Silent Hill 2 is the Psycho (1998) of Video Games

So, there's really, this is not a bit.

Let me just start off by saying this is not a bit.

This is a serious inquiry for the group.

And in my opinion, there's only two right answers to this question, but maybe there's another one.

Okay.

Kirby has shoes.

When you take the shoes off, what is beneath them?

Nothing.

Yeah, they're just attached.

They're floating.

They're not even attached to his body.

They're just shoes.

I mean, it's this is the same.

It's the same as sort of the

Rayman conundrum, right?

Where if you grabbed one of Rayman's hands and started running really, really fast, could you remove it?

Could you remove it?

Or is the hand still Rayman?

Do you know what I mean?

Because they're not attached to it.

Could you remove it?

Like, I always thought it was like a gravitational pull situation.

Right.

And you can overcome gravity.

Right.

If you believe in yourself enough and you're pretty much

the photons are aligned.

Yeah.

If I grab Rayman's hand and take off running and I put it under a chair,

will he call that back?

Like Mjolnir?

Okay, but let me take a step back and say Rayman wears gloves.

So if you were to pull off Rayman's gloves, you would see his

hands.

His hands.

Which probably looks like what Kirby's feet look like.

Does people not remember the Kirby game that was like Conqueror's Bad Fur Day?

The one where it went rough?

People not remember that one?

Kirby's Curly Crimbles?

Where he takes.

Kirby's Curly Crimbles is one of my favorites.

Yeah, and that's the one where he runs a feet-only-only fans.

The whole reason he wears his shoes is he's not going to give it away for free.

That's true.

I mean, he does, and he sells his games, so it's worth considering that as well.

I've never had a free experience with Kirby.

That's not true.

There's two free-to-play Kirby games on the e-shop store right now.

Yeah.

Thank God you're here, Griffin.

I'm just saying.

So it's toes or no?

No, it's weird.

Is it like his hands?

They're like blobs.

No, his feet are actually really detailed and he has toes going around the whole way, like 35, 40 toes.

His toes are like long ribbons that are curls.

Into spirals.

Oh, like he's grown his toenails really long, like he's in the...

But they're his toes.

They're his flat toes, like a tapeworm.

Yeah.

Oh, it should explain why he has kind of a bounciness to his jump.

Yeah, it's a springing kind of toe.

His feet are actually his kids that are attached to his...

When Kirbies reproduce, they create two smaller Kirbys below them and to sort of harden them for the dangers of Planet Popstar,

they will run around on their kids.

Like a pouch.

It's like a pouch, but it's not attached to their body and they put shoes on the kids.

And do the kids eat the larger Kirby once they're big enough?

Once the kids are big enough, the two of them will share and eat the larger Kirby.

Is there a comic?

Hey, do you guys want to do a mind comic with me?

It's a pretty good one.

It's where a bunch of Kirbys are standing around at a funeral for another Kirby, and they're like, Well, who's hungry?

You do?

Yeah, no, you can see it, right?

It's funny.

Have at it.

Have at it, Penny Arcade.

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

My name is Griffin McIntyre and I know the best game of like 2001.

I think my name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week.

My name is Russ Rushka.

I know the best game of the week.

Welcome to the Besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment.

It is a video game club and the only way to join it is just to listen to this show and then you will join join it.

Great.

Great.

This week, we are talking about a new

electronic confection that is actually a remake of an older one called Silent Hill 2.

What could that mean?

Chris?

I mean, you kind of said it.

It's a remake of Silent Hill 2, one of the most famous horror games ever made.

But this time, it's made to look super realistic and made by super fans, Bloober Team.

Hey, all right.

Well, listen, listen, that and so much more contacts coming to you after the break.

If you're a fan of old Silent Hill, if you're not yet new fans, we got room for all of you.

Follow us.

This fucking game, huh?

This fucking game, guys.

Before we talk about Silent Hill 2, I don't want to bring things down, but I do have some important information to share regarding Patreon.

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That's it.

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The end.

That's the scariest thing we'll talk about all day.

All right.

No, not really.

This game's scariest.

What is Silent Hill 2?

Whoa.

Contextualize that for me.

Well, it's not Silent Hill 1.

And I mean that, as in it's not a traditional sequel to Silent Hill 1.

So if you didn't play Silent Hill 1, don't worry.

You're A-O-K.

Nothing is necessary.

Because they're like anthologies, right?

Like they all are set in Silent Hill, but otherwise...

Well, some of them are set inside an apartment.

It's weird, man.

Yes.

Weird franchise.

Silent Hill 2.

Let's start with this story.

A man.

Let's call him Jim.

He comes to Silent Hill.

It's James.

I don't know how familiar you are.

He wants to call him Jim, so let's just call him Jim.

Let's call him Jim.

Jim

is in a bathroom at Silent Hill.

He's looking in the mirror and he's saying, I got a letter from my wife.

And she says, I got to get to Silent Hill.

We have memories here.

What's been going on?

Except his wife has been dead for years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But he's here anyway because he's got to see this through.

Did he check the post dating on the letter?

So maybe it got lost.

and then.

Oh, yes.

I'm going to guess that Jim did.

Jim's, you know, relatively clever.

Pretty smart.

Just kidding.

He may be the dumbest living.

Jim goes up into Silent Hill, and he has many warning signs of people saying, do not go.

Do not go in there.

Woo!

Because there's fucking flesh puppets and there's little death beetles and all that stuff.

It's so fucking foggy.

It's so fucking foggy.

There's no one there.

And Jim's like, that's all well and good, but I I do want to have a quick butcher's because my wife died.

And I think...

No one loves reaching into scary holes more than Jim.

Yeah, Jim.

Where Jim has more

self-preservation.

Jim is maybe the worst.

Remake Jim is maybe the worst video game protagonist I've ever seen.

His terrible bleached blood hair makes me root for pyramid head, a man for the traffic cone for a hair.

Now, did this hit anyone?

Did this remake James?

The the like facial like animation and everything is is uh obviously much better than the play was it playstation 2 original uh he looks like and i imagine this is intentional like a much younger david lynch there is something about i don't know maybe if maybe if i was just kind of projecting that onto him yeah maybe he is definitely a milk-faced man

which is which is uh maybe i was just projecting that because this game is so heavily like lynchian inspired yeah uh if just some some more context i feel like silent hill was the foil to resident evil right it was yeah it was konami's sort of like what if we made a survival horror game but instead of focusing so much on uh you know gameplay mechanics and the sort of uh tentpole stuff of the the survival horror genre of like and also like science is like breast and evil is like a science horror game and this is not this is like a mystical cosmic horror.

There's also, I think, a sense in a Resident Evil where there's an arc of power that is increasing.

And Scient Hill, I think, is much more about creating a consistent level of threat throughout.

So that's interesting because it's not

like as fun to play as a Resident Evil, right?

Like just fully not fun.

But

in Resident Evil games aren't that scary.

They're not.

They can get you with a good jump scare sometimes, but like the tension is not that rough when you have like an infinite ammo rocket launcher in your in your pocket, yeah.

But that happens later.

I mean, look at seven, it's like shit, my pants scary.

Yes, but I do think that Silent Hill 2 is fully designed around like the psychological tricks that it is disempowerment, and all you have is a fucking piece of wood for a lot of the game.

Yeah,

there is also it, the Silent Hill environment, I think, lies to you a lot more than the comparatively concrete world of a Resident Evil game.

That world is not going to be.

Because it doesn't work by physics.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

This game is very like,

it's a bad dream that,

and it is being shaped by this dude.

But things change and dream logic seems to apply in places.

And like, to me, this is what makes this game cool.

And it is what sort of enticed me to play this game.

I played it.

I tried it on Steam Deck first on a train and it doesn't, well, it doesn't run very good on Steam Deck, but also you can't like immerse yourself in it.

You really need to be in a dark room, headphones on.

It's also unsupported, to be fair.

It is unsupported.

No one claimed that it did work on Steam.

Just don't try it on Steam Deck.

I'm saying you need to like.

To enjoy this game, you need to buy into like, I want to get scared by this game.

Because if you do that, it will happen because it is a very scary game.

It is not enjoyable to play.

Well, let's talk about what the actual loop of the game, for people that never played the original, what are we actually doing from a minute-to-minute basis?

I mean, it's not dissimilar from, I mean, it's kind of like the Alan Wake loop.

It's a lot like Alan Wake.

This kept reminding me of Alan Wake 2 specifically.

Yeah, I have comparisons to make.

But I think

you are wandering around Silent Hill, this town, looking for your wife.

There are

moment to moment.

It's very much about exploring the world, finding

the one to three sort of key items that you need to progress past a certain point.

There is a map that is constantly being updated with like points of interest and things like that.

There are monsters throughout that you are kind of encountering.

They're not that hard to avoid, but a lot of the times you're sort of like forced into confrontation with them.

Yeah.

And sometimes running makes sense and sometimes combat makes sense.

And you're not really building like a huge arsenal or anything.

It's more like resources that keep you alive long enough to get to the next thing.

Right.

Yeah.

Um

the the like

yeah, the weird, I guess, consistency of it is like there's a lot of like, I'm going to check the map.

Oh, I need to get to this room because I just found this item, which guides you here and you get to that room and there's a note that maybe gives you a clue or there's a key that can get you through this door.

There's a lot of like backtracking and just finding your way to the next little breadcrumb, if you will.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think the game does a pretty good job of like

helping you find the to follow the critical path.

Because like if you once you get into stuff, it is pretty linear.

It does a great job of if you have found like the area map, James will automatically like mark it

and

circle areas of interest.

It is funny because he's in like the worst situation possible.

He's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on.

Let me get that pen.

And it's great that he does this because

some of the critical path is so fucking silly and convoluted.

We were talking yesterday about there's one puzzle where you need a coin, like a quarter to put in a jukebox to get it going.

But that coin is only in one cash register in a single business.

And you learn about where that business is because someone mentions it in a card.

You also get a coin puzzle after that.

A lot of coins.

A lot of coins.

Justin mentioned this the other day with the cans, the juice cans.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's like, yeah, at one point, one of the puzzles is like

a coin gets stuck in a garbage chute and you have to hoist a box of cans of juice.

And as he hoists it, he like grunts.

That's just because James sucks.

I don't know.

I got kind of hung up on the

remake part of this.

I think that there is.

Did you play the original?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I haven't kept up with it.

My memory is not great, but like, you know, it's definitely feels like a game from that time period.

It feels a lot like those.

I will say that I, I kind of feel like part of a remake at this point, I think there's a more of an expectation on specifically these survival horror remakes that has become its own sort of subgenre, I think, with Resident Evil and Dead Space.

I just feel like there's not much thought put into what makes a game feel modern.

in addition to just making it look modern.

And I think there's a real dissonance in Silent Hill 2 of things that like look like a modern game, but don't feel like a modern game.

And the big one for me is like, as an example, is barricades where

you have a lot of alleys where there's like four or five boxes or like low fence.

And it's like you're bumping into it.

It's like, I can't, I could literally step over.

I, Justin McElroy, could step over this.

Well, you're stronger than James Sunderland.

You are.

You have more.

Everyone is.

Everyone is.

But I think to me, if you're going to make a game look like the problem with making it look like a modern video game is like, I can see there, it's three modern milk crates that I can step right over.

Like, it's just not the, it's not a design conceit that is something we do.

Like, it doesn't feel.

I'll give you, this is a little one, but it's.

After, at a certain point, there's a certain kind of monster where if you die, if he dies, he like arches his back and explodes acid everywhere, right?

And if you're too close to him, the acid will hit you and hurt you, right?

So if you kill a guys, you got to like

step away after you kill him.

But there's this moment for about 10 seconds after you kill him, where if you wander over there, you will also get hurt.

So you just kind of have to wait for a bit.

That's a very 2000, like early 2000s thing, right?

It just isn't given that kind of consideration to make it feel modern for me.

The conversation around this remake has been one of concern because Silent Hill 2, I think it's a hard game to remake because so much of what

makes the horror of the thing work is the kind of constraints and limitations it puts on you.

And so going from this, you know, very canned camera angle tight, claustrophobic,

third-person

perspective to like a modern, I mean, it feels like now like an over-the-shoulder modern Resident Evil game.

Yeah, the original, for people that don't know, was like an isometric, like

tank control.

Certain sequences was like, oh, they're picking the angle, and you have to just like work with it.

And so, like, when you have,

it feels more like a modern, what they have done, Bluber Team, what they have done, who has like a pretty great lineage of, of, uh, like indie horror games, like Layers of Fear.

Uh, I think it is really laudable that they have managed to fundamentally take the kind of like core

foundational interactivity of the game and and change it and make it more I mean

I guess more modern and more pleasant even though it's not that pleasant it still like works in this different way without I think affecting the horror and in fact like takes some things and does them differently to really enhance what makes the game scary but like yeah there there is a lot of very early 2000s stuff in here that the cinematics too are not well directed they're like not in a way that i think is exciting and they go on way too long oh Oh my God.

It doesn't create an air of suspense.

I think the problem for me is this is the most loyal of the remakes.

Yes.

Resident Evil is the other end of the spectrum.

Dead Space is somewhere in the middle.

And this is extremely loyal.

And weirdly, I think this is the one that probably should have been the least.

loyal both in terms of gameplay and also in terms of literally what you're showing and i thought about this a lot i didn't realize that i had actually played a good chunk of this game as a kid

when I started I was like oh wow yeah I have played this one

and I went back and replayed a little bit of it and I watched like side by side of the boss fights because I could not figure out why this didn't work for me and what I came to is

do y'all remember when Gus Van Sant

remade Psycho Psycho yeah yeah that this feels like that where Gus Van Sant was like we're gonna remake psycho but it's gonna to be shot for shot the same.

But now it's in color, I guess, and it has modern surround sound, and it has modern people doing it.

So I guess it's as good or better.

But what it fails to understand is that the limitations of a psycho are what made Psycho

special.

And

I think it's fundamentally misunderstanding what made Silent Hill special versus what made Resident Evil and Dead Space special.

I think Resident Evil and Dead Space, the originals, were good despite the limitations.

But if they had had all this modern technology, they would have benefited from it.

I think Silent Hill 2 was good originally because of the limitations.

Yeah, exactly.

I think the tank controls, I think the like weird visuals, all of that, I think helps.

There was one scene in the side-by-side of the boss comparisons that really stuck with me, which is there's a boss fight sequence where a creature grabs Jim by like the head and then pulls him up through the ceiling.

And in the modern version of it, it's like watching a moment in Alien or Aliens where it's like, okay, he's there, and then whom he gets like sucked up.

You know, I guess that's scary.

In the original version, it's like this thing comes down, pierces him by the neck, drags him across the floor, and then pulls him up like he's like a paralyzed toy and a human claw machine.

And when you see that, it's so weird

that it's just deeply unsettling.

And that weirdness is completely lost here.

Yeah, there's something in the bump up in fidelity that is being lost where it's like, it's a little bit like the lights coming on at the bar, where it's like,

okay, yeah, I can see why you guys wanted so much fuck.

I agree with all of that.

I think

the sound design of this game is

next level great.

Yeah.

I do think that like

talk about the radio real quick?

Yeah, so you have a radio that you get fairly early on in the game, and it just is producing quiet static the whole time.

But as you get closer to a monster, it starts to pick up and create, create static.

That lets you know, like, hey, a monster is nearby, which is great because you spend this whole game either in a dark building or a foggy street.

And it...

It is great, right?

Because at first you're like, this is great.

Cause now I'll know when enemies are near and I will like get ready to fight them.

but then once you start getting to like a cramped building where you can't see so much and there's different types of enemies and there's like thin walls or maybe they're just on the other side of the wall you don't know then all of a sudden now it's like you you were i was slicing the pie like a tactical swat agent uh but also it starts to with you a little bit because then there's monsters that kind of uh hide in the environment they don't set off the radio and sometimes there's these little beetles that scuttle across the ground they set off the radio so you're looking for some big monster that's about to kick your ass, and then you see this little beetle scuttle out, and you're like, Yeah, that radio is not your friend.

That radio acts like your friend.

The radio is not your friend.

But it's like another thing to scare you.

All of that goes around.

Also, just the sound design in general around the game is really genuinely.

This game is very, it scared the shit out of me.

And I think that's kind of what it's got going for it.

I just find that once you do get into like the actual fighting of the monsters,

it was just about fighting the camera for me.

Like, it was so much more about getting angled up the way I wanted to to get the shots.

And then, like, basically, the way you deal with the main guys, like, strafe, let them puke at you as you strafe past, and then bop them a couple of times with that routine.

Uh, and I just felt like I was fighting the camera more than I was fighting the guys a lot.

I do want to suggest something for people that are like on the fence or don't necessarily love horror games.

I mean, this is probably not the game for you, but if you're interested in trying it out, I played it on easy because I kind of thought that if I didn't play it on easy, I wouldn't be able to get through it because I'm very, very

scared of horror games.

And I kind of found that I like that a lot more because even though there was some challenge, I was still fighting guys and there was elements there.

I was a little, I was not as constantly stressed and I was able to like absorb more of the stuff.

So it's there.

It is an option.

You can turn down the difficulty of the combat and also even the puzzles if you find the puzzles to be like annoying.

You ran into that with Alan Wake 2 also, right?

Alan Wake 2, I think

I played on normal, but I know some people played on easy for that.

And that's great.

Like I love

I did, I set the puzzles to easy when I started.

And you can change the combat difficulty at any time, but the puzzles one gets locked in.

And I regretted it immediately when the first puzzle was like, uh, the lady sits under the moon and the snake under the tree.

And then you have to like put these little tokens that have a lady and a snake on it.

You put them in the the holes under the moon in the tree and it's like wow that was a real fucking brain buster.

So listen, if it makes you feel any better, it's not like a much more

thinker on normal

very similar.

I mean, I just think this game is all vibes and the things that I don't come to it for are like combat and puzzle solving.

I don't give a shit.

Guys, I got to say there's something about,

I was pretty on board with this thing.

And then when I was loading up the Steam page to check it out, and and I did see that price tag, I don't normally get into price tags,

but

$70

is like I love the idea of preservation.

I'm deeply into like,

and I think that's why the response to it has been good.

Because if you like Silent Hell 2, this is very much that game.

Yeah, they're gonna see that they're gonna be very happy.

They're gonna be very happy.

It is like a, it feels like a

you know, a gussying up, a museum quality version of that.

$70 for a game that in many ways feels pretty antiquated um is ridiculous i mean it's just like i don't i don't understand that at all yeah it's it's it looks like a modern game but it doesn't feel like one and i think you'd need these this day and age when we look at the resonance

like a modern version of silent hill too but i think it is i think it is folly to act like

the the ways that design have evolved in the past 20 years yeah can be like up-res, right?

Like, we just don't understand games in this.

Well, I mean, some games can be, but it doesn't necessarily justify a $70 price tag.

Like, some games have aged well, is what I'm saying.

Yeah, well, yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's important to keep in mind that, like, a lot of the reason why people have so much fondness for it is because the original came out in 2001, and this style of like a psychological horror game didn't really exist, right?

Like, this was the cool, artsy,

uh, brainy sort of uh cousin of of Resident Evil.

And I mean, this was 2001.

I don't remember when the original Silent Hill came out.

It was a PS1, probably 98, somewhere like that.

Yeah, so like it holds a really special place in a lot of people's hearts because it was so different and so genuinely so, so, so, so scary.

It's kind of like this is the lynch and Resident Evil's the Carpenter.

Like, because there's a lot of,

they're both huge Japanese influences,

both of those directors.

And I do feel like both these franchises have a lot of times been in conversation with their work uh

you mentioned the steam version griffin you played on pc i played on pc for me i don't have the best pc but it ran like pretty badly

uh did okay for it did okay for me

i i i have what was considered a high-end gaming pc about two and a half years ago maybe

uh and it's it works great i'm just getting a lot of jerking around you can you can play it on steam deck if you turn like the resolution down and the graphics down and uh set it to run it.

It looks like Pitfall.

No, it doesn't look like Pitfall, but it does like during cutscenes, it really chunks.

Anytime there's a lot of reflections, it really chunks, which bad news is wet streets.

These streets are wet, gang.

They got wet.

So, yeah.

But again, it's unsupported, so like, whatever.

Your expectations

should not be high.

This is a good corner of the show that I like this new segment, Griffin complaining about unsupported streets.

Dog, this ain't new.

I feel like I complain about the Steam Deck case.

it really does it is such a massive differentiator in like how much of the game I'm going to play I will say this I played on PS5 and didn't have any problems it's great yeah hey before we wrap the section I can we talk a little bit about the story because that is I think the

the selling point of the game and and I people can't see Justin's face right now but maybe they can feel it trying to think

like I'm trying to think about what to say that isn't like it's hard not to spoil it.

That's one thing, which we won't do.

Spoil out of it.

I think it's very of its time.

And I think that's another part where I kind of actually miss the old aesthetic because

I'm very curious for people who are experiencing this for the first time, if it comes off almost edgelordy

in its

how far it goes, where at the time, again, games just weren't dealing with topics of like abuse and grief and sexual violence, where now I think it

might come across as like insensitive to people who are experiencing it for the first time.

Which I guess I'm trying to provide the context here, which is games just were not

dabbling in this space, which I think is why the original is so popular.

Sure.

Because it was a game that was at least trying.

Where now, yeah,

that's, I guess, part of what also feels weird about remaking it is

on every level, it feels like a game of its moment, right?

Yeah,

yeah, I um

the narrative for me doesn't do a whole lot, but I do a part of that is just I think I need more of it, and it's like very lightly doled out, especially towards the beginning of the game.

It's also one where if you know the twist,

then

there's really not much to pull you along.

And I never finished Resident Evil 2, but I feel like I, but I know I know the twist of it because the game came out 23 years ago.

Yeah.

And so, like, I think that does kind of?

What did I?

Oh, I said Resident Evil 2.

Yeah.

There are multiple endings, and we can talk about one, which is that dogs, Shiva Inus, have been controlling the town the whole time.

Yeah, dogs did it.

They've been in a back room with the computer screens controlling everything.

The best ending to you.

I don't know if it's canon, but we're going to say that it is.

Yeah, definitely.

I feel like we are maybe a little down on this one.

It's not a bad game in the same way that for me, Gasman San Psycho is not a bad movie.

It's just a question of like, why would I watch it when I can go back and play the original?

The sad thing here is going back and playing the original Silent Hill 2, good luck.

Really hard to even find.

I think this is a fine way to experience Silent Hill 2 and say that you've like gotten the idea.

I just don't understand from a price perspective how you are.

It just seems correct.

I think this game, looking at it now, I think they're different games, but close enough that I would instantly recommend someone play Allen Wake 2

before playing this because I think they're doing very similar things, but I think Allen Wake 2 is doing something that's much more modern and interesting.

Sure.

than where this game is at right now.

I do realize, though, how much Allen Wake 2 is like totally allan wake the series owes so much to both silent hill and twin peaks as source material so i totally could give it credit but like allan wake 2 has continued obviously to evolve over the years and silent hill kind of hasn't

unless you count pt which yeah i mean that that is and i think that that is a another like

the extent to which the aesthetics of this game kind of inspired other games of the time period cannot really be overstated and like

just people in general like there's still so much cosplay like just from this game it's kind of wild i mean pyramid head is the mascot of this franchise and this game birthed him it's such a shame because i feel like this would be a fine recommendation for like spooky season if you want something to play that is scary that is also kind of like historical this would be great but the but 70 is not a price tag i would is that i would want to pay just to like play a spooky game because there's a fucking lot of those guys.

Yeah.

A lot of those.

Okay, should we take a break?

Let's do it.

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Okay, I pulled some mail, some reader mail for the second segment here, and this first piece of reader mail asks something of Chris Plant, but it's I don't want all of the things that it's asking.

Maybe a shorten version of this.

This comes from Ben.

I thought of this question specifically for Chris, but I'm happy to hear from anyone, including commenters.

This was in the newsletter.

I decided to give Criterion Collection a try to expand my horizons a bit more.

My film watching habits

are definitely more frequent and eclectic than the average movie watcher, but I'm no cinephile.

I've heard of maybe 10% of the movies on Criterion Collection.

Of the ones I've heard of, maybe seen half or less.

Question is, if you recommend a small number, let's say two for Chris Plant, of diverse films on Criterion Collection for someone new or mildly familiar with classic movies.

Diverse films.

Cinema.

What would they be?

How about Fresh, you give an answer first, and then I will give one because I know that you.

I kind of like Something Wild.

I think that's on Criterion Collection with Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith,

kind of a weird Jonathan Demi movie that is pretty approachable.

I think there's a lot of stuff on there that is like, buckle up.

This is going to be like kind of a tough hang.

And that feels like the sort of movie that was like running on Comedy Central in the mid-90s non-stop.

Yeah,

I don't know.

Naming two things from this is like very, very difficult.

Right now, the great thing about the Criterion Collection is they like put everything into

curated chunks.

So, if like right now, there's horror effects.

If you want to watch practical horror movies,

they exist.

Or if you want an entire series on Jallo, which is like Italian thriller horror, you can do that.

So, I don't know.

From those, I would probably grab

a movie called Tenebrae or Deep Red under Jallo.

They're both great.

They're iconic.

They're movies like people will talk about, and then you have something to chat about.

And I don't know.

You're at your next horror movie party.

And then

I watch a movie called Pulse.

It's a Japanese horror film.

They have it in their Japanese horror section.

And it is

honestly a perfect, perfect pairing with Silent Hill 2.

It is

really, really, really upsetting.

And not like so much other Japanese horror that can be like really arch, like Ichi the Killer, which is on here, or audition, uh, or Tetso the Iron Man.

Pulse is like

just really gets you get in your head, you're gonna have bad sleeps for a few weeks.

Um, so I guess that's it, but I don't know, I'll put more in the newsletter because that seems like a better place to answer.

Uh, this

I think plan is faking it, he doesn't actually watch any of this stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah,

it's all dance moms.

I just love below deck.

We have a question.

This comes from Henry.

Griffin has mentioned gaming while on a bike.

I'm wondering what his exact setup is.

Does anyone else do this?

What sort of bike or gaming setup are you using?

I have chronic pain, which means a lot of traditional exercise doesn't work for me.

It sounds like it could be a good option to get regular cardio.

Yeah.

No, it is very good.

There's obviously like lots of options here.

I just got one, the Vansway V-A-N-S-W-E.

They just have like pretty affordable, like magnetic resistance, recumbent bikes that are very comfortable to sit in, but you can work up quite a sweat

doing it.

So I'll just kind of face it towards my TV.

And

what I've really been doing a lot lately is using the Steam Deck dock and then playing with a controller connected with Bluetooth.

So I can just kind of like, when I'm done working out, I can just kind of pick it up and get on the go.

But I find it really, really good.

I've been really losing time playing Metaphor Refundasio on the bike.

I've logged some truly bodacious cardio sessions just because I'll get into a dungeon in that game and then an hour will pass.

But there's so many different kind of like bike options.

I just, some are more comfortable than others.

The Vansui one I have has like a proper chair that you just kind of sit and chill in, which is nice.

Those can be a rough adjustment if you're not used to sitting in bikes regularly.

Right.

There's a there's some soreness you're going to have to adjust to there.

Yeah.

But that's my setup.

I do, I have like an old gaming PC plugged into a TV that I mounted on the wall and that I pointed the bike at.

And

I just play

stuff that like basically just

assisted shooters, like retro stuff, like stuff that is just like pure gameplay, like lose your brain, stuff like Children of Morta or halls of torment a lot of hades too stuff like that a lot of those like road where like a run will last you about a ride only problem with some of those games is sometimes you don't time it out just right or you'll die with like five minutes left in your ride and that's that that hurts that really adds some some stink onto the to the ride to the loss

We have one more question.

This comes

from Will.

Listening to Griffin talk about why Halls of Torment didn't click for him made me think about why it hooked me so much.

I usually have the same issue with games that make your progression trees like a bunch of tiny incremental changes, but Halls of Torment works for me.

I think part of it is that you're really doing

a 100-hour RPG character build over each 30-minute run, which is a really interesting difference between that and other vampire survivors likes.

It's a game that really demonstrates how small numbers add up to big changes, and that's the mental model shift.

Learning how big a deal a 0.15 shift in one skill versus another is to your overall build and strategy.

But I'd also like to say that I've got 40 plus hours in the game, and at this point, I've got way bigger stuff unlocked that leads to more dramatic shifts in how you play.

Sure.

The game just makes you learn the systems and details before it hands over all the tools to totally break them and make some bonkers builds.

So that just came out on mobile, right?

It did.

I've heard mixed things about the mobile version.

The one deal breaker for me on mobile is that it well two things one it doesn't let you carry your save over from steam which is a big one the other big one which is probably even more impactful it does not let you pause a run

like midway and run don't forget

it 30 minutes i mean it's a phone what are you talking about you need to be able to make checkpoints so that's obviously something they need to figure out um but it's five dollars on steam and it's spectacular so there's really not an i will i will check it out at some point i just i don't prefer that small incremental number thing.

I got really into Brotato.

I don't know if you guys ever played that one.

That's a fucking good one.

But that one is very much like you pick your six weapons and then you pick this.

And it's like, this adds plus 100 to your regeneration.

Like it's so clear and you really understand exactly what's happening every time you get stuff.

Yeah.

Hold the tournament does get to that point.

I think it would hook you probably in the first couple hours, but I do understand that there's a little bit of a hill there.

There's also a lot of games like this.

There's a lot of games like this is the other way.

Last thing I want to mention, this is not so much a question as an info dump from Winky.

Heroes of Hammer Watch 2 demo is on Steam as of today for anyone that is interested.

We did an episode on Heroes of Hammer Watch probably three years ago or something, and that game dominated like a large chunk of still one of my favorites.

Yeah.

Really spectacular.

Then they went and made hammer watch 2 which was not very great it's gotten better with updates but it's it i mean i put a hundred hours into heroes of hammer what like i was so into that yeah so i'm i haven't played the demo yet um this uh is a good excuse to definitely jump in and thank you for the heads up i appreciate it we will talk about it next week um we are going to talk about it next week eager to check it out

cool uh that's it for reader mail extended session there any honorable mentions people want to mention

did i talk about about Golden Bachelorette on this show last season?

You have talked about it.

Are there new updates you want to share about Golden Bachelorette?

It's just so good, man.

It's just so good.

One observation that I think really makes it special is in past, in other seasons of this show, when people get removed, when people get kicked off, they don't get a rose at the rose ceremony and they go home.

It's like, whatever, they're going to go home and be attractive and successful and now kind of famous for being on TV.

When the old dads on this show leave, they're so sad because they got to hang out with a bunch of their buddies for such a long time.

And so whenever people get kicked off the show, they always go out in the confessional.

Like, they don't talk about how they're going to miss Joan.

They're like, I'm going to miss, you know, Stinky Doug and old Mike

and like break down in tears.

And older Mike.

And older Mike.

They had such a great time.

And now they're going to go home and be alone.

It is very emotionally resonant television.

Is there an age

limit?

I mean, what's the youngest?

I mean, the youngest is probably like 65 years old.

Okay.

Yeah.

Can they just go all the way up?

I don't think I've played any other games except this and Metaphor, which still been a busy time.

Yep.

Yeah.

My only wreck is the Simpsons Halloween specials.

Going back to them, they're still great.

They still

the one that is.

I always get the mixed up.

Four and five.

Triass of Horror Four and Five are my go-to's.

I want to recommend, God, so many things.

I watched It's What's Inside last night.

It's on Netflix.

You guys know about that one?

Oh, yeah.

Okay, that's a good one.

Go watch it.

Everybody already knows about it.

I don't know what that is.

Okay, good.

Thanks, Russ.

Well,

it is a, I guess, thriller would be more accurate.

It's sort of like a sci-fi thriller.

It feels a little black mirror-y, I guess.

But it is a movie about a inventor that is like a wealthy entrepreneur, tech billionaire who goes back to hang out with a group of friends before someone's wedding.

And he has brought this machine that basically lets people switch bodies.

Oh, right.

I watched the trailer for this.

And they play a party game.

Where everyone switches bodies, then everyone has to try to figure out who's in whose body.

And that's, and things happen actually.

Yeah, that sounds like

it's a really good setup.

Really good.

It's one of those where it is very, it's a little Swiss watchy.

Like you, as you're watching it, you're like, oh, oh, oh, it's all very clockwork, but like it's, it's put together so smart that it really feels, it's very satisfying

to watch.

I saw Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D, which is in theaters right now in 3D.

And I just want to recommend if you can get there and see this movie in 3D at any point in your life, you should go do it.

It was

astounding because you're seeing like the models as they would have looked to see the actual like film being composed.

I found it kind of moving in that way and a little bit transportative because you feel like I know what the process of making this movie, or I mean, I've heard, right?

I wasn't there, but like, I know what like a labor of love and what a painstaking thing this was.

And like to see that like in three dimensions was like so,

so neat seeing another layer of and that but that was

it was done in po it was a post 3d conversion but it is one of the best ones it's so it's fantastic

to watch honestly even if you can't see that seeing that movie the most recent restoration

looks unbelievable like it is similar in that like so much detail you can see at home yes that it's like made by people.

I mean, it's what a movie.

I thought of another recommendation for a thing I haven't talked about on the show a million times, if I may.

I have been watching, while playing with my adult Legos, I have been watching a seminar series that Brandon Sanderson, author of The Mistborn novels and

what, The Way of Kings books, some of my favorite like sci-fi fantasy, mostly fantasy books.

He did this lecture series at, I think, BYU a few years ago.

It's like a 12-part series that just kind of goes over like his sort of fundamental ideas about how to structure plot and character and settings.

And

it is genuinely illuminating and really great.

And it's free.

It's on YouTube.

So like if you enjoy fantasy works or like you are thinking about like, I don't know, writing or improving your writing, this is a free lecture series that you can watch that is I'm, I feel like I am learning a great deal

while also kind of like becoming more familiar with this body of work that I really enjoy.

Does it have a name?

No, if you just search Brandon Sanderson lecture,

you'll find it.

Cool.

Awesome.

Yeah.

It's really cool.

I've been playing hotshots golf open T2 on PSP.

Yeah.

Sometimes I'll do a drive and my son will be in the car and we get to like my house.

And I know that if I park the car and try to get him out of the car, he'll wake up so I have like a gaming device stashed in the glove box and man that is like the perfect situation for that kind of game where you can play for three minutes finish a whole save and be done with it um I it kills me that that franchise is like kind of dormant at the moment.

They do have the developer made this game Easy Come Easy Golf, which is on iOS and Switch.

It's good.

It's not hot shots good, but it's good.

And I would love to see either them or someone else kind of approach that arcade golf franchise in a really, really cool way.

It seems like fertile ground.

But

in the meantime, I've been playing Open T2, which is

Switch game.

It changed its name like eight times, right?

Yeah, it started as Claphands Golf.

And yeah, it's now called Easy Come Easy Golf.

I don't know why, because Clap Hands is the name of the developer.

It's not like they lost the rights to that.

Yeah.

So there must be some backstory on why why they changed the name, but here they are.

Huh?

Okay.

Hey, we did another episode.

We did it.

We did it.

Can't say we didn't do it.

Can't say we didn't do it.

Plant, what did we talk about today?

We talked about it so much.

We talked about Silent Hill 2.

That's what we talked about.

You can get the rest of the games in our newsletter because there's a whole bunch of stuff here.

Hot Shots Golf, Golden Bachelorette, Brandon Simpson lectures.

Got it.

Got it.

Got it.

What is that link to get that newsletter and get a subscription that's probably the better way of doing this at this point isn't it besties.fan look how easy that is

and you can have it come right to your email so you don't even need to worry about it just subscribe that's what i do um we also have the patreon at patreon.com slash the besties just a reminder the stuff i talked about at the top of the show if you're gonna subscribe the stress-free way to do it just do it on a browser if you're already subscribed either through ios or whatever you don't don't have to worry about it the price is not going to increase for you so business over what are we doing next week oh steam next fest is here again and we are going to talk about all our favorite finds within that and there's some very cool stuff that we're looking forward to sharing with you if you guys at home i'm not talking about you guys on the podcast but you guys at home listening

Play anything that you think is super cool, please drop it in the comments and let the people know.

And we'll call out some of them on next week's episode because I feel like it's so easy these days to miss some dope-ass shit.

So please share that dope-ass shit.

Like Alone in the Dark,

for example, just as an example of one thing you might have missed.

Yeah.

Hey, we're going to check out all that, and we'll be back to talk with you about that next week.

So be sure to join us again next time for the besties.

Because should the world's best friends pick the world's best games?

Besties