The Giant Beastcast: Episode 290

RON

Just looking at that screenshot I'm hearing Ron's voice and especially his laugh and it's making me smile.

RON FUNCHES! I thought his dance card was too full to slum it with these videogame degenerates!

Glad he's gonna be recurring.

@undeadpool: whaaaaat!? That's great news. Before tuning in I was just about to comment that he would have been a great pickup for them as the 4th member.

Three and a half minutes in and Ron has me on the floor laughing! Super pumped to hear he hanging around!

It's really hard not to love RONNNNN

Highly recommend Signs of the Sojourner. One of my games of the year—played it early in quarantine times and it really moved me. Its world feels a lot like Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, if you've read that. Good deckbuilding variant combined with a great SF story.

Ron Funches is delightful! Good cast Beasters

I love it when Ron is on the show

I could really use $10k.

Always a treat when Ron is on.

Ron was great on this episode! He's always a great guest but was especially great on this. I really appreciated the directness of his comments about cyberpunk 2077's character creation and portrayals, that's a huge bummer.

I was pretty skeptical of the criticism. But Vinny and crew are right. Cyberpunk 2077 is just not that good. It's a mess that steps all over itself. Very unfinished. Menus are a mess, tedious to use. The way the story is told is odd. Feels like an early access game. It's a shame. I think there's a good game underneath, if only they had a year or more to make it better.

I dont understand the hate on cyberpunk 14 hours in, having a blast with it.

I'm just popping in to say King Shark is fucking great.

Discovered Ron on the G4 Reunion of all places, nice to have him here.

Would love to know when the Cyberpunk 2077 discussion ENDS if anyone wants to help a brother out. Avoiding talk of the game before I play at least a while into it.

Thanks if you do!

PS. Would love if Giant Bomb did a few timestamps in their podcast. It's a nice feature.

@toughshed: they move on at 49:25 (premium audio)

Voice aggravates me to no end.

@sirdaemos: I'm with you, 18 hours played in 2 days and it has been incredibly good.

Really wish Alex was the one reviewing this game as I feel he'd be able to intelligently dissect it so I can understand what its about... or Brad 😎

@aseinsha:

I dont get it either, The game is amazing in every way.

@big_denim: Oh! I have no idea if he's going to be weekly, I just meant that I'm glad he's still coming back after Abby left.

@toughshed: Hey mate, 49:10 is where they stop :)

I’d expect Jeff gerstman to hate on cyberpunk, because in the past he really doesn’t like any popular AAA game. But hearing Vinny who I think is one of the most genuine and down to earth people in the world be kinda lukewarm on the game is disheartening. I’ve been playing it and having a blast. But I agree with a lot of their comments. Fortunately that hasn’t detracted from my experience much

I’d expect Jeff gerstman to hate on cyberpunk, because in the past he really doesn’t like any popular AAA game. But hearing Vinny who I think is one of the most genuine and down to earth people in the world be kinda lukewarm on the game is kinda disheartening :( I’ve been playing it

and having a blast. But I agree with a lot of their comments. Fortunately that hasn’t detracted from my experience all that much

Also I wasn’t sure I’d like Ron funchiss but I totally do. He’s great, more than happy to see him again

@strijd: same here. Really been digging it--not really surprised of some of the opinions people have been throwing around; so goes the way of the hoard.

Cyberpunk is strange and unique; surprised we haven't been hearing about more of the interesting things it's doing rather than the usual bug comments, etc.

I feel like Vinny was inadvertently enabling crunch culture with his comments about maintaining a prestige perception around a studio like CDPR. Talking about "Not finding the fun" in a game that was seemingly in dev for 7 years, went through multiple delays, and is still in a shaky state is a great moment to mention how awful crunch is and this is what happens on the product end.

I'm considering playing Cyberpunk on hard, with all the discussions about the game. Seems like it might reward more of the skill tree?

Also, Ron Funches as King Shark is great. That Harley Quinn show is really good!

Could not stop laughing for like 5 minutes at Vinny's face when Alex's face goes green.

Great to hear the same developers who brought you adult-woman's-face-on-child's-body Ciri in Witcher 3 still don't know how to render children.

Are those Toejam and Earl plush dolls behind Ron? Love it!

@snazz94: I played the intro to the Witcher 3 like 2 days ago and they don't do that. You just got well ackshuallied!

@dweep: Better kept to yourself.

This is no knock against GB crew as a whole but I love having Ron on which allows us to get the black perspective on games which this site generally lacks.

When he talked about Cyberpunk having a bunch of different pubic hair options but still lack black hair styles, I felt that shit to my core.

Funches is an ambassador of the bubble center of the love of the Universe. Such a good guy.

I just wanted to add a Cronenberg film recommendation: A History of Violence. It’s one of my favorite movies even though I don’t consider myself a Cronenberg devotee.

I was talking to an NPC, then when the conversation ended he turned around and just flew away into the sky. I was in tears.

@metalface: I think he was talking about different vagina options because they definitely have different “black” hairstyles like afro, dreads and some form of cornrows. In terms of race representation I think as far as I’ve seen they do a pretty good job.

I wish someone would talk about cyberpunk that's not playing with controller (defaults to strongest auto aim) on normal, play it on Hard with no auto aim, it's not a standard action game, you'll get your ass handed to you. Stealth and dialogue is almost always more preferable as shoot outs almost never end well for you.

IMO games are far funner on Hard these days as they require you to engage with more of games systems.

Yeah the GB guys are terrible covering and talking about RPGs, and Cyberpunk 2077 is an RPG for certain. These are all the same guys who said Witcher 3 was only good for the first 20 hours and said it played terrible and stuff so that's what we're working with. Vinny did play it eventually but he hardly talked about it in any detail on the site at all. Hence, why I love:

This. Thanks brother you rule. I could have hunted but I was hoping for a fine citizen like yourself to help me out.

This is so true for CD Prokjekt. Witcher 3 absolutely shines on Blood and Broken Bones and is such a better experience. All your upgrades feel so much more meaningful and exciting with the increased difficulty tension.

@toughshed: Right, also the last two AC games (origins and odyssey) and DOOM 2016 are way more satisfying on hard.

@schindigg: so agreed on DOOM 2016, that made the game unbelievably satisfying. I haven't played AC Odyssey but that's a good tip for that, thinking about trying it eventually as I'm a Ancient Greek history fan.

I really think some of these games do a disservice to themselves on their normal difficulty. People have shown they are open to some challenge with Souls games and BOTW for example.

For me on "Hard" Witcher 3 has my favorite combat in any action RPG, meanwhile I often see takes about how the combat is not good with a shocking frequency.

Thank you Jeff and Ron for defending the options in PS5 games! I don't want to lose the option of turning on 60fps mode just so that there aren't any options presented. Whether you like it or not, that's what would happen in most games. People who want that choice don't lose out, and people who don't want a choice can just stick with default.

I have to disagree with the beast crew on Cyberpunk. The game has grown on me, and now I’m addicted to it.