Jake

Idle Thumbs 207: Buble Bloodborne Bloodbeef

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I played the browser version of Westerado but stopped when I realized it was huge for a browser game.

 

The process of cocking your gun and lining up a shot was too nerve-wracking!

 

The comments in this RPS overview give a good idea of what to expect from the Steam version Westerado: Double Barreled.  Unfortunately, one of the developers shows up and says he still loves the Will Smith Wild Wild West movie.

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Unfortunately, one of the developers shows up and says he still loves the Will Smith Wild Wild West movie.

Why is that unfortunate? That movie's great!

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Why is that unfortunate? That movie's great!

 

It means you will be unable to play this game without hearing the theme song in your head.

 

That's why I'm glad the Campo Santo team didn't keep their original title for Firewatch: "Hen' in Black."

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I have that song on repeat 24/7 anyway!

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Thank you for posting that link, just because it contains an image that captures, all at once, the reason that Dark Souls is so treasured by me, not just as a game, but as a story.

 

Lordran_large.png

 

I know the artist cheats a little bit with the precise geography of Lordran, but it just shows so much how Dark Souls was its own self-contained world, the Gormenghast of games.

 

I love that every player of Dark Souls has the same (very strong) mental map of the world. There are very few games that do that on the first play through.

 

What's also cool is that people extracted the 3d models of the world and built a 3d model viewer to be able to see how the world connects, and if it is possible (it is, with a couple of minor points that clash).

 

dsmap-1024x519.jpg

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-I'm immediately writing in a fountain in Cyberpunk Cop-Killer. 

 

-I'm so happy Spaff is back on the podcast. I forget he's there, and then he suddenly appears with perfect zings in his smooth British voice. Lord British Zinglord.

 

-Yay, Drop7 email read. I forgot to add that doesn't actually pause the podcast, but it mutes it. And of course, the ads never have audio, so it just goes silent until I can skip it, and then I lose 10 seconds of the podcast. But if I pay, I'm throwing money at Zynga. But if I don't, they probably make more money off the ads. Argh.

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I was definitely intrigued when Chris tweeted that Sean comment about Bloodborne being like DOTA because I don't see the two games as at all similar, but listening to him talk about it I totally see what he was getting at, and basically totally agree.

 

However I don't think Bloodborne could be that for me. Because I've played all the Souls games, and so I think I would go into the game with a stronger sense of what the possibility space of that game is, and so I wouldn't have that same really powerful feeling of not knowing how deep things go.

 

At this point even if it takes me awhile to get acclimated to how the systems have been switched up, I basically know what I'm getting into. But it's definitely a testament to From Studios that they are still evoking that feeling for people, because I remember that feeling from Demon's Souls and it was awesome.

 

Also, I weirdly agree with Sean about Bloodborne's aeshtetic, and Chris about Dark Soul's aesthetic. I think all those games are just really strong at evoking powerful moods, and the character designs are really good at communicating a lot of different intentions to the player.

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-Yay, Drop7 email read. I forgot to add that doesn't actually pause the podcast, but it mutes it. And of course, the ads never have audio, so it just goes silent until I can skip it, and then I lose 10 seconds of the podcast. But if I pay, I'm throwing money at Zynga. But if I don't, they probably make more money off the ads. Argh.

 

I don't mind paying Zynga to remove ads because it sends a message that there are people who are willing to pay for quality ad-free/consumable-free games. It's voting with my dollars!

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Why is that unfortunate? That movie's great!

 

I have never understood the hate for that movie.  It's fabulous and fun. 

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I have never understood the hate for that movie.  It's fabulous and fun. 

For reasons not worth going into, I can recite the lyrics to the Wild Wild West song from memory; so now every time I hear it mentioned, it gets into my head and doesn't leave for days. The weird thing is that I haven't even seen the film!

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Heres the spider video with smug business guy. 

 

I googled 'Intel spider' to find this video but the first results are all of Intel spider dress. A 3d printed dress with spider legs that extend towards you when you get too close. That's way freakier than the little robots imo.

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It's not entirely relevant to the spider monsters, but the creepiest robot I've seen is the talking piano. It's a computer that synthesises speech, but instead of synthesising its own audio it uses a piano to output sound. Sound is sound, so all it needs to do is press the right combination of keys to make the correct sounds for the speech. Spoilers, it's HORRIFYING.

 

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Loved hearing more Bloodborne chatter, hopefully it will keep up as some of the hosts progress. Curious if those smitten by Bloodborne have any interest to go back and play previous Souls games (assuming they didn't)?

Apologies for not remembering who said what specifically, but I thought it was interesting that someone on the show was put off by what seemed like Giant Western Fantasy To Your Face! aesthetics in earlier Souls games. I guess I could kind of see how the screenshots I saw before I picked up Demon's Souls might inspire that reaction. I'm glad Chris strongly disagreed, because playing those games makes me see the aesthetic in completely the opposite fashion. What I've always thoroughly loved about the souls games, first and foremost, were the settings. the sense of atmosphere and place they convey always grabs me. The spectacles I encountered were moments of awe punctuating my travels through worlds that genuinely reflected the despair of possibly coming to an end. I don't know of any game that I've played that captured that despair so well. Maybe Mass Effect 3 goes for that in the face of the oncoming alien domination? Fallout maybe? I probably don't have the deepest repertoire to pull from. A lot of games say the world is in danger but then still present a fairly in tact setting. Not the souls games.

I can't claim to get all the narrative tucked away inside these games, so I always make it a point to research the story once I'm done. Maybe the interwebs interpret things incorrectly, I don't know, but it gives food for thought. After playing Dark souls, I did some research and realized the ending involved a choice (I didn't see the way to the other option). Once I got a handle on what the two endings meant, I realized I really didn't like the implications of the choice I made even though in the moment I felt pretty good about what I thought my ending represented. I appreciate the moral ambiguity there.

On top of that, the souls games have some of the best RPG mechanics out there for my tastes, killing a lot of my interest in the Elder Scrolls style of gameplay. I played massive amounts of Oblivion, but that was before I played through Demon's Souls. Even though certain systems may become overpowered, I really love the Souls take on magic, crafting, experience, and leveling. I really dig that the actions of my character are completely my own in a fight and that the stats and crafting progressions then manifest once I've landed a blow. Equipment weight, poise, getting staggered, varied rolling speeds, moves unique to each weapon... All of these choices culminate into a fighting style that really feels like your own. While I love Bloodborne so far, it's a little disappointing to see some of these elements stripped down in favor of steering you toward a general play style.

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I was shocked that, despite the abundant Splatoon word play, no one made anything of the fact that this shooter is both squad-based and squid-based. Opportunity squandered.

I liked the Bloodborne talk, and am sad I've fallen behind on Danielle and Phil's lets play. For the first ten or so parts, I was playing ahead and then watching the LPs until you guys caught up with me. Sadly lame life events have hampered my Bloodborne play time, so I have a lot of ground to make up.

I really want to try Westerados now. Sounds similar to Noir Syndrome, which I picked up in some bundle a while back but only recently played--a rogue like noir-inspired detective simulation. It had great ideas but felt a bit underbaked mechanically. This sounds a lot more polished but with the procedurally generated mystery elements that had intrigued me.

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I was shocked that, despite the abundant Splatoon word play, no one made anything of the fact that this shooter is both squad-based and squid-based. Opportunity squandered.

 

Squidered

 

(no but seriously everyone made the squad/squid puns)

 

I'll have to listen to the podcast, because my hands-on with it last year at PAX suggested that it was actually kind of shallow with just one weapon. Hopefully, with different loadouts there's a bit more to it.

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Splatoon looks great!  Holding off on getting a Wii U until after e3.  They kinda have to announce a price drop, don't they?  Thing has been out for almost three years and it's not exactly doing gangbusters.

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I was really confused at Sean's bafflement about Splatoon. It seemed strangely put-on, which happens a lot on other podcasts, but is rare for Idle Thumbs. Maybe "a mulitplayer shooter about squid girls who travel through ink that they shoot" just doesn't seem as out of character for Nintendo in my eyes as it does for others. There's no way you can put Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, F-Zero, Pokemon, Pikmin and Smash Bros. next to each other and come out with any coherent underlying theme for Nintendo's work, so why should Splatoon seem out of place?

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I actually wrote a reader mail about Splatoon so I'll abbreviate and say the bafflement was also weird! I thought this was getting a lot of hype but I realized that maybe I am the person directly being marketed to with a casual single/multiplayer team-based 3rd person shooter that's got a fashion shop and cute squid girls. 

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It's been like 2 days and I still have Spaff's "Your Bloodbeef is ready, sir" line stuck in my head. That whole section had me cracking up on the train, much to the confusion of the other passengers.

 

I've been enjoying Spaff's appearances on the cast. Is he considered a regular host now?

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There was a moment where they started talking about Dreamphone and Ithought Spaff might reveal his secret history about appearing in magazines aimed at teenage girls.

 

I was disappointed to hear no revelation.

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It's been like 2 days and I still have Spaff's "Your Bloodbeef is ready, sir" line stuck in my head. That whole section had me cracking up on the train, much to the confusion of the other passengers.

 

I've been enjoying Spaff's appearances on the cast. Is he considered a regular host now?

 

Agree on Spaff, but he has yet to be added to the canonical about page, so for the moment I suppose he's still in Guest Host territory.

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