Jake

Idle Thumbs 118: A Simple Litter

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Kickstart the 5th microphone ;)

 

Nah, I think 4 people is the max, otherwise it becomes quite difficult to follow everybody. And it's not that difficult to arrange for somebody to break a leg.

I dunno. Nick talks in inverse proportion to the number of people present, and Jake seems way too polite to ever effectively interrupt anyone. My hypothesis is that a 5 person podcast would be legible in an auditory sense.

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I dunno. Nick talks in inverse proportion to the number of people present, and Jake seems way too polite to ever effectively interrupt anyone. My hypothesis is that a 5 person podcast would be legible in an auditory sense.

 

I think it might be more like, Nick talks in direct proportion to how much time Chris and Jake spend baiting him, which they have less chance or less inclination to do with more people on deck. Either way, the outcome is the same.

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I think it might be more like, Nick talks in direct proportion to how much time Chris and Jake spend baiting him.

Even when Nick isn't on the show they bait him! In this episode he was the poster child for regicide.

I took notes while listening so I could write a post in the thread about this, but I think this screenshot speaks for itself.

post-8337-0-59640000-1376318590_thumb.jpg

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It is the year 4715. The distinct jagged legs of a BigDog body amble across the Nevada Desert with purpose. The robot stops and extends a pair of skeletal robotic arms with clawlike hands and begins to carefully in the seemingly random patch of dirt. Day turns to night and back again. At last the skillful hands heave a heavy metal canister to the surface and turn it over delicately in the sun before unscrewing the lid with a quiet hiss. The nimble fingers remove a barely-aged piece of paper, on which is written: "A Game For Someone." The severed head of Nick Breckon, floating in the tube of life-sustaining fluids affixed to the BigDog, grins with pride. "At last."

This story is so beautiful I cried.

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For the sake of a definitive juxtaposition™, anybody who is interested in playing a highly anticipated game and expressing opinions about it has to experience at least one of the games in a series primed as a counterpart to the motifs set by it. People who have built a following talking about games who want to play GTA5 have an obligation to play Saint's Row 3 or 4 to have a point of contrast regarding each franchises's strongest competetor (as of Autumn 2013). As much as I dislike the Saint's Row franchise and think it would clash with this podcast's personalities' definition of a "good game," I believe its participants owe it to both themselves and their readers to have first hand experience in the game that other outlets and the public hold as the strongest point of comparison. And the only reason I, personally, feel they're even comparible is because Saint's Row 1 felt like a bunch "painfully suburban" dudes played GTA:San Andreas and said, "I want to make a game like that except without any degree of authenticity (Dj Pooh), while using this sweet next-gen console hardware... except more extreme like the professional wrasslin' we watch."

 

I don't really give a rectal fracture which one the crew plays first, because the comparison will still be apt, as long as it doesn't lead to expectations within the opposite franchise.

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Throughout this thread, I'm picturing Volition/Deep Silver community managers/PR team high-fiving eachother at every mention of their game being "AAA." Triple-A still means development budget, right? If thats the case, and SR4 is AAA, what does that make GTA5? Quintuple-A?

 

 

knowing the tastes of the thumbs i wouldn't recommend saints row, the most i would say about it is to give it a chance if the opportunity presents itself

 

I agree, and posit that GTA5 being on the brink of release is a major opportunity (aka Chinese for crisis without the danger) to experience a recent entry in the Saint's Row.franchise. It's not like the player (which would obviously be Jake) needs to 100% the side missions to see what those guys were going for.

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For the sake of a definitive juxtaposition™, anybody who is interested in playing a highly anticipated game and expressing opinions about it has to experience at least one of the games in a series primed as a counterpart to the motifs set by it. People who have built a following talking about games who want to play GTA5 have an obligation to play Saint's Row 3 or 4 to have a point of contrast regarding each franchises's strongest competetor (as of Autumn 2013).

Your expectations of Idle Thumbs are much different than mine. The observations by Idle Thumbs that have brought me here are not dependent on comprehensive game comparisons. The reason I listen to the podcast is for the hypotheses about theoretical design stuff like how decisions you make in a game seem different than mistakes you make in real life and how that may be because the contextual motives are different. The only game I expect Idle Thumbs to play for comparison is the human experience (It was put out by Psygnosis in 1998)

I'm joking, Psygnosis didn't make it, I'm actually talking about life, like how your mind wanders when you brush your teeth and you can't remember if you got those hard to reach back places.

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Idle Thumbs is a pretty good podcast, but what would make it even better is if you assigned a score to every game you talk about on the podcast.  Here, I'll get you started.


post-8337-0-89596600-1376404831.png

 

Please never do this.

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Idle Thumbs is a pretty good podcast, but what would make it even better is if you assigned a score to every game you talk about on the podcast. Here, I'll get you started.

post-8337-0-89596600-1376404831.png

Please never do this.

 

Each caster starts the pod with a pot of 10 points which they can allocate among games discussed according to their own specialist categories: narrative innovation, characterization and radness; engendered enthusiasm and super-radness; capacity for allowing extended despotic power-trips; systemic realisation and bonkersness.

Idle Thumbs: A Weekly Video Game Typecast

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Also, maybe sub-scores for story, graphics and replayability.

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I was in Office Max today and I saw that they had boxed copies of Crusader Kings II. I was surprised to see "A Nick Breckon power-fantasy" written on the back of the box and a quote from him that said (I'm paraphrasing) "The greatest wife-killing sim the world has ever known. Also, babies."

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Each caster starts the pod with a pot of 10 points which they can allocate among games discussed according to their own specialist categories: narrative innovation, characterization and radness; engendered enthusiasm and super-radness; capacity for allowing extended despotic power-trips; systemic realisation and bonkersness.

 

Also, maybe sub-scores for story, graphics and replayability.

 

Y'all forgot Fun Factor.

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PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't add a review score for every game discussed on the podcast.

You need a review score for each host per game. Anything else would be a travesty. You need to get on Metacritic four times for each game or not at all. No half measures, Idle Thumbs. And please only review AAA releases. No indie hipster shit. And Far Cry 2 can't get more than a 7, I'm sorry. That's just how this works.

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PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't add a review score for every game discussed on the podcast.

You need a review score for each host per game. Anything else would be a travesty. You need to get on Metacritic four times for each game or not at all. No half measures, Idle Thumbs. And please only review AAA releases. No indie hipster shit. And Far Cry 2 can't get more than a 7, I'm sorry. That's just how this works.

 

I don't think you understand how this works. The review score is shorthand for "on a scale of 1 to 10, how similar is this game to Far Cry 2."

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Now I want to go to Gamestop and pick up a game from the shelf and go "Hey! Is this better than FarCry 2?". After asking the clerk this until I receive an affirmative, I'll purchase the game and leave the store. Then I'll come back in a few hours and say "I'd like to trade this game in for Farcry 2."

Also, I love the idea of listening to a parent and child looking around on the shelves. When the child asks if she can have Crusader Kings II, the parent will say "Isn't that the game where you can marry a baby, have babies with it and then kill your wife-baby to get your money back? I don't think so."

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I will pledge another $10 for Idle Thumbs to do what they feel like doing, it worked so far. I will pledge $10,000 if it gets rid of timezones so that I can enjoy their evening streams when I'm not sleeping.

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Now I want to go to Gamestop and pick up a game from the shelf and go "Hey! Is this better than FarCry 2?". After asking the clerk this until I receive an affirmative, I'll purchase the game and leave the store. Then I'll come back in a few hours and say "I'd like to trade this game in for Farcry 2."

Also, I love the idea of listening to a parent and child looking around on the shelves. When the child asks if she can have Crusader Kings II, the parent will say "Isn't that the game where you can marry a baby, have babies with it and then kill your wife-baby to get your money back? I don't think so."

 

Interestingly, if you ever happen to go into an Office Max or some store like that, chances are Paradox's catalog will be well represented among the PC game titles there, along with a bunch of Bejeweled clones. Kinda weird to think how that is part of their market.

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Interestingly, if you ever happen to go into an Office Max or some store like that, chances are Paradox's catalog will be well represented among the PC game titles there, along with a bunch of Bejeweled clones. Kinda weird to think how that is part of their market.

Yeah, every time I go in there I pick Mount & Blade out of bin and start fantasizing about some business man coming in for a stapler and leaving with it.

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the most important thing a review has to tell me is how likely it is that the game will be the citizen kane of games and whether it will blow me away, also an objective numbered score from 5-10 (because 1-4 is just silly) is what will really tell me if i should buy it

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