Giant Bombcast Giant Bomb Game of the Year 2013: Day Two

@vod_crack: Blood Dragon is one of the few soundtracks I still listen to outside of the game and I think I remember them talking it up quite a bit when it came out, would have expected at least a mention. And Payday 2 was never going to be mentioned but the soundtrack was a large part of why you felt like a badass criminal genius on the heists.

Yeah, I love Vinny, but I think it was a little wrongheaded. For me, Brad helped explain what seemed like a strangely defensive stance by Vinny to one that made some sense, though it still seemed to be missing a bit of the bigger picture. Vinny himself explained himself a little more, with of course a clever endrun argument against a bunch of tired video game press mentally prepared to argue games rather than any movie choices. Especially with his snipe at the "Academy." Still think he's incorrect, just for me, I could probably name a half dozen movies I saw this year with better stories than what they selected as best video game story, but as Vinny said it's all subjective.

@l1ghtn1n: Right on!

"NECROMORPH MOON!"...I lol'd pretty hard at that

i kinda want to hear their thoughts on last of us as ive already had it spoiled but i don't want gone home/swapper/dmc spoiled. i know it's a kinda selfish request but what times do they talk about TLoU?

I liked the story in Gone Home but really it was a Judy Bloom story in the end. And the red herring was total bullshit.

Agreed, I would have loved to hear say Alex, or heck Matt, weigh in on the matter. Or anyone with a bit of passion for games and other media that was also not super focused on GOTY discussions that could have dropped a few movies or books. Then again, Vinny had pretty much busted out the "all opinions are subjective" verbal WMD and didn't seem particularly open to allowing even concessions to his stance. I for one agree with Brad, Jeff, and Vinny in that particular order. Games can connect to audiences in ways other media cannot. It can probably ultimately fly higher in that regard (a holodeck/Matrix probably being the highest level there) than other media, but it just hasn't had time to mature like the centuries novels have had or the century cinema has had and what passes for acceptable stories in games is summer blockbuster level at best. Hell there are whole tracts of games without any meaningful story nor are they necessary. Good game stories achieve more, but we haven't gotten to even high end cinema where a carefully crafted single shot of an actor's face can convey everything.

Aww no blood dragon for music :[

Risk of Rain definitely should have been in the top 3 for music. And I don't understand what they meant by "chiptune". There's no chiptune in that soundtrack. There's keyboard, but not chiptune. They're not remembering the music correctly if they're classifying it with that word.

Fuck simcity.

How, much do they spoil The last of us, Gone home and Beyond: Two souls?

I haven't played any of those three games yet, but on the other hand I'm not too picky about hearing about twists and endings. The thing is if there are some really crazy stuff that gets spoiled or not. IF so, maybe I should wait until I'm done with those games.

Glad to see that sometimes even they mix up the Most Disappointing Game and Worst Game of the Year awards.

"Lococycle -- I'm just going to cut that one right now."

I thought Aliens was disappointing because we lost out on an Obsidian RPG in service of it. That's not fair, but there it is.

Narrator of the Stanley Parable. Interesting. I recall Rucks from Bastion being dinged for essentially being a narrator. And Brad with the surprise attack with Lamar.

Vinny is on in this, love it.

I have to agree with Alex in this one. I can't personally find GTA to be more interesting than Saints Row (or interesting at all, although that's probably more telling of my personal preference than anything).

I do enjoy these discussions, though. I may not agree with all the decisions, but it doesn't change what games I do or don't enjoy so I see no reason to get worked up about it.

(Later edit: But MAN does Jeff seem biased against Ni no Kuni for having never played it.)

I want to listen to this podcast so much but haven't started Infinite yet D:

At appox what time does the story award end at?

@vod_crack: Honestly, Power Glove made one of the best soundtracks of the year (They've been making great music for a long time, but it was cool to see so many people discovering it.) I can understand why they missed it, mostly because Blood Dragon came out earlier in the year and was an expansion, not a full game. But damn, it would be pretty cool if the 80s themed day of GOTY stuff had an 80s themed thing in it.

Last of Us is the year's best soundtrack and it got tossed aside like yesterdays trash. Other than that, good stuff.

Can anyone list the games they spoil in the Best Story discussion?

God damn, EA is the worst publisher / developer of 2013.

Yeah. The Last of Us' ending is about as straight forward as they come. It was a good ending. It worked in the setting and with those characters. But it was absolutely nothing special.

When I finished the Last of Us, I moved on to other games. When I finished Infinite, I sat in my chair for about 15 minutes before getting up and talking a 30 minute walk.

How anyone can not be amazed by Infinite's story seems crazy to me. But it's even weirder to me that a bunch of people say The Last of Us had the best ending they've experienced in a while. It really was nothing special.

Uh, as someone who has read more than a few sci-fi stories released in the past 100 years, I don't know what the fuck Patrick is talking about, re: Bioshock Infinite. He seriously thought that ending was predictable in retrospect? It might tread some known sci-fi concepts like multiverses, but the idea that multiverses are some painfully common concept in science fiction writing, is ridiculous.

And then in the next breath, he fawns all over The Last Of Us, which tells a great story - but also a story we've generally seen plenty of times in the past?

Im not shitting on Gone Home here, but i think its funny that people wanted to discount Bioshock because you had to "find audiologs" for story context, but can get behind Gone Home, even though the whole game is nothing but finding things for story context.

I thought both of those people were generally the same group of people. Those who think that only certain things can be considered "games"

Guys, Battlefield got patchedddddddddd

I've been tried of hearing the "Battlefields have always been broken." argument for a long while. I'm not even sure it's really true but beside that this is more than just some server issues due to traffic.

Website of the Year All Years Every Year

I had the opposite reaction. Last of Us left me sitting in the chair with tears in my eyes, and bummed out that I will no longer be able to play the main characters. Infinite was a cool sci-fi ending that felt kinda detached. I didn't feel connected to any of the characters.

I was really surprised they didn't bring up Booker when they talked about how the violence characterized Joel. It's totally the same with him, and Columbia itself.

About the race stuff in Infinite, I don't think that that's the focus of the game. I mean, it's all about Elizabeth and Booker and the Luteces. The revolution is just a revolution, the racism is used as background stuff because a big part of Comstock is how he tries to redeem his own sins by basically pretending he didn't murder real human beings, rewriting history to make himself a hero. I remember a few articles later in the summer when it came out, talking about how unlike this was the civil rights movement or whatever. But it's more French revolution than anything of that sort, of course the oppressed lower class will be horrible when they get the power, that's what happened. The story was not the part of Bioshock I had a problem with.

They talk quite a bit about the end of Gone Home and Bioshock Infinite, and they sort of hint at The Last of Us, but don't say anything outright. They dismiss Beyond immediately. Maybe skip ahead when they start talking about Gone Home if you don't want to know, it's a pretty contained discussion they have on it.

Really? What did you like so much about it? I didn't feel very close to Joel. I didn't much care for him. He was the typical video game character. Ellie was pretty good I thought. But there was nothing unexpected happening in that story and it certainly is a story I've heard many times before.

I have no idea what happened during that best character discussion. I feel like a lot of things were said and then somehow one character won and at no point did i have any idea what was going on.

They won it too often it has to be best web site of the year presented by giant bomb now

Employee of the month takes a back seat to GB's best new character award. If there's shit to be won I want it mo' fucka.

Note: Ellie/Joel losing because of a technicality is silly, but Lamar is fucking great so I'm alright with that. The Last of Us super songs of the 70's weekend just keeps on truckin.

So is there some weird edit stuff happening?

So why does this thing say it is 2 hours and 17 minutes long, but it ends at around 1 hour and 24 minutes...or at least it seems that way?

Haha yeeeeeah. And I was not anticipating Lamar coming out of nowhere like that. I thought it was almost guaranteed that one of the 3 main characters from that game would at least end up in the top 3.

Does anyone else have the problem where if they pause the podcast and come back later it starts like a half hour behind where you paused, but it says you're in the same spot?

@pyromagnestir: I think so too. I'm listening to it here on the site player and I swear that I'm hearing some repetition (I'm 1:35 or so in atm, around the Best Music debate). Had to check the comments early to make sure it wasn't just me imagining it or that a pause for a phonecall didn't somehow rewind it a minute or so.

Do...do I have my professional wrestling terms right? Is Alex a total jobber when it comes to GOTY arguments. That's the proper use, right?

This is seriously some of the best game-related discussion I've heard on a Bombcast, especially the story stuff. I don't think Jeff and Vinny really disagree that much, they're just coming at it from different angles (Jeff what stories are right now, generally, and Vinny on what the potential of the medium). I agree with Jeff in that video game stories right now, in general, are pretty mediocre. That even goes for some of the highly praised stories. That's not to say that the potential isn't there; interactive story telling is so exciting! Anyways, great podcast!

edit: Forgot to mention that Jeff's Sim City rant is absolutely Incredible. So funny!

I downloaded it, and about 24 minutes in it seemed like some discussion was just chopped out. Didn't seem like much, but Brad was in the middle of a word and just boom, he's saying a different word.

Maybe the upload wasn't quite so smooth or something?

@wraithtek: Giantbomb: Most Best Community of 2013

Last of Us music was heartbreaking. Shame it didn't make it.

Same question as yesterday: Any heavy "The Last of us" spoilers in here?

Rayman Legends for Best Music?

Frustrating for me that the crew are talking as if Link Between Worlds is purely re-orchestrated or re-worked older themes. There are some amazing original themes in the game too. It's the best game soundtrack of the year for sure.

It also generally frustrates me listening to that category because there are so many games/soundtracks that they didnt play or properly acknowledge. Whatever, music just mean lots to me

@san_salvador: Yup, they pretty much spoil the end.