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Idle Thumbs 108: A Premium Price

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Idle Thumbs 108:

 

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A Premium Price

A voice cries out in Russian; you don't understand it but that's okay. A guard runs past you, trips a motion detector and lights your way. You lose two wingmen but save the day. That's the price you pay.

 

Things Discussed: Gunpoint, Transistor, Metro: Last Light, Sid Meier's Ace Patrol, Spin Doctor, Prey

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You should release those episodes a bit earlier... it's bed time already :/

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You should release those episodes a bit earlier... it's bed time already :/

 

Agreed.  Maybe I could have downloaded it and listened to it at work if it had come out earlier.  Now I have to wait til tomorrow.  How else am I supposed to pass the time?  By doing my job?

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You should release those episodes a bit earlier... it's bed time already :/

We used to post them around midnight or 1am pacific time, after recording and editing the episodes, but that is actually really exhausting so we don't anymore. Sorry.

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On people only acknowledging AAA games and not seeing the long tail, it makes me think of people who complain about the drop in quality of modern music and only listen to the radio.  That conversation has produced a few real life facepalms.

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Good episode. I laughed and cried tears of laughter.

 

I sensed a little bit of irritability between Thumbs though. Maybe you guys should have a dedicated pissing match episode where you just air out your dirty laundry and scream and yell at each other for our entertainment. Basically, just pretend the whole episode is a DOTA match.

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The way a weird line like "princes kneel before you" (which exists not because the Spin Doctors are great lyricists, but because they pretty clearly wrote the vocal melody of that song before they wrote the words, which is why it's preceded by the essentially placeholder lyrics "One, Two") caused Chris' imagination to spin out of control reminds me of one of my favorite phenomenons of watching old comedies, which is when then-relevant pop culture references are lost to time and what ends up remaining is a weird non-sequitur. My favorite example is this scene from Animal Crackers:

 

 

When I first saw this and had no idea who Eugene O'Neil was, I thought the movie just spun off the rails into total surreal lunacy (even more than a Marx Brothers movie normally does).

 

Also, I loved the Gunpoint demo (and it had a really funny demo specific ending worth checking out), but I was a little shocked at how similar it was to Trilby: The Art of Theft. It's much better than Trilby in almost every way, but the deja vu I felt was really strong.

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Man how do you come up through the 90s and not know the opening lyrics to Two Princes?

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On people only acknowledging AAA games and not seeing the long tail, it makes me think of people who complain about the drop in quality of modern music and only listen to the radio.  That conversation has produced a few real life facepalms.

 I'm nearly the opposite nowadays, a AAA game really has to be impressive for me to pay the large price (not including any DLC) i would rather buy a few indie games with my money most of the time

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As I find myself using Netflix more and more often, and I find myself pandering to my incredibly pointless Gamerscore, I find the union between non-game applications and achievements an interesting idea that I kind of like. I can get achievements for doing even less now! Which, if the points meant anything, would really devalue them, but because they're useless, there's nothing to protect, so it's alright! ...I think.

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You have so many relationships in this life
Only one or two will last
You go through all the pain and strife
Then you turn your back and they're gone so fast
And they're gone so fast
Oh so hold on the ones who really care
In the end they'll be the only ones there
When you get old and start losing your hair
Can you tell me who will still care?
Can you tell me who will still care?
Oh, okay yeah,

Mmm bop- Bip-patop wop

Doooowop- a shimmy-bop doowop!

Mmm bop- Bip-patop wop

Doooo- yeah yeah!

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It's been: one week since you looked at me,

Cocked your head to the side and said "I'm angry".

Five days since you laughed at me,

Saying "Get that together come back and see me".

Three days since the living room,

I realized it's all my fault, but couldn't tell you.

Yesterday you'd forgiven me,

but it'll still be two days till I say I'm sorry.

Hold it now and watch the hoodwink,

As I make you stop, think,

You'll think you're looking at Aquaman.

I summon fish to the dish

Although I like the Chalet Swiss

I like the sushi 'cause

It's never touched a frying pan.

...what the hell was this song even about? Its been around ever since I was a young 'un, and I still don't know what to think of it.

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"All the money" in films, while screw Michael Bay in general (Ok, I wanted to go see Pain and Gain, but never did.) But there's 1 really good big action superhero movie this year, in terms of writing.

 

Iron Man 3, and thank you Hollywood for somehow putting Shane Black as a writer. He was a co-writer, true. The other, not Shane Black portion of the script was balls and all the things wrong with the movie. But the Shane Black portions of the script. Robert Downey Jr. snarking the hell out of hollywood cliches and etc. Well hell yes!


It's not going to change anything overall in Hollywood. It's not going to change anything in the games industry. But it will probably get us a new Shane Black written movie, and to that I say YES!

 

 

And if there's one thing wrong with the games industry that the film industry get's right in comparison, it's that somehow, some way, sometimes the right guy like Shane Black, or Peter Jackson in 1997, or George Lucas in 1975 get's a bunch of money to do something crazy and new and weird. And in the game industry someone asking for that either get's their game pulled ala Molyneux and Milo or just straight up fired. And so, while I'm not sticking up for the film industry giving Will Smith and M. Fucking Shitwhatever money for "After Earth" while some script with much greater potential goes to waste; I am saying there's still the occasional time in Hollywood when something out of the norm gets a lot of money, and that's not something that happens in games.

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Man how do you come up through the 90s and not know the opening lyrics to Two Princes?

 

I just never paid attention to the lyrics, it was essentially gibberish to me!

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Also, I loved the Gunpoint demo (and it had a really funny demo specific ending worth checking out), but I was a little shocked at how similar it was to Trilby: The Art of Theft. It's much better than Trilby in almost every way, but the deja vu I felt was really strong.

 

Yes, that's so true! Trilby: The Art of Theft was out in 2007, Tom Francis started working on Gunpoint circa 2010. There's even an interview Tom conducted with Ben Croshaw in 2010 for PC Gamer (http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/05/community-heroes-yahtzee-of-zero-punctuation/) so it's nice to think there's some sort of gentleman's agreement between them. Does anyone know if Tom mentions it in his dev diaries?

 

PC Gamer: Am I right in thinking you stopped making games after Trilby: the Art of Theft in 2007? That was around the time Zero Punctuation was becoming popular – were the two related?

Yahtzee: Pretty much. Making ZP is my day job now, so it takes up a lot of my time, playing a new game every week and animating the videos. I still have a few game projects and I still work on them, but progress is the slowest it’s ever been. Over the years doing ZP every week has given me greater and greater insight into game design theory and practice, though. Looking back on my old games, I see hundreds of ways they could have been improved. So I get delayed by being more critical of myself. If I ever put out anything again, it’ll have a lot more experience behind it than my older stuff.

 

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thanks for the pic giantbomb.com

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I've listened to at least 108 Idle Thumbs podcasts and I still don't know the lyrics to the opening song.

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Iiiiiiiiidllleee Thuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuumbs. Games, Video games, video games etc.

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I always thought the line -- "I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend" -- was a weird lyric to put in your video game theme song though.

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I've listened to at least 108 Idle Thumbs podcasts and I still don't know the lyrics to the opening song.

i think chris said there was a link to the song on the main page but i can't find it, i had the urge to listen just to it recently but couldn't find it

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