Jake

Idle Thumbs 237: Momazon Prime

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No problem. That thing is fascinating. Thanks Jake and paradi6m for pointing it out!

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Went here just for this, I Harry endorse this.

Also kero is the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound a frog makes

 

You're on the razor's edge.

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*listens to episode*

...

Wow, ha ha ha!

For context on that very old MeUndies email, this was back then the ads felt somewhat new to the cast, and my goal was actually to let Chris know that it worked. Like, "underwear may seem like an odd fit for a gaming cast but hey, wanted to let you know it worked!"

*keeps listening*

...

TWO emails?! Huzzah!

Some of my favorite match puzzlers: Dr. Mario, Lumines, Panel DE Pon aka Pokemon/Planet Puzzle League, and Yoshi's Cookie.

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So I had never listened to the first episode of Idle Thumbs and I figured it would be interesting to loop back around and hear them talk about Fallout 3. And wow; so much has changed and nothing has changed. Hell of a first episode though

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If I remember right kero blaster loops around after you beat it the first time and puts you in hard mode the second time . And if you beat it a second time you get a special super hard second final boss. I wonder if Chris made it there? Can't imagine playing the hardest parts on a phone though..

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A couple clarifications on Amazon Underground.  You don't need a Fire or Kindle device or Amazon Prime.  It comes packed in on those devices but it's also available for Android (and Blackberry or via the web).  You just have to download their Amazon Undergound app (which is basically just the normal Amazon app but with some extra hooks for Underground stuff).  You have to enable data collection usage because that's how Amazon tracks how long you've been playing so they can pay the developers.  It's an opt-in program meaning developers have to submit their app to the program themselves.  It's mostly an extension of their Free-App-A-Day program they used to run in their app store.  Amazon labels all the apps that participate in the program with a small sash that says "Actually Free".  These can be apps which normally cost money or free apps with in app purchases, or both.  There are some notable apps that participate in this, such as Monument Valley, Jetpack Joyride, Knights of Pen and Paper +1, Goat Simulator, Duck Tales Remastered, Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Where's My Water, and many more.  There are also apps that aren't games such as Officesuite Professional 8

 

A few more clarifications.

 

- Amazon Underground appears to be a complete replacement for the Free-App-A-Day program, which is a little disappointing because those apps were actually "actually free" and there was no difference if you had actually just bought them from Amazon's app store.

- Amazon's monetization strategy here seems to be a combination of ads which can run when you start or resume the app (although in my limited use I haven't actually seen any) and simply driving people to use the Amazon Underground app instead of the Google Play store. In fact, the Amazon Underground app is different from the Amazon Appstore app which it replaced in that it basically defaults you to Amazon.com, so you see shopping ads for more than just apps (but they do still let you make a shortcut to jump to the app section of the store). I think the main reason ads seem to never actually run is that Underground hasn't scaled up yet and they're just absorbing the costs. 

 

The thing I find interesting about Underground is that it seems to be applying the YouTube business model to mobile apps where content creators get payed by the distributor based on how often people interact with their product. Now on one hand this can be seen as a problem since it further devalues the work of app developers and puts them on the same level as totally amateur filmmakers. However I still think it's preferable to exploitative in-app-purchases and gating mechanics that developers are currently using in the race to the bottom.

 

Personally as someone who doesn't spend that much time with apps on my phone I'm not inclined to spend $2 on a game I'll probably play for less than an hour, but I probably would play for that hour if I just had to sit through one ad. It just remains to be seen how obnoxious the advertising will be if the platform takes off.

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I really like that Kero Blaster, despite being a very traditional oldschool 2D platformer, has a strong personality of its own and is not just another Mario/Castlevania/Metroid homage.

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I'm pretty sure Match Puzzler actually describes Professor Layton.

*applause*

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a mod for Call of Pripyat that incoporates all maps from all the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games.  it is open world, play as any faction, and there is an ironman mode that provides a quite enjoyable roguelike experience. 

 

http://www.moddb.com...ll-of-chernobyl

 

I really need to take another shot at STALKER. Is Call of Pripyat generally considered the best of them? Do I miss anything by not completing the earlier games. I've gotten stuck on the original STALKER three different times.

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I really need to take another shot at STALKER. Is Call of Pripyat generally considered the best of them? Do I miss anything by not completing the earlier games. I've gotten stuck on the original STALKER three different times.

 

In my opinion, Call of Pripyat is the most playable and the most complete. The other two put a lot of wonkiness in your way of playing the game, although I think that the weirdness in the world and the story of the original Shadows of Chernobyl is something to miss. Call of Pripyat is fun and engaging right out of the box, even without the "Reloaded" or "Complete" mods, so I'd recommend it unconditionally. The only thing you need to understand is that there's a Zone and there are anomalies in it that have magic powers (but also there are monsters in it, too).

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My impression is that some people recommend Shadow of Chernobyl for its story and set pieces while others prefer Call of Pripyat for better open-world FarCry2ness and much better out of the box experience. Personally, while I do have quite fond memories of the first game, I'd go with the latter as I think CoP is the game where the whole concept really shines. Bug-wise I've played both of them unmodded and didn't have any problem with CoP whereas SoC was pretty janky in some places. I guess grabbing the most popular "complete" mod for either of them is the way to go nowadays. You can skip Clear Sky as that game is a broken mess, I'm not even sure if mods fixed it.

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I prefer Shadow of Chernobyl to Call of Pripyat as I think it hews more closely to the source material (the way anomolies work in SoC is closer to how its portrayed in the Tarkovsky film).  As far as mods go, I'm not a big fan of the "Complete" mods, for SoC I would recommend the recently released Autumn Aurora 2 and for CoP I would just play it unmodded.  I actually have a soft spot for Clear Sky, it was the most ambitious game in the franchise in terms of what it tried to accomplish with dynamic factions waging war, gaining territory, etc.  It was and still remains fairly buggy and the story is forgettable, but some of the most fun I had with the series was spent building up the bandit faction and trying to take over the zone.

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Hm, I don't even remember the difference between the artifacts but I always felt like the games are more related to the original novel (Roadside Picnic) than the film and even then the connection is pretty loose (this is also true for the film and the book of course).

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The anomalies in CoP are in discrete locations that are marked on the map.  You'll never wander into an anomaly in CoP without first being aware that they are around.  Whereas in SoC the anomalies are in basically random places and are often quite difficult to detect without using a bolt.  Basically it makes the world of SoC feel more dangerous and unpredictable than CoP.  I can't comment on the book as I never read it, but I always assumed the bolt throwing was taken directly from the movie.

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Man, I'll never forget trying to run through that first tunnel with the anomalies and getting the tutorial about bolts after dying about 50 times trying to make it through.

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