JonCole

I apologize for seeming really opportunistic, but I think you'd do pretty good checking out a website I write for called CastMedium, where we do weekly recaps of lots of video game podcasts. If I had to make a few quick recommendations, I'd say you should definitely check out the Giant Bombcast, Drunken Gamers Radio and A Life Well Wasted, which are some of my favorites among Idle Thumbs. Each of them are at the top of their game as far as different show formats go -Giant Bombcast being the roundtable type discussion where they talk about anything game related, Drunken Gamers Radio being a far more segmented show, and A Life Well Wasted being almost a narrative type radio show similar to This American Life.

Apparently, the coincidences are abound because it looks like there's a trailer for the third Stalker game: http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/26337

Sounds like a good enough reason to revisit for me, I'll get on that sometime soon I imagine.

I dipped a little bit into the original Stalker because Shawn Elliott raved about it for so long, but the unintuitive interface sorta turned me off. I'll likely just pick it up some long weekend where I feel "in the mood" and hobo-marathon it.

Just as a side-note, I think that anyone seeking some more conversation about District 9 should check out the Filmspotting episode for it, one of their best for sure: http://www.filmspotting.net/2009/08/fs-269-district-9-top-5-john-hughes.html

Still, I've always thought that the idea of giving a sum of money to an indie dev to essentially pre-buy all future games (within reason) would be pretty cool. I know that a lot of indie devs toy around with weird sales models, but I don't know if anyone worthwhile has done this type of thing yet.

Ah, thanks! I know that Neill said that he designed the aliens the way he did pretty much because he thought they'd look cool that way, but if you were to really scrutinize the film, I think you could easily just say that a caste-type system isn't too foreign to insectoid species so even though there were massive technological advancements in the alien society, there was still an undercurrent of genetic ordering.

If this is true, that's amazing and really something new. I'd certainly "subscribe" to certain devs/pubs if I could.

I don't really know how to do the spoiler tags, so I'd appreciate if someone let me know how those dealios work. But while I'm waiting for that, I'd like to make a shameless plug to my blog, where I wrote a review of District 9 and just last night wrote a review of Gamer: http://www.joncole.info/ Though, to give a little spoiler of my own, Gamer was horrendous, don't go see it. Nonetheless, I'd like to engage this moral topic, so someone give me a heads up on how that works, please.

This is horrible - I actually hadn't heard about the Novint Falcon before you guys initially talked about it, and even then I didn't take too much notice. But after you talked about it again today, I just casually checked out their website and a couple of YouTube videos. And... I really want this thing now. I have very little expendable income, but this thing looks pretty rad. And given how much of a tech geek I am, I can practically guarantee that if I bought the thing I'd barely use it... I'd really just derive a ton of pleasure out of owning one and using it once right after opening it up.

So where do we send the gifts?

Maybe my opinion is less valid because I am practically addicted to open-world shooters, but I really loved Far Cry 2. It seems like a lot of the downsides were highlighted, so I'll just skip over those and get to the parts that I really loved. I loved the guns, because they all seemed to feel different. This is a somewhat strange way to talk about the guns, because they're obviously just elements in a video game. But the firing rates of the guns, the range, the recoil, and the look of each of the guns is tangible. Not only that, but some of the minor crossover between the three major weapons classes makes for some great custom classes. I used the sniper rifles for a long while because I could take out multiple enemies at once before they get to me, then I could use a good pistol to quickly dispatch anyone that comes close to me. But once I discovered the greatness of the dart rifle (which doesn't awaken all enemies to your presence), I used a lot of the assault rifles which were also extremely effective. I've always been into collectible items in games, but Far Cry 2 uses collectibles really well. The briefcases around the map all hold diamonds in them, and it turns out that the only way you can fully upgrade every item is to collect every case. In this way, you're effectively collecting weapons which turns out to be a really ideal reward for collectibles, instead of a 10 point achievement or maybe a couple of extra attacks like some other games try to sell you. I actually really enjoyed navigating the environment. The outposts mentioned earlier were indeed somewhat annoying, but I figured out that I could avoid 50% of them by just driving offroad. Also, in the second half of the game, you can get trucks with mounted grenade launchers which can make short work of the outposts. I would become pretty attached to those vehicles and blowing through tons of enemies at outposts actually became pretty fun. So, I guess if you enjoy open-world shooters as much as I do, this is a pretty nice entry into the ranks. I'm actually playing through Red Faction: Guerilla right now and I can see the advancements, which include allowing you to fire a turret while driving and outrun enemy vehicles. Nonetheless, the world of Far Cry 2 is pretty immersive, the story isn't too bad, and the guns feel really great. I think it's worth checking out.

I actually just saw the Hurt Locker on Tuesday as well. I honestly think it's one of the best action movies I've ever watched. The sound design was really fantastic - the usage of silence, subtle violin family tracks, and in-environment boomboxes and whatnot are all extremely effective and lend a ton of tension to the film. Not only that, but I think it takes a really honest perspective on the war and tries not to take sides. It avoids being political by focusing very closely on these soldiers and it doesn't feel at all contrived. Watch this movie. Certainly one of the best movies of the year so far, and maybe one of the best ones I've ever seen.

I really have no idea why the "space" stuff is so hilarious, but I'm sitting right now at my university giggle-squirming like an idiot and it's totally worth it.

There should really be a whole list of these good entry points for a lot of the more traditional comics. I've been wanting to get into X-Men and Green Lantern, but I have no idea where to start.

It's really interesting to hear their creative philosophy - it seems like very few developers are taking such an interest in establishing a really strong storyline from the ground floor.

I suppose I've been HD ever since I got my 360 at launch because I've been plugging it into my monitor. I didn't but a proper "HDTV" until a year or so ago and it's only a 32" 720p deal, but I can't complain. I remember the first time I plugged the 360, though... up until that point, I was just running an Xbox original through a 20 inch fat TV... and the difference was staggering. <3 HD.

Yeah, I think I remember hearing rumblings about forum spam weirdness from the podcast, so I can understand being cautious. If anything, I'm a robot that spends too much time looking for good deals online and reading tech forums so I can't help but preach the savings god that is Monoprice.

Monoprice is most certainly the best place to get high quality cables on the cheap. You'll never considering HDMI cables as "sort of expensive" after buying a six-footer at $3.56. Also, make sure you do some research about the video card you have/are considering getting, because a lot of the higher quality cards do have the capability to carry audio through the HDMI port directly from the video card. Otherwise, you'd probably have to do some DVI->VGA, HDMI->DVI, or DVI->DVI combined with a 3.5mm stereo cable sort of nonsense setup. A friend of mine actually just recently picked up one of the newer nVIDIA GTX's and it carries 5.1, which is pretty stunning.

Just too cheap to pass up, I picked up Fallout 1/2, Freespace 2, and Earthworm Jim 1/2. The only one of those that I've played is the original Earthworm Jim (regrettably), so I'm pretty eager to fill in this gaping holes in my video game literacy. Any suggestions on what I should start off with?

Been listening to Idle Thumbs for a while now and it's quickly ascended to the top of my list of favorite 'casts. Since I listen to over 40 podcasts, it's easy to get bored with new additions to my schedule, but Chris, Jake, and Nick have such great chemistry with each other that really compete with some of the other guys at the top, like the Giant Bombcast and Filmspotting. Nonetheless, a little bit about myself... I'm a student at the University of Central Florida studying Computer Science, though my interest in that kind of stuff is pretty lukewarm. What I really like doing is writing, which I get a chance to do on a personal blog (which I'm on a little bit of a hiatus) where I talk primarily about movies. I also write for Castmedium.com, which gives me a chance to talk about all the podcasts I listen to and provide (what I hope) is a great service to people like me. As far as my video game tastes are concerned, I find that there are three types of games that I like to invest my time in. I'm a huge fan of shooters, though my recent favorite flavor has been the more open world types like Red Faction: Guerilla and Far Cry 2. I also love RPGs like Bethesda and Bioware's offerings, definitely focusing on the more recent fare from both of them. And I really love the more compact games like some of the offerings on XBLA and indie games on Steam, like Braid, Geometry Wars 2, Peggle, and Puzzle Quest. So, now that I've burned your eyes out on a self-centered autobiography, I'd just like to end with "hi".

Probably one of the best audio interviews I've listened to on a video game podcast. I confess to some embarrassing ignorance of who Ron Gilbert was before I listened, but he just had such chemistry with you guys that I couldn't help but do a bit of research. He seemed to fit in as well if not better than Ken Levine on the Gamers With Jobs; I hope I can hear from Ron again sometime.