Idle Thumbs

There's something strange about the person facing you—as though their face isn't quite their own. Strange. Everything seemed fine when you were talking online about resource management games and the new Hitman. They even had some great tips to deal with your rodent infestation. But now something seems off. You confidently offer a handshake, but just then, they go in for the fist bump. Oh, God. It's all over now.

This week, game developers gather in San Francisco to confer. Chris, Nick, Jake, and Steve swap stories from this year's Game Developers Conference including Super Hypercube and VR as its own medium, a look into the creation of Darkest Dungeon and finding, and adapting to your audience, and Nick Breckon's return to the NBA.

We paid some of the smartest and most hardworking university-grade linguists to translate the contents of this week's episode into a language you will understand. Unfortunately they were unable to finish their work, as one was suddenly gored by an elk, the others are caught up in a cheating scandal surrounding the game of Bridge, and a randomly propagated fire seems to have engulfed the room they were using to do most of their work. We were able to save one notebook from the blaze, a notebook empty except for the phrase, "You are the One."

This week we take a look at harbingers of our dark future that are not only available today, but can be controlled with an Xbox 360 controller. We dive into the final release of SUPERHOT and become sweat-soaked, tool-assisted killbots for reasons too convoluted to bother with, and chase that down with videos of a new silent robotic BigDog, and its encounter with a very agitated normal small dog.

Boston Dynamics has upped its robot game, advancing the state of cybernetics ever further. Meanwhile, all we've been doing is playing some video games. So grab your hockey stick, your basketball, and your devil dagger, because the clock is counting down, the future of humanity is on the line, and all eyes are on you. It's time to bust a signature move. Featuring James Spafford as Jake Rodkin, and Robot Jake Rodkin as Jake Rodkin's introductory spiel.

This week we dream of success in the face of almost certain failure. Of reaching out and, just for a second, really feeling like you've achieved something. A soldier in XCOM 2 lasts long enough to top the squad leaderboard, long enough to earn a permanent seat on the transport ship, long enough that we recognize her trademark smirk, but no longer. In NBA 2K16, a five foot eleven kid gets drafted out of high school, makes his family proud, and even plays in a few games, before his teammates conspire against him and sink his career. A video game podcast produces 250 episodes over eight years.

Today's the day. Today you can play all those games you've been eyeing but didn't feel you had the time. Unfortunately you only have a couple spare hours, and those games are XCOM 2, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and the goddamn Witness. This week we scratch the surface of some great games, and share our impressions with you. Welcome to the half-take special.

Happy birthday to you. We're getting really into The Witness, and we've kept it spoiler-free. Happy birthday to you. Nick has also joined Chris in his Just Cause 3 devotion, and we mull over the lineage and legacy of Myst. Happy birthday to you. There's also a teddy bear that keeps singing "Happy Birthday to You." Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to—

Welcome, cadet. Your mission: go back in time, and kill baby Hitler. To assist you in this perilous but vital task, you will be outfitted with an array of dice, two decks of standard playing cards, a two-stroke go-kart engine, one swarm of bees, and a Carl's Jr. Western Bacon Cheeseburger. Good luck. Never give up. Never surrender. Oh, and if you see Winston Churchill, give him this teddy bear for me.

This episode contains three documented favorite words of Nick Breckon, age 3. Mesmerized: Jake tries a Vive for the first time and briefly forgets his friends, loved ones, and the world around him. Process: Chris spends more time with Just Cause 3 and his feelings become increasingly mixed. Anxiety: As Valve opens the Half-Life and Portal universes up to the community to make and sell expansions, we fret over the future of some of our favorite games. Plus we play Oxenfree, get excited for The Witness, and fall into the surrealistic adventure that is Nick's childhood.

You soar over a Mediterranean villa and find it so thrilling you think, "Hey, I'll build myself a new computer so this looks nicer." In the time it takes you to have this experience and this thought, a plastic robot toy built in 1985 completes Super Mario World. You remember throwing out the unused cables from your old power supply and curse. The plastic robot toy effortlessly re-programs the old Nintendo game, unlocking secrets not seen in Mario World's 25 year lifetime. The third CPU re-seat fails. As you wipe the thermal paste from your hands and start again, the robot turns off and is carried from the stage to rapturous applause.

Jake Rodkin has vanished. In his absence, we discuss Bushido Blade, Yakuza 5, Rainbow Six: Siege, and the obscure Japanese open-world game Mizzurna Falls. Which can mean only one thing: Steve "Hot Scoops" Gaynor has returned.

The new year should be treated as a time of opportunity. A time to seek out fresh experiences, to get motivated to try some things you normally wouldn't. It's also a time to collapse in a tired heap and take a break to recharge. It is for both these reasons that we're bringing you an Idle Thumbs Network Sampler this week: You get a taste of the other great shows we host here at Idle Thumbs, and we get a quick breather to rest our weak old bones. We'll be back next week with a full new episode!

For many, this is the season of cheer and joviality, a time best spent close to family and loved ones. For others (like Nick Breckon), its the perfect time to dip a first toe into Dwarf Fortress and disappear from this world altogether. Plus, Chris shares his experiences with the top-down shooter Helldivers, and we take a look back at Star Wars games of the 1990s.

Your favorite creators are coming back, they've brought your favorite games, and to play them all you have to step into this skintight vibrating body suit. Plus, Nick returns to Crusader Kings 2 with disastrous (if unsurprising) results, and we stare straight into the surreal heart of the Frog Fractions 2 ARG.

Come in, come in… Ah, I'm surprised to see YOU wearing that hat. But welcome. My name is Dr. Caligari. I mean Dr. Strangelove. Actually, call me Dr. Langeskov. Sit back and let's take a look into your history. Boy, there are a lot of murders, aren't there? Very…densely packed. And more tweets than I expected. Still, we'll see if we can't find some gems… Just a little puzzle game joke there, ha ha. I know you love your companion apps. Hmm. It appears your original family name is "Bredon." Well, you know what they say: It all starts with a doctor and ends with an emerald.

It seems like whenever you move, she moves. Whatever drives her, she sees to know a lot about you, but you don't know where she came from, where she's going, or how you can see more of her. You sit alone in your settlement and hope she comes by again.

Now that the mobile companion apps to our favorite hardcore economic simulators and open world roleplaying games have sucked all the time out of our lives, we take a deep dip into the Idle Thumbs mailbag.

Fallout 4 has us in its thrall, but we still have questions. What would a Fallout sequel be like if it was set in the Middle East, or South America? If you're a Raider and your parents immigrated from Tuscany, does that make you a Tuscan Raider, or a Tuscan-American Raider? Why do you have to hold the shift key to navigate menus with WASD? What's "tatoes?" Plus, we talk about the lost Fallout sequel "Van Buren," and Chris' experience with Kero Blaster.

This house survived three wars, countless natural disasters, and the end of civilization as we know it. If these walls could talk, the stories they could tell might change your life. Unfortunately for these walls, they'd look pretty great lining my settlement's new basketball court. Sorry, walls, Fallout 4 is here.