Idle Thumbs 147: The Titan Falls

[Sean]

The Titan Falls

 

 

2014. R. 1hr 30min

The Titan Falls - When Lt. Todd Titan returns home from the nine-hundred-years wars to bury his terminally ill uncle, he is forced into one last battle with his true life-long enemy: himself. Based upon the award winning two-act play by Cormac McCarthy. 

 

Things Discussed: Titanfall, Thief, Calculords, Super Mario Bros 3, Maths Blaster

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[Anjin]

Not enough Danielle Riendeau in this episode!

[Stuart]

Oh shit, that new intro song! Sounds much more badass.

[tegan]

What if Gearbox thought that when they bought the rights to Duke Nukem Forever, they thought they had bought the rights to the Duke Nukem IP indefinitely?

[Justin Leego]

Oh shit, that new intro song! Sounds much more badass.

 

I haven't listened to it yet but is The Change here already? Excitement. Thought that wasn't until episode 150.

[Sean]

I haven't listened to it yet but is The Change here already? Excitement. Thought that wasn't until episode 150.

 

It's not; this is just the extended theme. Building up to 150!

[Flynn]

With respect to f2p games as super hard puzzlers, Plants vs Zombies 2 was totally that.  I never used a powerup in the game (pinch to destroy zombies, etc) and every level was beatable... just barely.   I enjoyed the experience much more than the first game actually because it was the difficult PvZ game I always wanted.  Some of those challenges required perfect builds.  No exaggeration, it might have been my favorite tower defense game ever.

 

Unfortunately they have revamped the game entirely -- the PvZ2 that I played no longer exists and nobody can play it.  The game had a huge patch and is completely different now, they removed the map, challenges, and the fine edge of balance of gone.  You can still get through it without paying but I don't enjoy using consumable powerups even when they are free.  

[sclpls]

What if Gearbox thought that when they bought the rights to Duke Nukem Forever, they thought they had bought the rights to the Duke Nukem IP indefinitely?

 

As someone that works in IP, I can say in answer to Sean's question about how could they not know who owns the rights to Duke Nukem, never underestimate the ability of attorneys' to write confusingly worded licensing agreements that result in future disputes to be litigated down the road.

 

Also damn you all for convincing me that maybe I do want to play Titanfall after all... I really was trying to convince myself that the game wouldn't interest me at all, and therefore wouldn't have to install Origin on my computer. Instead I find myself listening to this episode, and deciding I need to get that, Day Z, and Calculords... What happened to the podcast I knew and love where no one played any video games?

[sclpls]

Also in response to Olly's comment about how it is weird that the same people that made Deus Ex: HR made this new Thief game, my understanding is that although it was made by the same studio, it was a totally separate team working on the respective games, so that might clear up some of the confusion.

 

I am bummed about the new game since the Thief series is one of my favorites (I'm currently replaying it, as I do every so often, and I have almost wrapped up with the first game). There are some things that sound like really nice touches about the game, but it also sounds like it ditched a core design principle that has existed throughout the series (including the 3rd) that is essential to what I love about the game, which is to have a world governed by consistent physics and rules. I hate the idea that there are context sensitive commands, and tools that you are only allowed to use in specific situations existing in a game with the Looking Glass pedigree, it just makes me sad.

 

I liked Chris' point about the problem with these games that are in development for such a long time. It reminds me of when I was in high school, and interning at a recording studio. I would listen to these bands mix records, and they kept trying to polish up all these details. The first couple of sweeps would definitely be improvements, but after that they'd keep polishing and I would encounter the law of diminishing returns, and they'd continue polishing at which point I noticed that things would start to sound worse, more bland and uninteresting. Game design is a much more complex issue than mixing audio, but it got me to thinking there probably are similar arcs for a lot of creative works where after a certain amount of work it just makes sense to move on, either release something in the state it's in, or abandon it and call it a day.

[DaveC]

Not through listening but I wanted to voice my approval for the episode text. 

 

Todd Titan. Lolz.

 

Who writes those, by the way? Is it always the same person or is it interchangeable/whoever feels like it? 

[Bjorn]

*discussion of Jake's t-shirt* - Good radio

 

Also, Calculords sounds like a perfect game.  I actually really love it when you have two separate systems to manage. 

[Olly]

I am bummed about the new game since the Thief series is one of my favorites (I'm currently replaying it, as I do every so often, and I have almost wrapped up with the first game). There are some things that sound like really nice touches about the game, but it also sounds like it ditched a core design principle that has existed throughout the series (including the 3rd) that is essential to what I love about the game, which is to have a world governed by consistent physics and rules. 

 

Exactly. Also, I forgot to mention how disappointed I am with The City. I touched briefly on the mis-en-scene, but that isn't my only problem with it. In previous games, it felt like such a specific place, and I think a lot of this was down to its denizens' unique dialect - "Who's that taffin' around?" etc. That slang is now almost completely gone, and with it a lot of the Thief series' character. Incidental npcs now seem like mouthpieces for ham-fisted exposition, full of swearing. It's all very unsubtle. Actually, I think that might be my single biggest problem with it. The game's complete lack of subtlety.

 

Although I am still weirdly excited to play more of it. 

[Jake]

Not through listening but I wanted to voice my approval for the episode text. 

 

Todd Titan. Lolz.

 

Who writes those, by the way? Is it always the same person or is it interchangeable/whoever feels like it?

It's usually me but sometimes it is Sean or Chris (like this week, which is Sean)!

[Brannigan]

Shamelessly reposting my exciting evacuation moment from Titanfall:

 

We barely lost hardpoint, My titan is the only one up and I'm defending the dropship from enemy titans, I figured I'd just sacrifice to save the others. I take one titan out, Mine is in flames, however.  The Dropship has taken off; I eject, My titan's explosion kills another and I manage to land inside the dropship just seconds before it warped away.

 

So apparently it's totally possible to catch the dropship after take off.

[Olly]

Shamelessly reposting my exciting evacuation moment from Titanfall:

 

We barely lost hardpoint, My titan is the only one up and I'm defending the dropship from enemy titans, I figured I'd just sacrifice to save the others. I take one titan out, Mine is in flames, however.  The Dropship has taken off; I eject, My titan's explosion kills another and I manage to land inside the dropship just seconds before it warped away.

 

So apparently it's totally possible to catch the dropship after take off.

 

Woah, amazing. 

[sclpls]

Exactly. Also, I forgot to mention how disappointed I am with The City. I touched briefly on the mis-en-scene, but that isn't my only problem with it. In previous games, it felt like such a specific place, and I think a lot of this was down to its denizens' unique dialect - "Who's that taffin' around?" etc. That slang is now almost completely gone, and with it a lot of the Thief series' character. Incidental npcs now seem like mouthpieces for ham-fisted exposition, full of swearing. It's all very unsubtle. Actually, I think that might be my single biggest problem with it. The game's complete lack of subtlety.

 

Although I am still weirdly excited to play more of it. 

 

Yeah, from what I've read the dialogue for this game seems kind of like a bummer.

 

Also I totally get what you mean about still nonetheless being excited to play it. I imagine if the game wasn't using the Thief title, I would look at it differently, and think of it as a cool stealth game. Although some of the features would probably annoy me regardless, it is specifically within the context of the game's lineage that a lot of these design choices bum me out.

 

That said, chances are I will grab this game on Steam when it gets deeply discounted.

[Badfinger]

This episode has made me extremely excited! I am going to try to be a calculating lord, I want to play Titanfall with/against Thumbs, and I want to be on the DayZ server observing the most dangerous game.

 

I'm super pumped - IGN.com

[Urthman]

I enjoyed Jake declaring that the Lego Movie of video games is not, in fact, the Lego Movie video game (about which I hope Telltale receives many great letters from children).

 

Also this bit of wisdom from Jake about Mario 3: "It's the best when it's cool."

[tberton]

I think you got Telltale mixed up with Traveller's Tales, who make the LEGO games.

[BigJKO]

Haha, that's the joke. Telltale get a huge amount of fan mail about LEGO games from people who think they're Traveller's Tales.

[Reinforcements]

Sean Vanaman watches The Wizard for the first time:

 

[Justin Leego]

The Most Dangerous Game sounds like it'll be a riot. I got excited at the thought of a third faction, the Idle Thumbs Readers Wolf Pack, a co-ordinated squad of five who have access to a 5 minute delayed stream of both Olly and Sean's progress, but must handicap themselves by each broadcasting their location into proximity voice chat with a loop of Chris singing "Games, video games, video games, video gaaaaames" which would be particularly frightening as they close in on our hosts' locations.
 

Exactly.

Exactly.

 
Are Olly's posts part of some sort of net-wide Helvetiva / Arial font war?

[tberton]

Haha, that's the joke. Telltale get a huge amount of fan mail about LEGO games from people who think they're Traveller's Tales.

 

Oh yeah, I remember Jake talking about that now.

[tegan]

I want Jake to teach me how to Mario 3. I decided to play a little of the GBA version while I was listening to the cast this morning, and it just left me feeling frustrated.

[mikemariano]

I want Jake to teach me how to Mario 3.

 

I played a bit of the Super Mario All-Stars version of Mario 3 this weekend and died a lot more than I thought I would.  Spend a lot of time just flying around!  The Raccoon Tail was my favorite way of flying in Mario.

 

I remember reading about the that World 2 warp whistle—in NES Game Atlas, maybe?  Before learning that I remember thinking before that "There are no Hammer Brothers left on the map, but I hear them shuffling.  I guess that's a glitch?"  That's a Grim Fandango Kitty Hat Day environmental puzzle built right into a platformer!