Jake

Idle Thumbs 227: Quiet The Clown

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Idle Thumbs 227:

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Quiet The Clown

Roughly 50 percent of this podcast is about Metal Gear Solid V, but we somehow manage to sneak in a tidbit here and there about our time with Satellite Reign and completing Lara Croft GO, Danielle's adventures with a real live clown, and a surprise-filled bag of candy for the video game baby.

Games Discussed: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Satellite Reign, Lara Croft GO, Dropsy: A Point & Click Hugventure, Star Wars Armada, B KOOL

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Huh, weird synthesis this week where both Dropsy and Lara Croft GO has developers that are forum members here. Kool.

 

 

Does that mean Kojima also has an account?

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Clowns are scary and I would have to leave my office if it got invaded by a marketing clown.

 

The only acceptable clown in video games is Oozo from Day of the Tentacle because you get to stab him.

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I was getting paranoid that the candy didn't arrive so I'm glad to hear it did.  Also I had no idea there was a bonus prize inside the pacifiers but that turned out better than I could have hoped.

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I finished up Satellite Reign over the weekend and really enjoyed it. I had a couple minor technical issues (a bit of glitchy pathfinding being the most notable), but had an otherwise great time. Not only is Dengler the CEO of the evil corporation, but the corp's name is Dracogenics, a play on his own company's name, Dracogen. I think the title itself refers to how the corporation has established itself as a sovereign force through its pervasive network. It gets a bit of another meaning towards the end, too.

 

After getting my agents upgraded a bit, I started almost exclusively using the Infiltrator to pull off missions. They have abilities that allow them to cloak, use ziplines and ventilation ducts, and steal extra money on top of whatever funds and equipment they normally find when robbing a facility, and I equipped them with a hacker proxy, allowing them to use my Hacker's skill level on the various security terminals. The other three agents would just be left loitering around the restricted perimeters while I spent an hour sneaking the Infiltrator around and completely cleaning out an area.

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i JUST got to the SR part of the podcast, so I assume it was covered, but it might still be worth noting out that it's made by the original Syndicate team!

Crazy!

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slight (and probably unnecessary) clarification, but you can deploy as any member of your combat squad in MGS5. You'll have a fair amount of ladies after a few hours.

 

also, stream it Chris! I tried to get my fix with Beloved Thumb Steve Gaynor's twitch, but it was plagued with technical problems, and basically unwatchable. :[

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On the topic of helicopter tunes: the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme might be the best custom soundtrack idea, but I think I'm using the best in game option. When I found the tape for "The Final Countdown," I knew that I could never change it to anything else. As a bonus, it's basically an unofficial TV theme.

 

gob.gif

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When I found the tape for "The Final Countdown," I knew that I could never change it to anything else. As a bonus, it's basically an unofficial TV theme.

 

YES! I was going back and forth between various songs, but "The Final Countdown" especially has great timing. It kicks in exactly after you hear "This is Pequod, arriving soon at LZ!" 

 

Oh and I saw Jake retweeted it already, but it's worth reiterating that the "RED" Monument Valley levels were released for everyone for free! I think you just miss out on the red color palette. If you bought the "RED" version then there's an option to switch the colors around.

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I was a little bummed out to find out that playing as a female character in MGS5 is an intentional part of the game and not a glitch or something, because my ideal version of the game would be playing as a lady doing a gravelly Keifer Sutherland impersonation.

 

For some reason I was going to skip MGS5 until I heard all about it all over the internet. Hearing Nick's story about the helicopter music sealed it for me;

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I don't know if anyone mentioned this in the podcast but it's incredible how fun MGS V is when things go pear shaped. Sneaking around and trying to do everything all stealthy-non-lethal-like is great but when someone spots you it's maybe even more fun to just open up on the base. I have wasted so much money calling in support choppers and artillery barrages just for the hell of it. Hiding in a ditch while your helicopter mows enemies down and artillery shells go off all around you is priceless.

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For those interested in Star Wars Armada, the guys at Shut Up & Sit Down did a playthrough which you can watch here. Looks like a pretty great game, but it does seem a bit too expensive for me at the moment.

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Nah, the horse does the same thing for me, but it does it mostly when you're staring at its icon. 

EDIT:

 

My themes:

 

This always works well then I'm extracting someone

 

 

&

My entering to get pumped

 

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On the topic of helicopter tunes: the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme might be the best custom soundtrack idea, but I think I'm using the best in game option. When I found the tape for "The Final Countdown," I knew that I could never change it to anything else. As a bonus, it's basically an unofficial TV theme.

 

gob.gif

 

 

Hahaha yes! When they were talking about the Arrested Development theme song I kept thinking of the Final Countdown, and it took me a good two minutes before I remembered, "oh wait, no, it's that ukulele music".

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Haha, yes!

 

On the Denglar the villain tip:

 

One of my favorite versions of this was Ultima 7. Origin was having trouble with their new owners in EA, and of the main plot thrusts of U7, is the Avatar's beloved virtue system, to moral code to the land of Britannia, is being undermined by a new church, The Fellowship. The fellowship is a populist movement, with some easy answers, and The Avatar spend most of the game following their two hands on missionaries Elizabeth and Abraham, and as you close in on them, you need to shut down these 3 stone generators that happened to be shaped like a square, a circle, and a triangle, which was EA's logo at the time: http://www.mishes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/video game06.jpg

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Concerning Metal Gear, 2 thing:

 

Kojima hasn't left Konami yet. The deal was that the senior Kojima Productions staff would stay on until december.

 

Playing as a female character isn't a special thing. You can play as any member of your combat unit and while there strangely aren't any female enemy soldiers in the game, you get them from POWs and volunteerism. You don't need to beat the game, and there's more than one, though they do appear in lesser proportions than male recruits. It also feels like I'm getting fewer female recruits than in Peace Walker, though they're still not super rare.

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Portable Ops had the ability to play specific female characters (Eva, Paramedic, Ursula, woman from Metal Gear Acid) the second you received/captured them as well even though it did the same where the main cutscenes were always Big Boss. But Portable Ops was a bad game and taking four characters at once into a mission made no sense. I guess there has to be a stepping stone somewhere.

 

However I basically never strayed from being Big Boss in either games just because there's a lot to keep track of already in three to four different load outs for him, I didn't feel like customizing other characters even if they had better stats than Big Boss.

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