Chris

I can't believe I'm commenting on this, but this is incorrect. I think we explained it at one point on the show but I sure can't remember when that was. This originates from the recording of a specific episode during a mic test (again, I can't recall which one), where Jake (I think) laughed deliberately abrasively into his mic. When I played it back through my headphones to test volumes, it was so loud that Nick and Jake could hear it from across the room, and perceived it as some kind of bird noise. Nick found this incredibly hilarious and took to imitating that sound at least once during the recording of every episode (I don't think it made it into the final audio of every episode though), and eventually we started referring to it as the baboo, possibly even on air before explaining it. Jake and I also started doing it, although oddly, each of us does it in an almost completely different way, not unlike the chicken noise from Arrested Development. That parallel was not intentional. Eventually we DID explain this, but I don't remember when or in how much depth. It has become even more absurd now that the word "Baboo" is itself an Idle Thumbs reference even aside from the baboo, as evidenced by the recording of the meet-up crowd in episode 42, whom I had shout both "Baboo" as well as make the baboo bird noise. Christ.

I enjoy the Rock Paper Shotgun podcast, partially in spite of and partially because of its incredibly lo-fi nature. It's just two British guys talking into a microphone about PC games for an hour or so. I like it.

Well, anyone who buys a main Battlefield game, Team Fortress 2, Tribes, Quake III, Unreal Tournament, Demigod, Sins of a Solar Empire, Burnout Paradise, etc. There are tons of games that don't have a real "story" component. Section 8 also comes from a specific tradition -- Tribes and Battlefield -- that frequently fall into that category.

Eh, it's fine. I get asked to do parodies a LOT, even though it's not something I've ever done in the first place, and the idea of it is extremely unappealig to me, so the combination of those things makes me reply excessively curtly at this point even if the person making the request is unaware.

That was an original song in the style of Randy Newman. I guess you could say it parodies his work generally, but it wasn't a parody of any particular song.

I never do parody songs.

Thanks, added to the blog post!

As I recall, that photograph was taken by Tim Schafer.

Yeah I know, but regardless I really like the stereo mixes, and prefer them to the mono mixes, regardless of intent or original involvement.

I had similar issues unfortunately, but I was coincidentally reading today about the Stalker Complete 2009 mod, which apparently makes the game far more playable and smooth. I'm going to give it another shot with that.

Of course that's an uncomfortable implication, but that's what makes it interesting. Were this situation to actually play out in reality, is there any possible way to claim that it WOULDN'T have been better if the aliens were able to just leave? The aliens certainly WANTED to leave and the humans wanted them to as well. Obviously there isn't a direct one-to-one parallel between this situation and human apartheid. The initial causes of the situation in the film are not the same as the initial causes for most real-world analogues, and even as an allegory, the fact that the two groups are of completely different species does make the whole thing much less applicable (and in some cases really made the whole thing silly to me, as in the case of interspecies prostitution or whatever, I mean give me a goddamn break). But, generally speaking, I found the theme of "I wish they'd just leave" to be one of the most potent aspects of the film. I do agree that the action movie ending had a cheapening effect overall. It was filled with a surprising number of incredibly stock action movie shots, when the movie up until that point really had done little of that. It seemed ridiculous.

I haven't played it with this device, but considering how close the Falcon is to an analog stick, it's not too hard to imagine.

Hot scoop: Steve "Hot Scoops" Gaynor worked at TimeGate Studios for about a year, during which time he worked on F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate and F.E.A.R. Extraction Point.

I've always been partial to "Nick Breckon Be Wreckin'"

Well, that's kind of just how a huge number of games work. I think at this point developers don't need to explain it really. It's intended to be a multiplayer game. I don't know if the packaging adequately advertises that, but it's definitely not intended as a primarily single-player experience.

Thanks folks!

I've had a Sharp Aquos 720p TV for about four years now, and it's always been fine for me.

That sucks, and is too bad. The Blu-ray releases I own (not that I own tons) definitely were not simply upsampled. But in any case, that's just an issue of a lack of proper transfer, not anything inherent to older films. The problem you describe would apply equally to more recent films not initially released in HD.

http://www.chrisremo.com/idlethumbs/paxmeet09/thewizard_meetchant.mp3 Sneak preview!

Jake and Nick and I played a bunch of Falcon before recording the latest cast. It's rad! We talked about it during the episode. If you haven't tried it yet, crank up the resistance settings to the max, to see what it's like. It's hardcore.

We are destroying our free time and lives to provide yet another full episode this week.

I enjoy the title of this thread.

Yes, component cables support HD resolutions. I run my Xbox 360 through component. And yeah, there are a few dozen Xbox games that support 720p (and a few that support 1080i), but I don't think I owned many of them (nor did I have an HDTV until I owned an Xbox 360).

I see this misconception all the time and it is completely untrue. Film is film. It's of enormously higher "resolution" than standard definition or high definition or whatever else. It's not a pixel resolution. That goes for old film as well as new film. Film stock has improved over the years, but it isn't dealing with pixel resolutions like we are with electronics.

I have had the same experience as GDF recently, except on my TV itself. I use a 720p TV for my consoles, and at this point I'm so accusted to high-res (usually 1920x1200) gaming on my PC that when I'm playing a console game I'm now much more aware of the individual pixels, particularly when anti-aliasing is light or nonexistent. I don't have this problem with older games. It's only with current-gen 3D ones that my brain can identify are roughly at the same level of fidelity as the current PC games I'm playing, just with fewer, larger pixels. It's the worst at press events, though, because there we're frequently playing on HDTVs standing right up close at a kiosk, where the resolution and pixel density is extremely evident.