The Besties video game bracket begins!
The Besties pick the Besty
Listen to this week’s episode
The prophecy must be fulfilled! This week, the Besties Besty Bracket begins with eight bloody brawls. Who will win? Who will lose? Whatever happens, we will all have a wonderful time because these games rule!
Seriously, every game discussed in today’s episode is worth your time. So without further ado, we present the culmination of our year’s work. The Besties Besty Bracket… part 1.
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The showdowns discussed:
Telling stories in new ways
Baldurs Gate 3
Chants of Sennaar
The return of abandoned series
Alan Wake 2
Armored Core 6
“Indie” friends
Dredge
“Dave the Diver” ~ Geoff Keighley (fan vote)
Indie spins on popular genres
Blasphemous 2
Sea of Stars
Shut up and play the hits
Resident Evil 4 Remake
Spider-Man 2
Puzzling!
Connections (fan vote)
Cocoon (fan vote)
Fractured fairy tales
Super Mario Wonder
Lies of P (fan vote)
Remixing mega open worlds
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty
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Next week on The Besties:
The Besties pick the Besty of 2023!
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Bonus links:
Shut Up & Sit Down asks “Is this board game a masterpiece?”
Guillermo del Toro on Hayao Miyazaki's on The Boy and the Heron
God of War Ragnarök’s roguelite DLC is an excellent ode to Hades
The best new tabletop RPG books of 2023
Chris Dahlen’s five-star review of Bahnsen Knights
The 50 best movies of 2023
SkillUp on The Day Before
We host a video game after school hang out at our library. I was playing Super Smash Bros with some middle schoolers today and one of them said "I'm gonna be the guy from Fortnite!" and then selected Snake. I crumbled into dust.
Although Connections is a very good game, it’s not invented by NYT - it’s a round from British quiz show called Only Connect. It was very weird hearing you all talk about it, like if Jeopardy! made the list because the BBC put it on their website.
The NYT gets so much credit for the format from people, so I thought that was important context if you’ve got it in the GOTY list.