……frank?
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Frank seems like the type of dude who would very rarely lurk here, and do so without an account.
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The one thing i was left wondering after this episode is why Ash doesn’t like Indiana Jones’ new game. Since i’ve been listening to only positive reviews i wanted to know a negative take to compare.
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Link’s in the OP if you click the reference about the game.
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My immediate family aren’t big gamers though my older first cousins got me into games by way of the Game Boy and SNES - one doesn’t play games at all now and the other only really plays the biggest releases now but I know that he still has his PS2.
I have another cousin that is in games development but largely plays strategy / 4X games but we used to play the hell out of Contra 3 as kids.
My dad mostly played flight sims, and cricket, golf and snooker games but I have a very distinct memory of him picking up Mario Golf 64, getting a hole in one and destroying me on his first go.
I wrote a review which I think was linked in the show notes but I’m actually kinda frustrated with the whole thing (and this is games journalism inside baseball here so bear with me.)
Bethesda has a documented reputation of either providing code with a very tiny embargo window or simply waiting until release date. This was true of Indy. Despite contacting me at the beginning of November asking for details so they could distribute code, I didn’t actually get code till Black Friday with an embargo date set for the following Thursday.
Though there’s been a slight shift in games reviewing meta such that publications are less willing to crunch to get a review out on time, Indy is still a HUGE game with incredibly high interest and we don’t wanna miss that traffic by delaying a review until I’ve had a decent amount of time with it. So as you can imagine, getting code for one of Xbox’s biggest releases of the year during a MAJOR ASS holiday weekend with no heads up when I have family obligations, put enormous pressure on me to tear through as much as the game as I could so I could have something up in time for the embargo. As you can also imagine this is not the ideal circumstances under which someone should review a game!!! But I had a job to do, and I did it.
I played about 25-30 hours getting about halfway through the game. I didn’t like that first half (for reasons you can read about) and that combined with the circumstances under which I reviewed the game led to my general feelings of antipathy for it and that’s reflected in my review. And honestly I’m pissed about it because I wound up playing more/watching a let’s play and I feel that the game’s back half is a SIGNIFICANT improvement over the first and I feel like my review would have been less hard on the game if Bethesda had given journos the opportunity to have more than 7 days (realistically 3.5 because of the holiday) to tinker with it.
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It’s always been wild to me that Bethesda pulls that with journalists. I remember DOOM 2016 famously surprised some people because, usually, super tight timelines are a bad sign.
Then again, they/Zenimax made Arkane Austin make a game like Redfall ¯_(ツ)_/¯ .
@esper Regarding the different mixes, instead of a Google Drive, could they be linked as unlisted Youtube videos? I’d be fine with a static image instead of the editting footage if that’s an issue.
just dropping by to say that the sick freak mix is excellent and the horrible buzzer’s volume is exactly where i always thought it should be so thank you for inadvertently putting that in the main rss feed because otherwise i would never have gone through the trouble of finding it
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@exodus Do you have a particular pre-bed / post-bed stretch routine you use? I really need to get into this habit.
I think I mentioned it in the show but it’s a shortened version of some aikido stretches I learned in highschool. Hard to describe but while standing I reach over my head to the side, stretching out my ribs, for 10 seconds, on one side then the other. Then stretch my hands upward and lean backward as far as I can for 10 seconds. Then touch my toes for 10 seconds. Then stretch one leg out at a time by bending one leg, keeping the other straight with toe pointed out and heel planted, to stretch groin muscles. Then legs on the floor as though you were laying down but your arms are pushing yourself up, it’s a yoga stretch I think. Lower your pelvis and raise your head to stretch your chest and back. Then a “bow” like position with legs folded under you and arms stretched as far in front as you can get them with your head close to the floor.
Then stand up again and swing both arms to the left, then the right, about 8 times. That’s to limber my hips and spine after the stretching.
I dunno if it’s the best stretches you can do but that’s what I get up to, just based on things I remember from class. (in class we spent like 20 mins on stretches, I spend maybe 5)
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Amazing - thanks for this. 5 mins is perfect - I think I tend to forgo stretching because I won’t have time for a full yoga session. This feels way more feasible to stick to regularly
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The best coins/rings in games are Gems from Spyro the Dragon.
They’re big, colorful, and look tasty.
There’s also a big, satisfying counter that shows up on screen, and a reasonable number in each level to make 100% achievable but not tedious.
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Nothing took me out of the movie as much as Denzel saying “hose 'em down!”
I think they’re just gonna wash 'em down with buckets!
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Hello not sure if this should go here but trying anyway since it’s the most recent episode thread.
Just wanted to say that the Alex and Esper back and forth in the past couple of bonus episodes has been very nice and any time you want to put one of those in is ok with me!
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HA! It was “Prince of Rome” for me. The Mike Duncan stan in me could not abide it.
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- My father would claim he likes and plays Columns and was excited for me to get to play Missile Command and Centipede on my game gear. He was encouraging of our playing Myst and Civ II but I don’t know how much of either he actually played.
- I think my mother is afraid of video games because I haven’t seen her try to play one since I was little and when I asked if she wanted to try Katamari Damacy she nervously declined. I don’t think she even got into anything on the Wii but I was away from home for a lot of that generation and could have missed some game of Wii Sports.
- My older brother is like your sister @jaffe and is very anti-video game but he had a Genesis that he paid for with his allowance when he was probably ten or so and did play maybe half of Ocarina of Time but that’s about the last game I can remember him playing before deciding the whole medium was a waste of time.
- The last I heard my sister loved BotW and was really looking forward to TotK, but also it was her husband that bought her her Switch and she kinda regards it as a waste of money and didn’t seem interested when I recommended she check out A Short Hike or Night in the Woods when they were on sale.
- My little brother is a bigger and better gamer than me and he should be posting here.
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Oh yeah, and my niece loves Pikachu!!! but her father of course doesn’t want video games in his house so I don’t know if anything will come of that. Feels not unlike the situation with kids being fans of Five Nights at Freddy’s without even knowing it was a game first.
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I also have a little brother who is a bigger and better gamer than me. He’s taller, too. Basically a triple trouble.
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