Chris

Idle Thumbs 1: Let the Games Begin

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Hooray! Listening to it right now. Good to see you guys back. Particularly those who left altogether for a while (Looking at you, Remo...).

Idle Thumbs: Now with fortified extRemo!

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It was awesome, but: There are four microphones and only one chair. What the fuck?

Also, is this one of the podcasts where the guy goes "see you next week," but when he does he is lying?

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Also, is this one of the podcasts where the guy goes "see you next week," but when he does he is lying?

I'm pretty sure they also warned you it might not be there.

I wonder if the next episode will contain a game disc or cartridge.

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:blink:

I haven't played Fallout 2

I didn't have an N64

I didn't have a NES.

We like taking pot shots at PLAYSTATION.

Gears of War 2 is going to be :fart:

I never played Blade Runner.

Crushing.

I think the guy who did that ebay soundbyte should be invited on as a special guest next week. Look forward to future podcasts, assuming he's a recurring special guest.

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:tup::tup:

And yes, game music of that time definitely was influenced by the music of the era. I can't find anything (apart from the Sonic 3/Michael Jackson thing) to back my citation, but it's true. Also, Legend of Zelda's overworld theme was supposed to be Ravel's Bolero but they then found out it was under copyright. Most other developers were less vigilant in checking such things at the time.

And yes, there was no console war in those NES days until the SNES came out in an era when the Genesis and Turbo Grafx-16 were advertising how much better than the NES they were.

And yes :tup:

Edited by n0wak

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Excellent podcast with good free flowing conversation. It's great to hear you guys talk and it also reminds me of being at E3 or GDC and having some random discussion with you. I love this shit and hope you'll do many many more.

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:blink:

I haven't played Fallout 2

I didn't have an N64

I didn't have a NES.

We like taking pot shots at PLAYSTATION.

Gears of War 2 is going to be :fart:

I never played Blade Runner.

Crushing.

In reality, not everyone has done everything! Heaven forbid we have someone on the podcast who grew up a PC gamer. Heaven forbid we have someone on the podcast who has already played GOW2 and shared an opinion. I think pointing out that while the original Playstation brought a lot of gaming into the mainstream, its culture also introduced a lot of the Hollywood-infused bullshit into modern AAA titles, is a pretty fair bit of blame to lay on it. Also yeah, I never played Blade Runner. What of it? I don't quite see where you're going with this...

That said, glad you seemed to enjoy it regardless of whatever that point you were making is. :) I dont think that eBay guy will be back this week, but I hope you continue to listen anyway.

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And yes, there was no console war in those NES days until the SNES came out in an era when the Genesis and Turbo Grafx-16 were advertising how much better than the NES they were.

Yeah, at least from my memories/experiences of the time, the "console war" during the Genesis/NES era was Sega repeatedly Pepsi-challenging Nintendo in ad after ad, basically into an empty void. People bought a Genesis or they bought an NES, or if you were an only child, you might have had both, and that was pretty much it. I don't think it was really until maybe the "Genesis version of Mortal Kombat has blood, Super Nintendo version doesn't!" playground scandal that anything really came to a head. This might not have been the situation in the UK/Europe, though, where the MegaDrive actually gained a sizable foothold over the NES, if I remember correctly?

I remember pointing out to my Genesis-owning friend that his blood-laden version's graphics looked like shit compared to the SNES, and the music sounded like someone sat on a Casio keyboard, and I remember him actually looking sort of forlorn for a second and saying "you're right."

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My post was just a thinly veiled "HEY LOOK, I LISTENED TO THE WHOLE THING. LET ME PROVE IT BY POINTING OUT SOME STUFF I REMEMBER". It wasn't meant to be taken negatively, and I wasn't passing judgement. I mean I haven't played Super Mario Galaxy, or Katamari Da-umm (?) and various other supposedly wonderful titles so I'm hardly one to talk (for shame).

Regarding the PLAYSTATION; is that not, like the game soundtrack, merely a consequence of the CD-ROM and its obvious iteration of the 'multimedia' phenomenon? I mean that's at least one pre-defined path for games, right.

I dont think that eBay guy will be back this week, but I hope you continue to listen anyway.

I don't know, the eBay guy kinda made it for me, but we'll see. :tup:

And yes, there was no console war in those NES days

I remember how the SEGA Master System was looked down upon, in that way kids compartmentalise clothing brands, but I never recall anyone ever reinforcing this mythical 'console war'. They were just systems you went round, uninvited, to your friends house to use.

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I don't know what is more hilarious, the ebay guy's audio file, or the fact he had to create it because people will bid on an empty box rather than reading the description! :mock:

I remember back when the whole Sega vs. Nintendo thing started, arguing with some friends whether my SNES was better then their Mega Drive, but after that we still played each others consoles....:gaming:

As for Fallout... I have Fallout 1,2 and tactics, but the graphics look garbled on my PC so I can't play them. A part of me wants to get Fallout 3, but another wants to try a demo or wait for reviews first... Which is what I'm doing for Dead Space and Fable II too!;(

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Excellent! Looking forward to more.

The bit about people who play a few games a year, but lots, was interesting. Although it's different with me, in that I am interested in a lot of games and platforms and developers and I check a blog or two, I perversely don't end up playing a lot of these games. I maybe buy less than five, and complete or exhaust two or three over a long time.

Maybe you should talk sometime about the idea of finishing games, how they're generally being made as shorter experiences, but even so, do that many people finish everything? A few years ago I kept buying DS games, but I have still barely spent an hour with some of those. Perhaps if I feel like I've got the gist of a game and it's unlikely to show me anything new, I tend to neglect it. I finished Half-Life 2 because it kept throwing new things at me and before I knew it, it was over. It didn't give me a moment's chance to get distracted by other games. That distraction either stems from a tiny attention span, or me just being more interested in whatever big ideas a game contains than the gameplay that reveals those. Like that thing about how you realise you played adventure games for the plot and world, rather than the pointing and clicking.

The chat about pixel art and game music poked my brain in interesting ways too. I once wrote a long thing about nostalgia and form that I was going to send in to Thumbs, but it didn't quite click when I read it back.

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About the "casual hardcore" gamers, I've also noticed this. When interacting with them, I initially assume they're into games, and have them try all sorts of awesome shit, but even though the shit is -- objectively -- totally fucking awesome (Half-Life, for example), they're like "Meh". It's weird though -- there's no such thing as a person who's not into movies at all but watches one single movie over and over.

Or is there?!

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Excellent! Looking forward to more.

The bit about people who play a few games a year, but lots, was interesting. Although it's different with me, in that I am interested in a lot of games and platforms and developers and I check a blog or two, I perversely don't end up playing a lot of these games. I maybe buy less than five, and complete or exhaust two or three over a long time.

Maybe you should talk sometime about the idea of finishing games, how they're generally being made as shorter experiences, but even so, do that many people finish everything? A few years ago I kept buying DS games, but I have still barely spent an hour with some of those. Perhaps if I feel like I've got the gist of a game and it's unlikely to show me anything new, I tend to neglect it. I finished Half-Life 2 because it kept throwing new things at me and before I knew it, it was over. It didn't give me a moment's chance to get distracted by other games. That distraction either stems from a tiny attention span, or me just being more interested in whatever big ideas a game contains than the gameplay that reveals those. Like that thing about how you realise you played adventure games for the plot and world, rather than the pointing and clicking.

The chat about pixel art and game music poked my brain in interesting ways too. I once wrote a long thing about nostalgia and form that I was going to send in to Thumbs, but it didn't quite click when I read it back.

I've stopped buying games for exactly the reason that I don't finish many games - as I get bored with them. I think very hard about which ones I buy, and there are only a few games I'm interested in in the near future - Left 4 Dead, Endwar, Mirror's Edge... but will prolly only end up playing L4D for any length of time. I'm not sure why I no longer care about games as much -guess I'm a little bit sick of the endless repetition on styles/genres. I have a friend who is salivation about Gears 2 - and I can kind of see why, it looks quite exciting, but the thought of buying it and spending a few hours on it fills me with horror. Can I be growing up at last? It's taken 33 years! lol.

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When I was a kid I watched the Duck Tales movie over and over, does that count?

As to the length thing, I think many developers worry more about how long people will be playing their game rather than how complete it is as an experience. Length is artificially inflated through repetition and I think many of the best games (or at least my favourites) of the past couple of years have broken away from that trend.

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There's nothing casual about Peggle! Obviously you haven't achieved the status of Peggle Master, or you would know this to be fact. :oldman:

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Great work guys! It's interesting to hear the differences between what you're doing and how Spaff and Marek did it back in the day. Hopefully we'll have the same diversity and wacky audio cues. The intro tunes were spot in, in any case.

(Would like to hear a guest-appearance by Eggerton-Eggerton Greene in the near future though :tup:)

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Who owns the Lucasarts collection is the picture?

Those are all my games.

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