The Highs and Lows of Borderlands 4

I feel like copies of Borderlands 4

represent to me the it's such an autumnal game, isn't it?

It's an extraordinarily autumnal.

When I play it, the game should come with a slice of banana bread and a pot of chili and

just a whole pumpkin.

It should come served in a whole pumpkin, cornucopia style.

So spirited has it gotten me for the autumn season.

Why are you fucking laughing at me, Chris?

Don't act like you don't agree with this association that Borderlands playing Borderlands.

It should come with a Madden demo disc because it's fall now, baby.

What about supporting this?

You guys are leaving me out to absolutely dry.

No, no, no.

I'm trying to figure out, is it because it's association with magic?

Like, what is what about it?

Color palette.

The color palette of Borderlands is extraordinarily fall-like.

The foliage in this game is crisp and gorgeous.

Okay, I'm starting to, I think I'm starting to see the problem here.

What's that?

So when you play the game, does it open with the words costume quest?

Yes.

Got it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So John loading costumes.

You probably have caught on, too, that Griffin just.

I will say that in, I feel like in the Borderlands 4 discussion today, I'm going to be carrying the bulk of that if Griffin has been playing the 2013 release Costume Quest.

The writing was funny.

And so I I assumed it was Borderlands.

And it kept being like, cheese, bacon.

And you were like, bacon, cheese, yeah.

And that just

absolutely tears me up.

Sorry.

Okay, Chris.

Yeah.

You are thinking now of Death Spank by Ron.

Sorry, that's what I played this week.

Wait, what did you play, Juice?

What?

I played Costume Quest.

He played Death Spank.

What did you play this week?

Go.

I

learned the art

of Go.

I thought you were starting the podcast in the weirdest, weirdest way possible.

In a way,

I was.

Interesting.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know,

I think we do need fresh.

I think we actually do need his LA.

His museum of horror that he brings.

Hope he doesn't listen.

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

My name is Griffin McEwah.

I know the best game of the week.

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

I miss him so much.

He's gone, but not forgotten, because he's not gone.

He'll be back next week.

I'm sure he had a pressing business to attend to.

But you got the three of us, and we're going to tell you about some of the latest and greatest in video gaming.

It's a grab bag.

Chris Plant, why have we done this?

There's just too many games.

There's too many games for us to talk about.

And we're about to get too many more games.

So we need to clear out the backlog.

We need to grab the bag.

Here we go.

Grab the bag.

Even when Frush isn't here, he put the rundown of what we should do in, like, look behind us, see where there was one pair of footprints.

That's where Russ was carrying us, even when he wasn't here.

A lot of people think Russ couldn't pick up all three of us boys and carry us at the same time, but he's actually pretty ripped up.

It's kind of like an ant, you know, where the legs look spindly, but they're actually very, very powerful.

Yeah.

Oh, you know what?

Now that I'm looking at this, Russ did want us to briefly mention that there is a new $10 Patreon tier.

If you are signed up for our Patreon and you'd like to get an ad-free experience, well, we are going to be offering that to you

on our Patreon.

So if that's something that you have wanted, you could head on over to patreon.com slash the besties.

And Russ left us one other housekeeping note, which is he was so excited to talk about abiotic factor, but he's not here.

So we're going to talk about that on Resties

next Tuesday.

But we have so many other games to talk about.

How is it?

Is it dope?

Should I check it out?

Yeah.

Griffin, it is intense.

It seems like my shit, it seems like it's going to absolutely devour my

time.

And I don't have any of that right now.

What if you had a game that felt pretty much exactly like Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and then also had all the addictive hooks of every survival game?

Absolutely brutal.

Please don't do this for me.

Please don't do this.

Please let me go.

We have to have a commercial break, guys.

I'm freaking out.

Please, we have to have a place for a break.

Go.

So I thought, listen, listen I have my whole presentation about the current state of Android handheld gaming ready that I called libs on for the B segment this week So I'm gonna move Mr.

Hathead up back in exactly perfect and we'll do all that half head, but sure

whatever hey, what was that?

Okay

When I first read Henry Halfhead, it triggered a memory of a game that is not has like hat in the title like that, but it's like one of those like

2D mystery, like very whimsical.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Is it black and white?

You're not thinking about it.

Is that what it's hat shop, maybe?

Hat and time.

Hat and time something.

No, it's like a hat shop.

Or like the guy from Willoughby hats.

Time jumping hats.

Yes.

Something, something hat box.

Mr.

William Jump.

Hatbox, something hat box.

Hat box.

Mr.

Sun's hat box.

Mr.

Sun's hat box.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Good.

I'm glad that we did that.

He's up in the show.

That is exactly what I was thinking of.

God, that's oh, okay, great.

That game's fun.

Hey, Hoops, you have been playing some Borderlands 4 and some Destiny.

Now, I'll be honest, I'm curious about one of these, but I'm not going to tell you which.

Interesting.

I have also been playing Borderlands 4.

That is the game that I let's start with that one.

I think that's a good media one.

Let's start with Borderlands 4.

How is Borderlands 4?

Hey, listen.

Okay, I'm going to tell you.

Here's what I'll say.

I texted Griffin last night, and I think it was like 10.30, and I was sitting

on my shaze, sitting on my shaze with my laptop in front of me.

I texted Griffin, I said, I don't know, man, I think this is kind of fun.

Yeah.

Like, we were both playing Borderlands, and I texted him.

I was like, I don't know, man.

I think, I think Borderlands 4 is kind of fun.

You got to the heart of the matter so quickly.

And that is something that only decades in this industry can provide.

It's kind of fun.

It's kind of fun, right?

You're doing the same.

If I have this right, I'm checking my notes here.

You go around various spaces shooting and looting, collecting what could be countless guns, billions.

And then people say kind of like naughty, funny things.

Is that still

a thing?

So no.

They don't do as much naughty, irreverent South Park style humor.

And I fucking appreciate that.

Yeah.

That's the good part.

That is the thing that that's the headline for me is like the head, the writing doesn't make me want to die.

It doesn't always hit because, like, obviously, a game has about a hundred times more jokes than any other media could ever need to have, right?

And they need to land at weird times.

Comedy in games is really, really hard.

So it doesn't always hit.

But I will say it is not trying

so hard

to a point where you want to claw your own eyes out.

That is what it is.

The writing and story are super duper inoffensive.

And usually that's like a

strictly a negative commentary on a thing, but it's way better than it, like just constantly joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, right?

Like open up the fire hose and never ever shut it off and feeling so exhausting.

This game doesn't really do that.

It doesn't do much in the writing department, but it does not make me want to.

It doesn't, it's not cringe-worthy.

It's more kind of like silly.

Like it's kind of silly and just sort of like my...

I'll give you, let me give you an example.

There is one,

and I'm going to be very general about this because like, who cares?

But there is one mission that terminates with you finding a experiment gone awry.

And it is basically an experiment where they have.

rigged the heads of one of the large beasts that are roaming the area, rigged it into machines and given it the ability to speak.

So the end of this quest is you finding this sentient, like speaking animal.

And you are immediately like disgusted by it.

And the creature's like, ah, I can see my appearance has distressed you.

This is understandable.

And the gag is like, he is like an extremely wise, gross animal head hooked into a machine.

But it's like, it's silly and it's fun.

And it's like.

It's a one-off goof.

And you move on.

And it doesn't feel like it needs to rub it in your face.

And it doesn't need to walk you to a big gag or something.

And crucially, it's not just a reference to an internet meme that that was cool two years ago yes so uh our buddy Tom Francis who made gunpoint and tactical preach wizards game we love

person who writes really funny games a point that he's made about writing funny games is if you can make it also just serve as even the smallest amount of like either plot or character development and you can make it where you're just kind of acknowledging what is happening in the world because games are deeply silly worst case scenario people don't laugh still served a purpose and you move on And it sounds like the thing that you just described sounds so in that zone.

This makes me curious.

I want to be careful because I don't think the writing is that good.

Like, there's a lot of, and I think that it's some of it stems from the issue of like, there's four playable characters, and they each have their own, you know.

Who did you choose out of curiosity or government?

I bounced through a few.

I ended up on Vex.

Vex was

sort of significant.

I knew it.

We always do that.

I like the summoner sort of like type stuff.

When there's four possible responses to most of the stuff that NPCs say, it's going to be hard to make all of that hit and make sense with the canned.

Sometimes you get custom responses based on what characters you're playing, but it feels like you're storming through the same dialogue

with four different voices, four different lines of dialogue.

And I don't know.

I think it's hard to make that feel like really, really, really, really strong.

It's not really, it's a solid double, though, and it is not gonna, like,

it's not gonna get in the way of you enjoying it.

Yeah, for sure.

It's the headline for me.

To talk about mechanics a little bit,

the four like Vault Hunters obviously are different, like, like every time.

Uh, just I will talk about it to Vex because that was, she was the only one I played, but uh, uh, her sort of main ability, I guess you could say, is uh summoning a duplicate of herself.

What's cool is after you choose the summoning, you can uh decide on the fly if it's going to be a melee focused clone of you or a which is more mobile or a gun focused clone of you which is more stationary so it's basically like you're choosing a turret you or like a tank combat tanky you

that you are on the fly and you can summon like a few of them into the fight at once so you are kind of like and their damage type will mirror whatever damage type you have equipped which is really really that's the only build i have used each each character like in past games has like three different abilities that you can equip, and that is the one of Vexes that I have really, really enjoyed.

But I also tried

Rafa, who is like the speedy mech type guy.

He can pop up these auto-turrets on his back, which is not really the type of archetype I usually go for.

And Harlow, who throws these big, like, gravity bombs, who I actually really liked.

I just found the game to be a lot more.

I had trouble with multiplayer, and so I was mostly playing it single-player.

And I like a pet pet class for that.

Yeah, I I mean, that's did either of you get to play any co-op together or is the multiplayer?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it feels like that is the great equalizer for this game where like the writing doesn't need to be totally perfect because the dream scenario is that you're just playing with other people and just grinding and getting more guns, right?

Yeah, I think.

Well, I mean, that's not how I would typically play one of the.

I mean, like, what are you saying?

The dream scenario, I think, is always that, right?

Like, for any co-op game, it's like that, that would be the ideal.

Um, I think that it's pretty chatty.

I mean, like, if it doesn't, if it doesn't intend for you to listen, that there is a lot of like in-your-ear dialogue and that kind of thing.

Like, it's it's still a lot of writing in that, in that regard.

Uh, I was just gonna ask, like, I've played so much Destiny and Destiny 2, and like, Borderlands is never something that I've really particularly stuck with.

But

it's never really hooked for me because I find the process of building the character to be a little bit more

a little simplified, I guess.

Like you're only picking the one ability and then you're kind of going down those trees.

This was the first game where I kind of appreciated that because it felt like as you chose your skills or whatever, they were usually a little bit,

you know, build, more build-defining.

Like stuff like if you kill an enemy, if you pick this tree, it'll make your skill, you know, recharge that much faster or make your fire rate that much better but it's like substantial enough upgrades that it feels like pretty pretty good it is also interestingly what i doug is that at least with the system that i was we were using like

um it was working in concert with the gunplay rather than like in opposition to it or you know as an alternative to it it was more supportive rather than like i'm chucking lightning bolts because that to me if i know that i can shoot lightning bolts constantly the guns don't constantly then like then i don't care about guns anymore right like these are like a little bit more supportive that that's my question is i always assumed and again i i got into these with borderlands one and two not really three much at all the guns are the build like there's so many guns that you want to be focusing on like what you're using in your weapons at any time do the gun like do they feel different what what is special about them i would not say the guns are the Bill like at least for me i felt like i was going through them so fast yeah that it was not really like building around I think end game that becomes more of a thing like you find a legendary that will like keep you for a while as opposed to like oh, I'm level 14 now I got to get rid of my level 13 gun because it's not doing as much Interesting

It is really fun or at least I thought it was a lot of fun to

just kind of cycling through guns to me.

I thought was kind of a joy like when you see a gun

You see every all the information about it you could need including like in world

you see how it is better or worse than your currently equipped item and you can with a different button press on the fly equip it directly to yourself uh store it or send it directly to junk so like looking at it in the world you can see oh this is better with the one i have and like instantly put it on yeah and cycling through that and then to me

I didn't know what was going to happen when I pulled the trigger half the time.

And that was really fun.

Like I, I would pull it, I would start pulling the trigger and and just start shooting tiny bombs it's like whoa what is this yeah and i would do that until i kind of got bored of it and then i'd switch to something else and it would be a gun where like when when you reload you throw it and it becomes a grenade so every time you reload you're throwing a grenade and you can shoot it mid-air shoot the gun that you just

reloaded and that'll explode bigger for more damage like all the guns are like not every gun has that level of silliness but it is like but you get to learn i was not planning on what i was gonna do i would just start firing

You get to learn like what the different brands of gun

feel like and what their kind of like properties are.

What type of like architecture?

Like there's one where they're all like charging.

You can charge them up and fire multiple bolts at the same time.

So when you see one of those, you kind of start to say like, oh, okay, so this is the one that's kind of more like the

halo energy pistol or whatever.

I think the gunplay is genuinely very, very fun.

I am having a better time with this game than I thought I would.

There is a lot of structural problems.

Like not even talking about performance, which

has been pretty bad for me.

What have you mostly been playing it on, Juice?

So I did not use it.

I used

my laptop.

This is the only thing I played it on.

I installed it on.

Well, no, no, sorry.

I use it on my desktop BC2, which are both pretty beefy.

you know, in terms of like gaming.

I didn't I didn't

my setup was pretty good like three or four years ago.

So I guess maybe this is the sign of the times, but

it does not run very well.

And I can get it to go at 30 on the Raw Ally with like everything turned off, every single setting turned off and with frame gen having to be on,

which is not ideal.

It is, I do feel like games these days are good, like they really should, in an era where it feels like they should be getting better at that kind of low-end optimization.

Doom, the Dark Ages was a really good example of this this, too, where, like, rather than it get better, they're actually getting worse.

Like, way, way considerably worse.

We've seen issues with this new Unreal Engine that, like, games can be really stuttery and that they're having tough launches.

Also, Borderlands has a history with tough launches.

Like, I'm curious what this game looks like in a month once it's been cleaned up a bit.

Can you talk about the structural?

Like, what?

Because I think you're probably a little bit further than me.

This is my big sort of complaint:

it is a more open world structure uh it is less like going off

narrative table setting you basically clap trap uh there's a there's a really bad guy called the timekeeper timekeeper yeah timekeeper

and uh timekeeper and he uh uh there's a resistance against him that's led by claptrap and claptrap basically bails in the resistance as soon as he recruits you into it and now you are the one who is leading this like right resistance against the bad guy and and so like

so go around and gather gather a coalition right you're coalition building and and at certain sort of junctions, you have like a choice of where you want to go in the world and like which of these, you know, three big bosses you want to try and take down first.

I like the setup, by the way, structurally, that is a setup for me that works for a big open world thing.

I enjoy that as a narrative structure, but

I like.

Yes, I truly, truly do not like the open world of this game.

I really, really, it is not like a, you know, hub system.

There's fast travel.

The unlocking fast travel points is kind of annoying because you'll come to a base and it'll be like, you got to get to the computer at this base and you'll unlock it as a fast travel point.

But sometimes the thing you need, like the computer terminals not there yet because you haven't gotten far enough in the story.

Like that happened to me a couple different times.

The like nav, like auto nav beacon thing that you can activate, like we'll show you the path you can go on.

But it didn't always, it worked like half the time for some reason.

And there's also like you have a grappling hook, you have a double jump with like a glide boost, and like it feels pretty good to move around the world, except like you will reach a point where it wants you to wind up this mountain path to get to the, to get to the next thing.

When it's like, you've given me a hover bike and a grappling hook and a booster jet.

And it's like, oh, this wall is just a little too high to mantle over.

Yeah, man.

It's like.

It feels pretty good.

So the glide jump is like super early on.

And the way that they handle that is like, if you're elevated at all you can do a pretty good speedy jump forward right so it's kind of like a hover float forward uh i'm assuming that you get better distance and speed on that as you go in in the game but like they don't get so that like lateral movement in that sense feels good they don't have good tools at least i have not found any to the point i am where like upward movement feels good you know what i mean so you'll often see like Crossing a hundred yards is not a big deal, but if you see something that's like 10 yards high, it feels like

all the way over there to go up this one rampage.

In a way that really insane.

It feels like the movement, it really breaks the like the flow because you're like, well, I need to go find a high point to get to to get around.

I was going through a base.

I was going through this base, like trying to find these supplies that have been stolen by the order, and I missed one at some point.

And

this situation is such a pain in the ass to like find the little mission objective things you have to to pick up while you're in a big area because it just kind of sucks at telegraphing that stuff.

Like, and that's not complaining because I can't figure something out.

It's complaining that, like, this little PDA that you had sitting on this one terminal on the fourth floor of this thing.

And so you end up on the ground floor because you pass the thing.

And it's like, if I want to go back up there and get that, I'm going to have to run all the way through this wonderful maze that they've created instead of using my actual grappling hook that they give me at the first two minutes of the game to go wherever I want with it.

It's, it's just such a chore, and it really makes me miss the more siloed off, like, just let me play this level.

Let me go after this, this, this one boss and this self-contained thing.

I, I, I, I feel like that stuff has gone to the game's great detriment.

Griff, I think that you, I'm hit, I'm thinking about something now, and I feel like they,

where they kind of stumbled is the times where they've tried to incorporate the more open world into the mission design.

Like, I'll give you another example, and this is very early on, too.

I had a mission to go find an egg, like an exquisite egg.

That's what it was.

And it was like a good three-minute walk from my home base, the quest giver.

And

I go like a three-minute walk out, and I find the egg, and that pops up in my HUD.

I kill the guys around it, and I have to grapple the egg to pick it up.

And then I'm like holding it, and it's giving me the option to like throw it.

I'm like, it's a held object, right?

And then the quest

not at that point tell me where I need to go next.

It doesn't like update my map, but I do know I need to take this back to the quest giver, right?

So I fast travel back and then

I'm no longer holding this egg.

And like, no one, there was no mention of this.

There was no like, carry that back to me and don't, like, nothing like that.

It's just like, oh, you wanted me to, you really just wanted me to walk with this egg, huh?

You know, who would have never let that happen?

Hideo Kajima.

He would have said, we will have four good cutscenes that talk about why

Timothy Shadow

will try to fast travel with the egg.

Thank you, Living Dead Man.

So much of it is just so, so poorly executed, and it sucks because there's so much about Borderlands that I, I don't know, that I think characterizes the franchise in a good way that is here.

And

I have had a lot of fun in the moments where it's gotten out of its way and just let me like run around a battlefield, dropping little ghosts all around and blasting people with with fun guns.

But then as soon as it's like, all right, make your way back to this guy, but the

fast travel's broken, so you're going to have to ride your bike through nothing for five minutes.

It's like, man, I don't know.

That's where the co-op for me comes in of like.

A little easier to stomach when you're just hanging out and talking with friends.

Yeah, for sure.

I'm not excusing it.

I'm just saying, like, I feel like that is how it has gotten by.

It frustrates me because I've never really, one of these games has never gotten its hooks in me and i i feel like there's always like something really really fun and great and pure and good at the heart of the thing that it is kind of uh tarnished a bit by the stuff surrounding it so it's frustrating i am very curious to play this i'm going to download this not while we're recording but afterwards for my internet speed um i also want to i i usually don't do this but i i should issue a correction on something uh justin said he said that uh it was living dead man who does the fast travel.

And we actually know that it is Egg Travel Man who is fast traveling.

Thank you.

So I just want to make sure that we got it right.

I saw the corrections department hand you the letter.

I thought that was so smooth and seamless.

People think that that's a waste of money, the five people that I have full-time living in my house.

Yes, because people say you guys are never, ever wrong about anything fucking ever.

And it's like, yeah, guys, thank you.

That's why.

Y'all want to do just a kind of a short catch-me-up on what's going on with with Destiny, and then I'll tell you about Henry Halfhead.

How about we take a quick break and then we can talk about that?

Okay.

When you say we're going to talk about the state of Destiny, we should make it clear that you're not saying Destiny 2 because I have, despite the fact that I still have so many people in that community who are like, this is the patch.

This is the patch, baby.

We're ready.

No, Chris Plant, we're talking about Destiny rising.

A discreet

video game.

Destiny rising, and I'm definitely

Googling it right now.

Don't do it, don't do it.

Why would you Google it?

I'm right here.

I'm going to tell you about it.

It's the whole conceited list about it.

Destiny Rising is the first mobile destiny game

on Android.

Okay.

You can play it.

You're fucking crushing so far, dude.

It is

just like Destiny.

You get guns, you shoot bad guys who who are the flood.

You know.

Okay.

Basically.

You know, basically the flood.

You are having a destiny experience that looks like destiny.

It looks great, actually.

I played it on a tablet

with a...

Well, hold on one second because it will color this a little bit.

While Hoops is doing that, Griffin, honest question, is it fucking insane that I have not heard about this?

Is that weird?

I don't think it's that weird.

No, I mean, if you're not, uh, I certainly haven't seen it plastered

all over

the community as much as like a, you know, Diablo when that first launched.

Okay.

Okay.

I have only heard about it when I like see, when I check in on Destiny 2 with some of my content creators who I followed when I was playing the game and wanted to, who will be like, here's what's new in this update.

I've only sort of seen them talk about it specifically in terms of like, hey, player base of this game is to some extent migrating over to Destiny Rising, and they do not have a great solution for that.

Interesting.

Okay, okay, okay.

Yeah.

That is the left.

I mean, that is the, the, the, uh, amount of, the extent to which they have captured the feel of Destiny is like, it, it feels like playing destiny.

I mean, like, I, I, I don't know.

I was playing on a tablet with a, the game sur G8 Plus, one of their, like, retractable doodad kind of guys.

You know what I mean?

So it's like a full-size controller on a nine-inch tablet.

There's your like your login bonuses.

But you once you're in and you're playing, it feels like destiny.

It feels like a destiny game.

Like the, it looks indistinguishable.

There's a hundred.

It was not made by

no, it was made by net ease.

Okay.

And that's kind of that's kind of the second half of the story.

There's a little destiny.

Gotcha.

Gotcha, Element.

If you boot it up, and you play it, you are going to say, this feels a lot like Destiny.

And then you're going to notice that your character has a name,

and then you will start to you realize that, like, not all the weapons are accessible to all the characters.

And then you encounter like other characters, and then they let you play as those characters, and you're like, Well, this is kind of cool, it's a whole different character.

And it's rather than you building a like your guardian that is your character, you are finding guardians that have a discrete ability set and a weapon set that that is specific to them.

Interesting.

Okay.

Okay, so the first one is Wolf, and that's kind of the character you like create.

And then you meet other characters, and there are some missions that you have to do as Wolf narratively, and then there are other missions that you don't have to play as Wolf.

You can play as these other characters.

Is it like an Iron Wolves sort of situation or

unrelated wolf?

I

okay, never mind.

I don't know.

That one guy, there's people that that

Cora Ray is in it, um, and but it's she's younger, so I think it's like earlier in Destiny Rising, it's like earlier in the, in the timeline, she's one of the collectible characters, like you can get her basically

collect her.

When you say collect her, is it through a is it through a gotcha sort of draw

machine?

This is where, this is where

for me, it's all starting to be a match.

I kind of hit a wall, yeah, yeah.

So, when you start playing Destiny Rising, it, it will, it very much is like, it feels like a Destiny game on

a portable setup.

And that's very cool.

The big challenge with that is, and this is kind of immutable, but

the Destiny experience, if I don't feel like it's necessarily maps great to like the impulse gaming of like, I have two minutes and I'm just going to game, right?

Because

I, you know, there, first of all, you got to have online access.

Second of all, like you get, there's a login procedure, and then, like, what mission was I doing?

So, like, you know, whether or not that you have like a setup where, you know, you're going to be in front of an Andrew.

The idea of sitting for five hours on a Saturday night with a group of like five Welsh strangers who've been best friends their whole life and like cranking through last wish is it seems tough to imagine in that format.

So that is kind of immutable.

The other thing is

the thing with the characters and stuff, that is going to be,

I mean, for me, the thing that bumped with Destiny and the reason that I lost track of destiny, really, is anytime I tried to go back,

I would be so

stuck trying to remember all the different currency and the systems of value and like, what is this worth?

What is that worth?

What quest was I, whatever.

And I feel like

to me, when I got hit with those first few walls of like gotcha garbage, I mean, to me, that's what it feels like.

If you're into gotcha games, it is probably a lot more parsable to you.

But I sent a screenshot to like, I showed Griffin a screenshot and both him and Travis were like, whoa, like it stings the eyes, the amount of like,

so now we've gone from a system where like they are

kind of like intentionally maybe obfuscating those value systems because they don't want you to know or be thinking about how much things they're costing.

So it's like to me more of the stuff that alienated about death shape there's like more

stuff to keep track of like that more timers more everything's glowing everything's glittering you know it's that casino aesthetic that so many gotcha games have of like push this they want you hit this it's not even parsable really like what you can and can't have access to right then, right?

Because they want the distinction between doing it for free and doing it for money to be so faint, you know, that they don't notice that you're

this is becoming more and more the norm in free-to-play games.

I feel like every time I hop into one of these, it's great for me as somebody who's very fine playing a game for 10 or 20 hours and feeling like I got my money's worth

because increasingly they will let you have that window entirely and get you hooked in and then be like, oh, now here's the real, the real but it's that seems so weird to me because everything in that market has, it feels like funneled into the same exact business model for all of these like free-to-play games, regardless of like scale or genre or whatever.

And once one of those, once you see the shape of one of those, because it got you fucking good, I feel like it really stops you from ever, as soon as you see it, you know to recognize it.

And you're like, mine was, so like, Zenless Zone Zero was my, my big awakening for that, where I was like, holy shit, this game's incredible.

How did they make this a free game?

And then after, I think it was like the 15th hour, I was like, oh, that's how.

because yeah once you are fully committed yeah

yeah

yeah are you gonna keep playing

i i can't i i

it's just that those systems to me are not to me

it's about like what is in like what is a fixed resource for you and like I don't have the time to learn those systems.

Like, I just would rather play.

I don't really have the time to engage with that level of like,

I already feel like RNG was kind of the most frustrating aspect of Destiny in a lot of ways for me, at least.

I like the parts that were methodical.

I like the parts that were challenging, but I never really like the parts that were random.

And this feels like a lot more of that and a lot more like demanding of your time to keep up with all the different, you know, it feels like I, I don't know.

I feel like I went through the arc with this game that I went through with Marvel Snap, but Marvel Snap took me several months and this took a few hours, you know, where it was like, oh, God, I'm over.

This is too much.

I can't keep track of this anymore.

Like, it's too much for me.

And this got there like so quick.

I got some great news for you, which is if you are just craving another Net Ease game, they publish a lot of games like this, but every once in a while, they publish a game that you can just buy and play.

And earlier this year, they released a game called Rusty Rabbit.

And I would like to read the synopsis to you from Wikipedia.

Please.

The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have long abandoned Earth, leaving it to rabbits who have developed a civilization where the books of Peter Rabbit are seen as holy.

And you play as a rabbit who is a badass and wears a sick jacket and basically is Mr.

Driller.

Yeah, all right.

Heck yeah.

Video games are back.

In a big way.

Griffin, you have any other thoughts on Destiny before I tell you about Henry Halfhead?

I mean, I didn't play Destiny Rising.

I watched Jason play it.

And I would also say that I think the fact that this is only on Android right now is probably limiting the conversation.

Yeah.

yeah i will say though if you have if you're someone who has gotten one of those android you know gaming handhelds this is a great app there you know there's not a ton of stuff on android this is a great application of that sure that that overabundance of hardware that you have uh i want to hear about henry half head please cool henry half head is uh also a co-op video game that i played solo but unlike borderlands and destiny it is a novella of a video game it is two hours like tops uh, and knows exactly what it wants to be, down to the title.

You are Henry, and you are half of a head, specifically the top half of it, from the tippy top down to the nose, and then it just ends.

That's all of the head.

And the game is.

What do you really need, man?

I've always said the rest of head is just sort of superfluous.

I think that's true if like the entire bottom of head below nose could be also mouth.

Because I would hate to have that.

Yeah, sure.

Mouth does.

Yeah.

You know where I can just kind of like lay on top of things and just suck them up like a little

kissing the ground all the time.

That's gross, man.

It's gross.

Along with being a top of the head, Henry also has basically the Mario Odyssey power to zip into every object.

Effectively every object in the world.

So it could be like, you want to hop into a chair?

Sure, you can go for it.

You want to zip into a color pencil that's laying around?

Do that.

You can even doodle on the ground.

You can hop on a match.

And then you can light a candle that you could also hop into.

Or there are like puzzle pieces maybe lying around.

You could hop into them and put them together.

There is no like point system,

though you unlock like hats because you're, you know, that's about as much as you want to wear.

And then the motivation is the story, which is, I feel bad saying this because the person is either British or Australian, but has kind of that like beginner's guide sort of thing where it's like, we're going to narrate a story while you kind of like screw around in this space.

And the story is just the story of an entire life.

So you start as a baby, and you are in, it's kind of to really sound like an asshole.

It's like a Brechtian set.

There's no actual world that you're in.

It's just kind of like a big white space.

And then you know what rooms you're in by the props and furniture that are in it.

So you awake in a

cradle and there are like baby toys on the ground, and you solve these kind of like very, very, very simple physics puzzles in that space, like connect the puzzle pieces, right?

Climb to the top of a

clothes drawer.

And then, once you do that, poof, a door appears in the middle of this empty space, and beyond that door is also new furniture that conveys a new room.

So, maybe it's a kitchen, or maybe it is your parents' bedroom.

And each time you go into these new spaces, you solve a few more physics-based puzzles.

You get a little bit more narration about Henry.

And your character also gets older each time.

So you are going from like basically cradle to older, older, without getting into too much spoiling.

It is unbelievably simple to the point that at first I was like, oh, this is a game for babies.

Not like as a pejorative, like quite literally, this is a game where you, I could play it with a very young child and we could learn about

objects, basically.

Like, wow, this is a candle, and we get to play, and here's what it's like to draw around the room, and here are these little safe spaces where you can learn about all these different, very simple objects and

play with them.

But that's not the case.

I mean, you can and definitely should play it with a little kid, I think.

But where the story goes ends up being much more adult.

And the idea.

Wait, is an adult where, like, okay, so yeah, what's Henry doing?

Thank goodness you're here.

Thank goodness you're here looks like a game for babies, and then they throw a secret peen in there when you are in no way ready for it.

There's full peen in that game, and it is not for babies.

So, is there full peen in Henry?

No, it's not.

Does that game Henry have had full don?

No, no, no, no, no, no, there's not, there's not, I didn't unlock a secret full dong, um, uh, but that could, you know, that could come at any point.

Um,

um, Um,

they're just peeing, and I'm just saying, in finisher here, they just have a peeing and says, No, no, no, no, no, no, I get it.

It's not adult in that way.

It's more adult-like,

uh, at first, the narration is like, Henry got out of his bed and he played with his toys.

And then later, it's like, Henry is at work and it's extremely boring, and he has no sense of self-worth.

And you're like, oh, Jesus.

Okay, now I see.

Now I see.

Now I'm playing adult-themed.

Adult-themed, yes.

It is a game I wish I had played co-op for that reason because, again, it is so simple that I think the pleasure is discovering what all the little objects do.

And if you can do that with a friend, it's like, whoa, I can take control of this.

Look at what the hell I'm doing.

What is co-op?

Yeah, what's it look like?

Co-op is the exact same.

There are now two Henry half-heads, and you're playing the exact same game.

The narration is still playing over it.

It's just two people solving the little physics puzzles at the same time.

But again, because the game is almost entirely about discovery of what happens when you control these different objects, I think that's more that's more pleasurable if you have someone to share it.

So at one point you can you find a cake relatively early on.

And it's like, oh, I can embody the cake.

Cool.

Oh, when I hop the cake off of the platter and throw it on the floor, it creates a chocolate stain anywhere it goes.

Oh, that's a cool, nice surprise.

Oh, if I embody the

kitchen knife and I swing at the cake, I can chop it into individual pieces.

Oh, now I can embody those pieces and I can eat the pieces.

Okay.

Is any of that actually doing anything towards a greater goal?

Absolutely not.

Is it like fun little surprises all the way down?

For sure.

Which again, I think is just more fun with another person yeah for sure alone i was like oh that's cute i kept i kind of kept you know that uh the knowing laugh you're like uh-huh huh huh i was like that the whole way through um i like that cute laugh chris thank you thank you um

it's good i i i like it i think there's a sort of

How do I say that?

I truly do not mean this in as negative a way as it will sound.

There's a person who likes those co-op games that we don't like,

where they have stories that are like, you have like some mild existential awareness by the end, where it's like, hey, you learned some human drama while playing a video game.

And that really resonates for them to have that experience, to do something that is like tactile and play.

And then it also like...

teaches them what you know like a pretty like standard short story would teach them if you are that sort of person you will love this game.

The story is solid, and you will come away from it with that little like glean of, oh, my time on earth is precious.

So I think you should like chase that.

If you're looking for a two-hour version of that sort of game to play with a friend, this is a hundred percent it.

Is this also a forewarning that if you're the type of player who just wants to play a silly game where you make a man's head jump around and turn into cake, that it's gonna get, it will have existential messages?

i think what i would do is i would just turn the volume off if you want that you can still have a great time you can still be doing all sorts of silly things with that little half head love it

you know who i don't want to turn the volume off on our beloved listeners

you know i like to hear from them like give me an example wow from uh this is from connor uh Connor says, usually I scoff when Russ is like, don't tell me anything because I'm the opposite.

I love to get on the hype train, but still discover stuff like in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

Went into Silk Song and I'm floundering and haven't made progress in days, but I've also found so much stuff that I've been absolutely shook by.

I resented my scoff.

This shit is fire, and you should look up guides if you can't help it.

Wow, Connor.

Took us on a whole journey there, Connor.

But now people know this is how Russ gets his hooks in you.

This is how Russ corrupts your.

Now, I feel the same way.

I've tried to stay fairly guide-free on Silk Song, except for a couple of bosses who were were real pieces of shit.

I've tried to...

But I'm also so scared with this game that I'm going to pass a point of no return where I will lose access to the stuff that came before it.

And I don't know that that's an entirely justified fear.

I think it's just a scary game that's

got my

paranoia going overdrive.

This one is from Forrest.

Dude, I just wanted to thank Griffin for sharing Casso.

I'm an aging skater skater who's always looking for fun skate media to consume when my bones and muscles tell me to stay on the couch and away from the park.

I was really into Vice's King of the Road series, but it canceled it a while ago.

Casso has the same kind of skate contest, meets game show vibe that is just a blast to watch.

So thanks, Griffin.

Keep it gnarly and keep hitting those Benny Bongas and Casferanas and don't go Mongo.

Yes, those are real skate terms.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, clearly, I know those are real skate terms.

Why would you think I would need you to clarify that those are skate terms?

Because I know them.

Clearly.

I just pulled off a cry scare.

That's now you're showing your hand too much.

No, Caso Rules.

I love any show where people

execute their remarkable talents in the company of other people who have also invested their entire lives into developing those specific talents.

That shit's good, especially when it's silly, like a,

you know, grind this rail that does a loop-de-loop.

Like, sure, man.

Fuck yeah, all day.

I love it.

I love it.

Hey, should we dig into some honorable mentions?

Yeah.

What else have you guys made time for this week?

I've been playing a lot more Silk Song.

I don't know how much we want to sort of expound about it, nor do I know how much.

How has your experience evolved?

Yeah, pretty fucking good, man.

I've got about 32 hours in the game, I want to say.

And I am in sort of the last leg of it, it seems like, where it's like, now you can go around and have pretty open access to whatever.

And now it's just go find the stuff.

And it provides some ways to like help you do that if you are a completionist.

Some of these last few bosses and sort of gauntlets have gotten so hard that I feel like my progress through the game has slowed pretty dramatically.

And it requires a level of

investment, of time investment to like get in that flow state, to like learn all of the bosses different attacks so you know how to like respond to it and uh that is kind of tough to promise it or any game all the time for me these days um

but it's still just like God it's going places that are so remarkable uh the writing is really really really strong like really extremely strong there's been like exchanges between Hornet who they develop as a character like so well and other people that I've been, I don't know, really,

I have really, really admired.

And I think it is a very special game, just like Hollow Knight before it.

And I'm definitely going to keep pounding away.

Did you have any issues?

I wish in the text that it was a little bit easy.

I agree with you about the writing.

I wish it was easier to immediately tell who was speaking.

There's little glyphs on top, and Hornets will have the two ears coming up.

It is hard to, I do wish that they surfaced that maybe a little bit better, but

10 of the letters or something would be appreciated.

Yeah, no, I think it rules.

I still don't know if I want to 100% it.

Like, I feel like I'm going to be playing for quite a bit longer if I do that.

I've been doing a ton of shit and I've found a bunch of stuff, but if I really wanted to clean up the map, you know, I don't know if that's something I can give the game right now, but

I think I am getting close to seeing it through.

And I, I, I think it's really fantastic.

I love it.

Um, whoops, what have you been up to?

Um,

gosh, what do I play a lot of games?

You know what's good is Alien Earth.

Yeah,

Alien Earth is really good.

I started watching it because I, I feel like Russ and I, and I don't know, playing, I don't remember if you go in this camp, but like Russ and I tend to lock ourselves in these like Noah Hawley TV show prisons where like no one else is watching, but we have to be the ones who are carrying the torch.

Like we are watching these things where it doesn't feel like there's a huge conversation about it.

I think that I just am not exposed.

I have realized that I am not in any way exposed to the conversation about TV.

I don't know at all.

Yeah.

I have no clue.

So I, but I picked up Alien Earth because I like Noah Holly shows.

Yeah.

I loved Noah Holly shows.

Until there was a very final turn in a season of Fargo that was so preposterous.

I was like, I can't do it.

I can't.

I can't keep doing this.

I can't keep falling in love.

But I did check in on Alien Earth because I was like, I got to know

what's the twist.

What is, I know Holly's show is always about something.

It's not just going to be about aliens.

And Boy Howdy, was I excited to see that this is a show about how very young social media CEOs

prey on even younger

populations to basically make their riches and uh ruin the world.

And I don't know if it keeps going that direction, but that is where it is heading fast in the first uh episode or two.

And I am very curious about it.

Yeah, the the premise, uh, I think is so cool and gripping.

And like, what is the premise?

I, I, I love Alien and I want to watch the show.

I just haven't.

It's wild.

Okay.

So the, here's the setup.

You know, that there are corporations that are vying for William Utani, et cetera.

Yeah, and all those.

So there's a new one called prodigy and what prodigy is their their big focus for the past 10 years has been their research focus secret super secret has been they are rather than synths which are androids or cyborgs which are a fusion they want to transfer human consciousness into synthetic bodies to make hybrids right and these hybrids would be super strong super fast almost vulnerable uh but they would have the mind of a human.

What they discover is that adult minds reject it and that only children's children's minds will make the process work.

So they find kids who are terminally ill and offer their parents a chance to be transferred into these synthetic bodies in a secret program where like no family has any idea what has happened to them, et cetera.

Right.

So the first girl that this happens to,

she begins going by the name Wendy, and there is

an overarching Neverland theme that is like being projected onto the kids and the

whole story, really.

But basically, this

first girl has a brother

who she loves very much, and she continues to monitor with her like, you know, abilities.

And there is a crash,

a crash of a spaceship on the planet that she lives on, which is

the planet that the story that's the earth from the title.

And there's a crash there, and she realizes that her brother, who is a medic for the Prodigy Corporation, is being sent to

help at the crash site.

So the girl goes to the person who runs it and says, send us, send me and the rest of the Lost Boys.

We're ready.

We want to go help at this crash.

CEO thinks that

realizes that since the ship is Wayland Yutani, and it is loaded with trillions of, a trillion dollars worth of like research,

he's going gonna send in the lost boys to get it okay cool that's his reasoning and she's going in to save her brother and

you'll never guess what is on the ship griffin it better not be zemonorphs or i'm gonna lose dude it's fucking zemo norphs it is chock a block with zemo norphs i am so sick of these guys and they're watching

it's the worst possible thing because they're not in space in space no one can give a shit because it's on earth now man

yeah no way dude yeah xenomorphs maybe in mars yeah sure maybe even that's a little too close for comfort but not on earth yeah it sucks i so the ceo is greedy and he wants it basically he wants to take the xenonorphs for himself and doesn't want and it is corporate warfare to try to control the so this is why it is a story and not an isolated like

scary ship

experience scary ship experience the ship comes to earth quite literally yeah like it's pretty direct here is what how it intersects i i uh i i don't don't i'm pulling a fresh here i don't want a reaction i'm just gonna say the thing out loud but what what really got me by the way that was a lot of story it was made the first half of the first episode yes it is that is they chuck through it i

am skeptical of brand mashups especially after all the marvel stuff if predator does not show up at the end of this show i will be crushed I'm just putting that out there because there are all sorts of aliens on this ship.

And then there's that new Predator movie coming out where it is about the Predator just hanging out with a synth that is Wayland Yutani, which, like,

they are building towards that, like, what if we made a high-end alien versus Predator that I need in my life?

I am not ashamed to be that comic.

Alien loves Predator.

Oh, Alien and Predator now get along.

Nice.

Oh, it's Predator.

It's a sequel series to Bob Loves Ashiola.

Yeah.

Salia loves Predator.

It's great.

It's great.

I really, it is very,

okay.

Noah Hawley shows,

I'm still using that as a sub-genre, but I feel like if you know what it is, so like, that's like

Fargo and Legion and,

you know, that it's a very thinky kind of TV, right?

And I don't mean that in a complimentary way or a pejorative way.

It just is.

It's the style.

It's the style.

And I feel like this is, again,

I hate terms like this, but it is the most effective way of stating it.

There is less pretension here and more entertainment and storytelling.

And it doesn't ask you to marinate in themes.

so much as it does touch on the themes and then moves on to more action.

We're like, some of the shows got very experiential, got very sort of like, especially Legion, got very abstract in a, in a way that's very bracing and cool to see, but like not always the most engaging to watch this is not that this is highly entertaining um super engaging um

really cool uses i will say by the way i i know like mega corporation mergers are an absolute nightmare

and are ruining the world there is a cool it is a there are a couple of instances where they have folded in intellectual property that is owned by the disney corporation in a way that makes the story feel actually a little bit more approachable and real Like rather than just using like ancient references, there's like Ice Age is a recurring like tableau that is almost in contrast to the Neverland theme, right?

Like Ice Age is like a more modern take that the sister and the brother watched obsessively.

So it's almost like a little sub-language they share.

And they actually show the original Peter Pan, the Disney Peter Pan, which is yeah, I can say there's like, yeah, but it's like that really grounds it in a way that makes it feel really relatable and real.

But it is

just

20th century and not Disney.

And I want to make that explicitly clear.

And which is owned by Disney.

Well, okay.

No, I know what you mean.

You're talking about the old world when, you know,

there were many warring factions.

We live in the new centuries.

I'm just saying, referring to Ice Age as a Disney classics in an actual story.

Walt himself loves it.

This is the world we live in now.

This is the world we find ourselves in.

I know it's a 20th century Fox project, but whatever.

Growing up, I just did I bury the lead.

I did bury the lead.

Who leads the Lost Boys?

It's the only adult Synth played by Timothy Oliphant with bleach blonde hair.

Oh, baby.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I will.

Fucking.

Oh, wait.

He knows all the world's, he's learned all of the world's philosophy.

Uh, yeah, thanks.

I'll take it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

How many you got?

You got anything?

Creus?

Yeah, I got a thing real quick.

The other night, I went and saw the Invincible Czars perform a live

backing to the Phantom of the Opera, the original silent film, The Phantom of the Opera.

And if you are looking for a very kick-ass thing to do during Halloween season, I strongly recommend going and checking this out at your local theater.

The like music is much more modern.

It's a tour?

And kind of synthy.

It's a tour.

The Invincible Czars are a band from Austin, and they started doing this at the Alamo Village a long, long time ago.

And now, of course,

I mean this in the nicest way possible.

They very much look like a band from Austin.

Yeah, 100%.

Extraordinary.

Extremely.

And yeah, they go around and they're doing this and Nasferatu, the original Nasferatu.

Oh, that's sick.

And just a heads up, like, they're very early in the tour.

So if you live in like Arizona, Arizona, Virginia, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ontario, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, or of course, Texas.

They're going to all those different places.

So I'll include a link in the thing.

Also, there is a online version of it.

Like you can just watch, pay like six bucks and watch it.

But I really recommend going and seeing this in person.

It is so...

Transcendent, honestly.

Like it really is amazing to go watch a live band perform a score for a silent movie because it makes silent movies work.

You get how people would go and see these things and be like, just wholly entertained because it's so loud and thrilling and the score that they have is absolutely killer.

So it is a great way to spend a night.

This seems so cool.

I want to do this.

Let's do it.

Movies.

They're back.

Movies.

Okay, I'm going to wrap up really quick on the stuff that we have talked about.

We talked about Borderlands 4, Destiny Rising, Henry Halfhead, Silk Song, of course, Alien Earth, and the Invincible Czars performance of Phantom of the Opera.

Anything I missed in there?

Nope.

Cool.

Hoops, you want to take us out?

Hey, thanks so much for listening to our podcast that we do here.

We hope you've enjoyed it and we'll come back.

What are we doing next week?

Oh, next week,

we have like two options.

I think what we're we're probably going to do, I think, don't hold us to this just yet.

I think we're going to do baby steps next week, and then we're going to do

the new FODI jam.

The new FODI game, the new, from the creator of Quop, and then we're going to do Ghost of Yote

after that.

I think that's something that's a week after that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Great.

Wow.

There's a lot of great games.

Man, crazy.

Man.

Hey, we got a Patreon, patreon.com slash the besties.

If you go there and become a supporter of our shows, you get access to all the episodes of the Resties and our monthly bracket battle episodes.

And plus, we have this new $10

a month tier where you can get episodes from the main feed without advertisements.

If that is something that you want, that is over at patreon.com/slash the besties.

You can join the ranks of great folks like your good buddy Brandon.

I think I've reached a threshold where I need to permanently zoom in the text on screens.

Welcome.

Welcome.

Stuvius, Tyler, Ultimate Danny5000, and get stiggy with it.

Thank you all so much.

Patreon.com slash the besties.

Perfect.

Thank you all so much for listening.

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

Besties