Jake Posted February 27, 2013 Idle Thumbs 96: Historical Beef This week, Giant Bomb's Brad Shoemaker stopped by the Fancy Space to talk Tomb Raider looping back on itself, witness the culmination of Chris' Zuma addiction, and wonder what the PlayStation 4 means for gaming's past. Games Discussed: Tomb Raider, The Banner Saga: Factions, Zuma Deluxe, Zuma's Revenge Listen on the Episode Page Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Luftmensch Posted February 28, 2013 My iPhone downloaded two copies, of slightly different lengths. What's the difference? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jake Posted February 28, 2013 My iPhone downloaded two copies, of slightly different lengths. What's the difference?The episode was posted twice for about 2 minutes, sorry about that. No difference. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Henroid Posted February 28, 2013 So Brad's description of Tomb Raider involving a sort of Metroid-esque style of backtracking and in-game-ability increase made me excited for it. That's what I want from games. I haven't been bothered by anything shown pertaining to the game so far (aside from the initial voice actress used; did they change that ever as they mused?). Well, until I heard about throat-impaling. It sounds avoidable enough. Also thanks to Brad for being on the cast to tell us about the game, yay! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Luftmensch Posted February 28, 2013 I was just listening to the Blender podcast today, and they were talking about programming GPUs to accelerate rendering (which sounds kind of obvious). Apparently ATI GPUs are completely incapable of running function calls, which is weird and interesting to me. I want to note that I imagine that The Internet Archive would probably totally be all over recording MMOs. Those guys love to preserve things that seem totally irrelevant. I've mentioned them before though. Like I said before, Archive.org has stated they're interested in exactly the kind of archival you were all talking about, the preservation of services and information when the websites go dark. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gregbrown Posted February 28, 2013 The franchise that's best survived one-upping itself is the God of War series, if only because crazy-scale shit is essential to the aesthetic and premise. That said, the narrative has suffered from the same problems as everything else: going from a pretty focused story about personal revenge to existential threats. I'm sure others have written about it before, but loss of focus has been increasingly endemic to the AAA genre as team sizes have swelled and games focus-grouped. It's also a reflection of the wider media culture, I think, since movie franchises are having the same problems. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
singlespace Posted February 28, 2013 The franchise that's best survived one-upping itself is the God of War series, if only because crazy-scale shit is essential to the aesthetic and premise. That said, the narrative has suffered from the same problems as everything else: going from a pretty focused story about personal revenge to existential threats. I never really got that feel from the God of War series. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but to me the narrative arc was the story of how Kratos' vengeance destroyed him. The details about Pandora's box, hope and the evils, were incidental. You can never really relate to Kratos, but in the beginning you can have some measure of sympathy for his plight. He's on a quest to avenge his betrayal and atone for the murder of his wife and daughter. As the series progresses, Kratos becomes increasingly sociopathic committing brutal atrocities, each more cruel than the last, beginning with his sacking of Rhodes and culminating in the eradication of almost all of humanity simply as colateral damage. He already had his vengeance in the original game, but his inability to let it go eventually makes him a monster. Dude needed to take up gardening or something. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Problem Machine Posted February 28, 2013 Oh, wow, I think Chris actually talked about Zuma's Revenge on the podcast before, didn't he? I remember him mentioning feeling, actually, kind of like Jake described feeling at the high school, in sort of a weird emotional space of encountering a slightly wrong version of something he'd spent a lot of time with. Unfortunately I have no idea what episode it was just off-hand. I remembered the ep when Chris was talking about Zuma before but, having only a vague recollection, assumed he was talking about Zuma Deluxe. Now... all the pieces are coming together...! Tangentially, before she passed my grandma was super into Zuma, though she never got very far into it as I recall, bogging down somewhere in the second or third world. (Another piece of the puzzle!?) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Chris Posted February 28, 2013 Oh, wow, I think Chris actually talked about Zuma's Revenge on the podcast before, didn't he? I remember him mentioning feeling, actually, kind of like Jake described feeling at the high school, in sort of a weird emotional space of encountering a slightly wrong version of something he'd spent a lot of time with. Unfortunately I have no idea what episode it was just off-hand. I remembered the ep when Chris was talking about Zuma before but, having only a vague recollection, assumed he was talking about Zuma Deluxe. Now... all the pieces are coming together...! Tangentially, before she passed my grandma was super into Zuma, though she never got very far into it as I recall, bogging down somewhere in the second or third world. (Another piece of the puzzle!?) Are you thinking of last week's episode...? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shammack Posted February 28, 2013 It was episode 43, "Jeff 'Gone' Goldblum." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gormongous Posted February 28, 2013 Yeah, wasn't there a great moment in that episode where Chris was talking about moving from Zuma Deluxe to Zuma's Revenge, but the slight aesthetic shift forced the latter into some uncanny valley that freaked him out, right? I remember. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mikemariano Posted February 28, 2013 My personal Chris Remo Game of Shame is a flash-based disc-dropping game called Chain Factor. You make numbered discs disappear by dropping discs from the top of the screen until the number of discs in a row or column match the number on the disc (drop a disc on top of a "2" disc and the 2 disc disappears). It's a slightly different approach to the "match stuff and make stuff go away" puzzle category, and the time it took me to figure out how it worked was enough time to get me addicted. I have been playing it nearly every week for years. During Thanksgiving weekend last year, the site that hosted it, chainfactor.com, shut down. Like Jake's example of Journey 2, I thought it was gone forever! But then I hit up Archive.org and found they had a copy. I've been playing it there ever since. I actually just stopped playing my second game of the evening a few minutes ago. At least Chris has an endgame to look forward to. Chain Factor becomes all but impossible between levels 28-34; the discs you pull are all up to chance and you can easily form a wall of unclearable discs. But I keep playing anyway... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Chris Posted February 28, 2013 My personal Chris Remo Game of Shame is a flash-based disc-dropping game called Chain Factor. You make numbered discs disappear by dropping discs from the top of the screen until the number of discs in a row or column match the number on the disc (drop a disc on top of a "2" disc and the 2 disc disappears). It's a slightly different approach to the "match stuff and make stuff go away" puzzle category, and the time it took me to figure out how it worked was enough time to get me addicted. I have been playing it nearly every week for years. During Thanksgiving weekend last year, the site that hosted it, chainfactor.com, shut down. Like Jake's example of Journey 2, I thought it was gone forever! But then I hit up Archive.org and found they had a copy. I've been playing it there ever since. I actually just stopped playing my second game of the evening a few minutes ago. At least Chris has an endgame to look forward to. Chain Factor becomes all but impossible between levels 28-34; the discs you pull are all up to chance and you can easily form a wall of unclearable discs. But I keep playing anyway... This is the same game as Drop7, which I've mentioned a couple times on the cast. It's the only game I have on my phone. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mikemariano Posted February 28, 2013 This is the same game as Drop7, which I've mentioned a couple times on the cast. It's the only game I have on my phone. Thank goodness there are App Store comments like "Zynga bought it and they ruined it." Whether or not that's true, it's the only thing that stopped me from immediately buying it and guaranteeing my non-productivity everywhere. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
melmer Posted February 28, 2013 I'll be listening to this from a hospital bed tomorrow, drifting in and out of consciousness... nothing different there then. Not saying you guys are boring. But sometimes i really struggle keeping a firm grip on waking life whilst listening to the podcast. Its more a case of my mind starts to wander and before i know it i haven't paid any attention to the last ten minutes and i'm snoring like a bitch. I couldn't tell you who has the most soothing voice out of Jake and Sean Because i can't tell the fucking difference Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pabosher Posted February 28, 2013 Hah! I enjoyed the mention on the cast guys, concerning the audiobook people should download with their audible voucher. Made me laugh to hear Chris attempt to pronounce my moniker. I would change it to pabosher again but YOU ALL SEEMED TO HATE THAT. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nappi Posted February 28, 2013 Why would you steal pabosher's nickname? That's such a dick move. I miss pabosher. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Brannigan Posted February 28, 2013 Yea, Pabosher was a class act. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pabosher Posted February 28, 2013 I am never changing back you fuckers. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CaptainFish Posted February 28, 2013 It's weird, the last tomb raider reboot series dealt with Lara coming to grips with having to kill people as well in Anniversary, I believe. But you only kill one or a couple humans (I forget exactly how many). The rest was just animal murder and exploring large intricate spaces, the human encounters were confined to boss like encounters which I think were quick time laden. Sorry, I don't have a more accurate recollection of those games, it's been a while, and that stuff wasn't what stuck with me. I actually enjoyed that last trilogy of games quite a bit, especially where you are puzzling out large areas using freeform platforming rather than the sort of obvious platforming of more recent games like Prince of Persia, Uncharted or the Assassin's Creed puzzle areas. Oh, wow, I think Chris actually talked about Zuma's Revenge on the podcast before, didn't he? I only remember this because at one point Jake said Zumar, which still makes me laugh. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
elmuerte Posted February 28, 2013 So... did Chris play Zuma on the xbox or not? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jake Posted February 28, 2013 So... did Chris play Zuma on the xbox or not?Whoa, Brad never revealed either way! Maybe he's holding that content (aka the good stuff) for the Bombcast. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Luftmensch Posted February 28, 2013 Either way, listening to ep. 43 revealed that Chris' memory was completely bullshit, which is hilarious and wonderful. I have piles and shelves of old journals and sketchbooks that are frightening to read for the same reason. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Roswell47 Posted February 28, 2013 Interesting difference between Brad's tone when talking about Tomb Raider on this and the bombcast. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Justin Leego Posted February 28, 2013 Reading the Idle Thumbs wikia entry for Space Cop a few minutes before listening to the cast made the discussion of Mass Effect particularly ... arresting sorry but also: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
