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The whole story arc bugged me, but episode 49 was one of his best. Here's hoping episode 50 doesn't suck. But even if it does suck, we'll laugh it off and be able to watch 40 traditional episodes before he starts building up to the big 100.

Volume 50: War of the Thinkers

Well, that was...interesting. The fun is enough thing during the credits was referring to the Rev Rant video Fun isn't enough. In that video, the man believes that if games continue to not be relevant, artistic, or intelligent and recolor the same concepts we've had over the years, the medium won't go anywhere. How the story arc of the Game Overthinker acts as a counter point to that is what's confusing me. I'd really like to see the Overthinker make an episode and title it "Fun is Enough" just so he can explain himself. Of course, he would be talking about video games, and not wacky web shows story arcs like the one he just finished.

That's really the only topic expressed in this video, albeit indirectly. I want to know if the Game Overthinker believes the medium will be okay if it's still dominated by shooters for the next few years. We seem to have gotten over it over time. If a game really is fun, then that's all it needs to be for the player, right? And if you don't find a game entertaining for any reason, then take it back. There's plenty of titles to try out, new and old.

Oh, and the fight scene was laggy and the special effects were lame. I wasn't expecting anything awesome, but I at least wanted it to hold my interest throughout.

Volume 51: Putting the Cart before the Cloud

Yeah, really late on this one. So now Over Thinker has his own 1 minute intro for his new episodes, rather than the 3-10 second logo that's been around since near the beginning. I can't say I'm all for this altercation. Our topic at hand is how the video game cartridge came into being, and why it should make a return before all media systems run on a "cloud system" of free streaming data where communication devices download and store what they need to on the fly. The offer is interesting, and I highly doubt anybody other than Nintendo would consider, even for a moment, reverting back to cartridges. I would say that discs are here to stay, and that most people would inevitably protest the second coming of the cartridge, primarily developers. The only real upside to switching to cartridges would be potentially eliminating piracy (since his model included storing hard data of the game separate to the gamer's data), but again, we'd get a lot of protest about that too.

The worst part of episode 51 is not the intro, which is tolerable, r the topic, whick makes sense. It was how he was too lazy to find some images instead of just making us watch him read off his computer.

Episode 52: Dark Days

Game Overthinker has little comment on E3 despite this being his first episode after the event took place. He is most concerned with a new FPS title supposedly putting the player in the eyes of a member of Blackwater, a private military service both famous and infamous in recent years as a Black/White-moral contractor group during the Iraq War. He argues that playing as a member of Blackwater is different than just playing a marine in a war that actually happenned, and that it can potentially make Blackwater seem like a peac-keeping international army service, when they are indeed seen as guilty of committing war crimes. He doesn't want this game to be made because it can have amoral intentions, but because it would be another game that would give the video game industry a bad image.

This is the first time I've heard of this game. Supposedly it's an Xbox 360 title that will utilize Kinect in its gameplay. Can this game really give the industry a bad image? I mean, I didn't see a segment in the news about the level in Modern Warfare 2 where you gun down hundreds of civilians in the guise of an international terrorist.

War of the Thinkers Commentary

I'm a bit late with this one. Usually, he uploads Game OverThinker stuff on Fridays. Anyway, if you wanted to know why he wanted so bad to have a...story arc within his show, you can learn all that, and some other miscellaneous info about those episodes. It's a pretty good listen for those who didn't totally understand the point of the Antithinker saga.

The recent episode was submitted by Screwattack.com's creator "Stuttering Craig". So it's likely the misnumbering of the new episode was a mistake on his part, rather than an intentional choice by the Over Thinker. For now, we will consider this episode Volume 53, rather than 54.

Volume 53: Make it Rain

Official blog for Operation Rainfall

Overthinker voices his opinions about Operation Rainfall, and Nintendo's unfortunate response to the movement. He explains that Nintendo has no reason to deny localization for the three JRPGs, when they themselves have taken much greater risks in their business, in the form of releasing the Wii. I'm really glad somebody brought up the point that considering how far the games industry has come up to the point of 2011, there shouldn't even be any concerns over localizing games that the developers think the rest of the world "wouldn't get". And I never knew that the original Smash Bros. for N64 was planned to never leave Japanese shores. Nintendo's reluctancy over releasing more delicate titles to the rest of the world is bound to harm their image among third-party publishers, especially since this happenned right after they said they're going to begin appealing to all audiences with deeper titles upon the release of Wii U. It's really difficult to take Nintendo's side on this one.

Haha, I just noticed that the fairy's name "Ivan" is "Navi" backwards. Clever.

I used to love the overthinker and all his rants so much, he had great ideas, really. Then his ego and popularity began to rush to him, and he became a bit more egotistical. When he tried that storyline at first I thought "Well, he's trying something new" but by the end it was a lazy, stupid, terribly written failure, and in his newer episodes all these new people like "Commissioner Bunnyface" or "Ivan" or whatever is really stupid and I wish he'd go back to the way he was.

Volume 55: What We Lost in the Fire

Episode 56: Setting Sun

Overthinker's investigation into how arcades have died leads him into an unfortunate battle with mysterious elemental ninjas. While clearly not excelling at his job, he does find time during all this drama to examine how japanese gaming culture fits into the Western world, and what problems they face overseas today.

Volume 57: Supreme Responsibility

Screwattack.com has just undergone a complete redesign, so the Game OverThinker page was given a different URL. Go here to find episodes 25-57, and go to his youtube page to (as always) view episodes before the days where he was hired by Screwattack.

This newest episode deals with much more serious subject matter than what we've been getting. A very bittersweet victory for gaming culture.

Volume 58: Heavens to Metroid Revisited

OverThinker does a "part 2" of his most controversial episode where he tries to explain Samus' character in the game Metroid: Other M. Apparently all the mail and response over the internet he got about it was reason enough to take another look at the game. His opinions of the game and storytelling haven't changed much, and he has quite a bit of incite when discussing the game's old school storytelling structure that just doesn't fit it's modern feel. Oh, and there's quite a bit of plot sprinkled in as well.

Game Overthinker Mailbag announcement

OverThinker thinks it would be fun if the fans provide miniature topics for him to cover in the next episode. It can be any topic you want, as long as it's about video games or the show, and that it's not some simple questions he's already answered on occasion like what his favorite game is. He will pick the questions himself in order to fit whatever happens in the storyline segments that he already has planned out. I'm a little interested in how he'll incorporate the questions, but really, what topics hasn't he covered yet?

At 11/1/11 01:43 AM, Gustavos wrote: Game Overthinker Mailbag announcement

Well that's nice that he's listening to his fans this time. Wonder what kind of answers we'll get.

At 11/2/11 12:37 AM, roderickii wrote: these are my questions hope fully my first one makes it. I'm going by secondcoming

I would like to see him choose one or two questions that are asked in a negative context. Then answer in a mature manner. That would give him a few "cool points" for proving that he doesn't just ignore hate mail.

Do you even have time for video games between running three web shows?-secondcoming

He's been running Escape to the Movies on the Escapist for over two years now, and does get paid for that, and also gets paid for Game OverThinker. I can't say for sure escapist is paying him any extra for doing the Big Picture, but it's likely. Whatever the pay actually is, I would assume that it all equals up to a standard wage to live by. And since his shows all deal with different sects of nerd culture, the potential absence of having a daily job/school would bring plenty of time to delve into whatever he finds relevant. That's just my guess though.

Episode 59: Bat-Slap
Batman: Arkham City is out, Film Crit Hulk pointed out possible unfortunately sexist subtext, gamers bitched, and now Our Great Teacher and Leader the Game Overthinker Moviebob-sensei has to facepalm at the hypocrisy of the gaming community that we say we want to be taken 'seriously' but won't accept serious criticism of the content and underlying themes in our games. He also pointed out how gamers for years wanted more people to be into gaming, but then when it came were horrified by how that wish came true, but that wasn't the main point of this episode.

No, this episode was mostly about the hypocrisy of gamers on this issue. The issue where we want the same serious treatment as the movies get but don't want to be held to any of the standards people look for in movies about sexism, racism, and generally a more thoughtful treatment of sensitive real-world topics than we tend to see in mainstream video games. Topics such as, oh, let's say war. Yeah... He went into a discussion on that. How Hollywood hasn't generally made the 'war is badass' movies for the War on Terror, instead choosing to focus on dramas about the human costs and moral gray area that really comes with all armed conflict, and how gaming's representation of the War on Terror treats it like, well, fun, where all the realistic graphics and guns only serve to emphasize that the games are largely a more technologically advanced version of playing with green army men in a sandbox in their story content. Gaming hasn't had its Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now where a serious depiction that war is Hell becomes successful to the point that the whole medium gets PTSD and the glorification of war starts to fade out in favor of more realistic portrayals of the real effects of armed conflict, and he questions whether we ever will have such a game, or whether we'll just pass it up as ruining the fun of playing with all the guns.

Ultimately, he comes to the conclusion that gaming isn't ready to really be taken seriously yet, not until we can properly take criticism about sexism, racism, glorification of war, and whatever else might come up without whining or getting defensive. Not until we can run with his advice from Episode 57, where he suggested that now that the anti-gaming crowd has been (at least in America) rendered forever ineffective as far as getting games banned, it's time for us to at least take seriously the basic idea that there are flaws in gaming, and that we have to answer for those flaws.

Hearing him take it to the war games, I have to wonder when he's gonna take it to a game or genre I like and put me to the test as far as answering criticisms.

Aside from his points on Other M being crap, I'm getting really sick of the story crap in Bob's videos. It's just a distraction from the actual overthinking and isn't done half as well as someone whose actually good, like Linkara or Spooney.

On topic, I can't understand the sexist claims in Batman. Catwoman has ALWAYS been flirty. She's always been willing to use her sex appeal to her advantage, there's clearly sexual tension between her and Batman and not once does Bats himself swear or speak to her in a derogatory fashion.

Whose shouting at her? Criminals. Scumbags. Villians. You don't like these people, they don't like the character your playing. So they'll be mean to you. It's logic.

I will give him this: His point that there's so much gender-based insults within the game toward Catwoman is primarily down to the restrictions of the ESRB rating system.

Was also in Shadow the Hedgehog, in an effort to make him dark and edgey, he just said "Damn". A lot. All the fucking time.

Thanks, Soulmaster, I nearly missed this episode too since it was uploaded on a Tuesday.

This episode really felt like one where OverThinker was legitimately pissed off at us, and was totally reminiscent to Volume 35 where he scolded us for how we reacted to Roger Ebert's impression of video games. And scold us he should, for it's difficult to respond to criticism of a new game that really wowed you in a mature and sensitive manner. Failure to be polite can't really be the issue. In my perspective, there's something about gamers that can make us go off on a tangent when we're being challenged to explain aspects of our medium to somebody who "wouldn't understand". That we single out people by looking at their gaming experience and how their opinion isn't valid since they haven't played this or that game. When I don't like a scene in a movie, a song by a popular artist, or how a book was ended, I would express my opinion, and no doubt everybody would respect it; not turn it into a flame war.

certain obscure exceptions may be badmouthing a Harry Potter/Twilight book/movie in front of respective fans.

Maybe defending our medium simply means we're fans of video games no matter what happens to them. But I still seem to get the idea that only gamers would send hate mail in response to a negative (or in this case, partially negative) review. Is it because a large part of our demographic base is the internet users who see flame wars as a kind of sport? Are certain studies true that violent video games that promote competive fighting and killing really do create a more raudy demeanor in young adults? Whatever the reason, OverThinker seems to think that even though video games have just been recognized as an independent medium (at least in the US), we gamers just don't deserve the respect and critical analysis that comes with it.

For those of you watching for the first time...yes, it's THAT kind of show.

Anybody else interpret this bit as a middle finger aimed at everybody telling him to go back to not having storylines? Just a thought. As long as each episode has at least 80% discussion of a new topic, I'm satisfied.

At 11/8/11 02:48 PM, SoulMaster71 wrote: Episode 59: Bat-Slap

Well just watched it today and if I can say one positive thing that I like from the storylines it's the fairy character Ivan. I like Ivan, out of all the things he has brought to life, Ivan was the one thing I truly enjoyed and still do, I loved the ending when Ivan and the Overthinker were talking about the sword and whether or not it should be a katana, that made me laugh. Also each time it cut to Overthinker forging the sword I kept laughing.

However onto to the actual episode. This brings up the bitchy piss fit made about some an article written about Batman: Arkham City about the one character Catwoman and thugs calling her degrading names one being bitch due to her being a woman. An understandable criticism and point to make no doubt and although it's not one I agree with completely myself and neither does The Game Overthinker that's not the point.

Gamers just went on a complete defensive assault that was uncalled for. Overthinker pretty much said that gamers aren't ready for the gaming scene to be taken seriously and to be honest he's right, we're not. I mean come on I've seen some of the most whining, bandwagon riding, bullshit here on this forum, mindless trolling, and just idiocy and it's far worse out in the grander scheme of things don't believe me then go listen to Spoony's ramblings.

The gaming scene is not ready to be taken seriously, but that can change, I doubt it will, but it can. We need some people to come in and do with video games what the Academy Awards did for Motion Pictures as well as Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, yeah they're not the last word when it comes to film, but if gamers are going to be part of mainstream and want others to take notice then we're gonna need people to help bring those mainstream people in and make a definitive mark. Right now video games are not even considered art, they are considered a business first still.

Volume 60: Ninjamageddon

Wow, quick huh? Well, here's that mailbag episode he promised. Some of the questions he chose I'm really glad we're asked. Like, if he were to go back and do any of his previous videos with new insight and perspective, which would it be? Though he brought up the question of why he's still implementing storylines when his fans clearly don't like it, it seems like he kind of dodged the question entirely by bringing up how there have always been a sect of fans who started hating him after certain topic-oriented episodes of the past. His only reason for doing this expressed in his answer was that he really wants to try out new ideas and put more into each episode than a script, and finding pictures to illustrate the topic. I guess I'd be fine with that answer, but I wasn't ever really bothered by it to begin with.

But on the point of storylines, he also fights with cryothinker and pyrothinker. I kind of like how these scenes were done though as opposed to the antithinker finale. With the antithinker, the scenes made few attempts at action and was very stop-and-go between talking and actual dueling. To the point where it just became tiring to watch him fight with himself. In this episode though, the pacing of the fight was well done with fanmail put in-between each shot of the action.

Love it, hate it, enjoy.

At 11/16/11 02:13 AM, Gustavos wrote: Volume 60: Ninjamageddon

Well we got these ninjas killed off. I'm still liking Ivan, and these jewels do intrigue me. To hear that it's a show that he has full control over and so he'll do whatever he wants with it or use it as an outlet for experimentation, I like that, but at the same time I'm not completely fond of that response either. Hey at least we finally get an explanation now.

I get the purpose of his storylines. He treats himself like a video game character and puts himself in this video game like world connected to the real world. Well these jewels do intrigue me, I'm just hoping for no more characters with "Thinker" in their name. I liked what questions he did answer and he was very respectable about it as well.

So what's gonna happen next? Will these jewels be connected to "OMNITHINKER" who enjoys "NOMS"?

Volume 61: Bells and Whistles

This episode sparks some very interesting questions concerning our medium. With every game having some kind of Downloadable Content separate from the main game, does it make the game in question unfinished, and therefore not able to be called a masterpiece? Additionally, do the unspoken "mandates" of war simulator games dictate that every shooter must have some kind of Multiplayer just an annoying opinion that will pass once FPS games stop being so damned popular, or is it truly damning every game that tries to be a shooter focusing on the single player experience to being a game with low review scores and even lower recognition? Could all this focus on games having extra features and content really be limiting the experience in the end?

I'd hate to assume the worst for the last two questions, but as for games with DLC being unfinished, I think that doesn't necessarily have to be true. I dislike the concept of DLC in general, but video games aren't the only medium guilty of this. Movies are always released on DVD/Blu-ray with those "15 minutes of deleted scenes" and such. And the music industry just loves the constant remixes and rehashes of songs that any person with audio recording software could have mixed in the timespan of one day, not even using the artist(s) involved.

At 11/16/11 10:46 PM, The-Great-One wrote: I'm just hoping for no more characters with "Thinker" in their name.

Pahahahaha-RetroThinker.

That ominous little shot of foreshadowing by Senator Jack Lieberson? Yeah, I'm gonna say right now that I called that months ago when he debuted. After all, his name seems a combination of "Joe Lieberman", an anti-gaming politician, and "Jack Thompson", an anti-gaming activist. He's probably going to prove to be an unreasonable authority figure, an obstructive bureaucrat, and various other negative tropes often associated with government officials in time. Unless, of course, Bob goes all "subverted trope" on us and makes Lieberson a legitimate ally, which would totally be a cool twist.

Also, it'll be interesting to see this "Retrothinker"... Given that Bob himself is so heavily retro-centric in his gaming opinions, how will he treat this character? Remember, this is a man with a strong enough nostalgia filter that he still considers Super Mario Bros. 3 to be the best game ever made. Will the Retrothinker be an extremist parody of the retrogaming appreciation that our hero is so legitimately a part of, forcing the Game Overthinker to re-examine his own prejudices as a fan of classic games? Will he be a precursor hero, who fought on the side of good before the era of the NES and buried a bit of his wisdom below the Sharkcade so that a future Thinker could have that added insight in the battle against both the intruding chaos of the gaming worlds and the censorship that would be imposed by those in our world who don't understand? Maybe if that's the case, Retrothinker's era could have been cut short by the video game crash of 1983... Or he could be an old enemy of Lieberson's. There's so many ways this plot could go that I'm actually excited... And as a matter of luck or divine grace, the next episode is apparently going to be out next Friday, December 16. So I won't have to wait long to see where he's going.

Volume 62: Seeing Red

This one felt like a double topic. Originally, the episode was planned to talk about video game "retro revivals", which would have blended really well with the retrothinker storyline that is introduced. Instead, he felt it more urgent to yell at us again for bitching and whining at the world for unhappy with us. The victim of our incoherent rage this time was the Red Cross that is concerned with the lack of moral regulations for war simulator games a'la the Geneva Conventions established in the mid 1800s to present.

I never thought of it that way. In the end, these games are war simulators, so they should implement every aspect of war, including what is not morally okay in reality. The only time a call of duty game ever punishes you is by forcing you back to the last checkpoint if you are ever the direct cause of a civilian's death, which is a start in the right direction, but does it stop with civilians? Say there were an achievement for getting this many headshots, or getting this many kills with a grenade. To a gamer, these are just acts of "style" worthy of gamer score for such displays of skill. No soldier is ever focusing on these kinds of things, because they are specifically trained into not viewing the battlefield in such a context. In fact, the gamer attitude is specifically beaten out of each recruit before they even pick up a weapon. Back here at home, committing these crimes are portrayed as some kind of "achievement".

There's some gray area to this though. What if the war simulator was not trying to be modern or realistic? should it be excused from these codes? Or if the war simulator were of a war that took place prior to the Conventions? That's a far less common example, I know. This all seems to be delving into making games politically correct, but would that be a problem?

Volume 63

I'm a day late with this one, sorry guys. Waking up in our time after decades of cryogenic stasis, the Retrothinker must come to terms with what's changed in the medium and what happened to his favorite characters. Bringing up the discussion of which era of gaming, the past or the present, really shined brighter for what they were worth. And yeah I kinda laughed at the last bit about Sonic, sue me.

Speaking of which, and I know it was just a joke, but I find myself wondering if the release of Sonic Generations had anything to do with that aspect of Retrothinker's story. I've only heard good things about that game. If I were to write what happens next in the story, I'd have Retrothinker return as a villain who was so traumatized at what happened to his favorite characters that he tries to destroy modern developers, demanding that we see more Megaman 9s and Sonic the Hedgehog 4s. Thus ending in Bob fighting himself again but with a clash of ideals rather than the previous "you're the anti-me, we must do battle" scenario.

Hey all, while we wait for volume 64, how about a quick supplement from Moviebob on one of his other shows?

Yes, so on the latest Big Picture, he does a "junk drawer episode" where he talks about topics that he wants to discuss, but doesn't think the subject matter warrants an entire episode on its own, so he gives bite-size chunks of such topics in a rapid succession. This time, he did one that only talks about video games.

I mentioned some months back that I would bring up any episodes of the Big Picture that pertain completely to video games, since it's more or less the same concept as posting a link to the latest Overthinker episode. I haven't done this since the series' first episode about Halo, however, so I'll just restate that episodes of The Big Picture can be found on the escapistmagazine.com, along with his longer-running show, Escape to the Movies. Big Picture's subject matter mostly delves on comics and movies, and how the mediums interact both in past and present and is mildly entertaining to listen too.

Three shows by the same guy
Are
Wiiieeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrddddd

Volume 64: Beyond Sopa

Kind of hard for Overthinker to not comment on this, eh? Well, he did the right thing in not just making another video about us internet users standing up for what's right. Thing is, and I know we're all just now noticing it, SOPA has been shelved for some days now. Instead we get to discuss real solutions to the issue of piracy.

Oh, and Retrothinker gets warped to some alternate dimension. Fun stuff. I particularly found it funny how he presented the information that the silly story sketches were to now be presented at the end of each episode entirely as opposed to before and after the topic. This will probably put a dampener on the story-writing aspect of future episodes, but it is a good way to get "party poopers" to stop bitching about it and watch the damned show.

Volume 65: Open the Vault! http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/game-overthinker/g ame-overthinker-episode-65-open-vault

Volume 66: Why do You Love Video games? http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/game-overthinker/g ame-overthinker-episode-66-why-do-you-love-video-games

The Big Picture: Not Okay http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/
5436-Not-Okay

Volume 67: I, Zombie http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/game-overthinker/g ame-overthinker-episode-67-i-zombie

Well, err...heh. This is awkward. I won't waste time with an apology. On the brighter side, Overthinker seems to be getting out videos far faster than he used to. And these three have a fairly wide variety, so check them out when you get some spare minutes. Hopefully I won't be late to next week's video where he defends Call of Duty.

Also, even more embarrassing is that in these new Forums after the redesign, I don't know how to present a link to a video from text.

Volume 68: Crass Effect

Standard "please stop acting so whiny about this, guys." episode. Thankfully he admits to never having played Mass Effect 3, and therefore doesn't defend the game. Though I will say one thing on the defense of Mass Effect fans. Very many of them have bought all three games and put hundreds of hours total developing an in-game avatar that suits them and building a story out of a vast universe. I would feel cheated too if I finished a second playthrough and realized it's almost the same ending. I haven't played any of the series, but I'm pretty sure I would be upset, but get over it since it seems to be all about the experience of the game, not just the progressing story. It's a huge open universe to do almost whatever you feel like. Like, I thought fallout New Vegas' ending was crummy, but that didn't stop me from immediately beginning a second playthrough.

But anyway, none of that matters because next episode Ivan gets to play the hero. That's all I need to know.