Idle Weekend March 11, 2016: Buried Treasure

[Rob Zacny]

Idle Weekend March 11, 2016:

Buried Treasure

Like a perfect diamond wrapped in layers of greasy wrapping paper, this week we're talking about great games that happened to be buried in... other stuff. Does a focus on meaty game length ruin a wonderful, if shorter, experience, or merely water it down? Helping us answer these questions are the aliens, wolf men, succubi and vampires that we know and love (and spend too much time with).

Rust, Alien: Isolation, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Lost Girl, the Joe Pitt Casebooks

• Listen on the Episode Page
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• Listen in iTunes

[Vader]

Maybe I have this wrong, but isn't the Alien in Alien female? Rob and Danielle kept referring to her with the "he" pronoun. I guess "Frankie" could be a girl's name...

 

Edit: Never mind. I guess there is a lot of debate about the alien's gender on the internet, and some have concluded they are asexual.

[Danielle]

Maybe I have this wrong, but isn't the Alien in Alien female? Rob and Danielle kept referring to her with the "he" pronoun. I guess "Frankie" could be a girl's name...

 

Edit: Never mind. I guess there is a lot of debate about the alien's gender on the internet, and some have concluded they are asexual.

 

Ha, Vader, it's something of a joke - I nicknamed the alien in my game Frankie to alleviate some of the stress (I streamed much of the game, and one viewer made a joke account called FrankieTheXenomorph to tease me with, etc.). So, the he pronouns are really just referring to "my" alien in the game.

[ronin_cse]

So listening to this right now, couple things so far:

 

The more I hear Danielle describe Alien: Isolation the more I absolutely don't want to play it. Other than the Alien stuff it sounds like absolutely the opposite of something I would enjoy.

 

As far as Zelda: it really isn't a 60 hour game, it's more of a 30-40 hour game...maybe it's 60 hour if you want to 100% it, sounds like maybe you're "playing it wrong"

[rincewitch]

Haha, yeah, I'm way too much of a scaredy cat to play Alien: Isolation I guess because of the things it does really well.

 

I also haven't seen Alien itself. :V

[malkav11]

Speaking of things that look trashy (and to a certain degree are) but are still very much worth watching, I'd heartily recommend a Cinemax show called Banshee. I came to it because of the fairly absurd premise: a career criminal gets out of prison, heads to the sleepy town of Banshee, PA to find his former girlfriend, and through a series of coincidences ends up posing as the new sheriff (who nobody in town had actually met yet) who was hired to take on the local crime lord, Kai Proctor...an Amish gangster. And it's pretty pulpy and credulity straining at times - our protagonist has no idea how to be a cop and no particular respect for the law, which he's routinely called on but somehow never quite gets found out (for quite a few episodes, at least). The action scenes are intense and routinely leave him seriously injured but those injuries never really seem to stick in any sort of lasting way. For the first while, seemingly every episode has to have a nudity-rich sex scene and all of the hottest women in town seem to have a thing for the new sheriff. And so on. But assuming you're okay with suspending your disbelief and can deal with some pretty brutal violence and moderately graphic sexual content, it turns out to have some really impressive layers to it. Character motivations are complex and human, nobody's remotely perfect and the sins of the past definitely come back to haunt them. The cinematography is gorgeous, the acting surprisingly subtle and nuanced. The plotting is often mile a minute and routinely surprising, but periodically slows down to really consider things. By the end of season 1 I was totally hooked and it's just gotten better from there. There are action sequences in season 3 that may well be better than anything else I've ever seen on TV and many movies, and emotional moments that left me raw. Can't wait until the fourth (and final) season starts airing.

 

Edit: Can't believe I almost forgot to mention Job. Job is the protagonist's hacker friend and my favorite character on the show. He's a hilariously cranky drag queen with deep reserves of loyalty, amazing fashion style, and he's a stone badass to boot.

[Turrican]

I have no idea what Danielle is talking about regarding Alien. It's not in anyway like having an anxiety attack. I totally concurred with Rob on this one, the game and the Alien in particular is amazingly annoying. Not scary - just gamey, annoying shit. I pushed through that part eventually though (where Rob is now) and got to the last part with the facehuggers etc and although I really enjoyed the game in parts I just couldn't be bothered to get through the last part.

I loved the setting, style and mechanics of the game but the gaminess left a bitter taste.

[Nappi]

Regarding the balancing act between different types of cultural content, I have found that the best way for me to get a "balanced diet" is to not worry about what I should be watching/listening/playing next, and just go with what feels right at the time. On idle days, I usually play something after work, almost always read in bed before going to sleep, and often watch a movie or an episode of some TV series between the two activities. What I play, watch, or read depends entirely on how I feel at the time. If I feel like reading an Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler* novel I will do so without worrying that it is eating into my David Foster Wallace or Vladimir Nabokov time, because I know that after some time I feel like tackling one of those books. Also, I seldom feel bad for, for example, watching a goofy or trashy movie afterwards because it still gives me something to think about (such as, "why did I find this stupid movie so stupid and/or so entertaining?")

 

I'm glad Rob brought up The Americans. I love the series but I find it very difficult to actually start watching the next episode. I think you are right about the emotional drain of each episode being a big factor here.

 

 

* By the way, I did not pick these authors because I think they are trash or lowbrow or anything. They are not. I just find them much easier reads than some of the other authors.

[osmosisch]

I have no idea what Danielle is talking about regarding Alien. It's not in anyway like having an anxiety attack

I don't see how you get to decide that for her.

[Vader]

Ha, Vader, it's something of a joke - I nicknamed the alien in my game Frankie to alleviate some of the stress (I streamed much of the game, and one viewer made a joke account called FrankieTheXenomorph to tease me with, etc.). So, the he pronouns are really just referring to "my" alien in the game.

 

Yeah, I figured as much. Sorry to be pedantic, but I guess if I weren't I probably wouldn't ever post on a web forum 

[osmosisch]

That reminds me of a story i heard on one of the podcasts I listen to (I want to say Crate and Crowbar?), where apparently the developers made the alien literally speka its mind for debugging purposes like "I'm going to check this closet now" etc. And the resulting product was called Alan: Isolation.

Might be apocryphal but it cracks me up every time I think about it.

[Twig]

That reminds me of a story i heard on one of the podcasts I listen to (I want to say Crate and Crowbar?), where apparently the developers made the alien literally speka its mind for debugging purposes like "I'm going to check this closet now" etc. And the resulting product was called Alan: Isolation.

Might be apocryphal but it cracks me up every time I think about it.

Oh my god that would be an incredible game.

 

I hope it was in a real posh voice, too.

[Problem Machine]

Also, I seldom feel bad for, for example, watching a goofy or trashy movie afterwards because it still gives me something to think about (such as, "why did I find this stupid movie so stupid and/or so entertaining?")

Yeah this is something I tried to get at in my response to the 'guilty pleasures' discussion a few episodes back. I feel like thinking about this stuff, about why this thing that seems bad feels good, can be one of the most genuinely educational and fascinating responses we can have to a work -- what makes a piece of art worthwhile is your reaction to it, not its reputation as great art or as trash.

 

I think the Alien: Isolation discussion very nearly put its finger on the core conflict, or set of conflicts, that make horror games maybe impossible to really do right: We expect horror to be surprising, while we expect games to be consistent; We expect games to be fair, we expect horror to be one-sided; we expect exploration to be encouraged in games, we expect exploration to be deadly but unavoidable in horror. The genre of horror as it is traditionally understood and the tenets of 'good game design' as we traditionally understand them are deeply incompatible. That's not to say that horror games suck, but usually some aspect of the 'horror' or the 'game' sucks by the standards of the other: Many people, while considering the old Silent Hill games to be excellent horror games, decry the clunky and confusing combat, while ignoring how something faster and more intuitive would undermine the horror atmosphere; Later Resident Evil games made the decision to streamline the gameplay at the cost of any remaining vestiges of actual compelling horror, but they're also good games just because they're fun to play. Something's gotta give to make a good horror game, and the inevitable result is that by many of the metrics we use to evaluate it it will be a failure.

This is just the current situation, anyway. As we expand what mechanics we understand, perhaps away from quantifiable systems and player empowerment, coherent horror games may be more feasible. In the meanwhile, they'll still be interesting and often good, but flawed by the definitions we have set them out by.

 

Also, glad to hear you guys responding to stuff posted in the episode discussions. For a little bit it felt like discussion happening here wasn't really filtering through to the cast in any way, since y'all don't seem to post in the discussion threads. I suppose it doesn't have to, but the emphasis placed on the letters section in the cast suggested an open enough discussion that I guess I expected it to. Anyway

[sclpls]

That reminds me of a story i heard on one of the podcasts I listen to (I want to say Crate and Crowbar?), where apparently the developers made the alien literally speka its mind for debugging purposes like "I'm going to check this closet now" etc. And the resulting product was called Alan: Isolation.

Might be apocryphal but it cracks me up every time I think about it.

 

Yes! That was a great episode, I wish I could remember which one it was.

 

I want the version of that game where the voice is done by Noel Fielding playing his character from the IT Crowd.

[Zanasta]

This is Bjorn's lady.  Thank you Danielle!  I finally registered because of the Lost Girl talk, after listening to Bjorn talk about the forums for years.  It's nice to hear someone who will discuss the positives of a show even though it may be viewed initially as something foo-foo, smutty or dumb.  I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said.  I don't hide how much I love shows like this, and when I've talked to other women and bring up something like this or smutty vampire books, it's amazing how many other women partake in erotic or eroticized stuff, but don't want to admit it or feel ashamed for liking it. 

[osmosisch]

Yes! That was a great episode, I wish I could remember which one it was.

 

I want the version of that game where the voice is done by Noel Fielding playing his character from the IT Crowd.

I found this:

http://crateandcrowbar.com/2014/04/11/episode-037-right-in-the-stamen/

At time 12:30 they talk about it. They do mention it's a callback to earlier discussion but their archives are basically impossible to navigate for me.

Aha, found it

http://crateandcrowbar.com/2014/01/25/episode-026-tug-yourself-askance/

time mark 1:25:00

[Bjorn]

This is Bjorn's lady.  Thank you Danielle!  I finally registered because of the Lost Girl talk, after listening to Bjorn talk about the forums for years.  It's nice to hear someone who will discuss the positives of a show even though it may be viewed initially as something foo-foo, smutty or dumb.  I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said.  I don't hide how much I love shows like this, and when I've talked to other women and bring up something like this or smutty vampire books, it's amazing how many other women partake in erotic or eroticized stuff, but don't want to admit it or feel ashamed for liking it. 

 

Welcome to the forums babe

 

Danielle, that was a great soliloquy on good points of Lost Girl!  Zanasta high fived me when you read my post, I hadn't told her I'd written that. 

[feelthedarkness]

There are parts of the Alien talk that brings me back to the previous "7s are the best games" conversation.

 

I don't have a good fleshed out point on this, but with other media something being hostile to the audience can be a valuable quality. Haneke wants his movie's violence to revolt you, etc... Plenty of good music is made to disorient, offend (sticky area here!), or offend aural sensibilities.

 

I guess this just lands near the "Game reviews are tech product reviews" point, and maybe a sign that game criticism is still maturing? Though I feel the creators are pushing ahead of many critics in this area. 

[rincewitch]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers those Myth difficulty descriptions so vividly! I was even worse at games as a kid than I am now (and I am still extremely bad at games), but the way the difficulties were characterized made me strive to better myself, and eventually I clawed my way up to normal difficulty-- probably the first game I ever finished on normal or higher. I still mostly gravitate towards easy difficulties, especially in games that are more about narrative experiences (what is it about me that I'm perfectly willing to sink like 48 hours into a Dragon Age game, but no time on top of that towards actually getting good at playing it or engaging with its systems), but somehow I managed to limp through Myth I and II. :V

 

EDIT: Speaking of Myth, are there any games that could be seen as its spiritual successors? It's the only RTS (RTT?) game I've really loved, but there doesn't seem to be anything with the same emphasis on physics. Myth did a lot of things really well, but it's the physics that stand out for me.