Idle Thumbs 160: Die Übiverse

[Jake]

Idle Thumbs 160:

Die Übiverse

For long time followers of the popular video games franchise, this episode offers the linchpin reveals and cross-universe connections you've been waiting years to receive. Is everything connected? Is it all in your head? You can find out soon, but the server's having some difficulty so for now please chill in this complimentary themed waiting lounge.

Things Discussed: Watch_Dogs, Wolfenstein The New Order, UPlay Lounge, Transistor, Portal 2

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[Bjorn]

I had the urge to stand up and give an earnest slow clap after the reading of the poem.  That kid is fucking awesome. 

[tegan]

I'm three for three on reader mail!

 

Also, "why aren't thou in Smash Bros. Brawl?"

 

 

 

Waluigi really is the most tragic figure of the Mario series. Why does he want to imitate the second banana? Does he secretly covet Luigi's relationship with Mario?

[mikemariano]

As awesome as that poem was, I am still a committed Waluigi hater.  He has no reason to exist beyond Wario needing a tennis partner.  In the 14 years since Mario Tennis he has yet to justify his appearance.

 

There are other Nintendo hangers-on with just as little personality—Daisy and Captain Falcon.  At least they got some artificial desirability as unlockable characters in Mario Kart DS and Super Smash Bros.  No one wants to unlock Waluigi.

[Twig]

His appearance is justified every time he appears by being a weird skinny spider human dastardly devil type character!

[tegan]

There are other Nintendo hangers-on with just as little personality—Daisy and Captain Falcon.  At least they got some artificial desirability as unlockable characters in Mario Kart DS and Super Smash Bros.  No one wants to unlock Waluigi.

 

In my head, Daisy is the only sane person in the Mario universe. She got kidnapped ONCE, beefed up security to respond, and now has all this leisure time to play tennis and race go-karts.

 

Also, there are so many crappier characters in the greater Nintendo universe! Consider every non-major StarFox character (including Krystal. Especially Krystal); or Luvdisc, the most useless of all Pokémon; or the entire cast of the Donkey Kong games.

[Flynn]

Tried Wolfenstein and... I dunno.   I'm forced to make dark and gritty moral 'choice' to save one person or another but it just came off as some random thing thrown in there to be make things grittier.  Next I get to interactively torture a Nazi with a chainsaw.  And the gore is wow.  It's like what people have never played or seen a video game before *imagine* games are like based solely on news pundits talking video game violence.  I was surprised to see so so much love out there for it.  For me it just crosses the threshold where I feel gross playing it.

 

I've heard the worldbuilding later on is better (I do love the Nazi versions of pop songs) but the overall tone of the game is so weird.  Sometimes your main character is dark and somber and sometimes he seems like Duke Nukem. 

 

I think I prefer the blandness of Watch Dogs.  The goofy vehicle physics means the rampant civilian murder more resembles a Wile E Coyote cartoon than anything intentional by either the players or designers.  And I'm intrigue by the invading another player's game and pretending to be an NPC.

[Argobot]

Post-ep Mad Men discussion made me go back and watch that last scene. It really was ludicrously perfect.
 
Matthew Weiner has been doing the post-mid-season finale journalist circuit and his interview with Vulture is by far one of my favorites. I just love that he is completely baffled by the wild speculation that "people on the Internet" have about what goes on in his show: http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/matthew-weiner-interview-mad-men-mid-season-7-finale-joan-hates-don-bert-cooper-dance.html
 
My favorite quote: "I'm not going to pass judgment on people who have never had the experience of seeing something that's not there or who want to define the language of the show. That is the language of the show."
 

[N1njaSquirrel]

I think the difference between wolfenstein and Watch Underscore Dogs  (as it should really be called) is that Watch Underscore Dogs' existence has been around longer, and the movement along the hype cycle had peaked 6 months earlier before it's delay. When it actually came out people were less interested in it because maintaining that level of hype and interest is hard for a new IP.

 

I also heard that the game's delay was so that it could distance itself from GTA V, as apparently early press viewings were pretty negative due to it being 'just another GTA clone'. But that could also all be heresay.

 

Wolfenstein on the other hand came, looked interesting and then as the general interest peaked, got released, and also happened to be a pretty great game. I am downloading it now.

 

On another note, when you talked about civilians being run over in Watch Underscore Dogs and feeling bad, it reminded me of the first Driver game, because all the civilians jumped out of the way of the car, and never got run over, as as soon as you reached a certain distance from the person it just triggered a jump animation to the side. To me this made sense, as in reality, if a car is hurtling down a pedestrian street, people will not want to die, and will do their best to avoid it. Sounds stupid, but it's not really done in open world games anymore. Of course, it is harder to program than it was in Driver's day.

 

Also on another note, Watch Underscore Dogs has also risen controversy because one of the things that you can 'out' people on to make a distraction is that they are trans-sexual. As if that's a thing people should be ashamed of.

[CaptainFish]

It's a little weird Watch_Dogs has the "player can be a maniac" issue because Assassin's Creed 1 avoided it by forcing low-profile behaviour to be fairly normal looking and strictly penalizing you for harming civilians. It meant that the modes of that game usually made sense: you would dash about on rooftops out of view, walk calmly on the crowded streets or be using parkour to actually escape a chase. When I look at the two games they have such a similar kernel so it stands out that they couldn't identify or fix that issue. There is a morality system tied to your amount of mayhem/crimefighting so maybe they just wanted it to be an option.

Also on another note, Watch Underscore Dogs has also risen controversy because one of the things that you can 'out' people on to make a distraction is that they are trans-sexual. As if that's a thing people should be ashamed of.

Uhh, wow. That sounds like going out of your way to be shitty.

[Twig]

Also on another note, Watch Underscore Dogs has also risen controversy because one of the things that you can 'out' people on to make a distraction is that they are trans-sexual. As if that's a thing people should be ashamed of.

I think that's the point.

[Henroid]

I think that's the point.

They could've chosen something that isn't quite a serious real-world issue, or just something that is a crime like "this guy just pickpocketed me!"

[Twig]

They could've chosen something that isn't quite a serious real-world issue, or just something that is a crime like "this guy just pickpocketed me!"

I don't disagree. I don't think Watch Dogs is the right game to handle this well. I'm just sayin'. I think that's the point. I also think that a different game trying to do most of the exact same things Watch Dogs does (regarding such things as privacy, I mean) COULD do that, were it to properly address it.

[melmer]

FYI watch_dogs and ass creed are in the same ubiverse. How could they not be? The watch:dogs corporation is mentioned in an assissin creed 4 hacked email.

http://www.vg247.com/2013/10/29/easter-egg-ties-assassins-creed-4-to-watch-dogs/

FYI2 it's a television series not season I love that the thumbs have the exact same reaction as me but in reverse

[Thermaldetonator]

I had to post this when they started talking about the self driving car prototype (and how it looks like a face). I had the same thought. Disney/Avalanche Software just need to sue Google for this design.

[melmer]

When I get a self drive car my alcohol consumption is going to go through the roof. This was my amazing dawning realisation when I was reading about the google cars yesterday

http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/just-press-go-designing-self-driving.html

[Henroid]

That image above is the first I'm seeing of the car but it has me in a giggle fit. So pleased.

[Henroid]

A friend just pointed out the Google car is totally Tachikoma from Ghost in the Shell.

[mikemariano]

A friend just pointed out the Google car is totally Tachikoma from Ghost in the Shell.

 

Ha!  Except you can actually drive a Tachikoma if you get inside it.

[N1njaSquirrel]

I don't disagree. I don't think Watch Dogs is the right game to handle this well. I'm just sayin'. I think that's the point. I also think that a different game trying to do most of the exact same things Watch Dogs does (regarding such things as privacy, I mean) COULD do that, were it to properly address it.

 

I think the fact that it is a point that a bunch of people have thought 'this is something to be ashamed of' is the problem with it. It's similar to outing someone being gay as a thing that's something to be ashamed of.

 

If that makes sense. The fact that it has become a point is the problem.

[SuperBiasedMan]

When self driving cars are more of a concept, will people still need licenses? I have a random luddite opposition to feeling uncomfortable about self driving cars because the concept sounds unsafe to me, even though I am aware that they could overall have less accidents than the alternative.

 

About Watch_Dog's hype, I genuinely went through the period of "This looks really interesting, it's AAA but maybe it will be different to most AAA". And I lost that entirely coming up to release, particularly when I realised that it was meant to be an open world game and so it was inevitably going to collapse under its own weight by having to meet expectations of that style of game.

 

I think the fact that it is a point that a bunch of people have thought 'this is something to be ashamed of' is the problem with it. It's similar to outing someone being gay as a thing that's something to be ashamed of.

 

If that makes sense. The fact that it has become a point is the problem.

 

I think the issue is that the designers added this mechanic and didn't think to question whether or not they should, or how this would play out. I think they just considered it as yet another item that one would want to keep private that the player could release. They were probably viewing in terms of general privacy rather than trying to consider that particular situation and what it meant for the individuals involved.

[eot]

On another note, when you talked about civilians being run over in Watch Underscore Dogs and feeling bad, it reminded me of the first Driver game, because all the civilians jumped out of the way of the car, and never got run over, as as soon as you reached a certain distance from the person it just triggered a jump animation to the side. To me this made sense, as in reality, if a car is hurtling down a pedestrian street, people will not want to die, and will do their best to avoid it. Sounds stupid, but it's not really done in open world games anymore. Of course, it is harder to program than it was in Driver's day.

That was the norm back the day, same thing in Midtown Madness. Carmageddon was the game where you could run over people. Then GTA happened and it just became accepted as the new norm.

[Granny Dragon]

Morning Thumbs feels different from regular Thumbs. Sean, Jake and Chris were even more at ease, if that makes sense.

 

Add me to the list of people who are tired of Watch^_^Dogs without having even played it. It's like buying some kind of collector's box from a rock band with 50 extra b-sides, live takes and demos, but actually having to listen to most of the material just to get to the album. There is too much content in video games.

[monkehhh]

I thought I'd gone mad and imagined this article about Ubisoft's overarching editorial team, but obviously not as I found it eventually, which goes a long way to explaining why Ubiquitous Software's current games are like they are - open world, open world, open world.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Funny how two posts sort of highlight recurring problems I have with games.

 

That was the norm back the day, same thing in Midtown Madness. Carmageddon was the game where you could run over people. Then GTA happened and it just became accepted as the new norm.

 

It is disappointing how much of an open world game feels like it has to still retain of the original source for the archetype. To take a guess, you can rob peoples cars at will in Watch_Dogs even though it's way against the idea of the character and what actually makes sense. After all, shouldn't a hacker be a covert operative? Shouldn't your missions be concluded with you disappearing and blending in with a crowd rather than car chases where you make the police explode? But no, there's a concern that it would be seen as a downgrade from GTA so all that gets put in.

 

There is too much content in video games.

 

And this too, again because developers are worried that consumers just wont be happy with the length of their game. It's like a chef worrying that his soup portions are too small so he adds a litre of water, and then acts confused when the customer says it's too watery.

 

I think it'd be naive of me to assume that few players would complain if Watch_Dogs was sorter and tighter. But surely even with a lot of the players who think that their main concern is a long broad experience, they must feel like the game is a let down even if they can't articulate why.