Jake

Idle Thumbs 118: A Simple Litter

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Are we forgetting that there has been days for podcast spend on Far Cry 2 and Far Cry 3, it's no hipster European stuff. (whatever that may be).

I'd like IdleThumbs to discuss all everything. But in they end they are just like the rest of us, and might not try some games because of something that puts them off.

 

btw, anybody played Far Cry 3 Blooddragon and Saints Row 3? How do they compare?

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They're hardly comparable titles in truth.

 

Oh, there are huge differences between BL2 and SR3, definitely. I'm just saying that they both share a common tone of "self-aware ridiculous violence" which they simultaneously embrace and critique. How well they may succeed at doing the latter while so gleefully doing the former is a subjective matter left to the player.

 

Personally, it's a reason I enjoy both games, but then again, I'm a big fan of postmodernism like that; in the same way the Old Spice ads used absurd extremes of "manliness" to advertise to both those who were irritated by such ad campaigns and to those who didn't see them as a joke, or the way fans of the Colbert Report include both people who love satire of conservatives and conservatives who don't realize it's satire.

Anyway, I remember the Thumbs saying they were turned off of Borderlands 2 because of the early scene where you kill a bunch of bandits and Claptrap responds "Minion, what have you done?! These were human beings with lives and families and--I'm totally kidding. Screw those guys!"

If that sort of tone will put a person off of Borderlands 2, they're probably not going to enjoy the tone of the Saint's Row games.

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I'm with Chris. His doubts about Saint's Row are entirely deserved, and are the reasons why I hate the series. I have to admit it's much better since they embraced the zany side of the open world action crime genre, compared to when they were trying and failing miserably at doing a more serious tone in the first game. SR3 felt like Volition messed around with Sjaak327's Simple Native Trainer for GTA4/EFLC and decided to make a game inspired by that, except way less fun in execution. Listening to someone describe what you do in SR3 and imagining what it would be like is infinitely more fun than actually doing that stuff when playing the game. I have no reason to expect SR4 to be any different.

 

You 'hate' it? Did it steal your lunch money or something? 

 

Obsessing about a Dildo bat is hardly the benchmark for insightful criticism and just reads as 'clueless hipster' syndrome. The part where the pair of them were doubling down on The Matrix part and 'why would you parody a film from 2000?' as if that was somehow the ultimate crime of lame was just painful listening. I mean jez, what kind of bubble of deliberate exclusion do you have to live in to not watch a games trailer and not therefore understand Danielle's referencing.    

 

 

Oh, there are huge differences between BL2 and SR3, definitely. I'm just saying that they both share a common tone of "self-aware ridiculous violence" which they simultaneously embrace and critique. How well they may succeed at doing the latter while so gleefully doing the former is a subjective matter left to the player.

 

Personally, it's a reason I enjoy both games, but then again, I'm a big fan of postmodernism like that; in the same way the Old Spice ads used absurd extremes of "manliness" to advertise to both those who were irritated by such ad campaigns and to those who didn't see them as a joke, or the way fans of the Colbert Report include both people who love satire of conservatives and conservatives who don't realize it's satire.

Anyway, I remember the Thumbs saying they were turned off of Borderlands 2 because of the early scene where you kill a bunch of bandits and Claptrap responds "Minion, what have you done?! These were human beings with lives and families and--I'm totally kidding. Screw those guys!"

If that sort of tone will put a person off of Borderlands 2, they're probably not going to enjoy the tone of the Saint's Row games.

 

Seriously? I missed that episode, but 'think of the children' is a pretty weak criticism of what is ostensively a co-op loot whore shooter with negligible plot. 

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Seriously? I missed that episode, but 'think of the children' is a pretty weak criticism of what is ostensively a co-op loot whore shooter with negligible plot. 

 

It wasn't a matter of "think of the children"; They never declared that people who enjoyed the game were morally unfit or harmful to society. I think they just find a tone of ridiculous violence to be gross and off-putting to them, which is their prerogative.

Also, while the plot of Borderlands 2 is (deliberately) shallow, I give it seriously high marks for quality of writing, humor, and character. Anthony Burch and his team did some excellent work and made it far surpass the original's half-done tone and clumsy references.

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It wasn't a matter of "think of the children"; They never declared that people who enjoyed the game were morally unfit or harmful to society. I think they just find a tone of ridiculous violence to be gross and off-putting to them, which is their prerogative.

Also, while the plot of Borderlands 2 is (deliberately) shallow, I give it seriously high marks for quality of writing, humor, and character. Anthony Burch and his team did some excellent work and made it far surpass the original's half-done tone and clumsy references.

 

I don't know. It sounds a little earnest and Woody Allen to me. Borderlands is all sorts of daft. To deride it for being what it patently is though smacks of a certain degree of can do posturing.    

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It'd be cool if a person could say "I don't like this game (or book or movie or TV show or sandwich) because it doesn't appeal to my individual tastes" and not automatically be labeled a hipster -- a nonsense word -- (or Woody Allen??) for having a different opinion.

 

Different people like different things! Personally, the Saints Row games have never appealed to me. My SO swears that SR3 is a good game. I'm sure he's right and that I would get some kind of enjoyment out of it, but I will probably never play it, just like I will probably never play a ton of other games because life is short, etc.

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It'd be cool if a person could say "I don't like this game (or book or movie or TV show or sandwich) because it doesn't appeal to my individual tastes" and not automatically be labeled a hipster -- a nonsense word -- (or Woody Allen??) for having a different opinion.

 

Different people like different things! Personally, the Saints Row games have never appealed to me. My SO swears that SR3 is a good game. I'm sure he's right and that I would get some kind of enjoyment out of it, but I will probably never play it, just like I will probably never play a ton of other games because life is short, etc.

 

I'd always assumed "hipster" related to someone who's taste was dictated by their wanting to belong to a particular peer group and not their own feeling for something (ie: wanting to be part of the "hip" crowd), almost the exact opposite of someone who follows his/her individual taste. But I guess it means different things to different people.

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Danielle was a great guest, but the exception in terms of "what did I like about the podcast" was when she was talking about Saint's Row 4. Why? Well, the main reason is that it seems like she was embargo-ed out of 50% of what she wanted to talk about (like in terms of what made the game interesting to her) and the rest of the stuff that made the game interesting to her was stuff that she couldn't really describe beyond saying stuff like "somehow it just works," because the rest of the Thumbs hadn't played the game (because it's not out yet...). I think this is one of a number of reasons that I don't really want Idle Thumbs to be forced in a new direction or new areas or whatever - it's not a traditional video game podcast where they talk about all the big upcoming AAA games or the new releases or the latest reviews or whatever. Idle Thumbs just talks about whatever it wants to talk about, even if the game is like 10 years old or it's a small indie game nobody cares about or if it's a European board game or if it's not even a video game, it's the Big Dog again. I feel like if I wanted to hear someone summarize the parts of their video game review that they aren't contractually obligated to keep secret until a set date in the future, I could listen to one of any number of other video game podcasts that exist out there, or just read news sites, or whatever.

This also links up with Chris not having ever tried Saint's Row because the dildos turned him off, and in general with the Thumbs having what people seem to be describing in this thread as a fairly settled set of tastes that don't get mixed up very much. In essence, those things are the main reason I listen to the podcast (well, that and the fact that it's consistently hilarious). The Idle Thumbs people have interesting things to say about what they talk about because they're specific people with specific tastes who seek out and play specific games that appeal to them for pretty specific reasons. I don't really care about what Chris thinks about Saint's Row 3 beyond the fact that he never bothered trying it, because I don't really give a shit about what anyone thinks about anything other than what they give a shit about. I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy Idle Thumbs if Chris, Jake, Sean, and Nick were forced to come up with interesting stuff to say about whatever random AAA game the latest guest is there to talk about, or whatever random game the faceless mob has forced them into playing, because sometimes there's not much that the Thumbs have to say about this stuff. Maybe there's nothing much interesting about Saint's Row 3 to Chris, and if he doesn't want to talk about it then that's great. The podcast has no predefined "segments," it has no set topics, it makes no effort to stay relevant or topical or even to talk about video games for the majority of the cast, and that freedom to breathe is what makes it tremendous, if you ask me. (You can go back in the archives and listen to some of the first few episodes when things were a little more traditional, and stuff like "here's what I can say about the latest Gears of War game without breaking my embargo" isn't the best Idle Thumbs material, IMHO.)

 

 

This is one of the myriad reasons I listen to Idle Thumbs. I play my fair share of mainstream titles, but I am far more interested in insightful or funny conversations about 90's space flight sims or whatever than a weekly rundown of current AAA gaming experiences. I rarely listen to podcasts from major video gaming websites for that reason. There's nothing inherently wrong with discussion being geared towards current news or games, of course. It just seems that the various avenues of conversation for video games might have the tendency to shy away from the richness of gaming's past in favor of the new thing, something that literature, film, and music may not suffer from as much. That's a broad and biased generalization, but there you go.

 

Also, the threat of Bigger Dog succeeded in making me wary of all robots now.

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I haven't read the entire thread, has anyone pointed out to Chris the excellent use of licensed music during missions in Saints Row 3? These guys spent ages talking about this a few weeks ago from a fan mail, it's a shame they just completely write off the one game that uses it effectively during gameplay.

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I don't know. It sounds a little earnest and Woody Allen to me. Borderlands is all sorts of daft. To deride it for being what it patently is though smacks of a certain degree of can do posturing.

You seem pretty angry about the fact that some people can dislike things that you like. I think it might be time to swallow a chill pill or something. If Chris doesn't want to play Borderlands 2 or Saint's Row 3 because he doesn't like the humor, it's not like he's telling you you're not allowed to like it. He's just expressing personal taste. If I had to choose being "a little earnest and Woody Allen" or being forced to play whatever stupid game some person on the Internet was determined that I play just so I could enjoy it as much as that person even though I don't like this sort of thing, I think I know which option I'd take.

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If you decide to theme your game with porn-culture, reality-television celebritism, absurd material-wealth, and large scale sensless violence; then you have to know that you are pushing some of the consumer base away as you pull in the people who love that stuff.

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If you think I'm a shitty video game hipster, that's fine I guess, I can't really bother thinking about it though. I'm long past the point of caring to analyze whether the games I enjoy or don't enjoy playing can be put into some kind of definable or useful category. I spent a couple years worrying about that when I was the editor of a video game website and it's pointlessly stressful and enjoyment-inhibiting. One of the great pleasures for me of doing Idle Thumbs at this point is just playing the weird shit I think is interesting and fun and cool, and if that's limiting in some way to our audience size or whatever, well okay. There seem to be a bunch of people who enjoy listening to our conversations about those things, which is pretty lucky and gratifying. It's true, I'm not really into big bombastic entertainment experiences, at least not most of the time. Oh well. I'm not doing that on purpose to be spiteful or something, so I'm sorry it frustrates people for whatever reason. I can't speak for anyone else. I don't have much more to say about it.

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Aw, I feel bad now. You're not a shitty hipster, Chris! You're a wonderful hipster!

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If you think I'm a shitty video game hipster, that's fine I guess, I can't really bother thinking about it though. I'm long past the point of caring to analyze whether the games I enjoy or don't enjoy playing can be put into some kind of definable or useful category. I spent a couple years worrying about that when I was the editor of a video game website and it's pointlessly stressful and enjoyment-inhibiting. One of the great pleasures for me of doing Idle Thumbs at this point is just playing the weird shit I think is interesting and fun and cool, and if that's limiting in some way to our audience size or whatever, well okay. There seem to be a bunch of people who enjoy listening to our conversations about those things, which is pretty lucky and gratifying. It's true, I'm not really into big bombastic entertainment experiences, at least not most of the time. Oh well. I'm not doing that on purpose to be spiteful or something, so I'm sorry it frustrates people for whatever reason. I can't speak for anyone else. I don't have much more to say about it.

 

I guess the point I was trying to make in my earlier post was simply that I love to hear your take on some of the big AAA games in addition to the conversations you guys have about some of the lesser known games. I don't really care whether you like the big games or not but I do get immense enjoyment out of hearing your unique opinion on those games and they are almost always opinions that I don't really hear from any other outlets. I've recently re-listened to the whole run of Idle Thumbs podcasts and some of my favorite discussions have involved games like Far Cry 2, Fable 2, Resident Evil 5, Dishonored, Bioshock Infinite, and The Last Of Us. There is just something awesome about how you guys look at games and I really appreciate hearing why you like or dislike certain things about these types of games when the rest of the industry has a fairly homogeneous and often stale point of view.

 

Of course, all of this shit is just my opinion. You guys have a fantastic show and it is not my place to force my opinion on you. I will continue to listen to and love this show regardless of what you guys talk about because you always have something interesting to say. Besides, I have you all to thank for discovering the LucasArts games, Hotline Miami, Cart Life, and a shitload of other stuff. So yeah, just ignore me.

 

And what's with all this "video game hipster" nonsense?

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I guess the point I was trying to make in my earlier post was simply that I love to hear your take on some of the big AAA games in addition to the conversations you guys have about some of the lesser known games. I don't really care whether you like the big games or not but I do get immense enjoyment out of hearing your unique opinion on those games and they are almost always opinions that I don't really hear from any other outlets. I've recently re-listened to the whole run of Idle Thumbs podcasts and some of my favorite discussions have involved games like Far Cry 2, Fable 2, Resident Evil 5, Dishonored, Bioshock Infinite, and The Last Of Us. There is just something awesome about how you guys look at games and I really appreciate hearing why you like or dislike certain things about these types of games when the rest of the industry has a fairly homogeneous and often stale point of view.

I love the Thumbs as much as anyone, but I think you're really overestimating them if you think they can come up with Idle Thumbs Podcast quality opinions on literally any given AAA game, on cue. I think what makes Idle Thumbs such a tremendous podcast is that they talk about what's interesting to them, whether or not it's an AAA title, and even when it is an AAA title, they feel literally no need to talk about it the way most people talk about AAA titles. Lots of podcasts/other sources of games media treat game discussions as a series of checkboxes. What does everyone think about The Last of Us overall? Did you like the graphics? Did you like the soundtrack? Did you like the gameplay? Was it too long? How did you like the controls? Did you like the story? Etc. They go around the table and talk about it and then at the end everyone sums up their opinion with a number (for example). Nobody is ever allowed to say "well honestly the graphics and controls and soundtrack and story and gameplay were fine, whatever, I don't give a shit, I'd like to spend 10 minutes talking about the time in the game where I picked up a crumpled paper note." In fact Idle Thumbs seems to get shit in reader mail and on forums and elsewhere whenever they cover big AAA games in the piecemeal fashion that they do, because they'll spend the entire time talking about one weird thing they didn't like or one interesting thing they did like and ignore most of what people expect them to talk about (like how amazing X, Y, or Z are) and then people get the impression that they don't really know anything about the AAA game. But that's not true! They just don't feel like talking about 95% of the stuff in any given game because they don't find it interesting.

So when you say something like "I'd love to hear the Thumbs talk about more AAA games, I loved their discussions of Dishonored and The Last of Us!" all I hear is "I'd love to hear the Thumbs talk about games they don't give a shit about in addition to the games they do give a shit about!" I honestly don't think that would produce a podcast of the same quality as the one we currently listen to. The Thumbs all (or mostly all?) have experience working in games journalism, so it's not like they COULDN'T come up with shit to say about any given game, but I think Chris is on record as saying that one of his favorite things about working for Gamasutra was that his duties didn't include writing about games he didn't give a shit about (or maybe was referring to his position at Shacknews - I can't remember). I think that goes for the rest of the Thumbs too - I doubt they'd be as interesting, funny, and insightful if, instead of coming into the podcast and saying "here's what moves me, even if it's a 10 year old hipster game instead of an AAA game," they instead had to say "whelp, time to muster up some comments on the latest releases." I've heard podcasts like that. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm just saying I don't think they're like Idle Thumbs, and I suspect you're fooling yourself if you think Idle Thumbs could be as good as it is and cover a bunch of hot new AAA games instead of whatever shit they feel like talking about.

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I love the Thumbs as much as anyone, but I think you're really overestimating them if you think they can come up with Idle Thumbs Podcast quality opinions on literally any given AAA game, on cue. I think what makes Idle Thumbs such a tremendous podcast is that they talk about what's interesting to them, whether or not it's an AAA title, and even when it is an AAA title, they feel literally no need to talk about it the way most people talk about AAA titles. Lots of podcasts/other sources of games media treat game discussions as a series of checkboxes. What does everyone think about The Last of Us overall? Did you like the graphics? Did you like the soundtrack? Did you like the gameplay? Was it too long? How did you like the controls? Did you like the story? Etc. They go around the table and talk about it and then at the end everyone sums up their opinion with a number (for example). Nobody is ever allowed to say "well honestly the graphics and controls and soundtrack and story and gameplay were fine, whatever, I don't give a shit, I'd like to spend 10 minutes talking about the time in the game where I picked up a crumpled paper note." In fact Idle Thumbs seems to get shit in reader mail and on forums and elsewhere whenever they cover big AAA games in the piecemeal fashion that they do, because they'll spend the entire time talking about one weird thing they didn't like or one interesting thing they did like and ignore most of what people expect them to talk about (like how amazing X, Y, or Z are) and then people get the impression that they don't really know anything about the AAA game. But that's not true! They just don't feel like talking about 95% of the stuff in any given game because they don't find it interesting.

So when you say something like "I'd love to hear the Thumbs talk about more AAA games, I loved their discussions of Dishonored and The Last of Us!" all I hear is "I'd love to hear the Thumbs talk about games they don't give a shit about in addition to the games they do give a shit about!" I honestly don't think that would produce a podcast of the same quality as the one we currently listen to. The Thumbs all (or mostly all?) have experience working in games journalism, so it's not like they COULDN'T come up with shit to say about any given game, but I think Chris is on record as saying that one of his favorite things about working for Gamasutra was that his duties didn't include writing about games he didn't give a shit about (or maybe was referring to his position at Shacknews - I can't remember). I think that goes for the rest of the Thumbs too - I doubt they'd be as interesting, funny, and insightful if, instead of coming into the podcast and saying "here's what moves me, even if it's a 10 year old hipster game instead of an AAA game," they instead had to say "whelp, time to muster up some comments on the latest releases." I've heard podcasts like that. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm just saying I don't think they're like Idle Thumbs, and I suspect you're fooling yourself if you think Idle Thumbs could be as good as it is and cover a bunch of hot new AAA games instead of whatever shit they feel like talking about.

 

Tycho, that is a whole lot of text to post and not really address what Zeusthecat meant. I think there are plenty of games that the Thumbs play (or don't play) and have opinions about (or don't have opinions about) that they talk about (or don't talk about) on the podcast. Saying, "I love hearing you talk about X and Y games, I'd like to hear what you have to say about Z games too" is not the beginning of some slippery slope that ends in Idle Thumbs being like every game podcast. It's feedback from fans that lines up with some of the forms the podcast has historically taken already.

 

So yeah, maybe just chill out. Don't you remember that one episode where the Thumbs make fun of people being hostile towards anyone giving their opinion to game developers, because they're afraid it'll taint the next game the devs make? They know what they're doing, all we have to do is tell them how we really feel.

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Tycho, that is a whole lot of text to post and not really address what Zeusthecat meant. I think there are plenty of games that the Thumbs play (or don't play) and have opinions about (or don't have opinions about) that they talk about (or don't talk about) on the podcast. Saying, "I love hearing you talk about X and Y games, I'd like to hear what you have to say about Z games too" is not the beginning of some slippery slope that ends in Idle Thumbs being like every game podcast. It's feedback from fans that lines up with some of the forms the podcast has historically taken already.

 

So yeah, maybe just chill out. Don't you remember that one episode where the Thumbs make fun of people being hostile towards anyone giving their opinion to game developers, because they're afraid it'll taint the next game the devs make? They know what they're doing, all we have to do is tell them how we really feel.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying - I guess the idea is that I misinterpreted Zeusthecat when I thought he was saying "play AAA games even if you don't like them because I want to hear you talk about them," which is what his post sounded like:

I guess the point I was trying to make in my earlier post was simply that I love to hear your take on some of the big AAA games in addition to the conversations you guys have about some of the lesser known games. I don't really care whether you like the big games or not but I do get immense enjoyment out of hearing your unique opinion on those games and they are almost always opinions that I don't really hear from any other outlets...

Let's assume I did misinterpret that post - your response is that I should chill out because the Thumbs play plenty of games, and Zeus just wanted to talk about more of the AAA games that they play because he likes hearing about that. If that's what you mean, I would've thought you're wrong about the facts - from what I can tell, the Thumbs don't play a lot of games. There were times on the podcast where more often than not they came in and some people hadn't played anything since the last week. I think one of the reasons they started streaming before casting was to have a game they could all talk about, because worst-case scenario, everyone will have "played" that by watching it.

I might be wrong - maybe the Thumbs play a shitton of AAA games but then never talk about it on the podcast. If that's the case, then I retract everything I say assuming I misread Zeusthecat when I thought he was asking them to talk about games they played but don't care about. If I didn't misread Zeusthecat, and he was actually saying "I don't care if you guys like the games, just talk about them because I love AAA games!" then I think I'm still right - having the Thumbs talk about Game X because it's an AAA game rather than because they think they want to talk about it strikes me as a bad idea.

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i think they should only play games people have never heard of and will never be popular, and if some people have heard of the game or the game becomes popular they should delete the podcast and make a new one because it became too mainstream, also there is a distinct lack of hats, scarfs and old timey jackets in the fashion sense of the idle thumbs, sort that out, you're starting to resemble "the man", also the idle thumbs theme tune used to be a post-ironic statement about video games, but as time has gone by it is turning into a crypto fascist love letter to the mainstream games industry, so that should be changed to a simple arrangement of non harmonising notes with maybe a backing track of  a ukulele slowed down and reversed to give it that chilled out intense sound 

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In the end I think everything being said here is still coming from a good place, everyone just wants more pods being cast even if we disagree on the details.

There's nothing wrong with feeling

"I think the way thumbs is talk about games is really interesting" + "i love game X" multiplied by "no one else is talking interestingly about game X" equalling "I'd really love thumbs to talk about game x"

Even if it's something I don't personally agree with.

I think I and some others just care far more about the first part of that equation than we do any of the rest.
 
That not saying there aren't things i'd love to see done, I mean I'd love to see Danielle doing a Mass Effect 3 stream with Chris (because i fondly remember her & tom chicks conversations about mass effect 2, and because I remember Chris saying he'd picked it up as his free game with Simcity), but if things never line up that way it wont bother me in the slightest.
 
Besides guys don't worry there will be AAA talk! after all you there's a AAA ghost game coming out on the 15th called Gone Home

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