Jake

Truth.

The Book Design Review blog posts "favorite covers" lists of great book cover designs which caught their eye every year. Always worth a look. Here's 2009's list, which also links to their previous lists back to '05.

"Chris cut hours of baboos" is a good phrase. I'm a blathering mess but what can you do?

I imagine that as we do more of these the tone will inevitably change a little bit. Steve isn't nick, and the balance of hosts is now 2:1 developers to press, instead of the other way around, but since we never set out to invent anything in the first place, there isn't going to be a conscious decision to reinvent.

You don't have to listen to our recorded conversations in Chris's apartment if you don't want to! Hopefully the non-dramatic name change, the "new" theme song being an alternate take of the original, etc, indicated that while some things are going to be different, it's largely going to be more of just us sitting around talking about games in the way we tend to. There was never any sort of high concept or unifying theme for this podcast, and there isn't one with the new content. People asked for more stuff, and we missed recording them, so we've started again. Odds are some of the old repeated phrases and things will fade out, just because there are different people at the mics now and the chemistry is different, but we still think the same kind of shit is funny that we did a few months ago.

Same. I hope the game is good, and am giving it a chance because a proper 2D scrolling Sonic game on a mainline home console is what I've wanted Sega to make for years.

This wave seems to be receding, though. Studios are getting their names back (eg Irrational), and things like EA Redwood Shores becoming Visceral Games (hilarious name as it is, it's not "EARS"), have been happening reasonably frequently in the last few months.

I don't think we cared if the game went up to T, for instance. I'm surprised it didn't, just for drinking and smoking and calling people foul names and that sort of generally mom-wrankling behavior, but what do I know about ratings. I think people on the TTG forums were asking for blood hose out of Guybrush's arm when he loses his hand and things. Can't remember.

In regards specifically to blood: Putting blood in never came up, to be honest. Does blood equal drama? Would blood have made the scene work for you? I think if it had been there, peoples response when watching the scene would have been a distracted "blood! Bloodbloodblood" instead of just seeing the events. It means that what happens on screen is more representative and less literal/realistic, but that far into this particular MI game I think it would have been a stylistic clash. Not saying I wouldn't want a MI game where a little blood on a sword would be tonally/aesthetically appropriate, i just think Tales was well down a road where (for most people playing -- not you obviously) it would be more distracting and out of place than not. There is blood in the Genesis version, however.

I done that, and it was deliberate. Thanks dude!

While Video Games is two words, bullshit is one. Get with the game, toeblix.

"Farewell, Video Games" or "The Shitty Wizard" Idle Thumbs goes out with some attempt at a bang, by way of a two and a half hour mega episode. The unrelenting Dragon Age revokes Nick's gamer card, Chris can't stop playing Torchlight, and Jake keeps spinning around on the floor. Also featuring farewells aplenty, Dreamcast 2, exclusive Steve Ballmer DLC, and good news. Games Discussed: Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Far Cry 2, Torchlight, Fate, Star Control II, Shattered Horizons, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Hammerfight, Trine Thanks for being awesome and enjoying our year of podcasting!

Hm, they're working for me. If anyone else runs into this, I can change the download source easily.

That could be the case. Thanks for the heads up. ... which episodes? I'm having trouble reproducing this.

Not that I don't like the game... I've been enjoying the hell out of it... but that's largely despite the look of it. Other than being generally bright and colorful, and featuring things which look like things from other Mario games (AKA "doing its job"), the art isn't adding a lot. That's obviously a testament to Mario games just being fun to pick up and play through, but as a lifelong Mario and Nintendo dork, I always hope for a game like this to be one of those semi-rare times when Nintendo cleans up, goes all out in the visual design department and surprise me. Unrelated: The similarity of these two images makes me happy

I don't think the resolution of the graphics or the polycount have anything to do with it. If it was on the 360 or the PS3 it would still look like , which is nicer, but no more stylish or interesting. The real issue just boils down to only being half-hearted with the character design, world design, and overall color design. Mario 3 through Yoshi's Island (and Mario Galaxy) made sure to have their own fully unique and consistent looks, across the characters, levels, and general color palette. If you look through their respective manuals and players guides (filled with amazing crisp renditions of it all), and then look at the games themselves (at 320x200 or whatever the NES and SNES ran at), the style of each of those games holds up regardless of the level of detail available to render the art. New Super Mario Bros looks boring simply because it is. There's nothing bold or confident going on. Lots of very Photoshop-looking textures on top of lots of personalityless geometry. It's the same sort of overly flat-colored, overly Photoshop brush-tool'd look that PopCap employs in things like Peggle -- basically Safe, Dumb, and Digital looking -- which I guess people respond well to, but it definitely does nothing for my imagination, which was never a problem with the Mario games of the 8/16 bit eras. I think Mario Galaxy's 2D segments proved this pretty well, even if the number of concurrent effects (and pixels rendered) was lower than it would be on a PS3, but even without that stuff, that game was just nice to look at and experience. Built out of great colors, shapes, and textures, with good animation, and good music. NSB Wii unfortunately is lacking in almost all of those departments (its animation is often nice), before it even has a chance to try and incorporate any glitzing up.

it's Christmas time

Whoa massive withdrawal thread! With Monkey Island ended I've found myself with a surprising amount of time to play games (and sleep). I tried my best to time it with the ending of Thumbs, though. Got a reputation to uphold.

If you're already going to the DeYoung museum and the Tea Gardens, you owe it to yourself to go to the Academy of Sciences right across the way as well. They're all surrounding a common park area in Golden Gate Park. The Academy's rainforest area and planetarium are awesome, and, like the DeYoung, it's architecturally fun and interesting. If you do go to the DeYoung, and the Academy, make sure you get to the roof of the Academy and the DeYoung's observation tower. Even if you don't buy a ticket to the DeYoung, you can still go inside and go up to their tower for free, and get an amazing look at the city. (That's this thing.)

A result of running out of time, sorry to say. Would have let you take out the Crossroads map anywhere, instead of having to walk to the boat, but we ran out of time to bulletproof that so we left it as is, doubling the walk time. Sorry!

Took us long enough "Jeff 'Gone' Goldblum" This week Chris and Nick don some custom callsigns to check out Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer, become terrified by the high definition frog face of Zuma's Revenge, and almost steal Jeff Goldblum's shoes. As for Jake? He is only good at keeping people focused on the deep depression. Games Discussed: Modern Warfare 2, Mini Ninjas, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Resident Evil 5, The Beatles Rock Band, Zuma's Revenge, Guitar Hero Cereal Prize, King Arthur's World, Gameloft's Entire Library, Fire Guy

You guys havent been getting the new episodes? Shit, we should probably fold the Bargo Busters feed back into the main Thumbs feed.

Do you mean aesthetically, or just Zelda in general?

An ode to a tag I forgot we had, the tag. [soiler]observe.

Caution: May contain sadness and song. "In Space" As the darkness draws in and the last days creep ever closer, we're joined by 2K Marin's Steve Gaynor for a rousing discussion of video games in the outer reaches of space. While there, we discuss the PS3's recent trips to polar opposites of the hand-holding spectrum, lament the disappearance of Modern Warfare 2's dedicated servers, and are paid a surprise visit by an asshole. Games Discussed: Demon's Souls, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Far Cry 2, God Hand, Half-Minute Hero, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Dragon Age: Origins, Crimson Skies (PC), Sim Mars, The Beatles Rock Band: Abbey Road, Rock Band 2: Queen DLC