Idle F***in' Thumbs Podcast

Dysplastic wrote:

I wasn't surprised that he made them, I was surprised that he seemed to be the ONLY one making them.

I don't think that's true at all. Check the gwj thread on far cry 3 for plenty of people in agreement. Personally, I'd totally agree with those criticisms btw and that's coming from someone who ended up being too frustrated with the respawning checkpoints in FC2 to really put that much time into it. On the other hand, I still managed to have a lot fun with FC3 (i.e. I finished it, unlike FC2), but that was certainly in spite of those problems.

Gravey wrote:

I do miss their old journalism perspectives, but they're still gamers through-and-through, regardless of their day jobs. If there's only one thing that bothers me about this everyone-is-in-game-development phase of the Thumbs, it's the frequent tossing around of design jargon. I'm not 15 anymore, clutching an issue of NextGen and pretending like I know what "MIPS" means. Throw me a frikkin' bone here. And by "bone", I mean "definition".

I enjoy it but you definitely have a point. At the same time it'd be weird if they start getting too self conscious about what they're saying.

Episode 89 is up!

Started Walking Dead. (i know I'm late to the party. Would have gotten to it sooner, but a) I hate all zombie apocalypse tropes, b) life got into way). Felt so good (and surprised, because I still haven't internalized it) when Sean's and Jake's names popped up at the very beginning. Like hey, my buddy made this!

Ol' man Breckon.

Dysplastic wrote:

Is Chris particularly sensitive to it and blowing it out of proportion, or is everyone else just glossing over it?

As others have said, there are plenty of people who have criticised the game for how much more structured it is and how annoying the interface can be. Other than that, I think it's both. Chris is probably over-sensitive to that stuff because of how much he hates that kind of thing along with his extreme love for Far Cry 2. Meanwhile, the people glossing over those issues probably don't see those things as issues in the first place. I find a lot of people who give Far Cry 3 a lot of extreme praise also tend to be people who were ambivalent to or disliked Far Cry 2, including for reasons that made people like Chris love it.

IT has a history of not drinking the hype-aid when even the most respected outlets have gone overboard. Also, they just formulated their criticism much more cleanly than other reviewers. I suspect from the trailers and setting, a good number of people expected a game centered around actual survival, following in the foot steps of FarCry 2. What was delivered is pretty much a theme park game, the Bahamas version of Saints Row, GTA or Just Cause if you will. Not surprising some people are lukewarm on that.

I was actually very much into FC3 and thinking about picking it up full price, but the universal criticism of the sensory overload UI and the fact that you are penalized for "leaving the mission area" in an open world game were annoying enough to make me decide that the game isn't worth more than $10. The former can be patched, but the latter is just bad game design in an open world game. It was already the $#!+s in AC2 in 2009, so the same developer making that mistake again 3 years later is unforgivable.

Luggage: I completely agree and had the same thoughts reading launch coverage.

After hearing the first 15 seconds of this week's GWJ podcast, listening to the first 15 seconds of this week's Idle Thumbs blew me away/made me laugh out loud.

Gravey wrote:

After hearing the first 15 seconds of this week's GWJ podcast, listening to the first 15 seconds of this week's Idle Thumbs blew me away/made me laugh out loud.

Is Hover the new Audible?

Gravey wrote:

Ol' man Breckon.

Oh boy. Apart from that, are there any call outs in Episode 1?

Gravey wrote:

After hearing the first 15 seconds of this week's GWJ podcast, listening to the first 15 seconds of this week's Idle Thumbs blew me away/made me laugh out loud.

Also, I feel bad saying that, but you just made me listen to GWJ podcast for first time in year or two.

UCRC wrote:
Gravey wrote:

Ol' man Breckon.

Oh boy. Apart from that, are there any call outs in Episode 1?

I've one episode left and slightly spoiled the emotional investment by being constantly on the look-out for more references. But I haven't noticed anything else.

UCRC also wrote:
Gravey wrote:

After hearing the first 15 seconds of this week's GWJ podcast, listening to the first 15 seconds of this week's Idle Thumbs blew me away/made me laugh out loud.

Also, I feel bad saying that, but you just made me listen to GWJ podcast for first time in year or two.

'Salright. GWJ has sort of fallen down my podcast priority list over the last few months, below IT and 3MA. I even stopped listening to an episode a couple weeks ago the moment Certis said in earnest something about "consuming movies". Chris Remo would never stand for that sh*t, I thought to myself.

Edit: Ugh, Jake said "content" twice. DELETE.

Gravey wrote:
UCRC wrote:
Gravey wrote:

Ol' man Breckon.

Oh boy. Apart from that, are there any call outs in Episode 1?

I've one episode left and slightly spoiled the emotional investment by being constantly on the look-out for more references. But I haven't noticed anything else.

UCRC also wrote:
Gravey wrote:

After hearing the first 15 seconds of this week's GWJ podcast, listening to the first 15 seconds of this week's Idle Thumbs blew me away/made me laugh out loud.

Also, I feel bad saying that, but you just made me listen to GWJ podcast for first time in year or two.

'Salright. GWJ has sort of fallen down my podcast priority list over the last few months, below IT and 3MA. I even stopped listening to an episode a couple weeks ago the moment Certis said in earnest something about "consuming movies". Chris Remo would never stand for that sh*t, I thought to myself.

Edit: Ugh, Jake said "content" twice. DELETE.

I'm joining Twitter just to ask Jake to say "moist content".

I shouldn't giggle at work about the way they handled editing in "Bloody Good Time". Classy

Well, Jake just admitted to being the same way about video games as I am these days. I feel less bad about it.

NSMike wrote:

Well, Jake just admitted to being the same way about video games as I am these days. I feel less bad about it.

Ditto. I'm really happy that I'm not the only one.

gore wrote:
NSMike wrote:

Well, Jake just admitted to being the same way about video games as I am these days. I feel less bad about it.

I really liked that discussion.

The problem I have is that almost all games are almost all the same, and the elements that make them unique or exceptional are buried under layers of same-y cruft. As I age, I find that two things are true: my body of experience has expanded (such that there are fewer wholly unique experiences to be had), and my patience for repetition of things which I have experienced recently is greatly reduced.

This is why indie games that are so honest about their "quirkiness" are so compelling to me: FTL, Hotline Miami, Dear Esther, etc. None of them are wholly unique, but they lay their cards on the table early, and I can decide quickly that their differentiating features are worth my time.

I didn't think I was getting there, but this past year has started to make me feel like I am. I need to process these feelings a bit more before I can come to terms with them. It's pretty interesting, really.

I got to this point this year via Halo 4 and Far Cry 3. I put about 2 hours into each game and couldn't be bothered to care about them. Instead I'm doubling down on time spent with Dark Souls, Persona 4 and other random games. I don't think it's just that I'm "shootered out", but rather that I'm starting to not be interested in games that aren't a unique experience.

NSMike wrote:

Well, Jake just admitted to being the same way about video games as I am these days. I feel less bad about it.

I really liked that discussion.

The problem I have is that almost all games are almost all the same, and the elements that make them unique or exceptional are buried under layers of same-y cruft. As I age, I find that two things are true: 1) my body of experience has expanded (such that there are fewer wholly unique experiences to be had), and 2) my patience for repetition of things which I have experienced recently is greatly reduced.

This is why indie games that are so honest about their "quirkiness" are so compelling to me: FTL, Hotline Miami, Dear Esther, etc. None of them are wholly unique, but they lay their cards on the table early, and I can decide quickly that their differentiating features are worth my time.

shoptroll wrote:

I shouldn't giggle at work about the way they handled editing in "Bloody Good Time". Classy :lol:

I definitely got a few funny looks for laughing randomly at work with that bit too

gore wrote:
NSMike wrote:

Well, Jake just admitted to being the same way about video games as I am these days. I feel less bad about it.

I really liked that discussion.

The problem I have is that almost all games are almost all the same, and the elements that make them unique or exceptional are buried under layers of same-y cruft. As I age, I find that two things are true: 1) my body of experience has expanded (such that there are fewer wholly unique experiences to be had), and 2) my patience for repetition of things which I have experienced recently is greatly reduced.

This is why indie games that are so honest about their "quirkiness" are so compelling to me: FTL, Hotline Miami, Dear Esther, etc. None of them are wholly unique, but they lay their cards on the table early, and I can decide quickly that their differentiating features are worth my time.

Yeah, you guys should all at least consider trying Dark Souls. It's pretty much the only big budget title out now that fits all of the criteria Jake was referencing, and it's all I could think of during that entire conversation.

I wish Chris would finally give it a shot like he has been saying for months. Even if he doesn't end up liking it as much as Demon's Souls, I know it would generate some really interesting discussion.

This is such a bizzare discussion.

"Hi, I'm Michael and I'm a gameaholic that doesn't actually play games all that much anymore... "

But upon second glance you realize it’s not a fearsome generalissmo — it’s just Nick Breckon.

So first Hover starts advertising on Thumbs and the Conf. Call, and then this week both are talking about Myst. This can only mean one thing.

shoptroll wrote:

So first Hover starts advertising on Thumbs and the Conf. Call, and then this week both are talking about Myst. This can only mean one thing.

HoverMyst!!!!!

God, I missed Nick.

I mean God, F Nick.

BadMojo wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

So first Hover starts advertising on Thumbs and the Conf. Call, and then this week both are talking about Myst. This can only mean one thing.

HoverMyst!!!!!

/Wizard?

Whoever it was that said that Halo and Modern Warfare and so forth are basically the Saturday morning cartoons of the game world was so right. I know that stuff, I was really into it at one point, and now I don't care anymore, because there's other stuff in games, and they're the same they ever were. I don't need a reason to not play them beyond "not interested".

I played some Cart Life today. That is a weird experience, crazy the amount of writing that seems to have gone into it. You're constantly running into new, authored stuff in addition to the simulation side of it. I hope the guys return to it in spoiler-y fashion later on. Anybody gave it a shot?

(Also, I re-installed Far Cry 2 instead of buying Far Cry 3, and that is still a fresh experience.)

Miasmata is f'n great. We have a woefully quiet catch-all on it.

Even with the indy jank and low fi graphics it's well on its way to being my favorite game that came out in 2012. Maybe by a wide margin. We'll see where it ends up going ultimately, but I've played a few hours and am completely captivated.

This is why I love Idle Thumbs. This thing is too weird to even be on the radar of most things I listen to / read, and they give it almost a whole 'cast.

Miasmata - yeah, totally going to check that out at some point, now. I was unsure about it until they stated talking about the in-world orienteering with a non-HUD map in hand. Most of my time in Far Cry 2 is played with the map out.

Shawn Elliott is recording with the gang this evening.

So. Excited.