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The CoNcast gang digresses immediately in this episode, becoming waylaid by the simple fact that one person is playing Skyrim and two more are playing Bioshock Infinite. Recovering a bit, I then elect to thoroughly entertain everyone by talking about the progress being made in the new Final Fantasy VI content. Finally, we each take a stab at the myriad circumstances that brought us to the Final Fantasy series and also to CoN, inspired by this recent forum topic.

This one was a tricky one to edit, let me tell you! We had to shave out almost 40% of the entire recording to get to a runtime that wouldn't induce tears in our listeners. However, it does give us a lot of fodder if we ever want to have an outtakes show, so there's that.

Source: The CoNcast Subscription Feed, The CoNcast on iTunes

It's cool to hear that you guys are liking Bioshock Infinite. I just finished a week ago. And I have to say, as a political science major with a focus on civil rights and political economy, I was extremely impressed in the game's inclusion of very little-known American historical facts. I never thought I'd hear of a game mention convict leasing, a system where corporations would rent out African Americans arrested on bogus Jim Crow law violations like vagrancy and work them in the same manner as slavery (check out the voxophone of Jeremiah Fink right after the first few skirmishes. That's when it's mentioned).

Also, I've got to say that I'm impressed with the direction these podcasts are going. Very high quality.

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

Does Tiddles sound like, and have a similar comedic timing, as Yahtzee of ZP fame to anyone else?

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Praise Be To Helix!

I suppose this is as good a place as any to ask:

So if someone say did not enjoy the original Bioshock, is Infinite different enough to be worth playing?

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

Quote (Narratorway @ 14th May 2013 23:38)

I suppose this is as good a place as any to ask:

So if someone say did not enjoy the original Bioshock, is Infinite different enough to be worth playing?

I guess it depends on what you didn't like about the original. But for me, BioInf is much better in almost every area. It has a better crafted story, animations, better pacing gameplay-wise. I would say it's a much different experience. Then again, I'd have to know your preferences, and your problems with the first one.

Don't know how Josh and Tiddles feel about it. I have some issues with it (none of those being with its story, actually one issue... difficulty's a little imbalanced), but it's a must-play to me.

This post has been edited by BlitzSage on 15th May 2013 04:38

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Praise Be To Helix!

I had quite a few words to say about it a couple years back that were enough to get me a warning that's still in effect to this day, but in short, the game was poorly designed, with awkward mechanics and a story that - for all the hype it got - was really nothing more than a rehash of Doom 3...but underwater.

But yeah, if any of it still holds true, I'll just watch some let's plays.

This post has been edited by Narratorway on 15th May 2013 06:12

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

I think you'd like it then. It does a better job at getting its story across, and it has better gameplay. My feelings on the first one was that its plot wasn't strong, but the atmosphere was wonderful. BioInf is a major improvement.

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Praise Be To Helix!

Quote (Narratorway @ 15th May 2013 04:38)

I suppose this is as good a place as any to ask:

So if someone say did not enjoy the original Bioshock, is Infinite different enough to be worth playing?

I remember that. The core game and themes are essentially not different, except that it's not a horror as such, but EVERYTHING has been improved A LOT. I don't think I should say any more than that since this game is easy to spoil.

If there's a demo or something out with the beginning in it, that was enough to get me completely hooked. I think the first 20 minutes are as good as any I've played.

This post has been edited by sweetdude on 15th May 2013 15:51

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

Some key edits from this episode include: more Skyrim books talk, discussion of race, economic class, and jingoism in BioShock Infinite (that got a little uncomfortable), how FFT has weird difficulty spikes, puppies.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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Lasz, I can totally understand your reaction to the notion of someone reading books in Skyrim. It's absolutely true that pausing to read one of these in the middle of a dungeon (where you find the vast majority of them) is a little illogical, as not only do they disrupt your flow through a dungeon, most of them are dry as dust. That being said however, I agree with Tiddles that "The Lusty Argonian Maid" is worth a read (it's just the script to a comic skit, and only suggestively dirty).

But the best book in the game, imho, is "The Locked Room". It gives a boost to your Lockpicking, so you'll want to pick it up, and you COULD put it down right away, but seriously, read it. It gave me chills.

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TA-RU~!

Did we actually talk about puppies, lasz? I don't remember that and I can't imagine I wouldn't have made my daughter get on the mic to talk about puppies (because I'm a typical overly-proud dad and it cracks me up when she says "a BUPPY!").

And BlitzSage, the things you mention about BSI are very much what I was talking about in things that later got cut. So much so that it had to be cut for time's sake, in fact. Also, it can be kind of hard to talk about that in a vacuum without it sounding really awkward, particularly for people that don't have a background in the historical part of the historical fiction.

NP, honestly, I would say at this point you have a mountain to climb over prior prejudice to enjoy BSI. But then, I also know that you don't actually like much of anything most of the time, so that's probably a fair assumption to make. I'm not going to debate the points you made back then, just as I avoided it a couple years ago, but I will say that you will probably hate some of the same things you hated before.



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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Since we're talking about The Lusty Argonian Maid, it's worth mentioning that you can meet its eccentric author in Morrowind. Yet another reason to play that if you haven't already.

Plenty of time, my sweet, plenty of time..

This post has been edited by Blinge Odonata on 16th May 2013 21:10

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www.youtube.com/blinje
The victor sacrificed the vanquished to the heavens

I easily have Lasz beat; I get into consoles several generations late.

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puppies

YOU CUT THE PUPPIES?! YOU MONSTER!

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

We also cut extended discussions on cicadas. Think of the cicadas!

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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