For a game like Persona 5 that's been pretty well received overall, it's kind of odd to see Brad (who admittedly has not played the game) guide the discussion based on whatever negative things he's heard about the game. I don't necessarily think it was his intention, but it felt like he was trying to paint the public impressions of the game as more mixed or negative than it actually is. To be fair, I can see why the systems of Persona can seem daunting to someone who has never played the game, and I don't blame Brad for trying to get a better grasp of how the game works. I feel Ben did a pretty solid job of explaining the charm of the game, but it seemed like Brad was still sticking to the 'skeptical guy' routine pretty hard through most of it, so I'm not sure how much impact Ben's words had on him.
Only advice I can give for people jumping into a Persona game for the first time is just play the game. I think most people will find clearing palaces before the deadline and forming social links with characters isn't as tedious as it may sound, and is actually a good deal of fun. If you find it overwhelming, Kotaku and other sites have put together good tips and guides on how to play. The strength of Persona is its cast of characters, and I feel one of the most spectacular things about this game is over the course of its 100 hour journey, just how well you get to know each one of the main party members. It impresses me how despite just being fictional characters in a video game, they can feel like close friends at the end of it. It's always a bittersweet moment to finish a Persona game for me. Glad to have experienced the journey, but also sad to say goodbye to these characters.
If Brad is saying the Pro is underutilized for certain games, I won't argue that since it's pretty subjective. But saying "games are shipping without specific Pro support" is pretty blatantly false.
Digital Foundry articles on recent PS4 releases and the benefits of the Pro version:
Also, I hope he isn't using games like Yakuza 0 and Persona 5 as games not supporting Pro as both games came out in Japan prior to the Pro's release and thus were not required to have a patch.
If you want to argue these effects are subtle on 1080p displays, that's fine (though most Pro-enabled games tend to support supersampling). But please don't say these recent games don't have real Pro support, when there clearly is. I know people want a homogenized "every game has the same resolution/performance bump on the Pro" solution that's easy to digest and understand, but the reality is, game development is tricky. Each developer has their own ideas of where the extra hardware power should go for their game.
Wish Dan didn't skip through the voice acting every other line. To be fair, Alex mentions it a couple times and Dan tries to listen for a bit, but it just seems to go back to his habit.
I want to say I understand where your article is coming from, and I certainly respect that. We as a society still have a long way to go in terms of tolerance and acceptance, and it's incredibly frustrating that despite the significant progress has been made, we simply are not there yet as of today.
But I also hope you haven't lost sight of the irony that Krem could make such an initial positive impression on you despite being the product of a straight woman's performance and a straight man's writing. It's my impression reading your article had you not dug up the backstory of the character's conception, all you'd see is a character with an interesting story to tell.
To me, what makes a character like Krem special is he doesn't have to belong to one community to be relatable to many. Many people playing this game may not be a trans individual, but they could be a minority, or simply anyone who may have dealt with discrimination or adversity to get where they are today. And to me, Krem's backstory can hit every bit close to home to those people as it can for a member of the LGTBQ community.
And I suppose this is the point you'd disagree with me on, but I just see Krem as a person, and I have no issue with Bioware finding the person to give him his voice based on how they envisioned that character to sound, regardless of that VA's sexual orientation or gender. I think it should work both ways. I have absolutely no issue with a gay individual playing the role of a straight character in a TV show or movie, and vice versa. This assumes the performance is not done in a manner that is disrespectful towards the community that is being represented on screen, and I can't imagine that to be the case for Krem.
As an aside, I also have to say I'm not terribly impressed with that article by Mr. Moosa on The Witcher 3 "literally dehumanizing people of color". The author acknowledges that non-human species of the game constantly face discrimination and bigotry, but appears to stop short of realizing the rather overt symbolism this is supposed to represent as a parallel to similar situations in the "real world". The world of the Witcher 3 has a lot to say on the topic of discrimination and bigotry, and I hope that topic isn't ignored or brushed off simply because those involved did not literally have a different color of skin. I hope we don't get so caught up in what is and what isn't present at face value, that we can't see past thinly veiled symbolism acknowledging the very same issues we hope to discuss.
I think there are valid arguments out there on The Witcher 2 being a better game than 3 (not one I'd personally agree with, but I'm sure the case can be made), but not sure if Vinny realizes that being a parent and having 2 kids makes playing a 100 hour+ RPG like the Witcher 3 (and knowing how thorough Vinny likes to be with playing games, I'd say the Witcher 3 would easily be over a hundred hours for him) a very difficult proposition, and honestly nigh impossible for a lot of gamers with young kids. Of course Witcher 2 is going to feel like a much more accessible game when it's almost a third as long and you played it before having kids. Its very difficult to assess the quality of a game like the Witcher 3 when you're constantly being pushed away from it being involved in work, family, and raising kids considering its sheer breadth of content and the barrier of trying to get back into a large storyline when life is constantly sidetracking your attempts at getting into the game.
So in Vinny's case, I'd be a bit careful stating that the game didn't quite catch him the way prior games of the series did, when it feels like there's a big external factor that easily could have caused that to happen.
Edit: Actually going back and listening to this, my comment is an overreaction. Jeff doesn't specifically mention anything about the remaining episodes they didn't play other than than it didn't seem particularly appealing to him and was very forthcoming that he didn't know enough personally haven't not played the game to that point (and when others told him people liked Episode 4 a lot he was more than understanding). I think Life is Strange got its fair props here. Ultimately no one really played enough of it to see whether it really hangs in this category, but they didn't labor too much on it IMO and I think my comment from below is inaccurate.
Hearing Jeff trying to force the game off the list just because he hastily read something on the internet was especially weak. You did not play the game - don't criticize it. Especially as Jeff doesn't seem to like anything that has more complicated story than COD.
I don't think he was "forcing" anything, as he acquiesced pretty quickly when they said they'd heard a lot of good things. But I think he did bring up a salient point, which is that episodes 4 and 5 might have been terrible and unraveled the goodwill that game had up until then, and they wouldn't have known. It's an unfortunate thing that's not the fault of the game at all, but if they had put it in for best story, then later finished it and found the last two episodes disappointing, that's a bad spot.
Anything can sound terrible (or amazing for that matter) if all you're going off is essentially a Cliff notes summary of a plot you haven't actually experienced yourself (sounds like Jeff maybe played an hour of the game before stopping). Doesn't really matter if you're talking about a proper literary work or a video game story. It just isn't a proper way to determine if something should be winning an award. For example, it's hard to convincingly call a character one dimensional when you haven't seen 40% of the story and don't really know the finer points of what they do later on in the story.
The most obvious way to have handled this would have been a general statement that "hey none of us finished this game, so none of us are really qualified to determine if this deserves best story, but we liked what we played so far and wanted to give it a shout out before we discuss another game". Why they chose to further discuss a story for a game they didn't finished and let Jeff spoil it for them is beyond me, especially when they were more than willing to give quick shout outs to other smaller games they didn't finish and leave it at that. Perhaps they felt bad they didn't make a stronger case for a game they did enjoy what they played of.
So what you're left with is a rather crappy discussion IMO of why a game no one finished deserves (or doesn't) to be on a list for best story while someone who hasn't really played the game tries to figure that out by reading a quick summary online. IMO just a wasted effort. I liked Life is Strange a lot and personally think it deserved to be on there, but if the staff hasn't played the whole game, just leave it off. Don't try to convince yourself you're making the right call because the wiki summary didn't appeal to you.
Great list Patrick, and I think you succinctly explained what I loved about Life Is Strange. That's a game I suspect won't get a whole lot of discussion on the GB GOTY Podcasts so it's nice to hear at least a former GB Staffer chime in about it (and I enjoyed your articles discussing it over on Kotaku as well).
May this forever be known as the Final Bomb. No, it's not the last episode of the Bombcast (far from it), but it is certainly the last episode featuring the original crew. It's an odd coincidence that Patrick had just left at this point, leaving the original quartet of Bombers to (unknowingly) record one last podcast with just the 4 of them.
Times change, people move on, but Ryan Davis will not be forgotten on this site. Here's to a great 2014, and I look forward to seeing Giant Bomb continue to excel, now and always.
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