Jake

The Idle Thumbs Podcast Episode 13: Day One Perch

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Just a post because I felt the ending of my favorite podcast deserved a longer thread.

Thanks for the casts.

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In my experience I found that the Rockstar game Manhunt inspired feelings of revulsion in me. It also shares some of the 'reality tv' camera shtick that K&L: Dog Days seems to have. Grainy security camera viewpoints and highly psychopathic behaviour layered over a rinse and repeat stealth mechanic made playing this game feel torturous.

I don't like, for the most part, playing games where you kill realistic human beings. This was one of my issues with the much lauded FarCry2, or Assasin's Creed 1, which I played during a similar period. Both games sort of leaped ahead towards the uncanny valley through 'dying npc' animations and especially sound design in a way that left me repulsed. The previous era's dead body gibs had been replaced with fairly realistic ragdolls that writhe and moan in pain, and it left me feeling uneasy. FC2 and to a lesser extent AC were both very well designed games and so the fun of playing helped me get past my disgust (oh what would a psychologist say), but Manhunt never got fun.

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It's bizarre: after a career of abandoning us, the end of the Idle Thumbs podcasts still makes me supremely sad. You never quite get used to it! Though as always... Idle Thumbs WILL find another outlet to do something insane. In the future. We'll just have to wait for it a couple of years.

I was in stitches, strangely enough, because of the story of Vanaman's sleeping arm falling on his face!

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Hey, there we go. CM is pretty public-facing so I'm glad Chris isn't going to disappear down a game dev black hole. I hope this also means some involvement in season 2 of the podcast.

How's the first week treating you, Chris?

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I will miss your hilarious comments, Jake. Good Luck and congrats, Chris. I wasn't really interested in Bioshock 2, but now I might play it because it will remind me of you, Steve (in a platonic way).

I feel like the first ending of the podcast prepared me for this ending, because I'm not nearly as broken up about it. I hope the trend continues and Jake and Steve both get awesome promotions or new jobs too at some point.

Also: Chris lives near me now, What do?

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Also bonus points for identifying the person in the other photo.

Long time listener, first time poster. When I first heard the episode where Jake is compared to Big Bird I wanted to know what the Thumbs look like. When I found a picture of Chris I wasn't sure if I had found the right guy.

post-4448-13375603246904_thumb.jpg

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Also bonus points for identifying the person in the other photo.

Long time listener, first time poster. When I first heard the episode where Jake is compared to Big Bird I wanted to know what the Thumbs look like. When I found a picture of Chris I wasn't sure if I had found the right guy.

Guy on the right for sure. Video games. Guy on the left looks a little similar, but I don't think it's Chris.

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Definitely not Chris in that left photo. Definitely Chris in that right photo.

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Listened to the cast finally yesterday. What a weird ending... :shifty:

Today and listened to the last PAX cast, laughing so god damn much all the time to the good stuff you guys bring up in the casts always.

Hey sad to see it go, but I'm sure this won't be the end. Thumbs is traditionally going low sometimes and then when the time is right, the Idle T returns in one form or another.

Too bad I really don't have any other good casts to listen to, except the Irrational casts that seem to come even less these days after the Chris Remo's Icarus announcement.

Congrats to Chris, nice to hear about the new position and hope all goes great on the new adventures on east coast!

By the way, doesn't Nick have a similar position at Bethesda?

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After hearing the Kain & Lynch 2 discussion, I really want there to be a two-player co-op game where one player is playing a third-person action game, and the second player is playing a first-person adventure game but also acts as the other guy's camera.

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Just finally got around to finishing this one. I suppose I'm not all that sad because Idlethumbs was never just a podcast like me to some, probably how most older members feel, and I've still kind of missed a lot of the people around when the podcast people were completely absent from the forums and site for two years. I'm truthfully hoping some kind of new combination of the multi variety and styles of the old days can make it's way back when Idlethumbs was a larger group of people. but that's probably asking for way too much.

Just what really sucks is the four person dynamic with Vanaman, Gaynor, Rodkin, and Remo was really strong, almost ridiculously so, even though it seems like the former two expressed in this episode possibly that they weren't sure if they belonged or not (?). Either way, this is the best balance, and I wanted it to continue. It seemed like more than ever the right combination of jokes, self depreciating and non, literary douchebaggery™, genres and games played (and not), and all out serious discussion on game design and theory. It gave me something to listen to while I work, being someone who needs to compulsively have some noise going.

Also, I don't know if Chris has already rewatched Aladdin or not, but since it came up in the movies thread recently, I think you'd have better time spent grabbing a torrent of The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Cut.

And before I get yelled at for torrents, it's not exactly piracy since this version of the film is really only offered in this manner, being "cobbled" together to make a "creator's" version of a film that is only released in mangled and changed form on actual DVD.

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So I just realized that the line in Space Asshole that goes:

"Blood and carnage is all he can enjoy."

is actually:

"Wanton carnage is all he can enjoy."

It was cooler before...

Also, I was listening to A Life Is Beautiful and thinking about Weinhandler and suddenly realized that a combination of the two would be the best thing ever.

I call it: '(W)Ein-handler Life Is Beautiful'.

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So I just realized that the line in Space Asshole that goes:

"Blood and carnage is all he can enjoy."

is actually:

"Wanton carnage is all he can enjoy."

It was cooler before...

No it wasn't. Wanton is such an awesome word.

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Seconded.

Also, has this episode been Snooglebummed, or Bummed in the Snoogle, yet?

Edited by Rodi

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This is probably the dumbest question to ask about a video game podcast but at 26:25 into this episode, who drops the Baba Booey? Because I was pleased as shit by that and kept forgetting to ask 'til now.

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