Jake

Idle Thumbs 177: The Good Ones

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Idle Thumbs 177th:

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The Good Ones

Humans of your own choosing have meticulously picked the contents of this episode from over three thousand podcast segments. Following the curation process, they will be algorithmically suited to your tastes by a robot. When the system does its job, you're happy. You get exactly what you want. You get the good ones.

Games Discussed: The Steam Discovery Update, Donkey Kong Doom, Super Smash Bros (3DS), Sunless Sea, Gang Beasts

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I'm only 23 minutes in but two notes.

 

- I'm starting to question how either the Thumbs view Nick, or how I view Nick, or both. You guys make him sound crazy!

- I was just thinking a few days ago "Whatever happened to Dishonored jokes?" I AM PLEASED.

 

Edit - Jake is at his best this episode.

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Great episode, everyone, as usual!

 

Jake, the Smash Bros. demo is available to the public right now, so you can play it if you want. Also, this isn't available in the demo, but the "unique thing" for this iteration of Smash Bros. is customizable moves. You'll be able to acquire alternate special moves for characters that have slightly different effects and animations. That could be cool, or terrible, but it's certainly an interesting change for the series.

 

Also, while the "Women fighters are archers" trope is absolutely extremely common, I think it's worth pointing out that Game of Thrones has quite a few female combatants who are not archers: Arya, Brienne (arguably the physically strongest character in the series), the Sand Snakes, the Mormonts. All those characters fight with swords, although I'm not certain how prominently they feature in the show, since I stopped watching in the second season - all this knowledge comes from the books. That might also be why Danielle's characterization of Ygritte (Jon Snow's girlfriend) as an archer kind of surprised me: maybe that's how she's portrayed in the show, but in the books she always seemed like a fighter who would just fight with whatever tools were most convenient for the situation. I might be misremembering though.

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Oh man, Sunless Sea talk finally happened! It's fun seeing how people who aren't familiar with the Fallen London setting interpret the weirder corners of it.

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That might also be why Danielle's characterization of Ygritte (Jon Snow's girlfriend) as an archer kind of surprised me: maybe that's how she's portrayed in the show, but in the books she always seemed like a fighter who would just fight with whatever tools were most convenient for the situation. I might be misremembering though.

 

Yeah, as a fan of the novels still compelled to follow the show, I can verify how easily Ygritte can be interpreted as an archer - to the point of thematic, vital lines of dialogue for her arc in the last season revolving around archery, arrows, and so on. An unfortunately marginalizing byproduct of the overall tonal changes to the wildlings.

 

I hope this isn't too much of a tangent to the general discussion of the episode; obviously I find Game of Thrones talk too alluring.

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Yeah, as a fan of the novels still compelled to follow the show, I can verify how easily Ygritte can be interpreted as an archer - to the point of thematic, vital lines of dialogue for her arc in the last season revolving around archery, arrows, and so on. An unfortunately marginalizing byproduct of the overall tonal changes to the wildlings.

 

I hope this isn't too much of a tangent to the general discussion of the episode; obviously I find Game of Thrones talk too alluring.

 

Yeah, I figured that's what had happened.

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This Video game is dogshit.

E: hmm this joke doesn't work with the word filter taking my agency re: the number of words in video games away.

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The Gamersgate/#gamergate bit had me smile so much that a woman next to me thought I was flirting with her. I pray that whoever did some of the previous Idle Thumbs animation videos (g-man, robots) is on the case.

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The Gamesgate/#gamersgate bit had me smile so much that a woman next to me thought I was flirting with her.

 

I did the same thing but the dudes on my train were playing their music too loud for them to notice.

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It's fucking gross that TB is not only at the top of the Steam curators list, but has nearly three times as many followers as the second most-popular curator. Also that he was one of the first to accuse Zoe Quinn of breaching "journalistic ethics" and then put a game he was paid to cover on his list. Ugh.

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Yeah, total biscuit is a huge turdman and has been forever. Super frustrating seeing him at the top of that list. Ugh.

I'm not his biggest fan (to put it lightly), based on me engaging him one on one over a previous video games thing that happened like last year. I wouldn't mind him so much if he was at least honest about everything - he wants to make money and will do anything he can to achieve it. Hey, nothing wrong with that. But he tries to sound like the Little Guy™ all the time to score cool points with his fans.

 

Plus there's that time he was like, "My time is money and I don't owe you answers or a debate" when someone engaged him on the Zoe thing.

 

Honestly, I expect him to wait for the initial Steam Curation thing to bubble down before he starts listing games he's paid to sponsor again.

 

Edit - Actually something to consider about his current ranking on the Steam curating thing is that his growth isn't organic; GamerGate has made a concerted effort to boost him up on the list.

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The Gamesgate/#gamersgate bit had me smile so much that a woman next to me thought I was flirting with her. I pray that whoever did some of the previous Idle Thumbs animation videos (g-man, robots) is on the case.

Hah! I hadn't considered that particular one. That Nestle ad however...

 

I'm super busy with work and other stuff right now, but I have a few ideas kicking around that I want to animate at some point >_<

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Heretic did indeed have an item that turned things into chickens: the Morph Ovum. It worked on minor enemies and other players, if you happened to be deathmatching or something. Hexen had a similar thing called the Porkelator. It was a small gold statue of a pig that turned enemies into pigs.

 

If you're looking for more Doom throwbacks, you should look at In the Kingdom. It's a name-your-own-price proof of concept that the developer is hoping to flesh out into something bigger.

 

http://amon26.itch.io/in-the-kingdom

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Regarding the Zelda talk at the very end of the episode, how about a Zelda/Link game structured like Resident Evil 2, where both Link and Zelda are weaving through the story line seperately, but meet occasionally?

 

 

It's fucking gross that TB is not only at the top of the Steam curators list, but has nearly three times as many followers as the second most-popular curator. Also that he was one of the first to accuse Zoe Quinn of breaching "journalistic ethics" and then put a game he was paid to cover on his list. Ugh.

 

Not having any context about his comments on the Zoe Quinn issue, I like his taste in games, which makes him a logical choice for a steam curator for me. I went down about the first 10 pages or so of curators and added a bunch of youtube people as well as Double Fine, Idle Thumbs, and a bunch of others that I discovered through that network.

 

Oh man, Sunless Sea talk finally happened! It's fun seeing how people who aren't familiar with the Fallen London setting interpret the weirder corners of it.

 

Wait, so London sank into the sea and then came out the other side and is now on a Sunless Sea? At this point I'm probably going to buy it but I still have no idea what the setting is.

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It's fucking gross that TB is not only at the top of the Steam curators list, but has nearly three times as many followers as the second most-popular curator. Also that he was one of the first to accuse Zoe Quinn of breaching "journalistic ethics" and then put a game he was paid to cover on his list. Ugh.

 

Not having any context about his comments on the Zoe Quinn issue, I like his taste in games, which makes him a logical choice for a steam curator for me. I went down about the first 10 pages or so of curators and added a bunch of youtube people as well as Double Fine, Idle Thumbs, and a bunch of others that I discovered through that network.

 

Oh man, I actually went off on this topic in the Thumbs IRC chat last night. Without recounting my feelings on TotalBiscuit's extremely toxic role in GamerGate, I seriously do hope that some sort of functionality to remove the Steam Curator tab or at least (such as selecting "Not Interested" with actual games) opt out of having curators suggested for you - because it's really bringing down my user experience every time I load up the Steam storefront and have to see TotalBiscuit's shitty top hat. Theoretically, I could just go follow a half-dozen other curators in order to no longer see him as a recommendation, but with all due respect to Idle Thumbs, I know about Far Cry 2 already.

 

By the way, not to derail this further, but the reason I started talking about TotalBiscuit last night is that, while searching for the Idle Thumbs tastemaker list, I noticed that immediately above them in follower count was this bastion of ethics and journalistic integrity.

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I actually think the trope of a young woman being trained by an older, wiser man is fairly common. The most egregious example I could come up with is Buffy, where there were two prominent male characters who filled that role. Sadly, I can't think of any examples where an older woman trains a younger woman in anything but seduction techniques or how to be a good wife/mother.

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I actually think the trope of a young woman being trained by an older, wiser man is fairly common. The most egregious example I could come up with is Buffy, where there were two prominent male characters who filled that role. Sadly, I can't think of any examples where an older woman trains a younger woman in anything but seduction techniques or how to be a good wife/mother.

The last season of Buffy! But that part was bad.

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I actually think the trope of a young woman being trained by an older, wiser man is fairly common. The most egregious example I could come up with is Buffy, where there were two prominent male characters who filled that role. Sadly, I can't think of any examples where an older woman trains a younger woman in anything but seduction techniques or how to be a good wife/mother.

 

Y: The Last Man comes to mind. I believe there are a few flashback scenes where Agent 355 is being trained by an older woman agent, the previous Agent 355. But that's a pretty minor plot point.

 

What was the name of that Japanese indie game Dark Souls/Metroidvania? That sounded cool. Anyone played it?

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The last season of Buffy! But that part was bad.

All seasons really. Either Giles, Spike, Angel, even Xander fill that paternalistic, I'm-your-stand-in-father role.

(I was a teenage Buffy devotee who has since strongly soured on the show but I will always love season 3.)

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