K-bohls!

Ah, that makes sense - in fact I bet you brought this up when talking about the change; I occasionally miss some stuff depending on if I am listening at work or not. As someone who has been playing Dragon Quest VII and Downwell exclusively for about a month now I would not like to feel forced to play something new each week. Like I said I do enjoy the video game discussion mostly, but I will give the new format a shot since the reason I like Idle Thumbs is because you guys are observant in a way most podcasts aren't and not necessary because it is about video games. If you guys can apply that focus to stuff other than video games that will be cool, but as someone who doesn't watch too many movies or reads much fiction beyond Steinbeck I might end up dropping off.

I rarely post here but I've been listening off and on since 08. I most recently came back since it was the original crew again and it started to focus more and more on video games. I don't mind some of the tangents but I feel like they mostly end up covering the same handful of topics (robots, Jeff Goldblum, Disney, George Lucas, etc...). If you want to continue down that path by all means - I've already got tons of enjoyment and my $10 kickstarter backing worth from the cast - but I might end up checking out in a few weeks. Personally I think should just start a new show wholly dedicated to pop culture or whatever and keep the video game show as is, but again it's up to you.

Hearing that you made it to wave 41 on casual in an hour definitely makes the mode more appealing to me. I've only played it on normal twice and both times my team fell apart around wave 25 after about 90 minutes. Granted these were just random public games so the lack of communication may have slowed the game down a bit. I was also surprised to see the waves get as difficult as they do on normal, it helped reset my expectations for the mode. Anyway my xbox tag is Kbohls and I sent an invite to the Idle Thumbs club. Hope to get some games in this weekend!

So it's been about 2 years since I've done anything related to Thumbs but I've been listening to the show lately and curiosity brought me back to these forums. I picked this game up over the weekend on PC and would be down to play some organized games with you folks. I will probably be around most evenings after work; say 6-8pm EST, generally being free all weekend as well. This is my first Gears game and it's pretty fun so far. I've mostly played social versus since I have a few other single player games in the hopper right now but I played a match of horde and found it decent. Are the games always 50 waves? That seems to be quite the commitment and I would image the mode wouldn't be as popular as it is if it always required this amount of time.

What the fuck happened?

Sup nerds, I bought a Wii U and am going to add you all. If you want to add me, person from the future, you can find me at k-bohls.

This is my main problem with the Assassins Creed series as well, the missions structure evolves at a glacial pace. I think the sneak into a compound and assassinate some target mechanics work pretty well and I enjoyed most of the missions where I was tasked to do just that. But most of the on land missions in Black Flag were at best non-offensive and at worst supremely frustrating. If they can overhaul what I am actually doing from mission to mission I will get excited. That said I am always happy when someone makes a big budget game that takes place during an interesting time period or historical setting. And that would make me more forgiving if this turns out to just be another Assassins Creed game.

I agree. I played through most of the game on expert starting off with a new barbarian using only self found gear. I also just hit 60 with said barbarian, which is my first character to do so and it's very exciting to finally get into the paragon system.

I have been leveling up a new barbarian since the patch and am enjoying my time way more. Being able to select difficulty from the outset is a huge change which means, at the rate I am going, I will be near level 60 by the time I finish one run through. Here is my Battle.net.tag: kbohls#1253

Watching some of that Giant Bomb stream it does actually look like a neat game, or at the very least something different from most multiplayer shooters which interests me. The movement seems pretty fluid and the inclusion of unlimited sprint is the right choice in my opinion. Still a little hesitant about those AI soldiers, I would rather just have more players with only a few getting titans within a match. Also I will listen to no one who says that a robot with hands is alright.

I don't get all the hate on Origin. In my experience it runs faster than Steam and is generally a slimmer client. That said I still have some problems with Titanfall. I really don't like the additional AI soldiers that run around the battle, they don't appear to do anything and just stand around while being shot at. I also am a little skeptical on the actual Titans, they just appear to be an occasional power up you get without many unique weapons and more limited movement. Also the fact that they are robots that hold guns is lame, the gun should just be the arm of a robot, this is robot design 101. Maybe I will check it out when the full scope is revealed when it launches, but I am a little cautious about it.

Oh man I wish I could go on a crazy night mission with you all. I am back at school now so I am unable to waste my life playing DayZ, but come spring break berry picking and Nidhogging all night long.

I should be able to join you guys tomorrow, I am brand new to the game (I didn't play the mod) but have been playing the standalone version quite a lot since I bought it. Hopefully I can find some good gear for tomorrow as I was just gunned down in cold blood while roaming Chernogorsk. If not I could always act as bandit bait or something.

What?! That makes it even more confusing to why they would lock it behind a complete play through for Link Between Worlds. The little bit of Hero mode I played in Link Between Worlds was pretty challenging and how I would have preferred to play the game... bummer.

We got ourselves a baby gamer over here! I kid, I kid. I really want to know what Zelda you played where the dungeons were 40 minutes because Link Between Worlds ain't it. The only dungeon that really stumped me was the shadow(?) dungeon because I missed a platform I had to break to let light into the lower levels. It really seemed to me that LBW followed the trend of Nintendo's 3ds games having small levels for "playing on the go" which I think is incredibly aggravating. Despite this the minute to minute puzzles are usually quite good and it seemed that giving the player every item upfront allowed for a bit more variation in solving them. The bosses are also pretty good and I liked how each one had multiple stages, even if it was only a movement/attack speed increase. But I again found them to simply be a cakewalk - especially if you brought a bottle or two of milk into the fight. It certainly isn't a bad game, but was lacking enough in key areas to be a disappointment for me. In the future I really hope Nintendo opens up and lets me play the harder mode from the start. Unlocking the difficulty I want to play after beating the game once is a really dumb move that seems to be done only to stop kids from picking the harder mode and not enjoying themselves. Unfortunately this mentality seems to extend to all Nintendo games these days.

My thoughts on the four games I was really looking forward to this year: Rising Storm - I loved Red Orchestra and despite the rocky launch of RO2 way back in 2011 I stuck with it. Since then Red Orchestra 2 has turned into a respectable product that is a pretty good successor to RO1. Anyway, the Pacific theater mod turned expansion, Rising Storm, is one of the most exciting and immersive games I have played in recent years. When I find the house to myself I crank my speakers up and wash myself in the crack of rifle fire and cries of fallen soldiers. It's awesome and has caused a nice community to form around Red Orchestra 2 to further sustain it. Company of Heroes 2 - My brother and I looked forward to Company of Heroes 2 since it was announced, both being arm chair historians about the eastern front of World War 2. I remember CoH2 having a rough launch, but I can't remember specifics as the game seemed to work on my rig. Due to this I think pretty highly of the game and would recommend it to fans of the original, despite some odd multiplayer dlc choices. Rome 2 - This is another one my brother and I looked forward to, sigh, it gets better with each patch but I would rather play Napoleon. That said we had a pretty fun multiplayer campaign until desync problems became too much for us. We are planning to try the Caesar in Gaul dlc in multiplayer during winter break which should be fun due to the focused nature of the dlc. Link Between Worlds - I feel split about LBW, it changes the formula and makes for a more interesting experience but falls prey to usual Nintendo problems. Simply put, it's too easy. The idea of renting items and losing them upon death is great, but besides the last boss I never died, so it never really factored into my experience. The dungeons are also a let down. I think I spent at most 20 minutes in one dungeon and in general they are far too linear. This lack of challenging dungeons really shone a light on the poor combat of Zelda games because there was nothing to stall my progress - it's a disappointment. Really great music, characters and over world however. So yeah 2013, it was alright. Zelda and Rome 2 really pulled the wind out of my sails. They are both decent games but are a let down to me. Other things I played that I really enjoyed were Antichamber, which is basically the equivalent of a Paul Lansky song for puzzle games. I also thought Papers, Please was awesome with some great characters and gameplay that was actually pretty fun.

Valve appears to be continuing the trend of hardware looking like small marsupials with the Steam Controller.

As someone who doesn't even own a television and thinks Windows is pretty alright I really hope they don't tie Half-Life 3, Source 2 or whatever else to this SteamOS/Box stuff.

Glad to see it funded so quickly, and it looks like the first stretch goal is pretty much a shoo in as well. It was kind of crazy to read that two of the main bosses wouldn't be in the game if they only hit the base goal. The two boss designs on the Kickstarter page look pretty awesome, and mad Mega Man.

That's what I thought at first as well, but it seems like Beck is the 9th generation robot of which the previous 8 turned evil and must be destroyed. Plus, based on The Free Encyclopedia it looks like Inafune worked on Mega Man 9 and 10. Interestingly he had to fight Capcom higher-ups in order to use the 8-bit style of both games as opposed to a modern 3D look.

Oh man, my brother and I played the first Advanced Wars to death! I think I have completed all of them, maybe not Two, which is weird because I think back to it being my favorite. Honestly, Dual Strike was cool but the Dual CO's just didn't do it for me. On the other hand I enjoyed Day's of Ruin and thought the story was pretty good, it might be one of the few endings to a game's narrative that I actually remember and felt satisfied with. I would love to play a 3DS game if they kept the pixel art aesthetic over crummy polygonal models which seems to be the trend with 3DS games.

I always told people playing Witcher 1 to hang in until you get into Vizima and hope the story grabs you. If it does then you will sink the remaining 40 hours required to finish it in the blink of an eye, if not then maybe move on. I loved Witcher 2, especially Vernon Roche, but Witcher 1 has such a unique feeling that really grabbed me when I played through it.

Oh wow, I couldn't even notice that because the room was so dark on my monitor, creepy. Patrick: When I first loaded up the game I was tempted to walk upstairs and explore the parent's and Sam's rooms. It seemed like most natural thing to do in this situation, especially at this time of night, but I didn't because I figured that the game wanted me to explore the ground floor first. It's odd how they make the staircase so prominent when you enter the house if, story-wise, you should wait before going upstairs.

Regarding the Uncle:

I really like the idea of your ship being the second main character. You always get a sense in pirate fiction that crews were very attached to their ships so it makes sense to force upgrading and customization of the Jackdaw to progress in the game. That being said I too think that all this could be handled better if it weren't an Assassin's Creed game. The whole thing looks to much like an arcade game, especially the ship movement and combat. The Assassin's Creed series is a damn shame because they choose interesting under-represented periods of history and represent them on a triple-A budget, but then make them all play the same and be filled to the brim with cut scenes. This one looks somewhat different but not enough.