Forza Horizon 6 Wants You to Love It

Forza Horizon 6 wants you to be happy forever. It features a colossal open world that reimagines Japan, stuffed with more free cars than you’ll ever have time to drive – let alone upgrade. You can win races or lose them; either way, you’ll get rewards. Even its trees will gladly explode into tinder on contact with your vehicle, because the game would hate for a pesky forest to get in the way of chaotic car fun. All of this makes for a fun game. So why are we craving friction? The Besties try to find an answer.

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

• 0:00Griffin McElroy?

  Guys, you will not believe my luck.

• 0:02Chris Plante?

  Yeah?

• 0:02Griffin McElroy?

  I was on a nice walk through my neighborhood, uh, yesterday. And I took a little shortcut down an alley. And I found parked in that alley, a 2014 Hyundai Elantra.

• 0:18Russ Frushtick?

  And was it in a barn?

• 0:20Griffin McElroy?

  No, it's just sitting on the street.

• 0:21Chris Plante?

  Just sitting in an alley.

• 0:22Griffin McElroy?

  And it was closest to, closest to some trash cans sitting on the street. So I've got a new Hyundai Elantra. Uh, that car is mine. It's my treasure and, uh, I found it and there was nobody in it. So now I've added that to my, what I call my collection.

• 0:39Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 0:40Griffin McElroy?

  Um, and if you look on the street where I live, it's like I've taken up every parking spot. There's that, there's a 2014 Hyundai Elantra. There's a 1970 GMC Jimmy that I found, just kind of like sitting in a Walmart parking lot and no one was in it. So that's my treasure.

• 0:53Russ Frushtick?

  Traditionally, historically, I would say if it, if a car you find in a barn is just in a barn, you're free to take it.

• 1:01Griffin McElroy?

  That's yours.

• 1:01Russ Frushtick?

  But, but you're saying in this.

• 1:03Griffin McElroy?

  The rules have expanded.

• 1:04Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, they've expanded.

• 1:04Griffin McElroy?

  If you find a, so if you find a car and it's a little bit dirty.

• 1:08Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 1:08Griffin McElroy?

  And it's not parked in a traditional parking spot and nobody's, this part's so important. If someone's in it, that's not treasure.

• 1:15Russ Frushtick?

  Not okay.

• 1:16Griffin McElroy?

  That's someone's car. You can't get in there or else it's grand theft auto and that's a different game.

• 1:21Chris Plante?

  Um, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm. Did you, did you break any glass?

• 1:28Griffin McElroy?

  To get in.

• 1:29Chris Plante?

  Right.

• 1:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:31Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, no, it was locked. I couldn't, yeah.

• 1:33Chris Plante?

  I'm, I'm really, I'm not trying to like, you know, spoil your fun. How did you start the car?

• 1:40Russ Frushtick?

  Good question. Good question.

• 1:41Griffin McElroy?

  A lot of people won't tell you this, but you don't need a key to start a car. There's special wires that you can usually find underneath the steering wheel. And it's not hard to make the like engine wire touch the power wire. And then all of a sudden you have a new 2014 Hyundai.

• 1:56Russ Frushtick?

  Sure. And, and Griffin, just to clarify, how many seconds passed between you finding the car and you driving away?

• 2:02Chris Plante?

  Or like specifically before you were gone?

• 2:06Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 2:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, no, it was, it was, so I know you guys want me to say 60 seconds, but my friend rolled up with a bucket and helped me wash the car. And that's, that's actually an important step when your friend shows up with a bucket and washes the Hyundai Elantra with you. It's your treasure.

• 2:21Russ Frushtick?

  So it was more like six and a half minutes that it took.

• 2:24Griffin McElroy?

  So the cops are outside of my house.

• 2:28Russ Frushtick?

  Can you take their cars?

• 2:31Griffin McElroy?

  Hold on.

• 2:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, they just got out. I'll be right back.

• 2:34Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, sweet, sweet.

• 2:55Griffin McElroy?

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

• 2:58Chris Plante?

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

• 3:01Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Ross Frusci, and I know the best game of the week.

• 3:05Griffin McElroy?

  Welcome back to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest at home interactive entertainment. It is a game of the year club, and just by listening, you've become a member of the game of the year club, the Besties. This week, we are talking about Forza Horizon 6, a game that I wasn't really, was not on my radar at all, because I barely know how to drive in real life, but has apparently been in the works for, what, five years, six years? It's been, it's been in demand for quite some time since Forza Horizon 5 came out, and now it's here. It's set in Japan. You get about 1,000 cars within the first hour playing the game, and boy, howdy, you're going to drive them all over. Chris, anything to add about the spirit of Forza Horizon?

• 3:48Chris Plante?

  I think you pretty much nailed it on that one.

• 3:50Russ Frushtick?

  And the pronunciation was spot on.

• 3:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, thank you. Ciao, Bella. Forza. Talk coming up more about Forza Horizon 6 just after this short break.

• 4:00Chris Plante?

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• 5:27Chris Plante?

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• 5:35Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, did you play Forza Horizon 5?

• 5:37Griffin McElroy?

  Barely dude. I, uh, I used to love racing games, but it was like a specific kind. My general kind of rule is if there is a turbo button, I'm usually like-

• 5:51Russ Frushtick?

  A boost, if you will.

• 5:52Griffin McElroy?

  A boost of sorts. Yeah, I have dabbled with the like, super creative aspects of like, the older Forza games on 360 and stuff. And I appreciate, I've always appreciated what Forza Horizon does. The vibe of the games are like on point, but the more sort of semi, non-boostable aspect of the, of the franchise has never really been my, never been my cup of tea. Also Forza Horizon 5, I felt like the setting, which I believe was Mexico was the playground sort of for that game, was, uh, I don't, I don't know, not, not so, uh, interesting. They did not do a particularly interesting job of adapting that, uh, that, that sort of whole country into a big car playground, but I feel very differently about this one.

• 6:36Chris Plante?

  Interesting. Y'all mind if I lay the groundwork for what the game is?

• 6:39Griffin McElroy?

  Please do, yeah.

• 6:40Chris Plante?

  Yeah. So the idea of Forza Horizon is it is not Forza vanilla, Forza Motorsport, which is if you- Picture a Gran Turismo, one of those like hardcore racing games where you're gonna be sweating all over the controller, going around trying to get little milliseconds off of each lap. It's not that. This is big, open world with gobs and gobs of flashy cars. And from entry to entry, it has become even more of a Cruise in the USA, uh, San Francisco Rush type of game where you are getting hundreds of feet in the air, flying off of mountains whenever you would like.

• 7:19Chris Plante?

  It also is built around this idea of like music festivals, but for cars. Uh, so the structure of the game is driving across countries to these, I would say like Gaston Berry style influenced or Coachella, uh, cultural events where you show up and somebody hops on the radio and is like, "Hey, cars are great." And you're like, "Yeah, they're like, they're like music, baby." And you're like, "I don't know what you're talking about." And then you go around and you do either like street races inside of a city or outside of a city.

• 7:54Griffin McElroy?

  It's a really smart conceit because it's like when you play a Call of Duty game or, or something like that. And like the map is so clearly like London doesn't actually have this many chest-high walls.

• 8:06Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 8:06Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, like this is, this, they made this map for shooting and there, there's a bit of dissonance there. This is a way of getting around that by saying like, yes, everyone in the sort of, in a 20 mile radius of Tokyo has lost their fucking minds and turned everything into cars and car tracks and car drivings. And they put little stuff all over for you to smash your car into. And it's the only thing anyone talks about because there's a festival happening.

• 8:35Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 8:35Griffin McElroy?

  Horizon.

• 8:36Chris Plante?

  What is unusual about Forza Horizon 6 is it's the first one that takes cities seriously. Griffin, you mentioned Tokyo. I think because of this festival vibe, you would do the UK, but you're mostly out in nature. You are not like-

• 8:52Griffin McElroy?

  What, Forza 4?

• 8:54Chris Plante?

  Forza 4, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not about like being in the city. Here, there were- They're moving up to the, this generation of console. This is the first one that doesn't run on the previous generation of consoles too. And we're going to put you into Tokyo. And it is one of the strangest decisions that the series has made.

• 9:15Griffin McElroy?

  It's so weird. I have seen a lot of people, obviously you can't do the whole Tokyo's fucking enormous, right? And so there's a certain, only amount of, a certain amount of sort of simulation you can actually do.

• 9:26Russ Frushtick?

  And probably not super fun to drive through, if I had to guess.

• 9:28Griffin McElroy?

  That's it. I've seen so many critiques of people saying like, the Tokyo present in this game feels so empty and hollow. And it's like, I'm sorry, do you want to be doing a street race through Shibuya scramble, you fucking madman? Like you're absolute

• 9:43Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it is, both are true. Because as I described the plant, like when driving through this Tokyo, it basically feels like St. Louis. Like it does not feel like a bustling metropolis.

• 9:54Chris Plante?

  After a plague.

• 9:55Griffin McElroy?

  I think what you just said is one of the more offensive things you've said.

• 9:58Russ Frushtick?

  I'm sorry, St. Louis. You're a nice city. You've got the cool city museum and other things going on, but I wouldn't say it's like a bustling downtown.

• 10:07Chris Plante?

  Just revealing.

• 10:08Griffin McElroy?

  Great athletics. Yeah. Uh, no, yeah, definitely not. I, yeah, I think it's just, but it's just more racetrack though, isn't it?

• 10:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 10:17Griffin McElroy?

  What I love about Forza Horizon 6 is the, is the map, right? I love any opportunity to kind of do Japan tourism enough, just because like, it is, that's something I like a whole lot. I'm so desperately want to go back to, to Japan. I haven't in over a decade and that's a huge bummer. And so like getting to like, visit Japanese places, I love that in a game like, uh, like a dragon and, and what have you. And this one gives you like, every kind of conceivable Japanese biome in a single kind of like interactive world. Like there's, you're racing through the, through a cherry blossom sort of, uh, mountain and now you're racing through a bamboo forest. Now you're on the beach. Now you're in the

• 10:59Griffin McElroy?

  snow capped mountains and now you're in the big city. Like every five minutes of driving on the highway, you are in like a totally different kind of neck of the woods. And that's, it's really rad because it makes a lot of stuff about Forza make sense to me. Like there's so many different cars and they all, there are different car categories and they do feel so different. As silly and bombastic as like the jumping 200 feet off a mountain is like, is still a pretty chunky physics heavy kind of race simulator. And there's a huge difference between driving a big SUV, you know, on, on sand versus like racing down, uh, you know, a tunnel or something.

• 11:39Chris Plante?

  That, that's the secret of the series. The way the ground feels real, which talking about what I like about this game, I feel like I am stoned out of my mind, but there is drifting in the game and a Honda Civic versus a like shitty truck versus a ultra powered super truck that has rocket boosters on it. Each feels so different when it is on the surface of pavement, or if it is on dirt, or if it is on the beach, or if it is raining. And that sense of feeling the ground is why I come back to the series

• 12:21Chris Plante?

  over and over again, because I, I really don't know of another racing game that has quite the same feeling where I, if I'm like, if it's giving me the information, this is so hard to describe. If it, like, I feel like I am responding and in conversation with the surfaces that the car is on.

• 12:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, definitely. Once you switch to asphalt, like suddenly you're much snappier and then you're sliding around when you're on mud. I think that like Snow Runners, Mud Runners series spends a lot of time on surfaces. Where this one stands out to me is because they spend all the time also on the haptics. So if you have a newer controller, like an Xbox Series X controller, or like I was using the Steam controller and this has that, that HD, any controller with HD rumble, you will feel every change in surface as you're driving over it. And it makes a huge difference in terms of immersion. They did a very, very good job on that stuff.

• 13:17Griffin McElroy?

  It's, it also gets around that feeling. Kind of gets around my big issue that I've always had with Forza, which is with the sort of like progression of it not feeling great. And this game definitely, I think, still falls short in a few kind of important categories. Like, I never. You can spend a bunch of your credits to tune up your car. You can actually, my favorite thing about the game is you can download someone else's tuning profile that they have for a specific car, right? So like, I found this BMW M1 treasure car. It's like a 1980, like, old fucking car that was dogshit when I got it. But then I found this profile that someone had made where they had tuned it up and put these certain upgrades on it and gotten just so, like, just the right feel.

• 13:59Griffin McElroy?

  And now that's like my favorite car to drive. I'll drive that more than the insane pre-order bonus thing that I apparently got with my copy of the game. Of like a BMW M4 that's like super fat. Like, this one feels great to drive. And I don't necessarily need, you know, the feedback of like a Need for Speed Underground or something like that. That's like, oh, the top mph is like this much better, so I know it's better.

• 14:23Russ Frushtick?

  I have no fucking idea. Those charts, those tuning charts where it's like lines going across lines, I have no idea.

• 14:31Griffin McElroy?

  For total gearhead perverts, and that is not fucking me. I'm not a car dude at all. But the opportunity to go and download a car pervert's perfect sort of version of these like really sick looking and sounding cars is actually pretty appealing.

• 14:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, and that carries through to like the visual customization, the fact that you can download people's like creations, like liveries and things like that for the various cars. Some of which are like a little edgy.

• 14:58Griffin McElroy?

  If you buy any kind of four wheeler, like Jeep style vehicle, the top like custom livery for it made by like somebody online that you can download is the Jurassic Park. Like Jeep. You can put the Jurassic Park. You can make every car you own look like it belongs on the set of Jurassic Park. Which is, but you can also do that. There's housing in the game for the first time, which is like.

• 15:21Russ Frushtick?

  I think the last game had housing.

• 15:23Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, I thought that was a new feature for this one.

• 15:25Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, the customization, you can customize your land.

• 15:27Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, you can customize your house and your land. You can build a racetrack out behind your little custom, you know, mountainside house. You can customize your garage, which is only purely aesthetic. Like, it just shows up while you're like in there tuning shit up. But you can also download someone else's like layout of their garage. If you like, that stuff is is peak Forza for me. And they've done like a lot of shit with it in this game that I like.

• 15:49Chris Plante?

  I think the ability to download things gets at the biggest problem for the game, which is when you are in a menu in this game, things have gone wrong. For me, if I'm out driving and I'm flying through the air in my super truck, great. The second I'm in a menu, I am having to look at a map that's way too crowded. I'm having to look at tuning features that are not explained. I'm having to figure out progression that I don't know why I'm necessarily doing it. And I think the ability to like solve, instant solve a lot of those things by just hitting download, give me the other thing is great. But the second I have to start spinning a wheel to find out if I'm getting bonus credits or a car that I'll never drive, things have gone awry.

• 16:34Chris Plante?

  And then I'm back on the road and I'm happy again. It's, it is weird how different the experiences are.

• 16:41Russ Frushtick?

  The progression is so weird because you, like ignoring whether you get the preorder bonuses or not, things like wheel spins or even just like doing missions, you'll just be granted quests, you'll be granted cars at just random intervals. It's so weird because you would think if it's a traditional open world game that you'd start with a Hyundai Elantra and then work your way up. And now I have a Subaru and now I have a Honda, whatever. And then eventually get a Lamborghini. But a lot of people are gonna get Lamborghinis in like the first hour or two of the game. And, and the game is balanced for that because a lot of the early challenges are like you can only use a B-ranked car. So you're only gonna use this, but then you're in the open world, you can use whatever you want.

• 17:23Russ Frushtick?

  So, so it does kind of invert, I think, what a lot of people expect from racing games like Gran Turismo, where you start with a shitty car and work your way up.

• 17:32Griffin McElroy?

  And that's still something I don't like. Like, there's, there's. For as much as this game has going on for it, the map is insane. Like, there's so much shit to do. It's so fun. It's so good to drive around and to like, download other people's sort of like creativity and share your, like, that stuff's all very cool. But like, when I spend a bunch of credits, if I find a car and then I spend a bunch of credits, if I, God forbid, like, spend a bunch of time tuning it myself, and then I picked that car to go into a race solo with, and then it changes all of the cars I'm racing against to be like, competitive with that car's like, stats completely. It's like, well then, why the fuck did I just, I had a race that was like, you have to do this race to qualify for the next wristband, to do the next big event,

• 18:13Griffin McElroy?

  which is the only sort of trick this kind of campaign structure has going for it. I was like, oh, okay, well, I'll use this car that I have. Oh, wait, it's like, rank C, it's got like, stats around 500, that's not good, but all the other cars are around there. Maybe I'll juice it up. I'll go into the shop, juice it up and come back. And I juiced it up, came back, and I was like, now it's a fucking A-ranked speedster, 750 stats, this thing's gonna zoom. And every other car had it like, been chained, like, it's scaled to match. And I'm like, well then, why the fuck did I just do all of that stuff? Like, it feels better to drive for me, but if, like, what is the, what is the competition necessarily here?

• 18:51Russ Frushtick?

  And, and competition related, I actually, I think the difficulty is in a really weird spot, because I was finding myself at the average, I'm not a great racing person, I'm okay at it. When I was doing average, the like, default setting for difficulty, I'd more or less like, it would be a tight race. Like, if I did a good job and I clean, it'd be tight, but maybe I'd win, maybe I'd lose. When I dialed it down to whatever's one below that, I was winning by like, 150 miles, like, it was not even close. And I would like to have it like, a little competitive, but not feel like I'm slamming my head against the wall, trying to like, get through these races. So it does, on the difficulty setting side, I was a little bit like eh, but I want to do,

• 19:33Russ Frushtick?

  I do want to call out from an accessibility standpoint, I don't think I've ever played a game with a more robust accessibility set than I've ever seen in this game. It is insane. You can change, I'll just speak for myself and what my needs are. When I started the game, there's like the GPS and it shows you where you're directed, whatever it is. I could not see the line going to the location that I had picked because the color was contrasting with the map. You can change individual UI elements in the UI and only in the UI, it's not like a filter, to select the colors that you can actually see.

• 20:10Russ Frushtick?

  You can change the in-game graphics, like, oh, I want these flags red, or oh, I want these flags orange, and I want these, the roads should all be blue, so I know exactly what type of road surface it is. Through the roof accessibility settings, to the point where I'm really, I was really pleased to see it. I'm sure others can speak to their own personal preferences, but like, great, great to see. Very good.

• 20:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 20:36Griffin McElroy?

  This is a really frustrating kind of game for me, where I like playing it a lot, but the hooks, the carrots, aren't necessarily there. Like, it doesn't really matter if you win or lose a race. You get credit towards like your next big flagship kind of event, which, one of the ones I did was pretty nuts.

• 20:56Russ Frushtick?

  Was it the robot?

• 20:57Griffin McElroy?

  I won't, yeah, and then the rest have just kind of been, you're racing, but now there's airplanes flying overhead or some shit. Like, I don't, the story is a huge nothing.

• 21:07Russ Frushtick?

  There's no story.

• 21:08Griffin McElroy?

  Like a huge, huge, huge nothing, and they've made it so you can't skip any cutscenes, which is

• 21:12Russ Frushtick?

  Weird.

• 21:13Griffin McElroy?

  Fucking bonkers. I do not need to hear my friends say for the 15th time, like, that was a great race. See you guys the next starting line, like, it's a total nut, there's no, um, everyone's super nice and in love with cars, and that's great, the vibe is great, but like, you don't get that, there is no friction or competitive kind of spirit to speak of in the game.

• 21:36Russ Frushtick?

  I want one asshole, one.

• 21:37Griffin McElroy?

  One asshole like from your rival in Tony Hawk's Underground who's like, I'm gonna be the champion of racing way before you dipshit like. None of that. That's, you know, I guess you don't need that, but I need some reason to feel like if I win or lose a race, like it fucking matter like it. It matters at all because it doesn't.

• 21:58Chris Plante?

  There is, um, do you remember in Forts of Horizon two, I think it was.

• 22:03Griffin McElroy?

  No, I don't.

• 22:05Chris Plante?

  So Forts Horizon two, I believe is when it got really open world. Uh, is when like the series expanded and you could drive around, but there were train tracks. And if you hit the train tracks, they were basically the invisible walls of the game.

• 22:19Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 22:20Chris Plante?

  So you had an open world, but not entirely. And whenever you hit these, you, you really, really hit the walls. And I remember at the time as a big fan of the, the, this beginning of the series, that I wanted a version of Forts Horizon where I could go anywhere. And I remember interviewing them, uh, for Forts Horizon three and like, we're doing that, but like, there are problems with being able to literally go anywhere. Like we, we want to give you a directed and a curated experience. We are now at Forts of Horizon, uh, six and you can run through any tree in the video game.

• 22:59Griffin McElroy?

  Smash right through.

• 23:00Chris Plante?

  Smash right through.

• 23:00Griffin McElroy?

  You get bonus points.

• 23:01Chris Plante?

  Yes. I actually got, um, a truck that I think was a preorder bonus that I have dubbed the global warmer. It is the biggest fucking truck on earth. It has rockets on the back and it has what can only be described as a snowplow on the front. And I can clear entire forest with the global warmer whenever I like. On one hand.

• 23:24Griffin McElroy?

  It's great when the challenge is like, keep a score streak going for as long as you can. Okay.

• 23:28Chris Plante?

  Perfect.

• 23:29Griffin McElroy?

  Point me to the nearest plants and I'm gonna.

• 23:32Russ Frushtick?

  Is there a UNESCO heritage site nearby?

• 23:34Chris Plante?

  I went, yeah, I went up a mountain, cleared out all the trees on the side of the mountain and then jumped off the mountain with it. It was fantastic. At the same time, there is no challenge. Every minute.

• 23:47Chris Plante?

  With the global warmer is the same as the minute that came before it. And as a result, as much as I enjoy it while I'm doing it, I can put it down and never think about it again. Because it's the same experience over and over and over again. And that is kind of where I am at with the series right now, which is while I'm playing it. Great, having a really nice time. But you're right, the fiction, whether that is the characters in the cutscenes, whether that is the um. You get rewards, whether you win or lose, whether it is finding something to do, there, there, there is none. There is none and I am now realizing I don't want like the age of the train tracks again.

• 24:32Chris Plante?

  But as someone who genuinely loves this series, this was probably my favorite AAA series to a point. I, I, I really yearn for it to feel like a game in, in some ways versus just a toy box or a.

• 24:48Russ Frushtick?

  If you, yeah, a toy box is right. It feels like an activity that you do at the end. It's a long day of work and I'm going to get a few races in. And that's like, and you're gonna, these are commonly for people that buy like one game a year. And this game could easily last you 200 hours because there are 200 hours worth of activities in this game. I don't know any one of them is going to necessarily stand out unless you're a huge car person, in which case maybe, but. Yeah, no, I, I mean, I like, Plan is right. I like playing the game. I like while it's going on. There's not something that is like constantly dragging me back to play more of it. But they made a really fucking fun racing game, so it does leave me in a weird place.

• 25:28Chris Plante?

  I, I also have some issues with it that could just be sort of personal uh tech problems, but the kind of like. All somewhat always onliney. It's not always online. You do have to bring the game online and link it to your Xbox Live account before you can play the game. Uh, which I discovered at an airport as I was like getting ready to board a flight in which I planned on playing this game the whole, but I managed to get that going. And then while I was traveling for a weekend, I played the game like offline for probably about five or six hours. And then when I got back home and booted the game up again, there was no save, like it had never saved my. Shit locally, I guess I had a prompt at some point like saying like.

• 26:12Griffin McElroy?

  Unable to sync to the cloud and I'm like, well, that's, that should be okay. I'll do it when I get online, but I lost a lot of progress at it to start over, which is huge bummer. Also, there is like a DRM layer that is kind of always operating in the background while you're playing the game. And I've been playing on the Rog ally X and if you put the thing in sleep mode, the DRM like layer crashes. And then when you turn the game back on, it goes down and you can't skip any of the opening fucking company logo. It takes forever to get back in the game again. And I just wanted, I just want to do a fucking race, man. I don't want to watch the speech. I don't want to watch the turn 10 studios logo for the millionth fucking time. It's, it's that, that stuff is like maybe small quizz, but hugely problematic.

• 26:56Chris Plante?

  It's so good that you mentioned that because if Microsoft's whole thing for the future of Xbox is this project helix, we're gonna be a PC thing.

• 27:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 27:06Chris Plante?

  They have to finally figure out how to make Xbox gaming on PC not total shit for the first time in 30 years.

• 27:12Griffin McElroy?

  Put your shit on Steam or don't put your shit on Steam. The like making, we're gonna run a secret application in the background the whole time just to make sure you really, you really are playing Forza Horizon 6. That shit's salty.

• 27:24Chris Plante?

  But even if you were playing it just on Xbox, you'd be using all these same crappy headaches. Like they, they have to create a better PC experience. If that, if that is the, the horse that they're betting the future of Xbox on.

• 27:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 27:38Chris Plante?

  Figure it out. Figure it out. Figure it out.

• 27:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Just do what Sony does, which is to say, we're not doing that any, we're not putting any games only on PS5. That's gonna work out for us. That's the way the whole industry is moving around us like a brave rock in a river. Fucking dipshits. So that's Forza Horizon 6. It's really fun.

• 28:03Chris Plante?

  It's really fun.

• 28:03Griffin McElroy?

  It's really fun. I, if it, if there were like 10 pretty big structural changes that they had made to the game, it would be a fucking contender goatee for me all, all day, all night.

• 28:13Chris Plante?

  One asshole. That's all we're asking for is one asshole.

• 28:15Griffin McElroy?

  Just one asshole or some other big changes that I would like to pitch to Playground Games after we take a short break.

• 28:22Chris Plante?

  I love it.

• 28:24Russ 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.

• 29:08Russ Frushtick?

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• 29:45Russ Frushtick?

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• 30:27Russ Frushtick?

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• 30:37Griffin McElroy?

  Issues with Forza Horizon 6 are as follows. One, you have too many fucking cars. In my second save, I've gotten, I'm up to, I got my green wristband this morning and so I'm making my way back. It's beautiful to look at. The cars, oh, they look amazing. You do have 50 of them so fast and then it doesn't fucking matter what cars you... Once you have 50 cars, you basically have infinity cars. And so it doesn't really get as exciting to find new cars or change the ones that you do already have. Another issue, all the human beings look so fucking wack. When you start the game, you create your drive a tar and I have not found a way to get him to change out of the baggiest blue jeans I've ever seen.

• 31:19Russ Frushtick?

  You can, you can change them out of very baggy blue jeans. It's funny, funny that he's going on his whole adventure without changing those clothes, but...

• 31:27Griffin McElroy?

  I haven't found that, that in the extremely busy...

• 31:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, you have to be at a house to change their clothes.

• 31:32Griffin McElroy?

  You have to be at a house to change your clothes. Okay, shame on me. The, the humans look so wild and they speak in a way that human beings don't talk IRL. And there's just, the cars have a lot of personality in terms of how they feel and they're kind of like lineage as these like sometimes just classic automobiles. But beyond that, it's, it's hard to really get stuck in, in one and feel like a sense of real ownership of it. But the driving is great and it looks great and it's fun to explore a big open world in one of these cars. But what if, and this is where my pitch starts.

• 32:10Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 32:12Griffin McElroy?

  What if you weren't in the car? What if you were the car? What if Playground Games made the next Cars? It could be an MMO racing game. It could just be the format. It literally just Forza Horizon 6, but you're the cars.

• 32:27Russ Frushtick?

  Uh huh.

• 32:28Griffin McElroy?

  So there's just one.

• 32:28Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, when you're saying you're the cars, do you mean the property car, the IP cars?

• 32:33Griffin McElroy?

  You're the cars from Cars.

• 32:34Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, got it.

• 32:35Griffin McElroy?

  And you get to pick a cool name when you start, right? And you start out as some busted up jalopy, but you can still be called like Smooth Thunder or some like cool shit like that. Nutso, yeah. I'm Nutso, the Mazda CRX. And so you're the cars, right? There's just one and now all of a sudden like tuning it up and, and changing it and upgrading. And I think in this one, you'd be able to like change their, their consciousness. It's a ship of thesis question where you could sort of, a Mazda CRX could become a Hyundai Elantra. If they're like tuning all the parts around, right?

• 33:06Chris Plante?

  Sorry, you, you said tune me up. Are you, you're getting to where I think you're going.

• 33:11Russ Frushtick?

  Where they fuck?

• 33:12Chris Plante?

  They fuck.

• 33:13Russ Frushtick?

  They don't fuck.

• 33:15Chris Plante?

  How do you populate the world?

• 33:16Griffin McElroy?

  Chris, this is a real pitch I'm doing to the company Playground Games. This is my chance to get off the sinking ship of games journalism and into the side of this industry. Yucko.

• 33:28Griffin McElroy?

  The cars are you, you are the cars. There are no humans, no human models at all. They can still be showing up for this fucking crazy race event.

• 33:35Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 33:35Griffin McElroy?

  This huge music festival, all that stuff can stay. Everything else about the game can stay.

• 33:39Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 33:40Griffin McElroy?

  What works about this idea is you would have to change so little. You would have to remove a lot of stuff. You would have to remove 49 of your 50 cars and you just have the one car and you can shape shift kind of the cruise style, I guess, into the cars that you've bought and upgraded. But all of a sudden, like when you get a new fender, that's like part of you.

• 33:57Russ Frushtick?

  I see.

• 33:58Griffin McElroy?

  That's like part of your body.

• 33:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, so you are, you're taking the like oblivion approach to like you're on your own adventure.

• 34:05Griffin McElroy?

  You're on your own adventure and it's you trying to make your way in the cars world. And you, and you know what you can have with this? Mean shithead cars out there that you want to beat in races so bad. And all of a sudden those races really, really mean something.

• 34:19Russ Frushtick?

  You can also have, for what it's worth, you can have cars that you can have sex with.

• 34:23Chris Plante?

  Right.

• 34:23Russ Frushtick?

  Just saying.

• 34:24Griffin McElroy?

  You guys, hey guys.

• 34:25Chris Plante?

  How do you eat?

• 34:26Griffin McElroy?

  Continue this, will you continue this part of the conversation during Resties? When I'm not there, you can pick up this conversation. I want to talk about fixing Playground Games' flawed racing masterpiece.

• 34:37Chris Plante?

  You can't have it both ways. You cannot tell me you're a car now, Chris. Okay, I'm a car. How do I eat? How do I take a, a two?

• 34:47Griffin McElroy?

  Have you seen the cars, have you seen the cars films from Pixar, Chris?

• 34:51Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 34:51Griffin McElroy?

  Or Cars, Planes and Fire and Rescue?

• 34:53Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 34:54Griffin McElroy?

  Cars, Planes, Fire and Rescue?

• 34:55Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 34:55Griffin McElroy?

  Do they get into these questions in there or do they just kind of go like?

• 34:58Chris Plante?

  It's all in the manga.

• 35:01Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, exactly. I guess we could fold some of that in here.

• 35:04Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 35:04Griffin McElroy?

  You're a car. You're the car. You are a, and you can keep all this sim shit. It's just you change the headlights to eyeballs.

• 35:12Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay. Can I give you, I'm not trying to steal your thunder, which would be a name for your car.

• 35:18Russ Frushtick?

  Don't steal my smooth thunder.

• 35:20Chris Plante?

  I was thinking about taking the series in a different direction. Because you're right. The problem is the, the, the cities that they're based on, it can, you can never recreate Tokyo. You could never recreate Los Angeles if you want to move it there, right? And also too many cars. Uh, how, how do we solve for that? Forza Event Horizon, a Cthulian sci-fi adventure. Set in, and, and, and we are mere meters from the surface of the sun where we are racing against Lovecraftian gods.

• 35:53Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, on what though?

• 35:56Griffin McElroy?

  Cars.

• 35:56Russ Frushtick?

  Cars. No, no, no. You're in the cars, but like, what are you racing on if you're in space?

• 36:00Chris Plante?

  Have you ever seen Rainbow Road? You've, you've.

• 36:02Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, but there's no rainbows in space. That's just in Mario games.

• 36:05Griffin McElroy?

  The tracks are short. The tracks are short.

• 36:06Chris Plante?

  Tracks are very short. It's like an interior kind of, you know, interior, uh, Space Mountain type of, uh, tracks.

• 36:14Griffin McElroy?

  Have you been on Space Mountain?

• 36:15Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 36:16Griffin McElroy?

  Imagine it covered in blood and Sam Neill is there.

• 36:18Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, thank God. I was worried if Sam Neill.

• 36:20Griffin McElroy?

  Sam Neill is there. Laurence Fishburne is there. They both, they both have hurt their own faces and they're there and they're cheering for you.

• 36:27Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, they're friends now.

• 36:28Griffin McElroy?

  They're friends now in Space Event Horizon.

• 36:30Chris Plante?

  Do you have, do you have your own version of the, of the game?

• 36:32Russ Frushtick?

  No, I'm worried specifically about Sam Neill because he's getting up there. Has anyone recorded him for AI purposes like they did with James Earl Jones?

• 36:40Chris Plante?

  No.

• 36:41Griffin McElroy?

  Why would you let that happen? No, I don't think so.

• 36:43Russ Frushtick?

  Probably a good idea to get ahead of that because if you're planning on making Sam Neill a big part of the show, like, I'm not worried about Larry Fishburne. He'll be fine. Samuel's getting up there.

• 36:54Chris Plante?

  No, no, he's doing great. He's healthy. He's, he's, I, I feel very good about this.

• 36:59Russ Frushtick?

  He's still hunting for the wilder people?

• 37:01Chris Plante?

  I'll be, I'll be.

• 37:02Griffin McElroy?

  See, deep sea racing.

• 37:05Chris Plante?

  Ooh.

• 37:05Griffin McElroy?

  On, on oil rigs. It's Forza Deepwater Horizon. Is this anything?

• 37:11Chris Plante?

  Ooh, I like that. And then like, the first half of the game is racing. The second half of the game is legal battles.

• 37:18Griffin McElroy?

  This has felt like jokes to me when my Cars idea was so.

• 37:21Russ Frushtick?

  The Cars idea is really good.

• 37:24Chris Plante?

  The Cars idea is pretty good.

• 37:25Griffin McElroy?

  Don't act like your kids wouldn't be all about that fucking life. Like, I would love racing around as, and being a car named Smooth Thunder. Uh, and, and so would my children. They would finally give a shit about car simulators. Get, get a turn of real dudes.

• 37:40Chris Plante?

  I'm prepared to greenlight this. I just got one, one question, which is how are you gonna fit in DJ Atomica?

• 37:47Russ Frushtick?

  Mm-hmm. He's been out of work since SSX folded, so he's really hurting for.

• 37:52Chris Plante?

  And burnout period.

• 37:53Russ Frushtick?

  Money.

• 37:54Chris Plante?

  Let's not forget.

• 37:55Griffin McElroy?

  We can get him in, we can get, yeah, I guess he could be in there. He'd have to be a fucking car, man. He'd have to be a car. He couldn't be like a dude.

• 38:02Chris Plante?

  You just said it. A fucking car. You've been describing this all along.

• 38:07Griffin McElroy?

  Do we have any mail?

• 38:08Russ Frushtick?

  We do have some mail. That was a great pitch, Griffin. Well done.

• 38:11Griffin McElroy?

  Thank you. I was really excited about it.

• 38:13Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, this is.

• 38:14Griffin McElroy?

  I've never seen a Cars movie still.

• 38:15Russ Frushtick?

  This is a Griffin-centric, uh, letter. This comes from Anthony. Um, they have peaches without fuzz. Someone please give Griffin a nectarine.

• 38:26Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 38:26Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think nectarines are the same as peaches. I think it's a totally different fruit.

• 38:30Griffin McElroy?

  Just because it's a stone fruit.

• 38:32Chris Plante?

  Has a different name.

• 38:34Griffin McElroy?

  I think it is a peach. I think it is a genetically modified hairless peach. Yes, that's fine. But true peach heads know the, the difference of the mouth.

• 38:45Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 38:46Griffin McElroy?

  When you get in there. It's, it's, nectarines, the skin is actually waxy. I need something in between waxy and fuzzy. There's gotta be, there has to be a middle.

• 38:54Russ Frushtick?

  Are you allowing a little bit of fuzz? A little bit of peach fuzz, if you will?

• 38:59Griffin McElroy?

  The implications of the sentences that preceded this one.

• 39:04Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, our next letter comes from Chris.

• 39:08Russ Frushtick?

  Chris is talking about Mixtape, which we talked about last week with the wonderful Lucy James. "The genre siblings of Mixtape are Florence and Edith Finch. It's less accurate to say that they're non-interactive than it is to say they have plenty of interactivity, but no gameplay consequences. If I wanted to do this genre a backbiting and sardonic name, I would call it a walking simulator. It would actually be an emotion simulator, which I think is a pretty good way to term it. The gameplay sequences get you participating in a story moment, so you might better feel what the characters are feeling. And Mixtape, in my judgment, succeeds at this at the majority of sequences and tells a well-crafted story with a recognizable cinematic pedigree as à la John Hughes.

• 39:51Russ Frushtick?

  I think most of the critiques come from critics expecting or wanting it to be something else." I think that's probably fair.

• 39:57Griffin McElroy?

  We didn't fall on that trail.

• 39:59Russ Frushtick?

  No, no, no. This wasn't a criticism. I think it was more speaking to the broader commentary about the game itself and whether it's, quote, "a game" or not, which I don't think any of us...

• 40:07Griffin McElroy?

  That's... Miss me with that shit. That is such a nothing fucking burger, dude. I can't believe people are still having that. I've seen conversations about this game that I also saw about fucking Gone Home. And it's like, guys, how are you still... How is there still an audience for that conversation? It's deranged. It's so fucking baby shit.

• 40:28Russ Frushtick?

  I think it's all just coming from a very disingenuous place of people being fucking shitty about it.

• 40:33Griffin McElroy?

  I hear things to critique Mixtape about, but I don't know, man. Just saying it's not a game because there's no points or winning or losing. Like, yeah, that's fine. We can do that. We still do those. That's great, actually.

• 40:48Russ Frushtick?

  This next letter comes from Madison. "My husband and I play a lot of co-op games together, and I feel like we are running out of options. I am now inspired to try playing blueprints together. Any other examples of games that aren't technically co-op but are fun to play with a partner?"

• 41:03Griffin McElroy?

  I wish I did more of this. Rachel and I really don't play anything. We used to play the Telltale games when they came out, if that lets you know how long it's actually been since we've dipped into a two-player thing. We mostly just have an hour to ourselves at night that we usually spend watching Perfect Match or hockey.

• 41:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that was my, generally that was us too, but yeah, since Blueprint, it's really opened things up. And it does kind of make me think of like, I think deduction games are probably great for this, games like Oprah Den and-

• 41:33Griffin McElroy?

  Did you say Oprah Den?

• 41:34Russ Frushtick?

  Oprah Den.

• 41:35Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, I thought you said Oprah.

• 41:36Russ Frushtick?

  I don't want to play that DLC. That'd be fucking awesome, learning about Oprah's family.

• 41:42Griffin McElroy?

  It's just her during one of like the Oprah's Favorite Things episodes, and it's just like a grayscale one bit, like her with her hands out.

• 41:49Russ Frushtick?

  You have to identify the crowd.

• 41:51Griffin McElroy?

  You have to go through the crowd and look for the people who are being like trampled as people race towards their oat bath.

• 41:59Russ Frushtick?

  We have one more letter. This one comes from Hugh. "I was bummed to hear about that Justin is hanging up the sticks, but I wanted to reach out because I upgraded my Hitbox controller a few years ago, and I still have my old one. If you're unfamiliar, a Hitbox is a fight stick with no stick. It just has buttons for the cardinal directions. The pad I have has a Brook fighting board in it and works with PS5, Xbox, and PC, plus nice arcade buttons. They are designed to increase input accuracy in fighting games, but it's good for lots of other stuff, too. I use mine for 2D search action games and platformers." That's really cool.

• 42:32Griffin McElroy?

  That is really cool. I've always admired these, man. I've always, I feel like I used to roll up to QuakeCon and people would bring their own like insane Hitboxes.

• 42:43Russ Frushtick?

  What would they use it for QuakeCon specifically?

• 42:46Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, anything.

• 42:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 42:47Griffin McElroy?

  Anything that-

• 42:47Russ Frushtick?

  That's cool. Yeah, I always, I was always like, how would you play a 3D game? But you probably can't necessarily play a 3D game with them.

• 42:54Griffin McElroy?

  No, I think there's ways of like, you know, mapping different button inputs to different kind of like analog axes. I don't know. I can't pretend to understand how these things work. They look absolutely bonkers.

• 43:04Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, they're just buttons. They don't look that crazy.

• 43:06Griffin McElroy?

  I love, I love tech.

• 43:08Russ Frushtick?

  I know you love-

• 43:08Griffin McElroy?

  I love tech and gadgets and shit. And this is like the final frontier of that, it feels like.

• 43:12Russ Frushtick?

  I know, I know. I like the final frontier is just buttons on the board.

• 43:17Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, beautiful glowing buttons.

• 43:20Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, that's it for our reader mail. Thank you for sending those in. Do we have honorable mentions to talk about?

• 43:27Griffin McElroy?

  I got a couple. Um, there is a, a mobile game I've been playing called Dragon Quest Smash Grow.

• 43:38Griffin McElroy?

  Dragon Quest Smash Slash.

• 43:41Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so you can choose.

• 43:43Griffin McElroy?

  No, you're doing both simultaneously pretty much all the time. Uh, it is a, it is a Vampire Survivors by way of Dragon Quest. So you play as like a Dragon Quest hero and you go through maps where you're smashing up, you know, Dragon Quest enemies and then you're leveling up and you're getting, uh, you know, gotcha tickets to draw random loot.

• 44:02Russ Frushtick?

  It's a free to play.

• 44:04Griffin McElroy?

  And it's a free to play. It's one of those. Yeah. I have not spent any cash on it so far. Um, but man, I, I really do like the, the sort of like Dragon Quest aesthetic and it does some like, it is very progression heavy. It is much more progression heavy RPG sort of centric than, uh, you know, Vampire Survivors or Crawler's where, you know, you're getting some upgrades between things. And this one, like you get experience points and level up and your stats go up and there's different classes and it like structurally kind of, uh, progression wise, it, it feels very kind of classical Dragon Quest. Um, but it just, it feels great, looks great. Um, and it, I don't think it's going to necessarily grab me long-term, but it has been like a fun, you know, when I, when

• 44:48Griffin McElroy?

  I've got one hand free while I'm watching TV or something like that. Like it's, it's been a.

• 44:53Russ Frushtick?

  I'm telling you that vertical iPhone gaming is like so clutch and it's surprisingly rare to find like Nubby's Number Factory. My understanding is, correct me if I'm wrong, only horizontal.

• 45:04Griffin McElroy?

  Only horizontal, yeah.

• 45:05Russ Frushtick?

  Seems like a vertical.

• 45:06Griffin McElroy?

  Bit of a missed opportunity there. Yeah. I played, I played Nubby. I, I beat Nubby actually on, on iOS for the first time. I had my first like finished run because I'm terrible at that game. Um, and then I was like, I'm done. I think because I don't want to keep turning my phone to the side and that's, I'm just that lazy. I've also been playing with Henry. So Henry still, uh, most nights will read one of the many Nintendo manga adaptations that are, uh, out there. We did all the Zelda ones together. He read through all the Pokemon ones over the course of like a year or so. And there's so many of them. There's Animal Crossing and Kirby and uh but the only one he hadn't really read was Splatoon, a game he doesn't have a ton of affinity for.

• 45:48Griffin McElroy?

  And so uh he started reading that and then wanted to play specifically the Splatoon 3 DLC side order.

• 45:55Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:55Griffin McElroy?

  Splatoon 3 Side Order, which I had never, I don't think I had even heard of.

• 46:00Russ Frushtick?

  That's like a single player or like not.

• 46:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, so it is a single player rogue-like. You play as Agent Eight and uh you go up a tower. Uh every time you get on an elevator and the elevator will show you one of three rooms you can pick. It'll show you like the reward and the rewards are things like uh. You know, your range for your main weapon will go up or you'll get, you know, some, some new sub weapon or whatever. It's, it's, you know, in that Splatoon kind of progression way. And then there's like different types of challenges. So you beat a room, you go on to the next, you do it again. There's your boss every 10 floors. There's like currency you're earning that you're spending on vending machines like in the runs. And then it's converted to a different currency when you lose and you spend that on like permanent upgrades. Like now you start with more lives. Now you start with more armor or whatever.

• 46:47Griffin McElroy?

  It's like uh doing a lot of pretty classic rogue-like stuff. But you're playing Splatoon kind of single player.

• 46:55Russ Frushtick?

  Can you play in co-op? Is that an option?

• 46:57Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know. We have not tried to do that yet. If it is.

• 47:00Russ Frushtick?

  That seems like a good bonding opportunity with your son.

• 47:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, well, honestly, it's been a great bonding opportunity of us just kind of passing it back and forth. Cause it's not like a game where I'm gonna beat some like important thing that now he doesn't get to do. Like I'm still kind of farming it out. So we've, we've been just kind of like passing playing it like he'll do a floor, I'll do a floor. Uh and it's been a ton of fun. I really, I really like Splatoon. I like the vibe of Splatoon a lot and the feel of Splatoon and like it, it doesn't feel like any other kind of shooter out there.

• 47:30Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin.

• 47:31Griffin McElroy?

  I just, the, the, the, the multiplayer of it really never grabbed me, but this, this has been a really fun.

• 47:37Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, do you, you know, I know you're kind of out of the vibe of video games these days. Do you know what the next Splatoon game is?

• 47:45Griffin McElroy?

  I don't think so.

• 47:46Russ Frushtick?

  The next Splatoon, the next Splatoon game is called Splatoon Raiders.

• 47:51Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:51Russ Frushtick?

  And it is basically what you're talking about.

• 47:56Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, the game.

• 47:57Russ Frushtick?

  To say, it's like, it's like a single player centric game where you land on an island. I don't know the actual structure of it, but it's like more like co-op, single player, like character progression stuff than it is. It's not really multiplayer.

• 48:10Griffin McElroy?

  Up to four player co-op. Yeah, this looks fucking tight, guys.

• 48:13Russ Frushtick?

  I think you're gonna really like it.

• 48:13Griffin McElroy?

  Absolutely. All about it. Yeah. Yeah, this is the fun part of this being the only real foothold I have in the games industry is that I will miss this shit. Or I will see it and immediately forget about it because I'm not writing 12 stories about it a month. Um, and that's exciting. That's great. It sounds, this sounds really good. But yeah, that's the DLC to Splatoon 3. And it's, it's been a ton of fun.

• 48:34Chris Plante?

  I love that Nintendo has just kept updating that game, like without it fully becoming like a Call of Duty Guitar Hero Tony Hawk.

• 48:43Griffin McElroy?

  This is a year old, I think. This DLC came out, I do believe it came out a while ago.

• 48:47Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think they're still doing updates, but it did have a long life and it also stays alive with like their nonsense, like, do you like cake or hot dogs?

• 48:55Chris Plante?

  Yeah, and I only, the staying alive, I mean, just to like, they could have done the thing where they release Splatoon and they don't release another Splatoon for 15 years. Kind of Tomodachi Life, Rhythm Heaven thing. And it's like, no, they, they've kept updating it. They've been kind of figuring out what it is.

• 49:09Russ Frushtick?

  It's actually the only, I mean, in terms of cadence, is there another Nintendo franchise that comes out more regularly than Splatoon? That's pretty weird.

• 49:17Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 49:18Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 49:19Russ Frushtick?

  It's their cod, I guess.

• 49:21Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I think they'd like very much for it to be there.

• 49:24Russ Frushtick?

  I think that's their dream.

• 49:25Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 49:26Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, Plant, do you have any honorable mentions?

• 49:29Chris Plante?

  Um, I, I, I have one thing that I want to shout out and, um, it's gonna be available between this episode and the next episode. And that is 868 Back by Michael Bro. Um, Michael Bro, I think is one of the greatest living game designers. He is brilliant. Um, he made 868 Hack a long time ago. He made games like Crypt, um, Zardoz, I believe was the, the name, or Zargah 33. I hope I, I always get the name wrong. These are...

• 50:04Russ Frushtick?

  Name your game's actual shit, man. Maybe Chris will remember them.

• 50:08Chris Plante?

  Yeah. These are incredibly designed games, almost entirely Rogue likes or variations on classic Rogue likes in the very old school sense. You're moving around grids. When you move, the enemies move. And for him to get a big, big by his standards, release is extremely exciting. When Bros games were kind of popping off in the early 2010s, they were on iOS. Not a lot of people were playing them outside of like the very hardcore weirdo gamers. And they also just, they have an aesthetic that is not necessarily inviting. And because they're

• 50:52Chris Plante?

  Rogue likes, they're difficult. I think this game is releasing into a very different world, where one, it's on Steam. Two, people are way more familiar with Rogue games now than they were 13, 14 years ago. And three, I think his aesthetic is, without sacrificing its quirkiness, a little bit more appealing for a broader audience this time around.

• 51:16Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, these days, like Pizza Tower, like that look of it is, I mean, it kind of is in a little bit of a similar vein here.

• 51:24Chris Plante?

  The culture has caught up with him, I think. So yes, 868 back, cannot recommend it enough.

• 51:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 51:32Griffin McElroy?

  I'm all about it. I've played so much 868 Hack, and it is a game I have not thought about in years. And just seeing these screenshots has sent me...

• 51:40Chris Plante?

  Griffin, I made the mistake of downloading Crypt, and just that becoming my entire life. And then Saga 33, got the title right that time. Once you put them on your phone, oh, everything else just disappears into the background.

• 51:57Russ Frushtick?

  Speaking of other things that disappear into the background, I've been playing more Vampire Survivors than I think I ever have on my phone specifically because I never really got into it on mobile. And the only reason I did is because I was stuck on the subway for an hour and a half with my son and I needed something to keep his attention. And so he glanced over at my phone while I was fighting hordes of zombies and milk monsters, whatever the fuck they were. And he's like incredibly invested now. And specifically, I want to call out. In the main menu of the game, there's a grimoire that like has a little blurb about all 350 fucking monsters in this game. A lot of them, I don't know if all of them were, but definitely a lot of them were written by Stephanie Sterling.

• 52:38Russ Frushtick?

  Who is a long time games journalist and they're very funny. And just discovering that game, which is so fucking nested and crazy and there's so much content in it. And it's free. And what's interesting about that on iOS, even though it's free and there are ads, all the ads are self inflicted. Like you can watch an ad to get an extra revive or get more money, whatever it is. But once you get deep into that game, you kind of don't need to ever watch an ad again. And so it's just like a lot of content they're kind of giving to you. It has cross save now. So if you add a lot of progress on Steam, you can carry the progress over and back again. All that stuff is, it works incredibly well. I've been just like blown away.

• 53:21Russ Frushtick?

  They have a ton of DLC that's come out over the years, Castlevania DLC, Contra DLC, et cetera. So I don't sleep on some Vampire Survivors. It's, it's done a really good job.

• 53:31Griffin McElroy?

  The DLC for that game is strange. I forget which one I try. I love that game so much. I've spent so long playing it and I feel like whenever I try to play the DLC, it absolutely blows my ass right out the back of my shorts.

• 53:42Russ Frushtick?

  Difficulty wise?

• 53:43Griffin McElroy?

  Absolutely. So fucking super duper, duper, duper difficult.

• 53:48Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know if maybe that's just from going from being a, you know, overpowered demigod who can kill 100,000 zombies in 15 seconds.

• 53:56Russ Frushtick?

  I have heard for what it's worth, the Castlevania DLC is a very good entry point. I don't, I forget the price point. It's like very low.

• 54:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 54:04Russ Frushtick?

  The only note I would say is if you're going to play, just keep in mind that the Apple Arcade version does not support DLC and does not support cross save.

• 54:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 54:12Russ Frushtick?

  So if you're going to play it, just play probably the free version. That would be my recommendation.

• 54:18Russ Frushtick?

  I have one other honorable mention and it's a game called Blueprints.

• 54:25Griffin McElroy?

  You get that, you get to that, that room 49 or whatever yet?

• 54:28Russ Frushtick?

  Six? No, I've not entered the room yet. Uh, I will again, keep it somewhat vague because I don't want to spoil things for people that haven't played yet, but I've used the basement key. We use the basement key for the first time and that was such an exciting moment. Uh, I was so pumped to see that. Uh, we, uh, generated a schoolhouse and made it through some classrooms and then got to a classroom that had like a giant, two fucking giant maps. Drenched in stuff to take notes on.

• 54:55Griffin McElroy?

  Dude.

• 54:56Russ Frushtick?

  So our, our notebook at this point, my wife and I, as we continue to play through it is just like drowning and stuff. Um, but it's been, it continues.

• 55:05Griffin McElroy?

  It's so great. Those rooms you find, that's like, oh, well, this is the answer to like 15.

• 55:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 55:11Griffin McElroy?

  We need to do, you become like a, I don't know, a crime scene investigator all of a sudden where it's like, we gotta write down everything.

• 55:18Russ Frushtick?

  There have been a few times where it's like, we get to a room that's like, kind of hitting you in the face with the answer to the question. And yeah, but we might've already gotten that answer before. So that can be a little deflating, but you always get something. If it's a new room, you always get something new. Uh, and at the very least you'll get lore about the world and the story and all that stuff. So. I don't know, man. I have no idea, uh, how long it's going to keep our attention, but it's been a nightly endeavor and it's been so delightful.

• 55:45Griffin McElroy?

  Um, have you guys played Subnautica 2 at all yet? It launched on early access.

• 55:49Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I have not played it yet.

• 55:51Griffin McElroy?

  Um, okay.

• 55:52Russ Frushtick?

  Point, you haven't played it, right?

• 55:54Griffin McElroy?

  No, no, not yet.

• 55:55Russ Frushtick?

  This is the epitome of the game that I am dying, dying, dying to play in the way that Justin was psyched about Hades 2. That I will be good and use the willpower within me to not play until one.

• 56:06Griffin McElroy?

  I think that's going to be it for me to, I played about 30 minutes of it and it, I did all that. First 30 minutes of Subnautica shit, like swimming around and grabbing a fish to turn him out into, into flippers or whatever. And I was like, I will do this, but I don't want to do it right now. I don't want to do it right. I think I can wait on this one. I don't know why I couldn't wait on Slay the Spire 2, but I think I have to wait on this one.

• 56:32Russ Frushtick?

  It's, you just know that there's like an overarching story that, and like a power arc that you just won't.

• 56:38Griffin McElroy?

  I don't want to interrupt. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

• 56:40Russ Frushtick?

  So, yeah, I'm sort of in the same boat. It's done incredibly well. Look up the story of the like. The business shenanigans that went on with the release of this game.

• 56:49Griffin McElroy?

  A lot of stuff.

• 56:50Russ Frushtick?

  Because it's incredibly interesting and shady in terms of the publisher, what the publisher is trying to pull off. But as a studio, they've done great and I'm so happy to see it because it's a really great team.

• 56:59Griffin McElroy?

  I also want to, this is less of an honorable mention and more of a brag, say I did finish The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask in my Trial by Harry YouTube series. Randomized one-hit KOs turned on is a pain in the fucking ass.

• 57:12Russ Frushtick?

  That's crazy. That's all on YouTube. You can watch that on the

• 57:14Griffin McElroy?

  Really, really hard one to do. But yeah, it's all in the McRoy family YouTube channel and yeah, I, I, I love that game even more now, I think.

• 57:22Russ Frushtick?

  Wow.

• 57:22Griffin McElroy?

  I think I appreciate its weirdness far, far more now that I've had to really interface with it in such a perverse sort of manner.

• 57:30Russ Frushtick?

  Do you, is there an immediate like, oh, I know what game I would do next option?

• 57:34Griffin McElroy?

  No. No, I've done Ocarina, I've done Link to the Past, I've done Majora's Mask and like there, there are ones for other games, but these are the three by far that I know kind of the, the best.

• 57:45Chris Plante?

  Sort of tangential, but Griffin, are you going to play the Twilight Princess decomp? Have you seen this?

• 57:52Griffin McElroy?

  I have not. That's not one that I like have a lot of affection for, but I would also love to revisit it.

• 57:58Russ Frushtick?

  Did they fix it? Is it fun?

• 57:59Griffin McElroy?

  Super long time.

• 58:00Chris Plante?

  I, I, I was mixed on Twilight Princess when it came out a long time ago, but the decompilation looks gorgeous and runs apparently very well on Steam Deck. For people who are not following this, decompilation is basically recreating the code of the original release so that it can run on your PC. I'm sorry if I got that technically wrong.

• 58:25Russ Frushtick?

  It basically is like a native app for the device you're using it on, rather than it being run through an emulator.

• 58:31Chris Plante?

  And whoo boy, looks good.

• 58:34Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it looks like they're, they're just about done with it. I don't know. I'm, I'm terrible at, I know there's so many different ways to play these games, right? Like there's the Ship of Harkenian kind of stuff for Ocarina of Time and I think Majora's Mask and there's like insane multiplayer mods and shit like that. Uh, I have, I have not really dabbled in any of those, those darker arts. I think I did download a weird mod for the 3DS version of Majora's Mask when I played it on the Odin AYN4, whatever it's called. You know what I mean? I think that's it for this week. Do we have any patrons that we'd like to shout out?

• 59:09Russ Frushtick?

  As a matter of fact, I want to thank patrons over at Patreon.com slash the besties. We have John G, we have Deirdre C, we have Jason B, and we have John, another John G. This one's a John with an H G.

• 59:24Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 59:25Russ Frushtick?

  So we have both versions of Johns with G. Thank you for being supporters of the Patreon. Really, it means as much to you as it does to us. Greatly appreciate it.

• 59:36Griffin McElroy?

  Wow, that was not the order I would have said that in.

• 59:39Russ Frushtick?

  No, no, no, that's exactly what I meant to say. And you literally, you guys allow this show to exist. So thank you so much for all that support. In addition to everyone else who shares the show and talks about the show. We greatly, greatly appreciate it. Chris Plant, can you talk about what we talked about today?

• 59:56Chris Plante?

  Oh, man, I'm still trying to think about those cars having love with each other. We talked about Forza Horizon.

• 1:00:01Griffin McElroy?

  Resties talk, that is not for us, that's not for me.

• 1:00:05Chris Plante?

  Forza Horizon 6.

• 1:00:08Russ Frushtick?

  What do you think they're doing with that Rusties?

• 1:00:10Chris Plante?

  What?

• 1:00:11Russ Frushtick?

  What are they doing with that Rusties?

• 1:00:13Chris Plante?

  What are they doing with that Rusties?

• 1:00:15Russ Frushtick?

  Rusties, never mind.

• 1:00:17Griffin McElroy?

  It's the, it's the spray they, it's the thing he advertises in Cars movies. I haven't even seen Cars and I fucking know about that. So maybe this Cars MMORPG was a fucking bad idea if it, if the retention rate is that bad.

• 1:00:32Russ Frushtick?

  You can run it on Kickstarter, they're allowing sex stuff now, so it's fine.

• 1:00:35Griffin McElroy?

  Forza Horizon, I'm gonna do this now. Forza Horizon 6, 868 back, Dragon Quest Smash grow, Splatoon 3 Side Order DLC. Trial by Fury on McRoy Family YouTube, Vampire Survivors, Blueprints update day 20. That's all the stuff that's written down here in the documents that I'm reading.

• 1:00:51Russ Frushtick?

  Thank you.

• 1:00:51Chris Plante?

  Oh, and the film Event Horizon, you should go watch that too. Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson.

• 1:00:58Griffin McElroy?

  Next week, we're going to be talking about Mina the Hollower. So brace your ass for that conversation. Cause I think I could talk about that game for a decade. So join us again for that discussion next week. And thank you so much for listening to the besties this week. Stick around, won't you? Cause shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best games?

• 1:01:49Griffin McElroy?

  Besties.