Daniel

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Posts posted by Daniel

  2. Posted

    When I read the announcement, I was very afraid that Jake and Sean had relocated across the country to form the studio, leaving Idle Thumbs in shambles. Chris would try to continue the cast alone, but eventually his mental state would start to deteriorate, and each successive episode of Idle Thumbs would just be strange, indistinct mumbling about Zuma, untill one day there is only static.

     

    I'm glad the site's still here.

  6. Posted

    On a similar note, another thing I've always wanted to do is buy up a furniture store and play paintball.  You could dive onto couches and beds, flip over tables for cover, open cabinets and closet doors to use as shields, etc.  It could make for some pretty great capture the flag.

     

    That would also be awesome in a mall.

  7. Posted

    I've always wanted to get a bunch of people together, go into a restaurant, and say "We'll take one of everything."

     

    It'd take a ridiculous amount of money, but it'd be great to go into a giant retail store and buy their entire stock.

     

    I'd have it all moved to a giant warehouse and then give it all away.

  8. Posted

    I really like the idea of the universe being stuck in a time-loop and exploding every 20 minutes. I'm interested to see if anything carries over with each loop, like in that Star Trek:TNG episode.

  9. Posted

    So I've kind of wanted to play Earthbound Zero (the original Mother for Famicom) for ages and just now discovered that this small company's been making repro carts of it. They're probably expensive as fuck (like triple digit price, given some of the other prices on their site), but damn are they pretty. Probably best to just play the GBA version on an emulator or wait and see if Nintendo ever gets around to finally officially releasing that version they translated decades ago through Virtual Console (not bloody likely).

     

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    That looks like something from the Criterion Collection of Video Games, which would be awesome if it actually existed.

  10. Posted

    It has taken me since February, but early this morning I finally finished Assassin's Creed III. While I had several problems with the combat system and enemy AI, I really enjoyed being in the world. Some of the best moments were spent wandering in the frontier, which seemed much more unique than the towns. The hunting, homestead, crafting, and other systems seemed interesting enough, but I never felt like it had much impact on the campaign or my character. I only upgraded a few things and didn't dive that deeply into it, so it very well may have a larger impact than I perceived.

     

    There's also the weird disconnect between the main storyline and all the side content in a way that doesn't usually bother me that much. It felt like there was enough activities for a entirely seperate game about a entrepreneuring Native American who manages trade routes, runs a craftsmen's guild, and hangs out with Benjamin Franklin. I don't plan on going back to complete all that side content, but it seems like reasonable stuff for a semi-retired assassin to occupy himself with after the war, I suppose. During? Not so much.

     

    It was my first AC game, and while I was hoping for more stealth/assassin-y things and less action, I'd like to check out the previous games. I've watched a friend play parts of ACII, and I think that would be closer to what I expected. While firing cannons, steering ships, and other Revolutionary War activities are neat and all, I'd really like to just climb tall stuff and sneak up on some dudes.

  11. Posted

    I realized yesterday that I've experienced a strange amalgamation of two topics covered in this episode. Within the Netflix UI on the Xbox 360, movement between categories creates a hybrid whoosh/thud sound, followed by a higher-pitched pop/crack when the next title is selected. By slowly moving between categories you can create a whoosh, crack pattern with slightly longer or shorter time delays between the two. In effect, it's tennis (Tennnes?) on the Netflix UI.

  12. Posted

    I've never played a GTA title, so I suppose I was expecting something lengthier for a sandbox game. Granted, it went out of its way to make certain time sinks way easy. After you unlock the skill that displays all collectibles on your phone's map, collecting everything is as simple as jumping in a helicopter and flying to each one. Something that could take hours got boiled down to one or two. I also didn't mention that the 30 hours included all DLC.

     

    And that's not a bad thing, really. It seems that many games overstay their welcome rather than leave you wanting more. It fully succeeds in that regard.

  13. Posted

    All that said... it feels small to me. In, what, 3 days? My roommate has gotten around 85% completion. I just feel like, with maybe a week of dedication, you could 100% the entire game.Maybe I'm just greedy for content, but I feel like a brand new open-world styled game like that should have more to it.

     

    Yeah, SR3 was the same way. I did almost everything in about 30 hours, and that included a fair bit of goofing around with whatever.

  14. Posted

    I've always thought the Witcher games looked like amazing experiences to be had, but I've yet to play them. A friend said they both took him 50ish hours each, and I'm not sure if I could fit 100+ hours in before this is released.

     

    Everything I've ever heard about them seems fantastic, though.

  17. Posted

    The first couple of Divinity games are sort of like Diablo but with more quest/narrative stuff. It's comparable to some Ultimas I believe. If that floats your boat they're well worth checking out, otherwise there's some pretty decent let's plays of them over yonder

    http://lparchive.org/title/divinity

     

    The third game in the series is a decent third-person action-rpg as well. It was released twice under different names (first as Eco Draconis, then as The Dragon Knight Saga) owing to the number of bugs in the first release. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the world tremendously.

     

    The next game in the series is returning to the Diablo-like feel of the first two, I believe.

  18. Posted

    I scored this from Green Man Gaming for $40, so yay. Hopefully it runs all right on my computer.

     

    Apparently the 360 version suffers terrible framerate drops, so if you're able to run SR3 fairly well, you might be better off on PC anyway.

  20. Posted

    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.)

     

     

    This is one of the myriad reasons I listen to Idle Thumbs. I play my fair share of mainstream titles, but I am far more interested in insightful or funny conversations about 90's space flight sims or whatever than a weekly rundown of current AAA gaming experiences. I rarely listen to podcasts from major video gaming websites for that reason. There's nothing inherently wrong with discussion being geared towards current news or games, of course. It just seems that the various avenues of conversation for video games might have the tendency to shy away from the richness of gaming's past in favor of the new thing, something that literature, film, and music may not suffer from as much. That's a broad and biased generalization, but there you go.

     

    Also, the threat of Bigger Dog succeeded in making me wary of all robots now.

  21. Posted

    I've been rewatching Star Trek The Next Generation lately and I can't help but read your post with Riker's voice.

     

    That was my plan all along.

     

     

    Yes. I always feel happiest when I'm wearing either my bright teal shorts or my pink shorts. Either of those are instant mood-relievers. Of course, I also work at a job where I'm required to wear black collared shirts and khakis, so any colour means I'm on a day off and therefore happier, but still. Do it.

     

    Yeah, khakis used to be ok, but now they're just a symbol of the 9-to-5. I'll probably get rid of them once I have a better job.

  23. Posted

    I'm not sure I agree with this! I think the high profile single player FPS has plenty of life. Far Cry 3, Bioshock Infinite, and even Metro Last Light were big games, and the criticism (of BSI and even FC3) wasn't due to the nature of the games, but the narrative. Gordon gunning down hundreds of aliens IS the plot of Half Life, so there isn't the same dissonance as BSI.

     

    Part of me wonders if they're are increasingly disinterested in games that aren't ongoing revenue sources? 

     

    I think that's a good assumption. A lot of news about Valve in recent years seems to focus on their experiments with digital distribution and the economy of Steam (TF2/DotA2, trading cards, etc). From what I remember, Gabe's talk at this year's DICE covered that stuff quite a bit.