Idle Thumbs Blog http://www.idlethumbs.net/ From Pod to Page to Your Face en-us Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:50:39 -0600 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:35:00 -0500 60 Burnin' Down the Wolfman: Now in Video Form http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/burnin-down-the-wolfman-now-in-video-form


(Apologies up front for the audio issues during the first song. A microphone was bumping into a shirt a lot. It sounds better after that!)]]> Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:35:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/burnin-down-the-wolfman-now-in-video-form Idle Thumbs PAX East Meet-Up: 2011 Edition http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-pax-east-meet-up-2011-edition The 2011 PAX East Idle Thumbs Meet-Up!

Info for you:

Who: Idle Thumbs podcasters and readers
When: Friday, March 11 a 7:30
Where: City Bar in the Westin (right next to the convention center)
What: Games, or at least the discussion thereof.

Thanks to Marven from the forums for setting this up and reserving some tables for us! Any additional details we'll post here, but you can also follow the PAX East 2011 forum thread on the Idle Forums. See you guys there, hopefully!]]> Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:19:00 -0600 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-pax-east-meet-up-2011-edition The Award-Winning The Idle Thumbs Podcast http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/the-award-winning-the-idle-thumbs-podcast 2010 Best Podcast. If that seems incredibly nice of them, given that we murdered the podcast two thirds of the way into the year, know that they also gave us the "Most Missed Podcast" award, so we feel bad about the whole thing.

Because that's not quite enough, Irrational Behavior (now featuring Chris Remo), and the Bethesda Podcast (with Nick Breckon) took first and second in CastMedium's "Best First-Party Podcast" category.

Vote Thumb in 2010: They also have Reader Choice Awards, and as readers, we now ask you to choose... for Thumbs! While we're currently getting creamed by basically everyone else -- probably because they're all still actually making podcasts -- that shouldn't stop you for casting (podcast joke) a vote for the Thumb.]]> Fri, 31 Dec 2010 14:14:00 -0600 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/the-award-winning-the-idle-thumbs-podcast Idle Thumbs Panel at PAX Seattle http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-panel-at-pax-seattle
What: Idle Thumbs Live Show at PAX Prime
Who: Chris Remo, Jake Rodkin, The Return of Nick Breckon, Other Guests?, You
Where: PAX Prime in Seattle (get your tickets at the official site!)
When: Sunday, September 5, 2010, 2:00PM
More Where: Wolfman Theatre
Games: Video

Tell your friends. And people who listen to Idle Thumbs, but aren't your friends.

Update: PAX has run out of 3 day badges. Passes for individual days are still available, however, including Sunday.]]> Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:19:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-panel-at-pax-seattle The Idle Thumbs PAX East 2010 Wizardmeet http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/the-idle-thumbs-pax-east-2010-wizardmeet Update: We'll be meeting at the Crossroads Irish Pub. It's only a few blocks away, on the corner of Beacon St and Massachusetts Avenue (Google Maps link). For anyone who wants to head straight there, we'll be there around 7:30. We'll still be meeting outside the convention center at 7:15 and walking over though (see below), so meeting us right outside PAX for the walk or just to say hi is okay too. See you guys tonight.

As noted on The Idle Thumbs Podcast Episode 4: Super Expert Pro, Jake and I will attend PAX East this weekend, and we'd like to meet up with some Thumbs.

During last year's PAX Normal, we met up with a few dozen Thumbs and had a good time hanging out at a bar. Can we repeat that success? It's a mystery.

Who: Chris Remo, Jake Rodkin, and YOU
When: Saturday, March 27, 2010
Be more specific: 7:15 PM, Eastern Standard Time
Where: At the main entrance of the Hynes Convention Center at 900 Boylston Street in Boston, Massachusetts
Be more specific: It's the front door with the large awning (apparently)

If you plan to attend, feel free to RSVP to our electronic hotline, and we will endeavor to keep you updated if any details change.

Also! If you are a resident of Boston or environs, please contact us with suggestions as to a good nearby alcohol-serving location that you think might not be completely packed to the point of impossibility. During last year's PAX meet, our intended venue could not hold us, and the group nearly disbanded before an alternative was fortunately found.

VIDEO GAMES]]> Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:29:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/the-idle-thumbs-pax-east-2010-wizardmeet No. ...<i>You</i> Hang Up. http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/no-iyoui-hang-up
In one of the best pieces of Idle Thumbs-based media I can recall seeing, Idle Forums user Hermie posted this incredible masterpiece to the episode's official thread:

Phaedrus 2010: No. ...You Hang Up.


I just felt that needed to be shared.]]> Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:19:01 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/no-iyoui-hang-up System Shock 2: Structure and Spoilers http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/system-shock-2-structure-and-spoilers System Shock 2, I didn't complete it. That was common for me during that era--it was when I was starting to think critically about games, but before I had really gotten into them as a "primary" hobby, and I rarely dedicated enough time to absorb the full experience. (Coincidentally, Thief, which shares a number of developers with Shock 2, was one of the most important games in the development of my thinking about the medium, along with its contemporary Half-Life.)

A few weeks ago, as BioShock 2 approached, I decided to rectify this particular partially-incomplete part of my repertoire. Yesterday, after about 15 total hours of play, I finished System Shock 2. It took a bit of fiddling, but I was able to get it up and running on a 64-bit Windows 7 machine. I eschewed mods for this playthrough; maybe I'll swap in altered textures and mechanics during a future excursion.

I'm sure just about anything I have to say about the game has already been said, it being a decade after its release, but it made enough of an impression on me that I'm going to say some things anyway. The first section is about design, and is spoiler-free, but if you haven't played through the game (and you should), don't read the latter parts, because they've got a lot of spoilers.

Read the rest of this post ]]> Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:32:00 -0600 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/system-shock-2-structure-and-spoilers I went on the PC Gamer podcast http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/i-went-on-the-pc-gamer-podcast fine internet audio broadcast. As a satisfied subscriber to that publication, I was honored by the invitation and took him up on his offer. As it turns out, this week's show included Game of the Year discussion, and we each spent some time discussing one of our highlights from 2009. There were several other topics covered as well!

Go ahead and check it out! And consider subscribing to their magazine. I promise they didn't pay me to say that. Even in this era of declining print relevance, I still honestly believe that physical periodicals are, on balance, a better way to stay informed about most topics. You end up reading about more things you might not otherwise have sought out, there are fewer obnoxious flashing distractions, and there was probably at lease one copy editor who did a pass on the thing. [Edit: Unlike here, where I misspelled "least."]

Plus, especially if you're a longtime PC gamer, their all-time top 100 list in the February issue -- compiled collaboratively with the PC Gamer UK staff and folks from fine internet establishments like Rock, Paper, Shotgun -- was easily one of the most interesting and enjoyable to read "top 100"s I can remember. And I don't even usually like lists.

Finally, look out for a tantalizing tidbit of Idle Thumbs information during the podcast!]]> Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:51:00 -0600 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/i-went-on-the-pc-gamer-podcast There were a bunch of good PC games this year http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/there-were-a-bunch-of-good-pc-games-this-year another GOTY.cx this year, I figured I'd let you guys know what I thought of this year's offerings by way of my Gamasutra rankings.

The more I reflected on the list, the more I remembered that although this fall has been fairly unremarkable for the PC -- lots of competent but expected multiplatform games, mainly -- the first half of the year was jam-packed with amazingly interesting and unique PC games, many of which were exclusive, with an impressive range of indie to high-budget experiences.

Along with the digital distribution price war really kicking into effect, it's been a fantastic year for the platform. My opinion that the PC is not the place for mainstream triple-A action game experience was solidified; people looking at the platform through that lens (which is understandable, as it's how the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are sold) are likely to come away feeling the PC is comparatively anemic, but those willing to broaden their horizons and examine a more diverse array of genres and scopes will better perceive the true strength of the format.

Here's a quick alphabetical list of all the games I highlighted:
AAaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity (Dejobaan Games)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady Studios)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward)
Dawn of Discovery/Anno 1404 (Blue Byte/Related Designs)
Dragon Age: Origins (BioWare)
Empire: Total War (The Creative Assembly) (Confidential to Nick: Ha ha.)
League of Legends (Riot Games)
Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve Software)
Plants vs. Zombies (PopCap Games)
Risen (Piranha Bytes)
The Sims 3 (Maxis)
Tales of Monkey Island (Telltale Games)
Torchlight (Runic Games)
Trine (Frozenbyte)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (Relic Entertainment)
Zeno Clash (Ace Team)

The full Gamasutra article has the Top 5 ranking as well as justifications for each choice. As with other blog posts, we still have no comments, so feel free to discuss in the forums.

*My colleague Kris Graft, who joined this year, has fortunately doubled our staff's PC gaming ranks.]]> Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:03:00 -0600 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/there-were-a-bunch-of-good-pc-games-this-year Far Cry 2 is $9.99 for one day http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/far-cry-2-is-999-for-one-day You know what you must do.

(There are other great things on sale as well.)]]> Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:05:00 -0600 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/far-cry-2-is-999-for-one-day Some pretentious conference-inspired rambling http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/some-pretentious-conference-inspired-rambling (This began as a simple endcap on the MIGS roundup post, but the post quickly became too long and lopsided for that.)

While it's tough to ever assign a running theme to an entire conference, I did feel that there was a bit of an undercurrent running though a number of the Montreal International Game Summit talks I covered, about the need to expand the expressive or creative possibilities of the medium. I may be reading that into more talks simply because it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

If you're reading this, you probably love games. I certainly do, but I've been thinking about what makes games important to me, versus what makes books or music or film important to me. I think I might be most interested in the formal and design aspects of games more than those other things, partially because the way my career path has gone means I spend so much time thinking about that. It's also just exciting to be here to witness the evolution of a creative form so early in its existence. The theory and creative side of games is going through so much more creativity and discovery than the theory of those other forms, which are much better established and understood.

But there are still some parts of my life that games don't address that well. They do the "fun" thing well, and they give me a lot to think about, but they rarely speak to me the same way a wonderful novel, film, or album does. I don't as frequently feel that I've genuinely realized something about myself or my world in the same way I do when I read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, watch Mad Men, or listen to The Who's Quadrophenia.

That doesn't mean I don't get creatively excited when playing games. That happens all the time, and it's great. I love it. But, at least for me, that excitement is more often related to the exploration of game design and the video game medium than it is related to broader human revelation. It's obviously easy for me to say things like this; it doesn't take much to throw stones. And it is certainly true that (fairly randomly) chose examples of other works that were created much later in their forms' history than would even be possible with games now. (Although on a personal level, I think I could choose a number of films that are more historically equivalent in that respect.)

But the reason I bring this up is because I think games are certainly capable of more. I think games have the possibility of speaking to us as people, not just as gamers, in the same way a film by Scorsese or Bergman or Welles or Kurosawa or the Coen brothers can speak to us as people, not just as film buffs; in the same way The Beatles or Beethoven or Charles Mingus or the Flaming Lips or John Adams speak to us as people, not just as analysts of music theory; in the same way Vonnegut or Nabokov or Shakespeare or Orwell or Hammett speak to us as people, not just as appreciators of literary prowess.

Maybe some of you reading this would claim games are already there. I wouldn't actually disagree. For me, there have already been a few amazing games that speak to me beyond triggering my "fun" receptors or engaging my interest in design. And obviously there's no objective measure of this; I would never presume to decide which games have achieved this or haven't achieved it for anyone who isn't me.

As Hecker suggested, though, that crucial consideration of the "why" of game development -- along with related questions like "What are you trying to say to people?" or "What influenced this?" or "Are you trying to say anything at all?" -- seems to be less important in this medium than it is elsewhere. That's understandable, since "fun" can be pursued for its own benefit, and to great and impressive effect. Surely we've got that covered by this point, though, and there's bandwidth for more.

Smith's discussion of whether it would be possible to make a "not fun" game is also probably less important than the question of whether we can make games which don't explicitly put "fun" at the top of their list of paramount goals. (I imagine that, outside of the context of his directed thought-experiment, he would agree.) It seems as though, through iterative design and decades of progress, we have -- at least to a reasonable extent -- figured out how to iterate until we've found some fun.

I'm sure directors like Scorsese or writers like Vonnegut are plenty concerned that their works turn out "fun" (or whatever equivalent synonym you want to apply to their forms), but I suspect they have never focused so single-mindedly on that goal that they strip away any elements that aren't All Fun, All The Time. They have other goals they are trying to achieve with their work that serve some higher purpose, and their skill and experience as craftsmen allows them to keep "fun" (or whatever) as one consideration, rather than as the one consideration.

Particularly right now, as the industry becomes even more risk-averse than ever in a period of declining revenues, maybe this isn't on everyone's mind. But I think game developers who actively have something to say and want to express it through games don't necessarily need to engage in particularly risky or experimental design to work towards this goal. Intent seems like a great first step.

We still have no comment functionality on this blog, but feel free to head over to the forum and discuss this thing there if you like.]]> Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:23:00 -0600 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/some-pretentious-conference-inspired-rambling My Montreal International Game Summit coverage http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/my-montreal-international-game-summit-coverage
- Asking 'Why' Will Keep Games Out Of The Ghetto, Says Hecker: Chris Hecker warns that, without proper attention from the game development community, games could end up in the same culturally irrelevant position long held by comic books. This isn't technically MIGS coverage. Chris did, however, deliver an essentially identical address during his MIGS keynote, so we can just act like it's MIGS coverage and everyone can be happy.

- Hecker: Indies Can't Do All The Heavy Creative Lifting: ...but Hecker did do a Q&A after the Montreal version of his talk, and in response to one question, he stressed that we can't just look to indie developers to address that issue. Mainstream game developers, with their wider reach and accessibility, must do their part as well.

- Randy Smith: Do Games Need To Be Fun?: "Games need to be fun" is one of the industry's most ubiquitous sentiments, across all disciplines and genres and audiences. It's become so prevalent that it is also becoming increasingly meaningless. Surely there are other valuable and valid goals besides "fun," and former Looking Glass and ION Storm Austin designer Randy Smith has some thoughts on the matter.

- Valve's Holtman: Digital Direct Gives Developers More Pricing Freedom: Just about every time someone from Valve gets up on a stage to talk about the studio's own design and sales strategies, they hammer home the importance of treating the online PC space in the experimental and fluid way the platform inherently allows. In this talk, Jason Holtman demonstrates how developers can completely abandon traditional retail beliefs about pricing.

- Valve: Devs Should Experiment With Post-Release Content Using Digital Distribution: ...and in this piece, Holtman takes the same attitude towards downloadable content (free or paid), which come in all shapes and sizes, from long-term expansion-level additions to quick, experimental bits of content -- even content that borders on jokes shared with the audience.

- Rolston: Physical And Virtual Artifacts Crucial To Narrative Designer's Job: Ken Rolston, now of Big Huge Games, has decades of RPG design experience spanning from early pen-and-paper titles to Bethesda's recent Morrowind and Oblivion. In a talk whose rapid-fire entertainment value I failed to adequately capture, he discusses how physical and virtual artifacts are crucial to designers of narrative-driven games, for the benefit of both the designer and the player.

- David Sirlin: Keep Interface Design Simple, Concise, Efficient: Considering games are inherently interactive, it's consistently surprising and frustrating to me that more attention isn't paid to making interface elements as streamlined and usable as possible. Sirlin offers some examples of games that do it thankfully right and instructively wrong.

- Assassin's Creed 2's Plourde On Why 'Fail Early, Fail Often' Is The Wrong Approach: To me, Patrick Plourde's talk about the document-driven design of Ubisoft Montreal games like the Assassin's Creed series may demonstrate both why the first Assassin's Creed had so many seemingly dead-end design decisions, and why its sequel (which I haven't yet played) apparently gets it so much more right.

- EA Montreal's Schneider: Who Do We Make Games For?: Reid Schneider, who heads up the ultra-macho Army of Two franchise at EA Montreal, discusses the reality of the industry having to increasingly address audiences that may not be as on board with traditional Gamey McGamer settings and themes.

- Wada: Too Much Diversification Will Confuse Game Consumers: Square Enix's CEO is understandably concerned that the seemingly neverending introduction of brand new meanings of "video game" will just confuse and scare away as many people as it attracts.

- Square Enix's Wada Talks Going Beyond Globalization: ...and he also noted that the term "global" may be tossed around too often, and that it's more important to aim for many different cultures than it is a monolithic global approach.

That's a lot of articles, I know. I did it all by myself!]]> Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:54:00 -0600 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/my-montreal-international-game-summit-coverage Idle Thumbs 50: "Farewell, Video Games" or "The Shitty Wizard" Downloadable Content http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-50-farewell-video-games-or-the-shitty-wizard-downloadable-content
Adventure Games

You know, it's true what they say:



Thanks to reader Xeneth for this incredible piece of work.

Idle Thumbs plus one

Here we are recording last week's Podblast with Runic Games' Max Schaefer:

Read the rest of this post ]]> Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:57:00 -0600 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-50-farewell-video-games-or-the-shitty-wizard-downloadable-content Please stand by http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/please-stand-by
To compensate for that, it will likely be a fairly lengthy cast! We will bid Nick a fond farewell. (That son of a bitch.) "But it's gonna be worth it. Say that," says Jake.]]> Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:46:00 -0600 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/please-stand-by Space Asshole: The Video (Game) http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/space-asshole-the-video-game now available for MP3 download. In stereo!

Nick also went out of his way to create this accompanying video showing the space asshole in action. It's worth noting that the vast majority of this video was comprised of footage he simply had lying around after some FRAPS capture sessions of Reactor Zero's PC version of Volition's Red Faction: Guerrilla, before this song existed--this game is so wonderfully conducive to space assholism that there was little need to consciously sync it up.

And be sure to watch to the very end. Some of you may have seen an earlier, shorter, version of this video that the internet somehow found. This one's the real deal.

]]> Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:53:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/space-asshole-the-video-game Speaking of <i>Torchlight</i> http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/speaking-of-itorchlighti Torchlight comes out this week. He was previously a co-founder of Flagship Studios, which developed the ill-fated Hellgate: London as well as the ARPG Mythos -- and much of the latter game's team ended up rejoining at Runic to work on Torchlight.

Of course, he was also one of three founders of Condor, the Northern California studio that became Blizzard North and produced Diablo and Diablo II. Max contributed art and design to the first game and served in various lead roles on the second.

So, if you have any questions about Torchlight or other aspects of Mr. Schaefer's career, send them in to questions@idlethumbs.net, by the end of the work day on Monday, and if we get any good ones we'll ask him. Thanks!]]> Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:06:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/speaking-of-itorchlighti A brief dialogue on <i>Torchlight</i> http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/a-brief-dialogue-on-itorchlighti Torchlight at 1am:

Chris Remo (12:55:43 AM): Man Torchlight is good
Chris Remo (12:57:01 AM): It's kind of crazy how much it is just Diablo, but there are probably more Diablo veterans on this team than there are on the Diablo III team, so I think they have that right
Nick Breckon (12:59:45 AM): This team actually has enough talent to pull off the low-budget thing and make it work
Nick Breckon (1:00:03 AM): This game is to Diablo what Dungeon Runners tried to be for WoW
Chris Remo (1:00:18 AM): I get the sense Torchlight will be Diablo I to Diablo III's Diablo II
Chris Remo (1:00:23 AM): I guess we're making game analogies

(Torchlight is really good. Buy it.)]]> Sun, 25 Oct 2009 03:06:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/a-brief-dialogue-on-itorchlighti Hey I made another song http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/hey-i-made-another-song here it is anyway. (We did discuss the subject matter in episode 43, however.)

It helps to be familiar with some recent statements by Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who laid out his vision of game development at a recent Deutsche Bank conference, in particular this excerpt:
"I think the goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks that we brought in to Activision 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

"I think we definitely have been able to instill the culture, the skepticism and pessimism and fear that you should have in an economy like we are in today. And so, while generally people talk about the recession, we are pretty good at keeping people focused on the deep depression."
I used those as a springboard. As for whether the final musical result portends a game industry yet to come, or laments a game industry gone by, you can decide.

The full repertoire of Idle Thumbs music--the rest of which is all drawn from the podcast itself--is available in the left column, as you may not have noticed.

Read the rest of this post ]]> Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:09:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/hey-i-made-another-song Idle Thumbs 44: Salacious Thumb Downloadable Content http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-44-salacious-thumb--downloadable-content
Policenauts English Fan Translation

A substantial chunk of the cast was devoted to the ambitious fan localization of Hideo Kojima's 1994 graphic adventure game Policenauts. That project can be downloaded at its official site and more information about the game itself is available on Wikipedia.

If you plan to track the game down, note that the fan patch works only with the PlayStation version of the game (which you can then play with a PC-based emulator). Copies seem to be out of stock at most importers in the wake of the patch's release, but auction sites like eBay should have copies available.

30 PC games in 45 days

In the reader mail section, we read a note from a guy who's attempting to play 30 of this decade's best PC games in 45 days. He's got a blog on which he tracks the games and posts his thoughts as he finishes them. At the time of this writing, he's knocked down Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich, Psychonauts, and Age of Empires III.

That's four games in five days, which means he's already a little bit ahead of schedule--but The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is next up. If you're interested in following his progress, his site is quicksaved.com.

Read the rest of this post ]]> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:21:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-44-salacious-thumb--downloadable-content Idle Thumbs on the internet http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-on-the-internet
  • This blog! It also has an RSS feed, which is less obvious.
  • The podcast, which can be tracked through iTunes or other readers with its RSS feed.
  • Facebook, which has a brand new Idle Thumbs fan page. Become a fan!
  • Twitter, with the Idle Thumbs feed, or our own accounts:
    �����Chris Remo, Nick Breckon, Jake Rodkin
  • Our email address, questions@idlethumbs.net.
  • Our voice mail number, 55-Wizard-ON (559-492-7366)Tell your friends!]]> Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:48:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-on-the-internet I was on a podcast this week http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/i-was-on-a-podcast-this-week GamerDork invited me to join them on their show this past weekend, and I did just that.

    We discussed all sorts of things, including the ongoing assault of alternative game input methods as well as some fairly weighty topics like the potential depths of MMO addiction (or whether it's addiction at all).

    I've noticed Skype-based podcasts can be less casually conversational due to the dangers of inadvertently talking over each other in an environment without face-to-face contact and with a potential small transmission delay -- and sometimes, as in this case, that can have the positive side benefit of encouraging more fully-stated thoughts. That dynamic created a contrast with the more rapid-fire nature Thumbs often takes, so I enjoyed the change.

    Anyway, give it a listen if that sounds like something you might enjoy!]]>     Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:13:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/i-was-on-a-podcast-this-week     Resident Evil 5: Idle Thumbs & Warhammer http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/resident-evil-5-idle-thumbs--warhammer Resident Evil 5, just before recording this week's Thumbs, was to jump right into a co-op game with the first person I found starting the game at level one. This was probably the best online gaming I idea I have had in months, because to my complete surprise I got paired up with an outrageous, minigun-toting, shirtless Road Warrior type named Warhammer, who proceeded to kick the shit out of the game for me.

    Sadly, I played through the whole first level before Jake suggested flipping on FRAPS and recording some video, which I did for the second level. As it turns out, the outfit itself is exclusive to the PC version, so this should be just as new to all of you:



    In the absence of front-page comments, why not head over to our welcoming forums to discuss this episode?

    Read the rest of this post ]]>     Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:40:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/resident-evil-5-idle-thumbs--warhammer     These games are on sale and I recommend them http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/these-games-are-on-sale-and-i-recommend-them
    In a feature that may or may not recur, I'll check out the various sites and services offering these ridiculous deals, and recommend particular games that I've played and can personally vouch for. There are plenty more games on sale, but these are the ones I can speak for.

    Direct2Drive

    Direct2Drive is this week's volume champion; it almost seems like the other services stepped back a bit in the wake of D2D's ongoing fifth anniversary celebration, which is bringing more and more games into the temporary $5 fold.

    BioShock (Irrational Games): $5. Surely you know this one. I played it on PC and can vouch for this version. If you haven't played it, do it. If you have a different version and want to play it again, it's $5.

    Read the rest of this post ]]>     Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:15:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/these-games-are-on-sale-and-i-recommend-them     Idle Thumbs 43: Jeff "Gone" Goldblum Downloadable Content http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-43-jeff-gone-goldblum-downloadable-content the corresponding episode's discussion.

    Unfortunately, I haven't yet had time to edit, encode, and upload the Resident Evil 5 co-op footage we captured, but I'll get on that this weekend. Until then, peruse these other fine materials. Also, we've had requests for a blog RSS feed: here it is! Enjoy.

    Jeff Goldblum

    Jeff Goldblum approaches the security checkpoint. Soon after, the man in red proposed to Nick Breckon the theft of Gold Jeffblum's shoes.

    Read the rest of this post ]]>     Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:05:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/idle-thumbs-43-jeff-gone-goldblum-downloadable-content     You play as the...protagonist http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/you-play-as-theprotagonist Twin Sector, some bored copywriter must have just finally thought, "Screw it, I don't need suggestive synonyms for this." He cut right to the chase, as demonstrated in this Steam news excerpt:
    Twin Sector takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where the remains of mankind have been put to artificial sleep in cryogenic chambers deep under the contaminated surface of earth. You play as the hot protagonist, Ashley Simms, awoken in order to save the station - mankind's last hope. On your mission you encounter many puzzles, challenges and enemies in a hostile and threatening futuristic environment.
    Amusingly, the bulk of the gameplay appears to be in first person. Trespasser, anyone? (No.)]]>     Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:08:00 -0500 http://www.idlethumbs.net/blog/you-play-as-theprotagonist