Giant Bombcast 08/19/2014

@jeff: Asking that question, then following it up with the assertion that people feeling fright are "children" is not the way to solicit calm, measured responses.

All I can suggest to experience these sorts of feelings is to actively attempt allowing yourself to feel immersion and become vulnerable to the world the game/film/etc is presenting you.

Is someone making an electric fence to win at Ingress a thing actually? I need to see the reddit/forum thread talking about this

I can totally see where @Jeff is coming from on the subject of how some people react to scary games/movies. Sure, I enjoy getting lost in the moment and being in a different place but, at the same time, I'm not gonna scream bloody murder like @Brad or freak-out like @PatrickKlepek. That's just...weird. Even my wife doesn't do that and she's a big ol' baby when it comes to creepy shit.

No Man's Sky is like the Bitcoin of video games.

All this wrestling talk and Dan's not even here!

I love that the gang discussed Ingress this episode. I play it and there's a pretty good community of people in Seattle that play it as well.

There is the problem that if you live in suburban areas that the portals are pretty spaced out, but it does make for some great afternoon walks. I also go to a nightclub that has Ingress nights where cover is waved for players and people have a chance to trade Portal Keys, discuss strategies and even discuss in-game story points.

However it is a bit of a drain on my phone and I am rarely in the downtown area long enough to really start hacking, destroying, rebuilding and re-linking portals to build levels.

Worth a look for a laugh at least I would say.

(Edited back down) After hearing Jeff's reaction and thoughts on PT and how much I am still not sure I like hearing about Dan's manchild silliness, I may quit listening to the Bombcast after this. I enjoy the site but for the staff's insights and perspectives on games as well as how much they clearly enjoy playing video games.

Not okay with some of the soapbox and such that the Bombcast has had lately.

@kantrip: Jeff has literally voiced that opinion on horror games a number of times before on older Bombcasts. His dislike for the horror genre is pretty well known.

@amyggen:

Ah. I just recently went Premium member and started to explore all of the features and content on the site so I wasn't aware. Thanks for clarifying that.

:)

Heh, Jeff has been "jaded" (I don't think he's jaded) like that for years :) He's still pretty much an enigma when it comes to what games he'll enjoy, but there's no doubt that he's more of a gameplay person than a story person (even though he liked Gone Home a lot), maybe somewhat because of the reasons you listed.

@amyggen:

Good point and that's something I'll take with me into future Quicklooks, UPFs, and Bombcasts that he does. I'll look for his insights on to gameplay because that is one thing I love to hear details on in reviews and QL's.

I'm not too proud to be proven wrong and get a second impression on folks. :)

@jeff: immersion mixed with tension equals stress. Some people deal with, and/or react to, stress in different ways, sometimes physical ways. Some can ride the roller coaster, some cannot.

I don't believe they are, "children" (interpreted as condescension) for dealing with/reacting to things (stress) differently than others would.

I loved it when @jeff and @brad were bragging about buying plasmas years ago and I remember thinking "man, they're going to regret that."

And now they do.

Rorie is the best.

I would love to see a one off feature " I ain't afraid of no ghosts w/ @jeff Gerstmann" where he plays P.T. Spookin' style

Oh, @jeff. Humans aren't that different from one another. I don't believe you can't be scared by media. You just have to relax and stop disdaining it for a few minutes so the suspension of disbelief can kick in.

Man, why are all of @rorie 's opinions so wrong.

I was pretty deep into Ingress from November of last year until about 3 months ago. I was totally a Jeff player though... I started off walking but quickly said fuck this and drove everywhere. I was also (briefly) the weirdo Rorie mentioned that would pull out his phone and start having portals while I was with friends, and also the weirdo Jeff mentioned that would drive up to public places and just sit there for four minutes with my engine on while I did my dark business.

Was fun for a while (early on I liked it enough to include it on my top 10 of the year list), and I stuck with it longer than I expected, but after stopping I don't ever see myself going back.

Don't know which opinions you are referring to, but he prefers Android to Apple phones, and that's something that couldn't be more right.

I feel like Jeff's attitude towards horror media is the most child-like opinion you can have. Does he not understand that people react to things in different ways?

Im with Jeff when it comes to Horror games. I don't like them mainly because they never scare me. Most are incredibly predictable or rely on cheap jump scares.

Man, who shit in Jeff's cereal before this podcast? Dude is salty as fuck.

Thats all fine, the problem starts if you "insult" other people for enjoying them or to be scared of them. There is plenty of stuff I don't get or don't like, doesn't mean I think less of people that do like that stuff.

In the end ... This whole Jeff+Horror-Thing is just Jeff being Jeff. Tbh, I think he is overplaying this for comedic effect because thats what he usually does.

Everyone should probably calm down a little.

Man I remember Brad really hyping up that Panasonic plasma for everyone, now they're all miserable.

Hey, they took my question this week! I was the dude who asked about the 360 and made that weird genesis comparison. Cool!

If anyone was actually offended by what he said they need to chill out. I thought it was hilarious.

It's more of a preference though for the reasons that he likes to use Android its pretty much stuff he can do with an iOS phone though he doesn't like to dabble into the super, deep customization aspect of Android. To be fair, I actually like Android, too though I personally have and prefer to use an iOS device. If ever I'd get a second phone though for whatever reason/pupose I'd get one of the higher end Nexus phones since their cheap. :)

Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker freaked me out when an Octo just attacked my ship off the corner of my camera. I had to look behind me constantly for like months when I took a shower in real life because of that. And when you had to fight the big one-eyed moth creature, I just turned the game off immediately and didn't play it for another five-or-so years. Even though I feel the same way as Jeff about horror stuff, to some degree elementary-to-junior-high-me begs to differ.

...Great podcast, anyways, guys!

@jeff: It's all about the foreplay. I'm serious.

I admit I laughed at @rorie 's suggestion that they "buried" the harness that was holding Owen Hart.

Jeff got really aggro about horror stuff, hahahah

I think to prove his might he should be put in a dark room with an Oculus for an hour by himself. Premium content.

I have a podcast but i film on tuesday but release on thursday. Will i be wrecked by PTF? I'm scared

Man, I'm really not sure what people want out of horror these days.

@Giant Bomb Crew: Since you talked about sports, can you guys please make my dream come true and join my fantasy football league? I know none of you will read this, but fantasy football is a pretty decent strategy game. You should cover it... while playing in my league. It's all giant bomb people. I promise it'll be awesome.

@themanwithnoplan:

I totally agree. Horror is very subjective, and the echo-chamber/argument nature of the internet has soured many people on the whole concept. Probably.

My thoughts exactly.

I dont know about the validity of the you need to put at least $5 in your wallet on steam. Ive bought less than $5 things hefore with no issues. Maybe it's only dlc and microtransaction stuff.

@ripelivejam: You can make purchases that are less than $5, but if you just want to put funds into your steam wallet, $5 is the minimum increment.

Jeff you're so brave. Would it be untoward to ask for you to hold me, you big, virile SOB, you?

Jeff's reaction to horror games this podcast - I was weirded out at how dismissive he was (seeming almost pompous), to people being scared at horror games. Acting like it is a "childish thing" to be afraid was off-putting to me. Its fine if he isn't scared, whatever, he cant see red either. Our brains are all different. But to act like those that are scared are childish? Basically saying that we should have outgrown this, or its dumb??? He acts very judgmental about it. How cant he realize he is in the minority on this?
I myself had to put a Fatal Frame game down once as I played it at night and the controller started vibrating to a heartbeat pattern, i was so freaked i passed the controller off to a friend, who then also got freaked enough we turned it off. Clock Tower 3 had me stressed the fuck out. Literally we like horror movies because of the rush they give us. Being scared is a NORMAL reaction to these stimuli. And he acts like we are odd or kids for having it??? I hope he realizes even in the podcast room he is the odd one out on this topic?

Perhaps he is impaired to them in some way? Not that that is bad, or his fault. As i said, brains are all different, but its a shame he cant immerse himself in one... Perhaps childhood trauma brought him out of the fantasy world that we can all fall into to enjoy these. He sees the scary real world instead? Rapists and muggers are real. Not ghosts. But we know these fantasy's aren't real, but we are "in" them while we watch. Perhaps a child who experiences real life trauma finds "its just a movie" to not be as frightening? (said the odd "dad was mean" thing). Perhaps he cant immerse himself because of that now? Or perhaps his multi-tasking during movies wont let him become immersed? Or he is just smarter/more rational than the rest of us. I dunno what is going on with him? But Jeff, being scared by horror games is normal.

Orsen Wells scared people with a radio broadcast so much they basically rioted at War of the Worlds. People left the theater at the original King Kong in fear. I had a girlfriend who was totally 100% private about the bathroom but made me stand in there with her while she peed after seeing the terrible remake of the 13 ghosts because she was terrified of the shower.... I am 100% with Patrick and Brad that that game would be hard to play. Id watch someone else play, but I wouldn't be able to. Horror is fun!

@squidracerx: I think it might be, to a degree, a defence mechanism on Jeff's part. He said stuff like that scared him as a kid. I don't know, I'm just going from my own experiences. I had a very over-active imagination as a child and I got terrible nightmares very easily from even moderately scary movies. So growing up, perhaps at least partly unintentionally, I learned to not suspend my disbelief in those kinds of situations.

Maybe now I'm less defensive about that stuff. These days I think I tend to avoid horror because I just find it thoroughly uninteresting so often that I'm not really willing to look for the good stuff. Most horror just isn't very well done, from an adult's point of view. It's almost like porn. If you can ignore a lot of the crappy acting and storytelling, you can still use your imagination to get off on the set-ups for the scenes.

I think it also varies from person to person. I have a friend who simply can't play any horror games because he's just scared shitless so easily.

But I agree with the sentiment that to think horror is something childish we should have outgrown is about as silly as thinking that we should have outgrown comedy. Maybe some types of horror, but not all horror.

This was one of the best bombcast I've listened to in a long time. So funny.

Re: cable box hookups

Yes, as long as the house has a live coaxial hookup to the network the cable company uses, you can hook up a cable box anywhere in the local area and it will work. The cable box is the identifying piece for each customer. Cable modems also work fine when you do this. Cable phone terminals sometimes have problems due to the signal routing involved, however.

Since Drew has basic cable, his coaxial is connected, and so hooking a box with a larger subscription package assigned to it will work without any problem. This is not illegal and cable companies do not care if you do this. All parties are still paying customers in this scenario.

I have never actually, literally spit coffee before, but the "Glass Joe / Drew" bit almost made me do that.

"I just want to be a dick." - Jeff, "When we launched the site, we launched it with one simple rule: 'don't be a dick.'", Gerstmann.

Confirmed: Jeff Gerstmann is a hypocrite.

Summoner was a PC game. "Early PS2". Right, like Starcraft was "late N64".

Plasmas rule, colors are way better and black levels. I totally notice the difference between games running on my Samsung Plasma and my roommates Samsung LCD. My Panasonic plasma before this one was a champ, no permanent burn in ever, however I do have the compass burned in to this Samsung TV from playing SWTOR for a month straight, and back then you couldn't customize the UI. It sucvks, but I only notice it when the screen goes completely white.

It really isn't that big of a hassle, I just turn off the TV anytime I walk away and if I might fall asleep in front of it Ill set a shutdown timer. Small price to pay for a permanent better picture.