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Jake

Idle Thumbs 84: Nineties Cockpit Freakout

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Idle Thumbs 84: Nineties Cockpit Freakout

You've been through this mess before, your view-cone ever narrowing, but you like the challenge. Then, it all goes wide. Silence. You drift free, frozen; the infinite vastness of space envelops you, strangles you. You feel upholstery. Twin petals at your feet. The glass comes down, securing the seal as displays tink and blip to life, shielding the endless blackness from sight. You grip your SideWinder and you are home.

Games Discussed: Grand Theft Auto V, Halo 4, Halo: ODST, Hotline Miami, Mark of the Ninja, Star Citizen, Super Meat Boy Galaxy, Dark Souls

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Where's the Corner Lean GIF?

I was about ask the same thing, though only as a cover for my real question. Where is Sean's drunk speech?

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On from the whole Sim City/X-com/Star Citizen thing, there's also been a weird resurgence of mech games and 90's style PCRPG's. It's definitely weird, everything old is new again.

Is it just part of that thing where once you're a decade out from something, it's popular again? That thing where people who grew up in a given decade have grown up enough to have a lot of disposable income to spend on the things they loved as kids. I mean, so we're apparently collectively past the 80's and into reliving the 90's.

So Halo, I have things to say about Halo.

First off, Halo skyboxes are the best skyboxes.

The revised form of the magnum in 4 was actually introduced in Reach, and it's awesome, but the actual successor to the Halo CE pistol has always been the various precision rifles in the game from Halo 2 onward. (By 4, there is the BR, the DMR, the Carbine, and the Lightrifle.)

Grunts stopped speaking in goofy english first in Reach.

4's weird little QTE moment in the first level is one of only two in the game, and they're extremely out of place.

4's campaign does have skulls, but they're all unlocked by default, they're accessible in the campaign lobby. (Grunt birthday party is totally still in there.)

ODST is awesome, it's a shame that the pricing debacle surrounding it gave it such a poor reputation.

As for Reach, i think it is actually one of the more interesting campaigns in the series. Some missions had objectives that could be done out of order, and some even had randomized objectives! Playing the game multiple times would take you through different paths on certain missions. (To be clear, the variances were very small.) The Elites were also never smarter or tougher than they are in Reach.

For the conversation about the enemies, i think one of the things Halo is really excellent at is pulling the player deeper into a fight. Primarily, the way the Elites retreat into cover to let their shields recharge, it puts you into this situation of having to either make a risky move by heading deeper into the fight or losing all the ground you've gained. Just the enemies acting with any sense of self-preservation at all, It's one of many small things that makes it feel so different from other shooters. Combined with the constant scavenging of weapons, it's also probably one of the only series of shooters that gets real mileage out of having big, open-ended combat spaces.

I mean, elsewhere, the dynamic always seems to be enemies streaming out single-file out into a fight, half-heartedly hunkering behind cover, and there being nothing more to it than that. There are so many shooters that are guilty of going the distance to have big dynamic arenas, but then allowing for all of the battle to occur in the ten feet from the door, with the player planted like a turret behind the most immediate piece of cover. (Which, if they're ever forced out of it, it's probably a bullet sponge enemy making an implacable approach on the player's position.)

Also, just the way Halo is so good at emphasizing specific utility and roles for its different weapons and abilities while playing on the higher difficulties and in competitive multiplayer. It's so good.

I think Halo's pretty good.

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Cortana did weird me out a little, i don't understand why an AI would have dishevelled hair, a gap between her 2 front teeth, big droopy boobs and a huge blue Jay-lo butt. The gals swinging some big old hips. They've made one of the most realistic female body shapes i've seen in a game (albeit still a super voluptuous male fantasy) but she's a computer...

I guess the idea is supposed to be that cortana is more human than chief whos just an emotionless killer robot man. but why she naked? maybe she needs a firmware update

you see another AI in the intro to the coop stuff whos a fully clothed spitfire pilot

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Whilst playing the game I kept imaging master chief hunched over one those holo-consoles masturbating angrily, staring point blank a hair's breadth away from his cock tease ai partner

Still with his helmet on of course

And how would she feel, violated? She's a machine. Would she like it? Would she pose for him? They were alone together is space for 4 years. There must have been a very large elephant in the room on that spaceship

Would you ask your ai if she minds...

All I know is that this was quite a distraction for me and made it difficult for me to follow the story :)

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Where's the Corner Lean GIF?

LOL, I made the .gif, but I didn't expect to hear about it on the podcast.

I signed up to post a link for you if you want to see:

When Jake was talking about the lean mechanic in Dishonored and mentioned that he didn't really feel safe and assured that he was truly out of sight' date=' I was reminded of my experience I had trying to stealth my way through in Crysis 2 (Of all games!) and the similar experience I had with their cover/lean mechanic.

Then the Thumbs continued on to ponder what that must have looked like from the eyes of a third person.

Like-a-this:

iILa5Tv3zFzM8.gif

This is why we can't have nice things. KuGsj.gif

I originally posted it here on NeoGAF if you wanna see the replies.

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That Star Citizen discussion, aka Jake being Jake, is my favorite thing.

That game really does come down to "holy shit!" though.

Edit - Oh my question was taken. Thank you again. And completely agreed about Latin chorus'. It is the worst fallback to, "We need this to be an epic moment."

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On the topic of classical music in games. You, Chris might like the soundtrack to Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet which is all orchestral parts of songs by the Norwegian Black Metal band Dimmu Borgir (Stay with me). It has some of the latin chanting shit that you hate but also a lot of interesting, sinister parts which are in my opinion great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HGUdYMN3Yg

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Cortana did weird me out a little, i don't understand why an AI would have dishevelled hair, a gap between her 2 front teeth, big droopy boobs and a huge blue Jay-lo butt. The gals swinging some big old hips. They've made one of the most realistic female body shapes i've seen in a game (albeit still a super voluptuous male fantasy) but she's a computer...

I guess the idea is supposed to be that cortana is more human than chief whos just an emotionless killer robot man. but why she naked? maybe she needs a firmware update

you see another AI in the intro to the coop stuff whos a fully clothed spitfire pilot

AI's in the Halo fiction choose their own appearance when visually manifesting. That makes it kind of feasible that the way she looks could change, but everything was tweaked just enough that my mind still refuses to fully believe that it's really Cortana. I think it was an odd choice considering how iconic of a character she has been throughout the series.

Also, for Sean & Jake's sake: The skulls in Halo 4 are all unlocked and available right from the beginning, and not hidden anywhere in the game. There's an option screen when selecting campaign levels that has all of them in it.

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I dunno, I just googled Cortana and I don't see a huge difference between the different games.

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I dunno, I just googled Cortana and I don't see a huge difference between the different games.

The level of detail is considerably higher, and she is generally portrayed in a much more sexualized way.

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They just couldn't pull off that level of sexualization with the previous tech ;D

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Cortana has progressively gotten bustier and curvier as the series goes on.

I do want to touch on something that you've all mentioned in regards to GTA 4 and now 5 that I adore and which is why I admire the series so much. In that you do get that true sense of a living (albeit sometimes shallow) city. GTA 4 the first time you cross the fake Manhattan Bridge (I think it was that one) was a rush. It felt like a real city. I've never lived in New York. I live in Los Angeles. It's stunning how well they in just two trailers are able to evoke the sense of realness and being there. That's why I was initially so gaga for LA Noire. I love seeing how "my" city is viewed through video games. The lighting, the look, the feel, it just is LA in GTA 5.

You all mentioned that in regards to your love of San Francisco in regards to that most recent driver game. I'm excited. It appears they're rendering the hills around Los Angeles, the Saltan Sea type area, and others.

Where as a game like Saints Row 3 which I enjoyed but not nearly as much as some people feels clearly sterile and video gamey, GTA 4 and 5 seem to evoke a naturalism of how a real city lives and breathes. As you can tell I'm a GTA fan boy but I agree wholeheartedly that Rockstar does this type of stuff better than anyone. I think GTA 5 will surprise people because we're talking about a lot of years between 4 and 5 with lessons learned from Red Dead as well.

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The description cuts off in FB with "Twin petals at ..." and I got the impression this post was going in a whoooole other direction.

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I dunno, I just googled Cortana and I don't see a huge difference between the different games.

http://images.wikia....f_cortana-2.jpg

Halo 1-3 improved with fidelity, but kept the generally thin, high-cheekboned look to them. 4 makes her more noticeably rounded and curvy, including a much more round face. 1-3 also kept her "skin" more patterned and abstract with transparent circuitry through it, and 4 just makes it a solid texture, making it look much more like a nude woman in body paint or something. I can recognize who she's supposed to be just from general look, shape, and (mostly) voice, but she's definitely not Bungie's Cortana any more.

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For diegetic music in games, the example I'll always remember is the level where you meet "The Singer" who's playing Build that Wall in Bastion.

Loved how it started out softly as if you were hearing it on the wind while she played from far away, and became loud and clear as you reached her.

Also wanted to say bravo (you bastards) to Sean and Jake and the rest of the gang at Telltale for The Walking Dead. Just wrapped up Episode 5 and goddamn. Goddamn.

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So no one heard the static at the end of the episode? Either there's an audio glitch in the file, or someone who's smarter than me needs to run it through an audio spectrometer.

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