meditative thing, a little bit like, because you are like, if you think about what you're doing, it's harder sometimes. Like if you can sort of zero your brain out and just kind of roll with it, sometimes it's easier.

• 30:19Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Such a weird moment when you realize you're not thinking about walking anymore.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:23Chris Plante?

  After you've spent so much time in doing it.

• 30:26Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, yeah. Good game. We have a lot to talk about. Can we, uh, transition seamlessly to an ad break? This was it. That was it.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  That was it.

• 30:34Griffin McElroy?

  Perfect. Yeah.

• 30:37Russ Frushtick?

  This episode of The Besties is sponsored by Lisa. You know, we are starting to get into the cooler months of the year. And you know what I love in the cool months of the year? An incredibly cozy mattress that you can just cozy up into. You got the blankets and everything. And I will speak from experience, but maybe not my experience because Lisa sent me one of their mattresses. But it was timed as such where actually my son, who was becoming a toddler and needed like an actual bed, needed a mattress. So we had him use the Lisa mattress. And every time that I get into that bed to read him a story at night, I am incredibly jealous of his mattress.

• 31:21Russ Frushtick?

  Because holy cow, that thing is incredibly comfortable. Lisa was awarded the best hybrid and best memory foam mattress by New York Times Wirecutter, and is featured by West Elm as their go-to mattress partner. You can go to lisa.com for 25% off select mattresses. Plus get an extra $50 off with promo code BESTIES exclusive to our listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A.com promo code BESTIES for 25% off select mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Let them know we sent you in the survey after checkout. Lisa.com promo code BESTIES.

• 31:58Griffin McElroy?

  Justin, our man on the scene, man on the street, man in the web, has prepared for us a presentation that you've been teasing out for weeks now.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Well, it's just, it's an extremely, extremely daunting time in the world of handheld retro game consoles. It's a world we've dipped into previously a lot and there's just like so much happening right now and it's such a really, truly bizarre space. So I wanted to go ahead. I've linked you guys the document. So.

• 32:31Griffin McElroy?

  Are we going to make this available to the?

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Yes, you can find that if you're in our mailing list. Why don't we send that out? Does that sound good? So this is kind of a big picture view of things as we've sort of approached them on the show before. I've got the four sort of biggest players in the space laid out and what they're up to. And then I got some one offs that we're going to check in with. So let's go first up to Amber Nick. Amber Nick is classic for releasing a ton of different consoles. The first one, and this is the first two I want to talk about are out right now. The 34XXSP is a really, this has been since this year they've released this. You can pick one of these up for between 60 to 100 bucks,

• 33:18Speaker 02

  depending on what kind of like stuff that you, what kind of things that you want preloaded in it, where you want it to ship from, et cetera, et cetera. All these game consoles have a lot of different options depending on what you want with them. But this is a flippy kind of guy. It's shaped like a Game Boy SP, but has the like dual thumbsticks at the bottom left and right.

• 33:38Griffin McElroy?

  Do you have one of these bad boys?

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do. They're really cute. If you want to, you can get one of these right now, right? And the reason I want to talk about these that are right now is to kind of give you a lay of the land for where we're at. The other one that's out right now is the 477M. This is from Retroid and this is one that I really. Really love a lot. It, uh, it has a snap. Well, it's the Dimensity 8300, which is kind of up there in terms of, uh, like Android gaming right now. This is probably the most powerful chipset. The, the, there is an Elite, uh, 8 Gen 3, I think it is. It's in some of these that are coming out now, but there aren't, uh, as, there hasn't been as much work in like the emulation front with the apps and-

• 34:22Russ Frushtick?

  What is the chip, this chip in particular, like what, uh, platform wise, what are we talking about?

• 34:26Speaker 02

  So you could do everything, like everything with, with this chipset and this device, which is the 477M again, and that means-

• 34:36Russ Frushtick?

  Metal shell, right?

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Stupid, but it's metal shell and the four set, their RG is retro game. So like to give you, uh, it's like, that's what, that's how much, but it's like a 4.7 this inch display and it is a-

• 34:49Russ Frushtick?

  What's the second seven for?

• 34:52Speaker 02

  What?

• 34:53Russ Frushtick?

  You said 4.7 inch display. What's the second seven for?

• 34:56Speaker 02

  The second seven is, I will actually tell you, is for the generation of-

• 35:00Russ Frushtick?

  Oh my god.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  So if it ends in a six, if the last number of an Ambernic device is a six, it's the generation before this. This is the seventh generation. So it ends with a seven. Uh, you could play anything in this. Uh, I've played PS2 games, upscale 4X with like all the, the shaders you for, for, there is not a lot of work that has been done playing PS3 games on Android, but if, if you can do it, you can do it with this, this guy here.

• 35:26Russ Frushtick?

  Are these all Android based? I thought Ambernic was Linux.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  No, Ambernic does a variety of them. Um, this one you can pick up to give you, again, a range. You can, between 270 and like 400, depending on, uh, what you want preloaded. Um, all these devices, a lot of them at least, you can buy them with an SD card that'll come preloaded with a lot of games on them. If you want to do that, you can certainly do that. In my experience, those cards are one, filled with a lot of crummy ROMs and the quality of the cards is really bad. So I don't normally think-

• 35:59Russ Frushtick?

  They'll crap out. You're better off getting a cheap card from an established retailer.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  The other one that's kind of cool from Ambernic that is on the way. It's almost exactly like that other device, the one we just talked about. It's got the, that same four by three aspect ratio, which is great for pretty much all the retro gaming stuff, except for, you know, until you get into the true widescreen content. Like this is a great way to see your games without a lot of extra, extra black space wasted on them. But this is the very same device, but the four, seven, six, H. The H means horizontal. And what does that last six mean, Russ?

• 36:40Chris Plante?

  Uh, the generation?

• 36:41Russ Frushtick?

  Model to generate.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  Six generations. So this is less powerful than the last. What? Yeah. So you're getting it. This is the last powerful.

• 36:48Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. The problem is this only works for Ambernic. All the other companies have different naming conventions, so.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  Buddy, it actually gets worse.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  That one you can preorder now is available to preorder now. I think it's going to be shipping out soon, but this one will be closer to like 140 bucks. So this will not be able to do your, um, like your upscaled PS2 or GameCube. You would be able to do with this, like most low end PS2 stuff and most GameCube stuff. It just sort of like a 1X, uh, thing. And it's always a trade off with these, you know, if you want more shaders that make it look like an old, you know, closer to the old experience and that's going to slow your frame rate down or whatever. But that's, that's Ambernic. Ion Neo, another A company. I know, so it, go ahead.

• 37:36Chris Plante?

  What is the difference between Ion and Ion Neo?

• 37:39Speaker 02

  It's a different company. Ion Neo is, Ion Neo is the, they're the priciest one. Ion Neo is the, is the Lamborghini, the sleek Lamborghini of these devices. These are the ones, they will put, uh, their device, the Pocket S2 is probably the priciest, like latest new thing that is out right now. So they, and that costs like $700 and, and that's like terabyte of storage, can run everything like, uh, including most Switch stuff, like it's, it's, it's, it's out there. So I N E O has a bunch of new consoles, the two that are getting the most discussion right now. And the reason it will become obvious.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  This is, this is the year where flip consoles are becoming more of a thing, where dual screen devices, um, and I N E O has two of them. And this is confusing, so I wanted to mention it. So there is the I N E O Flip 1 S D S. I shit you not, that's what it's called.

• 38:39Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, easier to understand than the amber nickname in convention.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Arguably, yes, except for they have a device called the I N E O Pocket D S. So that does, that does complicate things a lot.

• 38:52Griffin McElroy?

  Which is, from a layman's sort of perspective, nearly fucking identical.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  And it looks nearly identical. The difference is that the I N E O Flip 1 S costs about twice as much. It costs over $1,100 because it's a Windows handheld.

• 39:08Griffin McElroy?

  Crazy.

• 39:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Oh, it's a Windows handheld.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  It's a Windows one, so it's seven inch OLED on the top. And then the bottom screen is, is not an OLED. The bottom screen is, is an LCD. And if that's gonna mess you, mess you up, I think that most of these are in the same. Uh, I think there's an Android limitation, from what I understand. The, uh, Flip 1 S is like a, uh, it is Windows based, so it is like a much pricier thing. These range from, let's see here. The lowest, uh, is 16 gigabytes of RAM and one terabyte of storage. And you can get that early bird for 779. That's the preorder price right now.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  The, uh, and that's in the black configuration. If you want a 64 gigabyte one with two terabytes of storage, you can get that in the retro power colorway for $1,500.

• 40:07Russ Frushtick?

  First, for something that like, it's wild to me because you look at the Steam Deck, which has been around. And obviously is getting long in the tooth, but like, has been around with since 2020. And like, still can more or less do it. And the fact that these come out every single year, if not six months.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  I threw this, that was kind of an outlier in the space. Like I threw that one in because that I N O is also making the Pocket D S because that is the one that I think is probably most comparable. And Russ, like, I know you're a flip, an owner of the Retroid Flip 2, which kind of kicked off this whole thing this year. This is probably a closer competitor than that. You can pick it up for 500 bucks, early bird. You have two screens, right? The, there's a seven inch OLED at the top screen that's 1080p and then a four by three LCD.

• 40:59Griffin McElroy?

  This is for the Pocket D S, right?

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Pocket D S. It's in the lower configuration. So, and it also has two thumbsticks, a D-pad, four buttons on the right, you know, so you can play all of your, this is really making like D S and 3 D S in a form factor that is, is closer to the original experience. That to me is, I think, why a lot of people are excited about these.

• 41:22Russ Frushtick?

  Is it Android as opposed to Windows?

• 41:24Speaker 02

  This one is Android. Yes. Android and two screens right now is still a little bit.

• 41:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it doesn't know what to do.

• 41:31Russ Frushtick?

  They're still not quite sure how, how it works. And Android wasn't already, was kind of struggling with one screen to some extent, so.

• 41:37Griffin McElroy?

  I, I've got quite a few of these bad boys. I simply cannot be bothered to fuck around with a Windows-based retro gaming handheld. That is a lot of, that is a lot of, of toggles to, to flip and for a machine that is arguably not built for that.

• 41:54Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, that's what the rog, isn't the rog that?

• 41:57Griffin McElroy?

  The rog is that, right? But I switched over to Bazite because I couldn't fucking stand like trying to navigate Windows and it really is a much better experience.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  The Windows consoles are on a different trajectory price-wise and power-wise. Like the most recently, the, that new Lenovo thing is like.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  I think it's more, it's like $1,800 and it's like, it's like twice as much as their last handhelds. The Windows handheld space, I think is frankly.

• 42:21Griffin McElroy?

  It's fucked, man. It's, it's crazy. The Rogue Ally is like 650 bucks and I can play pretty much anything on it.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  That's why we're here. That's why we're here in the sewers. Ioneo is, so those are the two flip things from Ioneo. They are also doing, this is great. The Conquer Pocket Fit, guys, is, uh, this is the way it's pitched, the first masterpiece from Conquer. This is cap, capital K O N K R, Conquer.

• 42:48Griffin McElroy?

  Who is Conquer?

• 42:49Speaker 02

  The Conquer is a new, it's a new company. Now, don't be confused just because they are available at Ioneo.com.

• 42:57Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, I see.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  And it is a sub-brand, right? It's a sub-brand because Ioneo's whole thing is that they're too expensive. So Conquer is the pocket, like, the Conquer Pocket Fit is their first, under this label, that they're calling Conquer. This has a Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform, Snapdragon G3, Gen 3. That is the, that is the best chip in terms of what is available right now. Be it for the, the, the, uh, drivers that are available, driver support, your turn, drivers, whatever. That is the best chip, I, in my opinion, is available right now. And this, and it is in a, uh, handheld widescreen presentation, two thumbsticks.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  It's a six inch 1080p LCD screen, so you're not getting the, the OLED thing.

• 43:46Griffin McElroy?

  Nice handholds.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's got the handles, it's got the inline triggers, uh, for all, you know, whatever games you want to play on it. It's got an 8,000 milliamp battery, which is, I know it doesn't mean anything, but it's, it's pretty good. And you can get this guy, you can get this guy for 240 bucks.

• 44:04Griffin McElroy?

  That's crazy. Why would Ioneo partner with that? I feel like that really shows how crazy expensive a lot of Ioneo's other stuff is.

• 44:12Chris Plante?

  Well, are they all the same company? Like, aren't they, like?

• 44:15Speaker 02

  There is some debate about, this one is definitely, absolutely the same company. Like, this is 100% the same company, because it is, they're, a lot of these companies is confusing because they are order, they're, they're all kind of dipping from the same well in, in terms of parts, which is like. Phone parts that are not used anymore, right? That's like the source of this stuff, like the panels and the, and a lot of that, the things, that is where we're getting that the hardware and everything. These are, this is phone hardware that is being repurposed. So a lot of them are coming from the same place. You see the same like screens and chipsets use a lot, which is raise some questions about like, how independent are these companies? Right. Whatever, which is gets even more confusing because do we all understand this device? Right?

• 44:59Speaker 02

  The conquer pocket fit is probably the best, like in terms of like a deal, but make way for the IONEO Pocket Air Mini, a flagship DNA entry level price premium experience from IONEO. Finally, this is the tagline, an IONEO retro handheld that everyone can afford. Oh. They're doing. Everyone. It's no, man, it's the same thing again. They're just doing, they're directly competing in this case. They're saying this is INEO, the same company making a device very much like the conquer pocket fit, which is being made by their sub-brand, but this is their own IONEO bargain device. Yeah. How much is that one?

• 45:44Speaker 02

  This one is going to be start at, and I've included a link because this isn't part of the preorder thing. This is just coming down. I've included a link because the company just recently revealed the pricing. A lot of these companies are doing these press releases in Discord channels. That's where a lot, and like they're just talking directly to CEOs. So like, but you can look at the pricing in this, but basically you could pick this guy up for the early bird 32 gigabyte version is like 75 bucks. Now, oh yeah, that's not bad. This is much, much, much, much, much less powerful than the pocket fit. In, in $70 is actually a pretty good price for what they're offering here, which makes it an even more confusing product. Right. I don't know. AYN has two products. There's the Odin 3, which is in that same like high end.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  Uh, people call it a candy bar. So if that is helpful to you, screen in the middle, controls on either side versus a handheld where the Game Boy form factor where the screen's at the bottom.

• 46:37Russ Frushtick?

  How is candy bar relevant analogy?

• 46:40Speaker 02

  It's to help people visualize, like, like it's a, you hold it rectangular.

• 46:44Russ Frushtick?

  I don't hold a fucking candy bar like that. Are you a crazy?

• 46:47Griffin McElroy?

  I hold a candy bar by the sides horizontally and smash my face into it. That's how I eat a candy bar.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  Uh, the Odin 3 is their big, uh, six inch, 120 hertz OLED, top of the line. Great guy. And that guy is coming out for, um, let's see, 330 is the base early bird price on that. And you can, I'm sure it goes all the way up, but that is also, that has an eight elite, uh, chip in it, which is interesting just because the Snapdragon Gen 3, uh, chip that is in the other devices that we've talked about, there's also, there's been more work on the, um, shit, the drivers and stuff available for them in terms of retro gaming. Cause a lot of this, like the gaming work

• 47:38Speaker 02

  hasn't been done on this hardware because it's being used for phones and there hasn't been the same demands, right? So, uh, it'll be interesting to see if some of that work catches up, uh, when you have the Odin 3 out because that's gonna be a big, uh, a, a, a big release. Cause the Odin 2 is a huge one. And then I, AYN is also doing their own dual screen thing. The AYN Thor, if that's something that you want to get into, if you want to try the dual screen thing. This has a six inch OLED at the top. And then a smaller screen on the bottom.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  And this is-

• 48:13Griffin McElroy?

  Is that one out? Are any of these dual screen ones out? I don't think so, right?

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Pre-order. This is on pre-order.

• 48:19Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, optimistic.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  None of these dual screens are out. The only one that is out that I want you guys to look at, because you're gonna think, Retroid hasn't done anything this year that recently that is very interesting. They do have a dual-screen add-on.

• 48:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Out for 70 bucks that Griffin mentioned he is waiting on. Griffin, can you talk about this real quick?

• 48:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's been apparently out for delivery for the last two days because you order these things, and I believe most of them come from mainland China.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  Hey, I think China's making exactly as many of these things as we buy, guys. I think that's the secret, keeping the stars apart here.

• 48:51Griffin McElroy?

  Fair, fair point. It is 70 dollars, and it, there's two models, one that is made for Retroid devices and one that is made for, quote, "other devices." I heard from a few channels, Good Russ specifically, mentioned that it fits really nice on the IONEO Pocket Ace, which is my sort of like off-court buddy of choice, but it attaches, and it, from what I've heard, the hinge is pretty decent, obviously adds quite a bit of bulk, but you can turn your, you know, Retroid Pocket 5 into a dual-screen handheld. It is Android-based, and so like there is quite a bit of, you know, tweaking that you're

• 49:32Griffin McElroy?

  going to have to do to get it to work, but it seems like a really solid option, and considering how like none of these other DS-style handhelds are out, yeah, it's kind of like the only game in town. And it's 70 bucks, which is like, for this market, not, not too terrible.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:50Griffin McElroy?

  So, I'm excited. As much as annoying as I think it's gonna be getting one of these handhelds to work with the second screen, I'm looking forward to getting it.

• 49:57Chris Plante?

  I have a question about a thing I see in the list. One of these is just called Game Console? What is that?

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, that's the hottest new player. Will you guys click on that one? This is the hottest new player in the space, a company called Game Console.

• 50:11Griffin McElroy?

  That rules.

• 50:12Russ Frushtick?

  How is that not taken?

• 50:13Speaker 02

  This company called Game Console, and this device is the, everyone remember, say it with me now, the XF40H.

• 50:21Griffin McElroy?

  And what do all the, I cannot get this website to load. So nervous what's gonna pop up.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  Here's the good deal. Powered by Rockchip. You should look for this one on AliExpress. That's how we're, that's how we're playing with this guy, okay? Got it. If you're looking for a game console, this comes in like five different colors. There's a pink one, there's a blue one. Uh, but I threw it in here because it's like

• 50:42Griffin McElroy?

  Crazy phone factor.

• 50:42Speaker 02

  For like 40 bucks. And it's got two, you know, it's got two thumbsticks. It's got all the controls and it plays a lot of stuff. It's not gonna play like your latest, latest and greatest, uh, PS2 and GameCube upscaled, but it's gonna cost 50 bucks to play almost everything.

• 50:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. It's also, it's got a unique one by one screen, which I have, know that I've ever seen before.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  Yes, it is a one by one. It looks kinda like, uh, Amber Day had a device called the RG Cube XX. It's in a similar style to that, which is another, uh, one by one. But this is a budget, it's like 50 bucks. The reason I'm mentioning this is because it's, uh, to give you an idea of what sub 100 bucks is gonna get you. There's also the Mangami. M-A-N-G-M-I AirX, which sucks that they, I have to read all these fake brands out loud. You know, people make up fake brand names all the time, but they don't think about the common folks like me. They're gonna have to say them out loud repeatedly. But the Mangami AirX you can get for 80 bucks, plus a free carrying case. It just like comes in there. Uh, it's got a really, it actually looks really, really good.

• 51:45Griffin McElroy?

  I like the look of this thing a lot, yeah.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  This is one that, actually, hold on, I have one here, wait.

• 51:49Griffin McElroy?

  Do you really?

• 51:50Russ Frushtick?

  A Mangami. He's going to get a Mangami.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  Original Mangami?

• 51:54Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, here it comes.

• 51:56Speaker 02

  So this is one that a lot of people have been talking about because it is such like a great value. Um, this, this device is another candy bar. Two, uh, uh, thumbsticks. This is our first offering from Mangami. It's powered by the Adreno 610 GPU. Uh, the Snapdragon 662, which doesn't mean anything to you, but it may-

• 52:17Griffin McElroy?

  Beauty blogger for us, come on. Come on, show it.

• 52:20Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, it looks like a lot of other colors.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  It's like a lot of them. Yes, okay, but if, if you hold the device, if you feel the device, it feels like a really good quality. The build quality on this is really, really good. And like I said, 80 bucks.

• 52:35Russ Frushtick?

  And I'll get the sense of it.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, can we just imagine holding it?

• 52:39Russ Frushtick?

  No, I'm feeling it.

• 52:40Griffin McElroy?

  It does look a lot like other stuff, but not eighty, eighty dollar stuff.

• 52:44Speaker 02

  They all look like each other. I mean, that's kind of the point. Oh, man. This is preloaded with Big Ideas, Veggie Tales, Larry Boy and the Bad Apple. It just has one PS2 game and that's it. Veggie Tales. Crazy.

• 52:55Griffin McElroy?

  Fuck yeah, man.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  But you can get one of these guys for eighty bucks and it's gonna play a ton, a ton of stuff and it looks beautiful. The, uh, it's got really nice RGB sticks. The sound, look at this gigantic speaker. In the back. I'm not normally the, like, the biggest fan of, like, I usually like an upward firing speaker, but it sounds really good. Um, and it has different fan modes, so you can, you know, increase the speed if you want to run to the little higher end and burn through your battery faster. Um, it's just a lot of flexibility for, uh, not a ton of money, which has gotten a lot of people excited when you see what less than a hundred bucks will get you.

• 53:29Griffin McElroy?

  I want to just make sure we have time for honorable mentions and we're gonna put all these in the, in the email. What are you currently? To, to, can you lead off with, like, what are you currently fucking with?

• 53:39Speaker 02

  Can you guys just real quick before we, I do have to do my last one. It's the 1X Sugar. Will you guys please look at the 1X Sugar?

• 53:46Griffin McElroy?

  I've seen the 1X Sugar. It's the fucking craziest thing in the world.

• 53:49Speaker 02

  It's made by a company called 1X Player.

• 53:52Russ Frushtick?

  1X Sugar sounds like the candy place at the airport.

• 53:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 53:57Speaker 02

  It is the same chip as the 477M.

• 54:00Griffin McElroy?

  I hate it. This trailer's making me dizzy, man.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  G3 Gen 3. It will be, it is a device that is all thanks to all people. It has two screens and it's a transformer. So you can have it so you're holding it in a DS style with the controls at the bottom and the screen at the top. You can also flip the second screen around to the back, so it's just like a regular candy bar device. You can flip it, uh, so the controls are on the sides and you just have an extra screen in the back.

• 54:29Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I know. This is durability is gonna be great.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Everybody hates it. Everyone hates it. Everyone who's touched it despises this thing. That's the best thing about this space.

• 54:38Russ Frushtick?

  It looks like the Game Boy, like, that had that light and magnet, uh, like, magnifier attachment.

• 54:43Griffin McElroy?

  It looks like a Game Boy DMG with, like, all the fixins.

• 54:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. It is, it is wild. It's also like, it's also like seven hundred dollars.

• 54:52Griffin McElroy?

  Love it.

• 54:53Speaker 02

  And I've heard like the build quality is not that great. It seems like a wild product. A truly, truly wild product, a truly wild space. But Griffin, you were asking.

• 55:02Griffin McElroy?

  What are you, what are you, what are you rocking with? Like what is your, what do you take with you? If you are, when you are traveling, what is your current sort of go to guy?

• 55:10Speaker 02

  The RG477M is a really nice form factor. It's a really nice, like that's the one that was out in the, in the more recent months, like 250 bucks. It's not so expensive that I, I, it makes me nauseous to carry it with me. Like I do have a case and I protect it, but it's not like, I don't know. There's some stuff that I, it makes me have palpitations just to leave the house with it. So I feel comfortable and it's durable. It feels more durable in that sense. So I don't mind taking it with me. A lot of these devices, you pop them in your bag and if it still has all the buttons, when you've reached your destination, then it's like a, a pretty, pretty big triumph. But yeah, that one is the one I've liked the most. I, I have used that to like explore a lot of older game libraries that I wasn't like really familiar with before.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  But that one is one that is like out now. If you want to get one to start out with, I mean, a lot of those budget ones are great. And then the 476H seems like a really good middle ground. If you don't want to spend quite so much as the 477M, but yeah.

• 56:09Griffin McElroy?

  Where are we going to post this, this master list that Justin is creating?

• 56:12Chris Plante?

  It'll be at besties.fan. You just subscribe. If you get the newsletter, it'll be in this week's issue of the newsletter. What won't be in this week's issue of the newsletter though, is Griffin, there's something that you missed in Baby Steps. I just wanted to make sure you had a chance to take a look. It's in our Slack right now. If you want to give a look at that.

• 56:30Griffin McElroy?

  It's not a wiener.

• 56:31Chris Plante?

  Tell me what you're seeing.

• 56:35Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it is a wiener. Thank you so much.

• 56:38Chris Plante?

  You're welcome. I just wanted to make sure that you saw it. Want to talk about other stuff we're playing?

• 56:42Speaker 02

  I don't think in the today's modern workspace, I don't think texting people, just messaging pictures of big dogs.

• 56:50Chris Plante?

  To be clear, this is not just a normal wiener. It is the donkey from the game. And this is what happens when you restart the game.

• 56:57Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. And it's useful that you're recording this. So we have a record from a, you know, lawsuit standpoint, to just like point back to it.

• 57:05Chris Plante?

  Right.

• 57:05Griffin McElroy?

  Thankfully it was just sent to all of us and no one else. So.

• 57:09Chris Plante?

  Thank goodness for that.

• 57:11Griffin McElroy?

  That is a miracle. I have been playing so much stuff this week. It really is Cup, Cup, Run, Thrower. I finished Silk Song 100%. I know Rust did as well. I also did, yes. Fucking Fire, absolute banger, really, really good. I'm sure we will have much more conversations about Silk Song in the future, but I'm, I'm really happy with my time with it. I've been playing a bit of Final Fantasy Tactics, the Evil East Chronicles, which I believe we're going to talk about more extensively next week. Correct. So I can save, save some of it for that, but I'm really enjoying that too. It's a game I've like, tried to break into a lot of times and it has never really clicked for me. And that is the remake of the original PS1 Final Fantasy Tactics.

• 57:55Griffin McElroy?

  That is correct, yes. So like some of the stuff from War of the Lions, the 2007 PSP game is, is, is missing, but what is there is, is really, I'm enjoying a whole lot and it has smoothed off a lot of the rough edges that have maybe bounced off the game before. Slime Rancher 2 is now out of early access as of this week. It's out in 1.0 and I don't, we probably did an episode on it when it was like first in early access. We did. Like two or three years ago and I really, really, really enjoy that game. It's very, very chill. It doesn't ask, doesn't ask a lot of you. It's like a farm management game, but you have this like vacuum gun you use to suck up

• 58:37Griffin McElroy?

  slimes and you build little, you know, pins for them and feed them to get their plorts, which you can sell at the market that you then use to upgrade your pins and your tools and you go out and explore and do all that stuff. I don't really know how much is new in the 1.0 version, but I didn't play a lot of it originally because I was waiting for this and it's, it's really, it's really been a lot of fun. My boys have been enjoying it a lot too. And the only other one I wanted to talk about is Megabonk, which Chris Plant posted in the, the Bessie's Slack, I think like Bonk is back. The day before, but god damn, Megabonk is a Follow up to Air Bonk.

• 59:21Griffin McElroy?

  It is the follow up to Bonk Bonk. Um, no, it is. Bonk's Adventure? There isn't a Bonk. What are you talking about, man? You mean Air Bonk? The original name in Japan was Bonk Bonk and no, Megabonk is Zonk Bonk. Megabonk. Is a Vampire Survivors, but it's in 3D, a la Risk of Rain 2, I guess. I didn't play that much of that one, so maybe I shouldn't make comparisons to it. It has a sort of low poly sort of aesthetic. Chris compared it to EverQuest, which is close enough. And I feel like, uh...

• 59:54Speaker 02

  It looks like if they were making a PSA about games like EverQuest, it looks like the game that would be in the PSA. Or like... Yeah, or like a One Order episode. If it was like a toothpaste commercial about video games, that's kind of what it looks like.

• 1:00:09Griffin McElroy?

  But it worked when you're like...

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  Chex Quest.

• 1:00:11Griffin McElroy?

  It looks better than Chex Quest. When you're like in it and you have a swarm of, you know, fucking nasty little skeletons or whatever coming at you and playing and just tearing ass through all of them, it feels so good, it's so fast, uh, and there's so much shit to unlock. My god, there's so much shit to unlock. So, yeah, I've only played a couple of hours of it, but it was like one of those like, "Oh, I'll check this thing out that Chris posted in Slack." And then like, "Uh-oh, I was supposed to get shit done today." So, so, yeah.

• 1:00:41Speaker 02

  You got mega bonked.

• 1:00:42Griffin McElroy?

  I got mega bonked in a big way. Also, Hades 2 is out, and I downloaded that and played a little bit. And I was like, "I can't, I don't have space, I can't right now." Like, I will, but I can't right now, there's too much other shit popping. Have, did anybody else hit that one?

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  I did, yeah. I downloaded Hades 2, uh, 1.0, and I've played a lot of Hades 2, uh, but I did kind of stop like back in April or so because I knew that eventually the 1.0 release would be out. I mean, it's so, I don't know how to talk about this other than to say like, if you like Hades, then you should probably play Hades 2, and it's really good. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff in Hades 2. And I, I wonder if you were walking into this like fresh, how it would hit you? Because there is a lot of currencies and upgrades and different stuff to keep track of in Hades 2. And I've been following those kind of organically as the game has been updated. And even I'm kind of like, "Oh, man, there's a lot to keep track of."

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  I do wonder about that, if that's going to be kind of overwhelming for people that haven't been sort of like following along. But maybe it'll be less confusing because they'll get like tutorialized in it in a way that like I wasn't as I came up through it.

• 1:01:55Russ Frushtick?

  I played, uh, the last time I played was like a year and a half ago when it first launched on early access. And so I booted it up again. And I, I ended up starting from scratch because I only had like five hours or so worth of progress and ended up like getting back to where I was very quickly. And I haven't really had a problem because it's just like, oh, I need more flowers and I'll just see when I get more flowers. Like, I'm not mentally internalizing like, oh, I really need this currency, so I'm gonna chase it. I'm sure that might happen later, but early on it hasn't really been.

• 1:02:26Griffin McElroy?

  I'm in my head a little bit because I did the same thing. I didn't want to play it after we played it and talked about it originally because I wanted to wait for 1.0. And now I'm playing it and I'm like constantly second guessing like, was, was this how it was when I played it a year and a half? Like, I feel like I'm looking for the things that are new and obviously I think it's probably like later game areas that you unlock that.

• 1:02:46Russ Frushtick?

  They tweaked a bunch of stuff in the, in the whole game. I watched a video of like biggest changes and a lot of it is just like balance tweaks and the way like powers go out.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  You gotta remember, like, you gotta know also that there were throughout the process, massive chunks of the game that were coming out. So like there were whole, right, big areas that were like not available. So those have been the biggest updates. It's been like, now you can get to this. When you started playing, it was, there was, you'd hit a lot of walls.

• 1:03:12Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I, I think it's, I, I've, I've bounced off it a little bit genuinely because there's so much shit out. And I feel like Hades is a game that completely envelops my, my time and, and energy. And as much as I'm looking forward to that, like, I don't know, there's, there's a lot. There's a lot.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  Chris, to piggyback off that, uh, because it's the only other little thing that I had because I wanted to pay, uh, uh, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor also hit one winner.

• 1:03:37Griffin McElroy?

  Jesus Christ, man.

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  And it's really great.

• 1:03:40Chris Plante?

  So we will probably be talking about a number of these games as A or B segments in episodes to come. Cause like hearing about Hades 2, it's just kinda wild that we have not had time for it. So we'll get to a lot of this, dear listeners. Um, related to that, I have been playing Silent Hill F, which is so interesting. And I think we're gonna talk about that in two weeks. I won't go a whole lot further, other than to say like, hey, if you've been thinking about this game, uh, two pseudo words of warning, not very Silent Hill-ish, uh, but very much its own thing. And, uh,

• 1:04:20Russ Frushtick?

  There's no fog.

• 1:04:21Chris Plante?

  It's loud and flat. A lot of fog, a lot of fog. But you are a teenage, uh, high school girl in Japan and it's-

• 1:04:29Russ Frushtick?

  And everyone's really happy.

• 1:04:30Chris Plante?

  And, and, uh, hey, for a moment, they are. Um, and also the combat is, uh, like atrocious.

• 1:04:39Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. So you've described every Silent Hill game.

• 1:04:41Chris Plante?

  Okay, great, great. Then as long as you have that in your head, you are go- I think you're gonna really dig this.

• 1:04:46Russ Frushtick?

  Pretty much every Silent Hill game.

• 1:04:47Chris Plante?

  The music, I'm like just blown away by the cam work, like the framing, the way this game looks is cinematic. It's thrown around a lot in games because they like wannabe movies, but this is like, holy, holy moly. This is a gorgeous looking video game. So, uh, if you're thinking about checking it out, check it out because we will be talking about it in the coming weeks.

• 1:05:07Russ Frushtick?

  I have nothing else to add. Everything that I've played, Toc-Tong, Hades, et cetera, has been mentioned in some way. Go with God.

• 1:05:16Chris Plante?

  I love it.

• 1:05:18Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I do want to add, actually, there is one thing. Go over to patreon.com slash the besties. Uh, we have some, uh, members I want to shout out. Uh, Giuseppe, Lily, Bo and Mary Queen of Scoffs. Thank you for being members over at patreon.com slash the besties. We have a new tier, in case you haven't heard, uh, $10 tier, which includes ad free episodes of the main feed. Uh, but if you stay at the $5 tier, you get all the bonus episodes. So you're not really missing out, but if you wanted to experience ad free episodes of the main feed and if you wanted to throw us some extra bucks, uh, we certainly appreciate it. We love all of you equally though. And I think that's going to be it. Juice, what are we doing next week?

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  Uh, wow, Russ, that's a really, really personal question. Uh, I feel like we've been working together long enough now that you know that I do have some, I mean, boundaries that I'd like you to, uh, I guess, kind of respect. Next week, we're doing Ghost of Yote.

• 1:06:11Chris Plante?

  Fuck, yeah.

• 1:06:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. Cause like Ghost of Tsushima, but now and later and different. It's actually very different.

• 1:06:17Russ Frushtick?

  Different island.

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  A lot of different stuff.

• 1:06:19Chris Plante?

  So lots of ghosts, though, really scary, really, from what I've heard, so scary. Yeah.

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  We'll be back with that and so much more next week on the besties. Be sure to join us again next week for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friend pick the world's best games?

• 1:07:01Chris Plante?

  Besties!