radaxian

No far cry 2 discussed?! I'm outraged. Also - thanks for putting this together - looking forward to it

The Giant Bomb Quick Look gives a pretty good introduction to the game from what I can tell without having played it. I recommend anyone unsure about the game sets aside an hour to check it out before buying.

I picked this up too but haven't had a chance to play more than a few matches. I've noticed the match scores and league table for my selected real world team (Arsenal) are often out of date. Seems like they take a few extra days to update with the results of a weekend round of the EPL.

So I notice the Book Club has officially been retired. I blame Lynch. (it really did seem like time to draw a line on that one)

Another option you could consider regarding listener donations is the GWJ approach. They set aside a month each year as their donation drive month and never ask outside that period (though they have taken on some ads too) which seems like a reasonable compromise. I'd prefer if you avoided game ads too. The read for WOT did stand out as odd as a listener who has some appreciation for the types of experiences that normally interest the thumbs. I find these ads less incongruous when pre-recorded at the start of podcasts rather than mid way through but I accept that this is probably less effective and a mid episode live read may be something advertisers require. All credit to you for openly discussing with your audience too.

I had a 360 early and remember the blades well. Makes me wish I could go back and check it out. Unlike PCs I guess there is no easy path to do something like that (without hacking) as device system software is usually designed to only accept newer versions.

Started listening back in 2009 and joined the forums a few years ago but never joined the conversation - time to change that. Hi from Australia.

Re: Mad Men and Sean's comments about Betty. I don't think January Jones has played the character all that convincingly, but I think it's due in a large part to the writing. The farm picnic to me was unconvincing overall, even though I can imagine a character like Betty reacting similarly they just didn't sell it. Similarly I find Jessica Pare very unconvincing as Megan most of the time. Again taking this episode as an example, I think her scenes were quite well written but she wasn't convincing. To me there is something very self concious about her performance a lot of the time and and feels like she's constantly waiting for someone to say "and cut - well done Jessica". On the other hand I think Peggy is an extremely convincing and well drawn character. Elizabeth Moss has done a great job with that character and is a great actress. I would recommend those interested in good quality slow paced crime drama to take a look at the mini-series she was in called Top of the Lake.

Me too - I just finished this game and really enjoyed it overall. The main story completely lost momentum during my play through, which I find really common for games of this length (30+ hours). The variety of locations and nice mix of mechanics kept me interested along the way and the fast travel ensures you can always quickly jump to new and interesting things. I've kept playing since the credits and am still enjoying the ship plundering and fleet building. My history with the series was also having come straight from AC2 to this one. Although I've had the other games in my unplayed pile for years I'm unlikely to go back now. I started Brotherhood (which is supposed to be great too) but found it much easier to get going with this game knowing there weren't 3 more games to follow. Great series - particularly if you don't worry about playing them all!

The Simpsons game comes to mind in the satire/parody discussion. This game presents players with levels based on spoofs of various games but fails to actually do anything with it other than say "hey, isn't it funny how games provide players with repetitive tasks based on simple mechanics? Games sure are dumb". This alone is not particularly insightful or interesting. Presenting the very same tropes and simply pointing out that you've done so does not make for an interesting experience. Another example of the game's attempt at parody is through their use of achievements on the 360. They made choices like this: Press START to Play Easiest achievement...ever 5 which is amusing and an observation about the stupidity of achievements in general. However most of the rest of them are typical collectibles and time trial challenges: Dufftacular Finish Find all of Homer's Duff Bottle Caps 50 Complete Package Finish every episode, find every collectible, and discover every Video Game Cliché Moment 150 The extent of the achievement parody is mostly limited to a nod of self awareness through some of the achievement names. They are otherwise suggesting players go through and do exactly the same things. It would seem to me there was a missed opportunity to make the collectible hunts so far fetched they're impractical etc. In reality the designers probably didn't have much scope for true parody given the mainstream audience and expectations surrounding a title like this. Also Microsoft may limit the extent to which developers can mock the achievement system. I imagine a Simpsons style scene with a row of people from the publisher wearing white scientists coats and standing behind one way glass looking into a room full of focus testers. One of the testers would observe: "Yep, you sure are wasting my time just like all those other games do. You've done it again Video games - you clever little devils. But back to the task at hand, where are the rest of those collectibles..." - which would result in high fives all around.

I just bought a kindle yesterday. It's a cost issue for me. To buy a random paperback (eg The Sense of an Ending) from a retailer here in Australia is US$20-25. I can get them online cheaply from bookdepository but the month-ish delay isn't well suited to a monthly book club. I've also used an Amazon US account to get the normal US range/prices on eBooks rather than relying on the International AU Kindle store. I was already using this second account to access game download sales where they provide steam codes (otherwise you need to mess around with a VPN). Another nice thing about the Kindle for me is that I now have a nice way of reading a bunch of long form articles/essays I've saved from the web over the years. They're in various formats (.txt .pdf .epub .doc .html etc) but have all been converted/formatted nicely for the Kindle using calibre - great open source software for managing your reading library for those with eBook readers.

When describing Infinite Jest in an interview with Charlie Rose DFW talked about the use of extensive footnotes and how they shape the reading experience. From memory he related the disjointed effect of needing to flip back and forth while reading to the way life/entertainment/consumption has been evolving (I'm misquoting here but it was something along these lines). So eBooks are cheating! (I have a hard cover first edition which has been staring at me for more than 5 years now)

Yes they said that somewhere along the line - episode 1 should be this coming Friday September 7th.

Things happening - http://www.idlethumbs.net/idlebookclub - episode 0 is up! Sounds like Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is the second book.

I somehow managed to miss my cue to take a seat at the table. I wandered around up and down the stairs for a long time before figuring it out. I discovered that you can jump over the railing at the top of the stairs back down to the original balcony (then down further - to your death). When I finally figured out I needed to sit down, I was holding an orange (you know, on the off chance there was an orange delivery side mission I'd missed, plus narrative wise I'd just done a lot of walking and was hungry).

http://steamcommunity.com/id/radaxian

radaxian

Any update on the schedule for the first book show? I recall you were originally planning to launch alongside the return of the regular show and new website. Are you still waiting for the new site to appear before starting?

John Walker from Rock Paper Shotgun wrote a piece on the videos which provides a reasoned discussion of the way they've been perceived. I showed the videos to my wife who took some convincing before believing that it wasn't a parody.

I'd really like to see a game like this have the courage to let you fail, have people get away with it, and let you have face your career as a beat cop as a result. At the very least, let failure on cases trigger different pathways and rates of progression through the hierarchy/desks. I wonder if I game like this could be made without the body language & voice acting side of interrogations but rather with (well written) text only. I'd have thought there is scope for a case generating engine that would allow lots of cases and could scale the difficulty by changing the amount/obviousness of evidence. It would be interesting to see this applied to a dynamic career which presented harder cases but was willing to let you fail and suffer the results of mistakes or not performing. I also like the idea of a comical multiplayer mode where two cops were jostling for promotion and would tear through the streets to solve the case first!

So it was only Video Games Rodkin who cut his chops in the Sam and Max S1 sequences then?

Long time listener here too. I've listened to all episodes of Idle Thumbs/The Idle Thumbs Podcast, and associated confgrenades. gulp. The book podcast has me excited, I need some motivation to get reading and this may do the trick.

Pleased to read that - I've never played one before and just started Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (DS version) last night. The iOS game 100 Rogues might also be a good starting point I suspect.