Jake

Idle Thumbs 222: The Bubble Guy

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Nick "Child of the First Burn" Breckon

 

Chris "The Place Where I Burn People" Remo

Steve "Tentacle Toucher" Gaynor

Jake "Fuck Conker" Rodkin

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Is there actually a good game inside the literal feces you have to wade through?

 

The multiplayer was really fun.

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tumblr_mcs74hMFMb1rcjw9ko1_500.gif

 

Oh yeah, the Conker's Pocket Tales is not a sequel but is for all intents and purposes a handheld version of the original game that was to be which was released first for whatever reason. It contains a bunch of prerendered assets and characters that were either scrapped or changed for the final game.

 

I forgot exactly what happened but it's in Chris Seavor's commentary for the game on Youtube. He hated Twelve Tales (and I think had issues with certain team leads at Rare and the games they made in general) and it seems like management was more than okay with him taking over the lead of this redundant 64 game that no one at the studio was particularly thrilled about. It's also weird because probably the most endearing thing that I find about the game is Conker's voice, which is Seavor's. Since Conker's Pocket Tales and Diddy Kong Racing made it to the public first, he pretty much retroactively took this obscure established character and made it his. Then his Twitter is @conkerhimself, which seems arrogant because he doesn't own the character but then he is paid to come back and voice Conker for Project Spark, which is funny since it does not seem like he left Rare on good terms. I find all this Conker retooling to be a pretty curious story of game development. I wish I knew why Rare found it appropriate to go ahead and release Pocket Tales way before either versions of its big console counterpart was finished.

 

Chris Seavor also did not seem to have any love for collectathons which is why you collect a few bundles of cash as a requirement instead of an extra part of the game. In many ways it's wasn't exactly Rare making fun of itself but more like this bitter artist at the studio making fun of the games they made (that he didn't like). It seems like going by the former staff present during the commentary not a lot of teams meshed with Seavor and the others he worked with, so there was always this disconnect, between him and his coworkers, leading to a lot of trash talking that is bleeped out.

 

I should probably relisten to the commentary since it was fun and it appears I forgot everything, but it's also somewhat obnoxious because they are really bad at playing their own game and there's a lot of strange noises made by Mr. Seavor the more drunk he gets.

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Chris Seavor also did not seem to have any love for collectathons which is why you collect a few bundles of cash as a requirement instead of an extra part of the game. In many ways it's wasn't exactly Rare making fun of itself but more like this bitter artist at the studio making fun of the games they made (that he didn't like). It seems like going by the former staff present during the commentary not a lot of teams meshed with Seavor and the others he worked with, so there was always this disconnect, between him and his coworkers, leading to a lot of trash talking that is bleeped out.

 

I should probably relisten to the commentary since it was fun and it appears I forgot everything, but it's also somewhat obnoxious because they are really bad at playing their own game and there's a lot of strange noises made by Mr. Seavor the more drunk he gets.

 

I'm glad someone caught the Bimmy and Jimmy thing :)

 

I started watching that commentary let's play when the first episode came out, but forgot it existed after that. I want to know *everything* about the making of that game (which I loved so much as a 17-year-old), and I'm nervous to go back to it. I'd like to stream the whole thing, actually, if I don't actively hate it as a 31-year-old.

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It is pretty weird that GBC Conker didn't make it to the collection considering there are other Nintendo console games on it. I just checked and Rare published it themselves. Seems like a weird omission.

 

The gender locked clothing for Fallout Shelter is quite strange. I had mentioned it before with Three Dog's outfit. It totally seems like a weird oversight. I even find the transforming clothes to be weird, considering that the Fallout 4 trailer seemed to imply that that aspect is a thing of the past.

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I was the loser that wrote in about SSX

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I'm glad someone caught the Bimmy and Jimmy thing :)

 

Bimmy and Jimmy were actual characters in Double Dragon Neon (although he's called Jammy there)

 

Bimmy_Jammy.jpg

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I started watching that commentary let's play when the first episode came out, but forgot it existed after that. I want to know *everything* about the making of that game (which I loved so much as a 17-year-old), and I'm nervous to go back to it. I'd like to stream the whole thing, actually, if I don't actively hate it as a 31-year-old.

I played the pretty Xbox one a few years ago and there was a lot of jokes that made me pretty uncomfortable either because they were too cruel or sexist. The commentary is much milder than the actual game itself, they just sometimes like to talk bad about former and current coworkers, Rare, and Microsoft. It's usually all bleeped out though.

 

Conker also has a Matrix parody sequence. Everyone loves those right?

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I think the open world SSX game Jake was thinking of might have been the 2012 one that was just called SSX, for 360 and PS3.

 

Also, Conker has this reputation as being really filthy and having a juvenile, potty-oriented sense of humor and it's certainly true that the game contains a boss that is a giant singing pile of feces and Conker swears quite a bit. But if you've been put off by that reputation the way I was, you should know that actually that's a relatively small part of the game and it's mostly a freewheeling set of parodies of various pop cultural stuff. And, at least at the time, the Xbox remake was one of the most beautiful things on that system.

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Conker also has a Matrix parody sequence. Everyone loves those right?

 

To be fair, at least that was period appropriate.

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One of the best Nick moments is when Nick accidentally revealed a livejournal page he forgot the password to:

 

 

(it's in the Outro)

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One of the best Nick moments is when Nick accidentally revealed a livejournal page he forgot the password to:+

 

It's got good game reccs like

I give you.. THE most addicting game in the world. http://www.totebo.com/monkey/

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My favorite Breckon moment that I haven't seen anyone mention was during one of the Crisader Kings II streams when Nick marries off the prince to an African warrior princess while Chris was out of the room using the bathroom or something. And then Chris comes back and is 100% baffled.

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I think the open world SSX game Jake was thinking of might have been the 2012 one that was just called SSX, for 360 and PS3.

SSX 3 was absolutely the game Jake was thinking of. It came out on PS2, and there was a free ride mode where you could board the entire mountain if you wanted to do so. Took like half an hour.

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Did SSX3 not have an "Elise wants to race you at XYZ location" SMS-style inbox interface? I feel like it did even if it wasn't a full playable cell phone.

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Did SSX3 not have an "Elise wants to race you at XYZ location" SMS-style inbox interface? I feel like it did even if it wasn't a full playable cell phone.

 

It did, I even wrote in a follow up email saying as much

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Wha? What's with the Conker hate?

 

That was my reaction as well.  But I played Conker with my kid when she was probably...12 or 13?  It was probably terribly age inappropriate, but I just remember us both giggling our way through it and generally having fun with the gameplay.  One of the best parts of having a kid is you get to gleefully indulge the parts of yourself that never grew up.

 

 

Also on the topic of Rare games, Viva Pinata was the first 360 game I became legitimately obsessed with.  I still think about firing it up some days, because I think there were a couple of super rare animals I never managed to attract or breed.  It annoys me that a PC version exists, but there is no legitimate way to buy it right now since GFWL shut down and not all the games available on it were moved to other services. 

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It is pretty weird that GBC Conker didn't make it to the collection considering there are other Nintendo console games on it. I just checked and Rare published it themselves. Seems like a weird omission.

 

I'm guessing the lack of GB Color/Advance games is just not wanting to code up an emulator for them.

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It did, I even wrote in a follow up email saying as much

Woo I'm not TOTALLY crazy!

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Woo I'm not TOTALLY crazy!

 

You also weren't the person that said you remembered playing SSX 1 on the Dreamcast -- that was Chris

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That was my reaction as well.  But I played Conker with my kid when she was probably...12 or 13?  It was probably terribly age inappropriate, but I just remember us both giggling our way through it and generally having fun with the gameplay.  One of the best parts of having a kid is you get to gleefully indulge the parts of yourself that never grew up.

Haha, as inappropriate as it is, that is probably the best age to play it at. Awesome you played with your daughter.

 

Zeus loves Conker, does that mean the cycle will repeat?

 

Also since SAM brought up Double Dragon Neon, I forgot to mention how much fun that is to play with a friend who also had Double Dragon on NES as a kid.

The end credits rock opera sung by Skullmageddon (Sean Velasco) is perfect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-O_u_y5r1o

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You also weren't the person that said you remembered playing SSX 1 on the Dreamcast -- that was Chris

YESSS EAT SHIT HUMANKIND

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Haha, as inappropriate as it is, that is probably the best age to play it at. Awesome you played with your daughter.

 

Zeus loves Conker, does that mean the cycle will repeat?

I do love Conker. I played through it originally on the N64 and then again on the Xbox remake. The online multiplayer was surprisingly fun and I probably dumped a couple hundred hours into that as well.

I'll definitely end up playing through that one with my daughter too. Every kid deserves to take on the great mighty poo at some point during their childhood. But we're still a few years out on that one.

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