Idle Thumbs 268: Cheatin' Hitman

[Chris]

Idle Thumbs 268:



Cheatin' Hitman
Look, I am amazing at sneaking. Everyone knows I’ve always been amazing at it. It’s breathtaking–just incredible–how well I hide in a box. Cheating’ Hitman has all the codes and tricks, and everyone still sees him. Ruins all credibility of the franchise. Just pathetic. Can’t even find the secret ghost window. Sad!

Discussed: Hitman (2016), The Haunted Mansion: Ghost Post, The Witness, The Matrix: Revolutions, accessibility in games, robot escapes

• Listen on the Episode Page
• Listen on Soundcloud
• Listen in iTunes

[Upthrust]

Donald "Cheatin' Hitman" Trump has always been perfectly clear about what he is:

 

"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters."

[duftin]

I found the links to the Witness card:

https://twitter.com/gndwyn/status/745250415025917952

 

And Jonathan Blow's response:

https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/745328706810351617

[Twig]

I also found a link to the original card!

 

https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/6644-the-witness-by-jonathan-blow/page-32

[Cbirdsong]

Looking forward to next year's Wizard Jam entries for this one.

[atte]

Looking forward to next year's Wizard Jam entries for this one.

Two days for making the game, 14 days for creating an elaborate Tips&Tricks Guidebook full of useful cheat codes.

[Urthman]

Glad the Thumbs enjoyed my e-mail, the subject line of which was "Jonathan Blow explained my daughter's Father's Day card to me."  The card itself was amazing, but having Blow himself point out that cool detail I'd missed...I was Blown away (ign.com).

 

I was hoping it might trigger a little discussion of The Witness and whether Chris/Jake/Nate have played any more of it and what they think.  As Chris said when they discussed it on an earlier cast, it's a pretty good game for setting aside and coming back when you feel like trying some more puzzles.  And I've found it's particularly good to play with other people and work on solving the puzzles together.

 

Also, while my daughter's old enough not to be scandalized by such things, I was amused that I was thinking about how fun it would be to let her hear Jake and Chris talking about how smart she is when they segued right into "U R MR GAY" and dick doodles.  Maybe won't forward it to the grandparents, though.

[SecretAsianMan]

Is the office address going to be updated now that Idle Thumbs has moved again?  I'm putting together a much belated candy package and I'd rather not send it to complete strangers.

[Roswell47]

"Now you know what we were not thinking about" -Idle Thumbs

 

I want more Trump as games reviewer.

[Chris]

Is the office address going to be updated now that Idle Thumbs has moved again?  I'm putting together a much belated candy package and I'd rather not send it to complete strangers.

 

Oh whoops, yes, we should fix our website.

 

It's now:

Idle Thumbs

355 Bryant St. #108

San Francisco, CA 94107

[SecretAsianMan]

Oh whoops, yes, we should fix our website.

 

It's now:

Idle Thumbs

355 Bryant St. #108

San Francisco, CA 94107

 

Awesome.  Expect sugary fattening goodness soonish.

[Ewan]

On the topic of Uncharted 4's accessibility option, PlayStation posted a video to YouTube around the release of the game. It highlights a lot of the accessibility options the thumbs discussed in this episode, and the story about how they came to be implemented:

 

[Twig]

For what it's worth, Nintendo has come out and said the "Gamergate reference" is not, in fact, a "Gamergate reference".

 

I don't blame Zoe in the slightest for reacting the way she did; my initial reaction was to wonder why Nintendo would do something so stupid, and my life wasn't the one ruined by this shit. The recent ugliness with Alison Rapp sure didn't help, though that's whole other bucket o' worms that, well...

 

To be honest, I hesitate to even make this correction, because I believe it's not a discussion worth having. Regardless of intent, it was a mistake. I think so, anyway. At best, it was ignorant, and at worst, it was dismissive of the more recent incident as worthy of consideration. I hope they rewrite the scene with a different approach, if for no other reason than to admit that they fucked up. What'd normally be a dumb and cute reference to Watergate is instead... not, at all. It ain't a good look...

 

But I also don't think it's fair to let a false accusation sit unaddressed. The two screenshots oft in question are apparently many lines apart and Nintendo has also made "Fun Guy" puns many times in previous games, including I believe (though am not 100% certain of) associated with the number five (there were also five arrests in Watergate - I don't think it's out of the question to believe that GG fuckos jumped on this similarity for a reason), among other coincidences, etc.

 

There is the possibility that they're just trying to save face here, but it's so very very very unlike Nintendo to directly or even indirectly associate themselves with things like this that I find it hard to even allow that possibility. They frustrate me so often with their unwillingness to engage with the shittier "politics" of the industry, but in this case it kinda works in their favor.

[jennegatron]

The problem is the reference to 5 (fun) guys and then the -gate 'joke.' I honestly couldn't care less if Nintendo says it's not a goober reference. It's two very unfunny jokes that when put together, look very bad. So much so that the KiA subreddit gleefully accepted it as a goober reference until Zoë tweeted about it and they began denying it, and that she was being offended over nothing.

I think it's entirely possible that a localizer did this and thought it was funny and then denied that it was intentional when their feet were put to the fire/weren't even asked by Nintendo if it was on purpose.

[Jake]

Yeah "5 guys" + "gate" back to back, is hard to defend. There is always a chance that it wasn't intended, but there's also a chance regardless of what Nintendo says, that it was deliberate, because those two references have no business being next to each other for any other reason.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Intentional or not, I think an apology would be a good idea rather than just saying "Naw we didn't mean that" and moving on. (As far as I can tell there was no apology, but if I've missed something please correct me)

[Twig]

now hold on tho "fun guys" is not an unfunny joke it's a pun

 

well you can argue puns are unfunny jokes but i'll die on this hill so don't bother
 

(also, again, five guys were arrested in watergate too - gamergate made these connections intentionally)

 

either way false accusations don't sit well with me

[jennegatron]

The goobers did not pick "5 guys" for its watergate connection.

[Twig]

They have a proven history of manipulating facts and abusing coincidences. But I guess this time they didn't for sure absolutely 100%!!!!

 

Whatever I regret trying to prevent a most-likely false accusation from gaining ground. Do what you want. Like I said, I don't think the argument is even necessarily worth having. But false accusations gross me the fuck out. I voiced my thoughts, now I'm out. I left slack to avoid this kind of stress so why was I stupid enough to engage here?!

[DocRandal]

I was hoping the Witness card could be solved in an alternate fashion that spelled out "Frog Fractions 3"

[SuperBiasedMan]

I was hoping the Witness card could be solved in an alternate fashion that spelled out "Frog Fractions 3"

 

Puzzles can't melt steel beams.

[Dewar]

I thought I was following the GG stuff fairly closely, but my only knowledge of the term "5 Guys" is the burger place.

[Twig]

They used that burger chain as code to refer to the five guys they claimed Zoe slept with for favors. Or, more accurately, to refer to the whole thing.

 

I followed GG very closely for half a year before I realized what it was doing to me and I had to stop.

[Gormongous]

I thought I was following the GG stuff fairly closely, but my only knowledge of the term "5 Guys" is the burger place.

The #GamerGate meme was a riff on that (and hence the name of the IRC channel that coordinated raids on Quinn for months before dumping its chat logs online to "prove" that her description of the channel was overblown... only it wasn't).

[chummer]

The #GamerGate meme was a riff on that (and hence the name of the IRC channel that coordinated raids on Quinn for months before dumping its chat logs online to "prove" that her description of the channel was overblown... only it wasn't).

 

i don't even think it was a riff. if i remember correctly, the actor Adam Baldwin coined the term and those folks hanged onto it because it allowed them to dogpile through a an account with a wide audience. (it's a technique you'll see a lot if you pay attention to them on Twitter.)