Chuckpebble

Cast ye the magickal salt upon the ground... EDIT: I just walked into work this morning and looked at this again, (yes, this is the rock salt they use at my office) and I noticed that it says "Melt Ice Magically" in yellow across the top. So, uh, screw you science!

1984 Basically it would be the worst game ever made, but it would torture and manipulate you so throughly that on your death bed, when your stream of consciousness finally comes to an end, the very last thing that you think is: "I love EA"

Well, growing up, I hated Sonic. That was a product of those terrible Nintendon't commercials though. I've since come to pity the poor guy to the point of actually having an interest in playing the original games. This game may actually end up scratching that itch. I'm actually looking forward to trying it out. Megaman 9/10, Contra 4, Blaster Master and the like are right up my alley, if this new Sonic aligns itself neatly with this group of games I can see myself getting it. Oh, and for all of the people who are rightfully taking the wait and see approach, I give you this:

Hmm, you may have to finish the first not to play the second but just because I think you've missed out. One of the things I loved about that game is how it got you thinking that it was very formulaic, earn money, fight through lots of clones, fight boss. The game throws a couple curve balls at you once you think you've figured it out. Well, the cutscene right after the very first fight breaks down the fourth wall immediately by having Travis and Sylvia Christal talk about how there is no need to catch up on what happened in the first game. I'd say it stands on its own splendidly. Here are some changes, I'll start with the ones that I welcome: -The stark cel shadows are toned way down and it adds to the overall better visual appeal of the game -No barren overworld, everything is accessed by a menu -Varied enemies come in all shapes and sizes (no more attack of the clones) -Side jobs are all retro games. I love them but some people don't. -Earning money is NOT required to advance the plot, you can simply play through the entire story by selecting the top menu item -I didn't notice at first, but combat is tweaked heavily, but in such a way that it "just feels right, and that it was always that way". In other words, it was hard to go back and play the original. For instance, you can now run at full speed when locked onto an opponent. -The up and down tilt of the controller has been slightly altered. It still makes you alternate between high and low attacks, but now high attacks are quicker and low attacks have more power and switching during a combo helps extend it. -You can roll forward by pressing up on the d-pad, in the original, you could only roll using left right and down on the d-pad. -You can change the weapon you're using on the fly (although, it does render you completely invincible, which is exploitable, but kind of silly looking when people fly through you) -You play two other characters who return from the first game. -Classic controller compatible (a real plus for the mini-games) -For those of you in the PAL regions, I believe that when the game arrives in (April?) you will be getting the same amount of blood gore and violence that we in the states have enjoyed for both games. -You can roll while not locked onto an enemy, I'm kind of iffy about this one, while it is a welcome addition at times, in the first game, pressing the d-pad while not locked onto someone adjusted the camera, there are times when I miss that sorely. Now your only options for camera control are, lock onto someone or press C to center the camera. -No more cool computerized whisper voice introducing your opponent, you don't find out what your opponent's name is until after you've killed them. -There is a jumping mechanic for one of the characters that is half baked at best. It put me in a blind rage at one point actually. Kind of makes me really appreciate what went into Super Mario Galaxy that much more. Anyway, it was very touchy, but I got used to it. It boils down to facing where you want to go perpendicularly and lining up the camera before jumping. Its a shame really, but it doesn't ruin the whole game. Anyway, I'm a little sad, I thought more people would have this, there's so much I'm itching to talk about and I think the thread over at the GAF will be long buried before I ever get approved to join in on the conversation. Well cheers. If anyone else is on the fence about the game I'm here to goad you. ps - the soundtrack is the bees knees, for sure Check out my gameplay vid here for a sample of two of my favorite tracks thus far as well as some minor weapon / clothing unlock spoilers.

Our frothing demand for this podcast increases... Put that on the box when you release the collector's edition. Welcome back fellows, my iPod thanks you.

e-hug

Yeah, I think the whole train thing conjures the idea of "on rails", which IGN has successfully made into an automatic black mark for any game with which the phrase is associated. I'll bite on this one, loved Phantom Hourglass.

What you said. ====> My head. Anyway, when I read this my office mate was playing "Don't Stop Believing" and I just pictured someone blaring that on a ghetto blaster that they were holding aloft. Don't know if I just didn't get your original intention or if that strange allusion ruined any reference that I was supposed to pick up on.

Yeah, so, I was really looking forward to this raking season because cleaning up leaves is one of my favorite times to listen to podcasts. Obviously, IdleThumbs isn't going to be on the playlist this year, unfortunately. Anybody have any good recommendations, doesn't have to be strictly gaming related. Looking for something funny where everyone is face to face. I hate skype and over the phone casts mostly because I'm straining to hear one person and someone else ends up blowing out my ear drums. I currently have CarTalk from NPR Retronauts from 1UP (which comes out very irregularly) Time Well Wasted (which I'm not enjoying much because its just one person so far, I'm gonna stick with it though and give it a fair shot)

Yes, Left 4 Dead 2 is on my 'Not Installed' list in steam, and I made no action to put it there. I thought nothing of it because there was some other demo there last week. Since I just started using steam I just thought that's what they always did in that spot. Anyway, it got me to download it but then it asked me to update my video card drivers. I couldn't wrap my brain around what would happen if I did that (I'm using crossover on a Mac) so I skipped that and continued to run the demo, but then it told me I had an incomplete install. Oh, and yeah, I actually use Safari on my PC at work so I guess I'm immune to that 'install Safari' checkbox in my iTunes updates. That would annoy me though. Actually, that kind of stuff and all of those Mac/PC ads really annoy me about Apple. Otherwise, hey nice.

Yeah, I used to listen to them long ago, when it was just one podcast. Then they broke it off into separate ones for each console as well as pc gaming. They also have the almost tastefully named "Game Scoop", which was alright for news updates, for a while, but Idle Thumbs ruined all of those casts for me. The PC gaming one, I guess thats what 'command prompt' is, was especially bad from what I recall. But there was an even worse one for retro gaming. Forget what it was called, but its almost worth checking out for the train wreck factor. It was some dude talking in a droll voice about Qbert and playing physically painful-to-listen-to-with-headphones chip tunes to old atari games.

Yeah, I've been all over the place with wine. Thats where I started because I was trying to get Trackmania to work. This is shortly after upgrading to Snow Leopard. Turns out, I woulda been fine had I not done that. There's something fudged up with Quartz that breaks things. I tried installing wine-devel and wine through macports with no success. Replies on the wine forums about how to rectify the situation were met with elitist linux junkie snarkiness, so I turned away from that. There's this other guy who makes a nice wine package installer, but that wouldn't run games. So I turned to Crossover Games. That only has a 7 day trial period, but I'll give you a hint about that. If you install crossover in the distant future, and then somehow travel back to the present, you'll have more time to tool around with it. I have 1099 days to decide if I like it or not. So, crossover is definitely doing something right because TF2 works great for me, as well as Trackmania, which would freeze my work PC randomly. Portal has some ugly tearing in it. Meh. I'm gonna try out L4D, and if I can't get it to work I'll prolly go bootcamp. If I do that, I think I'll be using TinyXP or nlite to make a small windows install for just gaming.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/chuckpebble Funny story. I use Macs at home, thats all I've got actually. I've heard so much about steam from this site and I've seen so many funny TF2 pics from halolz.com (its like icanhazcheeseburger for gamers with funny shots from Brawl, Halo and TF2 primarily) that I moseyed on over to the steam website over the haloween weekend. This is where it gets a bit crazy. TF2 was on sale for $2.50. Without any thought about how I would install/run the game, I had my credit card out and purchased it. Insane. Anyway, I downloaded a demo of crossover games and had everything up and running in about an hour. This was like 9pm. I played some arena and had a great time. I finally logged out of everything and decided to go to bed and was surprised to see in my menubar clock that it was 3am. Then I was even more surprised to see that my computer had already adjusted my clock for DST, and it was actually like I stayed up until 4am. Anyway, steam is sweet. TF2 is sweet. I'm bittersweet, sweet to have found it finally, bitter that I didn't get into it sooner. If there are any other mac users on steam out there let me know, I'd love to share some hot tips.

I agree. That kind of pixel art is so beautiful to me. I imagine a great deal of tedious work goes into that and it makes me appreciate it so much more.

Ha ha ha ha hah ha. Yeah, actually. I used Personal Trainer Cooking once. Its rough because my wifey is a very finicky eater and there's a lot of weird international stuff on there (that game needs downloads). But we did really enjoy the vegetable lasagna with scratch made bolognese sauce. When we were done eating it, I was like, "I beat a game".

Just got it the other day. Also hearting the S out of it. I love the dialogue in there. "You gotta give 110%. I know its only mathematically possible to give 100%, but you gotta work really hard to squeeze out that extra 10..." Hey, miffy, did you manage to hit his chocolate bar yet? Hilarious! I was playing it the day I got it and all of a sudden the whole RE5 hullabaloo popped into my head. Nintendo made a racist, black guy beating simulator. Good thing its a limited DL, else there might be an exclusive story on a local news hour. As far as how I got Platinum Status, every embarrassing detail is below: Nintendo GameCube 12/18/2003 Wii 12/20/2007 Nintendo DS Lite 6/18/2006 Game Boy Advance SP 7/27/2005 Super Mario Bros. 3/16/2008 Internet Browser 5/20/2008 Everybody Votes Channel 12/20/2007 Super Mario Bros. 2 3/16/2008 Super Metroid 12/22/2007 Sin & Punishment 11/18/2008 Super Mario Bros. 3 3/16/2008 Check Mii Out Channel 12/20/2007 Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers 6/16/2009 LostWinds 5/23/2008 Nintendo Channel 5/27/2008 Photo Channel 1.1 5/27/2008 Mega Man 9 10/9/2008 Kirby's Dream Land 3 6/16/2009 Wii Speak Channel 2/3/2009 Doc Louis's Punch Out!! 10/29/2009 Mario Kart: Double Dash!! 12/18/2003 Metroid Prime 2 Echoes 7/27/2005 Nintendogs - Dachshund 3/7/2007 Animal Crossing: Wild World 6/18/2006 Mario Kart DS 6/18/2006 Metroid Prime Hunters 6/18/2006 Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day 6/18/2006 New Super Mario Bros. 6/18/2006 Star Fox Command 2/20/2007 The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess 12/27/2007 (Gamecube) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess 1/24/2007 (Wii, yes, bought and beat both, twice) Wii Play 12/20/2007 Mario Party 8 12/20/2007 Metroid Prime 3 Corruption 6/29/2008 The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass 12/25/2007 Super Mario Galaxy 12/27/2007 Super Smash Bros Brawl 4/12/2008 Mario Kart (Wii) 6/23/2008 Animal Crossing: City Folk 12/30/2008 Personal Trainer: Cooking 12/30/2008 So yeah, say what you will. I'm a happy gamer.

OK. I saw this marry, boff, kill for video games topic and I felt compelled to post, but then I felt apprehension because I knew that I would be naming a bunch of Nintendo stuff and everyone else here seems to be naming these big epic games that I don't have access to being a person who uses only white computer electronics at home (ie. - Mac, Wii, DS). Then I stopped being stupid and reassured myself that its my own personal list and I don't need to impress anybody, so here goes. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - This is, and will be, my favorite game for some time. It successfully outdoes its predecessor in every way. The only thing it hasn't managed to do yet is be out for 7 years and keep me playing up until its sequel, but I can see it staying fun forever in the event that there is not sequel. There was a brief instant when I felt a touch of dissappointment with this game. I first popped it in and I noted that it was a little slower than Melee. That was it. Its been nothing but happy play sessions ever since, and everytime I take a break to finish some other game, I slip right back into this game like an awesome pair of jeans. Now for the most profound thing of all that I think anyone has ever said about this game: I fucking love the online multiplayer. Its perfect. Wrap your brains around that. Metroid: Zero Mission - This is the best game ever made. Fuck Super Metroid. There, I said it. Go back and play that, then play this. Super Metroid doesn't feel right anymore. Its too floaty and slow. Zero Mission is a sweet little race car, built for speed and full of tricky alternate routes. The only thing it lacks is the ability to grind a sweet ghost while doing a time attack run, but I'll forgive it that shortcoming, it was made before sweet ghost grinding became popular. F-Zero GX - This is the game that I would play while trapped on a deserted island. There are insane levels of depth in this game that I still have not tapped. I only have the skill to beat all four cups in the Master Class. A deserted island would be a perfect place for me to get good at this game. In case you didn't know, its fucking hard. Story mode continues to make me its bitch to this day, and I still keep going back for more, happily. Oh, and the music will never get old. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66knsZyFV_A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66knsZyFV_A

Maybe the podcast could go on with Steve Gaynor and be called Idle Scoops? Just a thought.

Just started up the first episode again after hearing this one and now I'm not sad anymore. Idle Thumbs will just come back for a year as a really awesome video podcast. It will kick ass but end abruptly before it loses its magic, leaving us all longing for more. And then, some time after that, it'll be reborn again, but this time as an episodic game thats probably about games. I'm going to go cryofreeze myself now, because frankly, the wait for THAT is killing me. You guys are internet legends in your own internet time, good luck with everything that you do from here out.

Was it because I listened to an IGN podcast this week? If so, I'm sorry. It really did suck and it really will never happen again. Seriously, though, Nintendo Voice Chat, fucking terrible. Matt Cassimassina comes through loud and clear and his two co-hosts sound like they're on a couple of cell phones in a cardboard box in the corner. Every time one of those two would start to say something interesting I'd be tweaking the volume to hear them and then all of a sudden Matt C. comes blaring over them with some useless nonsense . JV bullshit. Why couldn't they throw in the towel? Oh, well. If this is the end of the Idle Thumbs, at least you guys are going out while your still good instead of fizzling out. Are you guys gonna do a Best of Podcast?

Ha ha, you didn't perchance register on that site as Moore Cowbell did you? Quoth: Awesome review! Some quotes we could all take to heart: “The art is like drawings…” “I don’t play Nintendo Dual Screen because it is for babies but this is the game.” “Game maker 5th Cell broke the mold when they made the best game of the year, ever.” Think about that, kids. The best game of the year, ever. That’s not hyperbole. That’s the real shit. Keep the reviews coming! Love ‘em! /Quoth: Oh, and... HOLY CRAP! I absolutely love those games, and I am completely embarrassed by that. What the flying monkey f%&* is that s%&*!?!? Its just a video game.

Already love the title/s. Can't wait for me ears to consume this today.

What's really funny is that I was recently thinking about writing an email to the show about how I just realized what was going on inside of big bird. When I was young Big Bird was real. But when I was flipping through the kiddie stations for my daughter just the other day, I saw big bird and I was immediately struck by how he had a bad case of scoliosis and a gimp arm. That quickly I saw how the guy must be standing inside of there and I thought to myself what a miserable job that must be. I had no idea about this discussion going on here about the very same thing until today. I never checked the new posts on this thread before, I just check the first post for updates, which, by the way, have those stopped? Is it because this has become the big bird thread? Oh, and don't worry Jake, you'll always be one of the Beastie Boys to me...

Just wanted to post a quick update. I just finished No More Heroes last night and I am very satisfied. I got through the real ending and proceeded to get ready for bed and had one very interesting thought: When you whale on the bosses, they swear out of frustration, just like I do when I muss up and take a lickin'. That made me chuckle. I wonder if that was something that was considered at all during development. It made me feel like the game was a human opponent in some obscure way, and it was getting pissed at me. Writing this now I'm trying to imagine Super Mario Bros. with Goombas that yell, "My SPLEEN!" and Bowser cursing you out when you hit him with fireballs. Yeah, that could be fun. I don't know if I'd get the same feeling. I know I didn't get that feeling when I played Conker's BFD, but maybe thats just because I was younger then, and less apt to look through the poopy humor for anything deeper going on. Anyway, NMH... I'll be playing that one again. Maybe even buying a new copy. Oh. And you guys f'in crack me up groucho and gdf!

So yeah, I headed off to work friday morning and I heard a strange pop when I started my car rolling out of my driveway. It was dark and I just assumed it was a stick. I went to work, I did a few things and listened to some less than stellar, other podcasts, saving that sweet new Idle Thumbs for my ride home. Quitting time came and I set out for home with this cast playing and I had a wonderful commute. I pulled into my driveway right around the interlude where Chris is pondering whether he hears a guitar or a frog. I paused my iPod and unhooked it from my FM transmitter, thinking this was a good point to break things up. So I walk around the back of my car and a blackish puddle catches my eye. I went over for a closer look because I was concerned that something was wrong with my car. Then I realized what I was looking at! I KILLED THE ODIOUS TREE FROG! Don't click that link if you're eating! I in no way would ever do anything like this on purpose. I actually felt very sad for this little fellow, but I just couldn't get over the sheer coincidence and timing of the situation and couldn't help but laugh my ass off. I also wasn't expecting to actually upload this, but then I saw the Dante's Inferno pics...