dium

I really, really don't want to bring up TT Walking Dead / Wolf Among Us as a counter example for anything, but I'm weak and here I am. Do you consider those games "essentially cutscenes"? They're doing the same thing as the dialogue sections of Mass Effect: having the player navigate a screenplay and making it "interactive" by presenting choices (or the illusions of choice) every so often. The only difference, really, is that choices in modern TT games represent actual divergent narrative paths more often than Bioware dialogue trees do. But both games have "fake" and "real" choices to make, and rely to some extent on the player not knowing which ones those are. All I'm saying is that I think Bioware dialogue sequences distance themselves significantly from mere cutscenes, and it's not fair to call them the same. Sure, they mainly work through trickery: giving a tiny bit of agency and trying to convince you that it's a lot. But what they're trying to do is much more sophisticated than an un-interactive cutscene, whether or not the illusion is successful for you personally. I agree with you that adding intermittent dialogue choices into a JRPG probably wouldn't improve anything. Bioware (and Telltale) dialogue sequences are written trying to facilitate the illusion that Bjorn talked about. So the content of the "cutscenes" do contribute to why they don't feel like cutscenes. I also don't think they're cutscenes.

Sean talking about how he organizes his animated gifs is exactly what I want to listen to when I listen to podcasts. I am being very serious right now, this is what I want the entire podcast to be. I don't know how to not sound sarcastic but I have to try.

Oh hells yes.

I used to hate the "like" function and was silently annoyed whenever a site would add it. Perhaps because it represented some sort of Facebook-ifying of the internet that I found unsavory. But yeah, nowadays I miss it wherever it doesn't exist.

WHAT You misspelt "best".

I should really play Escape again. My opinions are all based on my memories of the game as an eleven year old, but I've always thought the game got a bad rap. Not that the game doesn't have problems (it has many), but I think the biggest problem was simply that people were (consciously or not) bored of the adventure game format. I mean, admittedly, it ranks pretty low on any list of Lucasarts adventure games... but still relatively high on a list of adventure games in general. IMO of course.

Yes! Maybe I picked it up there.

I know that I've been mispronouncing the word robot like that (actually more like "robit", often preceded by "some kind of") since middle school, probably influenced by Homestar Runner. It's not funny to me anymore, but I still catch myself saying it from time to time. Habits form and are hard to break.

I haven't played Hearthstone in a few weeks (and probably won't until Nax), so color me surprised that people run the croc now! When I was playing the consensus was that croc was mediocre-to-bad. It's pretty cool how much the meta changes with this game week to week with very little (or no) actual mechanical changes causing it. Edit: It also occurs to me that there must be some kind of card game myopia where the increased or decreased use of a single card constitutes a big change in my mind.

Thanks! A lot of these have been suggested to me before (Mind Game and Tatami Galaxy) but I never connected the dots and realized that they share a common creator.

Oh man I loved Kaiba! Now that I remember how I loved Kaiba, I want to go watch everything else this Masaaki Yuasa has done since apparently I should . Other than his guest appearances on western shows, do any of you have suggestions?

It bums me out more than it should that you didn't have a discount code for Brave Wave stuff until the second time they sponsored you. Not because I want a measly dollar back, but because I like to think I help Idle Thumbs when I buy things from sponsors and without using discount code "video_games" HOW WILL THEY KNOW?!?!

I would totally listen to a podcast where you guys just talk about about slightly-older-than-current imported television period drama. ...really, I just like it when you talk about anything that isn't video games.

Grim Fandango is my favorite video game. But the Petrified Forest is my least favorite part.

COUNTER STRIKE?! So psyched.

I am pleased that this is a real brand name.

This isn't related to the forums per se but this thread seems to be where site complaints go: The "Twitch.tv" link halfway down the main page links to flickr, not twitch. Just thought somebody should know.

New Anno game announced. Eh? How about it? I'm excited. I've always wanted this kind of city builder for big modern cities, and that's more or less exactly what this is!

Yeah, I'm having a tricky time finding people (I like) who are interested in any of these games that don't already have them. Who could've guessed that giving away great things for free would be so difficult.

I have lots of duplicate Steam codes for games from the last three years of humble bundles. These codes need owners. If anything below strikes your fancy let me know. There probably isn't a soul on these forums who doesn't own the first 7 or 8 of these, considering that they are Thumbs-darlings. But on the off chance you don't, here's yet another chance to correct that! Bastion Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War Atom Zombie Smasher FEZ FTL Limbo Mark of the Ninja Barman: Arkham Asylum GOTY edition Lord of the Rings: War in the North Guardians of Middle-earth, w/ DLC DLC for Arkham Origins

The vast, vast majority of acclaimed video games are this for me. The list of games that I'm "guilty" about not playing is quite small, actually, and consists mostly of games that I actually own but never got around to playing. I've played an old GBA Rayman and the first ps3 Ratchet and Clank, but I'm in the same boat as you regarding the rest of your list. I've also never played a Halo or Call of Duty game and probably never will. Also insert here countless old series that have never had my attention and so I can't even come up with their names.

This is where things could potentially get hairy, and I hesitate to post what I'm about to post, but I think we've already reached the point of no return in this thread so here we go... Yes, he did apologize, and part of me feels bad that his damage control efforts basically failed. But his apology came after a sort of lets-agree-to-disagree sentiment in the form of "It is completely within the realm of possibility to both like women and dislike the philosophy of feminism", and the quip about separating politics from entertainment, etc. Which are the kinds of opinions that are hard not to react to, even when their intent is to curb reaction. It felt, to me, like saying (oh shit this is where I get in trouble) "it is completely within the realm of possibility to both like people of color and dislike the philosophy of civil rights activism". I already regret making that reductionist comparison, but it's how I saw things. I stopped myself from responding as such precisely because he apologized, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it when Sean didn't. Which is kinda gross and sadistic but whatever.

Answer to all of them: because the entire internet need not be Reddit. ...there isn't a lot of point to signatures, to be fair.

At the risk of contributing to a page of nothing but Sean-cheering: this is why I read these forums.

I agree with you about the actual watchability of twitchplayspokemon. I can only stand about 90 seconds before I'm bored out of my skull. But I'm grateful for the large number of people who DO get something out of it, because I enjoy being told about transcendent moments and other weird stories that come out of it.