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Jake

Idle Thumbs 91: The Clapper

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Idle Thumbs 91:

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The Clapper

Hundreds of tanks surround the place, murderers around every turn. With no games in sight and nowhere to run, all hope was lost until we were saved by a trip to podcasting school by special guest Shawn Elliott.

Games Discussed: The Ship, Neptune's Pride, Planetside 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Far Cry 3, Fez, Waking Mars, Mainichi, Miasmata

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I'm only half way through. Thank you for shitting on Prince Harry.

Edit:

Finished. Considering GFW was know for its wandering conversational style, you talked about games way more then I was expecting, maybe more then a normal idle thumbs cast?!? It was good, well done.

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GFW Radio listener representing! Can't wait to plug it into my earholes!

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Really excited that I'm an hour in and just a little bit more than halfway through.

Shit the bed! I'll bring a packed lunch

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Also, if you had prior knowledge that there was a clapper in the room you were fucking in, there is absolutely no way that you wouldn't try to get it to turn on.

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takeaway phrases:

"star of quincy, miser of the year"

"bedouin crab dinner"

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It might only be superficially similar, but Mainichi reminds me of Auntie Pixelante's Dys4ia. It's and almost Warioware-esque take on the memoirs of a transwoman undergoing hormone replacement therapy.

Also, just since Queen of Pain and Sean's girlfriend came up in this episode again, I've been meaning to ask: Why doesn't Sean just play with headphones?

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I'm in the closing moments of this podcast but damn that was a great set of discussions. Thank you Shawn Elliott for stopping by.

A lot of bits of discussion throughout the cast had me thinking about Don't Starve, which I picked up this week and started playing quite a bit. I'd elaborate, but ribs have been presented to me for dinner just now.

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It might only be superficially similar, but Mainichi reminds me of Auntie Pixelante's Dys4ia. It's and almost Warioware-esque take on the memoirs of a transwoman undergoing hormone replacement therapy.

Also, just since Queen of Pain and Sean's girlfriend came up in this episode again, I've been meaning to ask: Why doesn't Sean just play with headphones?

They're definitely very similar in terms of subject matter, but pretty different in terms of how they communicate it, I think. Dys4ia is more stylish but I kind of appreciated the way Mainichi made its point more. They're both worthwhile game experiences though.

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Glad to see Shawn Elliot mention how terrible Rob Liefeld is, because then I get to post this:

rob-liefeld3.jpg

Also, Shawn Elliott is, aside from being really, is a great thinker and a strong creative talent. Would love to see what he comes up with if he ever lead a project.

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The comments about the weird conversations overheard from the psychiatrist next door were strangely appropriate, given the plot of By Blood (the plot is basically the same thing).

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They're definitely very similar in terms of subject matter, but pretty different in terms of how they communicate it, I think. Dys4ia is more stylish but I kind of appreciated the way Mainichi made its point more. They're both worthwhile game experiences though.

Having actually gone and played Mainichi now... yeah, I can see how this is probably more relatable for more people than the very specific situations of Dys4ia.

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(I was going to say something about Harry, but then realized I wasn't interested enough to actually read the article and find out if his quotes were out-of-context and by how much, so I retract sayings! I will listen to the remainder of the podcast now and maybe say something about Vide o' Games)

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If you are looking for more games like walking Mars and Mismata I suggest Ice pick lodges 2 games - The void (on steam) and Pathalogic (on desura)

Reading about them on Rock paper shotgun made them an insta-buy even though I have only played about a hour of each so far.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/09/29/wot-i-think-the-void/

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/04/10/butchering-pathologic-part-1-the-body/

Yer talk about spoilers reminded me of the fact that in the last year I actively spoil alot of the stuff I read/play/watch eg. I read how the last ep of breaking bad ended before I watched it. If reading how something ends kills any desire in me to actually play/read/watch something then I figure that is time saved to be spent on something better. This started when I read how the 3rd last Wheel of time book ended and I had no need to read the actual book which made me realise I didn't give a flying fiddlers fuck about the characters/world/plot, I had just been reading the books to see what happened.

Part of the reason I spoil tv in particular is that I think it is on the re-watch that I really get to drill an episode cause I am more familar with it. Reading spoilers/reviews lets me do that to a certain extent while watching something for the first time.

To quote Vladimir Nabokov

"When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do not have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and then can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting"

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All the talk on this here cast about stuff like studying wasps, making hypotheses about how strange creatures live and interact, learning through interactivity, etc...

it reminds me of a magnificent story I read about a guy who played the Starcraft demo so much when he was a kid that he essentially squeezed a whole new sort of Anthropology game out of it (you could only play Terrans but he wanted to know about the Zerg).

Well worth a read (despite the rocky beginning paragraph or two wherein crass remarks are substituted in for actual jokes), if only to make you sad that that game doesn't exist =P He captures an uncommon feeling uncommonly well, and made me think I am Bad At Having Fun and need to learn to do it better. ;)http://electriccarti...starcraft-demo/

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As soon as I saw that the new ep was up my first reaction was to text my girlfriend and exclaim "Holy shit! Shawn Elliott's on the new Idle Thumbs." The great video game podcast singularity is complete...yeah, I'm on a podcast high right now. Yay for a new podcast. Go Thumbs!

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Thanks for reading my reader mail on the podcast, guys. In retrospect, I probably should have reproduced more of Bissell's argument, but you all reconstructed the lion's share of it on your own. Basically, Bissell's beef is that this cultural aversion to spoilers prevents good gaming criticism from happening, at least without copious hand-wringing and fan outcry. He would rather gamers police their own content pending sometime in the future when it becomes recognized that plot twists are only the smallest part of a game's appeal.

Myself, I avoid spoilers for media I plan to consume, but always keeping in mind that, if knowing the plot ruins a game or movie to the point where I won't bother watching it, I'm probably better off knowing and not bothering.

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