Idle Thumbs 19: Upping the Majesty

[Chris]

Hot Scoops is back! Hooray for us! This time we talked about things we like!

"Upping the Majesty"

Special guest Steve Gaynor joins us as we sail over grassy dewswept mountains resplendent with gaming's bounty, then crash-land into an F-bomb laden cutscene. Plus: Watch your cursor drift towards the "buy" button as Nick fills us in on the Dawn of War II single-player.

Games discussed: Flower, House of the Dead: Overkill, Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, Dante's Inferno, Burnout Paradise

[Nachimir]

OMG

  AkuMifune at Neogaf said:

It's about as appropriate as Popcap making a holocaust-themed peggle level based on the Diary of Anne Frank.

  Jake at Neogaf said:

[elmuerte]

The links... they do nothing! (game links on the front page)

[Nachimir]

"Flower has this thing I also liked about..." haha

Had you guys all had a lot of coffee before this? You interrupted and talked over each other quite a lot this time.

[elmuerte]

yeah. "This podcast is like butter in an electric train" - ign.com

[ysbreker]

I want my internet connection at home to work again so that I can pre-order DoW2 on steam

[Wrestlevania]

Downloaded to me phone, ready for the drive home from work tonight.

[Obscurity]

This podcast reminds me of some cool interactive systems that I experienced in Clint Hocking's Far Cry 2!

[Alex P]

The inability to use a baseball bat not in a race is disappointing.

[The Devil Tesla]

Um, if you want to play Burnout Paradise without going through EA just get the demo from like fileshack or something. It's the entire game, which is kind of cool. You'll have to get the serial from EA but that's nothing really.

[kuddles]

  The Devil Tesla said:

Um, if you want to play Burnout Paradise without going through EA just get the demo from like fileshack or something. It's the entire game, which is kind of cool. You'll have to get the serial from EA but that's nothing really.

That's pretty much what I did. Bought the game through Direct2Drive and they sent me the serial. I already downloaded the demo somewhere else so I was good to go. I'm not even overly concerned with making a backup copy since so many places host the demo online.

[soggybagel]

I usually likes a large majority of what EA Tracks offers. In fact I've even managed to find some new artists that I'm now quite in to.

[pwnage1232]

In fact, access to the classical music at the TRAX menu was patched into the 360 version of Burnout Paradise as well! They are sweet.

[Sergey]

To the defense of the Dante game, Dante the author is not the same as Dante the pilgrim. I don't think Dante's divine comedy ever describes the physical appearance of Dante. So who knows! Maybe he looks just like Kratos.

[Noyb]

To see how badass Dante is, all you need to do is look at the text itself. For reference, Dante is the first person narrator, the poet Virgil (writer of the Aeneid) is his guide.

  Dante vs. She-Wolf said:

A she-wolf

Was at his heels, who in her leanness seem'd

Full of all wants, and many a land hath made

Disconsolate ere now. She with such fear

O'erwhelmed me, at the sight of her appall'd,

That of the height all hope I lost.

  Dante vs. a Particularly Sad Story said:

While thus one spirit spake,

The other wail'd so sorely, that heartstruck

I through compassion fainting, seem'd not far

From death, and like a corpse fell to the ground.

  Dante vs. The Sight of Dis said:

"O my lov'd guide! who more than seven times

Security hast render'd me, and drawn

From peril deep, whereto I stood expos'd,

Desert me not," I cried, "in this extreme.

And if our onward going be denied,

Together trace we back our steps with speed."

  Dante vs. The Tree People said:

Thereat a little stretching forth my hand,

From a great wilding gather'd I a branch,

And straight the trunk exclaim'd: "Why pluck'st thou me?"

[...]

I, letting fall the bough, remain'd as one

Assail'd by terror.

  Dante vs. The Winged Monster said:

But he whose succour then not first I prov'd,

Soon as I mounted, in his arms aloft,

Embracing, held me up, and thus he spake:

"Geryon! now move thee! be thy wheeling gyres

Of ample circuit, easy thy descent.

Think on th' unusual burden thou sustain'st."

  Dante vs. A Rather Steep Slope said:

"If thou be willing," he replied, "that I

Carry thee down, where least the slope bank falls,

He of himself shall tell thee and his wrongs."

  Dante vs. A Horde of Angry Demons said:

Suddenly my guide

Caught me, ev'n as a mother that from sleep

Is by the noise arous'd, and near her sees

The climbing fires, who snatches up her babe

And flies ne'er pausing, careful more of him

Than of herself, that but a single vest

Clings round her limbs.

[Lama Himself]

There is probably some people who were looking for the GTA videos you were mentioning at the end of the podcast:

Volume 1:

Volume 2:

Don't thank me. Really! .... Don't!

[Sergey]

Noyb I don't think you're helping with those quotations! Sure he faints a couple of times in the story, but perhaps not of fear.... Perhaps he faints of overwhelming bloodlust!

Don't forget the completely badass part where Dante kicks a head frozen in the ground for several minutes and gets really, really angry and then stops. That could be one of the bosses! A frozen head.

[ysbreker]

  Lama Himself said:

Don't thank me. Really! .... Don't!

Very well, I won't

[EnricPDX]

I really dug the discussion about scripted vs. open or emergent narrative. It's interesting to me how that kind of conversation tends to be framed in terms of "Can we tell a story using dynamic systems that's as 'good' as a carefully controlled and scripted story?" Leaving aside the fact that most games these days still have pretty terrible writing anyway, it seems like that question seems to overlook the inherent value of player-designer collaboration. I mean, sure, if I were intended to experience a given something as a passive recipient, perhaps the story in, I don't know, Metal Gear Solid or something might be more interesting than the moment-to-moment things in Far Cry 2. Since the great strength of games is their interactivity, though, those events in Far Cry 2 or GTA IV or whatever are always going to have more significance and emotional heft for me, regardless of how 'satisfying' they might be as a conventional story, simply by virtue of the fact that I had some shared authorship in them. Does that make any sense?

-Harry