Jake

Idle Thumbs 118: A Simple Litter

Recommended Posts

Sometimes I wonder if the dildo-obsessed marketing campaign of the later Saints Row games has actually attracted more fans than it's alienated.

I have a friend who refused to play it because of that, no matter how many times I told him it was just a dumb side item that didn't even have an impact on the game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have a weakness for games that let me careen through public streets trying to do sweet jumps off things that shouldn't be jumps, and watching the fake people scatter. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'll never completely have my fill of shoving people down staircases in GTA IV. The stumbly physics-based "Euphoria" stuff is so good. I kept wishing the Saints Row games had something comparable. Insurance Fraud would be a lot funnier to me if it did; plain old ragdolls don't cut it anymore.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'll never completely have my fill of shoving people down staircases in GTA IV. The stumbly physics-based "Euphoria" stuff is so good. I kept wishing the Saints Row games had something comparable. Insurance Fraud would be a lot funnier to me if it did; plain old ragdolls don't cut it anymore.

 

Haha, YES, I started editing my post to talk about that. Running into people and/pr shoving them into traffic, down stairs, off piers.

 

In GTA Vice City, I loved standing on the roofs of cars, and if you had a baseball bat you would try to smash the driver, who would drive increasingly erratically the more you banged on the roof. in GTA4, they tweaked the physics so you couldn't ghostride the panic'd whip.  

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hahahaha "ghostride the panic'd whip" is such a good phrase. Should any GTA game ever be set in the Bay Area, that should be the subtitle.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I never played a saints row game, and at some point I picked up Saints Row 3 for some reason. I think it's was a steam sale. Either way, after only playing a few minutes I was hooked. I like the "dumb humor" and the whole over the top action in the game. It also offers the same "just fucking around" playability which Just Cause has. After SR3 I tried SR2, SR2 was much more like a mixed between GTA3 and VC, it was still fun to played, but I had way more fun messing around in SR3. I'm really looking forward to SR4.

The gameplay and the controls of SR3 are really solid and polished.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm impressed with Jake's ability to triangulate the actual source of his enthusiasm (Pikmin 2) rather than making the assumption that new is better. I think that a lot of people try fulfilling themselves by chasing symbols of what gives them joy rather than the actual sources of that joy. It is no small achievement to discipline yourself enough to not spend cash you don't have on a new&shiny-addiction.

I especially liked that he mentioned the idea of channeling enthusiasm (which is far more active than managing expectations). Sometimes, I read a bunch of promises from a game preview and instead of buying the game, I'll make fan-art and draw play-throughs of the game as I imagine it. The excercise is really enjoyable for me. By the time the game comes out, I often don't buy it because It doesn't look nearly as much fun as my fan-art was. Of course, other times it looks like it is way more fun in its finished form. I don't just do this for games with prohibitive costs, I might do this with Mew-Genics for example. It's a matter of having the enthusiasm from anticipating the concept; and viewing that enthusiasm as a resource which may dissipate once the concept's manifestation into a reality necessitates compromise.

I enjoyed the entire show, but this brief mention of Jake's consumer decision really shined for me because it implied the benifits of self-awareness in a consumer-culture.

I really like in NetHack how it will end a game with a pithy summary of how your character died, and you can review your score list with all these summaries. It provides a nice opportunity to reflect back on all the different experiences you had playing the game.

I think that this is fertile area for roguelikes to explore. I think someone in another thread mentioned the idea of finding captain's logs from past FTL attempts.

I get so much enjoyment out of that little bit of text when I die in Spelunky, not because it acknowledges what I did, but because it fails to do so to a humorous extent. It reads that I fell on some spikes, but that its not what happened. I set off a bomb which launched a rock at me which sent me down a level where I had a bat coming from one direction and a bat coming from another and when I finally came to, I only had enough time to jump down... onto some spikes. That epitaph is insulting and reductive.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

They actually created a dildo baseball bat. I feel dirty just looking at it

http://www.destructoid.com/review-saints-row-the-third-dildo-baseball-bat-215241.phtml

 

'They' being THQs marketing, not Volition itself

 

http://www.edge-online.com/features/walking-the-line-volition-on-courting-controversy-and-saints-row-iv/

 

Judging from that interview it seems clear that THQ were largely behind things like Jims bat, and not the developers directly. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Jake hurry up and get a Wii U already.

 

We can trade friend codes Nintendo Network IDs.

 

EDIT: also, Lefebvre is a fairly common surname around here and hearing you guys butcher it was hilarious.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

What Danielle was saying is really true through, their character creator is cool and nicely inclusive, seemingly by design.

 

One nice small thing I noticed while messing around with the editor is that all the hair styles are available to each gender. Usually haircuts are gender specific in these kinds of editors, but here it shows that making the distinction doesn't make sense and also just limits player expression.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I suspect those put off by the sheer wackiness of Saints Row 3 (and from the sounds of it, 4) might still appreciate Saints Row 2, which for me feels like the strongest title in the series. Saints Row 1 was a pretty straightforward GTA clone that was notable only because it hit the 360 before Rockstar put an actual GTA on it. It had a few good ideas (like a nearly infinite garage for your safehouses) but it was also bland and its sense of humor verged on offensive (a Wendy's knockoff restaurant named Freckle Bitch, for example) without really being all that funny. And some of the gameplay elements were frustrating, like only being rewarded for completing side activities after all eight levels, by which point they'd gotten ridiculously difficult.

 

Saints Row 2 picked up the level of writing dramatically, and has some of my favorite dialogue sequences in any open world game ever, as well as openly acknowledging that your character is an outright sociopath, which GTA is generally reluctant to do despite their protagonists wreaking similar levels of carnage. Unlike 3, it occasionally verges on seriousness from time to time, and I found certain story beats genuinely shocking in their brutality. It also has a wide variety of side activities, some quite amusing and clever, and only a fraction of which (including most of my least favorite activities) made it onwards into Saints Row 3. And it was the first of the series to implement universal two-player coop, not in the "eh, I guess there's two of you now" sort of half-assed way that some games do, but often actually altering things to account for a second player. For example, there's a side activity where you steer a burning go-kart through a checkpoint race trying to blow up and/or set on fire as much as you can between checkpoints to earn additional time to complete the race. Add a second player, and they're holding on to you and throwing molotov cocktails as you go.

 

Saints Row the Third has some really bravura moments, for certain, including several excellent uses of licensed music and celebrity voice actors, and I personally find its gonzo approach enormously appealing in many ways. I'm also quite happy with, e.g., the mind-controlling explosive octopus gun, the landshark gun, various ludicrous henchmen you can call to your aid, and a readily accessible selection of awesome vehicles like VTOLs and energy cannon tanks. But I do feel like it hops from madcap idea to madcap idea in a way that's not terribly narratively coherent and runs out fairly quickly, and the side activities are anemic and considerably stripped down compared to its predecessor. And I miss the flashes of seriousness. It can also be kind of frustrating until you've bought a bunch of the upgrades.

 

I'm hoping that #4 can address some of #3's shortcomings, but in the main I'm excited. Superpowers and Saints Row would likely be a magical combination even without also being a president signing fuck cancer legislation.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

One nice small thing I noticed while messing around with the editor is that all the hair styles are available to each gender. Usually haircuts are gender specific in these kinds of editors, but here it shows that making the distinction doesn't make sense and also just limits player expression.

 

Anna Anthropy wrote a positive article about the character creation in SR2:

http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=5992

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

One nice small thing I noticed while messing around with the editor is that all the hair styles are available to each gender. Usually haircuts are gender specific in these kinds of editors, but here it shows that making the distinction doesn't make sense and also just limits player expression.

 

And even more than that, each outfit is available for either gender, too. 

But I can see how the ridiculous violence and gleeful dumbness could turn people off, despite all of the other positives. If a person doesn't like Borderlands 2 for those reasons, they're probably not going to like Saint's Row, and that's their choice to make.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

And even more than that, each outfit is available for either gender, too. 

But I can see how the ridiculous violence and gleeful dumbness could turn people off, despite all of the other positives. If a person doesn't like Borderlands 2 for those reasons, they're probably not going to like Saint's Row, and that's their choice to make.

 

They're hardly comparable titles in truth.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I really hope that Danielle, or someone like Danielle, becomes a regular. I feel like Idle Thumbs is becoming somewhat insular in its opinions and tastes. It's refreshing to have a dissenting opinion from someone who enjoys and plays far more mainstream games.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I really hope that Danielle, or someone like Danielle, becomes a regular. I feel like Idle Thumbs is becoming somewhat insular in its opinions and tastes. It's refreshing to have a dissenting opinion from someone who enjoys and plays far more mainstream games.

 

I kinda agree. Maybe it was just the slightly abortive conversations about Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us, but it feels like there aren't as many games being played out of the Thumbs' comfort zone. Granted, it used to be because they had jobs as game journalists, and now there's no good reason they shouldn't use their free time to always be playing something in their wheelhouse, but I think a lot of what's made the Crusader Kings II streams and discussion so interesting and popular is how novel it is to Chris and Nick, how it forces them to really react, I don't know.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I kinda agree. Maybe it was just the slightly abortive conversations about Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us, but it feels like there aren't as many games being played out of the Thumbs' comfort zone. Granted, it used to be because they had jobs as game journalists, and now there's no good reason they shouldn't use their free time to always be playing something in their wheelhouse, but I think a lot of what's made the Crusader Kings II streams and discussion so interesting and popular is how novel it is to Chris and Nick, how it forces them to really react, I don't know.

 

i don't know if this is a bit presumptuous, but maybe there could be some kind of voting thing, where we collectively recommend a game for them to play, so sometimes there would be games we pick that they would not play normally, it's not like it would be mandatory or intentionally making them play bad games, but it's an idea

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

i don't know if this is a bit presumptuous, but maybe there could be some kind of voting thing, where we collectively recommend a game for them to play, so sometimes there would be games we pick that they would not play normally, it's not like it would be mandatory or intentionally making them play bad games, but it's an idea

Holy shit, no. Thumbs are fun to listen to because of their enthusiasm, and I can think of few ways to kill that off faster.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Holy shit, no. Thumbs are fun to listen to because of their enthusiasm, and I can think of few ways to kill that off faster.

yeah, i see you point, i wouldn't wan't people telling me what to play

Edited by thestalkinghead

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Once Idle Thumbs is playing the games we've already played and watching the movies we've watched, how are we going to make sure they have the same opinions as we do? Maybe we can split them up into district representatives. Chris Remo's opinion can be determined by the vote of kickstarter backers, Jake's can be determined by people who are regularly on the forum, Sean's can be determined by Pew Research and Nick can offer easily defeated scarecrow counter-points ;)

[i'm being sarcastic]

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I suspect those put off by the sheer wackiness of Saints Row 3 (and from the sounds of it, 4) might still appreciate Saints Row 2, which for me feels like the strongest title in the series. 

 

I stopped playing SR3 because I thought mechanically it was mediocre at best. That is to say, getting to and through the ~WACKY MISSIONS~ was a controller-limited chore. I have been assured multiple times that SR2 was just flat bad in this department. I actually think the humor is up my alley, I just can't play it.

 

I also have lost most of my will to play open world games, at least the crime drama style ones. Haven't played GTA since San Andreas. I was given Ballad of Gay Tony/Lost and Damned as a gift from a friend, and it's an awesome gift that I've appreciated by playing about 45 minutes of it. On the other hand, SKYRIM.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I also really enjoyed hearing Danielle this week. It's nice to hear from someone who is aware of the Thumbs, but not quite on the same level as the long time listeners who are intimately aware of the jokes and goings ons. Also her use of the of the word litter and mention of the Gashlycrumb Tinies made me so happy. Like Jake levels of happy.

I listened to the discussion of Sir, You are Being Hunted for 5 minutes before I my brain realized that the actual game being discussed was Don't Starve.

RE Saints Row marketing: Earlier this week, some of the staff at Volition said they weren't happy with THQ's marketing, specifically the emphasis they placed on the porn stars and things like dildo bats. I've never played any SR myself, mostly because I'm just not into that type of game, but also because the marketing made it seem like something I didn't want to try.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah. The marketing on these games is super weird.

 

saints_row_chris_idle_thumbs.jpg

 

 

Good episode, cool guest! I hope she will come back again soon.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now