Idle Thumbs 75: Save the Razzin'

[Jake]

They're waiting for you etc, Gordon.

Idle Thumbs 75: Save the Razzin'

In Sean Vanaman's absence, our co-hosts are joined by Double Fine's JP LeBreton for a discussion of the X-COM series, some ruminating on your DOS CD-ROM drivers, and time dilation versus just being drunk.

Games Discussed: X-COM: UFO Defense, XCOM Enemy Unknown, Dark Souls, Black Mesa, Half-Life 2, Super Hexagon, Johann Sebastian Joust, Thirty Flights of Loving, Grand Theft Auto series, Dungeon Fighter Online, Doom (Extermination Warrior)

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[dium]

Mmm, cast.

Glad to have my question read. For what it's worth, Uncharted 2 was the only example I could come up with myself of a video game using non linear storytelling to any interesting extent. It was probably my favorite thing about that game.

[Murdoc]

[Upthrust]

I'm curious what Chris meant when he said it's a shame that from now on most people's first experience of Half Life 1 will be through Black Mesa Source. After only making it 20-30 minutes into Half Life 1 and stopping (I think because I was busy, not because I didn't like the game), I've been meaning to pick it back up again, and Black Mesa Source seems like a perfect opportunity to do so. Do the merits of the original HL1 outweigh the graphics improvements, or is it a shame similar to the way that fans of Star Wars consider it a shame that their children will almost always experience the CGI-added re-releases*? By the latter I guess I mean that there is something kind of sweet to thinking that everyone who experience this great thing that I enjoyed will experience it just as I did when it was originally released, and it is a shame when George Lucas shows up and changes that fact.

Also: since I only tried HL1 after playing HL2, JP's comments about how surreal it was for Half Life 2 to suddenly give a name and personality to totally disposable characters works both ways. For the short time I played Half Life 1, I was trying to process the new knowledge that there used to be dozens of Kleiners, and they were all jerks.

  On 9/19/2012 at 11:57 PM, Murdoc said:

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Oh goodness yes.

[Jake]

There are a lot of details which are present in Half Life 1, a lot of just little moments and touches, or tiny but deliberate creative choices, which are going to be lost in something like Black Mesa (through a deliberate choice to cut, or just lost through the inevitable lens of adaptation and re-creation). It's like watching the shot for shot remake of Psycho because you don't like black and white. You will get the same narrative content and big beats, but you'll never see that look on Janet Leigh's face in the shower scene that helped make it a classic in the first place.

[GameDreamer]

Tweeted this at Chris, but a certain part of this 'cast made me pull to the side of the road from goddamn insane laughter. I don't want to

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spoil

it for anyone who hasn't heard it but it's fantastic.

[A Tasty Shrimp Platter]

I made a text adventure version of Super Hexagon. It's silly, but you can play it here http://pyrothya.net/files/Games/SuperHexagon/shexagon.html

[I_smell]

The guy in the X-COM chat sounds amazing, what a brilliant idea.

Hey, speaking of Black Mesa Source, did you guys ever see the guy who re-animated Half Life? He took the boxy 100-polygon models and all the low-res art from Half Life and made a trailer where he basically animates it as best as possible, and it kinda looks like a brand new game!

Animation: It's a big deal!

EDIT-- Oh and non-linear storytelling in games: The Grand Theft Auto 4 DLC. Ballad of Gay Tony and Lost & Damned both fill in plot points of each other, and of the regular GTA 4 story. They intersect. Not SUPER INTERESTINGLY, but still in some fun way.

I thought that was so cool that I was hoping GTA 5 would just be a 6-hour game with new character-stories released every month that take place in the same city.

And yeah I also think it's super weird that Rockstar is, in some specific ways, stuck in a game-design time-capsule. Faggio mopeds are still in GTA 5.

[Rxanadu]

If you're looking for some more 'nonlinear' games, then try out Second Sight and Sine Mora. Both games have stories told out of order.

As for the Dungeon Fighter Online game, it's an MMO that plays like Streets of Rage, where the player is able to move right and left, as well as up and down the screen. It's available on Steam and was release in the US about 4 years ago. I would know; I was in the beta.

[Henroid]

JP LeBreton made me spittake, literally. "Testicle Rhino or Brain Fetus Baby."

Also I've spent the last week doing what Chris was for a moment there. "They're waiting for you Gordonnnnnn. Innnnnnnnnnn the tesssssst chamberrrrrrrrrrr."

Edit - Oh I'm glad you guys enjoyed Machine-Arm Warjack like I did.

More Edit - By the way I do not recommend Dungeon Fighter at all. It's a pretty frustrating game because the way it plays is very fun (it's like an arcade beat 'em up), and a lot of the differences between characters to play as are very well made, but the devs just bog you down with grinding and repeating stages over and over again. Hence the "goddamn MMOs." And not every stage is as crazy 90's false-video-game-advertising as the one I wrote about.

[CaptainFish]

Hmm, nonlinear storytelling eh? What about an adventure game in which the real characters are viewing a film split into 4 reels. However, rather than just being able to watch them in order, you're forced to go to other, later reels to figure out how the characters initially solved the puzzles, essentially breaking down the direct cause and effect nature of adventure games while also causing the story to proceed in these 4 parallel acts and blowing my mind.

[rwcohn]

  On 9/20/2012 at 1:42 AM, GameDreamer said:

Tweeted this at Chris, but a certain part of this 'cast made me pull to the side of the road from goddamn insane laughter. I don't want to

  Reveal hidden contents

spoil

it for anyone who hasn't heard it but it's fantastic.

If you're talking about the cameo, I'm on the same page

[Jake]

  On 9/20/2012 at 6:41 AM, I_smell said:

The guy in the X-COM chat sounds amazing, what a brilliant idea.

Hey, speaking of Black Mesa Source, did you guys ever see the guy who re-animated Half Life? He took the boxy 100-polygon models and all the low-res art from Half Life and made a trailer where he basically animates it as best as possible, and it kinda looks like a brand new game!

Animation: It's a big deal!

James Benson's Half-Life stuff is so good! Also that guy is a reader. I wrote him once about those HL animations and he replied back asking for more Thumbs episodes . He's working on some sort of indie game full time now, which I hope is public soon.

[youmeyou]

CaptainFish

  On 9/20/2012 at 2:15 PM, CaptainFish said:

Hmm, nonlinear storytelling eh? What about an adventure game in which the real characters are viewing a film split into 4 reels. However, rather than just being able to watch them in order, you're forced to go to other, later reels to figure out how the characters initially solved the puzzles, essentially breaking down the direct cause and effect nature of adventure games while also causing the story to proceed in these 4 parallel acts and blowing my mind.

This reminds me of Day of the Tentacle: having to solve puzzles in the past for a character to progress in the future. Not sure if this fits the nonlinear bill, but it was interesting all the same.

[Henroid]

Do you guys think those Machinima guys will do another Freeman's Mind for Black Mesa Source? It'll give them another 10 years worth of YouTube videos.

[elmuerte]

20:27 < yoyomabones> strange, just got an email from work telling me to pack my bags for a transfer to Iraq

20:29 < yoyomabones> ok just arrive at my new job in Iraq

20:32 < yoyomabones> oh cool, more people are arriving as I speak

20:32 < yoyomabones> seems like we have a pretty strong research group here, looking forward to starting my research

20:36 < yoyomabones> Civiltwilight: research takes time, please be patient

20:36 < yoyomabones> cool about to get my first research project

20:36 < yoyomabones> hoping for something dangerous

20:37 < yoyomabones> sweeeet

20:37 < yoyomabones> good news guys, its lazers

20:37 < yoyomabones> L.A.S.E.Rs

20:38 < yoyomabones> thanks, I got a couple of publications out of it too

20:38 < yoyomabones> going to speak at a conference next week

20:39 < yoyomabones> my main contribution was designing the trigger and cooling system

20:42 < yoyomabones> wow everything just went crazy here, red alert

20:42 < yoyomabones> we have soldiers here? I thought this was just a research base

20:45 < yoyomabones> great news, heard our lasers are getting their first field run today

20:46 < yoyomabones> looking forward to hearing how they perform

20:46 < yoyomabones> I have some ideas for improving the range and firing rate

20:52 < yoyomabones> one of my notebooks has definitely gone missing

20:52 < yoyomabones> I suspect Jenkins.

20:52 < yoyomabones> can't believe they hired him, he's such a hack

20:54 < yoyomabones> I overheard him pitching an idea for using liquid helium instead of nitrogen to cool the laser rifles we're developing

20:54 < yoyomabones> that was my idea!

21:00 < yoyomabones> was thinking today about my first patent http://bit.ly/QP0S6l

21:01 < yoyomabones> none of us ever dreamed we'd get to implement some of our ideas in the real world

21:03 < yoyomabones> ok opening the envelope now

21:04 < yoyomabones> first report from the field

21:04 < yoyomabones> 'COMPLETE SUCCESS, ALIEN DESTROYED WITH 2 SHOTS'

21:04 < yoyomabones> yes!

21:04 < yoyomabones> gonna be a sick party tonight!

21:06 < yoyomabones> oh I guess there's no party after all

21:07 < yoyomabones> turns out there was an injury in the field

21:07 < yoyomabones> apparently he's ok though and expected to make a full recovery

21:08 < yoyomabones> they've sent him to the local hospital apparently

21:08 < yoyomabones> Oh no it was Carl, I think I met him on my first day here

21:08 < yoyomabones> actually he was kind of a jerk

21:13 < yoyomabones> hang on, did that report say 'alien'?

21:14 < yoyomabones> we are not alone.

21:21 < yoyomabones> had a terrible sleep last night, so much noise from the construction site next door

21:22 < yoyomabones> don't think I'll be very productive today

21:23 < yoyomabones> why would they build right next to our living quarters?

21:29 < yoyomabones> elerium, the fabled element of fools and cranks

21:29 < yoyomabones> doesn't exist

21:30 < yoyomabones> the idea that there could be elements "between" the boxes of the periodic table?? give me a break

21:34 < yoyomabones> sounds like the ship just got back from the mission

21:34 < yoyomabones> let's see if they got anything interesting

21:34 < yoyomabones> here comes the sweet sweet loot

21:35 < yoyomabones> the boss just gave a speech to the whole research team

21:35 < yoyomabones> seems like a decent guy, J.P. is his name

21:36 < yoyomabones> not sure who those two shadowy guys in sunglasses and trenchcoats were behind him

21:39 < yoyomabones> saw my first alien today. They're so... small. Cold and clammy skin, similar to a sting-ray.

21:39 < yoyomabones> can't wait until the containment facility is complete

21:42 < yoyomabones> received my first sample of the unidentified element from the alien spacecraft today

21:42 < yoyomabones> it's incredibly dense, I estimate an atomic number of 115 or 116

21:43 < yoyomabones> but how can that be stable? according to nuclear physics it should have a half-life of several microseconds at most!

21:47 < yoyomabones> oh no, the elerium wasn't as stable as we expected, there's been a horrible accident and the lab has caught fire!

21:47 < yoyomabones> AARRGGH MY ARM IS ON FIRE

21:48 < yoyomabones> SEND HELP, I'M COMPLETELY ON FIRE!!!

21:48 < yoyomabones> <session ends>

[Twig]

I just wanted to say that JP and Evan are great additions to the 'cast/streamin' and I'm glad their participation isn't being limited to one or two instances every few months. (I think I remember at least JP participating in the longpast, but it seems a more regular occurrence now. Which is rad.) THUMBS. UP.

Now I will finish listening to this episode. U:

[I_smell]

  On 9/20/2012 at 3:43 PM, Jake said:

He's working on some sort of indie game full time now, which I hope is public soon.

If the game is WARSOUP from M00N STUDIOS then there's a couple early dev videos of it on Youtube, and the animation is mega sweet.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Oh man! yoyomabones' saved chatlog! That's amazing! Thank you so much!

Great episode guys, but I think this one really exemplified what is by FAR the worst part about Idle Thumbs. It's so good that it makes me not want to listen to any other podcasts. I started listening this summer and I'm all caught up now, and I can't find anything else to listen to that isn't a big disappointment

Jake seemed pretty hard on Black Mesa Source for only having played an hour of it. They didn't add iron sights to the guns - they only added them to the revolver, and even then it was because the revolver had the added zoom + accuracy secondary fire in HLDM so they decided to recreate that because they also play to recreate HLDM. I think BM:S is super well done and it's a really interesting remix of the original. For a game that in large parts I basically have memorized, it's really wonderful to see another team's take on it. Things like moving the crowbar location or changing the weapon order keep things fresh and more importantly help me reflect on the sorts of choices Valve made (and on the ones the BMS team made) because I now have a pretty good comparison. Because I don't make or test games I don't have a lot of opportunities to play for myself the difference between getting a weapon in place X and getting a weapon in place Y and it's neat to see how changing something like that ends up impacting my experience. There are lots of great touches, too, like how when you reach a ladder that the NPCs can't follow you on, they'll make some remark about it instead of just being left behind in silence.

The funicular conversation also had me in stitches. I suspect the word might be more common in other parts of the world, specifically those parts of the world where Deus Ex 3 was made. In fact I think it's pretty telling that the funicular in the game is in Montreal, the same city that the game was made in, so when they were recreating their city in the game they probably just referred to the funicular all the time because for people living in Montreal, saying "funicular" constantly is totally sensible when you live in a city with a funicular and are putting that very funicular into the game.

[youmeyou]

Another Castle and A Life Well Wasted are two podcasts I rate alongside Idle Thumbs (both are no longer recording though I do see some stuff from ALWW this year). Mainly because they tend to talk about things other than how entertaining a certain game is. Though there are plenty of podcasts that do have elements of that, along with the traditional buyer's guide stuff. Like: Giant Bombcast, Weekend Confirmed and Gamers with Jobs.

[castorp]

Regarding linearity in games, I'd say 'To the Moon' is a great quite-recent game to look at. The gameplay itself is linear for the most part, only some small places are optional, you mostly follow a given path, but the story it tells is very much non-linear on several layers.

I don't spoil the story, only speak about it in very (!) broad terms without mentioning any particulars, but if you know you will play the game tomorrow I think it's best to go at it with the fewest information possible. You should play it!

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You discover a persons life going through memories starting from the most recent going back. You find 'strange' things, fragments of this lives stories in the 'real' world (outside of said memories) as well, but only with the help of those memories you can piece everything together. Because you know how the story 'ends' - that is the starting point of the game - every new piece is much more emotionally potent, can open up whole new meanings to things you thought you knew before, whole perceptions you had about a character change with one small detail, question marks disappear but rather just make room for several others. And it all comes together very well in the end/beginning. I had tears in my eyes.

[JPL]

  On 9/20/2012 at 5:12 PM, elmuerte said:

20:27 < yoyomabones> strange, just got an email from work telling me to pack my bags for a transfer to Iraq

...

BRILLIANT. Thanks for posting this!

and thanks so much for listening!

[pabosher]

  On 9/20/2012 at 7:03 PM, youmeyou said:

Like: Giant Bombcast, Weekend Confirmed and Gamers with Jobs.

Yeah! Woo! I heard a great British guy on that show a couple weeks ago. He sounded totally awesome and sexy.

[mikemariano]

The

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Goldblum Noises

were glorious.

[Twig]

  On 9/20/2012 at 8:44 PM, mikemariano said:

The

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Goldblum Noises

were glorious.

Man, I was sitting at my desk at work, programming, not really listening at the time. At first I thought I was hearing things? Then it starts getting louder. Louder. Louder! I fucking lost it.