Jake

Idle Thumbs 167: And That's Why Skeletons Fart That Way

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Yeah the Noby Noby Boy group progression element is something I only heard about after the fact as well. Seems cool.

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Abyss Odyssey is still on sale for $9.99 through the Humble Store for the next 3 days if anyone is interested in picking it up.  The release date discount is already over on Steam for it.

 

I was also checking out its description, and had no idea of this feature:

 

Its also slightly discounted for the first week on PSN and xbox (i think you have to be signed up to their respective subscription model to get the discount) shame it's only on 8 year old obsolete consoles. I'm never going back!

 

1364677851.jpg

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Very much looking forward to The Idle Thumbs Dreamcast starting up.

Readermail for #168 better not let me down.

edit: by the way, I am loving that the reflink for the Dota 2 Newcomers Commentary is, or at least was at one point, "noob". (And not "scrub").

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For 1:02:42 when Danielle is talking about the new trick for Ocarina of Time, seems like it's actually an application of another trick called quick draw.

 

What happens is the player pulls out an item just before hitting the water and then transitions back to land before starting the swim animation. Then item used before entering the water gets used on the next action.

 

 

As far as I can tell, this trick isn't Japanese exclusive.

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I was thinking on my way to work today, but I am really surprised that no one's posted this picture after the talk about Alan Wake's outfit:

 

Friends11.jpg

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Great podcast!

 

The discussion about Dragon's Crown, and more generally subjectivity in playing and critiquing games got me thinking a lot.

 

As a disclaimer I didn't buy Dragon's Crown specifically because of the sexist (Is that the right word? I don't mean to say the artist is, but that the art is) anyway, I didn't buy it because I don't want to support those kinds of ridiculous stereotypical teenage male fantasies that are so common in the video game medium.

 

But I was a little disappointed how one sided the discussion was (despite agreeing with everyone on the podcast,) all while saying "It's important to look at things from the other side."

 

I consider myself a progressive person who is always looking to become more progressive, but will often times catch myself looking down on less progressive people, instead of empathizing with them.

I'm not writing this to "play devil's advocate" I'm doing this to try and develop empathy for people who I don't understand, or respect very much.

 

If you were to review an american television broadcast of an NFL game you could focus on so many things. First, the game of football. Was it enjoyable to watch? Was it exciting, and well produced? Do you focus on the quality of play, or the violence of the action? Or do you focus on the homo-erotic subtext, the sexism of cheerleaders, or glorification of alcohol and party culture? While all are valid things to discuss and review, in the end, it can make two reviews not even be about the same thing, despite them being about the same thing.

 

I think it's the same with video games. What if every video game featuring violence was scored lower because of the violence present in the game? Even games where violence is treated and as a serious and regrettable action, the violence is still presented to the player as a gameplay challenge to overcome, and thus be part of the entertainment that is the game. 

I guess the point I'm getting at, (terribly, I apologize I'm not as good of a write as other people on this site,) is that we all have blinders. For many in the video game community those blinders are for sexism, others it is foul language, violence, animal cruelty, or even the general moods of contention, negativity, or general unhappiness present in most games. When someone doesn't have the same blinders as us I think we have two options. We can use it as an opportunity to enforce our choice in blinders (the easiest option,) or we can use it as an opportunity to question why we focus on some things, but not others.

 

Anyway, just some thoughts. It's a weird rabbit hole to go down. Am I "better" because I don't like sexism in games? Would I be even "more better" if I disliked violence in games? What about games that stress me out and make me frustrated after playing them? If I was the best person I could be, would I really enjoy any video games? Honestly, the only ones I could think of that would be "okay" would be Journey, Flower, and maybe Gone Home?

 

EDIT: Don't mean this as a "Where do the PC police end?" Argument. More of an introspective "How much do I want my opinions and beliefs influencing my enjoyment of games? When is/isn't it appropriate to ignore my opinions and beliefs when playing a video game?"

Edited by spidoman

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I love the total cheese cake look of the art in Dragon's Crown. I know the perception exists that all games are like this, but more now than ever this isn't really the case. Just like every game portraying women as hyper sexualized objects was bad for the medium, a video game industry where no cheese cake, no tittilation for tittilation's sake, exists also makes for a poorer medium.

 

I genuinely believe the medium would be pretty damn good without all that crap. I never watch/read/listen to anything with stylistic choices like those in Dragon's Crown, and I really don't feel like I'm missing out on anything worth caring about by doing so. If you had a game whose character representations were as racist as Dragon's Crown's are sexist, I think there would be a huge outcry and significantly fewer defenders of that game's artistic choices.

 

 

If you were to review an american television broadcast of an NFL game you could focus on so many things. First, the game of football. Was it enjoyable to watch? Was it exciting, and well produced? Do you focus on the quality of play, or the violence of the action? Or do you focus on the homo-erotic subtext, the sexism of cheerleaders, or glorification of alcohol and party culture? While all are valid things to discuss and review, in the end, it can make two reviews not even be about the same thing, despite them being about the same thing.

 

If you check out Danielle's review of the game, she explicitly states that the gameplay elements were perfectly fine: "It's a fun mix of RPG tropes and dynamic brawler action", so it's not exactly like going to a football game and focusing on one minor aspect; cheerleaders, alcohol can be pretty cleanly separated from the core game of football in a way that art just can't be from video games. It's a core part of the experience, something the designers thought about and worked on for months as a central component of their project.

 

When someone doesn't have the same blinders as us I think we have two options. We can use it as an opportunity to enforce our choice in blinders (the easiest option,) or we can use it as an opportunity to question why we focus on some things, but not others.

 

With regard to violence / other concerns: fair enough. I'd be very happy to see games rely on violence much less, or at least much more thoughtfully. However, the existence of other off-putting artistic choices in no way invalidates a particular concern. We're all capable of evaluating given works from many different perspectives. It's not an either/or.

 

With Dragon's Crown, I think it's fair to say that at this point the artistic choices are basically the only interesting part of that game from a critical standpoint, several months after its release. No review I saw claimed that the gameplay was particularly innovative or well designed in a way that makes it still worth discussing. 

 

For me, it would have seemed much weirder if the hosts tried to ventriloquize some imagined other person who wasn't bothered by the art. They don't do that with other game elements: when they criticize particular game mechanics, they don't spend a ton of time running down a bunch of possible other reactions. They try to honestly explain their own perspective / experience.

 

Why should they do any different when discussing aesthetic choices?

 

EDIT: Don't mean this as a "Where do the PC police end?" Argument. More of an introspective "How much do I want my opinions and beliefs influencing my enjoyment of games? When is/isn't it appropriate to ignore my opinions and beliefs when playing a video game?"

 

This is a sort of baffling question to me: what else should you be using to evaluate a game besides your opinions and beliefs, especially when it comes to artistic choices? If you find a particular food gross, you can appreciate some parts of how it's made all you want, but you're still going to find it gross.

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Dragon's Crown isn't so much like football as it is oil wrestling.

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I love the total cheese cake look of the art in Dragon's Crown. I know the perception exists that all games are like this, but more now than ever this isn't really the case. Just like every game portraying women as hyper sexualized objects was bad for the medium, a video game industry where no cheese cake, no tittilation for tittilation's sake, exists also makes for a poorer medium.

 

TSG said a lot of intelligent stuff already but I feel compelled to say that I'd personally rather a medium that eschews harmful stereotypes even if it reduces the breadth of games available. If the world at large was almost completely devoid of sexism I could see the scope for arguing that it wouldn't harmfully impact as a rare example, but I think we can both agree the world isn't that way... and I frankly disagree that games are like that either. I still think a significant amount of games are severely sexist. Even if it's not the ridiculous booby level, a lot treat women like a device and severely underrepresent them.

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I love the total cheese cake look of the art in Dragon's Crown. I know the perception exists that all games are like this, but more now than ever this isn't really the case. Just like every game portraying women as hyper sexualized objects was bad for the medium, a video game industry where no cheese cake, no tittilation for tittilation's sake, exists also makes for a poorer medium.

 

I think what you can give Dragon's Crown is that it's weird. It doesn't come off like a lazy attempt at leveraging sexuality to pander to an audience. If anything, that game's character design seemed like a heroic act of self-sabotage. They had to know people were going to be confused/annoyed by it and plowed ahead anyway.

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Great cast once again! Those dreams... Jesus.

 

Also, yay for suggested continuation of Idle Streams!

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Damn, I was just listening to this episode and was "blown away" -- IGN.com (now there's an old reference) because of the .com conversation and then the dream conversation.

 

I had a dream the other day that I was talking about idle thumbs with someone (can't remember who for sure) and they wanted to check it out and just typed idlethumbs.com and it worked and I was all like "noooo you need to type idlethumbs.net...that's their url I don't know what idlethumbs.com is" but .com worked fine for him and I was confused.  He then typed in idlethumbs.net and it was a porn site or something and he looked at me with an accusatory expression on his face like I had purposely misled him in to going there on a shared or work computer or something and I felt really bad.  So when you said you had acquired idlethumbs.com and then later segued into a dream discussion I ended up very pleased (and laughing my ass off at Chris's dream or Rapid Eye Movement episode if you prefer).

 

I was also amused at the whole PS1 controller discussion...as someone who loves classic controllers and using adapters to hook them up to modern consoles (hell, the way I generally get my Arcade stick to work with my 360 is with a Playstation1 and 2 controller adapter that requires me to take a 360 wired controller and hook it into the adapter along with the joystick (or any other PS1 or PS2 controller) so that it can get inputs from the arcade stick or whatever is plugged in and get the authentication codes from the 360 controller (and you can use either one at any time).  It actually gets crazy and involves severed PS1 controller cables and an ethernet crimping cable and custom arcade stick PCBs that you solder RJ45 cables to.

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I think what you can give Dragon's Crown is that it's weird. It doesn't come off like a lazy attempt at leveraging sexuality to pander to an audience. If anything, that game's character design seemed like a heroic act of self-sabotage. They had to know people were going to be confused/annoyed by it and plowed ahead anyway.

That's what makes it weird for me too. They had to know exactly what they were getting themselves into right? It would blow my mind if they thought the sexualisation of their character models was at an ok level. "I think we're at a good spot, keep the breast enlargement at this size, wouldn't want to overdo it. Also the way these ladies moan is totally going to resonate with our audience, let's ship it!"

I am frequently confused and dismayed by the way some people think. I am also frequently amazed by other people's dreams. What the hell is going on in those noggins?

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I'd consume a lot more football coverage if it talked about the homoerotic subtext.

 

As you may or may not know, Michael Sam was the first openly gay college football player to declare for the NFL draft, and he was selected by the Rams (ie: has a legitimate chance to make their roster). Some people (journalists (idiots)) were concerned that the holy sanctum of the sports team group shower had been violated by the introduction of an openly gay man.

 

So have I got an article for you!

 

http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/11169006/nfl-showers-hostile-environment-michael-sam-espn-magazine

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For fucks sake Thumbs, you're on a roll with making me die of laughter. Great episode.

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They had to know exactly what they were getting themselves into right? It would blow my mind if they thought the sexualisation of their character models was at an ok level.

 

I used to have this view, but I'm frequently surprised by the apparent either naivete or moral disregard of some people. For example, I'm not quite sure how to put myself in the mindset of the decision-makers behind the Metal Gear Solid V rape content, or Battlefield Hardline's glorification of over-armed police.

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Well, on the topic of Battlefield Hardline specifically there's a thread on this forum where there's a discussion between people who do and don't see a problem with the portrayal in the game. Hardline is a less clear example, but overall there are always people on both sides of an issue and there are always people who aren't aware of the other side, or don't see it as an issue, or laugh at the idea that the issue should be taken seriously cause it's just a game.

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It just occurred to me that depending on when you would have taken out the print ad in the magazine, it may have been near useless to advertise www.idlethumbs.computer and would be better served to put in the IP address.

 

IDLE THUMBS, AOL Keyword: THUMBS

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Don't bother checking, somebody already took fart.sexy (not me)

 

BUT did they take fart.skeleton? That's where the real money's at.

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