syntheticgerbil

Ooh, I totally meant to post that! Haha I've read it twice actually and it's pretty inconsequential compared to the animated sequences you unlock!

I think that says it best. Plus because of the redirect it involves Polygon in it, which I get the feeling no one wanted and as you guys defend, the guy acted alone, but it doesn't make his employer look good. Had the guy just linked to whatever damn site I guess it could be shrugged off as simply stupid and unfunny.

El Muerte doesn't work for Idlethumbs, update the website, record any podcasts, write any articles, or otherwise profit from anything having to do with Idlethumbs. Obviously everyone finds something wrong with this even the staunch defenders, so be it. Considering no other employees or Polygon owners have come to the defense of this prank makes me think they aren't happy about the public image it portrays of Polygon.

Well I think it's harmful as my message says. I like Polygon. I listen to, read, and watch multiple things on there and I really don't like that someone on staff pulls something dumb to make the site look bad or give bait to Gamergaters.

Even if he made no money, it comes off as ridiculously unprofessional and then he ropes the site he works for in it by redirecting. It doesn't make Polygon look good and I'm sure Lego is not amused. But I guess this'll be the second time you call me an idiot, so that's fine.

I suppose I should say I'm not against lore in certain games, like how they brought up Elder Scrolls lore. I consider the random codec calls to be lore in every Metal Gear, since most if not all in some MGS games are superfluous and are only there to enrich the story. That and funny easter eggs and jokes. However I suppose those are dialogue exchanges rather than a block of texture. I remember Longest Journey had this painfully boring part in the library of Arcadia where this guy just read a bunch of books about a bunch of backstory that didn't matter to the world, at least not to the extent of which was shown. And you've gotta have spice for sure, I agree Mike.

Uh, that's a pretty shitty thing to do, especially if they paid him to get the name. Okay Lego is a registered trademark and this is pretty much cybersquatting which I THINK is illegal reading wikipedia. Maybe if he called it Legodick.com it would be fine because I'm sure Lego wouldn't be interested in that name, but the name of the new Lego game?! I guess it's harmless but I don't see how this is a funny "joke" or makes Polygon look good in a positive light. Honestly the dude should probably be fired because it redirected to Polygon which makes the whole site look bad. Maybe if it redirected to his personal site or something it would help it appear he acted alone, but shenanigans like this really don't help the journalists side.

The last shitty game I worked on was an iOS/PC game and the company hired some guy with terrible spelling and grammar to write paragraphs and paragraphs of lore for the characters. This was just a dumb League of Legends style turned based game, so the characters were just shells of things people may like. Having a bunch of idiotic backstory written for characters I created after the fact was bizarre and cringeworthy. It was even more useless because this writer guy was hired full time while the company was hurting for cash. I asked in a meeting before the guy was hired why the lore was important and basically the owner just said, "Well you've gotta have Lore." Then they all had multiple meetings and e-mail chains arguing over what the lore actually was and all of this backstory over this dumb game wasting tons of time. I guess that's all those managerial types can do in terms of "work," booking pointless meetings to argue for hours. So after that bitterness, Jak and Daxter really wasn't a very good game, I think I made a thread about it like 5 years ago. It had some charming parts but the controls were crap. Then Jak 2 is even more of a mess of open world junk and incredibly unforgiving platforming and combat. However I love Jak 3, now that's a great game with a fun story and lots of neat little minigames and well made platforming levels. Jak X was an even more fun and well designed cart racer. It played so smooth. I can definitely tell the missing link between Crash Bandicoot and Uncharted. Also Jake's goatee reference for those that don't want to dig through archives was a general feeling of grossness of the existence of goatees. This started because of the Double Fine news posts of Jake and Spaff at the offices in 2001 when Jake actually sported a goatee. There was a bit of self depreciation there.

I haven't listened all the way yet, but I just want to say again how great this current intro is, Chris.

I'd rename them to "boring 45 minute clickfests."

Can't you just copy and paste the saves?

I wonder if there's some writer or director who really wanted to have do it with James through the bars so much that he was kept on the show long past his due date to gain favor with the guy.

This is amazing.

I will kill you. I think there's a certain inherent forgiveness given to podcasts because most people are not going to have voices for radio and instead do podcasts as a DIY thing out of love. I guess unless you are Ricky Gervais.

I took my wife to see It Follows for her birthday last night and it was pretty good teen horror fun. I was really bothered and distracted by the director's inability to choose a decade to set the movie in, but I'm glad to see the theatres aren't full of a glut of superhero trash the last month or so. The girl that was always eating and falling asleep was comedic gold to me, but I don't think people were paying that much attention to her, no one else was laughing in the theatre.

J. Allard became a founding member of the Portland Police Bureau Bike Theft Task Force the other day.

Haha the thing is MOST people on NPR bug the shit out of me because they tend to have lisps or have their mouths full of spit when they talk and I wonder why they are on the radio speaking so much. There's also some reporters that drag certain syllables that I can't stand either. I spend a lot of time in my car with NPR on. :/ Anyway I think you can chalk up the Cara stuff to it being an accent not a lot of people hear. I certainly can't even tell it's Scottish after being told it's Scottish. I don't know if it was me who sounded sexist but considering the other women on Not a Game Podcast's voices, I don't think it's that. Nothing is as terrible as everyone saying "Woof!" over and over, which is something women DON'T DO. Also Travis McElroy cannot pronounce "robot." And while I'm at it, fuck everyone who can't say car-a-mel, jesus christ people.

I guess I should look into getting ballots mailed to me. I always get mail on when and where to go vote but nothing else so far. I suppose I never looked into it.

I think if they figured out how to making online voting happen without all of this outcry of hackers or whatever the fuck, I would be extremely happy. I vote in a lot of local elections as well as the major ones, but sometimes getting out to wherever they have the ballot is a hassle or you just miss the date.

It's weird originally Cara's accent bugged me on Not a Game Podcast but now I welcome it. Also I think the audio was all bad on that podcast for a while.

Well considering most experimental and auteur type directors, the ones really breaking boundaries in animation in Japan, don't do often do features or shows and tend to stick to shorts or music videos doesn't really say to me that that is the best way to judge. Also Otomo has two other live action directed features to his name, World Apartment Horror which is pretty good (which Satoshi Kon made a manga of which hasn't been translated unfortunately), three full animated shorts, the five minute intro and outro shorts for Robot Carnival, writing and design for Roujin Z, screenplay for Metropolis, and plus a whole manga career as well, there's a lot to go on to define a distinct director who works in many mediums as well. It's definitely not a short career by any means and the guy's style wields some major influence globally, which is more than you can say about a lot of of anime directors out there.

It's pretty much the same fare to me except with a bunch of pointless psychobabble and direct lifts from Blade Runner.

Please don't overlook Koji Morimoto. R Robot Carnival - Franken Gears, Noiseman Sound Insect, Genius Party Beyond - Dimension Bomb, Memories - Magnetic Rose, Animatrix - Beyond, Eternal Family. Also no mention whatsoever of Katsuhiro Otomo?

I think a major problem is just the Calarts 3D modeling style pervading all of those studios is generally ugly, bland, soft, and predictable.

So is Spaff going to be a regular by any chance? It was kind of nice hearing from him. I always found it bizarre that all UK staff deserted this forum the second the podcast started. It would have been cool if at least some of them had stayed.