Idle Thumbs

It was the 90s, and there was time. There was a quiet space left in between, room to decide for yourself what was what. But then Mario had to go and open his big fat mouth. Now he never shuts up.

Jake goes back in time with Grim Fandango Remastered, Nick makes sure the trains run on time in Mini Metro, Danielle moves time forward in controlled and user-selected increments in Majora's Mask 3D, and Chris talks about a dead guy coming to life, limbs flailing, cursing at everyone. Somewhere, on a plane, a big guy in a suit plays some free-to-play game, and is satisfied with his choice.

The match is about to start, the anticipation so thick you can see it in the air. Dust2, of course. You strap on your MicroSoft HoloLens (Pimple edition, bought new) and scan the crowded auditorium. Aimbots found: Six. Wallhacks: Eighteen. You're not sure why you even came. You put the device back in its huge carrying sack and go home to manage your fake baseball team.

It's road trip week. Buckle your torn-off seat belt, and put the Elijah Wood Flipper movie on the in-van VCR because we're going to Disney World. Not responsible for any injuries of any kind including death.

You've delved too deep below the sea, to a time before human memory. A voice from your past won't stop echoing in your head, telling you lies, telling you about space, telling you things you've heard so many times before.

We ring out the old, and ring in the new, with what may be the oldest conversation in the existence of our medium: What is the best video game of all time? Not the greatest, mind you, but the best. See you in 2015! (Thanks to Matter magazine for sending us on this quest as part of their video game week, earlier this month.)

It is the season of giving gifts, unless you are Sean Vanaman, who only seems to receive gifs. Danielle and Chris get deeper into Dragon Age Inqusition, which mostly means Iron Bull talk. After that, it's time for a holiday mailbag trip through the digital back alleys of the competitive Smash scene, and a bleak realization about what 2015's really The Year Of.

Alone and in a strange place, a robot types furiously at a terminal keyboard. "dir" it writes. No response. "asdfghjk," it continues, to similar success. It glances around, looks back at the keyboard and then the screen. "load Dragon Age."

With the end of the year coming up fast, Jake and Danielle are joined by Patrick Klepek of Giant Bomb, to pull back the curtain on the deliberations and distractions involved in picking the Games of the Year, and to share some surprising travel tips the modern gamer may find useful.

Nick and Sean are transfixed by the supple, majestic fur of Far Cry 4, Chris crosses a road better than anyone in the room (but not better than his friends), and Jake stares at a real brain on a real plate.

It is time to give thanks. Join us in giving thanks for inexpensive content updates, for the Super Smash Bros. metagame, for mobile free-to-play experiences, for elephant slaughter, for knowing one's own gaming limits, for blockbuster pseudo-reboots, and for Chris and Sean arguing about basically nothing. But most of all, thanks to you, the reader.

Beppo's Hole is not a place one wants to spend very much time (it's kind of a rollicking mess) but here we all are so let's make the best of it. In Beppo's Hole, Danielle catches the scent of Far Cry 4 but can't stay and truly enjoy it until later. In Beppo's Hole, Chris serves himself up the sensory envelopment that is the Monument Valley expansion, despite other patrons' incensed exasperation that such a thing exists. In Beppo's Hole, Sean raided the larder with his three starving friends, and yes they came out fed, but far sadder for it. Jake and Nick just came to Beppo's Hole for the view.

This week the 90s are back, but what if they came back wrong? Holiday reviewing season has Danielle in its grasp, but that may mean she has just been playing a ton of upcoming Nintendo and Sega games. That and Advanced Warfare. As the old saying goes, "Behind every Dorito is a gross, super-ripped and inexplicably triangular echidna, but you cannot see him, as he is perfectly hidden behind the Dorito."

As you get older you begin to wonder if the culture has changed, or you have changed. Are you in a place now where you're just unreachable by marketing, not by force but because you are drifting out of sync with the cultural consciousness? Last time you stuck your head up and really looked around they only had level one monsters, but now they've got these big lumbering messes running around eating everything. What has the world come to?

A lot of aliens were defeated this week, but at what cost? Danielle finally reaches the end of Alien: Isolation, having given the game a complete day of her life. In Beyond Earth, Jake, Chris, and Nick have shot some giant worms and roving green animals, but aren't sure what that means, or why they're there, or who they are, or where the UI is. Sean has announced his departure from Idle Thumbs for a lucrative career in robbing banks, and pontificating on the works of Don Bluth.

The Fiver! Chris, Jake, Sean, Danielle and Nick bring you all the rapid-fire hot gossip you desire, from our hellmouths to your ears. This week's scandals hot off the press: Nick's latest Lords Management misstep leads to the product's erasure, leaving onlookers agog. Woman swoons at news, resuscitated by podcast host Danielle Riendeau. Famous explorer Remo circumnavigates globe in record time; bests noted horn smuggler Breckon. Vanaman reads novel. Jake present at podcast recording. That's it for this week's Idle Thumbs Fiver: All of the rumors, all of the hearsay, none of the scoops.

Through examining the clues laid before us, interrogating everyone in sight, and making mental leaps heretofore unperformed by man, we deduce that no matter what they tell you, in video games you'll never be the Sherlock Holmes of the story; you're always Watson, and you always have been. Plus, Danielle attends IndieCade and takes two side trips: one to an incredible haunted house, and one to Hell.

We all live in the shadow of something. We all have our daemons. When Chris set foot in the world of Alien: Isolation, all he could think about was the time he killed a billion Orcs who never forgot him. When Danielle played Alien: Isolation, all she could think of was how the love affair would inevitably end, no matter how nicely designed the posters on the wall looked. Jake downloaded Alien: Isolation, but spent the weekend playing Smash Bros on his 3DS.

Join us as we all embark on our own personal trips through the dusty dunes. After 15 years clean, Sean gets a taste of Counter-Strike and is feared lost, Chris embarks on a journey of the mind on Desert Golfing's back 1500 and comes out changed, Jake falls through a time hole into his past, and Danielle is trapped on a deserted island with Carl Sagan and Terry Gross after facing off against one of gaming history's most controversial figures. Nick Breckon hasn't been seen for weeks.

Humans of your own choosing have meticulously picked the contents of this episode from over three thousand podcast segments. Following the curation process, they will be algorithmically suited to your tastes by a robot. When the system does its job, you're happy. You get exactly what you want. You get the good ones.