Besties Battle Bracket: Best Party Games
Added 2024-11-05 05:00:08 +0000 UTC
This holiday season, you may find yourself with extended family, having little to talk about except the weather and the ingredients of grandma's fruit salad. Our recommendation: bring a party game, the great unifier of families across the world!
To help you pick the best option for your next big gathering, The Besties brings this meta-genre to the battle bracket arena. Though we pick one winner, know that any game on our list of contenders has the power to bring together old friends and difficult family for a long weekend.
The Rubric
Which game gives the best “crush your friends” feeling?
Best for non-gamers?
Which was giving less of that “pain to set up” feeling?
The Contenders
Towerfall
Overcooked
Mario Party
JS Joust
Super Smash Bros
Mario Kart
Castle Crashers
Among Us
Drawful
Fibbage
Wii Sports
Rock Band
Goldeneye
Halo
Rocket League
Super Stickman Golf
Comments
Since this was the besties top... Admitted in the episode. It really loses the excuse to not do the romance bracket.
Jaime Perez
2025-01-21 19:52:42 +0000 UTCMay be strange but I think my favourite party game is civ 5 or civ 6 .
Patrick Young
2024-12-16 04:16:58 +0000 UTClistening to this when ive never played towerfall, seen it played, or even heard of it outside of this show was really funny.
Logan Biedermann
2024-11-23 05:49:59 +0000 UTCAny of you folks played Storage, Inc or it's sequel? Pack and unpack a warehouse with your friends in little forklift trucks. It's incredibly good. The original was an Xbox Indies/XBLIG game. The sequel is on steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/549390/Storage_Inc_2/
Alex Waterston
2024-11-19 15:22:15 +0000 UTCThis is the most unhinged rubric to date, you guys had some great epiphany moments of "let's just drop the rubric and vote with our hearts". Rock Band was tremendous when it came out and I was in high school, and some of the last hurrahs of my real party years in my twenties were still defined by Rock Band 4 powered by beers into the wee hours of the morning. It's in a league of its own, just a transcendent social experience. Kario Mart is #2
Charlie Dalton
2024-11-16 03:10:30 +0000 UTCI was listening to old episodes of Besties, and I think it’d be cool if you used the old theme song for these bracket episodes.
Christian Killgore
2024-11-14 23:15:30 +0000 UTCOn the flipside, my son and I finally tried out Towerfall, absolutely convinced you were overselling it and... THIS GAME ROCKS!!!! 🙌🏻
AaronElWhite
2024-11-13 22:58:52 +0000 UTCI spent this weekend and week so far searching local game stores and eventually tracking down a red Wii because I just need to remind myself how amazing a game night of Wii Sports Resort with friends & family can be. Very disappointed in its placement and I'll expense you for triggering this unreasonable purchase I made.
AaronElWhite
2024-11-13 22:57:39 +0000 UTCGreat suggestion!
Snoozy
2024-11-12 14:41:32 +0000 UTCMy housemate was very upset there wasn’t a Just Dance on this list, but VERY satisfied to know that Towerfall won. Me on the other hand, I wanted some justice for my boy Smash Bros- as a kid button mashing my way to greatness felt preeeettttty dope. Jokes aside, I LIVE for these bracket eps, thank you for feeding us so good every month, boys.
Noah
2024-11-12 05:27:05 +0000 UTCTee KO is the best Jackbox game, and I will die on that hill. 👕
Morgan Suhm
2024-11-12 00:14:29 +0000 UTCIt’s Kario Mart for me, but the rules were different. Take a sip if you get hit, take a sip if you fall off, take as many sips as your placement at the end of the race.
Mike
2024-11-11 22:35:36 +0000 UTCBaseball as the worst Wii sports game?!?! Wild
Matt Weinberger
2024-11-11 00:31:55 +0000 UTCMy friends and I's go-to party game. On par with towerfall for quick setup and playability. Even after 100s of hours things can happen that surprise and cause everyone to lose their minds
Mac Fullerton
2024-11-09 21:28:54 +0000 UTCSince Dreamcast da best, I’m surprised there wasn’t at the very least even a passing mention of Sonic Shuffle by Plante!
Ryan Giglio
2024-11-09 11:29:39 +0000 UTCyes correct,
Amos Catto
2024-11-09 03:27:00 +0000 UTCovercooked = the bear the game
Amos Catto
2024-11-09 03:26:53 +0000 UTCYeah I was really excited to learn about ANOTHER variation to play Mario kart, because I knew it as Beerio Kart as well.
CPT_Turboshaft
2024-11-08 21:11:48 +0000 UTCThese rubrics always lead to incredibly frustrating and hilarious results. Joust will always the #1 for me in my biased opinion. I went to cons that had joust and it's peak group activity. Fun to watch and play and the easiest game for literally anyone to pick up. We'd have a ring of 50 people watching waiting for their turn.
Walker Weber
2024-11-08 20:39:17 +0000 UTCMy favorite party game was wario ware for the wii! To this day I make all of my friends play through the story mode with me, throwing the wiimote back and forth at each other. Most non-gamer friends I've had through the years have a great time
Bryduck
2024-11-08 19:04:36 +0000 UTCOk now wait a minute. Is stickman golf easier to set up than Halo?? Super stickman golf requires everyone to have a quick download speed and a phone that has the app (i dont see it on android play store. Dp its not ubiquitous. Halo has split screen multiplayer
Daniel
2024-11-08 18:32:03 +0000 UTCLove the ep. Quick shout-out for Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. Always fun, especially if you are in charge of firing the super gun.
Y0GEL
2024-11-08 17:22:46 +0000 UTCI’m curious if anyone knows of more recent equivalents of Spaceteam, like as quick app games you can play with friends while waiting on food at a restaurant
Henry Roberts
2024-11-08 00:03:40 +0000 UTCGriffin’s like “if you don’t turn on the options that make Mario kart super easy and fun for kids, the game isn’t easy and fun for kids” 😜
Henry Roberts
2024-11-08 00:02:32 +0000 UTCWe called it beerio kart!
Henry Roberts
2024-11-08 00:01:35 +0000 UTCSame. In Nashville and St. Louis all my friends knew it as Beer-io Kart. Curious if there’s other regionalities.
Henry Roberts
2024-11-08 00:01:13 +0000 UTCWe called Kario Mart "Beer-io Kart"
Nick Robinson
2024-11-07 23:47:59 +0000 UTCNow I want to hear y'all do a bracket for best Mario Kart
PaxSnax
2024-11-07 21:22:21 +0000 UTCAw, Kario Mart is such a cute name for the having-a-bev-and-racing game! Back in college we were v classy and called it Drunk Driving.
Sierra Powers
2024-11-07 21:13:20 +0000 UTCMy nominee for a game that's easy to learn, easy to set up, and fun for a party would be Spaceteam
James Johnson
2024-11-07 18:00:20 +0000 UTCKiller Queen is SUCH a great rec
Chris
2024-11-07 15:08:38 +0000 UTCI will not tolerate this Diet Coke slander, Russ
Devin L
2024-11-07 13:48:46 +0000 UTCI think one thing that was overlooked when considering among us, specifically point number three, is that there is a kind of set up that you need for that game where you need to get enough people to get a full group. And that has cost me a lot of time in the past, trying to get either a full group of friends or having to find discord servers and channels to find strangers for a group that way. And I think that could have been considered as part of the set up, which didn’t really apply to the games that went up against.
EtherEli
2024-11-06 22:50:26 +0000 UTCIf it was at a party, I'd rather play Wii sports
Sebbo Mode
2024-11-06 18:51:36 +0000 UTCLove the episode but makes me feel bad that people don’t know about Duck Game
Phil Debo
2024-11-06 18:26:37 +0000 UTCOh man, JS Joust brings back some memories! It was a staple in NYC in the Babycastles and general indie/student game scene of the time. Definitely played it in some odd places, including Wu-Tang Joust at an Inspectah Deck show at 285 Kent. I also want to give an honorable mention to Saturn Bomberman. It goes up to 10 players (though it's more fun with a bit less than that). It's pretty simple, and when you lose, you can shoot bombs at the stage and get revenge.
Shart Carbuncle
2024-11-06 17:44:52 +0000 UTCOkay, first, don't know if I'd count it as a party game since it's an arcade game, but Killer Queen is a 5v5 game where you play as workers/warriors/queen and win by defeating the other team's queen, filling up your hive with berries, or riding the snail to your goal. It's a crazy fun game, there's usually leagues focused on it if you can find it in your area (I'm closer to DC, but will commute up to Peabody Heights in Baltimore, a phenomenal brewery with a full ass arcade, strongly recommend checking them out). Second, Rock Band was absolutely the king of party games among my friend group, where we often had 10+ people coming over. We had drinking game rules that just made it even more fun. Everyone starts on beginner difficulty, and after each song if you do the best, you move up a difficulty level, if you do the worst, you can move down a level. Whoever does the worst takes a substantial drink, if everyone 100%s the song, the audience takes a substantial drink. If you fail during the song, you take a substantial drink. If you save someone, you issue a drink. If you fail out of a song completely, the band takes a shot. When you finish the song, you rotate to the next instrument (or rotate in an audience member) with whatever your difficulty level is, which is how you get players who are crazy good at guitar or drums to start drinking, cause they're usually not good enough to handle higher difficulties on keyboard or microphone.
Bryan Roman
2024-11-06 16:54:35 +0000 UTCMario Party is always an insta-buy in my household lol it’s such a great game for non-gamers
EtherEli
2024-11-06 16:46:12 +0000 UTCYou would rather play Wii Sports than Rock Band?
Lance Hayes
2024-11-06 16:03:15 +0000 UTCMy personal top party game not listed in the episode is Ultimate Chicken Horse. During the final couple seasons of GoT, my group would watch the episode then play UCH for like 2 hours.
krobb1290
2024-11-06 12:31:15 +0000 UTCLove the show. It is an absolute travesty how incredibly snubbed wii sports got this episode. The Rock Band/Towerfall nostalgia played such a monumental role this episode it is almost unbelievable. You are out of your damn mind if you think I'm busting out Towerfall at a party with even one non-gamer.
Sebbo Mode
2024-11-06 04:05:45 +0000 UTCCompletely disagree. Rock Band is what truly made the genre/series a staple at parties or other group gaming experiences imo.
Ben
2024-11-06 03:17:01 +0000 UTCOh I like this. 100%ing a game is something I've always wanted to do and have done exactly once (Hades). Lots of potentially interesting discussions.
Ben
2024-11-06 03:13:17 +0000 UTChi besties!! maybe for the next months bracket you could do best games to 100%?? i’m so curious which games you guys deem worthy of giving every nook a cranny attention to! love you guys!! (this could also be january for like,, new year’s resolution is find all the secrets whatever i dont do SEO i sell weed)
Max!
2024-11-06 01:14:23 +0000 UTCJust wanted to show up and say some of my best gaming memories ever are playing Halo 3 and Halo: Reach LAN parties. I never had many friends at all as a kid but I got to tag along with siblings to their friend's Xbox parties and continued to do so like annually until as recent as 2022 I think? We're all adults now but nothing will ever beat getting 16 full adults, some who barely talk to each other anymore, into a few rooms and just having a blast in Halo for a day.
Clay
2024-11-06 00:49:29 +0000 UTCOvercooked wins, you doinks -Andrew
EtherEli
2024-11-06 00:11:50 +0000 UTCYou guys should just ditch the rubric after the first round in these brackets lol. The entire second round could have just been, "at an irl event which have you had more fun playing?"
Adrian Kenyon
2024-11-05 23:21:11 +0000 UTCI love you guys but this episode def shows how much you guys are def games journalists lol
Seth
2024-11-05 23:09:17 +0000 UTCTowerfall is a great game, but the idea of busting it out at a party with people who have never heard of it, hard no. I feel like it requires a certain level of buy-in that isn't necessary for something like Mario Party, Wii Sports, or even Rockband. Not as bad as, say, thrusting Betrayal at House on the Hill on your colleagues at a work party, but it's a couple of steps in that direction IMO.
Snoozy
2024-11-05 21:47:41 +0000 UTCRight away I take issue with Towerfall. I've never ever had someone who doesn't play games enjoy playing Towerfall. It's always an absolute bloodbath with those who know how to play games stomping them.
Monty
2024-11-05 20:41:18 +0000 UTCdear besties, maybe the community can help with the future rubrics? because ooooooooooooof
AJ
2024-11-05 20:15:58 +0000 UTCMaybe I’m out of touch, but Rockband over Guitar Hero seems odd
BoomBrawl
2024-11-05 19:36:09 +0000 UTCI knew Mario Party wouldn’t be the winner, but to have it taken out by a PlayStation Move game that’s nearly impossible to play?! A travesty!
ThanaThots
2024-11-05 19:04:22 +0000 UTCMario Party is still very fun! It’s a great way to catch up with friends while doing something in the background, and the new ones continue to be very cute.
Casey Wittner
2024-11-05 17:31:50 +0000 UTCI would love to nominate plate up and unspottable as well
Julian Pinzer
2024-11-05 17:28:00 +0000 UTCI like to imagine Griffin originally wanted to say "7 Minutes in Heaven" but realized the image of him and Russ in a closet wrapped up like octopi was too ghoulish. Then Chris is like, "can I jokes? I have ear stuff to say."
Bishibosh44
2024-11-05 13:31:41 +0000 UTCTo me, there is a differentiation between a party game and a multiplayer game. A party game is something that starts with a relatively level playing field with a low barrier to entry for people who don’t play many games. That’s where I think the Mario Party series shines. The minigames are silly and have simple enough rules and controls that are pretty easy to pick up. The board game setting is immediately accessible for most people and it injects enough random chance to keep every player engaged, even if they’re losing, because there’s always those bonus stars at the end that could turn the entire thing on its head for one last surprise bit of chaos.
Ghintec
2024-11-05 10:54:57 +0000 UTCMurder in the dark?
Jasper
2024-11-05 09:28:24 +0000 UTCFusion Frenzy fo sho
Al Paca
2024-11-05 05:48:23 +0000 UTCWas about to put all my chips on towerfall til I saw rock band on the list. Intriguing
mmmcranberryjuice
2024-11-05 05:05:06 +0000 UTC
