Mafia Is One of the Strangest, Messiest AAA Games Ever Released

I'm about to begin the count.

One,

two, three, four,

five, six.

That was worse.

That's worse.

It's worse.

Yep.

Fuck.

So when you say it works great on other platforms, what other platforms are you referring to specifically?

It doesn't matter.

I'll have to figure this out

later.

Yeah, I think like long term what a solve is.

Well, what's weird is like, again, long term, you were, we more or less had addressed it, and then you switched to the desktop and it was borked, and then you switched back to laptop.

I want to try one other thing.

Let me try seeing if it literally runs any different if I run it through a different,

like if I'm get off Chrome.

I mean, is this just like a technological

impossibility?

No, because we've had it working.

So there's like a variable here that we're not accounting for that I don't fully

some sort of plug-in or something

me to all the wait banana

You know what Russ

It's not working on Safari.

It's like just literally not giving audio but

it's a there's a process that's going on on your computer That's slowing it down.

Yeah, I'm gonna okay.

So I'm gonna do a restart and let's see what that does.

I think we should go back to before you do that

Okay

Fucking kill me

can i say something russ yeah it's a shame because this is a well i guess we're just recording the backup here but this is a at least russ at least this is still more fun than volume

oh that is that is

that's a good call though we could do that

My name is Justin 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 Ross Froshik.

I know the best game of the week.

And this week here on the besties,

we have decided to sort of convert it into less of a club and more of family.

A Lothamilia.

Well, when you're here, you're Loth Familia.

And where is here?

It's Mafia the Old Country.

Chris Plant, what's that?

Mafia the Old Country is the latest entry in the long-running but long-troubled series Mafia.

People often think it's going to be like Grand Theft Auto, and people are often mistaken.

This time,

the trend continues, baby, and I can't wait to chat about it.

Yeah, though, we'll talk about that, and we'll take a trip to the old country right after this.

You know, Chris, in the intro there, you described Mafia as a long-troubled franchise, and that's kind of an interesting point because, like, they've been...

What is this?

The fourth one at this point.

They must do okay, right?

We could still say 100%.

This is...

I think Strauss Zelnick loves the Mafia guys.

That's literally my operating theory.

That Strauss Zelnick loves the Mafia.

He owes a debt to a certain somebody.

Somebody maybe, you know, who helped him get there.

Who maybe likes to take a video?

I think it's just, it seems so obvious that it should work.

Imagine you are the people who who controlled the Grand Theft Auto series.

And then you say, why don't we make a mafia version of that?

That seems like a great idea.

And it's like, you take that to the board and they're like, yes.

And you take that to the game designers and they're like, yes.

And then you finally bring it to the audience and they're like, maybe not.

Maybe it didn't work.

But there are,

they're all okay.

Okay.

Should we go back to the beginning?

Take us back.

Yes, let's go back to the beginning.

Because I've talked a little bit about Mafia in the past, and I actually have a lot of fondness for the original Mafia game that came out in fucking 2000, whatever it was.

You're right.

It came out around the same time as the GTAs were starting to rise up, but it was a very different thing insofar as, despite taking place in an old-timey open-world setting, you really had no choice.

Like, every mission sort of led from one to the next to the next to the next

as it kind of guided you through this kind of classic mafia story.

At the time that it came out, it was, in my opinion, very ambitious from a narrative standpoint when compared to other games in the world at that time.

Like it was telling a mature, interesting,

if a little bit tropey, mafia story.

I am, having played the newest one, not sure that it has changed one fucking iota in the 25 years or however long it's been since that first game.

So, this is what's weird, and we'll fill in the space in between there, is they did get a little bit further away from that with each entry.

Mafia 2 goes a little bit more into like, oh, we're an action game.

It's still kind of levels are little closets that you find inside of the open world.

You know, you drive around and then you like enter a level and you play and then you come back out.

And then Mafia 3 really.

it's eight stories tall and some of the walls are cardboard and others are glass and rebar yeah now i know it looks like it's a two-story

but no

you walk inside chest after chest after chest after chest

the floor is littered with some machine guns the place is incredible justin your voice

is crushing it right now you're doing okay nailing it

mafia 3 was a little bit more of an open world um

but but the problem was when it went more open world, it did draw more Grand Theft Auto comparisons, of which it could not match up to.

So then, yeah, so we get this game, which is one of the weirdest AAA

experiences of recent memory.

It looks

on purest surface level like Grand Theft Auto quality new AAA video game.

Quadruple A.

I can't think of the last.

I play a lot of the AAA video games and it takes a lot for me to be like whoa and i was playing this game i was thinking whoa it damn stun it's like you have imagine imagine if you had a magical horse that could take you inside a wine bottle label that's what this game is imagine

a magic imagine being whisked away inside the label so that's where this game can take you let me i i i i'll set up the setting and then we can talk about how beautiful it is it is set imagine this.

Perfect.

Sicily, early 1900s.

You play as Enzo, who is an indentured servant.

You're working in a sulfur mine, extremely dangerous conditions.

And one day you say, enough is...

Wait, let me just say, you know what's a great way to start your game in a completely gorgeous environment?

In a fucking cave for an hour.

No, I disagree.

Okay, I disagree because I do think that from Enzo's perspective, having that background is actually important.

Because I do think you appreciate the outer world a little bit once you get out of the mind.

Okay,

I would have more appreciated.

I'll give them that boring part.

Okay.

Let's put a pin on Inzo's perspective because we're going to spend a lot of time there.

He's third person.

What is there to talk about?

He pushes back.

He says no.

And enough is enough.

And he slices somebody.

And then the mafia is like, now that's our people.

You should come stay with us in this gorgeous mafia.

It's a good setup.

I was actually pretty excited about the setup.

A solid setup.

You basically escape one family as

an enslaved miner, and then you are rescued practically by a competing family that takes you under their wing.

Like, if you want to talk about like loyalty and motivation and like a real like entry point into the world, like I think I was really excited by the setup.

I thought it was really exciting.

The writing is so clever because then you go to this estate, right?

And what's the first thing they do?

They put you right back to work.

You're moving potatoes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

I mean, I would pick potatoes over the mine, quite honestly.

Like, that is an upgrade.

They basically say that, like, you like this better?

It's like, well, the controls are similar, but

the animations are a little more predictable.

The problem is

very true.

If I were either of those things, I myself am the person playing video games, and I myself

am three hours in and still doing fucking chores.

It is crazy.

You go from

literally working in a mine, doing chores, not having fun, to going to a beautiful estate, doing chores, not having fun, to going to a beautiful festival party.

And guess what you get to do there?

More chores, no more fun.

Don't say, don't think that he means chores like video game quests.

Yeah, yeah, not like that.

No, he means literal fucking earn your allowance chores that you're most likely.

Carry this box of wine to every house carrying this box of wine.

There's a scene.

There's a scene.

Okay, there is a there's a scene where I carry this fucking box of wine so long.

And then this dude gets hassled by some local toughs and in defense of this lady who he is has a crush on, he like throws the wine at him and I out loud was like, no, because I had worked for so long to keep that stupid ass box of wine hauled through this stupid village that I was more invested in not breaking this dumb wine than the fight I was about to get to have.

Okay, so let me take a step.

Before we get too deep into the game, I want to go back to the mine.

And really,

no, I think it's important.

I think it's important because it's not the first time we've seen a relatively large budget.

game start in a dingy, dusty, unfun mine.

Yes.

Most recently, Starfield started the game almost identically.

It's a very real mine.

I know.

It's well, it's well mined.

Technically, Donkey Kong Bonanza also started a mine a bit more fun than this one.

What if this?

What if in this game, the dude walks up to a wall?

He's like, dang it, I'm so mad.

And he punched a wall and it like made a huge hole.

And he's like, what?

Guys, get over here.

Bring me more of those nanas.

Yeah, I know they're freaky.

I'm not going to eat them.

I just, let me hold them.

I guess I just don't understand if you're putting your heart and soul into a thing.

And I maybe, if it's a movie or something, I kind of get it.

But if you're putting your heart and soul into a video game, why you wouldn't start people off with like a bit of razzle dazzle?

I agree with hoops that, well, I agree with both of you.

Starting up in the place of the suck and then working your way to the reveal of magic is a cool experience.

The problem is...

Two parts.

One, the suck should be quite short because you get that it sucks within 10 minutes.

Yes.

And two, then there actually should be magic on the other end.

And the real thing that both of these games have in common is the lack of magic on the other end.

Remember, you got out of the mind in

Starfield and it was like, oh, there's still no beauty.

There's still no awe.

It's just kind of a mind planet.

But

get out of tutorial mind in Oblivion and it's like,

there's a bunch of skeletons around.

Go do whatever you want.

You know, there's a knife.

Go kill somebody.

To your point, Crush, you can do both, which is the Zelda games, where they start you in a place where you are stunned, and then they take you to a place where you are more stunned.

Yeah, or even like Avatar, that Avatar game that I didn't particularly like, I thought did this better, where you're in that prison, and then you go out to

Pandora, and it's like beautiful and crazy.

I was watching this and I was like, I could have saved this team $6 million by just making a text scroll and being at the house.

Okay.

So, but it's, but okay, okay, I understand what you're saying.

I know you are right, it, but it could, of course, corrected this at any point after that, also.

Like, sure, I know, I agree with you.

I cannot over, and and y'all, the reason I said that about Strouse Elmick loving the mafia is

to me, there feels like a level of that was a joke, but it feels like there's a level of inoculation between whoever developed this game and whatever market pressures are like dictating the success in games right now, because it does not, it feels

so obviously out of step with literally like everything right now.

And it is so obviously such an infringement on the player's patience that like

I feel like someone at some high level learned the wrong lessons from Red Dead and they said, well, that was books level boring.

We could get away with that.

And it just like doubled down.

I think it's the opposite.

I think this to me feels like someone was so engaged in telling this story this narrative in the way they wanted to tell it and and the publisher was like i mean this is so consistent with every other mafia game the way this is structurally told and how the interactivity is that i don't think this is publisher interaction i think this is what the developer wanted to make But it's like, why were they allowed?

It's confusing.

I'm going to put out.

I don't mean that in a mean one.

This is pure speculation conspiracy theory.

And I generally try not to do it, but this game is so unusual.

Trying to make an exception here.

This to me feels like it was meant to be a very big game.

And they didn't actually know how to make the gameplay.

And then they salvaged everything else and put it in a box and sold it.

Like there is, we haven't talked about the game because there are stealth action third-person missions that are

unacceptably bad.

And they're so wide.

It's PS2 level.

Like, like, we're just figuring it out kind of stuff.

Like, really bad.

In a way where, like, the environment is so deeply, like,

so richly rendered that it makes the behavior of these enemies seem, I mean, it's.

baffling.

I mean, you'll see five guys just walking shoulder to shoulder with the same animation and you shoot one with a shotgun, and his wrist flips, and the other three runs.

I mean, it's, it's baffling, and it's so discordant with the aesthetic detail.

To get it just how off this is,

the hats are historically accurate.

There are lifelike dead animals in the kitchen.

You have the sweeping countryside.

Every little detail, the performance capture, the voice work, the writing, it's all there.

And then you get to the game and it's just not.

The experience that I think kept coming to mind for this because I was like trying to make sense of it, would be like going to the most expensive, fancy, decadent restaurant of your life, right?

And you are seated next to a string quartet, and there are celebrities sitting across from you, and then the food inexplicably takes three hours to arrive.

And when they put it in front of you, it's warmed-up macaroni and cheese.

Like

everything

else is there.

Yeah, yeah, it's so weird.

So I cannot

express how much of the early hours of this game is riding on horseback while you listen to people talk, while you follow them slowly.

And it's to a point where like I kept getting bored and I would like do other things and then I would have to reload and start again with a very long horseback ride.

And there's like once I was starting one and there was a prompt that's like skip horseback, skip ride.

And then it never happened again.

And it made me feel like, so you know it's boring.

Wait a minute.

But you know it's boring.

You can't.

If you put a skip button in there, then you know this is boring.

So let me skip it every time because you know it's boring.

How long would this game be if you skipped everything?

Because the game is nine hours.

I mean, I legitimately don't know.

I was so desperate.

And I'll tell you, man, it makes the non-interactive cinematics really feel like an encumbrance.

Like, I mean, I go from like barely holding the left thumbstick so bad that my thumb is slipping and I have to just like lean on it because I can't.

Okay, I do want to talk about because we've basically talked about like the first five-ish hours.

And there was a part of me as I was playing it was like, I'm going to ride this out as long as I can because I do think maybe there's going to be some sort of payoff somewhere.

And you almost beat it at that point because again, nine hours.

I know it's about, I looked it up.

It's about 14 hours long.

If I really?

Sorry.

I want to hear all of it.

I want to say what, just a last thing about the the beginning part.

Yeah.

Okay.

Is it is not slow paced in the sense of a slow burn where someone goes from like a mine worker to, wow, this is the first time I've ever had a knife to, wow, this is the first time I've ever had a gun.

Like the first actual like action set piece in this is like you go from almost never having a gun to like sprinting around shooting 30 bandits with a shotgun.

Someone insisted that there be a gunfight at that point because it is, and it's wild.

Every enemy looks the same, and he looks like the old racist TV icon, the Frito Bandito.

Like, literally, every single one is just like the Frito Bandito, and it's 30 dudes you have to shoot with a shotgun.

It's so baffling.

Sorry, once, no, once the game,

okay, so the game is set in chapters, like structurally, and you kind of like each one has a beginning and a middle and an end theoretically.

And each of the chapters basically mimics the flow of the beginning five hours of the game where you always have like a slow, very hardcore talky bit.

And then the like, here's your payoff, the action sequence.

And the action sequence will be like, I'm in a car and I'm cha, I'm like, I'm trying to rescue the Don's daughter, for example.

And it's like, you're shooting guys that are on horseback in your car and then you're doing a dramatic jump in a cutscene.

This is all stuff that like, again, we've seen a million billion times.

And i almost wish they made it instead like fucking pentament where the whole thing was boring as balls and like yes allow i almost would have been down with that honestly if the horseback riding and stuff is good enough that i was like the problem is it looks so much like another kind of game yeah that it's hard to not be expecting that other kind of game and that they know that expectation because they're throwing in like a lot of the

hallmarks of that kind of game right like you're getting the very blatant guide marker telling you exactly where to go to.

You're unlocking like different horses and guns.

Like, the first screen of this game is a QR code that you scan to get a special gold car.

Like, that's not bad, man.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Fresh, I went a bit further down that path, which is to say, I watched a YouTube playthrough, and that's why I keep saying nine hours, because I watched like last.

Oh, you know exactly how long it was.

And yeah, I mean, that's watching watching a pro play, you know, so who knows how long it takes.

But pretty good experience.

Can talk to the story here because the story is solid.

It is, I say solid because how does it compare to TV or film?

Eh.

But there's like a good romance.

There is a lot about Sicilian history and the like early, early days of the mob.

There's a lot of stuff in here that is quite cool.

And that's where I agree with you.

I would say I'd push back on the Pentiment, and here's me being pedantic.

Pentiment still has at least a good design idea that doesn't align with this.

No,

no, I know what you mean, but LA Noir is another series that they have.

And LA Noir in this game feel like a match.

But I just want, like,

I would have been happy if they'd been like, why don't you go look around?

No one has yet to say that.

Like, and it's i don't know that you can i don't know you can look like you could walk around a static area but like i don't think you can just go off on your own i think you have never

this okay i think this is the the main question and i need you guys to help me understand this

has this been a very long buildup to a part where it opens up or is it really like this because it

That to me feels like a

oh man.

Well, that's what I mean by it feels like it was a different game.

right it feels like something has gone terribly wrong at some point because they are throwing up map markers and stuff that very much feel like it's a and i think that's part of what made it so hard is because i kept waiting yeah for the when will my life begin you know but i would say i would say it maybe it was a different game but you have to look at the historic you have to look at the history of this franchise and all of the other games in this franchise more or less use the exact same structure that this game does which is a quote-unquote open world.

It is open, but you have no real reason to go around and very little freedom to go around.

But really, they're just telling like a very linear story, which again is not a bad thing if the actual gameplay and the things that you're doing

feel good.

I mean, this game has almost no player choice, which is like so tough for me to get over to feel like I'm essentially the entire game is a QTE.

That's like a really tough thing to

overcome for me.

I want to feel like I have some impact.

And I'll even say, though, like even with the writing,

I will say that like it is,

it's all serviceable, but like, and it's better than a lot of video games, but it is also like all cliches.

I think it's direct to Netflix mafia.

That's

all cliches and the performances are.

I mean, it's weird.

Like, some of these people, they owe like performance capture rights to some of the godfather actors for how closely these dudes are like, you know, just do you know, do the VO was good for what it's worth.

I thought the VO did I can't be a judge of the accents.

No, I think they're very accurate.

No, knowing deeply authentic Sicilian accents from that time, I think they really know.

Yeah,

I trust.

I trust.

I do want to say there is some player choice that you just completely zipped right past.

And I can't believe picking a knife.

Which knife?

Close.

Picking out the beads on your rosary oh

my gosh guys

my wife gets upset when people use a rosary as a necklace i can't wait to see how she thinks about it being a fucking utility belt for your perks geez it did

sell catholicism on me i gotta be honest that sounded pretty appealing if i'm getting pretty cool faster reload time yeah that's the craziest shit is the perks are

the perks are like this rosary bead gives it's so insane that it makes the rest of the enterprise seem like a spoof by compare like that is what you would put in the the like naked gun version of this game it's i couldn't be funnier when i was doing like when we were all doing like jokes about video games back at like in the ye olden times i could not have been funnier than rosary beads that increase your reload speed

i also realized the naked gun mafia movie is also just called Mafia, but with an exclamation point.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is one exclamation point away.

It really, man, it, I'll tell you what is hard.

This is one of, this is one of my least favorite things because it really takes a little bit before you realize it's not good.

Because I, man, I kept thinking like, oh, this is good.

And then I was like.

Okay, this feels like it's going to be, I get, this is getting, I'm getting fired up.

Okay, so at this point, how many hours, how many how many hours what what period in the story are you feeling this feeling that you're having right now where i thought it was good yeah when i escaped and got rescued by the other family and they were going to put me into their family i thought okay that was crappy but now i'm like in it and they're going to instantly bring me i thought

I kept praying to Jesus that a time-lapse was about to start.

I kept thinking, here it comes, baby.

Let's see that montage.

And then I'm running around with a gun.

Nope.

Nope.

It pretty quickly wore off after as soon as the, as soon as they asked me to,

yeah, as soon as they asked me to carry the box of wine around for 20 minutes, that's when I was like, actually, actually eat shit.

That is, mine is after the potatoes, before the box of wine.

Because after the potatoes, there are people who follow the show closely will know that we talked about Indica, a game that also asks you to fetch water and do a chore, right?

Here's the big difference.

One, you could finish pretty much the entirety of Indica within like the first half of Mafia.

Two, it does that with a very clear point of yes, this sucks, and the joke is it sucks, and the game is making jokes about it sucking, and then you go and do the rest of the game.

What's so weird about this game is it keeps making that point.

It is, it reminds me so much of the brainy gamer era of video games criticism from like the mid-2000s, where it's like, yeah, but it's good that this video game is punishing you.

And it's buying into like, yes, on an academic level, I can appreciate it.

Unfortunately, this game is called Mafia and it's released by Take Two.

Like, right.

And you can make that case in 15 minutes.

Like, we've said it before.

You can make a, hey, you're suffering in 10 to 15 minutes.

And it has the same exact level of impact without being truly torturous to the player.

Yes.

It is very confusing.

Like it goes from a, you think there is a point to the whole thing and they,

oh man, that runway runs out so quickly when you realize there isn't.

I cannot, I'm actually kind of in shock a little bit to hear that I just thought it was really taking a long time to get started.

I really legitimately.

I mean, it does do that as well.

It does both of those things.

takes a long time to get started and then doesn't get

you know it changes like there's more action in the is this a case of them like spending so much on all these resources they just try to got to try to recoup something no because again the other games follow this model like that's it doesn't i don't think that can be right i i i i agree with hoops i i know what you mean fresh i think that was i think the problem was they probably started out with yes make it more like traditional mafia

and then it also got winner like tripped down i mean the it's just so short and there's so little gameplay And then there's so little, if they, I don't know, that almost makes it worse.

It actually definitely makes it worse if they like set out to make this.

Because then the question would be, why is there not LA Noir narrative features or Pinterest?

Like, why is there not anything that is a fairy game?

It is $50.

So there's that.

There aren't too many...

quote triple-A games that are $50, but

there's also a shitload of other games that are not $50 that are much, much better.

Can I make a point about something real quick?

I just want to settle this a little bit because we were kind of talking to the theoretical.

So, I loaded up a playthrough of Mafia 3.

Okay.

The very first thing that happens is you drive to the Federal Reserve and do a huge bank robbery on the Federal Reserve where you're taking people down, and then you're in the

army, like in your military days, and you're doing a bunch of like action sequences.

by an hour 30, you are back in town shooting like

the

opposing the Confederate guys in the hotel or whatever.

Like you're fully in the open world, driving around doing everything.

I mean, side quests, you want all of it.

There is no compare.

I mean, it there is no compared to that.

Well, and even I did the same thing for Mafia 1 because I was trying to remember.

So I looked at a playthrough of Mafia 1, and it takes about an hour and 15 minutes to get to the point where like you have a gun and people are shooting at you, which is about half the time,

maybe even less to for how long.

But this is a different game, is what I'm saying.

I'm looking at a different kind of game, you know.

Like,

it this is a game where you get to play in it, like you get to play this game.

And we're not saying you need to like go and be going straight to action shooting stuff.

You just need to go to doing something.

If you had gone in a game, you were doing any sort of interesting gameplay, but no,

weird.

Wow, weird, crazy, wild, Wild.

Okay.

It's not often that I can enjoy a rant for that long, but quite honestly, that was a little cathartic because the time that I spent playing this was.

They don't make them like this anymore.

They genuinely don't.

They genuinely.

One game.

Well, we have some more uplifting stuff coming in the second half of this.

I feel much better, actually.

It is weird.

We don't do this really often, but

it was a long week with this fucking game.

That was like a reenactment of the first five hours of Mafia of the Old Country.

Let's take a break and we'll come right back and talk about more

great stuff.

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Okay, so the first thing I'm going to talk about as a palette cleanser from the first half of the show is a game called Dog Walk.

Dog Walk is free.

It's on Steam.

It was made by Blender Studios, the people that make that 3D modeling stuff.

Yeah.

Cool.

It takes about 30 minutes to complete, and you play as a giant sheepdog dragging your owner around

a snowy landscape trying to build a snowman.

In those 30 minutes, I had so much more fun

than the five hours.

You know, I wouldn't put this on the level of something like,

what is it, a short hike.

Like, you know, I don't think this is necessarily going to win huge awards, although I thought artistically it was pretty spectacular, which makes sense given the studio's history.

But just like interaction-wise, like you are literally dragging this little kid around this snowy landscape and he's he has your leash, but realistically, because you're a giant sheepdog, sheepdog you have like full control of the situation and you're just running around like looking for a shovel that's trying to like act as a cane for the snowman and you're just having like a nice little moment it felt like a pixar short to me and uh i feel like everyone should play it again it's totally free on steam so uh there's no real reason to skip it i would strongly recommend it i love that uh Can I tell you all about college football?

Can we talk about sports on this?

Can we do this?

Yeah, I'd love to talk about sports.

College football.

But just like focus it in a way that will make me care.

One, it just looks beautiful.

Watch the trailers.

They're like Grand Theft Auto ass trailers.

The game looks fantastic.

It's got

the ears or stands.

Do the ears look okay?

I feel like historically they haven't nailed the ears.

They're wearing helmets the entire time.

So yeah, I guess they haven't.

Yeah, they'll get around to it.

Here's the thing about this game that I am loving this year in this go-around.

One, the series came back last year after a long hiatus, and I had a little bit of time with it, and it was great.

I have been slowly learning how football actually works.

Let's imagine that I'm saying when I say football, I'm saying dungeons and dragons.

It could be anything, right?

I'm learning how a gameplay system works.

And over the last four or five years, listening to podcasts, watch YouTube videos, figuring out what all the different packages are on offense and defense, and

had not really gone back to football video games.

I was just enjoying it because it it made it more fun to watch football, right?

Like if you read about esports.

And an amazing thing happened, which is I started this game and suddenly while I was playing, I could actually read the game because I knew what a defense was doing.

So if I'm the quarterback and I hike the ball and I see one of my wide receivers go out and then break right across the field, but I see a defense's safety pushing in because they're trying to apply more pressure, then I know, oh, my wide receiver is going to be open.

I should pass to them.

Versus the past, where I was just like, I don't know, let's throw it to that wide receiver.

They seem nice.

And that felt really good.

And that's all I want to talk about.

I'm just saying, it's really cool that a video game can be close enough to the real thing that you can invest some time into caring about it.

And then suddenly you hop into the game and you can apply it and it all works.

I think Justin's on his phone.

He's definitely on his phone.

And he's actually playing a game.

and he's listening to a podcast is it's pretty incredible

it's funny to me i'm glad you know how football works now in the past you were like oh let me throw that guy and you'd rack up like 16 touchdowns in a game well yeah if you had on easy mode but now you can like

all you're really doing is making it so you can play on a hardware difficulty i i get it yeah it's silly that's funny it was nice it was it was really surprising and rewarding to like be able to hop into a game and actually know what the hell was going on.

That's good.

Justin, do you think it's comfortable to hold the Switch 2 for long periods of time?

God, no.

Yeah, I would agree with you.

I don't think the Switch 2 is very comfortable to hold for long periods of time.

There was something when the Switch 1 was around that actually.

There's a very, can I do a good joke about?

Please.

I can't imagine there'll be much need to.

No, go ahead.

Go ahead.

That was pretty good.

That was very simple.

So when the Switch 1 was around, I used a thing called the Zen Grip, which is made by Satisfy is the name of the company.

What was good about that, it was like a grip, pretty typical that is more ergonomic, but you could also

use the dock while the grip was installed.

Like you didn't have to keep removing the dock on and off, on and off.

And once I got that, it basically stayed on for the entire Switch 1's lifecycle.

It took a little while, like a few months, but they are finally selling...

Zen Grip 2's, which is the Switch 2's version of that.

It's the exact same fucking thing, but it works with the Switch 2.

And

let me tell you,

once again, a total fucking game changer.

I can play Switch 2 games at length with no problem whatsoever.

I'm looking at the website for this thing now, and it looks so comfy.

I think

I've had the Switch 2.

And it's the same exact design.

It's bigger.

Yeah, something about the Switch 2, I don't know.

It really makes my hands uncomfortable.

I think it is more comfortable than the Switch 1, because it's slightly big, just from a preference standpoint.

Yeah.

But not comfortable.

I actually, the first time I held it, I wrote a whole piece for Polygon about how they still haven't quite nailed it.

And I think this addresses the issue.

So if you're looking to play in handheld mode, there are a number of options.

I know Debrand sells them as well.

But this is the one that I have been drawn to.

And

I was playing Donkey Kong with it.

And it was so much nicer.

And then when I was done, I could just drop it in the dock and go back to playing other games and it wasn't a problem.

Also, it works as its own stand for the switch is that right i have not been bold enough to try that yeah but i'm sure that's true interesting i was it with wise because it's the switch is already switched to is already a big fucking thing uh i was curious how it compared to the steam deck and it is now with the grip attached basically the exact same size lengthwise as the steam deck is yeah so that kind of gives you a sense of how fucking big it is it's big i'm not i'm not joking around it's big but again uh as something that i actually want to hold it's a nice change of pace.

Whoops, have we talked about Blippo?

No.

Do you know about Blippo?

Well, worth checking.

Yeah, man,

I checked out Blippo.

If, folks, if you haven't tried Blippo,

you should try Blippo.

Damn.

Wait, isn't that a lab laboo boo thing?

Yes.

Yes, sir.

It's a playdate game.

It is a

playdate game right now that is coming in color to Steam and Switch.

And Blippo game is a funny word for it.

It is.

It's not a game.

It's a cable.

it's it is cable TV broadcast from the planet Blip and you just turn on the old tube and you flip through the various channels and each channel has multiple TV shows and each channel also airs across I think 11 or 12 seasons so It's just a recreation of the experience of watching cable TV and like local public broadcasting.

I want to see if I can hold it through an aliens personal.

Play date within reach.

Let me see what's charged.

Not to make the comparison to Rick and Morty, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Is it like those Rick and Morty episodes where he's watching TV?

It's closer to Pee Wee Herman in style.

Like it's very earnest.

It's closer to Peewee Herman.

And if you watched early Nickelodeon, like Roundhouse, it's stuff like that.

Or Bill Nye, the science guy.

It is all giving that vibe.

It is made by a bunch of different LA art collectives.

And you think, like, how did that get funded?

And the answer, as it always is, is panic.

Panic,

God bless them.

I want to do like a post-games episode on what's going on there because they are out there just putting stuff into the world.

And sometimes it's untitled goose game.

And other times, it is the most bonker shit that I cannot believe it got released.

And it is almost consistently awesome.

They put out Arco last year.

They put out Despolote.

Time Flies.

Both of those were this year.

I think our game next week is them.

We're doing hurdling.

I think you're right.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're, yeah.

They're just

really making some cool stuff and very crazy stuff.

This is right there.

Oh, it's not next week.

It's in two weeks.

Yeah, but this is coming out in

Blipo Plus is coming out in September, in late september so people should keep i'll be interested to see i kind of feel like the lo-fi is part of the fun so i'll be interested to see how that how that feels i would love to watch quote-unquote tv on like a screen that's like a one-bit screen that's very cool i i went to an event that they did hosted in la that i think was also their like after party for just finishing the game It looks amazing on both.

You're right.

It looks so good.

Like it looks shockingly good on the play date and really shows how good that screen is.

But there's something about the

color.

They shot it in actual analog TV studios in LA.

So it's not the thing where you're like shooting on high def and then bringing it down.

It's like, no,

it really does look like you are watching old TV that just got up converted for your.

Yeah, yeah, it looks like early MTV like music video quality.

It looks so good.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

You know what I messed around with a lot while I was on vacation is Pico 8.

Oh,

and this is something that, like, I would just wanted to talk through it because I didn't really grok all the different components of it.

And it's one of those things where, like,

it's old enough now that I think a lot of people that were into it kind of like

had their time or like they know about it, but it's not as much talked about.

So it took a little while to like figure some of the ins and outs.

So let me give you the quick pitch.

Pico 8 is a fantasy console.

It's not a real console.

It's a pretend console.

But that's like there's a standard that games have to be developed for and the Pico 8 can run on just about whatever hardware you got.

Once you have a license for Pico 8, then it can run on Windows and Mac and Linux and a little

Raspberry Pi you want it to be on.

You can do that too.

If you pay 15 bucks, you get the license to

the Pico 8.

That's both for playing games that people make for it, but also for developing games for it.

When you get the Pico 8, there is a command that you can use called Splore, which is also the sort of like main browser.

And Splore

will let you look through all the games that have been uploaded for the Pico 8.

And they don't cost money.

You browse through them.

And when you like click on a game, it instantly loads into the game and then saves a tiny version of that game onto your hardware.

So you can play it in perpetuity offline.

It's not even a tiny version.

It's just the game is so tiny.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Like it is, these, all the games are tiny.

Yeah.

Like 100 kilobytes tiny.

Like they're tiny.

They're tiny, but they're, uh, there's a lot of depth in some of them.

I'll tell you that, like, first of all, what's really fun is there's a lot of demakes where people have, have said, like, okay, I want to recreate

like this old Star Wars arcade game with the vector graphics.

Yeah.

Someone's like, okay, I bet I can recreate.

And there's like a decent version of it that you can play.

And you're like, oh, that's really cool.

The one that I've been playing a lot is called what the flag

and it is a uh it is just a game where you identify countries flags and you can choose the continent that you want to do and then it just speedruns through you can get on a hot streak.

There's no, there's very little game to it other than that, but as a tool for learning that I love it.

I, that's exactly, I love that idea.

You know what I mean?

Like,

flags, was that something you were looking to do?

I want to learn anything, especially if you can gamify it for me.

And then for the rest of my life, I can look at any flag and tell you what country yeah absolutely i want that i want that and the game makes it possible through the power of the pico 8 but it's a lot of fun to like you can download the i mean so many different genres are represented there's a lot of like uh like for instance uh one that's that is is popular is called pico craft that i've seen popping up a lot and it is a uh little version of warcraft that you could play with a little mouse and you can play your mouse you can play this little version of warcraft it's so neat and it's so fun and it's like if you have old hardware you could turn it into a pico 8 with very little work and that would be a very cool little project to do um i have been playing it mainly on the rg

xx cube because it's like a square screen that looks very good with the the um the the uh the the pico 8 stuff but that's what i've been i i messed around with that a lot i would also add if it's something that you're interested in um everything can be played in a browser so you if you just want to test out some stuff, you can open up a browser without having to install a bunch of stuff as well.

I'll include a little story in the newsletter, but I met the creator of Pico 8 in Tokyo about 12 years ago when he was making some of the early games that created popular voxel technology, which now we're seeing in stuff like Donkey Kong.

But this guy, Joseph White, is super interesting, just runs a cafe in Tokyo, creates amazing stuff that ends up powering a lot of cool games, technology, and inspires all these artists.

And really kind of just modest, humble person quietly tinkering on stuff like this.

Real quick, we have some reader mail.

Ari was writing, recommendations for a JRPG with good quality of life, as in you can play it on the Steam Deck or Switch 1 or 2.

I finished Octopath Traveler 2 a year ago and absolutely loved it.

Before that, the last

JRPG I played was Dragon Quest VII on the 3DS, which was too much and turned me off for years.

I played a ton when I was younger, but I don't have the time or patience as an adult for really grindy games.

Do Octopath 1, Sea of Stars, or the Bravely Default Remaster fit that bill or something else?

Thanks so much.

I guess this is just for plant, probably.

Excellent.

Yes, there's a bit of grindiness, but...

I really recommend Dragon Quest 11S, Echoes of an Elusive Age.

It is one of the best RPGs ever made, and it is absolutely perfect.

I think if you really enjoyed Octopath, you're going to really enjoy this game.

It is like a 3D RPG, but here's a really sick thing about this game.

With a tap of a button, you can play the full game in 2D pixel mode.

It is both.

Like it can look like a SNES game or it can look like a modern 3D game.

That's cool.

Yeah, it's quite awesome, and I really recommend it.

We have another question.

This one comes from Emily.

Question for you all.

Do you ever get the controller buttons mixed up when going between systems?

I've been a PlayStation and Nintendo player since I was a kid and I was able to keep those button configurations separate in my head.

But when my significant other got me to play some co-op games with him on the Xbox, it drives me nuts that they use the Nintendo names with the general PS formatting.

What controller config do you guys use on PC, and does it ever mess you up when you play on different systems?

It definitely messes me up for sure.

I play on,

usually I use an Xbox controller on PC, and

it just, when I, it's really just when I go back to Switch games.

That's like everything else, I'm fine.

But when I go back to Switch games, I for sure get it screwed up.

I was like, no, I think this used to be a problem for me.

And then I got over it in my 30s.

And then I looked at my Xbox controller.

I was like, yeah, the X is at the bottom.

And no, it's an A.

So, yes.

I think that Nintendo should give up the ghost.

They're not going to, but even though they were first, I think Xbox has it right.

I think that alignment makes the most sense.

Are we talking about the glyphs or are we talking about the orientation?

Oh, I think it's the fact that A is in two different spots and X is in two different spots

between an Xbox controller and a

Nintendo controller.

But you don't have a problem with PlayStation to Xbox.

No, because it's so different.

Well, then the part that'll really mess your brain up is the original Xbox, or not, sorry, the original PlayStation Japan versus US, where they switch the X and the O as what is your main command prompt.

So, this is the problem that I have been into lately with stupid retro handhelds is that so many of these things default to one, like to either south or east as confirm.

and i have gone back and forth so many times at this point that nothing feels natural to me anymore like i don't i don't have one that because i was playing like bonananza and i was using the confirm on the you know the the the the the confirm over on the the east side and that's the way a lot of those japanese playstation games are so i'm doing that half the time nothing feels right anymore i i don't i don't know what the the true answer is anymore for me if it should be confirm on the bottom or confirm on the right.

I think it's a question of what are you doing more.

And I think if you are confirming more than you're canceling, the button that your thumb is on more frequently, which would be the south button, should be confirmed.

That makes sense to me.

That's my logic of it.

And I'm not logical.

That doesn't really jibe with what Nintendo has been doing.

I realize they were first, but you have to keep in mind they were first and they kind of figured out the lineup, the like arrangement on the NES when it was just two like buttons that were directly in a line together.

And then they had to convert that into

something that was in a diamond shape for SNES.

And I think it's just been a mess ever since.

So yeah, I get confused.

And I would prefer it if everyone just sort of accepted the accept on south because I think that's the MO.

Someday.

Someday.

Okay, any honorable mentions before we wrap?

I would just like to mention very quickly, I read a great book while I was on vacation called Camp Damascus,

and it is by Chuck Tingle, who you may know from his Tinglers that he writes a lot of erotic fiction, a lot of erotic fiction with a lot of really disparate themes like dinosaurs or tide pods or

a lot of really erotic.

If you've never looked up the name Chuck Tingle, then you should look up the name Chuck Tingle because usually he writes Tinglers.

Yeah.

Which this is not a Tingler, okay?

Chuck Tingle mainly writes books like

Space Raptor Butt trilogy.

Yeah, there's

Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaur Olophus.

Not Pounded by Anything, Six Platonic Tales of Non-Sexual Encounters.

There's a lot of different Chuck Tingle books, but this is not

explicitly erotic,

not like Space Raptor Butt Ascension or Pounded by How Good This Bowl of Cereal Is at like two in the morning or you know any of those like classic Chuck Tingle stories.

This is a story about it.

This is a serious book about a

Christian gay conversion

therapy camp that boasts a 100% success rate.

But none of the kids that have gone can quite explain what happens there.

And it is a story about,

I mean, about that concept, about the questions that sort of begs, and about the nature of accepting that, accepting things about yourself.

It's a really, really great, like fun

thriller setup, like a lot of like horror imagery and like really moves fast with a fun central character.

But it's saying a lot of really really interesting stuff and if you've only run into chuck tingle as a creator of erotic fiction then i think that you're going to be really uh impressed by camp damascus he's got another uh a follow-up to that called barrier gaze it's in a similar um

more serious realm um but not i should also

pounded by president bigfoot sorry say again not as serious as pounded by president bigfoot no not as serious as that although that one is quite moving in spots.

I should also mention just in the

sense of fairness that Chuck Tingle does have a podcast where he has people read his books and do audio books.

And I did perform Pounded in the Butt by my handsome Tide Pod.

So if you did, yeah.

So there is a connection there that's full.

I wanted to be honest about that disclosure.

I appreciate that.

I wanted to read it to my wife, so it's tasteful.

I wanted to shout out the King of the Hill remake, which is on

streaming now on Hulu.

It's great.

I am a huge, huge King of the Hills stand.

It is probably my go-to comfort in the way that people watch The Office or Friends or whatever.

I think King of the Hill is that,

which isn't a shock because it was made by Greg Daniels originally.

And I think the remake has done a really very clever, smart job of updating the format of it and making sense of the fact that, like,

why would Hank Hill be bewildered by an Uber and sort of justifying that in the narrative

in just a really smart way.

So I cried during the end of the first episode, and I was like, what is going on here?

Like, this is some real, like, I need therapy.

And I think the thing is, it was the show that got me through the first year with Mosey.

It was like my, every time I was up at two in the morning, that was what I was just watching.

And I think it was a mix of like that and then just kind of genuine relief that it didn't, one, it didn't suck and two, that it wasn't like mean or hateful.

In fact, it's it's much nicer than even the original episodes.

This is some like Simpsons season two, season three level

sweetness going on here.

And also, you're right.

It is amazing how prompts like Hank and Bobby get into craft brewing, which sounds like it should be trite, and yet they know just how to thread the needle to make it like, oh yeah, this is actually quite nice and relatable.

Yeah, I'm.

I don't know why I'm stunned because, yes, Greg Danielson.

Also, Mike Judge has an incredible hit rate.

So yeah, it's good stuff.

Yeah, it's a new showrunner, so that's pretty impressive.

But yeah, I think they just nailed the tone overall.

And

it's redeeming because

that would have crushed me if it came out and was just like

something that was like a hollow form of itself.

I was really pleased to see it come back.

Every other TV return.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My fun fact about that that entertains me is they

have a new voice for Dale.

Yeah.

It's Toby Huss who's done some of the other characters.

But do you know what toby huss is perhaps most favorite already the strongest man in the world

man in the world yes that's my favorite that's my favorite made me so happy and seeing toby huss working oops did youird he was in weird what did you watch halton catch fire Oh, no, I was playing sports and reading books about sports.

Oh, that's fair.

You should watch Halton Catch Fire.

It's going to be your new favorite TV show.

I have to do Pilates and workouts.

Okay, okay, okay.

Toby Husser is also in Weapons.

So even more reason to go see weapons.

I love to see Toby.

He's really actually extreme.

He's in Weird, the

Weird Al biopic as Weird Al's dad.

It's freaking hysterical.

He's so funny.

He's so good.

My very quick thing that also I think both of you will dig is

Stupid TV Be More Funny.

It is a new nonfiction book by Alan Siegel, and it is the history of the Simpsons, basically seasons one through nine or so.

The worst seasons.

Yeah, yeah.

Nobody likes those early ones.

They really find themselves around season 10.

But it's about how the show came together, how the writer's room worked, how individual episodes kind of fell into place and talks with tons of people from behind the scenes and does a really good job of not falling into the trap that can happen with Simpsons nonfiction where it's like, who do we give credit to?

Who was the person who made this good?

Was it Matt Groening?

Was it this person?

Was it that person?

And instead,

it just really clearly states what individual people contributed.

And then you can kind of piece together what you think.

Because the trick is, what you like about The Simpsons is not the same as what other people like about it.

So it might be that you think, like, oh,

Simon is most important because he contributed just the structure or somebody,

what's his name?

Oh my gosh, Gracie Films

contributed the heart.

James L.

Brooks.

Yes.

And being able to see it actually come together, it's really interesting and a great audio book, too.

Like a great thing just to have in the car.

Cool.

I read, God, I've already read A Simpsons history, The Simpsons, the oral history that came out.

I can't believe I'm going to read another

Simpsons history, but I think I probably actually am going to do that.

I will read any TV history book that, like anything, even shows that I didn't care about.

If it's like Desperate Networks, stuff like that.

I'll read any.

It's wild how also little Conan O'Brien was there.

I always forget that he was there for like a season.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

We did it.

I wanted to thank some patrons over at patreon.com/slash the besties.

We have DJ, we have Justin, we have Billy, and we have Blurp.

Thanks, y'all.

Thank you for supporting us.

We have a new episode of Resties that's up.

Thank you, Blurp.

Blurp loves him.

We're begging him to listen.

We talked about Wheelworld this week, which is a really great game.

I highly recommend it.

Did I should have talked about Wheelworld?

You blew it.

Cool.

And next week we're doing a game called Sword of the Sea,

which is a game from the Abzude team.

So I imagine it's going to be like

experiential and weird and cool.

I don't know.

I haven't played it yet.

But Journey, I'm getting excited already.

Just don't make me carry any grapes.

If you like games like Journey, I think it's going to be in that vein.

Okay, I think we did it.

What do you think, G's?

Yeah, man, let's get out of here.

Be sure to join us again next week on the Besties.

Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?

Besties.