Idle Weekend December 11, 2015: TGIF, Finally

[Chris]

Idle Weekend December 11, 2015:

TGIF, Finally

Join hosts Rob Zacny and Danielle Riendeau as they kick off Idle Weekend—and yes, they really mean it this time! The Idle Weekenders take on the new-and-improved The Game Awards, wherein actual good games were honored, and talk up 2015's obsession with bigger, broader and more... badass? open worlds.

You can learn more about the show at idleweekend.net, and send us questions for our weekend correspondence at questions@idleweekend.net. To keep up with the latest from us, follow us on Twitter at @idleweekend.

Discussed: The Game Awards, The Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Destiny, The Walking Dead: Season One, Life is Strange, Fargo Season 2, Jessica Jones

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[Cordeos]

OMGGGGGGGGGGGGG

[Hargrimm]

[zerofiftyone]

What a nice surprise!   

[pkirkner]

Somehow I missed that this was to be both a gaming and pop culture podcast, so the TV talk at the end (and the intimation that there may be book talk in the future) was a really pleasant surprise.

[Chris]

Somehow I missed that this was to be both a gaming and pop culture podcast, so the TV talk at the end (and the intimation that there may be book talk in the future) was a really pleasant surprise.

That has just happened by default! It wasn't an explicit goal, it's just sort of happened as Rob and Danielle did a few test episodes.

[Spenny]

Congrats on the first episode, it was good, looking forward to more.

[sclpls]

Nice first episode. I really enjoyed the relaxed tone of the conversation, very fitting for a podcast with the name Idle Weekend.

 

My experience playing the Walking Dead Season 1 was somewhat similar to Danielle's. My wife and I typically go back to the East Coast for the holidays to spend time with our families in DC and Richmond, Virginia. However the year that season wrapped up we stuck around San Francisco for the holidays due to some financial constraints. We discovered that San Francisco really empties out around this time. On Christmas Eve we both had the day off, and decided to finally play the Walking Dead. It had been my intention to play one episode a day or something, but my wife wasn't having it, and we powered through the whole season that day (the Netflix effect you two were mentioning). It was pretty brutal, and it was really powerful and affecting the way that game is, but also there was this special feeling of playing it on a cold day in an emptied out city that really stuck with me. Oddly enough, we will once again not being going out to the East Coast for the first time since that happened. I'm really struggling to figure out something special to do like that though.

 

Also, I think Rob's gotta lay it out, what's his deal with Life is Strange? I haven't played the game, so no judgment here.

[Chris]

Also, I think Rob's gotta lay it out, what's his deal with Life is Strange? I haven't played the game, so no judgment here.

Write into questions@idleweekend.net and ask! Rob and Danielle did a few test episodes and they talked about the game then, so there's no real way to know that missing context currently.

[Ben X]

I very much enjoyed this. My favourite Danielle sections in her Thumbs appearances were when she had a little time to expound on a particular game or subject, so this is great. I mainly know Rob from his RPS writing (where he wrote about Dark Forces just as I was playing it recently - apparently he enjoyed the lack of quicksave, the madman).

 

Looking forward to more, and have tweeted!

[AndyS]

Wow, great episode, love how intimate and personal this show is ! Makes me feel a lot better about being depressed and stuff A great addition to the Idle thumbs network, can't wait for the next episode! Great job guys!

[Nappi]

Finally!

 

Great first episode! Keep em coming.

[graddy]

Yay! Danielle returns!

I'm another that was pleasantry surprised by the general entertainment talk.

[rincewitch]

All the talk about media you seek out when you're depressed was real as fuck.

[Chris]

So glad people are digging this! We recorded so many hours of test before landing it. PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS!!

[Cleinhun]

The talk about The Walking Dead made me realize that there is now an idle thumbs show that might actually talk about Firewatch.

[Jolly0451]

The talk on sad games just reminded me of how much I loved learning the depressing ass guitar music in the Stalker series when I was playing those games.  

[chummer]

cast was good! i'd like to hear rob list some of those sad games.

 

The talk on sad games just reminded me of how much I loved learning the depressing ass guitar music in the Stalker series when I was playing those games. 

 

damn. now i just want to boot up one of those first two i haven't play yet.

[Jolly0451]

Those first two stalker games are really rather different than Pripyat but still great if you can get around the technical/performance issues with Clear Sky and the general old ass computer game jank of Shadow of Chernobyl. Also you basically have to play Metro 2033 if you haven't already

[melmer]

I really enjoyed that, thanks.

I'm already thinking there needs to be some kind of "media" club, so I'm pre awear of what our hosts are consuming. Not strictly necessary, but it's always nice to be part of the discussion, plus want to avoid those dreaded spoilers!!!

I've got both jesscia jones and Fargo 2 qued up, I'm more eager to dive into them now.

[melmer]

I also listened to serial season 2 today which just topped this episode of idle weekend.

If you could inject some kind of criminal element into idle weekend that would be great.

[Christopher]

I just wanted to post in here to say that the first episode was great and also that you should try to get Maddy Meyers on as a guest some time, ideally for the heavily foreshadowed Life Is Strange discussion. She's had some of the most interesting things to say about that game, she's on your coast (Boston, I believe?), and I've always thought she would be a good fit for the Thumbs atmosphere.

[jeb_vancouver]

Nothing constructive to say beyond hoooorraaaayyyy that was great!

[thespyisaspy]

I'll echo everyone else and say: great cast!  I'm always glad to have more pods to put in my ears.

[Ninja Dodo]

Great start to the new cast!

Regarding The Game Awards, Geoff Keighley always struck me as a more sincere guy than people give him credit for... Yeah, it's easy to point at that stupid Doritos photo, but he's also the guy

Bioware against Fox News morons on TV (that whole half-naked blue alien sex non-scandal) and he did those (quite good) The Final Hours of ... behind the scenes feature ebook/articles for Portal 2, Mass Effect 3, Half Life 2 and other games. The Spike Awards were pretty terrible, but their new Game Awards incarnation, while undeniably commercial, seems on balance a sincere celebration of games.

And yes, a well-deserved win for Witcher 3. Completely agree with what you guys said about the world and tone of the Witcher. For all its fantastical trappings there is a realness to the world and characters of that game that I haven't seen in a fantasy RPG since Gothic. And no, internet, it's not that it has Dark & Mature^TM sex and violence. It's that people talk and react like people instead of Renaissance fair extras. "An open world designed for grownups" rather than a theme park, as you put it.

There's something about the world-building in most other RPGs that just always rings hollow. Sometimes it feels to me like, with the notable exception of Game of Thrones, American writers (at least in games*) don't understand the difference between Dungeons & Dragons and *actual history*, and the only castles they've seen are in Disneyland... cause don't get me wrong, I love Disney, but a good source for historical authenticity it is not. The argument comes up a lot that if you have ANY fantasy elements nothing should be real or grounded, which besides being nonsense, is emblematic of this lack of understanding of history, myth and storytelling. Fantasy works when it is built on something solid. The Witcher 3 is soaking in history and folklore in a way that, say, Skyrim or Dragon Age can't even dream of.

That and it's a fascinating game at a design level as well, just the whole way the quests are constructed and intertwined... it's impressive. I really hope Bethesda and Bioware are paying attention because they are getting schooled right now. CD Projekt has clearly learned from them, so they should probably do likewise if they want to keep up. It's also kind of hilarious that the Witcher series went from tacky pin-up cards and "I'd like to get to know you better" in Witcher 1 to arguably outdoing Bioware on romance sub-plots in Witcher 3. It's really quite elegantly done.

I haven't seen a lot of writing about the design side of Witcher 3 though, other than this.

 

 

* I freely admit that my exposure to American fantasy is mostly through games and film so I might be totally off the mark when it comes to the written word.