TychoCelchuuu

That's not what Chris said, I think. Every example of torture doesn't have to say "TORTURE IS WRONG IT IS UNETHICAL FEEL FOR THE VICTIM YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON." He's just saying the default treatment of torture in games doesn't need to be "Torture: It Just Works™" because that's bullshit for eight thousand reasons.

Don't Starve.

You don't get to just drain something of meaning by removing realistic aspects and saying "it's a video game mechanic!" Even the very act of removing the most meaningful aspects of an act and reducing it down to "press LT to torture to get the information to win" means something. To argue that games don't mean anything when they're just meant to be played or that genre fiction in general doesn't mean anything because it's just meant to be enjoyed as genre fiction is ridiculous. It doesn't matter one bit what anyone thinks they aren't saying when they make these games - what matters is what the games do say when they present, for instance, torture as something that is totally effective all the time forever.

Your regret appears to have been noted by the Kotaku Gods and they have added a link to your tumblr to the post. Nice!

That is amazing. Great cast! It made me want to check out Saint's Row 4 some day in the far future when I have less on my plate, game-wise. I really like the stuff Chris said about violence in games being a reflection of and sort of a contributor to violence in our culture. I feel like one of the few opinions that I get shouted down when I express no matter where I go, even "safe" spaces that don't shit on my for bringing up feminism or something, is to say that violent video games aren't 100% super totally harmless and don't have any bad influence on anyone ever forever. I'd reiterate my opinion but it's basically just Chris' from the podcast, so I'm glad that another person agrees with me and is saying it with the authority of being someone who clearly doesn't have it out for video games, or even violent video games, because he spent the rest of the cast talking about enjoying stuff like Metal Gear Solid and Far Cry 2. I also liked the discussion about the complexities of feudalism and CKII's UI - that turned into a nice, interesting answer when it otherwise could've been something like "naw, there's a lot going on" or "yeah the UI is sort of a mess." Also I feel like one of Jake's amazing jokes didn't get anywhere near enough laughs (in fact nobody laughed, I think). You guys were talking about the Splinter Cell picture book and imagined the child saying something like "how come nobody can ever find Sam Fisher" and someone said something like "play the video game and you'll understand" and then Jake said "wait until you're 11." That was fucking hilarious!

Yikes! That's the same score he gave Antichamber, so I guess Gone Home is in good company at least.

Countdown to tears - finished:

Half-Life 23 confirmed.

Rock Paper Shotgun Wot I Think Polygon Review (10/10) Giant Bomb Review (5/5) GameRankx (?) Review (10/10) Paste Magazine Review (9.5/10) Looks like Paste Magazine is a pretty tough customer!

The most exciting part of that trailer for me was how much it captures what California feels like (which of course has nothing to do with multiplayer and which is something Rockstar always nails in its games). That atmosphere... so perfect.

THIS IS SO CLOSE I CAN TASTE IT IT TASTES LIKE THE 90s SO, BASICALLY, ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS

Bizarrely, just yesterday or the day before I listened to the "Remember the Airfield" part of the "Remember the Airfield" podcast. So that's really good timing on my part!

Canizen Lynch: Dead Man's Chest 2 and Dead Samuel Jackson's Arm 2 for Ouya.

Good lord.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't add a review score for every game discussed on the podcast. You need a review score for each host per game. Anything else would be a travesty. You need to get on Metacritic four times for each game or not at all. No half measures, Idle Thumbs. And please only review AAA releases. No indie hipster shit. And Far Cry 2 can't get more than a 7, I'm sorry. That's just how this works.

I dunno. Nick talks in inverse proportion to the number of people present, and Jake seems way too polite to ever effectively interrupt anyone. My hypothesis is that a 5 person podcast would be legible in an auditory sense.

You've left off JP and Marek Bronstring!

That's what I'm saying though. I thought they didn't play many games. My impression was that they rarely played a game that didn't get talked about on the podcast at some point, or at least not for very long. Nick actually seems like he might play lots of games sometimes but Sean, Jake, and Chris don't seem like they play much that they don't talk about.

Oh also I think this hasn't been linked in the thread yet - this is the Pikmin college course story thing.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying - I guess the idea is that I misinterpreted Zeusthecat when I thought he was saying "play AAA games even if you don't like them because I want to hear you talk about them," which is what his post sounded like: Let's assume I did misinterpret that post - your response is that I should chill out because the Thumbs play plenty of games, and Zeus just wanted to talk about more of the AAA games that they play because he likes hearing about that. If that's what you mean, I would've thought you're wrong about the facts - from what I can tell, the Thumbs don't play a lot of games. There were times on the podcast where more often than not they came in and some people hadn't played anything since the last week. I think one of the reasons they started streaming before casting was to have a game they could all talk about, because worst-case scenario, everyone will have "played" that by watching it. I might be wrong - maybe the Thumbs play a shitton of AAA games but then never talk about it on the podcast. If that's the case, then I retract everything I say assuming I misread Zeusthecat when I thought he was asking them to talk about games they played but don't care about. If I didn't misread Zeusthecat, and he was actually saying "I don't care if you guys like the games, just talk about them because I love AAA games!" then I think I'm still right - having the Thumbs talk about Game X because it's an AAA game rather than because they think they want to talk about it strikes me as a bad idea.

I love the Thumbs as much as anyone, but I think you're really overestimating them if you think they can come up with Idle Thumbs Podcast quality opinions on literally any given AAA game, on cue. I think what makes Idle Thumbs such a tremendous podcast is that they talk about what's interesting to them, whether or not it's an AAA title, and even when it is an AAA title, they feel literally no need to talk about it the way most people talk about AAA titles. Lots of podcasts/other sources of games media treat game discussions as a series of checkboxes. What does everyone think about The Last of Us overall? Did you like the graphics? Did you like the soundtrack? Did you like the gameplay? Was it too long? How did you like the controls? Did you like the story? Etc. They go around the table and talk about it and then at the end everyone sums up their opinion with a number (for example). Nobody is ever allowed to say "well honestly the graphics and controls and soundtrack and story and gameplay were fine, whatever, I don't give a shit, I'd like to spend 10 minutes talking about the time in the game where I picked up a crumpled paper note." In fact Idle Thumbs seems to get shit in reader mail and on forums and elsewhere whenever they cover big AAA games in the piecemeal fashion that they do, because they'll spend the entire time talking about one weird thing they didn't like or one interesting thing they did like and ignore most of what people expect them to talk about (like how amazing X, Y, or Z are) and then people get the impression that they don't really know anything about the AAA game. But that's not true! They just don't feel like talking about 95% of the stuff in any given game because they don't find it interesting. So when you say something like "I'd love to hear the Thumbs talk about more AAA games, I loved their discussions of Dishonored and The Last of Us!" all I hear is "I'd love to hear the Thumbs talk about games they don't give a shit about in addition to the games they do give a shit about!" I honestly don't think that would produce a podcast of the same quality as the one we currently listen to. The Thumbs all (or mostly all?) have experience working in games journalism, so it's not like they COULDN'T come up with shit to say about any given game, but I think Chris is on record as saying that one of his favorite things about working for Gamasutra was that his duties didn't include writing about games he didn't give a shit about (or maybe was referring to his position at Shacknews - I can't remember). I think that goes for the rest of the Thumbs too - I doubt they'd be as interesting, funny, and insightful if, instead of coming into the podcast and saying "here's what moves me, even if it's a 10 year old hipster game instead of an AAA game," they instead had to say "whelp, time to muster up some comments on the latest releases." I've heard podcasts like that. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm just saying I don't think they're like Idle Thumbs, and I suspect you're fooling yourself if you think Idle Thumbs could be as good as it is and cover a bunch of hot new AAA games instead of whatever shit they feel like talking about.

You seem pretty angry about the fact that some people can dislike things that you like. I think it might be time to swallow a chill pill or something. If Chris doesn't want to play Borderlands 2 or Saint's Row 3 because he doesn't like the humor, it's not like he's telling you you're not allowed to like it. He's just expressing personal taste. If I had to choose being "a little earnest and Woody Allen" or being forced to play whatever stupid game some person on the Internet was determined that I play just so I could enjoy it as much as that person even though I don't like this sort of thing, I think I know which option I'd take.

Weirdly enough all of my thoughts about this podcast mesh into one sort of ur-thought which is an amalgamation of stuff to talk about. There's Danielle, Saint's Row, and Thumbs and mainstream games/talking about new stuff/bringing new people on the podcast to shake things up and inject life into the conversations because the Thumbs are set in their ways and never have conflicting opinions about things which are all themes that have surfaced in this thread thus far. Danielle was a great guest, but the exception in terms of "what did I like about the podcast" was when she was talking about Saint's Row 4. Why? Well, the main reason is that it seems like she was embargo-ed out of 50% of what she wanted to talk about (like in terms of what made the game interesting to her) and the rest of the stuff that made the game interesting to her was stuff that she couldn't really describe beyond saying stuff like "somehow it just works," because the rest of the Thumbs hadn't played the game (because it's not out yet...). I think this is one of a number of reasons that I don't really want Idle Thumbs to be forced in a new direction or new areas or whatever - it's not a traditional video game podcast where they talk about all the big upcoming AAA games or the new releases or the latest reviews or whatever. Idle Thumbs just talks about whatever it wants to talk about, even if the game is like 10 years old or it's a small indie game nobody cares about or if it's a European board game or if it's not even a video game, it's the Big Dog again. I feel like if I wanted to hear someone summarize the parts of their video game review that they aren't contractually obligated to keep secret until a set date in the future, I could listen to one of any number of other video game podcasts that exist out there, or just read news sites, or whatever. This also links up with Chris not having ever tried Saint's Row because the dildos turned him off, and in general with the Thumbs having what people seem to be describing in this thread as a fairly settled set of tastes that don't get mixed up very much. In essence, those things are the main reason I listen to the podcast (well, that and the fact that it's consistently hilarious). The Idle Thumbs people have interesting things to say about what they talk about because they're specific people with specific tastes who seek out and play specific games that appeal to them for pretty specific reasons. I don't really care about what Chris thinks about Saint's Row 3 beyond the fact that he never bothered trying it, because I don't really give a shit about what anyone thinks about anything other than what they give a shit about. I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy Idle Thumbs if Chris, Jake, Sean, and Nick were forced to come up with interesting stuff to say about whatever random AAA game the latest guest is there to talk about, or whatever random game the faceless mob has forced them into playing, because sometimes there's not much that the Thumbs have to say about this stuff. Maybe there's nothing much interesting about Saint's Row 3 to Chris, and if he doesn't want to talk about it then that's great. The podcast has no predefined "segments," it has no set topics, it makes no effort to stay relevant or topical or even to talk about video games for the majority of the cast, and that freedom to breathe is what makes it tremendous, if you ask me. (You can go back in the archives and listen to some of the first few episodes when things were a little more traditional, and stuff like "here's what I can say about the latest Gears of War game without breaking my embargo" isn't the best Idle Thumbs material, IMHO.) To be honest, whenever fellow podcasters come on, especially seasoned ones like a Giant Bomb fellow, I tend to enjoy the Thumbs cast a bit less, not because I dislike the people but because it seems like they bring their "good podcast" habits - they steer conversations back on topic, they ask leading/open ended questions that prompt people for relevant opinions on the topic at hand, they have a few set observations about the game they're ready to explain that cover the "bases" that you would expect to get covered, and so on. Honestly I just find it all boring and rote because the Thumbs shine when something inspires them, not when they give their input on the topic of the week. For instance, I enjoyed this cast much better once it got past the "let me summarize parts of my Saint's Row 4 review" and Danielle turned into a normal Thumb (as in, she started dropping hilarious non-sequiturs about cardboard screen blockers and so on). And although the Thumbs talk about AAA games sometimes and guests talk about obscure games sometimes, often when a guest comes on, they bring ready with them an AAA game to talk about which is one the Thumbs often wouldn't have bothered talking about, and it's those parts of the cast that I often find the least entertaining in terms of "is anyone saying anything interesting." If Idle Thumbs just always became a podcast where there was the default "here's the AAA game we're going to talk about because everyone demanded we play it or because our guest just reviewed it and is ready to talk about it because they're used to talking about video games in the normal context where you can't talk about a game more than 3 months old if you want anyone to pay attention" I'd be less than thrilled. I want games to be talked about on the cast because someone has something interesting to say about them, not because the cast needs a topic and then we're going to go around the table and hear what everyone has to say about Game X for no reason other than it just came out. The way I see it, I'd rather they discuss the Eastern European hipster bullshit because they have something interesting they want to say about it, than an AAA game we've all heard about just because it's popular, even though the Thumbs don't have much to add. The cast talks about what it wants to talk about - I don't want to hear them talk about something other people want them to talk about. If that makes sense. I'm not sure I share your impression - it seems like the Thumbs argue with each other as much as they agree on stuff. They are certainly closer to each other than a randomly selected group of 4 video game enthusiasts, sure, but it's not like they're all of one mind when it comes to any given discussion, and even if they end up coming to a consensus it's often only after a lot of back and forth.