Brad Shoemaker, Destiny apologist

Since Destiny's launch, I have gotten a kick out of how much of a Destiny apologist Brad is. After listening to the GOTY Day 1 podcast, it seems these deliberations might be a rough one for Mr. Shoemaker in this regard.

What do you guys think? Are you amused by his apologist nature? Do you find it annoying or aggravating? To me, it's funny but borderline sad as it almost seems like he's a man in denial about the true nature of the game he loves.

He enjoys it, I don't give a fuck. It might get annoying during the final talk, but the same can be said about Jeff not liking Shadow of Mordor.

Fuck Shadow of Mordor. It plays well but the story is garbage and the mission design is terrible.

It is an opinion. As long as he backs up his opinion with sound arguments, I don't see a problem. He argues for the games he is passionate about.

Seems to totally disregard how atrocious it is whilst saying and agreeing with Jeff about how its terrible. Quite a feat.

People can like or dislike whatever they want. Get over yourselves.

Pretty condescending to label someone's enjoyment of a game as "apologism."

@zeik said:

I have never begrudged any of the GB guys (or, anyone for that matter) about what they like or dislike. I was just curious as to what you guys think about Brad's apologist nature when it comes to Destiny because he has to come to its defense a lot and I, personally, have found it quite amusing. Let's make things clear: I am neither bitching about nor attacking Brad for his defense of the most disappointing game of the year.

I didn't love it or anything. I was mostly referring to what it can do to conversations - as evidenced by the Skyrim GOTY and Ryan just going "OKAY IT'S SKYRIM" to end the discussions, Brad can be a pain when he likes something a lot and as evidenced by the ME2 vs RDR debate, Jeff can be just stubborn as shit to the point of childishness when he doesn't like a game. But that's just me. The last GOTY convo I truly enjoyed was 2009, since the Uncharted 2 vs. Batman: Arkham Asylum debate was really fun and fair.

Ahahaha...

This is a bit, right?

@beyond_recall said:

You must not listen to the podcasts or watch the Detiny-related QLs and so on very often; Brad has an almost admirable way of trying to create a positive out of Destiny's many glaring weaknesses.

@jeffrola: It is actually possible to enjoy something that other people don't. What you may consider a weakness is something he may honestly enjoy.

It's much like how people bitch and moan about turn-based combat in JRPGs when that's what I legitimately prefer. Destiny has its flaws, but it clearly has qualities that people like Brad enjoy, whether or not you or anyone else feels the same.

The only reason he comes off as an "apologist" is because everyone else on the Bomb crew does not enjoy it like he does.

I think it's a bit harsh to qualify Brad as an "apologist" when most of his reasons for defending parts of Destiny come from aggressive (friendly/comical) pressure from the rest of the crew. I think he is just trying to get the crew to agree with him by not sounding obsessive. He doesn't want to sound like a radio-host living in his/her trailer who talks about UFO's all day.

I feel like if were going to go down the path of calling (most) people who defend Destiny's flaws as "Apologists," we need to target other communities. For instance, anyone who defends Demon/Dark Souls difficulty/story.

Well, if people on here feel I'm being harsh or attacking Brad, I certainly did not mean anything by it; like I said, I've just been amused by his reaction to Destiny when discussing it with the other guys. I like Brad a lot so it was never meant as a negative.

This will happen.

This will not.

I'm a big fan of Brad for 51 weeks of the year but man when GotY podcast time comes around it goes bad. I have no doubt Destiny will be getting the Brad defense this year. Can't say he's not persistent that's for sure!

Just because you don't find anything to enjoy about Destiny doesn't mean others don't. You don't have to agree with Brad or anyone else's enjoyment of Destiny, but don't act like the fact people like the game is some character defect.

@jeffrola: I think it's just human nature/brad nature to get a little defensive about stuff you enjoy when everyone else around you is being negative.

God rest his soul - may he spend eternity abreast in loot.

I don't like Destiny but I love hearing people be passionate about games

At least Brad can see its faults, he is just trying to explain why he likes it

FINALLY! Someone gets it! :p

The standard comment in threads like this. God forbid we discuss anything about the crews oppinions.

I'm not at the end of the best looking category but even if destiny doesn't make it in, it's still one of the best looking game of the year. You might say that's part of its downfall too. The fact that Bungie's art design is so dense and well realized destroys the capacity for mass production of content. Every area in Destiny is packed full of detail (often beautiful but completly unecessary detail), the exotic guns and end game gear are super good looking and the enemy design is distinctive and awesome.

I know it's the cool thing to hate on destiny but there's still a lot to like about that game which makes it that much more disapointing.

So, it's like Destiny?

There's an imaginary number of good reasons to consider Destiny for the Giant Bomb Goty discussions. Its a good. Game, you guys.

The Skyrim vs. Saint's Row debate was a grueling one. An entire version of Skyrim is broken but Saint's Row the Third has a couple of glitches so it didn't deserve the Goty? I don't mind Skyrim beating Saint's Row but "Saint's Row was buggy" was not the argument to make against Skyrim.

@blu3v3nom07: That video is amazing, thank you.

I can kinda see where Brad is coming from with Destiny. I played a TON of it. I had 3 chars I was running for gear. Two 30 titans and a 29 hunter. I even enjoyed it. However if you asked me about the game, I had NOTHING good to say about it. Somehow it scratched that loot/grind itch. Something drew me to play the game, however under no shape or form will I defend it as a good game. I think it needs the negativity, and bad press to impress upon Activision, and Bungie how badly they screwed up.

This crap is precisely why GOTY is garbage. Opinions are fine, but trying to make an ordered list of 10 games from different genres is borderline insane.

If each list was just an un-ordered recommendation of a few games that each person liked, then it would be fine. But the constant bickering / annoying bullshit that comes with these discussions just feels like drama for the sake of it. Hell, look at the posts above - people are arguing between fucking Saints Row and Skyrim. I like both games and will only play one of them if I am in the mood for it. Choosing between one or the other is like saying you'll only stick to either Tirasmisu or Ice cream for dessert for one entire year.

I dunno man, I guess GOTY was just never for me. At least the crew gets to make some fun videos out of the whole thing.

@blu3v3nom07: that was great.

It's not disagreeing with their opinions that's the issue, it's the way it's done. Like, say, creating a thread that frames the discussion as "What do you guys think, is it funny that Brad is so wrong, or is it sad that Brad is so wrong?" That's not a discussion, it's a Colbert segment.

Without the interesting aesthetic design or the illusion of depth yes.

What I love about Brad's Destiny discussion is that he knows the game isn't perfect. He's not going to tell you it is, but he can't let it go.

It's like a bad relationship and all his friends are saying "you can do better!" But that 6 week jaunt just left a mark on him.

I spent 5 hours in the Destiny beta, thought it was ok yet massively flawed. Although you can't help what you fall in love with, so what Brad decides to do is none of my business.

He doesn't, which is the issue. The most indignant he got about defending Destiny was when he compared it to Diablo, forgetting that Diablo has far more variation of content, assets, story, and loot than Destiny. Any other time Jeff complains about the lack of content and the repetition, Brad begrudgingly concedes he is right. Any time Jeff complains about the incredible lack of story content and structure to the game, Brad begrudgingly concedes. Everytime someone complains about the extreme over-use of reputations and currencies you have to grind, Brad begrudgingly concedes. His appreciation for the game is more or less irrational and at this point he may as well have admitted as much.

You're right that it's an opinion, but it's a poorly argued opinion born from Brad's obsessive personality that we've all seen before with Starcraft or Dota. I don't think people would have nearly the problem with Brad's feelings toward it if every conversation didn't boil down to "I know most of it's not good, but I still like it."

Brad is almost incapable of disliking a loot game, regardless of its quality. I have come to accept this, and disregard his opinions on any game that might activate Brad's lootlust.

Destiny's skeleton is broken but even I can admit its a nice game to look at. Way more vibrant than a typical shooter. Yeah its limited but if I were to honor anything about it it'd probably be how it looks cus it looks pretty nice. Its the 'everything else' I take issue with.

Brad's issue is how difficult he makes concessions. He's like new congress fighting with congress from the 80s. Back then, people could be like "well I don't agree but I can admit that I see where you're coming from", Brad just digs his heals in until the other people are just like "I don't want to fight this, fine".

I think you are right and I think a lot of people are getting hostile on here not realizing the kind of discussions brad has had with jeff about destiny.

I still hate Brad for pushing for Skyrim so hard, so whatever!

@kevin_cogneto: Brad is here to entertain us and if people wanna discuss what they find funny about Brads obsession with Destiny where is the problem? I cant understand where the fire is but its always picking up heat in every conversation like this.

Concerning Destiny i totally agree with Jeff wich makes very solid arguments and raises big questions. How does a game thats supposed to be an ongoing AAA enterprise for 10years lacks even simple mechanics for questing, story, social interaction and so on. What happend? People say its a beutiful game with an detailed world and awesome gameplay and while i totally agree that doesnt explain where all the $ and years of developement went and i see nothing of a long term commitment in any of this. That is facinating... Brad doesnt have an explanation for this but he likes Destiny for what it is nontheless and hes not alone.

I kinda like the big arguments, though I'll agree that both Jeff and Brad can be impressively (and frustratingly) stubborn. Jeff about what he hates and Brad about what he loves. My favorite games this year probably won't even be mentioned, so I'm just an impartial observer in whatever big stand-off it comes to.

Oh, I think it's great! He's right most of the time, but so is Jeff. that's the thing about Destiny, there's some great stuff in it. a portion of that game is phenomenal. Seriously groundbreaking in its design in the console space. There's nothing like it on consoles (there's a billion things like it on PC).

It's just stripped raw. It's the most brittle skeleton of a frame for worthwhile content and it's insulting. I hate that I spent 60 hard earned dollars on it. If there were 50-100 more of the kind of missions that they make in the game, it would absolutely be my favorite game this year. But there isn't, so it isn't. It's so content thin that it blows my mind that the designers and publishers felt comfortable giving it to people without an apology.

Destiny is a back handed slap that hurts just right for a certain masochistic crowd.

Brad needs to be there to say "hey, it isn't the worst thing in the world" so that Bungie can understand that people are pissed because they made something good but it's incomplete. Which, in my opinion, is a bigger disappointment and failure than making something that is actually bad.

Getting flashbacks to back when people would insist that only masochists could enjoy Demon's Souls. The good ol' days of 2009.

Holy shit, Demon's Souls came out over 5 years ago. That's kinda scary. Time flies.

He just reminds me of myself when I talk about the game with people, honestly. I inevitably go through a list of every single issue I have with the game, particularly now that I'm level 29 with one character and 26 with the other two and usually end up playing by myself since my real life friends don't play anymore. But after I spend twenty to thirty minutes explaining how frustrating the game is, the conversation eventually comes around to how I'm still logging in for two-three hours a day, still having a great time without doing anything new at all and have without a doubt spent more time with this game than any other.

So for me, it's nice to have Brad in the same position, actually a much better one considering he seems to have a consistent crew of people he plays with, advocating for all the rest of us who are stuck in the same trap. Destiny is a mean game, but it's also the best one. But it's the worst one. Except it's so good. Whenever it isn't being terrible.

It's nothing like Destiny, Shin. Shadow of Mordor has a story; Destiny's stor... Shadow of Mordor has a story.

Haha, I remember that too. I recommended it to someone I knew and they laughed in my fucking face.

I'd say Destiny is more akin to the Clash of Clans type of masochist as opposed to the Demon's Souls variety.

Opinions, how do they work?

He loves the game. How does that make him an apologist? Also, what the fuck is an apologist?

Also, why hasn't this been locked yet?

Morder has.. loosely connected events that kind of pivot around the same general idea and lead to a culmination of sorts.. yes.