Giant Bombcast 726: Grey Soda of Video Games

As always, video podcasts will be coming shortly as they are still encoding. Thanks y'all!

Unfortunately there aren't any alternative episode titles, I wasn't taking notes this week.

Thanks @janman appreciate your work each and every week

This piece of Texas Toast is shaped exactly like Texas! What are the odds!?

Considering Jeff G’s opinions on death metal and the like, I’m genuinely surprised to hear him reference Napalm Death. But a 30 second grindcore cover of Road to Viridian City sounds awesome!

I thought we agreed that Ryu is a psychic, not a wizard.

Speaking of small details that make the game look uncanny: I recently started the original Horizon on PS5 and I can't get over the algorithm run facial tics people have in dialogue scenes. I know without them the characters would look too still and unnatural but I'm not sure if the constant neck and eye twitches achieve natural looking people either. Idk it's too pronounced for my taste that I'd almost prefer Mass Effect style plastic dolls instead.

With regards to fighting game characters, just pick the ones you enjoy the design/animations/attitude of. If you're going to find a character you will want to use for a long time, you can't just pick a character you know you can use already. This generally works for me. G in SFV is pretty far from the character type I tend to use, but I just clicked with the CHARACTER so hard I put in the time to learn him.

Sifu uses the controller speaker and doesn't let you turn it off, and it's so damn annoying. If I play late in the evening I have to turn down the volume of both the TV and the controller.

Internship at the Destruction Room

Sounds like the next hit indie game? o.o

The way I pick fighting game characters is 1st finding out the ones that are on the easier side, cause I personally I don't want to spend a ton of time learning the character and I don't invest all my time with fighting games. Plus I am no quick young buck.

Then choosing those that I like the design of.

Finally trying out those that met those 2 and seeing who I am enjoy the most.

UNIEL may have a great tutorial/trainer, but it's a more advanced game.

Don't worry a ton about frame data. There's pros that don't even bother with it and are do fairly well. I believe Punk still doesn't bother with frame data.

Confirmed: Elden Ring is a Jason game

Two Things:

Jeff G saying Daigo is 36 is from the pre-match chart that they showed before his match. He's actually 40 years old. When I saw that I wondered if they made a genuine mistake or it they intentionally lowered his age so it wouldn't appear that a 40 year old man is still playing video games, and more so competing professionally in them. Kind of sad if this is true, because that would mean the stereotype of video games being just for kids is still alive and well with most people. Then again, they made a lot of mistakes with those pre-match charts with other players as well.

About the new Horizon. It seems like Jeff G went into that game with his mind made up about not liking it, because he believed the first game was enough. He has mention several times now that he was fine with just that story and it being over. When a person goes into something already not liking it or thinking its a waste, it usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I still haven't played it yet, but plan to in the future. Maybe he is right about a lot of his points, but even if he is, the perception that the game shouldn't have happened is forming a lot of his issues with it IMO.

"Can Tekken eclipse Street Fighter?" Yes, it did, kind of.
With the disappointing release of SF5 and how surprisingly fun Akuma was in Tekken 7 many SF fans hopped over for a bit, there's always been more entrants in EVO for SF5 since Capcom is in the roots of the tournament, however at home Tekken has surpassed SF.
I can only use Steam numbers as evidence but Tekken 7 has regularly had on average 2-5k more players than SF5, the new fighters are at peak popularity but even then KOF15 is 1k behind Tekken and Strive, despite having a very popular arrival, is 3k behind. Obviously this is just PC and console numbers could prove the opposite but i believe they'd show a similar story, SF5 is exclusive to Playstation so Xbox owners aren't even playing it, and there's an issue with input lag on the PS4/PS5 which made PC the preferred platform for hardcore players.
SF will always be more iconic, it's literally Capcom's identity despite having much more profitable franchises, but Tekken 7 has been the king in terms of popularity this whole time.
Also there's 4 Tekken movies, one of them is ok :P, i love the Street Fighter movie.

@raviyn: I'm gonna say yes, you're the only one. Or at least I can say I really appreciate her as an addition to the cast.

Like this isn't a terribly constructive comment, I'm curious about what makes you ask this (assuming it's not just bad faith).

Jess plays and then has interesting opinions on the games that come up, what other requirements are we setting here as a baseline?

I came for more Hoboken warehouse stories and was not disappointed.

I gotta disagree about Aloy constantly muttering to herself, I really enjoy it. She wanders around this huge world (mostly) by herself and comments on the world around her. As someone who lives alone, has done for the last seven years and doesn't interact with too many people, I do this a lot as well.

The sweet corn fest is in my neck of Colorado.

Keep in mind that my dumbass fellow Coloradans voted in Boebert. So the lead singer of Smash Mouth being a giant garbage person wouldn't be frowned upon over here.

If Ryu looks this thick, what the hell is Zangief gonna look like?!

THERES MORE THAN ONE SWEETCORNFEST??? jesus

@voidburger:

Oh, wow. I had never thought about there being more than one.

I remember seeing all those smash mouth headlines and assumed it was at the Olathe sweet corn festival. We would always get one random musician playing there every year. I know CO isn't the Midwest. But the western Rockies sure feel like it sometime.

Between his Elden Ring description, and the Guardians of the Galaxy rant from GOTY, I feel like @janman is quickly becoming my new fav on the cast. Actual insight and analysis - not just explanation. I love you Jantholomew.

I think the only thing I've disliked so far in HFW was just how many times the Hunting Grounds guy asks if you were going to trial or not. Every 2 seconds he's asking if you wanted to do a trial. Like SHUT UP.

Boondocks is in a different sphere of nuts. American psycho and fight club are closer, as in both good unlike boondocks. Fight club is David fincher like all his movies, is super technically neat and snappy.

This is at least the second time the factoid that REO Speedwagon have a street in Champagne has come up on this website

That Boondock Saints documentary is perhaps the finest in all of Douchebag Cinema.

I wan in the netherlands for Spargel-Fest, which is an Asparagus festival. They fucking love Asparagus. And those MF'ers are high as shit all the time and have the most awesome bakeries in Europe... and they freak out about Asparagus. Im capitalizing Asparagus.

I personally found that a lot of people in my generation (I'm 29) got introduced to psychedelics pretty heavily because we were in high school & college when they were having a sort of renaissance. (and still are as culture moves forward and becomes more open minded) I experienced a lot of peers getting into astrology and goofy stuff like that because of the profound experiences they had on psychedelics that sort of made them feel like there was more mystery to the world. Some people need to fill that hole with spiritual or religious things instead of science I guess lol. I think a lot of people are growing up disillusioned with our government and have lost faith in mainstream society. When that happens you can become more prone to believing in conspiracies, new age stuff, etc.

This continues my theory that Jess and Jan were hired by Jeff cuz they share exciting hooligan early lives.

For some reason none of the other crew corrected Jan, so I want to point out that at 33:10 Jan mentions that Horizon Forbidden West is a PS5 exclusive, which it is not.

Absolutely incredible start to this show

Never heard of the term grey soda, but I used to mix all the shit at a soda fountain together all the time as a kid. It's great.

Did Jeff G really acknowledge a couple of corrections?? This ain't the Beastcast.

So the eShop technically closes much earlier - after May 23 2022, you won't be able to add funds to your account, and August for prepaid cards. Meaning the eShop will be functionally dead (in terms of buying games) after May for anyone who doesn't already have funds on their account.

just wanna say its been a couple weeks but whatever version of this new intro is is much better than that gross sounding other version i last commented on so good job to that person who was still working at it.

New theme sucks. You should change it

@voidburger: I was really excited to have someone from my neck of the woods on the Bombcast for once but instead you seem to shit on the Midwest left and right. I understand you're not from here, so sorry you don't like sweet corn, it's tasty, but could you just say one nice thing about the Midwest just once?

-someone who grew up in Central IL

It's cheap to live here. There. That's the perk. I don't know any other perks, sorry!

I'm not here by choice! My partner moved here for work and I wanted to be with him!

@voidburger: your sarcasm is noted, thanks. Maybe try and make the best of it while you're here then instead of being a miserable schmuck and hating it. There's so much in and around Champaign to do, Springfield has all kinds of Lincoln history, there's state parks galore all around here. But sure, it's cheap to live here and everything else sucks!

@doctoruncle: I agree completely

I wasn't sarcastic in any way in my reply! I was being completely frank! It's cheap out here! That's all I got!

"Wow a log cabin some president was born in 200 years ago" and state parks are not my jam, man. The only non-big-city-thing I've done that ruled was going to House On The Rock in Wisconsin (which was quite a ways off from here.)

@voidburger: that's really sad that the one thing you can come up with is "it's cheap". I'm sorry if I'm being abrasive but honestly I was just really excited to have a little Midwest representation because all I ever seem to hear is people shit on the the region, so it's really disappointing that you've just gotta be so pretentious about it, I'm sorry we aren't some sprawling metropolis full of delis whatever the heck else you require. I actually really enjoy the rest of your contributions to the website but you may have singlehandedly just convinced me to place my time and money elsewhere, it's as if you refuse to experience and enjoy something new just because "ew this isn't New Jersey", I like where I'm from and it's history.

I've lived in the midwest my entire life. It sucks. It's boring. I admit that I do enjoy the parks, but there's only so much hiking you can do. Any time I go out of state, I think "why can't we have this at home?" Good restaurants are hard to find since it's all chain restaurants, pub grub or "home cooking" where everything is fried or resembles what you'd find at a Golden Corral slathered in gravy. The food, museums, stores, natural landmarks and attractions that I've enjoyed the most? Not in Ohio baby.

I grew up in the mid-west and am still here, save for the 7 years I lived in Japan for work.

While I certainly cannot speak for every place in the mid-west, I enjoy living here. The people are generally friendly, and the lifestyle is laid-back.

I have no desire to live on either coast. In fact, I turned down a job offer because I would have to move to California.

Please stop talking over each other.

Respectfully, that was a very odd thing to do considering I'm not from here? I do not claim to represent the place?

And hey man, the onus is on you to prove to me that there's something I'm missing about the Midwest, if you're such a huge fan of it! If your main reply is "the history!" then... there's "history" all over the U.S., man. And more interesting history where I've lived before. I can practically see the Statue of Liberty from my parents' house on clear days. I've stood where Washington made his first speech. I once lived where baseball was invented. I also once lived where Edgar Allen Poe died in a gutter. My home city has been blown up in Independence Day, stomped on by Godzilla and the Cloverfield Monster, and I've had drinks in a dozen bars that were on TV and Netflix shows, by accident.

Do you really expect me to be thrilled going from all that to "some president was born near-ish here? (gotta get in a car to see it, though)"? Especially when all Midwesterners have to offer as an argument is blaming my unhappiness all on me being pretentious, and not offering any compelling retorts about what I'm apparently missing out on. It's not helpful! If I'm missing out on something, let me in on it!