Jake

Check out this crazy shit. Can't wait.

Idle Thumbs 120: The Spectacle Was Incredible How many explorers does it take to escape a haunted cave? Clearly far fewer than we packed into our 4 player Spelunky co-op run. Nick and Sean are let back in the room even if it's to talk about The International, the fascinating history of The Bureau is discussed, and for some reason Ace Ventura 2 continues to occupy space in the brains of human beings. Games Discussed: Gone Home, Dota 2, Spelunky, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, X-COM: Enemy Unknown (2010), XCOM, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, Duke Nukem Forever Listen on the Episode Page Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

Idle Thumbs 117: Sir! Sir! Okay, real Idle Thumbs confession time: We can't stop playing and streaming Crusader Kings II. Chris and Nick's lives have been overtaken by it and there's just nothing else. There's... oh god, they're coming this way. Get down here in the grass, bandage yourself up and drink this whiskey so you have a bottle to throw if they get too close. Games Discussed: Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Crusader Kings II, GemStone III, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony, Miles Dyson Punches Out Listen on the Episode Page Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

It refers to the canceled product which preceded The Bureau, which was called "XCOM."

FIND OUT on this week's Idle Thumbs.

I imagine between this one and SpecOps, there is a little bit of "oh shit" going on in the publisher offices.

Sean and Nick and I didn't have much of anything to do with it but yeah Scott!

I only have the Famicom-styled one and I like it a lot.

Was than an overwritten way of saying "shut up games are fun" in response to criticisms that torture maybe shouldn't be portrayed as necessary, celebrated, and always successful by default in popular fiction?

Okay this is an amazing thread. I have nothing to contribute Well... This is dumb advice that is the opposite of art advice, but if you guys are posting this stuff to tumblr make sure you use the "gaming" tag. It's the most followed video game tag on tumblr. Also toblix that is really good.

What is it usually?

You should be scanning this stuff in at 600 DPI greyscale and then doing a little levels work. If it's truly just ink and nothing else, you may be able to get away with 1200 black and white, but you'll probably be annoyed. I'd almost recommend doing them at 1200 dpi greyscale and then running a Photoshop threshold on them and dialing it around until you get the weights and contrast the way you want it. 1200 or 2400 dpi straight black and white will reproduce the most cleanly as "inked work" on paper, I think, unless you're going to be on an amazingly high DPI halftone press, which is unlikely.

Sounds like your save game may have lost its mind between episodes 3 and 5 somewhere, if what you say about the weapon changing is true. :/

We only do guests when we have one or two hosts absent so there is not a situation where we have five people taking (other than weird GDC episodes and stuff). Honest reason why: we only have four microphones.

That makes a lot of sense.

Idle Thumbs 107: GIANTBOMB.COM As the lights fade and the noise recedes from yesterday's Xbox One announcement, the space left in its wake fills with ideas and dreams, yes, but also... loss? A gnawing unfilled place inside you, left wanting. When you're finally sure you're alone, at the quietest point of the night, you turn to your TV, whisper "Xbox... show me J. Allard," and hope. Giant Bomb's Ryan Davis joins us as we unpack the Xbox One reveal, venture beneath Moscow in Metro Last Light, and gaze into the eyes of Allard one final time. Things Discussed: Xbox One, Slender: The Eight Pages, Metro: Last Light, Metro 2033, Dishonored, StarCraft II, J. Allard Listen on the Episode Page Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

I don't want a higher encounter density, and I hope I didn't say or imply that on the podcast. What I was trying to say was that I hope there is a heavier density of things to do moment to moment in the final game. Those things don't have to be enemy encounters and probably shouldn't be. They can be something tangible, they can even just be things in my head (eg time spent formulating a plan, or speculating about a long-term trap or other thing I set into motion earlier but can't see), just... anything. I don't care, I just felt emptiness of a non-deliberate-feeling type while playing the alpha. Again, it could be that I just don't know all of the moment to moment actions that ARE available to me, but right now I run into periods of literally nothing: no threat to evade, no goal on my map or on the horizon or on my mind, no plans to make, nothing already set in motion to wait for. I don't want my time filled with robot fights, but I want them filled with SOMETHING, and with the game as early as it is its hard to tell if those things are there but aren't exposed to new players, if they aren't in but are coming soon, or if this is all there is and the game isn't as much a game for me as I'd hoped. Fortunately the jury is fully out because the game isn't.

Or: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Ragnar the Gardener Idle Thumbs 116: Ragnar Calls It Quits As Ragnar got up to answer the knock at his door, he thought of his life. He'd been chancellor of the realm (for a day), he'd aided the king himself in a secret plot (though that hadn't gone so well), then he'd helped win a war (that he didn't want to fight). Ups and downs, sure, but it was enough -- a life to be proud of. But under the rule of these lot enough is never enough. It was time to go back, time for one final job. Stepping out unto the midnight air he took one last look at his begonias and headed east. Games Discussed: Crusader Kings II, The Binding of Isaac, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Star Wars: Rebellion Listen on the Episode Page Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

I think part of that comes from playing on the stream for your first ever playthrough. It's hard to not try and just accomplish stuff quickly and explore when on a stream, especially in a new game.

Nick ID'd it from Louie but I was thinking of the end of the restaurant scene in the Blues Brothers.

Z-axis Mandatory Oculus Rift confirmed.

Oh man.

In my experience if you have an incompatible driver Windows will just drop down to a shared lowest common denominator super VGA driver and you'll be okay (but without any high color modes or acceleration) and you can fix any issues then.

The office bandwidth doesn't support it, I think.

Live! "Burnin' Down the Wolfman" Watch the video version! Recorded in front of a live audience at PAX 2010's Wolfman Theater, Idle Thumbs presents what is either its third "final episode," or its first "reunion episode," available to the public for the first time in MP3 form. Hear us intermittently forget the audience exists as we share impressions of PAX's finest offerings, fear an exploding microphone, sing songs, and tell the tale of handling Germany's finest wines. With special guests Sean Vanaman and Steve Gaynor. Games Discussed: Torchlight 2, Duke Nukem Forever, Dante's Inferno, Little Big Planet 2, Weinhändler, Imperial 2030, Far Cry 2