The Community Spotlight - 02/07/2014

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight, I am your host as always! As you may have noticed a major re-design has been published on Giant Bomb. As with all website re-designs there have been a few kinks with the implementation of this recent batch of code. As of right now here is the list of known bugs that the engineering team is aware of and working to rectify. Major issues such as the search engine being broken or not being able to edit lists are known and being worked on. If you notice anything that is not currently on the list feel free to file a report on the Bug Reporting board. Oh and it was Patrick's birthday this week! With that let's get on with the Spotlight!

Clip of the Week

The latest episode of @turboman's Best of Giant Bomb video series is all about showcasing the best moments of Giant Bomb's Sports Game Quick Look team. Next we have @hamst3r who chronicles the evolution of video game graphics in a single video.

Community Activities

• GiantBomb Video of the Month - January - Come Vote Over Here!

Wonderful Wikis

Big Buck HD and Hoplite both are two great pages that happened because of dedicated users; specifically @bobafettjm and @geraltitude respectively. Finally we have the return of the "wonderfully wacky concept page of the week," with Based on Internet Phenomena.

• Big Buck HD
• Hoplite
• Based on Internet Phenomena

Best of Blogs

Fattony12000 has made it possible for you to play as Ryan Davis in Civilization V! Read all about how you can lead The Nation of Taswell. Onekillwonder_ details exactly why Brave Fencer Musashi is a forgotten classic, similarly believer258 extrapolates on why Skrim is his personal favorite game of the generation. FLStyle has the event line up and timeline for EVO 2014, whereas BlackLagoon is back with an annotation of the big and notable games coming out for the Vita. Zakn uses the recent insanity in EVE to justify why he thinks EVE Online is one of the deepest video game experiences ever made. DevourerOfTime discusses how the first 45 days of 2014 have been a smash hit; Mento on the other hand has been striking out with the games he has bought from Desura. Video_Game_King delves straight into bullshit with the Wand of Gamelon. Tarfuin explains why he can't entirely recommend Proteus, and Jim_Efantis admits to being a trackball users and details his attempts to kick that habit. halomaste9 systematically re-reviews all of the games from the Tony Hawk franchise he played, whereas LCom breaksdown exactly why he cannot stand playing Dota 2. BisonHero raises the question over if Hideo Kojima is the man to tackle the issue of torture in video games properly, whereas thatpinguino takes issue with Brothers' only female character (spoiler warning!). D_W not only wants you to check out the game he made for the Candy Jam but the other works made for the event as well! Shivoa got decidedly less indie by comparing the dominate proposals on how to deal with video game copyrights. Scroll laments on the state of RTS games. Hailinel on the other hand shares his recent foray in importing Japanese games, including a Japanese 3DS. MarkWahlberg uses Dear Esther and The Last Express to prove that "walking games" are a lot older than most gamers give them credit for. Finally dankempster and MajorMitch are here to share the games they played throughout January.

• The Nation of Taswell, a Mod for Civilization V (By: @fattony12000)
• The Best Games Ever!...According to me: BRAVE FENCER MUSASHI (By: @onekillwonder_)
• EVO 2014 Line Up Revealed! Plus FGC News - Killer Instinct & Amazon, Lang Zone & Jebailey (By: @flstyle)
• Game of Titans: You Win or You Die. The Battle of B-R5RB (By: @zakn)
• Oops, Life Happened (By: @devoureroftime)
• Bundle Boggle: Groupees' Bundle Yourself Part 1 [Part 2]
• The Triforce of Wisdom Promises an Abundance of Explosions (By: @video_game_king)
• I Made A Video About Video Game Graphics (By: @hamst3r)
• So I Just Played: Proteus (By: @tarfuin)
• My Gaming Confession: I'm a Recovering Trackball Addict (By: @jim_efantis)
• Judging: The Tony Hawk Series (By: @halomaste19)
• Journal of a Man Who Hates DotA (By: @lcom)
• Some Thoughts on Brothers, Frozen, and Gender (By: @thatpinguino)
• I'm Worried About the Prison Camps in The Phantom Pain (By: @bisonhero)
• Candy Jam Recap (By: @d_w)
• Copyright & Limited Run Works (By: @shivoa)
• Is the Real Time Strategy Genre Dead? (By: @scroll)
• Adventures in Import 3DS Gaming: Project Mirai 2 (By: @hailinel)
• A (Short) Defense of Skyrim (By: @believer258)
• Walkabouts and Space-Time (By: @markwahlberg)
• The Gaming Agenda - February 2014 (By: @dankempster)
• Monthly Roundup, January 2014 (By: @majormitch)
• February Vita Lineup and Upcoming Titles (By: @blacklagoon)

Fantastic Forums

As already mentioned it was Patrick's birthday this week! If you haven't done so already wish him a very happy birthday! Fink has created a downloadable MP3 sound bite of Brad saying "EMAILS!" that you can use for your own devices. If you have played the second episode of The Wolf Among Us feel free to share your own thoughts about it with your fellow Bombers. Finally who would cast in a movie adaptation of the founding of Giant Bomb?

• Happy Birthday, Patrick! (By: @kazona)
• Brad "Emails" Sound Bite [MP3 Download] (By: @fink)
• The Wolf Among Us Episode 2 Discussion (SPOILERS) (By: @yesiamaduck)
• Who Would you Cast in a Giant Bomb Movie? (By: @sanj)

Lovable Lists

DevourerOfTime decided to create a list of what he thinks is a gender balanced roster for Smash Bros. 4 with a mix of new and old characters.

• What If Scenario: Smash Bros. 4 and a Gender Balanced Roster (By: @devoureroftime)

Useful User Reviews

• @dimsey's review of Dead Rising 3
• @geraltitude's review of Hoplite
• @laszlokovacs's review of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition
• @gamer_152's review of Saints Row IV

Potent Podcasts

• The Scotchcast Episode 27 - Renting Fantasy

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey buddy!

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Thanks a lot for highlighting my list, @zombiepie. The link is, unfortunately, broken for me. Maybe it's because I changed the title and, therefore, the url changed? Oops.

Thanks for the shout out zombie! I'm feeling Hoplite fever right now.

The based on Internet phenomena page is so good. My personal favourite forum recently was Giant Bomb Can Be Gangstafied. Too funny.

Congrats everyone!

any one else having issues playing best of 51? gets to 1:50 then stops playing. tried it on different isps/computers/browsers

He's on it. Looks like he published the video as the latest YouTube update was being "unleashed" and it may have eaten his video.

This has also been fixed.

Also @bisonhero I think we are even now? Hopefully?

@zombiepie: Yep! Thanks for remembering to give me a belated inclusion.

Yeah not sure what happened there. I even Tweeted it on time. Anyways always feel free to drop a link here just in case. Users that drop a comment on the Spotlight get priority on the listing...then again my listing logic is all over the place.

Oh and here's a batch of notifications to users that will have stuff on the next Spotlight:

@geraltitude@turboman(How's YouTube treating you?) @granderojo(Two reviews) @deathpooky@jeanluc (First Contact is a bad movie) @futurstock(For a great remix!) @renahzor(Keep on keeping on in EVE by the way) @bollard(podcast) @crispy(Something about Heroes of Newerth) @mooseymcman(Welcome back to blogging!) @tarfuin(How are you playing all of these games?) @themasterds(Who is one step away from creating a video game version of Zeitgeist: The Movie) @demoskinos(Hatsune Freaku despises you for encouraging cheating) @thatpinguino(I really like the term "Commission Model") @benspyda@halomaste19(How messed up would it be if my first Metal Gear game was Ground Zeroes?) @pabba(Good eye with Broken Age and good Rorie artwork!) @f1000003(Good to see the blogs are back)

Great work everyone! You'll all have something on the next Community Spotlight!

For anyone who's wondering why the review links don't work, there's a bit of a glitch with the site right now. Basically if post your review link without the "/" at the end it'll lead to your review, but if you do it with the "/" it'll link to the review page for that game. Because the site automatically adds the ending "/" to every link you post, there's currently no way to properly link reviews. Hopefully that should be fixed in the relatively near future.

@gamer_152:

Does linking through Bit.ly or something similar work?

@video_game_king: Actually yes. Hey, @zombiepie, want to try doing that on the next one?

FireEmblem, baby.

Well it helps that Proteus only took about 30 minutes ;) Thanks for the shout out!

Much like everything else on this bloody site, user reviews are pretty fucked. Fortunately I was able to find the one I just posted for The Last of Us' DLC story, Left Behind. But still, i was starting to panic for a minute >_>... It isn't even showing up on my own profile's user reviews section.

...So, apparently the link doesn't even appear to work. The fuck, giant bomb? It definitely exists on the site, though.

Blog and List. (You actually neglected to include the list I submitted last week, but it's up to you if you want to stagger these releases to make 'em last. It's not like I really write those weekly any more.)

You told me to look out for stuff, but everything I've found has already been highlighted by the Community Twitter, so... hey there. This Spelunky death montage is my favorite this week.

@mento: The link you provided for the double trouble list last week was broken.

@yummylee: Oh. Whoops. Well, I guess that means I get the next week off.

I can't find it mate, have you had any luck?

@zombiepie: OK, here we go. Had to specifically select the 'DLC: The Last of Us: Left Behind' category under reviews, which is still more busywork than should be needed, but... least now I definitely know it exists on the site. And thanks in advance!

Oh, fuck... it only links to the category listings rather than the review itself. Nice.

Here's my thing for this week. I am still a little bummed you can't attach blogs to boards properly.

The latest edition of the Spotlight is up over here.