hatking

I played this a couple months ago after a bunch of conversations about it being a secret highlight of the series. I thought it was solid.

Plagued by some microtransaction stuff—in the late game it becomes excruciatingly clear that in order to get fully upgraded armor and weapons, you'll need to drop some cash. I ended up putting a few bucks in to get there, which seemed fair since I got the game so cheap, but is still hard not to feel a tiny bit gross about.

I really like Arno and Elise. A romance plot that develops over the course of an entire game is pretty rare, so it was cool to experience their history and interactions, and the eventual fate. I could see it being divisive where that story ended up, but it worked for me. The whole game is about Arno overcoming his recklessness and to see Elise, and other people in his life, stuck in that cycle and sort of dragging him down was interesting. She's kind of an untraditional villain, a good person whose actions are bad for you.

Outside of the story stuff, I thought it was good enough mechanically. AC pretty much figured out what it was by this point, so nothing about the combat or traversal was particularly surprising. That said, it was a good reminder of all the problems with that traversal system. I don't know that modern AC's "climb anything" approach is the right solution, but there's nothing more frustrating than being in a chase sequence and your character refusing to jump to the ledge you want them to.

One tech thing I'll mention, the crowds, even by today's standards, are very impressive. Absolutely massive amounts of people, probably more than I've ever seen in a video game, and it's not a noticeable performance hit when they're on screen. Granted for all they do, they might as well just be plants, and I assume that's more or less how that works on the back end. Nonetheless, it actually feels cool when you run into a massive crowd to lose the guards chasing you.

@besetment: I think about BOB showers almost every time I take a shower.

Hands down my favorite Quick Look of all time is the Euro Truck Simulator 2 Quick Look. It checks so many boxes for me. It's got traffic shenanigans, fake radio stations, at one point it quits being about that game and about shitty ad scams. It's incredible.

Next up is the UPF with the Dream Gear thing. A ton of random games on some bootleg device that I'm convinced Vinny bought at the gas station on his way to work. The crew going through these games is fucking spectacular. Each one is a new treat. Part of what I love about this is nobody knowing what any of these games are going to be, so they're just guessing based on the names.

I usually throw Giant Bomb Infinite as I'm going to sleep. On occasions when it's down, I put on one of a couple videos that are on YouTube.

First, there's Papa Vinny's Pizza Party. It's a gauntlet of Giant Bomb multiplayer classics. And the rare feature where Dan actually loses a few games (LOL).

Then there's this unarchived video of Ryan Davis's Famicon Lot. This is the OGs Jeff and Ryan playing a ton of random untranslated NES games. I think something I really like is seeing genuine first reactions. This does that and also serves as a crash course of the NES/Famicon catalogue.

Beyond that, my favorite series are Demo Derby, Mario Part Party, and anything Jeff has done with TrackMania.

I'm in a similar boat. I came across this team during the GameSpot days while I was in high school. It was a really formative time for me and I ended up getting really attached to their work and chemistry. It's strange to think back and see their work as one of the singular constants that exists for me from what was essentially my childhood to where I am now.

When I was a bit of a lost soul 18 year old, I had no idea what the future held for me and I bounced around a lot. The podcasts and eventual video coverage were the only thing that stayed the same, and definitely a source of positivity when I was in the darkest places. Here I am now, in a career I genuinely love, with a job I look forward to, and I can definitely say that the things I learned from them inspired me to pursue this.

Goodbyes are tough, but I've gotten pretty good at it over the years. I'm so happy and thankful for the things they created over the last couple decades. They should be proud of the stuff they made and the positive influence they've been on their audience.

It’s only just setting in how wild today was. As much as it’s an immeasurable blow to the site, for what those dudes contributed and what they meant to this community, I am fascinated by what the future holds. I followed Jeff from GameSpot, to his blog, and then to Giant Bomb, so I’m sticking around until they kick me out.

@sethmode: I don't think it's bad faith. I think considering a thread like this pops up about once a month, there's some serious discontentedness with the output on this website. And it being a personality driven site, folks don't just want to jump ship, they want to be convinced to stay. Whether that means a reorganization of content or a cheaper entry fee, it's different discussions about the same thing.

This isn't how anybody pays for anything. It's an up front cost. It's not ten cents a day for a year, it's $35 right now. And that is not something everybody can just spare. If the promise of what you paid for six months ago has changed, but you've already bought in, that can be pretty fucking frustrating to folks who only have so much money to spend on entertainment.

It's definitely a lot. I think Hotspot is pretty inessential, I guess I'll leave it at that.

Personally, I'd rather see that time spent covering games. Smaller games that don't get a ton of eyes would be cool. Playthroughs of old games always make for great series. Hell, launch Steam and just play random trash that came out that day.