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Jake

Idle Thumbs '95: H.D. Cool Spot

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Idle Thumbs '95:

 

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H.D. Cool Spot

Your first choice runs ahead, sliding over the embankment and out of your sight, lost to the sparkling dunes. Your second choice is fine, but seems preoccupied with aesthetic decisions made by architects of the future, and he too fails you with time. Resigned, you accept your fate. Your third choice. The worst choice. Video Games.

 

Games Discussed: Karateka, Anno 2070, SimCity Beta, Journey, Zuma Deluxe, The Receiver, H.D. Cool Spot

 

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I feel like Cool Spot did not get the respect it deserves on this cast. Cool Spot is super rad and the music is great: 

 

But speaking as a huge Cool Spot fan I'm very happy that he made it into the episode title. This is a big day for me.

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When I was a kid, one of my big sisters friends drew me a sweet picture of Cool Spot, I had it on my wall for a ages (it may even still be there at my folks house). Years later I had a fling with the same girl. During our intimate moments I often thought of Cool Spot.

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The ending of my Journey play through is something I often think of. I had played through the whole game with the same random second player. We belled at each other and freaked out at flying headlight dragons. He was my new best friend. At the last part of the ice mountain when you are climbing the steepest portion and it is all windy/white out; a blast of wind knocked my BFF down the hill. I doubled back to find him but with the disorientating wind and clouds I could not locate him. I figured I could wait for him at the top of the mountain and proceeded up the hill. To my dismay, when you get close enough to the finish, you character auto-walks toward the gate and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Even though it was an accident, I just ditched my new BFF. The feelings of betrayal and sadness I felt for a random stranger was amazingly powerful. I at first was mad at the game for not letting me turn back at the top but now I am just floored/happy that a the game gave me such a strong memory. Journey is great.

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Cool Spot is super rad

I wouldn't go that far, the likes of cool spot and Zool could never reach the lofty heights of radness that was Greendog

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Your descriptions of the difference of approach between Anno 2070 vs. SimCity (European vs. American) reminded me of a big divide in boardgames (which I only bring up since you guys play them, at least occasionally), Euros and Ameritrash games.

Eurogames are generally all about the game mechanics. Very tight systems based on efficiency. You are trying to make your mechanics-based engine run better than everyone else's. Theme is the least important thing and usually pretty bare, and not tied to the mechanics at all.

Ameritrash, on the other hand, is very much about theme, and how those mechanics are tied to the theme. They also tend to go big on production, with lots of plastic figures and other "bling" just because it's awesome and adds flavor.

 

Maybe I'm reaching here, but it was the first thing I thought of when you started describing the difference in approach.

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Your descriptions of the difference of approach between Anno 2070 vs. SimCity (European vs. American) reminded me of a big divide in boardgames (which I only bring up since you guys play them, at least occasionally), Euros and Ameritrash games.

Eurogames are generally all about the game mechanics. Very tight systems based on efficiency. You are trying to make your mechanics-based engine run better than everyone else's. Theme is the least important thing and usually pretty bare, and not tied to the mechanics at all.

Ameritrash, on the other hand, is very much about theme, and how those mechanics are tied to the theme. They also tend to go big on production, with lots of plastic figures and other "bling" just because it's awesome and adds flavor.

 

Maybe I'm reaching here, but it was the first thing I thought of when you started describing the difference in approach.

You're totally right about the difference between American and European board game design, although I don't think it's totally analogous to the difference I described in city builders. Theme-heavy American board games tend to be really low on simulation, whereas I feel that's just the opposite of SimCity. And sort of ironically, I think European sims tend to be a lot heavier on theme--city builders like Anno but also grand strategy games of the Paradox variety--whereas American ones like SimCity or Civilization tend to scale back on theme and emphasize player-driven simulation. So the different cultures seem to express themselves somewhat differently in board game design than in video game simulation design. Of course, there are some common factors for sure--European board and video games are both much more economically focused than their American counterparts. But we're probably so far down the evolutionary branches in each case that we've diverged a fair amount from whatever original unifying seed each cultural block might have started with.

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The main divide in city builders between the continents is probably the same as the difference between the actual cities, ie. planned grids vs. largely organic historical development.

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The main divide in city builders between the continents is probably the same as the difference between the actual cities, ie. planned grids vs. largely organic historical development.

Could you provide some supporting evidence on that? That doesn't line up with the games I've played.

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Could you provide some supporting evidence on that? That doesn't line up with the games I've played.

I'm not sure I understand the question. With 'that' do you mean the difference between cities in Europe and the US or the difference between city builder styles? If the latter I was mainly going on your comments in the SimCity podcast, I don't really play those games. I may have misinterpreted what you were saying - sorry if so.

 

If you're talking about real cities, just comparing the history and maps of a given large town will show you how different they are (I'm sure you knew this so I probably misinterpreted indeed).

http://goo.gl/maps/uBIhF

http://goo.gl/maps/KZjbe

 

As far as historical urban development in Europe goes, very few leaders/planners in history to my knowledge have tried to demolish and rebuild with completely ordered/straight streets. Only Napoleon's commission to Baron Haussman immediately comes to mind.

 

I find this sort of comparisons an interesting subject so I'm a bit sad I may have misunderstood.

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I think a lot of US cities are planned grids in theory, but save for those under serious space constraints, like New York, I don't think it bears out in practice.

 

I mean, maybe I'm just blind to it, but I don't see too much difference between Amsterdam and my hometown of Dallas, TX. Sure, the suburban developments on the outskirts of the latter are neat and orderly, but the city at its core is a lumpy, haphazard thing, courtesy of the cattle, oil, and telecom booms that were punctuated by long fallow periods. Maybe a tradition of urban planning is enough to influence US vs. Euro design, but if so it's far better realized in the hypothetical space of game design than in reality.

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Interesting. To me Dallas looks so much neater than the map of any old Euro city. Especially notable is the lack of streets having to bend to accommodate things like city walls, and just really long, straight streets in general.

 

I may be confusing city layout with city zoning though. There's definitely a historical precedent for the latter in Europe as well, with things like ghettos, and streets being specifically populated with a certain profession (god help you if you lived near the tannery area).

 

This discussion has led me to start reading up on this, fascinating stuff. I definitely had some misconceptions about this subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning#History

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I'm glad that Chris talked about the end of Journey because the end of my play-through has stuck with me as much as it sounds like his has.

 

I had spent most of the game without encountering many other players (or, at least, noticing them, since the credit list seemed to show many more than I had seen). The first time I heard the chirps, I had that warm feeling of camaraderie, but by later stages my interactions with others had grown sour and resentful. I started to feel (probably due to the length of time since the game's release) that I was being carried through the game. The puzzles in Journey aren't real head-scratchers, but every time beefstain_x420x reached a marker before I did, I would feel stupidly cheated. I would slightly roll my eyes every time some long-scarved dingle showed up, leaping over my schlubby butt, and I wondered why the developers made me have to play with these jerks.

 

Then, the end.

 

(As an aside here, I can't figure out how I feel about the story cinematics in Journey. I want to consider myself smart enough to understand what they were trying to impart through the act of playing the game itself, because the last time you see the glyphs light up on the wall and you and the white-robed apparition look at each other knowing what the future holds for you, I felt weighed down by the heavy handedness of it. But maybe, without it, I would have reached the snowy mountain screaming "Bullshit!" at the screen.)

 

At the very end, after being without a partner for quite some time, I reached my destination and took a single step before I heard a chirp. "Great," I thought, "another guy to show me up." I ran ahead into the crevice in an attempt to not have another moment stolen from me, but as I walked further I got apprehensive. I slowed up to let my buddy join, and he came onto my screen, but stopped just short behind me. I tried beckoning him closer, so we could walk together, but he refused. In the end, as the camera swung behind me, cutting him out of the frame, I had to walk through alone, and I was actually sort of frightened.

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I know that the main point of Karateka isn't the cut scenes or the dialogue, but something that made me really happy to find out was that the true love was voiced by Yuri Lowenthal who did the voice of the Prince for Mechner's Sands of Time game. Sadly, I have yet to beat the game with anyone but the Brute, but the game is so technically focus, I can definitely feel myself get a little bit more skilled each time I try.

 

Something that freaked me out about playing Journey was reaching the end and going, "What are those names... Wait, those were other people?!"

 

Not to say ignorance is blissed, but there's something so wonderful about jumping into something with limited information and discovering something for oneself. It's rather difficult these days where information just everywhere.

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My first two Journey experiences were great; but the third time I played Journey, I got paired up with a whiterobe. As soon as we saw each other we shouted out huge enthusiastic chirps and started circling around each other flipping out. The whiterobe went out of their way to show me everything. They led me to all of the glyphs, all of the scarf upgrades, the desert flower, the creature from flOw, everything. They even sat and meditated with me so I could get that one trophy. At the very end, when we got to the top of the mountain, we both started running around to draw hearts in the snow for each other, completely unprompted.
 
Naturally, after the game was over, I immediately checked the whiterobe's PSN profile. It was a Japanese girl who only plays Journey, Flower, and apparently Vanquish. We sent each other messages and barely understood each other.
 
This game.

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speaking of netflix, do people think there will ever be a netflix for games? as in a service you pay for that gives you access a large amount of games but instead of paying for the games separately you subscribe to "NetGames" and are given access to all the games they have, i think this would be a good model for episodic games, possibly this kind of thing would need advertisement to keep it as affordable as netflix but i would probably be interested in this service because i set myself a budget and i like to try new games and this would be a great way to be able to try put a lot of games.

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speaking of netflix, do people think there will ever be a netflix for games? as in a service you pay for that gives you access a large amount of games but instead of paying for the games separately you subscribe to "NetGames" and are given access to all the games they have, i think this would be a good model for episodic games, possibly this kind of thing would need advertisement to keep it as affordable as netflix but i would probably be interested in this service because i set myself a budget and i like to try new games and this would be a great way to be able to try put a lot of games.

 

Everyone I know with Playstation Plus calls it "Netflix for games."

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My first two Journey experiences were great; but the third time I played Journey, I got paired up with a whiterobe. As soon as we saw each other we shouted out huge enthusiastic chirps and started circling around each other flipping out. The whiterobe went out of their way to show me everything. They led me to all of the glyphs, all of the scarf upgrades, the desert flower, the creature from flOw, everything. They even sat and meditated with me so I could get that one trophy. At the very end, when we got to the top of the mountain, we both started running around to draw hearts in the snow for each other, completely unprompted.

 

Naturally, after the game was over, I immediately checked the whiterobe's PSN profile. It was a Japanese girl who only plays Journey, Flower, and apparently Vanquish. We sent each other messages and barely understood each other.

 

This game.

 

Ahhh! See, that's what I wanted when I went to play it, but then my pride. My priiiiiiiiiiiiiide

 

Man. What a thing. 

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This is the closest thing I can think of: https://www.onlive.com/playpack

 

onlive to me is really more a way to play games that the system requirements are to much for the thing you are playing them on, and plus you have to pay for the games separately, imagine if there were two versions of steam 1) the free one everyone uses now 2) the subscription based steam that allows you to play every game in their store for a monthly fee

 

2) would be what i think would be great, it would be complicated to set up for Valve (paying the publishers of the games) but i think it would work, and you could still have DLC/micro-transactions sold separately but maybe subscribers would get reward points they could spend for being long time subscribers 

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