Giant Bombcast 681: Dairy Queen, TX

Just wanted to say Jan looks smooth as hell

YES. James Blackwood, the raccoon whisperer!

Very orderly, hot-dog-eating raccoons.

That raccoon video is one of my favourite videos of the year. His strong Nova Scotian accent definitely adds to the charm

I don't know a damn thing about Bad Bunny, but he put on a hell of a show this weekend.

It's weird to me that everyone is so surprised about Danny having played a game on an IMAX screen. In my city, the local IMAX can be rented out to be used for movies or games as you like (they may even have some consoles there to use). Back in high school, the gaming club rented it out for a Smash Bros. Melee tournament.

Is Sony culturally invading America via old Blockbuster videos?

Holy crap! My wife and I have been watching Jim’s videos since COVID. We love Buddy :) And don’t forget Connor cat!

Vaccine Cop: San Francisco Nights.

HD video not working?

I feel like the discussion of Jason's article really missed a key point: Regardless if it makes spreadsheet sense to try something new instead of Days Gone 2, by making that choice Sony has reportedly raised anxiety and killed morale at Bend.

I didn't play Days Gone but if I had the choice between DG2 and a Last of Us remake, I'd rather have DG2 in the world and let Bend work on something they are passionate about. A middling first game doesn't mean the team can't refine their craft in future games (Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, and a thousand other franchises)

That part of the news segment focused a bit too heavily on the end products and not the people making them, which was the whole point of the article.

Hey, maybe don’t run ads for predatory lenders like Upstart. Their APRs can run as high as 35%! They’re targeting people with little or poor credit and acting like good guys about it but, as someone who struggled with one of these years ago, they’re just a shiny new version of a loan shark.

Kinda crazy that Jeff is totally fine with the Epic store being completely free of a way to criticize dumb decisions made by devs/publishers. Steam reviews are definitely not perfect, but still way better than reviews on any other store I've seen. Nier is finally getting updated on Steam after all these years only because of the review bombing. Big games definitely attracts a lot of idiots leaving shitty reviews, but the system works great on smaller games in my experience.

It's super gross seeing ads for Upstart on Giant Bomb.

Really disappointed to hear an ad for Upstart on GB

Ya'll shouldn't be taking ads from Upstart they're just loan sharks and their business is life ruining. I would hate for anyone listening to this podcast to actually hear your ad and take out a loan from them because it could be life ruining shit.

There's always a lighthouse.

Nova Scotia legend right there

I'm not disputing Republic Commando being great, but it's not the only good Attack of the Clones-based video game. There was a game titled "The Clone Wars" (which preceded the animated show) that was pretty cool. It had a cheat code to play the Ewok celebration song.

Minerva's Den is far and away the best part of BioShock 2. The base game's story is lame - it's not terrible, but it's also not interesting. Its worst crime is being bland. If you've played Minerva's Den, then you don't have much reason to play regular 2.

I also was scammed out of an account in 2004 due to being a dumbass kid. I feel you, Jan. (But my instance was in RuneScape.)

On the topic of weird or esoteric Twitch channels - there's one that plays the Japanese run of Iron Chef 24/7. It's been great. https://www.twitch.tv/ironchef_episodes . I also found one that's a live feed of a chicken farm in Utah I think (as pets, not as livestock I should specify), which can be relaxing - https://www.twitch.tv/ourchickenlife

@deactivated-6076dc0dbe14b: Guess you put your money where your mouth is, whomever you are :D. Kinda exaggerated response and the guys often own up and course correct. Rorie is especially responsive to that criticism.

Given that EGS is pretty sparse and curated removes much of the need for reviews to filter out egregious shovelware. Moreover, I think the premise of a community review system felt a whole lot more necessary back in the day when there was no form of refund policy. Looking at my usage of Steam, Game Pass, EA/Origin, Ubisoft, GOG, Oculus, etc I couldn't tell you the last time I actually read someone's review or was swayed by an aggregate review score to make a purchase or not.

Regarding Six Days in Fallujah, I'm reminded of games that used Black Hawk Down as a set piece (Delta Force: Black Hawk Down?) which was less than 10 years removed from the actual battle. Maybe the fact that it had already been represented in a book and hollywood movie had made it more palatable for a video game by that point.

I didn't see user reviews mentioned at all in the PR about the Nier patch, so I think it's presumptuous to think that the bad user reviews of Nier on Steam are exactly the reason they're fixing it. It's certainly possible, but it's also possible the publisher gives zero fucks about user reviews, and just looks at that as a PC version that could've been better. Now that Nier is back in the news due to Replicant coming out soon, that's probably the reason they could justify patching Automata on platforms where it needed it, and maybe get some sales of their 4 year old game during "hey everybody pay attention to the Nier series" week or two.

Yes, user reviews are generally more trustworthy on niche games, and almost all big games attract idiots who either praise it or hate it based on some ideological fervour one way or the other. But also user reviews in general are trash because, no offense, users kinda suck. It's averaging out hundreds or thousands of reviews and I have no idea what their individual standards are and users have no ethical accountability since their professional reputation doesn't exist, nor do I know that any user has a broad background in a lot of games to know a great one from a merely OK one.

The only WM match I checked in on was Sami/Owens, and I was surprised (even with WWE's history of doing this) by how little payoff there was.

The build was Sami has turned into a conspiracy nut, and Owens is going to beat the sense back into him. But then they just had a match, with very little storytelling to it, and it wended with Sami eating a pin, then walking away still mad and frustrated. What was the point?

Agreed, couldn't believe what I was hearing when it started playing. Really disappointing.

Days Gone not getting a sequel is terribly disappointing, it was one of the best games that year (my favorite) and the gas mechanic was a fantastic element added to the open world genre. Hopefully it and hordes wind up in the Last of Us remake (no one really asked for) or something else. Huge bummer, man.

@doncabesa: sadly it's not just here. They're all over the Maximum Fun podcasts, too!

I know Jason Schrier got a lot of pushback and Sony Fanboys mad at him for that article, but I think in this case it was at least somewhat Justified. Especially when you look into the story and look at some of the people involved who have since come out and responded.

Not that I disagree with his messaging that big corporations should care more about their people than their profits then they typically do. But it sure feels like he was stretching to play into that narrative where the facts really didn't follow. Like the title of the article alone suggest there is something wrong with what Sony did, but as it was brought up in this podcast that is not a clear-cut fact, point in fact Sony might be totally in the right and not doing anything out of the ordinary.

While I don't think Jason is many of the things his critics wrongly call him out for, there is a bad look from this article in that I think he could have been a little bit more even-handed with how he chose to write it up. I don't think the backlash and heat from the Fanboy Community he got was deserved but at the same time you you can't fault everyone for calling him out somewhat on it either.

From the corporate suit and tie perspective Sony is pretty much on track. Over the years they have established a reputation for making narrative heavy, expensive triple AAA blockbuster titles. They are simply continuing the trend for what has made them the market leader of the previous generation. Microsoft is doing a lot of things right but the constant critique is that there are no exclusives on the platform. Playstation is built around marquee exclusives instead of meaningful services. Consdering the smashing success of Demon's Souls Remaster by Blupoint it's not all that surprising that they would choose to remaster Last of Us. People reacting to this negatively seem to have this notion like it's coming out next week while in reality this is something that will probably see the light of day in several years when no one is really talking about this franchise anymore. Considering it's such a beloved game by so many, why not remaster it? And why not get the actual developer to do it? It's a shitty move for Bend by it's the logical one to make. Days Gone came and went and apart from a small cult following is not a game anyone remembers fondly, so why would you make a sequel. Allowing that studio to get a shot at another new IP is the best thing to happen to them since they can now narratively distance themselves from the whole post-apocalyptic zombie motif. It's easy to dunk on all of this but it does make sense.

Corpose Husband aint a vtuber

User review discussion is about what I expected from any and all enthusiast media.

@madlaughter: yup 100%

@beggary: Wasn't it explained at one point that an ad agency handles a bunch of podcasts so whatever deal they strike just gets kicked down the road to the podcasts to read? Not an excuse, but to be honest, I had no idea who Upstart even was until these posts (I don't listen to the ad version), so I don't know if I'd say it's disappointing to me....yet? Although if they see this stuff and read about Upstart, I could see them then saying "No more ads from them please" like they have a few times in the past. I hope they do.

Thank you Danny for joining this already great podcast and bringing your great knowledge and experience.

Correction: Night of the Living Dead has ALWAYS been in the public domain.

Best thing to get in Dairy Queen, Texas is an Oreo Blizzard

Bioshock two is way better than infinite imo... at least it didn't do the thing Infinite thing of producing a fascist government and then showing the rebellion as just as bad, yuck.

You're right, Jan. The switch is incapable of having any mini-games run on it. This is accurate.

Hey are you in financial ruin? How about take out an extra loan from us! :) That's how you get out of this hole for sure!