CaptainFish

That hypothetical of mods within mods is actually the reality of Skyrim to some extent. A lot of the mods use a script extender mod as well as a the mod manager of a major overhauling mod (I think it's called SkyUI). So a lot of mods would not function without access to those specific overarching mods. The whole Skyrim situation is full of weird issues beyond the simple idea of wanting modders to make money for their content and a lot of people don't even agree with that basic idea. Edit: SecretAsianMan says as much above The Valve games that sell workshop stuff have two advantages: one, the kinds of things they add are very simple things like weapons or clothing pieces and two, actual people vet everything that makes it into the workshop store. Even so, an early Faceless Void mace model in Dota was just stolen from another game and had to be replaced by a Valve model later on. Just letting every creator turn on pay on any kind of mod for Skyrim whether it's a cheat, weapon model, companion, UI change, balance tweak, quest line, overarching behaviour or full on expansion makes it a fundamentally more complex situation than the workshop content in Valve games.

Someone should do that with all 6 Rock Revolution drum kits sold.

I hope little robot under the high hat is one of the roles you can be in the new Rock Band.

It's cool, because you've managed to pull in people who all fit in really well to the feel of the cast. The only thing that bums me out is Sean being too busy to sit in regularly both because I can tell he loves being on the cast and because his competitive streak lends another angle to discussions that I enjoy (in addition to his narrative/writing opinions).

Every podcast needs more NIck.

A lot of the Guitar Hero Live reveal struck me as a weird choice. Not only is the FMVness of the presentation really laughable and distracting, but the way it transitions between the success and fail states is jarring. The heavy blur they employ isn't evocative of anything and feels like it would actually get in the way of trying to play a song. It also seems like the most expensive possible way to try and do a game like this. And if you're going the route of filming real people, why not try and make cool original music videos to go along with the actual music videos they have in the other mode. That way they'd at least end up with product that could be impressive outside of the sheer scale of it. The footage I've seen also makes the game look like it avoids the original games' progression where you start off in smaller venues. Those seem like the settings where the game's core concepts make the most sense. Feeling nervous about your first gig and slowly turning a local dive bar's growing audience into fans would fit in perfectly. It's still really early, though so maybe that stuff will find its way in (or maybe it's been talked about in previews, I just watched a couple levels and the trailer). The guitar does look like a nice innovation, at least for rhythm guitar, not sure how it'll feel for solos.

Did someone say lore? Still one of my favourite games, but I've never really understood that choice.

I'm really curious if the stuff in Bloodborne is actually that much more audacious than the Souls games. I feel like a lot of the argument was based on premise, and Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 probably would sound as bad at first glance. It's a medieval setting in which everyone is essentially a zombie and some of the first enemies and shopkeepers are glowing eyed zombies. There's a decent amount of fantasy tropes and bosses like the Gaping Dragon and Quelaag that are audacious, but it's the overall execution of the world that sets it apart. Because of that, I kinda bristle at the idea that this is more preposterous because it's werewolves in Victorian England, without any specific examples of how that is handled. That setting and content seems to imply a steampunk aesthetic, for example, but what I've seen seems to resist the urge to rely on visual cues of steampunk while still having stuff like transforming weapons and guns that you could imagine being draped in that imagery. It would be pretty cool if Danielle could deep dive into that subject, having played the game. I won't be playing Bloodborne in the foreseeable future, but as a souls fan, I would be really interested about specifics.

I didn't have any experience with playing a single characters controls on one device, but I did use to play games with my brother in the era where a PC would split up players 1 and 2 into opposite sides of the keyboard. Probably played a fair amount of Sango Fighter like that.

So glad someone picked up that blunt usage.

I'd be pleased if notoriousweedlord.com was a .gif-of-a-stoned-eagle-getting-headshot-by-an-arrow that redirected to idlethumbs.net on clickthrough. I know that's an embellishment, but it's the easiest way to make the composition work. It was one of the funniest encapsulated game moments I've heard in a long time, and I also agree that the lead into legalization discussion was a few degrees too far for me to follow.

Cara Uppercut (or Throw) if it's about the fight games.

Ok, so that's why the sung lyrics seemed to have to come in late according to the instrumental theme. The vocal arrangement pleased me with a depth that surprised me. Great cast, Cara was rad as a guest. Weirdly enough, I was more put off by the suggestion that the PS2 animal platformers were contemporaries of Banjo Kazooie than the original mistake. In my mind Banjo goes along with the likes of DK64, Spyro, Glover and whatever else was on the PS1 at the time (Crash Bandicoot?). Then I checked the release dates and it turns out the Rare N64 games do get followed up by Jak and Daxter the next year (2001) with Ratchet and Sly appearing one year after (2002). So, yeah, they're totally in the same temporal neighbourhood. Then my reaction was, 'well, maybe they're closer than I thought, but there were way more bad ones in the N64/PS1 era' but then you brought up Blinx. So, basically it's just been animal-platformers forever. Good times.

200 episodes in and the Thumbs are still being confused for each other! Oh, I forgot to mention earlier that the new theme sounded great! It sounded space-exploration themed to me, probably because it's mysterious while still being positive and upbeat. It would fit well over an opening credits sequence, for sure. I'm interested to hear how the vocals shift that. Also, I'm sure the vocals will be cool, but, when I heard the theme, I thought Chris had decided to drop the vocals and melody knowing that the reader would add them back in mentally. That just added to the ambiguity for me as I tried to fit my memories of the melody into this new arrangement and wondered about timing and if notes would have to change to fit parts that seemed to be slightly different. It was a cool musical journey* for me, even if it was entirely unintentional. *Idle Thumbs: A Cool Musical Journey

Amazing milestone ep, Thumbs! I really enjoyed listening to all 6 of you even if you had to resort to the dreaded Skype. Yeah.

Isn't the Captain Toad thing a lot like *jump on the axe* -> "your princess is in another castle" 8 times or how many ever it is? Edit: With a little bit of Bubble Bobble thrown in.

I find 2 things about the interview amusing. 1) That the Linux version of Godus has been indefinitely delayed because the Marmalade SDK people promised a Linux edition but failed to follow through on that promise. It's not quite Peter's own petard, but it's from a very similar petardier. I would like to see some follow up with the Marmalade people on this fact, cause nothing on their site really seems to imply a Linux release is incoming, maybe that changed. 2) The discussions of the ethics of whether Peter is actively lying 90% of the time or simply wrong 90% of the time. I get that it's interesting, but we're not talking about deciding to trust the dude with a personal secret, we're talking about determining whether to spend money on the products he designs and sells. I do think in general a lot of interesting information came out of the RPS piece, regardless of any perceived issues with the tone. The way I see it most of the facts were in Molyneux's favour, it's mostly his attitude and dodging that reflects poorly on him. I wish it was available in audio, just to hear if it's more or less heated, awkward and confrontational that way.

The only time I had an issue with achievements in terms of taking me out of the moment was in the PC version of Bioshock 2. It was the only GFWL game I had played at the time and those achievements were so intrusive and obnoxious looking to me. The gross metallic design of the blades really clashes with pretty much any game. I believe one tied to the NPC choices you have to make was the one that made me turn notifications off. I think about it every once in a while on steam, but I think the colour scheme is less annoying in general. At this point the only achievements I detest across the board are the social media ones. Otherwise I just engage in them to the degree I want to spend more time in a game system. I was playing Heroine's Quest recently since it popped up on my Steam. I dunno if that means it just came to Steam or was just recommended cause I played a few adventure games recently. Anyway I noticed the score system of those Sierra style adventures and text adventures are pretty similar to achievements. I'm sure it's been known, but it just struck me. Cool stuff! I really loved the flipbook time-manipulation, thanks for linking that!

I just wanted to say that Mickey Mouse has been in a series of short flash cartoons for a year or two, and they've been pretty enjoyable. I have heard some complaints about in-between work on some of the shorts, but I've found them pretty visually interesting.

Jake referring to a clay wrecking ball in Battletoads made me think that a stop-motion claymation aesthetic would be really cool for that game with all the cartoony transformations that occur. Also, if you pre-order it you could get a free wiimote strap. I never had a 360 so I didn't experience the original Dead Rising, but heard a lot about it's clunkiness in the lead up to 2. When I got that game, I was so shocked because without the timer there would be nothing to that game but pointless meandering. By creating that constraint it gives the low stakes mechanics of that game worth and challenge, unlike Assassin's Creed, for example, where it can easily cross over into feeling completely uninteresting. I'd probably really like Majora's Mask. The only time I tried it as a kid was when my friend brought over his N64 for a day of hanging out. Turns out I was way more excited to play the sci-fi, wrestling, action JRPG Hybrid Heaven. I stand firm in my choice.

It was also Dishonored Game of the Year 2011.

I actually prefer Drawful to Fibbage, because there's a ltitle too much focus on getting the right answer in Fibbage. With Drawful, the answers relate directly to the drawings so just seeing something you saw pop-up as a choice isn't as much of a giveaway. Also, if you guess the right answer in drawful, you give the same amount of points to the artist, which encourages you to have a good bluff answer to actually have a net gain over them. It does a great job of encouraging good drawing skill and bluffing, while focusing on user-generated content. Also, the way some of the drawing clues work, I wonder if there's some amount of pairing up ideas list to make unique suggestions. Generally they seem to require less effort to craft, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are more Drawful clues than Fibbage triva questions.

What if the Justice League is just the jury of peers they find for Batman and Superman, superheroes have to have superpeers, right?

Merus is right, but I still like Temple of Doom a lot. Love that intro.

I meant in Raiders specifically. He has some 'clever lines', sure, but it's not like he's an Arnold Schwarzenegger character where punctuating scenes with one-liners is his entire character. He spends most of the film doing action scenes without much comment, and when he talks it's about his goals or figuring out whatever mystery is at hand. A lot of his interactions with Marion, for example, are clumsy and simple, not witty.