It’s a bit cheesy to keep linking to new Idle Thumbs episodes, but we’re trying to cobble together a listenership so here it goes again. You should totally check it out, that would be rad.

This week we featured special guest Steve Gaynor, designer at 2K Marin on the upcoming BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams. Steve’s a great guy, and he writes a great blog—I’m sure you will find his comments sufficiently insightful and enlightening.

The biggest topic of the podcast was BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO, whose announcement event Nick and I attended, but there’s also discussion of weird Fable II shenanigans, Yakuza 2, and a dubious sponsorship by little-known Gaming Grub competitor Ultra Boost. iTunes!

When Mass Effect was released, I noted that I would love to see a game like this (or, really, this very game) with much of the combat stripped away, putting the gameplay emphasis on the already-excellent dialogue system that provides a framework for hugely enjoyable social interactions. You can help characters, confound them, double-cross them–it was, and it remains, the best part of the game for me.

But I will say this: while I would still be enormously interested in a game–many games!–such as the one I describe, I picked up Demiurge Studios’ PC version of Mass Effect this week and it almost feels like a whole new game. (more…)