Chris

Idle Thumbs 37: You Gotta Have Spice

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Ahahah, this whole time I thought it was like some bitmap someone had opened up and routinely had on display for all to see on a 386 computer and monitor. Oh nevermind!

Same here.

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I had something like a paintjob picture of Michael Jordan on a 386 in mind. Writing it down and reading it now, it does sound pretty implausible.

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Super Donkey Kong was the Japanese title for Donkey Cock Country.

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I loved how insane the puzzles were in Day of the Tentacle. By far my favorite puzzle in adventure gaming is when you

give Betsy Ross a tentacle physiological diagram to transform the American flag into a tentacle, which you can use to disguise Laverne in the tentacle-infested future

.

Anyone interested in adventure game puzzle design should check out Old Man Murray's article "Who Killed Adventure Games?" The Gabriel Knight puzzle is the most circuitous and illogical I've heard.

Oh, and I found Time Gentlemen, Please to be slightly more logical than Ben There, Dan That. (Although I love time paradox puzzles as in DoTT and Braid. YMMV. Both are worth playing.)

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Where can I learn more about this procedurally generated city building stuff?

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I think I found That Guy. Here's a quote from his report of the 2008 EA Shareholders meeting (emphasis mine):

After the meeting, I went to the ERTS company arcade and played some games. I always look forward to my annual John Madden playtime. A new game was there this year, a very realistic EA NASCAR racing game--I had a great time playing it. Some sports items were in the arcade also. I had not noticed these items before. Several autographed items were in clear locked boxes, including an autographed Karl Malone basketball shoe. My favorite was the picture of a young Michael Jordan in a Bulls jersey typing on a 286 desktop computer (with the old floppy drives and tiny green screens). That one was classic--if anyone at EA is reading this, one hit at next year's meeting would be having copies of that picture for shareholders.

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And the Suckbox is great, but it doesn't match this angry out-of-breath 10 minute Nintendo SHITCUBE review by this Russian guy:

This is awesome. I was listening to this podcast and remembered how much I love ridiculous fanboy flame wars on gaming sites. One of the drawbacks to not frequenting those lame sites anymore.

My favorite was one where an XBOX minion was bragging that the laser in the console was so powerful that it could burn right through a disk. :eek:

That's like, three shades of WTF right there.

Very much awesome, though, need more of these. I wonder what the guy from the e-mail would have to say about the Wii.

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I think I found That Guy. Here's a quote from his report of the 2008 EA Shareholders meeting (emphasis mine):

Hahaha, winner

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OMG... invite him for a special pod blast.

Shame that he doesn't have a write up from the last meeting.

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I think I found That Guy. Here's a quote from his report of the 2008 EA Shareholders meeting (emphasis mine):

This guy is nuts. Why is he rambling about Grand Theft Auto being Adults Only at one point and that EA has to watch out for its image as it may hurt their "Hollywood ties?" How is 40% of M rated game players in 2002 being under 18 at all relevant to anything? Why is he concerned that no one is concerned about a conservative backlash?

That stuff with him eating his non-Costco cookies and panini in his button up shirt and slacks (standing apart from the T-shirt and jeans wearing crowd) in the beginning was classic. I do hope they pass out prints of that picture of Michael Jordon on the 286 to shareholders next year, because maybe it will cause everyone to learn something about themselves and how to run a company.

The part where I think he was complaining about outsourcing to Romania and India was the only valid comment I really agree with. Oh well.

My favorite was one where an XBOX minion was bragging that the laser in the console was so powerful that it could burn right through a disk. :eek:

That's like, three shades of WTF right there.

This is kind of like when people in the official PS3 forums were complaining that Assassin's Creed bricks their PS3 upon starting the game. I wouldn't have even seen this if not for a former friend who had a PS3 trying to convince me that this is possible and that's why his PS3 is ruined. Like someone can write some kind of magic code that destroys your CD/DVD/blu-ray drive upon reading the disc, let alone a big release retail game.

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This is kind of like when people in the official PS3 forums were complaining that Assassin's Creed bricks their PS3 upon starting the game. I wouldn't have even seen this if not for a former friend who had a PS3 trying to convince me that this is possible and that's why his PS3 is ruined. Like someone can write some kind of magic code that destroys your CD/DVD/blu-ray drive upon reading the disc, let alone a big release retail game.

Actually... that is possible, but very unlikely. There have been non standard audio CDs that would brick modern CD players. This was caused by the garbage at the beginning of the CD (which would make the CD non-compliant to the red book standard). Old or cheap CD players would skip these parts, but high-end or CD-Rom players would barf on this and refuse to play it. However, various CD high-end CD players would get stuck and crash the internal system. The only way to fix it would be to perform a hard reset. Anyway, it's very improbably that this drive breaking stuff would appear by accident on the disc. It would need to be specifically created, and it's not easy to do. And when it does happen, it would only brick the disc player, not the whole system.

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I figured the only way the CD or DVD could break your drive is if it was really dirty or the label or something was hanging off of it.

Seems to me that when people are complaining about a retail game breaking their consoles drive they are blaming the game because of a coincidental drive failure.

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OMG... invite him for a special pod blast.

Gah, no, I do not endorse Chris inviting this dude into his flat.

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Gah, no, I do not endorse Chris inviting this dude into his flat.

I don't know, it could make for some good podcasting. He could dominate the whole hour and a half, criticize the low quality food and drinks in the fridge while simultaneously consuming them all, yell about all of the M rated games Chris owns, and then go home and write a blog post about how it was too business oriented for his taste and that he was the only one who had the guts to stand up and make a comment on how much fun it wasn't.

Maybe he could even recreate the Michael-Jordan-in-front-of-a-286 pose while the guys take a picture?

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You could invite him to a conference call. Make him listen to your podcast first, and then open it up to Q&A...

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Actually... that is possible, but very unlikely. There have been non standard audio CDs that would brick modern CD players. This was caused by the garbage at the beginning of the CD (which would make the CD non-compliant to the red book standard). Old or cheap CD players would skip these parts, but high-end or CD-Rom players would barf on this and refuse to play it. However, various CD high-end CD players would get stuck and crash the internal system. The only way to fix it would be to perform a hard reset. Anyway, it's very improbably that this drive breaking stuff would appear by accident on the disc. It would need to be specifically created, and it's not easy to do. And when it does happen, it would only brick the disc player, not the whole system.

It's almost like those old warnings on the CD-Rom's for PC's that said like "Do not stare directly into the drive read light on the front...You will go blind" or something along those lines.

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Going back through the episodes, as I do, and I have to say...

Sick Jake sounds, at times, incredibly like normal Sean Famous Vanaman. If you listen, you should probably be able to hear it.

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"There's a new tie fighter coming out. DOT DOT DOT."?

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