Idle Thumbs

Lungs howling, eyes watering, mouth agape, you stare into the light. With your throttle down and thrusters on, your search for that satisfying release intensifies, but each passing moment serves to only charge your panic—will you find it? Is it there? Is it you? Then, finally...Gesundheit! Video games.

E3 is over but we're somehow not over E3. This week Danielle runs down her favorite games from the show, Jake recounts his fleeting brush with Destiny, and why he can't stop considering the desires of the tiny Chris Remo who lives in his mind.

The thudding gets louder, deafening. You try to speak but you cannot hear your own voice. You try to look up but you are blinded. Getting up from your chair is a futile effort, the thudding coursing through your veins; it's in your heart now. You are at E3, but you are sitting at home. We are at E3, but we are sitting at work. E3 is everywhere and it is in all of us and it is all of us.

You may have thought you were buying Mario Kart 8. Lucky for you, what you actually purchased was an intricate collection of high fidelity scenarios and systems which enable Luigi to glare at people he hates. Plus, Nick digs into this week's Steam Early Access releases, and Chris goes all in on Wolfenstein The New Order.

For long time followers of the popular video games franchise, this episode offers the linchpin reveals and cross-universe connections you've been waiting years to receive. Is everything connected? Is it all in your head? You can find out soon, but the server's having some difficulty so for now please chill in this complimentary themed waiting lounge.

Enemies close in, your health almost gone. Time slows, then stops. With the world waiting around you, your choices are endless. You browse your options: A direct attack has its merits, but maybe a dash strike followed by a devastating chain of backstabs would be more effective, or maybe the whole encounter is irrelevant with the deployment of a cloaking field. Your decision reached, you unfreeze time and realize you have somehow instead bought four MannCo crate keys. Despite what you've heard, this is not episode 160, but it does feature special guest Danielle Riendeau of Polygon.

This week choice rules on Idle Thumbs. This week YOU decide your podcast experience. Do you want a small robotic camera to watch you for the duration, or would you prefer to save the hundred dollars? Would you like to experience the podcast while wearing an iconic hat available only with one of eleven pre-order options, or maybe pick that up later as DLC? Is it more to your tastes that the title of this episode is a reference to a hypothetical children's book, or to an alphabet-themed series of murder mystery novels?

Fresh from a research trip to Yosemite, we're joined by special guest Nels Anderson to finally get into Dark Souls II, talk about the incredible upcoming month of game releases, and eat a lot of candy. This episode is about neither Peter Molyneux nor Shigeru Miyamoto.

Listen, dear readers, and I will tell you wondrous tales of a strange world—a world not so different to our own. A world of media conglomerates run rampant, of cavernous pulsing synthesizers, of long-buried digital treasure. Of legendary heroes and notorious agitators, and epic contests of three-laned skill. A world where nobody has time to play video games.

The lights dim and the curtains rise on the two competing teams. The players, who cannot hear the deafening crowd from their sound-proof booths, tense and untense their hands in anticipation, their fingers dancing over the keys and mouse. The buzzer. They snap on their work gloves, some pick up mops and buckets, and spread out, ready to work -- this docking bay won't clean itself. In the audience a father leans over to his son and says, "See, this is how it's done. You should do this." His son clutches his Meepo figurine tighter, deliberately ignoring him.

It is the present. John Q. Video Games comes home from a hard day at work making video games, ready to kick back. He turns on the latest console, in which he plays a video game developer who turns on a PC and plays a video game. He wakes up screaming and rates the experience four out of five stars; his rating is duly recorded. With Nick Breckon as Video Games.

It is the future. Robots have rolled their way into our office, taken our faces for their own, bested us at our own mobile phone games, and declared victory. Mankind's only recourse, its one hope, is to sit together with some microphones and discuss video games for two hours. Enjoy our latest podcast, robots.

A transmedia romp through news, media and literacy. What does it mean to be a child? What power lies within a joke? Weaving in and out of cast and criticism, we explore the true fourth dimension of video games: ourselves. With friend, fighter, reviewer and cast regular Danielle Riendeau.

Perched upon a slender neck of expertly machined titanium, our new telepresence robot peers into the studio. Chris compulsively manipulates an ever-evolving Doge. Jake obsesses over a perfectly orchestrated techno-heist. Sean daydreams of a professional gaming life forever out of reach. Three hosts, blind to the broadcast of their lives into the socially-connected Oculus Rifts of our shared future, lost, forever, to video games. (Photo credit: Norman Chan)

Following Tom Francis' recent Idle Thumbs network appearance on Tone Control, we've invited him up to the big leagues to headline as a guest on the network's flagship podcast: this one. In the wake of a Big Dog rampage, we convene to reminisce on the week's conferring.