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 I think about Fable II, I think about real estate and sex.

That’s not to say the game’s mechanics surrounding those elements define the game, but I’ll focus on them here because they are areas not commonly explored in the actual gameplay mechanics of most fantasy-set action RPG.

At least, they aren’t often included with this kind of impressively egalitarian scope. With remarkably few exceptions, all property that seems like it should be ownable in the game can be purchased, be it a private home or a place of business. This includes a castle.

And matching that breadth, so too can you marry or engage in (strictly off-screen) intercourse with nearly any non-quest-related NPC with whom your sexual orientation and gender are compatible; each citizen is classified as straight, gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and nobody in Albion has passed a defense of marriage amendment.

Developer Lionhead Studios (and, one suspects, designer Peter Molyneux in particular) very much wants you to be aware of its sex-related feature set: the first item I encountered for sale by a merchant was a condom. Not long afterwards, my dog excitedly guided me to some buried treasure, and then panted and wagged his tail excitedly as I dug up another prophylactic. (more…)

So far, so good with the weekly schedule. We recorded the second episode of Idle Thumbs last night and got it published this morning.

This week features plenty of hands-on reporting on Diablo III and StarCraft II, as well as discussion about the various Blizzard announcements (some of which are a little controversial) and a bit from TGS. There’s also plenty of hands-on from LittleBigPlanet and Fable II. Hands-on is in the air. ‘Tis the season.

Also, I composed and recorded the track “The Fanboy’s Lament,” this episode’s namesake. It can be heard during the podcast in context, with the discussion of the events that prompted it, or downloaded directly from the Idle Thumbs front page. The goal is to feature this kind of musical interlude from time to time on the show if people enjoy it.

Be sure to subscribe to our RSS if you haven’t yet, and we do have iTunes up now. Tell your friends about Idle Thumbs! We don’t really know how to promote this thing.

And feel free to send questions, comments, or feedback to questions@idlethumbs.net — we’ll read and address it on the show.