Wrestlevania

I have tasty achievements still to grab on the first game's campaigns--and Expert ones at that.

Sorry I didn't make it last night. I found my car had been hit while I was in work some time yesterday, with no details left by the person that did it. So I spent half an hour in the local police station reporting it just before Grand Thumb Auto was due to start. Understandably, I wasn't really in the mood for crashing cars after that...

Audiosnitch, a game in itself. I finally got Steam to send me the demo last night and it seems OK. I haven't tried it with my own music yet, but the included track seemed very skittish and badly paced in places; great expanses of just a few blocks, then suddenly loads of blocks all bunched together. The placement of blocks doesn't seem to be on the beat to me either--or even on downbeats or breaks. I couldn't move across the track fast enough at even the modestly busy parts, either. I'll try it again with a few of my favourite bits of music and see if that makes it any more fun.

Holy shit, it's that super-rare The Sound of Music bootleg--good find! Fine, be like that then...

Oh sure, wasn't suggesting a rip-off or lazy adoption. Wasn't really suggesting much of anything to be honest--set expectations for our first stab at a community podcast.

Can it be "donkey cock" please? We need to establish our own memes.

Ah! I didn't even think of something like that. But when you put it like that - established rules, familiar setup, fun characters - it's so obvious! Will definitely pick that up along with a couple of extra controllers, too. I guess Mario Tennis on GameCube would be a good choice as well..? Was also pondering Wave Race, but thought that might actually be a bit too complicated to begin with.

No, finances will need to fixed for another two years for things to be manageable. Which will likely put the house price up again when it does come around next time. And who knows what will have happened to base rate by then anyway. It's never been this low (0.5%) as far as I can tell, ever. Even during that huge slump in the early 90s base rate hovered around the mid single digits. Which suggests that UK mortgages are the cheapest - and therefore most affordable - they've ever been, too. I just hope it comes through... please?

No SNES, Wii or PS3 I'm afraid. But the SNES does rekindle some fantastic memories in me of when I properly got into video games in the 16-bit era. And I completely forgot to mention we already have Viva Piñata on 360. Which likely implies how much fun it is(n't); it's very slow and mechanical and the kids get bored of it after about 20 minutes. Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, on the other hand, they quite liked. But the vehicle building is slow and can be quite repetative when you're trying to iteratively create the ideal machine for a particular task. And it's not multiplayer either, which I think is where all these first steps are going wrong. We tried playing LEGO Indiana Jones in co-op, but it's quite a fiddly platformer in practice - particularly if you don't understand its glitchy nature - and therefore can get frustrating quickly. Especially as they're just getting started with gaming and have no prior experience of platforming. But I definitely think some light platforming is the way to go. It just probably needs to be in two dimensions to begin with. The more I see of New Super Mario Brothers Wii, the more it seems like the perfect modern day example. But, as mentioned, we don't have a Wii, so not happening any time soon. Any other GameCube-specific recommendations? I was going to get Animal Crossing, but had a bad experience ordering it second hand from Amazon Marketplace this week. And, in hindsight, it's probably going to be no more fun for the kids than VP... I know they're meant to be horrible, but is it worth considering one of the Mario Party games?

Fair enough. Maybe I simply watched it with no expectations (for once!) and just let it lead me wherever it wanted to go.

I thought the idea on the community/friend side of things was to experiment with your song collection and recommend tracks you found particularly fun/challenging? And, as Sleepdance points out, there's an online scoreboard in place, too.

You're assuming it'll actually happen, or that our first effort won't be so buttock-clenchingly uncomfortable that we actually release it into the wild...

It's pulp sci-fi, knows it and plays to it well in my opinion. It doesn't pretend to be anything else. I think discrediting it because of its ending suggests to me people walked in expecting something introspective like Moon and not thrilling like Event Horizon. So, I'd say if you didn't like Event Horizon you may well not enjoy Sunshine. I loved Event Horizon though, so, meh...

Lumines I just don't get either, not beyond the superficial "it's a block puzzle set to music." Having played it for several hours, it just became mechanical and automatic - and therefore boring - for me. But Audiosurf I can really get why that might hold people's interest. It's a really interesting premise, having the game generate play from your choice of music. It's really appealing to me, yet I've always neglected to grab the demo and actually try the thing... which I've just tried to do twice and Steam's spurned me both times.

I'll talk about that on Tuesday, otherwise we'll end up discussing the topic instead of the podcast (if you get me).

Likewise--just ping me and I'll join if I can.

Attention, UK Thumbs: the most excellent Sunshine is on Channel 4 at 10pm tomorrow (Sunday).

Been thinking about the podcast idea a lot since suggesting it, but have been struggling to come up with compelling topics. But I think I've finally got a good one. I like the idea of doing some dry runs first, see if they'll be any good or not. Over Skype should be fine, with local recording maybe as well if fidelity is an issue. We could then each chuck our local, higher quality recordings into my Dropbox for free (you have to pay for Ventrilo I believe) and I could edit them together. Let's talk some more about this during Grand Thumb Auto this Tuesday. Anyone interested who can't make it to GTA this week?

Thanks for the well wishes. After a moment of intense panic yesterday - we were told we couldn't have the mortgage after some information that was not asked for was suddenly queried by the lender - we seem to be on track again. Yesterday's Important Lesson If your house purchasing arrangements aren't moronically straight-forward, use an independent broker. He was able to respond to this unexpected thorn very quickly--and hopefully with enough experience so that it's no longer a problem for our application. We've been told it could be as late as the end of next week before we know either way, however. But we're hoping that no further news might mean good news... please? That's all I want for Christmas this year...

Shit! Mr Manuva's one of the few musicians/actors/famous people I'd actually like to meet in person. Sounds like a genuinely complex and interesting fellow to talk to.

Been listening to a little bit of Dub this year, too. Here's a favourite discovery from the last couple of months, though it's from Roots Manuva's 2004 remix album Dub Come Save Me: IoL_bbSwCww

Just found a nice new bit of my kind of Drum 'n' Bass: bbmdDQ3XrTM Been a long time since I was really into D&B, but there's been some really good stuff coming through this year.

Awaiting approval of a mortgage application... but our broker's just called unexpectedly to say things suddenly aren't looking good. Not getting it means no small amount of grief and stress over Christmas (and probably well beyond, too).

Kevin Eldon has me in bits every time--another reason I need to watch Look Around You still.

Great to see loads of Thumbs on Steam! Don't forget: every Sunday at 8pm GMT is Left 4 Thumbs. Since the release of L4D2, we'll now likely be running two concurrent sessions - one for those who want to play the first game, and one for those who have the sequel. Check the Idle Thumbs Steam Community calendar regularly to see when Left 4 Thumbs happens in your timezone. Hopefully see some of you tomorrow..?