This week, we throw our own summer festival of video games by opening the grab bag! There was so much stuff to play, it took all three Besties working on different piles to separate the “Yes!” from the “Yuck!” Want a meta Sherlock Holmes mystery? How about overlooked DLC to a Besties favorite? Or maybe you want to hear about Steam running on Android emulators? Friends, we have something for everyone!

Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

We watched all of the Summer Game Festival events and curated the upcoming releases that we think you’ll enjoy! Plus, Frushtick and Plante attended SGF Play Days in Los Angeles and went hands-on with tons of games, from the new Tomb Raider to Stranger Than Heaven. Was this episode recorded alongside Nintendo’s big announcement? Were we struggling to retain control of our brains? Yes and yes.

Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

007 First Light is the new game from IO Interactive, the developers of the beloved stealth series Hitman. So you’d be forgiven for assuming this entry in the Bond canon would emphasize sleuthy spycraft. Instead, IOI created something akin to a season of James Bond television, spotlighting its strong story above everything else. Was that the right choice? It depends on which Besty you ask!

Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

Mina the Hollower is a delicious 7-layer dip of beloved video games. It looks and feels like a gothic Zelda, but its influences stretch far beyond Nintendo’s action-adventure series. The Besties are joined by Jason Schreier (from Bloomberg and Triple Click) to burrow through one layer after another to uncover its many secrets. In the back half, we talk about the big news of the week: Dragon Quest 12’s development reboot and the end of Destiny 2.

Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

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

Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

Mixtape arrived alongside a flood of euphoric reviews and a variety of discourses across various social media platforms and gaming groups. With a tiny bit of distance, we talk through what does and doesn’t work about this riff on the modern musical with the help of Friends Per Second co-host Lucy James!

Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

Saros is the continuation of decades of bullet-dodging action games from Housemarque. But it has most in common with the team’s previous game, Returnal. Is this game welcoming enough to bring newcomers into the pseudo-series? We find out! Plus, a humongous collection of other stuff we’re playing and watching, including a Korean reality TV series that pits different types of spirit mediums against one another! Look, we’re just as surprised, confused, and delighted as you are.

Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

This is a big week of change at The Besties. But before we get to the news, we all want to chat about one of the strangest spinoffs in indie games. Vampire Crawlers adapts the iconic Vampire Survivors into a dungeon crawling, roguelike deckbuilder. And... it mostly works? Stick around until the end of the show, when we chat about a big change for the future of The Besties.

Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

This week we're diving into Nintendo's bizarre life sim, Tomodatchi Life: Living the Dream, which allows a bunch of Miis to eat cigarettes for breakfast. Griffin also regales us on his experience visiting Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios, and we explore the total nonsense going on with handhelds these days.

Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

Announced in 2020, Pragamata has finally arrived. Capcom’s new third-person shooter puts you in the boots of a space marine-type who must overcome evil robots on a moon covered in 3D-printed skyscrapers. Which comically sounds like a pretty standard video game premise. But this isn’t your standard shooter. You must solve puzzles in the middle of combat, team up with an adorable robo-kid, and navigate some classic 3D platforming in low-gravity. Kinda Funny’s Andy Cortez joins us to discuss this odd delight!

Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!