Jake

Idle Thumbs 295: Good... Bye

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Idle Thumbs 295:

Idle Thumbs 295


Good... Bye
Let's cast out 2016 and make room for whatever it is that's coming next. Join us as we look deep, deep into the future and... actually never mind that, Nick's just fired up Diablo 1 and managed to connect to the late '90s version of Battle.net. See you all next year!

Discussed: Diablo, Diablo 2, Diablo 3, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 3, Time Commanders, Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

 

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I work for a company that develops those 5 question authentication systems. We gather every bit of public records data we can, from the DMV, address book type info etc, then do a lot of work to link all that information together. I've never heard of the 'associated with' question. Have Chris and Nick ever lived together or signed a legal document together? If so thats how we connected them. Assuming it was us we don't use social media because that is not public data.

Also wow the Idle Thumbs ARG is back in full force at 24:29

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Nick and Chris were housemates and had both their names on a lease, yeah. That's probably it. 

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I heard of Time Commanders via Youtube faves Lindybeige & Scholagladiatoria, as they had taken part. It must have decent historical accuracy.

 

While the title sounds weird, I wonder if it was chosen to evoke memories of the very popular British archaeological show Time Team.

 

An American version would work if they used computer simulations of gunpowder-era warfare, ie. War of Independence, Civil War, even WWII. I don't know of any accurate simulators of those eras that are of the same visual appeal as the Total War series.

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I remember Time Commanders! The original series came out before the first Rome:Total War. From what I can recall, it had random groups of people (like families or groups of friends and coworkers) re-fighting a historical battle. They would split into a 'tactical' group, who would stand at a big table with the map so they could do planning and things, and then others who would relay the commands they wanted to happen to people who were using the computers. Every now and again you would get a glimpse of the screens and it was clearly just a Total War game. It was on TV around 6 months before the release of the actual game, I think, because I remember being excited at getting this little glimpse of what the game would be like on TV before I could actually get it.

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I can't quite remember the specifics of the comedy question, but I think Tales From the Borderlands counts as a game made specifically as a comedy vehicle. In fact, I think most all of the recent TellTale games and most text-based games would qualify as games more interested in exploring their stories, with mechanics being specific tools to do that, no?

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The fake Duke Nukem game they talked about is Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. I played it, it was sort of fun, but the gameplay was quite bad. It was simply not fun to play. So much not fun to play that I never finished it.

 

 

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Time Commanders is just as fun to watch as you imagine the BBC and military historians taking Total War semi-seriously to be (which is a lot of fun). Dramatic music, giant screens, lots of nail biting and shouting, but also plenty of smiles.

 

 

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Hey Jake,

What's the name of the boyfriend game with a dark twist?  I have not heard anything about this yet.  I am a mean gamer, a female attracted to the males and this sounds like the "Boyfriend Experience".  If I get something out of this there's value in the game.  Thanks guys!  Kinda glad you recorded this episode so early.  It would have been a helluvahlot sadder otherwise.

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5 minutes ago, H. Yawl said:

Hey Jake,

What's the name of the boyfriend game with a dark twist?  I have not heard anything about this yet.  I am a mean gamer, a female attracted to the males and this sounds like the "Boyfriend Experience".  If I get something out of this there's value in the game.  Thanks guys!  Kinda glad you recorded this episode so early.  It would have been a helluvahlot sadder otherwise.

 

Hatoful Boyfriend is I think what this refers to. It may not be what you're imagining, haha.

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2 minutes ago, Chris said:

 

Hatoful Boyfriend is I think what this refers to. It may not be what you're imagining, haha.

lol ok I got it, butt I'm still interested as hell. Thanks!

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Hatoful Boyfriend is in my top 5 favorite games of all time and the off handed promise that Sean made like a year and a half ago to play and talk about it that never came to pass haunts me everyday.

For anyone interested in the game I have advice:

1. If you do not have any familiarity with Japanese otome/romance visual novels, I recommend seeking one out, a play through on youtube/etc. This is a homage, a parody, and a subversion of the format and while entirely playable, it may not make sense in places if you don't understand the references.

2. Play through ALL the endings. Many VNs are like this. Learn to use the skip key on subsequent playthroughs, and see as many endings as you can. There may be a few endings that elude you. Use a guide to unlock them! The best story Hatoful Boyfriend has to offer is only unlocked after you see the other birdies' endings.

Man I love Hatoful Boyfriend.

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Bit late on the draw with this one, but when Chris remarked on the changes undergone with sequels to reach a wider audience, in which some of the original challenge and charm is inevitably sanded away for quality of life improvements and that the dark souls series has somehow largely dodged this so far, I think it is worth noting that demons souls was originally a kings field successor, a series similar to yet far more impenetrable than the souls series. Perhaps one of the reasons the souls games have avoided this change is because they are already themselves a product of it.

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I think the 'other' new British television show about video games mentioned is Go 8 Bit. It's a panel show where celebrities/comedians compete (usually very badly) in game challenges and exchange witty banter. It is...not that good? I'm not a fan of the format, so I found a lot of it quite cringeworthy. But there's things to like about it: Dara O'Briain, the host, has a genuine love of the subject, and (noted games journo) Ellie Gibson does some excellent and highly concise summaries of video game history. Also it's not often you get to see Bob Mortimer blundering through Resident Evil 3 on national television.


Anyway, I really enjoyed the discussion of the original Diablo vs Diablo 2 vs Diablo 3 in this episode. I played a lot of the first two games in the series in my younger and more vulnerable years, and I've lately been enjoying Diablo 3, mostly played via local coop on PS4 with my partner. I've enjoyed all the games, but at the moment it's nice to have a cooperative experience which is engaging without being especially challenging (in the way that most cooperative games are, tbh). Honestly, Diablo 3 feels genuinely playful - like in the most primitive, child-like sense of picking up things and smashing them into hordes of beautiful looking other things - more playful than the first two games ever felt to me. 


I think the point about the tactical importance of line-of-sight in Diablo is great. I remember thinking that was super interesting - and remarkably fresh - in the original game. And that, as well as other mechanics like consumable potions, weapons degradation, was basically rendered irrelevant in Diablo 3 which - as Chris suggested - feels much more like a Gauntlet-esque romp than a roguelike where survival is paramount. 


But I wonder if one reason those mechanics were phased out was because they didn't really hold up well over time. The perspective thing presents an interesting problem to new players - there might be hordes of high-level enemies behind this door, should I find a way round or use it as a bottleneck? - but that's essentially the same problem at level 1 as it is at level 20. You pick a class-specific skill set to deal with that problem and you stick with it, because (unlike Diablo 3) there's no way to change that build on the fly. Or take the example of Nick wondering whether he should press on through the dungeon or return to town to restock despite the dangers - that might be interesting the first time, but is it still interesting 20 or 30 hours down the line, when resource scarcity isn't such an issue? By a certain point in the game, having the money to buy new potions and scrolls isn't a problem anymore. The issue then becomes juggling inventory space; and for all the nostalgia we might have about fitting stuff into the Resi 4 style 'briefcase' inventory, I'm not sure it's a thing which becomes any more fulfilling to play with the further you get into that game. 

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Well, as they touched on, Dark Souls updates a lot of these concepts to great effect. Health potions become limited by their very nature and harder to use, so spammability is no longer a concern -- blocking line of sight and choosing the optimal place to deal with tough enemies emerges intact -- and weapon durability... still sucks.

Weapon durability always sucks.

So those mechanics may not hold up when used as-is, but can clearly be used as a basis to build longer lasting versions (since I've got like 500 hours in across DS1, 2, and 3). Even Diablo 2 addresses a lot of these issues, making potions slow enough that they won't save you if you get in too deep and each act presents drastically different terrain and encounter types -- at the cost of losing some of the weight and intensity of D1. It seems like in Diablo 3's case, though, Blizzard just wanted to get away from Diablo's tension and more towards a 'popcorn' video game -- which is a fine and reasonable decision to make, but also is super uninteresting to me.

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On 1/11/2017 at 9:57 AM, marginalgloss said:

I think the 'other' new British television show about video games mentioned is Go 8 Bit. It's a panel show where celebrities/comedians compete (usually very badly) in game challenges and exchange witty banter. It is...not that good?

 

Oh yeah, this is pretty terrible.

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