Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, ZombiePie, am once again honored to be your respite from the dreaded "Summer Game Drought."
- Jeff and Alex guested on a recent episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast. Their discussion points range from the release of ARMS to the future of E3 as a major event.
- Over on Reddit (wait don't leave, I promise this isn't horrible) IdRatherBeLurkinghas done a great job of annotating the history of Giant Bomb.
- There's a new Giant Bomb shirt up for pre-order. BE AWARE that when pre-orders close the shirt will never be made available again. You can also thank Giant Bomb design lead Dan Auer for the shirt design.
- And we can't exactly forget how Dan finally went through with his Taco Bell marriage. Wish Dan and his wife Bianca the best using the link provided.
Giant Bomb Galleria
I Fucked At Clenchies (By: @fobwashed)
In case you missed it, or are not a subscriber, things happened during the 6/30/2017 GBE Megadate which featured Mary Kish as a guest. This poster by Fobwashed references something that happened during that livestream. If you haven't seen it, be prepared for one of Giant Bomb's most glorious train wrecks.
Giant Bomb Logo (By: Isaac_Dawley)
Over on Twitter, Isaac_Dawley published a fun rendition of the Giant Bomb logo after plans for a staff poster fell through. It's still pretty cool nonetheless.
This Is.... (By: @fobwashed)
Goddammit Steve....
@jeffgerstmann This is.... pic.twitter.com/gRBIrAYuQ4
— Steve Kim (@Fobwashed) June 30, 2017
Community Activities
The Golf Club 2 Giant Bomb Society Central For All Platforms! + Discord (By: @meatsofevil)
Check out our centralized community thread for The Golf Club 2 over here if you want to hook up with fellow Giant Bomb users in a sporting game of ball chess.
Best Of Blog
Star Ocean: Integrity & Faithlessness, tri-Ace, And How 'retro' Cannot Be An Excuse For Creative Failures (By: @grizzlybutts)
GrizzlyButts tinkered with Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, and extensively wrote why he thinks it is an "incomplete" entry in the Star Ocean franchise.
My Favorite E3 2017 Trailers Part 1 & And The Award Goes To... (By: @themist997)
Whether it be big titles from major companies or surprise indie debuts, TheMist997 highlights his favorite trailers from E3 2017. TheMist997 also wrote about David OReilly's Everything winning an award at the Vienna Independent Shorts film festival.
First Thoughts: The Flame in the Flood & Return to Orcs Must Die! Unchained (By: @mikelemmer)
MikeLemmer shares his summative impressions of The Flame in the Flood and how its attempts to improve the roguelike format detracts from the experience. Earlier this week MikeLemmer returned to Orcs Must Die! Unchained and wrote how the new Chaos Trials address his primary complaints about the game.
Everything About Tales of Symphonia - Part II: The Worries And Wisdom of Raine Sage (By: @generic_username)
Generic_username continues his retrospective on Tales of Symphonia, and this episode extrapolates why he fell in love with Raine.
God Of War: Chains Of Olympus Is Still A Fine Game, But 9 Years After Release It Feels Utterly Inessential (By: @bigsocrates)
BigSocrates recently played God of War: Chains of Olympus, and wrote a blog on how it is a solid, but inessential entry in the God of War franchise.
All-New Saturday Summaries 2017-07-01 (By: @mento)
Mento's had a big week: as well as discussing Nightshade for PS2, the Indie game Wuppo, adding more to his Trailer Blazer: E3 2017 list and (eventually) writing his early impressions of Tales of Zestiria, he also accomplished a long-term project for the Giant Bomb Wiki related to the SNES.
Join The Discussion
What's The Deal With 2D Video Game Image Scaling? (By: @alistercat)
When you play old 8-bit or 16-bit games do you stretch the outputted image to fit modern monitors? What about "smoothing?" Vote and discuss your preference over here!
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy Impressions Sharing Thread (By: @glots)
Have you played the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy? If so, join our community discussion about the repackaging and its sudden memetic reputation.
Is Playing A Series In Order Overrated? (By: @liquiddragon)
Is playing a video game series/franchise in order a must? Share if you think playing games out of order is a necessity or an abomination.
Have Any Games With Depressing Atmosphere Turned You Off? (By: @giantlennonx_x)
Have you ever avoided a game with a depressing setting or story? List the games you took a hard pass on because you were afraid they would rain on your parade.
To The People That Invested Tons Of Hours Into Destiny 1: Are You Pissed Almost Nothing Carries Over? (By: @liquiddragon)
Share your two cents' worth on our community discussion debating content not carrying over from Destiny to Destiny 2. Is it a necessary evil, or an insult to long-time fans of the first game?
How Often Do You Stop Playing A Game Because It Is Difficult? (By: @bigsocrates)
How often do you stop playing a game because it is difficult? It goes without saying we are all guilty of swearing while playing games, but what about walking away from a game entirely?
Have You Ever "Out Grown" A Type Of Game, Because It Focused On Characters Younger Than You? (By: @clagnaught)
Have you ever struggled to get invested in a game because it featured characters younger than you? Articulate the possible disconnect you have with child protagonists, and hopefully you are better than Mr. Rorie about accepting child characters.
Lovable Lists
Trailer Blazer: E3 2017 (By: @mento)
It may be a repeat, but given the amount of new content he has added, I'll make an exemption. Mento updated Trailer Blazer list, and it now includes 110 games with E3 2017 trailers.
Useful User Reviews
- @darthorange's review of Arms details why he was won over by the game's charm and accessibility.
- @themist997 uses his latest review to discuss how Uncharted 4: A Thief's End appropriately ends the Uncharted franchise without taking major risks.
- @riostarwind's latest retro game review is for Medal of Honor: Frontline! Read why he thinks the game certainly shows its age in 2017.
- @kiefer uses his Super Mario Run review to explain how Mario's mobile debut, while charming, could have been better.
- @sam_lfcfan's Danger Zone review articulates why he found the game to be a massive disappointment given its developers' track record.
Wonderful Wikis
After years of hard work, Mento has done it. The Giant Bomb Wiki has full pages for every single game to be released for the SNES/Super Famicom. That's almost 1,770 wiki pages! In honor of his hard work I am allowing him to select a few of his favorite pages:
- Rudra no Hihou: A late Squaresoft RPG for the system, with a really cool, novel magic system that let you input words to create spells. Only recently been fan translated, I've been working on raising its profile.
- American Battle Dome: I spent way too long writing about this silly multiplayer competitive pinball game. I'd like for GBWest to try it out some day, since it combines Jeff's loves of pinball, Atari's Warlords and crazy Japanese games.
- Ganbare Goemon 2: Kiteretsu Shogun Magginesu: Part of why I enjoyed doing all this wiki stuff was because of the games I kept discovering. I knew there had been other SNES Legend of Mystical Ninja games that never saw localization, but I didn't know just how many or how crazy they got. The second SNES game introduced Goemon's giant attack robot friend Impact, among other things. (I'm 100% behind Ben's efforts to get a Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon feature going.)
- Ranma 1/2 : Chougi Ranbu Hen: This one goes out to Jason, who was an awesome enough duder to give me a Twitter shout out for this whole SNES wiki business. This is the (marginally) superior SNES Ranma 1/2 fighter game, if Ranking of Fighters ever wanted to give that anime franchise another shot.
- Jelly Boy: Ending on a sentimental note. Jelly Boy is a PAL-exclusive platformer and I believe the first ever SNES page I created. Not to be confused with Smart Ball (which was called Jelly Boy in Japan), Jelly Boy had this neat shapeshifting mechanic that let you turn into all sorts of things to complete each of its colorful levels.