Henroid

I've been playing SC4 Deluxe leading up to the launch of new SimCity. I think I can keep doing that and still be playing the most advanced game in the series.

Oh I totally dig the music, had a chance to hear some of it the other day. As for the game though... What am I supposed to make of this? (the result of putting a park at a 3 way intersection)

Ah, I see someone already posted links to the things going on regarding people testing the simulation within the game and how it isn't at all complex and is quite 'stupid.' I mean stupid as in simplistic. I dunno... I'm not appreciating the lies coming from not just EA, but Maxis about how the cloud servers are handling the load of the game.

So Brad's description of Tomb Raider involving a sort of Metroid-esque style of backtracking and in-game-ability increase made me excited for it. That's what I want from games. I haven't been bothered by anything shown pertaining to the game so far (aside from the initial voice actress used; did they change that ever as they mused?). Well, until I heard about throat-impaling. It sounds avoidable enough. Also thanks to Brad for being on the cast to tell us about the game, yay!

I dunno if you guys are gonna get to the Playstation 4 next episode at all but I thought I'd drop this here. In Idle Thumbs XI-2, at the 23:22 mark, Steve Gaynor says recording videos inside your games is the future. Which was something Sony made a point about for the PS4. So I guess he called that.

So glad this episode ended with the Windows 95 bird noise.

I'd avoided any discussion of Journey everywhere on the net and gave up on it for Idle Thumbs. Even though specifics weren't involved it just gave me this itch that I'm missing out on something tremendous. If I don't get to it soon I'm going to feel so ashamed about it that I may skip it. That's an awful mindset to have! Also I forgot about Idle Thumbs having a new episode and only just now got to it.

Thank you guys for having a more understanding take of living in places with shitty internet. I wasn't the guy that wrote in about that but I do live in a place like that, and these places are more prevalent than people consider. I've been using a mobile broadband connection, which gives me about 90k down until I use up 5GB of bandwidth - then it kicks down to 15k during the busy times of the day (it piggybacks on cellphone architecture) and is 30k at best otherwise. Oh, and I'm grandfathered in on an unlimited plan that was discontinued too - if I go off it, that's it. Can't go back onto the plan. All the other data plans have you pay per MB you go over. It is nightmarish and freaky.

Today's update to the Don't Starve beta implemented a function / feature that I feel has rocketed this game up in terms of atmosphere. It certainly had a tone of its own and all, but the 'Insanity' function of the game has implemented some aesthetic choices throughout every layer of the game that has blown my mind (IGN.com). I don't want to outright say what it is though because it would ruin the impact.

I didn't buy Chris and Jake's argument about Mario vs. Rayman in terms of appeal. First of all, Jake's take of "where are his arms" doesn't mean "I don't like this character because he has no arms." Second, Mario - as a game - was in at the ground floor of video games becoming an industry whereas Rayman was not. Third, the world itself surrounding Mario was nonsensical. Mario represents video games in a big way, and he is the icon of his series as well - crazy platformy world with turtle enemies and blocks you bash with his head. Generally I think there's a confusion between "what people personally find more intriguing as a character design" and "which of these two characters permeates society." Mario wins the latter hands down, it's not a fair fight. I'm with Sean 100% - if Rayman and Mario had their initial games launched on the exact same day it would have been a flip of the coin to determine which would have won out for recognition or more popular design.

Diablo. The first game. Whenever atmosphere as a quality video games can possess comes up it's the first thing that comes to mind. It isn't just the aesthetic of the game, but the pacing of the game helps it quite a bit. Admittedly I think it falls apart when you get to Hell, but everything to that point is damn near flawless.

It looks like Jake isn't paying attention to what he's doing in that gif.

I really resent this episode because it's making me doubt a decree I made a few days ago about how I'm not interested in supporting Electronic Arts and its Origin platform until they change their provisions about what constitutes being banned from the service. This was in response to some news about the EULA or TOS or whatever it is for SimCity specifying that if you don't report bugs in the beta you'll be banned from Origin rather than just the beta. The changes you guys were describing to SimCity are just too good. It's what I want. This is an awful predicament to be in.

That's a good one. On that note, I hope the Thumbs crew keeps us up to date on when the Neptune's Pride sequel (spiritual or direct) is ready for play. Because I need more of that in my life

I was just now coming here to post about this, and also note that they kinda fucking missed their shot because the only way to get it now is getting the THQ package as a whole when the bankruptcy filling has run its course.

The remaining properties oh THQ and THQ itself are to be sold after the Chapter 11 business concludes. But yeah, the company has been dissolved at this point pretty much. I feel bad for Vigil not getting any bids at all, but I think the idea the potential buyers had is that they can get it with the rest of the company / assets for a cheaper price overall. Cheaper than whatever minimum bid was working during this auctioning that is.

I'm in the closing moments of this podcast but damn that was a great set of discussions. Thank you Shawn Elliott for stopping by. A lot of bits of discussion throughout the cast had me thinking about Don't Starve, which I picked up this week and started playing quite a bit. I'd elaborate, but ribs have been presented to me for dinner just now.

I can do that. I actually haven't listened to any of the Book Club episodes because I am horrible and don't read, like ever. But I'll do it for Nick.

Nick's appearance on this episode (on? in? why are both correct maybe?) made me kinda sad. He didn't seem to have any vigor or desire to say anything beyond talking about Tropico. Are you guys sure this was really Nick Breckon?

Another Nick Breckon URL could be itsprettygood.com.

Oh don't worry, I don't own it either.

I'm not suggesting you or I will catch everything as it comes, but people will catch things. They have as much a shot of being a hit (not with the mass market but you know what I mean) as any non-AAA-published game.

Man, I was about to have a fit over Patrick Miller's input that the indie dev scene will struggle harder than before, because if anything their doors and opportunities are continuing to open. Turns out his argument is that newer indie devs will have a harder time now that there's established indie devs. Which I can understand to an extent but people like all of us who are really into video games will discover those newer devs and what they have to offer anyhow.

Right now I'm listening to the Starcraft 2 soundtrack and the title screen music is making me think back to what Chris and Sean jumped on regarding my music question. Good lord. Which is weird because the in-game music is pretty damn cool otherwise.

Richard Hofmeier Tweeted me some advice so I'm definitely giving the game another go. That was pretty neat of him to do!