The Third Episode of Bomb Should Have A Face, Giant Bomb's Unofficially Unofficial Community Podcast!
Who needs to carefully edit and modify Skype Conferences? Punks, that's who! And Community Guest/ Forum Mack Shawn is no punk! MattBodega, TokyoChicken, JensonB and Disgaeamad mount up with Shawn to tackle gaming's "Gangsta Laureate" the Giant Bomb site redesign, great video game endings, sharks(hint: pile drive them!) Also, Brukaoru and foil1212 make the podcast legit with Intro and Outro music, Sweep once again finds his blogs pimped on the podcast, and Penny-Arcade jokes are stolen, all on Bomb Should Have A Face, Giant Bomb's Community Podcast for all the community matters that matter most!
Razor Calahan knows that the real way to settle a political dispute is a timed lap race through Rockport....but you can sure as hell bet he's not above giving Putin's car a little something special before the race. He's just another bolt on wonder boy, looking to get smoked. Putt Putt is great with kids, and is strong supporter of the family unit. He wants to see famiies take trips to the fair, or the zoo, or the moon, or to see Fatty Bear.
I'm super excited about this Friday. And it's not because of the glorious reprieve from classes, or another amazing Bombing Run is almost here. No, this Friday, September 19th, marks the release of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition! In a year full of totally solid JRPG's(Eternal Sonata!) and fun WRPG's(Mass Effect), who would think that an obscure game from an unknown(in these American parts) developer with a bizarre license on a platform notorious for piracy would have sold over 800000 copies? That's the case with Cd Projekt's The Witcher, a fantastic RPG that isn't quite like anything else on the PC. In the Witcher, players take on the role of Geralt of Rivia(yes, you can call him Gerald. I like to sometimes.) Through potions received from a secret order of monster hunters, Geralt becomes a Witcher, a monster hunter who will be permanently ostracized from society because of his bizarre complexion. The plot takes a little while to get going in the game, but it's a surprisingly mature tale, filled with fantacy racism, political intrigue, and hella monsters.
The game feels well worn, lived in. It separates The Witcher from much "cleaner" fantasy games. Everything about the game is a bit surprising. The Witcher runs on Bioware's Aurora engine, which you might remember as the game engine that powered Neverwinter Nights 1.....over 6 years ago! Not that you'd know it from looking at the Witcher, a stunning game thanks to a firm grounding in medieval architecture and European design. In a world populated with clean high fantasy and less clean but still pretty clean fantasy, The Witcher is rough, muddy and handmade in a way that virtually know other fantasy game can match. Game is grimmy(in a good way!), and the look stays with you throughout the whole of the game. The combat is probably the highlight of The Witcher, combining smart timing with a wealth of gameplay decisions. Battles don't keep the players on the sidelines, watching the action and occasionally clicking a hotbar. Instead, players must click enemies during specific windows to create powerful combos, and the more hits you can line up in a combo, the greater damage per hit you'll be able to dish out(and the less damage you'll be taking during the process). It's got a real Assassin's Creed approach to combat, rewarding the skillful timing of players in a way that we probably wouldn't have seen before the rhythm game became so damn huge(you tell me the success of Guitar Hero brought rhythm based gameplay and timing back to video games, and I'll tell you that....well...that I think you're right!) On top of that, you've got multiple stances to switch between for facing different enemies, and a variety of potions to aid you in combat, a variety of poisons to let you bring the pain- it's got a good amount of depth, it looks great in motion(the game's combat animates well) and it helps to draw the player into a genre that too often has them sitting on the sidelines while the game plays itself.I was not kidding about the micromanagement. But you can push through this and see the places where The Witcher shines.
The game's got some issues, no doubt: if you're no fan of micromanagement, stay back: The Witcher's got an awkward inventory system that can make it difficult to find specific items(which you will be doing often, considering the game's focus on Geralt's alchemy skills). The game has a really excellent story and decent voice acting, but it's held back by an awkward translation of all things. In a way that will totally remind you of playing SNES or even Playstation RPG's, The Witcher will sometimes give you the impression that it can't find the exact words to say what it really means. It's almost befuddling, considering how far translation has come even fron 10 years ago(though this is Cd Projekt's first game, I think they've been a European publisher of ol Interplay games for a while, as I know they're credited in the Polish version of Planescape:Torrment....Don't ask.) Perhaps silliest of all, Geralt can sleep with virtually every female NPC in the game, which results in a mildly suggestive animation, some slightly risque dialog, and a totally unnecessary "card" of the women you courted in a various stage on undress. It's not titillating in a world where everyone has assess to the internet, and awkward in the context of a game that tries to deal, quite seriously, with racism.
But the game, in spite of it all, is still great ,and long to boot( I sunk between 50-70 hours in the original version of the game) and with the enhanced version coming, I'm anxious to see if the game plays even better with this additional development time.
And I'll be able to see it for free! In a move that moves CD Projekt to the realm of the cool PC developers that reward game loyalty(like Stardock) , The Witcher: Enhanced Addition is being released as a Patch for free to anyone who already purchased the game! How awesome is that? Fans are getting all the enhanced graphics, the 5000 new lines of rewritten and rerecorded dialog, the enhanced inventory management(hopefully that fixes the micormanagement issues!), the improved loading, improved alchemy systems...all for under 50 bucks! In a world where Pirates are ruining Spore's sales because of EA's copy protection, it's crazy to see any company try to go the other way and reward players like that. I have no idea why every PC developer outside of Blizzard and Valve isn't embittered and cold towards their fellow man.(Maybe they still are.) All this enhanced content for Under 50 Bucks?! Well isn't that nice! This blog is basically an advertisement for a game, but the Witcher is a game that shows there are still ways CRPG's can grow. I'll probably have a full review of the Enhanced Edition in the next week or so. I just wanted to put the call out proper, and encourage people to check out the Enhanced Version of the game, already on shelves as of Tuesday, September 16th.
2 Comments
Bomb Should Have A Face Episode 2! You're So Twelve.
Featuring community guest Hamz, forum moderator and bad-ass for hire!
If last week was the Firstcast, this week is the Scotcast! This week, MattBodega, TokyoChicken, JensonB, and Disgaeamad are joined by community moderator and all around strong man Hamz, giving the Scottish complete control of the podcast!GB user Sweep gets the group talking about Moral Decisions in games while GB Otacon blog encouraged game players to respect our gaming identities! Also, JensonB hates the forums, Jayge has an awesome page about Dead Head Fred, and everyone make inside jokes! References and more on the podcast about the community matters that matter most!
You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here! You should do it!
...or, he would have, if moderator Hamz hadn't been so cool, collected, and reasonable in discussing the state of the forums in a live fire podcast. The ensuing discussion: mostly professional!
Jayge wrote a ridiculous page for PSP platformer Dead Head Fred, proving that our best pages are the ridiculous games no one else in the world cares about.
Bomb Squad is dead. Good Riddance. This website is about video games!
Hamz thinks people should look at the score of a game AND read the review, and THEN form a purchasing decison. Meanwhile. Disgaeamad learns to speak unicorn.
...Actually, he already speaks unicorn. It's the only explanation for his sexy brouge. It's like a dream of lollipops dancing on the tip of your ear!
I MEAN SPORTS! MONSTER TRUCKS! HIT HIM ON THE SLANT!
Why am I the only person on the planet who thought Assassin's Creed was amazing? And Eternal Sonota? Maybe grinding just doesn't bother me too much!
Mercs 2 :It's greatest strength(explosions) is also its biggest weakness(using explosions halts the pace of the gameplay!)
If your gonna make a bad game, go all the way bad. Don't strive for mediocrity. Go for Crime Life: Gang Wars
I reveal a personal story of jackassery and emulated screenshot uploads, the secret shame of Giant Bomb!
And I get no sympathy from these jerks.
If you thought we sounded like the Bombcast before, try listening to me speak! It's a treasure trove of obscure references!
Music Credits: (like they're gonna write a song about it) by Midnight Brown
If you've got any comments/suggestions/irrational hate for the show, post it here!
Would you like to be a Community Guest on BSHAF? Send me a PM to get on the List!
It took me maybe 6 hours to reach the space stage last night. There are parts of that game-the way you build your creature, the way the game magically generates that creatures movement on the fly(animating a creature that doesn't exist is up there with gaming's greatest technical achievements), the surprising free-form gameplay in the space stage- that convince me that Will Wright is a god damn genius. But the gameplay isn't mind blowing and the five stages feel so disconnected. Obviously the point of the four other modes is to get the player to the space stage, but none of the first 4 modes(excpept the Cell Stage to the Hunting stage) mesh particularly well. Evolution is all about the subtle gaining of mutations over billions and billions of years, while Spore is all about getting the player to the whiz-bang madness of science. So, in a roundabout sort of way, I wish that the five stages didn't feel so severed.They all could have used a little more depth of some kind. But hey: I'm still having fun. The one point of agreement: I want Spore to be played in schools. Spore relative simplicity has the potential to be this generation of student's Oregon Trail or Treasure Mathstorm. Of course it won't unseat the kind of Edutainment, The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis!
The title of this post is less a statement of fact, and more of a reference to a very classy Giant Bomb video that popped into my head when I was reading the Gamespot review of Mercenaries 2. As someone whose is now waiting on his second of three PC digital downloads of the game(the first one having somehow been sent with a broken file, making installing the game impossible) I've definitely been feeling a little iffy about the whole Mercs thing. My first warning sign should have been all the frustrated talk on the last podcast, a warning that this was a game that had sabotaged itself in the last stages of its long development cycle. And yet, still , without thinking, I bought the game(P.C version, to boot! It's like I'm playing games in the 90's!) just in the hopes that the, So, imagine my surprise(damn you, Irony Gods!) when I saw that my nonrefundable purchase may have been for naught: A 5.0 flat score from Aaron Thomas and Gamespot (If ever there was a sad box art comment for a video game, it's "Too Human! It's Better than Mercs 2!) So, I'm activly waiting to start playing a potential clunker of a game, digital proof that I wasted money. This must have been how the confederates felt at Pickett's Charge.
The one "positive" of the "low score, hyped title) Gamespot Review(see Twilight Princess, Too Human...You know, similar games). is that the forums litterally go crazy, with every lunatic on a keyboard posting things that make me weep for the medium, and all of mankind to boot. And that's the real reason I wrote this blog post: to share with you one of the saddest, most misguided comments I've ever read about a video game: Warning: This Shit Is Not Edited.
"GS has a habit of pointing out and excessively telling how bad the game is due to bugs and glitches. Instead of telling the parts that make you play the game in the first place."
Come hang out in my college dorm sometime, the world. We can weep together.
Here it is, the very first episode of Bomb Should Have A Face, Giant Bomb's unofficially unofficial community podcast! All the community matters that matter most, from blog posts to wiki pages to forum threads! Join MattBodega, TokyoChicken, JensonB, Purerok, and Disgaeamad for a downright podcast!
This weeks EXPLOSIVE REVELATIONS!
Giant Bomber LouChou discusses how Metacritic might be eroding our video game tastes!
We talk about Twilight Princess!(Who didn't think those two would be linked? Show of hands!)
Do you have an amazing blog that you'd like to pimp( a friend's blog? Your own blog? Either will do!)? Want to be a community guest on an upcoming podcast? Send me a PM at MattBodega, or an Email at mattbodega@gmail.com!
Go subscribe to the podcast on ITunes, and know what you guys think of our first podcast!
19 Comments
Click this bad boy to listen to Episode Zero of Bomb Should Have A Face, Giant Bomb's Unofficially Unofficial Community podcast! This is our test-cast, to see if we can turn an ordinary Skype Call into a monstrosity, stuffed to the brim with nonsense!
Also, If anyone knows stuff about embedding the link to a podcast that directly sends the user to the ITunes page(so they can get their subscribing on), please give me a shout! I want users to be able to click that kind of button, but, in the mean time, here's the podcast in the ITunes store!
Log in to comment